I haven't even bothered with the Tol Barad battle in two weeks or so. I've already got both mounts and almost have my weapon so I'll just grind that out with north island dailies (I'm in a casual guild that hasn't even started raiding yet so no rush on getting my stuff).
Any time my faction manages to win the battle, the other faction just logs onto alts on our faction to stuff the queue and make us lose (some even going as far as stealing the tanks and taking them away from all objectives or to give bad advice in /general and berate anyone who doesn't listen, which a lot of people new to the battle easily fall for). We might get to keep it a game or two before they get enough of their guys in to ruin us, but it's very rare for us to hold it.
I'd report them, but it's hard to know which ones are them now a days and which ones just suck. Originally most of them were in the same guild and would also brag after our loss, but I guess they got reported enough that they disbanded that guild or made a new one or something and I don't care enough to keep track of their individual character names.
This has pretty much made me give up on TB for good, because I don't see any fix Blizzard implements stopping them from doing that. Even with the change next patch that makes the third base easier to capture for offense, it doesn't matter since the other faction will just wreck our defensive queue and take it back.
I don't remember this happening during Wintergrasp, but I also mostly played that before the 1-to-1 cap was added so they couldn't really do it then.
In the early days of arena, you had a sudden death occur where tornadoes would crop up and speed up the process.
This is also why arena is going to struggle as an esport. Pretty sure the arena games at Blizzcon took forever because one match ended in a draw and they had to rematch.
Healer mana needs to run out unless the dps is doing something ridiculously wrong, and healers should get a generous dps boost if only because soloing as healer is back to vanilla levels of suck. It's like they just forgot about why they consolidated spell power.
EDIT: An example (from 2v2 though) is Arms/Resto going against Paladin/Sub rogue. Despite the Paladin having maybe 3k mana, he was able to keep the rogue up. Despite forcing more heals on the rogue, we had to wait and set up multiple CC chains to finish off the rogue. If something went wrong (trinket, Bash missed, etc.) the paladin come out BETTER because he got some mana regen in and his might instant heals saved the day.
The new healing system is just totally broken in PvP.
Is it really? All the examples and complaining I see come from 2v2. You're not even going to entertain the possibility that it's the setup of 2v2 (and possibly 3v3) arenas that's the problem?
I don't remember this happening during Wintergrasp, but I also mostly played that before the 1-to-1 cap was added so they couldn't really do it then.
It didn't, really -- presumably because of the offensive advantage. When your faction didn't control it, you knew you had a good chance going into the next battle that you were going to win and take control*. Right now with TB offense being bullshit and losing TB meaning your faction probably won't be winning the next few battles there, there's a lot more incentive to pull bullshit like grief logging into the other faction.
Also, I suspect lopsided servers will see this problem in TB anyway, with the 1:1 matching. If your side is overpopulated and you queue up and don't get in within the first few minutes, you've got a decent incentive to log into a character on the other faction and queue up just to ruin it for your opponents. Sure, your main isn't getting any reward when this happens, but he wouldn't anyway if you waited around for 30 minutes and never got in.
* Obviously based on servers with similar populations. We all know how broken WG was on lopsided servers.
Is it really? All the examples and complaining I see come from 2v2. You're not even going to entertain the possibility that it's the setup of 2v2 (and possibly 3v3) arenas that's the problem?
The previous season, far burstier than what we have now, ran into the issue during a major tournament. I'm open to the possibility, but you really think it's impossible that 3s don't sometimes end with two players being incapable of killing each other?
Is it really? All the examples and complaining I see come from 2v2. You're not even going to entertain the possibility that it's the setup of 2v2 (and possibly 3v3) arenas that's the problem?
The previous season, far burstier than what we have now, ran into the issue during a major tournament. I'm open to the possibility, but you really think it's impossible that 3s don't sometimes end with two players being incapable of killing each other?
Oh, two players? You're talking about that? That's just a flaw in the fact that arena games can come down to 1v1 scenarios and go on until the timer expires. If 1v1 is supposed to come down to "the non-healer wins," then the game is going to break in a lot of other ways.
