merc mode not working

[zuio963]

Hi,

I have a question regarding merc mode on Blackrock.

Since yesterday BGs I join are mostly/almost all of them as Horde even I am Ali and I have merc mode off.

I have merc mode off through web portal but since yesterday I do not see option to turn it on/off through in game option.

Is it some bug on my side, or some new server-related change?

Thank you.

Edit:

Just a quick update: All BGs are joining me as Horde even though I am Ali.

Plus not in just small BGs but also now in IoC were 40 Ali players with 0 players from Blackrock and then all Blackrock players were as Horde what is unlikely to happen, plus some people were talking the same issue in the global in-game chat so I suspect it is happening to all of Blackrock players right now.

[Bobandy]

Due to slow queue times on all our realms for alliance we've decided to enable mercenary mode for blackrock.
This has drasticly improved the queue times from +10 min down to 30 sec last time we measured

[zuio963]

Thank you for your answer.

Well, my experience this week as Blackrock and Alliance was something like this:

All BGs were as Horde what is expected if mercenary is forced.

Many of these BGs were Alterac Valley or Isle of Conquest where is pretty much all the peak Europe time BIS Icecrown players like Kenzz, Quop, et cetera farming you endlessly on the graveyards, most Horde players AFK or wishing for end of BG just to not have deserter. And this includes Horde players of Icecrown.

Another bad thing that includes Horde players of Icecrown is pretty much not winning at all or much less than before – not just Alterac Valley, that is impossible – but also small BGs. And I was playing sometimes with mercenary on when it was voluntary so I know how it was before win/loss ratio. Main reason is that most of Blackrock players are worse than Icecrown in BGs because of lower gear and less play time. Before you had like 6 Icecrown players in 10 person WSG and 2 from Blackrock and 2 from Lordaeron as example on both sides.

Now you have 8-9 person from Icecrown on Alliance side and maybe 5-6 Blackrock players on Horde side. Obviously Icecrown players are 6000+ GS most of time while Blackrock players are 5500 or so with much less game experience. Once again terrible feeling from the game for all Horde players, Icecrown included.

So yes, waiting times were heavily reduced but for entire Blackrock and Horde side of the Icecrown in my view what was I playing this week was incredible worse than before this change.

I think that people would prefer to wait even 10 minutes for random BG to have better experience than wait 1 minute but then spend most of BG on graveyard.
But obviously this is not my decision. On the other hand, I donated plenty of money as Blackrock player, money that is helping Warmane just to have terrible gameplay experience now. I can’t imagine any (new) Blackrock player now to donate some money. New people in global in-game chat mostly do not understand what is happening (like I am Alliance so why I am playing as Horde?) or old players are definitely not happy with it.

If you are considering to have this forced mercenary mode implemented permanently on Blackrock I would suggest at least to enable transfers of characters from Blackrock to Icecrown. Make it expensive obviously, if Shadowmourne is 150 euro, make this 200-250-300 euro, I don’t care, but consider it in some form.

Thank you.

[mrm112]

whoever has problem with queue time can choose Merc-Mode and gets insta bg and whoever wants to be alliance waits and pays it's price. it doesn't make sense that Blackrock players pay the priece for other realms comfort.

[EliSc0]

Nobody cares about blackrock players, we're just cannon fodder for icecrown premades to farm and fprced merc mode confirmed this once again.

[Seexy]

Is this change permanent?

I really hate being forced into Mercenary Mode but I can tolerate it during population downtime.

[Seexy]

Is this change permanent and active at all times?

It would be great if we could compromise to have it on only during certain times or when the population is low.

[dccct]

They only need to implement solo-queue for battlegrounds. Provide a NPC that lets you queue as a single player into battlegrounds where everyone is placed RANDOMLY on teams regardless of faction, gear, or spec. This will theoretically achieve 50% win rate for each side and reward good players with slightly higher win rates. This will also reduce wait time and solve the infamous problem of premade HK farming. There is no need for MMR (which should be tied to a reward system or it ends up punishing high performing players by forcing high MMR to carry low MMR; further segregation based on MMR is also undesirable because it increases queue time), no need for fancy queuing algorithms, and no need for brackets. Easy to implement and solves multiple problems at once. It is optional and those who don't like it don't have to use it.

[shamsammich]

so annoying I am almost always horde and it forces to be ugly tauren just go afk

[dccct]

so annoying I am almost always horde and it forces to be ugly tauren just go afk

Yup, and it's back to "no wins unless you are with a premade" for Horde. Which naturally means most (true, non-merc) Horde and Blackrock players will lose in battlegrounds.