Change Discussion - Don't count player ability buffs towards the buff limit

[Kynsa-mankrik]

So still have a hard time seeing how the changes impacted it, since it seems that for getting honor, AV has always been the best BG to go to, and WSG one of the worst. While I agree if people aren’t trying to gear, especially those in Pre-Mades, I think they go to the ones the BG they like the most, but if you honor farming, you simply go to the one you will get the most honor, I still don’t see how the changes really impacted that.

I guess if the honor grind to r14 was simply impossible previously, I could see the fact that it became viable a reason you might see more people shift to AV since honor farming became viable, but even then the issue really seems to be that WSG is a poor place to farm honor and is typically far worse for ungeared players, so anytime you have a shift of players to a new server where they are starting over, it would likely kill the WSG and AB queues.

[Tubbly-terenas (Tubbly)]

@Alsharptusk-fairbanks

The shift moved away from WSG and towards AV because they removed the limit on how many players could be in the highest bracket. What this did was shift the motivation for the majority of people queueing battlegrounds away from PvPing for fun and towards PvPing to gain honor with fun only being a potential side effect.

If I’m understanding you correctly, based on this and the other responses you’ve made to Kynsa, it sounds like the indirect result here is that it made more people want to pursue rank than before. This, in turn, exposed AV as an effective source of honour and so people gravitated towards it.

Perhaps AV would have eventually been uncovered as the most effective source of honour in the old system too, but because you were competing with other people who were looking to do the same, games were just in WSG/AB and so nobody bothered with AV as much?

We’re in speculation land here (yourself included), but I would go so far as to say that AV was destined to become the honour grind meta of Era whether or not Blizzard intervened. The potential for that so long as there exists a mismatch between BGs with respect to potential honour gained.

@Alsharptusk-fairbanks

My main point is we would see a significant meta shift with priests and druids. You’d probably see a lot more priests in 5/5 t2.5 if they removed the buff limit.

Maybe, but maybe that’s also not a bad thing. Giving more value to sets in previous tiers not only gives players more options as a whole, it also makes those tiers continue to have value even more so than they already do.

Even without a buff limit, t3 is still going to be the best in terms of raw stats, but if it’s not always better situationally I think that’s actually a good thing.

@Alsharptusk-fairbanks

I mean, that’s like just your opinion, man.

It 100% is my opinion, as is yours, and really the point of discussion here. No changes are likely to be made but already we’ve discussed things that aren’t really being talked about in the context of buff/debuff limits. I don’t have to agree with your opinion to think it’s a good one, and I do. I appreciate the perspective you’re bringing to this conversation.

@Alsharptusk-fairbanks

The buff limit means certain gear is BiS with buffs out and certain gear is BiS with buffs booned. I think the need for more gear is good for the game. It means people end up playing more because they need more gear for when they do or do not have to worry about the buff cap.

I dunno, based on the above I think that would continue to be the case. What you wear isn’t necessarily dictated by whether or not world buffs are out, but it’s dicated by what tools you want to bring to any particular fight. I would go so far as to assert that this is actually a better driver of choice than whether or not your tank wants to try to push their HP as high as possible.

I tend to value choices that I can make for outcomes I want than choices that are made for me based on factors that are out of my hands.

[Alsharptusk-fairbanks]

@Tubbly-terenas

Perhaps AV would have eventually been uncovered as the most effective source of honour in the old system too, but because you were competing with other people who were looking to do the same, games were just in WSG/AB and so nobody bothered with AV as much?

It wasn’t a matter of maximizing honor per hour or knowing what BG gave the most honor. It was simply a matter of the motivation to queue for a BG in the first place.

If people want to play for fun they queue WSG or maybe AB. If people want to play to grind honor they queue AV.

If 95% of players queueing are trying to farm honor you get AV. And it’s a snowball effect that takes people who would normally queue WSG with it.

Without the honor changes there would never have been as big of a percentage of those queueing for BGs trying to grind honor because the old honor system didn’t support that.

[Alsharptusk-fairbanks]

@Tubbly-terenas

We’re in speculation land here (yourself included)

I’m not speculating that the honor system change greatly reduced the number of WSG games. That is actually what happened.

[Tubbly-terenas (Tubbly)]

I don’t think anybody is dismissing your assertion that you’ve observed a decrease in WSG games post honour system change, I know I’m not and I don’t get the read that Kynsa is either. However, you are speculating as to why this occurred.

Hence the discussion surrounding it

[Alsharptusk-fairbanks]

@Tubbly-terenas

However, you are speculating as to why this occurred.

I mean AV activity is not some mysterious phenomenon.