2.4 Arena is a great idea!

[Solloby]

Probably because WoW is one of the biggest, most experienced MMOs out there, and if they stuffed it up then what chance does SWTOR have? On the flip side, SWTOR has the opportunity to learn from WoW's mistakes in that area and correct the problems in the design stage.

 

They need to hear about the problems of WoW's arenas, and potential problems they can introduce that are SWTOR-specific (like competing with WZ queues because there's no cross-server queueing). They need to understand how badly they can screw up the game by doing it wrong, so that they make sure they don't do it wrong. In all likelihood they already do and we are just prattling on about stuff they already know, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

[brutall]

This !! if they do it right there are tonns of pvp players that would come back as there

are no 1 awesome pvp game now.Playerbase is spread out in all games in a limbo stasis

dreaming of competetive joy.

 

idd

[Selout]

I dismiss the notion that just because Blizzard is the biggest and most experienced, what hope does Bioware have? How about the luxury of seeing all the horrendous mistakes they have made and trying not to duplicate them. How about Blizzard is this behemoth cumbersome company who can't stop the inertia that is generated whereas Bioware can be agile, adaptive and responsive. /shrug, just a matter of perspective I suppose. These are just a few of the tenants guerrilla warfare, and can be highly effective (not implying that Bioware is at war with Blizzard). Edited June 21, 2013 by Selout

[tizeren]

Here is how you would easily balance Arena in this game, do not allow the guard ability to be used. This makes it so teams are not forced to run a tank spec plus healer, and makes it a skill match up to who can peel for their healer the most wins.

[Heathenblood]

I can't seem to be able to find 2.4 news only thing I've found was a fake dev thing that at the end says its fake. I can't find the real one? Or is everyone talking about this?

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=6385082

[dcgregorya]

Because Arena can kill Warzones and cause severe impacts to PVE as well?

If Arena is on a separate queue to Warzones it will poach players from the already slow-to-pop offpeak queues. Without cross-server queuing, PVE servers in particular will suffer.

 

If they try to correct Arena imbalances they can cripple the Flashpoint queues as well if they nerf a tank or healing spec so badly it is no longer viable for PVE, causing people to no longer queue for FPs on those characters. What will happen to guilds that rely on certain classes for their Ops groups, if those players can longer pull their weight because of nerfs? It happened in WoW, and it will happen here if that's the path they go down.

 

Yes this is all doom and gloom stuff. It could turn out great, in which case I will happily queue up and enjoy it, or ignore it and go back to questing and Warzones if it isn't for me.

 

But it could also break all of PVP and a heck of a lot of PVE. People are worried. And so they should be. We need more information about what this arena is and how it will work to reassure us that they aren't going to screw it up, because if they do screw it up it is going to impact a lot of the content we already have and enjoy.

 

I think all we can do for now though is wait until they release more details and hope for the best.

 

For what it's worth, balance in SWTOR is far less dire than it ever has been in WoW because of the simplistic template that each class/spec follows. Each spec for each AC has a certain role (AOE DPS, DoT spec, tank, heals, etc) and its relatively competitive on a pure person vs person basis (except PT, sucks to be them these days!). Suggesting that one spec would get nerfed to the point where you couldn't raid with it is silly. It's more likely going to be sideways movement to tone down some things in PVP that don't actually mean anything in terms of DPS/HPS change in PVE. As an example, imagine that the EMPs on op heals got nerfed but the single target spells got boosted by a likewise amount. In an ops fight this won't really matter in a PVP fight this is a significant change.

[stephenalandavie]

Well healing needs looking at if this is going to be a success, otherwise its just going to be a healer fest

[Selout]

Honestly, I feel heals are in a good spot. Just need to tone down Op/Scound heals to be the same as the other two healing classes. But, that is not what this thread is for. The nuts-and-bolts of the classes can be discussed in the 1235235 other threads around. Edited June 21, 2013 by Selout

[Ramtar]

unless the devs are going to do some serious class balancing arena will be worthless.

[Macabrae]

unless the devs are going to do some serious class balancing arena will be worthless.

 

I have seen these posts for years in WOW and yet people still love to play and hate it. In fact, when Blizz stated they could not fully balance 2v2 and they would take it away the community was in a huge uproar and they kept it. The people know 2v2 is unbalanced but people love it anyway and that is the name of the game...keep your customers happy.

[Elogio]

I made this video with the sole intention of helping the devs out. I think that arenas are an amazing idea and something that pvpers really need in this game.

 

 

Feel free to comment and chip in your thoughts.

Please positive feedback to the devs only, they are well aware of the problems that exist. Let's help them out so that SWtOR arenas become the new great sensation!!!

