Ashran is not Blizzards fault.

[DeleteThisThanks]

Ashran could have been more than what it is. I haven't seen it personally, besides some videos on Youtube. I'm still stuck in the queue.

[Joeygiggles]

What a bullshit post.

Here, i'll give you the exact reasons Ashran IS Blizzards fault.

1. There was an extremely shit bug with horde queues, it was KNOWN by Blizzard for at least 2 months until being fixed (some say it still hasn't been fixed. This caused 2-3 Alliance to be allowed in for every 1 horde that was being let in.
2. The events were extremely lucrative. In a game based solely, 100% around progression, if you give people the ability to progress fast, they will take it. Every. Single. Time. Blizzard did not test this. This again, is their fault. Untested material.
3. The Alliance boss could be pulled around the side of the base and killed in about 30 seconds with zero way for the horde to stop them. This was hotfixed, but still managed to ruin Ashran for the Alliance for about 2-3 weeks after launch. Again, unfinished material.
4. The fundamental idea. The playerbase has consumed and rejected large scale pvp on an almost universal basis. The people who enjoyed Old AV, New AV, IoC, TM vs SS, Wintergrasp and Tol Barad after doing them more than once are very few and very far between. It is entirely Blizzards fault that they keep adding content to the game that people simply do. not. like. The reasons we do not like this content are also Blizzards fault, since they designed their game to allow casters to do the same dps as melee, meaning a melee in a 40 man zerg is useless. Going near the zerg results in instant death. The most effective mass scale pvp groups (and trust me, i've been in a loooooooooooooooot of them.) are ones that stack range, healers and a few death knights. Warriors, Enh shamans, Rets, Ferals, WW monks and tanks are useless. Rogues have some use with smokebomb, but having smokebomb vs deathgrip isn't even a contest. You choose deathgrip for 40v40. Every time.
5. Because of everything above, there is zero skill involved in large scale pvp. What do people hate in pve? easy stuff. We see how LFR is shunned, we see how people find normal mode boring and mythic + heroic are the goal. 40 man pvp is the pvp version of LFR. You have ZERO individual worth in a 40+ man raid in pvp. You can have the best warrior in the world in a raid as well as the worst warrior in the world and the difference they will make is 1-2% raid damage, max.
6. Nobody gives a shit about faction pride. You can pay money and transfer. You can make a new character on the opposite side. You aren't at war with the opposite faction. Hell, there are even pve realms. You can 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 and 10v10 vs your own faction. Literally the only thing factions mean at this point are different racials. THAT IS IT.


Bullshit fanboy post

::Stands up, Starts Slow Clap::
This guys gets it lol. They wanted those small battles off to the side at these PvE events but it doesn't work. It is mostly an unspoken agreement between horde and alliance. One side do events and one side does the Boss thats it. This is to large if it was like a regualr BG and scaled down to 20 players I could see possibly being a bit better. Get rid of these timed events and randomize them more this way you cant say in raid " OH HEY 30 SEC MQ GO THERE NOW" and it would be more of a spur of the moment thing
They had a vision sure but failed on the implementation

[Mormolyce]

IMO there is actually a lot of truth in what the OP is saying.

Ashran was an attempt to bring open-ended "AV" or "world PVP" style play back and I can't help but feel that its current state is an indication that those things are doomed to remain nothing more than treasured memories of a bygone age. Way too many players look at new content and math out the path of least resistance to the artificial reward instead of playing it as intended, I guess that's just natural in a 10 year old game but it kind of limits design options.

It is their failure 100% because they should know people by now and actually design the place in a way that
a) everyone understands what they are supposed to do to begin with

I do agree that the one thing WoD definitely does not do well is guiding you to the content. I get that they wanted a big mysterious world to explore but... it kind of turned into "the game didn't tell me what to do so I googled a guide". I guess that's WoW in 2014/2015.

- - - Updated - - -

What a bullshit post.

Here, i'll give you the exact reasons Ashran IS Blizzards fault.

