The New AV - Page 29

Spatula · 01/10/08, 4:00 PM

Originally Posted by Narwe

Call me crazy, but I would like it to actually be fun, too.

You're crazy.

With the current map (and it's not going to change), AV is either going to be a gentleman's agreement pve race (not fun, assuming you actually want to pvp in the pvp battleground) or one side is going to dominate the other.

mikebro · 01/10/08, 4:06 PM

Originally Posted by Mordinm

People AFK because you lose and you lose because people afk.

The reason why AV is not going on some battlegroups is because they cut the honor for the losing side by a whole lot. Before the recent change Puging AV and getting creamed was the fastest way for the horde to pug honor. The result is that even though Horde lost a huge percentage of the games they kept playing because it was either AV or get yourself in a good preform. If they add back in the free honor that was the elite NPCs and maybe made defending Dun Balder worth while in terms of honor the alliance would come back.

Lastly there is no real reason to think that the alliance would do better if no one in the BG was AFK. In fact judging from the other BGs horde pugs should keep a very good win percentage vs alliance pugs on a fair map.

People AFK because they get honor for not even being at their computer, not because they lose. Even after the Report AFK feature and the recent lowered amount of reports required to get the idle debuff you can get several thousand honor a day easy without even looking at your PC.

Narwe · 01/10/08, 5:24 PM

Originally Posted by Spatula

You're crazy.

With the current map (and it's not going to change), AV is either going to be a gentleman's agreement pve race (not fun, assuming you actually want to pvp in the pvp battleground) or one side is going to dominate the other.

I didn't say anything about the current map . . . just that it would be nice if AV was fun.

Personally, I think they should trash the entire thing and rebuild a new mirrored 40 man BG in the spirit of AV. If rated or guild vs guild BGs (which I believe are planned) actually become a reality, they'll be forced to completely revamp AV anyway. Nobody will want to play it as it is now, regardless of the validity of the 'maybe it's all just psychology' argument Blizzard reps are currently slinging. In an unmirrored map, there will always be a side for which it is easier to strategize and/or win from.

I give a great deal of credit to the developers, and I do appreciate the work they do, but in terms of gameplay AV has been a mess since it was introduced. I'm fed up with it. It's time for the developers to bite the bullet and completely revamp it such that it is in line with the current PvP game.

ravs · 01/10/08, 11:19 PM

Originally Posted by seminarca

Alliance on Bloodlust won an AV last evening (Oceanic time).

I was with the small defense force, ready to intercept them at Galv, instead they rushed to IBGY with about +25, completely decimating us when we responded there. They ignored Galv for a while and had the majority of the zerg sit on IBGY until it capped, simultaneously they sent 5 man squads to harrass TP and FWGY. When IBGY capped, they went and got Galv and IBT. During this time, we pushed up to TP (think we capped it back) and halfway to IBGY maybe before they routed us and pushed south, steadily we lost TP and then FWGY. They also had stealthers taking the FW towers, which diverted some of our attention. Finally we found ourselves in FW keep, trying to keep them at bay up through the twisty path between the towers. Eventually they just overwhelmed us and took our aid station by having multiple mounted people rush in. They had something like ~45 reinforcements when they won, I think they actually killed Drek because we had the reinforcement advantage when they got our aid station.

Not sure what our offense was doing, I presume they were following the standard strat. When it ended, they were on the bridge bleeding reinforcements, stealthers trading DB towers with alliance defense. I don't know who had the mines.

They seemed pretty well coordinated, though there wasn't major representation from any one realm, maybe a cross realm sync-queue ala scOrn D:?

I'd be interested to hear from any Alliance that was in that match to find out what was going on in their /bg chat. This was at around 11 pm aest.

I was on that Alliance team. We were a Silverhand premade, using vent, which made the exercise a bit easier. Simple strat, take IBGY, then the tower and push TP. Once that push was happening 5 of us would take Galv with no resistance, since the horde were retaking TP. The stealth team was making sure to hold the mines as much as possible, then push FW to distract the horde back there.

It didn't seem particularly pretty, as in the end there were 100 reinforcements we just had to kill, but it seemed to work. It was nice to win AV again.

