Sando

This has been stated dozens of times throughout the thread, it's been stated very clearly that horde have the early game advantage, alliance have the late game advantage, and the imbalance is caused by the game being decided most of the time in the early stages of the game without the bases coming into play. It's also been stated many times that you would need to balance the bases. Actually read the thread and you'll realise that many people, alliance and horde, have been saying that changes to more than the midfield need to happen.

 

Bogeywoman

I think any Alliance players who haven't had a chance to play AV Horde-side for the last few years need to understand that the situation which exists now -- losing a great majority of the time, with a sense of general defeat and scores of people AFKing in the cave -- is what the Horde has had to deal with for the greater part of two years. Honor farming completely aside, some people play this game to win. And, because of the map imbalances -- which for a great deal of time, many Alliance declared did not exist at all -- we didn't have that opportunity. So more than in just about any other thread, you'll find the responses will come with some degree of heat and derisive acrimony. I propose that we all try to ignore that heat as much as possible and focus on constructive solutions.

Here's mine.

Turn the clock back to just before BC. Alliance is way more progressed, due to a larger playerbase and paladins. They have better gear on average, they have more healers and more cleansers, and as noted the AV map is skewed in the old ruleset to favor Alliance.

A bunch of Horde got together and organized intra-battlegroup same-time queuing. I'm not sure which came first -- the scOrn PVP guild or the Stinkyqueue mod -- but it turns out that you can get 40 clued up well-geared focused and attentive people in the same vent server into AV at the same time if you organize it properly and queue simultaneously.

I cannot tell you how amazing it has been to run with the scOrn AV team. Frankly, having that level of organization completely eclipses any map advantages or disadvantages -- it doesn't matter if such and such a flag is 100 yards further in than blah blah blah, because here comes a strike team composed of two highly rated arena teams, all in vent, all with 300+ resilience and dedicated pvp healers, to take it from Xlegolasx and his merry band of moonkin. They'll get that shit done in about, say, 5 seconds.

To get an idea of how powerful that team is, we would usually win 4-5 games an hour. If we encountered a counter-premade it would occasionally take 30 minutes and we'd all be pissed off and go in the next time and camp their cave AoEing the spawn spot with Lok beating on the guards.

The long term solution is that Blizz obviously has to fix their crap, throw away the map and try again. But if history is any judge that will take about a year and a half. In the meantime, the Alliance who care about winning absolutely can do what the Horde who care about winning have been doing for a year now. And I for one would welcome being on a premade team and coming up against a real counter premade that would give us some decent competition.

 

Kasi

It's not that simple Bogeywoman. Sure you've had to deal with losing in that BG due to afk'ing, but there are signifigant differences here.

1) Horde has always had winning records in the other 2-3 BGs. So If AV was bad honor, horde had other choices.
2) Horde even when they lost AV got something out of it. Alliance on BGs 5 and 9 aren't getting anything out of it.

Personally I believe that horde are better at PVP than alliance. Sorry Sando. I think as long as I've been playing this game alliance has always been stereotyped as the noobs/kiddies part of the Wow community. And that for me is nearly 2 years of my life. I think this attitude has shaped and reinforced itself in many ways by funnelling more hardcore players towards horde side, even with the disadvantages they had pre TBC with no pallies. I've done a lot of AV lately, and people have a hard time just understanding basic things like guard towers/gys or not suicide on a defended Galv. Maybe Horde have this problem too, but it seems like their organization is somewhat better.

And yes, SQ is a great thing and really does help AV become something more fun.

 

Wunlastri

Uncertain if anyone thought it up before me...but revert back to old style (like you get rep for turning in flesh old school) and give 1 token per hour in the mailbox? Or even 1 token per half hour.

 

Bogeywoman

Doing napkin math based on guilds and arena teams etc., it seems likely that there are several thousand clueful, motivated, pvping alliance players on BGs 5 and 9. All of them have the capability of using Ventrilo and downloading, e.g., StinkyQueue. The point is, you have the power to change the game to something where you are all but guaranteed a fast win, regardless of average Alliance player skill -- because you don't bring joe random Xlegolasx, you select for quality.

