So I went Merc Mode to help Alliance in Korrak's Revenge

[Kaleredar]

It's a gear issue, for one. The vast majority of Alliance players are players leveling up. Meaning that their scaled gear is absolutely dreadful. Usually 4k-5k health. The max level character I did AV on is not exceptionally geared, and I go in with a scaled 7k~ health. As a DPS. And when things like "how sucessfully can you perform your role when fighting NPCs" is a major obstacle, gear itself becomes a problem.

Why might this disparity exist? Probably because the Horde know they can queue up as max level characters and actually win conquest and time-warped badges and all that stuff. While the only Alliance left doing it are those that try and AFK to level up.

If they wanted a "balanced" AV, they should put it in brackets... a bracket for players leveling up, and then a bracket for max level players getting scaled down to 60.

There are a few other issues as well. "The bridge" is not nearly as insurmountable of a barrier as Hordies who whine about AV on live make out, especially not compared to the layout of Frostwolf village, and ESPECIALLY when you factor in the NPCs actually providing a realistic barrier.

It's a straight shot from SPGY to the Aid Station, with the only real choke being the bridge itself... which the Horde respawns right on the other side of, without any intervention from Alliance NPCs. Not remotely the case for FWGY to RH; the distance is far, FAR larger, and has three chokepoints the horde can feasibly turtle up in. The layout of the village also allows horde NPCs to periodically path in and out of the area and respawn, meaning that people rezzing at FWGY periodically aggro horde NPCs in the intervening village.

And while most of these things wouldn't be issues, the dearth of geared players absolutely becomes an issue when it comes to turtles or trying to outzerg the enemy team.

[khazmodan]

Nah, it would be much better if when you join a random battleground you are randomly assigned to a side. Would make the matches more interesting for sure.

or base which side you are assigned to on your activity in the last one, with as close to a balance as possible.

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Ironically my very last Horde Korrak was several hours long, I went from 109 to 120...only one we lost, which is what made me try merc mode...I wanted to replicate that experience and did on my third game. Haven't ever since

Sounds like you loved it while you were leveling like crazy at the same time then when it was just for rng gear it lost most of its luster. Sounds like its good for alts and dead for everybody else...

[Shalaator]

or base which side you are assigned to on your activity in the last one, with as close to a balance as possible.

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Sounds like you loved it while you were leveling like crazy at the same time then when it was just for rng gear it lost most of its luster. Sounds like its good for alts and dead for everybody else...

Nah, I'm still trying to replicate it. Succeeded twice today as ally merc mode. I get a rush out from Ivus curbstomping horde. Especailly the destro locks that stand still thinking they can facetank him LOLOLOL

I've actually been declining RBG invites/whispers for my main. A korrak turtle gets me excited.

When Korrak's Revenge is gone I'll have to return to classic for the AV experience. Right now I prefer retail Korrak since I like retail abilities/flow for my healers.

I can't even imagine either horde or alliance trying to zerg in classic AV...healers would oom instantly.

[Doffen]

"Take portal to Org? Yes / Cancel"

:O

Mind blowing I know, I should be a dev.

Drusin for new game director!

[NoiseTank13]

I was always curious to see what the hell was stopping Alliance, every time I go in as Horde I look at the map, and like theres five Horde back at and around the base, not an Ally in sight near their base, yet the Frostwolf Towers just keep getting defended time and time again.

I can't believe 3 Horde can outplay 20 players.

[bowlink]

After hemoraging players for a decade. Their 3 types of alliance players left. The ones that delude themselves their isn't a problem and wonder why recruitment is so hard. The ones that know theres a problem but don't want faction for whatever reason. And people who really don't give a shit and try to make their own fun because blizzard doesn't care. Number 3 are the ones in AV.

[Rotted]

The Alliance understood long ago that levelling in Korrak is faster if they throw the match

Except its not.

[Zephire]

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I read this, and expected rage sooner or later. It never happended. Thank you for a very nice post and great observation Was a nice read.

The tower part was something I've not thought of, even though I defend myself quite often. Thank you for the information!

