Well, it's a bit of a mixed bag...

On one hand, it's the end of endless AVs - even if there's a turtle at the bridge, once all the towers are capped, it's just a case of collecting HKs until the game is over.
In my opinion it will also make healing more valuable - if you get healed, you won't die (so quickly...) and your reinforcements don't go down as fast.

On the other hand, I hope they are going to up the amount of honor you get from a victory, since they are removing all the lieutenants (it's in the blue notes from MMO champion) - that's a big loss of honor, considering they are worth 20 a piece and that during a "normal" game horde kill 6-7 of them... I know they mentioned upping the amount of honor from tower captures though.

I don't really think it will make any difference to the zerg game, as killing the general ends the game. A full 40 man zerg (or even 30 with 10 defence) to the base can probably handle a 4 warmaster pull and there'll still be a race to kill Vanndar/Drek.

Another thing I've noticed is that there is still no trace of change in the design of the towers...Allies have it a lot easier when it comes to capping towers, since the flag is inside a room, with no covering fire from the archers. Hordies have to find the sweet spot for flag capping, and that's not always possible. This is going to be more relevant if you don't have to worries about lieutenants.

Of course, as other have mentioned, there's still no fix to the chokepoint at SH where a few defenders can pretty much indefinitely stall the advance (because people only try to go through in 2 and 3s). The removal of the elites in the base is nice, but that's mainly for the horde, as the allies have had it easy for a while with riding straight through our base.

In any case, I'll tootle to the PTR when it's up and have a go, I'm not hoping for a solution, but at least it will be nice to have a change.

I know how this is going to turn out. Horde caps SH, ally hunkers at SH bunker. Play X minutes, ally eventually get pushed back. Ally hunker at SP. Play X minutes, SP gets taken, ally hunker at DB north. If the cap is set at any reasonable amount (say, less than ~30-45 minutes worth of actual gameplay), pretty much every game is going to be decided through deaths. In a turtle, the ally will never get past SF for two reasons: 1. the alliance always plays more conservatively in my experience and 2. IB is further from alliance than SH is from horde, so alliance technically have to capture an extra base in a zerg vs zerg fight.

It's just going to be the AV of 2 years ago, with a time limit (and hence theoretically better honor gain). Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is up to one's own opinion.


Of course, there is the other possibility that is the complete opposite: a 100% zerg with absolutely nobody defending (since defending with a skeleton crew usually leads to a lot more deaths for the defense comparably than the offense, it might not be worth it to risk your count by defending) now that all captains are gone and you only have 1 general to kill and faster tower caps, leading to <10 minutes games.

Whether the changes will result in really short games, or painful stalemates, really depends on this:
If this means players will automatically respawn at the forward-most graveyard, then zerging will obviously be preferred, but if not, then a failed zerg will be very costly and may incentivize turtling.


edit PS: I never understand why horde always complain about SP. IMO its one of the easiest bases to capture, its just that horde never understand what to do with it. The gy is surrounded by 3 sides of cliffs, all within 41 yards. Plant hunters and mages on top with some healers, and do a 2 prong attack with the melee and the rest of the healers from the main "choke point" and one from the mine side. I frankly feel that the area by SH bunker is a much better choke point than SP GY can ever be-we used to be able to defend that point for hours back in old school AV, especially if the bunker is still up. Although I will admit the Dun Baldar bridge is pretty cheap (on the other hand, look on the bright side: most alliance are too stupid to bring their AV trinket so it should be pretty easy to hold the relief hut once you have it).

So with these changes did they also mention (at work so I cannot follow the link) they would be implementing different level boundaries for AV? Currently it is 51-60 and 61-70. Now if deaths matter, those level 61s become a much larger liability. Of course if the reinfocement count is high enough, the difference is not so great, but it could definately create some extra "hate" towards the lower levels who just want some fun.

Changing it to be more like the other BGs would make it more fun, and if they do not wish to alienate those level 60's without TBC, they can always create an extra AV bracket so it becomes 51-60, 61-69 and 70's only.

I also agree with a poster above me. I do not think these changes will totally fix the problem, but it might be different enough to just make it fun again, even for only a short while =).

No you don't.

