Incentives to play Rated Battlegrounds 1: Cosmetic Rewards

Hiya! For The Alliance :smiley:

I started playing Rated Battlegrounds (RBG) in the beginning of BFA and have formed groups as the leader twice a week at least since then.
Many players I’ve came across play World of Warcraft specifically for RBG. They believe it’s the greatest aspect of the game, without it they say they would quit.

Mythic Plus Dungeons and RBG have one thing in common, there comes a point when you play and the rewards stop coming! That is why I have made this post

In 9.2.5 they intend to allow us to play cross faction, but they do not intent to abolish factions entirely and many people who pick a side, so do because it’s the one they prefer. With that in mind, faction based cosmetic rewards I believe would certainly encourage players to participate beyond a threshold; whether that be pushing keys above +15 or striving for higher rating in Rated Battlegrounds after reaching 2100CR and upgrading all of your PvP gear. I’m aware that typically people play alts and this is simply a suggestion/idea, one which might not be practical currently.

Rated Battlegrounds Rewards:

  • Faction based mounts: A basic horse or steed (For The Alliance) and a slightly larger than usual fierce looking wolf (For The Horde). Ingame Achievements would reward you in a more meaningful manner than by flashing on the screen. Via Ingame Mail, a letter would be sent signed by your faction leader compelling you to visit the War Room and better equip your steed/wolf.

A revamp of the Achievements acquired in Rated Battlegrounds may be needed for this to be implemented effectively, however here’s an example of how it could look based on the current achievements:

  1. Achievement “In Service of the Alliance” (25 Wins)

25 Wins = Add a faction banner to the mount, a choice of six differently designed banners which could be placed in at least three different positions.

  1. Achievement “Warbound Veteran of the Alliance” (75, 150, 300 Wins)

75 Wins = Decorate your mount with various cloth items, this could tie into tailoring there could be a reagent only tailors could make, or inscription with their dyes. We would only be given the choice of predominantly representing our faction colors: Blue/red but there could be a variety of striped patterns and designs to choose from. Not sure what I mean? Think about the horses you ride in Heroes of the Storm, and the cloth draped across them. Think about medieval horses like you see in movies!

150 Wins = Decorate your mount with Armor. Sets of Armor for your mount could be based on specific RBG maps such as Arathi Basin. This map is all about travelling around quickly, the armor would be light. Victories Temple of Kotmogu for example, or Warsong Gulch could unlock heavy armor. There would be atleast three variations in how your mount equipped the armor and there would be a large number of armor sets to choose from tied to various RBG Achievements.

300 Wins = Decorate your mount with weaponry similar to the Vicious War Lion. A wide variety of weapons would be available and again tied to achievements, perhaps even related to profession items (blacksmithing/engineering). We would be given a choice of at least three different weapon positions on the mount.

Cosmetic rewards for Mythic Plus Dungeon Achievements could also be related to professions and follow a similar trend. If I give it some more thought I may create a new post expanding on this idea.

This is my first WoW Community Council Forums Post, cut me some slack please
I did my best :slight_smile: Hopefully it was worth a read, I kept the focus on one aspect and have many other ideas of how to encourage participation in Rated Battlegrounds.

8 Likes

I always love more cosmetics, and I also love RBGs, so I’d love to see more incentive to playing them. I like your ideas, the only issue i see being what happens after the 300 wins. I am by no means a full time RBG player, but my account already has over 250 wins already so I’d be pretty close to having nothing to chase.

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First off…

FOR THE HORDE! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I’m always in favor of additional rewards for the RBG Community. I believe they are a bit on the “blunt end of the stick” as the top arena achievements receive season-specific titles (IE: Sinful Gladiator), yet RBG top 0.5% are just “Hero of the Horde/Alliance” without the season specific title (IE: Sinful Hero of the Horde/Alliance). Furthermore, 3v3 players can acquire a Gladiator mount whereas RBGers acquire nothing. I believe your cosmetic mount suggestion to those who beat perhaps 25 wins after 2400 would be a nice incentive for players who do not intend on pushing Hero of the Horde/Alliance, and so they do not feel like the “lesser” of the PvP rewards

5 Likes

Yes that’s right, win X amount of games isn’t a particularly interesting challenge either because you know, you might win them at 1.2 CR. There’d have to be some new achievements implemented I reckon for sure, you’re on the right lines mate!

