Ghostcrawler Talks About PvP Issues

If you indulge in even the slightest bit of PvP in World of Warcraft, it's likely you've heard about the many player concerns brought up since Wrath of the Lich King's launch. In-depth responses from Blizzard reps are usually few and far between when it comes to this topic, especially since so much of it seems to be fueled by QQ and forum trolls. But last night on the official WoW forums, Ghostcrawler (a.k.a. Greg Street, lead game designer at Blizzard) posted some interesting news about what the developers are currently considering "PvP problems," and what they're not.

In a thread that originally began as an open-ended question ("What IS a problem in PvP right now?"), Ghostcrawler responded with a total of three posts, citing the main issues that Blizzard recognizes as "problems in PvP."

In his first post, Ghostcrawler listed four issues that he recognizes as problems. Check out his full posts here, here and here. To summarize, Ghostcrawler says that there's currently too much emphasis on Arenas rather than Battlegrounds (and within Arenas, too much emphasis on the 2v2 bracket as opposed to the 3v3 and 5v5 brackets). He also says there's not enough class representation in Arenas, with Warlock, Hunter and Shaman classes "too low." Lastly, he describes PvP as "too fast-paced," referring to Arenas.

In subsequent posts within the same thread, he elaborates a bit on the above-mentioned topics, talking about burst damage as it applies to GCDs, the plight healer classes face being crowd-controlled all the time and a few other little morsels of info. It's not an official announcement concerning upcoming patch changes, but it's an interesting read with some long sought-after information for anyone who's been itching for some clarification regarding what Blizzard recognizes as current PvP problems.

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pvplol
# Jun 17 2009 at 6:35 AM Rating: Decent
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Gear doesn't suddenly rocket people into high ratings. This cannot be said enough.


People are not rocking full S6 because they got past 2k. They got full S6 as a reward for getting there.


Think of it EXACTLY like Naxx. You have to start somewhere. You hit 80, in blues, and start doing Heroics(BGs). Now, you obviously can't beat Naxx until you get full T7 amirite? No. You get rewarded. You beat a boss then get an item that will help you further.

You get 1850, you get weapons that help get to 2350. Thing is... you still have to get to that point first, without those items.

If you are a 1500 player in blues. being in al epics isnt going to raise your rating much more than a 100 points if at all. You will still make retarded decisions, and stay at the same rating.
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pvplol
# Jun 17 2009 at 6:41 AM Rating: Decent
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MYteddy wrote:
Gear doesn't suddenly rocket people into high ratings. This cannot be said enough.


People are not rocking full S6 because they got past 2k. They got full S6 as a reward for getting there.


Think of it EXACTLY like Naxx. You have to start somewhere. You hit 80, in blues, and start doing Heroics(BGs). Now, you obviously can't beat Naxx until you get full T7 amirite? No. You get rewarded. You beat a boss then get an item that will help you further.

You get 1850, you get weapons that help get to 2350. Thing is... you still have to get to that point first, without those items.

If you are a 1500 player in blues. being in al epics isnt going to raise your rating much more than a 100 points if at all. You will still make retarded decisions, and stay at the same rating.


The problem with that, though, is that all of the skill in the world isn't going to help you, if you're wearing Savage Saronite, or whatever is best for your class.

You can be the best PvPer in the world and you will still die in 3 seconds against anyone wearing purples.

At least in PvE, there ARE things you can WIN while wearing the "Blue Starter Set", namely Heroics.

In PvP, you will always die and die fast, until you get your purples.

Dying repeatedly without even making a dent in your opponent just isn't fun.
What's the problem with PvP right now?
# Jun 16 2009 at 3:27 PM Rating: Decent
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132 posts
I'll tell you - it's a minority aspect of the game and it wasn't implemented properly from the beginning. As a result, the vocal minority of PvP players have been crying about certain classes being OP in PvP and then those classes get nerfed to "acceptable" levels for PvP but suffer greatly in PvE.

I'm tired of hearing about a skill that is useful but not over-powered in PvE getting nerfed until it's worthless because it has to be brought to an acceptable PvP level.

