Upcoming Battleground Changes

[MongoJerry]

GamingSteve.com has what they're claiming to be an inside scoop on battleground changes coming in 1.12 and beyond, and their information is in line with other information that I've heard. Check the Lurker Lounge front page for details.

[lemekim]

Usually I would recommend to take that information with a grain of salt.

However, in his defense, Blizzard has stated that there will be an upcoming change to Battlegrounds coming soon, and in a round-about way they seemed to convey that it will not be Siege Weapons (any mention of them is now officially gone from the upcoming changes pages). Since there is little else that could be added to Battlegrounds that would warrant such a post, the popular opinion is that this will be a type of cross-server implementation (and it probably will be).

So while the exact specifics might be wrong, I expect that we will see some kind of cross-server implementation sometime "soon". We will just have to wait and see if it's 16 servers or did Steve simply tried to pass his educated guess as a leak of info.

[MongoJerry]

So while the exact specifics might be wrong, I expect that we will see some kind of cross-server implementation sometime "soon". We will just have to wait and see if it's 16 servers or did Steve simply tried to pass his educated guess as a leak of info.
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Yep, I agree. I posted it, because it passed the smell test and seems reasonable and accurate. It fits with other information I've heard and doesn't seem like a wish list. We'll have to wait and see, though.

[ima_nerd]

/yearn siege weapons :(

This should help with server imbalance. My server is way unbalanced in the favor of the Alliance. We routinely get slaughtered in AV and when we do squeek out a win, it's because non of their major guilds are involved.

How will this affect the ranking system? I was under the impression that rank was determined in respect to others on your server that particular week. This seems to through a real wrench in that.

Edit: yarr, spelling

[oldmandennis]

Hopefully this will allow more balance, by using the team members ranks the same way levels were used during b.net matchups in WC3. Also, hopefully this will allow the return of "join as group" to AV, and the release of new BG's (maybe with siege engines!)

[MongoJerry]

How will this affect the ranking system? I was under the impression that rank was determined in respect to others on your server that particular week. This seems to through a real wrench in that.
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I suspect that the real changes to the whole honor system won't happen until the expansion. Having cross-server battlegrounds wouldn't really affect the current ranking systems, since one of the primary problems with the current ranking system is that it involves players competing against players of their own faction on their own server. Since players of the same faction on the same server would have equal access to the same cross-server battlegrounds, it wouldn't matter.

The day when the current honor system is dumped will be a great day, however.

[ima_nerd]

The day when the current honor system is dumped will be a great day, however.
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The day they take out DKs so I can go back to slaughtering towns without fear of deranking from 14 to 1 with one civilian kill will be a great day :lol:

[Watto44]

The day when the current honor system is dumped will be a great day, however.
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Agreed.

I just wish we had some idea how things will change. I'd like to know if I'm waisting my time trying to maintain a decent rank until the expansion. :)

[Bob the Beholder]

I think cross-server battlegrounds would certainly help queue times and all. But fighting complete strangers all the time is no fun. I remember the people I fight--I know who's a threat, I know who's not, I have an idea who's most likely to be doing what and they likely know me just the same (Alliance flag carriers beware--Lomin is coming, and his AP is up just for you).

I wouldn't mind shorter queue times, but it would detract from the sense of community in a server, I think, to go from fighting your arch nemesis regularly to fighting nameless night elf rogue number 3,748.

[lemekim]

I think cross-server battlegrounds would certainly help queue times and all.  But fighting complete strangers all the time is no fun.  I remember the people I fight--I know who's a threat, I know who's not, I have an idea who's most likely to be doing what and they likely know me just the same (Alliance flag carriers beware--Lomin is coming, and his AP is up just for you).

I wouldn't mind shorter queue times, but it would detract from the sense of community in a server, I think, to go from fighting your arch nemesis regularly to fighting nameless night elf rogue number 3,748.
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Well you probably will run into your nemesis sometimes, just not every day. I think most people would prefer the cross-server solution. Having battlegrounds on one server might have been ok if there was no current Honor system, but the Honor system ruins it for a lot of people. It's fun fighting your Arch nemesis... The first 50 times. There are some other issues as well.

A ) On one hand, fighting the same people over and over can get quite boring - especially when you pretty much know the outcome of the battle (be that winning or losing), and when you face them over and over again, and you know the outcome of the battle before it even starts, it gets boring/frustrating for both sides.

B ) Which brings us to next point - afking out. It's in large part the fault of the Honor system, and it comes from knowing your opponents. Longer games are discouraged, so people "save time" for next game, even with the new deserter tag.

C ) And you cannot forget scalability. If Blizzard introduces a new BG into the servers, PvPers will be quite split among them all, and it might be hard to find a game for a particular Battleground. But with 16 times the people, it will be that much easier.

