As things slow down for the holidays, the a Swedish site — acaciaizm.com – gives us a little heads up on what will be coming down the pipe for 2.4 on the PvP front in their interview with Jeff Kaplan (Tigole): 

On the question of “other information regarding 2.4″
Kaplan is secretive as always, though hints that there will be balancing actions taken in regards to PvP for certain classes. Arenas are also hinted as an area Blizzard “have large plans for” and they will be aiming to bring it closer to e-sport acceptance.

Hopefully this is good news all around for WoW and competitive PvP. Without getting into class specifics, changes they will need to address from observations of the recent competitions is 1) the reliance on class compositions and counter-compositions in the arena matchups, and 2) viability across the board for all classes.

So with the information that’s currently known, the schedule for the upcoming patches/expansion is as follows:

1) no changes through the end of the year,
2) Patch 2.3.2 shortly afterwards,
3) 2.4 around the end of the first quarter of 2008
4) then WotLK Expansion. 

Tags: News

17 Responses to “Glimpse of PvP Changes by Tigole”

1. heartless_ Says:
   December 21st, 2007 at 11:34 am

   I just laugh a little inside when Blizzard tries to push Arenas as a serious e-sport. The game is built in such a way that it can’t be balanced. They mine as well launch a seperate WoW:Arenas game to handle the balance, gear, and other issues related to e-sports.

2. Snitch Says:
   December 21st, 2007 at 12:58 pm

   Making it more viewer-friendly with “spectator” mode would make it more appealing though, even if it never reaches “balance” in that way when gear and classes are so different.

3. Düdgar Says:
   December 21st, 2007 at 1:15 pm

   They try to balance pvp with pve in mind.
   to balance it to the level of fair sport
   they have to balance pvp separate, with formulas and abilitys that where only active in pvp and not in pve.

   With that as a base they have a chance to create a real balanced pvp-scenario.

4. dagnabber Says:
   December 21st, 2007 at 5:50 pm

   e-sport acceptance > pve

   cant do raids, heck I cant even show up to work on time

5. kag Says:
   December 22nd, 2007 at 1:40 pm

   So the idea is to release 2.4 and then go content patchless for 9 months????

6. Düdgar Says:
   December 22nd, 2007 at 2:09 pm

   9months!?
   No, we will see many small patches after 2.4
   and maybe another contentpatch if wotlk was delayed.

   (forgive my bad english in all posts i´ve made, i dont speak or write it very often^^)

7. yokay Says:
   December 22nd, 2007 at 4:17 pm

   Premade arena servers seem like a very likely possibility from the sounds of that.

8. Düdgar Says:
   December 23rd, 2007 at 4:14 am

   Only premades with equal gear are not the way to balance it.
   Most PvPer´s have nearly the same gear, the problems are the single abilitys of the classes, they have to balance classdesign in general for pvp and thats short before impossible without ruining all pve balance.

   Only way to do this is to bring a pvpversion of each class….like a pvp-stance only useable outside of instances

9. Your Mom Says:
   December 23rd, 2007 at 9:36 am

   Plus the whole system of set classes forces you to be pigeonholed into very specific roles with specific deficiencies that can be easily exploited. It would probably be best to do something like in Fury where there are no set classes.

   Plus a big boost to the speed of movement and the GCD would make it better.

10. the ish Says:
    December 23rd, 2007 at 11:39 am

    i would honestly love to see some reworking done during s3 to see something other than druids locks and warriors do really and consistently well in 2s, and something other than whatevers gibbing 3s do well (i dont want to just single out rogues or combos like PRM due to incoming changes to the tree, and a large base of rogues on this site -_^)

    the gear system has become a SLIGHT amount less welfare, it would be nice to see the teams doing well becoming a little more reasonable (i’ve got quotes from top warriors for instance on my battlegroup saying give him any old druid and he gets a free ride to 2200, which isn’t how i like to think a good game will work).

11. Critickle Says:
    December 24th, 2007 at 2:06 am

    “the gear system has become a SLIGHT amount less welfare, it would be nice to see the teams doing well becoming a little more reasonable (i’ve got quotes from top warriors for instance on my battlegroup saying give him any old druid and he gets a free ride to 2200, which isn’t how i like to think a good game will work).”

    TBH any class is like that. I mean, if you’re a top rogue, then you just need any old spriest or warlock to get to 2200.

    To get to 2400+ that top warrior would need a top druid. To get 2400+ that top rogue would need a top spriest/lock. Not really that imbalanced. The only thing imbalanced is that doing double dps is slightly harder to get high rated than healer + dps due to less consistency.

12. Apraxia Says:
    December 24th, 2007 at 10:01 am

    I like the new gear, but I wouldn’t wear it as a mage due to less intellect, which just seemed totally backwards to me.
    I can’t wait to see what they’ll come up with in future pvp.

13. the ish Says:
    December 24th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

    “To get to 2400+ that top warrior would need a top druid.”

    to get to 2100 as a hunter you need a more skilled healer than the required 2100 team using a warrior. This is simply my opinion but i believe its correct. i could use other team comps like my warlock/hunter 2s team, or a team not involving a hunter at all (which i have little experience with) but it wont matter, at the end of the day its my belief that to reach xyz rating with a warrior or warlock, say, in 2s requires a less coordinated and strong team than to do it with a mage or any of the other classes.

14. Critickle Says:
    December 25th, 2007 at 4:55 am

    The grass is always greener on the other side.

15. sigh Says:
    December 26th, 2007 at 4:29 pm

    Arena will never be balanced because Blizzard is not capable of balancing this game for 1v1 combat, because if it doesn’t work in 1v1, it sure as hell won’t work in 5v5.

16. Zhonya Says:
    December 28th, 2007 at 3:29 pm

    Actually sigh Blizzard said they don’t want it balanced in 1v1 because that has nothing to do with 5v5 balance. For example, Warlocks are #1 in 1v1, but they aren’t overpowered in 5v5 by any means. There really is a difference.

17. ways to stop smoking Says:
    February 2nd, 2011 at 10:41 pm

    Thanks a bunch for sharing this with all of us you really know what you are talking about! Bookmarked. Please also visit my website =). We could have a link exchange agreement between us!

Leave a Reply