Ideas to Improve PvP on Nighthaven

[Gnog 1]

The Vanilla experience on Nighthaven is excellent. The devs have improved server performance immensely. The accelerated timeline has been great. The GMs are responsive and the community is pretty damn good. The server is going to progress into TBC.  There is a LOT going for this project. 

But the PvP scene is struggling a lot, basically due to a low participation rate on the Alliance side.  Other than the two or three alliance premades (Khandz, Smoshy, DragonSnacks?), very few Alliance players are entering the queue for Warsong Gulch.  This is causing horde players to have extended queues, sometimes reaching 1hr30 minutes or more.  This is causing horde players to stop Pvping and instead do other things with their time (increasingly, logging off). 

According to Rain and Quack (in Discord), the admin team will discuss the PvP scene in their next team meeting.  Can we give them some ideas?  Here are a few.

 

-- Implement the "improved" PvP sets earlier.  Specifically, implement them in Patch 1.8.  Some people who want a leg up in AQ40 will grind the PvP ranks for R12 or R13 gear. 

-- Reduce the cost of respeccing to 25g.  Some people do not PvP because they aren't willing to farm an extra 100g each week to PvP in a fun spec.

-- Give participation rewards for WSG and AB.  The loser gets some 'participation' honor and one warsong token or AB ribbon.  The winner gets 2x or 3x. 

-- Change the queue system so that premades play premades and pugs play pugs.  But implement the system a bit better this time than during the initial launch of BGs, so that one side (Alliance) cannot so easily circumvent the system.  Instead of starting a new WSG game whenever there are sufficient numbers on each side, make the queue system wait a fixed period of time (5-10 minutes?) after the queue is full.  Then fill the game (or multiple games) with a random group of people from the queue on each side.  

-- Increase the rate of earning reputation in WSG.  As it currently stands, the reputation grind to Exalted in WSG is not worth the time except for ranking PvPers. 

-- Give the "deserter" debuff to anyone who leaves a battleground queue after it pops.  (Queue dodging on the horde side is contributing to the premade vs. pug stompfest that is driving Alliance players from the queues.)

[jimbo95 0]

10g respec imo

[Frankenberry 1]

I replied in this thread 
https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/63856-pvp-faction-imbalanced-caused-by-premades-is-killing-the-server/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-465643

but I'll also give my 2 cents in this one:

59 minutes ago, Gnog said:

-- Implement the "improved" PvP sets earlier.  Specifically, implement them in Patch 1.8.  Some people who want a leg up in AQ40 will grind the PvP ranks for R12 or R13 gear. 

Sure. Could work. In my reply in the other thread I wrote that the upcoming gear update would encourage more players to queue. 1.8 wouldn't be a big game changer so I don't see a big problem with this.

59 minutes ago, Gnog said:

-- Reduce the cost of respeccing to 25g.  Some people do not PvP because they aren't willing to farm an extra 100g each week to PvP in a fun spec.

 

Yeah. Not any lower though. There still has to be some amount of dedication to your character and your specc. I've seen players on the discord suggest 10 or 5g respecc cap which would essentially give you a dual specc and drastically change the feel of the game. Not a fan of that but 25g - yeah sounds about right.

59 minutes ago, Gnog said:

-- Give participation rewards for WSG and AB.  The loser gets some 'participation' honor and one warsong token or AB ribbon.  The winner gets 2x or 3x. 

Just wait for the Token system and AB to be honest.

59 minutes ago, Gnog said:

-- Change the queue system so that premades play premades and pugs play pugs.  But implement the system a bit better this time than during the initial launch of BGs, so that one side (Alliance) cannot so easily circumvent the system.  Instead of starting a new WSG game whenever there are sufficient numbers on each side, make the queue system wait a fixed period of time (5-10 minutes?) after the queue is full.  Then fill the game (or multiple games) with a random group of people from the queue on each side.  

I fail to see how this will change anything. It won't make more alliance players queue up (I try to explain this in greater detail in the other thread).

59 minutes ago, Gnog said:

-- Increase the rate of earning reputation in WSG.  As it currently stands, the reputation grind to Exalted in WSG is not worth the time except for ranking PvPers. 

Not a fan. I like that things are hard to achieve in this game and not everything is served to people on a silver platter. WSG is brutal but with the upcoming system it will make achieving rep with WSG easier - especially since the premades will move on to AB.

59 minutes ago, Gnog said:

-- Give the "deserter" debuff to anyone who leaves a battleground queue after it pops.  (Queue dodging on the horde side is contributing to the premade vs. pug stompfest that is driving Alliance players from the queues.)

Yeah. Coudl work. Some players would still "dodge" us by switching from WSG -> AV in the middle of a game but I guess that's only a small problem. I definitely can support this idea.

-Lurpakken (ingame)

Edited April 16, 2018 by Frankenberry

[Encryptedgg 0]

I agree, implementing the revised pvp rewards earlier, would incentivize more participation. I think premade vs premade and PUG vs PUG would also help with que times. I could see how some of the Alliance members would argue against, seeing how they control the honor system. Reducing the gold respecs would also help. Overall we need to make some changes, because at this point, there are about 5 alliance that will que up solo and they get destroyed every game against horde and vice versa for alli premades.

