The Arena System needs to evolve.

#1 - March 15, 2012, 10:19 p.m.
Blizzard Post
Note: You're welcome to disagree with me, but no trolling please, let's have a reasonable discussion that the Blizzard Developers can read (hehehe) and understand what the community wants going forward into MoP.

There will be exceptions obviously.

But I think the majority of people who play Arena can agree that it's been getting less and less fun as time has gone on.

There needs to be a large overhaul of the Arena system.

Firstly, the whole "play to gain gear" from Arena is obsolete these days, however since it's an MMO, obtaining gear is always going to be a driving point for a lot of people and something Blizzard won't change.

So what should happen is that when you join Arena you get a full set of Gear and when you leave it, you no longer have that set, the points you gain can be used to buy that set so you can use it outside Arena, for example for BGs and so on.

This improves the competitiveness of Arena already, because people that only care about getting gear from Arena do not make it competitive.

You can have incentives for gaining rating, like cosmetic changes for your character at x ratings, as has been shown a lot recently, people are more than willing to try to earn something which only gives them a cosmetic change to their character, hell people are even buying such things (like mounts from the Blizzard Store).

But the reality is, if people do not want to play Arena for fun/competition than these people shouldn't have to play Arena, nor should we want them.

Secondly, seasons need to be much shorter.

This is what happens in your usual Arena season.

First 2months a lot of teams are playing, people push up high early on to get a higher cap/2.2k weapons.

Next 3-X mounts (X being the last month before the end), most people stop playing a significant amount, you'll get sporadic games here and there but really most top players will do about 70~ games during this time period, which works out around 1 game per 2 days ~ish.

This basically means the entire mid-season is pointless and it's boring for most people, the only thing this does is make people wanna quit the game, the only thing is does is make people unsub.

So much shorter seasons are far more likely to keep people interested and playing.

I would personally say that 1 month seasons would be ideal, but 2months shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Thirdly, you have to start giving our desire-able rewards.

When I play a new seasons I don't get exciting about a 10th recoloured mount, I don't think the majority of players get excited about gaining the same title they've had multiply times over (this goes for Challenger, Rival, Duelist and Gladiator).

Cosmetic items, tabards, mounts, pets, special trinkets (that don't have stats or anything like that, example would be Sylvanas' Music Box, not that item, just something long the lines of that) and cycle through items like this, like 1 season you get a pet, another you get a tabard and so on.

And only give 1 chance to get these items, if you didn't get it then too bad, try harder next time.

The Arena scene is becoming very stale, it needs new life breathed into it.

Lastly, you've gotta stop messing around with Balance, the age-old Blizzard way of "let's change everything so people don't get bored with the same-old" isn't working anymore.

People are tired of their favourite classes being overpowered 1 season and broken the next.

Let people choose what they want to play, without having to worry about this.
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#36 - March 16, 2012, 3:47 p.m.
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Hey guys, this thread looks great, but I wanted to just jump in and comment on a few things. :)

15/03/2012 22:19Posted by Rasen
There needs to be a large overhaul of the Arena system.

We can see some reasons here why you feel this, but what is the over-arching reason for why you feel that the arena system currently does not function optimally and needs to undergo such dramatic changes? As of right now, I feel that the arena system works quite well. I am enjoying myself when I enter arena because of the competition side of it, as well as looking forward to both upgrading my gear more and …hopefully…winning a title and mount at the end of the season :D

15/03/2012 22:19Posted by Rasen
So what should happen is that when you join Arena you get a full set of Gear and when you leave it, you no longer have that set

So you would like to see standardised stats and gear for all who enter arena so that the gear you have earned does not affect your performance? This could cause a large number of the PvP community to stop arena as they would no longer see a result of earning their new shiny gear, I agree that the standardised gear would make the playing-field more even but where would I be able to let loose with all of my awesome new gear? :’( How could such a problem be remedied?

15/03/2012 22:19Posted by Rasen
Thirdly, you have to start giving our desire-able rewards.

The reason I see that players aim to receive the title and mount is for the prestige that can be displayed with them. However if you feel that this can be done better through different types of rewards, what type of prizes for the seasons winners would you like to see?

16/03/2012 14:49Posted by Rasen
But anyway, lets get back on topic please!

I agree, this thread looks great so far, everyone. Please remain as constructive and on topic as possible, we do not want to see this thread become derailed or have any other similar issues, so stay on topic. ^^
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#42 - March 16, 2012, 4:02 p.m.
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16/03/2012 15:57Posted by Mirion
You could give rating based gear that has diffrent colours? Just give it no stats so you can transmog into it to show off your rating you've achived?

So, you do not want your Arena gear to give any stats — just something you can transmog the gear you get from other sources into for the looks and your stats are standardised in your arena matches?