WotLK State of PvP

[zivkocar123]

What about making racials independent of the race so the player can freely choose the racial for his character?
Then the race choice would be just an aesthetic choice and players who are min maxing would be able to play their preferred faction and race while still keeping the best racial.
Having raceless racials should also even out the faction imbalance.

It will absolutely change nothing, people will still griefing and wintrading in arena and using script lmao, we need gm who are focused on arena and working only about that

[Brutone]

It will absolutely change nothing, people will still griefing and wintrading in arena and using script lmao, we need gm who are focused on arena and working only about that

In terms of arena it would change nothing but in terms of BG queue and faction balance it would change A LOT when players can freely choose their racial.

[Obnoxious]

I never played bg but arena is dead, people wintrading in solo q for get title since 5 years, also since they change the system for avoid trioq'ers solo q is completely dead, r1 sq is 2.6 since classic started when it was 3.2 in the past. People there are griefing wintrading and no one ban them. 3V3 only wintrader aswell and 2V2 start to dying aswell. Staff member do nothing for promote arena as most of players are pve dragon they literaly dont need to do effort for make arena better. People asked for new title and rewards in 2s, new transmog for 3k 2s players, new tabards but they dont care at all. Also 99% of warpal player are scripting with dll hack, pqr, patch, lua unlocker and warmane still didnt fix that, so all thoses thing make people slowly quiting pvp

It will absolutely change nothing, people will still griefing and wintrading in arena and using script lmao, we need gm who are focused on arena and working only about that

I'll just quickly address this before other things for the sake of avoiding this "reply everything with but muh arena cheaters" becoming a trend. This isn't an invitation to try to argue or come up with more of what every Forum goer has read before; this is literally to nip it at the bud.

If you have someone to report, make a report. If you can't make a convincing report that's on you, GMs aren't going to take "trust me, bro" as evidence, nor are they going to give bans on "maybe" because you're salty from losing. About more rewards for arena, why? If people aren't playing arenas because there aren't custom prizes, they don't want to PvP in the first place, just to get something new and then quit after they have it.

[Ethernasppke]

I don't think forcing Mercenary Mode is the ideal solution, either. Especially given that there are some players who don't want to be playing as another race, and their chosen aesthetic matters a great deal to them. I also don't think making changes to Every Man for Himself is ideal, either. There's a couple reasons for this. It impacts PvE and the faction balance we have on the other realms is very much affected by it. Sure, we could make it PvP instances only, but the choice of faction for the player is still affected, as it is most commonly specifically chosen to do PvP with. The biggest issue with faction imbalance in BGs is Icecrown. The issue therein is that people on the realm have the tendency to choose Horde for PvE more often, whilst making the same choice for Alliance for PvP. If we address PvP specifically on the issue and disregard the PvE impact it could have, the realm could shift totally towards the Horde. At which point, the problem would be similar, but swing in the direction of Horde instead. Faction balance is a delicate issue and we have to make changes that affect it with great care and consideration beforehand.

Yes you are right. Why play alliance if Horde is equally good for PvP and better for PvE then Alliance. Well i was just thinking about it and those where my first thougthts.

Finding the solution wont be easy however its a must!

[Brutone]

Finding the solution wont be easy however its a must!

Making racials independent of race is the solution.
In BGs it's already happening to some extend because with mercenary mode enabled players are able to use alliance racials while beeing on horde side and vice versa.

[Obnoxious]

Making racials independent of race is the solution.
In BGs it's already happening to some extend because with mercenary mode enabled players are able to use alliance racials while beeing on horde side and vice versa.

It isn't much of a solution, it would just demolish any meaning to there being races without really solving anything, making it so everyone uses the same maybe two or three racials. That isn't even about how custom it is, that just isn't World of Warcraft anymore. The only positive is that maybe more Horde would turn blood elves in place of the cartoonish Scooby-Doo monster races, but that's beyond the point.

[Brutone]

It isn't much of a solution, it would just demolish any meaning to there being races

I disagree. The meaning of races would be their look.
In original WoW everyone choose his race based on the look, the racial was just a small extra.
But nowadays its the opposite of how it's supposed to be. Everybody is min maxing and chooses his race based on the best racial for the cost of having a ugly character model.

