One of the main things War Mode offered was a faster leveling experience. But then, the game increased the speed of leveling so much that it wasn’t really that enticing. Add in the fact that many people still level by just queueing for dungeons while in Stormwind or Dornogal or other places.
If people want PVP, they can just queue for battlegrounds if they’re feeling a need for random shenanigans. If they want something coordinated, they’d go for something coordinated.
There’s not really a huge benefit to doing it unless you’re really keen on PVP, and if that’s the case, there are other avenues for PVP. If I’m in a zone questing, I kinda want to just quest. To pay more attention to quest text, to chuckle at design, maybe spend some time picking flowers.
What I don’t want to do is get targeted while leveling or in questing gear by a coordinated group that vastly outnumbers me and is wearing PVP gear specifically for PVP. 1 on 1 fights, in my experience, were relatively rare. In order to have any real kind of chance, I would probably need to get an equal number of friends…and at that point, why not just join a queue for a battleground?
I might feel differently if it even felt like it was fair. But it rarely does. Even once an initial stun/disorient/CC wears off, the difference in gear levels is too vast for it to be equitable. The numbers also add to that.
It’s like if you go to, I don’t know, a pick-up soccer/basketball/sportsball game at a local park, figuring ‘what they hey, it might be fun’, and then you keep getting matched up against former Olympic stand-ins.
It’s not fun for a lot of people. In a battleground or an arena, you can go into it thinking ‘Okay, cool, I might be outgunned, but I can work towards getting better gear’. With War Mode, it’s like…why?
It’s not so much that it’s difficult, I think. It just doesn’t feel fun. Especially if, yes, people are bringing in off-server groups.
If you’ve been to Stormwind, you might note that there are always some flagged Horde attacking low-level, undergeared players? Or people using War Mode for the visuals for RP PVP abilities?
I’ve never seen these people killing Jarel, an AFK person popping in from a battle ground, or a low level PVPer and thought ‘Wow, this seems fun.’ I always thought ‘…dude. This is just being a nuisance. This isn’t PVP.’
But, yeah. This is my long-winded way of agreeing with what other people have said. It’s not particular fun, it rarely feels fair (in a sportsmanlike sense, in terms of numbers), and the benefits aren’t really…there.