Building A Better Battleground
Posted by 
Amatera on Tuesday, June 9, 2009 - 24 Comments Tags: Alterac Valley, PvP, assault, battlegrounds, isle of conquest, lake wintergrasp, patch 3.2, siege, warsong gulch
Amatera on Tuesday, June 9, 2009 - 24 Comments Tags: Alterac Valley, PvP, assault, battlegrounds, isle of conquest, lake wintergrasp, patch 3.2, siege, warsong gulch
As a dedicated progression raider, I may only PvP once in a blue moon, but when I do it's almost always in a Battleground. To be frank, the beating handed down for my first and only Arena match several years ago was enough to let me know I wasn't cut out. And world PvP? Well, there just doesn't seem to be a whole lot of incentive beyond a hearty laugh from ganking some flagged Alliance outside of an instance portal!
But I love the concept of a Battleground: a protracted war against a set number of people with actual goals beyond random slaughter. My favorite? Alterac Valley. Sure, the other ones are just fine, each representative of a type of match you're bound to find in other popular, competitive online games (Capture the Flag, Assault, and so on), but AV comes closest to matching my ideal.
Or, at least, old Alterac did. It borrowed a lot of ideas from WoW's RTS predecessors, including the gathering of resources, help from NPCs, unit upgrades, and base destruction (well, by proxy through "capturing" towers). By looting materials off of enemy players or the local fauna, you could summon several types of destructive assaults, as well as your faction's super-unit: either Ivus the Forest Lord or Lokholar the Ice Lord. Battles could (and many times would) last for hours, no less heated towards the end than when they began.
You'd be hard pressed to find this icy bruiser on the Fields of Strife these days.
If you never played World of Warcraft before its first expansion, you might not even realize this version of Alterac Valley once existed. For the rest of us, my complaints aren't exactly recent news. Sure, many of the mechanics are still there, and you might find someone running off to capture a mine once in awhile, but for the most part it's an honor grind these days, likely accounting for why it continues to be the most played Battleground despite the introductions of Eye of the Storm and Strand of the Ancients since.
Admittedly, it's hard to keep any aspect of gameplay from narrowing to the razor sharp point of efficiency. Players always tend to figure out the best way to do something, whether it be class tweaking, boss strategy, or otherwise. Their methods get posted on the internet, and everyone else follows. I'm actually not surprised at all that Alterac Valley has turned into what it is, considering that rushing through it is absolutely the best way to earn honor. Of course it could be argued that if Blizzard had retained its original tuning, AV would still as interesting as it once was. On the flip side, there would be a whole lot fewer people playing it.
So, keeping these issues in mind, how do we go about making a Battleground that is compelling and fun while satisfying all those ravenous honor hounds out there?
Lake Wintergrasp is the first place to look, having revived the same sorts of large-scale battles that Alterac made popular. The addition of destructible buildings and siege vehicles is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, there are also a few drawbacks. As an element of World PvP, you can't simply jump into a fight any old time you want. Wintergrasp is on a strict schedule, so as to allow the winning side the chance to defeat the raid bosses inside of the Vault of Archavon.
Likewise, it seems to accommodate pure Assault gameplay. Wintergrasp is a big zone. It can support a lot of people, but it doesn't exactly give a whole lot of incentive for the defending faction to protect anything but the castle itself, and perhaps the closest factories. On top of all that, there are no hard player limits. Even considering the buffs and debuffs doled out for population control, individual bodies still matter. An Alliance force with 50 players is going to whoop a Horde that only had 10, and vice versa.
Battlegrounds tend to ensure that sides are kept even, at least in terms of raw numbers.
So, then, what about Strand of the Ancients? It features some of the same conceits as Wintergrasp (namely Assault style gameplay and controllable vehicles/defenses), and makes up for the core balance deficiencies non-Battlegrounds suffer from.
