1.12 is live

[Merusk]

No, I think these multi-server queues brought out folks who had formerly given up.  I've noticed a lot of noobie mistakes like fighting on the roads in AB or not massing around the tunnel & road entrances in WSG.  Things that /had/ nearly completely stopped on my server.  This was from L60s from a PvP server (Blackhand) so I'm guessing that not all participants are nececcarily the 'most skilled' out there.

[Morfiend]

If I take my rogue in AV now, its a joke. I can easilly get on top of the KB chart. Its almost like playing against children. The problem being you get the unexperiance people on your team also.

[Modern Angel]

I can only speak for myself but yes, I came back after the cross server thing. Shorter queues make the noob factor a bit more tolerable.

[bhodi]

Yep. I feel pretty bad; my (PvE) guild has gotten a little pvp bug, so we queue up 10 of us in WSG. We're in full tier2+. It really is like playing basketball with kids. In WSG, giving our MT the flag is like a tall guy holding the ball just out of the kids reach. We even had him stand in center field to lure them out, becuase we got tired of breaking turtles. In AB, if the group doesn't list everyone from the same server (aka constructed group), we generally 5 cap them. It's really not fair.

[Ironwood]

Don't worry, you'll soon have your rep, your purples and then you can all stop acting like douches.

[Merusk]

Don't worry, you'll soon have your rep, your purples and then you can all stop acting like douches.

Good point.  I know quite a few folks who've started going AV just because it's easy access to some very nice purples.  Had a guy push through from just-into Honored to 1/4 into Revered over this weekend alone.  Get it in now before Blizz realizes what they've done and nerf Rep gains (again).

[Morfiend]

Don't worry, you'll soon have your rep, your purples and then you can all stop acting like douches.

Good point.  I know quite a few folks who've started going AV just because it's easy access to some very nice purples.  Had a guy push through from just-into Honored to 1/4 into Revered over this weekend alone.  Get it in now before Blizz realizes what they've done and nerf Rep gains (again).

I am already exaulted with AV, but thats still the only BG I go to. I really think its the only one that feels like a RPG battle. If I want to play capture the flag ill play Unreal and if I want to play capture and hold Ill play BF2. I really wish they would have put like 3 or 4 maps for each battleground, honestly, how hard would that have been?

[Morat20]

I am already exaulted with AV, but thats still the only BG I go to. I really think its the only one that feels like a RPG battle. If I want to play capture the flag ill play Unreal and if I want to play capture and hold Ill play BF2. I really wish they would have put like 3 or 4 maps for each battleground, honestly, how hard would that have been?

There's at least one other battleground already in game (It's in Azhara) that isn't turned on -- the full design might not be done, but it's obviously there. I suspect that part of the reason for cross-server battlegrounds was to open up new PvP battlegrounds. On a single server, there's just not enough PvPers to keep up all three as is. (If it wasn't AB weekend, there was like a five hour wait for an AB game. The Horde just didn't want to play, despite stomping the Alliance regularly).

[Righ]

Azshara Crater. It's supposed to be a three-part zone similar in size to Alterac Valley. Before she got promoted out of dealing with customers, Caydiem said it was on hold so as not to spread PvPers too thin, so you're right: if they've actually coded it or anything, they could in theory open it now. :)

[Bstaz]

They need to at least add more map versions for the same BGs.  You randomly get dropped into it.  3 or 4 maps for WSG, AB and AV would add spice without spreading the out players.

I always like the idea of a vertical WSG layout done in some manner.  The obvious AV one would be to switch sides and faction details.  A linear AB would interesting it would be a big fight for the middle station which seems to be how everyone wants to play the damn game anyway.

[pxib]

Somebody said the PvP queues were considerably shorter so I popped back in and gave it a try. They are.

