Wintergrasp Rant

[LavCat]

I am fed up. Since 4.0.1 Wintergrasp, which used to be my favorite activity in WoW -- the reason I logged on -- has now become my biggest disappointment. I am sick of spending twenty minutes chatting with Arcanist Braedin and then not getting in. Or getting in for seven minutes and not being able to gain rank. I'm sure Braedin and Magister Surdiel are very nice people, but no one wants to waste their life with them.

For the most recent battle on Stormrage there were five, count them, five Alliance in the zone. A bit pretentious to make it a raid, don't you think? This is Blizzard's idea of "open-world PvP...designed to engage players across the whole region in intense PvP warfare on an unprecedented scale"? This is a joke.

When access to Wintergrasp was unrestricted, it was fun. It was so much fun that it brought all of Northrend to its knees. Rather than improving the infrastructure, the response was to limit participation. How epic! Bring back the flavor of the old battles between Southshore and Tarren Mill. The current state of Wintergrasp does not bode well for Tol Barad. Whatever it is, it is not world PvP when players are excluded.

The concept of rank is also broken. Why force people to look for NPC's to kill when they can't find enough players? And fix the cannons while you're at it. (The cannons may have been fixed in 4.0.3 but I would not exactly know.)

I can't say I miss tenacity. Tenacity was at best a bandaid that didn't work. And I would much rather take my 0.76 honor for offing Lazypeon than a victory any day.

I'm so upset I think I'll get on Baguette (since she probably has more street cred than my other characters) and stick this on the Blizzard forums. Not that it will do much good.


Edit: You'd think I'd know the server name by now.

Edit 2: In the current battle (for which I did not get in) there are all of three Alliance in the zone.

[Lissa]

Welcome to server population imbalances.

[shoju]

I'm actually REALLY happy with the changes to Wintergrasp since 4.0.

Horde actually has a chance on Terenas now, and we held wintergrasp fairly regularly this past weekend, which is something that we aren't able to do often.

One of the more astute pvpers from Terenas can provide hard numbers, but I want to say that the Alliance to Horde Win ratio in Wintergrasp is something absurd like 10:1, and looking at the numbers of people in zone, it is more often than not because Horde is overwhelmed and outnumbered so often.

While I'm sure that it is frustrating to be on the other side of the fence, From this side of the imbalanced population, the grass is definitely greener post 4.0

[Concillian]

Just need to wait a bit for word to get around on the low pop faction that WG is actually worth entering. Several months of zoning in and not able to survive more than a few seconds kinda discourages participation, and the low pop side probably has a bunch of people who haven't even thought about WG in months.

Before the queue change, Terenas horde wasn't really all that bad on the W/L ratio, was more like 4 to 1, but the wins were mostly at odd hours. It was actually one of the more balanced of the old-timer Normal ruleset servers in terms of WG win / loss ratio. Most were well worse than Terenas. There's a site somewhere that lists all the WG wins and losses and gives a ratio for the last month or so. I clicked like 20 servers at random once and only one was more balanced than Terenas. The norm was worse than 20 / 80... that was the NORM. That's why they changed it. It wasn't balanced for ANYONE.

[Klaus]

Just need to wait a bit for word to get around on the low pop faction that WG is actually worth entering. Several months of zoning in and not able to survive more than a few seconds kinda discourages participation, and the low pop side probably has a bunch of people who haven't even thought about WG in months.

Before the queue change, Terenas horde wasn't really all that bad on the W/L ratio, was more like 4 to 1, but the wins were mostly at odd hours. It was actually one of the more balanced of the old-timer Normal ruleset servers in terms of WG win / loss ratio. Most were well worse than Terenas. There's a site somewhere that lists all the WG wins and losses and gives a ratio for the last month or so. I clicked like 20 servers at random once and only one was more balanced than Terenas. The norm was worse than 20 / 80... that was the NORM. That's why they changed it. It wasn't balanced for ANYONE.

Hmm. I guess I'm one of the "Didn't pay attention to the change, haven't tried WG in months" people. It was really not fun to get totally steamrollered every time because the other side has 4 times as many players. I'll have to give it another try.

[LavCat]

I'm actually REALLY happy with the changes to Wintergrasp since 4.0.

