The new mechanic has given rise to a new form of Arena point selling, however -- mercenaries for hire. Many players who aren't after end-of-season rewards have used their PvP skills to earn a bit of Gold on the side by instead joining low-rated teams in need of a little push. Most of these players have already gotten full Season 3 gear and have no use for personal or team ratings and Arena points. With the onset of Arena Season 4, which is slated to begin on June 24, it might happen that we'll see a few of these mercenaries peddling their services all over again.
With the new personal ratings requirements for Brutal Gladiator items, players will need to work a little harder to get the latest PvP gear. For some players, this means looking to swords-for-hire (or axes-, or daggers-, or spells-...) for help. It's actually more profitable for seasoned Arena player in the new scheme of things, as they no longer need to maintain a high-ranked team and no longer limited to taking on a few customers at a time for the minimum three games (out of requisite ten). Arena mercenaries (or usually a pair) can simply hop from team to team helping raise players' personal ratings. With a modest 1700 personal rating the only requirement to get 4/5 Brutal Gladiator, it seems that PvP progression will finally catch up to PvE progression. With a little help for some, of course.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-10-2008 @ 11:25PM
Heilig said...
This is why Personal Ratings should transcend any team ratings and should not reset until the season is over. Resetting personal ratings anytime the player starts a new team or joins a new team does exactly squat except make people more inventive.
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6-10-2008 @ 11:27PM
Jagoex said...
Worse than hiring mercenaries, as you call them, is the fact that many players are actually allowing others (higher-rated players) to play their toons for them in hopes of greater "success." This not only opens up the possibility of getting banned, as all methods of cheating do, but is also an extreme security risk, as one's account information becomes accessible by individuals other than the account's owner.
Also, as account sharing has proven in the past, even if you completely trust the individual you are sharing your information with, it is difficult to predict whether or not they have taken care to guard their system against potential keyloggers, etc.
All of this should be obvious information, but I think that at the start of a new Arena season, it is important to emphasize responsible playing yet again. =)
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6-10-2008 @ 11:41PM
Law said...
This little article also missed the opportunity to talk about how the "mercenaries" skew the whole ratings system when they team hop as well.
For those of you who don't know what I mean, let's say for instance a "mercenary for hire" group is bought to powerlevel the team and personal rating of an individual. Well, with the new personal ratings averaging system, 2k teams never have to play in the 2k brackets and hover at 1850-1900s bracket indefinitely by leaving and rejoining the same team while boosting the bought person's personal and team rating.
The arena system has always been corrupt, and now it's been taken to a whole new level. Blizzard wants personal and team ratings to be meaningful? That's utter garbage, just hire a druid. Season 4? More corrupt than a Tijuana police station.
By the by, I've got my S3 shoulder and weapons/shield already, so save your flames about how I am a noob. This affects my friends fighting fully decked out season 3 teams (exception of one person) in the 1500-1850s brackets.
Armory me if you feel the need to flame, name's Law on Moon Guard. I'm also messing around with a DW/MS/Endless Rage Mace spec atm, so feel free to tell me how much of a noob I am.
-Law
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6-10-2008 @ 11:45PM
Slayblaze said...
You're a noob.
(j/k...sorry it was too tempting)
6-11-2008 @ 12:39AM
Reinard said...
Is it just me or is all this arena bull getting a little annoying? >_<
I'm not one of those "omg arenas killed PVP/ruined WoW" people but it's definitely fuel for the flame of all sorts of drama :(
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6-11-2008 @ 1:02AM
Den said...
So as someone with shoulders and 5k points I've been team swapping simply to play with friends. I don't have time to PVE and is a good way to spend time playing with them. Clearly I should be charging for it :P
But my point is that some people team swap for not gold making reasons. Though a lot of people ask "how mush is XYZ paying you ?" lol
Another interesting thing thats come of this is that I've still been playing with my original team mate, on our 2k team so he can get points from 2s. The team is at 2k and cause my PR is 1500 we play and q at 1500. Meaning we go 10-0 each week and he bags the points with little to no effort. Interesting situation. (Though I don't feel as bad taking 1-2 points from new players as I did when we re-made our 3v3 last week and took 15+ per game)
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6-11-2008 @ 1:33PM
M said...
