I love Battlegrounds on any class I play, and I would also like to see PVP participation improve a lot, but I think there are some changes we could go for to help that a long.
The way Battlegrounds are played is a “honor per hour” meta that kinda defeats the point of PVP. The meta is a “Fast win” or a “Fast loss” and that’s antithetical to actually playing the game we love.
There are a few ways to tackle the problems that exist, and I think that there are things we should consider as a group to fix some of the problems in Battlegrounds.
1
Battleground Points system update.
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Diminishing Returns in PVP will be updated to a 2 hour maximum so that even if the population is low, PVP can still be fun and valuable for all.
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200 Points will be awarded for valuable components of game play executed, per your team. 200 additional points will be awarded to the player who executed that battleground gain. Functions in game that will be rewarded are Capturing Flags, Returning Flags, Defending Bases, Honorable Kills while at a base, tower or grave yard you hold, Grave yards captured, or Defended, and Towers Captured or Defended. No honor points will be grated for kills that are away from objectives or within 50 yards of the WSG grave yards or Halls / Cave in AB & AV.
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Score board will no longer display killing blows, but instead only objectives executed by individuals involved, example if you were within 30 yards of the Flag carrier to protect, peel, or secure a flag cap you are awarded points for this and marks on the score board. Mid fighting / road fighting and grave yard camping will no longer be worth while.
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A near “STATIC” value of 14k Per hour (based on the existing 500k cap) will be awarded while in play to players who are in the battleground.
Points will also be awarded for winning games via the token system at 1000 points per turn in and 5000 points on the triple turn in (For great honor / Concerted Efforts) to drive participation in all Battlegrounds more evenly. -
Bonus for Group’s of 3 or smaller. A bonus of 20% will be awarded to players in groups of 3 or less (solo Q also) to motivate them to Q up and play.
The goal of these changes are to drive actual game play participation and make valuable the hard fought long games that are fun but cant be had because “Fast win / fast loss” is the present meta, and to motivate people to actually play the PVP objectives.
2
PVP loot rewards
Loot and rewards are important to a great many players, and a system that is approachable and has a progression feel is important. It should be possible to enter PVP at a basic level and increase your character in power and performance at several levels that are more inline with the pace and tempo of the existing PVE game.
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Ranks 3,4, and 5 reward the player with the existing Blue PVP set, with the addition of actual HEALER sets for Priest, Druid, Paladin, Shaman.
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Rank 6 now awards weapons equal in rough quality to Blue Level 60 Dungeon drops / Crafted items, but are a nerfed version of the existing Rank 14 weapons down to the stat allocations.
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Ranks 7, 8, 10 now reward an epic set of similar stat loads to the present epic set just with reduce item budget, based on the old Epic Set item value with the addition of Healer sets for Priest, Druid, Paladin, Shaman.
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Rank 9 now also awards an epic Weapons with Item level to mirror the OLD pre-buffs pre-naxx PVP sets but with the modern stat allocations, an additional spell damage mace will be added for paladin that mirrors the Caster Dagger.
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Rank 12, 13 and 14 remain the same with the addition of Healer set for Priest, Druid, Shaman and Paladin, and a Mace equal to the Caster dagger.
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Additionally PVP banners that can be used outside of Battlegrounds Awarded at Rank 14, increases Health by 5% and damage by 5%
Existing Battlegrounds Reputation gear
This loot is near pointless in the present game excluding the AV loot that is honestly lacking, and could be updated in perhaps the following ways.
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AV: Caster ring made optional for any mana user. Add Caster weapons roughly equal to quality of the Lobotomizer Dagger, and a Melee Mace of comparable quality at 2.7 melee speed for Exalted Reputation.
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Warsong & Arathi Basin: Existing loot is moved down 1 Tier and new items comparable to non-C’thun AQ40 loot added drive participation.
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Triple Exalted: Weapons comparable to non-KT Naxx weapons from a special vendor. Could be called “Battle Master’s” weapons.
3
World PVP
- Honorless Target change, Honorless Target will no longer apply automatically when zoning out of an instance or dismounting a flight path, but instead “Honorless Target” will apply for 5 minutes to any target you or your group has previously killed.
- Honor will only be granted for Level 60 players who slay other Level 60 players.
- Players 1 to 59 will only gain honor from Killing players who’re within 5 levels of themselves.
- Dishonorable kills. Deleted from game, no more civilian targets.
- Honorable Kills points value while in World PVP will be increased by 5X based on present value to make Ranking in world PVP actually possible.
Conclusion
The overall goal here is to drive PVP participation of the player base, and this is easier to do when there is motivation to do the stuff, and play the objectives and that there is a reward for doing so.
These are just ideas to improve PVP participation and give that sense of character progression outside of “Raid and Gold DKP” for the players who love PVP.
Feel free to criticize, make fun of, berate, come up with better ideas for, or even ignore all of this or even say “NO CHANGES”… None of this is likely to happen any way, but its fun to think about how things could be.
IMO its not out of the question, we did get a PVP update before, tho I feel it was missing the mark a bit because the existing system does not drive participation, it drives honor per hour and that’s not really playing to the best of your ability, its playing to maximize honor gains in a system I suspect is widely regarded as unpleasant.