Use the new dual spec system and expand on it. Make a new skill set for PvP and have player switch to a PvP spec when they PvP. Leave our PvE skills alone, dammit.
What's the problem with PvP right now?
# Jun 17 2009 at 3:48 AM Rating: Decent
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Yngvie wrote:
I'll tell you - it's a minority aspect of the game and it wasn't implemented properly from the beginning. As a result, the vocal minority of PvP players have been crying about certain classes being OP in PvP and then those classes get nerfed to "acceptable" levels for PvP but suffer greatly in PvE.

I'm tired of hearing about a skill that is useful but not over-powered in PvE getting nerfed until it's worthless because it has to be brought to an acceptable PvP level.

Use the new dual spec system and expand on it. Make a new skill set for PvP and have player switch to a PvP spec when they PvP. Leave our PvE skills alone, dammit.


^^^^
This.

Also, something I would like to point out, is in #2 of GC's posts in which he talks about Resilience.

He says something like (I closed the other window, gah)... but anyways, he says something like:

"We feel that Resilience should be an attractive stat for the survivability it offers, but the starter resilience gear is either too hard to get, sacrifices too many other stats, or doesn't offer enough resilience. It takes 500 just to start noticing the difference, and more like 800-1000 before you can actually respond to attacks." (Paraphrased)

I'm inclined to agree whole-heartedly. I just started PvP with my paladin, and my DK both. Paladin has like, 150 Resilience and I'm trying to build up a resilience set. If I put on Savage Saronite, I might have 500-ish, but I take my stats WAY down into the dirt, for a loss of nearly 3k HP, a huge amount of Hit Rating (to the point it would be non-existant), and I'd lose a large amount of Critical Strike rating too. On the flipside, my DK who is wearing almost full Savage Saronite (except the helm) dies just as fast, if not faster, than my Paladin. Both are Lv80.

And Savage Saronite was supposed to be the "Starter PvP Set", right? Its the PvP set you can get without touching a single PvP game, to "Gear Up" for PvP? It doesn't hardly make a difference in how fast you die, not when everyone else is running around with Arena junk.

What's the next set up? Honor-bought equipment? That takes 30k to 49k Honor. It helped that they recently changed the dailies to weeklies in Wintergrasp, but still... one round of dailies + 2 wins of WG will yield about 20k honor. If I recall correctly, all of the pieces are between 30-49k, let's round that off and say 40k per. There's Gloves, Helm, Body, Legs, and Belt I believe. That's 200k honor, and at 20k honor per week that equates to 10 weeks before you can even become effective in PvP. That's the "Welfare" set, btw. That won't suddenly make you good at PvP, it will make it so you might not die in 5 seconds. There's also a pair of boots one can buy from WG with WG Marks, for 15 marks (5 wins), but still, to get the full "Honor Set", you're talking 8-12 weeks of Wintergrasp. You could speed it up a little by Battlegrounds, but do you really want to go to Battlegrounds where you are offering next to no help to your team effort? Do you enjoy dying in 5 seconds or less anytime someone attacks you? I sure don't... that's one of the things that turned me against PvP from the get-go: It just isn't fun dying in 3 seconds just because you haven't been PvPing since Vanilla and don't have the best PvP gear.

As you're levelling up, you die in 3-5 seconds against Twinks in low-level BGs.
As you reach Max-Level Cap, you die in 3-5 seconds against people wearing Arena gear.

There just isn't any escape from "Die in 3-5 seconds against your opponent", aside from "keep doing it you'll eventually gear up!"

That's like saying "Keep wiping to the first boss of Naxx with your green equipment, you'll eventually get enough 'points' to buy purples and win!"
What's the problem with PvP right now?
# Jun 17 2009 at 3:11 PM Rating: Decent
I know that on my server premades are running all the time. Sit in trade channel and watch for spams. Some have res requirements, some don't. It's half and half on Sargeras.

A premade team with crap gear will win versus a pug with good gear because they have coordination. If your gear sucks and you don't want to die alot, get in a premade. Don't be an *** on comms, and admit your gear sucks if you're asked. Some people will boot you, some won't. Most people ***** around on comms and aren't super serious; it's the BGs for god's sake. It's not serious business. If you follow directions they'll keep you over a geared-out fail player who just goes off on his own. In fact if you listen and follow directions you're already in the top tier.

It will also depend on whether it's prime time or not. Bottom line is, if you're on at least a semi-populated server, you can get in pre-mades and get heals. Hence, less dying and more owning (also less QQing which is nonstop in pugged BG chats).

A few hours in a good premade = 15k~25k honor.
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