No PvP Weapons available for Honor points
"...because we make the assumption that since WoW was engaging enough for 80 levels of play to get to the scenario you mention that most people aren't actually that horribly offended by doing pve content (which is arguably the core of the game).
We may need to reconsider that particular philosophy if doing heroics is indeed that unappealing to many players. Although, I'm not sure how "many" players that really is TBH... forums like these are a surprisingly poor way to actually figure out what percentage of players think what about a given issue."
Oh, Kalgan. Ghostcrawler spends months countering complaints about "you nerfed my pve for pvp!" by saying "both parts of the game are important", and you turn around and cut his legs out from under him with this gem.
Straight from a dev: PvE is the core of the game. So now you can stop nerfing us based on PvP balance, right?
...right?
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Aside from the controversy over whether a PvPer should have to do PvE to get competitively equipped, there are a few other major problems with Kalgan's statement.
To get this out of the way first: "WoW was engaging enough for 80 levels of play". Leveling play has nothing to do with level-capped play. Nothing. Most people don't even do instances while leveling.
Back to business. He says, and I quote, "doing heroics" is the way to get a weapon for PvP. First of all, weapons from heroics are not remotely competitive with raid weapons or the 1850 arena rating weapons. There aren't any emblem weapons available beyond the pathetic Heroism-level offhands. Sure, if you grind one heroic over and over that happens to drop an epic weapon that you can use, maybe you get something. Something ilevel 200 with no resilience, if it even drops. Running heroics is OK for a starter weapon, but you can't even get a halfway decent weapon until high rating, and high rating is hard to get if your team is using starter weapons and has no way to upgrade them to be competitive.
Someone who wants to compete in arena has to raid, no matter how much they don't want to. And since all of the gear they've earned from beloved PvP has resilience on it, it's ill-suited to get them into a raid, especially considering that everyone else competing for that raid spot will be geared out in conquest emblem gear, easily outstripping the ilevel of PvP gear available for those with average arena performance. They haven't been getting conquest emblems in Isle of Conquest, ironically.
He's really saying, "if you are average in arena, we expect you to use an ilevel 200 weapon, perhaps even a blue, most likely poorly itemized, and try to break into the higher rankings against people wielding cutting-edge (har!) 232-245 weapons. Have fun, suckers, thanks for the $15!" There is no in-between option for the PvPer. There is certainly no casual option. If you want to succeed in arena, you either must grind winning matches with an OP comp to get high raiting, or you can do limited matches a week, but spend the rest of your free time grinding PvE content enough to get a good guild to actually loot a good weapon to you.
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The root of the problem is the distance between the weapon options. Either you get an absolutely terrible weapon, or a top of the line weapon, and there is nothing in between. Wouldn't it make sense to add a selection of ilevel 213 weapons with resilience on them to the honor vendors for exhorbitant honor prices, just to add a bridge? Or, perhapse even more palatable: just offer 213 weapons at lower arena ratings! Instead of the arid wasteland between 200 and 232, why not let people pick up a middling weapon at, say, middling rating (1600ish)? Will it really hurt anything? The decision not to do this really doesn't make any sense to me, especially considering how much the dev team has pushed PvP as it's own separate progression path. Not being able to get even a slightly reasonable weapon is ridiculous.
Kalgan, please take your statement to it's logical conclusions. I don't know what it is that's blinding you to this stuff, but I certainly hope you clear it up before you make any decisions that affect the millions of people who depend on you to make a reasonably fair game. Your post here was a misstep, to say the least.
By the way, there wasn't any major WoW news announced while I was on vacation last week, right?
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8 comments:
I wouldn't mind if there were PvE weapons that you could buy via badges. But as it is, if you want a decent PvE weapon then you have to raid and hope to be lucky.
I think there is going to be a TON of QQ if they release a weapon at a lower rating "welfare epics nnobz!" sort of thing.
BTW, when people think PvP, why do they always go to Arenas? Yes, Arenas are a large portion of the game, but you actually grind out honor in BG's and WG, and that really is a completely different beast.
I guess what I am getting at is, yes, isn't there a PvP weapon in honor system that would get you on your way to arena?
what the hell are you complaining about? You can grind AV and get the unstoppable force for like... 4760 honor and 25 av tokens.
SHEESH.
There is currently no level 80 epic weapon available for honor points without an arena rating. I don't like arena, but I love BGs, and I have no way to improve my weapon in BGs. Very excited about ranked BGs in the future.
I don't even PvP very much. I think I was just trying to warm my whining muscles back up after a week of vacation with nothing to whine about, unless I wanted to be all "this beer is TOO GOOD" and "this hammock is TOO RELAXING, NERF HAMMOCKS" or something.
UNSTOPPABLE.
FORCE.
IT HAS A PIG HEAD THAT YOU HIT PEOPLE WITH.
You make a compelling point.
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