Definitely an improvement. But since the only thing you can reliably measure in WoW is winning (how do you compare healing to damage dealing to guarding), the inaccuracies would make the system nearly useless at least in AV.

I would allow BG teams like arena teams. You can have up to say 20 people on your team. You can queue with as many as you want, if you queue with less than a full group its your own risk. Every BG but AV gets its own rating, like arena brackets. At the end of the week you get honor based on your highest rating.

If you queue without your team you get points the old fashioned way. At the end of the week if your solo queue points exceed your team points (or if you are not on a team) you get those instead. But you never get both solo and team points.

Not really. What AFK honor grinders are looking for is the path of least resistance to their goal, which is the honor reward items. If they could play and win one BG to get the same honor as losing many BGs, that's what they'll aim to do. But that incentive has to be big enough, and I don't feel like 400 honor is - that's about what you get from a single AV game.

As I already stated in my post (which you read, I'd assume?) we gather some decent players and just have fun. If we're less than 7 we'd just kill the commanders in the towers (up to icewing), the leutenants (sp?) and balinda. After acceiving this we'd just "defend" Tower Point and the Iceblood Tower. With a mace rogue, holy priest and myself as the basis we had alot of fun and killed many bigger groups. As we had 10+ people at some times we noticed that a moonkin druid is the ideal tank in av

Winning is not the point in AVs even when losing you'll get 300+ honor if you TRY! If you don't like the randoms (I don't) stay away from them. Do your own thing, don't leech off them through AFKing.


On a different note I'm very happy that EJ has such a stance against AFKing.

If I have gained nothing else from the 100's of av's I have played over season 2 its that I do make a difference. The difference in win rates between me participating on my arena/t4 paladin and say my alt 68 hunter was enough to prove that to myself.
But to me its the perception, Alliance lose because alliance feel they will they lose, because they lost last game and the game before that. Alliance afk because they see others afk'ing. When I get to the point where i activily dislike honor farming I simply dont join.

Its based on perception, Horde generally lost games for months because they perceived they were going to lose and more Horde afk'ed becaue of that, Currently this has swung to alliance.

Even with that pre. the afk prevention patch games could simply grind on because of a lack of people to complete the pve objectives. 3 Healers and 12 non plate dps are going to have a hard time tanking and killing 4 warmasters and drek.

I've stealthed over to the Horde start cave on my Druid, and the most I've ever seen in there is 4. I've never seen *less* than 4 in the Alliance cave, and it's usually around 8. This isn't including the Alliance who AFK in places like the lumber mill where Jeztor is, stealthed by SP, or in Van's room. I'm not sure if Horde AFK in places like this, but I have yet to discover any doing that while looking around.

As Horde, I've played plenty of games where 20 Horde are in the cave AFK'd out, this is definitely an issue where bothsides are equally as guilty.

Now with the reporting feature, the new trend is BOTs that "defend" by running back to the Aid Station/Relief Hut and run in circles...the mages spam rank 1 AE. On your map, you see them "defending" so you don't report. If they do get reported they eventually attack someone who's trying to cap the AS/RH. After that, they'll die fast enough by just trying to run back "on defense" as the opposing side owns the route they take.

Yeah, the issue is that the reward has to be high enough that it's sufficiently motivating to get people caring about winning BGs, as well as meaningfully cutting down on the feeling of "grinding" (which daily quests do in general - spreading out the BG bonus weekend "grind" over the course of the week) while not trivializing all other sources of honor. My initial impression is that 400 is too low to accomplish the former, while 4000 would be too far in the direction of the latter, which is why I pointed to 1k or so as the sweet spot.

I don't see how coercing people into playing a game they don't really want to is anything but a bad thing. Do you really think there are so few people who enjoy BGs that they wouldn't exist if you removed the rewards? The notion that the majority of players are merely putting up with this to fuel the enjoyment of a tiny minority of the playerbase is absurd. I'm sure there are enough pvp enthusiasts among 12 realms to get some games going even without the gear reward. If there isn't, then why are the battlegrounds even being supported at all?

The BGs in their current state would die if no rewards were involved. But that is because they are not fun. Arenas are different. I have never, not even once, gotten points from 2v2 arena. Yet I have over 500 games played. Why? Because it is fun.

Clearly, Blizzard knows how to make fun PvP. Now they need to get cracking and implement it. Really, the amount of effort Blizzard has put into PvP is miniscule compared to say raiding. Just look at EoTS. Does it get any plainer, uglier and minimialistic than that? That BG could not have taken long to build.

I am still nurturing the hope that with the smashing success of arenas (around 100k people playing in my BG alone) they will put more resources behind it.

I can see the value in this system, but in the case of AV, at least this rendition of AV, preventing the other team from losing can theoretically extend the length of the game by at least 3 times, so losing quickly and getting your solitary mark is just as effective, and trying to move more efficiently on offense in the disorganized mass that is the BG raid is difficult to accomplish. I agree that a 15 man team (or more) joining would mostly solve this issue, but without said team I can't see the current AV changing much from its current model, race and see who wins.

I do that too in the smaller battlegrounds. I once tried to AFK a small game and felt like such a dick that I started playing again after a few minutes and never tried to AFK in them again. When I solo queue these (rarely) I play until we're going to lose for sure, like 4.5 capped on AB with horde 500 pts up is time to tell the BG to stop contesting (and failing to convert) nodes like the idiots they are and just let the 5cap happen.

