What weekly gear bonus?
What evidence? Why wouldnât most Alliance who are otherwise uninterested in staying in Warmode do this to get such a powerful piece of gear each week?
Once again players (and Blizzard) are looking for ways to modify something when the root of the issue is this: Players are not using Warmode in the manner for which it was intended.
Before, players rolled on PvP servers but had no desire to PvP (or WPvP). They joined for one reason or another, then complained about the hardships of a PvP server and how it wasnât the playstyle they wanted. PvP servers were created for those who enjoyed the open world danger of âwarâ and all of the fun and fury that went with it.
Yet, players joined them for other reasons. The warnings were there and they chose to ignore them.
Now we have Warmode. And from the start, it was no secret as to what Warmode entailed. It would make running around in the open world a very dangerous quest in itself. We KNEW that there would be ganking groups, corpse campers, and quest griefers. Running around in Warmode was going to be HARD. We knew that from the beginning.
Yet, players turned on Warmode for the XP buff. They didnât want, or have any interest in WPvP. They joined for the buff.
And now they complain and want it changed to fit THEIR playstyle. And their playstyle is: "I want all of the things that go with being flagged for PvP without the PvP.
Theyâre mad because Warmode is exactly what they were TOLD it would be.
2 Likes
Iâl refer to you to my second last post.
Not exactly on point, but i think the message is about the same. Being forced or bribed to keep their WM on for arbitrary length of time for any reason is not my idea of fun.
Im not trying to be mean or insulting here, and I know what you saidâŚbut what I heard in the back of my head while reading what you wrote was âWaahhhâŚI got no one to gankâ
Why do you CARE what other players get ?
How does their turning WM off after getting something they wanted to get affect YOUR game in the least other than remove a victim from your grasp?
sorry I meant bonus gear
indeed thank you
you are not a victim if you choose to put on WMâŚWelcome to World PvP the good, the bad, and the ugly of it.
Follow your own advice son.
YOU arent a victim if someone else turns it on, gets what they came for, then turns it off.
Sorry
Iâd prefer to trust the data, and expect that Blizzard does the same. Should a reality bear out in the data, then they should look at appropriate changes; however, actual rigor is required to make such a decision rather than just trying to satisfy the complaints of a vocal minority on the forums.
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In general I agree. But for this particular alleged issue, putting a CD on turning WM off seems like a good solution no matter how you slice it. If the data doesnât support most players are doing this, then it wonât really hurt most players for it to be implemented, and it will shut down the whiners (about this, anyways). If the data does support most players are doing this, well then putting a CD on it is by my estimation a good step to help solve for this.
I believe this is the area of our disagreement.
To my mind, such decision should never be made to sate the vocal minority, especially in an environment where trolling is both prevalent and encouraged by anonymity and mob mentality.
Also, I remain unconvinced that there truly is an issue. Personal anecdotal experience makes me believe it is far less pronounced than posters try to make it seem. I interpret most of this as them having an interest to harm those they see as their enemies, rather than sentiments offered in the general interest to the gameâs short and long term viability.
Iâm certainly willing to be convinced on the above points through data and rigorous analysis, but that is a high bar for the forum environment. I hope that those in a position to make such decisions are not driven by some sort of fear of vocal forum posters on either side of a position.
I donât think that most of the Alliance does this, any more than the Horde ever seemed to be running around in five-man ganking groups at all times in the Alliance zones with War Mode on, which was the common complaint pre-8.1 when the 30% incentive went live.
To be fair, it wasnât to the same level as the complaints of Alliance camping flight points in gaggles of five-man groups to bag their 25 Horde kills that we have now, but there were a lot of them. People called it âHorde Modeâ for a reason. Running in War Mode was dangerous, but fun, and usually a lot of people would do it in a group. I saw the same thing where when I did see Alliance in Zandalar, theyâd usually be in a group, because thereâs safety in numbers. But every WQ I did in Kul Tiras didnât have a giant raid or even a lot of organized five-man groups; a group would form for a rare elite WQ, theyâd kill it, and almost immediately disband. The fact that there happened to be five Horde in the same area for a short time and some poor Alliance player happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time was similarly anecdotal.