As for WotLK seasons, sure, 2 DPS/1 healer vs. 2 DPS/1 healer ran into a lot of game length issues, but as far as I'm aware, mana regen vs. healing costs was also higher back then compared to what we have now. Can a healer running on empty really keep a team up from 2 DPS indefinitely? And if so, is the problem not related to control as much as healing?
You are matched based on MMR. You gain or lose points based on actual rating. You're losing to teams that have your MMR and low rating, and beating teams that have your MMR and low rating. Solution is to stop losing games or queue when teams with higher rating are playing (AKA later.)
So Joined a 3v3 today. First time inside the Arena ever! Me and 2 guildies decided to make a all hunter team and see how it went. Did pretty good considering, had enough interupts and traps to keep targets busy and popping trinkets. Against a organised team we got creamed, but around 45/55% win/loss rating.
Only downside was that as the only dwarf next to 2 Nelfs, I seemed to become target number 1. A fact not helped by me having 1k less resilience then the other 2. (probably shouting on vent: "get the dwarf". Sizeist bastards.)
Kipling217 on
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
You do not do this shit midseason
A play in two acts
Guildmate: Hey Rorus! How much honor did you get out of TB?
Rorus: Wait what?
GM: Yeah, we've been win trading in TB all week. I already bought my gear for the next season!
Rorus: Oh well, it's the week after Christmas, so I've been with visiting friends and family. Let me queue for TB.
GM: No, they hotfixed it to shit, so I guess you're severely behind the honor curve now.
Rorus: Well, there's always BGs... YOU ARE IN THE QUEUE FOR RANDOM BG
ESTIMATED TIME: HORDE
Rorus: Oh.
Rorus: Well, since I only get 100 honor an hour, I guess I should spend my conquest points on the highest resilience I can get so I can catch up. The weapon can wait, it's only 95 res and I'm still under 2k!
Munkus: Sorry Rorus, but I don't want to be a WoW-playing asshole like you, so I'm taking a break for school.
Rorus: That's okay, Munkus! I hate myself too! I'll just find another person, get my weapon and focus on raiding!
(Weeks Pass)
Rorus: Well, it took a while, and it's not the best comp, but I'm on my way to getting a weapon.
Blizzard: FOUR POINT OH SIX, NECKBEARD.
Rorus: Oh, you just raised the cost of weapons by 50%...midseason. So I and anyone who started late now has to do more work.
Blizzard: IT'S TO STOP RAIDERS FROM USING THEM IN PVE.
Rorus: Well, I guess you're technically right about that, because I'm unsubbing from the game you clueless, corpsefucking wastes of my goddamn time.
Third strike, you're fucking out. Idiots.
I'm unreasonably upset.
Sterica on
0
darklite_xI'm not an r-tard...Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
I don't think it's unreasonable. I managed to get all of my rogue PvP gear during those time frames, but after leveling a priest solely for PvP, I'm finding that trudging along, sub-1k res, trying to grind out competitive gear is just something that I'm not enjoying.
darklite_x on
Steam ID: darklite_x Xbox Gamertag: Darklite 37 PSN:Rage_Kage_37 Battle.Net:darklite#2197
I understand that Blizzard wants player to fix the population imbalance themselves (one 35 dollar transaction at a time!), but until that happens a simple solution is to double the random/call rewards every ten minutes you wait. After 15 you get a buff that increases honor gains in the actual BG.
First strike was letting my guild rep bug out. That was one thing, but they had dick-all communication about it, did not even make a big announcement about the bug (which lasted for weeks) and did nothing to compensate us. Some people lost a month of guild rep from it. I was "lucky," but it cost me the guild-first Troll Druid. Yes, I'm vain.
No wait, it was Tol Barad.
No wait, it was the Flight Form being delayed two months and still very bug-ridden.
No wait, it was frost mages. Or DKs.
I guess we're playing a different, more generous sport now. It's a lot of small or medium things that are just inexcusable at this point in the game's lifespan.
EDIT: I'm also irritated that I lost my arena team. I'm not blaming him or anything, I know life takes priority, but you know our guild's general attitude towards arena.
They should just make PvP gear available to everyone (diff colors or whatever for people who want to e-peen their PvP skills), but absolutely useless in PvE. It makes zero sense to gear up for something that should be about testing your skill against other players.
