As a player on this server since 2010, I have never had a worse experience in PvP. I took a few year break before this new BG bracket implementation, and it has only damaged the experience for people that arent fully BiS and minmaxing queuing as groups. I face the same people every single night, and AV and IoC don't ever pop anymore because the PvP population is completely dying.
People are blowing free action potions constantly because they're comically underpriced on blackrock, nearly every plate wearer has SM, 1/3 of the teams are healers; it's just completely unfun. The bracket implementation feels like a prioritization of people in greens over the people who are 5.8-6k gs who have actually committed long term to their characters, actively being punished for improving their gear and thrown into matches way above their average gear level the moment they get that single upgrade that makes them shift to the next bracket.
These brackets need to be disabled and there needs to be a more well thought out way of incentivizing people to PvP that doesn't artificially make gearing something that you question doing. It's pretty counter intuitive that all my 7~ 6k+ gs characters feel weaker than my alts i barely know how to play that are 5k gs. There will always be gear disparities in an MMO and its generally an incentive to want to get better gear or donate, but instead I'd rather just stay in furious or relentless so I don't have to sit in a graveyard every single BG seeing half the enemies below with purple swirls around them with 3 healers on their team so you leave with 5 HKs for the entire bg and a whopping 500 honor.
It feels like a complete waste of time and is so rarely a fun match that I question why I'm queuing at all. Judging from the lack of AV/IoCs and seeing the same names every single night, I'm not the only one who finds this completely demoralizing and not worth the time anymore. It won't be long before PvP is entirely dead on this server at the rate things are going, as the overall feel of the game has changed DRASTICALLY since I last played, and I've played here a lot. I've been 2k+ on half the classes in the game on this server, and I feel like I'm just getting ragdolled in every single match no matter what I do because despite having 1250 resilience which is near the cap, I die from 100% hp in the duration of an intercept stun time and time again.
Buff resilience to accomodate the fact that the entire PvP playerbase is way beyond the intended gear level for this patch and help shift the meta away from the ridiculous burst and zerging that takes skill entirely out of the equation. The way PvP gets fixed is to accept that Blizzlike is more about it FEELING blizzlike than actually having the exact same scaling and percentages, because real Wotlk wasn't permanent and was never intended to be 20 people with 6.5k gs fighting each other. I dont claim to have all the answers, but the current solutions are not working and if anything, they've made things worse. Every post on this forum solidifies that. Nobody is content with this system and I understand time and resources went into making it work, but sometimes we have to take a step back on perceived progress when it turns out that it didn't work as it was intended to.
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Member
State of PvP
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Member
Agree 100%
Server not only get money through items, ppl expend money in full geared chars. So big business.
Ppl just want to run over others doing nothing, no matter what, they feel good, I guess. It is impossible to get into pvp, and learn how to... We have just to face 7k gs chars all the time, even starting arena teams.... No matter what I tried, I am always feeding bgs of ppl at least 1k more than me, in each bracket. I believe no donors have to feed those who can expend, so they feel like they are good, and expend more....
Just a thought
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Member
Aren't you a multiboxer?
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Member
I've donated for gear on multiple characters, and I completely agree with you about the current state of PvP. It’s clear that PvP is on the decline, even on a PvP server, and a lot of people are turning to PvE because of it.
You're absolutely right about resilience too. I have a healer with 1350 resilience, and in 3v3 arena, when you go up against a BiS warrior and other top-tier DPS, it's like resilience doesn't even matter—I get taken down in 2-3 seconds.
There are ways to balance this. I've noticed that Alliance almost always has healers, while Horde often ends up without any in battlegrounds. Why not implement a system that distributes healers more evenly? If the system detects that four Alliance healers are queued up, maybe it could place two of them on the Horde side to even things out. We all know that Alliance tends to have more healers because everyone plays Human for the racial benefits.
They could also introduce a system for weekends where even premade groups are mixed in battlegrounds, so they can't always play together. As you mentioned, it's always the same teams with pocket healers farming people at the graveyard.
It’s really sad to see a PvP server slowly dying. Without cross-realms, I think battlegrounds would be empty. Many players, including myself, are focusing more on PvE now. World PvP can be fun, but it’s often ruined by BiS players who only roll in groups because they’re afraid to 1v1. And don’t even get me started on Gurubashi Arena, good luck trying to loot the chest with all the multiboxers around.
To be clear, I have nothing against Warmane. It’s a great server with a large community, and that’s why I enjoy playing here. Like anything, it has its ups and downs, nothing is perfect. I also play on the BlackRock realm, and since I start with relentless gear, I get matched against similarly geared teams, which makes the games fun, fair, and balanced. If they could apply that kind of balance to battlegrounds, especially with healers, it would make a big difference. For example, if four healers queue on the Alliance side, the system could split them up and place two on the Horde side. It could work similarly to how 3v3 SoloQ ensures that each team gets a healer.
