1.12 AV is a huge, huge mistake

[Ziryus-doomhammer (Ziryus)]

Wait, we have the option to accept or not accept 1.12? Like, a toggle or something?

I’d be totally in favor of blizzard offering 1.5 and 1.12 AV, let the community decide which one they prefer.

[Brokenwind-malganis (Brokenwind)]

No idea why my cut/paste was cut off:
AV v1.9.0
No specific changes listed

AV v1.9.3

• The default graveyards in Alterac Valley for each side were moved further up the tunnels away from the battleground exit. This should prevent accidentally leaving the battleground.

AV v1.10.0

• Flavor items from player loot in Alterac Valley will now stack and can be sold for a small value. These are items like Documents from Boomstick Imports, Worn Running Shoes, etc.
• Players in Alterac Valley will no longer drop Darkspear Troll Mojo, Dwarf Spines, Forsaken Hearts, Human Bone Chips, Orc Teeth, etc. and the quests have been removed for these items. Instead when a player is slain in Alterac Valley, any enemies that were in that player’s threat list will gain 1 point of reputation with either the Frostwolf or Stormpike factions.
• Frostwolf and Stormpike faction will now be gained by killing players of the opposite faction. Reputation will no longer be split up among the entire raid group.
• Tower Banners in Alterac Valley can no longer be used through walls.
• Korrak the Bloodrager and his band of trolls have packed up their bags and left Alterac Valley for greener pastures.

AV v1.11.0

• Most of the NPC guard units have been removed.
• Players now drop more quest items.
• Creatures that remain in Alterac Valley have had their hit points reduced.
• The buff that is periodically cast by each faction’s Captain has been changed to a flat 20% hit point buff.
• Upgrading troops through armor scrap turn-ins will also now result in your team’s General enabling a periodic buff to your melee and spell damage. This buff scales from 10% at the Seasoned unit level, 20% at the Veteran unit level, and 30% at the Champion unit level.

AV v1.12.0

• When you join a battleground, you are automatically added to a raid group. You MAY NOT leave that group. To speak in this raid, use /bg instead of /ra.
• Leadership of the battleground raid is granted to whomever has the highest PvP rank when the raid is formed (approximately 1 minute before the battleground starts).

[Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord]

Actually 1.5 is MUCH MUCH more anti zerg, due to minefields alone, i’m not to sure as horde. But i know as Alliance Iceblood GY and TP choke ponint with mines HURT like hell, you’re gonna die there and you NEED that GY at least in OG vanilla so. You sorta had to camp the GY out, while you’re underfire from the Archers who back then HURT even without upgrades.

1.5 -1.8 just has much much much more anti zerging checks set in place compared to 1.12

Would 1.5 Av’s be shorter then they where in Vanilla? Probably so, but there’s no way they’d be done in 6-15 minuites. To many mobs to pull, warmasters alone where a nightmare back then…

People who want to zerg as much as everyone here is implying will find a way regardless. “Zerg mentality” “Zergfest”. Like seriously. It’s as simple as having some people play defense and it stops being a zerg and an actual pvp match, not a raid with pvp elements.

Plus, the fact that 1.5 isn’t technically perfect isn’t a real argument for accepting 1.12.

Being worried about people zerging AV isn’t really a good argument for saying we need to have 1.5 considering there are player made ways to stop it from being a zergfest.

[Fenril-stormrage (Fenril)]

Leadership of the battleground raid is granted to whomever has the highest PvP rank when the raid is formed

Remember those days when only a person with a rank of Lieutenant Commander or above could speak in the WORLD DEFENSE channel?

That also needs to be added to Classic.

Semper Fi!

[Pintero-moon-guard (Pintero)]

To give you guy’s a reference, maybe. If you dumped enough armor scraps into the older versions of AV those normal 55 guy’s would end up becoming 62 elite mobs, that you couldn’t solo. Even those GY guards, those LT’s would give out aura buff’s depending on your rep and so on. Tower archers WILL SHRED ANYONE who’s not a plate user.

Armor scraps made those guy’s into monsters. Also to add in, AV O.G also had that whole black loctus spawn as well, and a ton of herbs, that made everyone want in. I can’t recall when they removed nodes from it (It might of been BC? or 1.12) Also, 1.12 just down play’s the whole Wolf riders and blood hand in’s imho.

Items such as the body parts drop where also a way to farm rep with Gnomer as a human instead of dropping tons of money, into runecloth. Personally i can see why they didn’t do 1.5, but why not just 1.8?

Edit: Also, yes i do agree with you it is as simple as that. But sadly people don’t have that mindset as much anymore. I mean, as you say, a raid with PVP elements, but 1.12 AV removed a lot of those elements. Not all of them mind you but a good chunk.

[Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord]

To give you guy’s a reference, maybe. If you dumped enough armor scraps into the older versions of AV those normal 55 guy’s would end up becoming 62 elite mobs, that you couldn’t solo. Even those GY guards, those LT’s would give out aura buff’s depending on your rep and so on. Tower archers WILL SHRED ANYONE who’s not a plate user.

Armor scraps made those guy’s into monsters. Also to add in, AV O.G also had that whole black loctus spawn as well, and a ton of herbs, that made everyone want in. I can’t recall when they removed nodes from it (It might of been BC? or 1.12) Also, 1.12 just down play’s the whole Wolf riders and blood hand in’s imho.

And all of this is irrelevant to people are just going to zerg as quickly as possible because winning/losing quickly is a “better” option then having long extended battles.

[Mogar-stormrage (Mogar)]

People who want to zerg as much as everyone here is implying will find a way regardless. “Zerg mentality” “Zergfest”. Like seriously. It’s as simple as having some people play defense and it stops being a zerg and an actual pvp match, not a raid with pvp elements.

What you’re describing is exactly how AV works now. Well, I can’t speak for right now since I haven’t really pvp’d much since Wrath. But as soon as players figured out they could just ignore the other team, that’s what they did. Almost every AV was just who could rush down the General first. People didn’t play defense, and if you did your team would yell at you for prolonging the match. To say magically this won’t be the case in Classic isn’t based in reality. That mindset exists now. Only the older version of the map would stop that from happening.

[Smiles-malorne]

It is still an epic PvE BG, an epic map, and will be enjoyed by most folks.

That’s an oxymoron.

It used to be a battleground with pve elements. Now it’s just a PVE rush to end boss encounter.

Seriously can NO ONE see that two raids on mounts running past each other to rush to the end boss in a BATTLEGROUND is a bad thing?

Battlegrounds are for pvp. Raids are for bosses. Why are we justifying PVE experience in a BG?

[Pintero-moon-guard (Pintero)]

The thing is? In O.G AV you can’t just “Hey guys we lost just throw.” The game by itself is so long due to the NPCS being so powerful, that it doesn’t work that way.

[Sabetha-turalyon (Sabetha)]

Being worried about people zerging AV isn’t really a good argument for saying we need to have 1.5 considering there are player made ways to stop it from being a zergfest.

It has however been noted that people will go for the route of least resistance, and a single player can’t turn a zergfest into a drawn out match.

Using 1.12 significantly encourages people to simply zerg, as that becomes the path of least resistance.

Using an earlier patch makes trying to zerg it a path that offers a lot more resistance.

[Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord]

But as soon as players figured out they could just ignore the other team, that’s what they did

Uh, no. Players started ignoring the other team when Blizzard introduced reinforcements. It’s still the primary reason why AV in modern wow is a zerg fest, and not an actual battleground.

[Pielmeier-sargeras]

no mines = zerg

[Mogar-stormrage (Mogar)]

But as soon as players figured out they could just ignore the other team, that’s what they did

Uh, no. Players started ignoring the other team when Blizzard introduced reinforcements. It’s still the primary reason why AV in modern wow is a zerg fest, and not an actual battleground.

Zergs end when you kill the General. Resources have nothing to do with it.

[Lisertra-illidan (Lisertra)]

The old AV map is still in the 1.12 client data files, and can be viewed using the map viewer; same as the original Silithus map without Cenarian Hold.

[Pintero-moon-guard (Pintero)]

Seriously? I honestly didn’t know this, thank you. Do you happen to know where i can find them I’d love to post the two.

[Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord]

So, because players are lazy and just want their instant gratification everyone is just supposed to go along with it unless the player base can throw a collective tantrum loud enough to get them to use an older version of a BG?

How about people just start actually fighting and playing defense in AV again and make it pvp again rather then a short raid? Or are we going to continue the tried and true “Oh, they capped 1, we lost, just let them win.” in WSG?

Zergs end when you kill the General. Resources have nothing to do with it.

Yes the match ends when you kill the general. You know what else ends the game? Running out of reinforcements. You know what was really common when reinforcements was introduced? The alliance losing because the horde would just kill slaughter the alliance because too many people in alliance pvp like to think that they can 1v40 a whole team.

So a lot of people in the Alliance started ignoring the horde team and running around them to give themselves a chance to win. So the horde in turn started to zerg as well.

[Sabetha-turalyon (Sabetha)]

So, because players are lazy and just want their instant gratification everyone is just supposed to go along with it unless the player base can throw a collective tantrum loud enough to get them to use an older version of a BG?

How about people just start actually fighting and playing defense in AV again and make it pvp again rather then a short raid? Or are we going to continue the tried and true “Oh, they capped 1, we lost, just let them win.” in WSG?

The average player will just take the fastest route yes, which is a reason to use design that encourages not doing that.

We’re not going to change Human nature, and we’re not going to create drawn out matches standing solo on defense against 40 players all rushing to zerg our NPC boss.

Saying “maybe you should try not doing that” doesn’t offer any help whatsoever.

[Galdor-maelstrom (Galdor)]

@Sabetha-turalyon

We’re not going to change Human nature

[Avarond-dalaran (Avarond)]

Really upsetting this was one of the big selling points for me.

[Dawnspirit-wyrmrest-accord]

The average player will just take the fastest route yes, which is a reason to use design that encourages not doing that.

All the 1.5 design does, is make it take longer. If people zerg 1.12 they will do what they can to zerg 1.5. Eventually someone will figure out a way to zerg it stupidly easy.

We’re not going to change Human nature, and we’re not going to create drawn out matches standing solo on defense against 40 players all rushing to zerg our NPC boss.

When have I ever said 1 person on defense? The only time I used numbers was to say 10, count them 10 alliance players could effectively hold the entire horde team at the Stormpike Bridge.

Saying “maybe you should try not doing that” doesn’t offer any help whatsoever.

Saying, people will try to zerg this version so if we use this older version it will be harder for them to zerg, so use that. Either version people know they can just largely ignore the other team, so that’s what is going to happen. Now do we want an epic pvp battleground? Or do we want a raid with pvp elements?

If you want actual pvp in Classic AV, you need to encourage people to actually pvp in AV, not just say “Oh this older version makes it harder to zerg” without acknowledging both teams will continue to ignore each other regardless of version because they know they don’t have to engage the other team.