Is the PVE game dying?

[Threash]

Actually im pretty sure that they removed a ton of useless stuff that was off to the sides on the old av, there was a complex series of caves on both sides of the field of strife that arent there anymore.

[Phunked]

[snip]

Yeah, it's really the 500-600 to 0 wins that are doing it. Who the fuck queues for that shit?

You can't even fix this by doing a random map-flip, as everyone will bail if they're in the Alliance starting position. What a clusterfuck. AV isn't worth the time anymore, and it was the ONLY place for decent honor to buy gear. Trying to grind out enough honor for the BG gear in WSG, AB, or EOTS isn't really an option.

Blizzard -- at the very least -- needs to either nerf Galv or serioiusly fuckiung buff Balinda, move the Alliance starting position up some to mirror the Horde's -- and either totally rearrange Galv/IB or totally rearrange SH/Bunkers/Balinda.

The way the map is set up, all the funnels and conflict points favor Horde until you hit the bases proper. But since you don't need the bases to win, it's meaningless. So if the battle is bottlenecked at IB, the Horde can defend the GY, the tower, and Galv (jesus the disparity between Galv and Balinda is really obvious now) without having to move very far in any direction. The Alliance, on the oither hand, has no hope in hell of trying to defend Balinda, SH, and the bunker. They're too far apart with too many paths to each.

The way the map is set up now, you have to NOT SUCK TO WIN.

Seriously, AV is fine. Hear me, FINE. As in, NOT IN THE STATE OF BEING UNFINE. In order to hear me actually substantiate this, you can read below.

Your major issue with this is the same as the issue which plagues most PvPers in this game. You expect it to be a mirror where you can win by executing the same strat as the other team, but better. Case in point; why alliance seems to "always lose" AB. You want to do what the horde are doing, which is take Farm, LM and BS and hold them to win 3-2. However this is actually an inferior strategy for alliance, and tends to lead to many of the loses that you're complaining about. The iron triangle works better for horde, because alliance can be trapped at the crossroads between LM, BS and Farm, and then casually picked off at the furthest distance from any of the 3 flags they're trying to attack. This strategy works best for horde because of their starting position and the way the bases are laid out. Alliance on the other hand gain the most advantage from letting horde hold BS and going Stable-LM-Farm. In this situation, you hold the two most distant nodes as well as the node in between both. From LM you can re-enforce either stables on farm, gain LOS over BS and if needed, attack Mine from both Stables and Farm, essentially leaving the horde with no place to run. Oh and, Horde spawning at trollbane hall = free honor k thx.  The ST-LM-Farm line has the benefit of having all res points linearly progressing toward the horde starting point, while forcing any horde that spawn at mine or BS to have to either take the long way around or ride through farm/stables if they want to attack anywhere.

Notice what's different about these two strategies? The horde and alliance are not trying to do the same thing but better. When Alliance try to beat horde at their own game by holding ST+BS+LM they handicap themselves, because even if they're successful at it for any amount of time, they get much less benefit from this than the horde do.


The EXACT same situation occurs in AV. Horde want you to try to defend the outlying GYs. What you don't get is that it isn't intended to be a mirror. There's a reason that the horde base is designed so that you can just ride right through it. That's the balancing component of the strat that you're intended to follow. The entire alliance defense strategy is to force the horde to over-extend until they reach Dun Baldar and then hold them there. The horde offensive strategy relies on exploiting the part where alliance will try to defend their strategically weaker outward bases. FW and IB are harder to cap than SH and stormpike. But the horde base is a lot easier to attack than the alliance one. Horde want you to defend. You want horde to push offense. If properly executed, you can abuse this and trap horde indefinitely. The only thing which will screw this over are Alliance incompetence. Horde can overcome this by winning a reinforcement victory if Alliance feed too much, or if Alliance tanks can't pull Drek at the right time. AV wasn't balanced before this, because without reinforcements, alliance do not suffer for their incompetence. Thankfully, we actually need to try to win now. I apologize if this is undesirable to you.


