It would make quite a difference, but it would only limit the number of people available for the overall zergfest, without actually removing the leechers. That change on its own would most likely lead to longer, less rewarding and more frustrating games. However, along with the anti-Av measures in place, you could reasonably assume the game would be faster paced, and brobably more players will be active. The only thing that can, and probably will go wrong is the fact that leechers will become active, but contribute to the game balance by fighting in the Field of Strife so as not to get the out of combat debuff.

However, if the honor item purchase system would be based not on battleground marks but on individual marks that can be obtained by achieving objectives, it is my firm belief the games would be a lot more interesting.

Here are a few ways the individual marks could be earned:
-assisting in flag captures in EOTS/AB
-capturing, returning or assisting the flag carriers in WSG
-assisting in capturing towers or engaging combat with the elite lieutenants/commanders that are subsequently killed
-winning a battleground
and so on

The problem I have with the "report the AFKers" is that if they've changed it that you never respawn in the cave, you actually won't see the AFKers at all. I guess you will on your map, but I can see people not getting reported enough.

Also, just like when they "fixed" gold farmers and suddenly Key Logging appeared in masses, are we just going to see people use Bots in AV now, basically like the ones that people use for Leveling, just run your character back to the PvE mobs back by each base and grind there for 15 minutes.

Finally, fixing it so the Alliance can't just stroll through to Drek would be nice. It's disheartening to head back on D only to find that every NPC is still alive and Alliance are just riding between them to get to the Aid Station/Relief Hut by Drek.

I can confirm that it's definitely possible to single pull Drek even if all warmasters are up.

What I would do to fix all the BGs:

Remove EOTS. It is an abortion of design, implementation and enjoyment. Its existence is also highly detrimental as it dilutes an already small player base of BG-goers.
Rework AB to be a 10man BG and decrease the size of WSG and AV.
Reduce the cost of all honor gear by 1/3. Cause double honor gains for queuing in a group of 5 or more. Implement a queue system which is based off your arena rating, rather than your gears' iLevels.
Put a 20minute hard cap on WSG/AB and a 90minute hard cap on AV.
And most importantly, remove BG-specific tokens. They serve no purpose other than to force people to participate in BGs they have no interest in, or in most cases, forces people to watch a movie while pressing space bar once every 4 minutes just to be able to buy gear.

The fact that Blizzard is considering adding ANOTHER battleground for WOTK is mind-bogglingly stupid.

Blizzard's aware of the dilution problem, sadris; they address it in the Blizzcon PvP panel discussion. The solution they seem to be aiming for is combined queues - one queue for 15-person BGs, one queue for 10-person BGs, etc.

I think the fundamental thing that they're missing right now is a real purpose to battlegrounds. Before TBC, batlegrounds were the only outlet for competitive PvP. These days, though, for most players, they're a treadmill that only serves as a precursor for arenas. Perhaps the introduction of guild battlegrounds will create more interest in them, but right now the Honor rewards are priced inconsistently with the desire of players to actually perform honor-accruing activities.

Link to Blizzcon PvP panel

I'm fine with most of what Sadris said. But not on giving bonus honor for queuing as a group. Many people out there have no choice but to do solo or duo BG honor. Penalizing them further serves no purpose.

My fixes:

- Up honor gained from non AV bgs. Please please don't just nerf AV otherwise it will take forever and a day to get any item from there.
- Reduce costs a bit on BG items
- Don't see why they have to change anything for queues. Certainly not based off arena levels. Is it the people with top Arena scores who need BGs the most? Nope it is the people just breaking in with low arena scores that need BG items the most to compete.

Actually the best part of increasing rewards for group q's is that generally queuing (sp?) as a group reduces your total number of games played, even more so if you play decent competition. If Blizzard can make it so playing competitive games, even losing maybe, gives reasonable rewards, then people are more likely to remain interested in doing it.

Can not agree more on "PUGs are idiots" statement. PUG battle ground experiences can totally destroy your confidence on human intelligence(or stupidity). I am a warrior and I often have to stay on farm duty, and have to constantly remind people to watch after flags, don't get drawn out into the open, etc. And most importantly, Don't ever leave a node unguarded.

Sure you might be a newbie given your gear sucks, but it is not hard to understand "Defense" more than often wins the game.

AB is fine. Don't fix something that isn't broken.

And how do you decrease the size of WSG?

Why shouldn't we have a new battleground? I, for one, enjoy PUG battleground experience, and I am a bit sick of running the same battlegrounds for 2 years.

What's funny is that Blizzard implemented the right solutions to the wrong problems.

Eye of the Storm should have AB-style flag capping instead of the world-PvP proximity tower system.

Alterac Valley should have always had the proximity capping system with a tweaked limit (10 players max?)


The Warsong Gulch flag should have a channeled pickup (very short, ~2 seconds) even when a player is dropping it.

