Mechanics like Tol Barad/Wintergrasp still unfair for the low populated side?

[pokiemokie]

Allow me to explain my situation:

I am on a server which has a (plus minus) 1:4.5 A:H ratio. Mind you, there are plenty of servers that are in the same position as mine (or the other way around, where there's a lot more alliance than horde). The 'new' system is working out fairly well, teams are balanced, TB goes back and forth.

Now the real issue: Due to the low activity on the alliance side, there's hardly any ppl playing at night (I did a /who 85 just now, showed up 31 people). Earlier this evening we were able to take back TB from the horde, which is getting harder and harder to accomplish. However, the last battle, there was only me in Tol Barad. I thought 'oh fun, I get to one versus one some', apparently that wasn't the case. I asked a friend on the horde side to do a /who Tol Barad and he answered that there were 5 players present (ofcourse, exluding Tol barad Peninsula). There is no way for me to defend against 5 players.

I know there will be people saying "well what do you expect, that you'll get some free honor because your side only shows up to the battle with 1 person in it's army?". Yes, I actually do expect that, at least then there's a status quo. We all know how easy it is to defend TB and how hard it is to regain control of it (obviously). Imagine having won Tol Barad for once, at 8pm. And notice your efforts were in vain because the next day it'll be reset anyhow. And then you'll be on the losing side again, until you get lucky and get a horde team that sucks ass.

I'd like to know your opinions on the matter, if you respond please add what kind of server you are on. Horde population > alliance? etc etc.

Thanks.

[Will]

There is only so much that Blizzard can do to try and ensure balance - any imbalance that persists beyond reasonable limits is completely moot because there's nothing we can do to change it.

Point is, when it boils down to a team having a single person on it, that isn't the fault of the battle design - that would be the fault of the (lack of) players who sign up for it.

While I understand your concern that, say, if 1 alliance joins the battle, that perhaps it should be limited to 1 horde too - but keeping things realistic here, that's far, far more unfair on the horde than it is on the single alliance player - why? because 5 people getting honour for investing their free time in the battle > 1 person getting honour. Better that it's unfair for one person at the expense of 5 others if you ask me.

Besides, any battle functioning at such low numbers of players, especially when it's a zone designed for large-scale combat, is going to be pretty boring anyway!

I really don't agree with your statement about any victory efforts being in "vain because the next day it'll be reset anyhow" - this makes no sense to me - it's not in vain because you won, and unlock the new daily quests? How about the honour for winning, or the self-satisfaction for winning, is that in vain?

Or: surely you can look at it from another perspective and say that the battle will ALWAYS be in vain because victory doesn't last - and if that's the case, why bother if it's all for nothing? Clearly it isn't in vain otherwise why would you do it?

*edit* having read the post below me I have to agree - these mechanics are, in actual fact, I believe a lot fairer on the low population side than they are on the high-population side. At least as long as you're not down to less than 5 players, apparently!

[coldbear]

This is the first time that Blizzard has ever had a built-in mechanic for each server's players to WANT to be on the underpopulated side so they can get in TB every day.

Need to give it a few months to see if people catch on and start doing what they did during the heyday of WG - which is transfer to the side that'll give them the best chance at Honor and gear. It's not much of an incentive but it's there.

Sure, there's a slight unfairness if a server is completely fubar'd population-wise (like yours) but hopefully enough people on the overpopulated side will get angry enough to see some transfers over the course of the expansion.

Good luck til then. If you want to speed up the process you can try to talk up how fast your TB queue is on your realm forum. Maybe someone will take the bait.

[Lebored]

How about instead of just complaining you offer a solution to fix the situation?
Buffs counterbalancing when one side outnumbers the other didn't work.
The forced even teams are creating it's own set of problems.

You seem to have identified a problem, wheres your fix?

[Will]

How about instead of just complaining you offer a solution to fix the situation?
Buffs counterbalancing when one side outnumbers the other didn't work.
The forced even teams are creating it's own set of problems.

You seem to have identified a problem, wheres your fix?

He identified the problem but wants to hear our opinions first. Why is your response so aggressive - are you easily offended? It's almost as if feedback from other people perceived even remotely like a 'complaint', however reasonable, sets certain people into automatic defensive mode.

