Oldschool VS Newschool PvP

[Fhenrir]

A page for discussion of the state of WoW PvP currently, and the state of WoW PvP back in the yonder olde days of 60.

See: Discussion of how BGs were then and how they are now, along with how the implementation of things like cross-server BGs and arenas have affected the PvP community.


I'll have a very lengthy post on the subject when I have a chance (tomorrow). For now, I beckon yonder other folks to discuss it and get things interestin'!

[Advurb]

AV was great before cross realm battlegrounds. I liked knowing the folks I was playing with and against. The rank system, while interesting, was based too much on the amount of play instead of skill.

Some people say Arena ruined PvP, but I'm definitely against that view. Arena brings a level of required skill that battlegrounds just can't muster. Sure, it's hard to run a good premade, but we all know that most battlegrounds aren't premades. I know this is a game and doesn't really matter, but if I'm going to be playing against folks I don't know, I want to feel like I've proved something. I want to feel like I'm gaining something. Thus, arena ranks and ratings are great for me. Battlegrounds are basically a means to get honor, aka a grind. No one cares if you win battlegrounds all the time. My point is, with World PvP (excepting planned events which kick ass) and battlegrounds, you just don't GET anything. It all seems pointless.

[Yatokth]

AV was great before cross realm battlegrounds. I liked knowing the folks I was playing with and against. The rank system, while interesting, was based too much on the amount of play instead of skill.

Some people say Arena ruined PvP, but I'm definitely against that view. Arena brings a level of required skill that battlegrounds just can't muster. Sure, it's hard to run a good premade, but we all know that most battlegrounds aren't premades. I know this is a game and doesn't really matter, but if I'm going to be playing against folks I don't know, I want to feel like I've proved something. I want to feel like I'm gaining something. Thus, arena ranks and ratings are great for me. Battlegrounds are basically a means to get honor, aka a grind. No one cares if you win battlegrounds all the time. My point is, with World PvP (excepting planned events which kick ass) and battlegrounds, you just don't GET anything. It all seems pointless.

Agree with all of this, though I didn't experience non-cross-realm AV much.

But everything else, I wholeheartedly agree with, Arena is so much more intensive and skill-rewarding, it requires good combos and play, and it's great fun to learn and do.

World PvP is awesome though, even if you don't "get" anything, it's just a ton of fun to do.

[Gorymoru]

World PvP tops all. Being able to see some lil nub questing, then come out of no where and pwnzors their face off with epic destro lock burst, or an ambush to the asshole...or just a DK spankin'...it's just...just great.

It sucks when they got an 80 friend or 20 on flying mounts too high for your low settings to see though......-cries-

[Taknar]

It sucks when they got an 80 friend or 20 on flying mounts too high for your low settings to see though......-cries-

An ambush is an ambush, so long as you don't see it coming. xD


I don't think that arena has ruined PvP, and I also don't think that the merged-server BGs ruined anything. In fact, I remember getting frustrated by the queues and how everyone would head to Tarren Mill and trouble the levelers there.

I have no issues with World PvP, especially if you head out with that as your goal. Repeat ganking is an issue though. I prefer to PvP with the mindset of I will kill you once and move on although I admit I'm in the minority in that situation.

Old system ranking was bad, plain and simple. Ask anyone who got rank 13 or higher, how much time they needed to put in. I know people who failed classes specifically because of that system. They are normally very controlled with their play time, but the thought that if they didn't play for another 2 hours they would actually lose rank was enough to keep them from class. The idea that by not playing you get behind, not relatively but personally, is ludicris and flawed. I'm glad it's gone.

[Fhenrir]

All right, so here's my giant wall of text on the matter. While I'm not one of the oldschool players to think "ahmg arenas RUINED PvP!", I am distinctly disappointed with how things have changed.

Simply put, in my opinion, PvP is faceless and far less rewarding now.


PvP at level 60 was flawed. Immensely. You had people in BWL gear coming into BGs with preforms of guildies that would easily hand everyone their asses. If I recall, there would be several holes in your equipment even if you did hit High Warlord, and some jackass who killed Nefarion could come hit you with something better (that looked way cooler to boot).

You would gain rank most effectively by putting together 10-man groups of people to spam run Warsong all day, and have the wrecking ball teams of geared warrior + 2 healers killing everyone while druid + healer spam ran the flag out from PuGs. You had people spying on the queues intentionally to avoid other preforms so that they didn't have to play a long, difficult match. Faster honor to roll the PuGs, kiddies!

