Epic BG faction map imbalances

PVP Battlegrounds
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Hello ladies and gentlemen.

I’d like to return to this topic to discuss map imbalances in the most recent version of epic battlegrounds, in hopes of reaching a consensus on how to make them more “fair.”

Here’s my personal anecdote on perceived map imbalances.

Wintergrasp:
None present. Alliance/Horde seem to be perfectly mirrored. The default GYs being on opposite sides doesn’t have that much of an impact.

Ashran:
None present in epic BG version. (Alliance-biased in endless brawl, but this is concerning epic BGs.) The flowers being on both sides, and the adjustment of the mage abilities, seems to have resolved previous map disadvantages.
The only real “difference” or perceived advantage could be the ease in “backdooring” the boss in certain positions, or with a certain “entrapment” technique in Horde base regarding lock rifting.

Alterac Valley:
Horde-biased in early/mid game. Alliance-biased in turtle end-game if Dun Baldar has not been capped.
The Alliance bridge chokepoint is the strongest in the game, but it only protects the top two bunkers.
The Horde chokepoint at IBGY is still a very strong chokepoint. Even if it’s not the “strongest,” I’d argue that since it “protects” more territory and bases, it’s more valuable early game.

Isle of Conquest:
Alliance-biased early/mid game. Horde biased mid/end game.
Alliance reaches Hangar and Docks before Horde does, allowing for an early game lead. Additionally, the Alliance gunship can help defend Hangar in certain positions. However, Horde can utilize certain blind spots, defensive positions, and has an easier time dealing with Hangar than Alliance does, shifting the balance towards the end game if used properly.

Obviously I run more Alliance epics than Horde, so I may have some “personal bias” in perceiving map imbalances, but I tried to remain objective in summing up the disproportions. Any thoughts?

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Definitely agree with your IoC comments because that’s one epic that is not at all hard for Alliance pugs to win. I usually only lose that if it’s a community premade on the other side that organizes themselves to take back hangar.

Alterac Valley, hard to say at this point in the expansion. I think you’re right about the chokepoints but the thing is turtles aren’t common right now. It’s usually an offensive rush. I’m not even seeing premade groups forcing turtles very often.

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AV is all about the D.

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You should post these observations over on the PTR forum where a blue/dev might actually read them :joy:

A simple copy-paste should do, maybe add “FEEDBACK:” to the title for a little more visibility

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your 100% right blizzard gives the alliance the edge in epic random bgs

#1 ashran go back door and kill our boss.
#2 ioc straight shot to hangar while horde gets caught up hill every time
#3 av run right to the horde boss.
#4 winter grasp is a toss up who ever gets sr first wins.

i would like to see these issues addressed as much as you do.

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AV always gets easier as an expansion wears on and we become more powerful. That’s when you start seeing the rush groups that go straight down and take boss with two towers.

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I’ve never liked epics until now

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Horde can backdoor as well.

As I said, Horde early game is easier due to the ease of defense. Also, tower structure favors Horde.

That’s wrong, but that’s also not regarding faction imbalance.

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you do know horde can backdoor as easily as alliance right in ashran?

also horde has a higher chance at winning av than alliance does. all you gotta do is hold the choke point at ibgy while you send like 5 or so dudes to stonehearth gy to cap it and bam we rez all the way north and ez win for horde, seen it way to many times. honestly av favors horde more

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An ally defense at iwb and iwgy chokepoint is 98% as effective as horde at ib. It’s not as good as ib but it’s still extremely effective. Every time I’ve seen it, it’s been a loss as horde. It just takes willing bodies and thats the actual imbalance problem in all epic bgs.

Too many people are there to not actually pvp.

I’m always one who goes to ibt and stands there and kills ally as they walk into 5-7 horde in a single file line as we send 10 ally to a gy up north. Then we go to ibgy with 2 defenders and then go on to tp with 3-4 defenders and back cap it. It’s still 50/50 if horde wins after this point. Ally go all in after frostwolf caps and horde struggles to get into db.

At one point, horde use to have enough on D at the start that we stood in the road at ib to stop the entire ally zerg instead of just killing the sacrificial lambs in ibt. Now it’s changed to only 5ish as everyone else goes north.