 

- Theel / Perfecticable

[Solloby]

For what it's worth, balance in SWTOR is far less dire than it ever has been in WoW because of the simplistic template that each class/spec follows. Each spec for each AC has a certain role (AOE DPS, DoT spec, tank, heals, etc) and its relatively competitive on a pure person vs person basis (except PT, sucks to be them these days!). Suggesting that one spec would get nerfed to the point where you couldn't raid with it is silly. It's more likely going to be sideways movement to tone down some things in PVP that don't actually mean anything in terms of DPS/HPS change in PVE. As an example, imagine that the EMPs on op heals got nerfed but the single target spells got boosted by a likewise amount. In an ops fight this won't really matter in a PVP fight this is a significant change.

 

Why is it silly? It happened in WoW multiple times. Here are a couple of non-raid viable specs if my memory serves me correctly: Vanilla resto druids, early WotLK druid tanks, early WotLK cat druids (I could outdps my heroic blue level capped druid on my levelling green warlock it was so bad), BM hunters, demo locks (supposedly).

 

This is all "worst case scenario" stuff though. It's unlikely to happen unless they are following WoW's arena format and are going to attempt to balance classes around 2v2. In which case it will likely happen if history has taught us anything about what happens when you try to do that. Hopefully if they go down this path they will use arena-only buffs/debuffs to restrict the balancing to the arena.

 

I am not sure such problems would happen if the teams are 4v4. I think 4v4 would be interesting. If they don't make this "warzone arena" an 8v8 deathmatch, I am thinking we might be in for some 4v4 action. If it is 4v4, I hope they allow us to pug it unless arena is going to be exclusively for ranked, because my guildies don't like pvp

[Ajuntalee]

There is no "open-world PvP blah blah blah" tournament or "rated WZ/BG blah blah" ladder held. Both forms of PvP are fatally flawed... you are allowed to die and come back to fight in that round/encounter/whatever. When the risk of dying enters in the equation,

 

While that sounds meaningfull, and is absolutely right in the terms stating it fundamentally change the equation, for your own awareness, there are e-sports competitive games with respawn wave, They play diffrently,

 

Yes you are right Dying In a WZ is sometimes a better move than surviving cause it helps you move around the bg faster than surviving most of the time, and killing is sometimes a worse move than letting the ennemy live and keep him in the mud for a bit longer.

 

That is just the way it is, diffrent ball games diffrent tricks, diffrent tactics.

 

CS is WZ system with objectives metagame and permadeath, and it is a much more popular E-sport than HL TDM is.

Players in Footbal who get tackled are allowed to play again during the match and the sport is still entertaining. Arena's are not the "essence" of pvp, yes the tactics are balanced around some other vertices than the WZ balance, but no it is not superior, it is diffrent.

 

Some good WZ players will never be top arena players, reciprocly some people who are good at Arena just lack something to be good WZ players, people speak about skill, but in fact they should speak about skillS,

 

Being a great player at Street Fighter require a certain set of skills, being a great Starcraft player requires another, some of this skills both disciplins share, some are specific to each game. There is no reason to say great players at SFIV are greater players than great players at Starcraft II (or the other way round)

 

The same goes with SWTOR future arenas and SWTOR WZs, and for some reasons i have the feeling you are implying :

Arena players > Wz players. It is obviously false

 

If anything it is the contrary for one and simple obvious reason

 

A crap Arena player will never be anywhere decent a player in Warzones,

while a crap WZ player can perfectly perform very decently in Arenas.

 

Most of the skills required to play Arena are required to play in Warzones, WZ players who die on purpose or let ennemy survive on purpose are very well aware of what they do, they wouldn't if they player arena, they would template diffrently, stuff diffrently and play diffrently,

Assuming they are subpar pvp players because they are rewarded for being defeated is flawed logic, the objective is to score points and win,

 

if suiciding your character is what it takes to have your team score points it is a valid tactic, and in arena the same logic still stands, surely a great arena player like you can understand it is valid to sacrifice 1 of your teammate to clip 2 in the other team, or even in rarer occasions to sacrifice 2 in your team if it can break the backbone of the other team and break it for good while yours will stay solid and outlast.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Ajuntalee

[Selout]

Well, this isn't a debate to say what takes more skill but the only empirical example we can look to is WoW. Talking with the top arena guys and playing with/against them, the overwhelming majority walk into RBG's and beat the RBG-only crew pretty handily. There was that anomaly where Bailamos beat Kollektiv in a series of like 5 but for the most part, that doesn't happen too often. So yes, I believe the arena skill set is more difficult and translates over quite nicely to a WZ/BG scenario and the only game that has both would suggest that is in fact true but that is not the conversation that is taking place here. Edited June 21, 2013 by Selout

[Ramtar]

I have seen these posts for years in WOW and yet people still love to play and hate it. In fact, when Blizz stated they could not fully balance 2v2 and they would take it away the community was in a huge uproar and they kept it. The people know 2v2 is unbalanced but people love it anyway and that is the name of the game...keep your customers happy.

