COMEDY GOLD on the recent changes to the BattleGrounds and the 10-minute rule that “slipped” in the patch:

(about the 10-minute rule)
I just spoke with Kalgan, and he explained the reasoning behind this change.

As you know, there are several groups out there who are very good at their particular Battleground, and seeing such a group on the opposite team when you’re in a pick-up group can be discouraging. For some, this means they don’t even try to win; they AFK out or fish until such time as the Battleground ends, get their token, and go back into the queue.

This change is meant to encourage groups of all skill levels to put in effort towards winning. Maybe you can hold one or two bases in Arathi Basin; maybe you can keep them from grabbing three flags in ten minutes with a good defense. The idea is to give players incentive to try and fight rather than give up before the match truly gets going.

I will endeavor to clear up the controversy and confusion surrounding the “ten-minute rule.”

The idea that players would have to remain in battlegrounds for ten minutes before they’d receive a Mark of Honor for losing was one the developers were seriously considering as an effort to reduce the incentive players had to lose a battle quickly. The concept was simple: it would give players incentive to try and stay in, rather than giving up and allowing a quick loss without any effort expended. However, during further discussions, it was decided that adding a mild punishment to those who /afk out of battlegrounds, in the form of a requeue timer (Deserter debuff), would be preferable to the old “ten-minute rule” idea. In addition, since the problem was primarily found in Arathi Basin matches held during the Arathi Basin “holiday,” the developers chose to improve the way in which bonus honor was awarded during Arathi Basin holidays rather than institute the ten-minute rule.

The ten-minute rule had been implemented as part of 1.9, and was set to be removed from 1.9 as the Deserter debuff was put in place. Unfortunately, because 1.8.4 was developed simultaneously with 1.9, the ten-minute rule had actually made its way into 1.8.4 too (which was tested and signed off upon some time ago, around the time this change was being implemented). As such, the ten-minute rule mistakenly went live.

This was not intended by our development team, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. The ten-minute rule does not exist on the patch 1.9 test versions that have been on the test realms for some time now (with the exception of Warsong Gulch, which is being fixed), reflecting the fact that the Deserter debuff was intended as a replacement rather than an addition to this mechanic. We intend to fix this bug in a server-side hotfix soon.

Thank you for your patience throughout this. We’re keeping a close eye on PvP, battlegrounds, and the Honor System, and will continue to make changes as warranted.

So the “intended” changes are more stupid than the 10-minute rule.

Now if you happen to join as a random group the BG camped by the farming guild in uber purple you have two wonderful, extremely fun choices:
1- Exit the BG and enjoy another fun penalty on the queue (because they weren’t long enough)
2- REALLY go fishing so that the BG is over quickly and you can cash at least the mark of honor.

Basically we start from the 10-minute workaround, which was designed so that the players were encouraged to hold the battle for at least 10 minutes and get the mark of honor.

I’m not inventing anything. Requoting:

This change is meant to encourage groups of all skill levels to put in effort towards winning. Maybe you can hold one or two bases in Arathi Basin; maybe you can keep them from grabbing three flags in ten minutes with a good defense. The idea is to give players incentive to try and fight rather than give up before the match truly gets going.

So the goal is again to encourage you to fight instead of “giving up”.

And now the smartest of all changes! Instead of the 10 minute rule, they penalize you if you leave the BG with a fancy “queue debuff”.

What’s the result? That this will encourage the players not to fight. But to give up and sit in a BG so that the farming guild will win as fast as possible, cash the mark and requeue without the penalty.

So, basically, they started to think a way to ENCOURAGE the players to fight and finished to encourage them to completely surrender and “go fishing”. Great work!

It’s not only a solution that sucks (it’s blatantly a stupid and clunky workaround) but it’s also completely illogic since it contradicts the original premises:

For some, this means they don’t even try to win; they AFK out or fish until such time as the Battleground ends, get their token, and go back into the queue.

