AFK-Valley

[Paelos]

Oh please, Horde loses because its better for them to lose, period.  If horde put as much effort into defense as the alliance does they would win every-single-game, map imbalances be damned.  The problem is once the alliance offense stalls they slowly start trikling back to defense and it becomes a two hour long game, which is horrible for honor compared to a string of quick loses.  Horde didnt stop trying because the map may be slightly biased towards alliance, they quit trying after they realized wiping alliance at galvangar guarantees a win but also an hour and a half of throwing themselves at the 30 people defending stormpike.

Yep, we had a Horde group who was coordinated steamroll our Alliance group once because they did the unthinkable. They actually went to Captain Galv with 6 ppl and played stunlock defense. Then, they played defense at IB GY, then they recapped towers after we left them underdefended. They played shadowgames the entire time, slowing us up enough to where we only just had control of FW GY by the time the game was over. The key point was, they didn't bother advancing at all after they took the first GY. They just waited for everyone they killed at Galvanger to go on by while they held the towers, and then they rushed the base.

[Xanthippe]

That happens almost every time horde wins on my server.  The other times are when horde bugs/bypasses the marshalls to kill Vann directly.

I'm a little tired of hearing how the horde are better at pvp but the AV map is stacked against them.  It's no more stacked than the AB map is.

[Paelos]

That happens almost every time horde wins on my server.  The other times are when horde bugs/bypasses the marshalls to kill Vann directly.

I'm a little tired of hearing how the horde are better at pvp but the AV map is stacked against them.  It's no more stacked than the AB map is.

The chokepoints hurt the Alliance as much as they help on defense. A Horde group who really hated the Alliance could fuck everyone over by stalemating at the IW Tower and just never moving. Nobody from the Alliance would be able to do a damn thing on Offense at all. There's nothing more frustrating than trying to get by that point and always getting jacked up, only to have to run back along that stupid path.

[Azazel]

That happens almost every time horde wins on my server.  The other times are when horde bugs/bypasses the marshalls to kill Vann directly.

I'm a little tired of hearing how the horde are better at pvp but the AV map is stacked against them.  It's no more stacked than the AB map is.

Meh. I'm alliance and I think the map is pretty stacked against horde. I've done enough O and D to see how easy/difficult it is to get into the bases for the two sides. Alliance can bypass most of the chokepoint by taking the high east road up to the bunker and flag near Balinda and making a mad 500m sprint. Hell, I get past the danger zone regularly with 15-sec-on-foot mage invis.

I just hope I can get my last bits of gear before they change the system again to let people get into AV as premades. With that change I can see the end of casual PVP for many alliance, especially as the Season 1 arena gear, as shiny and nice as it may be, will cost an incredible amount of honor.

[SurfD]

Yep, we had a Horde group who was coordinated steamroll our Alliance group once because they did the unthinkable. They actually went to Captain Galv with 6 ppl and played stunlock defense. Then, they played defense at IB GY, then they recapped towers after we left them underdefended. They played shadowgames the entire time, slowing us up enough to where we only just had control of FW GY by the time the game was over. The key point was, they didn't bother advancing at all after they took the first GY. They just waited for everyone they killed at Galvanger to go on by while they held the towers, and then they rushed the base.

Hunh?  While i can see how that might work, they most certainly didnt do it with just six people (and if they did, it was probably a coordianted small group from a single guild / server or something).  I have tried doing defense on galvanger, and 6 people against the alliance zerg that rolls down on him most games would be a speedbump at best, a fly on the window at worst.

[Paelos]

Yep, we had a Horde group who was coordinated steamroll our Alliance group once because they did the unthinkable. They actually went to Captain Galv with 6 ppl and played stunlock defense. Then, they played defense at IB GY, then they recapped towers after we left them underdefended. They played shadowgames the entire time, slowing us up enough to where we only just had control of FW GY by the time the game was over. The key point was, they didn't bother advancing at all after they took the first GY. They just waited for everyone they killed at Galvanger to go on by while they held the towers, and then they rushed the base.

