What a bold move by Bioware. Could be a smart move if they seize the opportunity. As an ex-high-end WoW arena player myself (I know, everyone says they are...just gonna have to believe me I guess), I have been witness to the growing frustration within the community over the apparent lack of understanding of PvP by the development team over at Blizzard. Almost everyone I know is already ready to jump ship but there is literally nothing to go to. Some of us have started playing this game for the love of Star Wars and as I have progressed through the PvP scene here, I have been pleasantly surprised on how put together the PvP feels. Nothing really feels too overpowered with the exception of Op/Scound heals but that's an easy fix. There isn't any spammable CC and resolve feels pretty good.

To all the people who say arena has ruined WoW, I would retort by saying, it is the only competitive event Blizzard holds at it's Blizzcon with prize money and for good reason. There is no "open-world PvP blah blah blah" tournament or "rated WZ/BG blah blah" ladder held. Both forms of PvP are fatally flawed... you are allowed to die and come back to fight in that round/encounter/whatever. When the risk of dying enters in the equation, it fundamentally changes your strategy and how you approach everything from gear choices to target selection and so-on. To excel in a rule-set that punishes death so harshly, you must have much higher situational awareness. Something it seems that pretty much 99% of even the "high end" rated WZ people are lacking (hello super-zoomed in twitch.tv streamers who never pan their camera around in rated WZ's). Arena did more for the PvP scene than anything prior to it's inception. Since Cata it has been bastardized by inept dev's.

There are some pitfalls to avoid however. As you scale the PvP down to, what I assume will be 4v4 or lower, it brings into focus glaring class balance issues and most developers tend to let the pendulum of balance swing too far when adjusting. WoW has been experiencing this since Ghostcrawler took over and the PvP population has been dwindling ever since. Every expansion they try to re-invent the wheel and spend the rest of the time scrambling to put a Band-Aide on all of the oversights. The other pitfall is when developer's give too much credence to the QQ on the forums. I know the game needs to be fun for as many people as possible but simply put, some people aren't playing their class correctly and don't understand PvP as a whole. I know I know, everyone is an expert. It's the internet. But, tackling the problem with the merry-go-round approach to class balance will kill competitive MMO gaming faster than Ghostcrawler joining your dev team.

I know this game is relatively small, but I hope the dev's understand there is a whole population of competitive gamers that are looking for a good MMO-style PvP game that isn't a MOBA. Forge fell flat. GW2 fell flat. WoW had it once but is determined to shrink it's PvP population. Tera has promise but En Masse isn't really a good development team and Blue Hole seems to be slacking. Rift PvP is laughable at best. EVE just takes too long to get started in anything meaningful. SWTOR is primed to fill that niche in the market if it desires to. Almost everything is here, just missing the incentivized arena rule-set.

Let's all hope the dev's here have the clarity and vision to deliver what could be something special...

if indeed arena's are on the horizon.

It is true, only the word "arena" has been mentioned. However, I feel it is best to show enthusiasm for good ideas in hopes of seeing those ideas come to fruition. Ultimately, if enough interest is garnered, I would hope they would listen to the feedback and deliver content their customers have decided they want.

Who knows what the motivation is behind using such an ambiguous term. Perhaps they are testing the collective response of the comminity. Or perhaps they don't want to fall short on expectations. Who knows. Not I. I do know this is really the first peep about anything "arena" I can find and SWTOR has a tremendous opportunity to really seize the niche market of MMO-PvP. It's hard not to get a little excited.

i agree i loved arena inn wow. i think 4v4 can work. out finne

i realy realy hope they add arena

maybe they should try this

Each team shares a set amount of respawns (based on the match size). To win an Arena match, your team must get the opposing team to use all of their respawns and then defeat any remaining living opponents.

maybe this system can work here?

What a bold move by Bioware. Could be a smart move if they seize the opportunity. As an ex-high-end WoW arena player myself (I know, everyone says they are...just gonna have to believe me I guess), I have been witness to the growing frustration within the community over the apparent lack of understanding of PvP by the development team over at Blizzard. Almost everyone I know is already ready to jump ship but there is literally nothing to go to. Some of us have started playing this game for the love of Star Wars and as I have progressed through the PvP scene here, I have been pleasantly surprised on how put together the PvP feels. Nothing really feels too overpowered with the exception of Op/Scound heals but that's an easy fix. There isn't any spammable CC and resolve feels pretty good.

 

To all the people who say arena has ruined WoW, I would retort by saying, it is the only competitive event Blizzard holds at it's Blizzcon with prize money and for good reason. There is no "open-world PvP blah blah blah" tournament or "rated WZ/BG blah blah" ladder held. Both forms of PvP are fatally flawed... you are allowed to die and come back to fight in that round/encounter/whatever. When the risk of dying enters in the equation, it fundamentally changes your strategy and how you approach everything from gear choices to target selection and so-on. To excel in a rule-set that punishes death so harshly, you must have much higher situational awareness. Something it seems that pretty much 99% of even the "high end" rated WZ people are lacking (hello super-zoomed in twitch.tv streamers who never pan their camera around in rated WZ's). Arena did more for the PvP scene than anything prior to it's inception. Since Cata it has been bastardized by inept dev's.

