AV: miserable fucked up piece of shit

[angry.bob]

So I just bought WotLK and resubbed after a long break. AV used to be lots of fun, even when we would get rolled because at least you could get faction from turn-ins or do a quest. This version is fucking horrible. So far every round I've been in has started with 8-10 alliance versus 38-40 horde. We get steamrolled and farmed with no time to even finish any of the quests or even do tun ins because they've killed all our NPCs two minutes into the round. How anyone considers this an "improvement" is beyond me.

[Rasix]

Glad I've completely ignored battlegrounds since the start of WoLK.  Any time I get heavily involved with them it pretty much signals that I'm about done with the game.

Ohh, you're likely not 80 yet, are you?  Are you playing in the max level bracket for AV?

[ahoythematey]

It doesn't get any better at 80, really.  You should treat pvp in WoW in the same manner that Blizzard does: with disdain.

[Selby]

It's been like that since vanilla WoW depending on your battlegroup and time of play.  It was always 25 Horde vs. 40 Alliance on my Horde server, which was quite annoying.

[Merusk]

They fucked AV proper with the last 2 revisions, turning it into a PvE race instead of a PvP battleground. Xanthippe and several others have ranted about this at length.

   It's even worse right now because there's no need for the tokens outside of mounts or that stupid token-turn-in quest.  So, the losing side on whatever battleground simply doesn't log in.  It was the same for the Horde about a year ago, only they'd queue and AFK since it was still the best honor/ hour.

[Gobbeldygook]

The honor token quest is not stupid at all.  It's a bonus 1.2k honor if you show up to each BG once, 3.6k if you can win each one once.  It's the only reason I ever bother to queue up for Strand of the Ancients, which is provably biased against the Horde to a degree the AV designers could only dream.

[Rendakor]

I agree on SOTA's shitty design; Horde starting on defense always is obnoxious. However, I've also never lost an SOTA (I'm a horde player) so I guess I can't complain. Every game we play is 15h - 10a.

The token turn-in quest is pretty good honor, and serves well to keep people queued for EVERY bg instead of just the daily + the bonus honor weekend bg.

I agree that AV is fucked now. I missed the old version, even though battles took hours; they were still way more fun than any of the other bgs.

[Xanthippe]

I miss classic AV.

I think the whole game is on a downward path of fuckedupedness.

[Hindenburg]

The old version took too damn long, gave crap for honor, had horde starting at a horrible location, allowed the alliance to go straight for the RH, had horrendous requirements to summon the giant elites, and those wolf/ram collecting quests were atrociously boring.

AV always sucked.

[Ingmar]

AV is relatively balanced on my server now. Rarely does any side start outnumbering the other, victories are pretty evenly split, etc.

The old 8-12 hour AV, where you were lucky if it was even up... no thank you.

[Koyasha]

The old version took too damn long, gave crap for honor, had horde starting at a horrible location, allowed the alliance to go straight for the RH, had horrendous requirements to summon the giant elites, and those wolf/ram collecting quests were atrociously boring.

AV always sucked.

The old version only needed a couple adjustments to be good, though.  Setting up a system where all the honor wasn't clumped at the beginning and end of the battle would have solved most of the problems, like making the towers/bunkers capturable instead of destroyable, and giving honor each time they changed hands (with some kind of timer to prevent people from standing there flipping it).  Besides that, shifting the location of towers slightly (like moving one of the Frostwolf Keep towers nearer the relief hut, so it could fire on people trying to ninja-cap the RH - and at the same time providing the necessary relief of less concentrated fire on the ramp chokepoint) would have pretty much fixed it.  I continue to maintain that the long battles in and of themselves were awesome, but rewards were insufficient and made the place tedious (at best) to go into.

The 'lucky if it was even up' was simply a factor of server-only battlegrounds of the age, it's hard to bring up a 40vs40 when you only have one server's population to pull from.  It did have massive advantages in the fact that you knew your allies and your enemies, though.  Anyone who PvP'd a lot back in those days got to know other people who pvp'd a lot, both friendly and hostile.

[Merusk]

Despite being a shitty battleground I just had an awesome experience in an AV.  I'm doing it for the rep and the mount tokens, so I just ran to IBT and capped then waited around.  About 1:30 into the cap a Hordie came running up the stairs, I didn't see what it was only that he was alone. I ducked into the hut, summoned my ghoul and pulled him into the room as soon as he popped his head around the corner.

 It was another DK, and I was blood spec for the survivability and physical damage. "Crap I hope he doesn't beat my ass into the ground cuz he's unholy" I thought.   We proceeded to beat the shit out of each other until the tower burned during that fight I noticed he was also blood.  He didn't run, and I wasn't going to disengage.  We beat the crap out of each other in that little room for the next 10 minutes, trading who was lowest on health then death pacting, death striking or rune tapping back our health.

