The War Within 11.X Patches & World Soul Saga Speculation Thread

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Well, to be fair, they did implemented War Mode, which I believe it's the best thing they've done in many, many years. And the PvP became quite good back then, those endless battles at Nazjatar were beautiful. I spent hours doing WPvP there and it never got old.

War mode was bad. It further divided servers. You'd be out in the world seeing someone being jumped by Alliance. You would flag and jump in to help your buddy out. There used to be huge RP-PvP wars on Moon Guard where you'd see hundreds of players fighting, and you could flag and jump in. That doesn't happen now. PvE players never see PvP players, and vice versa. It's hard to have an RP-PvP event when PvE players can't witness the PvP and decide to jump in. You wound up seeing less PvP in War Mode because there were simply less players in that phase. There were some big battles during the first few weeks of BFA, and that was it, whereas the below pic happened a lot during the 14 month long SoO content drought:

[Makorus]

War mode was bad. It further divided servers. You'd be out in the world seeing someone being jumped by Alliance. You would flag and jump in to help your buddy out. There used to be huge RP-PvP wars on Moon Guard where you'd see hundreds of players fighting, and you could flag and jump in. That doesn't happen now. PvE players never see PvP players, and vice versa. It's hard to have an RP-PvP event when PvE players can't witness the PvP and decide to jump in. You wound up seeing less PvP in War Mode because there were simply less players in that phase. There were some big battles during the first few weeks of BFA, and that was it, whereas the below pic happened a lot during the 14 month long SoO content drought:

snip

War Mode was one of the best features they've added outside of fringe cases of slightly affecting RPers.

Just pretend fight lol

[Berkilak]

War mode was bad. It further divided servers. You'd be out in the world seeing someone being jumped by Alliance. You would flag and jump in to help your buddy out. There used to be huge RP-PvP wars on Moon Guard where you'd see hundreds of players fighting, and you could flag and jump in. That doesn't happen now. PvE players never see PvP players, and vice versa. It's hard to have an RP-PvP event when PvE players can't witness the PvP and decide to jump in. You wound up seeing less PvP in War Mode because there were simply less players in that phase. There were some big battles during the first few weeks of BFA, and that was it, whereas the below pic happened a lot during the 14 month long SoO content drought:

That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

[Nymrohd]

That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

That's because there is no objective to concentrate the action. When the Naz'jatar pvp weekly was up, the back and forth battles between the two bases was as epic as Tarren Mill vs Southshore battles. BfA PvP worked because
a) Conquest track made War Mode extremely rewarding
b) Invasions and Weeklies concentrated PvP combat in a few locations
c) The expansion theme pushed much of the community that would not normally PvP to try it

[Lorgar Aurelian]

That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

Warmode is literally just being on a PvP Seaver but you can now opt out if you get sick of dying, it’s just as organic or unpredictable as ot always was.

[Makorus]

That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

I mean, that's what PVP Servers were as well. "Opting in to ganking or being ganked".

Open World PvP has never and will never be a thing that happens organically.

[huth]

Warmode is literally just being on a PvP Seaver but you can now opt out if you get sick of dying, it’s just as organic or unpredictable as ot always was.

Which was never very much. People fought at well known choke points. Outside of that, not much happened. Nothing "unpredictable" about that.

[Berkilak]

I mean, that's what PVP Servers were as well. "Opting in to ganking or being ganked".

Open World PvP has never and will never be a thing that happens organically.

I suppose that was their destiny. When I signed up, I was still relatively fresh off of DAoC. WarCraft copied their strict faction system, so I had certain expectations when I chose my server. Likely, I saw the same potential that whoever on the Blizzard side that implemented the faction system saw. A potential that never materialized. That original choice notwithstanding, PvP servers were different from War Mode because of the social environment. Post-release, very few newcomers to the game were actually looking at servers and choosing. They went with their friends already were, their personal feelings be damned.

This led to situations where, say, you're getting corpse camped and you get your girlfriend to come bail you out. And they were motivated to, since that was the sole option outside of simply logging out. And then that situation would spiral into a greater conflict. These days? Just fly away and turn WM off. Or log out / use group finder to fish for another shard.

On the whole, I think War Mode is the better option. But as much heat as I'm going to get for this comment, there is something to be said for having a PvP system that isn't entirely consensual.

[Nymrohd]

On the whole, I think War Mode is the better option. But as much heat as I'm going to get for this comment, there is something to be said for having a PvP system that isn't entirely consensual.

Sure, otherwise gankers wouldn't exist. People love making others miserable.

[Berkilak]

Sure, otherwise gankers wouldn't exist. People love making others miserable.

It creates drama. And drama demands resolution. Right now, any and all PvP problems are solved by simply turning off War Mode. No calling for help. No putting together a group to band together. Just opting out. And that's boring. It's the better solution. But it's boring. And I say this as someone who was generally on the receiving end. I simply opted out. And I haven't opted in since.

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Warmode is literally just being on a PvP Seaver but you can now opt out if you get sick of dying, it’s just as organic or unpredictable as ot always was.

Like I said, opting out is the only solution people actually use. It's not organic and entirely predictable. On paper, you should still be able to have those encounters. There's nothing stopping you. But in reality, people just turn off PvP mode when PvP happens.

[GabrielKnight]

As much as I love planting my Alliance banner on dead, smelly hordes, sometimes I just don't feel like doing PvP, and want to play relaxed. After all, it's just a game. Being forced to do something you don't feel like just because you happened to pick a PvP server years ago is beyond stupid. That sole reason makes War Mode superior, in my eyes.

