queue-dodging
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Blood Sport: Rank 1 gladiator PvP secrets, part 2
Every week, WoW Insider brings you Blood Sport for arena enthusiasts and The Art of War(craft), covering battlegrounds and world PvP. Want to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women? C. Christian Moore, multiple rank 1 gladiator, examines the latest arena strategy, trends, compositions and more. Listening Music: "70 million" by Hold Your Horses. The music isn't completely up my alley, but the video is incredible. Why didn't someone think of this before? Best idea for a music video ever. Absolutely brilliant. I could write an entire page describing the genius of this video, but that would be boring. Last week, we talked about PvP secrets the top gladiators use to achieve the highest arena rankings. We're doing more of the same today, as I've judged by your comments that it was pretty interesting to you guys. I talked about spying and sniping last week. I wasn't sure I would talk about queue dodging today, as it's a far more questionable practice. I decided to talk about it because many high-rated teams definitely queue dodge, and I think it's my responsibility to talk about everything high-rated players do, even if I personally don't participate in it. Queue dodging is very similar to sniping. Instead of attempting to get an arena match against another team, queue dodgers attempt to avoid a team they consider to be difficult to defeat. Queue dodgers employ a spy who allows the queue-dodging team to see when the feared enemy team is in an arena.
Season three: The reckoning
We have now experienced three full seasons of Arenas in World of Warcraft. The numbers are being crunched and we shall see the winners of end of season rewards shortly. Most of this season has been plagued, like others with dishonesty among some of the players. Blizzard took action a few weeks ago to combat win-trading and point selling with temporary account bans, personal rating requirements for match-ups, and penalties for queue dodging. It seems Blizzard is not quite done meeting out their punishment. On an alt named Wtfkalgan, a player noted:A team recently got reset to 1500 (questioning the judgment of the GM involved isn't the purpose of this thread). The email states, "Note: This also disqualifies the above player from any end of season rewards." Does this mean the player involved is completely ineligible for any end of season rewards, or just from the end of season rewards for the team that received the action? Belfaire, a CM , clarified that this does exclude the character from receiving all end-of-season rewards. This may be an isolated incident, or it may be the beginning of another wide-spread crackdown on arena cheating. This may also include stripping honor from battleground afkers. I can't wait to see how this plays out tomorrow and when rewards are handed out. I'm thinking it's going to be epic. Thanks for the tip, Feller.
The end of queue dodging
Drysc updated his post on the official forums regarding Season Four Arena changes. It looks like Blizzard is working to put an end to queue dodging and thereby stifle the practice of win trading. Drysc quoted the revised arena rules, "If a team does not enter an arena match that is starting they will lose points equal to the amount that would have been deducted if they had played and lost." With this augmentation, players will no longer be able selectively battle only teams that have agreed to a loss. Since the Arenas began, there have been many underhanded methods players have used to inflate their ratings and gain access to the latest and greatest gear. Blizzard continues to intervene in order to fix the flawed system. Season four will include a few more changes to make things fair: "If a character's personal rating is more than 150 points below the team rating, they will earn points based on their personal rating instead of the team rating." "If the average personal rating of the players queuing for a game is more than 150 points below the team's rating, the team will be queued against an opponent matching or similar to the average personal rating." These changes have been implemented to make point and team selling practices less lucrative. With these changes combined with personal rating requirements, it seems the developers really are interested in making people earn their keep as PvPers. This leads me to wonder what they will think up next. Whatever it is, we'll keep you posted.
