[WoW PVP, online philosophizing] Horde/Alliance PVP experiences

[Seroster]

I guess I just don't see why alliance often does so much more poorly in WSG. It can't even be shamans vs paladins, now. And it's not as though it's a tactically complicated battleground.

I think we know that this isn't always the case. In some battlegrounds Alliance does better than Horde.

How do players learn how they should behave in battlegrounds? Surely they start playing without really knowing.

They must learn from other players. (Few people read the forums.) If people are giving up, afk-ing, and so on, they'll learn that's what they should do too. After all, in that situation trying hard has less chance of turning things around than if your teammates are willing to put in extra effort. If they see people cooperating and winning, I think a lot of people will learn to cooperate.

I think this is in effect a sort of electronically transmitted "PVP culture".

So, in Rampage I don't think it's as simple as "Alliance now has shamans, so the sides are balanced". If the PVP culture of one side in a battlegroup is weak, it may continue to remain weak, even past some period of imbalance in game balance or collective skill.

[Fenris]

I'm copying/pasting this from the other thread, since this is a better place for it. :)


What baffles me the most about battlegrounds, is that how my faction can be brilliant in one BG but utterly clueless in others.

On my battlegroup, it's WSG(usually does great), and AB(clueless.)* I mean, how a group can figure out ''capture the flag'' but not ''capture bases'' is beyond me.

Same with AV; we actually do solid in AV, but not as solid in EotS. Again, Horde seems to be able to figure out ''cap and hold towers, save your own before fighting boss'' but not ''cap and hold towers before capturing flag.'' Really, I don't get it.

And of course, every battlegroup/each faction has it's own problem. I've heard plenty of stories of folks on Alliance side saying how their battlegroup understands the concept of capping and holding resources, but not the flag.




*Depending on days of the week. If you want to be technical, Horde in our BG does rather great on weekends in BGs, and utterly crappy during the week. Most of the time, but there are exceptions; AB, even during the week, tends to be 50/50 at best.

Now, reading what you said, some of this might be attitude in the different battlegrounds. Perhaps Horde on my Battleground just has the ''bah, just get honor if we are too far behind in AB''. Now, I remember back when Horde sucked ass at AV. Then the changes came...and in this battleground, Horde started pwning face in AV. I dunno if the ''getting rid of AFKers'' thing helped...but it might have. THAT might have started from simple morale. Horde learning that Alliance has the advantage due to the bridge, so they figure, why bother? It's easier to farm some HKs/go AFK/whatnot than it is to actually try to win. But the minute it became more even...what I should say is became PERCEIVED as more even...Horde started winning again. Even though the difficulty might not have changed at ALL, they THINK it did, and thus think it's worth playing again.

I dunno, though, why certain attitudes are born in certain BGs, or even how they started. Ive heard a lot of stories of the whole Alliance having trouble in WSG; but I never really played Alliance a long time, or deep enough in PvP, to know where this started.

[Random Nerd]

I think we know that this isn't always the case. In some battlegrounds Alliance does better than Horde.

How do players learn how they should behave in battlegrounds? Surely they start playing without really knowing.

They must learn from other players. (Few people read the forums.) If people are giving up, afk-ing, and so on, they'll learn that's what they should do too. After all, in that situation trying hard has less chance of turning things around than if your teammates are willing to put in extra effort. If they see people cooperating and winning, I think a lot of people will learn to cooperate.

I think this is in effect a sort of electronically transmitted "PVP culture".

So, in Rampage I don't think it's as simple as "Alliance now has shamans, so the sides are balanced". If the PVP culture of one side in a battlegroup is weak, it may continue to remain weak, even past some period of imbalance in game balance or collective skill.

Yeah, we had the same sort of problem in AV the last time I tried. I think there's one other element, too. Particularly nowadays, when marks don't seem important, it's easy to pick which battleground you want to do. And if AV, say, goes against you 9/10ths of the time, and AB goes in your favor 7/10ths, the players who care about winning rather than maximum honor-per-hour will go to AB, and this will be self-reinforcing.

[brooksd01]

I think the change to the way the "scoreboard" reports honor hurt as well.

