Arenas.

A lot of words.

This is exactly it. It's the freedom to choose how you want to play the game, and who you want to play it with. If a company wants to exclude a player base they are only shooting themselves in the foot.

Reading this, one would say nobody here had under 2400 rating in wow. All-glad lineup in this thread.

It is going to be a long post, so bear with me, i might say something smart. I would like to touch on a few points discussed above.

General disclaimer: People who complain when others compare this game with WoW are probably delusional. It is obvious that (sadly) WoW was the role-model for the developers here. Also, its the game's biggest competitor with over 85% of the playerbase coming from WoW.


1. Community that arenas attract

Ive played WoW a lot, and spent most of that time in arenas. Besides an occasional kid that would whisper me after a game with some unintelligible "leetspeak" (L2P U FOTM F4G) i havent had many bad experiences in that regard.

Also, there are no arenas here yet, but just browsing through topics on this forum (not only PvP, but all of them) you can see that it is exactly like WoW forums. It is the anonymity the Internet offers combined with lack of time parents spend teaching their children manners that lead to this, not some Arenas.


2. Arena causes balancing issues, and its not worth so much effort since small % of pop plays them

I dont think this is necessarily true. I think Blizzard did manage to find a successful model of doing this towards the middle of their second expansion. First tweak the damage in PvE to be as level as possible, and then nerf/buff utility to somewhat balance PvP. WoW arenas were more balanced in S11 then ever before. This game basically has 8 classes and no racials, making it easier to balance.


3. Arenas are destined for failure

In the long term, everything is destined for failure. Its called "Product life cycle", and it applies to everything. Drop in participation numbers is a product of exactly that. Eleven seasons, thats a lot. Old players leave, and new players come in, try it out, get stomped by experienced/geared players, 95% proclaim arenas are **** because they didnt have the patience to learn and succeed, 5% keep trying and eventually become good and fall in love with arenas.


4. Rated Warzones incoming

Yes, it is obvious they are coming sooner or later in this game, probably sooner. However, in my opinion which is probably shared by a significant portion of the PvP playerbase, in WoW they were total failure, except Eye of the Storm which was more outside of rated rotation then in it because of technical issues.

a) Resource control zones were AoE spamfest on the flag. Totally flawed and non-interesting mechanic. Arathi was somewhat better because it was bigger, but same **** in the end.

b) Ctf tended to lead to 30 minute 0-0 games, no matter the amount of debuffs they added. Actually 90% of my "close" games were 0-0, not 3-2 or 2-1 or 2-2 or whatever, as they should have been. And i ran with 2-3 healers, not 6.

c) I wont even mention Strand of the Ancients here, i dont think anyone liked it.

Seeing this game as a WoW wannabe in endgame terms, and the design of warzones, i dont see how they can make it any different. Huttball's design can overcome the ctf issues since it is basically one flag. Also 8 on 8 is a step forward from 10 on 10.


5. Game fluidity

Game is not fluid. Biggest issue i have with PvP here (besides the terrible and non-custom-able UI). You can grief all you want, but WoW is the pinnacle of fluidity and responsiveness. Fluidity is what Warhammer failed on, despite having some brilliant concepts i personally hoped would be followed here instead o WoWs concept. This is a big budget game, so i certainly hope fluidity will be much improved as the game goes on. Fluidity is one aspect where every game should try to copy WoW.


6. Arenas are time-friendly

What i loved about arenas the most, is their flexibility in regards of time you have on your hands. You have an hour? See if partners are online, do a few games. For rbgs and especially endgame pve you need hours and hours of PRE-FIXED time. Raid is at 20:00. So you either show up or you dont. If you show up, dont expect to be off the hook till 01:00. Look, i have a job i have to turn u on at 08:00 every day and be there till 16:00. I dont need another such thing in my life. Its a video game, entertainment for my free time, not an obligation. Sadly in WoW, ONLY arenas allowed you to spend like 2-3 hours a week playing (that is beyond 10 games), get all endgame gear (if you are good enough) and theoretically beat the "tier" (get some kind of an arena title) for that patch. I dont know any other concept in any mmo that rewards quality over quantity in that way so successfully. And be sure that a BIG portion of subscribers are people that dont have 10 hours a day to devote to a game. Dont worry, you will all start working one day and understand me a bit better.


7. I want to play with my friends

I am not interested in playing with random people from the internet. I came to WoW and to this game with my friends, people i drink beer with. There arent many of us, and small scale pvp is the only opportunity for us to play together and enjoy ourselves (provided you want to try to "beat the tier", and not run mindless random warzones or small flashpoints). dont tell me the point of MMOs is to meet new people. I met new people, and i played arenas with them, and i like those people, but not everyone is available at the same time. Ill pay sub just as you do and ill play with whoever i *********** want to.


8. Arenas are fine as long as they dont give access to better gear then grinding random warzones

Wrong. Its (together with rated warzones) the equivalent of endgame raiding. It would be the same if i asked for raid drops to be purchasable for credits. I spend 20 hours farming credits and then i buy the gear. No way. Quality over quantity.


