MAKE AL PvP GREAT AGAIN

[Instanthumor]

Greetings fellow Arlorians,

Now that the holiday season and winter event has come to a closing, I would like to address the elephant in the room. In my humble opinion, player vs player has been the most prominent aspect of Arcane Legends ever since its release in S2. Be that as it may, that is not at all the case as of today. Pvp is as good as dead. Yikes!

When viewing the issues regarding pvp, most people would jump straight to class balance. Although it may be the most eminent matter at hand, I believe the topic that should be concentrated on today is none other than how to bring people into pvp. Ultimately, I would like the community to discuss on this thread the changes that are necessary to improving the pvp aspect of this game. If you do not pvp, what changes to the game would make you want to pvp? For those of you that are veterans in the arena, how would you go about addressing this issue? I have asked friends, guildies, random people, and even myself, and here are some answers I have received that I feel would go a long ways in improving the current state of pvp.

You guessed it. First on the list would have to be regarding class balance. I would like to start off by saying that the game is not in a healthy state if a certain class can literally OHKO another class. If you disagree with this statement, I will now politely ask you to uninstall. In the past, I felt that a decent amount of time and effort was put into game balance, specifically in pvp, by the staff of sts. You can see this in the link below under "game balance".
https://www.spacetimestudios.com/sho...tter+community
On the other hand, in the next two links I will provide, there is absolutely no mention of game balance. This is also including this year's letter to the community.
https://www.spacetimestudios.com/sho...tter+community
https://www.spacetimestudios.com/sho...tter+community
Does this mean that no changes are being looked into by the team at sts for this upcoming year? I really hope that this is not the case. I understand that this is a pve centric game. However, a good portion of the AL population plays only for pvp. To add to that, I'd reckon that these players also play a considerable role in the incoming revenue factor of the game. Appealing in a positive manner to these players would indeed be of best interest to the company in the long run. Here are a few suggestions in regards to this matter:
-Reduce rogue damage
-Slightly reduce tank stats (to adjust for the reduced damage on rogues, to make warriors not invincible)
-Slightly reduce mage damage (to account for reduced tank stats on warriors)
-Increase defensive stats on mages
-Increase mana consumption for rogues (intended to keep mage spots in pvp)
-Remove speed set effects in pvp (do you ever wonder why they named these sets after toxicity? Yes, they are toxic to the game)
-Reduce the effects of certain pet arcane abilities (breeze, venim -- unhealthy amount of cc. Don't forget, pets are pets, not a class)

Moving on to the next topic is concerning gear difference. This issue seemed to be most prevalent to the people I asked that do not currently pvp. Their answer was simply because there is too much difference in gear at endgame pvp. A probable cause to this problem would be the introduction of awakenings to this game. Please do not misunderstand me, because I think that to a certain extent, awakenings have brought good to the game by providing variance and some economic growth. I can understand how it would be boring to see everyone with the exact same statistics, so in that sense, I can agree with bringing in awakenings. Despite that, I want to say that awakenings went too far. A lot of people are using arcane sets these days, so imagine five of your seven items having four awakening slots. In theory, this could potentially give you +84% armor or even +44% primary stat in just five items alone. This is absolutely ridiculous. Obviously sts will not change these numbers now, but in the future, I would hope that these statistics would be slightly reduced, and the number of awakening slots per item would be the same across all item rarities. I feel that if this were to happen, it would reduce difference in gear by a healthy amount. Another thing that would address this issue is to release more items in each level cap. For example, as of right now the best Lv71 weapons to use are the two arcane weapons for each class. Beneath that are spirit weapons, and under the spirit weapons are legendary crate gear. I am comparing my Lv71 arcane gun to the Lv71 legendary gun and the difference in damage alone is over 9000... jk... Its over 900. This means that the third best Lv71 weapon decreases my damage stat by almost 25%. The difference in statistics of these items are much too drastic, and this is why I propose there be more items available with slightly closer gaps in stats.

BRING BACK PvP LEADERBOARDS, remove old/unused pvp maps, and add new content. First off, I would like to propose seasonal pvp leaderboards. To do this, add an additional stat box right underneath the current K/D box (there's room, I checked). That stat box will display a character's ALL-TIME statistics. The top stat box will indicate a character's statistics during the particular season, and it will reset after each season. What about the dummy farmers? A solution to stop dummy farming from taking over the kills leaderboard is to only allow maxed level characters to be able to receive these awards. Dummy farming is more actively performed in twink levels, as it is easier to do so there. To prevent dummy farmers from simply leveling up their character to 71 after farming kills, sts can look up the top 25 kill leaders of each class (which should be fairly easy) and determine whether or not their kills were rightfully earned. This should go for flagging as well. Please get rid of FFA and Trulle's Forest -- these are useless maps that no one plays in. Several people I talked to wished for a new map that resembles the duel arena where teams can fight each other head on in 5v5 clashes without any terrain. I, too, personally think this is an idea worth looking into. Bringing back leaderboard rewards for pvp and creating new, good content would provide incentives for more people to play pvp again.

The last topic I would like to discuss is 100% on the players and not the developers of sts: player etiquette. All I ask here is for everyone reading this thread to make it a point to not block, gang, or maliciously trash-talk other players. I have only returned for about a month from my hiatus, and I can already see the toxicity and pettiness happening on a daily basis. People don't want to pvp if they know they're just going to get harassed or put-down. It's absolutely childish and sad to see these things happen. Many players only play to win which is certainly acceptable, but why can't you just play to have fun? Please make an effort to not have such an immature mindset and people will play pvp again. It's that simple. To the guild masters and officers, I hope you can get your guilds to comply with this modest task.

And to the rest of you, please, please, please voice your opinion. I am curious as to what you have to say on how to make pvp a more enjoyable and active place. For those of you who don't, what would have to be done in order to get you in the arena? Does anyone else not miss the good old days of clashing for hours, holding 1v1's in ctf spawn rooms, and playing in pvp tournaments? I certainly do, and I want to do whatever it takes to fully enjoy what I love most about this game.