New BGs would be pointless?

[SteveRocks]

So earlier there was a bit of an exchange between me and another forum goer that sparked my curiosity. I had made mention that if you were a serious PvPer that perhaps it was time to find a game that catered to you better. Simply because PvPers hadn't received a new BG since MoP and it felt like Blizz had stopped developing for PvPers in my mind.

Granted I am a casual PvPer now. Haven't been serious about since vanilla. Even then it's not like I hit High Warlord, I did not. Anyhow the response I got to my state was this.

"Who says PvP needs anything new? Oh that's right, the casual player or PvEr that doesn't actually do any PvP. PvP is about the player vs player interaction not "new things". Sports are the same thing every year, i don't see athletes and fans quitting because they don't get "new things".

So out of curiosity I wanted to ask the PvPers here if new BGs are important to you at all and if so how important?

I PvP pretty consistently with my main thing being rated battlegrounds. I would not mind seeing a new battleground every once in a while but I am 100% content with the ones that we have. I've been playing for 11 years and I'm still not tired of WSG so I guess it's a matter of preference.

[Deleted]

They could add some CTF bg like frozen lake or something, changing shape of map with one shot mechanic when you stay on thin ice. Fun.

[Deleted]

I don't like the ones after TBC, they seem to gimmicky to me. Don't really want new ones, or changes to the good old ones (still want my old av back ._.)

[Deleted]

I wouldn't mind new CTF or Arathi style maps, but I don't want more stupid vehicle or pve maps like AV/IOC/SOTA. I wish I could block those 3.

Also happy we're getting new arenas, I like them.

[Krieger]

PvP is about the player vs player interaction not "new things".

This precisely. While new battlegrounds and arenas are always a nice edition, and fun to mess around with and learn new strategies, they are not very high up on the list of what rated PvP players actually want. Think DOTA or Counter Strike. They have used the same maps for high-level competitive play for more than a decade.


Personally, as someone who plays high-level PvP, I love the current battlegrounds in the rated rotation, and am not opposed to seeing new ones added every now and then. Same with arenas, however I would prefer the PvP team at Blizzard to focus on other aspects of the game first.

[ItachiZaku]

WSG as a 40 vs 40 without the dumb flag shit.

Oh wait, that's the new Ashran. Fuck yeah!

[Deleted]

Lets say you used to play WoW, maybe you quit in Cata or MoP or whatever. And you go on Twitch or Youtube and you search for wow pvp, just to see what was up. And lo and behold, you see the same maps that you played on years ago.


That just looks bad for numerous reasons. It makes it seem as if PVP does not matter to them, which, lets face it, it does not. Its low on the priority list. As if the game abandoned it and its just there because Blizzard felt some pity for players who enjoyed it.


There is no comparison to be made with a MOBA that uses the same map or CS that uses well known maps. Because there is already the sentiment that Blizzard does not care about PVP, its secondary at best. Nobody believes Valve or Riot puts competitive play secondary in DOTA or League or Counter Strike, yet with Blizzard and WoW that is precisly the sentiment.


They have failed from the start of this game to send the message that PVP in WoW was important to them. That it was a huge pillar of the game. As such that has reflected the amount of people who take it seriously. Its not a coincidence that streams of Arena 3v3 are far lower than most competitive games, so are the rewards. Very few give a shit.

[tanksin the enhance shamy]

a new bg would be good, or at the very least upgrade the graphics on the current ones

- - - Updated - - -

give us tarren mill back!!

[Golden]

PvP is about the player vs player interaction not "new things". Sports are the same thing every year, i don't see athletes and fans quitting because they don't get "new things".

I would like to see multiple cosmetic maps for each existing BG.

While I may not get tired of PvP itself, I do get tired of hanging out in the same area all day long.

Part of the reason why I played Quake and Unreal Tournament for 5+ years was because there was a constant stream of new maps added. The game play never changed, but the new maps made the game feel new.

[ShiyoKozuki]

We need less BG's, not more. It's time to delete shit BG's essentially no one likes to play like IoC and fix BG's like AV to be good again(it's good right now, always keep the npcs strong like it is now).

Over the years we've had too many shit BG's added and forced random queue to the point where you get an unfun bg 95% of the time. On top of this, all rewards are frontloaded into winning and trying to do objectives/win bgs generally isn't fun, especially in pugs.

[salovia]

I mean hes right. It doesnt really matter because the sport wont change whether you add in a new bg or not

I disagree. Rules of athletic sports don't change, but maps and objectives for battlegrounds definitely require adaptation. In battlegrounds there are two competitions happening: 1. Player vs Player, 2. Team Objectives. If your team can't win in straight PVP, you can make a difference in the win/loss by playing the objectives. That is really fun to me and is the reason I love playing random BGs. By adding new BGs with new objective types or even just new maps, you are adding complexity to the Objective game, even if the PVP game remains unchanged.

