What 3.2 Means for Wintergrasp
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Heartbourne on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 22 Comments Tags: Proudmoore, PvP, patch 3.2, season 7, wintergrasp
Heartbourne on Monday, June 22, 2009 - 22 Comments Tags: Proudmoore, PvP, patch 3.2, season 7, wintergrasp 
Wintergrasp barely got a mention in the first draft of the patch 3.2 notes, but the outdoor PvP zone will in fact see some major changes in the new patch.The updated patch notes show the following changes:
To provide players with a more transparent notification of when Wintergrasp battles occur, as well as better control zone population and stability, several changes have been made.
- Players now have the option to queue for Wintergrasp from a Battlemaster in any capital city or by simply entering the Wintergrasp zone.
- Queuing will begin 15 minutes before each battle. If chosen, you will automatically be teleported to the zone. Any players in the zone who have not been chosen from the queue will be teleported out when the battle begins.
- The queue system remains active for the entire battle. As soon as a player leaves, a new one will be chosen from the queue.
- Trying to enter Wintergrasp during an active battle for which you have not been chosen will teleport you out. Please note that, as you are now able to fly over Wintergrasp, you will only be teleported out if you try to land and join the battle.
- Level 80 players get higher priority in the queue than lower level players. In addition, a random selection of queued players will be taken from both the Battlemasters and the zone itself.
- The queue will accept up to 100 players from each faction, resulting in a maximum battle of 200 players at a time.
There are several major implications of these changes. First and most obviously, servers with a large discrepancies in faction populations should have more balanced fights. Blizzard's original strategy to combat population imbalances in Wintergrasp was to adjust the Tenacity buff, but even with 20 Tenacity stacks, the server-side and client-side lag made gameplay difficult, and CC spells like stuns overwhelmed the underdogs. Tenacity is (presumably) not going well, and I think the mechanic will remain useful and should be expanded to Battlegrounds. One hundred players on each side is still a huge number; that's two and a half raids on each side if the battle is full. Horde players on the Proudmoore sever occasionally need a second raid, but I doubt we often break 100. The Alliance, on the other hand, well outnumber us, and getting capped at 100 will increase the Horde's chance of victory significantly. Most Horde players on Proudmoore don't even try to defend Wintergrasp as the Alliance almost always captures it. Since 3.1, Archavon's Log reports that the Horde has defended Wintergrasp 7 times and captured it 303 times, while the Alliance has defended 673 times and captured it 302 times. This is almost certainly a product of sheer numbers in this case.
It is unclear if the queue will try to put players in at the same rate between factions; that is, in battles where only 20 players of one faction show up, the other faction's numbers will be limited. I've never played Wintergrasp on a low population server, but I imagine if they implement this change, it will be well appreciated. Gear checks, like the ones used in Battleground queues, could also be implemented to ensure that the factions have similar numbers of well geared and not-so-well geared players. They already select against lower level players, and they have the infrastructure to do gear selection from their Battleground code anyway. I think this could be valuable as well; Battlegrounds with similarly geared players is more fun, and they already showing wants to match similiar players in PvP, such as matching twinks with twinks.
Another major implication is where players will be when Wintergrasp is starting. You can almost always see people huddling around where the portal will open before attacking Wintergrasp. Now, those players can queue, go do other things, then get ported to Wintergrasp when it starts. This will be especially handy for Battlegrounds, especially if you are on a server that is likely to have a wait to get into Wintergrasp. It will be interesting to see where players who aren't queued get teleport to if they attempt to enter Wintergrasp; perhaps they will get a debuff warning like when you fly into a no fly zone then sent to Dalaran near the Wintergrasp portal. Its a sort of a reinstatement of "ghetto hearth", where you get a free "teleport". I wouldn't be surprised if these "Battlemasters" become queues like the battlegrounds and you are returned to where you entered from after the battle.
Additionally, with the teleport in place for the start of the battle, where will it place players? Its very strategically valuable to get positioned at a Workshop before the battle starts to capture it or start churning out vehicles. There are many unanswered questions, and I'm sure we'll hear more once the PTR is up.
Are these changes necessary to balance Wintergrasp, or is capping it taking away from its original purpose? Will you be angry if you are doing your fishing daily and get kicked out of Wintergrasp?
Reader Comments (22)
so they are making wintergrasp basically instanced like every other battleground?
its supposed to be world pvp -.-
Well 200 players battleing with siege is somthing.I't yust sucks that 1 player can kill siege I mean c'mon.
geeeez, Its supposed to be world PvP, well it technicly still is but not in the same waay... :/
I have mixed feelings on this subject, so I guess I'll have to wait and see how this works out. :|
hey what about the wg buff are they taking that away also i realy wish they would have left it as isnt the old saying if it aint broke dont fix it
if it fixes the lag, im for it.