The only two mirror BGs are WSG and EoTS, largely because any sort of capture the flag mechanic needs to be a mirror to be balanced. The strategy in both relies on timing flag caps anyways, so this isn't a particular issue there. The most important part about the other BGs is that they are NOT mirrors and should not be treated like they are. The other confounding issue is that because of the small scale, one side can win based on the synergy between 2-3 players. My arena partner noted that its like 2v2 but easier because the synergy between one warrior and a healer is enough to crush the entire horde offense.

[Fordel]

Actually im pretty sure that they removed a ton of useless stuff that was off to the sides on the old av, there was a complex series of caves on both sides of the field of strife that arent there anymore.

The Harpy and Yeti caves? Those are still there unless your talking about something else. They removed all the NPC trolls from the zone, used to be little villages everywhere.

[Chimpy]

Actually im pretty sure that they removed a ton of useless stuff that was off to the sides on the old av, there was a complex series of caves on both sides of the field of strife that arent there anymore.

The Harpy and Yeti caves? Those are still there unless your talking about something else. They removed all the NPC trolls from the zone, used to be little villages everywhere.

The "first" AV redesign shrunk the map about 30%. I actually ponied up and bought a 900g mount because of how long it took to get from place to place. Most of the shrinking of the map was done on the south end and in the midfield, which might be part of why some alliance are upset about their cave position, as it did not get as much closer due to it being north of the last GY before the base.

They removed a couple of canyons on the west, and a whole plateau on the east that was full of jackyl-men.

The troll cave with the all-seeing eye (which was where you spawn when you have Snowfall GY now) was taken out after they removed Korrak completely.

Gone are all of the interesting NPC combinations needed to help push a win effectively. No Ram/Wolf Riders, No Reavers/whatever the alliance version was, and No one does the Elemental summons or the Bird Bombers anymore as you don't have time to even launch them in the new mechanic.

[Xanthippe]

The way the map is set up now, you have to NOT SUCK TO WIN.

Seriously, AV is fine. Hear me, FINE. As in, NOT IN THE STATE OF BEING UNFINE. In order to hear me actually substantiate this, you can read below.

That's some pretty serious verbiage that boils down to saying the geography is different for both sides and each side needs a different strategy.

Nobody is saying alliance can't win.  What people are saying is that horde have a huge advantage.  Nothing that you said disputes that.

AV isn't fine.  AV is a mess, even if alliance follow the strategy you laid out.  On my server, my most recent forays into AV have ended up about 50-50 wins/losses.  But it's really not much fun.  The typical alliance strategy these days is to get to RH, leaving 3-5 people per tower to be captured and pretty much no defense at our towers, maybe 6 people at DB.  (And then there's anywhere from 2 to 10 people afking in the cave).

Still not a lot of pvp to be found, really.  The number of HKs is still pretty small.

[Phunked]

my most recent forays into AV have ended up about 50-50 wins/losses.  But it's really not much fun. 

It's intended to be a 50/50 win-loss ratio. If horde truly did have a huge advantage, then the win-loss ratio would be skewed in their favor, which it apparently isn't.


The fact that AV is not fun and lacks actual PvP is different from saying that the map is not balanced.


I agree with your point that AV is not fun and almost entirely devoid of HKs, but I think that this issue stems more from the fact that non-arena PvP has now become a meaningless honor grind rather than a critique of the lack of faction balanced in the BG itself.

[Simond]

my most recent forays into AV have ended up about 50-50 wins/losses.  But it's really not much fun. 

It's intended to be a 50/50 win-loss ratio. If horde truly did have a huge advantage, then the win-loss ratio would be skewed in their favor, which it apparently isn't.

After a couple of year of 60:40, 70:30 or 80:20 ratios in the favour of the Alliance, any changes which bring the win:loss ratio closer to parity are naturally seen as favouring the Horde.

[Arrrgh]

my most recent forays into AV have ended up about 50-50 wins/losses.  But it's really not much fun. 

It's intended to be a 50/50 win-loss ratio. If horde truly did have a huge advantage, then the win-loss ratio would be skewed in their favor, which it apparently isn't.

