More reinforcements for AV please. Maybe around 1k. Miss being able to summon the bosses, using WC's, etc etc. 700 has only added about 30 mins to a game. For those that don't like AV, maybe you could implement the ability for them to not queue for it or as I've seen elsewhere making a rated AV with high or removed reinforcements for those of us that remember the glory days of AV.
Perhaps you could consider adding something new to AV in theme with the upcoming expansion. Maybe adding something we've never seen in an AV like tower defenses or something like that. We never did get the ability to fly with the WC's like was rumored ages ago.
Scaling NPC's is amazing! Saw the Ice lord summoned and Ivus for the first time in I cant remember how long. The team fights feel amazing. As for IoC I'm glad to see the vehicles and cannons doing good damage to other players(The siege engine especially).
Huge raid clashes are my favorite thing in pvp. These changes have brought more of that. It really makes it feel epic.
I can't wait to see what maps get added in the future to the pool. Tol Borad, wintergrasp, Ashran, mill vs southshore etc!
Huge raid clashes are my favorite thing in pvp. These changes have brought more of that. It really makes it feel epic.
I can't wait to see what maps get added in the future to the pool. Tol Borad, wintergrasp, Ashran, mill vs southshore etc!
07/28/2018 09:25 AMPosted by Forums07/28/2018 09:21 AMPosted by Meyka...
I really don't think anyone cares.
The players in my bg team cared. A lot of them left the game because it wasn't fun going against a premade raid.
So what's stopping you from gathering all these disgruntled horde and forming your own group to take on ally premade raids??
07/28/2018 08:18 PMPosted by Zekrad07/28/2018 09:25 AMPosted by Forums...
The players in my bg team cared. A lot of them left the game because it wasn't fun going against a premade raid.
So what's stopping you from gathering all these disgruntled horde and forming your own group to take on ally premade raids??
We shouldn't have to.
Back when Twinks were a thing, Blizzard segregated them into their own BGs because no one liked playing against them.
Why can't they do the same for premades?
Hi
I've been doing AV a lot and it's really important to use the recall trinket (Frostwolf Insignia Rank 5) I was hoping you could update the stats to be better so we don't have to swap it on and off while playing. The stats are for level 60 and now the max level is 110, soon 120 and the trinket should have stats balanced around max level characters.
Also, I'd add that air strikes are almost never seen because it's very easy to kill the wing commanders. I'd like to see air stikes again, so I'd suggest buffing wing commanders and probably the primalist and druids health as well so that we see more ivus and ice lord summons. The boss has been happening occassionly but makes no significant impact on the outcome of the match. I'd like to see the boss damage buffed to one shot players and have winning be more focused on boss summoning.
I've been doing AV a lot and it's really important to use the recall trinket (Frostwolf Insignia Rank 5) I was hoping you could update the stats to be better so we don't have to swap it on and off while playing. The stats are for level 60 and now the max level is 110, soon 120 and the trinket should have stats balanced around max level characters.
Also, I'd add that air strikes are almost never seen because it's very easy to kill the wing commanders. I'd like to see air stikes again, so I'd suggest buffing wing commanders and probably the primalist and druids health as well so that we see more ivus and ice lord summons. The boss has been happening occassionly but makes no significant impact on the outcome of the match. I'd like to see the boss damage buffed to one shot players and have winning be more focused on boss summoning.
07/28/2018 12:33 PMPosted by Jadei07/27/2018 07:55 PMPosted by BynirI've stayed up way too late playing AV tonight! Haven't done a 4am marathon in a while...
Phalanx, thanks so much for these changes. These changes bring in line the 'epic experience' so much more than the 'ignore other players, kill the bosses' strategies that have been prevalent for way too long. I've enjoyed seeing people turn in to the various upgrades.
I wasn't sure how much detail you'd want us to go in so apologies if too long!
Rewards
I've had a few 1 hour+ games, even one going to 1 hour 20. It was glorious, a back-and-forth battle. I loved it, even though we lost.
