Custom groups meant to lose? A disturbing trend.

[Inferna]

I do not know how prevalent it is on other servers or on the Horde side, but there is a sad trend occuring on the alliance side on my server.

I have seen several groups people spamming to create a custom AB group whose sole purpose is to all stay at trollbane hall and become 5 capped so they can get a quick token and pick up some quick honor from farming the 5 cappers who come to trollbane to farm them.

I think this is a disgrace to the pvp system, blizzard needs to take away the token for losing completely if this keeps happening. Also they need to make it so that teams that queue up in 5,10,15 increments all fight one another in AB and WSG and people that join solo can just fight pug vs. pug. That way removing the token for losing won't be as unfair

But i think that teams that queue in as a pre-made or a partial pre-made should get more honor since they are playing at a higher level than a pug and it requires more organization. Which makes sense to me.

I'm just getting tired how poeple get rewarded for losing and now people are exploiting that option. A system that promotes losing as an acceptable alternative is flawed. There is no more honor or glory in PvP anymore. Thats why I am looking foward to Arena battles hopefully that doesn't become tainted like the BG's are now.

[rgirty]

These people are probably the same ones who keep getting steamrolled by tier 2.5/tier 3 horde premade groups in AB.

about 40% of the ab's I do are against these groups. If you are in a pug, you ARE going to get 5 capped, and it is going to be less than 5 minutes. The best way to get honor in this situation is to farm Hk's at the graveyard. If you need marks this is a sure way to get probably 10 marks an hour.

If you can hold the stables, and get 4-1 cap with all your fighting there its even better.

Competing and winning is the best, but with the system the way it is do your best to try and get some honor!

[Inferna]

I agree that these people are the ones who constantly get steamrolled. But it seems so illogical. You would think they would team up and make a custom to get some payback and steamroll pugs or compete at some level with a custom and get some pride and dignity back. It seems so funny to me at least to go through the trouble of finding 15 people with the sole intention of losing. Just stay solo and the same thing happens for the most part. People have no confidence in this game. I go into every BG thinking I can win, of course once the rest of the team gives up its pretty much a moot point to try and rally them.

I'm not trying to blame these people for doing this, the system forces them to do this sort of activity. I think the changes I said up above would help make winning the only objective in a BG.

[Slepnair]

it sucks, im not on enough to really get a team together so i have to go into PUGS for PvP and they lose 99% of the time. if the tokens for losing were taken away, alot of us would be screwd and unable to get the PvP gear which would make the change crap.

[Inferna]

Like I said I am only for taking away tokens if they make it so that pre-mades only match up against pre-mades and pugs vs. pugs. But if this happens I think its only fair to make the pre-made vs. pre-made matches garner more honor and tokens than pug vs. pug.

[Ebgreen]

That is an interesting idea that I would support. So, in a PugvPug you would get say 3 tokens for a win and 1 token for a loss. In a PrevPre you would get say 4 tokens for a win but 0 for a loss. Is that an accurate summation?

[Inferna]

I would give a 20-25% honor bonus for player kills and objective bonuses like capturing a flag or winning a game to the custom vs. custom format.

I would give no tokens to a losing team who did not try in either format. I would have no problem with giving a token to a losing team in AB or WSG if the follwing occurred:

WSG:
1) The losing team got at least 1 flag cap or 3-5 flag returns.

AB:
1) The losing team gets at least 500 points.

Those above requirements are sufficient to me at least that a team tried and put up an effort and deserve a token. But if a team gets 5 capped or rolled 0-3 in a pug vs pug or premade vs premade I think they only deserve the honor they got from pk's. I think this would promote teamwork and winning which is what I want to see from PvP.

[rgirty]

I ran 23 ab's in the past few days winning only 3. I am guessing this is the experience for people on the alliance side. More honor most likely can be gained by farming Hk's. You can probably gain more tokens in this fashion as well.

In my experience, Horde dominates WSG and AB. Alliance wins about 75% of the av's I've been in.

Most people get their honor in AV then are simply in AB and WSG to get the required marks.

These comments of course exclude raiding guild or well geared and coordinated alliance ab groups who are steamrolling horde.

[Nitsujcm]

"ok, everyone que into AB 34"
"ok at 500 points run back to the graveyard"

People who play cheap will always find a way. I kind of like what you are saying, but it too is flawed. How soon till we see guilds from hoard and alliance teaming up and queing into the same match with the results planned out? This week the hoard guild wins all matches unchallenged - next week the allies get it. Both sides end up with tons of tokens, lots of honor and very little effort.

