World PvP Z-style
As I’ve been doing a lot of PvP, I’ve been thinking about what it would take to make world PvP viable.
Bliz has made some valiant attempts. The objectives in EPL and Silithus weren’t very worthwhile to seek out. Buffs are nice, but you can live without them. If you happen to see an opposing player attempting one of the goals you might stop your grind long enough to kill him, but any large group could accomplish most of them unmolested. Five on one isn’t fun and there wasn’t a peanalty for letting them accomplish their goal. Add in that the reward was an intangible, temporary buff, and who wants to do it? Hellfire, Zang, Terrok just continued these traditions.
The one world objective that worked at least a little was Haala. Here a single player could at least have some affect against an opposing group, even if he wouldn’t win. If he could take down at least a single opponent, he’s rewarded. Moreover with real, tangible rewards no some ethereal buff.
There was one last problem with all of these, which is that if there was no opposition there was no reward. At least not in the PvP sense. Honestly, if I single handedly took out all the Halaa guards and capped the town, I deserve something. Read the rest of this entry »
Face-palm
Here I thought the developers had a clue about what was wrong with WSG. Though I can’t find it at the moment, I remember a blue posting something along the lines of “we are aware of the time issues in WSG and are trying different ideas on our internal servers, but they are not ready for prime time.” The thread seems to have disappeared into the nether (links were at wowinsider.com)
And then they drop this. “No more diminishing returns on Honor.”
I’m not complaining about the extra honor. It will definitely increase world PvP and the 3 other BGs will probably be a bit more intense. However, I can’t see ever doing WSG again. There have just been too many matches where some epiced out premade goes against my undergeared pug. They just grab our flag and stand in the center of the field until they’re sure all honor has been used, and then cap the flag 3x in 3 minutes. I usually just cancel my spirit rez, walk out of range, and hit my space bar until it’s over and I get my mark (that’s the only reason I’d be there).
Now there’s no reason to stop. They can just stand center field and kill for honor after honor. They’ll never have to face a premade because even if the opposition /afks out in frustration, it’s one at a time out, one at a time in. I have a feeling this will be so common as to be the default – if you pug, you’ll be farmed by a premade.
Unless they radically change WSG, they have completely broken it.