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Forum Veteran
About the bg situation personally i think u're completly right.
But.... (i hope to not offend you in any way) the Arena part is completly wrong and is just about skillcap or better sync with your team mates, if you expect to survive np against a double smourne tsg or turbocleave just by yourself without any kite or help from your team....i got a bad news for you.
Let's ignore for a second that WOTLK is way old content so you can pretty much understand that now the skill level technically is higher even on lower rates.
At the moment in the ladders priests (i assume u're talking about them) are pretty much high rated in every brackets, so it simply ends up in:
- Soloq? Well, depends so much on enemy and your team mates. You can be a top player, but if u meet starter people with no exp u're doomed, thats why the higher mmr u get, the best become.
- 2s /3s? Mostly like a skill issue, some comps counter another it's the game itself.
Same goes for any cloth classes, the meta itself prioritize a setup over another, but it doesnt make the class impossibile to play at high rates.
Mages ofc are the hardest ones, simply cause the lack of synergy in soloq, alto many spriest/mage dominated the ladders time to time.
Warlocks im not even considering them as they always been top tier even in this meta as LSP 3s
Hope to not have offended anyoneEdited: August 26, 2024
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Member
Everyone is already too familiar with wotlk pvp, so what used to be gladiator level back in the day is now 1700 here. Competition is tough, and ye its not fun meeting 7k gs tryhards everywhere.
Arms warriors are obviously broken on this meta, but guess there is nothing we can do.
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Member
That's true, in every match I see a warrior, I don't remember seeing any match without a warrior in SoloQ.
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Forum Veteran
Unfortunately everything you said is absolutely true and Warmane has responded that they don't care: They solved one problem (tiny realms with no players) by (in my opinion) creating a much bigger problem. My account is coming up on 10 years old in just a few months and I've more or less stopped playing after farming several hundred thousand honorable kills across multiple characters just because of the god awful bgs i have in every single bracket.
The top bracket requires you to que specific BGs or play in a big group, because if you don't you will end up in one of the BGs that is being farmed by those big groups. If you get a game with a few people who have 2 or 3 wrathful pieces in WSG, GG go next because the enemy team is all full BiS. If you cant afford popping potions on cooldown (say if you come from Lordaeron), you might aswell just remove a piece of gear or play at a massive disadvantage from the players on BR who get it more or less for free.
Want to play some bgs while you gear up? Forget about it. There is a guild currently abusing the gearing brackets to the extent that they oneshot everyone in the bracket, sitting at over 5.5k gs with 264 ilvl gear versus people with literal heirlooms and greens. Want to play any other BG than WSG 90% of the day? You're **** out of luck, because of the gear brackets you will only play WSG because thats all that can fill up most of the time.
Hoping to go to a low level twink bracket to escape the lvl 80 brackets? Nope. They are all dead because there is absolutely no incentive to do BGs at lower levels. There is no bonus exp for doing bgs, there is no increased honor and if you play 19 you might aswell go play on Blackrock since you will absolutely not get AGM on Icecrown. 79 used to be active but it has mostly died. 60 and 70 PVE raids dont fill up and they dont really BG. Any other bracket is more or less completely dead and you will not get a BG.
From being a server where we had 40v40 (or more) playing guild vs guild world pvp or in battlegrounds to a system where nobody plays Horde because there are absolutely no upsides is quite literally tragic. Ofcourse PVP will stagnate eventually, and some people (maybe me included) probably grew out of it but it really feels like Warmane hasn't even tried to keep it alive. Horde PvP is completely dead (even compared to before)? Shrug. AV and IOC are essentially ran like a well oiled machine where a few players control the flow of the entire BG 8 hours a day? Shrug. Battlegrounds have some people that drink free potions hundreds of times in one BG? Shrug. The bracket system is essentially being twinked on both levels? Shrug.
It's sad.
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Member
They will care if this milking business going to decrease from the side of income, thats the short answer. That will be the time when they start to worry.
I've also never had such a bad experience from the view of PvP. You guys beautifully wroted down my thoughts. So sad with this amount of players .This could be something BIG.Edited: August 27, 2024
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Moderator
So, without any exaggerations and appeals to emotion, and going way beyond what would be good for you, what sort of solutions - and solutions that wouldn't mean completely wrecking how the expansion works - can people come up with?
Should Free Action Potions just cost more in Blackrock, be in a limited quantity for everyone or be flat out disabled on Battlegrounds?
The brackets were created to address a real problem. Removing them would fix one side, but bring back the old problems on the other. Is that truly what players want? Because remember, removing them would leave everyone in the same pool. You would get weaker people to prey on, but the ones who prey on you would still be there. Meanwhile the ones at the bottom would have a whole new mass of even more geared people dumping on them. If brackets were to be removed, what would be done to alleviate that, or is the idea to just ignore that problem?
