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Monday, February 25, 2008
WoW Journal - 25-February-2008
I played too much World of Warcraft this weekend. :) But that's okay, because I didn't have anything better to do, and next weekend I'm going on holiday for a week, which will prevent me from playing WoW for a while. So this weekend I was having a lot of fun.
The biggest event this weekend was my best Karazhan run ever, with my priest, a complete cleanup run from start to finish, including all optional bosses. 22 badges of justice, got my T4 gloves, and had loads of fun. Took us 6 hours, but that was including a few small and one large half-hour break. We didn't wipe once before the prince, and with the prince wipes are more a question of luck than of ability. We also wiped once at Netherspite after doing the prince, but as we usually don't do Netherspite at all, killing him on the second try with most raid members never having been there was actually quite good. In other raiding news I was at a successful Gruul raid on Thursday, and killed the Lurker and Hydross in SSC on Friday, so lots of raiding lately.
My mage is also developing well. Level 63 now, and +759 in frost spell damage. I went to ramparts with a not bad pickup group and noticed that the extreme frost damage gear isn't optimal for that, after Omor one-shotted me with a single shadow bolt. But I had some reserve gear with less spell damage bonus but more stamina and intellect, which basically doubled my health, as the "of the frozen wrath" gear has no stamina bonus whatsoever. I finished nearly all Hellfire Peninsula quests, and then decided to skip Zangarmarsh. I only got to honored with Cenarion Expedition by handing in lots of unidentified plants, and didn't do any quests there. I just moved directly to Terokkar Forest, where I'm currently questing.
My warrior did some tanking in a BM group, helping a guild mate to get his Karazhan key. In the group was another warrior, with an arms-fury hybrid spec, and I had the Recount damage meter running. The difference in damage output was so depressing, that I took the plunge and respec'd my warrior to 41-20 arms-fury for PvP and soloing. I did my first ever EotS battleground, one loss against a premade, one win against regular opponents for my very first PvP daily quest. I'm still not a big fan, but I should give PvP a chance, and maybe pick up some gear. I decided that having more than one raid char wasn't realistic, and without raids my warrior didn't have much of a future as a tank.
Doing PvP in a random group against a premade is like a little league baseball team playing against a major league team: totally pointless. I don't see why battlegrounds can't be set up in a way to people who join as group only fight against opponents who joined as group themselves. Or limit premades to arenas, where the rating system pairs people against equally strong opponents. Premades "farming" random opponents in battlegrounds is just bad game design, because it is minimal fun for the winners and totally frustrating for the losers. Better game design would give out less rewards if you won too easily, and more rewards if you had to fight hard to win, so people wouldn't be tempted to manipulate the system to only fight against weaker opponents.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:22 AM Permanent Link
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There's been a lot of complaining, and even some discussion (gasp!) on the WoW forums about the issues with premades in battlegrounds. Apparently, the matching system does generally match premades against premades, the problem is that one side almost always runs away to another bg against a pug, or only sends one player in in the first place to check to see if they're matched against a premade, then the rest of the raid doesn't enter if it's against a premade.
It's just a symptom of the problem of people farming honor for the gear. And I have no idea what to do about that. =/ Roll a twink I guess. XD At least all you get there are people winning and killing for the sake of winning and killing, rather than honor farming.
I think of it this way: 70 pvp was ruined for me the day I heard the phrase "honor per hour" for the first time. =/
It's just a symptom of the problem of people farming honor for the gear. And I have no idea what to do about that. =/ Roll a twink I guess. XD At least all you get there are people winning and killing for the sake of winning and killing, rather than honor farming.
I think of it this way: 70 pvp was ruined for me the day I heard the phrase "honor per hour" for the first time. =/
# posted by 
: 25/2/08 10:29
: 25/2/08 10:29
Battlegrounds resemble the typical barbarian tribes of the Roman era -plenty of numbers, but everyone acting as an individual rather than as a team.
Put them up against an organised force (the Roman army, for example, or in other words, a pre-made), and in most cases they will lose.
The last bg I went to, we were up against a pre-made equipped with uber gear. No surprise it was reminiscent of the battle of Omderman.
Another gripe with BGs seems to be the ridiculous uneven numbers you often end up with. People quickly drop out, and you end up with 10 v 3 or something like that.
