As stated before - Alliance doesn't have problem with the imbalance of the map so much as the imbalance in honour gains.
Anything you said so far ignored that point and hammered on about something that most all in this thread are done with for a long time.
I couldn't care less if I lose 90% of the time as long as honour gains are acceptable.
In General that is what alliance would say in threads where AV map imbalances were the subject of conversation. I'd like to think people are intelligent enough to not pick nits as you are doing in your rebuttal to me. The ratio of alliance only players who freely admitted to the map imbalances of the past compared to the ones who told horde "QQers" to suck it up was so miniscule it's not even worth mentioning. You can take it for granted whenever I use the term "Alliance" or "Horde" in the future that it refers to the overwhelming majority of players and not the scant few in the nether reaches of the bell curve. I acknowledge there are no absolutes.
Isn't the main purpose of this forum to have an intelligent discussion that rises above the level of the typical middle-bell-curve "QQ" poster? What a Blizzard forum poster did or did not 'freely admit to' is immaterial to this thread. I don't believe suck it up we dealt with this for years is a constructive thought. Furthermore, it ignores a key fact: when Horde were taking zerg losses pre-2.3 they were making about the same honor (or slightly less) than the Alliance. Currently, on the BGs where Horde dominates, the Alliance are getting 0 (or close to it) honor. I doubt you would see as many complaints if Alliance were making 200-300 honor per crushing loss.
Meaningless anecdote: On Reckoning both sides are still zerging and are at about 50/50. I lost a game a few days ago while tanking Drek- he was at 3%. It seems that the Alliance can execute a "half on defense, half on offense" strategy but I highly doubt anything more complex would work in a PUG. An individual is smart, the mob is stupid. AV is the definition of "the mob".
I couldn't care less if I lose 90% of the time as long as honour gains are acceptable.
Yes. As long as I'm actually gaining decent honor from the battleground, it would be an acceptable situation. Obviously a perfectly balanced battleground where neither team has an advantage would be the best option, but if that isn't possible then I'd at least like to be able to get more honor than the HKs I'm sharing with 20+ other people who are in range.
The largest difference between the old imbalance and the new imbalance is this:
Alliance is more likely to win a race, due to DB.
Horde is going to win a defensive game (post 2.3), Due to Field of Strife.
In a race Pre 2.3, both teams are capping towers, killing captains, and often near neck-and-neck pulling generals.
In a defensive game post 2.3, alliance are either losing towers and objectives without gaining any, or are steadfastly turtling on a graveyard bleeding reinforcements to lose a 45+ minute game.
In the prior, it is frustrating to be horde, and lose games, but you are still collecting honor. You are still winning some. Because alliance still wipes to Drek occasionally, and Horde knows how to pull Vann solo. But winning means nothing anyways because there are no daily quests, and what do you need all those AV marks for anyways?
In the latter it is soul crushing because you leave with no honor. You don't win. You can't complete dailies. And in terms of PvP combat it is not a fun BG as it is so frequently zerg vs 1 or 1 vs zerg.
Plus, it only takes 1 team to make the game defensive, while it takes both to consent to a race.
As a quick update on the situation, it appears a couple new battlegroups are falling to the same problem in Stormstrike and Bloodlust. Rampage has slowly been heading towards longer queues for a few weeks now and have finally hit 1 hour queues. Shadowburn horde have recently caught on to the shutout strategy and the queue times are going up (~30 min at this time) and their forum is full of AV boycott posts. I hope nobody transfered into these battlegroups to avoid the queues/losses, and I'd advise not jumping ship to any battlegroup for AV alone because it's likely this will keep spreading.
So the map needs to be changed because you're not smart/coordinated enough to use the correct strategy?
If i bypass all 4 nodes in AB and run directly to the stables, and steadfastly stick to this strategy, do I not deserve to lose? I should win because that should be a viable strategy? That's nonsense.
Congratulations on taking a fairly long post and taking a small part of it out of context, really helpful to the discussion. I guarantee you cannot provide a strategy that is viable for alliance in a PUG situation, to say that alliance hasn't tried any new tactics is laughable. As to the difference between old AV where alliance had the advantage to new AV where horde have the advantage, they are completely and utterly different.
The old alliance advantage was in a race between both sides. Horde defence does not become effective until you hit 10-15, while alliance could actually slow you down between SP and DB through hunters and the like with as little as 5 players. The bridge gave us the advantage because it is a long choke point perfect for trapping and flaring from hunters. The alliance base also requires more clearing than the horde base. This meant that alliance could actually do both a slowing action as well as rush, with a fairly typical game ending with alliance capturing everything and horde being around SP or having the DB bunkers in conflict.
