Feedback: Epic Battlegrounds

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788

Hello again mr. dev person,

Thank you for addressing the Alliance glaives exploit. Here are some other issues I would like you to work on going into 2019 (in my opinion):

ISSUE #1 - bringing back Ashran as a Q-able 40 man epic battleground

I would definitely like to see this, I had lots of fun in Ashran back during WoD. I don’t care how you do it or what new “win conditions” you add to it (such as X amount of kills, resources, reinforcements, etc), just polish it up a bit/scale everything up to lvl 120 stats and throw it into the mix imo.

The more bgs there are to pick from, the better.

ISSUE #2 - bring back the “block a bg” option

With more and more epic battlegrounds maps being added in the future, I can see a time where there are possibly 5-6 epic battlegrounds on the list. It would be nice if we could “block” 1 bg when we queue while still being eligible for the “bonus battlegrounds” rewards (such as conquest points, goodies bag, etc). For example, I just don’t enjoy Isle of Conquest very much and would probably “block” it (if I had the option) - it has too much PVE for my tastes and rarely lasts longer than 15 minutes.

The return of this “block a bg” feature is even more needed in the little 10/15 man bgs in my opinion, where I seem to “always” get the bg maps I don’t like such as Seething Shore and Battle for Gilneas… but that’s a topic for another time since this thread is about epic bgs/40-mans.

ISSUE #3 - revert the “bosses no longer reset to full health” hotfix change

^ This is a bad change in my opinion, it should be reverted. While I generally dislike Isle of Conquest, a lot of the “excitement factor” came from the fact that either team could “turn it around” at pretty much any point in the match - and the boss reset mechanic was a HUGE part of that.

Nothing is as exhilarating as “barely” saving your team’s boss when he was at like 2-3% health, wiping the enemy team, and then going on to win the match in an “epic” comeback. But now? After this hotfix change? Whichever team is ahead STAYS ahead and a comeback or recovery is pretty much impossible.

Also, I think you guys need to stop with the “hand holding” mechanics in general (which this hotfix change reeks of). Rather than more nerfs or “hand holding” to help out/prop up BAD players, I think the individual players should simply get better themselves. For example, huntards could simply learn to turn off their pet taunts so that the IOC boss doesn’t run out of the room and reset to full.

ISSUE #4 - buff the Alterac Valley bosses to make them more impactful

This is long overdue, especially as the average player’s iLvL/damage output continues to creep up with each new patch. In their current state, both the AV bosses’ health pools seem a little on the low side in my opinion.

Ice Lord seems to have 4.5-5.3 million health the few times I’ve seen him recently. As for Ivus he seems to have between 5.8-6.2 million health from what I’ve seen recently. Even 5 man dungeon bosses in Mythic+ dungeons sometimes have more health than these supposed “raid” bosses… and Mythic+ is 5 man content. I’m sorry, but 4.5-6.2 million health is just not that much in a 40 man setting.

Also, their damage seems kinda low (relatively), and they just don’t seem to hit very hard. I think this needs to change and their damage should actually “match” their large imposing appearance.

Maybe double their health pools and give them say, +30% damage? Just some random numbers off the top of my head. These bosses take a lot of work and team coordination to get out in the first place, so I wouldn’t even mind if they were made a little OP - it might even add to the excitement and “hype” surrounding them.

ISSUE #5 - Alliance players not queuing up for epic bgs

This is an ongoing/annoying issue, I often see the same Alliance players in match after match. This, along with the rather long Horde queue time for epic bgs, tells me that there just aren’t that many Alliance players queuing up for epic battlegrounds. Even most of the Alliance regulars/posters on this forum are not queuing up for epic bgs, I rarely see anyone from these forums in an epic bg.

Is there any way you can “make” these Alliance players queue up for epic bgs?? One idea I’ve floated before is to simply give Ally players a “bribe bag” similar to the one that tanks get for queuing random dungeons. Maybe you can throw 100-200 gold and a few extra marks of honor in this “bribe bag” to entice more Ally players to sign up for epic bgs.