They stated that's their goal and was nearly there (Honor armor vs Conquest armor slight difference in stats as well as weapons no longer needing a rating), but damn, why not just go all the way and make an entire set of armor/weapon gear for those starting off fresh at 85.
The Tol Barad holiday hotfix was the only great thing this season for those who needed PvP, but played during that short time frame. Everyone else got screwed by missing out and getting raped afterwards.
Arena weapon costs haven't changed at all, unless that change was put in within the last few hours? If you actually BUY the weapon it still costs the same it used to, regardless of what the tooltip tells you.
They stated that's their goal and was nearly there (Honor armor vs Conquest armor slight difference in stats as well as weapons no longer needing a rating), but damn, why not just go all the way and make an entire set of armor/weapon gear for those starting off fresh at 85.
They should just make PvP gear available to everyone (diff colors or whatever for people who want to e-peen their PvP skills), but absolutely useless in PvE. It makes zero sense to gear up for something that should be about testing your skill against other players.
Yeah, the crafted set is a mess. But! It's actually pretty cheap on most servers. I built an entire set when I was starting out for under 1000g (just keep up on the auction house) but I wouldn't actually recommend doing that. The item levels are so low that, you're not going to really kill anybody using an entire set of it. It's handy if you just want to use the belt and legs, or whatever, though. A couple pieces just to replace some 333 or lower gear is the way to go, in my opinion.
I don't think it's unreasonable. I managed to get all of my rogue PvP gear during those time frames, but after leveling a priest solely for PvP, I'm finding that trudging along, sub-1k res, trying to grind out competitive gear is just something that I'm not enjoying.
Why doesn't Blizzard just equip every PVPer with a full set of the highest item level gear they're eligable for when they enter arenas?
I haven't heard a single decent argument against this besides "it would make them less money" which is not a good argument. There is no other MMO for serious PVP, so why not? I haven't met a single person who both PVPs on a high level and enjoys grinding out PVP gear, so why force players to do it?
Further, forcing players to use all PVP gear in arenas would help balance the game. And it would force them to change the absolutely broken human racial.
Beck on
Lucas's Franklin Badge reflected the lightning back!
The costs on the vendors is definitely higher. I'll check tomorrow and see if it's just a visual thing.
For what it's worth, the weapons as of last night on the EU servers, despite what the tooltip said, cost what they did a few weeks ago.
I know this, because two guys in the guild who'd spent 3 weeks getting enough points, were complaining when I logged in yesterday; I said "hey, just go and try buying them from the vendor" at which point they linked their new weapons.
Everything else though, such as the honor grind for what is a starter set, is rediculous..
(I'll also note that the EU pvp queues were wonky last night, because I was either getting in after 30 seconds or I'd see my queue time go beyond the estimate, and it would reset).
TB my faction won it within about 4 mins. All the alliance defenders went north, 20 or so people went south, capped the 2 bases, then pushed them out of the north base and won it. To be fair, the one time I attacked in the last month, we did this without the change (alliance on my server as a collective aren't great at the old pvp).
I guess I should have been more specific. There should be one tier of gear for PvP as far as stats go, and it should be available for free/cheap. Why do we need different tiers of PvP gear? This is not raid progression, it is competition between players.
The cynic in me says it is because Blizzard wants us to spend time grinding BGs to "gear up", giving them more monthly payments.
GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
I'm for gear diversity in PvP. I like having a goal for my Arena games except higher rating. And no, a differently colored set isn't good enough for me. I also like queuing for random BGs and tanking 4 people for a minute, because my gear is just better than theirs (and also they suck). I don't see anything terribly wrong with that. People want to be better than others and gear helps with that. It's an important part of this game.
I agree that Honor gain should be faster or Honor prices lower to get people in starter gear. I think this could be done by just minimizing queue time. I definitely spend half my time in the queue when I'm random BGing so instant queues would double my honor gain (not that I need Honor for anything, I had to buy mounts because I hit the cap). Allowing Horde vs. Horde battlegrounds is an easy fix. There's probably some technical problems with that, but it can't be impossible to implement.
