Average wait time for Alterac Valley is now 47 minutes. For my Horde characters. On Alterac Valley weekend. It used to be 2-3 minutes, tops.
Why? Something about an “Alliance Boycott.”
Why are the alliance boycotting? Because they lose now.
Aw. Sniffles. Cry me a freaking river.
Did we turn the tables? Did the Horde all of a sudden get Stormpike as a base, and the Alliance Frostwolf? No. Everything’s physically the same.
Did Horde all of a sudden get some Overpowered class? No, classes are the same for both sides. (Wasn’t always the case.)
Did the Alliance fourteen year old bully boys that got so used to playing like petulent children, and still winning, are they now getting their arses handed to them over and over because, shockers, skill and ability count for something now?
Don’t forget, I play on both sides. An Alliance group is a lot different from a Horde group. We also come from a long, long period of having things a certain way. Alliance alway won AV. Now they’re always losing. (Exceptions granted.)
Ya know, this is Blizzard’s fault. The Horde “boycott” of the early days was to /afk in the cave. Blizzard took that away. Alliance can’t simply /afk in the cave like the Horde used to. Their solution to the problem? Stop playing in AV altogether.
C’mon, you Alliance. Get into the valley and try and take Frostwolf! I dare ya! “I don’t wanna. I want my mommy,” isn’t good enough.
11 comments
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January 20, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Matticus
Here’s the problem though. At least when Horde AFK’d they were able to get honor to help offset it. Now when we as alliance go in there and we get rolled, we get like… 20? or 0?
So if you’re thinking like an economist, why spend 20 minutes inside Alterac valley just to get 20ish honor when I could spend 20 minutes losing 5 matches in AB/EoTS to earn 120 honor?
You’re absolutely right, of course. Nothing has changed a lot in terms of classes and skills and player base. But the investment/reward ratio has gone topsy turvy. It’s not that Alterac Valley is bad. It’s that there’s something else better to do.
January 20, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Shalkis
To be fair, AV did recently receive a change that could offset the balance: Vanndar’s and Balinda’s hitpoints were increased. Oh, wait..
January 20, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Galoheart
I don’t do PvP, though I hear about it much and in the BG’s. It just almost seem funny at times with the antics both sides now do or used to do in BG’s or when it comes to arena with the things teams do to get ahead or buy their way to get ahead. Dunno what to say, I just find it amusing to hear or read about most the time.
In the end I guess the fault is with Blizzard with the design of things and the way both sides earn points as well as in the arenas. Fault to me is at Blizzard doorstep. So often I just find things just amusing with PvP in general.
January 20, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Kinless
Matticus, you’re absolutely right. There always was that investment in time. And even if you were going to lose, 1/3 of your team /afk, you could still clear enough honor to make the loss okay. Well, the 2/3 didn’t want the 1/3 to profit so they took the campsite away. Now nobody but winners want to play since it’s not worth it. Now why they can’t capture towers, capture graveyards, and by “capture” I mean “capture and hold till turned,” kill Galv, they’d get honor points for that. Are they still stuck in the old “Race to the general” mindset? And were Horde more flexible after losing so long, and trying different tactics?
Shalkis, For the Horde! (Archimonde does look nervous in that screenshot.)
Galoheart, the BG’s, for all their faults, remain fun mini-games. I’m annoyed at their boycott since I can’t get in and much about.
After I posted this AV finally popped, 50 minutes after queueing, and it was a close battle. Our numbers remained close, we were about 100 ahead most of the game, and by the time they got into Frostwolf and we into Stormpike, the numbers were the same, so it was all down to killing the Generals. Horde won. I had 4 killing blows, 4 deaths, and came in #6 in damage, so that was good too.
January 20, 2008 at 5:38 pm
cooking4kim
For me the issue does not seem to be one of 0 or 20 honor for a 20 minute battle.
Of the last four AV BGs I have been in we have lost all four, but I have still managed to get at least 100 honor out of each one…in fact 300+ for my last one, which isn’t bad for a loss. Keep in mind the Horde were getting a lot more honor than that, so it could be partly a jealousy thing.
The issue I can see is that the Horde now are winning all BGs regularly. AV used to be the one the Alliance could win while the Horde were winning AB all of the time and EOTS too (not sure about WSG). All of a sudden there is “no safe haven” for Alliance players to go if they want honor. Not to mention it is pretty demoralising to lose so many times.
And what do WoW players do? Instead of finding new ways to win, they QQ like always; if it’s one thing I hate about this game is number of people that whinge about changes, any type of change seems to kick up a storm of crying babies, having a hissy fit because they didn’t get their way. The other alternative I have seen is to offer no resistance, to stop “giving the Horde free honor kills”…screw that, I resist.
