I am of the opinion that PvE and PvP should be kept as separate from each other as possible. To the point where each can be treated as a completely different game from the other.
Imagine how much faster PvE content could be developed and balanced if the developers could tune players and abilities with absolutely no regard to the PvP ramifications.
Imagine how easy it would be to bring frost mages in line with the other specs if they didn’t have to worry about overpowering them in PvP. Or Arms warriors.
Say Ret Paladins are dealing way too much damage in PvP, but are just fine from a PvE standpoint. How do you go about repairing that issue without nerfing PvE damage?
Imagine how easy it would be to solve that issue if nerfing PvP damage didn’t have any effect on raiding paladins.
Imagine all the time and effort currently spent carefully balancing PvE concerns versus PvP concerns. Imagine if, instead of spending hours carefully making sure class X isn’t overpowered in PvP when they receive a slight buff in PvE, they simply buff class X for PvE.
And said buff doesn’t change anything from a PvP standpoint.
There are already strong disconnects between PvP and PvE content.
There are talents that provide nothing for a raiding character and talents that provide nothing for an arena character. An arcane mage specced for PvP will still be able to provide DPS in a raid, just nowhere near the same level a PvE specced arcane mage could.
There are PvE abilities that generally do nothing in PvP. There are PvP abilities that generally do nothing in PvE.
Even the gear for raiding content and PvP content is completely different. While raiding gear can be used for PvP (and vice-versa), neither is nearly as effective at the other as it is within the element it was designed for.
Yes, you can PvP in raiding gear. You’ll deal plenty of damage before your extremely swift and painful demise.
Yes, you can raid in PvP gear. Just be prepared to watch all of that stamina and resilience laugh at your itemization.
I have always been a proponent that PvP and PvE should be kept as far away from each other as possible.
Ghostcrawler says: “Then you’d have to have a lot of talents affect things differently. Grants a 10% bonus in PvP or a 25% bonus in PvE.” …As if doing something like that was a bad thing.
Splitting mechanics, spells, talents, and so forth into two distinct camps would be a wonderful thing.
PvP and PvE are already completely different games. The two areas don’t play anything like each other.
Those LoS tricks that Disc priest knows for Ruins of Lordaeron? Completely useless skill set for a raiding priest.
All those neat tanking and positioning tricks Mr. Warrior knows? Totally pointless in an arena.
The only crossovers are the most basic of gaming skills: awareness and reaction time. Specific skills? No crossover whatsoever.
When does a raiding mage need to know how to fake cast? When does a raiding priest take the time to wear down an enemy caster via Mana Burn?
At it’s most basic level, PvE content is scripted, and the challenge lies in proper execution to defeat these encounters. PvP content is improvised, and the challenge lies in out-manuevering intelligent opponents.
(Disclaimer: Intelligence not guaranteed, results may vary.)
It isn’t “crazy” to split the game in two. It isn’t weird, or abnormal. It’s basically already done; all Blizzard needs to do is confirm it, start designing it that way, and stop wasting time trying to balance two areas of play that can’t be balanced.
They’re the only ones left still trying to treat WoW as a single game.
It would probably require a whole ton of copy/pasting to split a whole bunch of abilities into their PvP/PvE specific incarnations. But I have faith! If need be, I’ll send you a new keyboard if your C and V keys get worn out.
Not every spell/ability would need to be different for each area of content. In fact, very few things would actually need to be adjusted. Arcane Blast/Missiles/Barrage can all be treated exactly the same for both PvP and PvE.
It’s only the rare abilities, like Deep Freeze, that would require both PvP and PvE incarnations. How awesome would it be if Deep Freeze dealt a truck-load of damage, thus giving it a place in the raiding frost mages rotation? And if it’s overpowered for it to deal damage in PvP… then *gasp* it just doesn’t deal any damage in PvP!
Or take the Ice Lance issue. Raiding frost needs a buff, but PvP frost doesn’t. So the Glyph of Ice Lance is modified to make it attractive to frosty raiders, while providing nothing to PvP mages.
But they don’t want to ramp up the Glyph’s damage too far, because then frost mages will become incredibly good at leveling quickly. (Because frost mages totally aren’t good at leveling now.)