That said, as people are pointing out, the intimacy is gone. I don't see names I know on either side of the battle. I can't say "oh, there's Blah, he's an annoing flagrunner" or "better avoid Ding, she always get's that charge/hamstring on me if I'm not watching" or "Foo is here, he'll ninja the Farm whenever we leave it alone". Nobody's happy to see me. Nobody's upset to see me. Also, the low queue times are drawing in a lot of level newbie 10-15's who wouldn't normally play because getting killed over and over AND waiting half an hour for the next game is no fun at all. Waiting 30 seconds? Woohoo!

Overall it actually feels a lot like Guildwars... only you know somebody's "build" almost as soon as you see them. Games come fast and furious with wildly varying skill levels and ZERO social consequence. Uh. Yay.

I may play it a little, but meh. If I want Guildwars I have Guildwars.

[Furiously]

Just get a GG or form a group up and it's a lot more fun. It's a lot more pwn'y.

[Morfiend]

I know what you mean about not knowing the enemy know, but you will slowly its just a larger pool. Also on my server, the alliance had pretty much given up on battlegrounds except one or two really well geared groups that where absolutly no fun to play against in less I also was in a organized group. On my server the wait for AV went from 4 hours to about 5 seconds. And AB and WSG went from 45 minutes for 15 seconds. I am very happy with the changes so far. Although I did like the old AV better, now its much more like a huge game of WSG or PVE.

[Simond]

They need to at least add more map versions for the same BGs.  You randomly get dropped into it.  3 or 4 maps for WSG, AB and AV would add spice without spreading the out players.

Personally, I'd prefer to see 'new' BGs using the existing ruleset, rather than alternate maps. For example, there could be a CTF map off of the Hinterlands somewhere, with Revantusk trolls vs Wildhammer dwarves, your vertical one in deep crypts/dungeons/vaults under Dalaran with Forsaken 'Apothecary Salvagers' against Dalaran 'Defense Force', or an AB-type capture-and-hold in Dustwallow Marsh between the ogres and whatsherface's lot.

Edit: Mind you, what I'd really like to see is a Counterstrike-inspired BG.

[bhodi]

YOU ARE! You're stalking me! <sob>

[Furiously]

Viklas!

[Valmorian]

Who could pass up the chance to be the Happiness Customer?

[Furiously]

that's none of your bussniess...

[Xanthippe]

Some observations with regard to battleground changes.

Prior to the merge, my team (alliance) almost always lost AB and WSG, after a 20-30 minute queue.  The horde teams were almost always guild groups, which were almost always pvp guilds.

Since the merge, my team wins AB and WSG about a third of the time.  When we face server groups, we lose.  When we face horde pugs, surprise! They're as bad as the alliance pugs, and it's about even on wins/losses.  I've also noticed that alliance pvpers seem to be improving slightly this week over last week.

I guess the theory that horde has more experience due to shorter queues was the correct one.

Now with regard to AV, my team loses more often.  My server had pretty good AV battles - even after the changes with npcs, we still saw Lok sometimes and got out the druids and Ivus.  We won more than half the time - maybe 75%.

Since the merge, we lose slightly more than half the time - maybe 55 or 60%.  Half the people in the bgs are convinced that the only way to win is to race to the general and beat him down first.  The other half want to play some defense, take towers, gys and kill Drek... the way my server used to do it consistently, and win more times than not.

When we race the horde to the general, we always lose.  When we play a balanced game with people using their heads - i.e., leaving 2 to cap gys and towers, etc. - we always win.  But what sometimes happens is we have this inbetweeny stuff that doesn't work at all.  Too many people playing defense, not enough smarts on the offense.  And we lose.

I see it as a conflict between those who want to farm rep as efficiently as possible vs. those who want to win (i.e., play for fun, i.e., battle people not mobs).  There's often bg chat to that effect, with people arguing over it.

I assume the horde doesn't argue like alliance does - at least not on my cluster.

