PvP Mercenary Mode, Patch 6.2.1 PTR Patch Notes

[Katsutomai]

Or.. OR.. Instead of having to deal with constant whining about Racials they could just disable them in PvP. Best idea ever, right? That way everything is fair and balanced Race-wise. No more QQ'ing about OP Racials etcetc.

[Deleted]

LOL @ everyone that thinks that people will queue up as mercenaries and try to lose...
It seems some people can't make a difference between a game and a real life war.
If this was war irl and your country's future depended on it I can imagine people doing it(if this ridiculous thing was possible lol), but this is a game...who plays to lose lol. And even if there are such people I assume you can count them on the fingers on your hands. Seriously the only people I can imagine doing that are those that are strangely "afraid" by this happening. The fact that, that even crossed their minds kinda points to them wanting to do it lol.

[Darkrulerxxx]

not sure how it'll work considering that griefing could largely occur by being in the opposite faction. it'll be interesting how it plays out.

[Backjauer]

Free transfers fix fuck all. Everybody expects somebody else to move. The only way free faction transfers might work is if they offered incentives to do so. A substantial amount of conquest points or free game time, for example. But then people would bitch about that.

This seems like a reasonable approach.

[Exerionx]

Holy shit, when Blizzard comes up with a decent idea to fix all the Ashran queues, the community goes ape shit and whines. I know it's to be expected, but fuck me the idea is quite good, and WHY would you sabotage the other group when you still get the SAME rewards?!

This community is absolutely screwed.

[Deeznuts]

Currently, everything and anything that Blizz does will leave people whining and crying, whether its a great thing, a good thing, or a decent thing. They cannot seem to placate you bumbling fools.

[Gnosk]

Please note there may still be areas or pockets on Draenor where flying has not yet been fully implemented. These areas will be tracked and listed in a forum thread titled "Flight in Draenor – Reported Bugs Thread" on the Patch 6.2.1 PTR forum.

They never wanted flying but lied to us all along.

[Utinil]

Wait, let me see if I got this right.

•Please note there may still be areas or pockets on Draenor where flying has not yet been fully implemented. These areas will be tracked and listed in a forum thread titled "Flight in Draenor – Reported Bugs Thread" on the Patch 6.2.1 PTR forum.

Yet didn't they state awhile back, that the content was designed the same as if flying had been allowed, and that less resources weren't used designing the zone because of flying? I even recall their "proof" being that players had explored everywhere with glider and feather. Yet suddenly the zones aren't ready for flying to just be enabled? This doesn't add up to me.

[Christhammer]

Hotfix is already live. You can now buy belt, boots and bracers from the vendor. Very nice!

[Multistryke]

RIP Strongboxes lol

[davidcryix]

Wait, let me see if I got this right.



Yet didn't they state awhile back, that the content was designed the same as if flying had been allowed, and that less resources weren't used designing the zone because of flying? I even recall their "proof" being that players had explored everywhere with glider and feather. Yet suddenly the zones aren't ready for flying to just be enabled? This doesn't add up to me.

What do you think you're uncovering here, Colombo? Are you really going to hammer them over a week or two of work to get things ready? There are all kinds of places that people cannot get to using a glider and a feather that someone on a flying mount can as they have full control over their abilities whereas gliders and feathers are in constant downward motion at speed.

Maybe they put up fucking barriers to keep people out of some areas on the feather and now they are pulling them out or maybe the engine itself has flags for each region to say flying yes/no.

In short, please give it a goddamn rest and let them take a few days to turn on whatever they need to.

[huldu]

This should have been done years and years ago, but I guess it's better late than never. One thing that blows is that they will only be in a high level zone which means you can't make use of this while you're leveling and for some reason have terrible queue times in your battlegroup. How are you suppose to sabotage a game when your faction lose all the time anyways? Anyways it has been a problem in wow since they launched battlegrounds, there is very little incentive to actually win a game. So many other mmos have done it right since then, just shocking that blizz haven't copied any of them at all. At least the mercenaries is a step in the right direction but seriously tho, that delay... it's 2015 now, not 2007.

[guardian_titan]

When people queue up to PvP, they typically have the plan to actually try to win because they're going for gear or they just want to have fun. Long queue times often demoralize people before they even get in the door. So this is potentially a good option. Who would say no if they went from 10+ minute queues to <1 minute?