Don't know about the reward solution. It's about time. Reward/time. Usually people come to a silent agreement to do things like AV in a specific way, even if it means one side keeps losing. Because both sides lose if it takes to long time to complete. If you remove the loser rewards people might not even queue or leave as soon as they decide it's a lose. Instead of people fighting with tooth and nails to defend and turn it around they'll just leave. I might be wrong but this have been the truth troughout the history of WoW.

The double the rewards for merc would just mean all Horde plays as Alliance and all Alliance plays as Horde :P

I also want them epic long fun AV! Though I think it's extremely difficult to motivate people to play something a specific way. Just look at world PvP and how Blizzard have tried to make it a thing with capture points and other things in the world. As soon as one side starts losing, groups disband and shatter like snow in the wind.

If Alliance were smart the entire 40 man raid would just sit in the cave dancing and let the Horde win ASAP.

The bulk of your xp/hour in Korrak's with instant queues comes from the win/loss bonus at the end. The 3 or so % you get every minute you would still get, but there's no reason to extend the length of the BG by 5-10 minutes for another 30% when you can just lose and get 50.

People don't understand that though. Too much talk of "pride" and "fun"

Pretty much this. I don't agree with it but it's how it is played. I rather fight until the end, never surrendering. Not really something I can do in todays climate.

[Lime]

Hehe, well I see the funny parts about it. Happened to a guildie of mine. He got pissed, rest had fun :P

Yeah, it's just a little amusement at the expense of others in a mostly harmless fashion. In all honesty, it wouldn't even be bad if they did remove it.

[Polarthief]

I'll admit I'm a horde player who was merc-mode afking while leveling 14 110s to 120. My reason? Because I actually tried in my first games but it just felt pointless since all of them were major losses. So I stopped giving a crap. This causes more people to AFK and not care either, which just keeps causing a snowball effect that's even faster than the Alliance raiders switching to Horde. (13% of the top 100 guilds right now are alliance, FTR).

Was it shitty of me? For sure, but it was a lot healthier for my mental capability than actually trying-and-losing every single game anyways.

This overall results in quicker XP too since a quick loss is much better XP than a slow win (and much better than a slow loss, which would be the case if alliance actually tried). Horde has to sit through 20m queues and get rewarded with high win rates and AFK alliance. Alliance get instant queues so they get losses. I would not be surprised in the slightest if the majority of AFKing/Questing Alliance are actually Horde merc players leveling alts/getting their dailies done for badges.

I guess the problem is that when it's such an amazing method for XP, everyone will eventually cooperate in what's the most effective method at getting XP, and both factions have an unspoken method of cooperating, which is again, Alliance AFKing in their quick queues and Horde getting wins after suffering for 20m of not getting free passive XP. Had XP been extremely diminished, I'm willing to bet you would have a lot more people who just stay for the badges for the mount then leave, and then you'd eventually be left with people who actually want to PvP for the sake of just PvPing, and matches would be a lot healthier.

[Charge me Doctor]

Horde are tryhards who think PvP matters. Alliance don't give a shit. Have fun thinking anyone cares.

The way to fix PvP is to make it exclusively Horde. Find a way to make it Horde Sylvanas versus Horde anti-Sylvanas or something. Just let the idiot PvPers play against each other.

Except half of alliance players on korrak revenge are from horde

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Which is absolulely ridiculous.AV,especially this version of AV has a colossal amount of room for counterplay,yet people fail at one thing and just give up

It's not about winning, it's about leveling characters, people don't do korrak for fun, they do it to level their toons. One side has to lose, if one side loses quickly - everyone gets lots of experience, that's a modern gaming thing

[Flutterguy]

Except half of alliance players on korrak revenge are from horde

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It's not about winning, it's about leveling characters, people don't do korrak for fun, they do it to level their toons. One side has to lose, if one side loses quickly - everyone gets lots of experience, that's a modern gaming thing

This just reinforces the fact that BGs shouldn't give experience.

[Polarthief]

This just reinforces the fact that BGs shouldn't give experience.

XP is fine, but it shouldn't give so much XP that it's significantly better than every other leveling method for little to no effort, assuming you want people actually PvPing.

But hey, I'm fine with it. 14 level 110s to 120 in just a few days of AFKing.

[Shinrael]

*snip*

The portal thing needs to be removed, taking a portal shouldn't instantly kick you out from the battleground. There must be a workaround for that.