Wouldn’t it be so much easier if there were simply two incarnations of Ice Lance?
The PvE version deals way more damage to frozen targets, and can proc both Brain Freeze and Fingers of Frost. The PvP version doesn’t. Shazam. Several raiding frost mage issues instantly solved, without compromising PvP at all.
Sure, it’d be confusing for new players, but that’s what ingame tips are for, aren’t they?
Consider that there are plenty of people who already only play on variation of WoW.
Some can happily PvP for hours and hours, but are bored inside any raid, except maybe the first kill. Farming bosses pisses these people off. Some even actively despise PvE content, both raiding and leveling, but have to do it anyway (either to get fancy Kel’Thuzad weapons or get to the new level cap).
Some are barely even aware of what PvP is. Maybe they dabbled in it every now and then, maybe not. A pure PvE hunter would look at a patch note that says “Viper Sting now does blargh” and wonder “Viper Sting? What the fhtagn is that?”
Let’s say Explosive Shot is nerfed somehow for some PvP reason. Now there are thousands of raiding Survivalist hunters getting nerfed because of something they have never participated in and likely will never participate in.
How exactly is that fair to them?
Consider a real example. The mechanics of Molten Armor are completely changed to accomodate raiding mages. These new mechanics render Molten Armor useless from a PvP standpoint.
So now all those PvP mages that wanted to use Molten Armor for it’s crit mechanics (and perhaps it’s synergy with Impact), no longer can because spirit (a stat totally absent on mage PvP gear) needed to become interesting to raiding mages.
One last time: it isn’t possible to successfully balance both PvE and PvP, at the same time, with ten different classes. It just isn’t.
Well… just a point…
I would know…
Why do People enter in a PvP server?
They are free to chose some servers and them take PvP… and, when you are playing you do a “inspect” and that guy doesn’t play PvP…
…
It’s bad… i don’t like PvE… it’s boring…. well.. not so much… but i don’t have a lot of time to stay in instance for 2 or 3 hours…
My server is PVP… realm Aegwynn… yesterday I saw a plenty of guys that aren’t play pvp.. it’s a crap…
and i ask… why did they enter in a PvP server?
;(
Yes, we could spit the game in two, but where would we draw the line between PvP and PvE content? For me PvP doesn’t just happen in BGs or arenas, but everywhere. Does PvE mean just raids and instances, or the hole leveling process?
Once we determine wear to draw the line between the two, then we can start modifying the different aspects =D.
@ Nugget – In my mind, PvE = any content against a NPC. PvP = attacking an actual player. Most of the talents can be modified to do X against an NPC, and Y against a player (I believe Ghostcrawler affirmed this is already possible, mechanics wise, but that it would just take a lot of time to implement).
As to why people on a PvP server don’t PvP, there are a lot of reasons. From what I understand, all the best raiding guilds originally ran on PvP realms, and if you were on a PvE realm, you couldn’t transfer over (not true anymore). Additionally, if you have friends that PvP, you want to play with them so you join their server. Maybe they like the challenge of STV on a PvP server, even if they don’t particularly like PvP.
The differences are really minor anyways. If you want to do BGs and Arena, you can totally be on a PvE server. You just don’t get the world PvP aspect as much.
I’d be much happier if we could split the two games entirely. Development would become a thing of joy, not the constant, teeth-nashing emo anxiety attack it is now. But it’ll never happen 😦
Given that comparatively little PvP takes place in the world, other than pointless, annoying raids on -50 cities in the other faction’s starting areas and runs on the Capitals (which are a legit PvP activity)…the line can be drawn thusly:
BGs and Arenas are PvP, everything else is PvE.
The design already provides substantial incentives to confine PvP to BGs and Arenas. Yes, it is possible to do all your Honor grinding picking off lone NElfs in southern STV, but it isn’t anything like efficient compared to running Arathi over and over.
Euri is on the right track…most mobs have special variations of spells anyway, so changing player resist mechanics to balance PvP would be time consuming rather than difficult.
