Time: 00:16:48 CET 15:16:48 PST 18:16:48 EST 08:16:48 Seoul 07:16:48 Beijing
NEWS
Blizzard clarifies PvP with help from SC2
After one of its lead members upset the PvP community, Blizzard tries to make amends.
By Michael 'Zechs' Radford
Nov 17, 2009 14:43
After one of its lead members upset the PvP community, Blizzard tries to make amends.A few days ago, top Blizzard man Rob Pardo, put his foot squarely in his mouth with regards to World of Warcraft PvP. He admitted in an interview that he wasn't sure about arena being a wise choice for the game.
Now Blizzard is attempting to quash fears that arena play is an unloved addon. Ghostcrawler claims that Pardo was merely talking about the specific way in which arena was "retrofitted" into the game. "It's the way we introduced Arenas that has continued to cause ourselves a lot of work and occasionally caused frustration for players," said the blue poster. He also reassured players that arena is definitely here to stay: "We like the Arena gameplay though or we would have cut it or overhauled it long ago."
Never the less, Blizzard is still unhappy with the lack of focus on battlegrounds. "We do think we have shifted the PvP attention a little too much towards Arenas," he said. "And yes we understand that loot rewards are a big part of the reason why." No mention was made of the different skill set or play style required for the different facets of the game.
Ghostcrawler did break out an interesting analogy between WoW and the upcoming SC2:
This does make sense, since the original thread asked about separating PvP from PvE in both SC2 and WoW. The idea of a year-round tournament realm, or something similar, has been floated by many people and seems to be gaining some momentum recently. Blizzard has yet to respond directly to that idea, however.
Source: MMO-Champion
Now Blizzard is attempting to quash fears that arena play is an unloved addon. Ghostcrawler claims that Pardo was merely talking about the specific way in which arena was "retrofitted" into the game. "It's the way we introduced Arenas that has continued to cause ourselves a lot of work and occasionally caused frustration for players," said the blue poster. He also reassured players that arena is definitely here to stay: "We like the Arena gameplay though or we would have cut it or overhauled it long ago."
Never the less, Blizzard is still unhappy with the lack of focus on battlegrounds. "We do think we have shifted the PvP attention a little too much towards Arenas," he said. "And yes we understand that loot rewards are a big part of the reason why." No mention was made of the different skill set or play style required for the different facets of the game.
Ghostcrawler did break out an interesting analogy between WoW and the upcoming SC2:
"Starcraft is also just a fundamentally different game. You aren't taking your campaign character into competitive multiplayer. In fact, there is no multiplayer character per se in the sense that you can grant your character more power over time. You start every map with the same base and units as everyone else. Starcraft also isn't going to change over time except for whatever balance or design changes the team makes. There is no equivalent to the new gear or whatever that suddenly shifts the balance of power."
This does make sense, since the original thread asked about separating PvP from PvE in both SC2 and WoW. The idea of a year-round tournament realm, or something similar, has been floated by many people and seems to be gaining some momentum recently. Blizzard has yet to respond directly to that idea, however.
Source: MMO-Champion
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Does anyone else find that a little bit insulting, or are PvE-ers really that vein? Like, they'll only do something if they epics for it? I know some people are like that but to claim that a "big part" of the WoW population plays for loot seems like a ridiculous statement that dumbs down the entire game. If that logic was correct why would you bother creating content when you could just /roll randomly for loot instead?
Separate pure-arena realm(separate game) is a great idea btw. More power to whoever came up with it.
@teflon: "are PvE-ers really that vein?"
"improving your character is, and always was the essence of MMO gameplay"
So the answer to my question is essentially yes.
but that statement is stupid.
Secondly, improving your character - either by levelling or by getting superior gear IS the objective of any "Role Playing Game". What else do PVE'rs aspire for? Its not as if you can improve your character in any other way than gearing after reaching level 80.
The Gear factor applies for PVP as well, a good team in Hateful/Deadly gear is going to get wtfpwned by a very average/ less than average team in full Relentless. Its not a question of being "vain". Its a question of trying to stay at the top of the food chain.
Apart from that, PvP gear doesn't even benefit PvE-ers like it used to. So do raiders still do arena purely for gear? Of course not.