Hunh?  While i can see how that might work, they most certainly didnt do it with just six people (and if they did, it was probably a coordianted small group from a single guild / server or something).  I have tried doing defense on galvanger, and 6 people against the alliance zerg that rolls down on him most games would be a speedbump at best, a fly on the window at worst.

They were coordinated, and it was mostly warlocks and mages. They basically just kept us CC'd, feared, and jacked up the melee.

[Morat20]

Oh please, Horde loses because its better for them to lose, period.  If horde put as much effort into defense as the alliance does they would win every-single-game, map imbalances be damned.  The problem is once the alliance offense stalls they slowly start trikling back to defense and it becomes a two hour long game, which is horrible for honor compared to a string of quick loses.  Horde didnt stop trying because the map may be slightly biased towards alliance, they quit trying after they realized wiping alliance at galvangar guarantees a win but also an hour and a half of throwing themselves at the 30 people defending stormpike.

To be honest, I have a fucking blast defending when the Horde are actually winning. I've found no one seems to notice a hunter in the mess. Not quite as much fun as ganking drinking clothies behind the lines as a rogue, but pretty fun nonetheless.

[Chenghiz]

Hunh?  While i can see how that might work, they most certainly didnt do it with just six people (and if they did, it was probably a coordianted small group from a single guild / server or something).  I have tried doing defense on galvanger, and 6 people against the alliance zerg that rolls down on him most games would be a speedbump at best, a fly on the window at worst.

Goon Squad defends it quite handily with 10. I could see more dedicated premades doing it with 6 easily. Pugs don't know how to assist or heal, so a coordinated group has a massive advantage.

[Jayce]

Pugs don't know how to assist or heal, so a coordinated group has a massive advantage.

Which is, IMO, as it should be.  If a social game doesn't reward coordination, that's sort of stupid.

I'll take having my casual ass handed to me frequently over a system contrived to group me with some guaranteed percentage of retards any day.

[Chenghiz]

Pugs don't know how to assist or heal, so a coordinated group has a massive advantage.

Which is, IMO, as it should be.  If a social game doesn't reward coordination, that's sort of stupid.

I'll take having my casual ass handed to me frequently over a system contrived to group me with some guaranteed percentage of retards any day.

I don't think anyone was contesting the notion.

[Jazzrat]

A performance based reward system would help cure the AFK Valley.

The biggest reason people afk valley is that it rewards them quickly enough without requiring any effort.
Territorial control would help prolong the battle, instead of just cap and burn.
(i.e: strengthening the General directly when you have control over towers/territory)

The most important part though is to reward player's contribution/participitation instead of the final outcome.

[SurfD]

A performance based reward system would help cure the AFK Valley.

The biggest reason people afk valley is that it rewards them quickly enough without requiring any effort.
Territorial control would help prolong the battle, instead of just cap and burn.
(i.e: strengthening the General directly when you have control over towers/territory)

The most important part though is to reward player's contribution/participitation instead of the final outcome.

The problem with that is that Alterac Valley (the way it is now) isn't designed to allow ALL 40 people to get "active" credit for everything because they cant ALL be doing EVERYTHING at once.  A perfect example is the quests to capture a Graveyard / Tower.  Back in the early, non AFK days, it took me 3 games to get that quest done due to the fact that it often was not possible for me to be close enough to a tower or a graveyard when the tap occurred.   

[Jazzrat]

Yes, but it would even out if you reward the participate for defending/holding a tower instead of "cap".

It's impossible to gain every possible "point" but if it evens out so that attackers/defenders/quester have a balance reward for their contribution, it should make people more inclined to go out and help contribute to a fight instead of waiting for a cap/kill in a cave.

Not to mention, you can make it so towers could be rebuilt/recap even after burning it down. This of course would drag out a single match but to me, it gives a lot more gratification for winning a match instead of the AV race style game we have today.

Of course, token rewards would have to be rebalanced to accomadate a slower match and a good deal of elements have to be reviewed (aka gathering war materials, sending out war-rider).

[Chimpy]

They should give AV tokens and honor bonuses to people who do the handins. Say "hey you handed in x number of armor scraps, here is a token with which you can combine like a mote/primal to get an honor token".