This would work in your new system or the current system. I think it would work better in your new system. I’m tempted to play cheap and just que all day and sit there for tokens so I can gear up and actually compete against the tier 3 people who rip my face off currently. Why not? I give them tons of honor for the first few months, then I gear up and try to take it back. I am semi joking - I hate this type of practice, but seriously, how are you supposed to talk someone out of it? A lot of reward, little work, not against the rules. Morally wrong, but I could argue that a T3 lvl 60 attacking a green/blue lvl 60 is even more morally wrong. lol.

[Nitsujcm]

rgirty - not sure what battlegroup your server is on, but I think we must be on the same one. You hit the nail on the head how our matches go. We actually yell through IF when Ally's actually win a AB match, but we roll over the hordies in AV all the time.


Wonder why this is? All the WSG and AB matches they killed us in up to AV got them hooked on killling us and they just can't get it through their head they are supposed to be killing a NPC. lol.

[rgirty]

Maybe the horde have the same problem with AV that alliance does with ab/wsg. Don't win many at all so just farm HK's and let the alliance win so you can get your token.

[Sundestroyer]

I wish I was in one of the battlegroups that you guys are in. As a member of the Horde, we are LUCKY to win 25% of our AB's...and 5-10% of our WSG's. I thing we actually have more luck in AV than AB or WSG at about 33% wins. It took me 2 full days of PVPing after the patch to win a BG, and it ended up being AV. On my old server, Horde won EVERYthing...then after transfering to Dethecus, and the xrealm BG's...it's loss after loss. The only good streaks we've had is in an AB premade. I disagree with the "Let's lay down and lose" strategy. I like to win, and I like getting 3 marks at a time, rather than 1. The only thing that losing does, is give the opposing faction MORE honor and MORE marks, thus you guys are only helping gear them up faster. People say "Oh, but if we lose 10 AB's an hour, we'll get more marks...blah blah blah"....but what they don't think about is how much honor and the 30 marks that the other faction is getting. Gee...let's just GIVE the epics to the opposing faction so we can make it harder on ourselves in the BG's....that's real intelligent. *shakes head*

[Findariel]

Well I see where this comes from.

Organisation in BGs is extremely important.
After losing 95% of the battles in WSG and AB thus far, today I teamed up with a few people who wanted to spend a few hours together and act as a group within the 10-man team in WSG, since we all needed a lot of tokens and well .. if you can get 3 in stead of 1 when you need to have 90+ for all the nice reward stuff (plus far more bonus for the caps), I thought it would be worth a try.

The result? We suddenly won 75% of the battles! The battles were longer and usually rather close, which makes me think that this level of organisation is far more common on the horde side.

We even weren't all lvl39 twinks, it was 2 x 39, 1 x 37, 1 x 36 and 1 x 35. But it worked. We used the party channel to communicate within our 5-player group and it went so much better ..

So .. is this great communicational influence also partly due to the fact that not everyone knows how to use the battleground channel, or that it's not automatically switched on? Should a 10/15 player party in WSG/AB automatically be put on the party /p channel?

Anyway, this clearly shows that player skill isn't as important as cooperation. Two players usually win from one. I've also noticed that horde usually comes in groups of 3-6 that stay really close to each other, and kills every 1-2 player group on its way.

So yes most certainly, this clearly shows that random groups are meant to lose.

"Customized groups meant to lose" as meant in the OP .. well I can see that if your chance of winning is about 1% you don't even bother anymore about resisting if the resulting reward is the same as playing 10 minutes longer and getting killed again and again and again. It's very demoralizing and frustrating. Especially if you need 150 tokens and you get 1 after a match anyway ..

[Leonavice]

Actually WSG is the worst. The losing team gets nothing save a miserable token, if they get 3 capped. At least in AB, if you can get 1 node and hold it throughout, you get at least 20 honor at 400/2000 scoreline. That is the problem with WSG. Nobody even bothers to try to cap the flag anymore simply because the Horde is too strong in WSG.

There is 1 factor that many people fail to consider in favor of the Horde side. Lack of queues means they get slotted into the WSG/AB side faster. On the other hand, Alliance would have to queue. While queuing, they might be outside farming something. What all these means is that for the alliance, if you are the first one in, you will always notice the horde is ready with 10 people in WSG, and 15 in AB. How many times have we started being outnumbered by the horde?

As for the token things, it's pointless to make the losing team get 0. Everybody has too many tokens at the end of the day anyway, and we can't convert them into other things except epic pvp mounts, which take up bag space. Why do you think up to now, Blizzard has taken away the battlemaster?