[Berkilak]

As much as I love planting my Alliance banner on dead, smelly hordes, sometimes I just don't feel like doing PvP, and want to play relaxed. After all, it's just a game. Being forced to do something you don't feel like just because you happened to pick a PvP server years ago is beyond stupid. That sole reason makes War Mode superior, in my eyes.

I'm in complete agreement. But I won't pretend that we didn't lose something with that change. Overall, it balances out to beneficial. But there was a sacrifice there.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Like I said, opting out is the only solution people actually use. It's not organic and entirely predictable. On paper, you should still be able to have those encounters. There's nothing stopping you. But in reality, people just turn off PvP mode when PvP happens.

Ya that's still no different then just being on a Pvp server people would just log off instead of turning off warmode.

[Berkilak]

Ya that's still no different then just being on a Pvp server people would just log off instead of turning off warmode.

Some would, I'm sure. Not even close to all. If I wasn't raiding, I was generally responding to calls for help. Hearth set to STV. And meeting up with people from other groups having the same issues. I can only speak to my own experiences, of course, but from my perspective, world PvP was absolutely organic. I suppose the loss of server identity also feeds into this and the propensity of servers to host imbalanced factions. Back then, you would know where and when to avoid certain areas, or where to go for a fight. It's all meaningless now. Zones felt like actual places. They're just another randomly populated instance, now, if not glorified.

[Makorus]

World PvP was high level people ganking low level people until someone brought their high level character and then it was just awkward ganking of other low level people.

[Skildar]

world pvp is so unbalan ed there is no fun for some classes and specs. Having the option to opt in or out of wm solve the demand for balancing this activity

[AOL Instant Messenger]

War Mode was one of the best features they've added outside of fringe cases of slightly affecting RPers.

Just pretend fight lol

I would argue against this—the demise of RP-PVP was pretty unpleasant, and it really took away what I think was the closest gameplay to the original story of WarCraft. Why shouldn't an RPG about war feature conflicts between players in the open world framed through roleplay?

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That's a good point. Good open world PvP is organic and unpredictable. War mode is just opting in to ganking or being ganked, neither of which appeals to many. Even people that would otherwise enjoy a good fight in the right circumstances.

I do quite miss that—its loss really diminished the quality of the world and general enjoyability of the game.

[Dracullus]

Even awesome features have some disadvantages and always someone is bitching about them. Imo War Mode is among features like Flex raids, Group Finder, M+ and Dragonriding - so not new content, but key improvement that got integrated with game very fast.

Countless people were stuck on PVP servers - they picked it long time ago, their friends are here, they don't want PVP on alts or during leveling, finally lot of people sometimes want to do PVP, sometimes not. Now we have freedom.

Of course it's not like Blizzard is doing great job with encouraging people to do WM, SL was horrible from start to finish, DF on launch was fine for WM players, but at this point it's almost dead feature. Personally I would revamp WM ON into some kind of Heroic mode for world, with PVP, tougher enemies, no regular flying (dragonriding is ok as it doesn't let you afk in the air) and unique rewards both for max and leveling (for doing 1-max without turning it off).

[Hitei]

Some would, I'm sure. Not even close to all. If I wasn't raiding, I was generally responding to calls for help. Hearth set to STV. And meeting up with people from other groups having the same issues. I can only speak to my own experiences, of course, but from my perspective, world PvP was absolutely organic. I suppose the loss of server identity also feeds into this and the propensity of servers to host imbalanced factions. Back then, you would know where and when to avoid certain areas, or where to go for a fight. It's all meaningless now. Zones felt like actual places. They're just another randomly populated instance, now, if not glorified.

It is extremely close to all. To begin with easily 95%+ of all world PvP is (and has always been) just a high level player one shotting a low level player and then continuing onwards. On the rare occasion where someone is being camped, and we are already talking about single digit percentages here, the majority solution is to run back to log out, run back to town and log out, or hearth and log out.

Escalation is an insignificant rarity. Even with that tiny sliver, most "escalation" is people saying "Hey theres a level # <class> killing people at <location>" and the someone who happens to be higher in the zone walking over, killing that person once or twice and then the ganker themselves logging off, or hearthing or going off to some other zone.

War Mode's assassin/bounty system and drops alone contribute more to dynamic escalation than calling for help or switching over to a main ever did.

[Nymrohd]

Even awesome features have some disadvantages and always someone is bitching about them. Imo War Mode is among features like Flex raids, Group Finder, M+ and Dragonriding - so not new content, but key improvement that got integrated with game very fast.

Countless people were stuck on PVP servers - they picked it long time ago, their friends are here, they don't want PVP on alts or during leveling, finally lot of people sometimes want to do PVP, sometimes not. Now we have freedom.

Of course it's not like Blizzard is doing great job with encouraging people to do WM, SL was horrible from start to finish, DF on launch was fine for WM players, but at this point it's almost dead feature. Personally I would revamp WM ON into some kind of Heroic mode for world, with PVP, tougher enemies, no regular flying (dragonriding is ok as it doesn't let you afk in the air) and unique rewards both for max and leveling (for doing 1-max without turning it off).

I think the issue is that War Mode just came too late and it is no longer supported thematically. We are supposed to be in a truce after all. Beyond that, SL barely rewarded War Mode (DF had some ok rewards early on) and neither expac had much content; at least DF brought supply crates back. Even BfA which has so much War mode content still failed to invest in it; pvp depends a lot on terrain and the terrain used was designed for PvE and world building with no optimization whatsoever for War Mode (Naz'jatar PvP only really worked because the two towns were so close to each other).