Feedback: Epic Battlegrounds

PVP Battlegrounds
1095

Well … just doing that alone should further emphasize how strong the horde bottleneck is … fun times…

1 Like
1096

I feel they don’t really care … at the top of their list of “things not to do again” should be “don’t promote one faction (pvp and/or pve) to the degree where no one wants to play anything else” …

They don’t have such a list …

1 Like
1097

To be fair, that’s more of a “players being mindless sheeple” issue rather than a Blizzard issue :thinking:

The average casual notices a “popular” PvP streamer re-rolled Horde and suddenly he re-rolls Horde too, or he hears someone from Method say that such and such Horde racial is slightly better for PvE (even if only by like .005%) and he buys a Horde faction change on the spot :roll_eyes:

1098

“You’re welcome Alliance”

1100

Please put Commander Duffy back in AV. I have completed the quest “Fallen Sky Lords” and have been ready to turn it in for ten years now. I have played AV for the last ten years seeing the yellow question mark on the map showing the quest turn in spot at SPGY but the Commander is long gone. I would like to finally complete the quest after years of waiting.

With the Commanders being added back in at IWB and TP recently I feel that Duffy can also be put back in the game at SPGY.

1101

The “vehicle won’t shoot” bug is still a thing. Tried relogging during the game but lost my rank so no vehicles. XD

1102

Yeah I noticed that in Wintergrasp, incredibly frustrating. Lost rank and got warped to starting GY when re-logging to fix vehicle bug. Blizzard needs to stop making vehicle maps until they fix these vehicle bugs, this bug in particular has bug reports dating back almost 2 years (half a year for BfA). I haven’t seen this on the catapult, but have seen it on demos in both WG/IoC and cannons in IoC.

1103

Looking at the bigger picture, the main issues with Wintergrasp (in my view):

  1. healer and tank players are pretty much useless in this bg (so players that queue up as these roles feel left out)
  2. melee are fairly useless as well, but to be fair this is also true in the other two epics :joy:
  3. the long 45 minute “time limit” prominently displayed at the top of the screen has a discouraging/demoralizing psychological effect on random casuals (most of which are lazy, just want a quick 15-25 minute match, want to be “in and out” fast, etc)
  4. it really does often just boil down to “vehicle vs vehicle” or “vehicle PvE”, so it’s not even PvP in the traditional sense… having lots of vehicles is pretty much the only thing that matters
  5. the currently popular “meta” strat (preferred by casuals) of two giant deathballs chasing each other around the map in a giant cat-and-mouse game results in very little actual PvP occurring… in fact, PvP is actively avoided by both teams during this wild goose chase :joy:
  6. casuals quickly get bored/impatient with too much PvE, the reason they queue up for bgs in the first place is to get their PvP fix

Most of ^ these things add up to casuals just not responding well to this bg, and the afk out/ragequit rate seems to be quite high on this bg map :thinking: Sometimes players will leave a Wintergrasp match before the starting gate even opens, I see it pretty regularly :joy:

It seems this bg is more suited to an occasional once-in-a-while “brawl” rather than a regular bg map, because judging by all the whining and moaning that goes on in /i chat a lot of casuals seem to dislike the “vehicles vs vehicles”/“vehicle PvE” format and they prefer actual PvP

1104

A possible solution to encourage more PvP could be to simply remove the “you have to get rank in order to be able to build vehicles” mechanic altogether :thinking:

If, instead of “needing rank” to build vehicles, you simply got X amount of vehicle slots as soon as you captured a workshop - no extra strings attached - then both teams would then be encouraged to actually fight it out (in other words, PvP) for control of the workshops.

This simple change would make the (currently) popular “meta” strat of both team’s deathballs actively avoiding each other unnecessary, and we would see more actual PvP happening in WG.

Currently the “you have to get rank in order to be able to build vehicles” mechanic is being easily cheesed/exploited by players simply avoiding PvP at all costs (so that the other team doesn’t get kills, thus preventing the other team from building vehicles). It’s a joke how easy it is to “get around” this mechanic, casuals have “gotten wise to” this mechanic and cheese it all the time :joy:

1105

An interesting idea/conversation came up in another thread, I’ll just copy/paste it here since I don’t feel like typing again :joy:

1 Like
1106

IoC is very simple:

  • You win by killing the other team’s boss.

  • The boss is inside the other team’s keep. To get into the keep, you need to break down a wall.

  • You break down a wall by bombing from the airship (capture hangar, use teleporter to get to ship, sit in a gun); bombing with siege vehicles (take workshop, drive demolishers which spawn immediately, or siege engine which takes several minutes for the NPC to build), and there are also bomb stacks you can grab a bomb from to release at the gate with your extra action button; or docks, which spawn glaive throwers that can fling projectiles at the gate from a great distance and do heavy damage, at the cost of the throwers being easy to destroy. The docks also spawn catapults that you can drive and use to fling yourself a great distance (normally over the walls of your enemy’s keep).

  • If you are inside the keep before the walls are down (done by leaping off the airship or using a catapult), you can pick up bombs from stacks inside and drop them at the gate. These do very little damage at present and this is considered a waste of resources.

