A Request

[Blayze]

Could somebody post the following on the official US forums, please? I'd be shouting into a void over on the EU forums, if it wasn't for the small crowd of players who seem convinced that my suggestions for improving existing battlegrounds--and attempting to counter the "zerg Drek"/"farm in middle"/"just let them win" mentalities is somehow me attempting to ruin battlegrounds for them.

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[Upgrading Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin]

At the moment, when in Alterac Valley I do not feel as if I absolutely must be fighting on the front lines--indeed, I have spent the majority of my time there defending and attempting to capture towers, as well as running supplies from the mines to facilitate my allies' respawning. For these actions, I was rewarded with a steady stream of Stormpike Guard reputation, which ensured I did not feel as if I was missing out--indeed, I was contributing to my team's success despite my woeful lack of decent Player Versus Player equipment.

Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin, by contrast, seem as though they could benefit from some changes--ones that would, I believe, reward players for seeking to complete objectives.

Warsong Gulch currently only offers reputation for flag captures--yet flag carriers do nothing but hide in their team's base while the rest of the team farms honour in middle. On the rare occasion that the stalemate is broken with a successful raid on the enemy flag carrier, the losing team immediately gives up--some type "/afk" and abandon the fight entirely, while others implore their teammates to "just let them win" so they can re-queue.

Arathi Basin too often--in my experience, always--ends with one team steamrolling their way into the other team's graveyard, whereupon they corpse-camp the respawning players until they win. This is never fair on the losing team, especially not those of us who seek to obtain reputation--in my case, the Horde are always the ones steamrolling the Alliance graveyard, which prevents us Alliance players from doing anything. Eventually, people will just refuse to queue up for Arathi Basin--at the moment many just leave immediately.

I have broached the subject on the official EU forums more than once, and each time I am met with scorn and defensive attitudes from existing Justicars and Conquerers, who feel as if I am not allowed an opinion until I have achieved the title. Indeed, they seem to share a common belief that wasting endless half-hour periods in Warsong Gulch watching the teams farm honour and force a pointless stalemate--not to mention the 'joy' of being steamrolled by every Horde team that reaches our graveyard in Arathi Basin--somehow makes the eventual acquisition of PvP titles 'worthwhile'. They believe that I will share their opinion if I ever do manage to grind my way to Justicar--yet somehow, I don't think I will. Perhaps it's this damnable sense of perspective.

I consider their opinion to be--at best--idiotic and at worst self-delusional. It is my opinion that they are attempting to justify to themselves the hours (Days? weeks? Months?) they wasted in two battlegrounds that are in dire need of a tune-up, struggling against overwhelming odds and trying desperately to persuade the honour farmers to do things properly, hoping against hope that this time--THIS TIME--they would get one of the one thousand plus flag captures required to push them ever-so-slowly towards Exalted. Even at its craziest, Insane in the Membrane was never this bad--regardless of how unlucky you were with random drops, you could earn the currency required to buy something from the Auction House, which meant you were *always* progressing towards your eventual goal. Not so with the PvP factions.

This begs the question: How *do* you get those who only seek honour to play properly? I have a number of suggestions--which, to my mind, involve upgrading Warsong Gulch and Arathi Basin to Alterac Valley's level of quality.

First, Warsong Gulch. At the moment, reputation is earned only through flag captures--which hardly ever happen, as players are too fixated on the task of farming honour in the middle. Aside from hiding the flag, hardly anybody ever defends either--which leaves the flag rooms devoid of purpose for much of the battle.

Reputation and bonus honour gains for killing flag carriers, at the very least, would provide players with an incentive to break flag-hiding stalemates. But why stop there? Reputation and bonus honour for killing enemy players in the flag room--or in the entire base, for that matter--would also help persuade more players to defend the flag and take at least some of the honour farmers away from the meat grinder that is the middle of the map.

Second, Arathi Basin. Reputation gains for certain levels of points are all well and good--when you're the side that always wins. For the rest of us, Arathi Basin is almost as bad as Warsong Gulch, not least because once the Horde enters our graveyard, it's all over--the rest of the battle for us is nothing more than respawning to be ganked repeatedly. That isn't fun at all, and there's nothing we can do to stop it.

While terrain reworking--such as a cliff face with no way up--might be the only way to prevent enemy players from entering our graveyard, it isn't as if Arathi Basin is a hopeless cause. There are still upgrades that can be made--solutions to problems too easily ignored with dismissive claims of "It's fine as it is." The situation is only fine if you're the side that always wins.

How, then, can Arathi Basin be fixed? Simple. We might not be able to win, but at least we can have some glimmer of hope other than praying that we somehow scrape together 160 points before we get corpsecamped to death. Reputation and bonus honour gained for base assaults and defences would provide those of us who always lose with a way to obtain at least a nominal number of guaranteed points, as well as hopefully pulling the honour farmers away from our graveyards in favour of claiming and reclaiming bases.

Reputation and bonus honour could also be offered for staying until the end of a battleground, perhaps scaling depending on how much time you had spent in said battleground--helping both to keep players from just abandoning the fight by typing "/afk" and also going some way towards preventing cases of "just let them win" and "zerg Drek". I know I, at the very least, would play more battlegrounds if I knew I was guaranteed at least one point of reputation for taking part--a single point of guaranteed reputation is infinitely better than having to fight against my own team's constant refusal to work towards objectives in favour of farming honour.

Oh, and before anyone complains: Yes, I want Justicar--but no, it is *not* fine as it is. You have merely deluded yourselves into believing that it is, as you have not seen the level of quality these battlegrounds *could* have.

[EviLolita]

If cliffs where added to the graveyards in AB yes, it would stop the opposing faction from killing you as soon as you rez. However, it would turn AB into Eye of the storm. The opposing faction will just camp at the bottom of the cliff waiting for you to jump down.

[Blayze]

At the very least, however, it would allow the team being camped the change to regroup instead of being killed off one by one.