Monday, August 06, 2007

Changes Down the Road for WoW PvP

I've been reading several articles and posts coming from people who attended the different Blizzcon panels. Most of the the discussions seem like they were insightful and provided a multitude of facts on how Blizzard approached class design, dungeons, lore, and future content. My eyes caught several nice tidbits about upcoming changes for the different PvP systems in the game. With such a wealth of information out there I thought I would draw attention to these tidbits since some of them will probably be introduced much sooner then the expansion.

Just like any other list of changes in a MMO there are some negative and some positive.

The Good

1) First Tier of Arena gear will be available through the honor system in Arena Season 3

2) An Alterac Valley Anti-AFK buff. Will use a method similar to the spam report option. Once enough players have reported a person as AFK, a short debuff appears on that person. If that person doesn't move during that time (perhaps a minute) then they gain a very long debuff which prevents honor gain.

3) Looking at making battlegrounds playable at 15v15 or 20v20 brackets.

4) Honor Distribution changes: Battleground objectives will start rewarding more honor towards the end of a battleground. Developers hope this will encourage players to finish battlegrounds.

5) The option to join Alterac Valley as a group will be put back into the game.

6) Developers are looking at putting in a guild versus guild battleground option and perhaps some system to track each guild's wins/losses.

7) Siege Engines are coming to the new Outdoor PvP zone in the next expansion. Developers are also looking at reworking old battlegrounds so siege engines can play a role.

8) Some Arena Class Balancing. Rogue's viability and mobility in Arenas are being examined by the developers. Expect something to help them deal with range dps. Prot Warriors and Ret Paladins told that Arenas are still not for them. Mana regeneration (Spirit) will eventually be improved which should help the offensive casters who aren't Warlocks.


The Bad

1) Developers think Arena loot is easier to get then Raiding loot and that is bad. Instead of increasing the amount of drops per raid boss they are going to be looking at the rate at which arena points are gained. In the future look for an increase in the cost of Arena gear or a reduction in the amount of points earned per week.

2) The developers feel that too many raiders are simply saving up points just for the Arena weapons and this is also bad. I guess they feel that they are not actively participating in Arenas if they are just getting their 10 games a week for one item. Whatever the reason expect a minimum rating requirement for purchasing Arena Weapons in the near future.

Thanks again to WoWInsider whose Live Blogging provide a majority of the information here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did anyone think to ask the devs why a small vocal minority who has the time, inclination or ability to get to Hyjal, The Eye or BT MUST get the best gear? While people who prefer 5 mans/arenas aparently should be left with scraps?

Relmstein said...

Unfortunately, Blizzard made the decision about half a year after release to put an ex-Everquest raid leader in charge of dungeon development. He does a fair job of balancing the amount of raid and dungeon content in initial releases but has a nasty habit of only patching in raid content.

Dungeons take less time to complete then raids so they justify rewarding casual players with less powerful gear. Arenas were supposed to allow skilled casual players to keep up with raiders in the gear department. So far its succeeded but several panels at Blizzcon hinted at the nerf stick hitting the arena reward system pretty soon.

Keystone said...

I hope these changes don't turn the game back to pre-BC where only a few elite players had the gear while the working class folks were left in rags.

In a gear-based PvP game, all gear should be obtainable by your entire player base.

Anonymous said...

and all gear is available to the entire playerbase just harder to obtain. There is NO reason why someone who puts a lot of effort into getting a team of 25 people to put there effort into raiding should have the same gear as someone who logs on and does a few BGs every day. you should be rewarded for the time and effort you put into the game and it's just not fair if some casual player has the same or better gear than you. Imagine

Raider- Dude we finally got in to BT and Rising Tide dropped im so excited all this work has really paid off...
Pvper - Dang, grats im getting my Vengeful Gladiators axe on tuesday ... just a little more honor

In that situation all of the effort put forth by the raider and his team is void of meaning