Despite all this, there was a community in PvP. Everyone who PvP'd knew who everyone else was. If someone was a talentless hack, everyone on the server knew it (old school PvPers of TN remember Liebe? Diablito?). If someone was good, everyone knew it. You knew what guilds to watch and be ready for, and which people would pound your face in.

I remember a Warsong Gulch match, Fight Club VS First Legion. I believe the match was almost an hour long, and ended 3 caps to 2. It was probably one of the most intense, exciting, and fun things I've done in my entire time PvPing to date.


Arenas and cross-server PvP, while not ruining or changing much of anything mechanically in the game, undoubtedly ruined the PvP community for me and many others. Anyone who PvP'd much at 60 remembers the almost rabid faction pride a PvPer had. People were proud of their team, and when people on your team sucked, you told them to fuck right off. They were embarrassing your team!

I twitch every time in a BG I see in BG chat "Just let them win so I can get my mark and leave." If someone had said this in a BG at 60, they would be labeled a moron by the entire PvP community. However, cross-server BGs have made it so that you have an anonymity to your battleground experience and rarely see the same person twice. If you act like a gibbering idiot-box, who cares? You'll never have to work with these people again.

Combine this with arenas. Decided by Blizzard as the "top teir" of PvP, battlegrounds have been pushed aside as a superfluous addition to PvPing in general. Nothing more than a grind to get your fucking boots/belt/bracers for arenaing. Which, I may remind, does not pit you against the opposite faction at all times. You get pit against the same fucking race; what difference does your faction make now? You can't talk to each other in game, and you can't raid together. Occasionally you slap someone in the back of the head out in the world while being followed by 8 healers. That's it.


PvP is very refined now; a series of organized duels, where a single death can cost you an hour of work and endless headaches. A single counter-comp can cost you an hour of work. Even moreso now that people are going to be trying for "Hot Hot Hot Streak", which requires 10 wins in a row above a 2k rating. Is this more fun that going and dicking around in a game of capture the flag, fighting against the opposite faction in a struggle to see who has more druids and blessing of freedom to run the big shiny stick around? Who can say.


I will say that when many oldschool PvPers refer to PvP being "ruined" now, they don't usually refer to actually PvPing itself. They refer to the community PvP had at 60, when everyone on both factions had a reputation (for better or worse). A reputation that involved their skill, rather than who had the most brain-dead healers following their overgeared ass around while they roll through Darnassus, or Silvermoon, or whatever they feel like hitting that day (I have been guilty of this myself on multiple occasions). What you're left with now is a ladder system and whoever has the biggest gums to flap determining skill, rather than people encountering one another in PvP to actually see who has talent. Rather than knowing someone personally, you see some big tauren with spikey blue shoulders and think "man, he's good!"

He's probably not.


Phew. All that being said, I do still enjoy PvP. But there's a certain sense of community that won't be coming back.

(disclaimer: Nothing that could be construed as offensive is referrencing anyone in specific (except Diablito and Liebe). If you think I'm referrencing you and are offended... don't be. I wasn't talking about you.)

[Yatokth]

IM SO OFFENDED FHEN.

I definitely have to say, though I have given in once or twice, I also despise the "let's just let them win" mentality as I DO have some faction pride.

EDIT: Wintergrasp.

It kicks ASS. Yes, it's basically an uninstanced BG, but it's a REALLY fun one, and there's so many different strategies used that when both sides have fairly large, even numbers (say, 60 on 60 or so, it happens more than you think, because people DO IT cause it has asstons of honor, good rewards, and a kick-ass raid instance) you start having some seriously epic battles that test the coordination and ingenuity of both sides.

AND it's server specific. Sure, it's massive so you don't know EVERYONE (I doubt you knew EVERYONE back in the day) but I see alot of the same names and familiar ones when I do it.

Miss cross-realm BGs? Go Wintergrasp.

[Tsu]

Tenacity is retarded, and I don't really like the siege warfare of Wintergrasp or SotA.

Would much rather have old BGs back, although removing cross server play effectively destroys any imbalanced or low pop servers.

Plus, nothing is more fun than pissing off people you know in warsong.

[Catilyn]

I'd like to see a return of the Honor-based Titles to be honest, with some kind of tweak to balance it obviously. I don't particularly like how the player is forced to do Arenas if they want a PvP title now days.

I also wish they had a separate BG's, for example, one 'queue line' that only allowed players of the your server to participate, and one that is as it is now. The idea of bringing back PvP titles could be intertwined with Server-only BG's and World-PvP.

Or better yet introduce a new PvP currency that award special bonuses, separate from Arena Points and Honor; call it Prestige.

[Taknar]

Tenacity is retarded.

How so?

[Tsu]

How so?


I had a 5 stack of tenacity the other day.

