Rated BGs aren't that popular lately, are they?

[Sithalos]

The only people who run RBGs are fly hackers.

[Caolela]

Yep - fly hacks, kickbots, ddosing, carries, pilots, wall hacks, you name it. It's a cesspool and Blizz lets it happen with the rare ban that basically does nothing. The cheats just buy another acct., get the 90 boost and are running again in a couple days.

[Deleted]

If they allow them for the money, have they determined if it's a bigger loss to ban them than alienating other players? I won't discuss the ethical issue since they would be in the wrong there anyway according to most definitions.

[Caolela]

^ If I had to guess, I'd say Blizz must know it's too far gone now, so perhaps they're banking that players who like PvP will go over to HotS and OW.

They most certainly have the stats on former WoW PvP'ers that are now playing their other titles, and how that shakes out profit-wise.

[Furious Spoon]

I think the cheating is starting to drive more people away. Last season I got to 1750 and only fought a handful of cheating teams, maybe 5 or 6. This week I've gone against 4 botting lock teams and I just hit 1620.

[Caolela]

Yep, it's been driving people out for quite awhile.

And the pathetic part is most of the few-and-far-between bans Blizz has done have been Honorbuddy bots, and their lawsuits have been against HB. Why? Because many HB users are gold botters which Blizz sees as hurting their profits, so that's who they go after most.

[Saverem]

Same reason why we have 20 man raids now instead of 40 man.

It's infinitely easier to find 3 good people than 10+.

[goblingirl]

I like BGs in general and I *should* have liked RBGs. But the combination of being forced to play with toxic ***holes ON MY OWN TEAM, against toxic ***holes on the other team, doing the things that toxic ***holes do, combined with the endless variety of hacks and the craptastic ratings system, made me drop RBGs a long long time ago.

[Caolela]

I like BGs in general and I *should* have liked RBGs. But the combination of being forced to play with toxic ***holes ON MY OWN TEAM, against toxic ***holes on the other team, doing the things that toxic ***holes do, combined with the endless variety of hacks and the craptastic ratings system, made me drop RBGs a long long time ago.

You hit it right on the head.

Even if you somehow manage to scrape up a team of non-douchebags and punkasses, you still have to run the gauntlet of most likely cheating on the enemy side. If in the rare match that there are no cheaters on either side, you still have the utterly ridiculous and highly frustrating MMR system, which is basically lose all you gained in 3 or 4 wins with just 1 loss. That keeps you grinding like a mindless drone which extends sub times for Blizz.

[stydpk]

The state of RBGs are at its worst at the moment. Thats one of the reasons you cant see higher ranked people in ladders. Sure MMR is a thing but you cant see people with 2.5k/2.6k ratings anymore due to the state. Reasons for this are;

As others mentioned it, constant cheating. You can run into a flying flag carrier, kickbots, dotbots (reapplying every single dot whenever they are about to fall off or got dispelled) etc. Another thing is DDOS attacks. People are doing crazy stuff do obtain enemy teams' IP's in order to DDOS them during matches. It is a well known and also commonly used method in RBGs.

Secondly, due to the lack of people in ladders, most of the higher ranked teams has their own "farm teams". This means every 2.2k teams has their own 1.9k teams to farm. The queue times get longer at higher ratings and most people dont want to spend their 25 minutes running into a HOTA team. So those top groups get matched with 1.9k-ish grups and farm them all day for 2 to 10 rating points. For this reason, there is also a "cap" on rbg ratings. Not obligatory if you are planning to run more games at higher ratings. But as I said, you'll get 2 to 10 points every single game, which makes it harder to climb up on the ladder.

And another thing is, people tend to get their weekly 3 wins and leave. Noone is aiming to push rating (there will be groups, but these are quite rare past 1.8k). When you start pushing from 1.7k etc. you'll face and also team up with gladiators, hota/hoth players. This is a good thing because the games are much smoother and funnier, not to mention they are also intense because everyone knows what to do and the fights are turning into "who does better, gets the pie".

Last but not least, people are bored easily. For example we have formed a nice group with 2.4k experienced players. During the games, we faced with lower teams (due to current MMR). It is like playing a full premade bg against a full bot team. After 5 wins and people getting to 1.6k, everyone wanted to push more up to HOTA cut off. Though everyone was excited and planned more rbgs for the following night, most of them didnt want to join when we were inviting the team on the next night. Most of them had silly excuses or some "IRL" stuff to do. This is mainly because everyone on the team already had their HOTA title. Current problem with the RBGs is, they are not rewarding the players like arenas do. No temporary titles, no mounts, no excitement at all.

Finally, we are hoping for Legion to bring some action back to RBGs. It is probably the least played aspect of the game, even less than pet battles (I find pet battles amusing but compared to ranked arenas/skirmishes and random BGs, RBGs are the least preferred PvP aspect in this game). And having the same teams, same people on the ladder up on the higher ranks will surely burn people out and most of them will also probably quit running RBGs and will cause the RBG community to die off. Sure, new people, or lower rated people will get their ranks and places but it will not last too long, considering we are also having a new and nice feature called "prestige system".

[PrairieChicken]

RBGs were never popular

[Sencha]

Join a PvP guild. You won't get higher than 1.6k with a pug RBG.

[Deleted]

Join a PvP guild. You won't get higher than 1.6k with a pug RBG.

As an RBG/PvP Guild leader - this most certainly helps. A steady team is easier to be succesful with!

[Caolela]

Current problem with the RBGs is, they are not rewarding the players like arenas do. No temporary titles, no mounts, no excitement at all.

This is something I've had a problem with for a long time. Never understood why Blizz wouldn't wipe RBG titles each season like arenas and give incentive to get them again. It's such a no-brainer. OTOH, maybe they realize that would just encourage cheating and asshattery all the more to get Marshall/FM, etc. Who knows, but they've certainly made a mess of it.

Unfortunately, the other points you raised are true as well.

[Deleted]

The Russians have played a big part in ruining pvp and that includes RBG. Blizzard bans people who even mention this, there are literally hundreds of thousands of negative comments on this issue.

[Lochton]

I want to try some newb groups to start practicing on them but on a busy hour EU I can only see 7 or 8 listed. That's very disappointing for a big game like WoW. In raiding I was used to hundreds of listings.

Some people use different ways. Either by listing with WoW's system, with a website, with trade, or seeking from people they have played with before. Our team runs mostly with selecting people from Real ID

[Jwowwxoxo]

[QUOTE=Hannibalbarca;37770543]
"Sigh, I only see bitching and moaning from noobs who should learn to play before crying here."

Noobs or not, do you actually think it's enjoyable to have to play against botters, flyhackers, flag bots, etc? It's embarrassing that people actually have the mindset you have. Yes these teams are beatable but it is extremely difficult.



I have raidlead two teams to 2400 cr, and got 2600 when pushing with my old guild, we met a lot of these cheaters, and crushed them mostly.

Yes and I would be willing to bet anything members of your team used kickbots or some cheat

[Deleted]

rbgs are and always have been dogshit imo

never could get into them, it's just a boring pve fight for the most part with far less personal skill than arenas

[Deleted]

Some people use different ways. Either by listing with WoW's system, with a website, with trade, or seeking from people they have played with before. Our team runs mostly with selecting people from Real ID

That's same for raiding though.

[KillerKm8]

Do some research on Robert "Bobby" Kotick, you will see that the only problem with pvp is it costs more money than Pve. No pvp is more short term profit. This guy is known for killing franchise games. Shame all that money I was paying for the game was not to improve it, but to buy candy crush, a rip off of bejewled that I play sometimes when I am on the can. There is no hope for the game