It suddenly became really obvious to everyone that the idiots up there kill farming are getting a *lot* more honor per match than the people actually trying to win...

I'm not sure if moving the honor / match equation moved away from kills and more heavily to bonus honor would help - but it'd be nice if the BGs did more to reward actually going after the goals rather than just fighting out on the Idiot Magnets*.

* Term I heard for the flag in EoTS one afternoon and promptly stole.

[Eurhetemec]

It's definitely cultural, because it varies severely from Battlegroup to Battlegroup. I play on Nightfall Battlegroup mostly, and the Alliance actually does very well in WSG, generally speaking. I know that looking at my character's Win/Loss ratio (only BG'd at 80, it's a DK), I see a slightly better than 3:1 win/loss ratio in WSG, which is fine with me.

On Nightfall, where I've PvP'd on an off since before TBC, we seem to have a split culture, in regards to PvP attitudes and competence.

At lower levels, on the Alliance, there seem to be a very loserly culture. People expect to lose, and spend a lot of time crying about it, predicting doom, and playing terribly. Rarely are instructions given for new/inexperienced players, and often they're countermanded by idiots (like "HOLD THESE THREE!" morons in AB, who should be summarily expelled from WoW PvP imho), or people are just told that we'll lose anyway, and we all suck (usually by people, who, to judge from the behaviour and numbers, really, really, suck).

However, at max level, this changes, and once you get to max level, you learn this. Before max level, you wouldn't know, so I think a lot of people give up on or get soured on PvP trying it out at lower levels, Alliance side. Win/loss ratios at max level are perilously close to even, favouring the Alliance in some BGs (like WSG, as mentioned).

On the Horde, same Battlegroup, things seem reversed. Levelling up, it's one glorious victory for the Horde after another. Defeats are shocking and people are told good job anyway, they had too many twinks or, we started 6 people down (often true!), or the like. Instructions are given and players actually LEARN about PvP. Queues are shorter too, and until very late TBC, were noticeably so.

At max level, though, things go slightly askew because the Alliance are less incompetent, and win/loss ratios, as mentioned, are more even. As this varies from levelling-based expectations, there's a fair bit of grousing, and claiming that people failed to follow instructions (because same instructions would have given a win in a lower BG, therefore if they didn't work here, it must be the team failing to follow them, not the enemy team following the same strategy, only doing it better, eh?).

This is self-perpetuating, Alliance-side, because once you've been max-level once, you know it stinks for Alliance below that, and largely skip the lower BGs, thus you don't educate new players,

What's very interesting to me was that, until the Blood Elves were introduced, the Horde were significantly more competent on a player for player basis. Nowdays, that doesn't seem to be the case at all. The most consistently terrible players I see in the BGs are, and have been since early TBC, Male Blood Elf Ret Paladins. WotLK gave them a massive power boost, but not a skill one, so you often see them staring in confusion if you're still alive after their intial "IWIN" sequence, still hopping but unsure what to do next. So I think persuading elf-loving morons to spread themselves over both sides really helped balance things out a bit.

In WotLK, there's no BG, on Nightfall, that the Alliance consistently loses, or utterly consistently wins, though SotA is a good bet (except on SotA weekend, bizarrely - I think most competent Horde players must be farming some other BG).

I tell a lie, actually. The Alliance consistently loses AV. However, AV is terrible honor/time, and not part of the 4-medal hand in, so I forget it even exists most of the time.

[Eurhetemec]

I think the change to the way the "scoreboard" reports honor hurt as well.

It suddenly became really obvious to everyone that the idiots up there kill farming are getting a *lot* more honor per match than the people actually trying to win...

I'm not sure if moving the honor / match equation moved away from kills and more heavily to bonus honor would help - but it'd be nice if the BGs did more to reward actually going after the goals rather than just fighting out on the Idiot Magnets*.

I tend to agree and I think it'll get worse with time, as more people cotton on to why Owninurmom the brain-damaged Ret Pally got 400 more honor than the guy who capped the flag all three times and got several defenses. I think it'd be fairly simple to fix - just move honor away from specific kills and put it in a pool and distribute that evenly. Either that or just report bonus honour at the end, and no-one will be much the wiser.