But would you call Wintergrasp what Blizzard calls it? "Open-world PvP...on an unprecidented scale." When I last logged on there had been three Alliance in the battle. From reading the official forums, someone on a different realm had four.

In the past Horde (and I'm sure Alliance on Horde dominated servers) have held battlegrounds hostage. Wintergrasp is not open-world PvP on any scale. It is a non-instanced broken battleground at best.

World PvP by my definition is open to any player, any level, any race, any class. If someone has a better definition I would like to hear it.

[Klaus]

Who cares what they call it? If it isn't fun, people won't play it.

If there were 3 alliance in the zone, then there should have been about the same number of horde. Without the change, you'd have had 100 alliance and 3 horde. Is that any fun, or do you just want your rewards for winning the battle?

balancing it should make it more fun.

[shoju]

I call it PvP, one of the horrendously necessary evils to get 100 mounts.

I transferred from a PvP server to Terenas because I was so tired of getting run up by ~20 alliance while just trying to do quest. On Bloodscalp, the single best Battleground during TBC was the Isle of Quel'Danas. The battles hit their peak about 4pm EST, and lasted until 2AM at the very least. There was no possibility of doing Daily Quests there, and the honor was better than any BG you could grind.

By 5pm EST, there were AT LEAST 2 raids of players on both sides mowing down anyone and everyone that was in there way.

It was a real stumbling block for those who started late and needed a daily quest hub like that to try and get gold for things like.... Flight. Not Epic flight, normal good old fashioned Flight. I eventually gave up and am personally responsible for the deaths of thousands of Clefthoof and Netherdrake in an effort to skin my way to flight for my Paladin.

I'm more worried about this side of things with the new Tol Barad. I am hoping that by avoiding as much of the pvp in Tol barad as possible I can still hit exalted quickly enough to make good use of the faction vendors wares.

[LavCat]

Who cares what they call it? If it isn't fun, people won't play it.

Wintergrasp was fun. In fact when Wintergrasp was more or less world PvP it was so much fun that the infrastucture could not support the number of players.

If there were 3 alliance in the zone, then there should have been about the same number of horde. Without the change, you'd have had 100 alliance and 3 horde. Is that any fun, or do you just want your rewards for winning the battle?

Do I need rewards? I enjoy winning as much as anyone. But I have thousands of honor on most of my Stormrage characters. Other than a few gold for completing weekly quests that I could get in the same time spent looting baby quillboars, what is your point? On the contrary, I enjoy Wintergrasp because Wintergrasp, preferably a roughly equal numbered Wintergrasp, is fun.

Since 4.0.3 I have gotten into one Wintergrasp battle at the start. That is not fun, and it is not "open-world PvP" -- epic or otherwise.

balancing it should make it more fun.

Your mileage may vary.

Actually Wintergrasp might be more balanced if it were uncoupled from honor rewards and VoA. Recently while looking for something else I came upon an email from 2004 in which I described how much fun the battles were between Southshore and Tarren Mill. As I recall the numbers were fairly well matched, and that without any fancy, broken mechanics on Blizzard's part.

[Lissa]

Actually Wintergrasp might be more balanced if it were uncoupled from honor rewards and VoA. Recently while looking for something else I came upon an email from 2004 in which I described how much fun the battles were between Southshore and Tarren Mill. As I recall the numbers were fairly well matched, and that without any fancy, broken mechanics on Blizzard's part.

You go realize that back then the population was a lot closer than it is now on Stormrage right? Back then (late '04/early '05) it was almost 50/50 split, now it's about 1 horde to 4 alliance. No way can you recapture that without getting a lot more horde to come to Stormrage.

[Bolty]

When access to Wintergrasp was unrestricted, it was fun for the Alliance. It was so much fun that it brought all of Northrend to its knees. Rather than improving the infrastructure, the response was to limit participation to make it fair. How epic! Bring back the flavor of the old battles between Southshore and Tarren Mill when Stormrage was not one of the most imbalanced servers in the world according to WoWCensus. The current state of Wintergrasp does not bode well for Tol Barad. Whatever it is, it is not world PvP unlike the 100 vs 5 "world pvp" matches Wintergrasp was pre-patch when players are excluded.

There, fixed that for you.

I can't say I miss tenacity. Tenacity was at best a bandaid that didn't work. And I would much rather take my 0.76 honor for offing Lazypeon than a victory any day.

