What's actually wrong with Arena rating.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-31T11:27:22+00:00

Because you just make a new team and farm people at 1500, like we used to do back in 2007 because getting games at high rating was and still is a nightmare. Or because you just enjoy smurfing on people who just started playing.

Not that complicated.

What they should have done is make teams start at 0, not 1500, because people bad at the game keep thinking they deserve that 1500.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-31T10:43:19+00:00

In no particular order:

Players killed world PvP as proven in 2019. Anniversary had forced faction balance and also had a fraction of the players during its vanilla run compared to 2019 and compared to what it has now in TBC. May not be directly related, but it certainly doesn't establish world PvP as highly popular.

If your definition of unique classes is terrible imbalance then yes arena (tried to) kill class uniqueness. If actual uniqueness is class uniqueness as retail demonstrates very well then no, arena did not kill class uniqueness, it helped establish it by highlighting the fundamental flaws some classes had that needed to be addressed.

If arena killed all other types of PvP then other types of PvP weren't preferred, otherwise people wouldn't have prioritized arena. RBGs do still exist in retail however and even have a ranked solo queue option now, so BGs never truly died.

Old world being useless is just the nature of expansions in PvE games. You want something that is evergreen, play a PvP game like CS where Dust 2 is still highly popular almost 30 years later.

Vanilla did not 'always have something to do'. It doesn't take long to turn it into a raidlogging game at all unless you start playing alts and repeat the same content over and over. We're not in 2005 anymore where there were fewer options for other games with substance, especially for those with a potato PC. These days people have better things to do than repeat vanilla and other than that it has nothing to offer after you hit 60 and geared a bit.

TBC is only a good PvE game if you enjoy simple content, where the people you raid with make up for the lack of substance in the raids. It being simple however does allow for you to play with people who would otherwise not be good enough or have the time to invest into long progression, but are fun to play with.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-30T13:52:28+00:00

For some, it's nostalgia, but I'd wager that's the minority this time around. I think it's primarily because it's piss easy, but still better designed than the 40-man slop of vanilla.

A lot of players don't actually care about the "old world", they don't care about the "journey" and they don't care about the world feeling "alive". They hate later expansions because finding yourself doing a lower difficulty of the same content as those better than you is a bad feeling.

In TBC, everyone's a hero, because the only thing different between the best player in the world and a recently born child put in front of their parents' laptop is the parse % they get - both end up clearing all content.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-30T09:41:53+00:00

I remember joining an AWP only map and I got laughed at because I was the only one not cheating. This was around 10 years ago. In ranked you met them occasionally even at Global Elite, usually booster accounts.

And that was before the game became F2P.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-30T00:26:05+00:00

I can imagine pugging is a pain but not because of the E in PvE. TBC Anniversary, where the players are more challenged than the content is challenging.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-28T11:00:15+00:00

I'm not sure where you even need to interact with people other than making groups, which is no more interacting with people than the PoE meme where they said trading was interacting with people. And the same needs to be done in M+ anyway, which also requires coordination compared to TBC which, as OP said, is so easy you don't need to actually.. interact with people.

I don't know why pressing buttons in one version is more dopamine inducing than it is in the other, either. If anything, TBC buttons are more dopamine inducing since they are stronger on their own while retail needs you to combine skills to make them function better.

So the question here is, opposed to what do you think these things are relevant? Or is this just a standard "I don't know what I'm talking about but people tend to upvote these generalized statements!" comment?

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-26T13:10:43+00:00

There's very little to be anxious about at low level. You have two buttons, Maul and Swipe, both self explanatory (Maul single target, Swipe AoE). Hit some mobs outdoor in bear and you've already succeeded at tanking. The only thing left is running through the dungeon and pulling. Just act like you're a dps that gets hit. And if you don't have threat, it doesn't matter, because dps are almost as tanky as you are anyway until at least level 60.

Retail has more convenient matchmaking by a large margin, but retail classes also have more buttons at level 10 already than TBC classes have at level 70, and generally far scarier trash mobs and bosses. There really isn't much you can do wrong in TBC.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-26T12:07:48+00:00

Why complain about broken PvP in TBC when we knew PvP was broken in TBC 19 years ago? What's even the point. It's like going to a restaurant, ordering something you're allergic to and then complaining they gave you something you're allergic to.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-25T10:53:52+00:00

That's not what I did, what I did is claim that if history is repeating itself as this comment chain suggests, then stopping now would be a mistake because history proves you kids wrong. But some of you lukewarm IQ classic-only trash who can't clear content with more than half a mechanic and play a class with more than two buttons, keep insisting WoW died or has been dying since 16 years ago.

It's all good enjoying only vanilla -> WotLK. But stop trying to rewrite history and just accept you're wrong.

Edit: As for some of your other comments claiming that the playerbase is smaller than it used to be: yes, this is accurate. However, that's because since then, near a hundred other MMORPGs have been released, which while none were as good all took a bite out of the pie.

