I've noticed that Drek usually resets for the alliance at least once per game. Often, this is all that saves the Horde from a loss. This almost NEVER happens to the Horde. Can any Alliance explain what is usually going on when this happens?
If somebody pulls the dogs out of the room he resets. =/
If somebody pulls a marshal out of Van's room, he resets. If you don't see this happening to horde very often, they must be destroying all towers before pulling. Most games I play where Van is killed, he and the marshals are pulled several times before towers are down. It's usually some hunter who thinks he can still kite out one marshal to kill.
Today I played about 15 AV's with a warrior friend of mine (as an aside, if you time the clicking of the 'join battle' button well you'll end up in the same AV more often than not, if you don't you can always requeue). I'm in a battle group that Horde is dominating, to the tune that if you want, say 8 EotS or AB marks, you're gonna get them from 8 straight losses, no way around it.
Anyway, the warrior and I would stay back to defend along with any other Ally who felt like semi-AFKing - with bloody good results. Even though we died a lot we managed to slow the Horde zerg enough to allow our attack force to cap towers and kill Drek. So, the key to the battle is defending - if you can get 5 semi-conscious people at the back they're gonna slow your opponents down by a lot, and since AV is a race, every second counts. Out of 15 AV's we only lost 2 or 3 against well-organised Hordes.
Honor is the easy part of grinding. Marks are the real pain, especially for someone like me who would be happy to PvE 7 days a week and never PvP. Which is why the nerfing/tuning of the daily pvp quest didn't really annoy me - but some other source of marks would be more than welcome, maybe a conversion of honor to marks?
I think the lengthening AV queues from Alliance refusing to participate speaks volumes about how wrong the general populace was in deeming 4k bonus honor from BG dailies was "too much".
I don't know about other battlegroups, but I've found on Stormstrike horde is pretty consistently getting 40 minute- 1& 1/2 hour queue times over the last two weeks. If you need AV marks as horde right now, god help you! I don't know why this is, but for whatever reason, alliance seems to be getting disenfranchised with AV enough to not queue.
It maybe just my experience, but the bulk of AV games I've been in lately end up as one of two scenarios.
1) A bit of a stalemate
2) Horde winning by a landslide with zero, or near zero bonus honor for the Alliance.
Maybe it's karma for the old days of ridiculous alliance queues.
Any other battlegroups experiencing a similar trend?
Yesh, they did the same last year. And then they promptly nerfed the snowballs two days later, the nerf ain't there now, which makes one wonder their deployment quality assurance even more.
I don't know about other battlegroups, but I've found on Stormstrike horde is pretty consistently getting 40 minute- 1& 1/2 hour queue times over the last two weeks. If you need AV marks as horde right now, god help you! I don't know why this is, but for whatever reason, alliance seems to be getting disenfranchised with AV enough to not queue.
It maybe just my experience, but the bulk of AV games I've been in lately end up as one of two scenarios.
1) A bit of a stalemate
2) Horde winning by a landslide with zero, or near zero bonus honor for the Alliance.
Maybe it's karma for the old days of ridiculous alliance queues.
Any other battlegroups experiencing a similar trend?
As far as I can tell this only happens on Stormstrike and Bloodlust because on other battlegrounds horde are content with the old rush strategy. Both defencive/huge win BGs have queues of an hour or more as a result because alliance are not getting enough honor to make queueing up worthwhile. Right now you're just seeing the AFKers, the people who need marks, the people who love AV, and the people who can't do math still signing up.
Yea. It's basically in the Horde's hands to win AV outright and decimate the Alliance or keep a pve rush mindset and go 50/50 with both teams gaining honor. In stormstrike we play 10-15 on defense at the IB Graveyard, and more often than not finish the game with the alliance getting between 0 and 100 bonus honor (to horde's 500-600). As a result, the alliance don't queue and we now wait 90 minutes for AV.
Any BG that doesn't have this problem is due to one thing - the horde not playing defensively. Even if the alliance tries to match the move, the horde will win more often than not due to map layout. I'm not crying for the alliance, they had the advantage for 3 years and now the worm has turned. Just the same, I'd rather have fast queues, non stop action, and a fair and balanced map. AV needs to be fixed and I hope blizzard doesn't ignore it just because the horde in other BGs aren't smart enough to decimate the alliance.