The current horde advantage is entirely in the midfield, and using the advantage as those in BG 5 & 9 are results in almost perfect wins for Horde. Horde have a clear advantage in the battle between SH and IB considering the surrounding bunkers and the difference between Galv and Balinda. Taking advantage of this results in alliance being pushed back to SP early, with no real hope of recovery. A typical game ends with maybe 1 tower down for alliance and everything captured by horde.
It has been said so many times in the thread what the horde advantages are, to say that they are similar to the alliance advantages were shows a complete lack of understanding of both AV and WoW in general. If you find it funny that alliance are refusing to queue, trust me, every alliance on BG9 who doesn't need marks is laughing their arses off about the queue and horde complaining about it. And considering that since the introduction of the afk-system and 2.3, my queue from alliance (pre-transfer to BG9) went from 1h+ to instant, to say that horde never avoided AV is a complete fabrication. It's in everyones interest to fix AV, most of the posts by horde in the last few pages has been along the lines of 'yeah it's imbalanced but horde had it tough, so suck it up alliance', if you can't see how childish and pathetic that is then i guess there's not much hope.
Sorry but the alliance advantage was just as pronounced prior to the changes it's just Alliance didn't want to acknowledge it. I have to say I'm getting quite the chuckle out of it now that reinforcement change has flipped the script so to speak.
I think the crucial problem with the layout here is not that the map isn't 100% balanced - that's not going to happen unless you create a map with near-perfect symmetry a la WSG. It's that the natural outcome of many games when horde play a simple yet effective strategy PUG vs. PUG, is the alliance netting near zero honor. Contrast that with AB, where PUG vs. PUG, the losing team is likely to still hold 2 bases for a large portion of the game and get some decent bonus honor. In WSG the losing team will often net zero bonus honor, but lopsided games are often quick, and the map doesn't favor either side in any meaningful way. In Eye, the losing side will usually net some honor like in AB, *AND* the map is more or less neutral.
I don't think alliance would be nearly as frustrated, if they lost the vast majority of the games 350-250, instead of 500+ to <100. I'm just thankful that I acquired 90 AV tokens before my several-month absence from WoW.
Yes. As long as I'm actually gaining decent honor from the battleground, it would be an acceptable situation. Obviously a perfectly balanced battleground where neither team has an advantage would be the best option, but if that isn't possible then I'd at least like to be able to get more honor than the HKs I'm sharing with 20+ other people who are in range.
This is ignoring the fact that that AV shouldn't be the honor farm that it is and is part of what was broken in the first place. The inflated objective based honor was clearly meant to have taken into account the amount of time you spent in the BG vs. the others. AV is completely broken in this regard. You were never meant to get 600 bonus honor in 10 minutes. If you played it more defensively as people are saying horde should have (flawed as the idea is), instead of defense sitting at SP and the vast majority running to Galv I think you would see the honor even out a little more. Of course then you wouldn't get the honor/hr you were getting during race days and probably a lot of people would start complaining about that (not you necessarily).
Thing is this... Horde has adapted to reinforcements more so than Alliance from what I can tell in my BG. Before defending Galv was seen as a waste of time... if (big if) defense was to be established it was at IB. touching SF was the ultimate no-no because then the SP turtle would be impossible to crack. Now horde is defending Galv and taking SF. I haven't seen changes in the alliance strat at all. So how about changing tactics before decrying it to be completely hopeless. No your honor per hour will never be what it was for racing. But again, it was never meant to be that high to begin with. And truthfully that wasn't even pvp.
If all you are interested in honor to fill out your arena gear then go premade IMO. If you're interested in actually balancing AV then let's talk about actually balancing it and not simply the honor gains. To do so though you will have to accept that it has been fundamentally imbalanced from the start. The small addition of reinforcements didn't change the measurments of the map. All it changed was what was acceptable to lose and keep... and the fact is you need to keep SH and your two towers (Galv/Bal not so important really). So if you don't try to mount a defense you really aren't coming in with the proper perspective.
It's in everyones interest to fix AV, most of the posts by horde in the last few pages has been along the lines of 'yeah it's imbalanced but horde had it tough, so suck it up alliance', if you can't see how childish and pathetic that is then i guess there's not much hope.