[Morat20]

They should give AV tokens and honor bonuses to people who do the handins. Say "hey you handed in x number of armor scraps, here is a token with which you can combine like a mote/primal to get an honor token".

I hand in that stuff anyways, mostly because you get minor amounts of rep for it -- I havent' played AV much since they sent the rep through the roof on quests, but at the time I was grinding Darnassus rep AND honor with one toon, and found I could get 25 Darnassus rep per 5 crystal turnins, when looting a pair of bodies tended to get me 5 crystals.

(What? My dwarf wants to ride a kitty).

[Arrrgh]

They should give AV tokens and honor bonuses to people who do the handins. Say "hey you handed in x number of armor scraps, here is a token with which you can combine like a mote/primal to get an honor token".

I hand in that stuff anyways, mostly because you get minor amounts of rep for it -- I havent' played AV much since they sent the rep through the roof on quests, but at the time I was grinding Darnassus rep AND honor with one toon, and found I could get 25 Darnassus rep per 5 crystal turnins, when looting a pair of bodies tended to get me 5 crystals.

(What? My dwarf wants to ride a kitty).

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29471

[Morat20]

http://www.wowhead.com/?item=29471

Yeah, I know. However, for reasons that can be chalked up to "Stupid Hunter Reasons", I kinda of want a white one. (It'll match the Snow Leopard pet I've had since level 10).

Depends on how fast the Darnassus grind goes -- I have a few days this week when my wife won't be playing (we've been duoing our way through Outland) and rather than work on my alts, I figured I'd just take the Hunter through the Darnassus starting areas through Darkshore and see how much Rep that gets me. I'm already almost revered, so not that far to go.

[Kail]

They should give AV tokens and honor bonuses to people who do the handins. Say "hey you handed in x number of armor scraps, here is a token with which you can combine like a mote/primal to get an honor token".

I haven't played in a while, but when I did play, I noticed that there was a fair amount of competition over the corpses already, since there's no loot distribution system in BGs (anyone can loot the corpses, whether they did anything in combat or not), so tying epic loot to that seems like it's going to generate no end of bitching.  Also, actually hauling your ass back to your base to turn the things in is a pain in the second half of the game, since the emblem drops you right into the middle of the enemy Zerg, and when they kill you, you'll probably end up ressurecting at the cave.  I haven't played AV as Alliance, so I don't know for sure, but wouldn't the Horde have to slaughter all your turnin guys to get to the base?  Since the blood and armor scraps all vanish into thin air at the end of the match, I can see this causing some frustration...

[Phred]

They should give AV tokens and honor bonuses to people who do the handins. Say "hey you handed in x number of armor scraps, here is a token with which you can combine like a mote/primal to get an honor token".

I haven't played in a while, but when I did play, I noticed that there was a fair amount of competition over the corpses already, since there's no loot distribution system in BGs (anyone can loot the corpses, whether they did anything in combat or not), so tying epic loot to that seems like it's going to generate no end of bitching.

Ya I don't think that's the answer either. People already ninja them right and left all the time. I've had people run up when I was fighting enemies and loot the corpses right in front of me. Unless they put some sort of loot distribution scheme in like LoTR has, where opening the corpse distributes the loot tokens fairly, I wouldn't like it. It would be fine if they could get tokens spread out to everyone in range of a kill. Could be the same radius they use for looting in a group, where if you are too far away you don't get loot.

 

Also, actually hauling your ass back to your base to turn the things in is a pain in the second half of the game, since the emblem drops you right into the middle of the enemy Zerg, and when they kill you, you'll probably end up ressurecting at the cave.  I haven't played AV as Alliance, so I don't know for sure, but wouldn't the Horde have to slaughter all your turnin guys to get to the base?  Since the blood and armor scraps all vanish into thin air at the end of the match, I can see this causing some frustration...

Usually in our AV, the npc's are mostly gone by mid fight. Someone always seems to send out the flying patrols and the druids have all wandered off to do what they do, so half the stuff you take back is pretty useless at that point.