Honestly the only thing stopping Stormstrike alliance from losing with some honor (as horde used to do back in the day) is themselves. A true alliance rush (little to no defense) can easily take & hold IB GY with few losses. With that in hand, zerging IB tower, TP, and Galv is pretty simple. By that point, the horde will probably have killed Vanndar and won (and yes I have seen this a few times post-2.3). This is pretty much what horde did back when alliance won all the time in AV - run up to SH, kill the lieutenants, kill Balinda, match is over. Although nearly half the horde raid was afk at the time, and I'm not sure alliance can accomplish much with that kind of afk rate (since very few horde afk in AV now). In any case, I suspect that losing-with-honor is not what most of the players really want.
AV queues have gotten up to 2.5 hours. There's going to have to be some serious changes to entice Stormstrike alliance into giving the BG another chance before that shortens, I fear. Stiffening the afk-debuff penalties would perhaps get more alliance to actually participate, but would that bring back those that left? As much as I would hate to see Blizzard cater to the General forum whiners (after ignoring legimate horde gripes with the map for years), I hope something is done soon, because the situation is screwing up the other BGs for us. People are constantly entering & leaving in the middle of matches, and the horde afkers have spread to AB and EOTS.
I suspect part of the problem with the new AFKers is, ironically, the new AFK system. Before the AFK system people had to resort to reporting people to the GMs. Now while this was a hassle for Blizzard and the players, it was much worse for the AFKers because they had real penalties to worry about. Now players use the report feature and the GM threat is gone. Now what's the worst that can happen when you afk? You don't get honor and marks for that game? Well if you weren't AFKing in that game you wouldn't be getting them anyway.
Did GMs actually impose any penalties on afkers back then, though? From what I heard (although perhaps this was just afker propoganda) GMs wouldn't do anything about it. Given the number of afkers that used to exist in AV, I don't think any of them were worried much about getting reported.
I liked the idea, forget where I saw it, that the afk-debuff hit you with the deserter debuff after the match was over. But no system will stop the players dedicated to being lazy - they'll just get smarter about it. And already have, in a number of cases. The few horde that bot in AV these days tend to do it near potential hotspots - it's easy to say, "report everyone in the cave"; much harder to get the raid to report random people scattered around the map, especially when they may be on top of active players.
Did GMs actually impose any penalties on afkers back then, though? From what I heard (although perhaps this was just afker propoganda) GMs wouldn't do anything about it. Given the number of afkers that used to exist in AV, I don't think any of them were worried much about getting reported.
I liked the idea, forget where I saw it, that the afk-debuff hit you with the deserter debuff after the match was over. But no system will stop the players dedicated to being lazy - they'll just get smarter about it. And already have, in a number of cases. The few horde that bot in AV these days tend to do it near potential hotspots - it's easy to say, "report everyone in the cave"; much harder to get the raid to report random people scattered around the map, especially when they may be on top of active players.
I've had a GM send me a tell a couple times. One was pretty scary because I was genuinely AFK at the time he sent me a tell as I had just signed up to a 15 minute queue and went off to do something else. When I got back he'd already sent 2 messages and when I sent back a tell be told me he was just about to hit me with the ban stick (his words). There's no way I'd ever truly AFK in the old AV because my account is worth more to me than whatever honor I could earn doing it, instead I was always at the keyboard, just doing other things at the time. Now? The only reason I don't is because the honor we get from AV is too low to be worth the hassle (and I'd never AFK the smaller BGs because I feel my contribution there matters), I'd rather just join a premade. Obviously other people feel different.
And even getting enough people to report afkers in the start areas are a major hassel most of the time.
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This is my personal view of layout annoyances from the alliance point of view (BG: Cyclone) as its been too long since I've played horde (daggerspine)
Bridge:
Much easier to defend than horde base IF alliance bother. Once horde has broken through its simply a matter of time before they throw enough bodies at the flag to cap it. After that the tables are turned, with 5-7 horde guarding SP GY, not enough alliance can make it over in time to make a difference that matters (win/lose).... we try though... oh do we try. (but noone stands arround waiting to be in enough force to smash through)
Horde Base:
In the old glory days of 12 hour av's, horde base was a bastion of strength, the two towers and horde ranged standing on every piece of elevated terrain made it (imho) more defendable than alliance base. In the zerg era horde rarely bothered, dispite having easy access to their base (like the opposite of the bridge). Now we are finally seeing some real action there again and capping towers with two stealthers is no longer a 75% guarantied destruction.
Distance:
Horde can reach SH Tower, cap it, before alliance even reach Galv's door, this is kinda annoying, but as defense isnt a problem these days (or rarely) it no longer matter as much.
Towers:
Alliance towers are (imho) too easy to defend as horde, its hard to know just how many are inside and you cant de-cloak/freeze everyone, as horde mages has a tendency to do when coming to defend their own towers (running in invisible). And if you (as a stealther when I am on my druid) search for stealthed horde it just take too long and once combat is started there are too many ways for the horde to draw out the time (regardless of class), such as running arround the circle inside or jumping down to the stairs from the flag.
