Feedback: Epic Battlegrounds

PVP Battlegrounds
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07/31/2018 06:02 AMPosted by Yarrow
If you want the former more balanced win rates, you need to buff the NPCs according to 80 person average gear, not according to opposite faction gear.

If they're not doing it already, they should just scale everyone's damage based on their toon's ilevel.
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07/30/2018 04:17 PMPosted by Alkari
- The fact that the AV hearthstone is still in the game is weird. It is a huge advantage if people realize it exists but frankly it seems like an obsolete mechanic. Either remove it or standardize it as an extra action button every player can see by default with a long cooldown

Please no. The trinket and the ability to release ram riders gives players something to work toward that doesn't unbalance any other content. Also, it's important that people new to AV not be able to do the ram rider release at the wrong time.

The rest of your suggestions are good, especially time on towers and graveyards so we don't need an addon for it, and the "tip of the day" idea to help people learn about the battlefield gradually if they tossed out the book they get for the banner quest.
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07/31/2018 04:22 AMPosted by Chromey
Isle of Conquest:
Yay, the Workshop is now all-powerful, which means the entire Horde can just go mid and deathball up, which they were already doing... but now they just do that and win, instead of losing for not capping more locations. It reinforces the problem of other PVP modes: The Healer-Stacked Deathball being easy wins in unrated BGs, and brings it to IOC as well.


I don't know about you, but WS mechs die by cannon fire FAR too easily to make worth the cost of getting WS. In fact, in my games where we held WS and Refinery/Quarry the entire match, the Alliance gate was not even half destroyed before Horde gate was through glaives/hanger bombing runs.

07/31/2018 04:22 AMPosted by Chromey
The map of AV is already just so insanely ridiculously Horde favored. The Horde can easily take Icewing Bunker, play defense, and starve out the Alliance by cutting off their access to the entire map because the Icewing chokepoint is half the size of Tower Point's. Add on the fact that it is much easier to hold a Bunker for 5min to permanently destroy it than it is to hold a Tower for as long due to the differences in size, shape, and line of sight... and well, that just compounds this.


I will admit the Horde does have the advantage at the choke, but this advantage can also be the biggest threat to the Horde if Alliance takes it. If we lose our choke it is awful trying to get it back and Horde can lose IBT/TP just as easily as SHGY makes IWB and SHB to take.

Bunkers are a two edged sword as well, they are easier to hold being a bunker but Alliance has done the same thing in many AV games now. You also have the GY closer for reinforcements to continually stream in for the bunker defense. So yes, bunkers are easier to defend assuming you defended them. Towers are godawful to try and recap against Allaince, you can stack in there and literally just AoE the flag with enough ppl and use Knockbacks delying people by 20 seconds. Towers are awful to try and recapture compared to bunkers.

07/31/2018 04:31 AMPosted by Chromey
That really doesn't make up for how easy it is to go all-in on Icewing and completely cut Alliance off from access to 60% of the map, which incidentally means a free cap on Stonehearth anyway... but you can, when capping offensively, hold Iceblood+Tower Point more easily if capping both at once.


As said, get IBGY and the same result happens to Horde.

07/31/2018 04:31 AMPosted by Chromey
- Twin Peaks has multiple glaring issues. It's easier to run flags downhill than uphill (multiple mobility skills and ticks like levitating are easier to use going downhill). AND for no reason 1/3 of the Horde bases openings is a canal of death, leaving the Horde base with only 2 entrances to the Alliance base's 3


So water walking isnt a thing? Its also a great way to escape attackers as unless they have waterwalking it is very difficult to chase. I merced that BG before waterwalking casted in Ghost Wolf, I always want water (assuming based off "canal") because I knew I would escape. You can also be creative swimming underwater... its worked before.

Could describe other ones but I will just end in saying for the longest time Horde have complained about BGs favoring Alliance in layout and I saw Alliance complain as well but less frequently when the PvP population was a bit larger and more even.
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I've gotten 4 Alterac Valleys today, and all 4 of them were not new matches, they were already in progress and everyone on the Alliance team was just quitting because they had already lost the match so quickly.

Every single one.