Let's make this clear. I am not saying that alliance aren't getting the short end of the stick here. But seriously how many dedicated pvpers actually need marks these days? I have been using marks to buy mounts just to get rid of them since 2.0. I think a big problem is people aren't being honest about what they want out of AV. Do they want a fun and balanced BG or do you guys just want your honor farm back?
About the laughing. I will apologize for that but I was just being honest because if you can't see the irony there well I don't know. It does make me chuckle to myself to see this. But I do rather want AV fixed because it went from my favorite BG despite being insufferable long at times to something I just endure for the ridiculous honor gains.
IMO though fixing the balance issues need to go back to a time predating reinforcements. They didn't create the balance issues. They just highlighted them and turned them on their ear putting the other team on the short end. You say it would be better to be horde side of imbalance where we got honor. Well I hate losing period so that's a small consolation. I want a balanced AV that's fun. Honor is secondary to me.
You know the funny thing? The current strategy that horde is using to crush alliance? Was completely and totally viable with the old map/bg. Send a lot of people to IB GY and galv and camp them and crush the alliance offence. Belinda and SH bunker were still as easy to cap back then as they are now. The fact is that you just didn't do it. You had too many afk'ers, you didn't care enough, you hadn't found the strat, whatever, the fact is you could have been doing this all along and you failed to do so. Because with no reinforcements the game would just drag on, nothing would happen and no one would care. Horde yes couldn't get past SP, but alliance wouldn't get past IB. But the strat was just as viable back then as it is now. Horde just didn't do it.
Err... viable in what sense? All it produced was an endless alliance turtle that would last hours, and that all the horde would /afk out of, until eventually alliance stealthers start taking graveyards and end up winning.
The horde strategy for winning, was to hold onto IB GY (and respawn points to the south) until SP GY is contested. At that point horde can afford to lose IB and the defense acts to slow down the alliance zerg until Dun Baldar burns and Vanndar is dead. It was impossible (and still is) to hold out at IB indefinitely and still have an offense. Part of it is that horde needs a lot of people to take SP and DB, usually, but also because it's fairly easy for alliance to slip past IB and hit TP, FW, or the horde base, and you then have to split your defense to defend those areas, which weakens your hold on the chokepoint, which makes it easier for alliance to slip by (or to take the GY)... And you absolutely could not touch SF. But in any case, you didn't see this happen very often because such a win took 60-90 minutes, vs 20 minute no defense losses. i.e. the honor farmers didn't like it. Anyone trying to defend anything was called out in chat, insulted, etc. and told to just let alliance win rather than dragging out the match. PvP was a mistake, we were there to fight NPCs for rep & honor, apparently.
Originally Posted by Kasi
I already explained why its not the correct strategy. Countless people in this thread have explained why it is not the correct strategy. You defend at the part of the map that favors you. ...
Tell me Thrush how defending SH GY is the correct strategy? The only way it can be the correct strategy is if you can defend it while taking IB GY.
You defend what you need to in order to achieve your objectives. The purpose of defense here is not to hold a position forever at all costs, but to slow down the opposition. Can alliance slow down horde from taking SH? Yes, definitely. You can even keep them from ever getting it, but then they just take SF and go around (seen that a few times). Go back and look at the last few pages of alliance (including yourself) responding to deadlight... what's the common theme of the alliance woes? Rezzing at SP. So how do you fix that?
Alliance need a forward respawn point. IB is hard to take. SH is hard to defend. And yet... there's a 3rd graveyard in the field of strife. Holding onto SH until SF is in hand is a viable strategy.
I guarantee you cannot provide a strategy that is viable for alliance in a PUG situation, to say that alliance hasn't tried any new tactics is laughable.
A winning strategy for alliance is simple, you hit IB first thing and do it with at least 30 people. IB falls at that point and your biggest worry is that the horde won't shave 5 to 10 people off the zerg and trap them on D. Once you have IB down with SP standing and a minimal D at SP you've won. It's that simple, you do this and 9 times in 10 you win.
That said I think part of the problem is that they took the Lts. out. In the very worst case where you can't kill galv/bal and can't keep a GY or tower capped long enough to destroy you still could kill 7 to 10 elite NPCs and get some honor. The real crappy part of AV is you can get 0 honor for a 20 minute game. In AB and EotS at the very least if you get rolled for no honor it's done in 5 min. Cutting the tower/GY honor in half and added it to the Elite NPCs would go a long way to helping ease the pain of a loss in AV.
A winning strategy for alliance is simple, you hit IB first thing and do it with at least 30 people. IB falls at that point and your biggest worry is that the horde won't shave 5 to 10 people off the zerg and trap them on D. Once you have IB down with SP standing and a minimal D at SP you've won. It's that simple, you do this and 9 times in 10 you win.
