Arena won't be implemented with data supporting

[AngryBuddhist]

E-sports are not a sport. Spectators? Only meth addicts can watch someone play a video game. Poker is not a sport either.

 

If you want an arena play LoL.

[AngryCow]

I have to wonder what is stopping arena players from practicing their small team PvP.

 

If this is something you want to do, nothing is stopping you. You can take the initiative here. Rally with your other arena supporters on a server, form your teams, and prepare a ladder/ranking system out of game. Take groups to a predesignated section of Outlaw's Den (which is mostly empty from what I have seen), have a referee pop a flare to signal start, and have at it. If enough players start participating Bioware may step in with in game support features. If not, you still get your competitive small team PvP play.

[Lerdoc]

Why would u oppose the only fun competitive aspect of MMORPG's? your argument is flawed.

 

In case you missed first post-because its total failure that lost 90% of its population over its lifespan?

[Cyphen]

Your argument is even more flawed.

 

There a a lot more people find Arena not fun than those find it fun, which is the main reason why Arena is not getting any more popular.

 

That is subjective, alot more is rather guesstimate then a fact (not saying that you ment it as a fact). Iv taken a survey which showed that around 70% people played and enjoyed Arena out of 400 votes, I know not much but still.

 

Saying Arena is not fun, its like saying Vanilla is better then Chocolate

 

E-sports are not a sport. Spectators? Only meth addicts can watch someone play a video game. Poker is not a sport either.

 

If you want an arena play LoL.

 

People define things differently, our language is subjected to interpretation.

 

e-sport

Edited December 29, 2011 by Cyphen

[Ruan]

Blizzard royally screwed up their arena system in several ways:

 

• Allowing blatant smurfing and rating selling on the ladders. At 1799 rating in S3 my team kept getting the beat down from the top ranked players on our server who were just disbanding their teams to either stack up a ridiculous (or perfect) win/loss ratio or just for the LOLs. I know personal rating was supposed to fix this but the damage was done.
   
  
• Rating requirements on gear. When arena was a simple currency = gear system everyone participated because everyone could get equal gear and thus an equal competitive footing out of it. Raiders could even get a weapon when loot RNG in raids did not favour them. Rating requirements killed all these incentives and additionally made players fight an uphill battle against better geared teams just to earn an even footing.
   
  
• Insane resilience stat. In its current form resilience provides >30% damage reduction from players, it's so significant that you either get it or go home which means the only viable gear for arena is from arena. In its earlier forms it was even worse with its lopsided crit reduction effecting crit heavy classes more, mana burn protection. The current implementation while the best so far in its simplicity is still too strong and again, the damage was done and participation was killed any seasons ago.
   
  
• Lack of response to exploiters. There are teams to this day tanking their rating in order to sell rating by farming lower ranked teams, or through verious exploits propel their rating to ludicrous heights at the start of a season, Blizzard takes no action against them.
  

 

I would not be against a ranked arena system in SWTOR if BioWare held to the following concepts:

 

1. A player's ranking is permanent and persists through seasons, just like real-life implementations of the ELO system. Magnus Carlson doesn't drop his rating and mop up high school chess tournaments every year. Team rating should be determined as an average of team members excluding teh lowest - this should eliminate smurfing and seriously inhibit selling.
    
   
2. Drop Expertise entirely. This is a huge point of contention but it is necessary to keep PvP participation healthy. Every player should be able to step into PvP combat on the most even footing possible. MMORPGs already have enough artificial advantages by player level, item level and perks that an additional stat is not necessary. Combat outcome can be slightly more dependant on player skill rather than a benchmark of a particular PvP stat.
    
   
3. No arbitrary barrier for gear acquisition. Stating 1800+ rating for a weapon is ridiculous, in a ranked system there will always be a certain percentage of players who literally cannot exceed a rating bar because everyone above it are by definition better players. Rewards should certainly require winning, but there is nothing more frustrating than a hard-earned win against a roughly equal team followed by an equally hard fought loss for a net setback in rating. I propose something along the lines of a token granted for arena victories, and gear costing a specific number of tokens. By the definition of a ladder system players should always fight teams who are close to themselves in relative performance, so no "lose 10 matches per week" problem.
    
