WoW's PvP still fundamentally flawed

I won't really go deep into this because I've already analyzed WoW's PvP from multiple perspectives and all I said is still valid today. There are tenths of links if you want to dig.

I didn't play WoW's "endgame" recently but I heard that a lot changed. Or at least there are "bigger carrots" who are making people crazy. I'm reading this on Tobold's blog:

And I started wondering how exactly the honor points are calculated. Because there are some rather weird things going on around the way you acquire honor points.

Yeah, this is actually one of the biggest flaws of WoW's system since PVP was implemented. Surely NOT a today's problem.

Still today the mechanics that regulate the PvP are mysterious. The exact opposite of something intuitive. And also something that for this reason is different from all the rest of WoW's design, that is usually quite linear and easy to grasp.

Today things improved because they decided to finally cut the part where honor points were calculated weekly based on a ranking system and a very complicated and counterintuitive progress system that no one ever completely understood. It's like black magic. Magic formulas only known to a secret cult. But those latest changes were only a partial achievement as I read that those stupid diminished returns are STILL in the game and that honor points you see right away are only a rough "estimate" on what you'll get the day after.

At the same time the arena system inherited the suck of the honor system: good luck figuring out how the ranking will work. But I won't comment that, for now.

Maybe it's not a case that still today the same designer (Kalgan/Evocare) is working on the system. "The fox can lose his fur but not his cunning."

As Cosmik said:

where r u, DAoC Realm Points?

Really. The biggest problem is that Blizzard continues to use an obscure system that seems completely unexcused. There just is absolutely no reason, in particular after the most recent changes, that justifies that obscurity.

We moved for a very, very stupidly designed system that OBLIGATED players to play as much as possible in order to get more points and climb the ranks, to one that was asked MONTHS before the Honor system was actually implemented. All those HUGE, GLARING flaws were EVIDENT since the first day the system was announced. And today, one year and half later, they finally admitted that the Honor system was pure shit and replaced it with one where honor points can be used as currency. Exactly as EVERYONE ELSE was suggesting and has suggested for all this time.

The first curious thing is that you don't get your honor points immediately. Instead you get an "estimate", which tends to be far too low, and then get your real honor points the next day. Imagine experience points worked that way! "We estimate you have gained experience for two more levels today, but come back tomorrow for the exact value and the actual reward." I wondered, if honor points are given out on an absolute scale now, why would it take one day to calculate the honor points? It's better than the previous once-a-week calculation, but still not very logical.

Yeah. That question is gold. That's exactly what I was wondering a week ago on Q23, we are on the same line. No one could really understand this and the best guess is that it's all STILL because of those FUCKING diminished returns. My god, sometimes Blizzard is so absolutely stupid that isn't believable.

This can really make sense only in Kalgan's mind, because for the rest of the world this is blatantly flawed. And at this point isn't anymore just flawed, but also completely unexcused.

NO ONE STILL HAS A CLUE ABOUT HOW THIS SYSTEM WORKS.

And, at this point, I guess not even Kalgan knows anymore what he designs.

So I did a bit of research, and my fears were confirmed by a "blue name" on the official World of Warcraft forums: "Honor is given at different amounts depending on the opponent you defeat. Doing those calculations on the fly would be extremely taxing on the realms if they attempted to calculate everyone being killed and how everyone involved got parsed out honor and in what amounts. If we are ever able to get to the point where the calculations are able to be done live we would certainly do so."

While that explains why it takes a day to calculate honor, and confirms that honor points gained per honorable kill are still depending on your opponents rank, this confirmation opens up a whole new can of worms: How can you have a PvP reward system in which the points depend on the PvP rank of your opponent, but there is no more way of earning or losing rank? Somebody who only started PvP after the patch and now plays PvP all the time will soon be as skilled and well equipped as somebody who did his PvP before the patch. But he will be worth very little honor points to his opponents, because his rank will never go up from 0. The longer this system is in place, the more illogical it gets. If this continues, in a year on the battlegrounds players will actively hunt down the few remaining characters with a PvP rank, because they are the only ones being worth decent points. We are playing PvP in a league in which all the ranks are frozen, but rewards are still given out according to that rank. Totally crazy!

I think Tobold goes too wild here, but it is certain that this system just cannot work. It's just not tolerable to design a system that is so messed up and unreadable like this one. ESPECIALLY in a game like WoW.

What the fuck is this system calculating that it cannot be done on the fly? It really is above me. There isn't any fucking justification.

If we are ever able to get to the point where the calculations are able to be done live we would certainly do so

I'll tell you what you should do: you should demote that designer who is responsible for all this and replace him with someone who has at least half a clue. I do not want Kalgan fired. But I DO want him REPLACED. At least. Take his own responsibility for all this shit.

But, even more important, why the fuck PvP has to always receive this treatment? I mean in general, why the fuck PvP has always to be the afterthought? Why it always has to have the worst, careless design?