Pugstomps? Premades? RBGs

WoW Classic Season of Discovery
1

There have been an uptick of posts regarding the current landscape of BGs, and there seems to be 2 different camps with different experiences and opinions.

camp1: pugs get stomped by premades and its not fun

camp2: pugs can just join a premade and fix the issue

Both camps have proposed a “fix” to the issue for themselves. These being

fix 1: solo q only
fix 2: join a premade

Now neither of these solutions are fool proof or practical due to differences in opinion, goals, mindsets, etc.

Some people que BGs to rank up and get gear; some just for pve, some for pvp
Some people que BGs because they are bored atm
Some people que BGs because thats all they do, or because they like it

The problem with this wide variety of players is, there is no plausible way to make a fix without one or more camps losing out on something. I will save my opinion on the matter and rather propose a fix that - more or less - can appease all camps to a degree. Now by “degree”, i mean this will help all camps, but not completely satisfy anyone totally. Because it is just completely impossible.

It is not as easy as saying - premades only q premades - because people have different ideas of that. For some, its either q as 1, or q as 2-10. Others say, 10v10, 9v9, 8v8, etc - but that does not work either, because you cant have premade v premade of teams of odd numbers because that requires solo players to fill or small 2-3 mans. (remember, you cant pair a 7v7 because they require 1 +2, or 3 others, and we remove the 1, because solo q.

All we do here is batter the que pool in a billion different formats. Some say 5v5 or 10v10 only, but I argue that classic is not quite a competitive pvp game and neither are random BGs, so trying to make it “fair” is kind of pointless and only creates more problems.

Where the root of this comes from:

Premades largely are formed to achieve a goal of honor or rep as efficiently as possible. Now, listen, regardless of your opinion of “what” these players are, it is human nature to overcome an obstacle by any means necessary.

There are also premades who que up with other premades for the fun of competition. Classic doesnt have a competitive metric, so the competition is between themselves. These guys have no choice but to q up into pugs and small groups until they get a que with another team of the same mindset. Many times this will take over an hour of instant ques and trade chat premades to find the other team.

Small groups fall into all categories listed, these are 2-5 man groups

Solo q players have a large variety of reasons for why they q. They fall into these categories as well.

But I think that - no matter what everyones’ different mindsets lie, we can all agree on one thing:

The ultimate end goal is the honor and rep, because it is a grind that earns us something we want.

RBGs – the system

The proposal I want to make are RBGs. I am not the only one who has been wanting an RBG mechanic and I am surprised they have not already tried it.

How would it work?
-RBGs would be an entirely separate que system. The system requires you to have a full 10 man team, or 15 man team, depending on the battleground.

How will this help relieve random battlegrounds of full teams?

  • The entry level goal and rewards of RBGs are as follows - Triple rep/honor per game for winning the game. This means that a flag cap would be 105 rep per cap, versus 35 for random bgs - The losing teams values are converted to 2x the normal values of random bgs.

What this does, is incentivizes premades to que into other premades via this system, as losing versus a premade still yields double the value, which takes what would be the equivalent of queing random BGs, waiting in que (twice) and playing the game (twice)

But Lazarak, what if they just afk and let the other team win?

Easy. if you lose 3-0, and do not cap/pick up a flag, your values are converted to zero gain.
The other option would be that if the game ends in less than 10 minutes, the loser converts to zero gain. Meaning you WILL have to fight and cannot fold

This creates a risk reward scenario so you don’t just que up rateds to fold.

RBGs - the rewards

Now, this mode does not need huge incentive to partake in. People can que up and learn alot versus seasoned groups. High point teams can be granted non in-game power inducing rewards that are fun and WORTH fighting for.

Title
Mount
Tabard

You could even add a shirt that recolors your armor equipment color as a unique prize for the top teams at the end of “a phase or season”

You could also even add a unique weapon for the absolute top teams that are EQUIVALENT to rank 14 weapons, not a point more powerful, that have cool graphics or unique glows, like shadowmournes for example.

None of this would affect player power and would drive people to get better and get it.

What does this do for solo q players? While I do not agree that random bgs should ONLY be solo q, this is still a casual game to kick it with your boys over a beer etc, there are innocent honest people out there that just want to grab 2-3 friends and smash some people in the BG. But I believe that through the large value gain incentives of a separate RBG que, full premades will not have any real incentive to q up and pug stomp if they can make more value gain even if they que rbgs and constantly lose every game, and they still have to try and if they dont they dont get any rewards.

Will this make solo q players gain rep yields more slowly? Well not really, because nothing changes for their grind that it was before RBGS, except premades having a better incentive to fight there, than randoms. Most solo q players I read their reasoning is just casual fun, or to find other good pugs for a challenge etc. I never see solo q players saying they are queing solo to farm honor and rep only, so there should not really be any problem trying to pull as many premades off of their q as possible and let them have fun and get rep in the process.

I for one, would never que my premade into a regular random battlground ever again because RBGs will be the better pick for our circle.

I would q solo bgs, and maybe bring a couple friends if we are shooting it over disc with beers etc. I don’t believe this will be much different for almost every other premade.

So my point is, unstrangle the random BG que, and add a new que mechanic.