[caladein]

Since the merge, we lose slightly more than half the time - maybe 55 or 60%.  Half the people in the bgs are convinced that the only way to win is to race to the general and beat him down first.  The other half want to play some defense, take towers, gys and kill Drek... the way my server used to do it consistently, and win more times than not.

When we race the horde to the general, we always lose.  When we play a balanced game with people using their heads - i.e., leaving 2 to cap gys and towers, etc. - we always win.  But what sometimes happens is we have this inbetweeny stuff that doesn't work at all.  Too many people playing defense, not enough smarts on the offense.  And we lose.

It's insane to not try and take out GYs and Towers since the Towers directly make it harder on the Vandar/Drek pulls (more Warmasters) and the GYs allow faster trips back when you die before you have RH. No wonder the racers lose (and this is that Group 2's AVs normally take ~20mins).

Taking out a Captain isn't as helpful as the towers, but it does disable the other side's Damage buff (and nets 125 rep, which is about a third of killing the General himself).

I see it as a conflict between those who want to farm rep as efficiently as possible vs. those who want to win (i.e., play for fun, i.e., battle people not mobs).  There's often bg chat to that effect, with people arguing over it.

I assume the horde doesn't argue like alliance does - at least not on my cluster.

Nah, they whine the same :P.

[Fordel]

When people go straight for the Captain, I write the game off as a loss. The Captain is something you kill if your already well into a game and either winning so easily that you can spare the people to gank him, or if your loseing so horribly that you kill him to eek out a few more Rep points. It makes me want to eat my hat in frustration, because going straight for the captain defaults you to be 'behind' your enemy (unless they too go for the captain). Not having IB taken while the horde have SP contested and SH capped... ugh ><


As to the race itself, what I've seen happen more then once in my BattleCluster is the alliance just completely bypass IB and go straight to FW. Once FW is capped, a small team of ninja's will take the IB/TP towers while the rest push on the hut. Haven't lost many games when we have the hut and are clearing WarMasters before the horde even contests SP, let alone the aid station.

Ofcourse, we have lost plenty of games because for whatever retarded reason, the alliance is incapable of pulling a single WarMaster out at a time and we spend about ten times as long as we should clearning WarMasters thanks to the GY zerg method of clearing :(. Then you just get the random stupid shit from people... Like you will have a tank controlling a WarMaster, with healers keeping him up with ease, then some random player fears the previously controlled WarMaster, causeing all kinds of retarded shit to happen 

Fun Times!

[caladein]

Hmm, well Alliance side in Battlegroup 2's always Snowfall GY (drive-by) -> IB Garrison -> IB Tower -> IB GY -> ... -> Profit! Works like clockwork 70-80% of the time and we're out in 25mins... unless everyone decides to be a monkey humping a football and pull all the Warmasters or the Horde turtles and it takes 2 hours.

[Xanthippe]

I actually enjoy the longer ones myself over the racing ones.  The really short ones mean you're fighting mobs, not players.  It's like a race to a pve raid, not pvp.

With regard to pulling WMs - I have thus far been unable to pull just one.  I can pull two, but I cannot pull one.  Who should be pulling (what class) and how do they pull just one?  I'm not even sure I've seen just one pulled.

[Merusk]

Hmm, well Alliance side in Battlegroup 2's always Snowfall GY (drive-by) -> IB Garrison -> IB Tower -> IB GY -> ... -> Profit! Works like clockwork 70-80% of the time and we're out in 25mins... unless everyone decides to be a monkey humping a football and pull all the Warmasters or the Horde turtles and it takes 2 hours.

Ditto in my BG.. which I forget the group number of... um Alleria server.

[Velorath]

I actually enjoy the longer ones myself over the racing ones.  The really short ones mean you're fighting mobs, not players.  It's like a race to a pve raid, not pvp.

Try playing on defence, especially on Horde side.  Get a handful of guys in Drek's room and you can get a lot of kills and slow down the enemy if you play things right.  Maybe it's the steeper ramp leading up to the room (and thus making it easier to run out, shoot, and get out of line of site before the enemy can get a lot of attacks off) but the Horde seem to have a better chance of playing defence in their base.

