Is 3v3 and 5v5 any more balanced than 2v2?

#0 - Aug. 12, 2009, 5:39 p.m.

Like many, I cheered when I heard they were removing 2v2 from Gladiator status and top gear rewards.

"Good riddance to such a horrible, unbalanced bracket! Die you horrible DK/Druids and DK/Pallies! See you later, Priest/Rogues that have been sitting on rating since week one!"

But recently, I decided to look graphically at just how unbalanced the bracket is and how it compares to the other two. The results really surprised me.

Using the statistics for 2200+ teams from-
http://www.realmhistory.net/arena-statistics/class-breakdown.html

I made the following graphs, which really don't match my initial feelings I garnered while playing.

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/3019/arenal.jpg

I'd love for some statistics gurus to weigh in on this, as I am just a scientist, but no statistician. I mean sure, the standard deviation is slightly more for 2v2, but I'm not sure an SD of 5.6 is really that much better than 4.0 for 3v3 and 4.6 for 5v5. Is it enough of an imbalance to destroy an entire bracket? I'm not so sure. There are many people who just like to play 2s. It's generally not good to take away things people like to do in your game; I thought people were probably just doing 2s because they were just following the imba trail to where they could succeed, but this data doesn't really show that. 2s has several pluses- it is the bracket that is the least gib happy. 2s has a unique feel- just you and a friend going into battle to see what you can do. You can't hold up 5v5 as the pinnacle of balance when it is the silliest bracket by far- with matches decided in seconds sometimes. I used to think eliminating 2s was a great step towards achieving the balance we all desire, but looking at these graphs, I feel like eliminating 2s is just more of a cosmetic change and the data doesn't really support anything other than that WoW's pvp is very unbalanced across all brackets.

I think the idea of assigning gladiators and rewards by class needs to be seriously looked at again. Can you imagine how much class QQ would instantly disappear, when you just have to be the best at your own class? Imagine how much more prestigious it'd be to say "I'm one of the best druids on this battlegroup" instead of "Druids are imbalanced, I'm one of them." I'd much rather see some of those 2% of hunters at 2200+ get recognition than the 19% paladins in 5v5. They are doing what they can with the class they have been provided, that's really all you can ask. FOTM rerolling is killing the RPG aspect of this MMORPG, in my opinion.

Ghostcrawler

#14 - Aug. 12, 2009, 8:46 p.m.

It's not, in our mind, an issue on which bracket is the most balanced. It comes down to which bracket is the most balance-able.

The 2s bracket has two flaws built into its design. One is that it tends to select for those classes who have a lot of different options and utility built into one class. Since your team is just one other guy, and he or she is often going to be focused or CC'd, you can't rely so much on your teammate's abilities. You have to rely on your own abilities. What players kept asking for, and the direction we realized we were taking, was just to give more and more abilities to more and more classes so that everyone had everything. We don't think that's good for class design long term. Arena is intended to be about teamwork not self-sufficiency.

The second problem is the relative balance of power of healing. If a healer can keep themselves and one other person alive in 2s, then they probably can't keep three people alive in 3s. That tends to squeeze healers out of 3s. On the other hand, if a healer can keep a three-player team alive, then they can probably keep a two-player team alive trivially.

We didn't remove the 2s bracket from the game. If you like it, it's still there for you. But we wanted to be able to focus more of our balance effort on the 3s bracket and wanted more of the high-end potential gladiators to focus their balance feedback and effort on that bracket as well.

Ghostcrawler

#29 - Aug. 12, 2009, 9:10 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Call me retro... but isn't the easiest way to reduce the effectiveness of healing in Arena... reducing the effectiveness of healing in Arena?

This issue really isn't about the effectiveness of healing in Arenas. It's about the *relative* effectiveness of healing. You have to pick a team size for which 1 (or 2) healers are balanced. If healing is balanced for three players, it isn't going to be balanced for twos, unless you do something unusual like change the amount of healing you do depending on Arena size.

Ghostcrawler

#31 - Aug. 12, 2009, 9:14 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Just an example... but I fear that you won't have encouraged anyone to play 3v3 or 5v5 MORE... just people to play 2v2 less... which is the wrong way to do things.

Think about it this way. We offer 10 and 25-player raids in the hopes that players who like smaller groups or larger groups can both find something that suits them. We could take that to extremes and also offer a 15-player raid or still offer 40-player raids too. But the more of these options we add, the more effort it takes to balance them all and the bigger chance that something will break at one of the extremes.

We think 3s and 5s will ultimately offer a better play experience. But we have supported 2s for a few years now and some players have grown to enjoy them, so we thought it was overly harsh to just cut them from the game.

Ghostcrawler

#147 - Aug. 13, 2009, 9:18 p.m.

Q u o t e:
GC, since you claim to read all the threads, even if you don't answer my post, please ask other players this question. "How hard is it to set up and keep a reliable 5's team?"

It's hard. Don't get me wrong. We want to make it worthwhile in the same way that organizing larger raids requires slightly trickier logistics. I think it's likely with this change that 3s becomes the main focus of Arenas and some people do 5s and 2s. I'm not sure that's a bad place to be.

Ghostcrawler

#148 - Aug. 13, 2009, 9:28 p.m.

Q u o t e:
you really didn't get what he was trying to say. all brackets can't be balanced at the same time. Blizzard feels 3s and 5s will be easier to balance compared to 2s. I feel that way too. Just look at the history of 2s compared to the other brackets. in 2s there is always 3-4 dominating comps. When you look at 3s, there are a few dominating comps, BUT there are a lot of teams every class can participate in to reach glad. The same cannot be said for 2s (double dps is very gimp compared to melee/healer).

We understand that in the last couple of seasons it has been too easy to get yourself blown up in 5s. That's a problem and some of the 3.2 changes are designed to help with that. However, 5s have always been a pretty diverse bracket. Specs that don't typically show up in 2s and 3s can show up in 5s. As one example, shaman buffs get more powerful the more players they affect.

When our goal is to get more even representation for comps, we think it's more likely to get those under-represented comps into 5s than 2s.