When the BG ended we were both in the top 5 for damage on our respective sides with 180k(him) and 200k(me).   I wish I'd thought to check our healing.

[nurtsi]

Would be nice if they could fix the fucking queue system. Why the hell does it let things like 40 vs 20 even happen 

[Rendakor]

40 v 20 happens because the queue system checks people who queue up, not who join. So when it sees 40 (or 30 or whatever the magic number is, I don't believe it's 20) people on each side queued, the BG pops but not everyone joins. The overpopulated side has plenty of people queued up to replace those who didn't, but the underqueued side is fucked.

The alternative to 40 v 20 is people zoning in and waiting until the bg filled up for it to start, but with the ability to BG hop it would take hours to fill.

[Samprimary]

Well gee, that doesn't work. I guess they better fix that.

Any day now.

Aaaany day.

[jpark]

That's too bad to hear - i have not tried any pvp in the latest expansion.

I have fond memories of AV and had one of my most memorable moments (by my standards hehe) in WoW.  I "roleplay" myself as a tank in pvp and try my best to fill that role.  Ya sure it doesn't make sense but I found it fun :)

In AV I was a tauren tank and we were at a standoff on the road with alliance coming down from the south (you know that narrow road that goes north south just before the alliance bridge).  I had a macro that announced I was going to Snare & Stun to set up for AoE from our side.  So on the road as a SINGLE player I would advance into the alliance pack (popping cooldowns to survive for a few seconds) and then would do AoE snare.  The horde would then unleash AoE damage on the alliance and healed me to keep me up (not one healer but several!).  We cycled this way all the way up the road:  i ran ahead, the rest of the horde hung back and healed me, I reached the alliance back and snared/ war stomped/ feared.  It was amazing to see this level of coordination come about spontaneously in a AV encounter.

This worked so well, at one point when I ran forward as a single player, the ENTIRE group of alliance players retreated from me.  Eventually we pushed alliance all the way up the road.  Alliance was sufficiently enraged at me at this point - because I eventually found myself BOTH frost rooted and Mind Controlled lol.

Oddly, this strategy never worked when I later played a tank on the alliance side.  Countless time I charged in as a tank and was never healed.  On the horde side, however, often I was healed and used the strategy constantly (thus my reference to tanking in pvp).  Nerf horde, they move as a group and they heal each other :P

This was before AV became a PVE race and had much more conflict.  As tank it was one of my most memorable moments in the entire game.  I lost interest as it became a PVE race, sounds like it is worse now.

[Soulflame]

Alliance can -still- saunter to the Relief Hut, while Horde have to contend with two towers, plus an entire camp of NPCs that stand right on top of the Aid Station.  It's biased against Horde in a truly ridiculous manner.  At least it's 10 minutes for a free token.     Not to mention the alliance towers are built with a clear view for all the archers to shoot you while you are trying to cap a flag, while the horde tower flags have zero line of sight to any of the NPC guards.  I could add in Nightfall peculiarities, such as alliance guarding each tower til it caps, while horde does not guard towers, or even bother trying to recap them.

 I was waiting five minutes for a SotA last night, popped in with probably five other horde, alliance are already pounding on the second to last gate.  Auto loss.  Stupid queueing system.

AB and WSG seem to be fairly balanced, although due to horde retardery on my battle group, you can easily lose 5+ games in a row in either BG.  EotS is biased towards whichever side has a full team at the start of the match.

[Ingmar]

Its almost like you have to play defense!

[Soulflame]

Horde doesn't play defense in AV because Alliance is unusually coordinated.  I've tried repeatedly to defend in AV, the end result is I'm a free HK.  Allies will leave FGs guarding each tower, send 1-2 FGs to take the Relief Hut, and will frequently make attempts at horde capped towers, which are generally successful because there's maybe 1 person standing there forlornly hoping the allies forget to recap this time or something.

It's probably also worth noting that, as a paladin, I frequently am entering Balinda's keep just as the Horde captain starts bellowing at the allies that are engaging him.  I'm sure it's not a problem, right?

It's equally frustrating to play AB and see 1-2 nodes completely unprotected just about every match.

[Ingmar]

Alliance is unusually coordinated.

Its like these words are coming out of your mouth but I don't understand what you're saying!

Seriously though, this sounds like a problem specific to your battlegroup.

[Nevermore]

He said he's in Nightfall.  Which is the same battlegroup we're in.

In my admittedly limited BG experience, 'unusually coordinated' is about the last way I would describe Alliance.  Unless 'unusually coordinated' is how you describe a bunch of people all trying to be their own Army of One.  I've also heard the grass is greener on the Horde side, too! 

