2.3 AV Changes

[vor_lord]

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.

Seems to me that games that last that long are rarely "good fought" games. It's just an exercise in frustration -- who will give up first? You can turtle indefinitely. There needs to be incentive -not to-, that aligns personal interest (honor gain, whatever) with the objectives of the battlefield.

The AV changes may be interesting but Blizzard has a track record of fixing things that aren't broken.

Are you implying that AV is not broken? I find this very surprising. I recently did 5 AVs in a row without dying. I'm a PvE specced raiding holy priest with no PvP gear to speak of, so killing me is really really easy (and important). PvP is an afterthought for the most part. Actually PvPing is counterproductive to the goal of honor -- they need to figure out how to correlate winning with reward better (and not decreasing the current honor gain rates significantly).

What they could do to improve AV is to keep people from falling through the world.

Huh. Never fallen through the world in any BG (back in beta I ended up underneath Orgrimmar, but that's the closest I've come to any such thing). Bonemage this last week did fall through the world when the Alliance death coiled him behind the entrance portal to the Stockade. We had to summon him to fix it.

I think most players would want a lot more fixed in AV. It's been far nicer since the Horde doesn't have to worry about 15-20 AFKers, but the race-style games are hardly interesting. The whole concept of AV (using resources to summon NPCs, capture objectives etc.) is not used at all.

[Trien]

Seems to me that games that last that long are rarely "good fought" games. It's just an exercise in frustration -- who will give up first? You can turtle indefinitely. There needs to be incentive -not to-, that aligns personal interest (honor gain, whatever) with the objectives of the battlefield.

I have some screenshots from right around when WSG first came out, where a bunch of guildies decided to queue up together for a 'quick game' before we quit for the night... and this was around, oh, 12:30am, and I had to work the next day. The game ended up running until 2:30am:P. And it was by no means a turtle fest, frantic races to reacquire the flag when they managed to return it (12 returns on one end, 19 returns on the other). Still one of my most memorable games. Cross-realm battlegrounds has unfortunately eliminated some of that rivalry you have when you're up against players that you run into everyday, whether it be in Azeroth at large or in battlegrounds. Long games can be turtles... which can get annoying, but I've had my share of long well fought games (some this last WSG weekend) which were not turtles. But having such games when it's random players vs random players is somewhat rare, alas.

I'm the kind of player that plays for the sake of playing, so despite coming up against bad odds and a losing situation, I'll still be trying to do what I can to do what I can to try to win... trying to steal single nodes against organized teams back in the old AB days, last minute WSG flag grab-and-escapes... So you can imagine my annoyance with all those players who keep on saying, 'let them win'... /sigh. Okay, yeah, I realize they just want to farm their points/marks as fast as they can, and if it's against an organized team that's intent on bulldozing through us... fine, but if you run into WSG and don't even try to play the game and still want your honor/marks...

Compensation for losing shouldn't be something that actually makes it worthwhile for you to continually lose...

[Lissa]

Typically, the NDA's prohibit even acknowledging you are in a beta. I'm not sure about that one though.

No, in this case you can say something. Quark has been in since Alpha and FSG specifically stated that the testers could say there were in the alpha (and this probably hasn't changed for the beta) and not break NDA.

[Artega]

A simple time limit on the matches would solve most everything. The bonus honor gained per winning game should not change; if you earn, say, 125 honor for a winning game, you should still get the same 125. But instead of in three equal increments, make each successive capture worth more honor, with the third and final being worth the most.

With a hard-coded time limit in place (I'd say thirty minutes, which is about the same duration of a quality AB or EOTS match with evenly skilled and situated teams), teams would be encouraged to take the offensive and try to win before the time limit is up; obviously, if you only have two successful captures, you get that amount of honor at the end of the game. Whether or not you're the winner is irrelevant beyond marks of honor. After thirty minutes, both teams are awarded honor based on the number of captures they have and each receives a single mark of honor. In order to get the full three, you have to win by the standard three-capture rule. If you had no captures at the end of the match, you get no honor at all; capture the flag should never be free honor. You should have to fight for your honor every match, otherwise there's no point to do Warsong over AV unless you need the marks.

Yeah, sometimes you'll end up in a match with no healers and go the full thirty minutes with no caps to your opponent's single cap and come out with nothing, but that's the luck of the draw. Between engineering items, free action potions, swiftness potions, and a whole buttload of other dirty tricks, it's really not hard to get a single cap if you exploit the enemy team's weakness. Hell, Rocket Boots Extreme combined with a Parachute Cloak is a guaranteed cap as long as the enemies aren't on your side of the field and you have your flag.