I just think it's much more fun to go into battle and face fresh enemy, so when you do run into some familiar faces, you will actually look forward to the battle. Plus, it might weed out a few people who just get through the Honor system by afking out on guild groups and winning against unorganized groups.

[oldmandennis]

If they implement some kind of ladder/matchmaking system, you would still know your opponents. Its just instead of playing against 5000 random people, you would play the 5000 people from 16 server closest to you in accomplishment. Well, hopefully atleast.

[WildFire]

I honestly don't see how clustering servers together will make wait times shorter for the typical Alliance player.

Let's explore this...

On a typical server, most of which have a higher Alliance representation, let's say we have, on average, 140 Alliance against 80 Horde. So that's 2 full AV games with 60 Alliance at any one time waiting to get into a game.

Now, say they cluster 10 servers together. That will mean 1400 Alliance against 800 Horde. Sure, instead of having two games up at once, there will be 20 games up, but there will still be the 600 Alliance waiting to get into those same 20 games. The wait time will still be approximately the same as having 60 Alliance waiting to get into 2 games.

Or am I missing something here?

[Quark]

Assuming equal population spreads (which there aren't, some servers actually favor horde quite a bit), the advantage would be that things that aren't up, will be up.

So Arathi Basin, which might get one whole game a night on Stormrage, would be up 24/7. That means, instead of a 5 hour wait that might get you into AB, or if you're super-lucky a 1 hours wait that gets you in, you should have, say, a 4 hour wait that will get you into AB.

Clustured servers smooth the bumps in the queue. Less of the lucky "sweet, I joined the queue at the exact right moment!" less of the "whelp, I spent an entire night in a queue but the game never came up, another night of no <X BG> for me."

[MongoJerry]

On a typical server, most of which have a higher Alliance representation, let's say we have, on average, 140 Alliance against 80 Horde. So that's 2 full AV games with 60 Alliance at any one time waiting to get into a game.

It would be highly unaverage to have two full AV games up at any given time. Typically, you'd be lucky to have one up at all. And even if you have one? Good luck getting in. And let's say you actually do have two games up. What happens if they're relatively evenly matched? You might not get in for hours. As Quark mentions, what cross server battlegrounds does is smooth out the chunkiness of the queue. If a WSG game is evenly matched and doesn't end for an hour and a half? Who cares? There will be dozens of others that end in 15-20 minutes and even some that end in less than 10 minutes. There will still be a queue line, but the queue will be constantly on the move. It's the chunkiness of the queue due to few or nonexistant games that is the primary cause of long queue times at the moment and not the imbalance between the different factions. The queue line will feel so much better when faction imbalance is the only limitation.

[oldmandennis]

It would be highly unaverage to have two full AV games up at any given time.&nbsp;
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Depends on your server, we usually have one or two up, even without the weekend. A lot of the players are just killin time until thier WSG/AB game comes up though.

[Ashock]

Depends on your server, we usually have one or two up, even without the weekend.&nbsp; A lot of the players are just killin time until thier WSG/AB game comes up though.
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So, many people prefer to play the short BGs? Aren't the rewards for those significantly worse than AV, or is it simply because nobody has time to complete AV, so they'd rather settle for the much shorter WSG/AB?


-A

[Bob the Beholder]

So, many people prefer to play the short BGs? Aren't the rewards for those significantly worse than AV, or is it simply because nobody has time to complete AV, so they'd rather settle for the much shorter WSG/AB?
-A
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The shorter ones are faster honor. And they tend to involve fewer zergling rushes.

[MongoJerry]

Depends on your server, we usually have one or two up, even without the weekend.  A lot of the players are just killin time until thier WSG/AB game comes up though.
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"One or two up" still isn't two and certainly isn't the 25+ that cross-server battlegrounds would give us. Also, how many AV's are up at one in the morning? Or noon? How many non-level-capped WSG's or AB's are up at any given time? Cross-sever battlegrounds will go a long way toward allowing people to log in and join the battleground of their choice within a reasonable amount of time whenever they want to.

[lemekim]

And, let's not forget, this open up the possibilities for future Battlegrounds additions. With the current design, introducing even 3 additional BGs (as a lot of people would love), would mean that if you decide to play one of them, odds are that you will either have to wait, or there will be no games up at all. With 16 linked servers, you should always have an opportunity to join the Battleground of your choice.

[oldmandennis]

On my server, atleast 1/2 the teams in AB/WSG are organized. You can round up 9-14 friends, get them all on TS, and win a lot of games in a short period of time.

The dimenishing returns on honorable kills hurts AV. Within an hour or so, you have probably killed everybody not AFK in a cave somewhere atleast 4 times, so you are no longer gettin honor for kills.

There's an obvious need for honor decay - you don't want two people colluding near a graveyard somewhere to rack up a bazillion honor. But especially in hours long, large scale BG's there needs to be a more relaxed limit to keep the grinders interested.