I'm for gear diversity in PvP. I like having a goal for my Arena games except higher rating. And no, a differently colored set isn't good enough for me. I also like queuing for random BGs and tanking 4 people for a minute, because my gear is just better than theirs (and also they suck). I don't see anything terribly wrong with that. People want to be better than others and gear helps with that. It's an important part of this game.
I agree that Honor gain should be faster or Honor prices lower to get people in starter gear. I think this could be done by just minimizing queue time. I definitely spend half my time in the queue when I'm random BGing so instant queues would double my honor gain (not that I need Honor for anything, I had to buy mounts because I hit the cap). Allowing Horde vs. Horde battlegrounds is an easy fix. There's probably some technical problems with that, but it can't be impossible to implement.
crafted gear is starter gear
CasedOut on
0
GrobianWhat's on sale?Pliers!Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
Then the difference between 339 blues and 365 epics is just too high.
Gearing up for PvP is stupid and pointless. I would much rather you get slapped with a full set of unchangable PvP gear when you enter arenas and the points are for buying it and using it outside of arena. Arena is at its best when everyone is at the same gear level.
And if they think Arena gear was too easy to get... Ugh. It was at a tolerable clip when TB win trading was around. No one wants to grind BG PUGs again for the billionth time since vanilla.
yeah, in previous times the 'starter' gear was what the blue honor set is now, and you could get it significantly faster.
I didn't really cash in on the TB honor rush, although I did a few. I was going to gear my warlock up for pvp because I don't hate destro pvp and some of the rated BG achievements would be fun. But the grind is just fucking terrible, especially since most pugs just want to fight at midfield in whatever BG you happen to join.
Then I remembered that I hate pvp in general and I quit. I'ma wait till that shit is on the justice vendor.
I mean, even grinding out a thousandwhatever honor to buy my druid feral bracers (since fucking SFK won't give up the goods) is a huge pain in the ass.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I'm for gear diversity in PvP. I like having a goal for my Arena games except higher rating. And no, a differently colored set isn't good enough for me. I also like queuing for random BGs and tanking 4 people for a minute, because my gear is just better than theirs (and also they suck). I don't see anything terribly wrong with that. People want to be better than others and gear helps with that. It's an important part of this game.
Sure being overpowered is fun. It's fun sometimes to go run a level 70 dungeon or something and tear through the mobs because you are level 85... sometimes. Also, I dislike it when my class is nerfed, even if it is merely evening out a spec I know was, in fairness, actually overpowered.
However, in regular PvP I'd rather Blizz set things up so I win because I have developed PvP skill, not because of arbitrary numbers on my gear. It's an empty victory. Of course everyone has different opinions, and yours is valid, but it doesn't make for compelling competition overall.
There's a place for chasing dangling carrots, and it's PvE.
If you're going to make the whole "skill not gear" argument, it applies just as easily to pve as it does to pvp. This is not that game.
As a practical matter, if you didn't need to run four year old battlegrounds upteen times to get gear, people wouldn't run them. Lots of people wouldn't be playing arenas without that incentive, either. And then we'd be having a totally different conversation about how 'there isn't enough pvp content' or whatever.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
If you're going to make the whole "skill not gear" argument, it applies just as easily to pve as it does to pvp. This is not that game.
As a practical matter, if you didn't need to run four year old battlegrounds upteen times to get gear, people wouldn't run them. Lots of people wouldn't be playing arenas without that incentive, either. And then we'd be having a totally different conversation about how 'there isn't enough pvp content' or whatever.
Honestly? There isn't. We get a handful of new battlegrounds and a zone for PvP. Kind of a raw deal, don't you think? It's a lot easier to stay motivated when PvE is your goal, since the rewards are faster and the content is fresher. Getting WSG with 9 randumbs is like playing TF2 on a pub server that you don't know anyone on. The reward of "you get more PvP items!" isn't a compelling goal to me for the competitive arena. Raising my rank and playing people who I can narrowly beat or lose to is compelling.
Posts
Any time my faction manages to win the battle, the other faction just logs onto alts on our faction to stuff the queue and make us lose (some even going as far as stealing the tanks and taking them away from all objectives or to give bad advice in /general and berate anyone who doesn't listen, which a lot of people new to the battle easily fall for). We might get to keep it a game or two before they get enough of their guys in to ruin us, but it's very rare for us to hold it.
