Let's talk about PvP system!

[Torta]

Greetings! Let's daydream a bit, turtles. If you'd like entirely different PvP system in Vanilla WoW, what it'd be?

[Leozan]

I’d favor a more horizontal progression where the main divide against old and new players is mostly skill based than gear based.

As for a system implementation, I’d guess expand or retune gear stat/requirments. There could also be lv 60 custom crafting quests given by battlemasters that simply have players turn crafting mats to get low grade starter pvp gear for new players (even have it look low grade, basic red vs blue cloth/leather/mail/plate armor). *I’ll have a better example of this end of the week.*

[Qixel]

Daydreaming, I'd like PvP to be entirely seperate. Let the pvpers have their own server. I've seen people go from laughing and having fun in Molten Core to actively wishing death upon people's families two hours later because of Warsong Gulch. PvP turns decent people into total rage monsters, and I would prefer not to have it here. Turtle was a really friendly place, even if it was small, and I'd like to keep it that way.

On a regular server, you can't talk to the opposite faction (originally, undead could speak common because obviously they know common, but Blizzard removed it because people were being jerks over pvp) so if you want to wish death upon someone's family due to pvp, you have to log out, make a character on the opposite faction (which you could not do on pvp servers for a long, long time because of exactly this), remember the name of the guy who upset you, then whisper him. It was a lot of work and caused people to calm the hell down before they got there. Here, though? Just click their name and start wishin' cancer. People say things in the heat of the moment, and it's not conductive to a friendly community. So either remove your ability to interact with others for a short time after engaging in pvp, or remove pvp entirely.

If you go the separate server route, you can add the pvp gear as drops to bosses, or as a reputation reward to encourage grinding. Anything that doesn't cause the server to have constant shitshows in world chat would be an improvement.

[Qixel]

Your entire post can be summarized as "I don't like PvP and I don't want it where I play."

I like to PvP, and I wouldn't want to be "on a different server".

My entire post can be summarized as "I like friendly servers, and I do not want this one ruined any more than it already has been."

I like to have fun, and I wouldn't want to be constantly exposed to crying over pvp.

[Leozan]

Daydreaming, I'd like PvP to be entirely seperate. Let the pvpers have their own server. I've seen people go from laughing and having fun in Molten Core to actively wishing death upon people's families two hours later because of Warsong Gulch. PvP turns decent people into total rage monsters, and I would prefer not to have it here. Turtle was a really friendly place, even if it was small, and I'd like to keep it that way.

On a regular server, you can't talk to the opposite faction (originally, undead could speak common because obviously they know common, but Blizzard removed it because people were being jerks over pvp) so if you want to wish death upon someone's family due to pvp, you have to log out, make a character on the opposite faction (which you could not do on pvp servers for a long, long time because of exactly this), remember the name of the guy who upset you, then whisper him. It was a lot of work and caused people to calm the hell down before they got there. Here, though? Just click their name and start wishin' cancer. People say things in the heat of the moment, and it's not conductive to a friendly community. So either remove your ability to interact with others for a short time after engaging in pvp, or remove pvp entirely.

If you go the separate server route, you can add the pvp gear as drops to bosses, or as a reputation reward to encourage grinding. Anything that doesn't cause the server to have constant shitshows in world chat would be an improvement.

If players in the community are taking things too far, it’s up to the community to call out those individuals to the devs and get them removed/banned. Screenshot the hate speech chatlog and report it in, that should be enough proof for action I hope.

[Qixel]

If players in the community are taking things too far, it’s up to the community to call out those individuals to the devs and get them removed/banned. Screenshot the hate speech chatlog and report it in, that should be enough proof for action I hope.

You misunderstand me. I do not want people banned for getting mad over pvp. Getting mad over pvp is pvp. People should not be punished for engaging in an aspect of the game. Those people wishing death upon their families were perfectly reasonable and nice players two hours prior, and they were again the next week. PvP is the common issue, not the players.

[Leftmousebutton]

Although I'm sure it'd be a nightmare to figure out how to code this in a Vanilla system, something along the lines of Warfronts would be kind of cool. Something that harkens back to the spirit of the RTS days of which Vanilla was supposed to be a direct continuation of.

