This is inspired by the discussion currently going on in the Season 3 Date & Discussion thread, which has branched from the original topic considerably and is worthy in my opinion of its own discussion.

How can Blizzard make battlegrounds more fun? How can they make the honor grind enjoyable, with honor gear being a reward for participating in a fun and engaging system instead of, for some, a dreaded necessity?

There are two main approaches to this in my mind:

1) Changes to the honor system, including the method by which honor is gained. Daily quests, ELO systems for BG's, etc.

2) Added variety to the BG's themselves. Additional BG's (one of which is of course already in development), new maps for existing gametypes, etc.

While I am very much in favor of changes to option 1, let me focus for the moment on number 2. Specifically, let me talk about variety.

Looking at other online PvP games, there are typically a wide variety of maps (10+) and a variety of gametypes (5+). These can then be combined to create numerous different alternatives. Capture the flag takes on very different flavors depending on the map, which adds greatly to the replay value. To make a tenuous comparison, imagine if Halo 2 had only one map for CTF, one for Territories, and one for Big Team Battle Assault - it would getting boring incredibly quickly. Would adding new gametypes to the existing WoW maps add value to the BG system? What if when you queued up for AB, you would randomly get one of the following variants:

- Neutral CTF, with a neutral flag at the blacksmith. Victory requires 5 captures. Similar to EotS but without any "resource" locations to control
- Traditional AB
- Traditional CTF, with flags at both bases. Victory requires 3 captures. Essentially WSG with the AB map. This would definitely have a different flavor than traditional WSG due to the different routes available to flag carriers. Base defense would be much more important.
- Traditional AB with the addition of combat NPC's at all nodes. These NPC's must be defeated to capture a node (unlike AV, a flag cannot be clicked until all its defensive NPC's are defeated) and once captured, NPC's of the appropriate faction will spawn to help protect the node alongside players. This emphasizes teamwork more than the current AB because capping a node will require coordination and players won't be able to run around solo and find unguarded nodes. Capping a node will be much more significant, unlike the "hot potato" syndrome you see in many PuG AB's.

This addition seems like it would make an afternoon of queueing up for AB much more fun and lively. It's difficult to make a case that the current BG's aren't a little stale at this point; almost 3 years of the exact same 3 BG's would get boring in any game.

WSG variants could be along the lines of:

- Speed match: All players granted a passive 20% movement speed buff.
- Beserker flag: Holding the flag decreases your health by 1% every 3 seconds, but increases damage done by 25%.
- Assault: Take your flag into your opponent's base to score.
- Annihilation: First team to 150 HK's wins. No flags.


Would this be an improvement? What do you think Blizzard could do to make you look forward to queueing up for BG's?

That seems to be somewhat like "BG's are an unfun necessity, so the way to improve them is to make sure I never have to play a game for longer than 20 minutes." While most players would definitely appreciate such a timer, I think the ideal solution would be to make BG's enjoyable to the point that players enjoy the time they spend playing.

Make them competitive. Everything else is just icing.

I would be happy to trade AV, WSG, EoTS and any future BG they might add for AB with arena style ranking and honor acquisition.

Honestly, the only BG that really needs a timer is WSG. All of the others are usually going to end after 30 minutes max spent in there, with the exception of Alterac, which can vary so much from 10-15 mins to 2 hours or more, which is fine for a BG the size and scope of AV.

WSG itself, put a timer on it, say 30 mins. Team with most flag captures at the end of 30 minutes wins, or first team to capture 3 flags.

I myself usually tend to only go to WSG if I need the tokens, and then only if it's WSG weekend, otherwise I avoid the place like the plague. Spent far too many nights in that place for hours in a game, because a team with 5 healers is sitting in thier Graveyard with the flag, with little attempt to get back the opposing teams flag.


The ideas for AB seem interesting, but I'm really not for the PVE combat mobs in an AB. If I want that, off to AV I go.

As I said in the other thread, the solution is simple. Keep the current BGs but also make team based BGs where you have to have a BG team and get honor based on your end-of-week rating. Honor is awarded every week instead of daily. If your solo BG honor exceeds the team BG honor then you get that. Otherwise you get the team honor. You never get both.

That way, nobody is forced to group and nobody is forced to PuG. You can chose to grind it out or you can do it arena style.

Turn in your balls at the next substation.

Am I the only guy who joins BG to punch people in the junk? Win or lose, my fist is going to ram it's way into someone's junk, and it's going to bring a smile to my face. I don't get the whole: Join game, see we're losing, stand and do nothing until the next game crap. Maybe it's because I don't play with a TV next to me or something.

I think BGs are fun right now, but clearly variety is the spice of life. Switch starting positions in AV (suggested a hundred times by others), put in ridiculous power ups ala quake on special weekends, add cannons like the darkmoon faire one in Shatt right now that allow you to launch yourself into enemy territory.

All sorts of fun shit Blizzard could do to spice it up.

I play Unreal Tournament. CTF is pretty fun. CTF for 2 hours isn't.

Similarly, WSG for 2 hours isn't fun.

I don't think the BGs themselves are massively flawed - it's the honor reward structure that is the problem. Competitive BGs are some of the most fun I've had in WoW - I participated in the BG9 WSG league pre-TBC, and I did tons of preform AB and even AV back when those were popular. The problem is that I can queue up with a team for WSG or AB and all I'll face is pugs, and it will be a complete slaughter and not at all enjoyable. If there were legitimately competitive BGs - if I could queue with a team and reasonably expect to do something other than steamroll people grinding for marks one at a time to get their PVP gear - I'd play BGs all the time. I don't think WSG or AB are really fundamentally flawed - I *love* two hour WSG games, so long as they're that way because of still competition and not just incompetant pugs on both sides who refuse to leave the roof. Case in point - one of the most fun BGs I ever played, back from the BG9 WSG league:



Ranked WSG/AB with any sort of rewards - be it gear, tabards, titles, mounts, whatever - is really all that is needed to reinvigorate BG PVP, as far as I'm concerned.

if only there were custom maps for WoW bg's

i always thought they could modify an actual bg and make it a theme for whatever brewfest/festivus seasonal event they have going on. Snowballing in AV was a perfect example of this.

Alterac Valley is awesome.

That's great. How would you improve it?