Blizzard,
As an avid PvPer who played from original Vanilla through MoP and left for YEARS only to come back for SoD (hands down some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing WoW until recently), I think I can speak for most other PvPers with the following suggestions:
Remove World Buffs from Battlegrounds
Lately we have seen a huge uptick in the amount of world buffs being dropped in battlegrounds by either side and I can say with complete confidence that this has lead to some of, if not THE most imbalanced PvP I have ever experienced in ANY version of the game. It largely reduces this aspect of the game to a “pay to win” sort of feel, meaning whoever has the most gold (or whoever has cough, BOUGHT the most gold), has a huge advantage over other players who simply can’t keep up with the inflation on the server to grind out their own world buffs to match. Additionally, these buffs scale very differently for classes that can heal versus classes that can’t after the most recent round of damage nerfs that, from my understanding, completely left healing alone (somebody feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on that). Not to mention the HUGE advantage they happen to give premades, which leads me to my next suggestion.
Remove Premades from Battlegrounds, or give them their own bracket
With how far along we are in SoD in terms of gear, inflation, etc., there is almost ZERO chance that a pug will EVER be able to actually compete with, let alone WIN against a premade in a random BG queue, and I would argue that it has had a horrible effect on the PvP community. Challenging matches are fun and can be very enjoyable, but when you are up against your 4th or 5th premade in a row in Arathi Basin and not a single player from the opposing team has died in any of them it gets old VERY fast. I would argue that this has been a huge turn-off for a lot of people who would otherwise be very interested in battleground PvP, but understandably have no interest in these kind of match-ups that they know are inevitable and frequent. Consider reducing the amount of people who can queue for BGs to a party of 5 or even solo queue depending on the battleground (yes, I know that sounds drastic but the current system is at times unplayable). If there is enough interest in premades, consider giving them their own queue.
Put a timer on Warsong Gulch matches/Make Marks of Honor rewarded scale with flags capped similar to marks/points in AB
Warsong Gulch has personally always been one of my favorite battlegrounds to participate in, but over the last couple of phases people have almost completely stopped playing it. I think originally this happened because AB has been hands down the easiest place to grind out honor with the amount of marks you can win in the time that it takes to win them. Putting a timer in Warsong Gulch would incentivize players to engage more intensely for the duration of the match while avoiding endless matches/stalemates that don’t pay out well in comparison to AB/AV. Additionally, increasing the amount of marks that can be acquired even from a loss (similar to how marks scale in AB, for example) would also create additional incentive for higher engagement (Example: 1 flag capped will guarantee at least 2 marks. Winning team receives 3 marks if enemy caps at least 1 flag, 4 marks for flawless victory 3-0). That’s just a hypothetical, but you get the idea.
Remove rez timers during BRM PvP event, or max it at 30 seconds
BRM PvP can be some of the best world PvP to be had in SoD, but the fact that you can still receive 2 minute rez timers makes for clunky PvP and is rather annoying. If you insist on some sort of timer in order to give a winning group/individual time to recuperate, 30 seconds + the 15 second disengagement buff received upon rezzing during the event is more than enough. You could even consider putting in spirit rezzers similar to those that are active during the Blood Moon event and it would be a welcomed improvement.
Remove DHKs, or make civilians invulnerable to attack
Some people support the DHK system, but I think most people who decide to make characters on a PvP server can appreciate a world where almost any town/city is susceptible to attack. It makes for a more immersive experience generally speaking, and people who don’t care for it can remain unflagged. Make questgivers/civilians invulnerable and get rid of DHK’s so as not to discourage world PvP on a PVP server!
WITH ALL OF THAT BEING SAID
I won’t even BEGIN to get into class mechanics and how ridiculously imbalanced some of the classes have become in late SoD, BUT I WILL SAY THIS: I only play this game for the PvP aspect that it has to offer and I know that there are many others like me. Raiding is fun, but I raid to get the gear that I need so I can PvP with it, and PvP in its current state is getting to the point (for me) where it is not worth playing. I understand that this is a seasonal realm and that your priorities are probably very different from the priorities you have in other versions of the game, but please do your best to give us PvPers some BARE MINIMUM reasons to keep playing it! SoD has largely been awesome to play and in a lot of ways has been my favorite version of the game, but if we actually do still have MONTHS of content left you’ve got to throw us PvPers a bone! Anyways, there is plenty of other “wishlist” stuff that I didn’t even bother to mention here and I know this will almost definitely go unheard, but implementing ANY of the aforementioned suggestions would, in my humble opinion, be a huge improvement.
Thanks for reading!
Still, I think a timer would be so helpful in keeping things moving.
