Ashran is completely nuts.

[Steelangel]

Ok ok ok, I know I'm like 8 months late to the PvP game in Warlords, but PvP is what I end up doing when I get bored with wow. I don't claim to be a good PvP-er, I just like to find a group of greens and go kill some reds. I heard that you can get PvP stuff from Ashran, and I go there in full tourist mode, wait my couple of minutes to queue up and get invited to a big group. I'm thinking "Tol Barad", I get "WTF".

I see at the top of the screen: Enemies Killed for Horde and Alliance, and it's some fraction, 34/1000 or 220/400 or something like that. These numbers change seemingly randomly throughout my time in Ashran without rhyme or reason. The group I'm in sees zero resistance as we start to capture flags all the way to the Horde base, and kill this blood elf mage at the top of the tower. Then things get screwy. We pull a couple of NPC mobs from the front gate of the Warspear Stronghold, and out of bleeding nowhere I am surrounded by red. There is not a SINGLE green in sight, when I was in the middle of a group of people. It's like I suddenly phased into the middle of a pitched battle of every member of the horde vs. gnome mage. As I'm dying in an uncontrollable stun-lock, I look at the raid frames and there is noone "near" me at all.

So I take the rez, only to appear back at the Alliance base. The numbers at the top of the screen have changed again. Stormshield is being obliterated by a massive force of Horde, who after killing the boss, seemingly vanish into thin air, leaving behind a few stragglers and a poor beleaguered flight master(?)

I follow the arrows pointing toward my group, and.. into a completely peaceful, serene Archmage's overlook full of Alliance NPCs and not a sign of Horde for miles. I run over to the mines to finish a mini-quest thing for honor, and go back to Stormshield, turn in some artifacts, and some others have awoken Fandraal. Ok, this looks interesting. I follow this big tree all the way to the horde base, seeing zero resistance. As soon as the tree starts attacking the NPCs near the COMPLETELY EMPTY Warspear, an army of Horde appears out of nowhere, kills him, and me, and the two people that I had happened to be with. I look on my map, and all the dots from my raid group are "nearby" but I don't see anything like a real PvP battle, just a swarm of red nameplates taking turns violating Title IX with my gnome.

This goes on for an hour or so. I give up and come back later, at about 1 AM server. It's completely empty, and I run around with a group of folks completing all of the events unopposed, get a bunch of PvP gear (only then do I find that Honor gear is mostly crap compared to my PvE gear).

Ok. This was totally not Tol Barad or Wintergrasp. What I don't get though is what the heck is going on. People I'm following sometimes phase out when entering a new area. Horde armies appear and vanish without a trace. Running to a farming area is peaceful and serene until you realize that just outside this invisible zone boundary is a half-million Horde that were invisible before.

I've read threads on how shitty Ashran is, but this is beyond the pale. Can someone please explain my experience to me? Is is "normal" to feel like I just wandered into CRZ hell?

[Gatsbybutters]

No.. thats... thats what it is sadly.
They made 2 big mistakes with ashran. One was putting every idea in the game into one zone just to see if it could be done. The other was that they forgot that we play this game on computers, not consoles. Even people with decent/higher end pcs are lagged to shit in ashran. The zone itself is simply unplayable for a majority of the player base.
But hey they added new areas and a rep i think in the next patch. Cause that will fix it.

[Netherspark]

I've experienced the phasing problem as well, I'm pretty sure it's a bug.

[Thelxi]

Yeah, it is a hot mess. I think everyone agrees.

[Deleted]

oh really is that how you feel about ashran? oww thanks for making a thread to make this all clear to us, we weren't aware yet of people having bad experience with this WORLD PVP zone that is instanced to hell EleGiggle

[Deleted]

Omg, don't fucking remind me of the "teleporting" enemy players.

This happened so many times to me that now I just walk on my mount if I'm alone. Basically you ride around and suddenly a whole sea of red text just phases in around you. This is so fucking retarded, the game updates the view range way too slow or some shit like that.

And another thing, since we're ranting. Honest question: Is there an item in Ashran that instantly teleports you when you're about to get your ass kicked?! Countless times I would wail on some random and suddenly he's just gone, and no it's not a fucking rogue, I'm not that dumb. I know this happens in bgs when you /afk while being attacked so you just bail on the bg, but you can't /afk in Ashran.

And another thing, why in the actual fuck, when you die you lose credit for events and main boss even if your group does manage to do it in the following seconds?!

[Gatsbybutters]

oh really is that how you feel about ashran? oww thanks for making a thread to make this all clear to us, we weren't aware yet of people having bad experience with this WORLD PVP zone that is instanced to hell EleGiggle

Your post is bad, and you should feel bad. Your post history is worse, and you should feel worse.

[Deleted]

he is not ... =,= "

[Steelangel]

Omg, don't fucking remind me of the "teleporting" enemy players.

This happened so many times to me that now I just walk on my mount if I'm alone. Basically you ride around and suddenly a whole sea of red text just phases in around you. This is so fucking retarded, the game updates the view range way too slow or some shit like that.

This is my experience. Every. Single. Time.

And another thing, since we're ranting. Honest question: Is there an item in Ashran that instantly teleports you when you're about to get your ass kicked?! Countless times I would wail on some random and suddenly he's just gone, and no it's not a fucking rogue, I'm not that dumb. I know this happens in bgs when you /afk while being attacked so you just bail on the bg, but you can't /afk in Ashran.

It could be that their queue popped. I lucked out a couple of times when an LFR or BG or Dungeon queue popped just as random enemy #34532 decided that I needed to be introduced to the pointy end of their codpiece.

