Does any one else actually prefer normal bg's to RBG/Arena?

[Deleted]

I must be a bit of a freak but I massively prefer normal bg's.

My reasons:

Time. At 90 the que is always under one minute. You can be
waiting around for an hour trying to get an RBG group together.

Can't use cool stuff. Just entered an RBG for the first time in months.
I was just shocked at the amount of stuff you can't use. Timewarp-no.
Salynn battle banner (best item for mages ever)-no. Rocket boots
-no. Eye of insanity-no. Terracotta fragment-no. etc etc.
Those items are a major source of fun in bg's for me. They also allow
you to virtually twink the max bracket. It just felt really boring without
them.

Bitchiness-oddly, RBG's are more like LFR. In normal BG's you usually
get one or two people complaining about the rest of the team (even
though they have mysteriously low dps themselves. Easy to ignore.
The team I just played with actually quit about 2 mins into the game,
like it was a raid that wiped. Then two guys tried to split up the 10-man
team so they could lose twice as fast or something. Even in warcraft
I've never seen organizational chaos like that.

Lack of creativity: good RBG teams seem to be run on fascist dictatorshio
lines where everyone has a clear role. Sometimes I just want to do random
shit. For example, I've broken entire horde defensives by kiting the alterac
yeti into them at Balinda, but if you were to try that in an RBG you'd
probably get kicked when they saw you going off map.

Arena at the moment is kind of interesting with some matchups, but as a
mage I find it almost completely impossible to take down good healers. It seems
to be the way to win arena at the moment is roll a priest, hump a pillar
and wait for your opponent to die of boredom. This is always a problem with
play between experts in whatever game, they tend to end up using the same
strategies and it all becomes predictable.

Despite all this, I continually get hassled in normal bg's with people saying
"Why don't you have a rating blah blah blah your nuts I'm great more blah".
The simple answer is because I don't want to.

But, maybe I'm missing something. Obviously I would probably have better
experiences with the perfect PVP guild, but that seems fairly elusive. Any
thoughts?

What do you guys get out RBG/arena?

[Fatswagx]

I like RBGs/Arena because they give me a huge amount of Conquest points, and rating points which in turn raise my Conquest cap for the next week. I mostly play horde, so my BG queue time is most often VERY long (something like 55% to 45% Horde to Ally queue ratio). I like being competitive in Arena and RBG and getting the feeling that my skill helped my team outplay the other team, as well as communicating through voice and making a cooperative effort to best a team. Its like sports. I get a pretty good rush out of it, and I am sure that others do also. And in RBGs, if you "want to do random shit", that is normally a thing that would get you kicked from any group I normally run with. The leader of the battleground is like the brain, and the players on your team being the parts of the body. If you don't follow strategy/make decisions based on the words of your leader, then you will likely be a detriment to your team.

People who complain in RBGs/Queued BGs with low numbers themselves are normally people who are not confident or skilled enough to do well, and would easily love to shift the blame onto something other than themself. In an RBG teamfight, someone dying is normally a result of 7-8 mistakes all compiled onto one another. Something along the lines of healers not calling for dispel, DPS not CCing enemy team's DPS/peeling through their offensive burst CDs.

In addition to this, you mention things in the first portion of your post about some cosmetic/vanity items that cannot be used in RBGs. The inability for people to use these in rated PvP is mostly due in part to the fact that those are items that you need to farm for, and would create imbalance if they were allowed to be used. A player shouldn't feel like they're at a disadvantage because they didn't farm that ONE rare mob for that ONE OP vanity item.

[High Marshal Sigismund]

Well, I prefer normal BGs to RBGs. But I like arena the most.

[Tyrannica]

last time i liked normal bgs at all was during TBC, it sucked after that.

but if you enjoy to play with bots and sitting in random cc the whole time - each to their own i guess.

[asb]

I think the biggest thing you have to realise is that you're mostly comparing random bgs to tradechat/oqueue rbgs, which are basically the same thing as random bgs except people care about winning because higher-tier rewards are at stake. Honestly I'm not a big fan of random battlegrounds, but I'm still with you when that's the choice. This game is the most fun when you're playing with people you actually want to play with. I'm an arena player far more than anything else, but it's the people I play with that makes me enjoy it. I still have fun doing a dungeon or something when I'm playing with people I know.

As for the actual game mode, arena and rbgs offer something that I can't get out of a random bg--matchmaking. If you're a good player, you probably find random bg players are generally awful at this game. It's just not fun for me to fight keyboard turners that don't know what half their spellbook does. Some people like winning; I like a challenge. Thus it makes sense to focus on arena, where my opponents tend to be fairly competent because of the matchmaking.