Scud121 · 01/11/08, 4:52 AM

Originally Posted by Darken

Oh and just to recap, I have posted my wishes for change and stuff that is imbalanced, but I am lucky enough to be in Cyclone BG. Seems like 60/40 up to 70/30 in alliances favor, with only few games where hordes honor is low (188'ish, which is still fairly good considering 250 honor for a AB win on honor weekend, which takes atleast twice as long, if you are just looking at honor per hour). So I dont have a absolut need to cry about AV from a personal and selfish point of view (note: people losing all the time have a right to be selfish about this!), I just want a fair and fun battleground. (edit: that also rewards me at a reasonable pace

)

I agree totally, theres nothing less fun than fighting for 1/2 hr to leave with nothing. I really think that the 600/0 winners complaining that the opposing groups are not queuing have noone to blame but themselves. Given that the difference in Honour for us is about 200ish max, our AV queue times are nothing by comparsion to those given here.

Given the choice between 4 x 400/200 per hour or 1 x 600, I know which I'd rather have - even losing you get 800ish/hr which is more that some BGs get per hour winning.

The current changes make no real difference, apart from the AFKers starting to given up - problem is, afkers speed up the queue times and since (generally) we only get 4-5 per AV, we can usually get away with it.

I would say that the Balinda/Galv arguement is countered by the DB NPC's / FW NPC's to be honest. The only thing is that Bal is that ineffective that there might as well be a "Balinda suicides" emote when more than 5 Horde turn up in front of her. My real issue is that by the time get to her (or near her) the Horde are already in there nuking away. Maybe a bodyguard to slow them down a little (Mini-Galvs) or a proper Aoe CC would sort it out. As it is, boosting her health really doesnt bring much to the game (that said, how much has her health risen by?).

As a final note, I still miss the days of hours long AV's, which had actual PvP combat and the NPC summons. Given the reinforcements setup, would removing the diminishing returns on kills help sort the problem. You can still steamroll your opponents if you like, but at least they get some honour back from kills.

Bonus honour for summoning the NPC's/releasing the flyers/riders etc would also be good imo.

sargsui · 01/11/08, 6:59 AM

It was nice to win AV again.

See this is curious to me. I play on Ruin BG and I really (honestly) do not remember the last time Horde won an AV that I was in. Alliance ALWAYS has Relief Hut and both towers capped before Horde make it to Stormpike GY.

Is Ruin the only battlegroup where this is happening? Is it just a terrible Horde talent pool?
I'd like to know just what Horde on other BGs are doing to cause Alliance this much grief in AV.

Odd!

Prinsesa · 01/11/08, 7:12 AM

I really think that the 600/0 winners complaining that the opposing groups are not queuing have noone to blame but themselves. Given that the difference in Honour for us is about 200ish max, our AV queue times are nothing by comparsion to those given here.

I think a major part of the problem is how the reward system for AV is currently working.

If a team loses WSG 3 to nothing, the losing team still gets one cap's worth of honor.
If a team loses AB, the losing team still gets some bonus honor from their accumulated resources.
If a team loses EOTS, the losing team still gets some bonus honor from their accumulated resources and flag caps.

The only time a AB/EOTS would be beaten so soundly as to receive little or no honor would be if it was a 5/4-cap, either from a premade or from getting too few players in the game. Setting the whole "premade vs. pug" argument aside, these are rather isolated incidents.

If a team loses AV, the losing team might get zero bonus honor.

Thing is, a 600-0 alliance blowout happens all too often, even against a horde pug. If one orc initiates his intent to defend Galv from the starting gates and 9 other people get motivated to join, that's all it takes to seal the alliance's fate.

Now, it's not as if the horde are exploiting. In fact, they're playing AV *exactly* how it's supposed to be played: defend your own GYs and bunkers, take the enemy's own, and work your way towards the opposing General. The only reason we're getting these "race to the finish" games is because GYs aren't linked to each other as in Unreal Tournament.

When the AV change goes in buffing the Generals for each Marshal still alive, this kind of "proper" gameplay will be encouraged all the more. You can no longer skip the bunkers and just zerg down Vann, and it's in your best interest to keep your towers capped so they can't touch Drek just yet (and vice-versa).

I don't think the problem is that AV is too easy for horde to win, it's that the curbstomp win completely discourages alliance from queueing at all.

If the alliance got anywhere from 200-300 honor even after losing 600 to nothing, I'm pretty sure that would go a long way towards encouraging them to keep playing despite the understandably depressing state of affairs.

Of course, if you're going to get a lot of honor for losing, why even fight in the first place? I propose that bonus honor be awarded simply for capping a bunker, with a much larger lump sum if/when the cap completes. The reinforcement nature of AV means that you can't be trading caps forever, even if you managed to get "exploitative peace talks" going on between both sides.

