There’s no way to be sure, but I’m pretty sure most of us are imposters at this point.
4 Likes
doesnt the mercenary buff appear when you que into a bg thats what i thought people looked for to tell apart who is mercing or not
As far as I know the buff isn’t “visible” to Alliance players, it only shows up on the Horde player’s screen. I’m guessing they made the buff invisible so Horde mercs would not get harrassed by the Alliance teammates, blamed for losses, etc.
Merc mode and the transmog system don’t mix well at all, so sometimes the merc player zones into the bg looking goofy/certain pieces not showing/etc.
Personally I’ve been hoping they’d expand merc mode to just be part of the UI so it would see even more use and balance queue times better.
Unfortunately it doesn’t seem like they’re doing that in SL.
5 Likes
I don’t think that Blizzard thinks about battlegrounds.
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Never happens in any games I’m in.
The length of the merc buff is irrelevant since you can re-apply it at any time.
But then I’d be constantly surrounded by tentacle faced freaks !!! 
I know you’ve convinced yourself that your play experience as Alliance would improve without it, but it’s simply a fantasy that has no basis in reality.
Merc mode is good for PvP and would be even better if it were expanded.
Put it in the UI, even let anyone use it at any time from either faction and let them even group up and queue with friends from the other faction IMO.
3 Likes
Perhaps there’s a solution that doesn’t involve petty Alliance/Horde bickering and stereotyping. 
Honestly, make Battlegrounds faction-agnostic already. Most of them already exist in a lore black hole, if not being completely nonsensical (how ya doin’ Temple of Kotmogu), writing them off as ‘wargames’ would be fitting.
There are literally always going to be issues so long as they’re strictly HvA.
6 Likes
I’ve been playing Alliance for most of BFA - and doing casual battlegrounds fairly frequently. I almost never ran into this. That’s not to say it doesn’t happen every now and then, but there’s very little incentive for a Horde player to want to throw a game. The few players I’ve run into who self-identified as Mercs were there to win. And why wouldn’t they be?
Given you already are, that’s a strange position to take.
You don’t get the short end of the stick at all, given Random BGs are just that - random - in the first place. Getting a shorter ‘roll’ for your next random team is always going to be better. Doubly so if you’re queuing with friends, as there’s far less downtime.
Horde do have afkers, by the way - they don’t suddenly stop being toxic just because they’re fighting for the Horde. Toxic players are toxic players, doesn’t matter what color they are.
I’d rather as many people as possible got to play the game, to be honest. This is just petty.
3 Likes
I’m still confused which ‘expense’ that would be, however.
Merc mode Horde players throwing games simply isn’t as big an issue as you portray it. 99% of the time I see people lose, it’s got more to do with the utterly random nature of Random BGs and their matchmaking than anything else.
Do they exist? Of course - but as I said in my previous post, toxic players exist on either side of the aisle. Anyone who’d throw an Alliance team in Merc Mode would do the same to their Horde team as well.
Merc Mode is simply a necessary evil given the current structure of the game. I’d love it if Alliance players could use Merc mode and opt for longer queues if they desired, but there’s not a lot of issue with it currently that isn’t inherent to the design of the faction system itself.
In literally any game with two sides, one of them is going to be more stacked than the other. You can observe this in shooters, as well - at least the style that use servers instead of a matchmaking system.
People will start to stack a team the moment it becomes convenient. Said ‘teams’ in WoW being, essentially, a permanent choice only exacerbates this issue. Letting it fester would only make it worse.
tl;dr: Randoms gonna random.
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I play both factions and use merc mode on my horde toon for faster queues . What’s the problem.
1 Like
Had to stop right there. Your roleplaying game is weak. Pro-level roleplayers hate the opposite faction so much that it carries over into real life (it’s similar to method acting).
In short, git gud at roleplaying.
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If you’re in doubt, try to whisper them. If you can’t, they’re in merc mode. Alliance/Horde can’t whisper each other regardless of merc mode or not (unless they changed this since I tested it in Korrak’s Revenge).
I have never once had a Horde player on my team who actively tried to make our team worse. Maybe they’ll occasionally say things in the chat if we start losing badly, but then again the Alliance does that too.
3 Likes
i merc to alliance because i like to play with alliance friends while partysyncing into 40-49 to show everyone unholy dk is the beez kneez.
also if you play at a specific bracket… lets say the old 110 capped bracket… and you talk so much crap the players on your team stop helping you it’s easy to merc over and punish them for being soft.
2019-2020 110 most hated player ask me how.
Completely agree lol.
Either they changed it or the dozen or so people I whispered for food / stones / fort were horde.
I guess the real question is, are there alliance in BGs anymore?
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the real question is why you’re asking for these things like its an entitlement. you go to a bbq and complain there isnt hotmustard when you didnt even bring a dish to share.
You mean my home cooked Battleshout? How dare you!
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Just so I’m clear here, Airport has convinced themselves that there are Horde players who a) want faster queue times but also b) don’t want to actually win a match and are going to all this trouble just to intentionally throw the match.
That’s quite the boogeyman.
10 Likes
I mean, I don’t think that guy is being serious.