Why are so many people against Arena in Swtor?

[Darth_Philar]

I'll state my position again:

 

I will accept Arena on the following conditions:

 

1. No gear can be obtained solely through arena that is in any statistical way superior to gear obtained through regular PvP (mounts, titles, etc. are fine as unique rewards).

2. All arena teams must be 4 person teams (no pointless brackets which make balancing harder).

3. All arena teams are required to use one of each base class (i.e. no team can have two of anything which will eliminate a lot of the "FOTM Roulette" of WoW's system).

[GrumpySwe]

I'll state my position again:

 

I will accept Arena on the following conditions:

 

1. No gear can be obtained solely through arena that is in any statistical way superior to gear obtained through regular PvP (mounts, titles, etc. are fine as unique rewards).

2. All arena teams must be 4 person teams (no pointless brackets which make balancing harder).

3. All arena teams are required to use one of each base class (i.e. no team can have two of anything which will eliminate a lot of the "FOTM Roulette" of WoW's system).

 

I can live with arena if these are the conditions, id much rather be without but alright

[xHPx]

Blizzard actually said if they'd known what the arena was going to do to their game then they'd have never put it in.

 

Blizzard never said that.

Edited January 30, 2012 by xHPx

[SWImara]

Things Swtor could do better to Arena type pvp

 

-> Same rewards for Arena pvp as all other type battlegrounds? (same gain rate, so people who only like arena dont have to play huttball against/with bots and afks.)

 

->I always felt the competitive edge of different gear was what made Arena fun the guy with the legendary hit hard that how it was supposed to work. Swtor could simply auto buff stats to the same level (just like low lvls in bgs) so that regardless of your gear it actually did come down to skill.

 

TLDR : Arenas were fun in wow, a lot of people used them. Why are there masses of people so against in a 100% voluntary action in a game?

I think with the suggestion above Arenas could be lots of fun in SWTOR. I suspect (based purely on my own assumptions) that people loathed the reward system for WoW's arena system much more than they did the general concept. The idea that arena became the necessary endgame PvP if one wanted the best rewards predictably rubbed people the wrong way.

 

 

I'll state my position again:

 

I will accept Arena on the following conditions:

 

1. No gear can be obtained solely through arena that is in any statistical way superior to gear obtained through regular PvP (mounts, titles, etc. are fine as unique rewards).

2. All arena teams must be 4 person teams (no pointless brackets which make balancing harder).

3. All arena teams are required to use one of each base class (i.e. no team can have two of anything which will eliminate a lot of the "FOTM Roulette" of WoW's system).

I like these ideas even more, however they seem like they would make the game a good deal less accessible (particularly your last rule) also the different ACs of the varied classes are actually pretty dramatically different so limiting the "one of X only" to class rather than AC strikes me as somewhat arbitrary.

Edited January 30, 2012 by SWImara

[sunsu]

Look at it this way, competitive pvprs are a very small portion of the population. If there was really a market for it, dont you think in this billion dollar industry someone would have come up with a way to turn a profit. Follow the cash, it doesnt lead to pvp sadly.

[Poor_Grammar]

Because trading kills for fast valor and gear doesn't happen in arenas.

 

They're just bad and if arenas hit, everyone would see how bad they really are without a dozen people carrying them.

Don't pvp at all? Then why do you even care? Don't participate. No one here is going to force you.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Poor_Grammar

[mcfyre]

Don't know bout anyone else, but my friends and I are totally waiting for arenas to hit.

[Lugh]

Don't know bout anyone else, but my friends and I are totally waiting for arenas to hit.

 

Keep waiting. The developer's love your money.

 

[Vordy]

People like to be able to hide in a massive zerg and spam OMGTRACERMISSILE LIGHTNING BOLT, see big numbers and get hard. They think this is an actual test of their skill. Pressing one button.

 

Meanwhile, any talk of controlling the zerg is met with "OMG NO BIOWARE, THATS NOT MY ROLEPLAYING GAME, I WANT TO ROMANCE MY ROBOT WHILE MARCHING WITH THE MIGHTY PIGEONHEAD ARMY, AND ARENAS MAKE ME PAY ATTENTION TO SUCCEED. NO, NOT OK."

 

GG Bioware.

 

Arena didnt really have much skills on WoW either, it was about gear and what classes you played, we real pvpers want world pvp.

[JingleHell]

Arena didnt really have much skills on WoW either, it was about gear and what classes you played, we real pvpers want world pvp.

 

Yeah, right. I love world PvP, but it's an utterly non-competitive environment. I'd prefer ranked WZs. Besides, this engine can't HANDLE world PvP on any fun scale. I've got a PC that's only obsolete if you love hardware, and get a slideshow at around 75 people trying to kill each other, with bad performance at 45-50 or so.