[Imraath]

This is all why I like the lvl40-49 bracket for WSG and AB. Not nearly as many twinks, got a mount to get around a lot faster, got a good array of attack options and the difference between a 40 compared to a 49 isn't nearly as profound as 10 vs 19 or 20 vs 29.

It'd be nice if they offered AV for this level bracket as well.

[Icekiss]

Probably if Wsg and AB were aworded by a token per captured flag/nod people would be much more participating and active in the battle, yet now, as you can get a token either way, what's the reason to play? I'm quite disappointed with this fact too. But switching to Horde some time ago it's not that bad for me anymore.

[Oatmealsmurf]

Maybe the horde have the same problem with AV that alliance does with ab/wsg. Don't win many at all so just farm HK's and let the alliance win so you can get your token.

That's exactly how it is in our Battlgroup for AV. And why I hate playing AV now. Most of the Horde contingent just wants to have a zerging race. (which horde can't win except on the rare occasion). And if we fall behind (which we always do) then at least we lose quick and get back into another game.

This weekend I played in AV and we won for the first time in a while and it was only because 8-9 of us played Defense at Iceblood. We ended up capping SP before we lost Iceblood and then we held frostwolf for essentially the rest of the game because most of the allies recalled on defense when we were pushing the towers and aid station hard.

The amazing thing was all during the process of us doing a magnificent job on defense and basically winning us the game... 6-7 people on offense kept complaining about us playing defense and saying we needed to all go offense so we could get out of the game faster and into another one (even if it meant losing). Really sad.

Personally I'd rather spend 2 hours winning than 1/2 an hour losing but I guess I'm just competitive.

[brandondash]

I've gone from "100% addicted" to "Dusting off my 360" in the span of 2 weeks thanks to the pvp changes. Battlegrounds have been flooded with tier 2/2.5 players looking to upgrade bits and pieces of their raid kits with warlord gear. They aren't there because they enjoy pvp. They just walk in, steamroll anyone, repeat.

Used to be you could have a really good time in BGs. Not so much any more. I would absolutely sign up to the "5 cap loser" plan if I could, because there is no more fun in BG these days anyway. Might as well get my honor and get that spellblade.

brandon-

[Magikhat]

lol 5 cap loser plan

[Steamboat]

I can sympathize either way. The BG's should be about honor, and winning, and whatnot. But on the other hand, after about your 100th AB you're probably not in there because it's fun and it's a challenge. You see it's a pre-made and say "what can I do to make the best of this."

Sadly, the answer is to let them 5-cap, farm as much honor as you can, and move on with your life.

I hate being Alliance for BG's. In my battlegroup it's:
WSG: 10-30 minute queue on weekdays, ~7 weekends
AB: 15-30 minute queue on weekdays, ~8 weekends
AV: 45-1 hour+ queue on weekdays, ~35 weekends.

I have no problem getting honor. It's the marks that are hard. IF I won AV in 15 minutes 75% of the time, it would still take me 20 hours to get 40 marks, and I'd spend 15 of those hours in queue. It's a similar issue with AB and WSG on a smaller scale.

Ultimately, if I know I'm going to lose AB because it's Pug vs. premade, doesn't it make sense for me to get my mark as quickly as possible and then get back in the queue so I can hope for a new, fair match?

[Redmumba]

The funny part is, if you have an organized group, you can steamroll PUG horde groups like they're not even there. 2000 to 0 caps in a premade versus a PUG are not uncommon.

[Drpep]

Ok...Alli premades steamroll horde pugs.....Horde Premade steamroll alli pugs. AV is won by the team that keeps 7 to 10 on defense. These are all true to what i see.

To tell you the truth the premades are usually geared in gear that still puts the pvp gear to shame. For what i can tell, they are banking points so they can be leet out of the gate when the expansion hits and possible higher level gear hits the pvp vendors. We casuals are being farmed (except in AV) and it gets tiring trying to scrape by just to get gear to be a little competitive. Here is the Solution: Get rid of the enter as group option. Make everyone pug. If you have a friend you like to pvp with, say.hey get in ab 30 or hey sign up for wsg 4. But this way at least things will eb mixxed up and be a bit fairer for all that like to pvp.

[Sundestroyer]

Ok...Alli premades steamroll horde pugs.....Horde Premade steamroll alli pugs. AV is won by the team that keeps 7 to 10 on defense. These are all true to what i see.

To tell you the truth the premades are usually geared in gear that still puts the pvp gear to shame. For what i can tell, they are banking points so they can be leet out of the gate when the expansion hits and possible higher level gear hits the pvp vendors. We casuals are being farmed (except in AV) and it gets tiring trying to scrape by just to get gear to be a little competitive. Here is the Solution: Get rid of the enter as group option. Make everyone pug. If you have a friend you like to pvp with, say.hey get in ab 30 or hey sign up for wsg 4. But this way at least things will eb mixxed up and be a bit fairer for all that like to pvp.