I know people will say “so just queue merc then”, but to be honest I don’t even like mercing - I do it more out of frustration with the long Horde queue times than because I want to. I prefer playing in Horde bgs, but sometimes when the wait time creeps up to 22-25+ minutes I just give up and go talk to the merc mode NPC for some relief.

The 30% Warmode bonus for Ally seems to have succeeded in enticing more Ally to turn on Warmode on the PVE side of things, I imagine you guys could come up with a similar way to “bribe” Ally players into queuing up for epic bgs so my queue times can go down.

ISSUE #6 - getting dropped into losing/already-in-progress bgs

This is much more of an issue on the Alliance side (cough AV cough), but once in a blue moon it happens on the Horde side too. Either way, I hate being added to losing bgs.

Can anything be done about this?? Maybe tweak the matchmaking system to give preference to “fresh” games? I’m not sure what solutions could address this ongoing issue, but one idea I’ve floated on here is giving back-fillers/new people a “grace period” of 30-60 seconds (that starts ticking upon zoning in) during which they can leave the bg without incurring the deserter penalty. I would argue that back-fillers/new people are innocent and had nothing to do with the loss, so they should not be penalized for leaving someone else’s mess.

I’m pretty sure I speak for most players when I say that we all want/prefer a “fresh” battlegrounds match, I’ve never heard of a player that wanted to get dropped into a losing bg.

Anyways, that’s all I had for now. I’m looking forward to messing around in Wintergrasp when that comes out :cowboy_hat_face:

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789

I hated Ashran but I agree. BUT! I’d rather TB follow WG as the next epic. Ashran can wait. Oh and it better not have that damn thing where I had to run in circles with elephants.

I think you’d be inviting more queue issues which you are complaining about in later issues.

Disagree but I have a compromise. Make the bosses health revert to full only when all enemies are outside it’s zone of control. A full wipe in other words. Not if someone kites the boss out like some like to do.

Oh hells yeah! But only by maybe 20% health and damage. I think the summoning team has a responsibility to protect and heal these bosses.

You can’t fix stupid and the disproportionate level of stupid on alliance side right now is high enough already. Adding people who don’t otherwise want to be there or know what to do while in there will only help your queue times and pad your win/loss record as you “enjoy” blowout after blowout.

Say it with me: “Quitters suck. In all aspects of their existence, they suck.”

2 Likes
790

20% is still not enough of a buff, they need to actually FEEL like proper 40-man raid bosses imo. An added bonus of giving them good buffs is it will provide more incentive for players to participate in trying to summon them.

Make them OP even, I’m all for it, just means more “epic” games :cowboy_hat_face:

791

LOL!!

Speaking of which, I just got dropped into an in-progress/losing Alliance AV where the score is A: 217 to H: 572, you can’t make this stuff up… it happens exactly like I was describing earlier :laughing:

/sigh

792

Hmmm. Well we had Ivus summoned a couple months ago (before the instant charge change) and he was pretty devastating. Helped us account for close to 100 kills and assaulted a tower. https://i.imgur.com/LJ70Ped.jpg

That’s pretty OP to me :laughing:

793

I was super excited for warfronts when I heard about them, they turned out to be pretty terrible. But I think if there was a PvP version it would be more fun.

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794

All the attempts I have made since AVs ally map rework have bugged out. They need to fix this first before thinking about buffing bosses at all.

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795

I was in an AV, got in with about 60 seconds to go. I play both Horde and Alliance and at first glance, sometimes get the score around the wrong way :slight_smile: Thinking another quick loss, but it was other way around, a 60 second win in AV, while not having time to do anything, got my win for the day. Very, very rare for that to happen.

796

The changes to Stonehearth grave yard in AV seem to be working.

When Alliance know how to use it the battle seems much more challenging.

797

You’re probably not doing it right, either that or you’re trying to summon while the summoning area is engulfed with PvP or crawling with Horde players. You really don’t want there to be active PvP going on around the Druid NPCs, to prevent disruptions.

