Clockwise

Do we like it? Do we not? Has Blizzard made the problem better or worse from the first, 8-hour game version of AV?

 

◊ Praetorian

So far, I really enjoy it, and I think that'll improve as people better understand the objectives. (Hint: Repeatedly charging a fortified enemy chokepoint isn't helping.)

It's missing one thing: Let people queue in groups of 5 or 10 but no more than that. The current AV lends itself to distributed small tasks, with maybe 20 people on offense, 10 people defending one area, 10 defending another, and not a massive 40-man zerg. Letting people queue in small groups wouldn't unbalance the game at all and would in fact make it much, much more interesting in terms of actually being able to coordinate.

Also the honor is actually not remotely as bad as I'd heard it would be. Someone in EJ said they got 900 total honor (counting kills, etc.) from a 20 minute win where they killed Vanndar.

 

mikebro

I played 5 or 6 AV's yesterday and I think it's an improvement. Guarding towers now is infinitely more important, I don't see any pug going in and killing Drek or Vanndar with any towers left up. It would be nice if they allowed 5 man queues to encourage strategy and teamwork.

The two situations that bother me the most in Battlegrounds are AV games that drag out for an hour or well over because 1 faction is turtling their Aid Station and WSG games that drag on forever, many times because there is no healer on either team. With the new change to AV though, I can't see many games lasting over 45 minutes unless no towers are destroyed.

I haven't queued much AV on this char for a few months, but back then the queues were 16-20+ minutes. Yesterday they were < 1 minute so if the honor per game was lower I couldn't really tell, I was getting way more honor than I did before. Most of the games I played ended with the winning team getting 375-475 honor and the losing team with 275-375

 

Hellmount

I like the new system a lot. I was a little concerned that the limited reinforcements might have been too small and that games would end before objectives were done. But in the 5 or so games I played last night it seemed they got it right.
The one time the game was ended before a boss died it was a stale mate at the SP bridge with the north tower down but the south tower still standing. And we had the south tower contested several times and failed to fully cap it before the game was ended due to the alliance running out of reinforcements. We had our chances to complete our objectives, we just sucked. Which is fine by me, if both teams are sucking and neither can advance, I'm OK with them having an artificial end to the game like they now do.

I also found the honor to be as good or better then before. I got 418 for most of my wins I think.

As a side note I played one AB yesterday for my quest and won a 5 cap that gave me about 160 honor bonus. I had thought they were increasing this in the patch, but the number seems low. But honestly I can't remember what I was getting for AB before the patch. It would be nice though if AV were only the obvious choice for fastest honor on it's weekend, and not all the time.

 

Grogzor

The one game I played yesterday involved someone saying from the beginning, if we don't leave the tunnel we will get about 190 Honor for 5 minutes of work...so about 5 people stayed in the tunnel. That was followed up by each side completely bypassing each other taking towers as they went in a race to get to the final boss because everyone was afraid to actually fight and lose reinforcements. That and lots of lag.

But when it comes time for me to remove your wings, and you, you must try to fly...

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◊ Lord BEEF

I like it so far, there's actually a lot of player versus player combat.

First impression is that hunters are extremely effective in it which isn't really anything new for AV, but I seriously had the aimed shot debuff on me a good percentage of the time, even when trying to hang back

 

Calantus

Wonderful.

Obviously we needed to add extra emphasis to towers so that more people are standing around holding their dicks inside towers. It also highights the amazing game mechanic that is the current tower capping. You can spend 99% of a cap defending (read: not playing) only to be run over by a back-capping zerg who undo everything with a 10 second cast. This back-capping group is then free to reset every other node while having the number advantage because they can afford to concentrate their entire force into one group. Tower/GY defenders need to split up to cover every point because with the way capping works it only takes 10 seconds to lose it all and that's not enough time to back up a point. It's excellent.

I also love that when you lose you get half as much honor as you probably would in the old AV. Nothing says "learn how to control the 39 random retards (10 of them AFK!) we put in your game" like a 200 payout. That'll learn them slackers who can't carry an entire game on their shoulders.

This brought to you by 12 games actually played today and without the daily quest completed. Oh and sarcasm.

EDIT: Right now the strats on BG9 still seem to be rush like usual but with more tower defenders/back cappers and less honor for everyone. I can't comment on the straight up battles people are supposedly having on other BGs.