My concern is most players of today won't love it, unless rewards are upped. I mentioned this on beta and I think the quest will go some way to help, but in terms of the honor grind:
Why would I spend 1.5 hours in AV or IoC for winning 450 honor when in that time I could do at least 9 random battlegrounds for 300 honor per win (before multipliers)
NPC health and damage
These could do with a boost still. The non-boss NPCs are still really fragile and don't deal much damage. Druid of the Grove Thorns still hits for 200 damage, their Entangling Roots for 200 damage. They aren't much of a 'meat shield' so even if you do get them to move they get mowed over really quickly. Upgrades don't seem to do much damage. As an example:
Champion Guards who live in the mines, following 1800+ turn ins, hit for 700 melee swings. https://imgur.com/RXCfR9D
Upgrades in general feel pretty underwhelming in terms of the boost they give. In previous expansions you could really notice the damage and health increase, and if you got the shaman or the druids to march during pre-patch, they would wipe entire offensive teams. I'd like that again so even if you don't manage to get the big guns, you have made a noticeable impact on the game.
Turn ins should be a real game changer, like they were originally and how they were in pre-patches of expansions past.
Ivus and Lok should be returned to their boss status, and probably boosted some in terms of damage and health. I think their time spent in the middle should be reduced.
Mines
With reinforcements mattering again, everyone's attention is on the mines. They're too easy to flip. Challenging to capture, but once they are faction controlled, they should be challenging to take. There's a lot of rogue-druid action where they just trade ownership of the mines because the leader is too easy.
I'd suggest Aggi, Umi, Masha and Keetar being upgraded into elites with increased health and damage that are challenging. Every other miner and guardian can stay the same, but the leader should at least be somewhat challenging.
Bunkers
I get why Stormpike Bowmen were moved, and I don't disagree, but their new positions make them poor defenders. I'm not sure if it's because they are too 'in' rather than being on the edge of the bunker, but it's not unusual to see their melee damage higher than their shots, because they seem to get LoS'd by the floor? Some screengrabs of their weird "I can't shoot you" pose... https://imgur.com/a/FPoNuul
Trinket
Please can this be updated to be relevant (it will soon be 60 levels out of date) or can we add http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/18150 to the vendors for a Mark of Honor or something?
Map
Maybe it will just take time for Alliance players to adapt, but it may be worth looking at the Iceblood choke, given how powerful it is. You just can't breach it without brute force. Dun Baldar has a back door, so I think either that should be fixed or Iceblood should have another way to breach it.
Turn ins
While the quantity required for turns in won't be an issue with longer games, it would be a really nice QoL improvement to, similar to Ashran, 'take all my stuff!' rather than the 1/5/20 turn-ins we have currently.
That's it for now, will do a post for IoC tomorrow after playing some. Thanks again!
Awesome post, Bynir. All good points but IB choke definitely needs some attention. Sitting under a tower aoeing a single entry narrow path should not be so strong considering it protects all horde resources. I also agree that IB needs another entry and the backdoor to DB needs fixed.
There are actually two backdoors to DB... one behind south bunker and one from mountain to mountain by north bunker.
Bosses need to have a leash.
Infinite kiting is terrible.
Infinite kiting is terrible.
Letting us upgrade the trinkets to hearth back would be nice too.
I'd suggest having the trinkets scale like heirlooms do, with their present values at level 60.
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.
As you say, this issue applies to more than just Alterac Valley. I agree it is real. What I notice is that if I spend the battle doing strategically important things, in particular guarding flags in AB or watching flags or towers til they turn in AV, and we win, I tend to be at the bottom of the honor table for my faction, barely above the top of the losing faction. If I join the zerg and do mindless PVP, I'll be toward the top of the losing faction if we lose - almost as much as if I'd guarded objectives on the winning side - and if we win, I get about twice as much honor as I would have gotten by guarding objectives. While my guarding objectives does seem to marginally affect the chance of winning, especially in AB, it's no wonder that most people just join the mindless zerg.