Life as a lone NElf on a PvP server is still gonna suck…
Why do people not RP on an RP server? Same reasons people don’t necessarily PVP on a PVP server.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the dissonance between PVP and PVE. They should be separated completely and it will make everyone much much happier players in the long run. One set of mechanics which applies when you are attacking an NPC and another which applies when you’re attacking a PC. It will require a lot of work on Blizzard’s part, but it will win them over so many wavering customers who quit because a class they loved to play simply stopped being the fun the moment it wasn’t as successful in the arena of gameplay they’d chosen to engage in.
I’m a PVE person. I’ve never PVP’d and honestly have no desire to, but I admire the temperance and skill sets of good PVPers. However I shouldn’t be punished simply because when dual specs come around, I’ll be choosing two different PVE specs. And neither should the PVPer who gauges their fun entirely by their arena rating or success in BGs.
I don’t know if Blizzard will ever go through with it, but if they did, now would be a good time.
Not to mention there are already some mechanics implemented that work this way (operating differently when used against PCs or NPCs). For example, crowd control effects such as Polymorph.
I mostly do PvE, but I play on a PvP server. I’ve never been in an arena. I’ve done one BG run in my life. I suck at PvP, although I’m trying be what Euripedes defines as a ‘good player’ by reading up on how to improve my (not so) mad skillz in all WoW aspects including PvP.
Encountering other players adds additional variety to pure PvE. “Will that Human attempt to stomp me or just cheerily wave as he hurries by on his paladin business?” The other players become part of the environment that you have to navigate. PvE(p), if you will.
Encounters with players of the opposite faction also help me feel more immersed in the game world, which makes it more fun to play. RP servers are a bit too immersive – the PvP bits in my normal PvE playing is just about right.
Because I like my PvE with a dash of PvP I wish that there was a way to balance the two together. However, giving spells & abilities a dual nature sounds like a nice compromise. From an implementation viewpoint I don’t envy the programmers the boatload of special cases that would probably introduce (e.g. I was strafing away from that level 80 paladin and stepped into a nest of wolves, spiders, and night elf druids. What does my Frost Nova do now?!), but from a gameplay standpoint it makes sense.
As much as I agree with all this about the disconnect between PvP and PvE, giving spells completely different mechanics in PvP and PvE just feels clunky. Yes, the upper crust could definitely adapt, but the game’s already pretty complex—ten classes, two dozen abilities each, a bajillion dungeons/raids, professions, gear, specs … and this would really be a suboptimal solution for everyone else.
I thought that glyphs might help to solve this, since they DO change the functionality of the spell, sometimes in striking ways. Why couldn’t we have a glyph that improves the damage of some ability against targets of the same level? Or against elites only? Or even only against PC’s? But Blizz seems to prefer to use glyphs for min/maxing instead …
Well I’ll go against the grain here and say that I don’t think that PVP and PVE should be separate. As I indicated in an earlier comment what *should* happen is to make NPCs behave more like players. NPC rogues should stun lock you, NPC warlocks should fear you etc. Trash mobs should ignore the tanks and go straight for the healers. The whole threat/taunt mechanic is just totally artificial anyway.
Imagine the challenge of RFC if all those MOBs actually acted like they had half a brain.
Bottom line is though, Blizzard is simply not going to make any of these changes to World of Warcraft. The game is rapidly approaching end-of-life sunset mode. With just one or two (my guess is one) expansions left for the game before their next generation MMO hits why spend all that effort re-engineering the classes?
I agree with Marcaile… PvE = any content against a NPC. PvP = attacking an actual player.
There are already plenty examples of the duality of skills. Tanks can only use taunt against NPCs. Bosses can’t be frozen etc.
If we use Marcaile’s definition, then when in AV, you will be using both “sets” of skills… the PvP aspects against the players, and the PvE against the NPCs.
&/Or start having 2 versions of glyphs… the PvP & the PvE. We will have dual specs soon, so why not have “dual skill gylphs”. Then the Fire Mage can spec Fire for both PvE & PvP, yet know that they have tweaked their toon for the environment. Players on a PvP realm can PvP spec (with the skills) up to the door of the instance, then respec to PvE to take advantage of improved PvE skills.
Or make NPCs more intelligent…
Or make player characters significantly less intelligent.
