Leveling via Battlegrounds

[Xanthippe]

I thought this would be popular.

I thought wrong.

My level 72 pally can sit all day in a queue for Isle without it ever popping.  I can see one battleground open for WSG, one or two for AB, and maybe one for AV.  Eye gets run a couple of times a day.

Maybe Blizzard could merge lower level battlgrounds even further?

I've leveled enough toons to not really need to again, since I've read most of the storylines through questing numerous times before. 

I wish this was a viable option.

[Rasix]

It used to be, but all anyone did was AV.   Then they nerfed the XP somewhat and split the 80s from the 70-79. 

[Jayce]

Me too. The xp doesn't seem to be that great since the nerf. I can do 5-10 AVs and still not have a level.

What was really so wrong with leaving it pre-nerf? It's not like it was the clear leader over questing, especially since your choice is heavily playstyle dependent, and less min-max dependent.

[Selby]

Seriously.  I did 3 AV's in an hour and got 1/4 of a bar of XP.  Questing is much faster and more efficient than that!  Hell, even random LFD and not finishing the dungeon is more XP than that...

[Kail]

It's even worse at low levels; you have nothing to do except Arathi or fucking Warsong, over and over and over again, since they give less XP than AV, and leveling via questing or 5-mans is literally about five times faster and nets better money and gear.

[Drubear]

You are doing the daily "Call to Arms!" ya? That was 3k xp on my 26 hunter.

And each flag cap in WSG and flag tick in AB was 436 xp. Not too shabby.

[Merusk]

You are doing the daily "Call to Arms!" ya? That was 3k xp on my 26 hunter.

And each flag cap in WSG and flag tick in AB was 436 xp. Not too shabby.

If you're on the winning side.  Which, as pointed out in other threads, is all dependent on your battlegroup, level range and time of day.   

[Nebu]

I played a few games of WSG yesterday on my lowbie warlock and saw the strangest phenomenon.  Now I say strange because my gaming experience originates with UO, then EQ on a pvp server, and then 5+ years of DAoC.  The scenario starts and both sides just run past each other in an attempt to cap the flag as fast as possible.  The participants weren't interested in pvp at all.  They just wanted to end the scenario as fast as humanly possible to collect their marks/honor.  I also witnessed this in AV.  Could this be the reason that Blizzard has kept the rewards low?  Because the playerbase will just bypass conflict in pvp BG's to extract rewards in the most efficient way possible?

I have to confess that part of this impressed me.  If Blizzard creates a path to a reward, their playerbase will find the most efficient way possible to obtain it.  Someone should do a study on this.  It's very much like a mouse in a maze study.  

[Drubear]

You are doing the daily "Call to Arms!" ya? That was 3k xp on my 26 hunter.

And each flag cap in WSG and flag tick in AB was 436 xp. Not too shabby.

If you're on the winning side.  Which, as pointed out in other threads, is all dependent on your battlegroup, level range and time of day.   

True that for the "Call to Arms" (which I frequently forget to nab.) But I suppose even on the losing side, you get a few caps, no (we weren't being roflstomped so even a loss had some caps - plus do it only on the appropriate weekend)? But the point there is that it's lousy compared to questing, eh? I can see that...

[Koyasha]

I played a few games of WSG yesterday on my lowbie warlock and saw the strangest phenomenon.  Now I say strange because my gaming experience originates with UO, then EQ on a pvp server, and then 5+ years of DAoC.  The scenario starts and both sides just run past each other in an attempt to cap the flag as fast as possible.  The participants weren't interested in pvp at all.  They just wanted to end the scenario as fast as humanly possible to collect their marks/honor.  I also witnessed this in AV.  Could this be the reason that Blizzard has kept the rewards low?  Because the playerbase will just bypass conflict in pvp BG's to extract rewards in the most efficient way possible?

I have to confess that part of this impressed me.  If Blizzard creates a path to a reward, their playerbase will find the most efficient way possible to obtain it.  Someone should do a study on this.  It's very much like a mouse in a maze study.  