Even adding more CTF maps adds opportunity for how to win, for example in randoms as FC:

WSG:

- carry along the fence to buy time/survive
- play with Z axis from tunnel/flag room/roof

TP:

- use water as slows/peels near horde FR or mid map
- run near your GY as horde and risk getting knocked off (reward being catching respawns)
- play with 'edge' of dock or edge of alliance platform (knock offs, escapes if you have a slowfall/fall avoidance)

EOTS:

- so many edges...
- the cap location changes! be safe and cap at your tower or be aggressive and take an enemy tower
- focus on taking flag from EFC, vs playing defense or offense in WSG/TP


etc.

Those are just some of the ways that even though the PVP is the same, multiple maps of the same type can have lots of different ways of playing the game.

[Alydael]

I would like to see a new BG, but only if it was significantly different from the current ones. I do think they could add weather, day/night and seasons to all the current maps to offer some variation (summer AV! or Autumn in WSG). I would also like to see them reconfigure WG, TB and Ashran into BGs and for them to bring back the Tarren Mill v SS every now and again.

If they did all that, I think it would satisfy most people (actually I am sure some people would still complain).

- - - Updated - - -

I believe Blizz did mention doing something like the mythic keystone effects for pvp, if the keystone idea works out.

[Daymanmb]

New BGs/Arenas are meaningless for my enjoyment of PvP. The competition matters, not so much where the competition takes place imo.

[Kagthul]

I would like to see a new BG, but only if it was significantly different from the current ones. I do think they could add weather, day/night and seasons to all the current maps to offer some variation (summer AV! or Autumn in WSG). I would also like to see them reconfigure WG, TB and Ashran into BGs and for them to bring back the Tarren Mill v SS every now and again.

If they did all that, I think it would satisfy most people (actually I am sure some people would still complain).

- - - Updated - - -

I believe Blizz did mention doing something like the mythic keystone effects for pvp, if the keystone idea works out.

I agree that seasonal updates to the Zones would be great.

I also agree that AV, IOC, TB, and WG should be re-configured (and maybe Ashran) into a separate 40v40 queue. Longer games = larger rewards per game, but make it equitable with doing lots of quicker games.

Then... like the "keystone" effects for PvP - or how RIOT does it - occasionally offer a remix or alternate game type (like ARAM, All-for-one, etc) just to mix things up, in its own queue.

[Atelniar]

So out of curiosity I wanted to ask the PvPers here if new BGs are important to you at all and if so how important?

I am a casual PvP'er in WoW, and has been since Vanilla ended. The main problem with WoW was that while you had a system in place for everyone in Vanilla, it was so grind-heavy that it makes anything else look pale in comparison (within the context of WoW, be it PvP or PvE). It wasn't really about skill so much so as time spent. And it got borderline insane at the end.

Switch to TBC and the overarching realm-consistant ranking system was replaced with battlegroups and a system aimed at the most competetive faction of the playerbase. The problem is that this PvP system has been in place for almost 10 years up until season 3 in WoD and never truly had any large changes other than personal ranking being introduced at some point, in Cataclysm?

Think a bit about that. We had a PvP system aimed at primarily the elite in terms of balancing, where only one third of the deathmatch system it was founded on was truly close to being balanced. Do anyone realise how tiny the userbase is then? How little it changed over a decade and how it failed to truly become an esport due to the very nature of WoW's combat being utterly confusing for a viewer. It was so dependant on good commentary to truly catch the interest of a viewer that it died off in popularity. It shows in the sense that PvP videos made by a good player still is interesting, because you have his perspective in a much better sense than any commentary could re-interperet. MOBA's (LoL) and RTS (Starcraft) have a top-down perspective, it is a very different beast to sell to an audience.

Arena was a failure. They were aimed at a small fraction of the potential playerbase of PvP'ers with little to no content outside of grinding low-tier rare gear to be ready for arenas.

The new system address this flaw, and as such PvP seasons need to be re-thought. That they come in shorter intervalls is a good thing. Another thing they could do is make the accessible maps rotate based on seasons. Have 3-4 BG's on a rotation each season:

Season X:

• WSG (flag oriented)

• AB (capture/resource oriented)

• AV (larger scale capture/resource oriented)

Season Y:

• TP

• EotS

• IoQ

An option here is to make it four per season and make one BG available for excluding. Only one. That way players could avoid AV/IoQ if they so desired. Let me give an example, below.

Season X:

• WSG

• AB

• SotA - Ticked off as excluded, resulting in WSG, AB and AV being the chosen set-up.