Despite that, it has yet to give me a rise, and I blame that on how absolutely wimpy it feels. For a scenario based loosely on D-Day, I expected masses of people, seemingly insurmountable defenses, and bullets flying everywhere. As it is, Strand feels a lot like the Battle of Normandy conducted on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Was 10 people people per side really enough? Or how about those pea-shooters they call defensive cannons?
Clearly, both Wintergrasp and SotA suffer from their own unique problems, but I do think they're evidence of Blizzard proceeding in the right direction with Battlegrounds. In fact, the description for their next attempt leaves my mouth watering:
Kind of speaks for itself, but let me zero in on the key phrases: "large-scale," "control of strategic resources," and "lay siege." We're talking, in all likelihood here, a happy marriage between the Alterac of old and the best bits of Lake Wintergrasp. Though I'm a bit hesitant to go so far as to say that would be the "perfect" Battleground, it comes damn close to what I've always wanted.
Of course, that little blurb is all we know about it so far, and it may not be until Blizzcon that we get a whole lot more. That considered, the only thing left to do is speculate. How could a battle on the Isle of Conquest be executed so as to meet the criteria (fun and gobs of honor) I set above?
The simple answer is to actually dole out the amounts of honor people want. Put hard locks on different phases of the battle so that there is no possible way to rush right into the opposition's keep, and give large quantities of honor to everyone who participated in pushing forward. In order to keep people from bailing early, withhold their rewards until the very end of the battle, and at that time, give them appropriate bonuses for completing objectives/gathering resources that are not one-hundred percent necessary to win.
In fact, I would award more honor for the optional bits than those required, perhaps as some sort of PvP version of raiding's "hard modes."
For instance, how about a fight over some sort of bridge that both sides need to cross over at some point to assault the enemy's keep? Holding the bridge is one thing, but destroying it locks both sides out of the option of a direct ground attack, forcing the adoption of new, more complex strategies. The faction that chooses to destroy said bridge gets the bonus honor, but must also gather resources to produce air units necessary to continue the fight (assuming there will actually be any available), while the other side gets some free "emergency" reinforcements, but no honor at all for it.
The bottom line is that there must be some way to incentivize the (perceived) optional mechanics of a Battleground so that the aggregate honor is significantly greater than a pure rush to the end.
Now, as we know little about the actual nature of the Isle of Conquest, similar conceits may already been in place, but I'm also quite sure that it's far enough into development that no further major changes to its basic setup can be made before its release with 3.2.
Those are my thoughts anyway, and I applaud anyone who's sat through my lengthy brainspew long enough to reach this point! If so, Why not contribute yourself? Let me know what you think of my ideas. Are they shining examples of game design brilliance or pure poppycock? Should Battlegrounds be epic in scale or do you prefer more intimate experiences like Warsong Gulch? What would your perfect Battleground be? Don't be shy, the comment box is just a few scrolls below!
But I love the concept of a Battleground: a protracted war against a set number of people with actual goals beyond random slaughter. My favorite? Alterac Valley. Sure, the other ones are just fine, each representative of a type of match you're bound to find in other popular, competitive online games (Capture the Flag, Assault, and so on), but AV comes closest to matching my ideal.
Or, at least, old Alterac did. It borrowed a lot of ideas from WoW's RTS predecessors, including the gathering of resources, help from NPCs, unit upgrades, and base destruction (well, by proxy through "capturing" towers). By looting materials off of enemy players or the local fauna, you could summon several types of destructive assaults, as well as your faction's super-unit: either Ivus the Forest Lord or Lokholar the Ice Lord. Battles could (and many times would) last for hours, no less heated towards the end than when they began.
You'd be hard pressed to find this icy bruiser on the Fields of Strife these days.If you never played World of Warcraft before its first expansion, you might not even realize this version of Alterac Valley once existed. For the rest of us, my complaints aren't exactly recent news. Sure, many of the mechanics are still there, and you might find someone running off to capture a mine once in awhile, but for the most part it's an honor grind these days, likely accounting for why it continues to be the most played Battleground despite the introductions of Eye of the Storm and Strand of the Ancients since.