In pre-AV-change days, the scOrn vent server would have 3-4 full 40-man teams going. Sometimes the server would crash because too many people were trying to join at the same time. So they put up yet another 200-slot vent server, which the very next week also got full and crashed with 3-4 teams running full bore on that one too. It got to where people were scolded and kicked for inviting their slightly-less-clueful friends to the vent farm.

Given that Alliance still drastically outnumbers Horde, one could only imagine that you could get 10, probably 15-20 full 40-man teams in each battlegroup and have very low queue times due to the serious increase in interest from the Horde.

 

Questioner

The simple solution doesn't require changing any rules or the map at all. Just have the map and npcs flip flop every other game.

Horde proposed this change 3 years ago, and probably still would not object to it. Only lore does.

 

Vis

I've played post 2.3 many, many games on horde and alliance. Before that, many, many more from a horde perspective.
The change is definitely a step in the right direction. However it is not enough. Many of you seem to be stuck on the concept of map equality. Whilst this is important, of greater importance is something else.

What needs to be done for AV, but most importantly, future large scale battlegrounds, is to remove choke points. Currently in AV there are many objectives, which is a great thing. However, these objectives are best met by an organized effort from the entire raid group. So, it is encouraged for the average player to play in this 'raid style' of play and objectives become of secondary importance.

These battlegrounds, need to be broken down, much like in AB, where an even spread of players is the best strategy. It doesnt take long for people to work it out. The problem is not that your average player is completely without clue. It is that the design forces them this way.

So ideally we would have a battleground, with many 5-10 man groups competing for objectives and on occasion, a few larger groups may be more desirable. But they should never be 'choked' off, like the choke points in AV. Choke points are the problem with AV.

 

Copernicus

A few thoughts-

The 51-60 gear doesn't have resilience and the characters have much less health. A defensive strategy is less effective because it's much easier to focus-fire and kill someone with a few lucky critical hits. Healers are also probably in a DPS/grinding talent spec and gear selection.

No epic mounts means responding to an attack or counterattacking is much slower. I don't know if Horde goes between IB and Galv for defense, but their response time would be much slower if they were.

Less AFKers on both sides. I'm sure Blizzard by now has statistics on what percentage of people are AFKing on each side and in each battleground, but I suspect that it's worse for AV for the side that has instant-queues. Before 2.3, AV was the AFK place of choice because each side got honor and there wasn't as much value to winning vs losing. After Horde's queue times started getting lengthier, it became a less popular choice for Horde AFKing while Alliance AFKers were still willing to get the lousy honor. After all, someone AFKing in an AB/EotS would probably get the same honor for AV (because it would cause their team to lose usually) and AV had the instant queues.

 

Vis

I've done the same as you, but played a lot of 50-60 AV. Whoever tends to win these, I believe came down to 2 things. Firstly, the side with the most twinks. A 60 twink here will go crazy. Secondly, there are very few games, so you get to play with the same people often and it is easier to organize these people then it is at 70 (where everyone is a pro).

 

◊ zeidrich

Plus in 50-60 people are playing to win. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think people play in twink BGs to farm honor. It is easier to level to 70 and lose AV if honor is all you're worried about.

 

Mode

Untrue. You can play in the previous AV bracket at 60. If you're someone's alt, you can have your epic ground mount - Which, suffice it to say, is a HUGE advantage in AV.

I liked the 51-60 bracket far more than the 61-70 bracket. You really got to use the entire map(Lok etc). The mobs are still a threat because no-one is in the equivalent of Tier 3. The best gear you see are some BC greens/blues and ramparts gear. The possible power difference between two characters is much smaller than it is in almost any other BG. A 60 twink is just far more trouble than it's worth to most people.

---

The power of even a partial premade is that it can get people to defend. No-one wants to be the lone fool defending Iceblood GY, but many people are willing to be Another Fool if there's a 5-man premade defending. Incidentally, it's a REALLY BAD idea to rush Galv. If we're defending(sometimes we do, sometimes we don't), we usually have a few people watching Galv, PRAYING the Alliance is stupid enough to rush him. If they do, we all eagerly run in to obliterate the Retard Rush. Game, set, match.