[Fenris]

What's very interesting to me was that, until the Blood Elves were introduced, the Horde were significantly more competent on a player for player basis. Nowdays, that doesn't seem to be the case at all. The most consistently terrible players I see in the BGs are, and have been since early TBC, Male Blood Elf Ret Paladins. WotLK gave them a massive power boost, but not a skill one, so you often see them staring in confusion if you're still alive after their intial "IWIN" sequence, still hopping but unsure what to do next. So I think persuading elf-loving morons to spread themselves over both sides really helped balance things out a bit.

You know? I have to say I halfway see some of this...and halfway not.

I play a Male Blood Elf Ret paladin, and I usually don't have too many deaths in a BG. I'm not even a hardcore PvPer, but honestly, IMO, it doesn't take *that* long to learn a few small ins and outs of one's class to at least do somewhat decent in a BG scenario. I mean, I won't be getting to 2200 rating anytime soon, but that's not really my bag anyway. I'm more of a PvE person.

But at the same time, yeah, I do see ones where I even have to wonder how well they know their class in PvE, let alone PvP. :p

As a slightly humorous side-note, in my experience/battlegroup, it's Female BE Retadins as well as the Males, with their toothpick-like bodies ballerina-spinning through the crowds randomly and actually *typing in high-pitched voices* As in...and I wish I was making this up...

''Who's got the farm?''

''MEEEE! I'm Retri!! <3''

...I wished so hard I could gank my own faction at that point. Really, I did. As a Blood Elf Retri, I apologize for how our Numnuts/Paris Hiltons behave. I do. :p

[brooksd01]

What's very interesting to me was that, until the Blood Elves were introduced, the Horde were significantly more competent on a player for player basis. Nowdays, that doesn't seem to be the case at all. The most consistently terrible players I see in the BGs are, and have been since early TBC, Male Blood Elf Ret Paladins. WotLK gave them a massive power boost, but not a skill one, so you often see them staring in confusion if you're still alive after their intial "IWIN" sequence, still hopping but unsure what to do next. So I think persuading elf-loving morons to spread themselves over both sides really helped balance things out a bit.

I've been noticing a similar thing in DKs alliance side, and I'm sure it's happening with hordies as well. I've mostly been playing my hunter in 80 BGs and have been amazed how often I can just kite the bad DKs to death even when my cooldowns are all blown. A good DK should eat me alive if I don't pop big red angry, and likely should be able to get me even then since it takes a *loong* time for my sub-heroic geared butt to wear down a plate wearer.

[Eurhetemec]

I've been noticing a similar thing in DKs alliance side, and I'm sure it's happening with hordies as well. I've mostly been playing my hunter in 80 BGs and have been amazed how often I can just kite the bad DKs to death even when my cooldowns are all blown. A good DK should eat me alive if I don't pop big red angry, and likely should be able to get me even then since it takes a *loong* time for my sub-heroic geared butt to wear down a plate wearer.

There are a couple of factors which influence that further:

1) Lots of DKs don't actually have any real idea what they're doing. It's a fairly complicated class (compared to say, Paladin or even Hunter), and if you're not aware of all your abilities, then you're kind of screwed, because you don't have huge burst damage, and survivability actually requires competence.

2) Lots of DKs PvP in non-PvP specs. Whereas standard DPS BM pretty much is an excellent BG (not Arena, admittedly) PvP spec. The difference in PvP performance with my Unholy DK between being spec'd for PvE and PvP is absolutely huge, as big as the difference between being spec'd PvP Arms and PvE Fury was in early TBC for Warriors, and it's particularly noticeable against ranged DPS (who are potentially your bane as a DK, because they can kite you, and DKs are easy to kite).

As for being able to kill you even if you use Big Red, no, not really. A good Hunter with the right pet can kite a DK to death without problems without that, especially if the DK isn't Unholy with his own pet up, and with Big Red, you should be able to kill virtually any DK with caution and kiting. Don't let your pet be used as a health battery by them, that's the main thing, as once they get low, their priority will likely be to heal up using Death Strike, and you don't want that to happen.