[Koyasha]

Going back to the original AV - with all the NPCs to slow progress and make matches take 5-25 hours - would be a good start in fixing it.  Then rebalancing the way rewards are distributed to make it so people get something for showing up and doing stuff for a short period of time - maybe the length of a match now.  That prevents the whole 'race to win' and turns it back into a battle where you must meet the enemy forces head on and push the front lines back and forth.

Second, a territorial control system as someone mentioned where not only does controlling more territory give you the tactical advantage, it also strengthens 'home base' NPC's.  This makes a ninja cap of your home graveyard nearly impossible, so a small group sneaking past the main battle can't cap your home graveyard.  Other objectives may be available to such a group, though.  A bunker, mine, or lieutenant should be capturable in such a method, it just shouldn't be usable to bypass the battle.  Also, each friendly tower/bunker, lieutenant, commander, and captain could increase the General's damage and HP by 50% of base, so if you tried to attack Drek'thar with half the Horde defensive emplacements still standing, he'd be effectively indestructible due to his damage and HP.

Next, change bunkers and towers.  Instead of being destroyed, they should be capturable.  That makes it possible to recapture them, and gives more opportunity for rewarding people.  Them being destroyable only once was one of the problems with the long matches - once the objectives were completed, the rest of the match was worth very little until the win.  If you can instead capture them and they become populated with friendly NPC's, it gives the side that captured them an advantage, and it allows the enemy to re-capture them if they are left poorly defended.  Furthermore, let's link all lieutenants, commanders, and captains to a location.  If they're killed and the location is taken by the enemy, but later the location is recaptured, they respawn shortly after the recap.

Now, let's give people better options for defense - and at the same time, better options for rewards.  Five people can 'attach' themselves to a defense location - a bunker, graveyard, or tower flag.  In addition to the connected Lieutenant or Commander of this location, the five attached people must be dead before the flag can be captured.  The people can't wander more than a certain distance from the flag (25-50 yards?) or they become unattached.  Every X amount of time (1 minute?  5 minutes?) that they remain attached to a flag that is 'threatened' they gain honor and marks.  Perhaps some special token that can be combined as suggested above, and can then be turned in for either an honor reward, or marks of honor.

That leads us to: what is 'threatened'?  Well, much like Planetside's lines where bases are connected to each other, if graveyards, towers, and bunkers were connected by lines, a threatened graveyard/tower/bunker would be one that the enemy holds a connected location.  So if Snowfall Graveyard is connected to Iceblood Tower, Stonehearth Graveyard, Stonehearth Bunker, and Iceblood Graveyard as well as the two Captains' bunkers, if the Alliance holds Snowfall, it remains 'threatened' until Iceblood Tower, Graveyard, and Captain Galvangar have all been defeated.  Plus, if any defender NPC is killed near a defense point (even one in the rear, such as some guard being killed near Stormpike Graveyard, that location becomes 'threatened' for a certain period of time (5-15 minutes) and an alert is given so that people can come to defend it.

Finally, have some of those special tokens auto-distribute each time you kill an enemy player or guard.  Just like honor, everyone within exp range of the kill would get them.  Only, instead of quickly going to 0 like diminishing returns on honor, the tokens would continue throughout the match, so that fighting at the front lines remains rewarding even long after you've killed every single enemy player enough times to get 0 honor for them for today.

All together, these changes would probably make a single AV match last anywhere from hours to days before someone claims final victory.  But, as long as the rewards are balanced properly, it could be just as rewarding to go in, take part for an hour, and leave, as it is to run a single short AV 'race' now.  Except in an AV like this, the fighting would be what matters, rather than racing past each other to try to kill the enemy general as quickly as possible.  And the people in the cave?  They'd get nothing at all.

[bhodi]

Which would be absolute fucking shit. No one wants to sit and, for their entire gaming session, not move forward or backwards at all -- people want a victory or loss, not a meat grinder where you are stuck at the bridge for 4 hours.

[Koyasha]

Well, I know a lot of people that would prefer a battle where we actually fight each other.  Although it's probably true - there are more that prefer the current 'race to win' attitude.

[SurfD]

Which would be absolute fucking shit. No one wants to sit and, for their entire gaming session, not move forward or backwards at all -- people want a victory or loss, not a meat grinder where you are stuck at the bridge for 4 hours.

