I don't think a 'join as group' function is a good idea. Since both sides are PUGs, they are matched on an organizational level, and each side should have a roughly equal chance of winning. The problem can be seen in AB and WSG, where 14 or 9 man teams that use teamspeak absolutely dominate the PUG on the other side. Personally, I've stopped playing level 60 WSG and AB because every other game you get absolutely steamrolled and it really is no fun at all.
I don't think a 'join as group' function is a good idea. Since both sides are PUGs, they are matched on an organizational level, and each side should have a roughly equal chance of winning. The problem can be seen in AB and WSG, where 14 or 9 man teams that use teamspeak absolutely dominate the PUG on the other side. Personally, I've stopped playing level 60 WSG and AB because every other game you get absolutely steamrolled and it really is no fun at all.
I personally hate this sentiment. Not all situations are as black and white as they are sometimes made out to be. It's not just a pack of retards vs the Detriot Tigers of WoW every game. Take my situation, I like the join as group function. I play with 2-3 of my best freinds, not to farm rep of honor, but because we like to pvp. Sure we get crushed by premades from time to time, but we don't care, we're having a good time. If the Join as group option is removed, the chances of dropping in a game togther gets significantly harder.
I might have a different opinion if I was on the other side, and didn't have near insta-queue times, but I don't think so. I rather play with my friends, even if we do get creamed.
You could change the dynamics of AV by creating smaller marks of honor for capturing certain GYs or towers or defending them and then, maybe taking three, make them into a full mark of honor, kind of like Greater Eternal Essence. That would help with feeling like you are being rewarded for staying in the fight for 4 hours and not being able to stay for the full 8 hours for the kill. You might say that there would be too many marks of honor being handed out that way, however AV used to take a whole lot longer to complete.
It would also be interesting if they changed it so you could summon peons, grunts or goblins to repair towers after they were destroyed. This would add to the length of the fight but with getting Lesser Marks of Honor would be alright. It might also take, maybe 5 or 10 minutes to repair, so you would have a chance to ruin their attempt to fix the tower.
I have to agree, I did like the "Warcraft" feel to the instance. I always did like the old game played my self, but I did feel quite exhausted after the fight.
So is it just me, or did this person not follow through with the AV screenshots?
The ones i posted? They should be there. I had to edit them at first, I left the names off.. derr.
Basically they are two pre-formed av matches recorded last week.... 34 people in one from the same server and about 36 in another..
The implication was, you posted two screenshots without any kind of additional content to tie them into the quote you responded to.
It was a non sequitor, to say the least.
Chrimeny, those two screenshots with the post quoted above them aren't enough? Non sequitur my ass... and if you're going to use it at least spell it right ;)
The ones i posted? They should be there. I had to edit them at first, I left the names off.. derr.
Basically they are two pre-formed av matches recorded last week.... 34 people in one from the same server and about 36 in another..
The implication was, you posted two screenshots without any kind of additional content to tie them into the quote you responded to.
It was a non sequitor, to say the least.
Chrimeny, those two screenshots with the post quoted above them aren't enough? Non sequitur my ass... and if you're going to use it at least spell it right ;)
Basically, he said he doesn't want join as a group in AV because it's the only battleground where he doesn't get rolled by premades...and then you post two cherry-picked screenshots of extremely freakish coincidences.
It doesn't exactly follow. Are you implying that people can figure out a way to join as a group? Or are you just introducing us to Mr. Anecdotal and his lovely wife Ms. Evidence?
Haven't tried it for AV yet, but you can arrange matches in WSG if everyone tries to join an existing one. When that game ends, everyone queued for it will be dumped into a new one that opens. They've used that for premade battles in some Battlegroups. I reckon you can do the same in AV, if everyone just individually queued up for the same one.
Arena ladder goes some way in dealing with it, but with some pvp rewards requiring tokens and faction from battlegrounds, I don't see this problem disappearing anytime soon.
The teams currently steamrolling you will be in the arena?
It is my understanding that you will gain more points for fighting a higher ranked team in the arena, so you will be rewarded for taking on a tougher opponent rather than going against the easiest one you can find. I'm not in beta though so if this is wrong feel free to correct me someone.
Originally Posted by Shugorei
I personally hate this sentiment. Not all situations are as black and white as they are sometimes made out to be. It's not just a pack of retards vs the Detriot Tigers of WoW every game. Take my situation, I like the join as group function. I play with 2-3 of my best freinds, not to farm rep of honor, but because we like to pvp. Sure we get crushed by premades from time to time, but we don't care, we're having a good time. If the Join as group option is removed, the chances of dropping in a game togther gets significantly harder.
I might have a different opinion if I was on the other side, and didn't have near insta-queue times, but I don't think so. I rather play with my friends, even if we do get creamed.
It's not so much about not letting people join as groups, it's about teams going against pugs. I think it should be team vs team and pug vs pug. I would welcome a team vs team AV being added, I just don't think it should come at the cost of the pug vs pug balance that AV has now.
If you just want to hang around with your friends thats fine, you could still do so in the group vs group play. I enjoy pvp for the competition, and would like to see a reasonably even playing field.
Basically, he said he doesn't want join as a group in AV because it's the only battleground where he doesn't get rolled by premades...and then you post two cherry-picked screenshots of extremely freakish coincidences.
Freakish coincidence?
Did you know, that using vent, you can coordinate a massive number of people to hit "join queue" at the same time? And that said group will be very likely to get into the same game? (Much easier for Horde than Alliance, though, due to population imbalances)
Basically, he said he doesn't want join as a group in AV because it's the only battleground where he doesn't get rolled by premades...and then you post two cherry-picked screenshots of extremely freakish coincidences.
Freakish coincidence?