By rewarding a side just for trying to cap, they always get *some* bonus honor, even if they can't hold their objectives. At the same time, it still encourages them to fight, as you can't access even this token "thanks for playing" honor if you just crawl into a corner and die.

Inkm · 01/11/08, 9:52 AM

Originally Posted by Scud121

As a final note, I still miss the days of hours long AV's, which had actual PvP combat and the NPC summons.

Well... Playing a single AV all night on friday, give up on anything at all ever going to happen and go to bed. Wake up and login saturday morning only to find that the *very same* battle was still not resolved really, really, really wasn't fun.

I've played AV activly ever since it was released and repturation in there actually was why you played and I have to say agree with you that they had real pvp combat. However, as mentioned above, they where too long. And silly. Korrak was a bloody madman.

Some sort of middle ground could be cool. Make it sort of like AB or something, towers functioning like AB nodes only negativly for the other team. I do miss the PVP combat but blizzard has set it up in such a way that you really do need AV's throughput for pure honorgains with the prices of the gear.

If the other BG's had any sort of similiar honor gain, I'd be willing to bet people would be playing them for honor and not just marks.

• malthrin · 01/11/08, 2:24 PM

Originally Posted by sargsui

See this is curious to me. I play on Ruin BG and I really (honestly) do not remember the last time Horde won an AV that I was in. Alliance ALWAYS has Relief Hut and both towers capped before Horde make it to Stormpike GY.

Is Ruin the only battlegroup where this is happening? Is it just a terrible Horde talent pool?
I'd like to know just what Horde on other BGs are doing to cause Alliance this much grief in AV.

Odd!

I did the 75k honor grind thing on a Rogue on Ruin (specifically Magtheridon) during the late summer/early fall. This is purely anecdotal, but yes, from what I saw there the Horde are just not very smart compared to Stormstrike. Specifically they were weaker in the teamwork area - individual players were competent, but attempts to organize or strategize were usually ignored or met with insults. This still happens on Stormstrike, but not nearly as often.

Darken · 01/11/08, 2:31 PM

Originally Posted by Prinsesa

Now, it's not as if the horde are exploiting. In fact, they're playing AV *exactly* how it's supposed to be played: defend your own GYs and bunkers, take the enemy's own, and work your way towards the opposing General.

Very much true, the problem isnt the horde players, its the way AV works. By changing AV all the way back from the full day AV's, Blizzard have only looked at npc and timer stuff, never at map imbalances.

And getting horde players (in the 600-0 battlegroups) to let alliance get some honor is just impossible, horde have finally advantage that alliance had before, that alliance gets zero honor where horde used to get something worthwhile is a moot point.. its about winning and losing, any thing besides that is up to blizzard to fix (honor gains, balanced npc and terrain).

One thing though.. I understand what you are saying about the other battlegrounds where you get token honor, but please, losing EVERY wsg is just not fun and the token honor is laughable for the time invested... I only do wsg if I need the actual tokens for something. The map is balanced (if you dont count bugs), but the pugs aint... going to wsg makes me feel like I am playing counterstrike 7 years ago as terrorists a aztec only server... its all I can do to keep the insane urge of tossing my machine out the window in check (for those that dont know counterstrike, its sufficent to say that you are on the team having handguns against snipers and you get randomly shot through a gate you HAVE to run past... duck hunt and you are the duck).

Caligula · 01/11/08, 2:50 PM

Originally Posted by sargsui

See this is curious to me. I play on Ruin BG and I really (honestly) do not remember the last time Horde won an AV that I was in. Alliance ALWAYS has Relief Hut and both towers capped before Horde make it to Stormpike GY.

Is Ruin the only battlegroup where this is happening? Is it just a terrible Horde talent pool?
I'd like to know just what Horde on other BGs are doing to cause Alliance this much grief in AV.

Odd!

You guys never defend and we do. Seriously, throw up 10 people at Galv/IB and you'll start winning. Even when you die you just run past and try to take SP, meanwhile... when we die, we spawn and defend SP. Stop defending FW also. It's such a terrible defense spot for you. Stand between your east and west towers and pick off people coming up the ramp (that is, if you lose IB/Galv).

Most of the time we send a single person to cap those towers and RH and they never run into a single person defending.