 

doogless

I did a few AVs this week on my Shaman alt to get a hilarious 41.4 DPS weapon at level 51. AFKers are practically non-existent in the 51-60 bracket (I counted 1 cave-guarder in the 5 games I played, although there's also 2-3 people in the harpy cave for legitimate reason in this bracket). My guess is that fewer people care about honor farming at that level, and are in fact playing to win/kill people.

We lost the first 4 games I did for the same reason we lose at 61-70 - Horde defended IB/Galv (and especially with people in green quest gear, Galv is a nightmare), and Alliance couldn't defend SH/Balinda.

 

Mordinm

I think people really underestimate the power of momentum in AV. In my Battle Group the Alliance still wins the majority of AVs despite a Horde advantage under this map and rule set. Back on Ner'Zhul before Battle Groups were implemented Alliance had the advantage from the map yet I still ground to exalted with Frostwolf faction on two characters without ever getting into a losing AV. It seems likely to me that after a rule or map change in AV one faction in your battle group will establish dominance and the other side goes in expecting to get pounded into the ground. When that is established you get extremely lopsided win/loss ratios mostly be cause of the psychology of each side. The inherent advantages just make it easier for that one side to establish a winning tradition.

People from time to time come up with the idea of switching the sides at random to make things more fair. People over look the obvious problems that make this a horrible thing to do. When I queue up for say eye of the storm and am sitting in the starting area if there are more then about 8 to 10 alliance from the same server on the opposing side people start dropping like flies. Instead of getting rolled by a pre-form they go grind out a few daily quest or try for better odds doing a BG on an alt. You can easily get 25 to 30 people cycled though a 15 man BG vs. a pre-form before the game gets going. In a switching AV this would be worse, you would essentially have a huge number of people who afk out of every AV where they drew the Orc side.

 

Kasi

Except that people would be afk'ing out of the alliance version of the map. I'd love to have the horde side if I had teammates that wouldn't rush. Turtle IB GY and crush the horde attack and mop up SH and pound out 600-0 wins. If you stick 15-18 at that IB choke and have a few in the back for stealthies and backcapping your opposition is never going to take any of your objectives. Never. I do agree with you that momentum is huge. You can even see this in a single play session of AV. If you repeat queue you can get together with similar people game after game. Yesterday I had this go for 4-5 games and we won all of them pretty handily due to playing together and having healers. Then I got out of sync with that group and lost a few due to being with people who had been on a losing streak.

 

Spatula

A strong defense at IB to start is not some insurmountable hurdle, it just requires a large rush from the opposition to steamroll it.

 

Prinsesa

I advocate any sort of map or rule change that would get Alliance playing again. I despise the idea of not defending IB/Galv simply because of the potential of a 500-0, 0 alliance bonus honor win.

I play to win, and I loathe the idea of losing quickly just because it results in more honor per hour. Nowhere else in this game am I expected to pull punches just to get great results, and I'm certainly not going to start with AV of all places.

If Blizzard decides to change the map around, or if the honor gains were modified to let the Alliance get a decent amount out of a loss without encouraging AFKing too much, then so be it, but I for one take pride on being on the winning team, and as long as the defense strategy works, I'm all for it.

"We do want Sanctuary to be the tanking seal"

- Ghostcrawler

 

Ngita

Their are 60 twinks but they are mainly just old 60's never leveled. I have been looking a 60 av from both sides trying to figure it out.
Bloodlust pre 2.3 had a 90% or more win record for Horde. A good solid number of 60 vs lots of alliance low 50's trying for their 1 handed mace or polearm. But post 2.3 it has swung to the opposite. I got a nice streak of 14 winning games as alliance recently.

Their are some alliance playing for honor but I suspect a number are like me. I will keep my shaman their till he is capped on AV tokens.

