Battleground brackets.

[mirekrock]

Hi,
So, I thought battleground brackets meaning people with, say, 1.5k GS hunters being separated from BiS retribution paladins were supposed to make things fair, right? We have our low GS brackets, sure.
But here’s the issue: I’m in a low-level bracket right now, and I keep seeing players like “Jayos” (just one example) who are min-maxing their characters for the low GS bracket. They completely destroy everyone who just has FoS gear without enchants or gems, obviously, because most people are still leveling or gearing up before investing gold into enchants and gems.

Those min-maxers don’t progress, they just stay in the low bracket because they want to one-shot people with an Ambush or whatever ability.
So what’s the difference between getting killed by a 6.9k GS ret paladin or a 4.5k GS rogue who’s full BiS for the low bracket?
Why even make these separations then? Why not just have one battleground with everyone mixed together, and let randomness decide like it used to be back in the day?

Right now, with my BiS character, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to kill someone in one Chimera Shot. The satisfaction of being a fully geared hunter is gone. Now it’s just BiS versus BiS, and it’s boring. I bet most people feel the same way because fights take forever.

There was a time when rogues could kill someone in two Backstabs, and it felt amazing. Sure, sometimes you’d get unlucky and end up against a bunch of BiS paladins, but that randomness made things interesting.

By creating BG brackets, you made people min-max low brackets for fun, and in the process, you took that FUN away from the rest of us.
So really what’s the difference now?

[Darwally]

Considering that with the crafted lv78 pvp gear I'm more than often matched against people with full HC endgame gear, I'm not even aware of how those brackets work or if they exist at all. But then again, when you look up some of those people in the armory they're naked or only wearing two or three pieces of gear.
Choose your poison, either people minmaxing at 4.5k GS as you say or full HC people finding ways to make it to lower brackets removing gear or whatever they do.

[jmsvanbuskirk]

Because it's the lesser of two evils. This bracketed system solved way more problems than it caused.

There's nothing stopping you from making a strong lower geared hunter and doing the same. And to be fair a full BIS PvE hunter in battlegrounds can burn down just about anything with very little effort resilience or not. They top the charts consistently in larger battlegrounds especially.

[mirekrock]

Doing damage and actually getting the killing blow are two completely different things.
Yes, hunters are strong, but most of the time their damage done comes from hitting the frontline, which is mostly plate wearers. But we’re not talking about that.

Because “it’s the lesser of two evils” doesn’t sound like a real argument to me simply because it’s not retail-like.
There were no brackets back then, just pure chaos in BGs.
Right now, everyone has their own “tier.”

Back in the day, when I played a low-geared rogue, I died like a fly in BGs against 5k GS+ people while I was only around 2k GS. But that was fine, because I could choose my target and focus on someone with similar gear like a mage and actually get a kill.

Later, when I geared up to around 4k GS, I could easily kill low-geared players, and that was FUN, because people did the same to me when I was 2k GS.
But I’d still die like a fly against 6k GS players and that was okay.

Right now, you don’t get that satisfaction from BGs, because you can’t one-shot anyone everyone feels equal.
I want to be killed by 6k GS players when I’m on my alt. I want to kill people when I’m on my BiS character, and I want to suffer when half my team are lowbies.

Why do GMs refuse to change Death Grip, saying “it’s how it worked back in retail,” but are fine with changing BGs?
And what exactly did the brackets solve? What problems did they even fix?

P.S. It used to feel like you actually had progression, like you could see your character getting stronger.
Right now, it doesn’t matter which tier you’re in you’re basically the same as everyone else.
It doesn’t feel like you’re getting any stronger anymore.

[jmsvanbuskirk]

Eh that's partially true. This match making system was actually designed by Blizzard in TBC. And it isn't actually brackets. The system just matches you with similarly geared players based off an average item level so you can't actually twink within a specific bracket.

The PvP system went through a significant amount of revisions through TBC and WotLK. Those changes were based on the current environment. The player base is not nearly the same on Warmane as it was on retail because it isn't a progression environment. What you have as you described is a high saturation of over-geared players and then players leading up to that who have terrible itemization.

Because of that previously you had players complaining constantly about getting one shot and farmed or skilled players complaining having green geared noobs on their team. Initially they made a bracketed system to offset that discrepancy until yes people did start to twink within the brackets or use overpowered items in lower brackets so they adjusted it to what it is now. You would be a very small minority requesting what you are in comparison to previous complaints.

[mirekrock]

Yes, I know that people used to complain about constantly getting one-shot, but I really doubt they complained about killing those low-GS players once they managed to gear up to, say, 5k GS.

