PvP Scene Community Feedback

[Ash 22]

To our community,

As we're well aware; PvP and PVE are the core elements of the end game content in Vanilla WoW. Over the past few months we've noticed that our PvE community is thriving alongside Elysium's growth. However, our PvP scene doesn't seem to be active and reminiscent of the original Vanilla WoW. As a result of these concerns, we'd like for you as a community to express feedback on the PvP scene:

• What's something that you enjoy about our current PvP scene?
• Something that you dislike?
• What's missing?
• What would you like to see improved?
• Any other thoughts / comments / suggestions?

By posting your answers (and any other additonal concerns / feedback that you may have), we can work to make the PvP scene more enjoyable and appealing for all. As our current project timeline suggests, we plan on continuning to push out Vanilla content for many more months and want to ensure that end-game content will not outlive or outscale our PvP community.

We are working towards bringing the community together, hoping to see our realms full of diverse adventures, and want all aspects of the game to be equally active and interesting, PvE & PvP.  

This is our second step in regards to the PvP scene, as on the 24th May 2017 an update will be implimented for Battleground marks: 

https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/47074-changes-to-battleground-marks

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and concerns!
Elysium Staff

[Fiers 0]

PvP on Zeth'Kur is uniquely, completely, intolerably broken. It's also problematic in many other ways on all servers. I will edit this comment once I have a chance to write out a post in full.

Full post:

I'm a rank 13 NE hunter on Zeth'Kur. I finished ranking 5 weeks ago, stopping before my goal of 14 because it would have taken at least 7 more weeks to hit 14, in order for the 2 people ahead of me to clear the system and open up the lone BR1 bracket slot. I started managing the entire faction's bracket system around the end of February, and still do. I also helped the horde with their bracket system for several months. I say this to indicate that I speak on behalf of the vast majority of PvPers on our server, not just my personal view.

As of this week, there have only ever been 25 people on ZK alliance who have made it to rank 11 or higher; 3 of them made it to their goal, 5 are still ranking, and 17 stopped short of their goal, almost exclusively because of our bracket sizes. We have only had 1 rank 14 on each faction, and are only likely to have 1 more on each faction prior to xfers. By comparison, there appear to be 24 alliance and 9 horde on Elysium who have hit rank 14.

Elysium's pvp population (and consequently, their brackets) are 13x the size of Zeth'kurs, in spite of their server population only being about 6x ours. And for the vast majority of the server's history, our population was relatively higher - perhaps 3-5x smaller, not 6-7x, which makes that difference in PvP population and high ranked players even more staggering.

Also, there hasn't been a single non-60 BG in months.

To sum up what I've said so far - Elysium has ~6x ZK's population, but ~13x its PvP participation, and 17x its Rank 14s.

PvP on Zeth'Kur is dead. There are significant periods of time where there's not even a single BG up. Our top 4 brackets combined amount to 12 slots this week, if we're not unlucky. Without counting those who have already quit recently, there are 15 remaining rankers at rank 10+. That means it is literally impossible for several of them to rank up, even if no one of lower ranks gets a higher standing than any of them.

Basically, for those on ZK who still want to rank, they have to spend ~80 hours a week at rank 10, for some of them to gain 0% progress, for 6 weeks, all so that they can rank on Elysium after the xfers. For our lone BR1 last week, it was closer to 120 hours. And in a couple more weeks, we are likely to not even have a single BR1 slot. That means someone at rank 13 will have to spend several weeks farming for ~100 hours a week, for br2 points, just to not decay back to rank 12 prior to xfers.

Given all that, it's not surprising that approximately 70% of the top 20 highest rankers on Alliance are considering quitting the grind. Even with xfers coming, which are supposed to be only 5 weeks and 1 day away at the most, it's hundreds of hours just to try to tread water waiting for xfers. That's insanity. To make sure that is properly emphasized: of the top 20 people who have been grinding for 3-4 months, approximately 75% of them are seriously considering quitting by Wednesday of THIS WEEK. Not simply because they can't spend the time, or it's too hard, or it's not fun, but because progress is unreasonable/unrealistic.