[Ingmar]

He said he's in Nightfall.  Which is the same battlegroup we're in.

does not compute

[kaid]

The biggest problem with AV is its better to ignore the other team completly and just race to do the pve stuff in the enemy base than it is to fight with players. To actually do a big battle pvp style kills your honor gain so people just don't bother. One thing I am curious about though is apparently the next big patch is going to add another BG that sounds like a combo between AV and lake wintergrasp. Very curious how that will work out. Here is hoping they have the flying vehicles in and working.

[Fordel]

Soulflame, the reason we leave FG's to defend towers is because the horde CONSTANTLY sends full groups to retake them. The rule in chat is 3 per tower at a minimum, and at least 1 body at each GY. Ideally we put 10-15 people in the general IceBlood area until it all caps then just move down.


We've had so many games where IB and TP get recapped with under a minute to burn, that more then enough people defend them on their own now.

[Sjofn]

It's probably also worth noting that, as a paladin, I frequently am entering Balinda's keep just as the Horde captain starts bellowing at the allies that are engaging him.  I'm sure it's not a problem, right?

Tee hee hee hee! I'm sure they'll get around to fixing that if they decide it's a problem, just like after a few years they got around to fixing the fact the Horde could sneeze on Balinda to kill her and have Stonehearth GY contested before we were across the field of strife.

Seriously though, reading about WoW PvP in all its stupid forms makes me glad I have sworn it off and pretend it doesn't exist anymore.

[Lantyssa]

Seriously.  The thought of PvP in WoW makes me laugh.

[Soulflame]

I'm not sure I get your point there, Sjofn.  By your own words, Balinda was fixed, although admittedly after a number of years.  I have no stake in that time, as I didn't play, and am only tangentially aware, mostly via reading wiki strategies for Balinda, that she could be soloed by a rogue.  At one time.  Which isn't now.

My point is about the current imbalances, which is primarily that alliance can take Relief Hut with one tank or AE class, and horde has to send 1-2 FGs to even think about taking Aid Station.  Typically I'll see alliance with every horde tower and RH blue, while we're still working on crossing the bridge to the stormpike keep, meaning we still have two towers and a GY to cap.

Fordel:  I wish we had people who would defend like that, it'd make the few times I bother to venture into AV (mostly dailies these days) a lot more enjoyable.

Although I have to admit my favorite AVs are the ones where one side has to turtle.  It's more interesting than seeing who can PvE their way to victory fastest.

[Fordel]

Soulflame, you do if your on the Nightfall battle group. Were in the same AV's.

[Shatter]

I quit before WOTLK and if I came back, which Im not, I wouldn't touch PvP in this game with a ten foot pole.  One of the reasons I quit was because of the poor design of all the BG's and how bad PvP is.  Warsong is horrible, AV is horrible(and always has been no matter how they changed it), EOTS and AB were "ok" but after 4 years of the same shit, cmon.  On my old battlegroup we lost every scenario other then occasional one, losing 90% of the time really makes you want to login and play.

Then there were arenas which are a joke, yet they make them the basis for many nerfs and put the best gear for PvP into how well your group does while other groups exploit the f*ck out of the ranking system.  One of my last games I created a new group and our first match was against a partially geared S6 group which had no business being at our rank.  GG

[Malakili]

Seriously though, reading about WoW PvP in all its stupid forms makes me glad I have sworn it off and pretend it doesn't exist anymore.

Agreed.  WoW is just a thinly veiled series of mini games, and PvP happens to be far and away my least favorite of the mini games.  I've been much happier since I decided it was a waste of my time.

[K9]

Apparently there's a new BG in 3.2. I live in vain hope that it will be a deathmatch style BG.

[Fordel]

Apparently there's a new BG in 3.2. I live in vain hope that it will be a deathmatch style BG.

That exists already, it's called Arena.




The new BG will be AV 2.0, or WG 1.5.

[K9]

Arena doesn't even begin to fulfill the possibilities of a deathmatch BG.

[pxib]

Arena doesn't even begin to fulfill the possibilities of a deathmatch BG.

Do tell. I can only imagine it being like world PvP where, completely unhitched from the battlegrounds' strategic goals, the high level and well-geared few flatten everyone else over and over again... except because this would be entirely optional, rather than required for leveling, eventually nobody at all would queue.

In Arathi, Warsong, and the Storm there was a pretty good chance the overpowered few would get so interested in killing for killing's sake that you could exploit their single-mindedness and steal the game from them. If killing is the whole point of the battleground, that possibility evaporates.

[Ingmar]

There's a reason straight deathmatch is the least popular game type in TF2.