 

so you think 2 OPs v 2 Commandos is going to be fair fight. You want to keep customers happy level the playing field.

[Atramar]

I used to be against arena, any mindless killings competition is never a good idea, but, as I see that for some people AH and Voidstar is to objective, Huttball being more and more Death Match (it's called 'the PIT' - it must be DM), Civil Wars jumping from 3 capping the enemy to a lose (since we have 3 turrets we must win, let's DM far far away) and I won't even mention NC or lack of new pvp content for a long long time,

I'd say:

bring it on. arena is better then nothing...

[Tyrth]

While I completely agree that Arena is better than nothing...do I really need to tell you how this story is going to play out? I think for the most part we can all pretty much agree that the devs have found class balance in WZ to be...challenging for them to say the least. How well do you think they will handle having to balance classes in a much smaller 2 vs 2 or 4 vs 4 setting while at the same time not completely wrecking pvp balance in WZ? Honestly I'm worried that unless they pretty much decide to NOT make Arena balance the priority (never gonna happen) I worry the pendulum will swing to the extreme opposite and we will essentially have the choice of doing Arena or nothing because nobody will queue for WZ any longer..

[Atramar]

While I completely agree that Arena is better than nothing...do I really need to tell you how this story is going to play out? I think for the most part we can all pretty much agree that the devs have found class balance in WZ to be...challenging for them to say the least. How well do you think they will handle having to balance classes in a much smaller 2 vs 2 or 4 vs 4 setting while at the same time not completely wrecking pvp balance in WZ? Honestly I'm worried that unless they pretty much decide to NOT make Arena balance the priority (never gonna happen) I worry the pendulum will swing to the extreme opposite and we will essentially have the choice of doing Arena or nothing because nobody will queue for WZ any longer..

 

I know how it will turn out. 4 vs 4, power premades of 4 will dominate it to the ground. people will get bored of power 4 man killing them, and will go back to WZ.

power 4 will only go against other power 4, and 4 vs 4 arena will end like Ranked WZ.

In this particular scenario, regular WZ will be more balanced due to pugs only.

after a while, people will start grouping to regular WZ again to pwn pugs (as they are getting smashed by bigger power 4) and things will go back to normal.

 

if option is 'nothing new vs arena' I vote arena, and let player base balance it on their own.

 

(I still think arena is stupid)

[Tyrth]

Atramar you could very well be right.....most likely are given the scenario you gave. I wonder though if we are ALL wrong about this. We are assuming the arena will be character based when it could very well be small scale pvp space based. The datamined info they took down the other day mentioned pvp space specifically and mentioned light/med/heavy fighters and what sounded like a new area of space rather than a planet. Given the cartel market priority imagine the income possibilities for them to offer new skins for your fighter, ship component packs ect. Forgive me if i just didn't see it but did the devs ever specifically state that the Arena is going to be character based?

[Stavroz]

I admit i am excited for arenas.

 

I would only like to say that I hope BW restricts doubling up on classes.

 

Balancing b/c of OP and Underpowered classes happens b/c ppl stack unbeatable combos (eg ppl aniticpate the 3 sins 1 op combo).

If they eliminated the doubling up of classes it would make for a more diverse competition and then there would not be AS MANY balancing issues.

[Macabrae]

so you think 2 OPs v 2 Commandos is going to be fair fight. You want to keep customers happy level the playing field.

 

In 2v2 NOTHING is a fair fight. Get over what you think is "Fair" because what you think is fair or not others will see it differently. On any given day you can go to WOW's forums and you will always see ppl complaining about this or that but take away Arenas even just the 2v2 and there is a MAJOR backlash cause people love it soo much knowing it is -un-balanced. To be honest that is part of the appeal and satisfaction to people is knowing they just "Beat the odds" and won against the team that is supposed to be their "hard counter".

Edited June 21, 2013 by Macabrae

[Atramar]

Atramar you could very well be right.....most likely are given the scenario you gave. I wonder though if we are ALL wrong about this. We are assuming the arena will be character based when it could very well be small scale pvp space based. The datamined info they took down the other day mentioned pvp space specifically and mentioned light/med/heavy fighters and what sounded like a new area of space rather than a planet. Given the cartel market priority imagine the income possibilities for them to offer new skins for your fighter, ship component packs ect. Forgive me if i just didn't see it but did the devs ever specifically state that the Arena is going to be character based?

we could all be wrong.

it could also be like an arena in Lineage2 where you had a square 20x20 meters where you could enter with 2 gates and freely smack each other and spawn in safe spot.

or Coloseum.