Arena also holds the most potential for strategy in its combat. I think your perspective on it is partially from 2v2 being terribly balanced and partially from a lack of experience with it. It's very difficult for any spec to get a kill on any other spec when it's healer/dps vs. healer/dps. Even if you're a hundred times better than the other team it'll probably go deep into dampening because they'd have to mess up so badly to actually die. On top of that, killing the healer isn't even an option for most classes (mages inclusive). You and your partner need to cc healers whenever you can pull off big damage on his partner and go for a kill that way.

If rated pvp doesn't appeal to you in any way, there's no need to pursue it. However it sounds to me like you've barely gotten into it. If you're looking for possible advice, I'd just suggest looking for people to join you in your random battlegrounds. It doesn't have to be a guild or anything, but I really think friends make every aspect of this game far more enjoyable. If you find some people to play with regularly, it's an easy step to move into arenas someday to try something different. At that point, you might find it more entertaining. Either way, good luck. Have fun.

[Prag]

I don't like them, but normal BG's fit in my schedule. I haven't really engaged with many people since Cata so the few people on my friend's list sign on at random times, usually by then I've capped for the week via randos.

[Deleted]

Have fun.

A lot of truth there in a great post. I agree I would almost certainly enjoy it more running with a competent team, but as Prag says, scheduling issues make that difficult.

[AeneasBK]

I much prefer randmo BGs to ranked PvP.

[Bill Jenkins]

I prefer normal bgs but I also like arenas as well.

[Ogait]

I like Normal BGs when 50% of my team are not bots and when my team let me do my achievements and don't screw them over only for fun.

[Boricha]

Well, I hate arena, but I love RBGs and NBGs. I queue specific for normal Bgs all the time, since I don't really need honor on any of my characters. Of course you are always going to end up in situations where other people on your team suck or have bad gear or the enemy team is a premade. I almost never queue for the 10 man BGs anymore because of that, those 3 things mean so much more the smaller the team. I usually queue AB or IoC. I enjoy RBGs because it is usually a much more even playing field and close games are extremely fun. I just can't get into arena though. I hate small team/small map pvp, especially when with the current state of cc and burst.

[Sunnydruid]

I love random battlegrounds, I love grinding HK's and it actually helps me improve my gameplay by a lot. It helps me improve gameplay by making me handle certain situations which would normally be deemed unfair (1v2, 1v3 and 1v4). It usually takes me about 2-3 weeks to completely understand a class inside and out if I just play that ONE class through random battlegrounds.

Rbg's are really fun as well, however starting out if you have never rbg'd before is sort of rough. This is especially true if you are constantly getting into losing yolo rbg's. however after you get your rating to about 1200+ you can normally find an rbg group that takes it somewhat seriously. Than 1800 is where the real dedicated players come out and you can really go hard at it.

[Thelxi]

I like arenas and random BGs, never warmed up to rated BGs.

[Flutterguy]

While RBGs bring a consistent amount of skill, they tend to be mirrored strats and almost predictable. Some of the most fun I've had in BGs has been in normal largely due to the higher chance of comebacks, some miraculous than I tend to see in RBGs.

[zenga]

I enjoy the battleground maps way more than the arena maps. But RBG's at higher rating are for a large part not that different from an actual pve raid.

For me the ideal solution would be 5v5 rated wsg, temple, eots and gilneas.

[Vathius]

BGs are fun because you are hardly CC'd.

but in a nutshell

1) If you are CC'd someone will break it
2) If you try CC something, someone will break it so you stop trying. thus you focus on point 3
3) You spend all your time trying to see big yellow numbers and how high you can get them
4) If your are stunned you generally die but are back in the fray again in less than 30 seconds.
5) BGs are all about how many healers there are ( usually )
6) If you're a healer you take delight in trying to see how long you can survive vs a whole team of uncoordinated lower geared players

[Captain N]

Back when I played my Guild would do Random BGs in PvE gear. It wasn't hard to keep a Prot Warrior Flag Carrier alive in WSG when he's being flanked by a Holy Paladin and Discipline Priest. It was good times...and I'm sure quite frustrating to Horde Teams.

[Deleted]

I like random bgs and arena, rbgs not so much.

Most people dont like random bgs because they dont pvp for fun, they play for carrot on the stick.

[Skarssen]

Sometimes randoms are more fun than RBGs, sometimes far worse.

Having two really even RBG teams, where nothing dies, no team is able to make a push, and nothing happens.....isn't fun at all imo. On the other hand getting into a random where your team is spread all over the map and no one is doing what is necessary to win isn't fun either. Neither is trying to kill a flag carrier with 3 healers spamming him and no chance to keep 1/2 of them CC'd with uncoordinated attacks and random AOE everywhere.

And I will never do arena again. Tired of chasing mistweavers and resto druids around pillars for 10 minutes, or facing the current FOTM comp 10 times in a row.

[Deleted]

Personally, I despise arenas. While I do run my guild's RBGS we do struggle against organised comps, guardian druid carriers, and kotmogu showing up nearly every queue (hate that BG) its a lot of stress.

Standard BGs are more relaxed and fun allowing people to just chill and enjoy themselves.