Feedback: Epic Battlegrounds

what happened to pvp catch up gear. seriously. it was in the 8.0 pre patch survival guide and its been nearly 2 weeks and we have nothing.
I think putting some sort of quick explanation of these epic battlegrounds in the adventures journal would go a loooong way for players. Especially if you could make it pop up automatically when the player loads into the instance.

It doesn’t have to go into strategy or anything in depth, just simple things like:

On IoC, giving a short description what is required to win (i.e. break down the enemy keeps walls and kill thier faction boss)

What each area gives you when you capture them and what those things do.

One of the biggest reasons I think a lot of players don’t like these BGs is because they don’t really know what is going on or what to even do to work towards winning.
Here are my suggestion for AV and IoC.

First AV:

First turn the Horde buildings to face AWAY from the north (so the Alliance have to run around them to get in, like the Horde has to do to get into the Alliance buildings).

Second, place a obstacle or twist the road so that the Alliance players don't have a straight run from the starting cave right into Captain Galvangar (who I might add has his front -ungaurded- door facing north). I have timed this run from both side several times, and it does favor the alliance by alot.

Third, have some sort of NPC opposition to slow the attacks on the Captains for both sides, and have them of a short re-rez timer until the Captains are dead.

Fourth, increase the number of NPC guards and patrols in both keeps by 50%. Both keeps have seemed extremely underpopulated and under defended.

Fifth, make side objectives (like capturing the mines, the lumber mill, beating the hidden bosses, summoning the faction bosses, etc) award Honor, and more lucrative to the player and the team. Most current players don't even know about some of these.

Sixth, have completing certain achives in AV grant mounts, xmog armors, and titles. Players who love and are dedicated to AV should have the option to dress like the armies of each side, and wear their ranks and loyalty proudly.

7th, update the NPC, they all look old, and worn out. Give them some new awesome looking armors, tabards, banners. I would also like to see an update to the buildings as well.

Now for Isle of Conquest:

I don't have as many suggestions for IoC, just 4.

First, Move the dock's capture flag and the hanger capture flag to EQUAL distances away from both keeps.

Second, have those two banners placed in a difficult positions (the Docks banner could be moved to the end of a 'Dock' or placed in a light house that has to be climbed. The Hanger could be set at the top of a flight tower.) To slow capture and encourage full scale fights for these flags.

Third, place ALL capture points on a timer. So they have to be guarded by players or they get reset after a few minutes to an uncaptured state.

Fourth, reduce the damage of the glaive throwers by a lot (10-20%). They are to strong, a few hits and gate goes down. Its very broken, and the fact that the docks position favors the Alliance, places a higher chance of victory for that faction.

I hope these are considered. Thanks for hearing me out. :)
Thank you for doing these changes! I really love them and it's encouraging because I can tell you are interested in bringing back substance that has been lost in these bgs.
Another suggestion:

Please take a look at win ratios for these BGs.

I think you will find a sizable skew favoring horde. Check into why that is because it is NOT that alliance have suddenly out of the blue become far worse at the game.
Data and objectivity will show you why.
Isle of Conquest 2
This was not a good game.
- We had broken their wall down early in the game, but could not kill them as they had TWELVE healers to our THREE.
- We lost due to reinforcement very slowly.
- Siege vehicles definitely need a buff.
- Game was over an hour and with their 12 healers it was a bad hour
Also, audio is bugged in siege engines. UI bugs on the cannon on the ship
07/27/2018 07:15 PMPosted by Fenix
Can we get a better way to hand in storm crystals/armor in AV? currently i have to stand there going through the same 'quest/menu' interface 20 times, taking atleasta couple mins to hand in all my items. Also there should be a progress board/or overview of resource progress, similar to how the broken shore works. Gives more incentive for players to hand-in items.


2nd this. Give a quick guide to players in the cave so they know what their options are, then make the turn-ins easier and easier to know your progress.
Can you hotfix Ashran back in?
Oh, to make things easier, you could change all the different drops to the same resource type. Then it really could be like the broken shore where you can decide which sort of summon or buff is most important to you. So you can spread your donations out or give them all toward the same thing. That would eliminate the confusion on which drop does what.
I think it would make isle of conquest feel less barren and more epic by adding a bit more npcs to help defend the keep maybe have them fight against horde/alliance players that use the catapults and airship to get behind walls and it would also help with stopping some of us from getting camped at the graveyard also I love the changes and hope this gets us alliance a few more wins FOR THE ALLIANCE
07/27/2018 06:22 PMPosted by Nyc
07/27/2018 06:07 PMPosted by Maxed
You want the matches lasting longer? Ok, that's fine, but you have to significantly increase the honor earned from spending an hour+ of your time inside of them. I won't touch them again until you do. Isn't worth it ATM.