The problem is that the computer can't tell when someone is doing something that is strategically useful, or just chasing honor candy. It's not really useful to be constantly capping towers in the enemy's base when they are constantly being recapped by the one guy from the other faction. It is useful to be capping towers in the enemy's base if you actually manage to burn them, or if they draw 20 people away from the main battle. The battleground is too complex for the computer to figure out when something is useful and when it isn't - indeed, it's that complexity that makes the battleground interesting.
This was all hashed out 12 or 14 years ago, repeatedly. The current system is better than it was. I'm not sure it can easily be further improved. Blizzard says there's a hidden rating that affects your progression at higher levels - presumably a hidden ELO rating of some sort - but for the most part, for those critical but low honor jobs, we're going to have to rely on people who enjoy winning for the sake of winning, rather than for tangible rewards.
I will say one thing, though: now that casual battleground records are displayed on the Armory, can we adjust for coming in late? Usually when I come in late our team is already down because people don't tend to leave winning teams. Once recently I zoned in directly to a "Horde Wins" table. Losses should go on the armory of the person who left, not of the person who replaces him. The replacement should get the win if there is a win, if nothing else to make up for the fact that they waited a full queue time for only part of a battleground.
07/27/2018 07:55 PMPosted by BynirI've stayed up way too late playing AV tonight! Haven't done a 4am marathon in a while...
Phalanx, thanks so much for these changes. These changes bring in line the 'epic experience' so much more than the 'ignore other players, kill the bosses' strategies that have been prevalent for way too long. I've enjoyed seeing people turn in to the various upgrades.
I wasn't sure how much detail you'd want us to go in so apologies if too long!
Rewards
I've had a few 1 hour+ games, even one going to 1 hour 20. It was glorious, a back-and-forth battle. I loved it, even though we lost.
My concern is most players of today won't love it, unless rewards are upped. I mentioned this on beta and I think the quest will go some way to help, but in terms of the honor grind:
Why would I spend 1.5 hours in AV or IoC for winning 450 honor when in that time I could do at least 9 random battlegrounds for 300 honor per win (before multipliers)
NPC health and damage
These could do with a boost still. The non-boss NPCs are still really fragile and don't deal much damage. Druid of the Grove Thorns still hits for 200 damage, their Entangling Roots for 200 damage. They aren't much of a 'meat shield' so even if you do get them to move they get mowed over really quickly. Upgrades don't seem to do much damage. As an example:
Champion Guards who live in the mines, following 1800+ turn ins, hit for 700 melee swings. https://imgur.com/RXCfR9D
Upgrades in general feel pretty underwhelming in terms of the boost they give. In previous expansions you could really notice the damage and health increase, and if you got the shaman or the druids to march during pre-patch, they would wipe entire offensive teams. I'd like that again so even if you don't manage to get the big guns, you have made a noticeable impact on the game.
Turn ins should be a real game changer, like they were originally and how they were in pre-patches of expansions past.
Ivus and Lok should be returned to their boss status, and probably boosted some in terms of damage and health. I think their time spent in the middle should be reduced.
Mines
With reinforcements mattering again, everyone's attention is on the mines. They're too easy to flip. Challenging to capture, but once they are faction controlled, they should be challenging to take. There's a lot of rogue-druid action where they just trade ownership of the mines because the leader is too easy.
I'd suggest Aggi, Umi, Masha and Keetar being upgraded into elites with increased health and damage that are challenging. Every other miner and guardian can stay the same, but the leader should at least be somewhat challenging.
Bunkers
I get why Stormpike Bowmen were moved, and I don't disagree, but their new positions make them poor defenders. I'm not sure if it's because they are too 'in' rather than being on the edge of the bunker, but it's not unusual to see their melee damage higher than their shots, because they seem to get LoS'd by the floor? Some screengrabs of their weird "I can't shoot you" pose... https://imgur.com/a/FPoNuul
Trinket
Please can this be updated to be relevant (it will soon be 60 levels out of date) or can we add http://us.battle.net/wow/en/item/18150 to the vendors for a Mark of Honor or something?
