Mini Patch 1.8.4

[Mirajj]

A small patch, designed to Winter Veil things up...

Patch 1.8.4

Battlegrounds

* Battles must now last at least ten minutes after the start of the battle in order for the losing team to receive a Mark of Honor.

World

* New quests for the Feast of Winter Veil have been added! See your Smokywood Pastures customer service representative in Ironforge and Orgrimmar for more details!
* The level of many of last year's Feast of Winter Veil quests have been adjusted so that reputation rewards are available in their full amount for players of all levels able to do them.
* Fixed a bug with both versions of the quest "A Smokywood Pastures' Thank You!" that was sending mail out immediately rather than on the intended delay.
* In a startling discovery, Mistletoe sold on last year's vendors is now named "Fake Mistletoe". A Smokywood Pastures spokesman was quoted as saying, "Sorry, no refunds."
* Some of the Southsea Dock Workers that were working under the boat should now be much more accessible to players.
* Andre Firebeard no longer has a chance of dropping a Wastewander Water Pouch.
* All OOX Distress Beacons are now multi-drop; everyone in a group should be able to receive one if it drops.
* Fixed a bug with Oglethorpe Obnoticus' gossip where he was being much more familiar with strangers than he should have been.

General

* Various preparations added to the client for Patch 1.9.

[Rinnhart]

They also added the ugly "glow" effect to Chargers.

[Quark]

Battlegrounds

    * Battles must now last at least ten minutes after the start of the battle in order for the losing team to receive a Mark of Honor.

Besides being their incredibly narrowsited choice for making people "try" in BGs instead of just realizing they'll lose, this doesn't even work. Losers are not recieving a Mark of Honor, no matter the length of the game.

[Pesmerga]

Besides being their incredibly narrowsited choice for making people "try" in BGs instead of just realizing they'll lose, this doesn't even work.  Losers are not recieving a Mark of Honor, no matter the length of the game.
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There is a Caydiem post that they're aware of it and in the process of fixing it now. I'd link it but I'm lazy.

[Quark]

There is a Caydiem post that they're aware of it and in the process of fixing it now.  I'd link it but I'm lazy.
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One could point out that if they were aware of it before maitenence, they shouldn't have released the patch. If they weren't aware of it, that's even worse, because then they obviously failed to test their changes even once.

[oldmandennis]

Ok, bugs are bad, but what is your big objection to this?

[Pesmerga]

One could point out that if they were aware of it before maitenence, they shouldn't have released the patch.  If they weren't aware of it, that's even worse, because then they obviously failed to test their changes even once.
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::shrugs:: I agree. Just stating what I read.

[Quark]

Ok, bugs are bad, but what is your big objection to this?
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Blizzards goal in this is, in general, to have teams actually trying rather then just not bother with a lost causes and, in specifics, to help prevent honor farming with one side just fishing or looking around. Not a bad goal.

However, teams trying to win as PuGs will still die in under 10 minutes in WSG and AB. There's a reason I hate WSG, folks, and it's called honor farming teams. The system is incredibly flawed, skewed towards organized teams, and AB and Marks of Honor were a way to at least help PuGs and people who weren't good, but were honestly trying to get better.

Blizzard's change in no way encourages people to try to win. PuGs trying to win versus organized groups will, in fact, lose sooner. It encourages turtling, pure defense. Wanna last 10 minutes in AB? You can try sticking 7 men on one resource and 8 on another. You don't stand a chance in hell of winning, but you might at least last 10 minutes that way. Wanna last 10 minutes in WSG? 10 people on defense. No offense, period.

How does this improve the quality of play at all?

[Concillian]

I actually see it as encouraging AFKs even more.

I spent my BG time this weekend consistently losing to the uber guilds. I only saw one maybe two PUGs in about 15-20 matches. Not because PUGs weren't there, but because people would AFK out of matches without PUGs.

Scenario:
Uber-horde honor farming guild enters WSG with Uber-alliance honor farming guild.
They realize who they are up against, and that the battle will be (at least) long or (at worst) lost. They wait for the 30 seconds to go cry, then ALL AFK out.
PUG-ies who are queued enter instance as the match is starting, with no raid group, no nothing. Just one PUG-ie is needed, as this makes it impossible for uber-horde guild from getting into the instance, since they 'join as group'.

uber-horde farming guild now has a second chance at a PUG-alliance group.

PUG-ies have no chance of getting a different instance, because if they AFK out and join the queue they will very likely end up in exactly the same place.

In this scenario, one I encountered several times in about 20 matches this weekend, the PUG group doesn't have a chance, not just because they are a PUG, but also because the uber-horde honor farming guild left with only ~30 seconds left to start so they could be assured that someone was in queue ahead of them, and they wouldn't accidentally end up in the same instance again. So while the alliance is headed over to destroy the PUG, the PUG is busy getting a raid together, buffing, and doing all the things you'd normally do in the first 2 minutes.

I never saw 3 caps before the instance closed due to too few horde, but I did see 2 + the third to midfield.

10 minutes to get a losing mark will only encourage the PUG people to simply leave. Only the AFK debuff or a major restructuring of the way BGs work will solve the problems I see in the BGs on horde-side Terenas. There are only a select few who never run. I know them all when I see them and have great respect for them.

[vor_lord]

This blue post suggests it isn't an attempt to stop the AFKers, but rather Alliance and Horde working together to trade wins.

Blue Tracker Link

Note that I can't get to the actual thread anymore fwiw.