I had 40k hp, and could truck through literally about 6-8 people at the same time before dying to waves of respawns. And then I turned into a ghoul, killed 3-4 more people and right before dying I'd explode, which *hit* for 15k and killed pretty much any else left around me.

Rez, rinse, and repeat.

And we were only outnumbered by maybe 10-15 people.

[Taknar]

So it's overtuned then, but you certainly don't disagree that a measure to help balance out imbalances is a good thing? Just trying to clarify.

[Lailinarel]

I'm on both sides of the issue. Fhen, I'm sure you remember the everlasting AV matches. Anyone who's been on this server long enough knows that for a hell of a long time the Alliance had no clue how to AV and a single match would likely take 4+ hours. The idea of throwing it to get our one mark was ludicrous because people had that same sense of pride you spoke about. Hell I remember the days when seeing an echeleon premade against myself and some buds told us we were done. But we still gave em hell.

I liked being able to remember peoples names. Names like Vanney and Vonney. I never knew them out of game, but it was kind of fun butting heads with them in towers and whatnot.

It was nice in a way cause you learned which players would fall back and hold towers when you stealthed by the main turtle and you learned with guys with good gear you could take and couldn't take.

Unfortunately the alliance also almost never had enough people queued for AV to get even 2 av instances going, so if people weren't in a rush to get out of that turtle, you could wait forever.

And getting rolled by a premade from a raiding guild who scouted out that BG didn't get you much more honor than if you started a fight in southshore, cause at least then you might kill someone.

This isn't to say I didn't like the old honor / bg system. It was cool in ways, but I think that a lot of the people who ask for the old system back fail to realize how retardedly long it took to actually make a decent rank. As it stands now, you can farm tens of thousands of honor a day even losing bg's and get your gear extremely quickly. It took months of grinding in the old system to gain rank, and if you took a break it not only stopped you from progressing in rank, it actually took away from your rank, and while I silently laugh to myself every time I kill someone and see 'High Warlord.' Come up, I know that in reality it means nothing other than a retarded amount of time spent in bgs.

I'll agree though. I miss that faction pride. I miss the call outs and the congrats after a good fight. I miss rolling into the Arathi Highlands getting into a huge fight with the horde there cause we're all sick of capture the flag and just wanna butcher each other back and forth from Refuge Pointe to Hammerfall.

Honestly the arena system can take it's 'pvp' and stick it. I'm far too casual at any one aspect of the game to ever excel in arena's or raiding or whatever. It kills me that it's more about team make up than anything else, and anyone who disagrees, well statistics speak for themselves. Certain teams are just gonna work well. I'm not sayin this to take away from anyone who works for their ratings, shit you're probably better than I am. Or you just care more. Either way it's one of those things like bein the first to clear Naxx. Good for you, grats. I'm gonna be over here doin my own thing, cause blizz took away the aspect of pvp that I loved.

Edit: Added

I also really miss the days where someone who isn't max level with pvp gear could actually pose a threat to someone who was. Ie, If you're gonna tell me that a 70 in s3 couldn't wreck the living shit out of a group of 69s, I'm gonna laugh and tell you to be real. Of course there will always be differences in skill level, but better still, I remember myself 43 rogue, and jasonis, 45 paladin at the time killing a 60 druid. Would two 60s stand a chance against a 70? Doubtful, even in mediocre gear. And of course the same is gonna go for the jump from 70 - 80. Unfortunately that issue right there butchered world pvp for me. The fact that you need everyone to be max level and in pvp gear to compete with anyone else who is max level in pvp gear kinda sucks. I suppose that's the issue of gear being to large a portion of our stats though and that's not suddenly gonna change now so this is a pointless complaint. I just miss the old world pvp.

*Sends his wall of text to do battle with Fhenrir's*

[Advurb]

I'm far too casual at any one aspect of the game to ever excel in arena's or raiding or whatever.

Then you don't deserve to.

[Errigal]

I wish warlocks didn't blow chunks. I leveled my human to 72 then decided I'd rather make Bir my main and Errigal my main alt. (I have so many alts one of them has to be my main alt :T)

[Malebrignon]

Yeah, what Fhen said about community. I had so much fun bashing my <Decimate> twink team against <Shatter> back before cross-realms. We all knew each other and loved to fight each other. Hell, the leader of <Shatter> who wasn't an RPer found out through our forum banter that I was and arranged an IC marriage proposal from his gnome, C-Dub,to my orc, Grooda, in Warsong one night. It was a riot!

