Why Warsong Gulch is broken, and how to fix it

[:1]Partly inspired by the discussion in this thread, and partly by my new Twink guild and my intention to make them a website, here's article about WSG.

I'd love to get your opinions on this, no matter how harsh as long as it's fair.

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WHY WARSONG GULCH IS BROKEN, AND HOW TO FIX IT

Warsong Gulch has lost a lot of its popularity. You can still enter a game fast (unless you're a twink - cues for twink-only BGs can be never-ending), but most players avoid the frustration that WSG brings with it, or only enter once or twice to complete the daily quest.

In this article I will discuss the problems, and suggest changes that may re-energize WSG. I have no illusions that Blizzard will implement my ideas or even read this, so I write this mainly for fellow enthusiasts and for myself.



WSG is too frustrating for most players

The main sources of WSG frustration are

1. Other players that enter when their level is still too low to make a difference. A lvl 10 will never beat a lvl 19, so they shouldn't be in the same battlegrounds.

2. Some players focus on killing enemies instead of winning the game. Sadly, this attitude is rewarded by the scoring system; they will get more Honor Points than a player who grabbed 2 flags or who spent half his time protecting and healing the FC. It's like a basketball player who doesn't defend because he want to be in a position to make nice dunks; he shouldn't be rewarded for that.

3. WSG is a team sport, and is at its most rewarding when your team is somewhat organized. In a PUG you rarely get people to coordinate tactics; this requires for players to know eachother a bit. Players who level via WSG have little interest in joining a WSG guild; they will be past the level bracket before this pays off. There are twink guilds, but the current separation from other players has made twinking a lot less appealing for many players.

In the next paragraphs I will make suggestions how to repair all of these problems.

Fix #1: Make WSG more attractive, to get a larger player base

Playing WSG takes about the same time as doing a low-level Instance, but falls far behind in rewards. You need 20-30 Marks of Honor (10-15 matches average, so 5-7 hours) for a useful blue item, and for most players that's simply not worth it.

For experienced players the gear that you can buy for WSG Marks of Honor is really not relevant. With the level cap at 80, players don't want to grind for purple level-60 gear. Some of the blue equipment for level 18/28.../58 is nice for beginning players, but not relevant for most others.

To make WSG grinding worthwile Blizzard should offer better rewards. Items with scaling stats, like heirlooms but character-bound, could make leveling via WSG worth the effort. Low-level PvP items (with the pvp stat Resilience) could interest twinks. Perhaps I'm asking for too much here; I am biased by my love for BGs. But the current rewards are simply outdated.



Fix #2: Change the level brackets

The difference between level 10 and level 19 is simply too great. So break it up in two brackets: lvl 10-14 and lvl 15-19. The gap is still there, but a well-geared and well-played lvl 15 can make a difference against a lvl 19 opponent. Whether to keep or eliminate the lvl 10-14 bracket is irrelevant, as long as all the players in a single match can play a role.

I believe this change (and others) will make WSG more popular, so it shouldn't increase cueing time. But if it does, merging a few Battle Groups should solve that.



Fix #3: Seriously change the HP/MoH reward system

The emphasis on HKs that there is now has two bad consequences. First, a lot of players prefer to kill enemies over following a team strategy; a frustration for others. And second, level 10 players are rewarded for entering WSG by the many HKs they score against higher-level enemies, even if it's not them doing the killing.

Players should be rewarded for playing as a team; for helping the team capture a flag or kill an EFC. If you keep HPs in the game, they should have a much smaller role.

This comes back to Fix #1; you should be able to get good gear for WSG Marks of Honor. That way people will want to win the game, rather than kill enemies.



Fix #4: Nerf twinks, then have them rejoin regular BGs

I have a different opinion than most twink players here, for the following reasons. Equipment plays an important factor in the game, and players that have worked hard to get this equipment (or the money to get them) should be rewarded. But gear should not become more important than skill.

Part of twinking is full mastery of your character. This is what should give you the ultimate edge over other players, not your gear. So if two similar-skilled players duel, the one with top gear may perhaps win 60%, but not 90-100%.

What gives twinks the greatest edge are the old-world enchants without level caps, and this is the only thing I suggest fixing. A level 19 character that has Enchant Chest - Greater Stats (add 4 points to all stats); that's simply overpowered. Give enchantments proper level caps like equipment made by other professions.