Maybe it could even have a small-scale playstyle option to where it's 3v3, like how you could only have three heroes in Warcraft III melee maps, and you fight alongside AI armies.

This would, of course, be pretty radically different from what most people are used to, so it would probably have to be a side option as opposed to a complete replacer. However, with the smaller scale I think it would be more condusive towards maintaining a friendly environment and even encourage some RP-PvP. For "regular" PvP, I agree with Qixel: it should have its own server.

[Gheor]

No crossfaction lore bending BGs

[Qixel]

You want to get rid of PvP entirely, we get it. How does this help?

No, just quarantine it. Open up free character transfers like they've already done from Hyjal and Gurubashi to the PVP Turtle server. The PvPers get what they want with games against fellow PvPers, with no PvEers looking for gear ruining their games, and the PvEers get to neither be forced into pvp to get their BiS nor have to listen to the post-game whining in world chat. Hell, let the PvPers just copy their character to the PVP server in case they decide they want to come back. Win-win-win.

[Qixel]

I see that you refuse to read beyond the first few sentences and realize now that further discussion is meaningless.

[Serener]

A thing that would make some kind of sense in my head at least, would be to allow players to stop Honor decay by paying gold(for a limited time ofc)

[Qixel]

Maybe don't try hijacking a thread that is about the improvements to PvP just to say that you dislike PvP and want it to happen anywhere, but not on the server you play on.

Maybe try reading past the first line of posts and realize that I'm offering constructive suggestions to improve both PvP and PvE and if you feel that me looking to reduce toxicity is a problem that speaks volumes of your character.

[Soulex23]

Honor vendor like in TBC maybe?

I don't mind the grind for honor, but vanilla makes it feel like you're going uphill on a treadmill if you think about taking a break.

OH ALSO
Maybe a touch of rep per kill so that people are once again doing objectives AND killing each other? I keep seeing some AV's that have 0 kills on the board because of people doing rep farming instead of playing the BG as intended. At least with this way it becomes another way to play the game instead of ignoring it. I wanna see the matches that last 40 hours again (not literally, I just mean in spirit)

[Serener]

A thing that would make some kind of sense in my head at least, would be to allow players to stop Honor decay by paying gold(for a limited time ofc)

The issue with stopping honor decay is how deeply it is woven into the progression system. If I could stop honor decay completely, I'd be able to get from R12 to R14 in two weeks, maybe even one week, without grinding.

Removing decay would require adjusting the ranking point requirements for each rank. I'm not saying it's not possible, but it would require a lot of calculating and testing.

i know,so i understand how stupid that suggestion is...so yea

[Hockey8821]

Here is a cool idea:

Make world PVP events in certain zones. For exemple, Ashenvale, the Night Elves against the Horde, each base (Splintertree Post and Atraanar) would each have a flag with the respective faction, and the first faction to capture the flag of the other faction wins.

This could be done by announcing it on the Discord server and anyone who would wish to participate would just head towards their faction's base, and people who don't like PVP would avoid the zone, so they won't be affected by it.

As a RP server, it would be intresting and immersive to implant this idea, it would feel as if you won or lost the war as the faction you are playing, maybe if your faction won you would get a some sort of world buff as a reward, it is something to think about in the future.

I gave the idea of Ashenvale because it was the first that came to mind, although this cold be done in several zones sush as the Hinterlands, the Blasted Lands and Feralas, or other zones I am not remembering right now.

[Lahire]

All I know is, contrary to a lot of pvp players, I value the fact that vanilla pvp design is less skill-based than time and gear-based. If I want a skillful pvp game, I go play a RTS or a FPS. It is not the main point of a pvp in MMORPG, which is a very special genre.