Put them up against an organised force (the Roman army, for example, or in other words, a pre-made), and in most cases they will lose.
The last bg I went to, we were up against a pre-made equipped with uber gear. No surprise it was reminiscent of the battle of Omderman.
Another gripe with BGs seems to be the ridiculous uneven numbers you often end up with. People quickly drop out, and you end up with 10 v 3 or something like that.
# posted by : 25/2/08 11:25
: 25/2/08 11:25
One less tank in WoW.. and the tank shortage grows slightly larger... (but don't feel guilty)
# posted by : 25/2/08 12:51
: 25/2/08 12:51
One way to fix the problem with sending in one person to check for a premades is to give the desertion debuff to the entire group.
I would even go as far as to double the time on the debuff for a group as compared to an individual leaving a BG early.
You have to make it in their (the premades) best interest to stay and fight rather than try to find easier pickings.
-Ari-
I would even go as far as to double the time on the debuff for a group as compared to an individual leaving a BG early.
You have to make it in their (the premades) best interest to stay and fight rather than try to find easier pickings.
-Ari-
# posted by : 25/2/08 15:34
: 25/2/08 15:34
Yeah in general premades send one player ahead to scout ahead. Your best bet is just to get a small group of friends together for PvP. I play with about 5 people and we're usually enough to make a difference in Arathi Baisin and Warsong Gulch. Eye of the Storm is the worst since lack of coordination is severely penalized in that battleground.
Imposing an artificial constraint, such as forcing pre-mades to only queue up against other pre-mades, will only result in them trying to get around the constraint. This happens with AV at the moment, there's even a mod to assist in the shenanigans.
However if the rewards were re-aligned with the challenge, then min-maxers will work towards that end.
I wrote a few ideas on this a short while back. In AB and EotS it's particularly easy because of the resources meter mechanism.
However if the rewards were re-aligned with the challenge, then min-maxers will work towards that end.
I wrote a few ideas on this a short while back. In AB and EotS it's particularly easy because of the resources meter mechanism.
My biggest gripe is the sheer number of pre-made groups on certain days. On one memorable occasion, I ran into 5 consecutive (but different) premades. I gave up on PvP for that day, and ended up getting it done (the Daily BG) the next day instead.
# posted by : 25/2/08 15:40
: 25/2/08 15:40
Most of the premades out there are just trademades anyway. They are easily beat if everyone puts in an effort instead of "omg premade!". You wouldn't try and pug Kara (well maybe lol) or SSC, so why does everyone think they should win by pugging bg's?
I do think there should be a way to keep teams in one bg. We can't ever get a premade to fight my guild, they all just leave. I would like to say you should only be able to q one bg but for AV, our q's are 1-2 hours.
Perhaps if group queing you can only be in one q at a time?
I do think there should be a way to keep teams in one bg. We can't ever get a premade to fight my guild, they all just leave. I would like to say you should only be able to q one bg but for AV, our q's are 1-2 hours.
Perhaps if group queing you can only be in one q at a time?
# posted by : 25/2/08 16:07
: 25/2/08 16:07
@anonymous.
Played a druid before BC and there is very little reason to actually work as a team in a pug. The healers actually get penalized for healing. Since everyone is farming honor to buy thier gear the system they came up with actually penalizes any support class for actually functioning as support. I tried it both ways. I got less honor following a Knight leutinant around keeping him alive the entire battle and winning. Than I did in the next game when I just ran around in Moonking form spamming moonfire.
Until the devs fix that mechanic there will never be regular teamwork in pugs.
Played a druid before BC and there is very little reason to actually work as a team in a pug. The healers actually get penalized for healing. Since everyone is farming honor to buy thier gear the system they came up with actually penalizes any support class for actually functioning as support. I tried it both ways. I got less honor following a Knight leutinant around keeping him alive the entire battle and winning. Than I did in the next game when I just ran around in Moonking form spamming moonfire.
Until the devs fix that mechanic there will never be regular teamwork in pugs.
Just like Trebormojo says, I find that my random BG teams can beat premades about 20-30% of the time. Many "premades" are just random groups put together from trade channel of one server, and they're not very good.