Twinks will still have a big edge, but one that can be overcome by superior skill and team play. This means twinks can re-enter normal BGs. They will still rule, but that's a reward for the effort they put into making their character.



Extra: Ranked Battlegrounds

Like the Arena ranking system encourages players to form permanent teams, ranked BGs can stimulate guilds to form lvl19 twink teams and create advanced strategies to beat the competition.

I for one would look forward to this, as a complement to regular PUG BGs.



Extra 2: Different layouts

Do you also know every corner and every hiding place in the WSG area? Why not make 10 different layouts (randomly selected), all of them slightly different and requiring different strategies to be successful? Perhaps this is unnecessary, but I think it's worth trying.



Conclusion



Fixing WSG will require a serious overhaul. But if this stops people from neglecting this exciting part of WoW, I think it's worth it.|||I applaud a lot of this as well thought out, but here are my issues.

Certainly your lower levels die more often, but they know they're going to. They volunteered for this. Unfortunately, the rest of the bg didn't volunteer to have them, but that's life. Splitting the battlegrounds into more groups will just make the queues longer, not shorter, since you're now trying to launch twice as many bgs.

You have not even touched the xp off issue in reintegrating twinks. That is the concrete main issue in this situation, and is not mentioned here. If they're going to be playing in main bgs with the population at large, they're going to be gaining xp with the population at large, which they obviously do not want. I do not believe that players with capped xp should be in the same battlegrounds with xp enabled players. Nerfing twinks, no, let them have what they want, under the guidelines that they fought so hard for. Those enchants are available to any toon, have always been, and in my eyes, should always be. If *I* can go buy that enchant for my alt warlock, because...well, I felt like it and I wanted it, and yeah...I could afford it, then twinks should be able to have it as well.

Blizzard has not been very thrilled with the idea of merging battlegrounds when the idea has been brought up before.|||Blizzard is already addressing some of your points.

1. Battleground Marks are going away all gear will be purchased with honor.

Double edged sword here. On the one hand every single honor point you earn in 10-19 bracket will be useful once you hit 85. On the other hand, unless they make winning worth a crap ton of honor, it will make HK honor farming more lucrative than winning....still.

2. I'd rather see a scaling buff for lower level characters in the bracket than splitting the bracket. If que times are a concern then splitting a bracket should not be an answer. Give the X0 a 5% buff, X1 a 4% buff, etc so that X5s and up in a bracket don't have a buff. This will actually add some cool variations on the twink IMO and you won't look at your team with a bunch of lowebies and start counting your losses.

3. See number 1 for blizzard's current response

4. I disagree. The whole point of a twink is to dominate the competition (some may argue this). The domination turned into some ocurances of bullying and a LOT of QQing. Trying to rewind the clock and remove a few of their tools and let them back in to the general population is foolish IMO. I think the perfect fix to twink que times is widening no-exp bg battlegroups. Right now, in PvP, gear is such a HUGE factor and twinking requires many gimmicks to achieve that gear. Let them play amongst themselves.

Extra 1:

Rejoice, this is coming in cataclysm.

Extra 2:

Fine, but all it will do is increase the time it takes for you to learn every hiding place. The concept of map balance is already hotly debated I'd hate to see 10 more of those debates pop up.|||What I also don't see in this is the reason why I, and many other players, hate WSG, and why we avoid it.

It has nothing to do with twinks, but everything to do with why low level players end up in WSG. Capture the flag is simplistic, lacking in strategy, and resource usage. It's simply not engaging enough, even with the added element of real players added in, to go into. It has long since been the home of 19 and 29 level twinks, and new players who don't know any better. I've done my fair share only because I wanted the pvp war wolf, otherwise, I would have never gone in there. This is one of the reasons why, as you note, people do wsg only for dailies and other necessities. For a large portion of the population, WSG is death by boredom. Unfortunately, it needs to stay that way to fulfill its given role in this game, as the playground that new players learn how to play bg pvp.|||Thanks for the feedback. While I thought about what I wrote a lot, there were clearly a couple of things I missed or got wrong.



@ lower levels entering and splitting up level brackets

Right now there are 6-8 Battle Groups in EU, each with about 6 realms. I wouldn't know why there shouldn't just be one single cue for all realms (within the same time zone), perhaps with a smart system that puts players of the same realm together as much as possible. There may be some kind of technical reason why this isn't already in place; I can't see it.

