Thursday, May 08, 2008

Episode 33, Arenas Season 1-3

Basically a recap of Seasons One through Three. Since Season 4 is looming in the air I thought it'd be a good idea to do a quick history. Also, some discussion on pvp as a welfare system in WoW.



To keep an eye on the Arena scene:
http://www.sk-gaming.com/arena/

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Woot!!!!

Miss your Podcasts

Leala Turkey said...

Good to hear from you again Alachia!

I'm happy to have my suck arena team die over and over each week in order to hand over points to you on a silver platter and take the crumbs for myself. hehe =)

Derik said...

Here's the thing about you being so down on people with "no skill" is that without rewarding "scrubs" or whatever you choose to call them, they won't participate, greatly reducing the people for you to beat on, reducing the rating of those that are left, causing more people to quit, further reducing ratings.

As for "scrubs" in full Vengeful, that's a myth perpetuated by PvP elitists to exaggerate the "problem".

Don't get me wrong, ratings to reward good players are a good thing, but if you give "scrubs" nothing for continuing to queue up, they will quit. Then let's see how fun it is to go from being a 1900 rated team to 1300.

Alachia said...

it's not a myth. if you consistently farm arena points for the entire season, about this time you should have almost all your vengeful pieces except shoulders and weapon. I know this for a fact.

in fact, I'm on vent right now listening to someone sell arena points. He whispered, 800 arena points. He got 15 whispers "how much?" He and his team mates make about 1200g a week selling points.

Scrubs aren't a problem. They never will be a problem in arenas. People who can't arena, will never be a problem for people who actually take arena seriously.

My commentary on the pvp system gear was merely a reflection of my question as to why people who don't like pvp try to get pvp gear when there are plenty of ways to farm pve gear as well.

Also, I had doubts about how seriously Arenas were being taken.

"but if you give "scrubs" nothing for continuing to queue up, they will quit. Then let's see how fun it is to go from being a 1900 rated team to 1300."

I promise you, real arena players don't care about the casuals. They never have been nor were ever an obstacle. Like I said, if the ceiling gets lowered, it's a good indication that you're actually in a real arena ladder. :)

I'm not that great at pvp. so I don't take credit for any elite pvp talk. I just know people who are really good and I think they deserve proper credit and respect for what they do.. just like I respect hardcore raiding guilds.

I don't feel like I'm being down on people. I'm just stating a fact. And the fact isn't a reflection of hating people or putting down people who have top arena gear but can't play at all... it's the fact that it makes no distinction for those who actually do put there best foot forward.

But I think that's gonna change in Season 4 anyhow so it seems like Blizzard worked it out nicely. And casuals can still play.. I'm one of those so-called casusals.. I'll still be farming arena points for my alts and such. You never know when you might want to play. But I think there will be a much greater distinction between the real pvpers and us point farmers. And that should be okay from both ends I think.

Derik said...

"it's not a myth. if you consistently farm arena points for the entire season, about this time you should have almost all your vengeful pieces except shoulders and weapon. I know this for a fact."

Then I must be doing something wrong. I've been hovering a little above 1500 (because I'll only do enough to get points as most of my time goes into raiding) and I only have a few pieces of S3 (given I was a couple weeks late to the party).

Now, I will agree there are some in full Vengeful that don't deserve it, but I think that's mostly people gaming the system as you alluded to. That's the real problem. Wintraders and pointsellers need to be eliminated in order to restore the prestige of full arena gear. Hopefully the new rules fix this.

I think it's perfectly acceptable to strike a balance (once exploits are plugged) where casuals (10 game a week players) can get a few pieces over the course of a season so they get something out of playing whereas serious players get full sets and exclusive items.

Alachia said...

I agree. I think Season 4 will fix a lot of problems mentioned. And this recent patch should fix point farming etc.

And win traders have recently been mass banned (72 hour ban) so I think Blizzard is on top of all that right now.

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