 

There are some pitfalls to avoid however. As you scale the PvP down to, what I assume will be 4v4 or lower, it brings into focus glaring class balance issues and most developers tend to let the pendulum of balance swing too far when adjusting. WoW has been experiencing this since Ghostcrawler took over and the PvP population has been dwindling ever since. Every expansion they try to re-invent the wheel and spend the rest of the time scrambling to put a Band-Aide on all of the oversights. The other pitfall is when developer's give too much credence to the QQ on the forums. I know the game needs to be fun for as many people as possible but simply put, some people aren't playing their class correctly and don't understand PvP as a whole. I know I know, everyone is an expert. It's the internet. But, tackling the problem with the merry-go-round approach to class balance will kill competitive MMO gaming faster than Ghostcrawler joining your dev team.

 

I know this game is relatively small, but I hope the dev's understand there is a whole population of competitive gamers that are looking for a good MMO-style PvP game that isn't a MOBA. Forge fell flat. GW2 fell flat. WoW had it once but is determined to shrink it's PvP population. Tera has promise but En Masse isn't really a good development team and Blue Hole seems to be slacking. Rift PvP is laughable at best. EVE just takes too long to get started in anything meaningful. SWTOR is primed to fill that niche in the market if it desires to. Almost everything is here, just missing the incentivized arena rule-set.

 

Let's all hope the dev's here have the clarity and vision to deliver what could be something special...

 

 

 

 

if indeed arena's are on the horizon.

The reason that Blizzard holds a competitive arena event and awards prizes is to generate hype and promote their game. 3 players teams are much less expensive and easier to manage than 10 player teams. It isn't that arena is somehow more valid than other pvp formats.

In fact, here is a statement by Blizzard's VP of Game Design stating how arenas were the single biggest mistake in WoW's history. http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/13/blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake/

I am not anxious to see Bioware waste very limited resources in repeating that mistake.

Arenas take constant fine tuning of balance, and a very accurate and careful match making system, a large population to enable the match making system, among other things, to be viable. Your post makes it abundantly clear that you feel that Blizzard has failed at this, even with years of experience and a huge budget. How in the world would anyone expect Bioware to succeed with very limited personal and resources?

Dedicated arena players are a very tiny percentage of the player population, even of the pvp population. What limited resouces Bioware has would be better spent in developing warzones and open world pvp suitable to a majority, rather than a tiny minority.

Arena pvp is a dead end street. Once the pecking order has been established, game over. Arena will wither on the vine just as ranked did. There is no magic in 4. The player response will be the same.

Where is this "whole population" looking for competitive pvp? Because they sure are avoiding the competitive pvp that is readily available to them already. If players were fighting to get into ranked, and the forums were full of posts of players looking for teams then I could see adding arena as a feature that was fulfilling a need. But that is hardly the way it is.

I don't at all agree with your assesment that open world and instanced pvp are "fatally flawed" because players can revive and return to battle. And I certainly don't agree with your heals are Op statement, but the post is too long as it is to detail my argument.

The reason that Blizzard holds a competitive arena event and awards prizes is to generate hype and promote their game. 3 players teams are much less expensive and easier to manage than 10 player teams. It isn't that arena is somehow more valid than other pvp formats.

In fact, here is a statement by Blizzard's VP of Game Design stating how arenas were the single biggest mistake in WoW's history. http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/13/blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake/

I am not anxious to see Bioware waste very limited resources in repeating that mistake.

 

Arenas take constant fine tuning of balance, and a very accurate and careful match making system, a large population to enable the match making system, among other things, to be viable. Your post makes it abundantly clear that you feel that Blizzard has failed at this, even with years of experience and a huge budget. How in the world would anyone expect Bioware to succeed with very limited personal and resources?

 

Dedicated arena players are a very tiny percentage of the player population, even of the pvp population. What limited resouces Bioware has would be better spent in developing warzones and open world pvp suitable to a majority, rather than a tiny minority.

 

Arena pvp is a dead end street. Once the pecking order has been established, game over. Arena will wither on the vine just as ranked did. There is no magic in 4. The player response will be the same.

 

Where is this "whole population" looking for competitive pvp? Because they sure are avoiding the competitive pvp that is readily available to them already. If players were fighting to get into ranked, and the forums were full of posts of players looking for teams then I could see adding arena as a feature that was fulfilling a need. But that is hardly the way it is.

