WoW battleground patch

Reading patch notes diagonally is a mistake, because the devil is often in the detail. I was reading the first line of the 1.8.4 patch notes with not much attention, and missed the word "losing".

Patch 1.8.4

Battlegrounds

* Battles must now last at least ten minutes after the start of the battle in order for the losing team to receive a Mark of Honor.

So I at first thought that Blizzard had taken the sensible step of not giving out rewards at all for ultra-short battles, which are usually caused by one side falling to below the minimum number right at the start of the battle. (Either because they signed up and then didn't accept the invitation when it popped up, or because they arrived and immediately resigned). But strangely the rewards are only denied to the losing side in that case, not to the winning side.

I'm sure that this change is to prevent some sort of exploit, although I'm not quite sure which one. But I can't see the logic of still giving the "winning" team three Marks of Honor for 5 minutes of non-battle. Surely that is unfair and can be exploited as well. Of course it is annoying if the "winning" side is prevented from battling by people quitting or being afk, but that doesn't mean that they deserve a honor reward for that. At least if the losing side gets no Marks of Honor, the winning side should only get 1 instead of 3.

The worst possible situation is when two organized teams meet each other on the battlefield, and instead of fighting one side decides to leave and re-enter the battleground to fight an easier enemy. As the battlegrounds aren't all that crowded, two guilds on "enemy" sides could even coordinate to meet each other repeatedly on the battleground, with the sides alternating in quitting, thus alternating in gaining free Marks of Honor. That is the result of a honor system in which you effectively compete against the other players on your side, while the amount of honor that the "enemy" receives counts in no way against you.

[EDIT] Turns out the 10-minutes rule is a mistake and will be removed in the 1.9 patch.
- posted by Tobold @ 2:26 PM Permanent Link