Instead of either side recalling and putting up a big defense, players just stand there in the middle of the zerg doing whatever the zerg does so they don’t really have to do anything. Whichever side has more people willing to actually make a play is who wins av. There’s enough choke points on both sides to be equally impactful. It’s a player driven issue imo.

idk what you mean by this and would like for you to elaborate. Especially the last part about dealing with hangar. Horde can’t retake flag against a few ally because of…

Getting nuked going up the hill to hangar and then trying to take the flag is an added hurdle to taking hangar late game as horde.

Both sides have the opportunity to get demos and push hangar mid/late game.

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Yeah, that’s precisely my point.
It’s easier for Horde because the Alliance gunship covers the Horde-side path, which is an incline, while the Horde gunship covers the Alliance-side path, which is mostly flat (leading up to the flag).

Thus, Alliance wishing to recap Hangar must choose to either take a gunship-bombed path, or an inclined path (where defending Horde have the highground), while Horde wishing to recap Hangar have the best of both worlds, a flat path (allowing Demolishers to shoot cleanly) which is not bombarded by the gunship.

It’s only really in one position that the gunship “protects” the flag.

Yeah, this refers to the above, and also something else regarding gunship sabotage (I’ll explain it further later after I’m done editing a video).
Blind spots and defensive positions are regarding Demolisher and Glaive strategies respectively.

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But it doesn’t. Horde can’t shoot ally on the flat part of the top of the hill going to hangar unless they get over on the helipad which no one goes on since its 30 yards off the road.

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i disagree with your assessment here, its very rare to see an ally team hard turtle, when they do its rather effective, so i don’t believe the myth that SH area is undefendable making DB bridge the comparative choke to IB.

it’s been a long time since i’ve ran into Bob, so IMO the issue with AV are the players on alliance, not the map itself.

this just seems like complaining that you got outplayed, alliance has their own strat for this as well which involves taking demos up horde side and flanking them from the rear.

the real issue with IoC is not the fact that hangar is unbalanced in its approach, but the fact that hangar is all that matters.

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I’m not saying there aren’t counters to certain imbalances. That’s like saying “Alliance being closer to Hangar/Docks doesn’t matter since Horde can just go Workshop.”

But anyway, I’m not gonna make a big deal about that little detail. That’s not even what I meant when I said Horde has

The maps aren’t imbalanced enough to affect normal BG folks. In my head, I’m thinking, “okay, so if the epic BGs were made into a rated game mode, which side would ALWAYS win once you’d get to 2400+ MMR.”
Obviously, right now, either side can win every BG with barely any additional effort.

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this would destroy the epic communities. rated sucks and is antithetical to social play.

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RBGs exist yet communities do premades for non-rated BGs.
I don’t see how epic BGs being made rated would end up differently.

But epic BGs shouldn’t be made rated while map disparities exist, that way rating is gained through pure skill, not luck via “being on the right side.”

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that’s right. you don’t see.

you want rated because you think it would be this venue where your “tactical genius” would finally be on display and be able to get a rating to validate it. the reality is that i would come in with 24 other 2400+ players and farm your team.

there isn’t fun to be had in rated, you aren’t making friends, you are basically turning PVP into work, and in work you want professionals. so you don’t invite your friends, because they can’t cut it, they aren’t as good as an elite player and if you want your rewards, you need to choose between playing with your friends and going without, or playing without your friends and achieving your goals.

RBGs were almost dead in BfA and only made a comeback in SL because of the rating for ilvl and the need to farm mass amounts of honor(in rated only) and conquest. if you take away all the incentives to play, people would still do arena and skirmish, they would still do random bgs, and epic comms would still run epics and do wpvp, but only a small die hard RBG crew of probably ~500 individuals would run RBGs.

right now the best appeal that RBGs have over randoms is the lack of seething shore in the queue pool.

in rated you end up playing both sides, alliance teams would play on horde side and horde teams would play on alliance side, this wouldn’t be a bad thing to add to the current queue because the epic maps are asymmetrical and played differently depending on if you are red or blue. you want them equalized when you fail to understand the point of asymmetric maps is to require each side to use different strategies and plays.

AV seems biased towards red because you are looking at the blue map with the red playbook.