As comared to the current state of av?  Which to most of us is absolutely boring and dishartening fucking shit.  No one wants to try to carry the fight, while 70% of their team sits afk, not moving from the cave at all, because they would rather lose then win since it is more efficient "according to them" then actually, you know, putting up a fight in the battleground.

[Phred]

Well, I know a lot of people that would prefer a battle where we actually fight each other.  Although it's probably true - there are more that prefer the current 'race to win' attitude.

Blizzard didn't change av on a whim, they changed it to shut up the huge number of people who said it was too damn long. I never played it back then but I think 22 hrs is pretty nuts too.

[Fordel]

They changed AV (removed the NPCs etc.) because the zone was never designed to be instanced and limited to 40 per side. It was just supposed to be a regular zone, with WAY more people inside of it. Hence all the PvE mobs and quests and all the spaced out objectives. With the way it stands now, keeping the game to an hour or less is best. Going through the "meat grinder" for 5 hours to only have it washed away the next instance will do far more damage to the zone. If the zone was persistent and not instanced, then yes, you could slap all those NPCs back in and increase the game length. Instead of making it so your side wins the match, they win the day.





The AFK changes aren't going to really help *that* much in the end I don't think. Instead of idling in the cave, they idle at a graveyard or tower to be farmed. It doesn't do anything to address why people feel the 'need' to AFK. The Honour rewards cost to much honour. They aren't even that good to begin with, and are specialized towards PvP. Yet the amount of time required to get them is obscene.

[Threash]

For something i'd do for fun every couple nights i'd love a bg where we fight each other for every inch of territory, for grinding out the 80k or so honor i need every season for my arena team to stay at the top i much prefer the race to win approach.

[Koyasha]

Blizzard didn't change av on a whim, they changed it to shut up the huge number of people who said it was too damn long. I never played it back then but I think 22 hrs is pretty nuts too.

Yes, but in the original (and current) AV, all rewards are concentrated in the beginning and end.  Originally the game went down something like this: Hour 1-2 consisted of killing lieutenants, commanders, capturing and destroying graveyards and bunkers.  If the game went one-sided and not back-and-forth, pretty much 70% or so of the winning side's honor was during this period.  Hour 3-5 on a one-sided game consisted of trying to break the enemy base's defenses.  In a back-and-forth game this time period generally consisted of holding the enemy at the gates to one base until you could push them back and eventually driving all the way back to their base.  Any objectives you didn't destroy in hours 1-2 you took now, but that's basically limited to deep enemy territory towers and the tough commanders.  Remainder of the game until the end, fighting back and forth or at the entrance to the enemy base.  By this time, anyone in the battlefield had long since reached the diminishing returns mark on honor, so you were getting absolutely nothing.  Finally, when you won the battleground, another load of honor and some marks.

Anyone that came into the game midway through and left before the end came out with very little reward.  There was also nothing for them to really accomplish - all objectives had already been achieved, all they could do was go into the 'meat grinder' and hope the game could be won before they had to leave.

On the other hand, a long battle with lesser objectives to achieve throughout the entire length of the battle would give those people a chance to gain honor and marks, as well as the chance to actually participate in the battle.  As long as rewards were balanced to roughly the same rate as you get them in the race to win matches, and as long as there were objectives to achieve besides total victory or losing, I'd think the game would seem more fun.  If you were in there for 45 minutes halfway through the battle, you probably didn't kill the enemy general, but maybe you killed a lieutenant and helped capture a bunker for your side.  You achieved something and helped shape the battle to some degree.

Directly rewarding defense in some manner or another is something that they really should add no matter what they do with the battleground as a whole, though.  It's also a lesson they need to take to any other PvP encounter.  Defense sucks in general because you get less rewarded for it.  Halaa, for example, is fun to take but shitty to defend cause all you can do while defending is wait an hour until the guards respawn.  Defending nodes in AB nets you no kill honor unless the node is being attacked.  So on and so forth, every battleground and pvp objective there is, defense is far less rewarding than offense most of the time.

