(Mostly) Fixing arena point selling.
I got into a discussion this morning and talked a bit about what's currently causing the arena system to be exploited. I came up with a fairly simple solution, something that I think would solve most of the problems with the transformation of arena ability into commodity.



Right now, across the various battlegroups, you've got a number of high-end arena players. Each of these people enjoys the competition, plays hard and enjoys the game. Some of them are better than others, but they all love it when a new season begins because they can duke it out amongst themselves, and get new gear for it.

It's a good time for them to be around, because it's what PvP players enjoy most... playing hard, fighting intelligent foes, and getting rewarded for it. However, after the party starts to wind down, things kind of get messy. Here's why:

There are 5 pieces of any given Arena player's equipment set. The total cost of this is 8250 arena points. In addition, there are weapons. To fill out all slots, you need:

Weapon(s): 3750 points for melee, 4250 for caster, 1000 for hunter
Ranged slot: 1000 for anyone but Hunter, 3750 for Hunter

This means that for an entire season's gear set, players will need between 13,000 and 13,500 arena points. Herein lies the problem. Now, let's consider the length of an arena season. Season 2 began on June 19th, 2007 in North America. Season 3 began on November 27th, 2007 in North America. It is currently April 24th, 2008 and there is no Season 4 yet. Season 2 ran for 161 days, 23 weeks. If the timetable is accurate, Season 4 will begin May 6th (23 weeks).

What does the length of time have to do with the problems with the Arena? The answer is pretty simple. The Arena calculator will tell you exactly how many points per week you can expect from the arena, given a specific rating. Let's say that, for example, you are part of a high-end team that has 2100 rating. If I am on a 2v2 team with 2100 rating, I earn 892 points per week. On a 3v3 team, I earn 1033 points per week. And on a 5v5 team, I earn 1174 points per week. Furthermore, there is point carry-over from the previous season. When season 2 began, most people who were ranked 2000 or higher already had 5,000 points saved.

13,500 - 5,000 = 8,500 points left to spend to get all available arena gear. On a 2v2 team, that would take 10 weeks to obtain. On a 5v5 team, that would take 8 weeks to obtain. Notice something here? The math trails off, because there is no further need of spending arena points. 10 weeks into the season (less than halfway through), your high-end arena player has nothing left to spent points on unless he or she wants to try offset or random extra gear for the fun of it. Let's say that they wish to save 5,000 points for the next season as well. That's still only 16 weeks spent to accumulate enough points for a full set, weapon(s) and ranged slot. You still have 7 weeks of literally wasted points. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that those in this bracket (2100) would have a shot at being the top 0.5% that qualify for the title and special mount for "winning" the season. On the Bloodlust Battlegroup, a 2100 rated team is ranked #76 for the entire battlegroup in 5v5. For 2v2, a 2100 team would be ranked 198th.

So what do you do when you have an extra 7-12 weeks to do nothing?

You sell your time. People will pay heavy amounts of gold for arena rewards, especially if they are incapable of obtaining such rewards themselves. Gold is easy to obtain, it is fully possible to do a number of daily quests and receive 200, 300 gold in a single day. Given those numbers, can it really be that difficult for somebody to sell a week's worth of arena points (say, a good number like 700 points) for 1,000 gold or more?

Ok Rawr, I get it. The arena players are bored, so they spend the time to enrich themselves. So what though?

The problem is that these point seller players are heavily geared, heavily experienced, and will just plain roll over anyone they run into in lower brackets. A new team, or an average team, or a bad team will just roll over and die. The whole point of the ELO rating system is that players will advance in opponent difficulty until they reach an equilibrium point and stay there (approximately 50% win/loss ratio). Thus, people who stay in the 1500 bracket should win approximately half their games against other 1500-rated teams, and lose the other half, keeping them at this rough equilibrium point. In the end, what happens is that the low end bracket (1500-1800) is dominated by these players who cut a swath through all of the teams they face, because though their *current* team's rating is only 1500, their *actual* rating is 2100. This means that where a team *should* be seeing roughly equally geared and equally skilled teams, they don't. They instead get trampled by much better teams. It's like people who are ranked as chess masters entering a tournament for amateurs.

Fine, so they make the lowbie team's lives miserable. How do you fix it?

There will always be point selling, there's not really any way to get around it. Where there is demand, there will always be a few who will supply it. The important thing is that right now, there's nothing else for these arena players to do. They've got nearly two months of nothing to do. So how do you fix boredom?

First, you change the way points are earned. Instead of giving people the highest of the available points, you give them points based on what teams they are a part of. Since 2v2 gets 76% of the points of a 5v5, and 3v3 gets 88%, you have to rebalance and redistribute. You give a standard arena point distribution formula, and calculate an 'effective overall rating'. [ (5v5Rating * 100) + (2v2Rating * 76) + (3v3Rating * 88)] / [(100 * On5v5Team?) + (76 * On2v2Team?) + (88 * On3v3Team?)] = Overall Rating. Overall Rating would be calculated based on a weighted average of all teams a player participates in. If you are good at 5v5, but not at 2v2 or 3v3, your 2v2 and 3v3 team ratings would drag down your overall point totals. This change would address the problems with selling points on your 2v2, while keeping your 5v5 around for earning points.

Then you give them an outlet for the extra arena points they are earning, so that they have a reason to continue playing and earning points for themselves. To do this, one needs to give them rewards that they would be interested in obtaining. The easiest:

Give them raid gear. Season X should make Tier X+2 gear available. Thus, Season 4 makes Tier 6 gear available. Season 3 makes Tier 5 gear available. Season 2 makes Tier 4 gear available. Put rating requirements on the purchase of raid gear equal to that on the arena gear. This does two things: it encourages players to experience more of the game, and provides opportunities for them to 'catch up' without having to go through the nasty business of hopping from guild to guild until they get to one on the leading edge.

Furthermore, other types of consumable items should be available. Epic quality gems should be available for purchase. Armor kits, enchantment kits, etc. should all be available for arena points. Nethercleft leg armor can be made or it can just be straight-out bought. Finally, you need to provide fluff items like non-combat pets, special looking mounts, etc. that cost a lot and are only cosmetic... but it would be a status symbol. People would buy them.

And that's how you fix it. Make it so that the high end player can't actually buy *everything* for the season 2/3 of the way through it (or even all of the way through it), and you've got something for players to strive for and earn, which will curb the point sales.

People will still sell points, of course. However, it comes as an opportunity cost to them - by selling arena points, they will lose out on their own maximum point earning potential, and thus lose out on the rewards they are aiming to get.

--Rawr