Which is EXACTLY what is going to happen (the fishing part) if they introduce the penalty to the queue.

—
Now. I rant and point my finger with no shame because the BGs are completely retarded (surpassed only by the Honor system) but also EXTREMELY EASY to fix.

In fact all these problems that are coming up (give a look to this, and Tobold’s comments) are a fucking consequence of a model that just doesn’t work and that was blatantly broken:

The fact is that the PvP in WoW doesn’t exist. The war doesn’t exist. It’s all faked in a sort of detached arcade mode that roleplays itself, taking place somewhere else in the form of a detached, instanced zone. The PvP isn’t consistent, despite the two factions are at war from the “lore” point of view, they aren’t in the game. They don’t fight over something. They don’t conquer nor control (at least in the BGs, on the PvP servers the situation was better before they introduced the honor points). So it’s obvious how the whole and only purpose of the PvP is just the personal gain. A personal gain that can easily be exploited since the “war” exists just as a false excuse. As a pretence.

Basically the problems Tobold noted are just the consequence of a system that is not consistent. It doesn’t simulate what matters and the obvious result is about the players working around the faked war to reach the actual REAL, concrete goal: the personal reward.

Once again the players outsmart the designers and show them where their ideas are broken and pretentious.

Now my belief is that if you fix the model (which would be extremely easy) all the other multiple problems that rose as a consequence will simply vanish without the need of workarounds and workarounds to previous workarounds.

So, concretely, how to fix the model?

It’s simple: remove those fucking retarded diminishing returns on Honor Kills. In the BGs only. Give us FULL CREDIT because we are going in a BG with the purpose to kill. And that’s what the system should reward.

If we get normal credit for the direct kills, a group of PUGs will be encouraged, guess what?, to fight. Because even in the worst situation possible you can still get some kills even if the other group is in uber purple and owning your Arathi Basin session. Plus you’d actually BE ENCOURAGED to fight the bigger guys because the honor reward increases consistently if you kill a much higher rank than yours. While “giving up” will make you just lose honor points.

The logic is simple. We are joining for a fight. So give us credit for this fight.

At the same time, remove the Honor reward for direct kills OUTSIDE the BGs. Completely. As it was on the PvP servers before this horrid Honor System was introduced. And give us, instead, PvP goals to accomplish (PvP hotspots), like PvP towers and outposts to conquer, upgrade and hold.

This would discourage the annoying, disruptive ganking and will give the world some decent PvP depth that is currently totally missing.

(and it was all explained back then, with a longer rant here.)

To conclude, the most fun part. The first quote from Caydiem is dated: 12/6/2005 8:54:52 PM WEST The second quote: 12/7/2005 1:59:49 AM WEST

How can both of these be true? If she went to Kalgan today and said “The players want to know why we implemented a ten minute rule” shouldn’t he have looked at her and said “You mean the ten minute rule we scrapped and never made implemented?”

Maybe they should read Raph’s guide:

“customers see through falsehood really quickly,”

Haha.

EDIIT- Update on the cheap drama:

“How is it, then, that you received an explanation for why it was implemented from the developers when it wasn’t supposed to be implemented?”

A large amount of data runs through our hands on any given day. I asked Kalgan plainly what the reasoning was behind the ten minute rule in Battlegrounds, and he told me, which I then related to you. I’m sure he could tell me about any number of mechanics that almost made it into the game but didn’t if I asked him first thing in the morning. Shortly after I spoke to him he ran back down to me, saying it shouldn’t have been implemented at all, and explained what happened. Instead of simply announcing a hotfix later, he and I wrote up the above message with the explanations therein.

This isn’t attempting to pull the wool over your eyes. We’re human. We made a mistake. Our hotfix team is working to correct it as I type this.

Which fits with my original comment.

The fact that the change was deliberate and not a mistake makes them look even dumber.

(For simplified explanations about what happened give a look to my summary)