Map
Maybe it will just take time for Alliance players to adapt, but it may be worth looking at the Iceblood choke, given how powerful it is. You just can't breach it without brute force. Dun Baldar has a back door, so I think either that should be fixed or Iceblood should have another way to breach it.
Turn ins
While the quantity required for turns in won't be an issue with longer games, it would be a really nice QoL improvement to, similar to Ashran, 'take all my stuff!' rather than the 1/5/20 turn-ins we have currently.
That's it for now, will do a post for IoC tomorrow after playing some. Thanks again!
Old school AV had archers that slowed down any advances to a bunker making it easier for summoned units to become a useful tool when games lasted forever. We need to get those tools back to defend better. Lower the amount required turn in's maybe. Or alliance need to adapt strategy, not entirely sure where the issue is right now. Example could be ram riders that patrol between Stonehearth Bunker and Balinda which created more chokepoints for alliance. Turtle games seem to cut short before these summons can even be useful. Same thing can be said about Ivus when he used to kill lots of players making a near guarentee you could take a graveyard and move in on tower back in vanilla av. I am seeing him used that way now but this map was made to go on for days.
One last post for now.
It's really amusing to see so many people suggesting things - making cavalry able to break a turtle, adding NPC patrols, buffing bosses and other NPCs - that were there in Vanilla AV. Yes, all of those things should happen; we should basically return to Vanilla AV, adding a few things like scaling to 80 person average level and gear to make up for progression through the current expansion.
I will note one thing: the reason AV originally got nerfed was because there were people who complained about "too much PVE". The NPCs were nerfed in two ways: directly and because the PCs were getting raid gear that broke the battleground. The result was not more PVP, but races. Maybe this time around, we can realize that Alterac valley works best as a synergistic combination of PVP and PVE. People who don't like epicness in their battlegrounds have ten times as many other choices as they did in Vanilla.
With perfect play, Vanilla AV lasted about two hours. Perfect play involved turtles at Iceblood or the keep for the Horde, and at Stormpike graveyard and the bridge for the Alliance. Breaking turtles involved using cavalry or Ivus/Lokholar etc., but there were some tactics on how to escort them that were necessary to prevent their being kited away and killed. And I bet most of the characters now playing in Alterac Valley can't even order them to attack, let alone escort them properly.
Incidentally, with sufficiently strong NPCs, the problem of people refusing to guard flags is solved: the NPCs are strong enough to prevent ninjas.
The 36 hour games were the result of Alliance and Horde who didn't understand how to use the cavalry or summoned bosses properly, such that the turtles never got broken. Eventually the game would end when one queue ran dry and one of the raids fell to 30 people or so, something that would take longer today due to cross server battlegrounds.
I don't see the 36 hour games as a problem. Back then, there was no deserter and people didn't expect to play for a full Alterac Valley battleground. As long as there's a time after which one doesn't get deserter - say an hour for Alterac Valley - I think really long games would be fine.
It's really amusing to see so many people suggesting things - making cavalry able to break a turtle, adding NPC patrols, buffing bosses and other NPCs - that were there in Vanilla AV. Yes, all of those things should happen; we should basically return to Vanilla AV, adding a few things like scaling to 80 person average level and gear to make up for progression through the current expansion.
I will note one thing: the reason AV originally got nerfed was because there were people who complained about "too much PVE". The NPCs were nerfed in two ways: directly and because the PCs were getting raid gear that broke the battleground. The result was not more PVP, but races. Maybe this time around, we can realize that Alterac valley works best as a synergistic combination of PVP and PVE. People who don't like epicness in their battlegrounds have ten times as many other choices as they did in Vanilla.