[Phred]

Directly rewarding defense in some manner or another is something that they really should add no matter what they do with the battleground as a whole, though.  It's also a lesson they need to take to any other PvP encounter.  Defense sucks in general because you get less rewarded for it.  Halaa, for example, is fun to take but shitty to defend cause all you can do while defending is wait an hour until the guards respawn.  Defending nodes in AB nets you no kill honor unless the node is being attacked.  So on and so forth, every battleground and pvp objective there is, defense is far less rewarding than offense most of the time.

Damn good point. But how do you reward defense in a non-exploitable way?

[Venkman]

It's a good point, but out of place in a DIKU. You don't get rewarded for not-winning in any other part of the game. You don't get rewarded for letting mobs retreat. You don't get rewarded for not completing questions. It's a stretch for them to having rewarded losing teams at all.

Within the context of WoW, I feel the better thing to do is provide more incremental useful rewards for less point values, and provide better Honor Point bonuses to people based on how much combat they were in, based on how much damage or healing they did (real healing against depleted hit points, not what's cast).

I don't think you'll ever decompel AFKing though, in the same way that you'll never ever get everyone to love raiding the same content over and over. Can't solve the latter without more good dynamic content and a toss-out of conventions, but the former can at least be mitigated by that AFK-er reporting system in 2.2.0.

[Koyasha]

Damn good point. But how do you reward defense in a non-exploitable way?

Well, at least in battlegrounds, if you could 'attach' yourself to a point and defend it, getting bonus honor for doing that, I think more people would be willing to defend.  Of course they would have to limit the number of people who can attach themselves to a point to something reasonable for that particular battleground.  In AV, I suggested 5, since given the number of points that would need to be defended at one time and the number of people in the battleground that seems reasonable.  In Arathi Basin that could go down to 3 or 2.  2 max in Warsong Gulch and Eye of the Storm.

World PVP objectives are harder to handle in a non-exploitable way.  Even if you require there to be an enemy present, they could just be standing there in a prearranged setup to give one person or another honor.  I'm not really sure how it would be possible to handle Halaa, Zangarmarsh, or the Hellfire Fortifications without making them exploitable.

Darniaq, I don't consider it exactly rewarding not-winning.  As soon as you get removed from the defense by the enemy you stop gaining rewards - you're only rewarded as long as you're defending the location.  That place needs to be defended, otherwise the enemy can take it easily.  Basing honor on damage or healing done would kill defense even more.  Take Arathi Basin, for example - defense is key to victory, but if you're Alliance standing at the stables and the Horde is only going after blacksmith, mine, and lumber mill at the moment, you're doing no damage and no healing.  But if you leave, you know someone, probably a stealther, will wander up and capture the stables.  Defending the stables leads to victory, but in the same match, assuming you win, those who were on offense will already get more honor, because they get all the HK honor from the fighting.

[Phred]

It's a good point, but out of place in a DIKU. You don't get rewarded for not-winning in any other part of the game. You don't get rewarded for letting mobs retreat. You don't get rewarded for not completing questions. It's a stretch for them to having rewarded losing teams at all.

As Koyasha said, it's not rewarding not-winning, it's rewarding contributing to a victory in ways other than pure offense. Just like earlier PvP systems failed to reward healing and only rewarded damaging the enemy directly. I don't think attempting to tie your pvp to your pve system is particularly useful either, as there is nothing inherant in the diku design that covers (mostly) max level pvp anyway.

[Chimpy]

OMG 2 minute AV queues I love you.

Even if alliance loses every time because they are morons, I still like the being able to play more than one every 2 hours.

[Xanthippe]

I haven't noticed a different in AV queues at all (my server has had no queues over 2 minutes), but I did play one game yesterday and EVERYBODY was playing.  What a difference.

[Chimpy]

I haven't noticed a different in AV queues at all (my server has had no queues over 2 minutes), but I did play one game yesterday and EVERYBODY was playing.  What a difference.

Do you play horde or alliance?

On our server, Alliance queues have been 45m - 2hours since I came back in august.

But the everyone playing on horde thing made the alliance AV rush strategy as null and void as it should have been ages ago.

[Arrrgh]

Stormstrike alliance AV times rarely exceed 1 minute. I recall hitting 3 minutes once in the last few months.