Exploiting WoW PvP

I did a number of Warsong Gulch runs yesterday, all of which I either quickly won 3:0, or quickly lost 0:3. So I began to wonder where the balanced fights were. I noticed that the fights I won where always with the same people, the Horde PvP experts. And the fights that I lost were always against the same people, the Alliance PvP experts. Would be fun to see them fighting each other, experts against experts, wouldn't it?

No chance. Because then I finally realized how they were exploiting the system. On a busy evening there are several instances of Warsong Gulch running. So the experts sign up, and the moment they appear in the instance, they quickly click on the button which shows the names of the players of *both* sides. And if they are paired against the other side experts, the type /afk, which instantly boots them out of the instance, and then they sign up for the other battlefield.

If you think that PvP is a fight of Horde against Alliance, you are wrong. It is a competition of Horde against Horde, and Alliance against Alliance. To get to the highest rank in PvP, you need to make more points than the players on your *own* side. What points the other side makes is totally irrelevant to your progress. So chosing your enemy well, and only fighting disorganized pickup groups, is your quickest way to the top.

I'm having flashbacks here of Magic the Gathering Online, where the so-called Leagues had exactly the same problem. If you manage to manipulate the pairings, and never get paired against the other good players, you are sure to do better. Pretty disappointing that World of Warcraft allows the same sort of exploit.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:13 AM Permanent Link