But nowdays I queue with a group and even with 3-5 players we make a massive difference. I think the only WSG we've lost was against a premade (we've even beaten a number of premades). EoTS I think we've lost maybe 2 out of ~25. AB is still a little bit iffy because stretching yourself out leaves bases very vulnerable and it's impossible to respond in time if the defenders are not competant/existant. But we still drive up the winrate. And it's fun. It's nice to be able to heal someone who is actually going to be doing something significant. It's nice being able to actually win the important fights because you're not by yourself while everyone else fights in the middle.

I pretty-much just AFK in AV, the only instance you can't group queue, and the only instance I don't feel my contribution matters. I have a very active conscience and it wont let me just leech off people. Except, in AV it doesn't bother me because I feel like I accomplish just as much being AFK (aka "guarding") as I do by being active. Group queue would change that, even just a handful of players we could back-cap or take some advance nodes or something relevant, and being with friends would make it fun. It's a fun day out doing <insert activity> together. Hell we can be farming primals together and it's fun, so I'm sure AV can be made fun this way. Playing with randoms means nothing to me. I don't care if alliance win or lose, I don't live vicariously through the success/failure of 39 people I don't know (which is why I don't have a sports team I follow, I watch the games and enjoy them but I don't give a toss what group of paid professionals wins). I only care if me and my friends win or lose.

All pressing "Join Queue" at the same time is not even close to a Group Queue option.

Armory says you're level 60. Is that true?

Sorry, no, I just updated my info, I switched mains in TBC and never did change my info. It is updated now.

Then I don't see how you're reliably getting groups of you into the same AV on AV weekend reliably. We'll co-ord in vent and all 5 of us can be spread across 3 different AVs.

The thing is, after doing the whole Rank 14 4 month honor grind on my Undead Priest, I have absolutely no desire to go in BG anymore to go and heal retards (it seems like the Alliance in all the battlegroups I have played in are useless) who quite simply fail badly at whatever they're trying to accomplish by being there (I don't care if you want 'fun', maybe I've lost that element of BGs), and are ultimately going to die due to their incredible lack of gear (Hi Legolass the hunter with 5.5k HP at 70..) or just in general having no clue.

Maybe I'm thinking of myself too highly when it comes to honor farming, but I have no intention of participating in a BG unless I am with a friend, and the reason for that is winning and losing makes practically no difference in terms of honor rewards.

There is an addon that can group queue better than pressing the button at the same time. Im not sure exactly how it works, but I think it involves looking for an AV that can fit your whole group before queing.

I can tell you that I feel that BGs are not fun is because they are forced. All the BGs can be fun(even AV with friends) but playing hours and hours just to get honor for gear to be competitive in arena is stupid. Anytime someone feels like they are forced to do something, rather than play for fun, will just cause them to look for the path of least resistance. Grinding is not fun, they force you to grind, then seemingly don't understand why people don't want to play for fun.

Lets assume that you can get 400 honor from an AV in 20 mins, thats a quick loss I think. To get just the Veteran's Ring will take almost 13 hours of nothing but BGs. Thats a long time, and may be all some players get a week.
You can make the argument that if you run a 2 hour instance with a 16% chance to get the drop you would spend almost the same amount of time. First, players have a choice of instances which vary. Second, as the player and his group improves they can make those runs faster. Pugs dont go fast no matter how skilled you are and bringing a skilled group just brings you against another skilled group.

BG's are a means to an end to most serious PvP'ers. They are something you endure to get the required gear for arenas then never do again.

There 3 types of players in most BG's:
- Casuals that are just playing for fun
- Retribution paladins/moonkins that get to do whatever they want without anyone giving them directions, since they cannot raid in that spec. Tipically they are the only ones who are actually trying to do anything.
- Bored players that are just trying to maximise honor/hour

Either make BG's fun and meaningful, like Arenas - which I don't think is a good choice as you screw over casual players, or make meaningful dailies that trivialize the amount of times that bored players have to spend inside them.

Somehow herb gathering was greatly reduced, and raiders are not required to run an infinite amount of slave pens before they can fight Illidan. Imagine the burnout if every 6 months you required every hardcore guild to run non-heroic slave pens 50 times to get the gear to be able to PvE.

Preform AV enabler is pretty reliable.

It's hard coded to not work for alliance, though, as far as I know.

Because it is *inconsiderate* and *selfish*, to say the least.

Its the same mindset that leads to "can I copy your homework?" or "can I copy you in the exam?" or "can I borrow some money from you?".

Last night, in one particular AV, almost half of the 80 people in the battleground were AFKers. We were pulling marshals whilst the Alliance were chain-wiping on Galvangar - and this was due to the AFKers.

If you can't see what's wrong with that situation, then I pity you.

I know on Argent Dawn at least, for most guilds, like EJ, AFKing in a BG is grounds for immediate /gkick.

They're still paying their subscription, aren't they? £9 a month from someone who plays 1 hour a week is still the same as £9 a month from someone who plays 40.

Last time I looked, subscription costs weren't tied to amount of time played.



I really can't believe some of the attitudes exposed on this thread. PVP does bring out the worst in people it seems. (Maybe saying people bring out the worst in people would be more accurate, I guess)

This basically means for a lot of 2v2 and 3v3 games where its just the healer and one other person left in a 1v1 duel, the healer may not lose. Or at worst case scenario he can put up a pretty good fight. This is also a really big change for healers in pve that couldn't compete or do anything but heal during the week.