Ashran just got worse?

[Black Phillip]

Wait an hour in queue.

Finally get in.

Next battle: 26 minutes

WTF

[dak1]

Wait an hour in queue.

Finally get in.

Next battle: 26 minutes

WTF

I'd love to sit in their meetings to hear how they come up with their ideas

[MikeBogina]

I'd love to sit in their meetings to hear how they come up with their ideas

"People are always in Queue for Ashran, it must be successful!"

[rda]

Wait an hour in queue.

Finally get in.

Next battle: 26 minutes

WTF

They thought the reaction will be: oh, it's 26 minutes, let's find Horde and PVP. LOL. Instead it is: oh, it's 26 minutes, let's AFK.

Why?

Because mass PVP is stupid, skilless and boring.

But Holinka and / or other PVP devs think otherwise so they waste time implementing these "fixes" that don't work at all like they were supposed to. And all the while Ashran gets more and more fame as a total disaster.

[Obelisk Kai]

Ashran to me so far is a bit of a failure.

It didn't cost us a raid tier.

It cost some battlegrounds though.

[Black Phillip]

It's like they don't understand the incentives they put in their own game. I go do the road for 200 bonus and or purple box. What is the point in making people wait half an hour AFTER they have already waited to get in? Now queues will be longer for people waiting behind me.

[Dumaw]

They want everyone to engage in massive pvp battles in Ashran? Its simple, give people conquest points for facing each other in battles, just like you get honor.

I don't know why are they having this much trouble in understanding that people go there for the points. Its how they made their game, points for better items, thats it, it will always be the priority.
Give people lots of conquest points for facing each other in the road and there you go, massive battles all day long.

[osmo]

ashran is old av 2.0 whats not to like

but this is gonna make it worse yes. now you will have the main road team win, then force them to do some events (read collect artifacts) so when the main road event starts again they will have kronos or the treedude 100 officers etc....

same reason i've always been telling ppl that your event group should become your pvp group once you did the events and collected artifacts... but nooooo horde doesnt understand that.

[Ladorian]

i agree with you man

[DirtyDotter]

I actually enjoyed ashran before, but now i have no reason to go ever. Getting people to go for boss kills is like pulling teeth. All people care about is events for capping conquest, but I don't need any of that. All I go for is the boss kill to get a chance at conquest gear from the box.

Soo yeah.. not cool.

[Black Phillip]

Yes it was tolerable in its awfulness before because I could get in and get out. Now I have to ask myself if I really want to waste my time with it more than once a week.

[Esotaric]

first time got into ashran without any queue at all. and sees 26 min timer.. yea.

[LordBuddington]

They thought the reaction will be: oh, it's 26 minutes, let's find Horde and PVP. LOL. Instead it is: oh, it's 26 minutes, let's AFK.

Why?

Because mass PVP is stupid, skilless and boring.

But Holinka and / or other PVP devs think otherwise so they waste time implementing these "fixes" that don't work at all like they were supposed to. And all the while Ashran gets more and more fame as a total disaster.

It's also because it is pointless. There is no reward. You don't gain anything at all other than a few pointless broken bones to go with your 5000 already accumulated. It's just bad, instanced, rewardless, laggy PvP. I'd love to see a PvP area designed that encouraged meaningful mass PvP - with rewards for victories, meangingful rewards for holding various points, etc.

[IIamaKing]

Sooo a lot of you seem to hate this and are talking about not even doing it anymore...easing Qs Im sure.......working as intended?

[Tangra]

Yup, we went from outrageously long que times but at least short and productive battles with a clear purpose that people understand, to: same outrageously long que, followed by a prolonged and convoluted mess of a battle that could take hours.

They should not have messed with Ashran until the que times are fixed in the next patch, because now it's a lose-lose situation with awful rewards. The bosses need to drop the epic box only once a week, with an increased chance to drop conquest gear, people cannot be expected to go through this potentially 4+ hour fiasco on a daily basis in order to have a small chance to get an extra piece of arena gear. Ashran, in it's current state, is only worth it for achievement farmers.