[brooksd01]

There are a couple of factors which influence that further:

1) Lots of DKs don't actually have any real idea what they're doing. It's a fairly complicated class (compared to say, Paladin or even Hunter), and if you're not aware of all your abilities, then you're kind of screwed, because you don't have huge burst damage, and survivability actually requires competence.

Yeah this is the main thing I was trying to say. I was suprised how few people figured it out on the way up (my DK is only 72 and I have a much better grasp of these abilities than they seem to). I mean I'm not even getting death gripped by a lot of them, let alone Chained...

Considering you can just Death Strike your way to 80 much like a hunter can just auto-shot their way there, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised how different a "good" and a "level 80" DK can be.

2) Lots of DKs PvP in non-PvP specs. Whereas standard DPS BM pretty much is an excellent BG (not Arena, admittedly) PvP spec. The difference in PvP performance with my Unholy DK between being spec'd for PvE and PvP is absolutely huge, as big as the difference between being spec'd PvP Arms and PvE Fury was in early TBC for Warriors, and it's particularly noticeable against ranged DPS (who are potentially your bane as a DK, because they can kite you, and DKs are easy to kite).

As for being able to kill you even if you use Big Red, no, not really. A good Hunter with the right pet can kite a DK to death without problems without that, especially if the DK isn't Unholy with his own pet up, and with Big Red, you should be able to kill virtually any DK with caution and kiting. Don't let your pet be used as a health battery by them, that's the main thing, as once they get low, their priority will likely be to heal up using Death Strike, and you don't want that to happen.

Yeah, I over exaggerated there. It's somewhat true in my case as other than the engineering gun and a lucky arch-25 drop for Deadly Glad gloves I'm running iLvl 200 shoulders and everything else ilvl 150-180 blues. Given even skill / gear/ spec I'd guess a BM hunter vs DK is pretty much decided on the Bestial Wrath cooldown.

[Seroster]

Re hunter versus DK: death grip is on a 35 second cooldown, while disengage is on a shorter one. You need to save your disengage for after the death grip if at all possible. Readiness is also your friend, here.

[TheGrog]

I'd have to think that match will go to the hunter most of the time, unless it's an unholy DK. The ground snare from Desecrate seems pretty important to counteract Frost Trap/Wingclip when you finally get the hunter in melee.

On my server the Horde owned all pug BGs for a very long time, excepting the PvE version of AV. The Horde were just more coordinated and better combatants. Having rolled a Horde hunter way back when, it was the same when playing on Horde. Horde pugs just won against Alliance pugs.

Recently Strand seems to go Alliance a lot (I know, big suprise), and the few pug Eyes I've been in have shown general competence far beyond the dur-fest it was in BC.

[TheGrog]

I'd have to think that match will go to the hunter most of the time, unless it's an unholy DK. The ground snare from Desecrate seems pretty important to counteract Frost Trap/Wingclip when you finally get the hunter in melee.

On my server the Horde owned all pug BGs for a very long time, excepting the PvE version of AV. The Horde were just more coordinated and better combatants. Having rolled a Horde hunter way back when, it was the same when playing on Horde. Horde pugs just won against Alliance pugs.

Recently Strand seems to go Alliance a lot (I know, big suprise), and the few pug Eyes I've been in have shown general competence far beyond the dur-fest it was in BC.

[brooksd01]

Re hunter versus DK: death grip is on a 35 second cooldown, while disengage is on a shorter one. You need to save your disengage for after the death grip if at all possible. Readiness is also your friend, here.

They're both 25 seconds if the DK has it talented, but yeah that's the main counter. Also using intimidation when you get Chained can be a good one if BW is on cooldown.

[Eurhetemec]

They're both 25 seconds if the DK has it talented, but yeah that's the main counter.

Note that the vast majority of DKs you're fighting don't have it talented, though, because they're PvE spec'd.

[tavella]

How do players learn how they should behave in battlegrounds? Surely they start playing without really knowing.

They must learn from other players. (Few people read the forums.) If people are giving up, afk-ing, and so on, they'll learn that's what they should do too. After all, in that situation trying hard has less chance of turning things around than if your teammates are willing to put in extra effort. If they see people cooperating and winning, I think a lot of people will learn to cooperate.