1. There was an extremely shit bug with horde queues, it was KNOWN by Blizzard for at least 2 months until being fixed (some say it still hasn't been fixed. This caused 2-3 Alliance to be allowed in for every 1 horde that was being let in.
2. The events were extremely lucrative. In a game based solely, 100% around progression, if you give people the ability to progress fast, they will take it. Every. Single. Time. Blizzard did not test this. This again, is their fault. Untested material.
3. The Alliance boss could be pulled around the side of the base and killed in about 30 seconds with zero way for the horde to stop them. This was hotfixed, but still managed to ruin Ashran for the Alliance for about 2-3 weeks after launch. Again, unfinished material.
4. The fundamental idea. The playerbase has consumed and rejected large scale pvp on an almost universal basis. The people who enjoyed Old AV, New AV, IoC, TM vs SS, Wintergrasp and Tol Barad after doing them more than once are very few and very far between. It is entirely Blizzards fault that they keep adding content to the game that people simply do. not. like. The reasons we do not like this content are also Blizzards fault, since they designed their game to allow casters to do the same dps as melee, meaning a melee in a 40 man zerg is useless. Going near the zerg results in instant death. The most effective mass scale pvp groups (and trust me, i've been in a loooooooooooooooot of them.) are ones that stack range, healers and a few death knights. Warriors, Enh shamans, Rets, Ferals, WW monks and tanks are useless. Rogues have some use with smokebomb, but having smokebomb vs deathgrip isn't even a contest. You choose deathgrip for 40v40. Every time.
5. Because of everything above, there is zero skill involved in large scale pvp. What do people hate in pve? easy stuff. We see how LFR is shunned, we see how people find normal mode boring and mythic + heroic are the goal. 40 man pvp is the pvp version of LFR. You have ZERO individual worth in a 40+ man raid in pvp. You can have the best warrior in the world in a raid as well as the worst warrior in the world and the difference they will make is 1-2% raid damage, max.
6. Nobody gives a shit about faction pride. You can pay money and transfer. You can make a new character on the opposite side. You aren't at war with the opposite faction. Hell, there are even pve realms. You can 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 and 10v10 vs your own faction. Literally the only thing factions mean at this point are different racials. THAT IS IT.


Bullshit fanboy post

1) Never heard of it, I play on a Horde realm and if anything we outnumbered the Alliance team. The queues were a major PITA and I think still are, apparently they're working on it but yeah okay, that one is in their court.
2) WoW's PVP is not based around progression, it actually has a pretty minor progression system but some people are so obsessive about such things they focus entirely on that, it's like fucking OCD. There is literally no point in getting HP/CP geared unless you enjoy PVP and plan to do a lot of it. PVP is primarily about enjoying PVP. That some people treat it otherwise is again another perception issue that Blizzard can't fix, because it's a bad mindset among players.
3) It's almost like new content has bugs, what a war crime.
4-5) I agree that large scale battles in WoW don't really work but to say that people who want AV/etc back are few and far between makes me wonder if you read the same forums I do.
6) Wasn't that what the OP was saying?

[Deleted]

Definatly OP, nice to hear someone say it.

[Thyranne]

How exactly did they know that Ashran was going to fail?

They could have listened to players in beta.

[Sforza]

First the warrior QQ and now this? It's time to stop posting.
They are basically free of any blame for their miscreation named Ashran lol. They could have copy pasted Timeless isle and renamed it bullshit draenor isle and it would have been better.

[Deleted]

the 5 hr 23 mins que I just had to get into ashran at prime time

You are so right!!!! 100% my fault... what was I thinking blaming Blizz


really...

[Terahertz]

I agree that player behavior has changed a lot, however Blizzard still shot themselves in the foot by adding bullshit mechanics such as the conquest bonus, loot boxes and temporary item buffs and those stupid summons that freeze/knock you up in the air etc.

Ashran was supposed to be a zone where you could hop into for some casual PvP and out of when you were bored. Instead they forced people into playing it with the conquest bonus and other forced mechanics for competitive PvP, thus causing the massive queues.

When only those that genuinely want some casual wPvP hop into Ashran, you'll have a fun zone to PvP in, in my eyes at least. I feel at this point people are just sick of it all and cba all together.

At least when I first heard of Ashran and read the concept of it all, I was personally expecting a casual zone you could hop into whenever you wanted for some random, but more structured PvP. I was basically expecting wPvP + BGs. Kind of like Tol Barad Peninsula and Tol Barad in general back in Cataclysm.