[Osmeric]

It's also because it is pointless. There is no reward. You don't gain anything at all other than a few pointless broken bones to go with your 5000 already accumulated. It's just bad, instanced, rewardless, laggy PvP. I'd love to see a PvP area designed that encouraged meaningful mass PvP - with rewards for victories, meangingful rewards for holding various points, etc.

Those bones are a prime example of developer stupidity. What is the game play reason for having them take up 5 storage slots?

[unholypenguinzz]

They want everyone to engage in massive pvp battles in Ashran? Its simple, give people conquest points for facing each other in battles, just like you get honor.

I don't know why are they having this much trouble in understanding that people go there for the points. Its how they made their game, points for better items, thats it, it will always be the priority.
Give people lots of conquest points for facing each other in the road and there you go, massive battles all day long.

^^^^^^^ THIS hits the hammer on the head. I will expand on that but, really.... I don't know why Blizzard hasn't figured out that people follow the points. If you make HK's give conquest, people will instantly be doing nothing but wanting to fight eachother. Its NOT THAT HARD to figure out!

The fundamental core of the gameplay issue in Ashran is the risk vs reward. Most people just want to get their rewards the fastest, and in this case its conquest points. Players have always, and will always, take the path of least resistance and most reward. This has led, in Ashran, for one faction to farm the events, and another faction to farm the boss. Its more PROFITABLE to avoid eachother!

THERE is where the problem is. If Blizzard wants players to fight eachother, then they need to incentivize it. At the moment there is literally no incentive to fight the opposing faction.

Why would i waste my time fighting Alliance/Horde, If i can just do my bit of PvE for the day, get my conquest points, and get out?

The key is in the rewards for pvp itself, and the events. Here is my Proposed fix

Ashran fixes:
1) EVENTS AND THE BATTLEGROUND
a) Change the conquest reward from the events to be slightly lower, 50-75 conquest points per event win. Event wins also have a very small % chance to drop a box with an epic piece of pvp gear (2.5% or something)
b) Change how events interact with the battleground as a whole. Suggested fixes:
1] All events now give an individual and unique buff to every player in the Zone, of that faction that won the event. These buffs could be 20% less damage taken, 20% healing/damage done, 20% movement speed/haste, 20% Crit/mastery/MS, and 40% health. Each of these events gives this buff to the winning faction, until the event resets again.
2] Increase the frequency with which events spawn. EVery event should spawn at least once every 45 minutes. There are 5 events, this means an event every 9 minutes.
3] If one faction controls all 5 events and has all 5 buffs active, they get an additional buff which increases all conquest rewarded by 50% in Ashran. This buff will almost always be temporary, as controlling all the events all the time, won't be feasible. Even with faction imbalance, one side usually wont have this buff for more then 9-10 minutes at a time.
c) Make it so you can burn a coin upon winning an event, or killing the enemy factions leader, or killing Kronus/Groot, to give you a 10% chance for a piece of gear as well. As it is coins are useless to PvPers.

d) Killing Kronus and groot has a 5%% chance for piece of conquest gear


2) REWARDS

This fix is much, much easier.

1) Award 3-5 (numbers would have to be tweaked to get the feel right) conquest PER HONOR KILL. Thats right, per hk. This rewards players for killing eachother, and also rewards players for defending, even if they are losing. Even if your faction is getting pushed back, it makes sense to fight tooth and nail every inch of the way.
Awarding 1-3, conquest points if your side has pushed DEEP into the enemy lane, and 3-5 conquest points per kill if the enemy has pushed you deep back into your territory. This gives the losing team incentive to keep fighting, even if they are at a disadvantage.

2) Allow players to trade in broken bones at a rate of 10:1 for conquest. or even 20:1 Whatever the numbers are will need tweaking, but overall this allows players to
a) get rid of all those access bones and b) further incentivizes pvp'ers to get the pvp building and actually want to PVP to get PVP rewards.