With perfect play, Vanilla AV lasted about two hours. Perfect play involved turtles at Iceblood or the keep for the Horde, and at Stormpike graveyard and the bridge for the Alliance. Breaking turtles involved using cavalry or Ivus/Lokholar etc., but there were some tactics on how to escort them that were necessary to prevent their being kited away and killed. And I bet most of the characters now playing in Alterac Valley can't even order them to attack, let alone escort them properly.
Incidentally, with sufficiently strong NPCs, the problem of people refusing to guard flags is solved: the NPCs are strong enough to prevent ninjas.
The 36 hour games were the result of Alliance and Horde who didn't understand how to use the cavalry or summoned bosses properly, such that the turtles never got broken. Eventually the game would end when one queue ran dry and one of the raids fell to 30 people or so, something that would take longer today due to cross server battlegrounds.
I don't see the 36 hour games as a problem. Back then, there was no deserter and people didn't expect to play for a full Alterac Valley battleground. As long as there's a time after which one doesn't get deserter - say an hour for Alterac Valley - I think really long games would be fine.
07/28/2018 08:18 PMPosted by Zekrad07/28/2018 09:25 AMPosted by Forums...
The players in my bg team cared. A lot of them left the game because it wasn't fun going against a premade raid.
So what's stopping you from gathering all these disgruntled horde and forming your own group to take on ally premade raids??
The premade group size limit is 5 players.
Five people total.
We're not supposed to have premade raids in casual bgs.
Players are circumventing game restrictions when they sync their queues and queue pops over voice chat to bring 6+ people into the same bg. They gain unfair advantages over the players on the other team who are playing by the rules.
Why don't I form my own premade raid to counter premade raids?
First, that premade raid would end up facing mostly pug teams, not other premade raids. That wouldn't help the premade raid vs. pugs problem. It would just exacerbate the situation. Second, I don't want to circumvent game restrictions just because some other players are doing it. Third, cheating/exploiting is wrong.
My idea for "Epic" battlegrounds is not dwindling down "reinforcements".
My feedback for TRULY EPIC battlegrounds is:
1. Remove reinforcements and revert it back to how it was in vanilla/even BC, or
2. leave reinforcements for alternate way to end BG, HOWEVER change towers to instead weaken faction bosses, but NOT dwindle reinforcements, BUFF bosses to require all towers to be down, and elementals to be summoned in order to kill (elementals tank boss while players dps/heal)
3. require players to gather resources and turn in, in order to buff respective factions.
4. reward massive honor for each EPIC BG/respective objective etc, give mobs chances to drop meaningful rewards, due to the increased duration/nature of EPIC bgs.
5. (I read suggestions from others on this forum to increase honor gained for certain tasks, such as honor for staying on defense, and being active, like... honor gained in proximity to objectives to be majorly increased, since you are active less, but performing a still, very important job) Less of an EPIC BG issue, but BG issue all around
Those are just my ideas, you could even keep the standard AV/IoC in the regular random battleground rotations, and make the "epic" BGs truly epic/long/meaningful, I don't know how much of the playerbase wants a classic style AV etc, but I have seen quite a few of those posts over the years.
Thank you for showing interest in taking progressive strides to make "EPIC" bgs truly epic, and I hope it goes more toward that old epic feeling of joining an AV and expecting to spend most of your day in there.
Side note: I would love to see more old school BG styles, huge battles that feel like they matter, I would love to see (since this is BATTLE FOR AZEROTH) another epic sized/style BG kinda like the resources one, but with hubs etc, kinda like the ...expeditions? I think they're called, but an actual BG, with real rewards etc. anyway, looking forward to BFA!
My feedback for TRULY EPIC battlegrounds is:
1. Remove reinforcements and revert it back to how it was in vanilla/even BC, or
2. leave reinforcements for alternate way to end BG, HOWEVER change towers to instead weaken faction bosses, but NOT dwindle reinforcements, BUFF bosses to require all towers to be down, and elementals to be summoned in order to kill (elementals tank boss while players dps/heal)
3. require players to gather resources and turn in, in order to buff respective factions.