 

To address the immediate isssues with ZK, something needs to be done. Not waiting for xfers, not in a month from now, but as soon as humanly possible. Below are some solutions for the current ZK situation, and some others for just general PvP improvements. Regardless of whether you follow these ideas or not, something needs to be done ASAP.

Suggestions that could ease the current problems on ZK, while still benefiting other servers going forward:

Allow players to freeze their current rank, so they don't have to grind out insane honor just to prevent decay, while waiting for xfers (this would also be beneficial for people going out of town). Add an immediate decay cost to it if necessary, so that it isn't abusable/used needlessly, but having the option would be massive.

Drop the 15 HK requirement to be counted the PvP population. Drop it to some token number like 1-3.

Allow players from levels 10-59 to queue for BGs from anywhere in the world, so that they actually queue up and get games regularly.

Permanently set minimum bracket sizes. To even have to worry about dropping to 0 BR1 slots is unacceptable. It should not be possible to start PvPing with 4-6 bracket 1 slots, and have to give up before finishing after 4 months of constant high standing grinding, simply because there are 0 BR1 slots left (this is the actual situation some people are going to be facing on ZK).

Consider lowering the weekly rank decay (and lower the points awarded each week as well). This would encourage far more people to PvP regularly, as a single week of little-to-no PvP wouldn't undo several weeks of effort. If balanced properly for a lower amount of decay, it should take the same amount of time to "fast-track" your way to rank 13-14, but it should be much easier to chip away at that progress over a longer stretch of time.

General suggestions:

Upgrade the PvP gear sooner. Release the PvP rep gear sooner.

Consider adding periods of time where premading is limited to 5 people, or disabled entirely, so that interested players can freely play as pug vs pug at least occasionally.

Have a GM dedicated to rapid response regarding PvP issues. When catching someone in the act is the only answer 90% of the time, having tickets take hours or even days doesn't work. If you need to catch them in the act to sanction players, you have to be available to witness the acts as they are occurring.

Consider add a world PvP "BG weekend" to the rotation. WSG, AB, AV, and then world PvP  - where kills or certain zones give bonus honor. Or make that the case during the week, when no BG weekend is active.

Change respeccing - Add dual spec, a PvP only spec, reduce respec costs, or offer a second respec option that charges BG marks instead of gold (since they will only have a 24 hour duration now), so people can PvP more freely (or PvP and then go to PvE), without being an awful spec. It shouldn't take 100g to casually queue a couple BGs in the proper spec.

 

This is not a comprehensive list of issues or solutions. Just what I could throw together off the top of my head. But please, do something. Many things. Make PvP fun, rewarding, and realistic. It should not be possible to spend anywhere close to 100 hours a week for 3 months grinding, and then hit an impassable wall due to people quitting the game or not queuing up. It makes no sense to do the same amount of PvP, get the same honor, putting in the same hours, and get decreasing progress, because a group of lvl 60s are raidlogging instead of getting 15 kills - there is no rational reason to have high end PvP progress linked to general player activity.

 

What's something that you enjoy about our current PvP scene?

Fighting premades as premades.

Fighting pugs as pugs.

Fast queue times.

The periods of time where the PvP rewards at good.

 

Something that you dislike?

Having people screwed out of ranking, 3-4+ months into the grind, by circumstances entirely beyond a their control.

Long queues.

Roaming gank squads of PvPers desperate for honor with no chance of fighting back.

Having no reason for pugs to try in a game, or bother to queue up at all, when they're facing premades.

Going out of town for a few days, or having RL take priority briefly, ruining any chance of ranking at the high end.

Cheaters going unpunished.

The nonexistence of low level PvP. I fight (and usually kill) every horde I see on alts, as do others who are leveling, and still cannot possibly get enough kills to even be in the PvP population until at or near lvl 60.

Tiny pvp brackets.

PvP gear being outclassed by PvE gear for the majority of patches.

100g+ in respec each week if you want to do more than just PvP or just PvE.

Watching most of my friends and co-rankers quit PvPing or the game entirely because *other* people quitting means they can't rank up.

 

What would you like to see improved?

Literally everything on the above list of issues.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to post our concerns, and hopefully have some changes implemented to improve the pvp situation for all going forward.