• AV

By doing this you shorten queue times and still allow for some player choice in terms of avoiding specific types of BG's. But it also keeps seasons relevant and different. The meta would change depending on the maps in terms of class-set up. Of course, it means you wouldn't be able to do WSG 24/7, but if you kept seasons short enough it wouldn't be a problem. It would be comparable to the old weekly BG bonus week in Vanilla WoW. It also allows Blizzard to take maps out of the rotation and tweak them on a season to season basis. Or spend time developing new maps which won't become redundant.

[Deleted]

I think that you do not need additional BGs. What keeps competition in sports alive is that people a) get better consistently (it's not about how good you can be on your A+ day but about how consistent you are (like Novac Djokovic on the ATP Tour in 2015 ^^)) and b) that they find new ways to do things.

If you'd ask me what I want to change in WoW PvP I would just like them to take what they have and try to find improvements overall and since that is what they are trying to do I'm quite happy with the development of PvP overall. However, before someone kills me about the history of bad pvp developments: If you want to play e-sport get an e-sport title (e.g. StarCraft 2 or a MOBA) which is designed for competition. WoW tries itss best but one always has to realise that you need it is a team game and that WoW cannot be balanced on 1v1s or solo queues (random battlegrounds ^^).

[Gr1mdark]

I would say they could remaster the old ones.
Just take a look at cataclysm, where the mighty Deathwig destroyed so much land.
SO why are AB and WSG still the same?

They could simply change something in the map itself. Add some obstacles and stuff.
Keep the goal the same, but give us something new to learn and see on the maps we run for already 10+ years.

[thilicen]

a MOBA-style BG and a 100% deathmatch BG where the first team to get x amount of kills wins. Those would really buff my interest in BGs.

[inxi]

My personal opinion is that if they decide to add more BG's then we need more blacklist slots. As a pvp-only person I despise pve elements in BG's so I ban out IOC and AV always, but that leaves Strand open and I hate every second of that bg whenever it pops for me. Having at least a third blacklist slot would ensure people like me could only que for PvP-centric BG's and leave out the zergfests/vehicle ones we don't like.

More than new bg's though, I feel first prio would be to update older BG's - textures in AV/WSG are horrible and none of the elements block LOS. It's super annoying if you play a melee and the enemy team can nuke you through all the huge trees and whatnot in those battlegrounds.
LOS blocking would add a nice layer or outplay/kite potential for all classes. WSG textures are quite optional, but they do look like puke by todays standards

[Atelniar]

a MOBA-style BG and a 100% deathmatch BG where the first team to get x amount of kills wins. Those would really buff my interest in BGs.

That could actually work. Take for instance 200 kills as a margin, yea? Healers are relevant as they keep people alive, so are tanks as they while not as potent as before the template system still have better survivability vs. many opponents. And with the new template system you could easily buff or nerf tanks/healers/random dps who are overperforming.

The issue is: how many players should it be balanced on, and how large should the map be? If it is small, like arena, it would largely favour the team with the most healers and higher survivability, but less mobility. If it is too large it would favour feral druids and rogues far more, for instance. If it has different levels of height (like AB) DH's would be able to do some insane shit.

There's always going to be a balance issue, but templates make it a lot easier to tweak numbers, at least.

But I ask you: how many kills? How big a map? How many players?

Too many players means too risky in terms of uneven matchups. Too small a map means it's just another kill zone arena with more players, but with respawns?

- - - Updated - - -

My personal opinion is that if they decide to add more BG's then we need more blacklist slots. As a pvp-only person I despise pve elements in BG's so I ban out IOC and AV always, but that leaves Strand open and I hate every second of that bg whenever it pops for me. Having at least a third blacklist slot would ensure people like me could only que for PvP-centric BG's and leave out the zergfests/vehicle ones we don't like.

More than new bg's though, I feel first prio would be to update older BG's - textures in AV/WSG are horrible and none of the elements block LOS. It's super annoying if you play a melee and the enemy team can nuke you through all the huge trees and whatnot in those battlegrounds.
LOS blocking would add a nice layer or outplay/kite potential for all classes. WSG textures are quite optional, but they do look like puke by todays standards

Which would randomize what kind of BG's would be elected even further and make queue times even longer during stale periods such as in WoD, remember those 45 minute queues?

Yea, no, just asking for more blacklist options won't work. It's not hard to realise why Blizzard only opts for 2 as it is. But it you made the BG's roll from season to season basis you would have more variety and more time for the developers to tweak the maps as they are not in the rotation for a month or so? Like in other PvP centric titles, such as World of Tanks.

That way you could suffice with one blacklist option, not two.