This is the strategically correct way to win those battlegrounds.  Get to your objective, get shit done.  Don't try to kill the enemy on the initial crossing of the gulch.  Ideally your flag defense team is superior to theirs, they take more losses grabbing the flag, and therefore when you're on your way back you can kill the rest of them and get your flag back, then cap theirs.

As far as AV is concerned, as long as victory is tied to killing the general, the most effective strategy will always be to go after the general as swiftly and efficiently as possible, since, with the lack of NPC guards, there is nothing in your way.  Trying to stop the enemy offensive with your own people accomplishes nothing toward the goal of winning, since your offensive is halted just as surely as theirs is.

The point of a battleground is not to beat up an arbitrary number of enemies, but to win, which means not screwing around with fighting when that fighting is not conducive to victory.  That's why everyone that knows what they're doing looks down on people that run around midfield in WSG not accomplishing anything, why people that fight on the roads between nodes in Arathi Basin are blistering idiots, and so on.

[Malakili]

The scenario starts and both sides just run past each other in an attempt to cap the flag as fast as possible.  The participants weren't interested in pvp at all.  

This was always my experience in WoW battlegrounds, for years.  I rarely did them, and when I did, I frankly just joined the crowd.  PvP in WoW is mediocre, and when I did it, it was usually because Druid tank itemization was terrible, and I needed a piece or two of PvP gear to fill in the gaps.   (this was all pre-wotlk mind you)

[Sheepherder]

The scenario starts and both sides just run past each other in an attempt to cap the flag as fast as possible.

If you kill the initial rush they will respawn at their base right as soon as you arrive to take their flag and beat the shit out of your flag carrier the entire way back, assuming you manage to grab it.

[WindupAtheist]

WSG

As has been said, it's not them, it's you. If you're not attacking/defending a flag/base then you're basically just jerking off.

[pxib]

More specifically: An infinite number of enemies are going to come out of the enemy graveyard. That's the area in front of you as you approach their base. There's a small delay, but they never stop. Like sheep says, if you start killing them before your team has the flag, all you're doing is putting them closer to their flag room and restoring their health and mana. This applies in every single battleground, and to world PvP. There is no front line and attrition is slow or non-existant... contesting either is a distraction. Stick to the objectives and win.

If your argument is that people are avoiding exciting PvP possibilities in order to achieve victory, you've got a point. This is the weakness of objective-based PvP and why people cried out for deathmatch until WoW introduced the arenas. If you just like killin' and bein' killed, listen to WuA and stick to a flag carrier or defend a node and avoid every post-50 battleground and world PvP objective except EotS.

[Kail]

You are doing the daily "Call to Arms!" ya? That was 3k xp on my 26 hunter.

And each flag cap in WSG and flag tick in AB was 436 xp. Not too shabby.

It seems extremely shabby when you've got rest XP, and killing a single non-elite mob at level 30 yields about 390 or so.  The daily is fine, but you're not going to be tearing up the ranks doing one quest per day (one quest where you have to head all the way back to your capital city and wait in queue for a half hour or whatever).

In the course of a 20 - 30 minute bg, I can get something like maybe 10 - 20% of my bar.  In the course of a 30 minute dungeon, I can get almost a level, PLUS the best gear available for my level range, plus more stuff like cloth and money.

[Nebu]

As has been said, it's not them, it's you. If you're not attacking/defending a flag/base then you're basically just jerking off.

 

If your argument is that people are avoiding exciting PvP possibilities in order to achieve victory, you've got a point. This is the weakness of objective-based PvP and why people cried out for deathmatch until WoW introduced the arenas.

Thank you for getting my point.  It's the design of the pvp BG's that I have issue with.  They don't do nearly enough to encourage actualy pvp and you're correct that it comes from their choice to make them objective based.  Is this to cater to the FPS crowd? 

I firmly believe that wold pvp objectives would do a lot for WoW, particularly those players that enjoy WG but tire of the repetitive nature of it.  Then again, this may just be a small portion of the playerbase and I'm just talking into a void.  It wouldn't be the first time.

[MrHat]

I firmly believe that wold pvp objectives would do a lot for WoW, particularly those players that enjoy WG but tire of the repetitive nature of it.  Then again, this may just be a small portion of the playerbase and I'm just talking into a void.  It wouldn't be the first time.