Just like dueling vs Mak’gorah, this should be more than possible.

I welcome people to offer their input and opinions as well, but please…

There are enough threads with people blasting each other over their opinions on battlegrounds, try to leave this thread flame free because it does absolutely nothing and Blizzard won’t take anyone seriously doing that regardless.

Anyways I am sure I may have forgot something, if I did i will edit it in later, such as how rating works etc (which would likely just be personal MMR or a team charter)

My view of this is not only does the mechanic add pvp content to the game, it offers rewards and incentives that do not break or alter the base game. Will this 100% satisfy everyone? Nope, but thats never going to be achievable

Cheers

9 Likes
2

Add Rated Warsong Gulch!

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All great ideas besides this, imo. This is the crux of the matter. There is a conditioning that suggests organized teams deserve more reward. But I don’t think this is an absolute. Yes, it takes more effort and time to organize and coordinate. But so would adding keys to BGs where you have to farm 50 hks in wpvp just to queue. That wouldn’t be a good idea either, for example, even tho it would require more time and effort. It wouldn’t enhance pvp as a whole, it would make people’s eyes glaze over. Locking expedited gear progression behind prerequisites that most people don’t naturally partake in, as their standard of gameplay, is a bad idea.

The issue is exactly as you said. People want to do the most efficient means to gearing. Which is why where that bar is placed matters. I’m of the opinion that the moment gearing requires doing things that most players don’t want to do, it’s become bad design. I do not believe most players want to make premades, so that shouldn’t be the best way to gear. Premade/RBGs should only grant cosmetics and titles, not accelerated gearing.

Besides that, I think you nailed it. But I understand this is a very fundamental issue in dispute.

That said, I think these discussions are very interesting, but not necessarily useful to this season. As soon as AV comes, that’s where everyone will be anyway. But for next season, I’d love a new direction on BG queuing. Even tho I disagree with how you divvy honor/rep in RBGs, I’d take that over the current situation, for sure.

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I think this is a great idea and would work well with RBG (especially if the teams or players on them have an MMR).

Though I think the majority of premades would probably get better HPH by queueing into the non-rated queue even with 3x reward from the rated ones.

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It should be reward it is an MMO and you should be playing in a group. If you want solo play go play a single player game.

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Solo pugging puts you in a group with other people. Direct coordination with a premade party is not a prerequisite to something being an MMO. You’re just used to that philosophy from retail.

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As long as there is no gear locked behind rating, that would kill off the pvp playerbase just like tbc and wotlk did with gear being locked behind a rating. I think if they are going to do something like this they would also need to not allow people from queuing in groups of 5+ in normal BG’s or it won’t do anything to stop people forming premades to pug stomp because most trade chat premades will still form that know they aren’t good enough to compete against premades but will still be able to stomp pugs easily.

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Quoted for truth. This would be a death sentence.

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No. Era pvp is 100% a team game and WSG / AB are designed for premades.

Playing solo is to practice, have fun, do at odd hours, etc. but has never been the more competitive way to play.

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I scrolled …and scrolled … and scrolled ….

Anyone care to summarize?

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While true, solo queing IS a viable option. We have the freedom to que however we please.

My suggestion is to make more higher yield rewards, but requiring more coordination and manpower/effort to do so.

I happen to like solo queing when i want to chill too

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tldr: Add rated-bg side queue in which teams get 3x rep / honor but are fighting other premades.

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It’s worth a read

If you care

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14

add rbgs that give x3 rep/honor to make premades play those instead.

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The main issue with premades is that it’s not fun to solo queue anymore, especially in sod. Most games you queue into are premades and you end up getting Gy farmed. There are little to no competitive games for solo queue players which is incredibly unfun and just leads to less people queuing for BG’s in the long run, so longer queues times for everyone.

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Nah, I never did premades and did rank 13 no problem. Premades weren’t as over the top as they are now with BiS and gear scoring, only taking the OP classes, etc. They were just guilds playing together. That’s not the issue being faced today.

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17

I’ve had fun solo queueing and running flags. Though paladins are insanely OP at this moment.

I get the premades are an issue and this is a potential solution but I think most premades would still run in the non-rated queue since 3x honor / rep doesn’t do much if you’re stuck in a 1-2 hour stalemates or getting run over by a real premade in under 10 min.

18

AV queueing? What were the weekly caps? Was it during a competitive time? Did you break brackets?

In my experience there’s always a few premades of good pvp players (which will definitely kick you if you do dumb stuff, are out of position, don’t understand wsg, etc.), and some random guild groups / LFG premades.

Only the former would do good in a rated system, the rest would collapse really hard when they face premades of 10 good pvp players.

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Yeah I agree that they’ll still run in the solo pug queue which I think is the issue. If they are going to do this I think they should make players unable to queue in solo with more than 5 players. Facing 5 man groups will still probably lead to a loss but atleast not getting farmed at your Gy most games.

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I think solo queue should just mean solo queue. But solo players can queue in the premade queue. Nine man premades would be thankful. Same goes with 5 mans. That’s for the premade queue. The premade queue should simply be the current queue. Solo pug queue should just be for solo pugging.

1 Like