But I can tell you, honestly, that things have changed drastically since the 30% bonus and the free piece of Heroic loot from the kill quest went live. Night-and-day difference from how it was. We went from Alliance complaining that the Horde was out in the world and theyâd get ganked en masse at WQs to the Horde complaining that literally twenty to thirty Alliance are camping flight points, killing anything they come across. And yeah, thatâs War Mode, and yeah, that happens. But the real difference is as follows:
Originally, both sides were incentivized to do world content with a 10% bonus to AP, War Resources, and gold gained from it. Conflict happened in the world, especially around the Champions of Azeroth quests.
Now, one side is still incentivized to do world content, and the other is incentivized to specifically seek out and kill the other. A 30% buff is nice, sure, but no Horde is complaining that thereâs now five-man groups of Alliance around the CoA WQs, weâre upset because there were 30+ Alliance inside the Spirits Be With You Inn down in the Port of Zandalar, killing people as they logged in. Next time you see 30 Horde players inside the Harbormasterâs Office in Boralus, youâll be on the same page.
The problem isnât the base War Mode incentive; even the 30% versus 10% is something I can let slide if it gets more people into War Mode. The problem is that the Alliance attacks Horde FPs because theyâre incentivized to do it, whereas the Horde would only get a few bonus honor from doing the same (and youâd get more farming BGs anyway, so thereâs literally no reason to do so). The War Mode incentives for both factions vary wildly, with the Alliance incentive leaning more toward organized attacks, and the Horde incentive just being to do normal things throughout the world for the 10% bonus. All weâd get from camping Boralus (if we could get enough people on board) is a cool story.
2 Likes
The problem isnât that War Mode is hard, or that you might get attacked, ganked, or camped while playing in it. The problem is that the Alliance (I mean, uh, the âunderrepresented factionâ in War Mode) are specifically and separately incentivized for completely different objectives in War Mode to compensate for their general absence before 8.1 hit.
The Horde gets 6 bonus honor from HKs in the world as well as 10% bonus gold, AP and War Resources from WQs. Or 10% bonus experience from quests and killing monsters. This incentivizes doing world content and quests.
The Alliance gets 6 bonus honor from HKs in the world, 30% bonus gold, AP, War Resources, quest and mob experience, and a piece of current-tier Heroic raid gear if they specifically find and kill 25 max-level Horde players. This incentivizes world content and quests moreso than the Horde variant, but ALSO heavily incentivizes killing as many Horde as possible as quickly as possible. So instead of going out into the world content where the Horde are milling about for those quintessential chance encounters that were a staple of War Mode and PvP servers, they form groups (and then go together with other groups) to camp flight points or even capital city inns. Theyâre incentivized to do so with really competitive gear on a weekly basis, and theyâre not required to enter War Mode for literally any longer than it actually takes to get their 25 kills.
The Horde has no reason to attack Boralus from a gameplay standpoint. Sure, itâs a target-rich environment for that bonus 6 honor per kill, and you can get a cool story out of it. Thatâs how PvP servers or even city raids on PvE servers worked before; you got âhonor and gloryâ or just a cool story or bear mount for killing the faction leaders out of the deal. But that was it.
Now the Alliance has a reason to attack Dazarâalor, raid the Vulpera Hideaway, or anywhere else where thereâs going to be a lot of Horde flying or zoning into the place that they can get the drop on. And itâs not for fun, itâs not a âwho wants to go on a raid for some laughs,â like it would be for Horde. Thereâs a tangible, in-game reward for them to do so. And itâs only for Alliance.
I donât think we need a cooldown on War Mode, much as I think it would probably start to at least swing the balance back to where it should be, with more players in War Mode overall (as was the original idea behind the additional incentives for the underrepresented faction in the first place). I think we just need the kill quest to go to both sides, so that both are incentivized to do the same things. Because a piece of iLvL 400 loot for killing a bunch of enemy players doesnât incentivize world content, it incentivizes city raids or organized WPvP. Either both sides should have it (again, the underrepresented faction can keep the 30% bonus or whatever), or neither should.
There should be NO bonus, buff, or perk for EITHER side!
If you want the added danger and issues that go with WPvP, then turn it on.
If you DONâT want the added danger and issues that go with WPvP, then leave it off.
Everyone wins. They get EXACTLY what they want regarding WPvP.