Where does blue post ever talk about raiders doing arena? The issue here is actually people ignoring BGs to do arenas. And the simple reason for that is the loot. Anyone with an IQ of over 100 can get a rating of 1100 + to start picking up better PVP gear, whereas blindly farming BGs is going to get you full deadly gear at the most. So naturally people avoid BGs once they get the basic starter kit. And with Wintergrasp, its even faster to start getting the basic resilience pieces and avoid BGs altogether.
The question of whether gear should be part of a competitive game is a totally different one, and is more related to game balance. IMHO arena gear should be totally different from PVE gear, and I wouldnt even mind if people are provided with the basic resilience set the moment they hit 80 so that they can start doing arena's from day 1 without bothering to do BG farming.
What i'm trying to get across is this: GC seems to be implying that some/many/all players only do arenas for loot. I don't think that's true and find it pretty insulting. I, and others i hope, played arenas for a) fun b) competition. Loot is a nice bonus on live realms but is not conducive to competitive play in any way, nor is PvE gear. There is a reason that pro players don't give a shit about live realms.
We've had bring the player not the class in PvE, now it's time for bring the player not the gear in PvP.
/facepalm ylfssab.
It's not a matter to "want to use", it's a matter that, if at that point, a person doesn't have that much of good gear, its easy to farm some pvp gear to compensate till they get the gear they need, and A LOT of people do that.
/facepalm Smaugy.
GOD I WOULD JUST LOVE THAT, /JIZZ IN PANTZ
Edit: two separate ways of balancing the game*
I don't mean to create flames, but honestly DotA. It is as competitive as Arena, but it has the longevity and scenario skill they are looking for.
Take it as this, you get around 5 people in the BG (think 5v5 or 7v7) and there are 3~4 lanes to run along having towers (turrents with NPCs in it) occasionally on the path. Then they have men run at intervals along these lanes trying to destroy these towers. The goal is to push the lane to their base and destroy their statue or whatever. Occasionally power ups show in a 2 spots on the map. And there is a elite sitting in the middle of the map that will drop a really awesome buff .Also a main part of dota is the ability to buy weapons and upgrade your character. That can be accomplished as well (you just don't use your gear in this BG), or you buy buffs with the items you get from looting heroes and units.
Honestly they have everything implemented already, it's just a matter of putting it into action.
I do like the idea of more maps though. If i wasn't playing alliance on a shitty realm, i would love to see WSG and AB redone with new textures/scenarios. Every new battleground since TBC has been horrible. SOTA in particular is barely even PvP. Get car, shoot doors, click portal... k.
I was really hoping for a 5 to 7 man team. Dota teams already have at least 5 people on it, and SK gaming has a DotA team. 10 people is too many, it also has to be an uneven number for certain mechanics to work right.
Here is my suggestion post on the wow forum if you'd like to see how I outlined it.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=21251925232&ST=US-1582356-VcibhizKbzcfdTccvCbaTVRdQvfUZuYgmYC
I don't mean that as an advertisement, just so I can have the entire idea somewhere to post (so it won't be a wall of text in comments)
Also, the reason why I say 10 is too many is because, it lacks the ability to be fully coordinated.
"I'm not sure about arena being a wise choice for the game", he says (who giffs a fck about your sure / sure not lol)
Yet real dev says, "lol if we wouldnt like arena we would cut it down".
second is who cares about anyones opinions..duel with all cooldowns reseted and no pots or engineering VS MIRROR setup is ALWAYS skill (since all being absolutely equal)...Without Arena only duels 1on1 which are terribly inbalanced for fun would be available.
third and most important..all go go for setups they want...if u pick one "the best" then u own MOST others but suck to FEW. That means u shouldt cry if ure owned by that FEW one setup... WHAT GAMES GIVES THAT IT TAKES. If u own only cause of setup and not skill be ready to loose cause of setup and no skill also.
forth yes rated BGs with all guys having same gear and with ANY setup would be REALY fun and AWESOME...much like Capture the Flag in some FPS games.
Consider WoW as uber complicated DotA from 3rd person wiev lol if u cant understand whats its pvp is about.