...I'm sure Lazypeon really loves that gameplay mechanic idea.

Alliance won 95% of all Wintergrasp battles on Stormrage. It was ***stupid***. Every game ended up camping the Horde graveyard with the 5 Horde players who stuck around to get camped. This wasn't fun, enjoyable, interesting, or challenging.

The problem isn't Wintergrasp. The problem is that Stormrage as a server is fundamentally broken. Since Blizzard adamantly refuses to try to fix the problem, it will continue to get worse. What incentive possibly exists to bring Horde to this server?

Here's the kicker. If Blizzard ever decided to do something intelligent and offer free Alliance -> Horde transfers on Stormrage, Critical Mass would take it in a heartbeat. So would a bunch of other guilds. Why they don't do this is a continual mystery to many of us.

[LavCat]

When access to Wintergrasp was unrestricted, it was fun for the Alliance. It was so much fun that it brought all of Northrend to its knees. Rather than improving the infrastructure, the response was to limit participation to make it fair. How epic! Bring back the flavor of the old battles between Southshore and Tarren Mill when Stormrage was not one of the most imbalanced servers in the world according to WoWCensus. The current state of Wintergrasp does not bode well for Tol Barad. Whatever it is, it is not world PvP unlike the 100 vs 5 "world pvp" matches Wintergrasp was pre-patch when players are excluded.

There, fixed that for you.

A couple of issues:

My recollection is that Wintergrasp battles on Stormrage were more evenly balanced before the number-of-player restrictions or level restrictions were imposed. I also remember that the player caps were imposed because of the lag caused by large battles, not because of numerical imbalances on any given side.

I could well be wrong on this. Do you have a source?

I would not have called Wintergrasp anything close to world PvP for a long time, if ever (though I feel it was closer at the start). Certainly not immediately prior to 4.x. It is Blizzard that calls Wintergrasp world PvP, not I. You are putting words in my mouth on this one.

Alliance won 95% of all Wintergrasp battles on Stormrage. It was ***stupid***. Every game ended up camping the Horde graveyard with the 5 Horde players who stuck around to get camped. This wasn't fun, enjoyable, interesting, or challenging.

Well, it could be interesting and challenging if you were solo capping a workshop and two horde with 16 tenacity came to take it back.

The problem isn't Wintergrasp. The problem is that Stormrage as a server is fundamentally broken. Since Blizzard adamantly refuses to try to fix the problem, it will continue to get worse. What incentive possibly exists to bring Horde to this server?

Here's the kicker. If Blizzard ever decided to do something intelligent and offer free Alliance -> Horde transfers on Stormrage, Critical Mass would take it in a heartbeat. So would a bunch of other guilds. Why they don't do this is a continual mystery to many of us.

I've seen people asking for free transfers on the Blizzard forums. It sounds like it might help to me. None of my characters has ever had a haircut, let alone a faction change. Rather than ask: "What incentive possibly exists to bring Horde to this server?" [Answer: ask Ynir.] I would ask: "What incentive caused Horde to leave in the first place?" I've had Alliance friends whose guilds have left for greener pastures, but I don't understand it.

What I do know is that I'm listening to Indigo Girls with a few glasses of wine at the moment, rather than playing in Wintergrasp.

And Stormrage wasn't my idea, blame it on the Basin.

[shoju]

If I could ask a question:

What is it about World PvP you find satisfying?
Is it something that you would enjoy more on a pvp server? I have only played on one pvp server, but from the time I hit STV until I left, If you were questing, you were going to end up PvPing. Is that the type of experience you are looking for, or are you looking for a more "open" environment than a BG, but not as FFA as a PvP server?

The thing that I have always disliked about World PvP / BG's is that it invariably has always come down to numbers. The more you players you have at a given portion of the field / Zone, the more likely you are to win.

Arena is the only place that I have ever felt like PvP removed the numbers game. Although, sadly, arena introduced class balance as the variable.

Maybe my PvP experience is skewed because I have never done it as more than a distraction in a long time. (Since S3 of Arena).

[LavCat]

If I could ask a question:

What is it about World PvP you find satisfying?
Is it something that you would enjoy more on a pvp server? I have only played on one pvp server, but from the time I hit STV until I left, If you were questing, you were going to end up PvPing. Is that the type of experience you are looking for, or are you looking for a more "open" environment than a BG, but not as FFA as a PvP server?