Spatula · 01/11/08, 4:38 PM

Originally Posted by sargsui

See this is curious to me. I play on Ruin BG and I really (honestly) do not remember the last time Horde won an AV that I was in. Alliance ALWAYS has Relief Hut and both towers capped before Horde make it to Stormpike GY.

Is Ruin the only battlegroup where this is happening? Is it just a terrible Horde talent pool?
I'd like to know just what Horde on other BGs are doing to cause Alliance this much grief in AV.

Odd!

I'm originally from Ruin and still play there sometimes. The Alliance in AV there are very aggressive (they rush the horde area AND backcap any objectives that horde manage to contest) but aside from that, there's a fuckton of afkers on the horde side, and like 10 max on the alliance side. It's just the reverse of the horde-dominated BGs, except alliance queues are < 10 min for some reason. Consistently winning fires up your own side and demoralizes the opposition into not playing, which creates a feeding frenzy on your side, which further demoralizes the opposition, etc.

Aveeno · 01/11/08, 5:16 PM

I'm not sure if this has been suggested, but perhaps a simple fix would be to increase the number of reinforcements. A grind it out turtle match, should indeed be that. 1200 reinforcements rather than the 600 currently would still allow for the horde to do an offensive turtle at SH, but it would take them a lot longer to wither the reinforcements down. It would also allow a quick 'go for the throat' (ie kill the general) victory as well.

To be honest I think this will end up putting us back at pre 2.3 status (though many battlegroups, as well as all of the Euro servers, are still there), but Horde would still have the option of taking advantage of their chokepoints.

Thoughts?

Melador · 01/11/08, 7:15 PM

Originally Posted by Aveeno

I'm not sure if this has been suggested, but perhaps a simple fix would be to increase the number of reinforcements. A grind it out turtle match, should indeed be that. 1200 reinforcements rather than the 600 currently would still allow for the horde to do an offensive turtle at SH, but it would take them a lot longer to wither the reinforcements down. It would also allow a quick 'go for the throat' (ie kill the general) victory as well.

That would just ensure that players who were just interested in maximizing honor per hour (ie. a lot of us) would /afk out as soon as it was clear that it was going to be a turtle match. As it is now, it's ALMOST better to /afk out as soon as you smell turtle, but if you can manage to be one of the frontline people, you come out ahead sticking out a 30 minute match. With twice the reinforcements, it wouldn't even be close.

Lookit · 01/11/08, 7:20 PM

Pretty big news for AV: Blizzard will now be suspending accounts that afk in battlegrounds, along with confiscating honor points and recently purchased honor rewards.

WoW Forums -> Battleground Non-participation Account Action

Crowl · 01/11/08, 8:10 PM

Originally Posted by Lookit

Pretty big news for AV: Blizzard will now be suspending accounts that afk in battlegrounds, along with confiscating honor points and recently purchased honor rewards.

WoW Forums -> Battleground Non-participation Account Action

Better get the honor for my druid's resto kit out of the way quickly then before the horde start taking part in the overnight games then.

Karamoon · 01/12/08, 7:12 PM

Originally Posted by sargsui

I'd like to know just what Horde on other BGs are doing to cause Alliance this much grief in AV.

Defend IBGY, clean up any alliance that try to sneak/rush past. That's really all there is to it; IBGY is a great defensive position and cuts the alliance off from getting any honor objectives while SHGY is wide open for you to take. There really isn't any Alliance counter to 'Horde strongly defending IBGY' beyond 'play a whole lot better than the horde and break through them'.

This does result in longer games, of course, and if you keep it up for long will result in long queue times.

Cormack · 01/12/08, 9:03 PM

Just went in with an organized AV group of about 35 alliance vs. a horde pug. We managed to win, but we never managed to get to drek and ended up about 300-0.

xiaoxin21 · 01/13/08, 12:36 AM

I like the Non-participation Account Action. I went into an AV today to see how is the change affecting and we ended up winning, I am on BG9. There is virtually no AFKs at all now.

Cuer · 01/13/08, 8:48 AM

Originally Posted by Aveeno

I'm not sure if this has been suggested, but perhaps a simple fix would be to increase the number of reinforcements. A grind it out turtle match, should indeed be that. 1200 reinforcements rather than the 600 currently would still allow for the horde to do an offensive turtle at SH, but it would take them a lot longer to wither the reinforcements down.

When the revamped AV was first placed on the PTR, each side started with 1000 reinforcements. It was boringly, annoyingly long; one side would get turtled, and the other side would have to spend 45 minutes doing nothing but repeatedly killing the same characters, in order to take down the needed reinforcements.