The people I see creating trouble are the same people who like to camp low levels, leveling quest hubs, and lesser geared people "for fun". They're the minority, though, and not the majority. In battlegrounds, things are generally more even than out in the world. If someone is intentionally trying to make the team lose, then they could potentially end up reported for it. Since Blizzard apparently does temporarily ban those that AFK in LFR/LFD, why wouldn't Blizzard ban bad sports in battlegrounds? You joined with the pretense that you'd work together as a team to reach a common goal. Even if they don't get reported, the team could easily just let the person or group intentionally trying to lose to get "eaten" by the other team. There's ways to deal with bad sports. The question is if the player base will tolerate such behavior. Then again, if LFR people tolerate people being AFK the entire run, I wouldn't put it past BGers to let people AFK an entire BG. At some point, the player base has to step up and say no. Start reporting those people. The behavior won't change until the player base decides not to accept it.

As for the masks, Blizzard cleared that up. You won't pop into the BG with a mask. You will actually change races (including racial).

Honestly, I would have preferred they just let us pick our own racials that we can change like our talents. Let us pick 1 utility, 1 stat booster, and 1 "fun" racial. A utility one might be like every man for himself/herself, rocket boots, sprint, mana torrent, gift of the naaru, etc. Stat booster would be like 1% crit, etc. A "fun" racial might be something more like the goblin bank and vendor reduction (something that has no use in combat). Maybe throw in the profession boosters with the "fun" racials. Doing that would have let Blizzard introduce more racials down the line even if they didn't have more races. Blizzard went through a phase of "bring the player, not the class." Why can't we play any race we want but have access to any racial we want? Letting us use any racial at any time would also let Blizzard individually buff/nerf/remove/add racials without gutting/buffing entire races. Racials could be unlocked via getting exalted with certain factions or doing long quest chains. Factions are so boring and predictable. Adding something like a racial unlock would add something different. Make it so you can get rep via PvE AND PvP so people don't feel forced to do content they dislike. But I guess that would be too much to ask for.

[Etul]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure *most* people using the mercenary system will actually use it because they want to get stuff done without waiting for a ridiculous amount of time. If people want to sabotage the other faction, they could still do it now by rolling a toon on the other faction. But my experience from lfr/bgs is that there is usually someone paying attention to the afk people and demanding for them to be kicked. If you want to avoid these 'saboteurs' (the number of which will probably be minimal/negligible and vastly outnumbered by bots) then be proactive and votekick them too. It's not as if people afking in bgs/instances is something new.......

[Shudder]

Factions are stupid anyways. It annoys me that I can't play with half my friends because of some faction they chose years ago.

[Banquetto]

"Players who are using Mercenary Mode won't just be wearing a Hallow's End mask, lol."

Shame, imho. That would be hilarious and awesome.

[Yavamar]

Its bad idea in a way and just makes Servers that have low pop on 1 side to have even MORE low pop on that side. Somewhat of a good idea but its just bad and a waste.. when you could do:

Want to fix faction issues or somewhat fix long ques...
A: Offer Free faction change to Horde or Alliance depending on the server (Horde heavy free faction to Alliance balance out)
B: Offer Free Transfers to dead realms or over populated faction sides (Over pop horde side.. free transfer to Alliance on that server).

but xfering off would still cost or faction change back to other side would still cost.
Plus people "MIGHT" xfer to join friends as well on that server.

"Nobody says no to free things"

When server reaches a set number of near balance. close off free Faction Change and Free Transfers.

They used to do exactly this, but stopped. It didn't seem to have much of an effect; nobody wanted to transfer to an underpopulated faction or server.

[Dug]

They used to do exactly this, but stopped. It didn't seem to have much of an effect; nobody wanted to transfer to an underpopulated faction or server.

Exactly. The PvP community wants to win simple as that. Even before alliance got OP racials Horde were THE PvP faction and has the higher level PvP players. Players followed them and wala faction imbalance. But it's only broken if Alliance is OP apparently

[Kuja]

I don't understand the race change. If you're a mercenary, you should retain your race, but only faction change for the duration of the match.

[Shudder]

Its bad idea in a way and just makes Servers that have low pop on 1 side to have even MORE low pop on that side. Somewhat of a good idea but its just bad and a waste.. when you could do:

Want to fix faction issues or somewhat fix long ques...
A: Offer Free faction change to Horde or Alliance depending on the server (Horde heavy free faction to Alliance balance out)
B: Offer Free Transfers to dead realms or over populated faction sides (Over pop horde side.. free transfer to Alliance on that server).

but xfering off would still cost or faction change back to other side would still cost.
Plus people "MIGHT" xfer to join friends as well on that server.

"Nobody says no to free things"

When server reaches a set number of near balance. close off free Faction Change and Free Transfers.

That's such a stupid idea. Nobody says no to free things? Then explain why Blizzard says nobody takes the free transfers when they're open? Hm? Explain that. I can, very easily since I have logic and reasoning. Why the hell would anyone want to leave all their friends and a high population to go to some shit ass low pop realm with no people just because it's free? And when they decide they hate it they can't leave without paying money.