[Quark]

A slightly later post:

I just spoke with Kalgan, and he explained the reasoning behind this change.

As you know, there are several groups out there who are very good at their particular Battleground, and seeing such a group on the opposite team when you're in a pick-up group can be discouraging. For some, this means they don't even try to win; they AFK out or fish until such time as the Battleground ends, get their token, and go back into the queue.

This change is meant to encourage groups of all skill levels to put in effort towards winning. Maybe you can hold one or two bases in Arathi Basin; maybe you can keep them from grabbing three flags in ten minutes with a good defense. The idea is to give players incentive to try and fight rather than give up before the match truly gets going.

[Bolty]

Blizzard downloader sucks. Try FileFront.

-Bolty

[Xame]

I have never afk'ed out of a battleground but with the no honor token unless your team holds for 10mins means that I'm going to start. Blizz is right, if its a totally losing group 10 vs 6 (and I'm on the side of the six as horde), I'll go off and farm a few kills while the alliance gets a free win. A few times we tried to "hold the flag" with pure defense hoping people would join. But when the score is 1-0 and player number 7 zones in to see a losing battle, they just afk. Ultimately you end up losing 3-0 even to an alliance PUG and you don't score much honor for your effort.

As an example of the imbalance, last night I did 6 WSG runs, 3 were 10 vs sub-8 (also known as free wins for the alliance) and 3 were fair 10 vs 10 fights were horde had a 2 wins 1 loss record. My over all PUG record for the night was 4 losses for 2 wins. Thus if I wish to increase my "Honor" and not waste my time at least trying to find a 1-1 pvp match in an alliance zerg of battlegrounds, I'm forced to afk since holding for 10 mins is impossible (even against a PUG) and I get nothing for my time looking for a 1-1 matchup. Most of the time I just get zerg'ed while hunting for a kill and then get corpse camped at the graveyard. Trust me, flag defense is really not tops on my list of things to do while rez'ing and running.

Thus to hold out for 10mins is just pointless. I may try to see if others are willing to hold out, but my guess is that I'm going to start afk'ing with the other losers or stop playing battlegrounds all together (except for Alterac Valley where at least the NPCs will fight with me and the graveyards cann't be corpse camped for free HKs).

[LochnarITB]

Ugh! They added an ugly saddle (and bedroll?) to Lochnar's big kitty. He looked much better riding bareback than on that stupid saddle/blanket. It's comforting to know that Bliz is still taking valuable time to mess things up that weren't broken in the first place. :angry:

[Xukuth]

Ugh!  They added an ugly saddle (and bedroll?) to Lochnar's big kitty.  He looked much better riding bareback than on that stupid saddle/blanket.  It's comforting to know that Bliz is still taking valuable time to mess things up that weren't broken in the first place. :angry:
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Fortunately, Caydiem has said that'll be removed.

Eventually.

[Dozer]

Update by Caydiem, the best news we've heard all day:

I will endeavor to clear up the controversy and confusion surrounding the "ten-minute rule."

The idea that players would have to remain in battlegrounds for ten minutes before they'd receive a Mark of Honor for losing was one the developers were seriously considering as an effort to reduce the incentive players had to lose a battle quickly. The concept was simple: it would give players incentive to try and stay in, rather than giving up and allowing a quick loss without any effort expended. However, during further discussions, it was decided that adding a mild punishment to those who /afk out of battlegrounds, in the form of a requeue timer (Deserter debuff), would be preferable to the old "ten-minute rule" idea. In addition, since the problem was primarily found in Arathi Basin matches held during the Arathi Basin "holiday," the developers chose to improve the way in which bonus honor was awarded during Arathi Basin holidays rather than institute the ten-minute rule.

The ten-minute rule had been implemented as part of 1.9, and was set to be removed from 1.9 as the Deserter debuff was put in place. Unfortunately, because 1.8.4 was developed simultaneously with 1.9, the ten-minute rule had actually made its way into 1.8.4 too (which was tested and signed off upon some time ago, around the time this change was being implemented). As such, the ten-minute rule mistakenly went live.

This was not intended by our development team, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. The ten-minute rule does not exist on the patch 1.9 test versions that have been on the test realms for some time now (with the exception of Warsong Gulch, which is being fixed), reflecting the fact that the Deserter debuff was intended as a replacement rather than an addition to this mechanic. We intend to fix this bug in a server-side hotfix soon.

Thank you for your patience throughout this. We're keeping a close eye on PvP, battlegrounds, and the Honor System, and will continue to make changes as warranted.

[Rinnhart]

That's still a pretty major thing to have slip by.

[savaughn]

That's still a pretty major thing to have slip by.
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Agreed.

That said, I'm pretty comfortable saying she's getting her butt chewed by both Blizz and the community, so I would say she's learned her lesson.

[ima_nerd]

A good way to look at WoW BGs is comparing it to WC3 Bnet. A PUG is like the team you get when you hit the "4v4" button. You and 3 random people playing against 4 random people. Organized groups are like Arranged Team groups. They practice together, probably on Vent or TS and know how to complement each other with strategies.

There's a reason Blizzard made an AT ladder and an RT ladder.

Edit: spelling/grammar

[Quark]

Agreed.

That said, I'm pretty comfortable saying she's getting her butt chewed by both Blizz and the community, so I would say she's learned her lesson.
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And yet, strangely, I'm sure Caydiem had little to do with the problem in the first place ...