[Obnoxious]

You disagree... while proving my point?
Yeah, people wouldn't care about race, only racials... causing exactly what I described, making races meaningless.

Not even sure what WoW was like nearly 20 years ago, when people had no clue about builds or min-maxing, has to do with it. We're not playing 20 years in the past.

[Brutone]

You are twisting my words.
Races wouldn't be meaningless. They would fulfill their initial meaning which is the look.
Players do care about the appearance of their character . Otherwise nobody would use the tmog feature.

[klzlk]

trying to reason with arrogant kids that think they know best

As a long standing player since molten times all I can ask is please keep the servers as blizz-like as you can (with the exception of Blackrock of course).

Someone here suggested do this do that tokens and other kind of crap cz 'ppl I know dont mind merc mode all they care is how they look' and stuff like that, well, I do not like merc mode at all and many people I know don't like it as well, some of us have some shred of RPG element left in us I guess. Crazy, I know.

And also I work hard ingame for my FAPs, the fishes, the herb needed and the potion master alchemist that I leveled just for that. Don't take core parts of the game from us 'regular' players cz some ppl try to exploit things (so yes, I couldn't agree more for the new fap honor price for Blackrock players).

One thing though is the second window login thingy, it is really annoying when people do that, past exploits had been fixed (like mmm what was that, logout in BG didnt trigger deserter iirc) and I hope this will get addressed as well.

Just my 2c.

[Griste]

Blackrock is still a Tournament server, meant for people who want to skip most of the leveling and gearing process to get right into "endgame." Messing with that by adding another layer of gearing might be creating a new problem to fix another.

More like how much? It again has to be taken into consideration what Blackrock is about. Making it very costly for the sake of other servers would mess with the dynamics of in-server matches.

I think it's wiser to add furious and relentless weapons to the PvE servers without rating requirements and either reduce the cost of the relentless sets by 250~ points to shave a week off the grind for each piece, or increase the arena point gain per week through either a weekly quest (100 arena points, 50g-150g, 5000 honor for 10 wins etc), or just outright increasing the points at lower MMR. I think the quest idea would help increase the overall player pool queuing into arena and meeting up with new people each week.

As for the alliance vs horde debate, the resilience PvP trinket being buffed to match a 284 items stat weight would help people hit resil cap a little bit easier and take a bit of the benefit out of the human racial. I always thought it would be a good idea to buff the platinum discs from WG to match 264 as well and maybe increase the cost. That would open up a little more wiggle room between racials and opportunities to switch up gear a bit more.

There are certain class issues that wouldn't ruin the game to fix as well. 90% effectiveness for cloak of shadows is absurd from any perspective in this game and should just be set to 100% even if it isn't blizzlike. Hunter pets also have 20k HP when you're BiS and mend pet is super weak so hunter feels really gimmicky and unfun in a lot of situations when it feels like it may even be a bug. Giving pets 1 extra talent point would let non BM hunters get 2 points into the talent that scales your pet off gear. DK and warlock pets both have significantly more hp, their heals are better, and hunters rely on their pets more than the other classes arguably due to having no other escape than master's call and needing roar of sacrifice. Ferals lose stealth from fall damage which is really annoying in a variety of circumstances. Preg is clearly gimmicky and hated as well and completely changed the entire arena meta overnight. Not sure if that would be fixable without affecting balance of other specs though.

This is extremely controversial, but I think the proc effect of shadowmourne should be disabled in arena for balance. People would still get the increased weapon damage and other stats being higher so its still a competitive advantage, but it would take a lot of the burst damage out of the weapon and make other classes feel way more viable. A lot of the plate meta and really limited viability of other classes completely circles around this issue and making a compromise nerf that only applies to arena would leave it untouched in other situations and still keep it as an incentive for min maxxers to obtain if it wasn't outright banned. I think this would make a lot more people happy than angry; even the intellectually honest owners of shadowmourne if they want to see the health of the server improve.

[Brutone]

As for the alliance vs horde debate, the resilience PvP trinket being buffed to match a 284 items stat weight would help people hit resil cap a little bit easier and take a bit of the benefit out of the human racial.