Actually, instead of getting rid of the premade option, it would be better to only team up PUG's vs. PUG's, and Premades vs. Premades. That way a PVP only guild can all pit their skills vs. other PVP guilds and such...which is the way it SHOULD be. Then develop Guild ranking system.

[ozshahadet]

"Actually, instead of getting rid of the premade option, it would be better to only team up PUG's vs. PUG's, and Premades vs. Premades. That way a PVP only guild can all pit their skills vs. other PVP guilds and such...which is the way it SHOULD be. Then develop Guild ranking system."

So a cross server BG version of the arena system?? A great idea imo.
Ive only just discovered I love pvp and while Ive gathered about 40 AV and 30 AB marks I only have 2 WSG. Because your usually against premades and PUGS always lose. Why go to WSG when you can queue for AB and at least have a chance. If there new arena system can match groups by gear why not distinguish between pres and pugs.

[Redmumba]

Actually, instead of getting rid of the premade option, it would be better to only team up PUG's vs. PUG's, and Premades vs. Premades. That way a PVP only guild can all pit their skills vs. other PVP guilds and such...which is the way it SHOULD be. Then develop Guild ranking system.

Sure, so you want to remove any possible amount of fun and enjoyment from BGs? Is that it? :p

[Drpep]

Sure, so you want to remove any possible amount of fun and enjoyment from BGs? Is that it? :p

So you are saying pvp would not be fun, if you had to fight an opponent that stands a chance to win? Any team that call themselves pvper and only go for easy wins are sad and lazy.

[Richakin]

i know on the Aggramar server...alliance loses about 80%of the ABs it seems. We've had a few lucky ones. I think i've lost 2 AVs...on was a premade...after x-realm Bgs....yeah...took 22 minutes and i joined at the 20min mark....i know i've had PUG alliance win it in under 20 minutes lol.

I wish i would of rolled Horde instead >.< PvP is a blast, but it's no fun when you get plowed even by PuG Horde teams.

[Suave]

Why does Horde lose to Alliance in AV far more than AB or WSG? Simple: map design drastically favours them. Compare defending Stormpike bridge to Frostwolf, uh, gate. It's completely unbalanced in that respect. Stonehearth bunker is also placed a lot better than Iceblood tower, etc.

Well of course that's not the only factor, but is it a big one which you can't just ignore. Though it seems a lot of Alliance-only players do ;)

[Fursphere]

The idea of "premade vs premade" and a "ranking system" has been in the works for some time.

A blue post actually said the system would be out a patch or two after the BC hits.

Why they released the BGs originally without such an option is beyond me, or the time inbetween major "fixes".

They (via internal or player comments) identify a problem, then come up with a solution, them implement it a YEAR+ later. Then again, WoW was in productino in 2001, and didn't get released till 2004.. guess I should just expect extrememly long production times. :)

[Sundestroyer]

Sure, so you want to remove any possible amount of fun and enjoyment from BGs? Is that it? :p

Hmm...perhaps one of us is misunderstanding the other...unless you are the type of person that is in a premade that scouts the BGs for PUGs just so you can go plow over them. I don't see how PUG vs. PUG and Premade vs. Premade would make it not fun or less enjoyable somehow. It would make sense to me that doing it that way would make a more even playing field...so there would not be as many 5 caps and steamrolls over opposing PUG's by Premades...etc.

[marriedman]

Devil's advocate here, with some quick questions:

What about those that want to group with their friends, but don't have a full group? I usually like to roll with my wife and a friend or two... Would we be put in with the pug groups? or would we be a premade? How many members have to be in the group for it to be considered a premade?

And if/when we switch to teh pre vs pre, What happens to groups that aren't full? do they just deal with a 10 vs 15 ab? or do they throw 5 random people in the group?

[draconicman]

This problem is much worse when Hode does it in AV.

[EdvinMedvind]

TBH some horde premades aren't very good. I've met some terrible ones without any strat (but ok gear). It isn't unheard of that ally pugs beat horde premades. If I can I go with my guild though.

Even though you see that they all come from the server it might be a pug in the sense that it's just random people in Ogg that have banded together.

[Sundestroyer]

TBH some horde premades aren't very good. I've met some terrible ones without any strat (but ok gear). It isn't unheard of that ally pugs beat horde premades. If I can I go with my guild though.