 

I don't at all agree with your assesment that open world and instanced pvp are "fatally flawed" because players can revive and return to battle. And I certainly don't agree with your heals are Op statement, but the post is too long as it is to detail my argument.

yes, there is. there are SO many players out there that are competitive enough to play ranked, but cant because they cant find a team of 8. 8 is too much to organize, but 4, 4 will create a ton of new teams and a lot more activity in the high end pvp scene.

yes, there is. there are SO many players out there that are competitive enough to play ranked, but cant because they cant find a team of 8. 8 is too much to organize, but 4, 4 will create a ton of new teams and a lot more activity in the high end pvp scene.

agree

Thanks for the post Selout! We appreciate the enthusiasm and are really looking forward to you guys learning more about what is coming in 2.4! Here's to us being able to share more details Soon™

 

Cheers!

Please stay tuned to have your hopes and dreams crushed.

Please stay tuned to have your hopes and dreams crushed.

Like ranked warzones tm lol

Please stay tuned to have your hopes and dreams crushed.

Mind crush ?

'' Crushes the target's mind with the Force ''

Small scale (4 v 4 or less) arenas are a horrible horrible idea that highlight every flaw in PvP and class balance. Even Blizzard admits that.

IF we must have arenas, I hope they keep the 8v8 format, or better yet, 16v16.

The reason that Blizzard holds a competitive arena event and awards prizes is to generate hype and promote their game. 3 players teams are much less expensive and easier to manage than 10 player teams. It isn't that arena is somehow more valid than other pvp formats.

In fact, here is a statement by Blizzard's VP of Game Design stating how arenas were the single biggest mistake in WoW's history. http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/11/13/blizzard-arenas-were-a-mistake/

I am not anxious to see Bioware waste very limited resources in repeating that mistake.

 

Arenas take constant fine tuning of balance, and a very accurate and careful match making system, a large population to enable the match making system, among other things, to be viable. Your post makes it abundantly clear that you feel that Blizzard has failed at this, even with years of experience and a huge budget. How in the world would anyone expect Bioware to succeed with very limited personal and resources?

 

Dedicated arena players are a very tiny percentage of the player population, even of the pvp population. What limited resouces Bioware has would be better spent in developing warzones and open world pvp suitable to a majority, rather than a tiny minority.

 

Arena pvp is a dead end street. Once the pecking order has been established, game over. Arena will wither on the vine just as ranked did. There is no magic in 4. The player response will be the same.

 

Where is this "whole population" looking for competitive pvp? Because they sure are avoiding the competitive pvp that is readily available to them already. If players were fighting to get into ranked, and the forums were full of posts of players looking for teams then I could see adding arena as a feature that was fulfilling a need. But that is hardly the way it is.

 

I don't at all agree with your assesment that open world and instanced pvp are "fatally flawed" because players can revive and return to battle. And I certainly don't agree with your heals are Op statement, but the post is too long as it is to detail my argument.

I agree with all this.

Arenas were a huge mistake in WoW, hopefully Bioware will learn from Blizzard's mistakes and either not have arena at all, or at least not let balancing arena ruin every other aspect of the game.

Small scale (4 v 4 or less) arenas are a horrible horrible idea that highlight every flaw in PvP and class balance. Even Blizzard admits that.

 

IF we must have arenas, I hope they keep the 8v8 format, or better yet, 16v16.

I would not really call that an arena but a warzone.

In all honesty we have absolutely no idea what these 'arenas' will be or more importantly how they will function.

Small scale (4 v 4 or less) arenas are a horrible horrible idea that highlight every flaw in PvP and class balance. Even Blizzard admits that.

 

IF we must have arenas, I hope they keep the 8v8 format, or better yet, 16v16.

/Agree.

If what they do is 8v8 WZ without objectives (other then to kill off the other team), I'm fine with it. It's still faux-PvP IMO as it is sanitized instanced play... but hey...some PvPers like that.

Please Bioware, just do not adjust classes based on what goes on inside a arena format. People should play in an arena format "as is" and the reward should be competitive standing...nothing more... because if you give material rewards (or RL cash) you set the stage for arena players to "demand" adjustments for balance issues.

Bioware, we need DEATHMATCH arena without any objectives, and solo only random queue for it.

Just for fun and relax.

Can someone explain to me what Arenas are? SWTOR's my first MMO...

I assume you played CoD S&D before? Its pretty much that, without objectives. Your only goal is to wipe the opposite team. Now that Im thinking about it, 8v8 arena's would be absolutely awesome, but 4v4 will likely still be what people play.

Bioware, we need DEATHMATCH arena without any objectives, and solo only random queue for it.

 

Just for fun and relax.

That is how most solo queue players usually treat warzones now so why change that?

That is how most solo queue players usually treat warzones now so why change that?

I dunno who from solo players will be play warzones after solo deathmatch... good luck to all premades with queue time... :rolleyes:

I assume you played CoD S&D before? Its pretty much that, without objectives. Your only goal is to wipe the opposite team. Now that Im thinking about it, 8v8 arena's would be absolutely awesome, but 4v4 will likely still be what people play.

Would it everyone have 1 life?

Would there be multiple lives?

Unlimited lives but most kills at the end of the timed match wins? (I hate that)

Would a team share a life 'pool' where a death of a member of the team would take away from the pool and the team loses when their shared life pool is drained?