That said I think part of the problem is that they took the Lts. out. In the very worst case where you can't kill galv/bal and can't keep a GY or tower capped long enough to destroy you still could kill 7 to 10 elite NPCs and get some honor. The real crappy part of AV is you can get 0 honor for a 20 minute game. In AB and EotS at the very least if you get rolled for no honor it's done in 5 min. Cutting the tower/GY honor in half and added it to the Elite NPCs would go a long way to helping ease the pain of a loss in AV.
Thank god. A horde who knows what he's talking about. Yes that is the winning strat. Well the strat anyway that doesn't lead to 500 point losses. You hit IB GY and you hit it hard and you hold it.
As for the thing about holding SH GY til SF caps I can only laugh at. What happens to all those people you killed defending SH? Oh yeah, they wipe your offence out. Once horde get some people on defence killing your offence it is much harder to get them back in the mentality of going on offence. I've almost never seen an AV where alliance lost their offence that they managed to regenerate it. And yes we're there to get honor. You apparently have never played alliance and don't know the pain that is pugging non AV in pre 2.3. It's horribly. It's going 10 games without a win on a regular basis. AV was all the pug honor people had, and now its gone. Of course we're upset.
A winning strategy for alliance is simple, you hit IB first thing and do it with at least 30 people. IB falls at that point and your biggest worry is that the horde won't shave 5 to 10 people off the zerg and trap them on D. Once you have IB down with SP standing and a minimal D at SP you've won. It's that simple, you do this and 9 times in 10 you win.
Ignoring the fact that keeping 30 PUGers perfectly in sync for the first 5 minutes of the game is a pretty excessive expectation, this is a pretty easy strategy to counter. If you know they're going to send 30 people to IB, you just bring 20 defenders back to IB. You keep up a .75:1 kill ratio using the chokepoint and congratulations, you've won the game.
The only strategy that cannot be easily countered into a guaranteed loss is for Alliance to spend the first 4 to 5 minutes of the game sitting on the SH and SF flags until SF caps, with an ambush on the Belinda fighters and an attempt to retake Stonehearth bunker during the chaos at the SH flag. It's just exceptionally dumb that one team's only options are to either try to delay the start of the game for five minutes or to all out zerg IB and hope the Horde guesses spectacularly wrong.
Ignoring the fact that keeping 30 PUGers perfectly in sync for the first 5 minutes of the game is a pretty excessive expectation, this is a pretty easy strategy to counter. If you know they're going to send 30 people to IB, you just bring 20 defenders back to IB. You keep up a .75:1 kill ratio using the chokepoint and congratulations, you've won the game.
Getting the majority of the raid to zerg IB does not require keeping 30 Pugs in perfect sync. It is no more difficult then the horde spliting on D and O and taking SH GY before anything else. Any stragey in AV is pretty easily countered. If you know exactly what the other side is going to do and can get your raid to react properly you're going to win. The point is you don't. The complaints center around this unbeatable Horde strat that is in fact very easily beaten. Riding to zerg down IB looks a whole lot like going riding to pound your head aginst galv. By the time the horde (Pugs as well if you recall) reacts to you IB is capped and you have the advantage of defense. Not to mention if you think getting people to zerg IB is hard but getting 20 horde to turn promtly around and abandon the offense to go on D is second nature your not thinking this though.
Except like Calantus said on Bgs 5 and 9 it is second nature. It has gotten to the point where horde follows a strat there that leads to 500 point wins nearly all of the time and they follow it religiously. They aren't sending 25 on offence or abandoning towers to being capped. They are defending IB and galv hard and they do this consistently. This is why those bgs AV queues are so long. Alliance have tried to adapt. It's just that the turtle horde strategy is too difficult for any pug alliance group to overcome.
Any stragey in AV is pretty easily countered. If you know exactly what the other side is going to do and can get your raid to react properly you're going to win. The point is you don't. The complaints center around this unbeatable Horde strat that is in fact very easily beaten. Riding to zerg down IB looks a whole lot like going riding to pound your head aginst galv.
No, it doesn't. Basically, all the Horde needs to do is send out ~10 midfield roamers that watches the oncoming Alliance rush. If they stay on the western side of the midfield, they're going into Galv. The roamers follow them into Galv's room and kill as many people as possible, usually wiping the Alliance attempt and sending them all back to Stormpike. If they don't stay west, they're headed towards Iceblood, so you just fall back and fortify the Iceblood chokepoint for the easy win. Of course, the typical Horde pug isn't going to pull this off as flawlessly as I explained here, but that doesn't matter because...