   
4. Come down hard with the ban hammer on teams exploiting the system.
   

[Cyphen]

Blizzard royally screwed up their arena system in several ways:

 

• Allowing blatant smurfing and rating selling on the ladders. At 1799 rating in S3 my team kept getting the beat down from the top ranked players on our server who were just disbanding their teams to either stack up a ridiculous (or perfect) win/loss ratio or just for the LOLs. I know personal rating was supposed to fix this but the damage was done.
   
  
• Rating requirements on gear. When arena was a simple currency = gear system everyone participated because everyone could get equal gear and thus an equal competitive footing out of it. Raiders could even get a weapon when loot RNG in raids did not favour them. Rating requirements killed all these incentives and additionally made players fight an uphill battle against better geared teams just to earn an even footing.
   
  
• Insane resilience stat. In its current form resilience provides >30% damage reduction from players, it's so significant that you either get it or go home which means the only viable gear for arena is from arena. In its earlier forms it was even worse with its lopsided crit reduction effecting crit heavy classes more, mana burn protection. The current implementation while the best so far in its simplicity is still too strong and again, the damage was done and participation was killed any seasons ago.
   
  
• Lack of response to exploiters. There are teams to this day tanking their rating in order to sell rating by farming lower ranked teams, or through verious exploits propel their rating to ludicrous heights at the start of a season, Blizzard takes no action against them.
  

 

I would not be against a ranked arena system in SWTOR if BioWare held to the following concepts:

 

1. A player's ranking is permanent and persists through seasons, just like real-life implementations of the ELO system. Magnus Carlson doesn't drop his rating and mop up high school chess tournaments every year. Team rating should be determined as an average of team members excluding teh lowest - this should eliminate smurfing and seriously inhibit selling.
    
   
2. Drop Expertise entirely. This is a huge point of contention but it is necessary to keep PvP participation healthy. Every player should be able to step into PvP combat on the most even footing possible. MMORPGs already have enough artificial advantages by player level, item level and perks that an additional stat is not necessary. Combat outcome can be slightly more dependant on player skill rather than a benchmark of a particular PvP stat.
    
   
3. No arbitrary barrier for gear acquisition. Stating 1800+ rating for a weapon is ridiculous, in a ranked system there will always be a certain percentage of players who literally cannot exceed a rating bar because everyone above it are by definition better players. Rewards should certainly require winning, but there is nothing more frustrating than a hard-earned win against a roughly equal team followed by an equally hard fought loss for a net setback in rating. I propose something along the lines of a token granted for arena victories, and gear costing a specific number of tokens. By the definition of a ladder system players should always fight teams who are close to themselves in relative performance, so no "lose 10 matches per week" problem.
    
   
4. Come down hard with the ban hammer on teams exploiting the system.
   

 

There will be always exploiters doing anything to get an advantages, that is not just Arena concern but Warzones and PvE etc.. etc.. When reported they get rolled back, banned etc...

 

Dropping Expertise would be silly unless PvP gear would be just as good as top end PvE gear, but then you get PvErs crying because PvPers get their gear with ease. Other problem would be, PvErs getting top end gear, coming to Warzones and tearing everything because they would have the gear advantage. Look back at Vanilla WoW for an amazing example that im giving you (T3 warriors and Mages hah).

[Zerbak]

Rated Warzones - Great Idea

 

Arena - Terrible Idea

 

Go with that and be happy. If you want to peen stroke, duel people.

[AngryBuddhist]

That is subjective, alot more is rather guesstimate then a fact (not saying that you ment it as a fact). Iv taken a survey which showed that around 70% people played and enjoyed Arena out of 400 votes, I know not much but still.

 

Saying Arena is not fun, its like saying Vanilla is better then Chocolate

 

 

 

People define things differently, our language is subjected to interpretation.

 

e-sport

 

You can put lipstick on a pig and call it a show girl, but it is still a pig. You can call these e-sports all you want. They aren't sports.

 

I mean if 90%+ think arenas ruin a game and <10% vocal minority demand them, who do you think will lose that argument? Trying to make WoW an 'e-sport' seriously damaged blizzes money making model. Why would another company want to to risk that for a small minority?

[PurveyorOfTruth]

You can put lipstick on a pig and call it a show girl, but it is still a pig. You can call these e-sports all you want. They aren't sports.

