I’ve been working on ALT gear for a while, and after this last Warsong Honor weekend, I realized how much I really loathe Warsong games. Conceptually, the game should be a blast – it’s a 10 man game which means you can easily find 9 other pals to play with. I do this – even with 10 well geared and fairly well organized players, and we will still occasionally get turtled on. My idea is to fix the turtle problem. No one enjoys a game where people hide in their flag with full or large amounts of defense making it impossible to score points.

So what’s my idea? I have a few, but I’ll propose this one and perhaps people can add on or expand to it. Essentially, I think the flag should add the following attributes:

- Force a player to remain in combat
- Add a damage over time component

My hope is that these two attributes will slow the turtle process. I’ll elaborate more on the damage over time. My thoughts is that after a 2 minute period of which BOTH the flags have been stolen (this is a fairly long time in bg standards, with AV games often lasting only 10-15 minutes), a dot begins to stack on the flag carrier, starting at 1000 dmg/sec. This dot should increase in strength by 500 dmg every 15 seconds or so, until reaching an approximate damage of 3k a second. This amount of damage COULD be healed through, but would sap a large amount of the teams needed healing to re-capture the flag, as well as it would make it much easier for an opposing team to return the flag.

So you say then – why not just drop the flag and avoid the dot when turtling? I would suggest making the flag produce an aura damage of 25 yards that ignores LoS to the appropriate team carrying it. The damage out put would be identical to the individual who carried the flag last.

I realize there are potential downsides to this “fix.” Teams without healers or very limited healers would have almost no chance of turtling. This could potentially allow teams with lots of healers to turtle themselves and just try and outlast the other teams. I don’t consider this a significant downside.

Anyway, it’s just my thoughts. I’d like to see warsong an enjoyable game - if such a feat is possible.

-- edit

I should briefly add that I am aware of the suggestions to make WSG more like an AV setup with reinforcements etc, but I thought that perhaps this would be a simple fix that would be easy to implement. However, the fix WSG topic may have been beaten to death

Since the addition of the reinforcement system to AV, Warsong is the only BG that has no maximum time limit. Discouraging turtling would certainly go a long way towards making games more fun. Ideally the flag would have some sort of vael type debuff, reducing max health the longer it is held. At the very least, this would force some hot-potatoing of the flag, for lack of a better description.

I also think it should limit movement speed, ala silithyst. Would it be more or less a nerf to druids? Certainly, but druids still have many ways other than travel form of maintaining distance from other players.

Edit: This should probably get moved to the PVP forum.

Well there's definitely work to do with WSG, and the most obvious and simple would be to raise the honor it gives, so it's at least on par with losing AV in terms of time/honor.

Your suggestion might sound like a good idea, but the main flaw I see is, people would just wait for the other team to get the flag before taking yours, then play the turtle game, and outlast you since their dot would be lower than yours. Timed right, that means the first team to take the flag would die, flag returns, and 2nd team caps before it becomes unbearable. This would leave to turtling the flag at his base instead of taking it out THEN turtling, which doesn't seem that good either.

I think they should go for something easier really, if after 4mins of both flag being taken no one scored, both flags are reseted and both teams get a draw point. That means after ~15-20mins(you need some time to retake both flags so the timer starts), the game ends no matter what, with a draw possibility. No more stalling. Obviously the timer could be adjusted, but it seems rather fine to me. You could force draws by just turtling on your flag, but better than forcing the opposite team to leave out of boredom imo.

Seems like the most simple answer would be to make it a one flag at the middle game like EotS is, but maybe people wouldn't like that.

Just add reinforcements to WSG. If they want to turtle, they should lose after, say, 250 reinforcement deaths.

While I think the reinforcement idea is a good one, I guess I'm trying to say that might point with this idea is to speed up game play and hopefully also help bring a quicker game ending. Perhaps a combination of reinforcements and the flag dot may be useful? I feel like if you just add reinforcements, you may still have the same, boring old WSG with people turtling. It's just not as painful because they game may be 20 or 25 minutes instead of an hour.

