Alterac Valley

[Concillian]

How would you fix Alterac Valley?

Don't know what I mean? I'll fill you in in case you don't PvP much or in case you play on a bizarre battlegroup where this doesn't happen, although from what I understand it's pretty universal. Basically, Horde always loses, and it's to their benefit.

I think the devs are on the right track based on the Blizzcon info:

1) Rezzing at cave only when no other GY --

This is HUGE. one of the main reasons for the map imbalance is that when horde die after IB is taken they have a choice of 3 places to go (Tower point D, FW GY D, IB to try to get O). The force is spread out and of no consequence to the alliance O.

If they rez back at FW they are all taking the same path as alliance and will be essentially be slaughtered while mounted trying to get back to O and forced to D just like alliance are now. Sure FW is no Stormpike, but forcing everyone to rez there is going to make things different. Also, I don't know if alliance realize it, but if you died more than about 20 yards from the cave side of teh FW GY flag you'd also rez back in the cave... highly annoying if you are trying to defend.

Also, it will create more heated battles at the towns themselves, which will make for longer games, which will mean the AFKers will have less incentive to play.

I think this was a very necessary step, and it removes a very significant map imbalance from AV. I'm not sure other people realize how significant it was that the cave for alliance is behind SP GY vs. the horde cave being in between FW and IB GYs.

2) greater inertia for AFKers

The self reporting and clearing AFK debuff is a method if increasing AFK inertia. It's not going to solve the problem, but it will make it more difficult, which I think is all that needs to be done. If there is no sound associated with the debuff, then the AFKers will have to check often for the debuff and at this point they may as well be actually playing.

3) Further incentivize NPC intervention (commandos, riders, air support)

Be this through extending the games (as the GY thing may do) or reduced turn-ins (mine turn-ins and wolf / ram taming both take WELL longer than they should). It's possible that #1 solves this problem all by itself. Once I spent an entire 20 minute game getting stuff in the mine, rotating people as fast as possible with a warlock summoning to the mine, then warping back. Didn't get the commandos summoned before the game was over. That needs to change.

4) balance town NPC dealings

This is one they aren't doing, but they need to add a wall or something to FW keep to force alliance near the bulk of te NPCs in FW keep. Horde have a very tough time avoiding the old racial foo turn-in NPCs. Make it equally difficult for alliance.

5) Create a time helper

Once games reach the 1 hour mark, auto release NPC help based on GY holdings or something to help move battles along. Increase the strength of player released NPCs, or perhaps reduce turn-in quantity and reduce time significantly between waves at some time limint... Something to help avoid issues of the AV of old like the AV where I went to sleep and joined the same AV again the next morning.

1 hour solid in a battleground you can't AFK in is a long time. 2 hours would make it more like an instance, but without the breaks. There needs to be a hard stop at 1.5-2 hours. My feeling is NPCs need to be tuned to support ~45 minute games on average and there has to be something to help move things along if a battle starts getting out of hand.

I don't know if the AFK solution is enough... time will tell. But when you make the rezzing similar on both sides, then make it so that you have pretty much even odds, well then the map is a lot more balanced.