Did you know, that using vent, you can coordinate a massive number of people to hit "join queue" at the same time? And that said group will be very likely to get into the same game? (Much easier for Horde than Alliance, though, due to population imbalances)
Basically, he said he doesn't want join as a group in AV because it's the only battleground where he doesn't get rolled by premades...and then you post two cherry-picked screenshots of extremely freakish coincidences.
Freakish coincidence?
Did you know, that using vent, you can coordinate a massive number of people to hit "join queue" at the same time? And that said group will be very likely to get into the same game? (Much easier for Horde than Alliance, though, due to population imbalances)
I've tried that several times in varying numbers.
It is not reliable.
We can normally get a group of 30 into AV by coordinating the time we hit the queue. If too many people get different numbered AVs pop up no one joins, leaves the queue and you try again. Easy and very reliable.
Of course you need to be on the faction with instant queues to manage this. 34 and 36 from the same server in the one AV is easily acheivable with a bit of queue manipulation.
Horde on the Shadowsong server regularly run premade AVs. My understanding is that they all just sign up at exactly the same time, which usually ends up getting about 30 of them into the same battle. It probably helps that they are horde to do this though as they have shorter queue times than alliance. They do it for fun, not honor, and recently won a game in 9 minutesd by rushing the aid station bypassing everything on the way, then off tanking the marshals outside. Read about it here if you want.
The Horde base I find is pretty fine except for that strange building that blocks LOS for the towers that used to be a real pain to get through in the original AV but now serves no purpose. The largest issue I've found in AV is Horde in general rarely has enough defenders and will have often half the number alliance does resulting in them getting run over much more quickly. Alliance side normally has the issue that too many people want to defend. In games where Horde has a decent number of defenders (about 10) it takes Alliance a good amount of time to push through.
The problem is, the alliance can move through the horde base without aggroing any NPCs if they move carefully. On top of that, there are multiple ways into the horde base that make it extremely difficult to create a choke point until you get to the first tower. This tower isn't much of a choke point anymore because it no longer forces dismounts, so you can just ride on through once you send a chunk of the defense back to the relief hut.
The alliance base, on the other hand, has a bridge that must be crossed, providing a lengthy choke point. This choke point isn't as potent as the horde base's choke, but it's longer and you start taking archer fire halfway across. If the alliance are wiley they can avoid almost all archer fire until they enter the final slope before main part of the horde base. Once the horde get inside the alliance base, they have to deal with two to four elites while being peppered with fire. If the alliance plays it smart, they can simply fight one of the elites in the horde base, the elite guarding the relief hut.
Are the differences huge? No, not really. But they are noticable and annoying. Seeing alliance jump over your fence or ride through your base without aggroing anything can be frustrating when you have to plow through a mess of stuff to get the same progress.
There are some other geographical differences that can allow for a strategic advantage in some situations, but they're more subtle than the differences in base construction.
A few counter-annoyances from an Alliance perspective:
-Snowfall is closer to the Horde entrance.
-The two major pre-base chokepoints (Iceblood and Stonehearth) favor Horde. The lay-out is Horde -- GY -- Choke -- GY -- Choke -- Alliance. This means that Horde can defend their GY at the choke point, while Alliance has to split forces or give up either GY or choke, resulting in giving up both pretty soon afterwards. It also makes Stonehearth very hard to recapture for Alliance, since Horde can defend at the choke point, just like in Iceblood.
And of course Alliance PUGs tend to be very bad in PvE. I've lost games where we had a 25 minute lead regarding Relief Hut/Aid Station caps. Reasons being any versions of "lol, I'm shadow priest", "lol, I'm dps warrior" and "omg, you pulled 2 guards at once, that's impossible to beat with 30 people".
I still think the most epic AV I played was when we queued with 25people in our guild and faced a 40people raid from the alliance opposing guild on the other side. We trashed them, but it was a pretty long game, with lots of coordination, defenses/offenses etc. I liked AV during this time better, if they ever make their matching system, I hope we can queue in AV again, big scale guild vs guild that doesn't end up in everyone lagging for 1minute or ruining a green dragon attempt is really really fun. And with the matching system, pugs wouldn't end up vs guilds. Obviously tho, when we were able to queue as a group, we'd end up fighting pugs most of the time and it was pretty bad for them. At least they were fast games for rep ^^
So is it just me, or did this person not follow through with the AV screenshots?
The ones i posted? They should be there. I had to edit them at first, I left the names off.. derr.
Basically they are two pre-formed av matches recorded last week.... 34 people in one from the same server and about 36 in another..
No - Kinv, the OP...
Originally Posted by Kinv
So they updated all the Pvp items with Token cost (like the mounts) along with CP costs.... all 2 handers/ranged weapons seem to require 40 AV Tokens. Il post screenshots in a bit of all the new costs.
So is it just me, or did this person not follow through with the AV screenshots?
The ones i posted? They should be there. I had to edit them at first, I left the names off.. derr.
Basically they are two pre-formed av matches recorded last week.... 34 people in one from the same server and about 36 in another..
No - Kinv, the OP...
Originally Posted by Kinv
So they updated all the Pvp items with Token cost (like the mounts) along with CP costs.... all 2 handers/ranged weapons seem to require 40 AV Tokens. Il post screenshots in a bit of all the new costs.
No pictures. :(
Oops, sry Pic uploaded to the post now. They seemed to have removed/moved the vendors of the lvl 70 armor/weapons though.
I'll go ahead and assume these are the level 60 epics, and that these will be the same ones patched in with the mythical 1.13/2.0 patch coming "Soon(tm)". At least people will have some stuff to save up for, for the expansion. I can see having 100 of AB/WSG/AV tokens handly for the socketable stuff.
10/25/06, 2:41 PM