I can't imagine space pvp atm with on rails instances, but nothing is impossible.

Until it's in tests and then live, we can just talk about theories and datamined stuff.

We can have our hopes that they will make it right, but Cycao already nailed it.

Please stay tuned to have your hopes and dreams crushed.

 

I'm still giggling on that sentence

Edited June 21, 2013 by Atramar

[Ajuntalee]

Balancing b/c of OP and Underpowered classes happens b/c ppl stack unbeatable combos (eg ppl aniticpate the 3 sins 1 op combo).

If they eliminated the doubling up of classes it would make for a more diverse competition and then there would not be AS MANY balancing issues.

 

That would work if there was only one fotm class, but in 2.0 there are way more than that, you don't need to stack all the same, you just need to stack 3 AA dps ( assassin, shocknaut, dps merc, lighning sorc ) with 1 AA healer

 

Well, this isn't a debate to say what takes more skill but the only empirical example we can look to is WoW. Talking with the top arena guys and playing with/against them, the overwhelming majority walk into RBG's and beat the RBG-only crew pretty handily. There was that anomaly where Bailamos beat Kollektiv in a series of like 5 but for the most part, that doesn't happen too often. So yes, I believe the arena skill set is more difficult and translates over quite nicely to a WZ/BG scenario and the only game that has both would suggest that is in fact true but that is not the conversation that is taking place here.

 

First of Wow is maybee the only empirical exemple YOU have at your disposal, but it is not the only one.

 

Second I am sure these alleged and "discrete" overwhelming vitcories, providing you don't exagerate to push your point forward which obviously is false. had nothing to do with said arena player playing exclusively Fotm classes, and being geared a good tier or 2 over whatever the top WZners could put their hands on.

 

Third if so called victories happened as often and irremediably as you say, and also assuming this wasn't due to "gear and classbalance" kind of skill, maybee the team was better, period, there is no proof the Wzers didn't also lost their arenas against the top arena's team, so odds are the arena players you refered to were simply better regardless of the competition disciplin, in no way does it shows that the arena skillset is braoder than the WZ skillset.

 

It cannot, in fact because you can't prove true something that is false , since it is false, and the statement of arena skillset being broader than the Wz skillset is obviously false.

 

to be good in a WZ you need to be good, 1 vs 1, 1 vs 2 , 2 vs 4 , 3 vs 4, 4 vs 4 just like in an arena,

 

but you also need to keep track of what happens in the rest of the WZ, and

what is going to happen if you succeed,

what is going to happen to the people you kill, if it is better to kill everyone later but altogether or to clip them one by one asap.

etc...

 

In an arena you can stick to the be good at 1 vs 1, 1 vs 2 , 2 vs 4 , 3 vs 4, 4 vs 4 and forget all the rest.

 

You merge the concept of permadeath to WZs, nothing says you can't have the metagaming of a WZ and no permadeath, you have it in Counter Strike, and the skillset to play CS well is broader than the skillset required to play halflife teamdeathmatch for the exact same reason above.

 

I 'd be perfectly fine with 8 vs 8 permadeath best of 3 TDM maps included into the WZ rotations ( with the same queues) in both URBG and RBG, I am fine with permadeath TeamDeathMatch.

 

and in a second time if it works, to have 4v4 included to the URBD rotation and a specific 4 vs 4 Ranked arena bracket for the niche people who like it more that the 8 men WZ and want to do that and taht only.

 

1 - I just don't want to be forced to do only TDM,

2 - I am convinced the game is not ready yet for 4 vs 4 class balance

3 - I don't wan't the pvp community to be split further than it already is, we are split accross servers, we are split between guilds, we are split with 3 URBG and 1 RBG brackets... we don't need 2 more.

[Ramtar]

In 2v2 NOTHING is a fair fight. Get over what you think is "Fair" because what you think is fair or not others will see it differently. On any given day you can go to WOW's forums and you will always see ppl complaining about this or that but take away Arenas even just the 2v2 and there is a MAJOR backlash cause people love it soo much knowing it is -un-balanced. To be honest that is part of the appeal and satisfaction to people is knowing they just "Beat the odds" and won against the team that is supposed to be their "hrad counter".

 

Frankly, I don't care anything about WoW: never played it nor will I play it. The appeal and satisfaction is giving the player the 'chance' to succeed. When the chances are 50/50 more will play and enjoy it. There shouldn't be any 'hard counter' in this game among the classes except for the mirror classes against each other.

[G-Seven]

I have a bad feeling about this.