[Arena] wrong items cost from the vendor

[sassouiabd]

What client do you play on?

enGB

Faction

Alliance

Content Phase:

Generic

Current Behaviour

Let's analyze the following arena item costs :

Caster main hand: 3150
Caster offhand: 1875
Total: 5025

Staff cost: 3750

Melee 2H: 3750

Melee 1H: 1875
Total for both mainhand/offhand: 3750

Issue 1: Clearly the caster mainhand + offhand have the wrong costs.

Issue 2: the cost of the thrown weapon and the wand at 1875.

Those one have never ever been equivalent to a main hand cost.

Expected Blizzlike Behaviour

1- The cost of main hand + offhand for caster should match the staff cost and the other 2H and 1H combo for melees
2- The wand cost and thrown weapon should be lowered

logic can be found in:
https://www.wowhead.com/tbc/news/burning-crusade-classic-arena-offseason-and-pvp-gear-cost-changes-324072

Source

https://www.wowhead.com/tbc/news/burning-crusade-classic-arena-offseason-and-pvp-gear-cost-changes-324072

Steps to reproduce the problem

Go to arena point vendor and check the prices

Extra Notes

No response

AC rev. hash/commit

chromiecraft/azerothcore-wotlk@280822c

Operating system

Ubuntu 20.04

Modules

• mod-ah-bot
• mod-bg-item-reward
• mod-BreakingNewsOverride
• mod-cfbg
• mod-chat-transmitter
• mod-cta-switch
• mod-desertion-warnings
• mod-duel-reset
• mod-eluna
• mod-instanced-worldbosses
• mod-ip-tracker
• mod-low-level-arena
• mod-low-level-rbg
• mod-multi-client-check
• mod-progression-system
• mod-pvp-titles
• mod-pvpstats-announcer
• mod-queue-list-cache
• mod-rdf-expansion
• mod-transmog
• mod-weekend-xp
• mod-zone-difficulty
• lua-carbon-copy
• lua-event-scripts
• lua-exchange-npc
• lua-level-up-reward
• lua-recruit-a-friend
• lua-send-and-bind
• lua-temp-announcements
• lua-zonecheck

Customizations

None

Server

ChromieCraft

[balleny]

issue is a bit more interweaved:

currently, items are sold for the wotlk prices. But, players receive arena points as during tbc.
hence, the items cost more (wotlk price > tbc prices) and players receive fewer points (tbc points < wotlk points)

but, yes you are right in the sense that some items like offhands and ranged slots have incorrect prices

[sassouiabd]

Those are two differents subjects.
Here i am talking only about the item prices and no they are not at wrath points.
I have never seen a thrown/wand that cost same price as a main hand
Never seen that main hand + offhand combo is wayyyyy tooo expensive campared to staff for casters and doesn't match the 2H weap or double one hand for melees.

[sassouiabd]

Here is a logical example for wrath:
Wand is 1260 arena point
Book is 350 arena point
Main hand is 3950 arena point
Staff is : 4670 arena point

There is clearly not a big gap between staff and Main hand + book
And wand/thrown doesn't cost same as a main hand weapon.

The idea behind making different prices is that those items doesn't provide the same power spike.
If you get a main hand or you get a wand its not the same thing.
And you are not supposed to have 2k point difference between staff and MH + book, they prove almost the same power spike.

[balleny]

the wrath example doesnt fully apply because it factors in also honor.

this is from classic s6 on retail (s7 lowered the prices to some very uneven numbers, hence referring to s6)
staff 4500
mh 3150
oh 1350

-> mainhand + offhand should always add up to the cost of a 2hand (exception are hunter only melee weapons).
the mainhand usually is like 3/5 of the total cost

thrown and wand weapons should be similar priced to offhand items.

bow, gun, crossbow should have the same costs as a 2hand

[Hihilist]

I would say that current prices follow patterns used in TBC (in most cases), so there is no connection to the system points we have right now.
Just refer to https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Season_2_Arena_rewards which was copying prices from Season 1 (mostly).

The above snapshot (and others for TBC seasons) proves that caster 2H was always cheaper than the combo of 1H+OH for caster.

I would say it is a problem in the design of Season 1 where melee 1Hs were cheaper than caster stuff but it was changed in Season 2 with proper prices for S2 weapons (you can see that melee 1Hs went up while caster auxiliary stuff went down) and an accurate drop of prices for S1 stuff.

[balleny]

indeed, looking at the wowwiki link, this seems to be the reference taken.
going by that, Wands and caster offhands on CC are too expensive, and 1hand melee weapons too cheap

[ghost]

Ok, so this is a tricky issue since CC doesn't currently use 3.3.5a values for any of these items due to progression.
I would like to separate this problem from the "implement different pricing system" suggestion ongoing elsewhere, since these are two separate problems:

1. pricing on cc is expensive in general, they use the original phase1 season 1 pricing that might also follow slightly different rules in how the item costs weigh against each other compared to later implementations - this is a matter of progression-discussion that doesn't belong to bug reports

2. we have most certainly wrong values for some items here for what is supposed to be the pre-cost-nerf season1 cost

I cannot and will not address issue 1), it is probably posted in the suggestions somewhere.

---

As for the matter of 2) bugged pricing, this is what I found:

• The wowhead vendor costs shown are completely useless here, disregard those

• As others mentioned above, and based on all sources, caster MH+OH usually adds up to be slightly more expensive than caster 2Hs, so no, they aren't meant to be equal. Emphasis, SLIGHTLY.