Admittedly, it's hard to keep any aspect of gameplay from narrowing to the razor sharp point of efficiency. Players always tend to figure out the best way to do something, whether it be class tweaking, boss strategy, or otherwise. Their methods get posted on the internet, and everyone else follows. I'm actually not surprised at all that Alterac Valley has turned into what it is, considering that rushing through it is absolutely the best way to earn honor. Of course it could be argued that if Blizzard had retained its original tuning, AV would still as interesting as it once was. On the flip side, there would be a whole lot fewer people playing it.
So, keeping these issues in mind, how do we go about making a Battleground that is compelling and fun while satisfying all those ravenous honor hounds out there?
Lake Wintergrasp is the first place to look, having revived the same sorts of large-scale battles that Alterac made popular. The addition of destructible buildings and siege vehicles is a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, there are also a few drawbacks. As an element of World PvP, you can't simply jump into a fight any old time you want. Wintergrasp is on a strict schedule, so as to allow the winning side the chance to defeat the raid bosses inside of the Vault of Archavon.
Likewise, it seems to accommodate pure Assault gameplay. Wintergrasp is a big zone. It can support a lot of people, but it doesn't exactly give a whole lot of incentive for the defending faction to protect anything but the castle itself, and perhaps the closest factories. On top of all that, there are no hard player limits. Even considering the buffs and debuffs doled out for population control, individual bodies still matter. An Alliance force with 50 players is going to whoop a Horde that only had 10, and vice versa.
Battlegrounds tend to ensure that sides are kept even, at least in terms of raw numbers.
So, then, what about Strand of the Ancients? It features some of the same conceits as Wintergrasp (namely Assault style gameplay and controllable vehicles/defenses), and makes up for the core balance deficiencies non-Battlegrounds suffer from.
Despite that, it has yet to give me a rise, and I blame that on how absolutely wimpy it feels. For a scenario based loosely on D-Day, I expected masses of people, seemingly insurmountable defenses, and bullets flying everywhere. As it is, Strand feels a lot like the Battle of Normandy conducted on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Was 10 people people per side really enough? Or how about those pea-shooters they call defensive cannons?
Clearly, both Wintergrasp and SotA suffer from their own unique problems, but I do think they're evidence of Blizzard proceeding in the right direction with Battlegrounds. In fact, the description for their next attempt leaves my mouth watering:
Isle of Conquest, a new large-scale siege Battleground, will be open. The Horde and Alliance will battle head-to-head for control of strategic resources to lay siege to the keeps of their opponents.
Kind of speaks for itself, but let me zero in on the key phrases: "large-scale," "control of strategic resources," and "lay siege." We're talking, in all likelihood here, a happy marriage between the Alterac of old and the best bits of Lake Wintergrasp. Though I'm a bit hesitant to go so far as to say that would be the "perfect" Battleground, it comes damn close to what I've always wanted.
Of course, that little blurb is all we know about it so far, and it may not be until Blizzcon that we get a whole lot more. That considered, the only thing left to do is speculate. How could a battle on the Isle of Conquest be executed so as to meet the criteria (fun and gobs of honor) I set above?
The simple answer is to actually dole out the amounts of honor people want. Put hard locks on different phases of the battle so that there is no possible way to rush right into the opposition's keep, and give large quantities of honor to everyone who participated in pushing forward. In order to keep people from bailing early, withhold their rewards until the very end of the battle, and at that time, give them appropriate bonuses for completing objectives/gathering resources that are not one-hundred percent necessary to win.
In fact, I would award more honor for the optional bits than those required, perhaps as some sort of PvP version of raiding's "hard modes."
For instance, how about a fight over some sort of bridge that both sides need to cross over at some point to assault the enemy's keep? Holding the bridge is one thing, but destroying it locks both sides out of the option of a direct ground attack, forcing the adoption of new, more complex strategies. The faction that chooses to destroy said bridge gets the bonus honor, but must also gather resources to produce air units necessary to continue the fight (assuming there will actually be any available), while the other side gets some free "emergency" reinforcements, but no honor at all for it.
