Feedback: Epic Battlegrounds

Greetings,

You may have noticed we've been doing some updates to Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest recently. Our goals with these changes are to both improve the gameplay experience in these battlegrounds and to also design them around a longer duration format. We feel that with the longer match length, players have more room to switch strategies in a match, change from offense to defense a few times, etc. to provide a, well, more epic experience.

With that, we're looking to you to give us feedback on these changes.

Here are some of the changes recently (through hotfixes, so they are very recent):

Alterac Valley
  • Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.
  • The NPCs health and damage will match the players level and gear, which will result in a more consistent difficulty.

Isle of Conquest
  • Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.
  • Increased the health of the walls significantly.
  • Increased the damage the Siege Engine, Demolishers, Glaive Throwers and Keep Cannons deal against players. (The Seige Engine in particular will now be pretty scary!)
  • Increased the siege damage dealt by the Siege Engine and Demolisher. (The Ram ability will deal a lot of damage in particular)
  • The Refinery and the Quarry now generate Reinforcements more frequently.
  • Increased the health of the "bosses".

We welcome your feedback! Please focus your feedback on the gameplay in the map, in particular the pacing, balance of different mechanics etc.

Thank you!
21 Likes
These sounds awesome! Can't wait to try them out!
1 Like
Epic BG's indeed.

I remember reading somewhere that rewards are going to scale up for Epic BGs, what exactly does that entail?
1 Like
07/27/2018 04:27 PMPosted by Phalanx
Alterac Valley
Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.


That's gonna make these turtles even more endless though.
4 Likes
07/27/2018 04:33 PMPosted by Dustyy
07/27/2018 04:27 PMPosted by Phalanx
Alterac Valley
Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.


That's gonna make these turtles even more endless though.


I played 2 games already with this buff and while your statement is true, there's an actual consequence with this.

People actually summon the boss now.
1 Like
how about changing the maps????
perhaps not for the isle but definitely for AV.
its always been debated that is more optimal for the alliance and I think the perfect map has already been developed by the Heroes of the storm team. a Flat Mirror.

Please consider it.
2 Likes
I had an IOC where the horde broke our wall but we rallied our troops and defended our keep, everyone worked together. We had a few bring in catapults to get the horde that were sniping us from the roof, and the siege weapons were hitting very hard! We ended up winning in a glorious battle of reinforcements because they couldn't penetrate our defenses.

I personally think the best change is siege weapons hitting as hard as they do, since it's a siege weapon I feel it should be stronger since they are in limited supply.

The one thing I'm thinking could be better has to do with the glaives. The glaives are very wimpy and it's causing people to not prioritize docks, other than for catapults which could still be considered fair.

I feel the glaives from the Docks could get an additional keybound ability that allows for them to either speed up or a defensive.
1 Like
AV: Two thumbs up! However, I'm still waiting to see an elemental summoned.

IoC: The jury is still out on this one. It seems a bit wonky, but maybe I just need more experience with it.
07/27/2018 04:33 PMPosted by Dustyy
07/27/2018 04:27 PMPosted by Phalanx
Alterac Valley
Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.


That's gonna make these turtles even more endless though.

Thats the point of epic battlegrounds.
3 Likes
Hi Blues.

I think adjusting the NPCs to scale to level and gear will definitely help those of us who have "middling" gear. All my gear was obtained through BGs (RNG and a handful of pieces from echoes), so definitely not high-end raid quality.

I know the map probably can't be adjusted at this point in time, but I wonder if you'd consider the issue of the IB choke-point, which is undoubtedly THE best choke-point in the game for heavy defense against the alliance southward approach because of the very tight funnel. I'm not sure if something can be added to the game - e.g. ability to summon ground troop NPCs, or perhaps catapults? - to assist with getting through chokes for both horde and alliance; though horde face no significant choke point until the Dun Baldar bridge. The bridge, however, is much closer to the "end point" for horde, than the IB choke is to the "end point" for alliance. Additionally, horde have the ability to enter DB (and pester towers and the aid station) through 2 other spots (unless they've been fixed?), so they have options other than just the bridge which in itself is easy enough to overcome with the introduction of great mobility and "bump off" abilities for certain classes.

Also, please look at ensuring there is a balanced number of healers on both teams before a game pops. 4 or fewer healers vs. 8+ makes a huge difference in outcomes of the large BGs.
2 Likes
I gave up on those maps long time ago at the end of Cata. After getting all their meta achievements, I just black list it. It was just Zerg rush with bots.
1 Like
07/27/2018 04:27 PMPosted by Phalanx
We welcome your feedback!


Challenge accepted! :)

Thanks for these changes, it's already a better experience.

Some suggestions/requests:

The summonings: I know the last few times I've tried summoning Ivus, someone does one little thing wrong and it won't work. Someone right clicks the summoning stone twice or go forbid has to move and tries again. Don't know if it is the same for that little rock pile thing on Horde side but it's a delicate operation alliance side to say the least. One mistake by anyone and it's all a wash. Can it be fixed?

Not everyone knows/remembers how any of the summonings work or more often, that they are even available and certainly don't know what items are used for which. Better tooltips for those, a little in-game guide on how to get them and what they can do would be nice.

The recall trinket is important for both teams if you truly want these to be "epic". Unfortunately most people don't know they exist, how to get them and some are reluctant to equip them for 30 seconds given the horrendous stats. Can that be changed somehow? Maybe a new item, obtained a different way etc?