 

I mean if 90%+ think arenas ruin a game and <10% vocal minority demand them, who do you think will lose that argument? Trying to make WoW an 'e-sport' seriously damaged blizzes money making model. Why would another company want to to risk that for a small minority?

 

Go to S. Korea and say that about E-Sports. Did you know they built entire stadiums down there for Starcraft?

 

There is a market for E-sports, just not an American one. Don't know about those Euros tho.

[Zhakul]

Due to the lack of high end competitive pvp, many high end competitive pvpers do not already play this game. They exist and since there is no real competition in the mmo market for good pvp it would definitely be an economic gain for them...

 

The reason participation went down in wow is because there were a couple new things they added to the ladders that have devastated the ladders and blizzard didn't fix it for almost half a year.

 

If you think the reason participation went down is because people just don't like arena you are sadly mistaken.

 

The fact of the matter is that this game is new and is a long way off from being balanced enough/set up to properly do arena (Classic wow couldn't either) if they wanted to anyway but if bioware actually cared at all about pvp what else would they balance around?

 

I've heard things like "balance around battlegrounds and have rated battlegrounds the pinnacle of pvp". There is so much to say about that. Suppose they balanced around battlegrounds. First of all, all knockbacks would have to be removed from the game simply because of huttball. The other rbgs are flawed beyond belief for rated play as well. If rated battlegrounds were released today they would not happen the way bioware thinks they will. It would be impossible to get an explosive on the gate in voidstar without completely massacring the enemy team which simply doesn't happen unless the two teams are terribly one-sided and don't start on alderaan just look at battle for gilneas if you played wow. It is not the same as arathi basin, the problem is it is next to impossible to capture a base once it is claimed.

 

Don't believe me? Imagine a fully coordinated group of 3 healers and 5 dps. A tank and a healer would be on the left/right base, everyone else would duke it out at the middle. 2 healers and 4 dps vs 2 healers and 4 dps. The only way to cap mid against competent players is to wipe out the enemy team in a very short period of time which isn't going to happen when everyone is max level/geared up/more experienced at this game. You kill one person, they will be back before you can finish off the rest of the group. Contrary to what I have seen a lot of people claim, a base is not lost until it is captured. It doesn't matter if there is 1 defender and 6 attackers. That 1 person could keep people from capping long enough for his whole team to be there.

 

It might be fun don't get me wrong, but it isn't as fulfilling as arena.

 

 

It just confuses me how there is any anti-arena sentiment at all. If you are anti-arena, you are anti-pvp because that is all arena is: pvp, nothing else. If you only play bgs you like the objectives. Fine, but stop being selfish and let us have what we want too.

 

Ok and what would happen is the "hardcore PvPers" as you people call it, would ***** about class balance in arenas. And Devs would be compelled to make bad decisions to balance it out .. and via that string of events it does affect other people not interested in Arena. that is the problem. That is the argument.

 

I just don't get this. What changes made to pvp hurt people who just do bgs? What is the argument? There is more incentive to better balance with arena then there is without..

Edited December 29, 2011 by Zhakul

[AngryBuddhist]

Go to S. Korea and say that about E-Sports. Did you know they built entire stadiums down there for Starcraft?

 

There is a market for E-sports, just not an American one. Don't know about those Euros tho.

 

South Koreans. That's it. Nothing else to do there. They also watch paint dry and grass grow as competitive sports in Seoul. They have a stadium where people simply watch grass grow.

 

Doesn't mean it is a good idea for this game.

[AngryBuddhist]

I just don't get this. What changes made to pvp hurt people who just do bgs? What is the argument? There is more incentive to better balance with arena then there is without..

 

Arena balance ruined WoW for many, many players. The constant tweaking and whiplash from day to day was just too much for the player base that isn't the <10% hard cores PvP group.

 

Don't want to see that here and we won't.

 

If you need small group PvP go play LoL. Don't try to get them to ruin the game for the other 90%.

[PurveyorOfTruth]

South Koreans. That's it. Nothing else to do there. They also watch paint dry and grass grow as competitive sports in Seoul. They have a stadium where people simply watch grass grow.

 

Doesn't mean it is a good idea for this game.

