10-07-2007, 07:12 PM
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Meanwhile, Warsong Gulch remains a wasteland and now, in my opinion, takes over the "worst battleground" position from AV.
1) Games can literally last forever. We've all likely been in those horrendous standoff games where you've been in the battleground for 45 minutes and nobody's capped yet. If you PuG WSG much, that's guaranteed to happen eventually.
2) If you lose the battleground, especially 3-0, you get jack squat for honor. This is especially harsh when you're in a game caused by problem #1. Once the first cap occurs in a game like that, the losing side tends to just bail en masse, leading to a fast 3-0 loss. Spending an hour of your life to gain 75 honor from HKs is just plain awful.
3) Related to #1, Warsong Gulch has no time limit. Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm games have to end eventually no matter what; a team will get to 2000 points and it will end. Warsong Gulch has no such limitation. I never, ever queue for WSG without an "out" - queuing up for some other battleground so that if the WSG turns out to be a horrible cluster-you-know-what, I can escape to a more sane battleground and not be "stuck" there. Alterac Valley also has no time limit, but the honor gains there are great even if you're losing, and it's been a long time since the epic 16-hour standoff matches.
What I'd do with WSG is implement something like this:
A) What we have now - after X time (5 minutes?) of holding a flag, its position is displayed on the minimap for your enemy. No hiding!
B) After X + Y time (10 minutes?) of holding a flag, anyone carrying the flag takes a 2% health hit every second they hold the flag. "Okay, so they just have a healer stand there and keep them up," you say, and you're right. But it puts that much more pressure on the flag holder and his support when he gets attacked. If you can't get any healing in 50 seconds, you die and the flag drops. Killing the support of a flag carrier then becomes very important. You don't even need to attack the flag carrier - the flag will kill him off for you eventually. If you have 10,000 health, you lose 200 hps every second.
C) After X + Y + Z time (20 minutes?) of holding a flag, a whirlwind drops from the sky and teleports everyone in WSG to a random location on the map. The ensuing chaos would be enjoyable. :)
-Bolty
The only changes I would make for WSG would be to give a bit more honor to the losing side and fix the exploits (as well as problems falling through the world). Hiding the flag is a big part of the tactics. Watching five horde run right past you is fun. Mind Vision and hunter tracking are ways to help look for the flag carrier if necessary. I have only been in one recent WSG that was well more than an hour, and even though we lost it was a well fought game. Having no teamwork and losing in seven minutes may be more efficient but is certainly not fun.
The AV changes may be interesting but Blizzard has a track record of fixing things that aren't broken. I have not had the heart to play my Alliance hunter since they fixed the hunter pets. What they could do to improve AV is to keep people from falling through the world. That, or make the games last longer so that when the GM responds the next day it may still do some good. I have not been in any really long AV games recently but this past week I was in one that lasted two hours forty minutes. Yes we won, but since I did not get in till after Galvangar I did not get much honor (apart from the 379 HK).
"I may be old, but I'm not dead."