I know this has been brought up before, but after another boring weekend of watching 30 horde afk in AV tunnel I thought I'd try to see if there's any "new ideas" for trying to fix AV, or hopefully maybe if there is a decent amount of good ideas blizzard will implement them in AV or possibly add them to a new BG (Azshara crater?). Here's a few things people have suggested in the past and I've talked about with some friends.

-Possibly lower the Cap to 25->30 people per side

-Force you to take the Graveyards in Order.

-Change the flags to EoTS style

-Change how the NPC support works. Instead of basing it off crystals and armor turned in, remove all the stupid turn-ins and base the NPC support off of amount of kills gained by the team, 500 kills gives you the first unit upgrade, 750 gives you riders, 1000 2nd unit upgrade, 1250 slightly stronger Riders, 1500 Summoned bosses, 1750 3rd unit upgrade, 2000 enable the flight masters, Also change the flight masters instead of just unleashing a Wyvern/Gryphon add Halaa style bombing runs, 3-5 people can do bombing runs ala Halaa on the next GY you're trying to cap(route changes every time you cap a new GY).

-Lower the amount of honor you receive for the game itself.

-Reward honor based on Healing/Dmg done and flags cap'd(Flag cap honor rewarded to every1 within 30 yards of the flag)

-Allow grps of 5 possibly even 10 people to grp queue for AV.

-Balance the sides a little better, slight terrain changes like raising the horde walls and removing the shortcut that bypasses the NPCs, possibly make the middle tower cause you to dismount again and other various small changes that would be relatively easy to do.

-Cause the spawn points to rotate every day or week.



Also more along the lines of all Pvp and not just AV add new rewards to keep Pvping for, add more Pvp based epic gems, add new gear, possibly even add Old Gladiator gear to the CP system in a couple of seasons, IE add S1 gear when S3 or 4 starts.

Making it group queue *only* would fix a lot of AV's problems.

Lowing the cap to 25-30 would make it harder on pugs without nerfing the power of NPCs it's already annoying having 10-15 people running around being generally useless since it just makes it harder to kill the WMs and Drek.

Forcing GY, this is a rumor in 2.1 but nobodies tested it last I heard, overall this wont change anything except give groups a better advantage, they'll just setup people to guard each GY and instead of losing in 11 minutes you'll lose in 23-26 minutes.

EoTS Style, no no no no no and no. EoTS style is the worst idea Blizzard ever came up with, it's horrible and all it does is force you to play the zerg game and removes all the tatics of Rogue/Druid goes and ninjas AS, or you try to ninja towers.

Rather interesting idea, could possibly work pretty well.

Again, could possibly work well.

No, terrible idea I don't think I need to explain why.

Would be rather amusing, but i'd much rather have to assault FW Keep then DB, (Hi pit-o-doom)

Adding Gladiator gear to honor points would make it worst, S2 gear isn't going to be amazing getting people easy S1 gear would just be bad chang.

You can't "bypass the NPCs" in the sense that you used to anymore, you can't climb up the waterfall or ride behind the fence. You can however ride upto the NPCs laugh at them and ride on by.

The hut of dismount was just stupid coupled with old NPCs it created a very strong bottleneck at the exit on the other side. Two well played horde could easily hold 20+ alliance because of it - you can argue if this should be intended, but the rest of the game will disagree, there was absolutely no way to hold DB with two people against ten times as much horde even with old NPCs and extremely cheesy tactics 90% of the playerbase wouldn't even know.

I like the idea of making it random which side you have to defend (so Allys protect Drek sometimes), and using that segway to allow Alliance vs. Alliance PvP games if there are significiantly more Alliance players than Horde players in the queue.

NPCs can be easily re-tuned for a lower cap, as for the bypassing the NPCs i was talking about going right after entering the gate and up the small hill behind the huts. As for the dismounting idea, I was just trying to throw out ideas to make the horde side base stronger since right now the alliance base is significantly harder to enter.


The change is to actually to encourage Pvp instead of the 2 grps just running past each other.

Who honestly enjoys the current flag system? It's stupid, a single Paladin or Ice Mage can defend against 2 dozen people for a retarded amount of time. Unlike EoTS the AV map is the flags in order, so every1 will be fighting at the one flag, and it will change based on who is winning the fight basically.