[Lorilay 12]

Implement upgraded PvP gear on ZK and Elysium to encourage more participation and ranking. It worked on Nostalrius/Anathema, and it's your chance to implement PvP gear that's balanced with PvE (something Blizzard failed to do in vanilla).

Also, stop trying to make PvP battlegrounds appealing to everyone. It's a long grind to rank up, and if you're not part of a premade you are not supposed to win often at all. There aren't enough premades for effective matchmaking (and the current honor system discourages only playing against other premades). Catering to casuals was what ruined WoW after vanilla/TBC, so stop trying to repeat the same mistakes on here. If we wanted a free win funserver, we wouldn't have rolled on these realms.

[sphare 0]

pvp is fine, just need to tone down frost mage. every no hand with a half of brain can reck everything in pvp with that^^

[brims 0]

Slow updates, missing/broken gear, simple bug fixes taking absolutely forever to implement, but mostly I think your main problem is going to fall in that the most vocal portion of private server pvp communities are absolute cancer and can't stop tripping over their excited minmaxing dicks to call everyone cucks and ruin any chance of enjoyable gameplay.

[lapincube 0]

More Outdoor pvp incentives

[casperthefriendlystoner 0]

The image you've used for this forum thread is typical of what Elysium is like.
Horde griefing alliance players because of faction imbalance.
Horde have 1 hour queues and alliance get instant. 
And alliance pugs there is no point in trying to win, because once you capture stables and goldmines, the horde have the advantage on the match. Not to mention that most players are botting and/or Chinese with dodgy connections to a EU based server.

[prigity 0]

Top honor earners should be monitored for account sharing, and you should also check retroactively for past high ranks. Offenders should have an honor penalty at least, or temporary ban or whatever. It says it is against the terms of service to account share, and gives a discouraging unfair advantage in vanilla Pvp.

[piastoax 0]

Release AV already, allow us to queue into it as a raid, and script in reinforcements off the bat, and all will be fine in the pvp community.

[Dragonaut 0]

I know this isn't blizzlike, but maybe do a server announcement when a world dragon spawns to create a frenzy like we had on this nostralius video.

Also this creates a challenge for the hardcore guilds who use bots to notify them when a world dragon spawns meaning other guilds will have a better chance at killing world dragons and creating more competition in the world.

 

I mean doing this for Anathema only right now

[Downcast 0]

Speaking just from my experience and a lot of my friends, there's too many AFKers and botters in battlegrounds that ruin it for a lot of people on Horde side, Elysium. Ranking early on was a constant roflstomping due to this. Sure alliance have more premades but we usually stood a chance / still won several games against them if we didn't have the AFKers on our side lol.

 

Maybe a report-afk option?

[Dunkz 1]

Ban china

[Masteridley 3]

8 minutes ago, casperthefriendlystoner said:

Horde griefing alliance players because of faction imbalance.
Horde have 1 hour queues and alliance get instant. 
And alliance pugs there is no point in trying to win.

All of this can be fixed with a one time faction change to help balance out the pvp participants within each faction. 

[Cephei 8]

Okay, the problem is that you're releasing content at a snails pace and everyone raidlogs to the point of logging in once per week because there is nothing to do.

Please don't make the mistake of ruining the itemization yet again by updating the PvP sets too early, it has little influence over world pvp presence.

Under absolutely no circumstances should you do what this guy is suggesting:

Quote

Implement upgraded PvP gear on ZK and Elysium to encourage more participation and ranking. It worked on Nostalrius/Anathema, and it's your chance to implement PvP gear that's balanced with PvE (something Blizzard failed to do in vanilla).

PvP gear in vanilla was very deliberately chosen to not be better than PvE gear and raiding is extremely negatively influenced over those items being upgraded early. Additionally, rankers do not world pvp in the way that's fun for most people involved. Don't confuse farming honor between queues with actual enjoyable world pvp.

Release AV and future patches sooner and you will see a much higher activity in world PvP. If you don't believe me, look at the first week or two after DM came out.

[ABCDe 1]

1. Upgrade PVP gear to encourage more rankers.

2. Disable raid premade, only allows at most 5 ppl queue bg together.

Problem solved.

[Sakuyamon 0]

"As our current project timeline suggests, we plan on continuning to push out Vanilla content for many more months and want to.."