You've already pointed out how teams with no healers or undergeared healers would be crippled by your suggested change, so I wont touch on it but briefly. Adding a 'reinforcements' concept to WSG wouldnt work out either, since the assaulting team against the turtle takes far more casualties than the turtling team.

The only sane solution I can think of is to alter the flag to function similar to Gruul's Shatter ability. The flag produces an Aura that targets all nearby battleground members. If 4 or more people are in the flag radius, then everyone in the flag radius takes a debuff (incremental) that reduces damage done and healing taken. So 8 people standing near the flag would reduce damage dealt by 10% and healing taken by 10%, and 4 people would reduce damage done by 5% and 5% respectively (numbers available to change). If 3 are in the radius, no effect. In 2 are in the radius, healing taken and damage done is increased by 2% or something, and if you are by yourself, healing and damage taken / done improved by 5%.

Thus, it's more beneficial for your team to be out trying to return your flag then turtling. Turtling still works, but you are penalized for keeping that much of your team near your flag carrier, but not so badly that it's untenable.

Reinforcements would fix the problem in a way, right?

In addition to losing points for player deaths, you could also lose points for flag captures.

The flag carrier debuff looks at just one scenario though.

It could be arranged that when both flags are being held, both teams lose a constant amount of reinforcements (kind of like a mutual siege penalty).

The longer a flag has been held, the less effective healing becomes globally, for either team, on any player. At 5 minutes, -10%. 6, -20%. So on, so forth, until healing becomes *completely* ineffective. This generally favors an attacking team over a defending team, since there tends to be more healing on the defensive side, and it's easier to focus it on the point of attack. It penalizes the non-turtling team equally, its true, but if you don't do it based on any global flag, you run into the problem cited earlier regarding strategizing flag timing.

My suggestion is to have a neutral flag cap area spawn in the middle of the map after x minutes of a flag not getting capped (kinda like reverse EotS).

You guys are making it way too complex.

The simple solution is to not require your own flag to score, just like team fortress 2 CTF.
There also needs to be a time limit. In case of a draw when reaching the time limit, both teams lose.

Not requiring your own flag turns it into something of a rush fest. Games would certainly be quicker, but I think some of the organizational requirements for winning would be waived. I'm not sure, I'd have to see it in practice.

Tejs' idea looks best to me so far.

In this instance though, it is still perfectly acceptable to turtle. Eg: both teams are in an infinitate state of turtling, at which 10 minutes flags reset, and they repeat the process. I don't think a flag timer solves the problem.

Best solution I've seen:

• Each side starts with 150 Reinforcements.
• A player's death causes their side to lose 1 reinforcement.
• Capturing the enemy flag causes the enemy to lose 50 Reinforcements.

You could always make it a timed event where the team with the most caps in that time wins. That way defence is still worthwhile because you take away the option of rushing to see who gets the first 3 and not worrying who wins because quick is good.

Reinforcements wouldn't really work, because generally in a turtle the members of the attacking team die a hell of a lot more often than the defenders.

A simple time limit seems easiest... game ends after 3 caps or 30 minutes, and if after 30 minutes the score is tied than both teams walk away with one or two marks and some honour... (Tweak the honour gains such that the honour per time spent is about equal to AV of course.)

I would instead flip it around and build something to encourage people to go get their flag instead of holding it back.

Maybe a buff that flips between both teams every 1 minute that grants increased damage and crit chances to encourage teams to rush for their flag. If in a minute you haven't gotten it then the other team gets the buff and now its their chance to come and get theirs.

There are three types of long games:

1) When both teams have each others' flag and they can't get their own flag back.

2) When one team is able to get its own flag back but cannot prevent the other team from continually grabbing its flag once it is returned (before their own carrier can "cap" the opposing team's flag).

3) Some combination of the above, where there is essentially a deadlock, as neither team can maintain the dual objectives of having their flag while keeping the other team's flag on top of their own cap spot.