[vesuviouz]

Ok ok ok, I know I'm like 8 months late to the PvP game in Warlords, but PvP is what I end up doing when I get bored with wow. I don't claim to be a good PvP-er, I just like to find a group of greens and go kill some reds. I heard that you can get PvP stuff from Ashran, and I go there in full tourist mode, wait my couple of minutes to queue up and get invited to a big group. I'm thinking "Tol Barad", I get "WTF".

I see at the top of the screen: Enemies Killed for Horde and Alliance, and it's some fraction, 34/1000 or 220/400 or something like that. These numbers change seemingly randomly throughout my time in Ashran without rhyme or reason. The group I'm in sees zero resistance as we start to capture flags all the way to the Horde base, and kill this blood elf mage at the top of the tower. Then things get screwy. We pull a couple of NPC mobs from the front gate of the Warspear Stronghold, and out of bleeding nowhere I am surrounded by red. There is not a SINGLE green in sight, when I was in the middle of a group of people. It's like I suddenly phased into the middle of a pitched battle of every member of the horde vs. gnome mage. As I'm dying in an uncontrollable stun-lock, I look at the raid frames and there is noone "near" me at all.

So I take the rez, only to appear back at the Alliance base. The numbers at the top of the screen have changed again. Stormshield is being obliterated by a massive force of Horde, who after killing the boss, seemingly vanish into thin air, leaving behind a few stragglers and a poor beleaguered flight master(?)

I follow the arrows pointing toward my group, and.. into a completely peaceful, serene Archmage's overlook full of Alliance NPCs and not a sign of Horde for miles. I run over to the mines to finish a mini-quest thing for honor, and go back to Stormshield, turn in some artifacts, and some others have awoken Fandraal. Ok, this looks interesting. I follow this big tree all the way to the horde base, seeing zero resistance. As soon as the tree starts attacking the NPCs near the COMPLETELY EMPTY Warspear, an army of Horde appears out of nowhere, kills him, and me, and the two people that I had happened to be with. I look on my map, and all the dots from my raid group are "nearby" but I don't see anything like a real PvP battle, just a swarm of red nameplates taking turns violating Title XI with my gnome.

This goes on for an hour or so. I give up and come back later, at about 1 AM server. It's completely empty, and I run around with a group of folks completing all of the events unopposed, get a bunch of PvP gear (only then do I find that Honor gear is mostly crap compared to my PvE gear).

Ok. This was totally not Tol Barad or Wintergrasp. What I don't get though is what the heck is going on. People I'm following sometimes phase out when entering a new area. Horde armies appear and vanish without a trace. Running to a farming area is peaceful and serene until you realize that just outside this invisible zone boundary is a half-million Horde that were invisible before.

I've read threads on how shitty Ashran is, but this is beyond the pale. Can someone please explain my experience to me? Is is "normal" to feel like I just wandered into CRZ hell?

I have played WOD steadily since release. but have not yet tried ashran, partly because of queue times and partly because of negative feedback on the whole area on forums and the like. after reading your post though i now have a new found urge to try it. i am sure this was not the intention, but im going to log on tonight and try it. thanks.

[ro9ue]

It seems like when they try so hard to give you a ton of objectives it just ruins the gameplay.

The best PVP revolves around simple rules (WSG CTF, AB Domination) and the best world PVP happens when they just put 1 interesting hub or mechanic there (Bloody Coins / Timeless Isle, Isle of Quel'Danas Daily hub).

The harder they seem to force PVP, the worse it gets.

[cFortyfive]

I've read threads on how shitty Ashran is, but this is beyond the pale. Can someone please explain my experience to me? Is is "normal" to feel like I just wandered into CRZ hell?

the way the zoning and phasing works around ashran is dogshit but well. people probably would have whined as well if it was an instance or something.

[vesuviouz]

It seems like when they try so hard to give you a ton of objectives it just ruins the gameplay.

The best PVP revolves around simple rules (WSG CTF, AB Domination) and the best world PVP happens when they just put 1 interesting hub or mechanic there (Bloody Coins / Timeless Isle, Isle of Quel'Danas Daily hub).

The harder they seem to force PVP, the worse it gets.

Wintergrasp for me here certainly. myself and a lot of friends who never really pvp'd would all go play WG when the queue popped because it was just so FUN!

[rumbelly]

The saddest thing about ashran is that it's the only thing they added for pvp in this xpac .. and it has been a big zero.

[Coronius]

I just don't understand how they could go from doing a pretty damn good job with Wintergrasp and Tol Barad to.. this. If anything, they should have learned from the past and made everything better.

[Deleted]

Ashran really is pretty dumb.

I'm amazed that after all this time Blizzard hasn't taken a page from the GW2 handbook or something in regards to creating persistent PvP areas.

Well the issue is the GW2 PvP zone is the size of the entirety of Azeroth's landmass with quite low density objectives (ie quite a distance between each one) so you get a much slower pace of mass PvP. Blizzard's idea is "let's make a teeny tiny island, overpopulate it with PvP zergs and slam millions of objectives right next to each other" leading to roaming zergfests instead of paced gameplay.

[Deleted]

Ashran and Garrison are fail projects overall, just for public eyes.

[Deleted]

I just don't understand how they could go from doing a pretty damn good job with Wintergrasp and Tol Barad to.. this. If anything, they should have learned from the past and made everything better.

To be fair I remember people whining like mad at Tol Barad too although I rather liked it.

[sykoex]

Wow I've read decent amount of Ashran criticism and this is the first I've heard about the phasing issues, that's the thing that would piss me off the most.

[Coronius]

To be fair I remember people whining like mad at Tol Barad too although I rather liked it.

Oh, I'm not saying that Tol Barad was perfect by any means. But I personally enjoyed it, and regardless what some other people might've thought about it, it wasn't borderline broken (like Ashran).