Idea for AV to induce pvp instead of zerg

[aarrok]

So was playing in AV holiday last night and every match just seemed like a rush to the end and no one even cares to PvP or cap towers. So a few buddies and I were thinking about ways to make AV more fun and engaging. We had an idea that there should be a gate on the doors to Drek/Van that can only be opened when all 4 towers had been destroyed. The tech is already in place in one of the scenarios, so it is very possible to be done. Can raise the reinforcements to say like 800 or 1000 so that teams would get to Drek/Van without making it a 4 day battle. There would be actual PvP again in there instead of rushing to the end to sit on the hill and do nothing. I would really like to see what people think about this idea. A lot of players say they hate AV due to lack of PvP and nothing to do. So maybe this will change that. Yes, I am also aware of the achievements for not caping towers and killing the boss. That could be a FoS or something and taken out.

So lets hear what the community has to say about this idea. Please, NO flaming or trolling. Keep this 100% real and see if it is something that could better the AV situation.

[Korgoth]

First it really helps if you break the text up so its not a giant block.

If you want people to PvP more in AV why even have the NPCs in the first place. 500 resources, -100 per tower capped, -1 per player death, team that hits 0 first loses. 0 NPCs, so Van/Drek, no Mines, no random npcs from 2005 no one bothers with.

Then you would have concentrated battles at the towers all game.

[aarrok]

Currently it is 600 reinforcements, -75 per tower cap, -1 per kill, mines +1 per 45 secs (i think). So with all 4 towers cap as is, 300 reinforcements. But if you HAVE to cap towers, 300 will go fast. Raise to say like 800 or 1000 to account for the extra kills to make the game play out for a bit.

Concentrated battles at the flag is kinda the point. To get rid of the zerg to end, bring back PvP, and to have fun again in this BG. If there are more battles at flags and reinforcements run out before all 4 cap, oh well. At least there was a lot of engagement.

As far as having NPCs in there is not irrelevant. Still keep them there for the initial since players cant get from one side to the other before the opposing side does.

[mmmmmmmBacon]

Why people bring up the npcs is still confusing to me. Warmasters are in there to make it so if you don't go for tower caps, you have to put some serious work into killing drekk and a tank with some superb raid tank gear. All the guards at the graveyards will die to a single player in less than 10 seconds. Same arguement for NPCs in the mines. Balinda and Galv are hardly a threat to players alone: they can be easily 2 manned otherwise. Gryphon/Wyvern masters, Stable Masters, and Druids/Shaman for Ivus/Lok'holar are all relics of the past that players rarely even interract with and have no real effect on the course of a game.

Archers are the only NPCs who I feel could be removed or changed around: some archers can attack you while you are making a cap on bunkers/towers while some can't: a needless discrepancy. They can attack/keep you in combat from lightyears away, and still have a relatively high hp pool compared to other guards.

Other than that, I rarely find I am dealing with npcs more than other players in the game, assuming you aren't afking inside of a mine or just twiddling your thumbs waiting for towers to cap, and actually defending towers.

[Cows For Life]

In the original AV, NPCs were one of the only reasons why there was much PVP to begin with. Anyone trying to solo cap anything was in for a very rude awakening.

[melodramocracy]

-queue as horde
-watch someone bring up that we need folks on defense
-gate opens
-96% of the players head all the way north
-the few that stay back hang out at IWB, starting heading north when someone yells "ALL IN"
-Alliance wins




-queue as horde.....

/welcome to AV weekend.

[aarrok]

-queue as horde
-watch someone bring up that we need folks on defense
-gate opens
-96% of the players head all the way north
-the few that stay back hang out at IWB, starting heading north when someone yells "ALL IN"
-Alliance wins




-queue as horde.....

/welcome to AV weekend.

This is why there needs to be a new tactic or change to AV. Would def make it more balanced to play both factions plus pretty much force people to take part.

[mmmmmmmBacon]

This is why there needs to be a new tactic or change to AV. Would def make it more balanced to play both factions plus pretty much force people to take part.

The above situation's loss is not an issue with the map itself, but an issue with the team as to why they lost.

Back when AV was a rated battleground, early strategies were just rounded along rushing to the enemy boss as fast as possible and killing him, while having a small team to hang back and delay the enemy team at a chokepoint and stop them from reaching the boss. Horde could hold the choke at IBT/IBGY, and tower you rode through on your mount/gate before the FW towers. Alliance had the bridge. Whichever team got it's tank their first, along with enough healers to keep him alive through 4 warmasters + the boss, would win. You might see an exception to this rule if the other team was smart enough to leave a druid waiting in the flag room and would cyclone the tank, resulting in a wipe.

Now since these games aren't nearly as organized and you won't have games with a coordinated group of raid geared tanks/healers/dps, many groups go to kill galv/ballinda because of the time old standard first, and the reinforcements second. At this point the huge group of players at the Captains will begin picking up towers on their way to the base, and then wait for 3-4 of them to burn down before attempting to kill the boss, taking at the least 4 minutes from the time the last tower capped, while hoping that the enemy team did the same exact thing you did, but slower.

Anyone with any knowledge of how the battleground works will see how this is an incredibly inefficient way to win the battleground for a 40v40 game.

The captain can be skipped entirely if you're planning on winning by killing the boss instead of a win through reinforcements. Mines are likewise worthless. You want to have the towers capped as fast as possible, which means having paladins or death knights riding past any towers on the way with the intent of getting into the enemy team's base towers and capping them, getting that timer running. Likewise, the enemy team could have people guarding these bunkers or a choke point, stopping players from getting to them and prolonging the time before they can pull the boss.

A group of 3-5 players can easily defend/recap both outer towers (iceblood/tower point and stoneheart/icewing); they are less than 1 minute of riding distance between them. Again, this prolongs the enemy team by a great deal.

Both teams can take advantage of several chokepoints to slow the enemy team from getting into their base and capping towers: iceblood gy and the barracks just before the gate into the horde base for horde, and Stormpike gy and the bridge for Alliance. The Alliance bridge is double-edged sword in its use as a choke point: it can be used to great effectiveness to knock players from it to their death below, but horde players can do the same to its defenders, a well placed typhoon causing the entire team to fly off the bridge and letting the horde run right on in.

And probably the most overlooked asset to a team would be a stealthed druid waiting in his team's base, sitting next to his boss, with the sole purpose to cyclone the enemy team's tank once he and his group pulls the boss. Cyclone can only be removed by a pvp trinket, and once the tank is cycloned, the boss and any warmasters will run rampant, either forcing healer cooldowns, dps deaths, or even wipe the team out. A moonkin could also vortex+solar beam healers, adding to the chaos.

However, you never see these things happen in your standard AV game, aside from a few exceptions here and there. It doesn't mean its issues with the battleground itself, but with players who have little understanding, little ingenuity, little skill, or a mix of all these things, who just go with the flow and complain about faction imbalance.