By the time the horde (Pugs as well if you recall) reacts to you IB is capped and you have the advantage of defense. Not to mention if you think getting people to zerg IB is hard but getting 20 horde to turn promtly around and abandon the offense to go on D is second nature your not thinking this though.
The "advantage of defense" is a pretty laughable concept. Trying to defend an IB cap is quite possibly the most vulnerable position in the entire game because you're a) tied to fighting near the flag or else someone might slip in and instantly return control to the horde and b) respawning back at Stormpike while defenders are respawning a 20 second ride away at Frostwolf. The 20 horde on offense are irrelevent, and I've never seen a properly executed game from the Horde side where any of them were even close to needed.
The bottom line is that strategy for PUG vs PUG AV is comparable to playing Rock Paper Scissors. The problem with current AV is that at the start of the game, Alliance needs to win 3 rounds in a row, while Horde only needs to win once. If you kill even half of the Alliance offense just once before Snowfall caps, the game is effectively over.
As for the thing about holding SH GY til SF caps I can only laugh at. What happens to all those people you killed defending SH? Oh yeah, they wipe your offence out.
More like they ride off the cliff and head back to SH, paying no mind to the state of the flag, like they always do. In any case, you expect the offense to get wiped out, because they're just a distraction to keep people away from SF until you control it. They're rezzing at SH, once they respawn they'll mop up the horde there and go back to mindlessly attacking IB or Galv. SF caps, SH falls to horde, and now the alliance are in position to mount a serious push at IB without being bothered by the horde offense.
Your other comments I will ignore because they are very silly. 10 games without a win? How about 10 months? Horde pvpers put up with the same crap for two years, we know your "pain." I reached exalted with two horde toons pre-TBC (and one alliance, but that's hardly an accomplishment), one Balinda kill at a time, playing my best every match, never botting, never fishing, doing whatever I could to maybe, possibly, get my side to eke out a rare win. Or at least salvage something from the inevitable loss. And yes there were more than a few shutouts in there.
Originally Posted by Mordinm
Getting the majority of the raid to zerg IB does not require keeping 30 Pugs in perfect sync. It is no more difficult then the horde spliting on D and O and taking SH GY before anything else. Any stragey in AV is pretty easily countered. If you know exactly what the other side is going to do and can get your raid to react properly you're going to win. The point is you don't. The complaints center around this unbeatable Horde strat that is in fact very easily beaten. Riding to zerg down IB looks a whole lot like going riding to pound your head aginst galv. By the time the horde (Pugs as well if you recall) reacts to you IB is capped and you have the advantage of defense. Not to mention if you think getting people to zerg IB is hard but getting 20 horde to turn promtly around and abandon the offense to go on D is second nature your not thinking this though.
The horde are magic. They can be everywhere at once, respond perfectly to any proposed strategy, and always act in their tactical best interests.
I just want to express my feelings on a few things... I've messed up your post so its easier to respond to.
Originally Posted by deadlights
- Do they want a fun and balanced BG or do you guys just want your honor farm back?
There are alot of alliance that use (or used for some BG's) AV as a honor farm, this is true and will not change for those BG's with low queues, the rewards for wining/losing is better than most of the other bgs (depending on BattleGroups). But there is also alot who just want a fun battleground to murk arround in (I personally HATE wsg because of clueless pugs that just dont get it), and AV is something for everyone, I vary what I do in AV on whim, sometimes I defend, sometimes I go offense and then there are times I just focus on objectives. I like that.
Originally Posted by deadlights
- But seriously how many dedicated pvpers actually need marks these days?
- Well I hate losing period so that's a small consolation.
- I want a balanced AV that's fun. Honor is secondary to me.
These is the interesting points of your post from my point of view. For me the worst part of AV is all the spam mail from +100 marks that you get . I hate losing consistenly, especially when I cant do anything about it and I get zero reward (hence my hatred of WSG). After the first few days of S3 I dont really "need" anything from honor anymore, upgrading through arena/badges, so honor is secondary for me aswell.
But heres the kicker: If AV is getting less fun due to map imbalance, those seeking the fun factor will be looking else where for their fun and if there wont be even a bit honor to the losing side (like horde pre-2.3), then those that are after honor rewards will also be looking to the other bgs. And then you get the results that are appearing on several BG's.. namely that the only alliance that is going to queue for AV will be in it for the marks (or should I say mark ) only... as that is all there is to get.
So the question whether or not alliance wish for a honor farm or a fun battleground, then the answer must be both. As they are closely linked as to who and how many bothers to queue up. A lost cause can be fun enough, but if morale is at an all time low with little or no rewards, then you are going to end up with low levels, afkers, bots, hk grinders and people who are just going through the motions but not really paying attention or caring either way.. which is going to be less fun if you actually want to win. (And I badly wanna beat those filthy-tree-chopping-grass-eating-plague-creating-power-hungry-troll-lovers! hihi )
Originally Posted by deadlights
But I do rather want AV fixed because it went from my favorite BG despite being insufferable long at times to something I just endure for the ridiculous honor gains.
I like AV better now than before, because of the same reason in reverse. AV was boring as hell, as it was a npc zerg for quick honor (for alliance). There is more proper pvp in AV (IMHO) now than there has been since the old days and that is a good thing. Ofcause this is because I have yet to incounter the state of total losses on Cyclone that are occuring on other BG's. We win, we lose, and its still somewhat of a zerg, but with more defense and the motivation of taking, holding and retaking points. But should horde on Cyclone do the same thing as on the BG's named in this thread, then I'd properly be looking for my fun in the other battlegrounds aswell.
I wonder if some hordies dont promote "THE" winning tactic in some battlegroups on purpose, I could well imagine that for some (hordish-) people constant 0-600 wins is the last thing they would want considering what is happening on some of the BG's.. nobody wants +1 hour queues, it isnt fun and it isnt rewarding. Any horde from 40-50-60% BG's have some thoughts on this?
I tried a few AVs today to confirm some things for myself. Firstly we had a lot less AFKers... not sure why but if it's a trend there's some hope of at least having a decent winrate if you can lead the AV well. Anyway, for those willing to try this is what I've confirmed for myself:
- Going for Galv is a losing strategy. Obvious of course but it's really frustrating when someone else manages to get the zerg to hit Galv and we lose solely because of that. You can kill Galv, but not do so and also leave enough def for SH and you will lose many players in the fight there.
- You can't rely on getting IB AND defending SH. Horde have the advantage in IB so you have to outnumber them there significantly to take it, and if you do that their offence is too big for SH to stop.
- You HAVE to keep SH. If you lose SH you can't stop horde from closing up the midfield. trading GYs is not good enough because of the distance imbalance of the back graveyards.
So with needing to keep SH and not being able to take IB or Galv because of it you have no option to attack whatsoever. The only way to win with anything short of "massively outplay" is to hold SH and take and hold SF until it caps. We've talked about the strategy before but it seriously is the only decent option at this stage. I haven't been able to get people to defend SF, but spamming "SKIP GALV" at least stops them from tempting the horde towards SF and taking it back instantly. Ressers at SH tend to push onto SHB and there's a possibility of taking that back but it's not a good idea to focus on it.
The problem comes when you've capped SF. Anyone dying in the midfield will ress at SF, and SH will slowly become undefended. It's hard enough to make players stop on the way to where they are going and defend a GY, it's quite another to get them to go out of their way to defend SH. Eventually you will lose SH.
The question is what to do with the opening you have with SH and SF in hand. Hitting Galv is popular with the masses but honestly hitting Galv before IB is a disaster in the making. During that time horde will take SH and gain map position whereas you have gained nothing but some honor and reinforcements. Hitting IB is difficult because it is a very powerful choke, made even more powerful since you're pinning the majority of the horde force down there if you attack it (until a ninja, I'll get to that). I think it's probably impossible to take with a pug against a large defending force.
A stalemate in the midfield is not in alliance interests because of the well documented imbalances there so you really need to push on through. This imbalance is made more severe because of player imbalance in BG9 where horde have much better ninjas. We lost one game where 3 people ninja'd SP and held it until it capped. I kept calling for people to fall back but not enough did. We also have frequent ninjas against our DB bunkers. Alliance on the otherhand don't seem to understand the concept. A ninja on FW would likely pull a few defenders off IB and allow us to take it, but I haven't been able to arrange anything like that.
So basically my strategy at the moment is:
- Hold SH.
- Cap and hold SF until it turns.
- ???
- PROFIT!
I think ??? needs to be "ninja FW GYs and Ts to force def off IB and cap it" but I honestly don't know if alliance in my battlegroup are capable of it.
My only suggestion at this time, since Blizzard seems determined to suck every last bit of goodness out of AV, is simply to make bonus honor = 600 - (other side's remaining reinforcements).