  • You can do more damage by owning the quarry or refinery, which are capturable flag nodes just like Arathi Basin. Each gives a 15% bonus to the damage you do to gates.

  • You generally need 2 nodes to get the enemy gates down first, or 1 node and a very strong defense. Every narcissistic yahoo that joins your IoC BG will spam their THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS BY TAKING X!!! macro before the BG starts. This is a can’t lose claim for them, because if you do what they say and win, it was due to following their master plan; if you do what they say and lose, it’s because you DIDN’T follow their plan; if you don’t do what they say and win anyway, you got lucky.

  • Once in the keep, you need to capture the enemy graveyard (AB-style flag again) so you have a close respawn point, and, more importantly, stop the enemy from respawning nearby and interfering with your killing their boss.

  • Bosses can be healed. If the other team gets your gates down first, wiping them at your boss while you finish taking down their gates is often a valid strat.

That’s it. It’s actually very easy to understand but harder to master; there are many small nuances of gameplay (quickly traveling the map, best positioning for siege vehicles, when and how to adjust strat based on enemy activity, which tower and aircraft guns can hit which locations, etc) to be learned through experience.

3 Likes
1107

Yeah, IoC is a fairly balanced bg now that all the different exploits have been patched out. It really can go either way… neither side has an “advantage” over the other and it pretty much comes down to which team executes their chosen strat better. There’s multiple ways to win and there are plenty of elements of strategy in IoC.

Before the hotfixes when the Alliance glaives 2-shot exploit was still live IoC was a giant unbalanced mess (in favor of Alliance) :joy:

Isle of Conquest is in a pretty good spot right now, I like it :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
1108

some feedback on the nerf to catapults in wintergrasp: they feel a little overnerfed. there is no real threat to them anymore unless they are in a pack or there is ground troops assisting them. perhaps upping the damage of the flamethrower by 50% of current would do the trick.

as a ground troop fighting a catapult was tricky before, now its a complete cakewalk. they can be mostly deprioritized over demos.

1109

commenting on this, healers are very much appreciated in WG, you often die quick so many healers don’t bother, but when you do get heals its very welcome.

i think this is just qualifying what is and isn’t pvp, a player vs a catapult is still pvp, from a math standpoint you have only changed what class of target you are facing, it is still a live thinking person(we hope) driving it who is trying to outsmart and outplay you just as much as you are trying to do to them.

1110

That’s the thing, due to all the OP vehicles and all the “splash damage” that’s landing left and right, your health bar instantly goes from 100% -> 22% or 100% -> 5% in the blink of an eye :roll_eyes:

Seems if I look away for just 3-4 seconds I can literally die just from all the random cannon shots/plague barrels/splash damage that gets constantly spammed :joy:

There’s nothing to heal most of the time, by the time a healer finishes casting a heal people are already dead :rofl:

1 Like
1111

a lot of this really depends on situational awareness and cd usage from players though. you’ll never avoid everything, but you can avoid a lot of damage by playing smart.

1112

I only play resto, I feel almost useless in WG.
As I said earlier in this tread, I have no interest in driving, healing PvP is my game.
But WG is all about the vehicles.

I cast heals on the few DPS ground troops, an Alliance driver sees me, I’m running back from some GY, over and over.

If I could heal the vehicles that would be something, as it is WG is my least favorite BG by far.

To be honest, between WG where healing feels weak, War fronts where it seems useless, and the Island Expeditions where some players actually ask healers to change spec or not come; I think Blizzard just forgot about healers in this expansion. Perhaps I’m just spoiled from feeling like I’m meaningful in all the other BGs.

1 Like
1114

the best thing you can do if you are a healer or ranged player is to sit in a demo, there are two passenger seats you can freely cast from all day. the demo will take damage before you do and you can’t be interrupted.

let the heavily armored classes like dks, palies, and warriors run around on the ground. when i know a healer is casting from a demo, i set it as focus and run back to it when i need heals.

1 Like
1115

please move wintergrasp to its own catagory, its frustratingly long just to loose with a team that doesnt really work together, when I que for epics I expect AV or isle of conquest which take long but not that long, I hate getting qued for a 40 minute wintergrasp match I didnt want

1 Like
1116

Like I mentioned earlier, a possible solution to the problem you described could be as follows:

1. “Random Epic Battlegrounds” category

(bgs with simple objectives designed to last a “medium” amount of time)

  • Alterac Valley
  • Isle of Conquest
  • Southshore vs Tarren Mill

2. “Random Siege Battlegrounds” category

(bigger bgs with more complicated objectives designed to last a “long” time)

  • Wintergrasp
  • Tol Barad
  • Ashran?

As for rewards, they could maybe give 100 conquest points for the first “Random Siege Battlegrounds” win of the day and 25 conquest points for each win thereafter. The increased amount of conquest points is to account for the longer time duration of these larger scale bg maps.

Seems everybody would be happy :thinking: ; players that like WG and really long “drawn out” bgs can indulge themselves with their own seperate queue, and those of us that just want a “medium” length match can continue to enjoy our AVs, IoCs, etc.

Simply creating a third, additional queue category is definitely a creative idea to look into :thinking: