Just causes more unneeded nerfs and whining on the forum. Also, it is "hand holding" instead of letting it happen on it's own in a more "open world" way.

Perhaps open the rest of Cyrodiil and make those places where you can have dueling? Still PvP but just small scale duels instead of battles. Just a thought.

What makes you think i am nervous?

I simply see that a major MMO developer admits adding arenas was a mistake, and gives good reasons.

I don't personally want arenas but I'm pro choice and if people want them then why not. If I have to wait a bit longer for some pve content then I'm not too bothered if it creates a bigger community.

Yea DAoC battle grounds are such a gem of that game very simple design that hasn't seemed to be able to be reproduced in any other MMO, me and my friends would end up spending 2-3 days with little to no sleep as the 3 sides kept going back and forth with as little as 10 people and as much as 100+ going hard.

it was just a small map with a keep in the middle and a couple of outposts for the 3 sides to take and hold def or atk but it added so much fun and when fighting in there some of my best PVP memries are from those little battle grounds, a lot of non PVPers played there aswell as there was no risk just learning your class skills and so on.

EDIT : hit the wrong button :{

Oh for God's sake. Okay, what "major MMO developer" that "admits adding areans was a mistake" makes you think arenas in ALL MMO's is a bad thing? Is it by chance, Blizzard, talking about THEIR game WoW? That same WoW that ruined mmo's because now everyone looks to them as the only source of success and on the flip side (using a little common sense) everyone looks to for all things that are bad?

If you bothered to read the reasoning behind the blizzard claim, you would understand that the underlying problem with arenas applies to ALL mmo's where different participants have different abilities. It creates a never-ending cycle of nerfs in the name of balance that is a burden on both the developer and the players, including those that do not PvP at all.

You really care a lot about Blizzard eh? Fair enough! ARENAS ARE THE BANE OF THE MMO

btw, you made me cry a little bit more.

Or, we actually read what highly successful game developers have to say about their experience with arenas. No reason to make stupid mistakes when you can learn from others who came before you.

And lol at Homer thinking only casuals are against arena. See you in Cyrodiil.

Except you customize your own character. So if you lost, wouldnt you just rework your build to make it stronger? I see no reason for nerfing.

I don't give a flying eff about blizzard. But if they publicly say arenas were a mistake, you better believe it. They do not publicly admit mistakes all that often.

That would only work if all player characters participating in the arena had access to all the builds. And while TESO goes a long way towards this, there are ~70 active and passive abilities that are not available to every class/race combo.

But still I believe you can find a way to counter. I'm confident anyhow. Guess we'll see.
But lore-wise, I dont think there can be an arena. It's in the Imperial City, right? That is currently overrun by daedra and undead.

Developers that look to WOWs sub numbers as being the reason it is the best are morons and ill informed, They should be looking at the game itself, Blizz made good use of their existing fanbase and all power to them, but I find their game to be boreing and uninspired after playing games like M-59 AC DAOC SWG ect . most of the other MMOs to come out after seemed to think that WOW the game had done something right but when 80% of their players had never tried anything else their opinions didn't count,

I have tried to tell most people I have met in MMOs that dogging the enemy that we outnumber or outclass and name calling/emoting and any number of other stupid anti PvP behaviour only hurts the PVP as we need them to play and have our fun, But for some reason I have yet to discover most people do not seem to understand that simple point and in many cases ill have to listen to them moan and complain because theres no one left to PVP because not only was the other side outnumbered outgunned they had to listen to the stupid behaviour aswell and if they stop having fun and log we all lose.

If you want to get specific, the article about Blizzard says the mistake was adding in arenas on top of a game not designed for it, not that arenas themselves are inherently bad.

The same goes for world/open pvp, harsh dying penalties, etc. etc. None of these mechanics are guaranteed poor game design, but you cannot blindly implement them on top of other game design and expect it to work.

IMO TESO is not a game for [serious] arenas. Not because the players don't want it, or the focus is on Cyrodiil, or whatever, but simply because the basic mechanics of the underlying game are just not there. You'd need to change so many things from the ground up, that it is bound to run into issues.