 

And trust me, you don't want to get the "Let me play MMOs on a pocket calculator" crowd in here...

[Izini]

MMOs should not be balanced for small scale fights, like arenas. There would be a couple of classes that would own in the arena, then the other classes will cry and the devs will have to try to balance the game specifically for arenas. When that happens, any PvP with more people will be completely ruined aswell as PvE. Blizzard said it was the worse thing they did to WoW because of balance.

[Lugh]

MMOs should not be balanced for small scale fights, like arenas. There would be a couple of classes that would own in the arena, then the other classes will cry and the devs will have to try to balance the game specifically for arenas. When that happens, any PvP with more people will be completely ruined aswell as PvE. Blizzard said it was the worse thing they did to WoW because of balance.

 

Ding. Not to mention it adds a THIRD gear grind to a TWO Gear grinds sort of game.

[Drakaris]

Sorry I am confused, why would players who do not like the arena system claim they do not want it when it is a 100% voluntary action? There is a smaller minority of people who love arena who love the fact that your fighting on a ladder system, that there is zero chance of anyone interrupting your fight and it all comes down to you and your partners skill. Yes of course some balancing would take place on classes all arena would do is put a spot like on the too powerful classes so Bioware may allow balance. World of Warcraft had massive diversity in there classes that caused huge balance issues constantly, Swtor has very very similar mechanics entwined into each class that would save tones of nerf/buff patchs.

 

Things Swtor could do better to Arena type pvp

 

-> Same rewards for Arena pvp as all other type battlegrounds? (same gain rate, so people who only like arena dont have to play huttball against/with bots and afks.)

 

->I always felt the competitive edge of different gear was what made Arena fun the guy with the legendary hit hard that how it was supposed to work. Swtor could simply auto buff stats to the same level (just like low lvls in bgs) so that regardless of your gear it actually did come down to skill.

 

TLDR : Arenas were fun in wow, a lot of people used them. Why are there masses of people so against in a 100% voluntary action in a game?

 

You answered the question yourself - class balance. "Very similar" classes doesn't mean "the same classes" and there will never be such perfect class balance where some classes are not hard counter to other and they have a hard counter on them. Arenas promote FotM builds. For example - get an operative vs sage 1 on 1. Fine, operative is a counter to a squishy. But that doesn't mean that the sage will lose every single time 1 on 1. Few times he will win. But... what happens when you gather 4 of the current FotM classes and put them in the same team? Faceroll... until they get nerfed and rendered useless. Then the next FotM... then the next... and the next. And it will never be balanced. I stopped playing WoW long ago (few months after WotLK) so i don't know the situation now. Back then the 2v2 brackets were completely dominated and destroyed by unholy DK/holy pala combo. Utterly destroyed. What about the 3v3? How long, for how many years the RPM were obliterating everything and completely dominating the 3v3 brackets?

 

That's the problem with Arena based PvP - they always promote the FotM classes, no skill involved, it's only the best possible combo facerolling the others.

 

Don't get me wrong, i'm two thumbs up for rated PvP. But as it is now - rated warzones with objectives. That's a compeltely different scenario. Trying to outsmart the other team, capture the objective and keep it, beat them with tactics and not with OP classes (e.g. 4 operatives pop out of stealth on one sage - hai!bai! - omg, we so pro! ). Arenas will just force them to start "balancing" the classes thus "fixing" the OP classes, usually breaking them, and making some other class to be a complete faceroll so the new FotM combo becomes available on the next patch... There's simply no need for arenas. Just rated warzones and full premades, that's it.

Edited January 30, 2012 by Drakaris

[Iridor]

Here's what I'd like to know. Why are so many people determined to have a formal Arena system built into the game? There's an area for PvP between groups. If you really want Arena, organize it yourself.

[Dee-Jay]

Arena PvP is fun, but it puts class balance under the microscope.

 

While a lot of imbalances are hard to identify and fly under the radar is larger scale PvP, adding Arenas puts a lot of preasure on developers to give every class a fighting chance.

 

These balance changes inadvertently affect PvE at some point which in return drives PvEers up the wall.

 

You can end up with weird situations where a class is the best healer in PvP while being the worst in PvE (Shamans in WoW). How do you balance that?

Edited January 30, 2012 by Dee-Jay

[Darth_Philar]

I like these ideas even more, however they seem like they would make the game a good deal less accessible (particularly your last rule) also the different ACs of the varied classes are actually pretty dramatically different so limiting the "one of X only" to class rather than AC strikes me as somewhat arbitrary.

 

Well, we are free to debate the merits of either method. As I said, I was trying to prevent "FOTM Roulette" and that seemed like the best way to do it.

