The short version is here.

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I’m reluctant to open a new thread but I also want to underline the basic point once for all to not have to return on it over and over.

The BGs, right now, have many bugs and inconsistencies, like the possibility to break the CTF by logging with the flag, the durability hit on the equipment, the use of overpowering skills (speed, invulnerability shields etc..), the lag, the narrow “bubble” around the character that makes the guard spawn/despawn right on you and so on between minor and major problems.

All this could get solved in the next weeks since the BGs won’t be moved to the live servers before June. So, even if I find odd that all these problems slipped through 6+ months of focus testing, I’m confident that sooner or later Blizzard will address them.

Instead I’m not confident that they’ll fix the BASIC problem. Actually I believe they do not even see it.

The rule that they completely inverted is the following:
– It’s OUT of the BG that you CAN reward for goals and CANNOT reward for direct kills. (persistent environment)
– It’s IN the BG that you CANNOT reward for goals but CAN reward for direct kills. (instanced environment)

To explain the reasons behind that rule it’s enough to examine how the BGs work right now. There are two possible ways to interact and get a reward. The first is through the direct kills, so by fighting enemies and killing them over and over. The second is by “winning” the BG mission, so winning the CTF game or defeating the opposing faction in Alterac by conquering its base.

Now the evidence of the truth of the rule I wrote above comes directly from the fact that BOTH those ways to interact are broken.

Let’s take the first. You kill an opponent and you gain points. This is the very basic form of PvP we have on many different games. Here we are in a battleground, peoples come here to fight. It should be okay to reward for a kill, shouldn’t it? Not for Blizzard.

If this part is broken why only a small part of the players are complaining? Because the evidence of the problem is hidden:

Players may now see an “estimated contribution point value” in the combat log for an honorable kill. Note that this value does not take diminishing returns against the same player into account, and is therefore “estimated”.

The fact is that the BGs are the WORST way to heap Honor Points gained from direct kills. This because of the actual implementation of those “diminishing returns”:

Repeated killing: you only get full CP for killing the same player once per day. The second kill on the same player on the same day gives 75% of the CP, the third 50% and the fourth 25%. Subsequent kills give no CP at all.

Add to this the fact that these reductions aren’t relative JUST TO YOU, but to the whole raid group.

Now, a battle in the Alterac Battleground can last even a few hours and the instance works as a 40vs40 arena. Let’s take the average player, how many times he will die in an arc of 15 minutes? Less than four? I do not think so.

After putting together all these points you’ll find out that in 20-40 minutes you’ll be able to squeeze all the possible points from a BG. From that moment you are there for the fun because, while your UI will tell you that you are still gaining points, in the reality you are getting NONE. If you add the fact that a BG in Alterac lasts a few hours and not 20 minutes like the CTF version, you’ll find out that this first path (getting points for direct kills) is definitely not viable since these “diminished returns” prevent you from gaining points after a short, initial period.

Now let’s take a step backwards. Why these diminished returns were added to the game in the first place? They were added in order to prevent the corpse camping and to put an initial limit to possible exploits.

BOTH these motivations have ZERO reasons to exist in a Battleground. Corpse camping doesn’t exist because you directly respawn at the graveyard and the whole purpose of the gameplay should be to search the battle since the players have joined the instance exactly for that purpose.

The first conclusion is that this path (getting Honor points for fighting the opposite faction) is broken on two points. The first, because you get no points at all after an initial time span that will encourage the players to leave and “farm” each instance, jumping from one to the other (breaking the purpose of the BG, I’ll return on this). The second because the evidence of this mechanic is “hidden” by a broken UI delivering wrong feedback (since you do not see the diminished returns and the UI will keep telling you that you are heaping points).

What about the other path? The other path to gain Honor points is is by accomplishing missions. For example in Alterac you’ll be able to get a cumulative reward if you are able to take over the headquarter of the opposite faction. Which is.. impossible.

Since these BGs are instanced, the persistence of a goal like conquering an headquarter simply doesn’t work. Once a losing faction is starting to see an unavoidable defeat, they’ll simply log out, forcing the whole instance to reset and kicking the “winning” faction out of the BG without getting the well deserved reward.

So both these paths are completely broken, but not due to bugs as the glitches I listed at the beginning, but simply because they reverted a model that works on precise rules that cannot be moved at will. Rules that must be considered instead of ignored.

And these rules are summed up in the two points I wrote above:

-INSIDE a Battleground you are supposed to fight and kill. Because you go there exactly for that purpose, exactly because you are SEARCHING a fight. So the system is supposed to encourage the fight itself, it is supposed to provide reasons and goals (in the form of the reward). This is the reason why the “diminished returns” make no sense in this environment. You don’t want to inhibit the gameplay, you want to encourage it and reward for it.

The purpose of a BG is exactly to search a fight. Right now the fight is the least relevant mechanic because the greatest reward will come by accomplishing the goal (in the CTF BG). The goal itself makes the direct kills completely irrelevant considering the total of the points you’ll receive.

– At the same time, again INSIDE the Battleground, the goals make no sense. A goal, intended as a meaningful interaction with the environment, is supposed to be a persistent element, like the conquest of the oposite headquarter. But it’s exactly for this reason that a “goal based system” is more appropriate for the world outside, that is already persistent. And not appropriate for the BG, which is instanced.

The evidence of this is in the current behaviour of the players. Right now it is impossible to “win” the Alterac BG because the players “exploit” the false persistent element by logging out and forcing the instance to reset. This happens exactly because Blizzard founded the persistence in something that isn’t persistent. Guess what? It doesn’t work.

– OUTSIDE the Battlegrounds the situation is reverted. Here you CANNOT reward for the direct kills because the players go after different goals. They may be questing, they may be travelling and so on. Rewarding for ganking is inappropriate because it wipes off the game that variety that existed before. The fact that each player is a ” walking bag of improvement” makes everyone a target. Erasing the possibility of CHOICE. INSIDE the BG it’s okay to give out points for the direct kills because all the players are there exactly for that precise purpose. Outside the BG the gameplay is less focused and it’s inappropriate to force the players into a strictly codified behaviour coming form a direct reward given by the system.

The fact that outside the BG the behaviour of the players was less codified and less predictable brought to the game a type of depth that now is completely gone.

– Still OUTSIDE the Battlegrounds the idea of adding GOALS to the PvP is a GOOD idea. Fighting for the control of towers, graveyards and some escort/defence mission could help a lot to add depth to the game world and encourage the players to participate actively and have fun. Since the reward would be GOAL-based the players won’t be FORCED to partake in the action. They could just ignore it and continue doing something else if their current focus is elsewhere.

A goal-based PvP outside the Battleground would mean that the goals become the center of the action. The players will have the choice if to fight the opposite fight in a war with an actual purpose instead of a scenario where the whole depth of PvP is just a pointless genocide excused just by the reward for the direct kill.

Shortlist without explaniations:

– REMOVE the “diminished returns” on Contribution points inside the BGs.
– Save the persistence of a BG, preventing it to reset even if there are no players inside.
– Add dynamic structures to slowly realign/reset the BG (like temporarily boosting the defenses of the losing faction till they are able to recapture their headquarter).
– REMOVE the points for direct kills outside the BGs.
– ADD goal-based PvP systems to the world outside the BGs like conquerable graveyards, towers, escort/assault missions.