Tol Barad Honor Change + Bridge Exploit, Jan 3 Hotfixes

[KCguy]

I dont get why they would change it back.. We can agree that 1800 honor was too much, but they shouldn't have nerfed so far down again.
Keep in mind that honor is only used as currency for the first tier of PvP gear, and as such, there's only so much that people should have to farm.
I mean really.. 2200 honor for a set part, 1600 for some slots and 1200 for the rest. If you add up a full set, it's gonna take VERY long to farm.

For my part, I really can't be bothered to farm yet another season of PvP gear. It's the same every season, except now it's even more stupid.
How I see it, it should be EASY to get the first tier of PvP gear. Not hard or boring - EASY! That way we would get to see more arena action, as alot of people would have access to the gear. For the good arena players, it wouldn't be too big of a hassle to get full Vicious gear, but it would for the bad players.
Just dont make the first, blue gear so boring to farm that you scare newcommers -or oldies away from the PvP scene!

Sorry for the wall of text.

PVP is meant to be a side thing. If it takes a long time it takes a long time. People are going to whine, but people are still going to play regardless.

[Deleted]

Going to fix the new drake mounts anytime soon? -.-

[Second]

PVP is meant to be a side thing. If it takes a long time it takes a long time. People are going to whine, but people are still going to play regardless.

I would really like to see your source of that. PvP is part of the game and adding arenas and now rated battlegrounds proves how much. The poster above have point in cost of pvp gear, it also doesnt drop from players when you kill them (as pve items do from mobs). So you should really rethink what you just said.

[Flixe]

PVP is meant to be a side thing. If it takes a long time it takes a long time. People are going to whine, but people are still going to play regardless.

A side thing? Pardon me, but I totally disagree.
PvP in WoW is by far the most competitive aspect of the game. You dont see major tournaments on "Who can kill this boss the fastest" - Atleast not in the same way as you do with PvP. In case you're wondering, I'm talking about Blizzcon etc.
Also, how can you go and call something a "side thing", when it's been a part of the game since like.. forever? Some people play WoW for the PvE content, others play it for the PvP content. And oh, some play the game to do both. **

And really, it's not about whine.

[Rahzael]

•Righteous Fury is now unable to be dispelled.

There goes my (mild) dispel fodder. As if it wasn't easy enough already to skillsteal.

[Spasme]

People complaining about the TB queue must be on the "winning side" when win-trading or the "defender side" when not win-trading. That's when most people like to queue for this broken BG.

Now that win-trading is over and one faction will hold TB mostly forever ( or until next fix ) , there's no reason for members of the attacking faction to join a 30min whack-a-mole game you can't win 99% of the time. If only 8 attackers join , only 8 defenders will get to participate. No one wins actually.

[jesy]

i certaintly wont be participating in any more TBs'

[aggression]

About archaeology fix or whatever. Says selecting nodes and digsites. But the only thing they do is to fix so that you never get a fragment dig that you cannot reach right? Or can you select a race you wanna farm or what? :S

[Thallidomaniac]

There goes my (mild) dispel fodder. As if it wasn't easy enough already to skillsteal.

And at the same time, it makes Paladins able to tank bosses that dispel buffs for a change.

[Kalcheus]

"About archaeology fix or whatever. Says selecting nodes and digsites. But the only thing they do is to fix so that you never get a fragment dig that you cannot reach right? Or can you select a race you wanna farm or what? :S "

I think what it means is that some of the dig nodes were outside the red area on your map, so if you looked at your map to determine where to dig next, you'd stop short of the node because you wouldn't think it'd be outside that area. Obviously if you followed your surveys you'd get it eventually, but I had a node in WPL yesterday that after I dug it up, I was told You Can Not Do That Here for the next survey (even though I had not completed all three digs at the site).

[Lazertrooper]

And at the same time, it makes Paladins able to tank bosses that dispel buffs for a change.

and what boss is this that dispel buffs? garr? you care about balance in soloable content? don't make me laugh.

the righteous fury change completely broke paladin pvp, not like it wasn't broken already.

i guess when it comes to blizzard, if it isn't fixed, break it further.

[Ceara]

Hurray! Now my faction can go back to losing every Tol Barad because we have half the people as the other side.

[aggression]

I think what it means is that some of the dig nodes were outside the red area on your map, so if you looked at your map to determine where to dig next, you'd stop short of the node because you wouldn't think it'd be outside that area. Obviously if you followed your surveys you'd get it eventually, but I had a node in WPL yesterday that after I dug it up, I was told You Can Not Do That Here for the next survey (even though I had not completed all three digs at the site).

Ah ok, that never happend to me. Not being able to dig at all. But I have had alot of surveys that was outside my reach. For those that don't know how to solve that, you just go dig in another site and then come back. And it should be solved. But seems it's solved with next update anyhow.

[drakonblayde]

It's the holidays and it's exactly why they shouldn't do such a change if they're not there to monitor it and fix a possible exploit.

You go out for holidays just to come back and find that everyone now has a huge gap in resilience compared to you that they shouldn't have for just one week. Great to start the year playing and get destroyed by even bad players that just "bridged" their entire pvp set and tons of resilience.