Sure, well-geared (though not necessarily skilled) players complained about having green-geared noobs on their team but the same was true for the opposite team, wasn’t it? So it was equal for both sides.

Since we already have brackets where players are matched in battlegrounds based on their item level, why not do the same now, but use the average item level for everyone?

For example, in an AV battleground, let’s say players with 6.8k GS, 2k GS, and 5k GS join. The system could balance the teams so that the average GS for both sides is around 4.5k (depending on the item levels of players who queued for the BG at that time). That way, both teams would have a mix of BIS players, mid-geared players, and lowbies and the average would be about 4.5k GS for both.

Sounds good to me, unless there’s an exploit or issue I’m not seeing.

[jmsvanbuskirk]

A concept like that would certainly stop premades. I think the flaw in that though is that even though the averages are equal, the balancing might not be. Meaning you can have one team with half BIS geared and half green gear while the other team has a bunch of toons in the middle.

Also, you might have an issue with queue times where 20 players join a battleground and as it progresses it continually can only select certain geared players to join and that level of player may not be available in queue.

It's an interesting idea. Probably a really complex one to execute.

The one thing I miss from those days is the games themselves. One example is Arathi Basin Perfection is actually a really difficult achievement to get now because teams are difficult to shut out. They're more evenly matched. But at the same time it's a unique type of gameplay now and if I want what it used to be then I can go play on a progression realm instead.

[mirekrock]

Could Staff comment on this topic?
Why we have tiers?
What about idea of "For example, in an AV battleground, let’s say players with 6.8k GS, 2k GS, and 5k GS join. The system could balance the teams so that the average GS for both sides is around 4.5k (depending on the item levels of players who queued for the BG at that time). That way, both teams would have a mix of BIS players, mid-geared players, and lowbies and the average would be about 4.5k GS for both." ?

Is it possible? if not, why ? or maybe just a bad idea?

[Shred]

Could Staff comment on this topic?
Why we have tiers?
What about idea of "For example, in an AV battleground, let’s say players with 6.8k GS, 2k GS, and 5k GS join. The system could balance the teams so that the average GS for both sides is around 4.5k (depending on the item levels of players who queued for the BG at that time). That way, both teams would have a mix of BIS players, mid-geared players, and lowbies and the average would be about 4.5k GS for both." ?

Is it possible? if not, why ? or maybe just a bad idea?

A bis player (which is what I assume you mean by 6.8k gs) can one-hit a 2k and a 5k player.

[Mitzen]

Could Staff comment on this topic?
Why we have tiers?
What about idea of "For example, in an AV battleground, let’s say players with 6.8k GS, 2k GS, and 5k GS join. The system could balance the teams so that the average GS for both sides is around 4.5k (depending on the item levels of players who queued for the BG at that time). That way, both teams would have a mix of BIS players, mid-geared players, and lowbies and the average would be about 4.5k GS for both." ?

Is it possible? if not, why ? or maybe just a bad idea?

Identify 3 groups of players here: the winners, the losers, and the inbetweeners.

BiS/high gear people would dominate or feed on those lower geared ones.
Middle ones would be farmed by the people above, but they'd bully the ones below.
Lowest people wouldn't hold a candle against anything but themselves. They'd be livestock for others. The GY people.

You could say we have those groups with bracket system too, but the gaps between the groups aren't that insane.

[mirekrock]

@Shred Well, 6.8k GS are SM users, which is only 3 classes. Everyone else is around 6.2~ BiS.

@OhieMitzen Yes, exactly that’s the point: to have the ability to have fun. Like I said before, those lowest-geared players who are being farmed by everyone in about two weeks, after gearing up through RDF HC and BGs will have around 4k GS, and they’ll be able to take revenge. Not on the people who killed them before, but on new lowbies. They’ll get to experience the same fun that a 5k GS player had two weeks earlier when he was killing them as a lowbie.

High GS players might still focus on lowbies to boost their ego, as you say farming graveyards, etc. but maybe while they’re farming, they’ll forget about objectives and so on. (since BIS would stay on GY, noone to defend towers from Mid Geared poeple) also A fresh playstyle could appear?

What I’m trying to say is that BGs used to be more chaotic sometimes you didn’t even know which side would win because it was such a mess. Right now, from the start of AV, you can already tell which side will win. In IoS, you know you’re getting farmed at the GY no matter what you tell people or do.

In the end, facing the same people in BGs with the same gear as myself is boring at least for me. And as we know, BGs are the endgame of the server.

P.S. Remember back in the day how amazing it felt to outplay some overgeared potato with 5k GS while you were on your 3k rogue (or whatever your class was)? I felt great when I managed to do that with my rogue, outplaying someone much better geared than me.