The one thing I would like to see Blizzard do is to match players in BGs better. Premades should be up against premades, pugs should be up against pugs.
Aside from that, I’m happy to say that some of the Alliance do seem to be coming around to the fact that they can’t zerg in AV, but it’s a slow change so don’t expect those queue times to change too quickly.
January 20, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Pike
Ya know, just my luck… coming up through the levels everybody always told me “Don’t worry, level 61-70 Alliance AV never loses. Don’t worry, once you get to level 61 you can do AV over and over and never lose.”
So I get to like level 60 and they change AV on me! I’ve played dozens and dozens of AV games since then… I do like AV, like all battlegrounds… and I have won maybe… twice, I think? I have no idea what it was like before, apparently we used to win, I dunno though because I wasn’t there for it and the 51-60 AV always lost too.
I’m used to losing in BGs, it’s something I sort of have come to accept. I’ve come to accept that when I want to buy something that costs 40 marks of honor of any BG, I will be playing roughly 40 games. Oddly enough I don’t really mind. I enjoy battlegrounds and in the odd case that we DO manage to pull of a victory, it feels very very good… more so than it feels on my hordie, where it just really feels too easy.
January 20, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Tomas
Alliance folks should come to the Emberstorm battlegroup. Our Horde continue to simply not have a clue when it comes to that battleground. The Horde win to loss ratio is sitting around 2 in 12. It’s brutal.
January 20, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Kinless
Win, or lose, you can have fun in there. I always enjoy getting away into a battleground.
January 22, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Valdesta
I’m a periodic battlegrounder – more often recently as I’m working for those few pieces to help fill in my purplies on the Mage…
Most of the time in my battlegroup, unless you get into a premade/preform, there’s too much chaos to say that it’s the environment that influences win or lose.
The guy telling people to go on Defense is inevitably the guy who is on Offense and wants it to stay that way, combined with the guys who start from the beginning whining about how we’re all scrubs and will probably lose anyway, and those who fight about whether or not to take Stonehearth Graveyard…
Yah, I just ignore the BG line for the most part, except to laugh at the recurrances of the same personalities on different people.
We humans are so different, but so the same.
Valdesta
WoWGrrl player blog
January 23, 2008 at 3:46 pm
yunk
Well the lack of enough reward for losing MIGHT be a problem, but it’s that reward for losing that caused horde players to afk out. Deliberately losing as fast as possible gave you more honor/time than trying to win, even the horde fighting weren’t trying to win just to get a few towers for honor. Removing the reward for losing stopped the AFKing much more than reporting them, IMO. Since it removed the incentive to AFK, I barely even see people pretending to fight.
Actually regarding who wins, I have not seen horde dominate the bgs anymore besides AV. Eye of the Storm is particularly depressing: finally a map that is exactly symmetrical and what happens? Horde seem to lose every time I’m there. heh.
Anyway back to AV: the difference I think, after not playing WoW for 8 months, is Horde strategy (on Rampage) has completely changed. They have adapted. Before you could never get Horde to bother playing D, now there are always 15 on D. Before horde wanted to race to Bal and kill her, now they play smart, capture and hold SHGY and IWB, only then get Bal and then move on.
Alliance are still playing the old AV. They race to Galv and wipe, race to galv and wipe. They don’t bother trying to get IBGY or Tower. In fact the toughest games I’ve played is where they did get IBGY first that really hurts us and gives them the freedom to get Galv and IBBunker at their leisure without us spawning on top of them.
The bridge is still there but alliance no longer plays D like it used to. But when they do we still get stuck on it.
Now why doesn’t the Alliance adapt like the Horde has? Don’t ask me. I would not mind adding a little more honor for losing as long as it’s not so much to encourage people to deliberately lose like it did before. But I certainly like the new reinforcements that means the game will always end. those long running turtle games were awful.
The most telling thing I think was a post on the Kirin tor boards where someone whined “change it back so we can all get our easy honor”. I cannot think of a more perfect example of the mentality of “give me stuff for free and don’t make me work for it” ,
January 25, 2008 at 8:09 am
Pike
@ yunk -
As an Alliance AV player I have been waiting and waiting for somebody to tell me a good strategy for winning AV so I can start using it and informing the other Alliance of it, but as of yet nobody has been able to tell me “What I am supposed to do” without it failing miserably. We’ve tried everything on my battlegroup– Defending Stonehearth, taking IBGY, etc. etc., nothing works, we still lose =/ The reason we aren’t adapting is because we have no idea how to win. I don’t, anyway. I’ve been trying to figure it out forever and I can’t >.<