Yeah.. That's the problem with the current situation.
It can be fixed with two minor changes: you get your rewards based on the lower rating, but you queue based on the higher rating; and players keep their personal rating when changing teams.
6-11-2008 @ 6:32AM
niwaar said...
This is the reason why Personal Ratings are bubkiss...
As long as you can reset your personal rating by leaving and rejoining a team freely then the system will be obnoxiously unfair to those just trying to work within the system.
The biggest solution would be to gain a "cooldown" whenever you leave a team in any bracket. Preventing you from participating in any rated match for a LONG duration of time. You may say that people leave and reform teams for legitimate reasons all the time. Well, my counter would be that 90% of people playing within the rules do not do this. Create a system not unlike the "respec" system to remove the cooldown by paying a large sum of gold that grows exponentially as you do it more and more. Say 100g first time, 250 second, and so on and so forth.
At the very least you will be removing the incentive for the mercenaries to swap by cutting into their bottom line. For those who help their friends... well everyone has to take a hit to make a balanced system. The arena system was flawed from the very get go. We'd have been better off with a pure faction gain system like preBC pvp rewards used to be, but Blizz failed so we are stuck with what we got.
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6-11-2008 @ 11:21AM
spinninnzen said...
Two problems with your solutions. The first puts people at a disadvantage who are looking for a good team. You may join a team and then find out later that they arent playing to your standard (or you to their standard) and need to look for another group. So now you are forcing players to "get stuck" with a crappy team unless they want to wait for some long cool down. The second option isnt viable either as I'm sure what people are charging for these ratings pushes are much higher then what blizzard would consider a feasible amount for legitimate reteaming. In addition Im sure they would just tell the person to add that to their fee as well. Now the first may work if lets say you allow a team a grace period. where they cant really earn enough points to keep jumping but still allow enough time to move if the team isnt working out. Although sad to say it. Anything can be "gamed" given enough time. Its a reflection of life. There is always going to be people who are going to find a way to cut corners or get something with minimal effort despite what deterrent you put out there.
6-11-2008 @ 8:01AM
Charlie said...
Honestly they're going to make major changes to arena in Wrath like their doing to everything else. I see most of these changes as doing what they can do now, but saving the big changes for Wrath, much like they did w/ BC.
Anyways, I find this to be less of a problem than normal point selling, so its better, but it still aint perfect.
People will always find a way to work the system to their profit, its much like selling bear mounts for 10kg, except everyone on the server is affected, and not just that guild.
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6-11-2008 @ 9:28AM
Atros said...
My idea is this... do away with team ratings as they currently are. Your personal rating gets reset at the beginning of the season, and it stays locked, so if you change teams, your rating persists. Your team's average personal rating gets used for comparisons purposes as far as matching, but a comparison of YOUR personal rating and the other teams average team rating is what is used to adjust your point change for the match.
Say, you have a 3v3 team queueng up with 2 2100 players with a 1500 player. That team would queue up as a 1950 team for the purposes of finding a matching team. While this would penalize a team for grabbing somebody new, it prevents people from expecting easy wins from 'Mercenary' gladiators who are selling points. If the 1500 player should be higher ranked as far as skill goes, he'll catch up as he just scored a win on a 1950 team as a 1500 player.
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6-11-2008 @ 10:39PM
Atros said...
Er, I meant 1900 team... curse my odd math.
6-11-2008 @ 9:48AM
lightning94 said...
As I have posted on other forums, the arena system is completely screwed up. With the ability to leave and rejoin teams so you can "auto win" with your season 3 gear against folks who are just starting out simply by reseting your rating is a joke. I stopped playing arena because of the fact that having just started out I was constantly facing teams of fully geared people who just enjoyed beating the hell out of me. I will never claim to be a pvp king, but in the battlegrounds and world pvp I do o.k. I completely agree witht he above post of putting some kind of penalty on players that involves time away from arena for leaving a team, didn't they do that for battlegrounds to stop folks from jumping ship. If arena is suppose to showcase the best of the best at pvp, lets keep it that way and stop the cheaters from running the show.