9. DONT INSERT ARENAS I DONT LIKE THEM I DONT PLAY THEM

This is the most troubling thing i read here, and it keeps repeating. Look, you dont like them you dont play them. I dont like flashpoints and ops, i dont (wont) play them. I never called for them to cease to exist because they ruin pvp balance. I (probably) wont like rated warzones, i wont do them. I dont think they shouldnt exist for people that like them.


10. Go back to WoW!

I left WoW for a reason other then launch of Swtor, i left it a while ago actually for two reasons. a) It got stale, i played that great game for a long time but everything comes to an end. b) They obviously started cost-cutting moving resources to that new mmo they are making, and thus moving the focus from arenas to rbgs. Then they forced us to do rbgs in order to get 100% of the weekly points cap. Sorry, but i dont want to be told how to play the game i enjoyed. So no, i wont go back to wow.


FINAL THOUGHTS

I like this game, as far as leveling is concerned. It has a "single player" feel to it, and a fantastic story. I wasnt much for leveling in mmos, looking at it as a necessary evil in order to get to endgame pvp. Here, i enjoy every moment of it. The leveling experience is worth the price for the game in my opinion. I would recommend it to every fan of RPGs. Its fantastic in that regard. It is also the best polished mmo at launch as well, which is promising.

Is it worth the monthly sub once you hit max level? At the moment, in my opinion, answer is a clear no.

They need to introduce some kind of relatively small-scale quality-over-quantity skill-capped PvP endgame content. Does it have to be wow style deathmatch arenas? No. It can be 3v3 huttball as far as im concerned, on a smaller map of course. It can be something completely new. There are people paid for figuring it out.

I personally hoped pvp this game would be more like a big-budget good-support often-updated Warhammer, then a wow-clone. It could have gone the way of guild wars 2 in term of combat (which will i think take away a significant portion of the pvp community unless something changes here) and still be a success. Sadly, seems to me devs didnt want to take even a slightest risk with the game, which is a shame.

There is no short version of this post, read it or dont, your choice, same as with arenas, rated warzones, flashpoints and everything else.

I would be all for arenas as soon as I see them done properly in a game. Thus far they have not been, heavily favoring certain classes over others, becoming less about player skill, and more about the current FOTM set up.

3. Arenas are destined for failure

It's not called a life cycle, but a failure when you player base increase and arena participation continues to decline. Did you forget to include this part in your explanation. You also failed to point out that arena participation began to decline long before woltk. Arena participation began to decline sharply during seasons 4, which if I remember right was during burning crusades. Thus, unless you called a "product life cycle" of only partial expansion, then yes that is a short life cycle. You also failed to realized those participation numbers throughout all those season in bc were artificially maintain by only allowing top pvp gear to be acquired through arena only. I'm willing to bet arena participation in those early season would be much worst if it weren't for that fact.

4. Rated Warzones incoming

Yes, it is obvious they are coming sooner or later in this game, probably sooner. However, in my opinion which is probably shared by a significant portion of the PvP playerbase, in WoW they were total failure, except Eye of the Storm which was more outside of rated rotation then in it because of technical issues.

a) Resource control zones were AoE spamfest on the flag. Totally flawed and non-interesting mechanic. Arathi was somewhat better because it was bigger, but same **** in the end.

b) Ctf tended to lead to 30 minute 0-0 games, no matter the amount of debuffs they added. Actually 90% of my "close" games were 0-0, not 3-2 or 2-1 or 2-2 or whatever, as they should have been. And i ran with 2-3 healers, not 6.

c) I wont even mention Strand of the Ancients here, i dont think anyone liked it.

Seeing this game as a WoW wannabe in endgame terms, and the design of warzones, i dont see how they can make it any different. Huttball's design can overcome the ctf issues since it is basically one flag. Also 8 on 8 is a step forward from 10 on 10.

Yes, I agree that rated bg were a failure in wow. The data or statistics support this statement. Basically, both arena and rated bg were a failure in wow. However, the situation with rated bg in wow is a little more complicated. First, the maps were never intended to be part of a rated bg system. Blizzard should have added new maps exclusively for rated bg and omitted the normal bg maps. The current rated bg maps in wow are not symmetrical, which create an inherent imbalance. You are also face with the same problems faced in rated arenas such as win trading, exploiting, and buying of rank. However, the policing rated bg are easier than dozen of 2v2, 3v3, and 5v5 due to the large groups. At any rate, rated bgs were doomed to fail from the start due to Blizzard unwillingness or development short cuts of not developing proper maps for rated bg.

Warzones will also fail if BW does not develop exclusive new maps for rate Warzones in the long run. Personally, I think BW should develop an easy map editor or an easy to implement program that allows the creation of new maps. In way counter strike and starcraft have maintain their continue popularity due the availability of an easy to use map editor. If only BW would allow the players to upload their own maps. I'm willing to bet Warzone popularity would increase.