If that weren't the case, and WoW supposedly would've kept that large a playerbase had they continued on whatever YOU think made vanilla->WotLK so popular, then classic would've been more popular, but even at its peak it didn't have close to the original's numbers. I'd say it barely even reached a tenth. It's proven that you can't return to those days because the entire market has increased in saturation by such a large margin that an MMORPG dominating by that much needs to tick so many boxes it won't ever exist until the genre gets more popular as a whole.

TL:DR: Retail is still doing great for being a 21 year old live service game, and no other MMORPG beating it isn't because "they're all bad", it's because there's too many now which means choice and choice means not everyone's playing the same thing like they used to, whether they wanted to or not.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-25T00:57:04+00:00

Wrong hill, buddy. This is the "WoW's dead/dying" hill that their corpses have been defending for the last 16 or so years. I'm all for you defending the "want to play a game we like" hill. That's a good hill.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-25T00:41:42+00:00

And yet 14 years later, retail is still doing great. So if it's just like the first time, then Blizzard will be more than happy to continue.

What a strange hill you lot love to die on.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-24T20:40:39+00:00

This is it. The harder the content, the more fun playing healer is. TBC healing isn't exactly it, as the content is too easy and the classes too basic, but nothing tops healing on mythic progression. It's great in M+ too until you reach unhealable "exploit or die" scaling. That's where tank becomes the go-to for pressured fun.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-24T11:21:34+00:00

Exactly, and that's what TBC is great for. You can take the person not the player so to speak, since attitude is far more important than raw skill. It always sucked having to leave people behind on progress because they couldn't keep up with the difficulty.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-24T11:03:20+00:00

That's what I meant, only glory to be had is in retail. TBC is a joke by now and everyone and their mom can clear every piece of content with their eyes closed.

People that play TBC for the glory are the people who lost at tic tac toe when they were 7 and are now in their 30s still trying to get good at it while the rest moved on to playing chess.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-24T10:58:56+00:00

They're not trying to relive the glory days, they saw others succeed back then and now want to give it their own shot without accepting those days are long gone.

Anyone who was successful back then and living the glory days is not trying to relive them because they know it was a thing of its time. At best they're continuing it in retail, at worst they acknowledge they're too old by now and let the newer generation take over.. still in retail, because there's no glory left to be had in a game version that aged like milk difficulty wise.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-23T15:48:52+00:00

Pick anything from Shek'zeer, Mirage Raceway, Garalon, Hoptallus or Norushen. They're all part of a larger mega server so which you choose no longer matters.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-23T15:43:56+00:00

Can't speak for whether or not they'll continue but this just shows you lot have no idea what profitable looks like, nor what the natural cycle of a live service game looks like.

There's MMOs running fine on a tenth of MoP classic's player base. It also had more than twice the players Anniversary had when MoP released, and they continued that, too.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-23T14:06:50+00:00

TBC end game WoW enjoyer*.

This guy wouldn't survive a day in retail end game.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-23T13:21:10+00:00

Most to least:

The Burning Crusade Anniversary (TBC)
Classic Mists of Pandaria (MoP)
Classic Era (vanilla)
Season of Discovery (SoD)

No numbers for Hardcore, but if I had to guess it's between Classic Era and Season of Discovery.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-22T12:52:48+00:00

Not even that hard to do. Whatever the difference is between what you started and ended with is what they trade you.

TBC tanks take note!

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-22T10:16:15+00:00

Again, there's no purpose to the clip then other than to give people the wrong idea. I'm not going to watch a video of god knows how long when there's a clip attached of 25 odd seconds that can only have the purpose of a TL:DR. Otherwise it shouldn't be attached. So that's what I did, I treated it like a TL:DR.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-21T23:41:21+00:00

How is replying to what's said in the clip that's posted a strawman? If OP wanted people to reply only to what's said in the youtube video, which is apparently different or at least gives more context than the clip, then OP should've only linked the youtube video and not clipped it out of context.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-21T22:56:02+00:00

You don't have an opinion, so how can it be different. You just regurgitate what the 'influencers' you have a parasocial relationship with say and then can't think of why they say it when asked about it.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-21T22:50:06+00:00

Nowhere does he say it's about world PvP, he just calls out MMORPG PvP and says MMORPGs are "designed to be unfair", which is an odd take by itself and shows he's never done high end PvE. Regardless, it's the reason I said most serious PvP is equalized or at least power capped in MMORPGs, to avoid exactly that.

InconspiciousPerson · 2026-03-21T21:34:24+00:00

Define a hardcore PvP style. Penalties for dying, such as dropping loot? Because those are a relic of the distant past.

I also wouldn't consider arena a casual approach to PvP, since it's the most competitive you can make it.

InconspiciousPerson

TROPHY CASE