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6-11-2008 @ 10:08AM
forthepie said...
How many games have been destoyed due to PvP issues? Classes get changed drastically for PvP balances,etc.
I am not saying that WOW is going under by any means, I am just saying WOW just can't get PvP right.
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6-11-2008 @ 11:51AM
Iskur said...
How many games. How about Ultima Online. The last game Tom Chilton killed. Fire him blizzzard!!!!!!
6-11-2008 @ 10:18AM
zappo said...
This may be an unpopular opinion, especially considering I hate all things arena; but I don't see a problem with this. If your skills at PvP are seriously SO good that you become a mercenary, then I would think this would fully embody what an RPG is all about.
I leveled leather working to "375" and sell my services at that skill level, this is essentially the same thing without a dinky number mechanic built in. Does this mean that someone in full S3 will help some noob stomp people in the 1500 bracket? Yeah. And sure they are carried, but many people are also carried because they are friends of people who happen to have more skill. If I want to sell my services that's up to me, regardless of if it's an instance run through, cyber sex, or PvP.
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6-11-2008 @ 10:55AM
Atros said...
Problem is, the arena's aren't being sold as an RPG. They're being sold as a competitive esport with ranking system that is supposed to be fair (the difficulties of both balancing the PvP and PvE sides not withstanding, being another argument entirely). Right now, it isn't, pure and simple, with the way some people can cheese the symptom to get their rating inflated to a level they don't deserve, all to get shiny epics. I personally think making all the arena gear require ratings is a step in the right direction to making the gear actually mean something.
6-11-2008 @ 12:01PM
zappo said...
Yeah, I just don't buy into this esport junk. There is no way that you can have a legit esport with a giant random number generator looming over your head. It's like saying, that soccer match was great and if God hadn't struck down two of those players with lightning for no reason, they probably would have won! And that's not even getting into class imbalance issues as you said. It just can't be on the same level as something like Quake.
Although I have great respect for Blizzard and praise them for their wisdom in addressing many problems in this game, arena is completely screwed up. So is it an esport that is inherently unfair? Fine. NOW Blizzard is trying to drag these people into battlegrounds as well. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see this would happen. Battlegrounds themselves are totally over-run with twinks - now everyone is going to "play fair" for arena?
If it were up to me I would just dump the current system entirely. I would make arena awards weapon only. I'd also make each arena tier use the SAME gear per bracket - you don't even get to use your own stuff (except weapons). I'd also probably consider just dumbing it down to class VS their own class (ala dueling tournament) but like I said, I don't like the entire arena concept anyway so I'd probably just nerf everyone's fun. =P
So in the end this is all Blizzard just chasing their tail in a problem they invented for themselves. Instead of maybe making Warsong Gulch fun or something to that effect. But now when everyone says the game has stagnated for content they can pull out "Look! new arena season!" Whee...
6-11-2008 @ 10:56AM
themadchemist said...
I would have guessed this was happening even without the article. I have been noticing teams where one player will have full season 3 and the rest are in a mix of greens, blues and purples. It can be frustrating at times but if you can quickly find who are the players getting boosted you can typically down them quick because 1) low stam 2) low res 3) no skill 4)all of the above. even 1 full season 3 player is not going to beat all 3 of us.
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6-11-2008 @ 12:09PM
Ircasha said...
If arenas are going to be considered an E-sport, then the gear that comes from it should be segregated from the game. People should start with a base set of 'arena' gear, used only for arenas. Any gear they gain by ranking would also only be used in arenas.
High ranking teams/individuals would get things at the end of the season usable within the game at large, like titles, mounts, a single weapon or armor piece, etc.
I think this would fix many of the issues with point selling, etc., mainly because most people would stop playing arenas all together if they couldn't use the gear in BGs/Regular WoW.
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