Adding a duel option or a "fun" arena would still work, however I fear that 1. people's expectancy for balance and 2. overflow from the WoW community would pressure TESO devs into putting a more serious focus on it than is good for the game.

I'm all for it. And I don't think classes should be balanced I think that all classes have pros and cons and that's half the skill in a arena type battle. Me and my friends have slaughtered many in WOW because they all run the same classes and don't think anyone will do something new or different. Having balanced arenas makes you lazy

The arenas first and only purpose should be a place to try out your toon with no risk, theres no reason to add anything its just a place were at a certain lvl you can enter and get better aquainted with your class and have some fun trying tactics before the main event, But I guess that will all depend on how well the main PVP system works.

on the one hand you can always argue that its just a new feature thats added to the game and the ones that dont like it just dont have to use that feature - but on the other hand many issues could arise from such a feature

first of all it takes up development time and as such also money - resources that could otherwise be invested in things that would adress a larger playbase and yield more postive feedback overall

secondly the problem that is specific to arenas is that if you have a game like teso, which pvp is balanced around cyrodiil, arenas might turn into a massive cry for nerfs - nerfs which people would not ask for if they played the pvp that teso was designed for in the first place

and lastly there is always the problem with how people will 'behave' in the future, give the playerbase that wants arenas a 'finger' and in half year they want the entire 'arm' -> in other words the arena crowd is likely to get angry if only cyrodiil pvp and pve etc, get updated with new content, while they stay in their rusty old arena with the same old features - statisfying that crowd would yet again require resources that the devs could invest otherwise, and if its ignored it will create a lot of hate.

So in a nutshell, I kinda tend to be against arenas - let things run its course without arenas, and see how things will go

Alright, I'm usually someone who's sceptical about esports, very much so in MMOs, since it's pretty obvious it does have a strong effect on the games. Wether you like or dislike that, is pretty much personal preference.

Currently I'd say ESO caters more to the crowd that's not particularly fond of esports, hence the reactions you can see here. It's a fact that the implementation of esport features will alter the game as it is now. The questions is, how much.

And here's my big BUT. If there's a MMO that would lend itself to an arena system added after launch, it probably would be this one. Why, you might ask; the class and skill lines and the opportunity to add new ones to the game.

If an arena system is implemented with accompanying and dedicated "duelist", "gladiator", "brawler" - or whatever class/skill lines would make sense- and these only work within the confines of arena matches, you could keep the impact on the rest of the game to a minimum.

So while I can think of a way of how to incorporate an esport like system into ESO, I'm not entirely sure if it will be really needed. At least not in the beginning. The RvR system is accessible enough already, you can pretty much jump right into the action and can climb the ladder to be crowned emperor.

Yes, arenas could add to the game, but they could take away from it too. So if the game is doing fine, campaigns are filled to the brim, I'd rather go with the old saying "never change a running system", as absurd as this might sound in an MMO context.

Longer down the road, when there's war fatigue showing, however, adding different PvP mechanics could have an invigorating effect. If it has to be arenas can be discussed, but if done right, they can be a viable option.

Nice logic.

Like most ppl that don't want an arena implemented. =D

Though it didn't get quoted here, I like your idea. I like that the structure would space it out and minimize it's impact on the events in Cyrodill.

Very interesting idea there. But it would have to be implemented very carefully or not all imo. Any new arena-centric classes would have to also be designed to work in the other areas of the game or we'd end up with two sets of classes. And again imo, i think after the majority of ppl get tired of the thrill of the new arena content, those classes would end up being mostly overlooked and a waste of dev r&d in the long-run.

This game will go F2P fast if they can`t add new things post launch to attract new people... arena PvP is one of those things and its cheap to implement compared to other things.

I strongly feel that at this time it would be foolhardy to implement any system that would be in direct competition with Cyrodill

I think he was hinting at skill lines mostly, not classes. Game already throws enough skill points your way; spending a chunk of them for "arena combat" wouldn't be much of an issue (we already have a couple skill lines for Cyrodiil, for example).