Mines:
Not much difference as I see it.
GYs:
IB, very defendable bottleneck that horde can keep blocked if they want. From what I've understood from this topic, this can be a real wining tactic these days?, luckly on Cyclone horde isnt defending it THAT well, that we cant punch through.
SH, a really badly positioned gy.. it lies on the wrong side of the bottleneck IB tower and favor the horde once capped and when running up from Balinda, horde cuts off reenforcements from SP.
SP, I dont know about hordies or other alliance, but I HATE IT!., it is very defendable small force vs. small force, but when its big vs big, it is dumb layout, horde coming from under the bridge, horde standing on the mountain only accessable from the other side (and can go out of LOS/range when fired upon. When horde advance they stand on the rise next to rezz spot and fire down while alliance respawning has little chance of making it to the flag, much less recapping the darn thing... and then there is the bridge factor afterwards (this has gotten better after we now respawn in base if we still have it).
But I must say, after the first week of people-not-listening-or-reading-patch-notes, av has gotten way way waaaay more fun and fighting against horde when they know that the bg is better.... "balanced" (for a lack of better word, as I dont think its the right term) is a joy as Zerg-AV's were like a raid instance on farm, you'd only wipe when people screwed up.
... now if we could just get blizzard to readjust AB so alliance would have a similar access to BS/LM from ST and I'd be a happy kitty cat.
(EoTS is fine and the only change I'd want in WSG is that honor for killing a player is only awarded if you win... damn grinders!)
GYs:
IB, very defendable bottleneck that horde can keep blocked if they want. From what I've understood from this topic, this can be a real wining tactic these days?, luckly on Cyclone horde isnt defending it THAT well, that we cant punch through.
Yes it's the winning tactic. When 2.3 AV started, the alliance would do what they always did - bum rush Galv and then turn to IB GY/Tower when Galv was dead. This has always been an easy tactic to defeat, yet seldom actually countered by the horde. Coordinating 30-40 man premade AVs, we put 10 men at galvanger and would decimate the alliance push on galv as they engaged the 2 lts. outside galv's base. Even if the alliance had 40, they would be stopped right there with our 10 because our respawn is 200 yards away and the alliance respawn is stormpike. When 2.3 came out, the PUG AVs focused on protecting galvanger more than previously. The alliance could bring 30 men into galvanger's, and while they'd kill galv they'd lose enough of their force on the front line to break up the push considerably. The push would stall prior to IB GY against the horde defense, while those trying to return to the front line would have to face the icewing bottleneck from the unfavorable side - at the very least being hassled as they crossed Balinda's base at a rate that 25% might never make it back to the front line.
Alliance got smart(er) and started to ignore galv, instead focusing on securing IB GY as their first priority. This is the right move, but I've seen 30 of them fail to 15 defenders. The cap system in AV makes it easy to stop people from capping, even when they have overwhelming odds. Welcome to 2 years of the horde trying to take SP GY while all alliance had to do was have a mage blink to it and start spamming AE. Today, the AVs I get into never lose IB GY most of the time. If we do, then it's a much closer fight and the alliance can power straight through to the relief hut while we scrammble to recap towers.
SH, a really badly positioned gy.. it lies on the wrong side of the bottleneck IB tower and favor the horde once capped and when running up from Balinda, horde cuts off reenforcements from SP.
Yea, it's terrible. And in the old days it didn't matter - your strength was SP GY, and we can to capture it to win. That's no longer true, obviously, so while alliance still have a defensive strength at SP GY, the game can be effectively over while the horde is assaulting it (and constant pressure on SP GY means the horde can take the min and the dun baldar towers and the average alliance won't bother with them because they'll just enter the fray in front of them rather than recall or mount and ride through - stupid pubbies live on both sides of the map).
(EoTS is fine and the only change I'd want in WSG is that honor for killing a player is only awarded if you win... damn grinders!)
That's a ridiculous suggestion. You're saying that what WSG needs is larger losses for the loser? That's the historic problem with WSG - you can play for 50 minutes and get zero bonus honor. And now you're suggesting taking away the kill honor? If that happens you can kiss WSG goodbye unless you like all premades, all the time. What WSG needs is a reinforcement meter like AV to prevent never ending matches of stupidity.
It would be nice if all Battlegrounds took kills into account for winning. Like for EotS and AB, every kill your side does gets you 5 points or something. This way the objectives are important, but so is the actual PvP.