Arathi Basin is OK as it is, although that has more to do with class and mechanics changes than anything else (back when Paladins could solo-defend a flag for half a minute or two could defend a flag pretty much indefinitely, Alliance had a huge advantage...don't get me started on Shadowmeld...).




And they should've made Alterac Valley a mirrored map with slight graphical tweaks. Either that or, as people have said since the BG opened up, the maps should switch back and forth. Lore is a complete side-issue, and besides is extremely easy to explain. This is a field that has been fought over for years. It is not inconceivable that both sides have managed to exchange positions over time. Or they can just say that the"face of the battlefield" has warped over time because of all the heavy bombardment and fighting on it. Of course, knowing Blizzard, once you put orc archers in the Alliance bunkers they will have LoS issues and won't shoot at anything unless it it standing right in front of them.

They need to reward time spent in a BG. Not resource ticks or flag returns, just give us honor for being there. The main reason I hate long games is because they're less honor. I for sure don't want to be in a 1 hour WSG when it returns the SAME honor as a 10 minute game. The fomula for honor coming out of a game should be something like this:

HonorPerMinute = 20
WinBonus = 100
(TimeSpent * HonorPerMinute) + WinBonus = HonorGained

So a 1 hour WSG match you lose is worth 1200 honor, and a 10 minute win is worth 300 (~1800/hour).

Yes that means people can just sit there and gain honor but I think that is by far the lesser of two evils than making a competitive game the worst possible kind of game.

It would be nice if they fixed the stupid towers so they function much like the EOTS towers. Currently, towers are simply death traps for mages and hunters. My personal favorite is being attacked through the wall at the top of IB Tower by mace-specced rogues. Sexy.

Mace proc! Through the wall! GG blizzard.

They simply need to rework the incentive structure for BGs. The obvious general philosophy is that BGs are a simple timesink means of progression, which isn't necessarily bad - you have arenas and raiding for other forms of progression. But I think in general, people would agree that:

-Winning should produce more honor than losing
-Actively participating in the BG should produce more honor than standing around at the entrance, even if you lose
-Defeating organized teams should provide more honor than defeating PuGs, regardless of game time
-WSG in particular needs a time cap, either for the game or how long you can hold a flag

If the incentive structure would change you'd see more people organizing to do BGs because the honor is better, and *trying* to play other organized teams because again, the honor is better. As it is you are still better off letting another organized team win in AB so you can get to the next pug and steamroll them.

By the same token, if afking in the cave weren't profitable, people wouldn't do it. In addition to the small passive zone rewards, you should be rewarded with more than just a teeny bit of kill honor for actually being on offense or defense, preferably with the same point intake in both.

Yes, I saw a lot of Allies attacking bowmen through the walls of the Horde towers over the weekend.

lol through the walls. Thats classic blizzard

The sad part is, as long as the bots did something simple like that but useful, like just going on endless taming/hide loops (well within the capability of glider or something) I actually wouldn't feel all that bad about the AFKers anymore =(

Yes, the anti-afk "fix" was the single best idea they've had ever regarding BG changes.

Yep, most games are slightly longer (20-25 minutes) and I tend to win about 70% of the AVs I play now. Queues are substantially shorter now too -- it used to be 30-35 minutes on AV weekends, and now it's <10.

AVs are still total zergfests and the graveyards cap far too slowly, but at least you can spend most of your time actually playing now.

just start to balance the av, thats all i got to say.

the balancing between horde and ally base is just a joke.

On nightfall the vanndar exploit pull has been common knowledge for several months now, so horde generally did pretty well overall, but now that the AFKs are all gone I'd say the winrate has gone up even higher. Sometimes we are getting Vann dead before the aid station even caps. Then again, once they fix the Vanndar exploit we'll see what happens.

The Vanndar exploit pull is somewhat known on our battle group, but it isn't quite common knowledge just yet, and pugs will fuck it up more times than it's worth attempting. So we generally pull and kill Marshals =x

Smart Alliance groups will still be able to stall for long enough at SP and then bridge/AS to eke out a win though.

It is quite common on my realm. When the horde wins (it is still about 60-40 alliance win/loss), they often do it in 15 minutes and without even capping DB north or South. They win, but they get squat for honor.

Another thing horde have been doing is sending teams of about 5-8 back to Snowfall after Balinda to roll up snowfall, IB tower, IB GY, and TP, thus causing the inevitable turtle. It is quite easy for them to do- alliance never has more than 2 people guarding (if they even guard Snowfall), and they never have a balanced group defending. All the horde needs is one healer and one warrior and 3-4 other and it is gg alliance. If you meet them at Snowfall and stop them, it is pretty much an alliance win, because they are then so spread out without any concentrated offense.

For whatever reason, though, the horde seem to love to turtle on my realm. I have no clue why.