This is not said out of bitterness. I run premades in AV for fun, I don't need any gear there. When our guild goes in, we stomp them. My frustration with AV is that it used to be fun, and now it's not as fun to me.
My proposed change in bonus honor is there only to make it less onerous for alliance puggers to queue.
In any case it's something we've been looking to do for a little while now, and since it's a hotfixable change (not everything is), we hotfixed it.
We do have some fairly substantial Alterac Valley changes coming in a future patch that we hope will address some of the balance and play issues.</annoyinglybutnecessarilyvague> (Source)
We want to fix the main issue.
The main issue is not that people AFK, it's why they AFK.
The main issue is not that some no longer queue, it's why they no longer queue.
Asking to make the AFK or queuing system more robust (read: punishing) is really just band-aiding a band-aid and on and on. It will never stop, and we'll only reach a point of total agreement when no one is allowed to play.
We're attempting to put in good, balanced, fun changes that fix these issues at their root.
I'm being a bit hypocritical because the hotfix* today did none of this, but it's certainly a positive change in the interim.
- Hold SH.
- Cap and hold SF until it turns.
- ???
- PROFIT!
I think ??? needs to be "ninja FW GYs and Ts to force def off IB and cap it" but I honestly don't know if alliance in my battlegroup are capable of it.
I don't see how the ninja strat is a winning one unless horde drop the ball. If the strat is going to decide on ninja'ing things, why not just send 25 to relief hut from the start of the game and hope to take that? I'm also thinking the ??? could be trade SH for IB once you cap SF and then defend SP, which is generally the best way to win now, except that we don't bother with holding SH til SF caps.
You are right with what you said about it being harder to take IB if you play defence, because the horde is still spawning there. I still think hitting IB with 30 people is what you need to do, and you have to sit on it til it caps with those 30. 30 people is enough to take and hold IB GY til it caps no matter what horde does really. Sure people who die might have to spawn back, but with using that hill for healers plus having some rezzers you can rez people up and not lose your offence between horde attacks.
Since there is really no ?? that works unless your side actually has better players, I still think the best thing to go for is a chance of a win. Even if that chance has the drawback of a massive loss if it fails. The SF method does give you better chance to reinforce IB GY when you're in the process of capping it, but the question is will it be possible to cap when you've blunted the horde offence while playing defence. Many times I've seen 5-10 in Galv, so with them hanging out in there plus the horde going on offence plus a few afk'ers that is enough window of opportunity to take IB GY and hold it. Yes you have to live through 4 minutes of counter attacks on IB GY. Chances are though those forces will arrive in piecemeal fashion and a lot of defenders there with healers can slaughter them for a while.
My only suggestion at this time, since Blizzard seems determined to suck every last bit of goodness out of AV, is simply to make bonus honor = 600 - (other side's remaining reinforcements).
This is not said out of bitterness. I run premades in AV for fun, I don't need any gear there. When our guild goes in, we stomp them. My frustration with AV is that it used to be fun, and now it's not as fun to me.
My proposed change in bonus honor is there only to make it less onerous for alliance puggers to queue.
One of the main secondary issues still remains and is unsolved by this problem. Turtles. Horde win by defending Iceblood, and almost certainly force a turtle at Stormpike Graveyard. Alliance would need atleast 600-1000honour/hour for them to even remotely consider requeing for AV. But this change would simply only award a few hundred honour/hour maximum, just enough for the afkers to swarm AV, continuing the problem.
Not to mention bonus honour is only part of the honour calculation. After a few minutes, honour kills in a turtle become close to worthless especially when shared amongst dozens of others.
People want easy honour, and if its not easy, they want the maximum honour/hour then. Alliance would be more then happy to "pvp" and not afk if it meant they would generate more honour from AV then any other alternative.
Getting the majority of the raid to zerg IB does not require keeping 30 Pugs in perfect sync. It is no more difficult then the horde spliting on D and O and taking SH GY before anything else. Any stragey in AV is pretty easily countered. If you know exactly what the other side is going to do and can get your raid to react properly you're going to win. The point is you don't. The complaints center around this unbeatable Horde strat that is in fact very easily beaten. Riding to zerg down IB looks a whole lot like going riding to pound your head aginst galv. By the time the horde (Pugs as well if you recall) reacts to you IB is capped and you have the advantage of defense. Not to mention if you think getting people to zerg IB is hard but getting 20 horde to turn promtly around and abandon the offense to go on D is second nature your not thinking this though.