That's a ridiculous suggestion. You're saying that what WSG needs is larger losses for the loser? That's the historic problem with WSG - you can play for 50 minutes and get zero bonus honor. And now you're suggesting taking away the kill honor? If that happens you can kiss WSG goodbye unless you like all premades, all the time. What WSG needs is a reinforcement meter like AV to prevent never ending matches of stupidity.
Yep it was mostly said in jest (as alliance loses nearly all pug wsg), I am just fed up with trying to get the flag, even managing to get it to the middle 3-4 times in a row and having zero backup because people grind hp and dont understand that its about stopping/slowing the other side, not focus firing on a single target.. I go for the flag as druid and support as shammy (froooooost shock! hehe). In the end I only do wsg if I absolutly need the marks or if I am stupid enough to think that just because wsg is the daily bg that we have a chance of winning.
AB is my second favorite now (av is the favorite as I can choose to go offensive or defensive and have the same amount of fun now.. and I still get enough honor from a loss that it isnt a total waste to lose an av.) as alliance (in my battleground) is putting more effort into winning than earlier (possibly because of the honor boost?).
Really after playing AV again (was actually hoping cause I won 2 games the other day) it really comes down to this BG sucks terribly right now for Alliance on Stormstrike. I really don't know about map imbalances, maybe cause I haven't really thought about it much, but just in general the horde in stormstrike BG's seem to be better than the alliance. Pre 2.3 I did solo honor farming in AV, not because I felt I had an advantage and we'd win a lot (we won some but I wouldn't say most, and basically due to me doing things like tanking 4 warmasters at once, and actually giving the alliance a tank since they never have any) but the real reason was because we'd get slaughtered anywhere else and get 0 honor.
That's what the issue is now, I couldn't care less if I never won an AV game, but the fact that most of the games end with the horde having 600+ honor while alliance has between 0 and 100 is why it's just going to die, fewer and fewer alliance will queue, and horde times are going to keep going up, because there is no risk versus reward, you are going for what is 90% or higher going to be a loss for honor that you could have gotten by killing level 63's in Zangramarsh. I don't care if they change it so horde wins less, but they really need to change it so you don't get completely fucked for losing, because that's what's the problem. The AV right before 2.3 was great, win some, lose some, get between 200 and 500 honor every time, usually right around 300, no matter what, now it's just not worth queueing.
What WSG needs is a reinforcement meter like AV to prevent never ending matches of stupidity.
I can't emphasize this enough.
AB will last for a determinate amount of time - someone will eventually get to 2000 resources, even with just 1 base capped.
EOTS will last for a determinate amount of time - someone will eventually get to 2000 victory points.
AV will now also last for a determinate amount of time - someone will eventually run out of reinforcements.
AB will last for a determinate amount of time - someone will eventually get to 2000 resources, even with just 1 base capped.
EOTS will last for a determinate amount of time - someone will eventually get to 2000 victory points.
AV will now also last for a determinate amount of time - someone will eventually run out of reinforcements.
WSG? It might never end.
Yep I only play WSG for the marks I need, AV is much better honor with immediate queue times. Its sad actually because I'd liek to build up some EotS or AB marks but since I need so much more honor for everything AV is just the fastest way to get it.
I've been doing most PVP on my healer (switched from Feral to Resto) to get better gear and you can acutally make a difference in AV without immediately being focus-fired on. I'm always either 1 or 2 on the healing meter.
My perspective on Stormstrike Horde is not really that the Horde is smarter, stronger, faster, and better-looking, but it's just the way the map is set up, as others have alluded to.
The midfield favors the Horde. That's the bottom line, in my opinion. As a former Alliance player, I really keenly remember the Alliance being badly split between going towards IBT, IBGY, and Galvanger.
From what I've seen and suspect, Alliance don't know what to do. Do they try and go for IBGY, try to cap IBT, or go for Captain Galvanger?
Honestly, the only truly important point that Horde need to defend is Iceblood Graveyard. As long as you're ressing there, you're golden.
The problem comes when Horde go up and attack Stonehearth GY. Alliance cannot realistically defend Stonehearth GY, SH Bunker, and Balinda. Horde can easily 5-man Balinda while a main force attacks the GY and keeps the Alliance bottled up. Meanwhile, the path to SH Bunker from SH GY is the exact point where the Horde forces tend to move up and attack, cutting off any meaningful size of reinforcements from recapping SH Bunker.
Once SH Bunker burns, any Horde that's freed up can move to Balinda.
Balinda + SH Bunker is worth what, 175 Reinforcements? So now Horde is probably at 550 to 375, which is a huge demoralizing factor, and the Horde just masses up and begins to grind the Alliance down the path. Eventually, you don't need defenders anymore, and the entire team just pushes forward and bam. The Alliance is done.
