Arena team buying

[Lasiien]

I have read on the forums more and more about a phenomenon in the wow arena system that is essentially people buying arena rating with in game gold. I thought it was consigned to a few small pockets but it seems this has been growing at a rate of knots if you believe the forums (take with a pinch of salt) but also explains some of the completely strange arena teams that you can browse when looking at rankings or that we meet actually in game.

There are frequent examples if you look around on the rankings,of high(ish) rated teams than it seems they really should be. There is an absence of games played (i.e. the team played 200 games, yet no one member has played more than 50) and their win ratio is individually low and not that great even as a team (e.g. 2000 rating, 52% win ratio).

What's happening makes me sick to my stomach really. Well geared (full merciless) and/or 'skilled' (*cough*) players with a stable 5v5 team (to guarantee themselves points)  then pretty much pimp themselves out to other teams or friends for 2v2/3v3 in exchange for in game gold, to boost friends or maybe even just for the hell of it (we know how those skilled people love fair fights).

The result you get is players who should rate above 2000+ are playing for teams with ratings as low as 1300/1500, thus assuring that team a meteoric rise in the rankings (usually to about 2000 or so). The 'real' players for that team can either play along with the higher rated players to get points, or most likely simply wait a week and play ten games and run off, still assured of a reasonably high rating and lots of arena points.

There is no limit to the number of times you can change arena team. What i truly am detesting is that teams around the 1500-1900 range are being excessively punished by this, losing allot of rating points as you've lost to a team that is statistically 'inferior' according to the rankings.

I think we've seen more and more of this as the weeks have gone on, just like gold buying i think many people's (perhaps kiddies) attitude tends to be 'if you can't beat em, join em'. I'd be interested next time we pvp to note down a few names of really well geared teams that absolutely destroy us (like some last Saturday) and I'd be interested to track their armoury profiles for a bit. I am waiting for the day i see in Shat or Org 'WTS 1900 arena rating'..... (apparently happening on other servers, but i guess wildhammer is not so pvp orientated, most peeps seem to have low ratings)

Made me lose faith in the entire system really, doesn't seem anyway fair atm and bliz have not announced any plans to deal with this, even though i've been reading about it on the forums for well over a month now. Furthermore i read that Blizzard are probably gonna introduce items that require an arena rating (probably to buy, but might even be to equip) which is gonna make this ten times worse... it's also quite easy to see the gold farmers changing their focus a bit a selling arena ratings for IRL money, that doesn't require such a stretch of the imagination (already being offered if you google search for it)

Sad eh ? If there is a way to cheat and exploit the system why do such a large amount of people (in my mind anyway, i have no hard facts) do this ? In some ways i think we're a dying breed (in that i'd actually want to 'earn' my place...). I remember as far back as when i used to play quake2 in competitive leagues etc, our team frequently came 3rd in the 1st division but never got the glory really. Years later members of the 1st and 2nd placed teams (by this time i was playing daoc) for repeated seasons openly admitted they comprehensively cheated (wall hacks etc you name it), again made me just question why? Of course they said 'everyone was doing it' ......

[Xan]

i've noticed this too, some crazily geared toons in 2v2 teams with similar rating to ours (sax, eara, me). full merciless stormherld etc etc. Just noticed it, but am pretty sure these same players were in higher rated teams only a few weeks ago.. seems like some hard evidence of this happening to me. And just like WoW gold buying, i doubt blizz will do much about this, like las said.

guess we'll notice when our ratings plumet too 1300-1400 vs ppl with too much time on their hands to arena and sell there services. Although it will bring me satisfaction to out play some of these peeps if we face them

Also, this new cap they are going to bring in to buy/equip arena items.. hasn't it all gone full circle? back to the honour/rank grind, spending full weeks pvping to get high warlord/2000+ rating, whatever. we'll see.

Wonder what Warhammer onlines gonna be like..

[Saxif]

Well this is the first I have really heard of it but I am not suprised.  I thought that the rating to use certain items was a good idea, but now I think its only a good idea if Blizz put a safe guard in to stop ppl buying into teams with the rating to use the weapon.

It splits the skilled arena players and skilled PvE players from the chaff, and tbh I think I am part of the chaff, although if what you say is true it would be possible for us to increase our rating some more if the hard-core where not selling thier services in this way.  I still think items based on rating are a good idea if handled correctly, but if handled poorly, then as you guys said, it'll just allow the Gold Sellers to change thier focus from items to team rating :mad:

The arena was supposed a way to guarantee a fair fight and get the rewards you deserve, I'd like to see some kind of ban on changing teams, or CD period, or something along those lines.

The only way to avoid this is to do Arena's at an odd times, but thats going to be hard as we chose Saturday as a day when we are all about.  If we could do maybe early mornings on Saturday or Sunday we might avoid this crap, or maybe late one evening, as it stands thats the only way I can see that we could avoid this problem.

Sax.

[Lasiien]

Seems bliz talking about having a personal rating that is independent of your arena team rating for purchasing items. Maybe a move in the right direction but i can also still see some serious powerleveling going on perhaps.

Also, S3 weapons and shoulder will require a personal rating of 1850 and 2000 respectively. So that all the glory boys can look different

[Saxif]

Do you know if this personal rating is based on your best team rating or a mixture of all 3? 

I'd like to see more items with ratings tbh ...

Also, do they take an average of all the ratings in the team to get a team rating, if so thats great, cos 2 bad ppl will nulify even 1 awesome player, yet that awesome player will drag the team rating up and so give loads of points when they lose ... imo ... If so this would mean that ppl moving into and out of teams will change ratings, but that would also mean that 2 or 3 awesome players could improve a team with rating close enough to the lvl cap to allow ppl to get these rating-needed items.  I guess this means unless they also implement a cap on the number of times a player can change teams there are still ways to get around the system but they won't make as huge an impact as they do now ...

Sorry for the rambling, don't have time to fully form my thoughts or check what I have written

Sax.

[eKo]

Your personal rating is what it says, rating based on the games you played, so only the games you effectively played are counted. Which means you can't simply join a high rating team and get their rating to buy weapon/shoulders, you'll have to play (and win) enough games to get your own rating high enough.

I'm not keen on having things rating based as arena (2v2 & 3v3 especially) is imo more based around class (im)balance than skill. Not to say you don't need any skill or teamwork at all, but for example as shaman I get cc'd way too easy without having a way out (can only trinket once then it's over). I'd do better as pally there as I could bubble and keep healing and could for example also use BoP on Las to keep him up vs melee.

I might try to do some arena with my pally eventually, but I would respec to holy/prot for it as protection is sucky in PvP (except against melee).

If it's only gonna be weapons and shoulders that are rating based then I don't mind too much, but I don't want to see more than that being rating based (except if it's cosmetic changes/titles/etc).