This isn't a "dip in Alliance win rates" lol. Please don't talk about the state of a bg like it's in a decent spot right now when you clearly haven't even been playing it on Alliance teams.

I think we're seeing the "new Alliance strategy" that Blizzard was waiting for. I doubt it's what they were expecting, though.

Blizz, you need to change the boss scaling so both sides scale the same amount, rather than having the Horde bosses scaling more just because the Alliance have better PVE gear.
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07/30/2018 06:43 PMPosted by Zapolo
Everybody knows Horde has the terrain advantage in AV. It is MUCH easier to defend Galv, IBT and graveyard because they are all next to one another. THe alliance equivalents are all spread out making it harder to mount a defense.

Also, the bridge choke point is useless when the Horde has the advantage in defending all their towers, and the alliance has no advantage in defending SHB and IWB. Once the Horde has the reinforcement advantage granted them from easily taking SHB/GY then there's no incentive for them to even go to the bridge. At that point, the Horde just hangs back since the burden is all on the Alliance.

And don't act like this disadvantage begun with prepatch. Legion gave the Horde way more wins. Prepatch just exacerbated the problem to ridiculous levels.

Yes, the Horde have had this advantage since the advent of reinforcements. Before reinforcements, it didn't matter that the Alliance natural choke point was further back, at Dun Baldur graveyard, but now a battle that goes back and forth between the natural choke points gives the Horde the win due to the 150 extra reinforcements from burning the bunkers, while the towers are behind the Horde chokepoint and don't burn.
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07/31/2018 04:31 AMPosted by Chromey
- Arathi is well known for how easy it is to defend 3/5 locations from 1 centralized chokepoint which has no Alliance equivalent.

The Alliance equivalent to the Horde's smith-farm-mill triangle is the smith-stables-mine triangle. The Horde's triangle is better because a single person at the mill can call all incomings, while the Alliance need a person at the mines and a person at the smith, but there is an Alliance triangle.
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07/31/2018 06:07 AMPosted by Forums
07/31/2018 06:02 AMPosted by Yarrow
If you want the former more balanced win rates, you need to buff the NPCs according to 80 person average gear, not according to opposite faction gear.

If they're not doing it already, they should just scale everyone's damage based on their toon's ilevel.

I'm pretty sure they took scaling mostly out with the prepatch. I agree some level/ilvl scaling would be good, and doing it at the player level is the right way to do it. They would need to fix the healing scaling bug, though, if they haven't already.

This is more important for world PVP where the differences are larger. I was sorry to see them largely give up on that when they tested it in beta.
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I will admit the Horde does have the advantage at the choke, but this advantage can also be the biggest threat to the Horde if Alliance takes it. If we lose our choke it is awful trying to get it back and Horde can lose IBT/TP just as easily as SHGY makes IWB and SHB to take.

The Iceblood area is not a choke point for the Alliance because the Horde can retake Iceblood graveyard without going through the choke point. This is also why the Stormpike graveyard is not a choke point for the Horde: Alliance can retake Stormpike graveyard without going through the choke point.
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07/31/2018 07:57 AMPosted by Yarrow
I will admit the Horde does have the advantage at the choke, but this advantage can also be the biggest threat to the Horde if Alliance takes it. If we lose our choke it is awful trying to get it back and Horde can lose IBT/TP just as easily as SHGY makes IWB and SHB to take.

The Iceblood area is not a choke point for the Alliance because the Horde can retake Iceblood graveyard without going through the choke point. This is also why the Stormpike graveyard is not a choke point for the Horde: Alliance can retake Stormpike graveyard without going through the choke point.


Whoa, the IBGY area does turn into a chokepoint for alliance. Horde have to go through that narrow passage (or try glidering down off that watch tower up the hill) in order to get through. Once the alliance holds the position until the flag turns, we control that entire area (IBT, Galv, TP) and can press towards Frostwolf. It is THE key to winning the most successful strategy alliance currently has and it most certainly is a chokepoint. Held it many times even outnumbered.

It is the only spot on the map that works for both sides as such.
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I will admit the Horde does have the advantage at the choke, but this advantage can also be the biggest threat to the Horde if Alliance takes it. If we lose our choke it is awful trying to get it back and Horde can lose IBT/TP just as easily as SHGY makes IWB and SHB to take.