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I'm a big fan of changing the WSG flag into a channeled pickup, exactly like how the EOTS midfield flag works. This small change would, I believe, significantly alter the dynamics of the game because it makes active, pre-emptive flag defense a viable strategy.

As it currently stands, the way defense works is very hit-or-miss. And the truth is, the only times I've seen defense work are against either very bad teams or PUGs, where only one or two players runs in at a time and they attempt to get the flag one by one. Against any organized (or sufficiently geared/skilled) players, defense becomes a huge waste of time. They can either get into your base and out with the flag easily enough that defenders become "wasted" (i.e. they could better spend their time in the field or blocking the exits from the field side rather than trying to defend within the base), or they all go in to your base, blow up your defenders, laugh at the free HKs, and leave with your flag.

In short, trying to prevent your flag from being grabbed and taken out of your base is a bad strategy within the current game mechanics. The best way to prevent your flag from getting taken is by controlling the field and zerging the flagholder (and his support) once he is in the open field, or by going as one large group with your own flag carrier and then intercepting your flag as it tries to cross the field (while you are simultaneously trying to get their flag across the field as well). [I believe the general term being thrown around for the latter types of clashes is "cock showdown". It may have more to do with male genitalia than roosters, but I'm not an etymologist.]

Adding a channeled pickup component to the flag means that you can actually prevent your flag from being grabbed in the first place. This means that you can have people in the flag room actively defending the flag. This helps to prevent many of the #2 (and #3) Deadlock situations, as you can prevent the other team from continually grabbing your flag while still maintaining enough of an offensive force to retrieve your own flag in return. In my experience, #3 Deadlock is actually what extends games the longest - after being stuck in a 10 minute #1 Deadlock, one team finally manages to retrieve their flag only to discover that the other team either has someone waiting to grab the flag again or the other team's offense is able to slow your own carrier from "capping" and simultaneously have someone grab your flag. Then you are stuck in another 10-minute #1 Deadlock, and the cycle continues ad infinitum.

Unfortunately, I don't think in the long run this change would do much to shorten #1-type Deadlocks, as if both teams are able to successfully overwhelm the other's defenses and bring those flags back to their respective bases, a channeled flag doesn't affect much of anything (accept as described above). However, I think a channeled flag would PREVENT such situations from forming in the first place. Once active defense becomes a viable strategy, it will become much more common for the better overall team to prevail in those situations, as they will be better able to prevent the opposing team from getting their flag in the first place. "One-group zergs" will become significantly less common, as roughly half of your team can successfully stop a full-on 10-man rush from ever grabbing your flag while the other half of your team easily gets the other team's flag and brings it back to your base.

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While the idea of the "double-cap" seems good, it faces an issue of consequences. If both teams hold the opposing team's flag for 5 minutes, they both obtain a capture and both flags are returned to their bases. One side effect of such a change, however, would be that once a team gains the lead, the only thing they save by defending is time. They can safely ignore getting their own flag back and simply concentrate on holding the other team's flag. After two 5-minute intervals, they win. The only way to stop this from happening is to give the leading team an incentive to win the game by preventing the other team from getting their flag.

Which then begs the question: if this change requires so much post-implementation "tweaking", is it really the type of change that we are looking for?

Other proposals, such as stacking damage or decreasing healing face significant balance issues, specifically with regards to healers, that I believe are too significant to overcome in the face of Blizzard's "everyman" philosophy.

And while a simple time limit makes sense, in terms of game design I don't see it happening anytime soon. You want to promote people trying to win. More importantly, you want to promote people fighting against each other while trying to win. This is the essence of PVP gameplay (and PVP "fun"). If you implement a time limit, you're basically throwing your hands up in the air and admitting defeat. This is why Blizzard introduced Reinforcements to AV rather than a simple time limit; it gave the game a "hard" limit without making people feel like they just wasted all this time and effort to get what is essentially a draw. In this context, a tie is comparable to kissing your sister. Furthermore, the change promoted actual PVP play, which was a significant turnaround from the PvE simultaneous-race that AV had essentially become after the NPC changes.