To fix it, Blizz would just need to apply a fix in line with the one they did for the arena exploit, but with a few extra stuff by using armory feed stats for gear obtained during this "1800 tarding festival" week and played time of each player for the week, calculating a average honor gain based on just BGs and 360 honor TB win and removing or disabling the gear they bough after the "max honor" they could have for the period. But they won't do it, of course.

There's really no reason they should go back and fix it. It wasn't like it was a data error that people exploited. They chose to make the honor gain 1800, while being fully aware of the bridge exploit. It'd not play well if they punished people for doing something when it was a change they made on purpose.

[Padwani]

Good.. Now I can stop hearing 'Why are we not trying to defend" then hear "because we want to loose it"

[Nekovivie]

Hurray! Now my faction can go back to losing every Tol Barad because we have half the people as the other side.

It's even teams. I don't know how you have half.

[Kurdiern]

A side thing? Pardon me, but I totally disagree.
PvP in WoW is by far the most competitive aspect of the game. You dont see major tournaments on "Who can kill this boss the fastest" - Atleast not in the same way as you do with PvP. In case you're wondering, I'm talking about Blizzcon etc.
Also, how can you go and call something a "side thing", when it's been a part of the game since like.. forever? Some people play WoW for the PvE content, others play it for the PvP content. And oh, some play the game to do both. **

And really, it's not about whine.

World Firsts are the Equivalent to tournaments. Competition to down the boss the fastest, with the winner getting glory and more sponsorships. I would say that competing with my first guild for server first rag was more competitive than any PVP I've ever done.

PVP has always been in WoW, but it wasn't until BC that people began to look at it seriously. There were those who would sacrifice hundreds of hours to get Grand Marshal, but the emphasis was very much of PVE. It was, until Arena, for the vast majority, a "side thing."

On topic, I could care less about the honor. I want the dailys and raid more. Tinkering with the honor has just done nothing more than unbalance PVP gearing even more now. All I want is Blizzard to for once, come out and say "Our bad guys, we apologize for this joke of an excuse for Cata PVP." Knowing them however, they'll sugercoat their words and twist it into something like "While the main focus and content was there, blah blah blah..."

Off-topic-ish also, but I'm really dissapointed with Blizzard and their attention to the community. They beat around the bush on way to many issues. Can I just get an acknowledgment you realize Hunter PVP is broken as shit, Blizzard? My daily BG shouldn't be something I have to mentally prepare for...

[Flixe]

World Firsts are the Equivalent to tournaments. Competition to down the boss the fastest, with the winner getting glory and more sponsorships. I would say that competing with my first guild for server first rag was more competitive than any PVP I've ever done.

It's in no way the equivalent to tournaments. Sure, you get sponsored, but a sponsorship isn't exactly the same as taking a 1st place at a tournament.
I guess I can agree that some of the really highend guilds get alot of glory, but you still dont see official streams featuring their first kills. There's no commentators or actual prices. Dont get confused.
Also, I'm sure that your server firsts was awesome for you guys, but let's face facts.. Unless you're from Ensidia or Paragon, no one cares. Except for the fanboys you generate on your own server.

PVP has always been in WoW, but it wasn't until BC that people began to look at it seriously. There were those who would sacrifice hundreds of hours to get Grand Marshal, but the emphasis was very much of PVE. It was, until Arena, for the vast majority, a "side thing."

I'm not here to tell you how you felt about doing PvP in Vanilla. I can, however, tell you that my team and I looked at it very seriously.
Personally, I got the same feeling when winning against other good premades from our server, as I do when downing a hard encounter. Perhaps not as intense, but the feeling is there. And it's an awesome feeling.

What I'm trying to say is, that even if you didn't feel that PvP was a big part of the game in Vanilla, it doesn't mean that other people share that PoV.

[Calaba]

As others have said, "awww man! i was away for the holidays, now i missed my free honor!!"

Anyway, yes TB is broken. The only time it reliably changes hands is in the middle of the night. Other than that, sometimes you'll see some top guilds trying to win it, but even then they sometimes fail, since they can't get 3 bases capped with their 15 players that got past the RNG.

Then again, it's no worse than WG was for a about a year, when you couldn't even get demos out of the vehicle shops before they'd die to random damage - they were designed to be killed by those doing 3k dps, not 10k dps.... So yeh, maybe they'll have this one fixed by next Xmas.

Possible fixes include:
- whichever side has most bases when the time runs out wins
- knocking down towers increases the attacker's damage / hp (like tenacity), which means defending the towers will have a purpose
- every time your side loses, your side gains 1 stack of tenacity until you win, then the stack is then reset - this makes sure TB changes hands now and then
- buffs to siege tanks when not deployed so they can kill defenders more (slight advantage to attackers)
- attackers cap bases twice as fast as defenders (this would probably be a bit OP but it would work)
- when each base is taken by the attackers, it stays taken. game eventually still turns into a turtle at the last base, but attackers only need to cap it once.
- those queued for TB for a certain length of time should get the honor / rep bonus when their side wins, regardless of whether they made it through the RNG. This will help those who are on badly balanced, or generally busy servers. No idea how you'd stop people exploiting it by just canceling if they get chosen though...

Oh, also, /cheer to alliance NPC changes. Honestly, it was getting silly how horde mobs could 2-shot you, but the alliance ones wouldn't bat an eyelid if 20 hordes were AoEing them...