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As someone that only PvPs for gear rewards early on in a Season where it’s time-efficient for me I’d say the only thing that would make me want to RBG more both during that time compressed window and outside of it (after progress).

Rating

RBGs require more commitment both in terms of time for the activity & collective time from the amount of players required for participation. With that in mind I belive that rating should inflate more in this game mode than others.

You shouldn’t be in a situation when gearing and think, yeah 2s will be faster than this.

End of Season rewards

Would say that there definately needs to be an incentive to keep playing after you’ve hit your rating required.

3v3 has a good reward in place for giving you the Gladiator mount after 2.4k & 50 wins. Perhaps something similar for RBGs?

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Yeah, and I know you high rated players enjoy cosmetic rewards aswell so perhaps they could allow the rewards to be relative to the rating you obtain, there’s already a title attached to that so why not! Good one mate!

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Yes! 6v6 RBG would certainly encourage participation I agree. I reckon their new Soloqueue mode for Arenas could be the beginning, and the end could be RBG Soloqueue. Would that go well? I wonder hmm :slight_smile: Thanks!

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Once I thought this was the answer… after a few games of solo shuffle I’m not so sure.

One of the biggest things that distinguishes Rated BGs from Random BGs is the communication. Whether in discord or raid chat, to win Rated BGs you generally have to communicate effectively. Solo shuffle seems to have 0 communication, which for me is less fun than even pugging arena.

If there were a rating system to it, maybe its better, but right now it’s just a long skirmish and I digress.

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Yeah I think it’s the trade we make though, accessibility for quality (of the gameplay experience). Hopefully as you say it will expand and evolve into something that feels more wortwhile! A step in the right direction for sure :slight_smile:

I really like some of these ideas and the fact that they are tied to wins. Id really want them to be super high with like a 1k wins reward too since lots of people having been playing RBGs since cata and have tons and tons of wins if they carried over towards the new rewards

2 Likes

With hero being permanent, I think it should have had the seasonal name attached to it, like r1 does, from the beginning. Really, aside from current season cosmetics and gear, there are no tangible rewards for RBGs if you’ve already hit hero once. I guess you get another hero achievement, but unless you are playing a new alt it doesn’t give you anything new cosmetics wise. The RBG rating titles for 1100-2400 don’t change either, nor do the sets RBG rating rewards from vanilla. Gear and current season cosmetics can be obtained in arena too, so RBGs are really just giving nothing unique at this point.

The vicious mounts, starting with the horse and wolf were originally going to be the reward for hero if I’m remembering Cata beta correctly. It’s nice that they’ve found a place as a participation award for casual PvPers, but higher rated RBGs need some incentive too. A lot of the ideas posted here are good. Personally if I was going to get back in to RBGs I’d want a unique ground mount obtained in a similar fashion to the current gladiator mount and the season name added to the hero title. Other cosmetics would certainly be welcome too.

3 Likes

Wehey! Yes exactly, glad you liked it! Rewards for playing more than others worked in Vanilla; everyone knows you didn’t have to be the greatest player to become a Grand Marshal, you simply had to queue up enough!

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This has been my biggest gripe since acquiring Hero of the Horde. I don’t feel any incentive to ever push it again since I already have the title. It feels bad. :frowning:

I believe WorldPvP proposed rewards with high amount of wins. I think that would be nice; however, I would prefer Blizzard focused on season-related Rated Battleground rewards. We already have a quasi-reward system to work towards with Honor Level Rewards (which I believe ceases at Honor Level 400 with the option to purchase the pet) by just focusing wins and kills. Whether a pet is the best “grand prize” of a PvP related reward is a debate for another time, but I would like RBGers to feel the same level of importance in terms of seasonal Awards as their Arena counterparts.