The thing that I have always disliked about World PvP / BG's is that it invariably has always come down to numbers. The more you players you have at a given portion of the field / Zone, the more likely you are to win.

Arena is the only place that I have ever felt like PvP removed the numbers game. Although, sadly, arena introduced class balance as the variable.

Maybe my PvP experience is skewed because I have never done it as more than a distraction in a long time. (Since S3 of Arena).

A lovely question, and thank you for asking. I don't dislike battlegrounds. I have done a few. The arms of Baguette, my priest, proudly bear a gardant owl argent, on pale purpure.

In the olden days battlegrounds were better. My most memorable battleground was an AV about five and three quarter hours. I am told many battlegrounds went on much longer. It's like the parties my old German teacher told me about when she was growing up in Germany. They lasted about two weeks: get drunk, fall asleep for a while, get up and keep on drinking.

Nowadays battlegrounds are different. As far as I can tell they are for equipment farming. Not that that is an entirely bad thing, I have been guilty of it myself. The routine now is wait forty minutes in queue for a twenty minute AV. That is if you are fortunate someone has not just left and you get in three minutes till the end.

Arena is a different animal. Most matches in my experience are short and brutal. I have not done arena in WotLK, as all my partners have moved or quit playing. I did find it fun, but in a very different way. However if it wasn't for the arena gear I probably would not have done it.

World PvP though is its own reward. In the beginning (e.g. retail) I rolled characters on Stormrage (PvE) and Tichondrius (PvP). My vote was for a RP PvP server as I recall, but we decided to go to the same servers that the Basin chose. Some people went to Terenas, but I don't remember why that was.

I like the Alliance characters better, so I spent more of my time on Stormrage than Tichondrious.

Unfortunately for those of us on Tichondrius, interest soon waned, and I was left with no one to play with. Questing alone on a PvP server is lonely indeed, but to borrow Bolty's words it could be challenging, interesting, enjoyable, and fun.

On Stormrage I have ganked a couple people over the years (I don't really enjoy doing it) but on Tichondrius I believe it's true that I have never fired first. Once in Ashenvale an Alliance six levels higher attacked my hunter. I won by kiting to the guards followed by concussive shot. I did not stick around for that Alliance to get their body back.

Another time a ?? Alliance hunter chased my hunter from Talon Deep almost to the Crossroads. My pet fell to multishot and took the hit for me. It was a mini-game to see how many levels I could stay alive.

My hunter was 27 when, sadly, she flew into Tarren Mill when it was being held by Alliance. Not much to do about it really. At least it was a quick death.

The experience that soured me on Tichondrius took place on the salt flats. My hunter showed up to quest. She noticed an Alliance hunter there and was on her guard, but otherwise she minded her own business. As she was chatting with a questgiver, she got an arrow in the back. The Alliance hunter ate the dirt.

Shortly thereafter a high level dwarf hunter showed up. The dwarf killed my hunter over and over and over again. Nothing really illegal about that, if that is how you get your kicks. I presume the dwarf was a friend of the unfortunate hunter who shot us in the back. I got on the Basin channel and asked for reinforcements. Four valiant souls showed up. The dwarf killed the first three, and the fourth, a rogue, never could manage to find the dwarf.

For reasons of pride, none of my characters have spirit ressed outside of Wintergrasp or battlegrounds. It was a long night. It was then I realized that to play on a PvP server requires a reliable support network, which I didn't have.

I like that on Stormrage I can quest without (much) fear of getting ganked. On the other hand I enjoy the ultimate thrill of cat and mouse that comes from being flagged. And that I miss.

Probably I would be most happy on a RP PvP server as part of a large, like minded guild. But that's not going to happen. Wintergrasp had been a delightful way to get my fix, and I am sad. I did get into two battles last night. The first we lost. I managed not to die, but only two people on our side were calling out. The second battle we won, and again I didn't die, so in that sense it was a victory. However it was not terribly exciting or fun. I singlehandedly took a couple workshops but the Horde took them back. I returned to the keep and sat on a cannon almost the whole time. The Horde attack was like Arthur's siege from the Holy Grail, and about as effective.

[Treesh]

World PvP though is its own reward. In the beginning (e.g. retail) I rolled characters on Stormrage (PvE) and Tichondrius (PvP). My vote was for a RP PvP server as I recall, but we decided to go to the same servers that the Basin chose. Some people went to Terenas, but I don't remember why that was.