That would still leave the issue of there being a disparity in the amount of people doing PvP in each faction, most people going for Alliance. Blackrock with forced Mercenary was used to help with that, but there are constant complains because of the gear they start with and others. How would that be dealt with? All players have the option to turn Mercenary, but it doesn't feel like more than a handful do. Would forcing it on other servers help with that? How long would it take for players to get over it if that happened and they randomly ended on Horde often?
Rated Battlegrounds have been brought up many times. Would that have a positive effect? Should premades be pushed into those (assuming that's feasible)? Would that spread the PvP population even more and create queues again or would it bring people back to playing both types?
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Member
Considering it's cross-realm battlegrounds and arenas, wouldn't it be fairer for BlackRock realm to start with Furious gear instead of Relentless?
By the way Free Action Potions should cost more on BlackRock realm.
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Member
Blackrock is handy indeed for balancing the factions. I think if they start full furious, that would be more fair. (They still have more AP weekly, so its still faster to gear up for them). I dont want to have another char on Icecrown because full furi is trash, and Blackrock just jump on your kneck with full rele. The capping process is painfull (bgs also) and LONG. If there arent any catch up mechanics then we need that starter rele to be nerfed at Blackrock. The current situation is just make people burn out, new players joining but only for a short term.
BG brackets give a solution indeed to certain things however you cant really enjoy your gear at the highest bracket. A lot of casuals would join if they could see bigger crits, and delete some folks in random bgs. Btw when i was a starter gamer it was a huge motivation to see those people with insane gears and hits. I wanted to gear up, improve and be like them. - Maybe thats just me and my thoughts.
I dont think btw people with starter gear would queue less because community already minmaxing brackets so they get farmed on regular basis anyways during gear up.
If i were you i would let Blackrock stay in the battlegroup with full furi starter (rele offparts) - The more people the better from the view of PvP-
The solution of factions would be easy however the game need a custom change. Completely change EMFH or let Horde also having it. - > I'M not saying im agree with it, but if EMFH wouldnt be an only Alliance things the situation would change. I dont have any suggestions on balancing the factions tbh, thats the only one coming in my mind.
Rated battlegrounds are an interesting question. With good rewards (titles, mounts etc), i thnk it would be possible to have a flow. Long term dunno
"Should Free Action Potions just cost more in Blackrock, be in a limited quantity for everyone or be flat out disabled on Battlegrounds?" - YES
At the end of the day i always happy we have Warmane. Im frustrated because this is the only "Island" left from the view of private servers which worth a penny and with smart, thoughtful custom changes this could be way better for everyone.
Btw about the IOC and AV farmers. They can do that, there is nothing to do with that. It was mentioned earlier. I have them on my friend list. If they are online i go specific. Just a suggestion to you guys. I'm completely avoiding them.Edited: August 27, 2024
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Moderator
Blackrock is still a Tournament server, meant for people who want to skip most of the leveling and gearing process to get right into "endgame." Messing with that by adding another layer of gearing might be creating a new problem to fix another.
More like how much? It again has to be taken into consideration what Blackrock is about. Making it very costly for the sake of other servers would mess with the dynamics of in-server matches.
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Member
I think that we need forced mercenary mode on all realms. Without the faction restriction it would be possible to add additional filters to the BG brackets so both sides are almost equally geared, have same amount of healers, etc.
I also think that PvPers in high gear bracket need more incentive to actually win the BG and care about BG objectives. Rated BG could be a solution.
Another huge issue is GY ganking, especially in AV. I think the GY should be a sanctuary in which defenders are immun to dmg.
Optional players could also receive a temporary dmg/HP buff after resurrection.
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Member
I completely agree that enabling forced mercenary mode on all realms would be a good move, but we both know how people can be. There would likely be complaints like, "I don't want to play Horde!" or "I don't want to play Alliance!" To address this, they could implement forced mercenary mode only on weekends, which seems like a fair compromise.
Players in the high bracket often don't care about winning because they've already got full BiS gear, so they don't need the extra honor that comes from victories. When you’ve got crap gear, winning becomes important because you need the honor to improve your gear.
Speaking from experience, when I have BiS gear, I don’t care if we win or lose because I’m already BiS geared. I usually just focus on fighting in the middle and ignore objectives like bases or flags. But when I need better gear, I’m all about capturing bases and flags because that honor is crucial.
Regarding healers, it’s clear that the Alliance often has more healers in battlegrounds. The system should recognize this and distribute healers more evenly. For instance, if there are four Alliance healers in the queue, the system could move two of them to the Horde side to balance the teams.