I remember when the objective was "fuck this kids day up".

[WindupAtheist]

I have no problem with objective-based PVP. I just have a problem when it's not in the best interests of anyone to defend those objectives. IE, Alterac Valley once everyone is geared enough to ignore the towers.

[Jayce]

There is plenty of objective-based as well as deathmatch FPS style games, so I don't know if it's really catering to the FPS crowd.

I remember back in the early days of multiplayer games, there was a definite demand for something besides "blow up other guy, be blown up, repeat".  A more intelligent style of play; something to make it feel like there was a point.  A lot of mods for Quake and other early FPS tried to satisfy this. With Arenas, WoW introduced both types of play, but unfortunately for you there is no 1v1 bracket to Arenas. The design of the game would make such a thing pretty ridiculous.

[Rendakor]

Me too. The xp doesn't seem to be that great since the nerf. I can do 5-10 AVs and still not have a level.

What was really so wrong with leaving it pre-nerf? It's not like it was the clear leader over questing, especially since your choice is heavily playstyle dependent, and less min-max dependent.

The reason AV was nerfed is because they couldn't find a way to properly tie XP to participation, and so every side had 5-10 people sitting AFK in the caves/bunkers.

[pxib]

They don't do nearly enough to encourage actually pvp and you're correct that it comes from their choice to make them objective based.  Is this to cater to the FPS crowd?

I believe it was intended to give folks who aren't very good at PvP, or have chosen a class or specialization ill suited to it, an opportunity to be part of a winning team. As arenas have repeatedly shown, individual classes aren't really balanced for single combat and the Heal/Tank/DPS trinity doesn't work as intended player versus player. Any last-man-standing deathmatch would almost always end with a healer of a stealther. A 15v15, 10 minute respawning race to which side ends with the fewest deaths would rest entirely on player skill... in picking out class distributions well suited to the current patch and the enemy's likely flavors of the month.

Objective PvP is different. A rogue, druid, or nightelf with no skills other than typing speed can offer a lot of help to their team by going invisible somewhere with a good view of some objective and providing intel. Ineffective fighters can still be herded into effective roadblocks and distractions. The best tactics are based on knowledge of the map, common strategies, and player psychology rather than absolute blow by blow killing perfection. If your team can win the objective, you can still win.

In short, Blizzard wasn't trying to appease FPSers. It was doing the same thing it does everywhere else in the game: lowering the barrier of entry so that everybody could play and enjoy.

[Gobbeldygook]

Me too. The xp doesn't seem to be that great since the nerf. I can do 5-10 AVs and still not have a level.

What was really so wrong with leaving it pre-nerf? It's not like it was the clear leader over questing, especially since your choice is heavily playstyle dependent, and less min-max dependent.

The reason AV was nerfed is because they couldn't find a way to properly tie XP to participation, and so every side had 5-10 people sitting AFK in the caves/bunkers.

That wasn't why, although the AFKing was unfortunate.  What was actually going on is that everyone, regardless of level, was getting experience as if they were level x0, e.g. a level 71 player was getting experience from objectives as if he was level 80.

[Merusk]

Thank you for getting my point.  It's the design of the pvp BG's that I have issue with.  They don't do nearly enough to encourage actualy pvp and you're correct that it comes from their choice to make them objective based.  Is this to cater to the FPS crowd? 

I firmly believe that wold pvp objectives would do a lot for WoW, particularly those players that enjoy WG but tire of the repetitive nature of it.  Then again, this may just be a small portion of the playerbase and I'm just talking into a void.  It wouldn't be the first time.

Anything gets repetitive after the 5th or 6th time you've done it.  Unless it's a fully open Pvp world where things can change ANY world objective will be just as repetitive as WG is.  Halla was as was the old Soutshore - Tarren Mill back and forth. 

Also, anything that has real, far-reaching consequences will suck on the underpopulated side.  Come ask Horde on Alleria how much they enjoy being locked out of WG every day but a two hour window on Tuesday when their raiding guilds want their once-a-week quests and shot at the PVP bosses while Alliance raid guilds are doing PvE raids.