Few days ago I talked with some friends about "what will happen after naxx". And we had a (for us) great idea. Even before Blizzard released World of Warcraft they had a lot plans and ideas for future contend. Some of them got canceled ( Azhara Battleground ), other contend got shifted into later expansions. (Karazhan, Havers of the time). 

 

The unfinished Azhara Battleground is already in our 1.12.1 WoW Client and it would be awesome to play it. (If it is generally possible)

Also to play Karazhan in Vanilla WoW would be indescribable awesome...

(And pls stop comments like "this is not blizzlike", For example, blizzard already worked on Karazhan when WoW was in an early alpha state and planed it to release it in VANILLA WoW). 

[Georlik 0]

I think there is an issue with PvP flagging on Darrowshire. I don't think my character ever gets flagged, even if I attack guards of the opostite faction or kill the PvP-tagged mobs. On the other hand I heard complaints of other players getting excessivly flagged (especially when they use Flight Path). Fixing that would greatly improve overall experience.

[Aziz 1]

Release the AV patch and your PvP scene is fixed. People don't enjoy PvPing in dungeon blues. 

[Gladius 0]

On Zeth'kur there often isn't more than 2 WSG active (sometimes there is none).

There is one full horde premade and one full alliance premade (there are not enough dedicated pvp players to gather more full premades). These premades dodge each other, meaning that sometimes pugs only get to play against a 10man premade and lose every game on both sides. While the premades win all games in 7 minutes.

 

Solving this problem can be accomplished by disabling raid queues and only allowing 5man (party) queues. This way pugs will have an chance to win sometimes thus an incentive to play and for premades it will be actual games, not 7 minute "enemy afking at gy cap 3 flags fast and go next game" grinds.

 

5man queues, not raidqueues!

[Dunkz 1]

16 minutes ago, Josipbroz said:

No

Maybe premades can only fight premades with similar size or 2-3 party leeway difference. There needs to be like 3x the amount of pug alli to compensate for the chinese afking and botting..

[Gilnash 0]

pleasue update the pvp gear with zg release its the best timing in terms of balance to do it at that point

[ABCDe 1]

23 minutes ago, Gladius said:

On Zeth'kur there often isn't more than 2 WSG active (sometimes there is none).

There is one full horde premade and one full alliance premade (there are not enough dedicated pvp players to gather more full premades). These premades dodge each other, meaning that sometimes pugs only get to play against a 10man premade and lose every game on both sides. While the premades win all games in 7 minutes.

 

Solving this problem can be accomplished by disabling raid queues and only allowing 5man (party) queues. This way pugs will have an chance to win sometimes thus an incentive to play and for premades it will be actual games, not 7 minute "enemy afking at gy cap 3 flags fast and go next game" grinds.

 

5man queues, not raidqueues!

Disable raid queues and only allowing 5man party is the point then the bg scene will be more competitive since there will be no dodges.

[Hanso 0]

Alliance running premade all day long. It's booring. When I queue for a pug I want to battle against another pug, not an well organized premade. It's not fair at all.

Edited May 22, 2017 by Hanso

[Tristramn 0]

Premades and win trading NEED to be dealt with. A good number of horde stopped queueing for Arathi Basin because every match is a full Alliance premade with heavily geared players. While I understand that premades are a part of the game, I feel like it needs to be altered in a way that limits a solo or duo queue group to remain competitive.  I'd suggest limiting a cap on how many members you can queue with, in this case let's say 3-5 members. Additionally, you could create a premade bracket in which you could have Premade Horde vs Premade Alliance. As it stands, getting slaughtered for several minutes of a 5 cap/gy farm, is what's causing the pvp scene to diminish. The Zeth'kur merger should also help with these issues. 

[Forest_ 40]

Reduced respec cost.

The only advice I would give to encourage people to PvP is reduce respec cost. I'm a staunch advocate for 100% Blizzlike features but the only thing I would ever bend for would be reduced respec costs to make it super easy for people to switch between raid and PvP at will.

Kronos did this and most people respec'd 5-6 times per week since it was so cheap.

I'm aware you probably will say no to this but since you were looking for suggestions I figured I'd suggest something people probably want.