From a player experience, what is the point of instanced pvp in a mmorpg and what makes different kinds of players want to play it ? Yeah there are people who want to "show their skill", but I think that is not the main reason people play pvp in a mmorpg. The reasons can be :
- seek specific rewards (the people who stop playing pvp after they got exalted AV for example)
- showing off their raid gear (social reward specific to mmorpg)
- the pleasure that comes from crushing unstuffed people (twinking comes from that really)

These three motivators are based on time and gear. If the mode is purely skill-base, the people who just want the rewards won't engage with it. And the people who want to /flex or /crush with their massive gear wont either as they would feel "robbed" by less stuffed players (we saw this player reaction in New World beta actually).

So I don't know what I want specifically, but I know the core design of vanilla pvp has a good reason for it. The reason is : time/gear base pvp is more coherent with other parts of mmo design (it links pvp to the raiding system and the social system for example ; it also contributes to the global journey of your character, as you play the same in all modes ; so it is a RPG mechanic too) and is motivating for more kinds of players than just those who want to skill up.

The other advantage of this design is that "skill based players" can still show off their moves, as they can leverage their skill during BG to win. So everybody gets something from this design, while the skill based version doesn't attract other kinds of players.

And let's be real here : there is a part of "you think you want it but you don't" about feedback asking for "skill pvp". A lot of people dream about being skilled in pvp but can't achieve it (because it requires a lot of time, investment, patience, etc to become skilled). They ask for it but will not engage with it consistently.
So is it a good idea to narrow a design to cater to 1 specific kind of players who are perhaps far fewer than the people asking for the change ?

[Gheor]

Coun, Qixel.

This was made for suggestions not disagreements, please take it to PMs.

[Rytz]

Disclaimer: my interest in PvP is very minimal. Just adding my two cents.

@Qixel: From my understanding, Turtle WoW is doing very well with regards to it's population numbers. Fragmenting the player base by forcing PvP onto a different server would be a detriment to the "mmo" aspect of the game. The more players on one server, the better. Also, I suspect that trying to implement a server backend system to allow for "on-the-fly" transfers for PvP would be a nightmare.

@Qixel: Regarding PvP (world) chat, I've always thought of world chat drama as part of the WoW charm. I'm not condoning personal attacks and such but there is a reason why people don't use "the basement" whenever they want to talk some *hit. We always have the option to add people to our ignore list.

I agree with the idea to reduce the decay rate. I don't understand why the WoW PvP system was designed to be so hardcore and time demanding. It's like they intentionally didn't want any kind of casual PvP outside of duels.

I've never been a fan of requiring PvE players to PvP in order to get better PvE gear. I remember doing AV for Don Julio's Band and hated every minute of it. Perhaps there is a middle ground to where equivalent PvE gear (select items like Don Julio's) can be added to a difficult quest line or as rare dungeon drops so that PvE players aren't forced into grinding PvP just for gear.

[Yurei]

Gear based PvP is dumb and I’d adore a chance to play WoW with skill placed at the forefront in BG. Stats on gear shouldn’t determine victory, the skill of the player should. If you want an unfair PvP game where you arrive with a 20% chance of outlasting me because you don’t have a life to juggle along with your high elf, then don’t expect me to bother… and you likely won’t see a lot of people like myself waste their time playing fodder to a broken power fantasy on a private realm.

Just offer a glyph for auto 60, a pocket dimension where these glyphs cannot leave to ruin the PvE. And include item vendors with max item level gear for every class so no one can reign supreme … because there’s no reason to challenge PvP gear gods if I’ve got to pursue a Rocky Balboa/South Park training montage to score a handful of K Os.

[Leozan]

If players in the community are taking things too far, it’s up to the community to call out those individuals to the devs and get them removed/banned. Screenshot the hate speech chatlog and report it in, that should be enough proof for action I hope.

You misunderstand me. I do not want people banned for getting mad over pvp. Getting mad over pvp is pvp. People should not be punished for engaging in an aspect of the game. Those people wishing death upon their families were perfectly reasonable and nice players two hours prior, and they were again the next week. PvP is the common issue, not the players.

I’d say there’s a clear difference between getting angry at a loss and threatening people. No one holds a gun to peoples head and says “be a toxic ass or I shoot”, people do that stuff freely on their own.

Also anyone who wishes death upon someone in one instance of play is not a reasonable and nice player. While a competitive spirit can effect people, anyone who goes to that extent needs to grow the f up and act accordingly.

