After watch the entire PvP stream, I'm really on the fence about their development.
Firstly, we had a quick Q&A about the recent blog post, some questions answered (even my own, about the Arcane forge materials - turns out I will free up 2 bank TABS "soon", because they will turn the materials to sell-able "junk"), some didn't have that chance - "what to do with my 10 stacks of win chests?". Nothing wrong in this section really, except for that "phone call", but it was sort of fun anyways.
Now, on one hand, we have one new healing skill for each of the 8 professions. Most of the skills (I think, except for the ranger's and thief's) are situational and they can actually punish you (talking more in PvP perspective, here) if you pop them mindlessly. In my book, that's a good direction away from the passive heals (and with future skills - passive effects in general), which will involve more skillful play and that is always good.
Plus the thing, that some of the skills are created with ally support in mind, it opens a good number of new possible builds and compositions.
Sounds great on paper, now we (as players) have to test and see them in action. I only hope they have their numbers right, else it can easily escalate as new forced meta.
But, on the other hand, we have what it looks to be a complete failure with this new (and temporally!) PvP Gold vendor. I believe it's a huge mistake to force glory + GOLD (as in gold, and not silver or copper) (and in not small amounts) costs in sPvP, where there was ZERO gold income (even with counting the dye crafting).
I know, that most of the sPvP players (me in that count) would be able to buy everything from the Vendor the moment it's live, because of the huge amount of stored glory, but isn't THAT the point of this temporally vendor - to act as a "glory sink", before gold (as currency) replace it?
And why, in Balthazar's name, BOXES?! What if from Human Tier 3 Medium Armor I only want the chest or the leggings? I have to buy the whole BOX set, which will waste half my spent currencies(in plural). (or maybe ALMOST, given how they do math over there...)
They are either stupid to overlook this, or not even whiling to spent couple more hours to add all items separately. Or, I'm afraid, they are both... It, most likely, was more dev time consuming creating these BOXES and add them in the vendor, then just add the armor sets' items (and what about weapons?!) in the vendor.
The inventory bag's are another complete bullshit!
12slot bag for 1000 glory and 20silver? It costs just 500 glory out from the rank 20 vendor. And R20 is doable in a day.
And 20slot bag for 6000 glory and 6gold?! They really are stupid. Should have at least added one in the R50 vendor.
Which leads us to the ways we get gold from PvPing. I'm 50/50 about Custom Arena's rates for wining/lossing to gold. The format itself is just hot-join - you are leaving a new game to join one, that is almost finished. It can really be exploitable, so it's overall (or what they implemented as CAP) reward should be a bit lower. But on other side, if you are honest player, just wanting to do your PvP daily (atm it needs 3 matches), I think you should be rewarded a bit more, then 15silver a win.
Now, about the Rated Matches, and especially the Team Arena, well they really need to rise the reward.
As I see it now - In Team Arena, you spend good amount of time looking for a group, or getting your teammates ready. Then you have a nice long queue to wait for. And lastly a 15 minute long match to play in. Let's average it to 3 matches per hour, that will be 90silvers per hour in a perfect scenario. And 45silvers if you are really unlucky with the matchmaking. Given the effort a player puts in Team Arena, it should be a bit more rewarding. Not double, but like +10silvers for wining and +5 for losing.
Same thing Solo Arena - +5silvers for wining and +2.5 for losing. At least now, 'Hugh' will be able to do the math...