The current practice is for the spy to enter AB and if a Premade is already in there, the Leader signs the group up for EotS. There's no Deserter Debuff because you don't /AFK out of the BG, you're just moving from one BG to another.
The easiest fix to the "Join as a Group" problem is already halfway implemented. When a Premade wants to join a BG queue nobody joins the queue except the Leader, via the Join as a Group option. If it's the Leader who has to Join them as a Group, then only the Leader should get the 'Join The Fight' prompt, and when he clicks Accept the entire group should enter as one. And any attempt to join a second queue while already in one would remove the entire group from the first queue. If the 'Join the Fight' prompt is up for AB and the Leader signs the group up for EotS, that should be treated as a refusal to enter AB.
Premades should not be allowed to pick and choose their battles. Their only advantage on the field of battle should be better coordination and communication. I do not have a problem with Premades being able to Join as a Group, I have a problem with the current system allowing them to handpick their opponents.
I realize some people may tell me to just join a Premade of my own. I tried that. It was not very organized. Just like Trebormojo and Changed already observed.
Two people entered the BG, one of who was the Group Leader. The Leader said we were facing a Premade, the other player said we weren't. A couple of other people entered and an argument ensued about whether or not everyone should go in. Someone told the Leader to assign that position to someone outside the BG so the new Leader could sign us up for the alternate BG, only to discover a Leader already in a BG cannot hand the Leader position to someone outside the BG. Meanwhile my Join the Fight prompt timed out. I waited for the BG to be over so we could enter a second BG, only to see the group fall apart when everyone got out. It was worse than a PUG. Thank heavens it was only a few minutes of wasted time.
The easiest fix to the "Join as a Group" problem is already halfway implemented. When a Premade wants to join a BG queue nobody joins the queue except the Leader, via the Join as a Group option. If it's the Leader who has to Join them as a Group, then only the Leader should get the 'Join The Fight' prompt, and when he clicks Accept the entire group should enter as one. And any attempt to join a second queue while already in one would remove the entire group from the first queue. If the 'Join the Fight' prompt is up for AB and the Leader signs the group up for EotS, that should be treated as a refusal to enter AB.
Premades should not be allowed to pick and choose their battles. Their only advantage on the field of battle should be better coordination and communication. I do not have a problem with Premades being able to Join as a Group, I have a problem with the current system allowing them to handpick their opponents.
I realize some people may tell me to just join a Premade of my own. I tried that. It was not very organized. Just like Trebormojo and Changed already observed.
Two people entered the BG, one of who was the Group Leader. The Leader said we were facing a Premade, the other player said we weren't. A couple of other people entered and an argument ensued about whether or not everyone should go in. Someone told the Leader to assign that position to someone outside the BG so the new Leader could sign us up for the alternate BG, only to discover a Leader already in a BG cannot hand the Leader position to someone outside the BG. Meanwhile my Join the Fight prompt timed out. I waited for the BG to be over so we could enter a second BG, only to see the group fall apart when everyone got out. It was worse than a PUG. Thank heavens it was only a few minutes of wasted time.
To borrow a phrase from the previous posters, I think that trademades are generally not going to have a skill level better than most PUGs.
However, trademades are usually checking for gear at least so that will make them tougher.
However, trademades are usually checking for gear at least so that will make them tougher.
Playing in a battleground pug isn’t THAT bad. Although, I agree that going up against a pre-made can suck badly and I’m not looking forward to “join as group” being allowed in 2.4 for AV.
The fix to the scouting issue is pretty simple. First – hide any statistical or name information about the other side until the Battleground begins. This is already done in Arena to help prevent people from gear swapping based on the opponent. Second – if a player enters a bg, he shouldn’t be able to ACCEPT re-queues for another bg until he is out. Right now, you can avoid the deserter debuff by hopping from one bg to another. So, let’s say you want to do AB as a premade. You simply queue it, have the scout go in, if it’s no good – queue WSG. Scout goes into WSG, everyone else leaves the original AB queue and the leader re-queues AB. The scout gets the new AB queue and goes back in. Rinse, repeat.