Even that depends on the actual numbers affiliated to resources. It's impossible to tell, yet, what the impact of resources will be as we don't know any numbers and until we know them there is little reason for extensive speculations on how big the effect of death or capturing a tower is. The only thing we know is that towers and Balinda/Galvangar are worth "significant amounts" of resources which is still pretty vague.

The missing piece of the puzzle is map changes. I can only assume they're changing the geography as well. I'd be surprised if they simply change the rules and don't add (or break) a chokepoint or two here and there.

If Balinda/Galvanger becomes significant objectives of AV, they really need to change the location and mob design for these 2. There is just huge difference between them. While balinda is easily 2manned without breaking a sweat, Galvanger is still pretty leathal miniboss that needs tank, dps and healers.

It seems to me they want to stop the "prisoner's dilemna" aspect to the game which ends up that "cooperation strategy" of all offense on both side nets the most points (horde+ alliance) over time (however, adding some to Defense helps your side alone...but if both sides do it it slows things down and costs both poiints).

No idea how it will pan out though. My guess is alliance is soo stupid they will all go on defense.

I foresee a huge turtlefest. Everyone seems to be worrying about SP, but if horde can actually push alliance from SH to SP then winning will not be problem. Good luck breaking through the SH gy/balinda starting defense tho.

Anyone remember 1-2 hour long field of strife battles like in the old days? shiver

You mean when people still summoned Lok'holar and Ivus? I actually miss the richness of those games when people had to work together to break a huge turtle instead of the DPS race it is now.

Seriously, watching a Rag-sized Lok'holar pound everything in sight in SP is a hell of a rush.

Lok'holar and Ivus and turtles are the kinds of things that you look back on fondly and think "man that was a blast", much like cross country practice.

Actually experiencing them fucking sucks.

They should have changed AV to the old 3 hour long epic battles and made them yield far more honor than they did.

The problem is that if you race to the end you can get honor way quicker than if you actually upgrade your guards and summon your boss elementals.

If things like that gave out an additional 500 (or even more) bonus honor people would think twice about racing.

Summoning the flying guys should also give out a ton of honor.

If you play a 2 hour long AV from start to finish and complete every objective there is -- capturing mines, letting loose rams/wolves, summoning ivus/lok, upgrading to champion guards, and destroying every bunker and tower the winning team should get something like 6-7k honor not including honor from honorable kills (and the losing team should get a little bit less, but not by much, you'll see why in a second).

The main point is that the blunt of the honor distributed now has to do with killing the general. Therefore, people go kill the general as fast as they can and then get in a new AV. If the majority of the honor is gotten through objectives and not nearly as much through actually killing the general then people are going to complete the objectives, and that's what AV needs to revert (in a sense) back to.

Call me cynical (or simplistic), but I often wonder if the race to the finish that AV has become is as much a result of people not even understanding the battleground as it is of pure greed and the desire for instant gratification.

Pre-BC, I took my mage to exalted for the epic offhands, and my rogue alt to exalted for gits n shiggles. I've also even purchased the Peeling the Onion book from the vendor and read through it cover to cover.

Since then I've done countless AV runs at 70 to earn honor on both of those characters that have been exalted for months now. Yet, I still don't have a full understanding of how every aspect of the battleground works. Maybe I'm just retarded and prefer not to think about it, but I can't help but think that a majority of the players in AV have no idea why turning in Armor Scraps is beneficial at all. Not knowing what you're doing inherently leads to a lack of effort, so people will focus on what they DO comprehend: Kill boss, earn honor.

Isn't that called AB already?

I expect a turtlefest one way or another. People are going to be afraid to advance in anything smaller than mass numbers, because if you get caught by a larger group it will suck. Say, 6 v 4 will often end up with the 4 wiped out and the 6 with maybe two casualties.

The problem with 2 hour games is that you have to have a good method for handing out bonus honor for the section you did get to play in case you had to quit, which blizzard apparently refuses/unable to do. Especially in a turtlefest stalemate, because you won't get caps and thus no honor until the end.

Oh, and Belinda could use and armor buff. There's a decent chance 5 people would walk in, kill her, walk out before anybody could get there in sufficient numbers to do anything or possible even notice she was under attack. I mean, I've seen earth elementals tank her. The horde capt is a much meaner prospect.