Because we wanted horde side, but PvE rather than PvP. If we went with the Basin servers, they said "Alliance PvE" and "Horde PvP". There wasn't an option for horde PvE because that would have spread folks out too thin. I chose Terenas because it wasn't one of the servers listed before release and therefore not going to be slammed on the first day, but still close to my time zone.

[shoju]

My reasons for hating PvP are similar to what happened to you in the salt flats. My first toon was an undead rogue. Friends thought I would like rogues, and I thought that the undead looked pretty cool (before I realized no amount of cool gear made the bones hidden). I quested through into Stranglethorn Vale without a lot of pvp. I had a couple instances in STV and Stonetalon, but nothing horrid, and I could usually hold my own.

When I got to stranglethorn, things changed. The alliance were always lording over the zone, and coming and going from Nessingwary's camp was brutal. Then, one night, I heard short john mithril scream about his chest. I rode down to take a look, staying out of the pit, just watching as these 70's tore through each other over the chest. When all was said and done, a gnome rogue in full T5 saw me, mounted, and chased me down. I mounted, and ran, but alas, he killed me. I walked back to my body, bandaged up, started to mount, and died. Oh hey look, there he was. So, next time I rezzed a little farther away from my body, bandaged, and sprinted away, when sprint came off cooldown, BAM! dead again, same gnome rogue.

This went on this way all the way from Gurubashi arena to Grom'Gol. I was furious about it, I even tried to hearth out, but he killed me while I was casting. From that day forward, I hated PvP servers. The ability to ruin someone's night was ridiculous. I couldn't get on a high level character and fight back, Shoju was ~41, and my highest level character.

I stayed on the pvp server only because that was where my friends were, but I started searching for the less travelled zones, and avoiding world pvp whenever I could. I bg'd as often as I could, farming marks for gear to help make leveling less painful (I was a newb, and a baddie, but I was great at stunlocking )

Because of this, I have little to no desire to see world pvp, and I find it hard to equate WG to world pvp. Sure, you can do things while the battle isn't going on, and you can find some pvp during this time.

I still remember the name of the little bastard gnome rogue. Maxameeliun. I have often thought about sending an 80 back to bloodscalp and trying my hand at killing him as revenge, but that just seems silly.

[LavCat]

My reasons for hating PvP are similar to what happened to you in the salt flats. My first toon was an undead rogue. Friends thought I would like rogues, and I thought that the undead looked pretty cool (before I realized no amount of cool gear made the bones hidden). I quested through into Stranglethorn Vale without a lot of pvp. I had a couple instances in STV and Stonetalon, but nothing horrid, and I could usually hold my own.

When I got to stranglethorn, things changed. The alliance were always lording over the zone, and coming and going from Nessingwary's camp was brutal. Then, one night, I heard short john mithril scream about his chest. I rode down to take a look, staying out of the pit, just watching as these 70's tore through each other over the chest. When all was said and done, a gnome rogue in full T5 saw me, mounted, and chased me down. I mounted, and ran, but alas, he killed me. I walked back to my body, bandaged up, started to mount, and died. Oh hey look, there he was. So, next time I rezzed a little farther away from my body, bandaged, and sprinted away, when sprint came off cooldown, BAM! dead again, same gnome rogue.

This went on this way all the way from Gurubashi arena to Grom'Gol. I was furious about it, I even tried to hearth out, but he killed me while I was casting. From that day forward, I hated PvP servers. The ability to ruin someone's night was ridiculous. I couldn't get on a high level character and fight back, Shoju was ~41, and my highest level character.

I stayed on the pvp server only because that was where my friends were, but I started searching for the less travelled zones, and avoiding world pvp whenever I could. I bg'd as often as I could, farming marks for gear to help make leveling less painful (I was a newb, and a baddie, but I was great at stunlocking )

Because of this, I have little to no desire to see world pvp, and I find it hard to equate WG to world pvp. Sure, you can do things while the battle isn't going on, and you can find some pvp during this time.

I still remember the name of the little bastard gnome rogue. Maxameeliun. I have often thought about sending an 80 back to bloodscalp and trying my hand at killing him as revenge, but that just seems silly.