4. reward massive honor for each EPIC BG/respective objective etc, give mobs chances to drop meaningful rewards, due to the increased duration/nature of EPIC bgs.
5. (I read suggestions from others on this forum to increase honor gained for certain tasks, such as honor for staying on defense, and being active, like... honor gained in proximity to objectives to be majorly increased, since you are active less, but performing a still, very important job) Less of an EPIC BG issue, but BG issue all around
Those are just my ideas, you could even keep the standard AV/IoC in the regular random battleground rotations, and make the "epic" BGs truly epic/long/meaningful, I don't know how much of the playerbase wants a classic style AV etc, but I have seen quite a few of those posts over the years.
Thank you for showing interest in taking progressive strides to make "EPIC" bgs truly epic, and I hope it goes more toward that old epic feeling of joining an AV and expecting to spend most of your day in there.
Side note: I would love to see more old school BG styles, huge battles that feel like they matter, I would love to see (since this is BATTLE FOR AZEROTH) another epic sized/style BG kinda like the resources one, but with hubs etc, kinda like the ...expeditions? I think they're called, but an actual BG, with real rewards etc. anyway, looking forward to BFA!
That’s why they should increase group size to at least 10.07/29/2018 04:03 AMPosted by Forums07/28/2018 08:18 PMPosted by Zekrad...
So what's stopping you from gathering all these disgruntled horde and forming your own group to take on ally premade raids??
The premade group size limit is 5 players.
Five people total.
We're not supposed to have premade raids in casual bgs.
Players are circumventing game restrictions when they sync their queues and queue pops over voice chat to bring 6+ people into the same bg. They gain unfair advantages over the players on the other team who are playing by the rules.
Why don't I form my own premade raid to counter premade raids?
First, that premade raid would end up facing mostly pug teams, not other premade raids. That wouldn't help the premade raid vs. pugs problem. It would just exacerbate the situation. Second, I don't want to circumvent game restrictions just because some other players are doing it. Third, cheating/exploiting is wrong.
I'm loving these changes. just had an awesome AV that lasted almost an hour. Back and forth. Fights everywhere. We managed to summon Ivus. Fixed maybe? I noticed there was only 1 druid instead of four and he died but we still were able to summon him.
Love the +100 points. The more I play, the more I think a bit more points would be good especially if we wanted to kill their boss. I just love the long fights no matter which way they go.
Again, having summoning things actually matter would be amazing. Maybe it does now?
Love the +100 points. The more I play, the more I think a bit more points would be good especially if we wanted to kill their boss. I just love the long fights no matter which way they go.
Again, having summoning things actually matter would be amazing. Maybe it does now?
07/29/2018 04:03 AMPosted by ForumsFirst, that premade raid would end up facing mostly pug teams, not other premade raids. That wouldn't help the premade raid vs. pugs problem. It would just exacerbate the situation. Second, I don't want to circumvent game restrictions just because some other players are doing it. Third, cheating/exploiting is wrong.
In 10v10 battlegrounds, there's provision for raid groups: they can do rated battlegrounds.
For larger battlegrounds, there's no such option that I can see. Thus, if your 10 person group wants to do WSG, they can, but if they want to do AV, they can't.
There needs to be a legitimate AV option for groups larger than 5.
07/29/2018 11:56 AMPosted by YarrowThere needs to be a legitimate AV option for groups larger than 5.
War games?
07/29/2018 12:00 PMPosted by Forums07/29/2018 11:56 AMPosted by YarrowThere needs to be a legitimate AV option for groups larger than 5.
War games?
On a scale of 1-10 with one being killing lvl 1 boars as a 110 and 10 being herding 50 feral cats down a 10 mile trail; your typing "War games?" is a -5. Actually getting a war games organized is about a 8.2 give or take. I love 'em, don't get me wrong but damn..