If https://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/item=51377 ilvl would be similar to https://wotlk.cavernoftime.com/item=54590 then it would have like 184 resilience.
I'm afraid that 31 additional resilience won't make up for the extra trinket proc of emfh.
Also hunter, druides and shaman, who can't be human, would receive a 31 res buff. In case of bm, enh, boomkin and resto shami/druide I'd be fine with that but MM, ele and feral are already strong enough in arena.

I think making racials independent of the race would be the better solution. Racials could be still class restricted so hunter, druide and sham can't choose Emfh.
With independent racials we wouldn't even need mercenary mode for BGs anymore because many PvPers would naturally switch to the faction with shorter queue times.
I guess the advantages of independent racials would be remarkable:
- No more forced mercenary mode on Blackrock
- Balanced Horde/Alliance population ratio and consequently better Wpvp
- players could choose their preferred race and faction and still be competitve in PvP.

[Obnoxious]

You are twisting my words.
Races wouldn't be meaningless. They would fulfill their initial meaning which is the look.
Players do care about the appearance of their character . Otherwise nobody would use the tmog feature.

That wasn't their initial meaning, you're the one twisting their purpose.
They gave Factions their identity with their racial powers and looks. All the racials have a lore explanation for why the race has it. Good luck reasoning that a Dwarf with "Da Voodoo Shuffle" isn't stealing from Trolls' identity as a race. Just because 20 years ago people hadn't min-maxed things like they do today doesn't mean nobody cared. Players just didn't know how to do it yet.

As a long standing player since molten times all I can ask is please keep the servers as blizz-like as you can (with the exception of Blackrock of course).

Someone here suggested do this do that tokens and other kind of crap cz 'ppl I know dont mind merc mode all they care is how they look' and stuff like that, well, I do not like merc mode at all and many people I know don't like it as well, some of us have some shred of RPG element left in us I guess. Crazy, I know.

And also I work hard ingame for my FAPs, the fishes, the herb needed and the potion master alchemist that I leveled just for that. Don't take core parts of the game from us 'regular' players cz some ppl try to exploit things (so yes, I couldn't agree more for the new fap honor price for Blackrock players).

One thing though is the second window login thingy, it is really annoying when people do that, past exploits had been fixed (like mmm what was that, logout in BG didnt trigger deserter iirc) and I hope this will get addressed as well.

Just my 2c.

While I understand what you're saying, with the way the game/expansion was built, there comes a point where you have to choose: there is active PvP or there's sticking to your personal RP in a server that isn't made with any special catering to RP. Decisions have to be made with the health of the server and what it offers in mind. There is a clear imbalance on the Factions when it comes to PvP, because Alliance is considered to have better racials for that, and it creates a snowball effect where everyone wants to go there "to win," killing the competitiveness.

We can't just force-transfer people from Alliance to Horde, so Mercenary was an alternative, something that was even used in retail at some point if I understood it right. It still doesn't work if no one uses it, though. I don't know what other measures might be taken to try to bring back the competition, but there's always the possibility that reaching that will trump your RP for the length of a Battleground now and then.

About the second login to get kicked out, I think the devs are aware, but not sure what would be a solution for it, at least one that wouldn't harm players who legitimately just got disconnected and logged back in. My assumption is the first login gets kicked out because the server treats it as a connection that got interrupted, but didn't timeout yet, so a new attempt clears that out, and that's something normal.

I think it's wiser to add furious and relentless weapons to the PvE servers without rating requirements and either reduce the cost of the relentless sets by 250~ points to shave a week off the grind for each piece, or increase the arena point gain per week through either a weekly quest (100 arena points, 50g-150g, 5000 honor for 10 wins etc), or just outright increasing the points at lower MMR. I think the quest idea would help increase the overall player pool queuing into arena and meeting up with new people each week.

As for the alliance vs horde debate, the resilience PvP trinket being buffed to match a 284 items stat weight would help people hit resil cap a little bit easier and take a bit of the benefit out of the human racial. I always thought it would be a good idea to buff the platinum discs from WG to match 264 as well and maybe increase the cost. That would open up a little more wiggle room between racials and opportunities to switch up gear a bit more.

There are certain class issues that wouldn't ruin the game to fix as well. 90% effectiveness for cloak of shadows is absurd from any perspective in this game and should just be set to 100% even if it isn't blizzlike. Hunter pets also have 20k HP when you're BiS and mend pet is super weak so hunter feels really gimmicky and unfun in a lot of situations when it feels like it may even be a bug. Giving pets 1 extra talent point would let non BM hunters get 2 points into the talent that scales your pet off gear. DK and warlock pets both have significantly more hp, their heals are better, and hunters rely on their pets more than the other classes arguably due to having no other escape than master's call and needing roar of sacrifice. Ferals lose stealth from fall damage which is really annoying in a variety of circumstances. Preg is clearly gimmicky and hated as well and completely changed the entire arena meta overnight. Not sure if that would be fixable without affecting balance of other specs though.

This is extremely controversial, but I think the proc effect of shadowmourne should be disabled in arena for balance. People would still get the increased weapon damage and other stats being higher so its still a competitive advantage, but it would take a lot of the burst damage out of the weapon and make other classes feel way more viable. A lot of the plate meta and really limited viability of other classes completely circles around this issue and making a compromise nerf that only applies to arena would leave it untouched in other situations and still keep it as an incentive for min maxxers to obtain if it wasn't outright banned. I think this would make a lot more people happy than angry; even the intellectually honest owners of shadowmourne if they want to see the health of the server improve.

You failed to say why should the progression of PvP gearing be slashed like that in our PvP servers that aren't Blackrock (we don't have any PvE server, so I'm assuming that's what you mean). That sounds akin to doubling or tripling the drop rates of "best-in-slot" stuff so people doing PvE get to the end of the gearing process faster, that's sounds like an absurd notion.

I don't know the impact changing that trinket would have on damage reduction due to Resilience or PvP in general, so no opinion on that.

Not all races/classes/specialization combinations are meant to be PvP viable. There is no reason to mess with effects of fall damage, how pets work and that sort of thing to make this or that specialization do better in PvP, it's perfectly fine that some are good and some are trash. The game was never balanced around individuals, but groups complementing each other.

[klzlk]

While I understand what you're saying, with the way the game/expansion was built, there comes a point where you have to choose: there is active PvP or there's sticking to your personal RP in a server that isn't made with any special catering to RP. Decisions have to be made with the health of the server and what it offers in mind. There is a clear imbalance on the Factions when it comes to PvP, because Alliance is considered to have better racials for that, and it creates a snowball effect where everyone wants to go there "to win," killing the competitiveness.

We can't just force-transfer people from Alliance to Horde, so Mercenary was an alternative, something that was even used in retail at some point if I understood it right. It still doesn't work if no one uses it, though. I don't know what other measures might be taken to try to bring back the competition, but there's always the possibility that reaching that will trump your RP for the length of a Battleground now and then.

About the second login to get kicked out, I think the devs are aware, but not sure what would be a solution for it, at least one that wouldn't harm players who legitimately just got disconnected and logged back in. My assumption is the first login gets kicked out because the server treats it as a connection that got interrupted, but didn't timeout yet, so a new attempt clears that out, and that's something normal.

First of all thanks for the taking the time answering me and all the others here.
Now, I see your point and I can't argue with that (although merc mode is/was? indeed blizz-like as long as its optional).
However, I don't think the state of pvp in the server is imbalanced at all to be fair. From BGs I experience the horde-alliance winning ratio is more or less the same (you probably have the specific numbers, will appreciate if you can share) and I can't recall the last time I won Alterac Valley or Isle of Conquest as alliance because of those alliance players that actually using merc mode.
Hence, I think the possibility for Icecrown/Lordaeron players to use the merc mode actually serve its purpose and while I like my RP I agree that most of the hardcore PVPers do use merc mode and it clearly reflects in the BGs.

[Obnoxious]

I don't have those numbers directly, no, but, unless something changed recently by a lot, I'd believe those Alliance in Mercenary mode are mostly Blackrock players that have it enforced as turned on, not so much Lordaeron and Icecrown ones using it intentionally.

Not sure what to tell you about you experiencing it as balanced. What you're saying and what all the players complaining about the balance say don't match.