[Charmanderp]

No, Ashran was hastily put together and it really shows. They COULD have made an epic experience akin to the experience that old AV gave. However, They gave a lame lane push down a single road which blows because of Blizzard's inability to implement advanced AI. Wow was never built to have large scale AI if you don't believe me look at the original promises for garrisons. The reason they can't make an experience like old AV in such a short amount of time is because it requires a metric fuck-ton of code and in game scripting. They made a half-assed attempt to capture back those subs who were still high on the experience that old AV had.

[Stormspellz]

How exactly did they know that Ashran was going to fail? How would they know that the community enjoys arena more than world events?

All the complaining about world pvp being dead and the complaints about how "there's no more big battles like AV anymore" is the reason Ashran exists. Blizzard thought that this is what the community wanted, that is really the only mistake they made.

You all need to ask yourself why the meta of "horde farms events around, alliance takes main road" even exists. It exists because at the start of WoD, all of the top players swapped to alliance, forcing the trickle down effect where anyone who takes the game seriously followed them. Alliance for the first month dominates the horde in the main road, forcing the horde players to find "alternative ways" to get something out of Ashran.

Had it not been for the the outside events, Horde simply would just not even play Ashran. It's much more fun to not even play than to lose. If this were 2006, horde would be still be fighting on the main road because back then, there were no twitch heroes, there were no faction transfers, there were no level boosts. Back then, you just played one character and that was it. You didn't care about whatever Vanguards or Jahmilli were doing with their characters because those people didn't exist in your world.

its not "world events" its zerg vs glitchy walking punching bag. The map is to small, ques are obnoxious, forced to rep /conquest cap is obnoxious, its to focused on timed events which have almost never worked well, they repeated numerous mistakes they had with wintergrasp.

It is 1000% blizz's fault.

[JustAnotherForumPoster]

Their job is to create content that their players want to play.
So inherently you're wrong from the get go. We told them from very early on what is wrong with it and they didn't change a damn thing to fix it.

[Livevil]

It's 100% Blizzards fault. The design was utter garbage, implementation was even more garbage and lastly maintenance was also horrible. The zone was released in a Alpha state, there were countless bugs and imbalances that blizzard just didnt care addressing swiftly or even at all which eventually led the situation to where it is now. Applying random bandaid hotfixes 2 months in and hoping for the best.

If blizzard werent so bad at fixing those bugs and imbalances when it mattered, the zone would be enjoyable and perfectly playable.

[MrSerious]

It is their failure 100% because they should know people by now and actually design the place in a way that
a) everyone understands what they are supposed to do to begin with
b) people feel doing ashran the "proper" way is by far the most rewarding and logical approach

Not achieving this makes it bad design and ultimately brings up the question if scrapping it for something else would have been better.

Agreed, its 100% their fault. Why because they have a poorly designed map which allows the players to gain more from it by NOT engaging in a major battle.

Also they have one bottleneck and not allowed for smart large scale PvP. This compounded with the ludicrous matchmaking, failure of a queue system has created a titanic pile of shit.

And the OP blames this on the players... when will all this white knighting stop and people finally wake up. Surely it must get harder and harder to defend them. Or will another new shiny mount make it all better.

[PrairieChicken]

No. Trashcan has horrid design and the design is responsible for its failure.

Blizzard had months and months to fix it but they ignored every feedback and shipped unfinished mess instead.

The amount of white-knighting is rather disgusting at this moment

[Gourmandise]

There's too much pve content in Ashran.

Just give us 40vs40 city siege battleground already.

[Gandrake]

it's kind of funny though

wintergasp is still in the game and had a more valid design approach

i miss wrath

[rda]

What a bullshit post.

Here, i'll give you the exact reasons Ashran IS Blizzards fault.