 

Wow this has to be the most prejudiced and self serving comment on these forums. Unless you have been to S. Korea , you have no idea what goes on there. Also I could say the same things for half of America (I'm an American). Lol just because you're opinion is one thing, doesn't nullify the opinion of an entire nation.

 

And yes it is a good idea for a game, e-sports is what kept Starcraft 1 alive and well for over 12 years! Nothing else gave Starcraft that longevity other than a bunch of people COMPETING against each other for titles and recognition, not to mention money.

 

Hmmm that sounds a lot like sports to me.

 

You need to get out of your ignorant little bubble of all sports needing physical contact. Not to mention that chess is considered a sport in Russia.

Edited December 29, 2011 by PurveyorOfTruth

[Deferionus]

What most people do not realize is that, to the very dedicated arena players, we can care less about getting best in slot gear from it. Sure, it's nice, but we would rather everyone be in the same armor. We like it when everyone is even, and the only thing that affects the outcome is the decisions made by the people inside the match.

 

In an ideal game, you would obtain gear from both warzones and arenas at the same pace, and no one would have to do the other for gear if they chose not to.

 

I do want arenas to be implemented in this game, and to be honest, I don't know if I will play long term if they do not add in a competitive PvP option similar to it. I'm enjoying it now, but who knows if the new factor will wear off like it did with Warhammer and I will find myself craving some competitive PvP.

 

Things don't have to be extremely balanced, something similar to WoWs balance where it's close enough to not be over the edge is fine.

[Celebrus]

We like it when everyone is even

 

 

Things don't have to be extremely balanced, something similar to WoWs balance where it's close enough to not be over the edge is fine.

 

 

So, somehow you like everyone to be even, yet it's ok with you to have a system where balance is achieved by making a different class the FOTM every single patch? My guess is you played a frost mage in arena, and found it to be VERY balanced, right?

 

You sir are a tool.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Celebrus

[TItanten]

.

 

I'm not even talking about only arenas (although that is certainly an avenue I'd explore if I was a developer) as a spectator sport. Huttball could EASILY have ladders, and teams, and spectator UIs and tournaments with real yields.

 

Oh god, a Huttball league would be.... AMAZING!

 

Multiple ways to win, multiple strats, multiple ways to build a team.

 

Do you build a PvP focused team to score once then play defense and just kill the other team and hope you don't get outgunned?

 

Do you build a team focused around teamwork and passing with set positions for players for quick scoring strikes, but hope that you don't have a battle-heavy team focus on disrupting one area?

[TItanten]

I think it's time us competitive PvPers receive ours

 

Then go play a game where skill matters more than what clothes your wearing.

 

Starcraft 2, Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom, hell even Battlefield and Call of Duty.

 

People whine all day long about "competitive pvp" in MMOs, but the second you tell them that to make it competitive you have to take away all their gear advantage they cry.

[mastersloup]

Arena is very unpopular in wow because the PvP is retarded. This game has even worse PvP so there will most likely not have arena ever. the pvp community will be stuck with 3 shot/knockback spamfest, 3 basic warfront and a pointless planet. this is exactly what i feared, Another pure PvE game.

[jayette]

I like the wz's in this game, but i really don't wanna competitively be playing huttball for the next few years.

 

But about wow's arena system, I think blizzards mistake was reading the forums. When blizzard didn't give a crap about what players cried about on the forums (S1-S4), was when arena's were the most fun. Attempting to balance the entire game around arena's was a huge mistake on their part.

[Ruan]

There will be always exploiters doing anything to get an advantages, that is not just Arena concern but Warzones and PvE etc.. etc.. When reported they get rolled back, banned etc...

 

Dropping Expertise would be silly unless PvP gear would be just as good as top end PvE gear, but then you get PvErs crying because PvPers get their gear with ease. Other problem would be, PvErs getting top end gear, coming to Warzones and tearing everything because they would have the gear advantage. Look back at Vanilla WoW for an amazing example that im giving you (T3 warriors and Mages hah).

 

So make PvE and PvP gear equally good and equally hard to obtain. What's so complicated about that?

 

Win at killing dragons = Win at PvP matches

Win at killing dragons = Gear

Win at PvP matches = Gear

Gear = Gear

[TItanten]

Arena is very unpopular in wow because the PvP is retarded. This game has even worse PvP so there will most likely not have arena ever. the pvp community will be stuck with 3 shot/knockback spamfest, 3 basic warfront and a pointless planet. this is exactly what i feared, Another pure PvE game.