I'm on a low pop server so I don't know about the lag. And as far as the balance of who controls WG most it's basically even. I'd like to see it where they adopt the 6 hour timer like the bones waste is in terokkar torest. This would allow those that go in to do the non battle dailies in there time as well as players who do the battle to control it so they can do the vault time to do it before a different battle begins. that's another question what happens to those players inside the vault when a new battle begins since in essence the instance is part of the zone. and what of the players who leave thru the instance portal when a new battle has begun.
First they made everything related to WG "Weeklies" and now they are nerfing it even more.
Are they trying to kill the fun out of the zone? 100v100 is still going to lag really bad when it comes down to assaulting the final walls/gates. This will fix nothing except keep people out of the zone.
I don't like this at all, on my realm (Frostmane-EU) most of the time i'm the one making a raid, but now we can't even use cool tactics anymore like flying from Icecrown into the fortress... that fucking queue is gonna ruin everything. How are we gonna make raids now?.. when u get ported in? it's too late then. ffs.....
Right now, I'm pretty sure that if you are in the Vault when WG comes up for grabs, you get kicked out into Wintergrasp. I imagine then you have the option to queue and are ported "out" to wherever that is. Hopefully they will give players in the Vault the option to queue when the 15 minute warning comes up.
You should still be able to fly in from Icecrown if you enter WG before the battle starts to queue. There are mountains you can sit on up there.
I see one problem with this. With a battle every 3 hours, how are they going to give a chance to every one to do wintergrasp? Can I queue all day and never be chosen?
On my server Wintergrasp is a lag fest, I hope to play one just lika I play a battleground.
At last, I can fly over Wintergrasp on my way to Borean Tundra for dailies. No more taking ages to fall into dragonblight, or annoyance trying to find a place where I can take off again.
What about if you land when a battle isn't occurring though? Are you now able to take off again, or do you still have to take a flight path or find an area just on the edge of Dragonblight/Sholozar/Borean etc.?
If so, the fishing daily would be much better.
It has already been mentioned, but I just want to agree. The biggest problem I see with this is the fact that you won't be able to form raid groups and plan tactics to your attack.
One of the best parts about WG is the ability to get a full raid or more ready for an air drop from icecrown into the fortress. Charging in and haveing 40+ parachutes coming down on top the fortress just makes WG worth the effort.
I do think that the lag is still a big issue that needs to be resolved, but I am not sure if this is the way it needs to be done.
Forget the queue. I say, first come first serve. If you are in a raid and get into WG as one of the first 100, great. If you struggle behind on the air drop and charge in and aren't part of the 100, better luck next time.
Simply put, there needs to be a way that people can organize before the battles, and a random queue teleportation system isn't it.
I say boooo, even though the alliance on my server get trounced, id still rather it be real world pvp then just another battleground.
i say bravo blizz WG is a work in progress this wont eliminta all the lag 100vs100 is still gointo cause big problems but ateast now ill be able to see my self move their is a limit now no longer will i have to see "can i get an invite" this should allso help the tanacity problem this limits the charges to 5 ass for not eing able to plan your attack i think i adds to the fun to wing it its gointo save lots of head ache and i comletly support this and those of you whiners SHUT UP
They might as well instance it. These changes ruin the entire "world pvp" on a grand scale-aspect of WG. It's not gonna solve the server lag, it's going to make certain achievements impossible (like the tenacity ones because both sides will be equal 95% of the time on most realms), and just make it another AV without an instance.
All of this following the honor and daily changes last patch...
WG was just too successful for it's own good.
then remove the tanacity achievement the battles are never egual on my server the horde allways has tanacity alliance never gets it let along wins with it so on m server its already impossible to get it it wont solve all the problems why is equality such a big issue how is it anthing like AV you dont kill general thier are no flags involved yo can ride seige vehicles the player cap is more then twice as large and WG was not successful it was lagy as hell and every 6 hours alliance was sent to it doom this will equalize the chances for winning
I couldn't care less about the changes to WG (as long as the Horde keeps winning!) but I will be pissed if I'm kicked out while fishing.
i am fine with horde winning just not horde winning all teh time
I play horde on Dawnbringer - we are outnumbered by alliance over 2-1 there, so world pvp is a bit tough for us, even with tenacity. So personally I like this idea, simply because it will be easier for me to get my marks and quests done in there.
I belive that the best alternative wwas mentioned on one of the posts. "Instance" WG, you can use the lockout/kicking out mode as mentioned in the PTR notes so plp wouldn't be entering a empty area on battle times, but the battle would happend in a diferent server, so No LAG, I play aliance in SkullCrusher and one of the reason most of my friends don't get into WG is the LAG, we spend the entire fight frozen in place not getting any honor, and at the end we are at the SpirtHealer and there we stay for 15 minutes waiting for the LAG to end and we get revived. So if u instance it and kick all from the area, at the end of the battle they could reflect the outcome on the world server. Still keeping the portal to WG on the city and the option to organize raids prior to the battle.
But that is only my opinion
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