As much as I love retail arenas, I don’t think theyll get added in WoW Forever.
One of the biggest problems with arenas is that they can turn the game into a queue simulator. You sit in a city, queue, enter an instanced match, finish, and queue again. That feels almost like the opposite of what Blizzard seems to be trying to accomplish with Forever, getting players out into Azeroth and making the world itself matter again.
Then there’s balancing. Forever is going to be a very different from current classic and I can only imagine how unbalanced arenas would be with that in mind. If Blizzard adds arenas, they’re eventually faced with two choices: balance classes around competitive arena PvP and potentially change the rest of the game because of it, or leave arenas wildly unbalanced to preserve the rest of the experience. Neither sounds particularly appealing.
Blizzard said every addition to Forever will be measured against four core pillars: approachable and familiar, the world as the main character, the journey before the destination, and protecting and nurturing the social experiences that make Azeroth feel alive.
When I look at arenas through those four pillars, I just don’t think they fit. Arenas pull players out of the world, put the focus heavily on the destination, rating and rewards, and introduce an entirely separate competitive environment that demands its own balancing.
I love arenas. They’re one of my favorite parts of retail WoW. But not everything that's great in retail needs to exist in Forever, and I think arenas are probably one of those things.
Very excited to try World of Warcraft Forever this week as a retail PvP player, outside of World PvP, Rank 14 etc, is there a chance we get to see Arenas?(probably with retail/shorter/cc duration DRs) I think pvpers would love it! 🥰