It's nowhere near the same. Tower Point's choke is twice the size of open land, including land outside the range of Tower Point.

Icewing Bunker itself covers half its own chokepoint, with a 1-man wide gap on 1 side, and ~20yds of space on the other. You are always in full range of those inside the bunker as well.
Both are chokepoints, but one has ~50yds of width at its most narrow point and the other has ~20yds of width. That's the difference between the reach of Outlaw Rogues, a melee class, vs Balance Druids.

07/31/2018 06:35 AMPosted by Thunderçatz
So water walking isnt a thing?

Do I even need to respond here? Firstly, it's not a common thing. Secondly, Horde doesn't need special water walking to access 3 doors into the Alliance flag room. And thirdly, all water walking effects break on any damage.
There is NO justification you can make whatsoever for Twin Peaks. It's as bad as Arathi in being "mirrored" but grossly imbalanced.

07/31/2018 07:50 AMPosted by Yarrow
The Alliance equivalent to the Horde's smith-farm-mill triangle is the smith-stables-mine triangle. The Horde's triangle is better because a single person at the mill can call all incomings, while the Alliance need a person at the mines and a person at the smith, but there is an Alliance triangle.

But there is no Alliance equivalent. Mines is a noob trap, capturing Mines is basically throwing the game, at least outside of organized rated premades where tactics may differ. Lumber Mill can reinforce Blacksmith quickly on several classes, Mines cannot. The chokepoint itself is also condensed as a triangle on the Horde side where the path to the Blacksmith is directly attached to the path to the Lumber Mill. The path to the Mines and path to Blacksmith are separated by a 30-40yd or so gap.

Reminder that in unrated play, any given team just having a deathball with stacked healers can win, so the finer points of gross map imbalance don't necessarily come into play as often. I've PVPed as Horde plenty, and trying to explain to very daft players that capturing the Mines is throwing the game (and often has, as Alliance gets entrenched in Lumber Mill and can end up holding it and Blacksmith just because of how utterly awful it is to reinforce anywhere from the Mines). It's not unwinnable for the Alliance, none of these are, but it will often come down to stacked healer deathballs, or Horde throwing the game by capturing the Mines on Arathi, or mutually zerging on AV, etc.

Like I've said a few times, none of this is going to be fixed. And even if you did, PVP massively favors the Horde in a self-perpetuating cycle, and that player imbalance isn't going to ever go away.

All I ask for is a change toward victory-agnostic Honor and Reputation rewards. A participation based system where doing things like being present at objectives yields Honor over time, so players get the same kind of Honor FOR ACTUALLY HOLDING OBJECTIVES that others players would get by throwing themselves into some big dumb meat grinder. Give a good amount of honor for turning in armor scraps too... (It might, but it's probably a pathetic trivial amount that is far less than simply mindlessly throwing yourself into a giant melee in mid)

Players who are behind will give up less often because their rewards will be based on participation. Players who are ahead will be less complacent because they don't just get a massive chunk for simply being present in a win.
This would probably be a little bit lower honor gain for the Horde but a huge boon for the Alliance, where it can be very frustrating and demoralizing when you try and get nothing. I go and defend Tower Point, and then my team loses anyway, and I spent 5 minutes in a tower missing out on 50 HKs for basically nothing since I'm pretty sure the Tower Point honor is team wide and I'd receive it even if I didn't hold it. I did my part for objectives and end a full AV with like 60 Honor, and some guy who died 20 times himself comes out with 200, just made-up example numbers.

ADDRESS THE REWARD STRUCTURE OF PVP.
Please.
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Chromey,

What exactly is agnostic honor? Never heard that phrase before.
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07/31/2018 08:22 AMPosted by Chromey
I did my part for objectives and end a full AV with like 60 Honor, and some guy who died 20 times himself comes out with 200, just made-up example numbers.


Did you specific queue? You get more honor for queuing random.
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If you're so content in thinking AV is balanced Bliz can you make it easier for noobs to understand the map better, dungeon journal or something. Cause right now, it's complete trash.
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07/31/2018 07:57 AMPosted by Yarrow
I will admit the Horde does have the advantage at the choke, but this advantage can also be the biggest threat to the Horde if Alliance takes it. If we lose our choke it is awful trying to get it back and Horde can lose IBT/TP just as easily as SHGY makes IWB and SHB to take.

