Page 1 of 3
1
2
3
LastLast
  1. #1
    Deleted

    Blizzard: Wintergrasp was epic; Tol Barad took wrong direction

    Quote Originally Posted by MMO-Champion frontpage
    Tol Barad went the wrong direction after Wintergrasp, as it focused more on battleground like gameplay instead of the World PvP aspect. Wintergrasp did feel like an epic battle though.
    The above is a summary of one of Tom Chilton's remarks in an interview with GAME linked on the MMO-Champion frontpage.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Xk8VTtUyo

    Two thumbs up for those remarks - they seem exactly right.

    As somebody who doesn't do BGs or arenas, I still loved Wintergrasp. It felt like a real battle (the smaller BGs feel more like sports matches to me). There was some strategy involved, with the opportunity for stealth, distractions, the need for coordination etc. You could choose to fight in a scrum with the main crowd or you could end up fighting some minor skirmish or duel if you went more off to one side. Vehicles in Wrath got a lot of flak, but I quite enjoyed them in WG: they had a role but were not everything. It was a really nice periodic distraction for the end game.

    By contrast, when I first played Tol Barad, I could not believe it. My reaction was "really? this is it?" The concept - capture 3 flags - seemed so crude and basic, a five year could have invented a better game. The reality was just a combination of a horrific scrum and a zerg that seemed to leave little room for individual prowess or team strategy.

    Anyway, it was very refreshing to hear Blizzard finally comment on this. I missed a WG/TB in MoP and am curious about the new zone in WoD. (I still gear up my new L90 alts in WG/TB for easy honour, nostalgia and the occaisional very small scale recreation of that old experience.)

  2. #2
    Your remarks seem a little off. You call TB a "horrific scrum and a zerg that seemed to leave little room for individual prowess or team strategy." ..

    Are you sure you played WG? It was a zerg if I ever saw one. Get Vehicles>drive at wall>fire over and over>win. While the defenders would just mass up and spam AOEs...

  3. #3
    Deleted
    WG was fine when the teams was balanced, having a 5v70 with people having 2000% more life or whatever was stupid...

    TB should never have been

  4. #4
    I used to love manning the defense tower cannons in Wintergrasp. I would race to the top of my preferred tower, anxiously scan the horizon, and squeal with glee when I saw the incoming forces. It didn't really matter that my gear wasn't so great, I still felt like I was supporting my team. Similarly with the demolishers. I loved it when I was able to sneak one over to the western wall while the whole scrum was defending the east.

    Wintergrasp was awesome.

  5. #5
    They both sucked in the end. The real problem with these zones is that the battles are too short. Fight 20 minutes, wait 2 hours. Of course you can do "superb" daily quests in between... If the objectives are easy to accomplish, it WILL become a zerg race, it's impossible to stop people to want to win fast.

    Now I've played some pretty awesome battles in both WG and TB, with victory or loss in the last seconds, but most of them were meh. Can't say there's was any difference between them regarding "epicness".

  6. #6
    Bloodsail Admiral reemi's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Aug 2009
    Location
    Montreal
    Posts
    1,034
    On my server, Alliance never won a Wintergrasp or Tol Barad, so I almost never tried.

    Those zone need to be cross-server or it will never work.

  7. #7
    Actually I thought the main problem with TB was simply that it was too small. You could reinforce a base in seconds, took a lot of strategy out of it.

    Neither was perfect TBH.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by reemi View Post
    On my server, Alliance never won a Wintergrasp or Tol Barad, so I almost never tried.

    Those zone need to be cross-server or it will never work.
    100% agree.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tojara View Post
    Look Batman really isn't an accurate source by any means
    Quote Originally Posted by Hooked View Post
    It is a fact, not just something I made up.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Mormolyce View Post
    Actually I thought the main problem with TB was simply that it was too small. You could reinforce a base in seconds, took a lot of strategy out of it.

    Neither was perfect TBH.
    Agreed. I liked both a little and that was it. WG has so much wasted space, which is fine because it was also a zone. TB was tiny, and it was hard to push into a base because of how close GYs were, and areas were to each other.

  9. #9
    Deleted
    I must honestly say, as someone who generally hates PvP, I really liked to play WG from time to time. TB on the other hand, I never even bothered.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by reemi View Post
    On my server, Alliance never won a Wintergrasp or Tol Barad, so I almost never tried.

    Those zone need to be cross-server or it will never work.
    It's a problem for sure, but I'd note that even making zones cross-server is not going to solve it - and, all chances are, this is going to make the problem worse. Because global balance is skewed in favor of the Horde and there's a strong feedback loop in that more wins breed stronger skew.

    They plan Ashran to be cross-server. If they do it, then I predict right now that Ashran is going to belong to the Horde - at first on 55% servers, then on 65%, all the way to 90% or so. Hopefully, they will stop before it goes to 90% and enforce equal team sizes adding queues on the Horde side.
    Last edited by rda; 2014-08-25 at 10:58 AM.

