Warlords of Draenor: PvP Power's proposed re-design
Blizzard Community Manager Lore has been posting up a storm in the PvP forums, talking about the proposed redesign to PvP Power with Warlords of Draenor. There's also another post after the break.
If you guys are doing as much number tinkering as you claim I don't know why you wouldn't take this opportunity to rethink pvp power altogether
I'm all for differentiating gear but I find it pretty silly that a stat called "pvp power" exists at all.
We are planning to revisit PvP Power in Warlords. Our current thinking is that, instead of a flat percentage increase to your normal damage/healing in PvP (as it is currently), it'll be a bonus amount of your spec's primary stat (Strength, Agility, or Intellect).
Here's an example with some completely made-up numbers: lets say a piece of gear has 80 Strength and 30 PvP Power on it. In a PvP environment, that would total out to be 110 Strength. Meanwhile, an equivalent piece of PvE gear might only have 100 Strength on it. Again, those numbers are purely hypothetical, but hopefully it illustrates the idea.
That change accomplishes a couple of things for us. First, it lets us keep PvP and PvE item levels closer together, while still ensuring that PvP gear remains best for PvP and vice versa. It also "demystifies" PvP Power quite a bit; a percentage-based increase can be hard to really quantify without a lot of math, but raw stats are much easier to understand.
As to the name, we can talk about it, but part of why we chose the term "PvP Power" to begin with was that it makes it extremely obvious that the stat only functions inside PvP environments. We want to be sure that players who purchase PvP gear know that it's going to be less effective in PvE situations. I'll bring it up, though :)
I really like the idea behind that and it's similar to what I suggested previously. Why not something like this (ROUGH numbers):
PvP Item A has 70 agi/str/int + 30 PvP Power
PvE Item A has 100 agi/str/int
PvP power does not function in PvE "instances", but functions everywhere else.
1 PvP Power = 1 agi/str/int in the open world
1 PvP Power = 2 agi/str/int inside PvP instances
That way both gear types are basically equal in the open world and equally handicapped in the respective instances. I see no reason that PvP gear should be weaker in the open world against mobs. Gear differences are mainly been for instances anyway.
We've discussed a similar idea (and may yet decide to go with something like it), but our concern with it is that it's still somewhat complicated for players to figure out. As I mentioned earlier, one of the issues we'd like to solve is how difficult it can be to figure out exactly what impact PvP Power is going to have on your effectiveness. "1 PvP Power = 1 Strength vs Players" is easy to get across and understand. "1 PvP Power = 2 Strength in Arenas and Battlegrounds, worthless in dungeons and raids, and 1 Strength in the open world," not so much.
One other thing I should mention based on some other comments in here is that, just like today, PvP Power will be active vs players in any context, not just inside PvP instances. So if you're comparing a PvE and PvP piece of the same item level -- for example, a piece of Conquest gear and a piece of Heroic raid gear -- it should work out something like this:
The PvE item is stronger in PvE instances
The PvP item is stronger in PvP instances
The PvE item is stronger vs creatures in the open world
The PvP item is stronger vs players in the open world
Once again, I need to be clear that this is all early development thinking and anything might change, but our hope is that whatever we end up doing makes things work something like that.
The list of comparisons between PvE and PvP gear are music to my ears, as someone who does engage in world PvP in her PvP gear now and then, mostly thanks to having forgotten about her PvE gear and how it's better, I'd really like PvP gear to be the best for PvP all the time. Although, it's worth noting that Lore compares Conquest gear to Heroic raid gear, without mentioning whether that's current Heroic gear or Warlords Heroic (i.e. Mists Normal) gear. I'm going to assume the former, though.
One major obstacle the devs face with PvP gear and PvP Power is, in my opinion, translation. We can all see that, when we replace PvE gear with higher level PvE gear, our stats go up. Sure, we might drop a few points in some stat or other here and there, but largely the numbers will be green. Take a piece of ilvl 540 Flex raid gear, and compare it to the current Conquest gear, and almost all your stats will decrease.
Yet, we're rightly told that this Conquest gear is better in instanced PvP. It's just really hard to see it, because that comparison doesn't take downscaling into account, nor does it incorporate the percentage damage increase from PvP Power into the equation. Perhaps with this new system, the devs can introduce some clarity and direct comparison between PvP gear and equivalent PvE gear, to make it easier for everyone to see where they stand.
The new system does seem like a step in the right direction, though, and a simplification that will allow players to better understand that, say, a piece with 100 strength plus 50 PvP Power is equal to a piece with 150 strength when you're hitting a player. If that could be factored into the tooltip for comparison, somehow, it would be better for everyone. I'm still not sure just how this will result in item levels being closer together, though, unless upgrades and Warforged-style gear is toned down or removed. And that doesn't seem likely. Maybe Lore just means initial item levels, and if he does, I can't see PvP item levels being any higher than Mists Normal (Warlords Heroic) gear. We will have to wait and see! What's your take on the new system?