The Iceblood area is not a choke point for the Alliance because the Horde can retake Iceblood graveyard without going through the choke point. This is also why the Stormpike graveyard is not a choke point for the Horde: Alliance can retake Stormpike graveyard without going through the choke point.


In order to get past IBGY you have to either jump off the cliff where people spawn or get past the blockade on the other path and hop over obstacles such as small hills/stumps/and fallen trees. It is very much impossible if there is a HK farming going on to simply run past IBGY and hope to capture everything in front of/behind it.

Stormpike GY is not even closely related to that of IBGY, more related to frostwolf GY as you can totally avoid going in the direction of Stormpike or Frostwolf if you simply hop over the terrain. If you have any hope of pushing you will need IBGY or SHGY. IBGY cannot be taken from behind as it cuts off all traffic, Stormpike does not.
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This assumption that all will go your way is just really bad. If your team is bad they will get swept under regardless of your strategy.

There are levels of advantage for both sides depending on what is going on. It's not just the opening act but the middle and close.

And honestly this whole imbalanced thing is just a matter of perspective and opinion. For years I have seen posts complaining about how OP Alliance is in AV but those posts usually get the "get gud" replies or some other garbage while the Horde side mostly just seemed mad they couldn't just smash and kill and then win. Even though Alliance wasn't doing much either.

This last few weeks have seen the most strategy every employed in AV and it's a lot funner. Before hand nearly 90 percent of all games I played as horde in AV ended up as...

"Zerg Alliance Captain and go from there" was the beginning. Same with Alliance. That strategy usually favored Alliance for they could get to their objectives easier and without much thought attached.
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GENERIC EPIC BATTLEGROUNDS ISSUES

ITEM #1 - Address the "recurring theme" of team A getting like no healers while team B gets like 9-13 healers

This is a (somewhat) common issue that comes up once every couple games... the match will start and team A only got 0-2 healers while team B got 9-13 healers. So what happens is the game is more or less "over before it starts". Even worse, intelligent/organized groups and voice-comm using premades almost IMMEDIATELY notice a healer shortage on the other team (due to specialized addons) and specifically instruct their premade members to ignore all objectives and charge "right at" the enemy team... resulting in a *total* slaughter of team B. The game quickly devolves into a farming frenzy where the premade/organized group "camps" team B at the graveyard just killing them over and over and over.

I don't know what the devs can do about this, maybe they can somehow "tweak" the matchmaking system or matchmaking "algorithm" such that an epic battleground will not start without a "minimum" amount of healers for both teams? In my opinion some sort of checks and balances should be put into place because healers are so so sooo important in a 40-man battleground. You can really "feel" a lack of healers during big group battles especially: the team with a healthy amount of healers never dies, while the team with 0-2 healers has people dropping like flies. A lack of healers is not really as big of an issue in 15-man/10-man battlegrounds... but in 40-man battlegrounds the "influence" of healers on the outcome of big battles becomes GLARINGLY obvious.

A random idea off the top of my head: maybe introduce some "rule" to the matchmaking system such that "an epic battleground cannot start until at least 10% of both teams (4 players) is composed of healers" or something along those lines. Now, if the healers leave after the game has started that's a different matter entirely, but I believe both teams should at least get a fair shot when the epic battleground match first BEGINS - and that means a "minimum" # of healers on both teams.

I realize Blizzard cannot "force" players to be a healer if they don't want to, so perhaps another alternative to tweaking "the system" is to simply introduce "bribe bags" for healers (or other goodies, a gold reward, etc to be received "upon completion" of the match) to encourage more of them to queue up and heal teams in epic battlegrounds.
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07/30/2018 02:53 PMPosted by Phalanx
Thanks for the lively discussion, everyone! Some updates:

Alterac Valley

We feel Alterac Valley is in a pretty decent spot. We've seen a dip in Alliance win rates, but want to give them time to re-adjust and strategize after the changes. We'll continue to monitor things and make changes where necessary.

We realize players have a passion for some of Alterac Valley's classic mechanics (Ivus, Lokholar). While we have no immediate changes to announce yet, its something we may adjust in the future.