Why? I'm guessing from your post that you like to pug AV, but Wow is an Massive MULTI-PLAYER game, you're supposed to play it w/ friends online. Being unable to queue w/ some friends to play a certain BG is just stupid. All it would do is remove the annoyance of having to sit by the queue guy and hit enter at the same time if you want to play w/ friends.



After thinking about it yea it wouldn't be for the better to add S1 gear as soon as S2 starts, but what about S1 when S3 or S4 starts? Then the gear isn't really a significant upgrade but it provides more gear then the blue gear that you can attain now.

It's passed it's used by date let it die, I hope they do not add updated items from honor rewards.

If they are adding updated honor rewards at some stage, make AV more like Unreal Tournament 1.0's assault except with a fixed time and heavily stacked in the offensive teams favor where the defensive team can delay the offenses progress quite a bit, team with the best offensive time wins. Make games last about 15-20min max.

I like EoTS. Not because of the game itself, but because it's the best battleground to get in some good small-scale fights.

Anyways, concerning AV, you really have to specify what you are trying to fix. Is it afkers? Is it map imbalances?

There's always going to be a background level of afkers. This is because people need to grind honor for gear. For starters, that gets to you after a while. You need a break. But afking is a way to maximize your honor in your downtime, while you watch a movie or do laundry. Unethical? Probably, but that's how the world turns. Or some people might not even be taking a break, they might be doing that all the time without ever playing. Again, it's unethical but that's the way the world turns.

One observation of mine though, is that faction imbalances lead to more AFKers. I don't know if you guys remember the very old AVs with more guards. But in those days Horde used to win an overwhelming majority of the time. In those days, it was the alliance who were afking. The lake on the road to Stormpike was full of alliance fishing. There were still Horde afkers of course, but they were far fewer in numbers.

The modern AV hugely favors the alliance, and that observation is reversed. You probably have 10-15 horde on average that are afk in the tunnel, while the alliance have much fewer.

So my point is that faction imbalances engender even more afking. I think the historical beating that the Horde layed on the Alliance has been more than rectified, and now it's time to push for greater parity. Most of it is geography, natural chokepoints, and how you funnel unorganized masses of horde into a natural defense like the alliance have at Stormpike Graveyard.

Some of the ideas that immediately pop into my head:
-Change the location of the Iceblood Graveyard flag so the horde have to pass it on their way out. That creates a natural defense using unorganized players.
-Same for Frostwolf, though it's not nearly as bad here.
-Make the tower in the horde base dismount people again.
-Move the horde towers so they actually do something. As it stands, people get shot like twice on their way to the relief hut and that's it. Horde get pelted by numerous archers for 800 a hit (on cloth) and that lasts pretty much indefinitely.
-Move horde NPCs so that they aggro alliance as they rush the GY. It's pretty gay that I have to fight Lana Thunderbrew, the Stablemaster, etc. etc. while the alliance get a free run through our base.

Alternatively, you can just do the reverse to the alliance resources. Things like moving Lana Thunderbrew and her gang of 5 friends away from the path leading to the Aid Station. In fact, that might be a preferable option because fast games discourage AFKers as well.

I like this idea alot. Would put alot of things into perspective for some people. Having played both sides. The choke point of a bridge for horde sucks, but having horde use 'creative pulling' to win without killing any commanders is something I'd love to do as alliance.



Edit: They should bring back snowballs, allow them to only be usable in the tunnels. Nothing made my AV experience better than 'tossing' people out of AV who were afk. The new 'trick' if noone has seen it is to have a mage open a portal right at the gate, pretty funny to watch 2-3 people leave right after someone puts it up. Granted I havn't done this myself, but saw it the other day.

- Give AV group queue back. I remember one of the reasons they did that initially was to stop people from queueing their level 40 friends in. That's been fixed, and the BG itself has changed so much since than that group queueing wouldn't be as powerful as before. As it is, AV is fairly "organized" in that, people rush to take over a GY together, they rush to kill a Captain together, and than they rush to kill the leader together. A group will just do these things more efficiently. As it is there is always four people who ninja cap the back two Horde GY's at the start of every game, this is something that most organized groups would do anyways.