A scaling buff instead of bracket split may work as well. Hard to execute though; at higher levels you will also have beter gear. If you don't account for this in your scale factor then lvl19s still have a big advantage over lvl10s. If you do account for it, then a weakly-geared lvl19 (e.g. with greens) will suddenly be weaker than a well-geared lvl10 (with heirlooms).



@ Twinking and locking XP

I was expecting that people would disagree here. The reason why I would lock xp (and did on 2 characters) and make a twink is NOT so I can overpower 3 other same-level players.

I would do it because I would like to join or create a (sort-of) permanent WSG team, and play against other teams. To make this team permanent you need to lock xp. The only way to do that and get enough play time is for twinks to re-enter normal BGs; unless Blizzard makes an effort to boost the twink population, but I can't see that happening. If that means that twinks will be nerfed to lower their advantage, that's fine with me.

Perhaps rated BGs will help here; if this leads to the creation of more competitive 10-player teams (with locked xp), then twinks can remain separate and as powerful as they are now.



@ reward system

Let's see what Blizzard comes up with here. The main idea should be that a flag capture/return or BG win should be rewarded better than HKs.



@ new WSG battlefield layouts

It's not only about different hiding spots, but more about having layouts that require a different strategy. Anyway this was not my main point and I really don't want to go into this since it'll almost certainly never happen.



@ WSG is simplistic and boring (Semii's comment)

Soccer and Basketball are simple games, but very popular the world over. Make it more complex (Cricket? American Football?) and you lose a lot in popularity. The great things about WSG is its simplicity. You only need 10 players. Every player will understand all the rules after 1-2 times. A though-out strategy is very helpful in winning, but they don't need to be so complicated that people don't understand them.

IMO WSG wouldn't be boring if teams were organized (i.e. guild teams). To win against another organized team requires as much coordination as a difficult raid. The unpredictability of a human opponent makes it exciting.

But I think this is a matter of personal taste. I can't argue with someone who simply finds WSG boring.|||1. In my mind the buff would scale down until you are 1/2 way through the level bracket i.e. a lvl 19 would be facing off against lvl 10s with a 5% damage/health/healing-whatever buff, lvl 11s with a 4%, lvl 12s with a 3%, lvl 13s with a 2%, and lvl 14s with a 1%.

2. I don't think rated BGs will help. The problem stems from low populations feeding long qeue times feeding low populations feeding long que times.....

3. I'd hope blizz can sort it out.

4. Maps don't bother me one way or the other, but I don't think it's a part of the solution you are seeking.

5. WSG can be fun at times and it's true you can't legislate taste.|||TPM I agree with point one, but, possibly buffed slightly more?

Level 10: +10% Damage/Health/Armor/Stats/Healing.

Level 11: +9% Damage/Health/Armor/Stats/Healing.

Level 12: +8% Damage/Health/Armor/Stats/Healing.

Level 13: +7% Damage/Health/Armor/Stats/Healing.

Level 14: +6% Damage/Health/Armor/Stats/Healing.

Level 15: +5% Damage/Health/Armor/Stats/Healing.

Level 16: +3% Damage/Health/Armor/Stats/Healing.

Level 17: +1% Damage/Health/Armor/Stats/Healing.

Level 18, 19: Normal.

They also should at least SLIGHTLY reduce the hit % that comes from hitting higher levels, up to level 60 or so, since after 60 the hit % is reduced a lot. A level 10 should be able to hit a level 19 player at least 85% of the time, with 0 hit rating. Same goes for 20 VS 29.|||Quote:








TPM I agree with point one, but, possibly buffed slightly more?




Well, like XAmsterdamX said, I'd be afraid of well geared lvl 10s running over under geared 19s. I'm not looking for level 10s being equal to lvl19s, just a bit of a bump. A level 19 should have little to no trouble with a level 10 and I don't want to change that.|||Maz I've also been thinking for a long time that they ought to tweak the hit chance formula. In PvE it's enough that higher level monsters have more damage and life.

but I just plain don't like WSG.

as a warrior It's so frustrating to chase somone from the flag room all the way across the zone because they ran past me just outside of melee range.

My bg of choice is Arathi Basin. If I'm guarding a flag the enemy has to fight me, he can't just slip by and run away.|||Makes you wish Heroic Throw was available a lot sooner.

Also: Piercing Howl?