 

There are many, many games where you can play against other players to your heart's content.

 

Why people think MMOs should, could, or are great for PvP competition is beyond me.

 

You can't have competition without danger and with gear (and levels) playing a huge part of MMO's pvp that danger is not present in a vast amount of PvP encounters (in the majority of modern MMOs).

 

In EvE: A kestrel isn't going to kill a Titan even if the Titan's pilot is on vacation for the next week.

 

In WoW: A fresh max level player wouldn't kill a quadraplegic player with the best gear.

 

In StarCraft: A brand new player could, concievably, beat a Top 10 player if he cheesed hard enough.

 

Street Fighter: I could get lucky and button mash my way to victory against a great player.

 

Any FPS: A 4 year old could snipe the best player in the world.

 

 

 

Moral of the story is: If you want good PvP, you're playing the wrong genre of games.

 

It's basically like coming here and complaning the platforming sections aren't as good as Mario Bros. No ****.

[Rhinoplat]

Why would u oppose the only fun competitive aspect of MMORPG's? your argument is flawed.

 

Lol Arenas fun - that is a troll post right? Arenas are a sport, and they aren't PvP. So if you like arenas go request them for PvE servers.

 

PvP servers need more Open World PvP, with Planetary fights and guild vs guild using Asset destruction tools.

[Zrathorn]

So basically all the bads don't want Arena because it makes them feel bad about themselves. Don't worry, PvE will always be there for you cupcakes. Some of us enjoy a highly competitive MMO experience.

[Deferionus]

Never played a frost mage actually. Played Warlock, Paladin, Rogue, Death Knight, and a Druid in arenas. Hell, I played my Warlock when they were the weakest class in season 5. I have never rolled FOTM classes.

 

To be honest, FOTM is something lower bracket people worry about. If you are good, you will still excel, unless you have something like season 5 paladin/DK (the imbalance that is retarded).

 

In WoW, you can overcome if you are good enough. Of course composition will determine some things when everyones evenly matched, but that cannot be helped.

 

Edit: Figured I would add: Frost mages are one of the harder classes to play at higher tiers besides MLS. You will be focused by most teams and you die quite easily to better players, you have to be very good with your control or you will die. The difference between a really good mage and a bad one is astonishing.

Edited December 29, 2011 by Deferionus

[Zerbak]

I think people need to stop saying its the "hardcore PvP'ers" that want Arena, its the Arena players that want Arena.

 

There are plenty of skilled/good/top-of-the-line PvP'ers whom could be considered or are hardcore that don't want Arena. It is a single aspect of another MMO which ruined many many other aspects of that MMO in an attempt to balance multiple classes across multiple brackets. The most recent seasons (or basically all of them) have been dependent on flavor of the month comps to reach the highest tier and even the best of the players utilized those comps to get those titles. Yes, bad players picked the comps and still did poorly, but good players played the same comps, used the same strategies, but executed them better.

 

Just as 1v1 was never what that game was balanced around, so it also should not have been balanced around 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5. It's more than likely mathematically impossible to balance across throse three brackets, bg's which contained 10, 15, or 40 members, and open World PvP. This also didn't factor in that the same mechanics utilized for PvP also existed in PvE, thus they had to scale it to balance output during a raid situation - 5 man content was never even considered for balance. Not to mention this is across how many different classes and available specs? Prove to me with math that this was possible - and then maybe Blizzard or other developers will hire you to crunch the numbers they've been unable to verify since they started trying.

 

By the way, the reason Frost Mages were so good in Classic was because many of the bosses were fire based and susceptible to frost and immune to fire. Similar to how some bosses in AQ were immune to Nature abilities.

 

Arena is a grand idea that doesn't belong in an MMO. If you want an E-Sport, play an FPD or RTS where everyone starts with the same items and the same options. The only difference is skill, reaction time, and ability to micro/macro manage. If you want Arena, go play Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, or some other 1v1, 2v2 game that is specifically built for just that purpose.

 

MMORPG - Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game - There is nothing MASSIVE about Arena. There is no battlefield-esque nature to that venue, only a gladiatorial ring, of which you can find similar satisfactions in other genres.

 

Good luck.