I played a total of about 15 AV games in desperate attempts to get the Anniverssary Event mounts as an Alliance Frost Mage. Out of those 15 games we lost 14 games and won 1. That single win we got was also the one single game where I decided "fuck it I will troll for fun atleast" and I placed all my portals over the Healthstones, the Questgiver NPCs and so on. In mere seconds our raid was down from 40 to 14 players. The poor souls got kicked out depriving them from any chance to express their rage or sadness, without any chance to warn the others or report me. And then the raid got filled with new players. Some more got Portal-tricked. And some more joined in. We started the game with 31 players but soon afterwards it refilled back to 40 with new players. And we utterly destroyed the Horde.

I guess I filtered out the idiots ^^

[Polarthief]

I guess I filtered out the idiots ^^

To be fair, if anyone is dumb enough to click on something covered by a portal, chances are they're very crap at PvP anyway.

[Incandio]

Have to agree with OP. I'm not really into PVP but have been doing a bit lately for Marks and levelling, on Alliance. The whining, the defeatism, the AFKers, the lack of communication, the AFKers, the AFKers... the mystery is why there are so many of these players on Alliance and so few on Horde. Personally I think in this day and age there should be the tech to detect AFK behaviour. Definitely there should be no passive XP gain from just your mere presence in a BG, that just seems insane.

[Polarthief]

Have to agree with OP. I'm not really into PVP but have been doing a bit lately for Marks and levelling, on Alliance. The whining, the defeatism, the AFKers, the lack of communication, the AFKers, the AFKers... the mystery is why there are so many of these players on Alliance and so few on Horde. Personally I think in this day and age there should be the tech to detect AFK behaviour. Definitely there should be no passive XP gain from just your mere presence in a BG, that just seems insane.

Another part of it is that on Alliance, you have no queue, while Horde has to wait 10-20m for a queue so they appreciate when they're in more (and a win makes it more worth their time). I mean, why AFK as Horde after waiting what can feel like an eternity when you can just have no queue on Alliance?

[Azerate]

You haven't really discovered anything groundbreaking. Alliance side in this BG favors powerleveling through afking, and so people are doing just that. Even the horde is queuing as alliance, because the queue times are 1-3 minutes as opposed to horde's 20-30 minutes at a time.

People should just give up trying to win Korrak's Revenge on Alliance and enjoy the free afk xp instead.

[Doffen]

To be fair, if anyone is dumb enough to click on something covered by a portal, chances are they're very crap at PvP anyway.

Even the mightiest PvP'er might click the health stone from the warlock just when the mage put a portal there. Accident's do happen.

I am not the mightiest nor have I clicked a portal in AV, but it's easily done if said situation happens.

[Shalaator]

I read this, and expected rage sooner or later. It never happended. Thank you for a very nice post and great observation Was a nice read.

The tower part was something I've not thought of, even though I defend myself quite often. Thank you for the information!

Solo tower defense vs solo bunker defense is night and day.

I have to choose entirely different talents on my rdruid for horde/ally if my goal is to spin a tower/bunker. Typhoon is very strong and reliable (with wild charge if I get knocked myself) for horde tower defense, but absolutely garbage for bunker defense.

The defensive choices also change dramatically as a result. Properity, renewal, soul, germ for alliance bunker defense; Cen Ward, wild charge, tree form, flourish for horde tower defense. Essences change as well. Seeds of Eonar for horde tower (goes good with in and out bear form swipe spin) and Artice for alliance.

I also need at least two other players when doing alliance bunker spin to cover me during cc's/stuns, since it's impossible to line at leisure, meanwhile lining at horde tower is natural and I know exactly when I'm going to be stuned/knocked/cc because of it (allowing me to mentally prepare to trinket/charge)

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To be fair, if anyone is dumb enough to click on something covered by a portal, chances are they're very crap at PvP anyway.

Really? Not long after writing this post I actually clicked a troll port. What happens is you see the soulwell behind you, you come back from making coffee and see the game just started (gates are open), you hastily click behind your character to grab the stones (really helpful as a healer btw since you get trained a lot) and there's a mage port JUST OUT of your camera view (under your action bar) with just a small portion of the port being present on your screen for you to click it instead.