There are many ways to improve AV from where it's currently at, but without any other design changes, simply increasing the reinforcements would not help, if history is any guide.

Melkortopia · 01/13/08, 4:37 PM

Last night me and a bunch of other Moonrunner people managed to get together a 40-man AV premade. We used a mod that one of our own made that would display what AV managed to get into - it made it really easy for the Raid leader to decide if we were going to join or not. Most of the time, we managed to get 35 in, and 3 or 4 of the rest would usually be able to queue in.

It's insane honor. In about 6 hours we won 8 AVs and I collected about 7500 honor (it's probably a bit smaller for everyone else, because I had an old AV PvP Daily Quest and did some other BGs earlier in the day).

The basic strat is to send 15 people to hold SHGY and the rest to take IBGY. They sit on IBGY until it caps, then take Galv, TP, and send stealthers down to FW - simultaneously. Most games would take about 25 minutes. It was sooo much fun.

Eekpaladin · 01/13/08, 11:58 PM

I know that Blizzard is now taking action against AFKers in all battlegrounds, but that doesn't seem to explain this: it seems like Horde on Vindication are now becoming a lot more aggressive in rushing for Dun Baldar. I say this because I've taken notice at how Horde now seems to be keeping pace with Alliance as far as taking ground, and it doesn't seem like we're slowing down either. In almost every other game I played, there were groups of 5 or more Horde doing nothing but running for the Stormpike Aid Station/Dun Baldar bunkers while other Horde would do nothing but attempt to cap everything leading up to there. Pug games seem to have gone 60/40 instead of 80/20 in favor of Alliance.

It's a change of pace, but Alliance seems slow to react to such a switch in strategy even if you spend time in BG chat pleading for some help on defense.

Kasi · 01/14/08, 12:07 AM

I like it when they do that. If both sides rush hell bent for the bases, have 4-5 backcap IW and SH bunkers. Most teams don't pull with 2+ wms up. However horde can do this as well. So its a question of who can get an organized group together first.

Valerys · 01/14/08, 5:42 AM

I wonder how they plan to deal with people creatively fooling the afk reports, such as constantly recalling to base (where they are assured of getting into combat).

dotOrion · 01/15/08, 7:15 AM

After some more AV games I think i have analyzed the problem in my battlegroup Vindication (EU).

First of all, the background on this is probably that Horde has very long queues. They want a good fight (or amount of honor, more likely) for their waiting. Moreover, people are .. a bit slow when it comes to patch notes, at least on Alliance side (I don't have any high level Horde characters there but I suspect it to be fairly equal) - many are still into ignoring Iceblood - capping Frostwolf - kill Drek'thar mindset.

Horde on the other hand, have a serious bloodthirst going, because there is usually a pack of them waiting at Iceblood and Galv (well, between them for good measure). Meanwhile a smaller pack goes for Balinda and caps Stonehearth (which is generally undefended - what's fun in defending, right ?)

So the Alliance raid marches on, discussing tactics (five different ones being mentioned, most of them immediatly called stupid in very colorful vocabulary) and generally ends up splitting between Galv and Iceblood (the reasoning here is: on one side there's the people that say "we'll lose anyway, let's maximize honor" and go to Galv, while the others make a run for Iceblood (or Frostwolf, depending on how many times it was shouted) because that's the way to win !)

Needless to say, both sides get slaughtered, and everyone respawns at Stormpike.
Horde now moves on , leaving a few defenders behind to deal with stealthers, and makes a wall of people at Icewing Bunker. It is nearly impossible to get through, even with stealth (believe me, I've tried), and even if you find a few stealthers to get through, it's not much use. Iceblood is still defended, Snowfall is only a bit away and usually a few Hordies quickly proceed to mop us up and then get back to Icewing.

From this point on, Horde slowly pushes towards Stormpike and many Alliance go to what they are also used to: the slow, painfull last stand turtle. Horde usually doesn't get Vann down, they just slay enough Alliance in Dun Baldar (or on the bridge) to lower reinforcements and win.

This is beginning to sound like a rant, sorry.
What I'm trying to say is- what would you think is best to use as a counter to IB and Galv defense ?
Try to get through to Frostwolf and establish a forward base ?
Take IB and perform roughly the same tactic, cutting off Horde and pushing them back ?
What about Galv / Balinda ? Worth attacking Galv ? Worth defending Balinda with 5-6 people ?