• The notion of "MH+OH=2H" actually comes from melee weaponry: the price of a dual wielding set of weapons will always roughly match the price of a 2hander. (Even CC kept this rule, albeit wrongly by splitting the 2h cost in plain half to each 1h)

• Caster MH and 2h prices on CC are exactly double the price of the blizz season2 nerfed values (1575 vs 3150, 1875 vs 3750), which also match the top value of 3750 arena points mentioned here for gladiator weapons: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/pvp-gear-cost-tbc-season-1/977656/2
  While i could not access the original "spreadsheets going around discord", this source seems to be the most accurate in terms of numbers for what the original expensive pricing was on original s1 - the total cost of 8250 for the armor set matches CC's current armor pricing precisely
  Now, this source speaks of 1000 arena points for Idol/Libram/Totem/Wand/Thrown (notice, exactly double of the 500 value in the s2 source)
  The cheapest gladiator weapon according to this should cost 1125 AP, which is again roughly double of the 550 cost of strictly-offhand weapons shown in s2, as well as caster offhands.
  Meanwhile, CC pricing doesn't make any difference between melee 1h and offhand prices at all.
  (Unfortunately this source provides no information about main hand 1h weaponry)

• Another source however mentions that after s2 price changes, s2 gear had a 50% discount on the pricing
  https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/season-1-vs-season-2-cost/1163028
  which further confirms that the original s1 values were roughly double of the cited s2 prices.
  After looking through the numbers, the reason for slight mismatches is that blizzard didn't know what to do with items that cost an odd number like 1875, and simply rounded the cost down to the nearest hundred (900). This pattern can be observed on all the items that used to cost an odd number of arena points, causing these items to become relatively cheaper after the 50% cut.

• The above findings also confirm the source provided by balleny https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Season_2_Arena_rewards

---

Conclusion: based on all gathered evidence, these are the original S1 pre-cost-nerf TBC prices vs the current CC prices:

Armor set 5/5 - 8250 (blizz) vs 8250 (cc)
Melee 2h - 3750 (blizz) vs 3750 (cc)
Caster 2h - 3750 (blizz) vs 3750 (cc)
Hunter bow - 3750 (blizz) vs 3750 (cc)
Caster MH - 3150 (blizz) vs 3150 (cc)
Melee MH/1H - 2625 (blizz) vs 1875 (cc)
Melee OH - 1125 (blizz) vs 1875 (cc)
Shields - 1875 (blizz) vs 1875 (cc)
Caster OH - 1125 (blizz) vs 1875 (cc)
Wand/Thrown/Relic - 1000 (blizz) vs 1875 (cc)

I highlighted the ones which need correction. If CC wishes to keep the prenerf s1 pricing system, these would be the correct values.

PS: these numbers also match the values shown in atlasloot 3.3.5a for what the brutal gladiator items cost in the last season of tbc

[sassouiabd]

@Salehyn thanks a lot for all your investigations.

If this subject undergoes staff review, it presents a valuable opportunity to reevaluate both pricing and season duration. Presently, mathematical analysis suggests that top-tier teams can obtain their complete gear in approximately 4 months (while it takes over 7 months for average players). This situation encourages players to focus on acquiring only one or two items and then waiting until the end of the season to purchase Season 1 gear with honor.

I am firmly convinced that either the pricing structure and its rationale or the arena formula require a comprehensive reassessment to imbue arena rewards with greater meaning and fairness.

[ghost]

Well, I'm kinda torn on that matter since most sources suggest an "average" team with 1.5k rating could only get about 1 piece per month on tbc, which does add up to approx 7-8 months to acquire full gear.
Keep in mind that PvP gearing should be comparable to PVE gearing and even the best raiders often take half a year to get fully BiS due to the rng in drops, while average/below average raiders most often won't get a share from the best pieces until the next tier hits, so in that context 4-7months for a guaranteed full set doesn't sound that bad at all. I doubt the goal is to let people acquire full gear in 2 months and then bully less geared people for the rest of the season.

Of course, there is the matter of the relatively low pop on CC which might make it difficult for most people to advance to higher ratings if they have to keep playing against the same teams. I do agree some adjustments might be necessary to balance for that, but that discussion belongs to the suggestions.

[sassouiabd]

Depends if we want to spend 8 months for one single season and 4 years for TBC ( 4 seasons).

[balleny]

it wasnt really different on retail in s1.
pvp gear was, like in classic, a very very long grind. 25 player raids dropped 1 token for raid groups (hence you saw so many hyjal and bt first kills with raid groups partially still geared in Naxx gear)

wow opened up to be more casual friendly during the expansions (and classic) which you are now projecting onto the current progression.
objectively, this low amount of points being awarded is correct. it just is subjectively very annoying because we suffer from some issues that were not as present on retail back then (it was a lot easier to advance to approx 1,9k rating given the size of the playerbase. regardless of that, there werent many teams much higher in season 1 (and also s2) given the fact that arena queue was still per realm.

seeing how pve gear was made a lot easier to obtain (mythic mode, and triple the tier token, etc.), it would be reasonable to make similar adjustments (factor 2,5 or 3) for arena point distribution, too.
Alternatively, wotlk classic point distribution could be used instead. My ticket was closed for this with the remark to make a discussion instead. #6062 #6125

[Hihilist]

I think I have found proof that after the release of S1, Blizz adjusted prices for certain items from Arena Season 1 - https://wowwiki-archive.fandom.com/wiki/Patch_2.0.10#PvP which confirms values in bold by Saleh (if that is still required).