Isle of Conquest

We've identified an issue with the Keep Cannons dealing too much damage to vehicles. We believe this is causing defense to be stronger than intended. We are going to significantly reduce the damage the Keep Cannons deal to vehicles, but still retain their power against players.

Some other additional changes:
  • When a gate is destroyed, that faction will lose 50 Reinforcements. This will give offense an option of destroying more gates if the opposing team is "turtling."
  • The Siege Engine will now be immune to roots and snares.
  • Health of the Glaive Towers and Demolishers moderately increased.
  • Damage and siege damage of the Airship Cannons significantly increased.

We hope to have these changes live soon, and appreciate your continued feedback.

Thank You!


Thank you so much, I was so happy to read this. I had no idea that work was being done on these two.

AV was so fantastic and it seems like there was so much squandered potential for so many years. The last dev thing I remember is one of them complaining about how hard it was to work with the code, saying it was convoluted in some way. I had given up on AV improvements. Thank you so much.

Please keep raising the NPC strength and don't be afraid to further increase the kill count. The kill count always goes fast. That would make even more incentive for strategic play. And of course - the epic encounters, lets bring those back.

Dont' forget the secondary encounters as well like the worg riders. Those can be truly amazing if the general NPC level is high enough to stop zergs. I still remember stopping and turning a game by using the worg riders, it was awesome.

As for the other one, now I had really given up on that. But the changes you made seem good. But if I remember, the vehicles are probably way too squishy.

KEEP AT IT! LOVE IT!

and seriously, I can't believe you commented on the horde/alliance win/loss ratio, that's amazing. please yes, make it a proper competition. and you are doing it just right!

(1) small changes
(2) wait for re-adjustment
(3) assess
(4) repeat

AWESOME!
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07/30/2018 05:36 PMPosted by Faelindra
Giving up? Every single AV i've joined today is over before I get there.

I am not joining fresh AVs I am joining complete !@#$shows with 10-15 people less on my team than horde because everyone has been quitting and it's making me join these AVs to try and balance out the teams.

The most recent one had horde with about 600 reinforcements and Alliance had 50 left. I literally just alt tabbed and waited for it to end for 175 honor.

AV is a complete joke right now. Anyone who says otherwise is either completely full of it or are just desperately trying to delay the eventual hotfix so they can farm as much honor as possible while it's free because they play horde.


Except horde can't really farm AV for honor with 18+ min ques, and thats IF it ever pops, i usually just drop the Q after 20 min wait, its just not worth it. Im glad Blizz is putting in an effort to improve the PvP/BG experience, but seems like they need a lot more time and better direction/inspiration as to how to improve the experience overall.
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The Iceblood area is not a choke point for the Alliance because the Horde can retake Iceblood graveyard without going through the choke point. This is also why the Stormpike graveyard is not a choke point for the Horde: Alliance can retake Stormpike graveyard without going through the choke point.

Whoa, the IBGY area does turn into a chokepoint for alliance. Horde have to go through that narrow passage (or try glidering down off that watch tower up the hill) in order to get through. Once the alliance holds the position until the flag turns, we control that entire area (IBT, Galv, TP) and can press towards Frostwolf. It is THE key to winning the most successful strategy alliance currently has and it most certainly is a chokepoint. Held it many times even outnumbered.

It is the only spot on the map that works for both sides as such.

You can't even shoot from Tower Point to the west mountain wall; Tower Point cannot possibly be part of a chokepoint. Horde can go either way around Iceblood Graveyard hill; that's not a chokepoint.

Yes, Alliance can sometimes hold the Iceblood area and prevent most Horde from getting through, but if you think that alone makes it a chokepoint, the Field of Strife is a chokepoint.
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07/31/2018 06:02 AMPosted by Yarrow
07/30/2018 02:53 PMPosted by Phalanx
We've seen a dip in Alliance win rates, but want to give them time to re-adjust and strategize after the changes. We'll continue to monitor things and make changes where necessary.

Alliance are more interested in and do more PVE. That means Alliance has higher average ilvl so your gear adjustment buffs the Horde NPCs more.


From where do you get that? I'm very curious.