I will go on record saying that I don’t mind removing people who freely choose to be an ass and create toxicity.

[Lichenwitch]

i agree that facilitating more RP-PVP events would be cool

[Serener]

What about an option to stop honor decay AND honor gain?

and if a person stops the decay then they can not enable honor gain the same week

[Torta]

Blood Ring is going to be cross-faction and have reputation rewards at some point. But turning other battlegrounds cross-faction won't happen. 1. I do not know how to do it. 2. It goes against everything WoW is about.

Ranking on Turtle is much easier comparing to the original Vanilla, removing decay would make it even more easy in my point of view.

[Leozan]

I’d favor a more horizontal progression where the main divide against old and new players is mostly skill based than gear based.

As for a system implementation, I’d guess expand or retune gear stat/requirments. There could also be lv 60 custom crafting quests given by battlemasters that simply have players turn crafting mats to get low grade starter pvp gear for new players (even have it look low grade, basic red vs blue cloth/leather/mail/plate armor). *I’ll have a better example of this end of the week.*

While I like your idea, the issue with "PvP gear for everyone" is that it would make a lot of late-game PvE redundant. Sure, PvP would be more "fair" if everyone had top gear. But if you give top gear to everyone who PvPs, people who raid would probably be pretty pissed about it.

What you could do is make PvP gear shitty or only usable in Battlegrounds or what not, but that again would harm PvP progression: As someone who does not raid, ranking is really my only way to get high-end gear. If I can't do that, what should I strive for? Trying to get better gear IS the main gameplay loop in WoW, be it PvP or PvE.

Battleground specific pvp gear is a nice idea. And your right as I don’t want to remove advancement for people that want or can only pvp. I figure at the end of it all the pvp matches are where the remaining fun lies, and I’d rather focus on that than grinding away for gear.

I guess in my scenario I’d have each higher rank give access to mostly cosmetic sensational looking gear to show off both skill and time investment. I don’t mind stat increases as long as it doesn’t completely screw over people coming in fresh.

I guess I want something akin to a good tutorial mode in a fighting game. Something to give new players a fair chance to familiarize themselves with mechanics before veteran player skills press down upon them. Since wow is so gear dependent my thoughts mostly go there.

I admit it’s a lot to move around on an old game like this. I’m down for whatever can get more people queuing up and enjoying themselves.

[Djijin]

I had to create a new account, as I'm at work. Crazy ideas? Sure why not. These address issues I see others having with pvp but take the solutions with a grain of salt. Just possibilities.

Pvp problems:
1. It's not integrated into the game world like a true RvR game. Wow pvp has become a system that interferes with pve, instead of being part of pve.
2. Gear inequality. Pvp in vanilla is far too gear dependent and is a barrier to entry. There is a reason why a pvp mitigation stat was introduced in TBC, however it was a poorly implemented mechanic which still bound pvp to a gear race and actually hurt participation as it allowed (as seen right now in Classic TBC) top end gatekeeping.
3. Degrading honor makes pvp a rat race and not friendly to casual participation.
4. High level players stomping lower level players.
5. BG's that just turn into premade, twink grind-fests.

Solutions:
1. Pve questing drives pvp interactions. More open world repeatable pvp quests. Pvp is a side affect that the quests warns you about and flagging is required to complete. They key mechanic being having a quest that defines pvp participation. Refer to point 4.

2. Pve gear should be for the pve progression race. It has no place in pvp and should never have been. Other than having a flat power curve when calculating pvp combat, an possible easy fix for this is to have a flat % mitigation applied to pvp damage. It's like resilience everyone already has. Regular mitigation is applied after. Superior damage is reduce more due to % reduction. This brings net damage output closer together, by maintains gear scaling overall so the chad twink still has numerical superiority. There is an issue with this when considering twink tanks with high HPs and mitigation already. There may need to be diminished returns on this past a certain hp level so Stam stacking doesn't exploit this.

3. Remove honor degrading up to epic ranks. Everyone should be able to rank up to blue rewards more easily. Leave the epics for the sweaty players into that race.