- Change the flow of battle. The landscape dictates the flow of battle, and right now the initial start of the AV has 30 Alliance charging Galv and 30 Horde charging Stonehearth. Neither side crosses each other's pass, and the first Alliance tower is completely skipped. If I stay on defense, I don't even see Horde until they capture Stonehearth and start making their way up the narrow trail leading to Stormpike. This isn't news to anyone so I'll stop repeating AV babble here, but I think terrain plays a huge part in making AV lame. Most Horde players just don't fight back.

- Realize this isn't an FPS. Very few people have "favorite maps" in MMORPGS. We have favorite style of play, and sometimes a favorite instance, but very few people *really* love a particular BG, and if they do, it's almost certainly negated by the idiots that end up in their BG. So, we like old stuff for it's novelty, not for it's actual gameplay. Give up on AV. Make it more playable, but stop trying to push it. I'd love to see a new BG come out, and have that BG replace AV for the honor weekend. Even starting a different "epic" type BG like AV would be fine, as long as there is new artwork, new mobs, new terrain, and new content. Oooh, new PvP content.

So, mixed opinions from me. I'd like to see AV get fixed. I'd also like to see another BG over it.

You get small-scale fights in AB too, and you still can ninja nodes with 1-2 people, EoTs encourages zerging.

AFKing only became a big problem when the currency system came in, obviously it was still an issue before that but it was on a far smaller scale and they weren't rewarded for it as much.

You can capture bunkers in AV as Horde and the bowman despawn, and theres a place you can stand specifically where you wont get them in combat, so stealth into DB, capture it and they're all gone by the time your teammates make it there.


My understanding was the group queue fix was actually due to win trading, queue 40 people on Horde and Alliance, trade wins all day and you would get mass honor because of Alliancce queue times being 40-80 minutes for WSG while you could trade wins/loses in 25-35 minutes.

I don't think AV is fixable. The main problem with it has little to do with the map, and a lot to do with the expectations of the players that play it.

The av map is still based around the alliance is defensive(paladins) and Horde is offensive(shamans).

Random sides would help a fair bit with expectations and indeed that would help with AB and WSG as well.

But the map imbalances themselves are relativiy small. The "How to win Horde AV" has been published many times, its just slow, just as the alliance wins are slow if Horde put up any sort of resistance. To this day their is still a group from Proudmoore Horde that play the occasional group AV with 5-10 Guildies in the game. If I see them I know straight off I am in for a 2+ hour game win or lose. But it is the honor system itself ,not av that means a fast game(win or lose) is better than a slow win. This again applies to WSG and AB but the Horde gain the benefit their.

I thought about making a post about AV, but I guess someone else did it!

Anyway, my thoughts:

1. Horde starting point should be pulled back closer to the Frostwolf base. Horde always reach and cap Stonehearth graveyard before Alliance can even reach Field of Strife. On the other end of the stick, Horde always end up respawning at the cave when the first Horde GY is taken and the natural order of play in PUG AV's is to not even look south of the cave if you're Horde. Pulling the cave further south would fix all the problems mentioned above.

2. EOTS style capping.

3. Revamp resource driven events. Can't even finish capturing frostwolves before the game ends anymore. Cap a frostwolf stable similar to Arathi Basin style and just let the NPC's acquire their own resources over time. A display on top shows how long before frostwolf reinforcements come. Same case with capturing the mine and have that elite zerg show up as well.

4. Bombing runs. This is more experimental, but if we could capture a gryphon or wyvern roost and start bombing the main base, Halaa-style, I think it would be pretty cool.

5. Group queues. Battlegroups are here, let the group-only AV's commence.

6. Move Snowfall GY more towards the center of the field. Not fought over enough and it's in the Alliance natural path of advancement towards Galv.

The reason I like AV but have grown bored with all the other BGs is because it offers some semblance of large scale PvP, akin to Tarren Mill raids. I'd like to see it returned to day long battles tbh and gain fun at the cost of honor farming.

Remove all the NPCs. This is PvP, not PvE. While NPCs can provide a nice random element to many encounters(i.e. getting 3 mobs to aggro someone in world pvp), this just barely happens. It clutters the instance and makes AV too much about fighting AI.

Raise the player cap immensely(if possible) and reintroduce group queueing.. 40v40 is alright, but the map can support so much more(not sure if the servers can). I'd think something along the lines of 200v200 would be better. This will give you the numbers to have large battles for the middle, large battles for the bases, the towers, etc. without it sucking up all the players in the instance. However, to avoid bottlenecking and creating huge field of strife slaughters(fun, but not too dynamic) cutting down on the choke points would be necessary.

