On Twinking: Addressing Misconceptions

PVP Battlegrounds
1

I’m getting awfully sick of the ignorance about twinking in this forum, particularly about the period when xp-off and xp-on queues were split.

So in the interest of dispelling ignorance without just resorting to obnoxious forum pvp, here’s a history lesson on twinking:

First, a brief aside–I made my first twink in 2008, and I’ve made many since then, because this is my favorite part of the game. Endgame lost its luster for me; I’m just not a fan of the gear treadmill anymore. I haven’t enjoyed endgame since Cata. But I still love playing BGs. So here we are.

Remember when PvP had battlegroups? Yeah, those were the days. For those who don’t recall, battlegroups were clusters of servers, and they had cool names like “Retaliation” and “Nightfall.” When you queued up for PvP, you could queue only into other people from your battlegroup.

When Blizz split the queues, the battlegroup system meant it was pretty tough to get games on your twink. So those of us who wanted to keep playing got on the forums and decided on a particular battlegroup and then transferred our characters to that battlegroup so we could get games. Yes–we had to realm transfer just to get games. We scheduled game nights and fought one another in WSG over and over again. When games were imbalanced (I.E., 9v10), the side that was up would sit a player in the name of fair play. If one faction was really stomping the other one a few games in a row, we’d move players around so we could have even games. Hot, twink-on-twink action (.com?).

Those matches would go strong for some months, then people would move on to play endgame or other brackets, or (gasp!) games other than WoW. And when that happened, we wouldn’t get games for a while. But then, inevitably, the WSG itch would take hold and we’d have a “revival” of a specific bracket. And the queues would pop and wine would pour and it was awesome. This happened with various degrees of frequency (your mileage may vary based on your bracket) over the years of split queues.

And then Legion came out. Templates removed all customization and thought that went into planning your character. PvP was soulless and dull. No longer did your gear choices determine your character’s stats. Rather, some Blizzard employee set some stats for you and that was that. Want to play a fire mage and stack crit? Interested in a glass-cannon, strength-stacking setup on your Ret paladin? Tough–templates meant you no longer controlled your own playstyle. I cancelled my sub and thought I probably wouldn’t ever come back.

Then BFA came out and a lot of us who hadn’t played in years came back–we updated our characters and were ready to play. And it’s been awesome.

So much for history.

Now to address the misconceptions and ignorance about twinks, especially those of us who’ve been around for a while:

We don’t like it when there aren’t twinks on the enemy team. We aren’t interested in stomping levelers. We know we can do it–even if we didn’t have geared toons. What we’re looking for is stomping the other twinks, especially the ones who are the types that give twinking a bad name–the ones who think they’re awesome at the game if they have Sul’Thraze and Ramstein’s. We specifically try to queue into enemy premades. We play objectively and look for a quick, strategic win. We don’t care to farm kills or pad our damage, and killing the twinks who like to do that (like a fury warrior with two pocket healers) is a point of pride. We (or at least I) view lower-level BGs kind of as a chess match–the twinks are the bishops, knights, and rooks of the BG, and those who didn’t come prepared to play are pawns. Strategic removal of key enemy pieces leads to a stronger position and, ultimately, victory.

We aren’t here to farm Honor; the honor amounts are orders of magnitude lesser when you play in lower brackets. We aren’t here to stomp noobs; that gets boring really fast. We’re here because we love our characters and the customization playing in the lower brackets affords. We’re here because it’s fun to look at the enemy roster at the start of the game and recognize five of the names. And it’s fun to focus those five players all game in order to secure victory and bragging rights.

So that leads us to the current state of twinking in BFA. On the one hand, I kind of yearn for the glory days of split queuing, which were some of the best, most competitive games I’ve ever played and an absolute blast. On the other, I enjoy short queue times and not having to coordinate with a ton of people just to get games.

Any one of you who doubts what we’re really like, I invite you to come queue some games with my buddies and me. I play 39s and 49s primarily, and I have characters on both factions. I’m happy to help you gear–almost everyone I know who plays these brackets will go out of his or her way to help players new to the scene. But really, come play with us, and I think you’ll find your impressions about serious twinks are grossly misplaced.

Svarazic#1199

17 Likes
2

Cause that is why twinks cap GYs instead of playing objectives.

18 Likes
3

LUL that is a pipe dream my dude.

As much as I understand and appreciate what you are attempting to do here, no amount of reasonable explanation or logic will change the mind of the anti-twink crowd who think all twinks are just bullies who are bad at the game. From my personal experience, and seeing other’s attempts, at trying to explain that there is more to twinking than dumpstering levelers, I can say with a good bit of confidence that nothing will make them change their dogmatic opinions that all twinks are scumbags that just want to stomp on newbies - and we’re just lying if we claim to enjoy anything else about it.

That said, good thread mate, will surely be entertaining. :popcorn::popcorn::popcorn:

6 Likes
4

I don’t condone GY farming. However, it can lead to a quicker victory when your FC can quickly three-cap unimpeded. But it’s still a scummy, low-life move.

5 Likes
5

Then I suppose you’re in favor of twink brackets again?

11 Likes
6

I’m torn. We get a lot of good games now where it’s at least 5v5 prepared players, which is nice.

1 Like
7

So you’re saying that twinking doesn’t have a huge following?

2 Likes
8

Not as much as is exaggerated on these forums.

4 Likes
9

Did you even read the post?

2 Likes
10

Of course not. It’s a fringe minority of players negatively affecting the majority of players. They even admit that queue times are terrible for them when they had separate queues which means 1 of two things: 1: Twinking isn’t that popular, 2: Twinks don’t like fighting other twinks.

12 Likes
11

If they aren’t that popular then I fail to see how they are this catastrophic problem.

1 Like
12

lol? I’m honestly baffled. Are you being sarcastic or… Like is this some top tier trolling? Let me assume you’re arguing in good faith for a moment (which i doubt but w.e.). You don’t think a minority of players doing something can affect the majority. You realize a minority of players used to bot right? Were you ok with that? I could list example after example of how a minority of anything can greatly affect the majority but again not sure if trolling.

4 Likes
13

4 minutes after posting, your comment is hidden from flagging.

Strange.

8 Likes
14

It’s a common tactic to silence dissenting opinions. It’s very popular to get people that disagree with you de-platformed nowadays.

9 Likes
15

I’m gonna do an experiment, when I can, and level a Lock from scratch through just BGs. No stopping to gear. I’ll SS all my matches too

2 Likes
16

Queue times were terrible because of battlegroups. Again–did you even read the post? Your misconceptions and failure to understand the history of split queues are exactly why I made this post. Educate yourself.

Further, twinking is hardly a fringe minority. When I queue BGs during prime time, nearly every game has at least one twink on one side. Many 10-man BGs have a five-man team (that’s half the team–just wanted to help you with your math) on both sides. Many 15-man BGs have at least a five-man team. I reiterate: that’s what we shoot for. We try to queue into one another.

1 Like
17

If there are a lot of twinks then queue times shouldn’t be that bad. I mean it sounds like you’re for twinks having their own bracket. In which case I’m in agreeance.

6 Likes
18

It’s like the Mythic geared characters at max level. They may be there (not many though) but they aren’t negatively affecting BGs. With scaling, BGs are no longer dependent solely on gear. It’s a team effort.

2 Likes
19

Twinks are not the same as max level characters that outgear you. This is such a dumb argument.

10 Likes
20

Not at all. People keep claiming gear matters at max level…

1 Like