Yup. That's pretty much what happened to me; when I ran a few battlegrounds for the Merrymaker title, I did AV several times and *never* had a clue what was going on, or had anyone suggest strategy. And Warsong, the one time I ran it, I had no idea what to do, I just ran down the hill and hit people in the middle of the field.

First Wintergrasp I ran, we had a raid leader calling for support in various places, reminding people to use the RP-GGs, and so on. EoTS was nearly as organized. And Arathi wasn't as tight but there was usually someone calling out places to hit. So I actually ran the latter three for fun a time or two.

[TheGrog]

God forbid somebody has to go learn what's going on before entering a team based, competitive event.

Admittedly, most MMO companies seem to go out of their way to avoid giving the players access to clear and easy to understand information about stuff like this.

[Safid]

Tangentally related: what do you think the chances of Blizzard fixing WoW's PVP anytime soon are? Is there constant uproar over how grindy and elitist it's gotten, or do most people just not care?

[Ikselam]

Tangentally related: what do you think the chances of Blizzard fixing WoW's PVP anytime soon are?
Approximately zero, since "fixing" it would require redesigning the game from the ground up.
Is there constant uproar over how grindy and elitist it's gotten, or do most people just not care?
Yes to both questions.

[Dorchadas]

Tangentally related: what do you think the chances of Blizzard fixing WoW's PVP anytime soon are? Is there constant uproar over how grindy and elitist it's gotten, or do most people just not care?

The uproar is mostly over how you should play an FPS instead--you'll die just as fast and no one can CC you in TF2.

[Safid]

That's really too bad. I was thinking of canceling WAR and returning to WOW but if the PVP is really as awful as people have made it out to be, there is no point.

[TheGrog]

The honor grind to get gear is faster than it's ever been, imo.

The rating requirement setup is something else again. You aren't exactly required to grind a lot of games if you don't need the practice, but if you can't ...

EDIT: What's wrong with WAR? Just not interested? I lost interest when I found out how the 'contribution' system worked.

[Safid]

WAR is a game that is awesome on paper, but in practice, I'm playing with a bunch of people I hardly know, on a server with a bunch of idiots which spoils, well, everything. Basically, I can deal with losing over and over again but only if my side puts up a good fight.

When my gameplay turns into: log in and sit in a queue for 30m, get farmed, repeat three times until I decide to play a game where I actually have fun PLAYING, I know it's time to move on. The only part of the game I really care about is scenarios, and they take too long to come up and when they do, far more often than not, I'm just getting destroyed. I considered if it was just me being bad, but I consistently get the best dmg/healing/kills (or near best) -- it's just impossible to win anything when the other 11 people I'm with can't play.

I had hoped that WoW might scratch my PVP itch but it looks like the answer is 'no'. Maybe it's just time for a break from MMO style PVP for me.

EDIT: I didn't mean to derail the thread. I just wanted to know what the general consensus about the 'state of the game' re: WoW's PVP was, for my own reasons.

[TheGrog]

PvP in general is dominated by burst damage and classes with easy outs. Mages, Hunters, Rogues, and DKs are all real strong. Blizzard is partially waiting to see the total effects of resilience.

As far as the overall structure of PvP, things haven't changed that much since BC. Arenas are still the major source of gear, except that nearly everything has rating requirements on it now. BGs are for honor, except that most of the good honor gear also has rating requirements on it.

And don't forget the queues.

Did you just get blindsided by faction # imbalance, or was it too hard to find a good guild to roll with?

[Safid]

A little bit of both. Not only could I not find a good guild, but when my friends stopped playing (except one), it turned a mediocre guild into a poor one. And then my server is one of the handful in the game where my faction is just plain BAD. Numbers-wise, it's balanced, but there aren't any great guilds, or very many good players, etc.

Still, the thing about WAR is that it at least has a commitment to PVP. It might get better, or another server would help, etc. WOW is very firmly committed to PVE. Have they even added in a new battleground yet? WAR adds new ones in for holiday events, etc. There's a big culture difference. I just wish my server didn't suck, basically, and I don't really have time to reroll especially if I'm doing it solo.