Even though you see that they all come from the server it might be a pug in the sense that it's just random people in Ogg that have banded together.

The same can go the other way also. We have had Horde pug's beat Ally premades.

[Mojorising]

Not 100% sure, but you can probably report these people for game fixing. I remember reading somewhere from a blue some time ago that this kind of behaviour constitutes as that as it ruins the game for others.

[Arrowstorm]

I started in Bgs just 4 days ago and soon got really annoyed. Must be something wrong!!
WSG and AB are just for horde as they win 95% times. AV is good only for alliance as we win 90% times. When i started i tought there was some cheating going on, and in some way there is. Blizzard made the mistake. They should have made 2 different battlegrounds: 1 for random players and 1 for premade groups.
The way it is now is unfair. Mostly on alliance side, we go to play as randoms, horde are organised and go as premade groups with their own tactics. That's the reason they always win WSG and AB, not because they are better at pvp... Proof is AV, for a wierd reason or just because 40 players groups are hard to build up, horde doesn't go as premade groups in AV and they lose most times...
I think only Blizzard could do something to make things fair, meanwhile you can't blame those that just go to farm HK if after 5 minutes and sometimes even less, horde is already way ahead and there is nothing left but farm HK and get 1 mark.

[Aerath]

Most people are drastically overreacting when they see players from one realm.

I ran into one the other day and NONE of them had higher than rank 3 (!).
6 out of the 10 people in WSG /afked out, or went to another BG.

These days there's a lot of 'premades' going on, most of which haven't got a clue how to play.

[Dutchgrass]

I personally find the trend of increasing afk honor farmers more disturbing. It's especially commonplace in AV, where you typically end up with at least 5 players not moving out of the tunnel, having 0 kills 0 damage/healing done, but still grabbing bonus honor.

It's becoming more popular each day, to an extent that it's crippling games because a part of your team is simply not doing anything at all.

[Amiral]

Devil's advocate here, with some quick questions:

What about those that want to group with their friends, but don't have a full group? I usually like to roll with my wife and a friend or two... Would we be put in with the pug groups? or would we be a premade? How many members have to be in the group for it to be considered a premade?

And if/when we switch to teh pre vs pre, What happens to groups that aren't full? do they just deal with a 10 vs 15 ab? or do they throw 5 random people in the group?

personally, I'm of the opinion that Join as a Raid should be removed (aka not more than 5 people in one join), and then they would be fit against the same numbers if possible, and maybe 2x 2ppl vs 1x 4ppl groups

you would strive to have pug vs pug and premade vs premade, but smaller premades would have thier left spot(s) filled by PUGers.

[Sundestroyer]

I started in Bgs just 4 days ago and soon got really annoyed. Must be something wrong!!
WSG and AB are just for horde as they win 95% times. AV is good only for alliance as we win 90% times. When i started i tought there was some cheating going on, and in some way there is. Blizzard made the mistake. They should have made 2 different battlegrounds: 1 for random players and 1 for premade groups.
The way it is now is unfair. Mostly on alliance side, we go to play as randoms, horde are organised and go as premade groups with their own tactics. That's the reason they always win WSG and AB, not because they are better at pvp... Proof is AV, for a wierd reason or just because 40 players groups are hard to build up, horde doesn't go as premade groups in AV and they lose most times...
I think only Blizzard could do something to make things fair, meanwhile you can't blame those that just go to farm HK if after 5 minutes and sometimes even less, horde is already way ahead and there is nothing left but farm HK and get 1 mark.


I believe it is impossible to make a premade for AV now. Prior to some patch, raiding guilds would make AV premades and pwn...but it was changed for whatever reason. I haven't tested it myself, since I am always in PUGs anyways.

[mipbar]

ROFL, do you mean the premade's or the 'giver up'ers' ?

Both are game fixing.

Not 100% sure, but you can probably report these people for game fixing. I remember reading somewhere from a blue some time ago that this kind of behaviour constitutes as that as it ruins the game for others.

[MellanCholera]

But it seems so illogical. .

just the opposite, it is completely logical once you start studying game theory. Honor points and tokens are what you turn in for rewards, not wins. Therefore, people playing bgs just for fun may want to win, but people playing for the rewards Blizzard has built in to the game fight for honor and tokens - which is not the same as winning.

All you have to do is calculate how much honor and tokens you get over an hour by giving in, vs how much you can get by fighting. If you're in a pug vs most premades, you basically can get more honor and tokens by not fighting at all. AV is even worse, the reward for losing is almost as much as for winning.

As you guessed, the only way to force people to fight to win is not to give anything for losing. Of course, that would end casual pvping.