3) NPC's

As it is there are FAR FAR too many NPC's in Ashran. I mean faction NPC's, such as random groups of mounted elite soldiers. I say get rid of all the guard npc's, except for a group of 3 powerful npc's at each point along the road. IF one faction holds far into enemy territory, they have their npc's defending their points and thats it.

The npc's in the Ring of Conquest need reworking as well. Ring of Conquest should become an event with a substantial reward. The event should be changed, to become a contest between the factions to see who can kill the most elite mobs. Once the mobs are all dead, the ENTIRE faction who won gets a) the regular 75 conquest and 2.5% chance to loot and b) Artifact buff for 5 minutes only. Player Carrying the artifact cannot have the buff stack, but will not drop the artifact.

Kronus and Groot need to be properly balanced. Give kronus similar abilities to Groot.



When you take all these changes into account with eachother, they turn into an Ashran which is no longer profitable to farm events and avoid the other faction. Its profitable to get in, get your hands dirty, and crush the enemy with as much force as you cant. It creates an Ashran where you want to destroy every event, and push the boss. It creates and REWARDS players for that back and forth, tug of war, playstyle, (with scattered side events and pvp ) that Blizzard was going for. Best of all, since this new system allows players who just want to cap to get their cap relatively fast, the queue's will be shortened! All the players that just want their rewards and then get out, will get that within an hour or so of gameplay. All the players that want to try and farm gear will get that with the low % chance of gear dropping from events, and the coins you can burn on events!

Imagine you Queue for Ashran , get in relatively fast (less then 15 minutes) and you step inside. You get invited to group and you see your group is fighting on the road, near the middle. You engage in the main battle, and already your earning nemesis quest, and 3 conq a kill. Huge battle is going on for about 5-10 minutes, and you've earned 25 kills already. Then an event goes off at the Ampitheater and both teams are trying to break away from the middle to get to it. Everyone is rooting, and constantly fighting, and dying all the way to the Ampitheater, where there is a constant struggle to win . You've been earning kills, bones, and conquest aplenty so far, and your faction won the event! You've only been in the battle ground for 30 minutes, yet you're conquest cap is almost 1/2 done! You repeat this until the end, hearth to your garrison, trade in your bones for additional conquest and consider it a day well done of pvp.


THAT'S the experience Ashran should be, and with my proposed changes, that's the experience Ashran will deliver.

[Osmeric]

^^^^^^^ THIS hits the hammer on the head. I will expand on that but, really.... I don't know why Blizzard hasn't figured out that people follow the points. If you make HK's give conquest, people will instantly be doing nothing but wanting to fight eachother. Its NOT THAT HARD to figure out!

Another problem I'm sure they're grappling with is related to this. I strongly suspect Ashran is sucking the oxygen out of much of the rest of PvP content, particularly non-rated BGs. Ashran is simply a much easier place to get conquest points (and honor, but honor doesn't matter) for the great bulk of casual PvPers.

I bet non-rated BG participation numbers look absolutely horrible right now. This may be the source of all the bot complaints; maybe most of the non-bots just stopped running them.

[Deleted]

I just want my box from the boss to get my epic piece (if i didn't succeed with the 3rbg's) ... Waiting for the next battle is just insane , especially when my faction rarely wins...

[Tangra]

I just want my box from the boss to get my epic piece (if i didn't succeed with the 3rbg's) ... Waiting for the next battle is just insane , especially when my faction rarely wins...

The worst part is that extremely lucky people are now months ahead of the average player when it comes gear, not to mention the huge time investment needed, on top of capping arena and grinding rating. People who do arenas every week should not have to face others with 5-6 more pieces of gear than them, just because of luck and rBG/Ashran grinding, which could easily take 20 hours a week of sitting in ques, organizing, and so forth. Rating-grinding already rewards PvPers for playing more, so it's not like there is nothing to do in PvP after you cap.