4. Open world pvp needs defined participation so a level 60 isn't camping level 20's, etc. This can be controlled by quest participation. If you take an open world pvp quest, you either can only attack others with that quest or con yellow to anyone flagged without serious dishonor is given to those why attack you without the quest. Use the default vanilla level ranges for quest taking however. Higher level players then cannot take the quest so either cannot attack you are will suffer serious dishonor penalties. This will need to be worked out and exploits mitigated. The point is to limit participation to appropriate level ranges. Incentives include access to rank rewards as per usual, quest providing faction rep rewards and fun quest rewards.

5. BGs have turned into a broken meta. Twinking cannot be avoided but mitigated by the % reduction of 'bonus', non-scaling resilience and putting level restrictions on enchants ... which should have been done day 1 and I cannot fathom how they missed this. You can't use level 60 pots in lower brackets so why F%#K should you be able to use level 60 enchants? It breaks common sense.
Likely cross faction is required at this point due to population limits and disparity. A cool feature could also be a bonus for running a daily BG such as double honor gain for 1st BG, increased honor gain for losing (participation is the drive, not rewards) and open world, lore defined benefits for BG wins so they don't seem so separate from the normal game and remind players that World of Warcraft comes from Warcraft. Lore should drive this and perhaps npcs promoters can be more verbose and make the world feel like events are happening.

Just some ideas.

[Qixel]

On a tangentially related note, I would suggest a Glyph of the Honorless, that removes your ability to gain honor. There's a few of us who have already hit r14 and wouldn't necessarily mind queueing up to continue playing but hate knowing that we're pushing new players down as they try to get gear. And I'm sure those new players would appreciate not having to compete with us for standing.

[Jombo]

I'd suggest a minimum of 3vs3 in WSG: 2vs2 or 2vs3 is completely ridiculous. Actually it would be even better if you made the minimum 4v4, as the true dynamics of WSG only reveal themselves with more players on each team, but I am not sure we are enough pvpers for that.

[Beutler]

Hi,

i thought it would be cool to have a longtime "capture the flag" like system but in the world and not in a separate battleground.
Like an item that is kept at the heart of ironforge or orgrimmar for example. the other faction has to steal it an bring it to their own capital. the item has to be carried by foot, so the way would be very long and people of the other fraction can plan multiple ambushes on the carrier, use the different terrains etc. player can get the item sneaky by night or at day with a big raid-group that supports the carrier.
if the carrier dies, the item remains on that spot and can be picked up by everyone.
fraction players will get a buff if the item is in their possession and placed in a defined spot in the city. the type of buff will depend on what capital city is chosen. maybe carriers can get a title if they make the whole way without dying.

Best
Gripto

/edit, the item could be a turtle

[Velite]

When you do anything that gives you honor, you instead gain honor points, which has a weekly hardcap, and you use these points to buy the gear.

[Dokkababecallme]

Daydreaming, I'd like PvP to be entirely seperate. Let the pvpers have their own server [...] Turtle was a really friendly place, even if it was small, and I'd like to keep it that way.

The most popular games in the world (League, CS:GO, Rainbow 6, etc.) are PvP. While some of those -- *cough* League -- are infamous for toxicity, people learn to not group with the toxic players. Turtle's a small server, so it shouldn't take long to figure out which people are toxic teammates.

No crossfaction lore bending BGs

Okay, then how do you form balanced teams? You can RP all you want on your own, but enforcing faction constraints on instanced PvP makes it much harder to create competitive games.

PvP games work best with PUGs. Some WoW players call it 'wargame', although PUG is the standard term across shooters. They're usually formed by team captains, but in small communities an officer can balance teams, as typically no one wants to be either a captain or last pick. WoW needs to balance classes as well as players, which is even harder when you add additional constraints like a same-faction requirement.

Faction-based PvP works for world PvP, but you still need faction balance, which Turtle doesn't have.

Blood Ring is going to be cross-faction and have reputation rewards at some point. But turning other battlegrounds cross-faction won't happen. 1. I do not know how to do it. 2. It goes against everything WoW is about.

Implementation details aside, allowing private matches with cross-faction groups doesn't violate "everything WoW is about". WoW has dwarves fighting other dwarf clans, trolls fighting other troll tribes, blood elves fighting high elves, and so on. Not that lore matters much in competitive PvP.

[Lahire]

"Balance" is a trap in this kind of discussions. MMORPG pvp is not made to be "balanced" like a counter strike or dota.
MMORPG pvp is just a branch on a big tree, not an independant system you can "balance" in a vacuum. It is not even the point to have balanced encounters in mmorpg, as it would remove the links of the pvp system to all the other progression systems.

I think pvpers must accept the fact that mmorpg pvp is just a part of a whole, and not a game outside of the game. RP/flavour is actually more important to the quality of a mmorpg than pvp balance, and shouldn't be sacrificed to seek it, as it innerves more systems than pvp balance does. You do not sacrifice a core element of RPG for 1 subsystem (and to cater to only 1 kind of players, because not all people engaged with pvp care about stuff like the racial imbalance).

[Erok2]

I would think of ways to incentivize PVP that are in-line with the server goals. Battlegrounds are toxic because you introduce winning and losing. No one wants to lose. Were you every angry dying in the Southshore vs Terran Mill fights? It was always fun going back and forth and if you died, you just ran back to the fray. Battlegrounds also become your most efficient path to the PVP gear so a loss is time wasted frustration. Also it takes players out of the world which is why I was against them when they were released. This system I was pondering is anti Battlegrounds, pro world pvp.

Want to incentivize world pvp? Make only world pvp give you the pvp reward.
Make honor the currency in which to buy the gear/items
Allow people to rank up to a certain rank without a standing and without decay
Allow the collection of honor to only take place in world pvp
introduce pvp 60 blue weapons with high stam/low damage stat
Create a system where you get honor by killing only those who yield experience
Create a system where you get half the honor when you are killed so it still can be enjoyed if its not always going in your favor
Create an incentive to flag for pvp? This one is tough because I am anti ganking or ruining another players experience
Add an opposing system where having overwhelming numbers actually ends up giving you less honor than those fewer players you are overrunning. Or some sort of way to incentivize balance in the amount of players. Something like 5 man groups giving bonus XP, but in this case honor. Larger than 5 man dilutes gains to promote small groups instead of raids.

Just some ideas I had for a system. Lets say we have a lvl 60 sword and it cost 1000 honor and rank 10. Rank 10 maybe just takes 3 or 4 weeks (which do not have to be done in row) of just showing up to achieve. Maybe you get 2 honor per kill and so you need 500 kills to get this item. If you pair this with other ideas that people have about making zones 'war zones' or just 'World PVP Friday' you could hopefully cultivate a great world pvp community for those who wish to partake that doesn't require anyone win or lose.

[Llimme]

Its Turtle, we slow , ¿why don't just remove the decay?, or, ¿is it necessary to be 1rst on ladder to earn points betw R13-R14?, some players have "pvp period/season", and coming back after a few months to do all the grind again, kinda bumps out.

[Nixors]

Whilst admittedly not exactly tied to the PvP system itself, I'd love to see more importance on faction leaders, and city raids.

City raids have been a huge source of enjoyment for me in the past, both offensively and defensively. It would be cool to see that be a more frequent thing with some custom quest incentivizing people to for example kill a certain amount of guards along with the faction leaders, or to defend a faction leader. You get the idea.

That said, I can only imagine the horror upon any hardcore player's face seeing a raid of lvl 60 PvP tagged players cruise through their beloved main city. And of course there's always arguments against a primarily PvE oriented event (depending on defensive ferocity) providing any PvP related rewards.

[Suwuxiv]

I think PVP in Vanilla is far too centric on gear and consumables, be it alchemy items, engineering or tea.

It would all be better if skill was more emphasized over gear and other things that you farmed. A big issue with this coming to be would be class balance. Some classes do have to crutch by with items more than others.

So removing the gear/consumable factor from PVP would not be a simple fix. Retuning classes and their abilities in PVP would be required, too. And I think that'd be more work than developers would be willing to put into it all.