From a design aspect, it really makes all the sense in the world to separate the two (very, very different) worlds as far as effects go. Not only does it allow for easier balance on both sides of the coin, but it opens up insane amounts of design space when attempting to create new talents, skills, spells, trades, classes, races; you name it.
I, however, do not feel that it should be a common occurrence that an ability does one thing in PvE and a /drastically different effect/ in PvP. This might not be able to be avoided in a case such as Deep Freeze, but in other cases it should be simple to avoid this “clunky design” that would require players to remember two different effects for the same spell. It would be easy to just have subtle differences in secondary effects on the given ability.
The current design system, which ties PvP and PvE together, simply invites needless complications. It might be a little easier to grasp for a newer player, but in the long run it just doesn’t make sense.
Thing is, at least in the context of Mages, things don’t have to be separated in order to be able to fix them both properly. To me it’s rather simple: If you want to buff/nerf PvP aspects of Mages, just mess around with anything that’s instant-cast, or anything that’s CC oriented. If you want to buff/nerf PvE aspects of Mages, just mess around with base damage values, and things with long cast times.
Typically the spells that are instant damage (Arcane Barrage, Fire Blast) are exponentially more important in PvP as they are in PvE. These spells are not mana efficient, so they don’t find themselves in PvE rotations often (Barrage was an exception until the coeffecient nerf recently, however). However, both those spells are cornerstones of PvP rotations. The same can be said about Counterspell, Blink, Invisibility, Slow, Deep Freeze, Cone of Cold, Arcane Explosion…
In other words; I don’t know what the hell Blizzard is doing. That makes sense, though, because I’m rather sure they don’t know either.
GJ with name switchering:P
Guild Wars did this split a while ago and it has been WONDERFUL.
Light of Deliverance has 6 cooldown in PvE, 15 in PvP.
Ancestor’s Rage deals an AOE DOT in PvP instead of an AOE burst like it does in PvE.
Avatar of Grenth has a Lifestealing effect added in PvE but not PvP.
etc.
This change has made so many more builds viable. About 80-90% of skills are the same in both modes, but anytime one becomes a problem in one area but not the other, it’s split and nerfed in one half. Or skills that are only used in one and not the other, get split and buffed in one half.
Wow could definitely do the same, the only issue would be open-world PvP. If you get ganked in Hillsbrad or go raid Thrall, there wouldn’t be an easy way to toggle most skills, aside from ones that are say “Ice Lance deals triple damage against players and quintuple damage against non-players”; cooldowns and buffs would be a lot harder to change mid-fight.
Battlegrounds and Arenas? Go for it.
I do not expect this to happen, but it would be a great idea for players. I do PVE. I and all the other PVEers I know would really prefer this. It is very common for us to be frustrated over some PvE change/nerf caused by PvP. Annoying. pointless. Why would Blizzard try to do the incredible work to balance a 30-second arena with an 8 minute boss DPS race?
I think this is the case of Bliz doing what they think is clever, not what the customers want.
Hopefully the introduction of Duel Specs will lead to a greater divergence of PvP and PvE talents; that way one can be nerfed or buffed without affecting the other.
It would also get ris of so much QQ about why some classes can use multiple specs andothers can’t.
Make one spec for PvP and one for PvE, and a whole bunch of problems would be fixed overnight.
@Wiles
I don’t think any of us are talking about changing how the player’s abilities work…we’re talking about how the target reacts.
Cast spell X at a random mob, there is a chance that you will miss…cast the same exact spell at a player, and you never miss. Use ability Y on a mob, the mob might resist and you get zip benefit from the mana/rage/whatever…use ability Y on a player, and you always get some effect, mitigated only by his resistance.
Euri’s point is to limit the OH SH__! component of RNG failures in PvP, and thus increase the bias towards skill and experience of the PvP environment.
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Here’s a new idea, make a pve and pvp glyph for the move. If you equip the pvp glyph, it’s better against players (eg stun, slow, etc), pve, better against mobs (damage). You can’t equip em both. That way Blizzard wouldn’t have to completly revamp every single move, talent trees would stay the same, and everyone would be happy. FOREVER.