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You can only farm PUGs so many times before it starts to get boring and repetitive, and it feels really bad when you lose a match because the folks on your team did B after you said to do A.
You seem to think it’s an “ego” issue, that I want to be able to “prove” myself somehow with rating (that I even have something to prove).
But honestly, I just want it for the challenge, for the exhilaration of going against a hard to beat team, and persevering! Even if I lose, every loss is a learning experience, a chance to improve and get better.

To use a comparison, imagine you enjoy raiding, but the only content available is LFR. Would it really be too much to ask to ask for something more challenging? By your logic, wanting something more difficult would be someone “having something to prove,” when most would just want a more difficult challenge in a 0-PUG scenario (folks don’t “always win” LFR boss fights not because the fights are hard, but rather because PUGs don’t know the mechanics. Same logic here).

But I actually have done Wargames before, as Wargames operate with rated rules, allow for full premades vs full premades, and allow for an overall positive experience on both sides.
Essentially, Wargames are currently the closest thing WoW has to a rated epic experience at the moment.
When I Wargame’d against Ruin, it was definitely more difficult, but overall, it was significantly more “fun.”

So what’s the problem? Why not just do Wargames all day long.
The problem, essentially, is that there’s no rewards for doing a Wargame (you get maybe a handful of participation honor).
Now, for ME PERSONALLY, this is actually no problem at all, as I LIKE to do epics, and would thus do Wargames even if there was absolutely no reward.

However, most folks aren’t as intrinsically motivated, and in a progression based game, it would be very difficult to get 79 other people to do Wargame content without an extrinsic reward, as many would rather do content that furthers their characters’ progression.
(So of Blizzard wants to NOT add rated epics, but give actual rewards to Wargames to make them more appealing to folks, I’d actually be PERFECTLY FINE with that as well.)

So yeah, bottom line, I’m in it for the challenge, not the extrinsic reward. (The challenge IS the reward.)

I know I’m going off on a tangent here, but would you be interested in doing a Wargame, Inemia? Any epic BG except Wintergrasp, of course (Defense would pretty much always win a Wargame fight).
If you (or anyone reading this) is interested, let me know. Like I said earlier, I enjoy premade vs premade battles.

See, I think YOU are too “rewards” oriented, so much so that you’d abandon your friends to reach an arbitrary goal.
Might I suggest, pushing WITH your friends, and reaching a goal together?

Only if you’re up against a same faction team.
If I’m fighting Horde, I’d ALWAYS be Alliance. If I’m fighting Alliance, it’s 50/50.

There’s a difference between homogenization and fixing the imbalances.
It’s like classes. A rogue and a mage are different playstyles, but one isn’t “better” than the other in an intrinsic sense. You can “tune” the classes without making them carbon copies of each other. Same logic with maps.

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i’ll let you know when i get to that point.

no, the challenge is the challenge, overcoming it is what gives you the reward, both neurochemically and literally. an endless challenge with no reward is a sisyphean effort.

idk, im not opposed to joining one, but im certainly not motivated to start one.

its not abandonment, but instead preservation of the friendship.

there is a false idea in culture that people are all equal and that if we give anyone enough of X then they can achieve Y. in gaming this manifests with the belief of “if i played just as much as the pros, then i could be just as good as them”. this is completely wrong. there is inherent talent, and you either have it or you don’t. you are either pro gamer material, or you aren’t, and there is nothing you can do to change that, no amount of practice or learning will help players when they are at their own personal skill cap.

so if your friend caps out at 1400, and you don’t, and you want the 1800 or 2100 or the 2400 reward, then you are now faced with choosing between playing with your friend, or finding a suitable partner. and if you want to push as hard as you can, you need to find people as good as you or better, and if you are a really good player, that list is small, very small, and includes basically none of your regular friends.

if you are too good at a game, you become a spectacle yourself, people are more interested in watching you play than playing with you.

but if you go and change all the maps so they have the same chokes and the same terrain on both sides, you have effectively done RMP vs RMP.

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I’m still trying to figure out how horde have an easier time defending hangar than alliance when alliance can shoot the hangar flag when horde can’t shoot anything remotely close to it. That alone makes alliance have the advantage, not horde.