BlizzCon PvP Panel: World PvP and Arenas
World PvP
After some great news about upcoming changes to the battlegrounds, Tom Chilton was back in the spotlight to go over world PvP and its place in World of Warcraft.
World PvP's focus should be for spontaneous PvP where fights can break out on a whim between two, three, or even sixty players. It also needs to be objective based much like its counterpart, battlegrounds. Most importantly though, is that it needs to reward participation in the form of tokens and the like, as well as having an impact on the game world. A great example was the Bone Wastes objectives giving access to Spirit Shards.
Lessons learned from World PvP thus far:
- Silithus ("sandlol") - this is what the screen display said, so you get the idea that Blizzard realized pretty fast the Silithus PvP model wasn't a very popular one.
- Eastern Plaguelands proved that rewards need meaning. You can't just plop down towers in the zone and have them there for no reason.
- Hellfire Peninsula tought them that pacing is important in PvP. These locations change hands far too often and give players the feel of something that doesn't persist.
- Zangarmarsh offered a realization that clarity is important. Its objectives were fairly confusing to some players and was probably the primary cause for the low activity in taking the graveyard outside of Coilfang Reservoir.
- Bone Wastes was great for Blizzard - its objective design showed that persistence is very important in World PvP, even if only for a couple hours at a time it's a far better mechanic than one that can change hands instantly.
- Nagrand shoed that map integration offers amazing gameplay potential in World PvP and will no doubt be used in the future - especially in Wrath of the Lich King.
Future of World PvP
Lake Wintergrasp is being added with Wrath of the Lich King. This is a non-instanced area entirely devoted to World PvP. Not only is it an outdoor area in the game world, but it's also contested territory on PvE servers - meaning that if you enter Lake Wintergrasp, you better be ready for a fight no matter what server ruleset you're on. Controlling the area will have an impact on the entirety of Northrend, so players will no doubt vie for control continually.
Arenas
Arenas are built primarily for competition and are designed to reward skill versus time spent playing them. With that in mind a rating system is used to separate teams from one another. The rating system offers steady progress toward your goals by converting the rating directly into points.
Another crucial element of Arena gameplay is to keep the maps small and simple. You won't see any sprawling complexes for vast mountain ranges plopped down in Arena maps.
Random map selection - something Blizzard learned was important due to watching battlegrounds - also helps to improve the experience in Arenas, as does the fact that there's no discrimination between Horde and Alliance.
Lessons learned from Arenas:
- Balance across the formats is very difficult, especially when some classes are stronger in certain formats while not so much in the rest. Warlocks and Rogues both came to mind as classes that could use changes but the wrong thing done will affect them in the brackets they excell at too.
- Avoid map gimmicks for the future. Blizzard realized that map gimmicks aren't needed - PvP in Arenas is enough just with players, there's no need to put in extra annoyances.
- Point saving and buying weapons is a major issue. This is going to be addressed in the future.
Things to come
- Chilton told the crowd that for Arena Season 3, weapons will require a certain rating to purchase them. He hinted at a rating of around 1900, but it's not entirely set in stone as of yet.
- Chilton wants to improve Rogue utility in 5v5 Arenas and mobility in general - especially against Warriors and Hamstring.
- Blizzard is looking at addressing Warlock power in 2v2 and 3v3 because they realize it's a major issue, but won't do something that damages their 5v5 desirability.
- There may be a special 2h weapon added specifically for Hunters so that they don't have to spend so many points gearing up in the Arena system.
- Season 3 Paladin Retribution gear will have Resilience added. Chilton stated he doesn't want to add it to current gear because Paladins that purchased it went into it knowing it lacked it, and adding it means detracting from other areas of the items.
- Season 1 Arena gear is going to become available through the Honor system when Season 3 starts.
- PvP Daily Quests are coming soon.
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