I'd report them, but it's hard to know which ones are them now a days and which ones just suck. Originally most of them were in the same guild and would also brag after our loss, but I guess they got reported enough that they disbanded that guild or made a new one or something and I don't care enough to keep track of their individual character names.
This has pretty much made me give up on TB for good, because I don't see any fix Blizzard implements stopping them from doing that. Even with the change next patch that makes the third base easier to capture for offense, it doesn't matter since the other faction will just wreck our defensive queue and take it back.
I don't remember this happening during Wintergrasp, but I also mostly played that before the 1-to-1 cap was added so they couldn't really do it then.
Also, I suspect lopsided servers will see this problem in TB anyway, with the 1:1 matching. If your side is overpopulated and you queue up and don't get in within the first few minutes, you've got a decent incentive to log into a character on the other faction and queue up just to ruin it for your opponents. Sure, your main isn't getting any reward when this happens, but he wouldn't anyway if you waited around for 30 minutes and never got in.
* Obviously based on servers with similar populations. We all know how broken WG was on lopsided servers.
As for WotLK seasons, sure, 2 DPS/1 healer vs. 2 DPS/1 healer ran into a lot of game length issues, but as far as I'm aware, mana regen vs. healing costs was also higher back then compared to what we have now. Can a healer running on empty really keep a team up from 2 DPS indefinitely? And if so, is the problem not related to control as much as healing?
Gone 3 for 3 right now, and the 3 games we won we gained 2 points, 8 points and 4 points.
But the 3 games we lost we lost 20 points then two sets of 19.
Seriously what the fuck.
totally balanced
Only downside was that as the only dwarf next to 2 Nelfs, I seemed to become target number 1. A fact not helped by me having 1k less resilience then the other 2. (probably shouting on vent: "get the dwarf". Sizeist bastards.)
especially when they're playing a mirror match and doing so badly - farmed them from 1880 to 1760 lawl
It actually seems to be working properly.
A play in two acts
Rorus: Wait what?
GM: Yeah, we've been win trading in TB all week. I already bought my gear for the next season!
Rorus: Oh well, it's the week after Christmas, so I've been with visiting friends and family. Let me queue for TB.
GM: No, they hotfixed it to shit, so I guess you're severely behind the honor curve now.
Rorus: Well, there's always BGs...
YOU ARE IN THE QUEUE FOR RANDOM BG
ESTIMATED TIME: HORDE
Rorus: Oh.
Munkus: Sorry Rorus, but I don't want to be a WoW-playing asshole like you, so I'm taking a break for school.
Rorus: That's okay, Munkus! I hate myself too! I'll just find another person, get my weapon and focus on raiding!
(Weeks Pass)
Rorus: Well, it took a while, and it's not the best comp, but I'm on my way to getting a weapon.
Blizzard: FOUR POINT OH SIX, NECKBEARD.
Rorus: Oh, you just raised the cost of weapons by 50%...midseason. So I and anyone who started late now has to do more work.
Blizzard: IT'S TO STOP RAIDERS FROM USING THEM IN PVE.
Rorus: Well, I guess you're technically right about that, because I'm unsubbing from the game you clueless, corpsefucking wastes of my goddamn time.
Third strike, you're fucking out. Idiots.
I'm unreasonably upset.
Or do you mean the next one dooms them?
No wait, it was Tol Barad.
No wait, it was the Flight Form being delayed two months and still very bug-ridden.
No wait, it was frost mages. Or DKs.
I guess we're playing a different, more generous sport now. It's a lot of small or medium things that are just inexcusable at this point in the game's lifespan.
EDIT: I'm also irritated that I lost my arena team. I'm not blaming him or anything, I know life takes priority, but you know our guild's general attitude towards arena.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
The Tol Barad holiday hotfix was the only great thing this season for those who needed PvP, but played during that short time frame. Everyone else got screwed by missing out and getting raped afterwards.
Didn't they do that with the crafted PvP stuff?
Worst off, my shit is niche as fuck and most leatherworkers are buying the PvP recipes for rogues/ferals. If they buy them at all (most aren't).