The DB bridge, IB, etc., should all have multiple approaches like SP GY does. They shouldn't be equal. One should be all uphill, dismount players, make them jump off cliffs(a la SP), swim underwater, provide the defenders with a proximity buff, etc., but there should be alternatives.

For victory conditions, there might not even need to be one set condition. Maybe just have it like it is now with bonus honor(per LT, per Tower, etc.) but have those points be continual. Like we cap IB tower. 30mins later horde caps it(after defending it for 5mins) and gains points again, etc.

It's mind boggling that people keep suggesting EoTS style so this needs to be explained more. First off, lets start by saying, pugs are idiots.

Arathi Basin was great because you needed skills and tatics to win, you could not leave a node unguarded or it would be taken, even with 1-2 guarding it still had a chance to be captured by a smart Rogue or abusing engineering items.

Eye of the Storm however requires no skill and you just need to know how to zerg, since the match can't be ended in 3m with a 4 cap you have no reason to really guard since it can't be "ninjaed" you just have to either zerg another one or go zerg to defend.

While in AB you could zerg to a victory it was far harder to be effective and you could still ninja nodes and had an actual reason to guard and call out. Pugs like EoTS better specifically because you don't have to think and the rest of your teammtaes can fail at PvP and still win.

EoTS in AV would be horrible and would just kill the battleground.

I dont know what AB you played... but playing grp v grp AB there wasn't any "ninja caps" because people weren't paying attention... AB was all who brought mages to AE on the flags, which team got the luckiest w/ the GY respawns to AE once and reset the cap timer, and once in awhile whos Rocket helm/MC cap lasted long enough to cap on 2 people. There was a massive reason that WSG was always the prefered BG for competitive play.

Considering we both play on Bloodlust I would have to disagree. Killing 1 person, fearing another before reinforcements arrived was definitly do-able as the delight of our team of 2 rogues capping the flag while Horde were distracted at that very same flag.

Running WSG meant the massive annoyance factor of Blackrock Horde tactics and we allways preferred to get the extra people and go to AB if possible. Just the difference between Alliance and Horde in the same BG.

The difference between AV and other battlegrounds? Pug AV gives you the chance to feel you made a difference. Where as AB and WSG superior communication,feedback and tactics are greater than individual skill, making AV queuable as a group would soon reduce it to mostly played by groups and give individual skill less meaning.

Recklessness, kill 2 people.
Fear bomb
Sap/Blind
MC Cap
Rocket Helm

ect, like every class had a way to ninja from 1-2 people, and most groups only left 1-2 on things like Farm.

They need to make it random which side of the map you have to fight for so alliance can see firsthand how ridiculous their base is to get into. The horde archers barely shoot anything, meanwhile all 8 archers at both dun baldar bunkers have a damn near full capacity to fire on anyone between halfway across the bridge, all the way up to the aid station flag. They just mow people down surprisingly fast, especially cloth. Then look at all the other random NPCs past the bridge. Mountaineer Boombellow standing right at the end of the bridge, the commander that walks between the 2 bunkers, corporal whateverhisnameis standing near the south bunker, the entire blacksmith area with those 4-5 NPCs, and then the actual flag guards. All this is pretty awful even with 0 alliance resistance. God forbid alliance actually leave anyone at all behind to play defense, particularly any skilled hunters or druids that sit there knocking people off the aid station flag all day while horde gets murdered by NPCs.

I really don't think there is any way to fix AV really. People want to grind the fastest honor possible, and there are no incentives to play defense, in fact playing defense is counterproductive. Maybe if they threw out diminishing returns on honor from kills, people might not mind having those stalemate zerg vs. zerg games with lots of kills rolling in. I don't know, but regardless, they need to bring PvP back into AV instead of the PvE zone that it is now.

20 bonus honor and one less guard for your side / one more for the opposite faction.
I've found defending attacked towers to be one of the key points of an AV match.

The usual pug just cannot handle a stonehearth + 2 dun baldar pull.

Too bad too little people actually do this.

// edit
Actually they already changed this from 4 kills/day to 10 kills/day.

Yes, I'd totally love to see Grid blocking the lower half of my screen...