1. There was an extremely shit bug with horde queues, it was KNOWN by Blizzard for at least 2 months until being fixed (some say it still hasn't been fixed. This caused 2-3 Alliance to be allowed in for every 1 horde that was being let in.
2. The events were extremely lucrative. In a game based solely, 100% around progression, if you give people the ability to progress fast, they will take it. Every. Single. Time. Blizzard did not test this. This again, is their fault. Untested material.
3. The Alliance boss could be pulled around the side of the base and killed in about 30 seconds with zero way for the horde to stop them. This was hotfixed, but still managed to ruin Ashran for the Alliance for about 2-3 weeks after launch. Again, unfinished material.
4. The fundamental idea. The playerbase has consumed and rejected large scale pvp on an almost universal basis. The people who enjoyed Old AV, New AV, IoC, TM vs SS, Wintergrasp and Tol Barad after doing them more than once are very few and very far between. It is entirely Blizzards fault that they keep adding content to the game that people simply do. not. like. The reasons we do not like this content are also Blizzards fault, since they designed their game to allow casters to do the same dps as melee, meaning a melee in a 40 man zerg is useless. Going near the zerg results in instant death. The most effective mass scale pvp groups (and trust me, i've been in a loooooooooooooooot of them.) are ones that stack range, healers and a few death knights. Warriors, Enh shamans, Rets, Ferals, WW monks and tanks are useless. Rogues have some use with smokebomb, but having smokebomb vs deathgrip isn't even a contest. You choose deathgrip for 40v40. Every time.
5. Because of everything above, there is zero skill involved in large scale pvp. What do people hate in pve? easy stuff. We see how LFR is shunned, we see how people find normal mode boring and mythic + heroic are the goal. 40 man pvp is the pvp version of LFR. You have ZERO individual worth in a 40+ man raid in pvp. You can have the best warrior in the world in a raid as well as the worst warrior in the world and the difference they will make is 1-2% raid damage, max.
6. Nobody gives a shit about faction pride. You can pay money and transfer. You can make a new character on the opposite side. You aren't at war with the opposite faction. Hell, there are even pve realms. You can 2v2, 3v3, 5v5 and 10v10 vs your own faction. Literally the only thing factions mean at this point are different racials. THAT IS IT.


Bullshit fanboy post

This is completely correct.

[PuppetShowJustice]

This is absolute nonsense. They made a PVP zone that punishes PVP (risk of fragment loss) and places all productivity on PVE (side events, boss killing).

Ashran's reward structures are badly designed. The 200 "bonus" Conquest attached to it is badly designed. Neither of these things are the fault of the player.

Blizzard done goofed.

[rda]

By the way, remember how they sold Ashran at that Blizzcon in 2013:

Eternal, never-ending epic battleground where masses clash into each other and you can join and leave doing your part.

If you watched that Blizzcon, remember what you felt and what you thought when you heard that. Heck, I *knew* full well that mass PVP is stupidly boring, but even I was taken by the prospect of an eternal battle which I could join, play for a bit, maybe taking a tower or, I don't know, capturing a graveyard collecting some resources that would two hours after be used to summon some giant who'd crush some walls for us, etc, then leave.

Boy... it ends right there, in the first five seconds, when you go to Ashran and *get into a multi-hour queue*. And it doesn't become better when you actually get there.

Ashran is one of the biggest disappointments in this game ever.

[Rudol Von Stroheim]

1) Combat is painfully stale and uninteresting. Even for a 'trade hits' sort of MMO.

2) Combat is not designed around group play but more around 1v1 scenarios. Hence why the classes all seem to have similar survival rates and similar damage outputs against one another.

3) Let's face it, WoW has been turned into a loot-pinata of a game. All anyone now wants to do is log on for a couple of hours, smack that pinata, get their candies, and run off. There is no more RP element. No faction pride. No sense of being part of a greater world.

It'll be that much worse once they return flying. Just creating a greater disconnect ultimately.

-- In other words, Blizzard really isn't going to accomplish anything beyond adding more candy to the pinata until they start building upon the EXPERIENCE and PRESTIGE of the world itself. The game needs to have greater means for people to truly feel they have a claim and place in the universe of Warcraft. Otherwise, it's off to the queues and easy loot grabs.

This game isn't made for the kid inside of us with stars in his/her eyes. It's made for the mom and pops that don't give a shit and want instant gratification. It's a soulless product, basically. It's why many of us veterans simply can't "recapture the magic" from Vanilla despite our best efforts. The magic is gone. It's been sucked dry. It's all about focus groups now in the eternal struggle to keep that sub number up.