By limiting the ability for them to ACCEPT the re-queue while in WSG, much of this problem is solved. I know I wanted want to be the scout stuck in WSG while the rest of my pre-made was in AB. This is a better solution than not allowing people to switch bgs at all since a person going solo might have a half-hour or longer wait on Alterac Valley on some servers. In many cases, that’s plenty of time to get in something else. When I played Alliance, the queue times were 30-40 minutes for AV and instant for everything else. I would queue for AV, then get in 1 to 1.5 games of something else while waiting on the AV queue.
The fix to the scouting issue is pretty simple. First – hide any statistical or name information about the other side until the Battleground begins. This is already done in Arena to help prevent people from gear swapping based on the opponent. Second – if a player enters a bg, he shouldn’t be able to ACCEPT re-queues for another bg until he is out. Right now, you can avoid the deserter debuff by hopping from one bg to another. So, let’s say you want to do AB as a premade. You simply queue it, have the scout go in, if it’s no good – queue WSG. Scout goes into WSG, everyone else leaves the original AB queue and the leader re-queues AB. The scout gets the new AB queue and goes back in. Rinse, repeat.
By limiting the ability for them to ACCEPT the re-queue while in WSG, much of this problem is solved. I know I wanted want to be the scout stuck in WSG while the rest of my pre-made was in AB. This is a better solution than not allowing people to switch bgs at all since a person going solo might have a half-hour or longer wait on Alterac Valley on some servers. In many cases, that’s plenty of time to get in something else. When I played Alliance, the queue times were 30-40 minutes for AV and instant for everything else. I would queue for AV, then get in 1 to 1.5 games of something else while waiting on the AV queue.
@sam
They changed that mechanic for HKs a looooong time ago. Once upon a time, you only got credit if you helped damage the other player. Now however, you simply need to be ALIVE and within a certain distance of the kill. The healer who stands back and keeps himself and everyone around him alive will soak up all the HKs in the area (which is considerably more than if he only DPS’d).
They changed that mechanic for HKs a looooong time ago. Once upon a time, you only got credit if you helped damage the other player. Now however, you simply need to be ALIVE and within a certain distance of the kill. The healer who stands back and keeps himself and everyone around him alive will soak up all the HKs in the area (which is considerably more than if he only DPS’d).
Capn John, your idea is way better than mine. No more scouting. Either the entire premade joins at once or no one does. Sounds so simple, makes perfect sense, easy to code and implement. Which means Blizzard will do anything but. Sigh...
-Ari-
-Ari-
# posted by : 25/2/08 18:41
: 25/2/08 18:41
Grats (I guess?) to Blizz for managing to keep high interest in PvP with very little investment of resources and no new content or innovation since TBC release, while basically ignoring the longstanding problems. It would seem that a big chunk of the player base will put up with & ignore seemingly significant problems & gripes, if the epics are shiny enough. :)
And Blizz seems to be trying to set up a repeat of history with patch 2.4, by basically gifting PvP rare gear to casuals, and especially by opening up PvP epics to raiders via tokens/badges (though I'm not sure about the exact implementation). I would guess that Blizz knows that patch 2.4 will keep people occupied with maybe a couple of weeks of actual content, and maybe a few weeks longer with the daily quests & chasing repeatable stuff related to Sunwell. Then everyone will eventually realize that the next patch will be the 3.0 compatibility patch, and raiding will dry up. And Blizz hopes that by giving the raiders PvP gear they'll repeat their actions of the months between patch 2.0 and TBC release by jumping into the BGs and Arenas until WotLK releases.
Worked once, why not again?
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And Blizz seems to be trying to set up a repeat of history with patch 2.4, by basically gifting PvP rare gear to casuals, and especially by opening up PvP epics to raiders via tokens/badges (though I'm not sure about the exact implementation). I would guess that Blizz knows that patch 2.4 will keep people occupied with maybe a couple of weeks of actual content, and maybe a few weeks longer with the daily quests & chasing repeatable stuff related to Sunwell. Then everyone will eventually realize that the next patch will be the 3.0 compatibility patch, and raiding will dry up. And Blizz hopes that by giving the raiders PvP gear they'll repeat their actions of the months between patch 2.0 and TBC release by jumping into the BGs and Arenas until WotLK releases.
Worked once, why not again?
# posted by : 25/2/08 22:51
: 25/2/08 22:51<< Home