Back on topic:
Good to hear about an easy Ivus summons. Hope it is fixed and that wasn't a fluke. I forgot about the druids having to be alive for the summons to work most times in my first post in this thread.
AVs are going great right now, just need alliance players to figure it out already and come together as a team. There is no 1 strategy to win, there are many ways. Just got to follow along with the one that's called and most agreed upon.
Epics are great. Only major complaint is the very longstanding IOC vehicle/canon bugs... exiting a vehicle sometimes requires /reload or you run sideways... sometimes guns on vehicles/towers/airship bug and won't work again until client is relaunched.
Other than the IOC bugs, fun stuff.
Other than the IOC bugs, fun stuff.
07/27/2018 06:47 PMPosted by DigeratiI think I'm like 0-15 on Alliance epic BGs since the changes to kill the zerg strats (which Alliance were winning all the time beforehand). Would be cool if the Mercenary NPC was always up. Think the 50% Enlistment Bonus is gone too (should it come back?). Getting into AVs with 20 Alliance at the start, and they just lose the turtle.
Going to be transferring a toon to Horde soon, so its not a big deal since Honor is account wide now, but would be nice to have the option to queue whichever side
One of the IOCs last night was an hour long, and seeing the vehicles just hanging out in the middle was cool (except for the losing part), but I do wish there was more back and forth instead of people trying for 5 minutes and then slowly giving up or trying to feed them kills to end it more quickly. There's not enough back and forth right now, and it'd be cool if there were some sort of item drops and buffs. I'm not sure going full Mario Kart is the right option either (being behind = more buffs/better items). Overall it might just be that there's more serious PVPing horde right now in BGs, but yeah, haven't won yet. Will try it out next week from Horde side. I know you guys have the internal data on this sort of thing already, but I just wanted to a leave a note that they should be closely monitored.
Disclaimer: I'm not the biggest PVPer around. Mostly just grinding from 155 to 175 honor level for the Glorious Pennant, which looks really cool. I also appreciate the added focus on Epic BGs, because the large scale action does appeal to a lot of players, myself included. Less serious, more social. Splitting it off into its own queue was a great idea, as is the opt-in war mode system as a whole.
Update on this, still haven't won anything really. Horde friend said he won 21 of 22 this week. After giving it some more thought, I think it's because Horde resses/stays together more in the new turtle format. You completely ignore the captains now, so Iceblood is primed to take the SHB with it being closer. Horde also make a beeline on the right side of the map from Iceblood to SHB, staying together as a group, whereas Alliance spread all out in the Field of Strife.
Time will tell if this changes, but Horde have always stayed clustered on that one side of the map from Iceblood and Alliance done whatever for years, and it's much better for the turtle. Maybe they'll adapt. Alliance had the advantage with the layout of Dun Baldar beforehand, but now that isn't in play anymore. Just the middle of the map.
One thing you could maybe do would be making the captains much more killable by a 3-5 man group once the initial group has been wiped, so you can sneak back and get it done
Another would be tweaking graveyard timers to be shorter so theyre more ninjable, which might solve the Iceblood problem, but I still don't think they'd be going for end bosses even if pushed back. Could say the same about Towers but that'd be going too far. GYs seem like a subtle approach but I think it's the best way to make these battles more back and forth
So in order of what might help from most to least
1) Minor GY timer tweaks
2a) Making Snowfall GY more desirable by also granting a reinforcement like the mines do (really minor but snowfall is seen as a joke and bad diversion since its out of the way)
2b) Significant Captain Health/Dmg Tweaks (maybe just Dmg, keep him more of a beefy target dummy so a tank isn't needed)
3) Tower timers (only certain classes can do this so meh. Hurts the epic battles than helps)
IOC has been more even. Still losing most but Alliance just needs to see the importance of the Workshop. Maybe vehicles could respawn a little less fast. All they do is sit in the middle out of cannon range as people run into them and die.
I think game times are exactly where we want them