I realize that the title may sound dramatic but I think if they did away, generally at least, with faction battlegrounds we would see benefits on all sides.
Currently it appears WoW pvp is in a sorry state due to massive die offs and faction switching. Horde have long wait times and Alliance enjoy more losses. I have experienced both sides very recently and have played exclusively Alliance since around 2006. I recently came back to the game and went Horde specifically so I wouldn’t have to deal with constant BG losses. That being said I still played some Alliance and I talked to people. Some told me they had lost 9+ AV games in a row, while on the Horde side I was in a 35min queue for an AV match. So I propose we use the merc system to fix this.
Mercenary mode is already in the game for both sides to use, though Horde have to my knowledge been the only ones able to use it. Just apply it to everyone when they queue for battleground. Make it random what side you play as. A human rogue could queue for WSG and play as an undead rogue 1 game and then his human self the next. Same with an Orc signing up for an AV match as an Orc 1 game and a dwarf the next.
I believe this could only benefit the player base. It would stop the “Woe is the Alliance” threads that I saw a whole bunch when googling the status of WoW pvp and it would lower Horde queue times. I imagine it would bring everyone to a more balanced 50% W/L. I think it would also benefit people who prefer, say Alliance PVE but want to pvp as Horde or vice versa.
If anyone has any critiques of this I welcome them as well as anyone’s thoughts. I apologize if this has been brought up before, I tried searching but didn’t find anything.
TLDR: Get rid of factions for battlegrounds, Put players names into a pool and randomly assign them a side every time they join a BG.
I don’t really think this is an issue, or needed. There are many problems with wow PVP right now, but the fact that bgs are seperated by faction is not one of them. Can we please focus on fixing the many issues that are actually a problem.
I’ve played a lot of BGs, I don’t know of many people who would want what you ask for. Horde has longer q’s, but blizzard has created a way to decrease that with merc mode. Alliance BG players love their short q’s and wouldn’t want your system simply because of that. Many horde players would rather play their faction and wait the longer than use Merc mode.
Blizzard please focus on class balance (I know there will never be true class balance), but maybe bring in the outliers that are able to like… backpedal 1 shot people with one ability.
I’m all for it but I understand that some people take the faction conflict seriously and don’t want to mix. I also wonder if there’d be more to fix in the code than we realize.
Alliance does pretty well for itself in non-epic BGs…as long as it isn’t another Horde premade that they are up against.
If Blizz moved to a carousel-style que system (like say, an FPS game), where the teams were re-scrambled after each match, I’d be down for that. Moreover, it would settile the long queue time & endemic premaking issue too.
They should just put Merc mode as a toggle on the PvP auto queue system instead of the convoluted way you have to run to a random NPC and get the buff to toggle it on.
I bet half the playerbase doesn’t even know Merc mode exists even after all this time…
I agree. On the page where you q for the BG, whatever faction has the shorter wait time, a selection tool should be here that says something like ‘Get into the battle faster and fight for … faction’. This option should only be accessible when there is a need.
That is what I was aiming for.
I get that Alliance may do well in non-epic bgs but while I was playing I was talking to people and the general sense as Alliance at least was still that once something went wrong the game was a loss and that we should let the horde win to get out of it faster.
Vice on the horde side, even in losing bgs I only saw that sentiment once and it was from 1 person in a wintergrasp game.
Not true, I myself disagree and I know at least 5 friends that have asked for this very thing. I would rather it worked like the OP asked for. I plan on playing Horde characters again too in SL, mainly for arena and BG’s and would benefit from it on both factions.
This has nothing to do with the topic and if they worked on changing how BG grouping works it would not be the same devs as the balance / PvP dev team.
This would be nice, and give Alliance the option too so they could queue Horde and take a longer wait time if they feel the need.
I mean…I don’t know who that is and I am sure I could find alliance people to queue with, but I don’t see how that is relevant. Shouldn’t need to make a premade to win games.
Short queues mean nothing if all you get is porting into a bg and instantly have people saying ‘so how fast will we lose this one?’ before the gates even open. I’ve been wanting a Red team vs. Blue team for years now instead of faction battlegrounds. Heck, if people don’t want to mix with the other faction, have an opt-in/opt-out version like merc mode. But otherwise, let people be whatever race/faction they are but make it Red vs. Blue.
Shuffling up factions in bgs would even out queue times for people who care that much about them and could possibly solve many other faction imbalance issues that a lot of people avoid PvP nowadays for.
Given that Blizzard loves the faction imbalance divide, however, you won’t ever have to worry about this ever happening. But it’s a mistake to imply very few people want something like this in one way or another.
I wonder that too. I’m no game dev, I just also wonder if it would be harder to give something like merc mode to both sides at the same time, or just scrap that and scramble pools for Harvard Team vs. Yale Team or whatever.
Ultimately, if Blizzard cared enough to try and even out PvP by doing something like that, it could be done. I just don’t think they want to, or don’t see casual PvP as anything close to a priority (as we’ve seen ).
They let Pve crap ruin the Pvp in this game. People can not just log in and play the game. They must do tons of Pve if they want to stand a chance in Pvp. They also have killed the Horde vs Alliance feeling in this game. World PvP feels more like a quest than actually PvP.
Frankly as far as I’m concerned do away with merc mode and just let the both sides queue onto the same team.
Conjure up any ridiculous lore reason if you need to, most wouldnt care. I dont mind merc mode, but if I wanted to look at a human or dwarf character, I would have made a human or dwarf.
Honestly the lore reasons are silly at this point. Just make it into a “re live historical battles of azeroth” and have it be something the time wizard dudes or whatever they are in charge of.
I’m way too lazy to read all this today. So I’ll write based off of your title. I think BGs would be okay if it were like Rated Battlegrounds, meaning alliance could queue against alliance or horde. And horde can queue against horde or alliance. But… I am definitely against Horde and alliance being teamed up together. I don’t really like mercenary mode. I think like should stay with like. I really see no point of Alliance vs Horde, which is fundamentally what WoW is about, if we’re just gonna mix everything up.
I like the idea and it seems like a win win to me. Horde queue times shorten and Alliance can no longer blame faction imbalance for their losses.
Plus the Idea of “random” battlegrounds being a mix of all different types of races makes sense to me. It would be healthy addition to random battlegrounds imo.
I also want to say, Blizzard intentionally dividing their own customer base was a risky move and almost a design flaw imo.
Also, getting a chance to play both sides of the map seems more balanced.
Well then an easy fix for that would to just allow people to turn it off if they don’t want to partake. It solves queue times and people crying faction imbalance for pvp. I personally think it brings more positives than negatives
Bynir is very knowledgeable with BGs and what not. I don’t think I’ve pvped with or against him though, despite our realms being merged together now that I think about it?
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