Wrath's set, shitty as it was, was much easier to craft.
Yeah, the crafted set is a mess. But! It's actually pretty cheap on most servers. I built an entire set when I was starting out for under 1000g (just keep up on the auction house) but I wouldn't actually recommend doing that. The item levels are so low that, you're not going to really kill anybody using an entire set of it. It's handy if you just want to use the belt and legs, or whatever, though. A couple pieces just to replace some 333 or lower gear is the way to go, in my opinion.
Why doesn't Blizzard just equip every PVPer with a full set of the highest item level gear they're eligable for when they enter arenas?
I haven't heard a single decent argument against this besides "it would make them less money" which is not a good argument. There is no other MMO for serious PVP, so why not? I haven't met a single person who both PVPs on a high level and enjoys grinding out PVP gear, so why force players to do it?
Further, forcing players to use all PVP gear in arenas would help balance the game. And it would force them to change the absolutely broken human racial.
For what it's worth, the weapons as of last night on the EU servers, despite what the tooltip said, cost what they did a few weeks ago.
I know this, because two guys in the guild who'd spent 3 weeks getting enough points, were complaining when I logged in yesterday; I said "hey, just go and try buying them from the vendor" at which point they linked their new weapons.
Everything else though, such as the honor grind for what is a starter set, is rediculous..
(I'll also note that the EU pvp queues were wonky last night, because I was either getting in after 30 seconds or I'd see my queue time go beyond the estimate, and it would reset).
TB my faction won it within about 4 mins. All the alliance defenders went north, 20 or so people went south, capped the 2 bases, then pushed them out of the north base and won it. To be fair, the one time I attacked in the last month, we did this without the change (alliance on my server as a collective aren't great at the old pvp).
The cynic in me says it is because Blizzard wants us to spend time grinding BGs to "gear up", giving them more monthly payments.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
I agree that Honor gain should be faster or Honor prices lower to get people in starter gear. I think this could be done by just minimizing queue time. I definitely spend half my time in the queue when I'm random BGing so instant queues would double my honor gain (not that I need Honor for anything, I had to buy mounts because I hit the cap). Allowing Horde vs. Horde battlegrounds is an easy fix. There's probably some technical problems with that, but it can't be impossible to implement.
crafted gear is starter gear
And if they think Arena gear was too easy to get... Ugh. It was at a tolerable clip when TB win trading was around. No one wants to grind BG PUGs again for the billionth time since vanilla.
I didn't really cash in on the TB honor rush, although I did a few. I was going to gear my warlock up for pvp because I don't hate destro pvp and some of the rated BG achievements would be fun. But the grind is just fucking terrible, especially since most pugs just want to fight at midfield in whatever BG you happen to join.
Then I remembered that I hate pvp in general and I quit. I'ma wait till that shit is on the justice vendor.
I mean, even grinding out a thousandwhatever honor to buy my druid feral bracers (since fucking SFK won't give up the goods) is a huge pain in the ass.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
However, in regular PvP I'd rather Blizz set things up so I win because I have developed PvP skill, not because of arbitrary numbers on my gear. It's an empty victory. Of course everyone has different opinions, and yours is valid, but it doesn't make for compelling competition overall.
There's a place for chasing dangling carrots, and it's PvE.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
As a practical matter, if you didn't need to run four year old battlegrounds upteen times to get gear, people wouldn't run them. Lots of people wouldn't be playing arenas without that incentive, either. And then we'd be having a totally different conversation about how 'there isn't enough pvp content' or whatever.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
However in PvP your opponents always have the same skill on average, and gearing up just makes you more powerful than them.
Steam (Ansatz) || GW2 officer (Ansatz.6498)
Honestly? There isn't. We get a handful of new battlegrounds and a zone for PvP. Kind of a raw deal, don't you think? It's a lot easier to stay motivated when PvE is your goal, since the rewards are faster and the content is fresher. Getting WSG with 9 randumbs is like playing TF2 on a pub server that you don't know anyone on. The reward of "you get more PvP items!" isn't a compelling goal to me for the competitive arena. Raising my rank and playing people who I can narrowly beat or lose to is compelling.