Resilience.

Yes, I spent hours raiding to collect the best gear in the game, so I deserve to PvP in it, and not get destroyed. Why should I have to farm up an entire second set of gear to be of any use in PvP? I only pvp once in a blue moon now because of this change.

 

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I'll agree with you, as long as the reverse is true.

If I spend hours upon hours PVPing for my PVP gear, why should I need a PVE set to raid with?

 

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I don't mind Arena's, primarily because you can totally ignore them if you don't like them. What I do hate about Arena's is how they try to balance a PVE based game around PVP. This doesn't work.


I think for me, the most hated new addition to WoW was cranking up the difficulty of Heroic's and making it an even bigger grind than before.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like a challenge. However, wiping 5 times on every boss and seeing a group collapse because most people are not good enough to learn basic mechanics, is not fun.

I actually ENJOYED the later part of WotLK because I could run a 7 or 8 instances a week and pick up a new epic piece of loot every couple of weeks and slowly gear up my alts. Was it easy? Yes it was, but so what.

This was "fun" for me.


Of course, the idiots all complained about wellfare epics (as if my slow grinding affected their fast grinding) and the idiots at Blizzard listened to them and now I don't play anymore.


Shrug.

 

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I've never really understood the welfare epics argument. Why does it matter what gear someone else wears or how they acquired it when the chances are the people complaining about welfare epics are never going to be in a group with those players.

For me it was the talent changes, as imo you should never water down player customization, especially with an expansion.

But also, I didn't like the quests on rails along with heavy handed use of phasing. I like having most quests available up front, and not every quest needs to chain.

Last, dungeon queue times and dungeon setups in this expansion in general.

 

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For me it was all the normalizing and genericizing that came with the BC expansion particularly when it came to the Hunter class;


Before then what kind of pet you had actually mattered, the time you spent obtaining a rare paid off with a more powerful pet. In PVP back then opponents thought twice before engaging a hunter instead of making a beeline to them for an easy KB like they do today etc...


I also agree with Mithan;





They did not take in to account pug mentality or skill of the player base as a whole where Cata Heroics are concerned, 40 minutes to que for a fail & bail is not fun and that level of difficulty should have been saved for Raids where it is expected.


In fact, (and I kid you not), the last two Heroics I attempted both ended because neither group could kill the first mob, that is why I have three level 85"s geared enough to run Heroics but I don't.

I don't hate WoW, but the fun quotient is lower right now than it's ever been.

Arenas don't bother me, though I also decided to stop doing them a few seasons ago. I don't like the dynamic they set up between players -- "pvp" against your own faction? Really?

If I had to cite specific stuff, it'd be:

Having Battlegrounds at level cap instead of supporting world PvP objectives.

Forcing PvE onto PvP-centric players, including all of the PvE-related gear decisions that end up impacting PvP. Sorry, you can't reasonably claim that only PvP affects PvE. It definitely goes both ways, and nobody is happy about it.

Constantly trying to force Facebook-related garbage on us.

Heroic instances take too long, and their supposed 'difficulty' isn't interesting enough to make up for that.

I don't think Blizzard listened to anyone. I think they simply did not want to release the same amount of content in Cata as they had to in WotLK in order to keep things as easy as they were. Just look at how much content was released in WotLK compared to BC. Raid content is just a roadblock to keep people from "finishing" the game. If they do not plan to release much raid content in Cata then they have to increase the time it takes to complete what they currently have.

 

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I might have said arenas, or resilience, or even some other issues, but actually I believe a large proportion of WoW's issues and downward slide can be traced even further back: to the decision to reward gear for PvP. It's that one thing that led, directly for the most part, but sometimes indirectly, to arenas, resilience, and the vast majority of the pendulum swinging class changes.

I say this as a PvPer.

Had PvP been kept subordinate to PvE, and not given equipment rewards, these things would have been different:

1. PvP would have been composed entirely of people who actually wanted to be there to PvP. A global, and drawback free, upgrade to the entire PvP game.

2. PvE is based on the assumption of a 99%+ win rate and balanced for that. PvP is based on the assumption of a 50% win rate and balanced for that. This difference is NOT reconcilable by any means. The difference is responsible for both resilience and for multiple changes to healing.

Having experienced this schizophrenic problem in WoW I will now in the future avoid mmorpgs that try, or claim to be trying, to emphasize both PvE and PvP at the same time.

 

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How could all gear coming from PvE ONLY be a better situation? As a PvPer, I would be pissed if I was forced into boring raids just to compete in PvP. I hate raiding and I don't have time to raid- why should I be as effective as a training dummy in BGs as a result?

You also talk about how hard it is to balance PvE vs. PvP. The fact that there are 2 different gear sets is what allows balance independently. It is the only reason WoW can even pretend to have PvP. If gear is the same between PvE and PvP, the only lever you have left to pull in balancing is the abilities; and I think we all know what a train wreck it can be to nerf/buff abilities based solely on PvP or PvE encounters.

Aside from all that, there is the more obvious reason for gear rewards: it's the proverbial carrot on the stick. Can you imagine queue times if there were no rewards for PvP?

 

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