  11. #11
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Lemonpartyfan View Post
    Are you sure you played WG? It was a zerg if I ever saw one. Get Vehicles>drive at wall>fire over and over>win. While the defenders would just mass up and spam AOEs...
    Yes, I played: I have all but two of the WG achievements (never killed 20 players mounted with a turret and never killed 10 in the cauldron of fire). Yes, there was a zerg but as an individual player, you could choose whether or not to join it. For example, you've forgotten about the towers. You are describing the attackers thrust. But the defenders could shave 12 minutes off the clock by destroying the 3 towers. So while the zergs were duking it out at the fortress, there could be up to 3 counter-thrusts at each tower. Plus there were four vehicle compounds to be captured: if the attackers had no bases, they could not build any vehicles. It was the smaller scale encounters on the road while attacking or defending towers or bases that I found most fun. There comes a point when the zerg becomes not much fun, due to either lag or lack of tactics. Tol Barad was kind of like Wintergrasp without the towers or vehicle compounds.

  12. #12
    If they don't make sure that an equal number of player from each faction is in the zone this won't work on most servers. If you have 70% Horde and 30% Alliance on a realm, guess who will win 99.9%? If they find a way to fix this, it can be fun. If they don't find a way to fix this, it will be just a constant buff and bonus to the stronger faction on a realm.
    Atoms are liars, they make up everything!

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Kryos View Post
    If they don't make sure that an equal number of player from each faction is in the zone this won't work on most servers. If you have 70% Horde and 30% Alliance on a realm, guess who will win 99.9%? If they find a way to fix this, it can be fun. If they don't find a way to fix this, it will be just a constant buff and bonus to the stronger faction on a realm.
    The only way to fix this is to enforce equal numbers by making the faction that has more players wanting to join sit in queues. Cross-realm or not.

    So far, they seem to be saying they won't do that and will attempt to solve this just by making Ashrans cross-realm. This won't work.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by econ21 View Post
    Yes, I played: I have all but two of the WG achievements (never killed 20 players mounted with a turret and never killed 10 in the cauldron of fire). Yes, there was a zerg but as an individual player, you could choose whether or not to join it. For example, you've forgotten about the towers. You are describing the attackers thrust. But the defenders could shave 12 minutes off the clock by destroying the 3 towers. So while the zergs were duking it out at the fortress, there could be up to 3 counter-thrusts at each tower. Plus there were four vehicle compounds to be captured: if the attackers had no bases, they could not build any vehicles. It was the smaller scale encounters on the road while attacking or defending towers or bases that I found most fun. There comes a point when the zerg becomes not much fun, due to either lag or lack of tactics. Tol Barad was kind of like Wintergrasp without the towers or vehicle compounds.
    I didn't mean to imply that you "didn't play," I'm really sorry about that. I saw it came off weird after rereading what I wrote. I meant more, "do you remember it correctly" as that happens to me sometimes.

    But you make some good points. I think TB could have been better if it were a little bigger with more terrain, more akin to WG. I had fun with WG, and I had fun with TB. I hope Blizzard irons out the kinks of both of those BGs.

  15. #15
    High Overlord PewpewNL's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Haarlem, NL
    Posts
    131
    I think I read somewhere that Blizzard already confirmed that the new zone is gonna be balanced and x-realm, so looking forward to that.

    In regard of TB / WG. I kinda liked both places, even though our server was Alliance heavy and I was Horde at that time. But defending in both places seemed almost impossible.

  16. #16
    I dont understand why blizzard hasnt added cross realm tech to WG/TB so we can play the bg as it is meant to be played. It will take almost no effort to do and essentially adds 2 new giant bgs for pvp players. Just seems a no brainer

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by rda View Post
    It's a problem for sure, but I'd note that even making zones cross-server is not going to solve it - and, all chances are, this is going to make the problem worse. Because global balance is skewed in favor of the Horde and there's a strong feedback loop in that more wins breed stronger skew.
    This is an urban legend. Horde dominates PvP servers. Alliance is the bigger faction overall (just slightly but still).

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Scully View Post
    I dont understand why blizzard hasnt added cross realm tech to WG/TB so we can play the bg as it is meant to be played. It will take almost no effort to do and essentially adds 2 new giant bgs for pvp players. Just seems a no brainer
    I think they have their hands full plus if they were to choose they'd prefer to have more people in Ashran.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by zorkuus View Post
    This is an urban legend. Horde dominates PvP servers. Alliance is the bigger faction overall.
    Have numbers for that? Would love to read about them.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by zorkuus View Post
    This is an urban legend. Horde dominates PvP servers. Alliance is the bigger faction overall.
    The Horde have more players who are into PVP than the Alliance. It's not a legend, there were numbers.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Lemonpartyfan View Post
    Have numbers for that? Would love to read about them.
    Realmpop.com, for example.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •