I think we should do away with ascalon/shiverpeak arenas

What purpose do these arenas serve anymore, other than as a place for non-playing noob bastiches to get thier kicks beating on lowbies with things that shouldnt be there, like droks/cit/fow armor or elite skills??

It was a nice idea of anet to give players who are playing thru the game the first time a nice place to break up the missions/quests with a limited pvp, but of course like every other thing in life its the lowest common denominator that ruin everything. These days new players are being turned off to pvp because thier inital experiences in pvp bascially are no fun getting beat on over and over by people who they have no chance of hurting, yea, noob elementalist first trip thru is gonna have a shot against an equal lvl warrior in droks with a green weapon, and absorbsion runes... and dont even get me started on poison arrow noobs. Even the ones who are noobs and are on the winning team have told me that it gets old cause they know they are only winning because that ranger brought poison arrow to the arena. If youre going to have lvl restricted pvp areas, the gear/skills that can be used in those areas should be equally restricted. If not, then what purpose do they serve other than to prove who can get drug around the map the furthest at low level?

Feel free to flame, cause i know there are gonna be some monkies who jump on this thread to tell me how its perfectly fine to tip the scales and win and that doing so is just smart and that means they are better players and i'm just bitter.

or maybe it will be the ubitquious "youre just jealous" response assuming that I couldnt afford/arrange to behave in the same fashion. Trust me I could if I didnt find it revolting and low.

DITCH THE ASCALON AND SHIVERPEAK ARENAS, AS THEY ARE POINTLESS NOW.

I liked the ascalon and yak's bend arenas, they gave me a chance to, like you said, break up the monotony of the RPG missions. this solution is a little bit drastic. instead of deleting the two arenas, just find a way to stop twinkers from getting in. such as....armor cap. or...other ways. this could be easily solved by ANet, but unfortunately they're plagued by other woes that need solving now.

and then there's the elite skills problem...maybe just stop the player from entering the arena period. hell, even that might be drastic, but seeing as they're not available until the Crystal Desert missions, it seems like a viable solution.

I say keep the arenas. solve the problem that's making the FUBAR in the first place, not delete the whole thing.

this is my opinion. flame war starts: NOW.

I used to think that maybe we could hope for anet to fix the ascalon/shiverpeak arenas but they have been too busy. I rather wish they would, as the quality of pvp there is soooo horrible currently. The way it is now, the first place you can expect an even remotely even playing field is Comparena, and thats if you've got the armor and a decent skill set, which is to say not the first time you can walk into comp arena. But, if they wont fix em, they should nix em.

Perhaps they should make it like this:

If you have skills or armor from Yak's bend and beyond, you cant enter Ascalon arena (but you can enter Yak's arena), regardless of level.

If you have skills or armor from Lion's Arch and beyond, you cant enter Yak's Arena or Ascalon Arena, regardless of level.

This i think would be VERY easy to implement, because the skills you learn are in specific places. This would eliminated elites and high level Drok's armor from those two arenas instantly.

exactly. i seriously doubt that ANet would do something as drastic as removing the smaller arenas.

the only thing left here is patience.

Yeah, I'd be happy if they fixed these arenas and added useful PvE rewards for them. If they could be made a useful and beneficial part of running a character through PvE it might bring more players into PvP (by serving as an introduction to it), but as the nest of twinkers that it is it serves no purpose.

the Droks armor is not that much of an advantage. when Big Jim was back there oh so long ago i got a spree of like 15. no one had Droks armor. (you notice these things when you are the monk).
its sad that they feel they need to use Droks armor to win. but what do i care? they still lose to a team that makes good use of their skills.

i do agree with the blocking certain armors from entering the arenas though.

I have always REALLY wanted them to make it so that you can enter the arena in PRE SEARING, pre-searing pvp would be fun ,everyone would be equal, and skill wouldnt be too much of an issue, because everyone would have only like 10 skills to use and newbie collectors armor.

Yeah, 100 armor isn't all that much more than 30. After all, the person with 30 armor only takes three times as much damage...

And if you've got Droks armor, you've got Droks & Rankor skills - like Balthazars Aura.

One solution I've read about is:

- on entry into Ascalon or Yaks Arena, EVERYONE is stripped of all equipment and it is replaced with level appropriate basic gear for the duration of one's participation in the arena. Once a player leaves the arena, equipment is restored. I would also advocate to have set arena skills---players could choose from the skills that would -most likely- be present in those arenas at the levels players are when entering. Arenas should also be level capped so that, say 5-10 for Ascalon; 10-15 for Yak's.

And a pre-searing arena would be wonderful for levels 1-5.

Why were people prepared for a flamewar? Out of all the topics I've read on this issue, pretty much everyone's on the same page, even those who admit to bringing elites and drok's armor.

This issue has been brought up so many times, so all that's really left to do is wait for ANet to implement a solution. If they even perceive this as a problem, that is.

A pre-searing arena would definitely be awesome

Agreed about the presearing arena idea, love it. i might never leave lol.

I was prepared for flames because when i voice this opinion in game i get worse than flames If nothing else i'm chiming in again to try to point out to whoever might care that this is a problem.

Yep i'd agree that elite and drok armor are a huge advantage one of my friends was commenting on how amusing it was playing a lvl 9 ranger with a green bow in ascalon arena and hitting for around 80 dmg a hit XD.

...that's cruel...