Furthermore, why should someone who analyses a problem HAVE TO have a fix ready to present? It's perfectly reasonable to present a problem without having thought of any solutions - perhaps said individual isn't a good problem solver and is turning to others for advice... we shouldn't get all irate from the get-go when we barely know for certain.

Amusingly enough, I see you've come here to tell the OP off for not having a solution to the problem they've identified, and yet I don't see you coming up with any solutions, either, so don't be a hypocrite.

Bear in mind I highly doubt Blizzard are going to be taking feedback from here. If you want my opinion, tenacity is a terrible solution - In fact, as stated in my post, I barely see this as a concern. I wouldn't even consider this as needing addressing whatsoever at this moment in time. There are currently bigger fish to fry, such as the difficulty of attacking TB - and I fully trust Blizzard are handling it.

[pokiemokie]

(To make sure that everyone understands, I play on the alliance side, the underpopulated of the server)

I appreciate any input so far.

The only "solutions" I can think of is making it so that, if one side has less than 5 players they are unable to lose TB, but the other side gets the same amount of honor they would get for a win (this being 360 honor). But then again this could be exploited :/ The other one would be to "freeze" TB from 12 at night till 8 in the morning. The battles would still occur, except, even if the attacking side wins, TB can't be taken by the opposing force. Honor, reputation and commendations would still be handed out though.

I truly understand that they provided this solution to give low populated factions a chance to actually compete, and I am grateful for it. However, the issue still remains (even if it's on the "fubar'd" servers only). I think I might not have been too clear about what my real concerns are. Every night we lose TB, regardless of us having it to begin with or not. After the loss we are obviously unable to do the dailies, nor are we able to do BH -until- we win TB again. Which due to the way TB works now, can last up to a day or 2 (The record on our realm, as far as I know, is 4 days without a TB win). Which means we might not even be able to do the dailies inside the TB war zone itself for a whole day (or multiple days in a row), and thus miss out on rep/commendations.


I will try to lure some ppl over from horde but it shall be a difficult task. An even more difficult task though, will be having them join TB during the night.

Any more input is greatly appreciated, would love to hear the opinion of a player who's in the same boat as I am.

Edit: Don't worry Will, I played dota/hon for a while and am used to aggressive responses from certain members in a community (if you ever played either of those games you know what I mean). I don't easily get offended anymore.

[coldbear]

I don't think most servers are quite as population imbalanced as the OP's, and during off-peak hours the problem is ofc magnified.

You might think about trying to find a server that has peak times during the hours that you can play. Long time ago some guy in my raids apparently worked the night-shift in Russia... logged into an East Coast US server.

[Thallidomaniac]

I don't think most servers are quite as population imbalanced as the OP's, and during off-peak hours the problem is ofc magnified.

You might think about trying to find a server that has peak times during the hours that you can play. Long time ago some guy in my raids apparently worked the night-shift in Russia... logged into an East Coast US server.

There are realms which have even worser imbalances than the 1:4.5 that he mentioned. Mal'Ganis-US is ~1:20 A:H, Cho'gall-US is ~1:10ish A:H, and Silvermoon-EU is ~25:1 A:H.

[pokiemokie]

I have no issues with the population nor with the fact that there's hardly any activity at night. The issue is that every day (actually, night) Tol Barad's control gets reset to horde controlled.

I just hope Blizzard thinks of a TB fix soon (the one that makes it easier to attack), since that will make having to win TB everyday more bearable.

[coldbear]

Start keeping tabs on who is online late at night on your server - then a few weeks later you should be able to get a list of possible team-mates. Add trying to get people with the same schedule as you to transfer to your server - official forums, start a blog, get mentioned on wow.joystiq.com (wow insider) or do whatever you have to in order to social-network your way to more people on your faction at night.

Not easy but organizing things take time and is a lot like herding cats, which is why raid leaders and guild leaders end up like Sebudai:


click the clicky

good luck

[erebusman]

I'd like to know your opinions on the matter, if you respond please add what kind of server you are on. Horde population > alliance? etc etc.

Thanks.

I was on Arathor Horde side in which alliance won WG about 75% of the time.

I had an alt on alliance and realized the raiding environment was much healthier also so paid for a faction transfer and am much happier now.

You could pay for a faction or server transfer. Or just re-roll of course if your up to that.

I don't think given what blizzard "wants" for world PVP and imbalanced servers ..theres no way to 'fix that' its inherently broken - so move yourself out of it?