I think it’s safe to say that battlegrounds in classic haven’t been what we all hoped for. I remembered battlegrounds as being competitive but also a more relaxed way to PvP where you can hone your skills and get some decent gear (I started playing in early BC). The release of Classic has really spotlighted how much better BCs PvP system was compared to vanilla.
Right now for an alliance player battlegrounds are just not fun. The only time they are fun is if you organize a premade for WSG, and even then you’ll most likely be matched against a better geared and higher ranked horde premade. Solo queuing is a nightmare, premades will stomp you once in mid and then most of the alliance team will stay in ghost form so the game will be over with faster. I’m extremely excited for the release of AB, but there’s also that sad afterthought that AB will surely also be mostly premades.
I feel like the best solution to this would be limiting battlegrounds to party/5-man queuing (just like how it is for AV). This would give players the chance to play with their friends while also not having to play against an organized premade every game. Team’s would have to do callouts in text chat like the old days, instead of 10 people in discord calling out targets instantly. Games would be more chaotic and disorganized, but these types of games will be much more friendly to casual players.
I know this won’t fix everything but it would definitely help. I know I’m not the only one dissatisfied with the premade meta, if you guys have any other idea’s I’d love to hear them.
Because this type of faction imbalance has never been a thing. Horde not only have more players, but they also have more PvP focused players due to the knowledge that horde racials are overall better for PvP.
Sure alliance do have PvP focused players like me, but the majority of alliance players are more interested in raiding or making gold. I never see that many people organizing premades, and I’m on one of the biggest NA servers.
Question, how do you quantify a pre-made? Honest question, because this is a different definition based on who you ask.
Some will say its a full 10 or 15, others will say its anything 5+ some others may say its anything 3+.
This problem is something I have been thinking about, and honestly there is no good vanilla era solution that will help here, and as a result requires some creative problem solving.
What if we go with a Dual Q system kinda like modern WoW where indeed pre-mades do fight only pre-mades (full 10 or 15), and partial’s and Solo Q’s are in a different bracket.
Now, the Solo - Partial bracket would have some unique features that prevent steam rolling sand-bagging wimps from attempting to dominate the solo players bracket…
Solo Players get full honor and reputation for playing in a solo way.
Partial pre-mades are given the Honor and Reputation rewards for a single player divided by the number of players in the group.
This way, if you’re in a small group you and your buddies can go into BG’s have some fun, but are hamstrung by the means of your force multiplier going into the solo Q BG’s.
This way serious pre-mades will Q against serious pre-mades and Solo Q and casual groups can just go in and have a good time.
It’s by no means a magic bullet, but it would actually help the BG’s be a good place to go chill, have some fun and for the solo Q guy a good place to practice his PVP skills while moving up the lower ranks needed before he joins a proper pre-made needed to go from R10 to 14.
Cha, you know what else has never been a thing? Artificial queue timers for the alliance… THAT has never been a thing EVER in the ENTIRE HISTORY OF WARCRAFT.
Yeah I could go for this. I would even be ok with the premade queue getting more honor. Tbh I don’t see blizzard doing something this radical with classic but who knows. I don’t even care that much about honor and ranking. I just want to be able to queue up for some battlegrounds on a saturday night with some friends and not have to play against some sweaty premade every match.
I enjoy the BG’s, but it sure would be nice if when I want to do BG I could do so without the need to join a premade.
It doesn’t matter if I’m on my alliance hunter or dwarf rogue, if you Q for WSG you’re almost entirely in line to play vs a premade now.
Premade vs premade is hella fun, and I love it, but the solo Q should be just as fun. The raw insane amount of premade games going is awesome, but it’s something of a problem if you just want to enjoy a BG.
Thoooooo I will say world PvP has gotten really good as of late, but I’m sure not every server is so good, I read horror stories about some of the realms that are so broken due to mismanagement that saying “go world PvP” is just not an answer.
I agree, but they will find a way to ‘queue at the same time’ to go around this. so I have suggested they also set a cap of no more than five from the same server in any WSG.
competitive games are really fun! and there’s a large portion of their customers who pug…and its miserable.
They could fix it, but I don’t think they will. I’m not even trying to be snarky with them. But blizzard has ignored premade imbalance for 15 years.
That is a clear no. If you want the best rewards, you have to beat the best teams.
Or at least be good enough that they respect you enough to quit after the first cap… lol.
If people just want to have fun pugging, that’s one thing, but no way should they be eligible for the same rewards as the hardcore premades. In vanilla, that was accomplished by throwing everybody into one pile and the best teams roflstomping the rest. If they make inauthentic changes to break that (which they sooner or later will if the experience gets bad enough…), they would need to have another way to make the best teams get the best rewards. You’d be miles from vanilla before you got done with that.
Solo Q simply cannot keep up with the the system I was talking about. To have the most honor per hour that can be gained in the premed only Q.
Solo Q is disorganized and so no matter how great the solo player is they will not be able to out pace the group full premed even if they account share and play 27-7.
The solo hybrid anti-sandbag system allows groups to come in and have fun, but at the same time prevents the use of solo Q in group from being an outlet for any kind of partial premade.
They will if the premades are forced to play only other premades. That means they are winning against far tougher competition than the solo player and hence should be getting better rewards.
We’ve already reached that point. Premades have made WSG unplayable for pugs. The majority of players are not hard core rankers. It’s only a matter of time until Blizzard breaks WSG premades, just like they did with AV.
I don’t like to guess what people will do, however I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for them to “break” a fundamental component of the vanilla experience like the ability to play WSG as a coordinated team.
Yes, but they are also a hell of a lot harder to kill.
And battles playing out very quickly doesn’t help you if you lose most of them because you’re on the low side of premades - but still WELL above headless-chicken pugs.
In the end, I can come up with a system that would work the way I wanted it to. Maybe a March Madness like elimination tournament once a week, winner gets auto rank 14. Outside of that people can goof off all the want for no honor or for much weaker rewards.
Lol, as a Horde who runs premades, I’ll tell you that most of the ally premades we hit are very high ranked (10+, many 12+). The teams I run with still generally beat the snot out of those premades (except Yesmaster’s group, those guys are nightmares). It’s typically the premades with a bunch of r7-10s that are a real challenge to us and actually seem to have a solid amount of teamwork and skill.