Did not your friends on Bloodscalp have any higher level characters that could have helped you?

All my characters monitor Worlddefense (I do miss being able to chat in that channel) and there is hardly any activity these days. City sacking and city defense are about all that's left.

A few nights ago Lazypeon and his friends had taken the Stormwind mage tower, and it was sad for anyone who zoned in flagged. ...Or anyone that did not cloak and vanish, which my rogue did. There were bodies everywhere. We assembled a great number of people on the other side of the portal and zoned in all at once. The Horde did not escape. Here I am sure the Alliance numerical advantage helped, but the people who like that sort of thing are probably a small subset of the server population. We then went around the Horde cities, killing the leaders, auctioneers, flightmasters, and anything we could find flagged.

[shoju]

No, we were all around the same level. The highest was probably ~55, still nothing more than a speed bump for a Tier geared lvl70 rogue.

I don't know if it is like this in every lowbie zone, but last night, while leveling my new troll druid, I kept finding Troll guards that were lvl90 elites. I truly hope that EVERY lowbie zone now has guards that will always be 5 levels higher. It really is incredibly frustrating to watch the big dumb 80 burn down your quest givers and mobs.

[Bob the Beholder]

No, we were all around the same level. The highest was probably ~55, still nothing more than a speed bump for a Tier geared lvl70 rogue.

I don't know if it is like this in every lowbie zone, but last night, while leveling my new troll druid, I kept finding Troll guards that were lvl90 elites. I truly hope that EVERY lowbie zone now has guards that will always be 5 levels higher. It really is incredibly frustrating to watch the big dumb 80 burn down your quest givers and mobs.

I think this must just be on a person to person basis. Personally, I thought it was hilarious when high levels ran through STV or Badlands or Tanaris. Not because it was great that people were dying, but because the sorts of players that do that for extended periods of time are absolutely terrible. And they're so over confident that the players they're fighting are just lowbie speed bumps who will sit down and die that they barely even use what skill they have.

On my first run to 60, me and my friend who were levelling together went totally nuts on the 60s in STV. We alternated fear and frost nova to lock them down and absolutely humiliated a couple dozen terrible paladins, rogues and warriors.

Even later, when I was levelling alts solo, as an experienced end game pvper, I ground these peoples' faces into the dirt. I rarely actually killed them, but they didn't get me very often either. They usually gave up in disgust after a while, because I know how to avoid damage.

For example, there was a level 70 rogue by the name of Xenocider on Gorefiend, when I was levelling my hunter and warrior through STV. Xenocider, even back when he was 60, and again when he was 80, spent almost every day riding circles around STV killing everyone he saw. Literally, 8 to 10 hours a day. Dude must have either been some sort of mental deficient, or just incredibly dedicated to dropping the horde levelling population.

I actually killed him twice on my hunter, at level 37. It wasn't that hard, he didn't have the experience to shadowstep onto a moving target without falling out of melee range, and didn't bother to use sprint until he was just about down.

I didn't kill him on my warrior, but, yes, as a warrior, I kited him from the Nesingwary Camp all the way to Grom'Gol three times. That was rough in places, but clever use of intimidating shout and knowing that if I intercept him I have three seconds where he isn't dodging my hamstring made the deal.

I'm not even going to get into the carnage that resulted from leveling my druid. Low level feral druids are unstoppable juggernauts.

It gets frustrating sometimes, (instant dots that do more damage than your hp, etc.) but I've leveled so many characters on a pvp server, that I guess I'm just used to and experienced in getting out of the bad situations, or avoiding them entirely, and supplying aneurysms to the perpetrators of the better situations.

[NuurAbSaal]

I'm with Shoju on this one. While everybody has his epic tales of thwarting the skull-level lamers (my brother and I stomped a lvl60 warrior into the ground at level 30-something) this really mostly depends on the character you play and the class of your attacker.

My lvl 40 or so Shadow Priest had no chance whatsoever against the lvl 70 mage that repeatedly farmed her. Even if he had sat still for 5 minutes doing nothing, I could not have killed him with all the misses/resists (resists back then, right?). And a Fire Blast was usually all it took to drop me.

People that have nothing better to do than ruin other players' days/nights just because they can (and that's really the only reason) should die in a fire. But not before donating their money to some environmental organization to account for their filthy emissions.

take care
Tarabulus