by Byron Mudry on Nov 30, 2007
This weeks editorial is about the current hot topic, the start of the third arena season in World of Warcraft. The new season brings some big changes to the arena scene. The biggest changes include a whole new set of arena gear, personal arena rating and season one gear becoming available for honor points instead of arena points. The changes being made have been enough to lure even a few die hard anti-pvp'er into the battle grounds and the arenas. In this editorial I look at answering the question: Are the season 3 changes a good thing to the new PvP player?
As many of you know, I am very anti-PvP in MMO's. So why am I writing an editorial on PvP arena and battle ground combat? Good question. Several months ago while exploring the advancement of my tanking paladin I discovered that the best tanking weapon I could get was received through the arena system. After much delay, since I despise PvP, I gathered several guild mates together and formed 2v2, 3v3 and 5v5 arena teams. It all started with the fateful words, "I hate PvP, I suck at PvP, I don't care about winning a game but need the arena weapon, want to join up create a team and earn some points?".
After getting slaughtered the first few weeks, we found out how much gear and tactics matter in PvP (none of use are poorly equipped, coming from a KZ running guild). We also found that despite losing games, arena combat and the competition to win is surprisingly addictive. Around this point we also found that season 1 arena gear would be coming up for sale in the near future for honor points and all looked forward to the assistance it would provide us.
All of this brining us to the whole point of this editorial: Are the season 3 changes a good thing to the new PvP player?
As a new WoW PvP'er many of the changes effect me in a positive way and only one in a negative way. The big change that is positive for new players is the new way to earn the season 1 arena gear and the new epic gear from the quartermasters. I see this as a huge bonuses as it allows players to earn PvP arena gear by playing in the battle grounds. This allows more players to enter the arena scene geared to a level where they can at least compete.
In addition a new season 3 gear set has been added that allows the existing PvPers to expand their gear choices, and is drastically better than the old gear. With this gear Blizzard added conditions to restrict access of several of the pieces to only players that are competent in Arena PvP which will make mediocre players compete harder for ratings.
For most non-raiding players the any of the gear is a huge upgrade from anything else they are likely to have. Obviously the season 3 gear is the biggest upgrade, however even the season 1 gear and other epic options can be huge improvements to many players.
Between the addition of the new honor only gear, arena 1 gear for honor points and the new season 3 gear you can mix and match and get a decent set of gear fairly quickly.
The only change that really hurts the new Arena PvP'er is the fact that the season 3 weapons and shoulders are locked out to you until you learn enough to have a decent PvP rating. This isn't necessarily bad though as when you do reach that score, you will have a huge sense of accomplishment.
In the end being new to PvP and Arenas, I really appreciate the changes made that allow me to get into the fight and get enough gear that I can at least attempt to compete. The difference in gear levels from seasons 1 to 2 to 3 still mean that players that have been doing it longer or scoring better have a significant gear advantage, but not as big as before. Also with the addition of personal arena score limitations to buy several pieces of gear it still allows Blizzard to limit the gear and reward those that excel while still rewarding those that are just there to compete.
There is one thing that does have me worried about the new system though, and that is it's complete focus on time vs skill reward system early on. What do I mean by this? Hearing that the season 1 gear would be available for honor, myself and my arena mates immediately started prioritizing the gear we could use and then grinding honor and BG badges so that we could purchase the gear the day it was released. As the honor total increased ever skyward we realized we would not reach it and again prioritized to cut the list down. However over the past month, we have each been able to grind over 50,000 honor fairly easily on each of our characters. This from self proclaimed horrible PvP'ers.
While we are happy with the rewards we have now received, it concerns all of us what the new entry level Arena situation is going to be. Sure it now makes it possible to enter the arena scene with semi-competative gear, but it also makes it almost mandatory to spend weeks or months grinding away honor in the battle grounds to prepare for it, at the same time diminishing the reward since everyone can reach it.
It also concerns many players (including myself) that gear that is of an epic nature can be gotten with no skill at all. Epic gear should require some skill, effort or ability to acquire. The season 1 arena gear and the new honor rewards are amazing gear to many players yet can be obtained through no skill at all. All you need to do is repeatedly enter the battle grounds and lose. Sure if you win, you get the rewards quicker, but you get them either way.
To sum up, while I am very much appreciate the changes done to allow players access to more competitive gear to enter the arena with, I also worry about them and the effect they will have.
The Messiah has had his say, what’s yours? Are there other valid reasons to switch guilds? How often do you change? Are guilds important to you at all? Am I over analyzing this? I want to hear your comments.
Email me at: Byron Mudry - (Messiah@TenTonHammer.com) or post in our forums thread!