I’ve been on the Classic train for years now, and have been fully hyped since it was announced over a year ago. Having Old AV was probably the thing I was the most stoked for in Classic. It was the defining MMO trait of the original game that captivated people for hours, and even days at a time. It mirrored a true great battle. It’s like leaving the Bowser’s Castle out of a Super Mario game.
With the announcement of having 1.12 AV, I find a good portion of my excitement gone. And I can’t find a good reason why they’re no giving us the original one.
Sure the Blue post argued that they’re using 1.12 as the basis of the project, we get 1.12 AV. Buttttt at the same time, we’re getting progressive content and not 1.12 content at launch. So that logic is kinda out of the window.
The Blue post also said “Early on in AV, there were too many NPCs and they were too hard to kill. By 1.12, many had been removed and NPC health was brought down to a reasonable level”.
This is the “You think you do, but you don’t” argument at it’s finest, the good ol “We don’t know what we want”. I’m sure if you asked people who will play classic, the vast majority would prefer their “too many and too hard to kill” NPC’s.
This is just a big mistake that’s going to do serious damage to the Classic experience.
So did I, and when the novelty of it wore off everyone went back to zerging the endboss as quick as they could so they could get out of that terrible BG.
They began to heavily nerf the NPCs as early as 1.8:
AV v1.8.0:
In order to keep teams in Alterac Valley more numerically balanced, players will now enter Alterac Valley on a one-for-one basis (i.e. if there are 30 players in the battleground for each side with 10 players in the Alliance queue and 2 players in the Horde queue, only two players from each team will be added, bringing the total to 32 per side).
The minimum number of players required to start a battle in Alterac Valley has been lowered to 20 (the maximum is still 40).
Points for completing the map and winning have been slightly decreased.
Graveyards and graveyard capture points are now at different locations. The banners players must interact with in order to capture a graveyard have been distanced from each other somewhat in order to alleviate “graveyard zerging” and make graveyards more meaningful to both defense and offense.
Several terrain changes were made to fix some geometry exploits as well as to adjust for the new graveyard mechanic.
Iceblood Graveyard has been fortified.
The Frostwolf Relief Hut now has appropriate guards. *** A great avalanche has closed off both the eastern and western segments of Alterac Valley. This has displaced the Syndicate, the Wildpaw Gnolls, and many of the Winterax Trolls.**
Due to the avalanche, Korrak the Bloodrager and a small band of surviving Trolls have made the Snowfall Graveyard their new home. Players will find that Snowfall is now under Korrak’s control and they must defeat Korrak and his Troll guards if they wish to take Snowfall. *** The quests Korrak the Bloodrager (Alliance), Korrak the Everliving (Alliance), The Legend of Korrak (Horde), and The Return of Korrak (Horde) have been removed from the game.** The rewards for the initial quest involving Korrak have been moved and can be acquired by completing the quest associated with winning a match in Alterac Valley. We realize that some players may have had the Korrak quest and never completed it. These players may have already completed the quest for killing the General and thus might not be able to benefit from the rewards from the previous quest line. We have opted to add an extra quest step at the end of the General kill quests to reward players that fall under such conditions.
A new item has been added as one of the reward choices for the quests Hero of the Stormpike and Hero of the Frostwolf. *** NPC difficulty has been scaled down. All NPCs have had their power reduced by 15-30%.**
There is now a portcullis at the end of each of the entrance tunnels inside Alterac Valley. They will rise two minutes into the battle.
AV v1.9.0
No specific changes listed
AV v1.9.3
The default graveyards in Alterac Valley for each side were moved further up the tunnels away from the battleground exit. This should prevent accidentally leaving the battleground.
AV v1.10.0
Flavor items from player loot in Alterac Valley will now stack and can be sold for a small value. These are items like Documents from Boomstick Imports, Worn Running Shoes, etc.
Players in Alterac Valley will no longer drop Darkspear Troll Mojo, Dwarf Spines, Forsaken Hearts, Human Bone Chips, Orc Teeth, etc. and the quests have been removed for these items. Instead when a player is slain in Alterac Valley, any enemies that were in that player’s threat list will gain 1 point of reputation with either the Frostwolf or Stormpike factions.
Frostwolf and Stormpike faction will now be gained by killing players of the opposite faction. Reputation will no longer be split up among the entire raid group.
Tower Banners in Alterac Valley can no longer be used through walls.
Korrak the Bloodrager and his band of trolls have packed up their bags and left Alterac Valley for greener pastures.
AV v1.11.0
Most of the NPC guard units have been removed.
Players now drop more quest items.
Creatures that remain in Alterac Valley have had their hit points reduced.
The buff that is periodically cast by each faction’s Captain has been changed to a flat 20% hit point buff.
Upgrading troops through armor scrap turn-ins will also now result in your team’s General enabling a periodic buff to your melee and spell damage. This buff scales from 10% at the Seasoned unit level, 20% at the Veteran unit level, and 30% at the Champion unit level.
AV v1.12.0
When you join a battleground, you are automatically added to a raid group. You MAY NOT leave that group. To speak in this raid, use /bg instead of /ra.
Leadership of the battleground raid is granted to whomever has the highest PvP rank when the raid is formed (approximately 1 minute before the battleground starts).
If you don’t wish to participate in a battleground that is a mix of pvp and pve then you have Arathi basin and Warsong gulch to choose from they have absolutely no NPC:s in them.
Why does Alterac Valley have to be the same experience as them.
Are different kind of battlegrounds really that bad of a thing?
What does that tell you exactly? That players back in 2005 saw the unaltered AV for what it was? A boring PvE slog? You can turtle in 1.12, but most players choose not to because they want their rep grinds done.
This is the type of mentality that ruined WoW, right here. Doing everything to get that little reward like a child that used the toilet for the first time and was given a piece of candy.