 

◊ Praetorian

Yeah the AV I joined last night was probably played the way Blizzard would imagine it, ideally. We had about 20 on offense and 20 on defense, and so did they. It lasted about 30 minutes but I got 800ish honor during that time, which I'm quite happy with. And it was also like 25 minutes of chaotic PvP and 5 minutes of killing Balinda and some lieutenants. It was pretty cool.

 

Efreet

I've only done one so far so hardly a standard but it lasted 45 minutes after the horde took SF and the alliance held SP until they died. A druid and I tried to take a tower and missed it by about 3 seconds, which would have shortened the game by about 15 minutes or so. I really like the change to mines, now we have an incentive to defend them! Horde got 450 bonus honor, alliance got 120 (for their 2 towers still alive and killing Galv). I can't envision this game will be typical in a few weeks, but one can always hope.

 

Typhon

How do the changes affect the current initial dual Galvangar/Belinda zerg that seems to be the fashionable thing with honour-seekers in most AVs nowadays?

 

Humbaba

I ran half a dozen games last night on Ruin and saw all kinds of results. We had an 11 minute win that was worth about 250 bonus honor, an 11 minute loss that was worth about 210 bonus honor and a 25 minute loss that was worth about 200 bonus honor. The other games were somewhere in the middle. We did successfully pull 3 warmasters and Van at once and kill Van while we OTed the warmasters. It just takes two competent tanks and two competent healers. One good tank and one good healer could probably do it, too.

 

Barell

I tried out a few games but I don't think I had near the luck other people were having. We ended up getting stalled at Icewing all 3 games. Then it was attrition and we won. Was happy enough with honor.

If I can make over 1k honor/hour I am happy. AV weekends 1.5-2k/hour was possible. Curious to see how it will play out come next AV weekend.

 

Chucifer

I like it, with provisions that the factions arent doing a 40 man stalemate at a natural chokepoint (Stonehearth Bunker comes to mind). I participated in two of those yesterday, generating 50 minute games for 400-500 honor. One of those matches ended up with a score of 6-0.

Currently, I'm seeing people going about with their pre-2.3 strategy of Rush Stonehearth/Rush Galv and a few brave souls trying something new such as Horde Defense meeting the Alliance Offense at Snowfall. Unfortunately, with both sides typically doing their pre-2.3 rush, those brave defenders generally get crushed. Hopefully, the global mentality about Defense will change.

What I would like to see is one side use the giant summonable (Ice Lord/giant tree guy), if it is still possible.

 

Nayt

I didn't get to run AV last night due to low play time pre/post raids, good to know there's a positive responce so far, honestly I was predicting the worst. Any tips for telling people how to win/get the most honor? I hate logging into games to hear people yelling about "Don't cap the towers, just win it's faster Honor."

:Edit: Are 2+ hour games going to happen still?

"When Nate's in town a feast is down."
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◊ Merrack

Maybe the new idea just "clicked" with Stormstrike earlier, but my experience last night was just like Gurg's. Both sides capped a few towers, eventually, but the end was a brawl just outside the Frostwolf Keep, and another in Dun Baldar.

Real PvP, with healers and everything! I hadn't realized Blizzard actually allowed healers to queue for BGs. It was a very welcome change.

Questions? Answers.

 

Hellmount

No they shouldn't. Each team starts with 600 reinforcements and the game ends either when one team kills the other's boss, or one team is reduced to 0 reinforcements. You 1 reiforcement for every time someone dies on your team as well as every tower you lose and when your captain (balinda, galv) dies. I don't remember how much you lose per tower or for your captain, but games lasting much longer then an hour should be rare, and I can't see one lasting 2 hours.

 

Safid

I played four games last night. Each one basically had the raid divide into two, offense and defense. The alliance never put up more than a token defense, so it felt like a race with less people. ~20m games, ~500 bonus honor. Didn't feel a lot different to me, though one fight we won due to reinforcements running out when the alliance recalled to turtle at their aid station. The other three were wins by killing the general.

 

Roe

Similar experience myself. I played 15 matches easily, Alliance side.

Only 2 matches ended up in a turtle. I believe because too many insisted on going defense. Both were about 45 to 50 minutes long before reinforcements ran out. The bonus honor was horrible for both (250 to 350 horde and alliance). It was old style bubble crawl of people back and forth between grave yards. If you weren't honor farming with the bubble, the honor must have been terrible.

Most of the matches people figured out you have to cap the 4 towers asap, use minimal defense like the prior AV, then charge the general when there is maybe only 1 warmaster left or none. Though people still commically kept trying to pull the Warmasters outside, lol (over and over).