[Frankenberry 1]

25 minutes ago, Encryptedgg said:

I think premade vs premade and PUG vs PUG would also help with que times.

Why would this encourage more alliance players to queue? It's not like there is a high risk of facing a horde premade.

Edited April 16, 2018 by Frankenberry

[SweetRevenge 0]

Quote

- -- Reduce the cost of respeccing to 25g.  Some people do not PvP because they aren't willing to farm an extra 100g each week to PvP in a fun spec.

-10g respec imo

If I had to live in the wow universe, I would be a respec trainer for sure.

[Kagethewarrior 0]

Can we get AVs that won't die if there's less than 25 players on each side inside the instance? I'd like that cap lower to 15 actually so the AV can actually finish and go on until the end. I think that change is necessary at this point because the queue times are absurd atm.

[Gnog 1]

-- Queue BGs from anywhere 

-- Battleground weekends, to focus people on a single BG each weekend

[Mitchymoo 0]

+1

On 4/16/2018 at 9:32 AM, Gnog said:

-- Reduce the cost of respeccing to 25g.  Some people do not PvP because they aren't willing to farm an extra 100g each week to PvP in a fun spec.

-- Give participation rewards for WSG and AB.  The loser gets some 'participation' honor and one warsong token or AB ribbon.  The winner gets 2x or 3x. 

-- Instead of starting a new WSG game whenever there are sufficient numbers on each side, make the queue system wait a fixed period of time (5-10 minutes?) after the queue is full.  Then fill the game (or multiple games) with a random group of people from the queue on each side.   

-- Give the "deserter" debuff to anyone who leaves a battleground queue after it pops.  (Queue dodging on the horde side is contributing to the premade vs. pug stompfest that is driving Alliance players from the queues.)

[fixpvp 0]

From my perspective the current problems with PvP on the server are:

1. Low active population participating in PvP

2. High frequency of one sided games

3. Queue dodging

4. High queue times

These problems are fundamentally related and influence each other. The current state of PvP is not enjoyable for the vast majority of players which results in lack of participation. The majority of Alliance players only queue as premades while the majority of Horde only queue solo or in small groups. Horde players with the highest honor gain are the ones who are best at queue dodging, i.e. waiting for a game to fill to a level where your party number exceeds the available spaces and forcing a new game to start when you queue. When Alliance premades do not queue the same 20-30 horde are taking it in turns to stomp any alliance solo queueing after a 1 hour wait time. 

From my perspective the best solutions to these problems are

1. Create more enjoyable experience to encourage participation

2. Seperate solo queue and premade queues - this one is crucial

3. Introduce measures to make queue dodging impossible (/who warsong disabled, deserter debuff on hiding a queue)

Who wouldnt queue up solo if they knew that everyone else in their game was in the same position? Its a level playing field with higher variance and different players and comps every time. I think it would be a very enjoyable way to experience BGs. If someone wants the inherent advantage of queueing with 9 people they have chosen with comms, let it be applied to both teams for a fair game.

I don't care about rank or honor gain, I care about enjoyable PvP. If you truly want this server to last you need a sustainable system that encourages growth not decline of PvP playerbase. There is only so much stomping from premade and waiting in queue a casual will take before calling it a day.

 

[Crohns 0]

I think the first thing they need to do is release the level 60 blue pvp gear and the buffed epic gear with patch 1.7. This would bring more people from pve to pvp.

[TechnoMulen 1]

let us queue from the world with a .command- but not while in party.. 

[Gnog 1]

Any chance of a response from Rain or another admin on this?  This is the biggest downside of an otherwise terrific server right now.  A few very, very small changes would go a long way. 

[TechnoMulen 1]

1 hour ago, Gnog said:

Any chance of a response from Rain or another admin on this?  This is the biggest downside of an otherwise terrific server right now.  A few very, very small changes would go a long way. 

well some people is against changes (people doing premades and PVEscrubs) 
letting us sign up from the world would make people go out from cities and into the world while queuing all the time. or at least have the ability to do so instead of going to cities and sit there and wait for XX amount of time. 

[TechnoMulen 1]

another evening with alliance premade.. not gonna queue thats for sure 

[Gnog 1]

Hi Admins,  Thank you for responding to the post.  I do hope you can make some changes to the current system.  One big thing, which was not addressed in the announcement, is the rampant queue dodging.  When Horde rankers dodge the best Alliance premades, the Horde rankers will always play against pugs on Alliance, and, because the Horde rankers dodged the Alliance premade game, the Horde puggers will get filled into that game and always face the Alliance premades.  This means that, if you do not dodge, you will always go against a premade--on both sides.  This is the root of the discouragement and non-participation we are seeing among more 'casual' PvPers on Nighthaven.  Please implement something to deter people from dodging queues.  A few ideas are:

-- give the deserter debuff whenever someone ignores/hides/doesn't accept a BG pop

-- make the deserter debuff increase in severity each time someone gets it.  the first deserter is 15min, then 30min, then 1hr, then 2hrs, and so on.  The timer can reset after 48 or so hours without a deserter.  

 

[Shenna 1135]

Let's continue on the official thread now! Thank you!  https://forum.elysium-project.org/topic/64249-call-to-arms-improving-pvp