Once my twinkers got bored and decided to reroll or level up, I started rolling with more twinks and met a whole new group of players that I got to bring the RP gospel to as all of them were die-hard PvP and knew nothing of RP. Eventually several of them bought into it enough to be part-time RPers who did their best to respect the RP ruleset. We all leveled up together until they hit 60 and formed <Fight Club>. A good chunk of the <Shatter> boys followed us the whole time. We were always fighting each other in whatever bracket we were in. We knew everybody. We'd predict each other's actions and call them out over Vent. Both teams were constantly challenged to try to think of something that the other team wouldn't think that we would think of. (Hope that sentence makes sense!)

When I rolled with them, I was an awesome PvP hunter. Out on my own one-on-one in world PvP, I still felt pretty awesome most of the time. Once cross-realms hit, all my awesome was gone. There's no chance to learn your opponents. There's only a handful of viable strategies to try and use unless you have control of a premade. It's just chaotic nonsense. I had leveled my hunter as a full PvP spec from day one and geared solely for PvP. I even did most of her leveling through tokens. After a few months of being 70, I respecced her for PvE and only used her to farm mats for the priest because the PvP that I knew and love had disappeared completely. Oh, and I'd started leveling her just as soon as the priest hit 70, which was about 8 days after TBC came out. Hunters were seriously gimped in Arenas at that time to the point where they were a liability for most teams, so Arena wasn't really an option for her.

I'm definitely part of the "cross-realms ruined PvP" camp.

[Lailinarel]

Then you don't deserve to.

I wasn't crying about it. Shit I'm a good player. I'm just not hardcore about any aspect. If you don't take the time to raid, you won't progress. You're right, I don't deserve to, I wasn't saying, I'm casual give me loot, I was saying, I'm casual, fuck you and your min maxing shitty system blizz. I don't enjoy the arena system.

[Sanrin]

I only wish there were more BGs, and that Honor actually meant something. I think Blizz should encourage the E-sport of the battleground just as much as they push Arenas. I also feel that AV was better when it was filled with NPCs and had landmines and shredders that did equipment damage.

New school wow pvp might be more balanced, but something about it feels a little more homogenized.

[Ansha]

I was saying, I'm casual, fuck you and your min maxing shitty system blizz. I don't enjoy the arena system.

QFGT!

[Fhenrir]

Mind that neither side gets any more hostile about this, lest I bust out my mod stick. Advurb didn't create the arena system, and Lailinarel isn't any less of a human being for shunning said arena system.


That being said, my experience in S1 so far essentially shows a repeat of how TBC PvP played out. PvP gear is awful through most of season 1, which ends up leaving, for the most part, people in PvE gear stomping the competition for easy ratings.

Still decidedly longing for something more with my PvP, but not ultimately unhappy with the system in general. I still miss the fact that you would know people well enough on the server to know which High Warlords deserved it, and which ones were just assholes that had someone play their account 24/7 when they couldn't be online to AFK themselves.

[Yatokth]

Mind that neither side gets any more hostile about this, lest I bust out my mod stick. Advurb didn't create the arena system, and Lailinarel isn't any less of a human being for shunning said arena system.


That being said, my experience in S1 so far essentially shows a repeat of how TBC PvP played out. PvP gear is awful through most of season 1, which ends up leaving, for the most part, people in PvE gear stomping the competition for easy ratings.

Still decidedly longing for something more with my PvP, but not ultimately unhappy with the system in general. I still miss the fact that you would know people well enough on the server to know which High Warlords deserved it, and which ones were just assholes that had someone play their account 24/7 when they couldn't be online to AFK themselves.

It really doesn't help that you HAVE to raid to get a decent weapon this time around, instead of there being good PvP weapons to be had without rating, and of course the rated ones are actually not that great.

[Fhenrir]

Yeah, the fact that the deadly weapons are worse than the Kelthuzad 10-man axe is a little disheartening.

[Yehvon]

All right, so here's my giant wall of text on the matter. While I'm not one of the oldschool players to think "ahmg arenas RUINED PvP!", I am distinctly disappointed with how things have changed.

Simply put, in my opinion, PvP is faceless and far less rewarding now.


PvP at level 60 was flawed. Immensely. You had people in BWL gear coming into BGs with preforms of guildies that would easily hand everyone their asses. If I recall, there would be several holes in your equipment even if you did hit High Warlord, and some jackass who killed Nefarion could come hit you with something better (that looked way cooler to boot).

You would gain rank most effectively by putting together 10-man groups of people to spam run Warsong all day, and have the wrecking ball teams of geared warrior + 2 healers killing everyone while druid + healer spam ran the flag out from PuGs. You had people spying on the queues intentionally to avoid other preforms so that they didn't have to play a long, difficult match. Faster honor to roll the PuGs, kiddies!