I agree. The honor gains need to be higher for it to feel worth it.


That was how this entire 12+ year problem started, AV being the highest honor gain in the shortest amount of time. With the way honor has been reworked I don't see the need for it to give more honor than it already does. If that were to happen then you shouldn't receive any honor until the BG is completed.

The goal is to promote longer, epic feeling games. Not faster honor farming ones.
07/27/2018 08:56 PMPosted by Ignorant
07/27/2018 07:15 PMPosted by Fenix
Can we get a better way to hand in storm crystals/armor in AV? currently i have to stand there going through the same 'quest/menu' interface 20 times, taking atleasta couple mins to hand in all my items. Also there should be a progress board/or overview of resource progress, similar to how the broken shore works. Gives more incentive for players to hand-in items.


2nd this. Give a quick guide to players in the cave so they know what their options are, then make the turn-ins easier and easier to know your progress.


Might be time to update those old addons from back in the day specifically used to quickly turn in AV resources, ha.
I think these changes in Alterac Valley only address the fact that AV can sometimes be a zerg fest. There is no longer a focus on resource gathering and turn in.

I would suggest a couple things, instead of having to loot a corpse personally, if you get an honor kill on someone, the resources that you would have to pick up would now be dropped into your bag (or your currency tab).

Part of what made Av so great was upgrading your troops, and of course calling in that huge boss to have a massive war in the field of strife.
I see IOC wasn't being won enough by Horde so they buffed the Workshop mechs substantially in both player and siege damage, and also buffed the walls thereby effectively nerfing the power of every source of siege damage EXCEPT the Workshop mechs.

I don't know how this plays out for AV, more reinforcements MIGHT make people go Mutual Zerg more often, even though the BG is hilariously imbalanced for Horde if the Horde literally defends at all, ever.

tl;dr - Let's just make completely sure that all Battleground queues now favor the Horde. Yay.
It's already been said, but please make the rewards appropriate for the time invested.
fix alterac blizz achievement since pandaria every patch increase Hp of every npc and this achievement still needing a win in 6 mins or less
Sooooooo much fun! Got to summon our ice lord! 10/10 will do again!

Letting us upgrade the trinkets to hearth back would be nice too.
I can't speak much to IoC, but for AV, here's some thoughts:

Clear win conditions. The default way to win should be defeating all of the towers so you can kill the boss. Lieutenants should be more dangerous so as to make beating the boss with them alive more difficult, but still possible to a very well coordinated group.

Breaking the shell. Turtling has been an ongoing problem in AV; we need mechanisms to break turtles up. My suggestion is to have a deployable weapon that players can earn (similar to summoning the bosses) that would do damage in an area, multiplied by the number of enemy targets in the area. This would force the turtling team to evacuate or die, giving the opposing team a chance to break up the turtle.

Bosses, we hardly knew ye. Summoning bosses in AV has become a fun occasional thing to do, but nothing terribly strategic. The bosses should be a lot stronger with abilities like some of the summons have in Ashran. It should require a good portion of the opposing team to bring down quickly. If ignored or insufficiently opposed, the bosses should make their way toward the enemy base, easily dispatching NPC guards on the way. If they reach the base, the bosses should specifically target enemy players (and 1 or 2 shot non-tanks) until they are all dead before going for the General.

Merit where deserved. This applies to all BGs, but AV is a prime example. I think the honor rewarded for participation should increase, and the residual honor decrease. Players should feel more incentive to capture graveyard, defend towers, or gather resources. If these actions reward significantly more honor than just fighting in mid, more people will do objectives, and the BG experience will improve. As it is now, you can get a good amount of honor by simply being in the game and doing little or nothing as long as you don't get flagged as AFK. We should reward players with what they want when they do what we want. Incentivize good behavior, and everyone's experience will improve.
Like I said awesome changes and thank you! Here is my two cents of suggestions:

It has been mentioned by my friend Squeektoy that Ivus is bugged. Sometimes when you summon him via the table in field, he will not appear no matter how long you click with 10+ people. I think it's same horde side.

It would be nice to have summoning Ram Riders, Ivus and Gryphons actually really matter. Maybe it does now that the guards scale with our gear? I would love to have this added strat to spice things up.

I'm loving the additional 100 points you need to win now. I would consider adding another 100 on for more of an opportunity of killing Drek/Van. With the longer games, you lose well over 150-200 reinforcements with kills, 400 with all towers and then 100 for Galv/Bal. Adding an extra 100 pts would ensure a Drek/Van kill and if unable to do so, a more epic battle to the end.

Thanks again! We have been waiting for these changes for a long time.