I was in random PUGs where we got him out twice last week, the first time late Wednesday night and the second time on Friday. Can confirm the summon still works (when done properly).

798

I can say for certain; Darelin knows how the summoning works. If he’s had nothing but it bugging out since the change he has had really bad luck with it. It does bug sometimes. Even having all conditions done in a precise manner, it does bug out.

Sometimes.

All druids alive, no enemy nearby, proper number of people summoning and still nothing. Frustrating as hell. Way more often than not, it does work though.

799

I dare say we’ll never know the finer intricacies of the summoning ritual, but I once read that there was also a rep requirement (honored+) for the people summoning. I don’t know if it’s accurate, but the other summonable units also have rep requirements so maybe that is part of it. Sometimes what people call a bug is really not meeting the requirement at all.

Having said that, I do agree with Gdtroll - Ivus and Lok could be stronger. I agree with Squeektoy that the NPCs should be escorted and healed (that’s part of the fun), but they should also be resilient. 5m health is less than dungeon bosses, and their damage isn’t really that threatening when you compare them to the other NPCs on the map that don’t require that much effort to get.

2 Likes
800

No, they need to keep Ashran separate, in it’s own zone like it was before. I already get IoC over AV way too much.

801

Alliance don’t believe in defending. Anytime I’m in an AV I’ll call for a SHB/SHGY defense, yet most want to ride south and lose all towers south, meanwhile not enough defending so we also lose all bunkers. The times when people do defend, we have summoned Ivus and won.

802

I have summoned him many times before in previous expacs and this was still a bug that happened quite often and still happens. Just sucks putting in work to route the horde and funnel them elsewhere all for the summon to bug out.

803

And yet Wintergrasp is pretty much the exact same thing as Ashran; a non-battleground zone fully dedicated to PvP. Same with Tol Borad.

I like Ashran, in addition to being something “fresh”, the green/jungle setting will provide some nice visual relief from all the snow/drab grey colors in these other epic bgs :grimacing:

I’m pretty sure they’re working on it for a later patch, I think I also read something about it being mentioned on the PTR somewhere. I’m looking forward to it myself :cowboy_hat_face:

804

WG has a more BG type feel to it (a strand type if you may, but better.) Ashran is just a bunch of side events and one narrow path to kill a boss…

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805

everyone pop your toys at the same time. Prison them so the dinosaurs can knock them into the sky.

806

From what it looks like (and this is all speculation at this point), there are two versions of Ashran planned.

Endless Ashran which will be like the original implementation with no timers (presumably not part of the random queue) and Ashran 2.0 which is timed / has win factors (such as conquer the enemy base). I am hoping Ashran 2.0 focuses on the Road of Glory and either removes the events entirely or reworks them so they provide a benefit to the main battle in the middle.

What I’m not hoping for is that the events exist and either take away reinforcements for winning them or just function as a source for honor and conquest. It wasn’t fun to be in the middle of an intense mid-battle to have the entire team desert it, while the other team was left unchecked to complete the road objectives.

1 Like
807

While we’re on this topic, even the “lesser” summonable NPCs such as the Wolf Riders and Ram Riders could use a moderate buff. Although I forgot to mention them in my earlier post.

I saw the Horde wolf riders recently and they seemed to have around ~500k health each? :thinking: I have yet to see the ram riders (Alliance version), but I imagine they have similar stats.

~500k health is a little low considering a) all the effort/farming that goes into summoning them, and b) the 40 man setting. Something like 800k-1000k health would be more appropriate imo. Not too high so that they become OP, but not too little either… “just enough” to increase their durability in a 40-v-40 battle.

For comparison, the Demolishers in Isle of Conquest seem to have around ~800-900k health and that feels “about right” in terms of balancing their survivability with their damage.

Lots of good discussion in here :thinking:

EDIT: my mistake, it turns out the demos have ~500k health and the Siege engine has ~1200-1300k health, I must have been thinking of something else.

1 Like