 

Phantasmal

The easiest way to restore some measure of parity to AV would be to give Snowfall to the Alliance at the start of the game. Galv is a pretty big advantage, but what allows Horde to dominate the midfield is the fact that Alliance deaths will respawn all the way back at Stormpike behind a Horde owned chokepoint at Stonehearth while Horde deaths respawn at Iceblood and are given the choice to help reinforce the Horde chokepoint there or to go over the cliff into the midfield proper. Giving Alliance Snowfall isn't the perfect solution, but it would require practically no programming time and I think it would be effective enough to stabilize win rates and honor gains in the BGs where the Horde plays defense.

 

Valerys

On my BG, Alliance wins most of AVs (both sides tend to do the rush without defense, which favors Alliance). So anything that buffs Alliance will result in them winning all AVs as opposed to most, meaning I am against it.

 

Mankeli

They could just switch the sides around every time the dailies reset. Just have any new AV starting after that point for that day start with switched bases, horde in Dun Baldar and alliance in Frostwolf Base. Write up some dialog for NPCs about taking their opponents base in a daring night raid but then finding out they had the audacity to do the same thing, and now you need to get your base back.

Bonus weekend would get both sides two days of play with their base of choice, so only big problem might be the BG dailies. If the BG dailies are on a straight four day rotation, you would always have the same base for AV daily.

 

Phantasmal

The beauty of the Snowfall change is that it won't effect the game at all if the Horde doesn't play defense. What good is rezzing closer if no one is dying at Galv or trying to take Iceblood?

 

Calantus

I've leveled a horde character to the mid 50s in BG9 simply because I started to play a blood elf to see the start area and got carried away. In any case what I'm seeing is that the horde in 51-60 are bad. Like wipe on balinda with 30 people against 4 alliance bad. Defence is largely non-existant. I'll be sitting at IBGY and after the first couple minutes I'll be the only person there. I'll call out "IBGY" "IBGY NOW" and people will still jump off the IB ress point to go fail of offence. Meanwhile the alliance are co-ordinated as much as a PUG can be and there are a LOT of 60 hunters who can 3-shot my paladin no problem. We still win a few, but alliance definitely outclass us by a large margin.

I'm not surprised by this really, I imagine a lot of quality alliance players are either logging onto old characters to play some real AV and actually have a decent win % or people are specifically making twinks for this. Horde meanwhile have much less incentive since they can just level to cap and win AVs there. I'm pretty sure many of the horde are there for quests and their blue weapon just like I was, and many didn't seem to know the good horde strat so probably don't have 70s. It's a pity I no longer have any 51-60 ally characters (they leveled up) or I'd go check firsthand how it works with them.

 

panny

Getting people to register on third party forums to set up their own meta raids is a good solution for the elite, but not for your average player that wants to play a balanced game. I've been part of scorn runs, and they're great, but requiring that amount of extra effort for a fair game isn't reasonable.

Fix Spirit Wolves not responding to commands.
DK/Rogue

 

Spatula

Now that's a decent suggestion. Snowfall is already rather unfair as the alliance's first obvious "cap" since it takes 5 minutes to take control of it (the first time only), while all other flags turn after 4 minutes. And as you say, they badly need that forward respawn point.

 

Cheeky

Is granting them control of it a better idea than just reducing the cap time? If they only had to wait 2-3 minutes on the initial cap, would it be enough to grant them better overall positioning in the Field of Strife? With the map imbalances seeming to come into play only in the early stages, a couple minute difference might have a real effect on overall results. Can the Galv zerg wait 2 minutes for the cap?

I think all this talk of fixing the map is pointless. Blizzard showed for the last year they don't care if one side dominates the other in AV. I doubt they are going to change things now. You'll probably just see Alliance either resigning themselves to X runs for X tokens, or changes to the Honor payout so that they get a better share even in complete losses.

As a Horde player grinding to Exalted 18 months ago, I remember the focus of AV being to take down Balinda & Lieutenants for rep, and not really worrying about winning the damn thing. If Alliance focused on just getting some towers and Galv they could probably do the same thing. It sucks, but it's better than 0 bonus honor, and little from kills thanks to the diminishing returns system.

Cheeky of Havoc