Introducing Reinforcements to WSG would significantly alter the "feel" of the game. In general I think any game designer, Blizzard included, would be loathe to do this. In AV this change was fine because the focus of the game became reinforcements. Killing NPCs, capping bunkers/towers, etc. all were placed within the conceptual framework of Reinforcements. Warsong Gulch is a Capture the Flag game. It's not a Reinforcements game. If you're supposedly playing to get a flag, it becomes very disjointed to suddenly have a Reinforcements meter pop up mid-game and then have the focus of the game switch entirely. Similarly, if you attempt to place flag captures within the context of Reinforcements, you're basically making an inverted version of EOTS. Except rather than having bases you only have flags (coincidentally, this is why having only one flag midfield wouldn't work - the entire flavor of the game changes too dramatically and becomes converted into a mini-game of a pre-existing Battleground). And, as someone else pointed out, placing deaths/kills within the goals of winning a WSG game actually dramatically alters the dynamic of the game in another way - you promote slower, more methodical fighting, as people will become unwilling to die unless they get an equal or greater number of kills in return. I'd imagine a 150 Reinforcement WSG game could itself still last an hour, because teams would be unwilling to face each other in the open field and/or wouldn't die quickly enough to make the game end in a timely fashion. And you also face the issue of team composition - a PUG with no/weak healing becomes a no-win situation purely because they can't keep up in the war of attrition.


I don't want to sound like a party pooper - my own idea is full of flaws of its own, I'm sure. It just seems that people are dismissing the issue of "fixing" WSG as a one-done thing. "Oh, if only Blizzard did THIS then everything would be fine". The truth is, the reason WSG hasn't been altered is because of all the BGs, WSG is probably the most difficult to modify. And, Blizzard doesn't make sweeping changes without good reason. They rarely make sweeping changes at all. They are much more aligned with the philosophy of making small, incremental tweaks, measuring those effects, then tweaking some more in the future if necessary. Unfortunately it is difficult to come up with such a Blizzard-mindset "small tweak" to WSG that would both fix the underlying time-limit/deadlock issues without significantly, perhaps detrimentally, altering the gameplay dynamics of the BG.

The reinforcements should be implemented, but that alone would not fix the turtle problem aside from the game finishing in 20-30 mins.

The defending turtle will always have the advantage and will generally kill the offensive team at a 2:1 or more ratio.

The main idea I can think of would be to have a reinforcement count of 150 (stated above, dieing is -1, capture -50). Give the flags a timer that after 4-5 mins (that can be increased/decreased) both flags are moved to a stationary posistion in the middle of the field, thus forcing both teams out of their bases and into a confrontation in the middle. This would make sure some reinforcements are lost and incourage some thought as to how and where to defend, either the base or forgoe(sp?) the base natural terain advantage and hold the middle in the hopes of insurance against this reset.

This, to me would make WSG a far more progressive and interesting BG (I rather enjoy solid AB games, as they are fluid and have a guranteed short to mid term end). The 4-5 minute force reset would have to be applied universaly to the team instead of per flag carrier to avoid a flag swapping turtle fest.

All they need to do is add a Quad into the game. Like a Besker buff that spaws in the middle of the map but gives you increasing damage depeding on how much time it has been since the last flag capture, maybe something like 50%,100%,200%,300%.. damage increase.

I would probably bump the honor up a bit to make it more competitive with the other VGs, but no changes to the mechanics. Even though arena has essentially killed organized WSG, at least compared to pre-TBC where if you wanted to show your team PVP skills WSG was really the only place, I'd hate to mess with something that's been basically unchanged for the past 3 years.

Another thing to consider that no one's brought up is the impact on the twink game. I think WSG to a lot of people is more than just the means to an end that AV has become. I know some of my favorite moments (pre-TBC unfortunately) were beating T3 sets from big time guilds with pro druids running flags in hour+ games with multiple returns by both sides.

If they do make any changes, please don't take skill out of the game like with the vanish nerf.