Arena Changes

[Arcdelad]

Yikes! I hope these strict rating requirments on ALL items don't make it into the game...

[blizzard]Quote from: Slorkuz (Source)While Season 3 is still going strong, we wanted to announce ahead of time the rating requirements that will be present for arena items once Season 4 begins. We also wanted to give everyone a heads up to some changes that will be in an upcoming patch, altering how points are gained and players are matched in the arena system. The patch with these changes is scheduled to release before the start of Season 4.

First though, the rating requirement changes:

When Season 4 begins, Season 3 items will be reduced in personal and team arena rating requirement to:
Shoulders: 1950
Weapon: 1800

The new Season 4 items will have the below personal and team arena rating requirements:
Shoulders: 2200
Weapon: 2050
Head: 1700
Chest: 1600
Legs: 1550
Gloves: none
Off-hand: none

In addition, some of the Season 4 quality items that will be purchasable with honor will also carry a personal and team arena rating requirement:
Boots: 1700
Ring: 1650
Bracers: 1575
Belt: none
Necklace: none
Trinket: none

The Season 2 items, which will move to the honor system when Season 4 begins, will continue to have no rating requirement.

The changes to the rating requirements for these items reflect the nature of the items, their power, and the relative difficulty that should be had when attempting to obtain them. These items are comparable to those found in the newest 25 person raid zone, Sunwell Plateau, and should therefore also feel very challenging to obtain.

To help ensure that the challenge in obtaining these items stays true to those achieving these ratings, we'll also be implementing new rules with an upcoming patch to curb practices that undermine the core concepts of the arena system. These rules are as follows:

If a character’s personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating.

This means that a player cannot join a highly rated team and begin earning points based purely on the pre-established rating of the team before they joined it. They'll need to compete, improve, and gain a personal rating worthy of the points they would receive.

If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team’s rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating.

This means that players cannot join a highly rated team and immediately face highly rated opponents, easily and quickly bringing their personal rating up. Instead they'll need to again compete, improve, and earn their rating.

We're excited to see these changes implemented, which will continue to emphasize the strong competitive nature of the arenas, and the challenge in obtaining the highest end rewards available for PvP.
[/blizzard]

[Vengeance]

Bad change is bad /sadpanda

[Nasanna]

This makes it so that you must be successful at PVP to get most of the gear...

Currently, anyone can play 10 arena games a week, have a 1300 rating, and get any T6 quality item after many weeks besides shoulders or weapon (this is what I do :p).

This might seem fine to you (and I do enjoy getting easy epics), but look at this from a gear perspective. How many people do you see wearing T6 gear? Getting T6 requires you to be in a guild that runs BT and Hyjal successfully... they don't get gear if they can kill all the trash but wipe on the bosses. You can get arena gear no matter what as long as you have the points- I could play my matches and /dance with the other team and still get gear after a few weeks of saving points.

So now, look at it this way:
Low brackets vs. Early Content
Player A plays 10 arena games per week on his 5v5 team and has a 1400 rating. He and his arena partners have a few pieces of S1 and the blue pvp set. He has not spent a lot of time in battlegrounds getting S1/S2/Veterans gear through honor. Since his arena rating isn't going up, his team probably isn't very successful due to player skill and class makeup. He can get the offhand and gloves, along with the belt, necklace and trinket. It will take him about 5-6 weeks to get one piece of gear.

Player B runs one heroic every day and earns 4 badges. That's 28 badges per week. His guild runs Karazhan to get T4 equivalent gear but wipes a lot and overall, is not very successful due to player skill and class makeup. He can get whatever badge items are available for his class along with items from heroics, which will take him 4-5 weeks.

High brackets vs. High End content
Player C plays 10 arena games each week on all three of his arena teams and has a 2200 rating. He has full S3 gear at the beginning of S4 as do all his arena partners. He spends the rest of his time in battlegrounds and world pvp earning new gear through honor and practicing his pvp skills. His guild is focused on PVP and forming optimal arena teams to get better ratings.

Player D raids 5 nights a week and is clearing Mt. Hyjal once per week. He spends his spare time running heroics/Kara for badge gear. All of his guildmates have T5 gear and the new badge gear. His guild is focused on PVE and makes sure to take the optimal group in order to succeed in whatever instance they are doing (i.e. the best geared, prepared and alert raid members- I don't know a lot about class balance in these raids).



So... the players who put in time and effort and are successful get better gear more quickly. Those who play less often or are not as successful get decent gear (badge gear or S3 gear). Sounds fair to me.

But wait, the new badge gear is T6 equivalent! And people running heroics can get them! Most of those items cost about 60-150 badges and there is not an item for every slot for every spec.

And look at the gear that does not require ratings... you can earn all of it through battleground PVP and arenas. At low ratings, it will take players longer to earn arena items, and the gear that requires honor also takes time to get. Also, you will not get an item for every slot for every spec...


-my 2 cents

[Trismus]

Honestly, I don't really mind this.


I hate seeing idiots stomping the 1400 bracket in full s3 because they have been saving up points since the Bi-centennial. This will have the effect of stratifying the arena system so that only the best of the best will have full s4 gear, and as a result will have a certain prestige. Not everyone is good enough to kill illidan, not everyone is good enough to get 2200+ rating. Both should have their own rewards, imo.


My only concern is that this will make it more difficult for new players to reach the higher ratings. However, I'm not convinced this will be the case. It will be interesting to find out.



-Tris

[Shadowwolf]

These are just the steps Blizzard is taking to put an end to point selling. They've been trying to end it for a while so slowly its been made harder and harder for the point sellers to gear people up, this is just more harsh steps in that direction.

[LastDyingBreath]

I could play my matches and /dance with the other team

wasn't that the plan??? I thought that was the plan! 

crap.

[un4]

Blizz is basically screwing the casual player (hi!) who spends most of his/her time doing pvp.  Just like when s3 started, the gear will cascade down and make it nearly impossible to break into the arena scene, filling the low-end brackets with people in full s3 and driving those in s1 into the sea.

[Luise]

I could play my matches and /dance with the other team

wasn't that the plan??? I thought that was the plan! 

crap.

ditto!

So should I keeping saving arena points- I have been eyeing the 2H gladiator mace or give up and go back to grinding mats and saving nethers for the 2H smith weapon with similar dps?

[Nasanna]

Start dates for the new seasons are generally announced 2-3 weeks in advance. Looking at the lengths of the other seasons, it will probably be within the next 2 months...

S1 lasted from BC launch??? to June 19 2007 (lasted around 6 months)(BC came out Jan. 16 2007, not exactly sure when S1 began)
S2 lasted from June 19 2007 to Nov. 19 2007 (lasted 4 months)
S3 lasted from Nov. 19 2007 to               (lasted 5 months as of April 19)

[Nixphire]

Skill > gear
If you win all 10 games you can still be a casual player and get rated up there.