And for anyone who thinks âthen nobody will turn it onâ, I believe you are wrong. Because I believe that MOST players who rolled on PvP servers did so for the PvP reasons.
When the Warmode talk started, there were many, many players who posted âWarmode on 24/7â⌠WPvP will still happen.
I agree, the âbonusâ was a misstep in the first place. Imbalancing that was a further step in the wrong direction.
But I understood, at least, where both of those ideas came from, and the 10% was never supposed to be a âbonusâ but instead a way of balancing the time that theoretically would be spent fighting the opposite faction or corpse-running after getting ganked. Theoretically. But that ended up not being the case, as Alliance players turned off War Mode en masse and it stayed off.
I guess the original 10% at least incentivized people to turn it on and try it, because I know a lot of people who didnât do any kind of PvP and would never have otherwise tried it who actually ended up sort of liking the edge of danger that everything presented, my wife included. I used to run around permaflagged on a PvE server (which I rolled on to play with my friends) during Wrath, herbing in Wintergrasp and had a grand time. I turned it off eventually, so that I could run with her and we wouldnât have to worry about people attacking me. War Mode really appealed to me, though, because I would probably have rolled on a PvP server if given the choice independent of where my friends had characters.
But my wife tried it, and liked it, up until the Alliance was specifically incentivized to camp in inns and flight points just to kill the Horde independent of any world content or anything else. World PvP that âjust happensâ like it did during the Southshore versus Tarren Mill days or the brawls that broke out in Hellfire Peninsula whenever the tower quest started going back and forth is long dead. Now the Horde are doing world content and the Alliance are farming HKs wherever players zone in or gather, because thereâs a separate, very desirable incentive for doing so. âWorld PvPâ isnât incentivized; mass ganking is instead. Then they can just turn off War Mode and go back to an easier playstyle where they also have an edge on gear.
If they just took out the kill quest or made it available to both sides, that would go a long way toward normalizing things. The Horde isnât making groups of five-man parties to go raid Boralus because thereâs no reason to. The incentive is out in the world where the world quests are, not in the cities where the Alliance zone in. People who like raiding cities and probably originally rolled on PvP servers probably are still into that, but the people who just like the dangerous edge and the occasional scuffle out in the world arenât going to go out of their way for a risky attack with no actual reward. Thatâs where the playerbase is at right now, which is why the incentive was such a bad idea.
I took part in 2 Against all Odds quest groups yesterday on my alliance toons. One of them, we fought the horde in the Tiragarde assault and it was a lot of fun. I didnât die and got my 25-kills. I have noticed the âhome teamâ seems to have the larger representation in WPVP. I have had the opposite experience doing the Nazmir quests on Alliance. The dock area in particular is a mess.
The second was a raid on the Zuld Port, and I wonât be doing that again. Sure, the horde turned on war mode, and all is fair in love and war, but there was a difference for me between PVPing someone in an incursion or just out in the world, and some poor player just trying to get the vendor before they log. It didnât seem video game war fair at all to me.
This is my proposal for War Mode. Scrap all the exp etc. rewards. Instead offer a PVP version of the Valor badges. You get x amount for every kill (or group kill), with a cap, and use that to buy gear. Have it be something you actually have to engage in a meaningful fashion for more than 20 minutes a week.
Both factions get the same amount, but if one faction is getting rolled, give them a very slight bonus.
Adam Smith was Always a free market guy. I canât see him ever advocating cooldowns or other market controls!
You see, itâs all about aggregate demandâŚwe had a supply side problem previously, as horde were so represented with no one to kill them. Now we have adequately raised demand and have found a perfect intersection of the two.
I, Keynesian of Stormrage, declare this economy to be in balance.
No worries. If we still had PVP servers and a person committed to that play style and found out they didnât like it they would have to move to a PVE server and pay for it. So in this case there would be consequences of the server transfer fee.
With WM you avoid any consequences and still get perks or rewards.
Now if your side gets the 30% there should be some commitment once you put on WM. Doesnât have to be for 5 days just half a day maybe.
The side with only 10% perk or bonus should not have a CD since itâs only 10%. The only advantage would be able to turn it on and off whenever they want.
Again itâs just some feedback itâs nothing to take serious. I havenât fully thought about myself I was just curious on other peopleâs opinions on this.