I was getting bonus honor anywhere from mid 300's to a high of about 500 on the good matches. 200 to 300 on the bad ones. Most were anywhere from 12 to 20 minutes long. It goes much faster actually with none of the elites to wade through.

My initial impression is it really depends a lot on how many people try to defend on how quickly it goes.

Edit: I think this AV has much more potential than the old one. People are much more willing to defend in a turtle, which is more fun. I can potentially see the nightmare of the old school AV's 2 years ago where it was impossible to organize much, and people just sit with the bubble fighting for fear of missing out on the honor.

 

Calantus

Being a little less frustrated now I figure I should better lay out the problems I have with the current AV.

The biggest point is the towers. They do not add anything to the game in their present state. In the original AV they were focal points, strongholds that had to be fought over and destroyed to make progress. Now they are just sidequests with a small bonus. They have no real strategic impact on the field of battle and are only relevant because of the arbitrary ticket advantage and bonus honor they provide. Musical towers is also far too easy. We've seen it in bad AB games when a couple zergs will just cap and move, cap and move, it doesn't make for engaging gameplay in AB and it doesnt make for engaging gameplay in AV either. I think they need to do away with the cap and hold to destroy mechanic they have here.

I'd much rather see a benefit from holding towers such that musical towers is not so profitable. Turn them into a main objective where holding the towers can win you the game, make people fight over the towers and fight over ground so they can access the towers. Right now only the end bosses matter and everything else is a bonus. Hence the rush strategy, it makes so much sense when the only real objective is at the end. I'd also consider an EoTS capping style rather than AB style so that holding a tower becomes more about bodies and winning the battle around it than about watching a pole incase some lone capper gets 10 seconds.

I want to see the leaders become about ending a battle early. One side is getting stomped? Ok then finish it early by killing their endboss. Otherwise I'd rather see a ticket/point system win come about. I want to see a battle over terrain and objectives, not a brute force assassination quest with props. In the original AV we fought to win because the rep came win or lose. Winning was nice but in a long AV you got more rep from turnins than you could ever hope to from the win, so the motive to win was pure. We didn't care if it was a long game, the rep would come either way, so we fought tooth and nail for every bit of land with no regard for the time it took.

That's all gone, and the changes do not bring it back. All the new AV does is make musical towers more common, ends turtle games faster, and penalises the losers with mass honor cuts. Only one of those things is good, and THAT is only good because the current way to gain honor is bunk.

 

◊ Praetorian

Uh the towers are quite important because 99% of PUGs are going to have a very hard time fighting the now-hard-linked marshals/warmasters along with the General.

 

mikebro

I think nostalgia is getting the best of you. The 2 years ago AV with massive amounts of NPCs and games that spanned across hours if not days? The only purpose of that battleground was to get exalted and get the hell out. It was not a good battleground at all, why do you think it's just been revamped for what, the 5th time, maybe more?

Towers certainly do have a strategical impact on the game. Join AV with a solid 5 man and run between all of your towers recapping them when theres only a few people left watching them and watch them try to kill Drek/Vanndar. It just won't happen. War masters, Drek, and the 2 dogs are all leashed now so you cannot pull 1 without all of the other. Most pugs probably can't handle 1 war master, 4 would be nearly impossible especially with a little horde intervention.

They give a decent chunk of bonus honor and they reduce enemy reinforcement by a good bit. We actually won a game yesterday because someone went and destroyed both of the Frostwolf towers and no one decided to go defend them, we had 40 people turtling SP GY and won the game by around 70 resources, with 2 towers still up. Towers certainly aren't useless.

 

Hellmount

I couldn't possibly see a team winning without caping the oposing towers. Where as before they were there for bonus honor an nothing more. You're statement that towers are useless now seems fairly confusing.

 

lazerpewpew

It will be intriguing to see what the players are gonna come up with to counter the "Back-capping zerg" strategy.

 

Rej

Can anyone comment on two things:

1) Mines. I've heard that they generate reinforcements, have you seen the mines making a big impact? Does it help win games? Are they constant points of conflict?

2) Inequities in the map. Alliance going straight into Horde base was a big problem, the vast majority of my AV games have started with the Horde base being capped right away, as we struggle to make it to SP. Is the Horde base still really open to blatant ninjas from the Alliance, or is the Horde actively defending now?

 

Nitz

I like it for now, I'm honor-caped, but I don't think I will very much like it if I have to regrind as I did. But definitively, pissing off your team mates by defending Snowfall to force the Alliance to turtle is pretty fun.