Despite all this, there was a community in PvP. Everyone who PvP'd knew who everyone else was. If someone was a talentless hack, everyone on the server knew it (old school PvPers of TN remember Liebe? Diablito?). If someone was good, everyone knew it. You knew what guilds to watch and be ready for, and which people would pound your face in.

I remember a Warsong Gulch match, Fight Club VS First Legion. I believe the match was almost an hour long, and ended 3 caps to 2. It was probably one of the most intense, exciting, and fun things I've done in my entire time PvPing to date.


Arenas and cross-server PvP, while not ruining or changing much of anything mechanically in the game, undoubtedly ruined the PvP community for me and many others. Anyone who PvP'd much at 60 remembers the almost rabid faction pride a PvPer had. People were proud of their team, and when people on your team sucked, you told them to fuck right off. They were embarrassing your team!

I twitch every time in a BG I see in BG chat "Just let them win so I can get my mark and leave." If someone had said this in a BG at 60, they would be labeled a moron by the entire PvP community. However, cross-server BGs have made it so that you have an anonymity to your battleground experience and rarely see the same person twice. If you act like a gibbering idiot-box, who cares? You'll never have to work with these people again.

Combine this with arenas. Decided by Blizzard as the "top teir" of PvP, battlegrounds have been pushed aside as a superfluous addition to PvPing in general. Nothing more than a grind to get your fucking boots/belt/bracers for arenaing. Which, I may remind, does not pit you against the opposite faction at all times. You get pit against the same fucking race; what difference does your faction make now? You can't talk to each other in game, and you can't raid together. Occasionally you slap someone in the back of the head out in the world while being followed by 8 healers. That's it.


PvP is very refined now; a series of organized duels, where a single death can cost you an hour of work and endless headaches. A single counter-comp can cost you an hour of work. Even moreso now that people are going to be trying for "Hot Hot Hot Streak", which requires 10 wins in a row above a 2k rating. Is this more fun that going and dicking around in a game of capture the flag, fighting against the opposite faction in a struggle to see who has more druids and blessing of freedom to run the big shiny stick around? Who can say.


I will say that when many oldschool PvPers refer to PvP being "ruined" now, they don't usually refer to actually PvPing itself. They refer to the community PvP had at 60, when everyone on both factions had a reputation (for better or worse). A reputation that involved their skill, rather than who had the most brain-dead healers following their overgeared ass around while they roll through Darnassus, or Silvermoon, or whatever they feel like hitting that day (I have been guilty of this myself on multiple occasions). What you're left with now is a ladder system and whoever has the biggest gums to flap determining skill, rather than people encountering one another in PvP to actually see who has talent. Rather than knowing someone personally, you see some big tauren with spikey blue shoulders and think "man, he's good!"

He's probably not.


Phew. All that being said, I do still enjoy PvP. But there's a certain sense of community that won't be coming back.

(disclaimer: Nothing that could be construed as offensive is referrencing anyone in specific (except Diablito and Liebe). If you think I'm referrencing you and are offended... don't be. I wasn't talking about you.)



you pretty mush said everything I was going to say...but ill add to it :).

I too recall much fun at lvl 60 as compared to now where it isnt much "fun" except some epic duels in arena. Saddly I have retired from arena until further notice (when my roommates hit 80 grrr).

Oh how I miss the Epug vs Echelon days where we would battle in wsg for 1hour and duke it out in AB for nearly 30min. I miss the names and knowing if I was going to die or live by just looking at the players name and not class.

i can even remember when Echelon would roll every alliance premade and we would que up and send in one person and if it was them we would take the second que for AB instead lol. They usually did the same once they saw the name but it was still worth the effort to get more honor >.>.


I am happy to see this new world pvp battle ground, Winter Grasp, but saddly I dont ever see a face that I reconize anymore. Ive noticed people already have their BoA pieces and the mount so I bet WG has lost some zip since horde have the fort for what seems like a week now. I havnt seen it blue since dec 14th.

[Advurb]

Wintergrasp actually changes hands 90&#37; of the time it's contested because Blizzard made it extremely hard to defend. I've seen plenty of folks I know in Wintergrasp, in fact I've had a lot of alliance I don't know say "Oh hey I see you in WG all the time"

[Yatokth]

Wintergrasp actually changes hands 90% of the time it's contested because Blizzard made it extremely hard to defend. I've seen plenty of folks I know in Wintergrasp, in fact I've had a lot of alliance I don't know say "Oh hey I see you in WG all the time"

WG does change hands alot, but lately I've seen quite a few successful defenses - it's pretty balanced if both sides have alot of numbers.