[Malakar]

I think the problem with AV, when it comes to the drawn out turtles, is mostly due to the graveyard rez and flag cap design not fitting well in AV. As Skan pointed out, you have to eradicate all defenders to capture a flag; and not just eradicate them all, but eradicate them all for 10 seconds. When it's a 40v40 like the AVs of the past, this becomes somewhat impossible, requiring mass dominance (premade vs pug) or a fluke.

Let's examine the rez/cap mechanic as it works in AB, and how it doesn't work in AV.

In AB, everyone starts off without any bases capped. Thus, the game starts fair in the beginning from a reinforcements perspective, which gives neither side a turtling ability. Additionally, once bases are capped and turtling is enabled, the name of the game is then defense - not offense. AB is also non-linear, which allows pugs especially to be disorganized enough to give up on one base and take another (the musical chairs syndrome). Lastly, AB involves a lot less players - and even less at each base - which diminishes the probability of someone you kill getting lucky and catching the respawn immediately, giving them just enough time to run back and tap the capper.

AV, however, is a very different game design, and yet attempts (and fails) to use the same exact ressurection and flag capping mechanics.

The ressurection mechanics for AV encourage turtling, period. And they do so VERY strongly. I haven't timed the time it takes to ride from one GY to the next, but I'd guess it's something around 30 seconds on an epic mount. The average time to ressurect after death at a GY is more along the lines of 17 seconds. So, the offensive force get reinforcements after ~47s, while the defensive force get reinforcements after ~17s. This is not only significant in and of itself, it's significant in relation to the 30 seconds it takes to drink.

Ressurection at a GY is also very random. In AV's current design, this is to the great advantage of any large defensive force. In the time it takes to eradicate a force of 40 players, there's a strong chance that some of the players that were killed will catch the respawn just in time to get an instant rez - and run right over to the flag capper and tag them.

The objective of the game is to push past defensive map points, and ultimately get to the main base of the opposing faction. This is obviously in sharp contrast to what the rez/cap system encourage.


The flag capping mechanic could be fixed in one of two ways. Either the GY ressurections could be derandomized, or it could be changed to an EotS style mechanic.

Fixing the GY rez times may not be as cut and dry. I've mulled over several ideas, including a system similar to the world ressurections - the more you rez, the more time you have to wait between rezzes. Or simply increases the rez times significantly. Or increasing the rez times slightly, but de-randomizing them, for example, when you die you'd gain a debuff that'd count down x seconds, at which point you'd rez, instead of the GY rezzers having their own universal timer.

[LavCat]

Seems to me that games that last that long are rarely "good fought" games. It's just an exercise in frustration -- who will give up first? You can turtle indefinitely. There needs to be incentive -not to-, that aligns personal interest (honor gain, whatever) with the objectives of the battlefield.
Are you implying that AV is not broken? I find this very surprising. I recently did 5 AVs in a row without dying. I'm a PvE specced raiding holy priest with no PvP gear to speak of, so killing me is really really easy (and important). PvP is an afterthought for the most part. Actually PvPing is counterproductive to the goal of honor -- they need to figure out how to correlate winning with reward better (and not decreasing the current honor gain rates significantly).
Huh. Never fallen through the world in any BG (back in beta I ended up underneath Orgrimmar, but that's the closest I've come to any such thing). Bonemage this last week did fall through the world when the Alliance death coiled him behind the entrance portal to the Stockade. We had to summon him to fix it.

I think most players would want a lot more fixed in AV. It's been far nicer since the Horde doesn't have to worry about 15-20 AFKers, but the race-style games are hardly interesting. The whole concept of AV (using resources to summon NPCs, capture objectives etc.) is not used at all.

No, I don't often fall through the world in AV but the most recent experience was fresh in my mind when I posted. There was nothing to be done until the game ended. Fortunately, as I recall, we won.

I agree that PvP does not necessarily equate with honor, and the "honor" system we have now does not have much to do with honor. It is just another type of grind for items. At the moment it seems players have pretty much figured out how to maximize honor points. On our battlegroup Alliance queues are typically a minute or two, down from two hours prior to last patch. Most games are in the range of 11 to 17 minutes. Horde usually win, though often Alliance get more honor. Last night I did not log on till close to midnight, did dailies, and still came away with 8999 honor when the honor rolled over for the day. In the current state AV is not as much fun as it used to be but it is addictive. In my opinion some of the best games in recent months were just before the last patch when there were sometimes less than twenty players on a side.

The strategy of defending the cave is still a problem, at least on the Alliance side. Maybe one reason Alliance used to win more is that previously the Alliance team would fill up after the gate was opened, with the effect that more players were on defence. (That, and I have not been playing with my priest or shaman.)

I suspect the real reason Alliance has not been doing better at battlegrounds is that our officers in the Champions' Hall are still studying the pre-BC maps of Azeroth. Blizzard never updated the artwork of the continents. It is a nice touch though that the detail map on the table is the map of Southshore.