Is Ashran Blizzard's biggest design disaster?

[Pua]

I’m slowly coming round to the idea that Ashran, from conception to implementation, is Blizzard’s biggest calamity in the game’s history. There are other candidates, of course, depending on who you ask; the introduction of LFD (and then LFR), the ever-shrinking world, cross server battlegrounds, Dragon Soul. The list goes on.

The reason I think Ashran is Blizzard’s biggest flop, however, isn’t because of the fight-avoidance, poor faction balance, agonising queues or flawed inception. I think it’s because it has utterly failed in its design intent and, as such, is having to be formed into little more than a normal queued battleground as a result.

For those that don’t remember, Ashran was supposed to be a world PvP zone that you could get involved in whenever you like. The objectives were designed with this in mind, as were the daily quests/turn ins, and it was built entirely on this premise. Queues lasting hours, however, don’t make for a great experience, nor does being continuously farmed in your own base.

So, is Ashran Blizzard’s biggest flop? Is something worse than it? If so, what?

And, most importantly, what can Blizzard take away from this that they’ve seemingly been unable to learn for a decade?

[Baracuda]

Events should contribute to the main battle, not "be their own thing".

[Deleted]

Wait til you try garissons. That's rock bottom

[Bluesftw]

[...]So, is Ashran Blizzard’s biggest flop? Is something worse than it? If so, what?

gnomes... but assram is on 2nd place

[McNeil]

Blizzards biggest disaster so far for me is Dragon Soul.

[Noomz]

Events should contribute to the main battle, not "be their own thing".

I wholeheartedly agree.
Most of the time, Alliance are camping the Horde base and Horde are running around doing the events behind them. Repeat ad infinitum and you've got Ashran in my battlegroup.

[Pua]

Garrisons and Dragon Soul are considered bad by many players, but neither flunked their design intent (well, Dragon Soul certainly didn't). That's why I think they're marginally better than Ashran.

I wholeheartedly agree.
Most of the time, Alliance are camping the Horde base and Horde are running around doing the events behind them. Repeat ad infinitum and you've got Ashran in my battlegroup.

That's my experience.

[Tradu]

I wholeheartedly agree.
Most of the time, Alliance are camping the Horde base and Horde are running around doing the events behind them. Repeat ad infinitum and you've got Ashran in my battlegroup.

But... but.. Blizzard made it so Alliance has a reason to do events now! So now Alliance wins the battle, spends 30 minutes winning all the events that pop up during the break, then go back to winning the main lane. It's..... great. At least both factions had a way to get rewards before the change, now Alliance just gets even more stuff.

Yes, I completely agree that Ashran is horrible and is probably the biggest failure to live up to expectations to date(beating out Garrisons)

[Flutterguy]

I don't think they were able to do what was intended conceptually which was to try to recreate the old Alterac Valley tug of war that so many enjoyed. Instead it's one side camps the other and there's little tug of war involved. More than half the map is hardly even explored because there isn't a point. It's not important to capture those areas.

I dunno.

[Deleted]

As something I would like doing? Hell no, terrible place, terrible design, terrible idea, and even worse execution.
As something I do to cap 8k CP and 30K HP in few hours afking? YES, I like it very much.

[MrSerious]

I wholeheartedly agree.
Most of the time, Alliance are camping the Horde base and Horde are running around doing the events behind them. Repeat ad infinitum and you've got Ashran in my battlegroup.

That comes down to bad design which allows them to do that. Its supposed to be PvP but is basically people avoiding each other in favor of PvE. They need to change things.

[Accendor]

But... but.. Blizzard made it so Alliance has a reason to do events now! So now Alliance wins the battle, spends 30 minutes winning all the events that pop up during the break, then go back to winning the main lane. It's..... great.

I can only say: I play on a server where alliance neither wins the main event nor the side events. They simply all zerg midlane nad lose.

[Deleted]

Dragon Soul is their biggest disaster. But Ashran takes the second place.

[Deleted]

Worst zone ever to be implemented.

[MrExcelion]

The voice chat patch and the original "Other Raids" tool would be up there, but I guess if you made a list, Ashran would be in the very upper echelons for sure because of its scale, something has to be since it's a ranking

[Deleted]

For me, MoP is the biggest disaster.
I would've rather played Dragon Soul for the entire duration between Cata and WoD.

Ashran's "failure" doesn't bother me that much.
You go in, zerg boss, fix your cap, leave.

[Uoyredrum]

I'd say so.

-Queue times are horrendous. World pvp zones should be accessible whenever, not after 4 hour queue times. It's basically a big shitty battleground.
-They try to force it down people's throats with the 200 CP bonus cap. However they want to spin that, it's being forced on people and nobody likes it except Holinka.
-It's basically one side doing events and the other killing the opposing faction leader, because nobody cares about fighting the other faction on the road. Mostly because there's almost zero reward for it.
-It's supposed to be a world pvp zone but it's basically a pve zone where you can get ganked by huge groups of players that don't load on your screen until you're in the middle of them.
-The whole zone is basically pointless. The only reason people want to go in is because of the 200 CP cap and because of the glad sanctum titles. Beyond that it's pretty much pointless unless you're on an alt.

[Xtrm]

Horrible feature, if you can consider it a feature. I don't know what's worse, the inbalance or the queues or the boring ass gameplay.

You go in, zerg boss, fix your cap, leave.

Unfortunately, it's not so easy for most people. Here's what a lot of people go through.

You attempt to go in, wait in queue for an eternity, zerg boss (assuming your faction is the dominant one on this server, if not, you're screwed), fix your cap, never want to leave because you don't want to sit in that queue again.

[Daymanmb]

Ah its not that bad! How many of you are grinding out artifacts for honor instead of doing bgs? I dont hear anyone complaining how easy it is to gear out a toon in all honor gear.. On our Ashran horde dominates the rares/events and we win main. But if alliance is doing rares we just avoid the events and try to stay away from the horde and farm honor... Your alts dont want ashran to be different becasue the alternate is grinding out bgs again.. gl with that.. and if you dont think an entire overhaul in ashran (which is what some of you want) would look at honor gains further, youre crazy.. About to log in for my daily ashran, hopefully a piece of glad drops!

[Navitas]

Horrible feature, if you can consider it a feature. I don't know what's worse, the inbalance or the queues or the boring ass gameplay.

Sounds like you need another game, friend.