Just some early thoughts for now.
4 Likes
07/27/2018 04:36 PMPosted by Lileath
how about changing the maps????
perhaps not for the isle but definitely for AV.
its always been debated that is more optimal for the alliance and I think the perfect map has already been developed by the Heroes of the storm team. a Flat Mirror.

Please consider it.


It actually favors horde if your team knows what to do and is patient enough to do it. Guaranteed win almost if they are willing to do it.
07/27/2018 04:27 PMPosted by Phalanx
Greetings,

You may have noticed we've been doing some updates to Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest recently. Our goals with these changes are to both improve the gameplay experience in these battlegrounds and to also design them around a longer duration format. We feel that with the longer match length, players have more room to switch strategies in a match, change from offense to defense a few times, etc. to provide a, well, more epic experience.

With that, we're looking to you to give us feedback on these changes.

Here are some of the changes recently (through hotfixes, so they are very recent):

Alterac Valley
  • Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.
  • The NPCs health and damage will match the players level and gear, which will result in a more consistent difficulty.

Isle of Conquest
  • Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.
  • Increased the health of the walls significantly.
  • Increased the damage the Siege Engine, Demolishers, Glaive Throwers and Keep Cannons deal against players. (The Seige Engine in particular will now be pretty scary!)
  • Increased the siege damage dealt by the Siege Engine and Demolisher. (The Ram ability will deal a lot of damage in particular)
  • The Refinery and the Quarry now generate Reinforcements more frequently.
  • Increased the health of the "bosses".

We welcome your feedback! Please focus your feedback on the gameplay in the map, in particular the pacing, balance of different mechanics etc.

Thank You.


I am enjoying them very much .I will add more to this as I play more of it .
The Ice Lord / Forest Lord probably shouldn't idle mid-field for a full 10 minutes, certainly not at their current power level (they're not very strong). It makes the entire summoning feel like a waste. While it can help slightly in a full no towers, no bal/galv game since the midfield is an actual battle area at that point, it is still very disheartening to finally get everyone together to summon them, just for them to do nothing for 10 minutes and then run into 30 alliance and die right afterwards.

Cutting the time required for them to remain mid-field in half would greatly help making it actually worth summoning them. As it is now, doing their summon is -mostly- just for nostalgia.
1 Like
07/27/2018 04:27 PMPosted by Phalanx
Greetings,

You may have noticed we've been doing some updates to Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest recently. Our goals with these changes are to both improve the gameplay experience in these battlegrounds and to also design them around a longer duration format. We feel that with the longer match length, players have more room to switch strategies in a match, change from offense to defense a few times, etc. to provide a, well, more epic experience.

With that, we're looking to you to give us feedback on these changes.

Here are some of the changes recently (through hotfixes, so they are very recent):

Alterac Valley
  • Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.
  • The NPCs health and damage will match the players level and gear, which will result in a more consistent difficulty.

Isle of Conquest
  • Increased the number of Reinforcements by 100.
  • Increased the health of the walls significantly.
  • Increased the damage the Siege Engine, Demolishers, Glaive Throwers and Keep Cannons deal against players. (The Seige Engine in particular will now be pretty scary!)
  • Increased the siege damage dealt by the Siege Engine and Demolisher. (The Ram ability will deal a lot of damage in particular)
  • The Refinery and the Quarry now generate Reinforcements more frequently.
  • Increased the health of the "bosses".

We welcome your feedback! Please focus your feedback on the gameplay in the map, in particular the pacing, balance of different mechanics etc.

Thank You.


This is primarly all I run since the inclusion of Epic Battlegrounds. That said, I've noticed a recent strategy in IoC is to simply stand in your base and ignore all objective points. It's pretty effective... (The Alliance like to do this one).

On the AV front, I've been in 2 games today (on my Horde druid MoonsmashX) where we actually saw the rise of the giant tree. Good bit of health on him too, enough that the entire team swayed around him. (Horde perspective) On my hunter we attempted to summon Ingvar but it wasn't working, we had half the team clicking the summoning circle but to no avail it didn't seem to work. (We also had alliance actively trying to prevent us from doing so pouring down from snowfall gy).

For me personally, the more face to face encounters the better. Gigantic clashes of 40v40 30v30 are my thing. To that end another "Epic" battleground could be the permanent inclusion of TM vs SS (a brawl only currently).

Some nit picking: AV towers go a wee bit too fast, between figuring out what they are doing and respawns, doesn't leave us much time to mount a defence.
In IoC base turtling shouldn't be a thing? Or maybe you all like that strat, but when the horde have all 3 objective points and both the refinery and the quarry and we still can't make it into their base (with the gate blown down) It raises some red flags.

All in all I like them, and I appreciate the effort into making them better, Thanks!
Scaling NPCs made me smile. Pre-patch AVs (this pre-patch and at least one previous) have been so much better with beefier NPCs

Thanks for stopping by the BG Forum
Allow for a maximum group size of 10 players to queue at the same time for epic battlegrounds.
2 Likes
07/27/2018 04:55 PMPosted by Beastbashx
On my hunter we attempted to summon Ingvar but it wasn't working, we had half the team clicking the summoning circle but to no avail it didn't seem to work. (We also had alliance actively trying to prevent us from doing so pouring down from snowfall gy).

The Ice Lord summon did seem a bit buggy for my group; the Primalist says you need 10 to trigger the summoning but it didn't seem to take until we had almost a full 20 or 25 channeling it. Maybe there's a delay.
Love these changes! :D