Win rates vary between battle groups. In battle groups like Stormstrike where horde often try to force turtles alliance rarely win those turtles. When they just allow race games for greater honor per hour then alliance often wins. The problem is that if they want to force a turtle then they usually get their turtle.

Good thread on how different strategies develop in different battle groups.

http://elitistjerks.com/f38/t18228-new_av/

[Fordel]

I totally forgot about the Eye of Command! I remember people getting exalted with AV in a day because of some exploit with it and the quest 

[Xanthippe]

On my server, my most recent forays into AV have ended up about 50-50 wins/losses.  But it's really not much fun. 

I really need to qualify this.

I used to play AV every day, multiple games per day.  The win/loss ratio was about 50/50.  It was fun in both of the first two incarnations.

When 2.3 came out, it was 90/10 horde wins.  The percentage of alli wins has been slowly coming up.  What the win/loss ratio actually is, I can't say, because I've been playing maybe 1 or 2 games per day.  For me, for the past few days, it's been about 50/50.

But it would be a serious stretch for me to claim that on my server, in my battlegroup, it's a 50/50 ratio.  It may be, but I certainly can't say that based upon my slim participation.

I've noticed alliance doing better in WSG, AB and EOTS, which leads me to think alliance people are avoiding AV more.

[Xanthippe]

my most recent forays into AV have ended up about 50-50 wins/losses.  But it's really not much fun. 

It's intended to be a 50/50 win-loss ratio. If horde truly did have a huge advantage, then the win-loss ratio would be skewed in their favor, which it apparently isn't.

After a couple of year of 60:40, 70:30 or 80:20 ratios in the favour of the Alliance, any changes which bring the win:loss ratio closer to parity are naturally seen as favouring the Horde.

I want to see these statistics.  Where are you pulling them from?

[Merusk]

None of us have stats on any of it.  It's all based on personal experience and entirely self-referential. (And damnit my brain has leaked and I forgot the term I was looking for.)

Anywho, it was my experience prior to 2.3 that Alliance was typically losing in AV.  Ever since the anti-afk patch Alliance has won 7 out of the 20 or so AVs I've done.  Prior to this I don't recall an AV that I lost going as far back as June 06.   Of course I could just have been getitng really lucky.  Only Blizz knows and they're not posting actual stats for us.

[Threash]

Actually some blue poster did release some numbers a while ago.  If i remember correctly AV and surprisingly WSG very slightly favored alliance, while eots and ab very slightly favored horde.  This was before the anti afk patch though.

[Fordel]

There is a site that polls the win/loss through a add-on or some such as well. Digging for it now.


-edit-

Here it be : http://www.warcraftrealms.com/bg_list.php?id=0&lb=7

[Arrrgh]

There is a site that polls the win/loss through a add-on or some such as well. Digging for it now.


-edit-

Here it be : http://www.warcraftrealms.com/bg_list.php?id=0&lb=7

I'm seeing games from April 2007 there. Nothing later.

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/bg_list.php?id=41&lb=7&b=av

[Fordel]

No idea why its so outdated now, haven't looked at the site in awhile.

Oh well :(

[stu]

Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing, but there are BG results from this past Saturday on there.

[Fordel]

Looking at it again, yea it appears Nightfall is up to date.

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/bg_list.php?id=3&lb=7

[Xanthippe]

Wow.  You can really see the change from 2.3 in AV stats on this.

Nice find.  Thanks for posting.

For all US battlegroups:


Wins

Horde    Alliance

Alterac Valley              7,893     6,947

Arathi Basin                9,248     4,425

Warsong Gulch          11,664   10,074

Eye of the Storm         3,329     2,116

This data includes pre- and post-2.3 - but wow, look at AB stats.

My battlegroup went from 50/50 to 70/30 in AV, horde winning (immediately after 2.3, was 90/10).

[Paelos]

The numbers don't lie. It's a fucking trainwreck in AV now.

[Threash]

The serious pvpers abandoned AV in favor of ab or eots, thats going to have almost as big an impact as the map imbalance on the win/lose ratio.  Horde are calling it an alliance boycott because they have hour long queues now, but the simple truth is people are going where the honor is. 

