The Stranglethorn World PvP Event was an interesting experiment from the SoD Dev Team, but ultimately I believe it was inferior to Ashenvale in multiple ways, and it has certainly overstayed its welcome with what I can only describe as a lazy decision by the team to force it for 2 consecutive phases. I can understand how it made sense thematically for the Blood Moon event to be paired with the Sunken Temple Raid though; maybe they should've chose a different locale and event style for Phase 2 then, but I digress...
The Battle for Ashenvale in Phase 1, despite its initial problems, was fulfilling and felt inherently like Classic WoW PvP: Alliance vs. Horde fighting in the dense Elven Forest over resources, mirroring the Warsong Gulch battleground. It was a fantastic alternative for gaining Silverwing/Warsong Rep as well as a competitive option for honor progression that was more comfortable for players who wished to avoid the premade group-leaden hellscape that was WSG for at least the first few weeks of the phase. Locking the progression purely from the event to Revered prevented invalidation of the battleground entirely. The event worked well, it was close to the Blackfathom Deeps Raid, it was entertaining, and it gave World PvP Guilds like mine a playground to instigate large-scale battles every day.
Blood Moon in Phase 2 and 3 was in almost every way, the opposite. It was an interesting idea, but free-for-all PvP in World of Warcraft unjustly punishes organized PvP raid combat, feels unfulfilling, and feels forced 90% of the time. I don’t know why they continue to do it in the game; is it to please the cross-faction purist crowd? Is it to provide an unnecessary solution to the illusionary issue of faction imbalance, especially on the 50/50-locked PvP Servers? I have no idea and maybe I’m wrong, but I’m sure I’ll catch some flak for this segment regardless of what stance I took on the matter. The Arathi Basin Rep alternative was also much worse than WSG Rep acquisition via Ashenvale as the rate was much slower and was tied to free-for-all group performance rather than unified faction performance. No weekly quest token either! Honor gains varied heavily as oftentimes you were killing players from your own faction. Also, I can’t speak for all classes/specs obviously but at least for ret paladin, the event currency rewards weren’t even on the Pre-BiS list; the event was practically not worth it if you weren’t in an all-caster/stealth group imo.
Eastern Plaguelands Tower Capture would be great for Phase 4 and some sort of Burning Steppes AvH World PvP event would be optimal for Phase 5/BWD. It would encourage various styles of combat and would at least be close to Stratholme, which would take up most of our time next phase in the slog from 50 to 60, as long as there’s no Dream Incursion-esque grind to burn out on. Maybe it would be better suited for Naxx phase, but either way it could be a good optional tie-in for Argent Dawn Rep similar to Ashenvale. The most important part is that it would return to the Alliance vs Horde formula that drives PvP themes, especially in Classic WoW, and the tried and true objective game mode.
I want to open this up to better ideas though; if EPL would be better for Naxx phase, would Azshara be a good fit? WPL? Maybe they could finally open up Hyjal to be a dedicated World PvP zone with a promising locked raid portal in either faction’s basecamps? I’m also aware that Alterac Valley is on the way which will likely be the choice for large-scale PvP and honor farming anyway, but it would still be great to have a reliable World PvP option.
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I was hoping I could do the AB Rep in a similar comfortable fashion like with WSG and Ashenvale but all STV turned out to be was a giant crapfest that I quickly lost interest in and groaned when they just decided to bump it up to 50 again.
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If they roll over STV again with p4 rewards I am going to scream. Once was fun, two was…meh, this sucks unless I am ranged and three times would feel like 30 minutes of groin punches.
Didn’t they say they were going to do something with Azshara? Silithus would be good too.
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lol. dunno free for all seemed kind of a fun idea. Like it’s so out of control its fun. I’d rather do that than watch horde cap bs a million times while alliance fights on the opposite bridge lol.
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Healing in STV BM is such a pain it is not fun at all.
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it literally takes 4 BMs max to get your item unless your just terrible at the game its not hard
strawman? no one is talking about difficulty in acquiring the item rewards here.
You’re incorrect. FFA 5-man capped PvP absolutely rewards organized groups. Running solo isn’t a thing.
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you failed to include the word after that in quoting the OP: PvP RAID combat. Blood Moon punished raid groups with no currency acquisition. It makes sense in the free-for-fall format of course, but that’s another reason why FFA is restrictive and unfulfilling. Solo play wasn’t mentioned.
In practice it isn’t FFA. It’s 5-man content.
There are several formats to PvP in raid groups. My sneaking suspicion is that you guys don’t like that you actually have to PvP in booodmoon to get rewards, and prefer garbage like AV and BFA. Where you can rush down objectives and avoid combat at any cost.
once again, I’m not referring to the rewards; only the quality of the gameplay and the theme of the event. In practice, blood moon IS FFA, through the lens of faction restriction in pvp during the event being non-existent; Alliance can kill Alliance. Horde can kill Horde. As for the AV/BFA comment, my proposed alternative for a Phase 4 PvP event is a modified version of EPL Tower Capture, which revolves around combat occurring around towers that either side would need to capture in order to gather resources to win, which is similar to how Arathi Basin works.
If they had left BM like it was when it launched, I would’ve enjoyed it more as that truly felt like a full on free for all.
Alright then leave the thread if you’re not going to provide any constructive feedback.
Not providing any constructive feedback is the only thing Aguy does around here.
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You only care about the faction FFA because you can’t stack a layer one faction and dominate it. Sucks to suck, sorry you have to actually PvP.
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Organized pvp is the problem. That’s what bgs are for, and you see all the boohooing about the min/maxing there. The FFA aspect of Blood Moon was excellent. The problem is that added the silly boss, forcing people to go to one spot. A lot of technical issues with layers too.
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I grinded exalted with Arathor doing BM
I do agree that the boss was an issue as well. Organized PvP isn’t really an issue when both sides can do it though; complainers in general chat during Ashenvale in P1 would’ve saved themselves a lot of time if they just grouped up and pushed an objective together. Players are quicker to groan about being seemingly outnumbered instead of banding together to fight back.
When I first heard STV was going to be the “PvP Event” zone, I was very excited. What a great zone for that.
But what actually happened, while in theory maybe could have been fun with faction based 5 man groups, was in fact, the opposite of fun for many players. As a healer, it was… awful.
I love PVP, and I only did that event the bare min, because it just wasnt worth the constant being targeted, the players who would not think about actually defending their healer or work as a group, or the mess it was to even try and rez and “get back together”. Some niche groups worked, but for me? naw.
Give me zone based control points, let us duke it out over them, horde vs ally.
And enough with the FFA.
3 Likes