I posted an opinion in another thread and it made me ponder - has Blizzard ever offered an explanation as to why Rated Battleground players do not receive a/the seasonal reward(s) too? I’d be shocked if it’s never come up in an interview before.

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As much as I’m all for adding cosmetic rewards for this, I think it should be accessible through random battlegrounds as well, in particular epic battlegrounds.

When I initially attempted to play rated battlegrounds for the first time in 9.0, I was not welcome as a Fury Warrior. This means that I would’ve been unable to get those cosmetics because I would simply never be invited. You think the meta for M+ is causing players to miss out on invites is bad? This is way worse. Not only will you have to deal with horrible queues as you won’t get invited, you also have to deal with a huge amount of toxicity, which is naturally higher in a PvP setup, and even worse in rated PvP.

A “meta” will always exist. The bigger issue is WHY aren’t certain class/specs desired in comparison to others. I’ve commented on another thread but a great example is the strength of a Guardian druid in comparison to other tank classes. On Twin Peaks, a Guardian druid can grab the flag, flap off the edge to the river, leap across, then sprint with flag to end. Meanwhile, a Brewmaster Monk can’t even use their barrel roll. The discrepancies between some classes is obscene. I believe any notable cosmetics should be acquired from rated games though. Random battle grounds still offer certain honor tmogs and the vicious mounts.

2 Likes

Random battle grounds still offer certain honor tmogs and the vicious mounts.

The honor transmogs are nothing worth noting and I can’t even upgrade them to the “good” looks. Winning 50 epic battlegrounds is still an achievement, if not by time alone. Also not sure what the vicious mount are supposed to be, the only PvP mounts I know that you can buy somewhere require some token you can’t get from unranked.

I believe any notable cosmetics should be acquired from rated games though.

Rated PvP has a much higher barrier to entry, so I disagree on this. Especially as most guilds focus on PvE, finding an RBG group is hard, especially if you want to avoid toxicity.

Adding these cosmetics behind rated battlegrounds is effectively blocking off access to a lot of people. It’s already disgusting that certain mogs are permanently made unavailable this way, we don’t need more of this.

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I definitely understand what you mean but being someone who plays brewmaster in rbgs its not like its impossible to get into groups. What Mornnah is saying is very true but even we have played together just Qing LFG but the problem blizzard has created is certainly still rooted hardcore in the FOTM is always best problem

I understand what you are saying but its rated over not rated its like asking for mythic transmog from LFR Probably a very harsh way of putting it. It can be tough but its not like its impossible to do.

The reality is that without actual incentives every season besides maybe a weapon enchant its not really worth the actual trouble of finding 10 people and hoping someone doesnt DC or one of another hundred things that could happen causing the team to lose to actually motivate people to play Rated Bgs.

This is one of the reasons why Solo Q would really be great for Rated Bgs it would solve the group finding problems but most likely cause a ton of other problems especially with team comp and certain things like base sitters which would basically be a huge argument which is why it is probably the last thing they are working towards but is really desperately needed

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I can get Mythic mogs from past expansions. I’m okay with not getting PvP cosmetics rewards when it’s current, but that’s not possible as most of them are time limited.

If the only motivation for people to play rated battlegrounds, then maybe the problem is that rated battlegrounds aren’t fun. Doing content you hate because you want certain cosmetics is not going to make rbgs more fun, it will only frustrate people even more.

I’m not a good PvPer, but I still want the mogs. There’s absolutely no reason for them to make mogs time limited and lock them behind content unreachable to a lot of players. This trend is also visible in the mage tower.

These things should award achievements, and achievements only. Cosmetics should be obtainable by everyone. If you’re good at what you’re doing, you’ll just get it faster.

I’m sick and tired of the FOMO culture that games create, it’s abusive.

3 Likes

I agree with Mornnah that rated PvP is the place for notable cosmetics. I think this is where RBG solo/duo-queue needs to be implemented with it’s own rating, separate from premade RBGs. That rating should allow you to get the exclusive elite PvP transmogs, but it should be rated.

This would also help the “meta” issues you’re facing as in an LFG system the game would set the comp to be 1-3-6, regardless of what classes are chosen, and match people based on their rating.