[Nebu]

Dumb question: When I was in beta, the more serious PvP oriented folks tended to play horde in favor of the alliance.  Is this still the case and could this be skewing things at all?

[Arrrgh]

It's not the fact that the horde win in AV. Its that the alliance loses take so long and give so little honor that if you're alliance you get better honor per hour in any other battle ground. Pre patch AV both sides got almost the same honor per match, win or lose.

[Arrrgh]

I just did my EoS daily. Took two tries since one game we had 5 AFKs. Another effect of AV being FUBAR is that the AFKs don't want to go to AV anymore either.

Number of running instances in Stormstrike...4 AV, 18 EoS, 19 WS, and 20 AB.

[Morfiend]

Dumb question: When I was in beta, the more serious PvP oriented folks tended to play horde in favor of the alliance.  Is this still the case and could this be skewing things at all?

I think its more that the Alliance in AV got lazy. They had much easier time winning AV than Horde did due to base layouts and locations, and this got the Horde so discouraged that the majority of AV games had 1/3rd+ of the Horde players AFKing. Now that the NPCs are gone, this helps with the imbalance some what, and with the AFK changes, you see usually 2-3 people afking now instead of 15+. These two things have given Horde the advantage, also, due to the imbalance I think the Horde had to learn to work together a bit better than the Alliance and all in all leads to the current steam rollings.

This isnt all speculation. I have alliance and horde in several battlegroups, and so far this seems pretty consistant.

[AngryGumball]

Topic shifting!!!

Downed Gruul tonight my second time Leggings of the Fallen Champion dropped, from Gruul. Used by Paladins, Shamans, and Rogues to get their Tier 4 five piece armour set. I forget how many rolled. First roll was a 99 a rogue friend of mine actually whom I talk back and forth with. about 5 rolls later I rolled a 100 to win the drop, my first Tier 4 piece of armour. My second time in Gruul's no less.

We were rolling because it was sorta pugged between Alliance about 75% my guild RiP on the Coilfang Alliance server, and from guilds Dogs of War, and Scissor me Timbers.

I am a Holy Paladin, so I got my Justicar Leggings. Downed him about 11:30pm ish. Maybe someday www.wowjutsu will update and you can see how bad Coilfang alliance side is PVE progression wise.

[Azazel]

I don't care about your jacking off about your ("non-welfare") loot in your bullshit raid.


I used to enjoy AV, about 14 months ago, then about a year ago when they changed the honor system. I even enjoyed it quite a lot before the afk-patch, and quite a lot afterwards. Honor was good (yes, I want some shineys from playing), and I honestly enjoyed the mass battle pvp. Much more fun than EOTS or AB or WSG. Sometimes we won, sometimes we lost, honor was good and the battling was good fun.

Now.. meeehhhh...

[Morat20]

It's not the fact that the horde win in AV. Its that the alliance loses take so long and give so little honor that if you're alliance you get better honor per hour in any other battle ground. Pre patch AV both sides got almost the same honor per match, win or lose.

More simple: If Alliance wins, Horde and Alliance get roughly the same honor (Horde gets a bit more). If the Horde chooses to make it a turtle and not a race (and it pretty much just takes a few dedicated Horde to do it), it's not only always an Alliance loss but the Horde gets something like 580 honor to the Alliance 20.

So any Alliance wanting to queue up is looking at, at best, a 15 minute tossup that'll give Horde slightly more honor either way -- or a 45 minute loss that results in no honor, but a shitton for the Horde.

Hence they queue elsewhere.

[Fordel]

At least when you get rolled in AB, it only takes 60 seconds :)

[Morat20]

At least when you get rolled in AB, it only takes 60 seconds :)

No shit. I got into an AB yesterday and we were rolling the Horde. It appears all the good Horde PvPers are queing for AV and moaning that Alliance isn't.  AB isn't worth their time for honor anymore.

[Fordel]

Yea if you get a solid AB group setup, you can farm honour like nothing else. It's why honor items cost about twice as much as they should, since Blizz based honour accumulation on what the top end farmers could achieve.