[Righ]

the Horde turtles

Do you mean "defends a base"? It's not Warcraft, its World of Warcraft. They're players, not units. Just something to bear in mind.

ZOMG zerg!!!
ZOMG turtle!!!

[Calantus]

I've been playing AVs contantly lately on both horde and alliance in the same battlegroup (mostly horde though). What I've noticed is that the map is horribly imbalanced when it comes to a PUG rush. SP is very easy to hold with a handful of alliance unless horde rush it properly, or sneak around and drop down, but they don't because they're stupid. IB and FW on the otherhand are rediculously easy to take when only a few horde defend. The bases too are similar. The horde base USED to be a total bitch, but with less NPCs and the NPCs being weak it's completely trivial to just run in there and take it all. The alliance base is so compact though that you get bowman fire and a mass of NPCs all through it and especially at the AS.

The only way for horde to win against a decent alliance group is to defend with 10-15 people. You need that mass to deny Ally taking the ezimode GYs, plus you need people held back to prevent ninjas of the back GYs and towers. Once you do that the geographical and NPC imbalances even out. I'd actually say the horde base is HARDER once there's enough defenders on either side. You can see this when ally are at the general, it's a major major bitch to dislodge so many from there, but as ally you can push horde out pretty easy if you try. So today I've always started by saying we need 10 defenders and keep harping on until we get it, then you need to beat into the offense to "avoid the low road, go around the alliance to SP". We've been winning a lot more on horde that way, whereas before we lost so many in a row I was ready to give up.

Also, the best games are "races" but with both sides defending. Horde should let alliance have SF so they have a GY behind the horde offence, otherwise everyone just get clogged up for hours at one point or another. Usually the game ends by one side deciding to stop trying so hard and letting it end if you don't "race".

[Fordel]

Also, the best games are "races" but with both sides defending. Horde should let alliance have SF so they have a GY behind the horde offence, otherwise everyone just get clogged up for hours at one point or another. Usually the game ends by one side deciding to stop trying so hard and letting it end if you don't "race".

The alliance does the same thing with SH usually, forces the horde to rez in the middle, far away from IB/FW. If we push them completely out of SP/SH, they'll end up back at the tunnel and just overrun IB or FW, usually boneing up the offense in the process.

[Velorath]

The only way for horde to win against a decent alliance group is to defend with 10-15 people. You need that mass to deny Ally taking the ezimode GYs, plus you need people held back to prevent ninjas of the back GYs and towers.

A lot of the time you don't even need that many.  7 or 8 people can be enough to slow them down so long as the offense moves swiftly.  It also helps if the enemy isn't too smart and you can get them to draw out all the WM's.  Sneaking around to take SP is part of a good offense but there are some other issues as well.  The biggest problems I've had in AV is when nobody defends bunkers they've capped, and when the offense pulls all the marshals at once/can't get people to tank or heal when pulling.  I've been part of some great defenses that hold out for a really fucking long time only to have the offense completely break down, unable to even take the aid station.

[Xanthippe]

Anyone have an answer for this?

With regard to pulling WMs - I have thus far been unable to pull just one.  I can pull two, but I cannot pull one.  Who should be pulling (what class) and how do they pull just one?  I'm not even sure I've seen just one pulled.

Talking about playing alliance side - Is it just my imagination or does the horde have a bigger room/easier time with this?

[Morfiend]

As to pulling WMs, I think you have a hunter pull 2 of them, and as long as no one hits the second one, it will run back inside when the hunter feigns.

[caladein]

As to pulling WMs, I think you have a hunter pull 2 of them, and as long as no one hits the second one, it will run back inside when the hunter feigns.

That, or just have the hunter kite it for a bit (like out to Frostwolf/Stormpike) and bring it back. Kiting it around the base is bad because of the random charges and cleaves though...