Which is a problem created when they forced you into a raid group. Now you get ~2 honor per kill in AV because it is split between the entire nearby raid, rather than you soloing someone for 21 honor. If the penalty for being in a group wasn't so harsh, the honor gain from PVPing might actually be worth participating in said PVP.

I would be happy if they replaced balinda with Shade of Aran

Dude, you are playing PUG, not with your competent guildies all on vent doing sunstrider. Any complex tactical manuevers should be avoided/replaced by a simple oneliner, like "keep your tanks up" or "PUSSSH" or "Take the high road".

To be fair, it has been at least a year since they last tried changing AV. 1.11.1 (6/19/06) I believe. It's clearly not impossible to implement DotA in WoW, it's just difficult enough they haven't really bothered.

Yeah, if you play that much AV, are curious about the buffs, but still don't know, you are lazy or retarded. The point is with 20min zergs, there isn't enough time for any of the side quests to be effective. Maybe if the games start heading for a 45min average time it will be worth it to recall back and turn in armor.

No forced grouping = zero healing. And you still get full honor if you kill someone by yourself far away from the pack. The only difference is that the guy who healed you while you "soloed" someone is not getting screwed out of honor any more.

Only to save face a bit, I think I worded that poorly. Yea I know what turning in Armor Scraps does, I know how to get arial assaults, I know how to summon Lokholar, I know what killing LTs does.

I just meant to say that I doubt the average player in there has a very sound understanding of the battlegroud as a whole, and wanted to show that even after all I've done, I can't tell you which NPC you have to kill to get XYZ mobs to stop patrolling in ABC area of the map, etc. AV is much more complicated than a simple match of King of the Hill or Capture the Flag.

Sorry, should've been more clear.

The way a UT onslaught game works is that there is a series of nodes, which are linked together such that you can only capture a node that is linked to one you already control. The object of the game is to destroy the enemy "power core", which can only be done when you capture a node (and there's usually only 1) that is linked to the core.

The game starts off with each side controlling an equal number of nodes, with one node in the middle being contested. When players die, they respawn at the node they control that is closest to the node that is contested (or at their power core if they don't control any nodes). When you capture a node, the node adjacent to it becomes contested, and so on, until you reach the power core.

So for instance, a game might go something like:
Horde captures SF (SH now contested)
Alliance captures SH (SF now contested)
Horde captures SF (SH now contested)
Horde captures SH (SP now contested)
Horde captures SP (SPAS now contested)
Alliance captures SPAS (SP now contested)
Horde captures SP (SPAS now contested)
Horde captures SPAS (Horde wins)

Bonus honor could be awarded based on a team's kills, plus a set amount for winning for winning (this way, competitive games would be more rewarding than blowouts)

Moved my post on 'how to improve AV' over from the 2.3 discussion thread:

My two cents on that subject: instead of making the flights and the cavalry be things that players have to go out of their way to summon, have them be permanent, recurring parts of AV. These are your 'reinforcements'. New waves come out of your reinforcements pool, and when you're down to zero reinforcements, when your last troop dies, it's game over.

That is, the zone objectives would appear as follows:
A 50/300 (that is, Alliance has 50 troop in the field, and 300 reinforcements waiting)
H 35/350 (that is, Horde has 35 troop in the field, and 350 reinforcements waiting)

A new wave of troops gets sent out when the last wave was destroyed. Losing a tower costs you 50 reinforcements, losing a captain costs you 100.

Without player intervention, they meet in the center and annihilate one another. With player intervention, the idea is that you rally with your troops and try to crush the enemy troops + the enemy players on their side. You can heal your troops. They pause at periodic points to patrol the area, giving rezzed people a chance to catch up.

When your cavalry comes up against a tower, or any enemy they can't path to, they dismount and take cover behind boxy shields. Without player assistance, they'll get whittled away by the tower archers.

To expedite the summoning process, instead of having players need to run all the way back to the start, once your troops are at midfield, they'll send a runner back to the summoners. The summoners come out to the midfield and station themselves there, waiting for you to bring them the appropriate tokens. If your troops die, they'll retreat. Also, if they are killed, they count against your reinforcements.

I know, I know, who likes 'escort the NPCs' quests - well, it can be different if the escortees can kick some booty.