Shadowlands PvP Dev Interview with Brian Holinka

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Shadowlands PvP Dev Interview with Brian Holinka
Venruki sat down today with Brian Holinka to discuss all things PvP in Shadowlands. Here are the highlights, and be sure to watch the stream for the full interview!




  • PvP Talents
    • In order for PvP to feel fresh, the meta has to change from time to time, and that also means classes have to change with new expansions.
    • Design and class changes are mostly done in new expansions, and it felt like a good time to address PvP talents.
    • The goal was to address talents that felt mandatory and balance issues caused by them.
  • Healing Reduction
    • Healing reduction is a way to make the game more offensive than defensive.
    • The goal was to increase the effect of sustain on targets.
    • The average time frame of 3's shoot to be 3 to 5 minutes.
  • Off-Spec Healers
    • Off-healing should feel like a cool part of your defensive toolkit, but should be balanced.
    • Off-healers should not be able to shut down a kill window while a healer is locked down. This is something that they want to address.
    • Arena should be more lethal rather than non-lethal.
    • Hybrid healing is going to have a balance pass that is PvP specific soon.
  • PvP Gear
    • The team has to design a gearing system in PvP that attracts players while also making sure it doesn't have to be the primary system.
    • Holinka is happy to be back in a place where people hang around the PvP vendors while queing for battlegrounds.
    • Gearing in PvP becomes more of an issue as a season progresses as you fall behind in conquest.
  • Earning Conquest
    • Having a way to catch up is something that should be addressed soon after 9.1
    • An amp to your conquest earn is something they have been discussing if you fall behind, mainly a small boost to get you started.
    • It is not smart to totally discredit the power progression of players, so it's a fine line.
    • Having increased conquest acquisition on weekends is a suggested addition.
  • Solo Queue
    • Arena compositions is the main issue with having solo queues. It would be really unfair for players with the same rating to queue into a good comp vs a bad one.
    • Solo queue is something that could be tried out in the brawl system first.
    • They understand that some people just want to arena and skirmishes don't do it for some people.
    • Letting players browse groups while listed is one of the solutions to find groups faster.
    • They are not dismissing that it is a problem and are genuinely looking for solutions.
  • Rating Decay
    • Holinka does not like the idea of rating decay, as people shouldn't be punished for life outside of the game keeping them from playing.
  • Burst
    • A solution to one-shots is addressing the number of cooldowns used in PvP.
    • Ultimately the game cannot be designed around these one-shot mechanics as the rest of the time you would feel like a wet noodle.
  • Mind Control Bug
    • The team is aware of it and working really hard to find a fix, but it is proving difficult to replicate and address it.

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