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning. - Mark Twain
Before 2.3 I had my Av marks rotting and I had very few AB, WSG or EOTS marks at all. In Av I could count on winning roughly 50% of the time and as a resto Shaman I could get in a lot of healing practice. The only way we got our AB, WSG, and EOTS was by grinding except once in a while we got into a premade and got in a few wins.
After 2.3 AV has gotten horrible. The last time I logged in for one we were devastated. The reasons for the AV devastation have been very well documented here so I wont beat on this dead horse. I have found that AB and EOTS have now gotten a lot more fun and we actually win once in a while. I have marks enough stored up for any purchase I need although I am low on Honor points now and have to wait a while for those to build up.
One personal observation is that due to the imbalances I have seen the Horde is building thier honor at a much greater rate than the Alliance and gearing up a lot quicker. When the Horde team can pick up 600 or more honor and I get 50 it doesnt take more than third grade math to see it is going to take me a lot longer time to gear up. This of course means that when ever I face up to a Horde in face to face combat I am likely to be drastically out geared.
Because of the gear and honor problems I have decided I will boycott AV. I see no reason what so ever to help the Horde gear up at such an inequitable rate. It is bad enough now that I end up feeling like a speed bump too often. Let them have their devastating battles of destruction, they can do it without me and my friends and they can have their hour and longer cue times. As far as I can tell, the extra long cue times is the only way we have of balancing their extreme honor advantage.
I have a question for everyone from stormstrike BG: Are afkers a problem for you? On Cataclysm, afking is pretty rampant on both sides, but is particularly bad Horde-side. However, this is apparently offset by the alliance inability to do anything but ninja FW keep if ~5 defenders hang around to recap the IB nodes. Does anyone else see the large increase in afkers (partially due to realizing people are too lazy to report them) as a consequence of increased winning % and speed? After 2.3 came out Horde on Cataclysm would win game after game after game, to the point where I was personally making ~ 2000 honor per hour (15-20 minute 6-800 honor games), so I don't know if Stormstrike has seen a similar increase in afkers in AV due to the apparent Horde superiority there.
Though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable; I simply am not there.
Horde queue times are large, alliance are not... but alliance just don't want to queue, because they get no bonus honor out of it. Horde have too much of an early advantage (Galvanger vs Balinda, Stonehearth Bunker vs Iceblood Tower), while the Alliance have the late-game advantage (Frostwolf Village vs Dun Baldar, Stormpike choke vs Frostwolf open field).
The worst part is the fact the Horde, after being frustrated by waiting in a queue for 60-90 minutes, are relentless in their objective of wringing every last drop of honor from AV that they can, by denying the alliance any and all objectives.
This nets even lower honor per hour for the alliance who *do* queue, and thus discourages them even more.
The only way for the players to fix this is for the Horde in Bloodlust and Stormstrike Battlegroups to let the alliance get their towers, rather than try to defend and win. It would require willingly sacrificing some honor gain, in order to increase throughput. However, the chances of that are about as good as Blizzard announcing World of Starcraft tomorrow, so the solutions I can think of off the top of my head would be some sort of developer intervention.
Quickest and Dirtiest fix: Randomized starting locations.
If the alliance started in the south half the time, the map imbalances wouldn't matter that much, because both sides get stuck with the weaknesses and strengths half the time.
Caveats: You'd need a 'horde' version of Balinda (same stats, different model) and Galvanger.
Slightly less quick and dirty fix: Move Stonehearth Bunker, replace Balinda with her goth cousin Malinda the Warlock.
Galvanger is tough because he fears, drops threat on the tank and hits like a truck. Balinda's cousin Malinda could easily make herself tougher, with fear, death coil, aoe corruption, etc. Move Stonehearth bunker so that it's easier for the alliance to reach it before the Horde, and you've got something. Perhaps swap the bunker's position with some of those dwarf houses in the side of the mountain that are only there for show.
Another fix: Balance the honor gain more toward front-loading again
Make towers and objectives not all-or-nothing, but gradient-wise. Give the towers some sort of HP total, rather than just make them timed. For example, each tower has a 'power core' that has N health and no armor. It does not regenerate normally (or if it does, it does so slowly). Destroying the power core will destroy the tower. The power core can be healed through normal spells and such. This takes away the 'ninja' sort of gameplay, and instead makes the towers really concentrated. You can force a tower down if you kill it fast enough, and you can actually make progress towards destroying it even if your offense wipes and comes back.
12/14/07, 5:50 PM