No, it's really, REALLY easy to get 30 alliance (assuming no AFKers) to IB, that can be done very easily, just spam chat telling people to take IB and shut down any dissenters, they'll listen. The hard part is once you've taken IB, now i have to convince people not to go for FW, not to split up and take the towers (well you take the one behind you) and not to send even 10 to go take Galv. If the ADHD kids decide to run off and keep on rolling hordies, they'll get chopped to bits, and since we can't possibly hope to defend SH, spawn at either SP or way back at the RH. If you want to try and convince any group of 30 random players from seperate servers to stand in that one spot for 5 minutes, be my guest, but i'll pass on that one thanks. Yes, you've come up with a very easy strat for a pre-made to use, and it's strats like these that mean pre-made vs pre-made, alliance would not get crushed like it does in Pugs. But telling 30 people to camp one point for 5 minutes and not move out of it while horde move on SP, secure the bunkers, and kill Balinda, the natural reaction is to push on and keep up with the Horde.
The way that alliance need to play to get a 600-0 win... well that's incredibly complex compared to hordes. As stated, alliance need to take SF, defend SH until SF caps. If they can take IB then it's an easy win at that point, but they'll probably need to give up SH, then they need to secure IB and the towers, before aggressively retaking their own bunkers. Then they can kill Galv and move onto FW for the win. Yeah alliance have winning strats, they're just not so simple as a pug can do it.
Originally Posted by deadlights
I think a big problem is people aren't being honest about what they want out of AV. Do they want a fun and balanced BG or do you guys just want your honor farm back?
About the laughing. I will apologize for that but I was just being honest because if you can't see the irony there well I don't know. It does make me chuckle to myself to see this. But I do rather want AV fixed because it went from my favorite BG despite being insufferable long at times to something I just endure for the ridiculous honor gains.
What do i want, fun balanced BG or honor farm? I'll take either at this point, i'd love the really old-school 20 hour games, but either an honor farm or fun/balanced would suit me fine, it's neither at this point. I'm much more interested in them actually implementing an AFK system that works at this point, i'd happily play it if alliance could actually get 40 players every game, it's not as unbalanced as it seems. But the AFK system and it's lack of any punishment basically blows out any imbalances because people just AFK farm, worsening the situation for their faction.
Of course i see the irony, i also see the irony in horde complaining about queues and telling alliance that when it was imbalanced against horde they sucked it up and played. Well for 1, horde actually got honor, and 2, no, horde didn't play and alliance had 1 hour queues.
I don't see how the ninja strat is a winning one unless horde drop the ball.
There's those magic horde again. The point is to draw off defenders from the chokepoint, weakening their hold on it. If you can keep pressure on other objectives - obviously some lone-rogue-ninja-capping isn't going to cut it - you force significant resources away from IB, which allows the attackers there to potentially accomplish one of several possible goals (burn nearby objectives, bypass IB for the contested objectives, or take IB). That's the slow way to break strong defenses, regardless of where they are defending, vs. just overwhelming them.
Originally Posted by Kasi
If the strat is going to decide on ninja'ing things, why not just send 25 to relief hut from the start of the game and hope to take that?
You can do that, and you have about a 50/50 chance of getting a win out of it (albeit one without much bonus honor). If it fails though, you probably lose and get shutout to boot. A defense-oriented horde team will trinket back and attempt to kick the rushers out, while a skeleton horde offense grabs SH and seals off the Icewing pass.
Originally Posted by Kasi
You are right with what you said about it being harder to take IB if you play defence, because the horde is still spawning there.
The funny thing about IB is that when you spawn there, the flag isn't even in line of sight. And if you're heading north or west, you don't ride by the flag at all. People spawning there are not forced into defending the flag, as they are at nearly every other graveyard.
01/04/08, 4:57 PM
. I hate losing consistenly, especially when I cant do anything about it and I get zero reward (hence my hatred of WSG). After the first few days of S3 I dont really "need" anything from honor anymore, upgrading through arena/badges, so honor is secondary for me aswell. 
) only... as that is all there is to get.
)
The point is to draw off defenders from the chokepoint, weakening their hold on it. If you can keep pressure on other objectives - obviously some lone-rogue-ninja-capping isn't going to cut it - you force significant resources away from IB, which allows the attackers there to potentially accomplish one of several possible goals (burn nearby objectives, bypass IB for the contested objectives, or take IB). That's the slow way to break strong defenses, regardless of where they are defending, vs. just overwhelming them.