[Poor_Grammar]

Arena PvP is fun, but it puts class balance under the microscope.

 

While a lot of imbalances are hard to identify ad fly under the radar is larger scale PvP, adding Arenas puts a lot of preasure on developers to give every class a fighting chance).

 

What you need to consider is there are no arenas, yet classes are currently getting tweaked.

 

Class re-balancing is going to happen either way.

[JingleHell]

MMOs should not be balanced for small scale fights, like arenas. There would be a couple of classes that would own in the arena, then the other classes will cry and the devs will have to try to balance the game specifically for arenas. When that happens, any PvP with more people will be completely ruined aswell as PvE. Blizzard said it was the worse thing they did to WoW because of balance.

 

Certain classes would only own in the Arena if the Arena design itself was inherently flawed. I'm still more for rated WZs, but Arena could work, as long as the design included a few key features.

 

1: Dynamic environment. The arenas should have a properly interactive environment. Elevation changes, LOS, and even some hazard stuff, to encourage tactical thinking instead of strategic.

 

2: A reasonable time limit. 5-7 minute time limits for matches. If time runs out and all players are still standing, Tie, no rewards. If one player is down on one team, that team loses. If one player is down on each team, 2 minutes sudden death, followed by a draw.

 

3: Alternative win condition. Put a control point in the middle. In the case of a no-deaths tie, the team with more time controlling that point wins, encouraging players to actually engage within the short timer.

 

The inclusion of features like this would force players to actually engage if they wanted to win, instead of getting 30 minute LOS-fests like WoW Arenas could turn into.

[Galendril]

Actually

 

I remember clearly some of the many instances where they've nerfed abilities solely because of PvP.

 

For example, Shaman's interrupt cooldown was increased because of PvP resto, which caused DPS shamans to have to spec into a useless talent in order to maintain the short interrupt cooldown for raiding.

 

Fan of Knives was nerfed back in Wrath for PvP reasons, when rogues also used it as their only source of aoe for certain boss fights that spawned a lot of adds

 

In Vanilla, Blizzard killed the whole idea of 2h Shamans in PvE because WF was too powerful in pvp

 

So if Arena--being a smaller PvP setting where abilities matter--is introduced, that would result in certain combinations being overly powerful vs the rest, and that ALWAYS leads to balancing nightmares that will affect PvE

 

does anyone really want to bring that curse onto SWTOR?

 

+1 I agree

[Delavager]

A lot of these posts are:

 

I don't want Arenas because...[Enter Assumption Here]

 

The biggest issue is that they are all assumptions, and aren't necessarily true nor how BW would implement Arena's if they so choose to do so.

 

-There doesn't have to be gear grind or any special gear associated with Arena.

-There can be separate ability sets for Arena so that it doesn't effect PvE or Warzones.

 

It is very possible for BW to do a good job and create an Arena that does not effect the rest of the game in the slightest. An arena would make a lot of people happy, and if they can do it in a way that doesn't "break" the rest of the game, then they probably should.

 

I don't think anybody (or at least very few) want an Arena for the sake of L33T gear, or balancing.

[Daeromas]

<snip>

I don't think anybody (or at least very few) want an Arena for the sake of L33T gear, or balancing.

 

I want them cause they can be a ton of fun. I like competition, I don't need any rewards, I just like to win. Like playing a pick-up game of basketball, there aren't any rewards besides beating the other team.

[Dreadker]

I'm all for Arena... but only if there is a 1v1 system as well as 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5... Not everyone is able to pvp in a team arena environment - it would also be extremely good for balance monitoring imo

[Semitote]

There already is an arena, it's on Tatooine.

 

This is where smaller battles of 2v2 & 3v3 & 5v5 should take place. Organize a tournament and use bouncers to guard the entrances/exits. Boom, there's your arenas.

[meatmower]

All I see here is whining for another avenue to gain pvp gear where "skill" and class balance dominates.

 

There already is an arena, it's on Tatooine.

 

This is where smaller battles of 2v2 & 3v3 & 5v5 should take place. Organize a tournament and use bouncers to guard the entrances/exits. Boom, there's your arenas.

 

As he stated Tatooine is the perfect place to setup an arena. If you enjoy playing in Arenas that's reward enough isn't it?

 

Perhaps people should be asking for a non-pvp spectating area overlooking the pit in the ffa zone.

[diogolp]

class based MMOs should never emphasize small scale pvp. It is a nightmare for balance, and the genre is simply not suited to it. No matter how much people want to claim "skill" is the reason, was the fact that rogue mage priest dominated arenas for a season just a coincidence that skilled players played those classes? or was is class balance? Same thing for sl/sl/shadow set ups.

 

Was it a coincidence that pretty much every season of Wow arena has a certain class composition that rolls through people?