[TheGrog]

Two, actually.

Strand of the Ancients is a new true BG. It's patterned on the FPS timed assault missions, where each side takes a turn attacking and the second team wins by beating the attack time of the first team. It also has cannons, gate doors, and siege engines.

The problems all revolve around the Alliance going first, and they always go first. You get 10m to break the last door and click on the thing. A fast Alliance win is something like 4-5 m on the attack, then an equal amount of time on defense. A fast Horde win generally involves holding the Alliance past the 8m marker, then attacking in 4-5 m.

Next is Wintergrasp, which is a big keep assault open world pvp area. Multiple siege engine types, destructable buildings, and cannons. Games are every 2.5 hours, and it was quite fun. These days the games go far too short at times, and too many times people just don't show up for defence matches.

[Safid]

I'm not sure one battleground every year and a half is enough for my tastes. I got a chance to play Wintergrasp on my cousin's account over Christmas and just wasn't that impressed.

[Antithesis]

wow has great pvp, roll up a 29 twink on bonechewer and you'll see(if you take that seriously whisper irradiation and i'll run you instances).

but really the bgs are what i like most about the game, some what flawed(stun lock kills and uneven bg sides mostly) but these are solid strategic games with way more options then an fps would ever give you.

[Fenris]

The problems all revolve around the Alliance going first, and they always go first. You get 10m to break the last door and click on the thing. A fast Alliance win is something like 4-5 m on the attack, then an equal amount of time on defense. A fast Horde win generally involves holding the Alliance past the 8m marker, then attacking in 4-5 m.

I haven't done Strand yet, having my PvP interest quite dwindled.

Couldn't there be a way to, I don't know, have the starter be random? Would that be too difficult?

[brooksd01]

I haven't done Strand yet, having my PvP interest quite dwindled.

Couldn't there be a way to, I don't know, have the starter be random? Would that be too difficult?

I saw a blue post mentioning that it was random in beta but for some technical reason or another it caused issues so they changed it.

Maybe there is something I missed, but as far as I can tell it's only a problem if you're worried about honor per hour. In that respect the complaint is a really good horde team blows through a match in 12 minutes (10 min timer plus a couple to beat the other side) vs 4 minutes for a good alliance team.

[Eurhetemec]

Safid - WoW's PvP, right now, is definitely not "better" than that of WAR. Mid-TBC, I think I could have said WoW's PvP was significantly better, in the areas it existed, than WAR, but that's no longer that case. Given that still somewhat considering dropping WoW to go back to WAR, specifically because the PvP is so weak, I would council against doing the reverse.

Strand of the Ancients is fun but stupid. Not a lot more to say about it. It's not high-quality or involving PvP, it is mindless fun for a while.

Wintergrasp is extremely similar. There is more of a tactical element, in that one can choose where and when to assault (much like a keep siege on Dark Age of Camelot, long ago), but it's largely silly and random, more an amusing way to spend 25-45 mins than a PvP experience. Occasionally it's actually exciting, but that is very occasional.

WAR could learn from both, in terms of making siege warfare more entertaining and accessible (it's madness that WAR doesn't have drive-able siege tanks, not like there aren't Chaos equivalents!), but if you actually like fighting players, not giant red toy-looking cars, then it's not really going to excite you.

Arenas are in a sad state, even compared to the worst days of TBC.

The only thing keeping me in WoW, really, is that, aside from the PvP, the rest of the game is a lot more engaging than WAR, particularly the PvE.

[Seroster]

Two, actually.

Strand of the Ancients is a new true BG. It's patterned on the FPS timed assault missions, where each side takes a turn attacking and the second team wins by beating the attack time of the first team. It also has cannons, gate doors, and siege engines.

The problems all revolve around the Alliance going first, and they always go first. You get 10m to break the last door and click on the thing. A fast Alliance win is something like 4-5 m on the attack, then an equal amount of time on defense. A fast Horde win generally involves holding the Alliance past the 8m marker, then attacking in 4-5 m.


How is that a structural problem with the BG? There is a separate timer for each phase, isn't there?


Next is Wintergrasp, which is a big keep assault open world pvp area. Multiple siege engine types, destructable buildings, and cannons. Games are every 2.5 hours, and it was quite fun. These days the games go far too short at times, and too many times people just don't show up for defence matches.

Yeah, Wintergrasp is pretty fun (on Kirin Tor) but sometimes the Alliance really has their heads up their butt. The number of times I have seen high-tenacity Horde punch through the northwest wall after disabling the turrets... you'd think we'd have learned.

[Eurhetemec]

[QUOTE=Seroster;9813172]How is that a structural problem with the BG? There is a separate timer for each phase, isn't there?

I'm not sure how you're not getting it. If the Horde play really well, the minimum time they can win the BG in is 10m + 3-4m, the maximum time it take an Alliance team of equal skill is 3-4m + 3-4m, because the length of the first defense sets how long you have to defend for in phase 2. 14m > 8m. If the Horde intentionally lost the first phase, they could cut the time down a little bit, but that's really asking a lot, and if the Alliance were just bad, might not even help much.

I can't see any way in which that isn't a structural problem with the BG. On top of this is the added insult (again apparently not fixed on the PTR), that one of the achievements is to win SotA in under 4 mins (pretty easy to do), but that timer starts counting at the beginning of the Alliance attack phase, so it's physically impossible for the Horde to get the achievement (which I believe is a pre-req of a pre-req of the Battlemaster title achievement).

[Erstwhile]

I lost interest when I found out how the 'contribution' system worked.

Could you expand a bit on that?

The only thing keeping me in WoW, really, is that, aside from the PvP, the rest of the game is a lot more engaging than WAR, particularly the PvE.

Agreed - WoW's PvE is far better than WAR's.

[Seroster]

I'm not sure how you're not getting it. If the Horde play really well, the minimum time they can win the BG in is 10m + 3-4m, the maximum time it take an Alliance team of equal skill is 3-4m + 3-4m, because the length of the first defense sets how long you have to defend for in phase 2.


That's just a bad design. I thought the length of time required to defend was equal for both.

[Eurhetemec]

That's just a bad design. I thought the length of time required to defend was equal for both.

It's not even really bad - worse, it's lazy. Blizzard know it's wrong, they know it's unfair, they know Horde can't get the achievement (and thus can never make Battlemaster), but instead of holding SotA until they could get it right, they sent it live without working out any way to make it equitable. It's fair in a win/lose sense, but not in a "reward/time" sense, and when you decide to make honor gear cost 49600 honor and a match net you less than 1/50th of that, you bloody well better get reward/time right.

[Safid]

It's really too bad about the PVP. Then again, my time is fairly limited and if I can't get something for playing on an extremely casual basis, it's better not to try at all, I think.

So really Blizzard has shown no signs that they think FPS style instagibs are a good idea? (Burst vs. CC vs. attrition doesn't make a good game, sigh, when will they learn)

[TheGrog]

WAR contribution ratings for Keep Sieges (possibly other PQ style events in PvP areas) is based on a random roll. You /roll when you enter the zone, and you keep that number until you enter a new one or log out. The siege bag awards are handed out to the top numbers, in order. It's hard to prove, but semi-documented. If you take several keeps in the same zone with the same people, loot will be handed out in exactly the same order.

Strand would be better if they made two changes. Random attacking priority and limited timers. You start at 4m on the clock, and get 2m every time you down the first gate in each tier. (There are 6 gates, Blue and Green on the beach in parallel, Red and Purple back in a second line, Yellow behind them, and the relic gate after Yellow). So knocking down Blue, then Red, then Yellow would net you 6m extra to attack in. That way a weak team on O first would still get shut down quick.

Blizzard is well, waiting. Some changes to a few of the worst bursty classes are going through soon, but no major changes yet. I think they're hoping things change at 1k resilience. You may have better luck changing servers or guilds. Farming honor is easier than it was, and WG is still a big honor award.

[Safid]

Actually, WAR has admitted that contribution is fubared. It wasn't on purpose, but it's a very complicated bug. Contribution works beautifully in PVE but somehow not in PVP and they are trying to resolve it. They're not trying to hide it.