The bottom line is that there must be some way to incentivize the (perceived) optional mechanics of a Battleground so that the aggregate honor is significantly greater than a pure rush to the end.
Now, as we know little about the actual nature of the Isle of Conquest, similar conceits may already been in place, but I'm also quite sure that it's far enough into development that no further major changes to its basic setup can be made before its release with 3.2.
Those are my thoughts anyway, and I applaud anyone who's sat through my lengthy brainspew long enough to reach this point! If so, Why not contribute yourself? Let me know what you think of my ideas. Are they shining examples of game design brilliance or pure poppycock? Should Battlegrounds be epic in scale or do you prefer more intimate experiences like Warsong Gulch? What would your perfect Battleground be? Don't be shy, the comment box is just a few scrolls below!
Reader Comments (24)
sweet
I like your ideas Am. ;]
I agree, we need some more creative battlegrounds. I think we should have a variety of large scale and small scale as well.
I like Wintergrasp because of it's scale and there are many things to do, but I wish things were mor organized sometimes.
Nice ideas. ;] Seeya.
Nice to see that ^_^
I think a Caverns of Time battleground would be sweet. Put players into a well know battle from warcrafts past.
i hardly ever play BG's. I'll do an AV every now and again, because ally always win AV in my battlegroup. but I NEVER play anything else, because ally get their asses handed to them like it's not even funny. maybe if i got in a pvp guild and did premades it would be alot more fun. but i prefer PvE so im all good
@Raknor
Not a bad idea. Something on the scale of Mount Hyjal would be absolutely insane! It's kind of a shame that the Horde and Alliance were fighting Archimonde instead of each other, or we might actually get to experience that.
I've always thought something out of the Tides of Darkness era could be fun. Maybe a nautical Battleground which takes place across a flotilla and you can fire cannons on the sides of the boats. As each ship gets destroyed, you have less and less area to fight each other end, leading to a grand melee in which the last man standing wins.
Yet to see flying mounts in a BG. Any type of air based battle or shooting WG style cannons from the air (or getting shot) sounds like it would be epic.
I think a Caverns of Time battleground would be awesome!
A phased familiar zone thats battled for would be great. Imagine Duskwallow marsh, Thermadore Vs Brackenwall... or STV... Both factions trying to gain control of booty bay. But my personal fav would have to be a BG based on DOTA... now that would be an epic BG.
I like your ideas of the airplanes. There could be different types of airplanes too.
Maybye one that transports and lets players jump out and they get to choose when to let their parachute go.
Another could be more of a dogfighter that would try to kill other planes and kill the transporters.
These were just some ideas...tell me if you don't like them
@ Unholyone I suck at DOTA
The problem with a CoT BG would be -
A - too many different maps
B - The same map repeated over and over
A good BG would be a massive Horde base and Alliance base in a massive flat area... the objective? Kill until you get enough honor.. (granted they'd have to increase honor gain but w/e) I think that would be the best, a 40 vs 40 battle to the death - It would be like AV without the GY's Bunkers/Towers Mines and leaders
Okay, I had a long post written up, but I just had an epiphany. Imagine if AV had a capture objective in Field of Strife (or as some of you may know it currently as the Field of "Move along, nothing to see here"), the capture objective being required to win AV.
My thoughts would be that the objective would allow you to get siege vehicles that would be required to access the win objective. So there you are, you get the Field of Strife now you can take out the Alliance defensive walls allowing you access into the keep to kill Vann. That is, instead of a regular bridge, it would become a drawbridge Horde could only get to by destroying two towers with siege weapons. Same for the Horde side.
This would require a lot of PvP to even get to the PvE objective, instead of the current matches that basically have Alliance and Horde avoiding each other until they run into the people on Offense that died... er... uh, the people who volunteered for Defense.
If Isle of Conquest is like this, then that would pretty much make me happy.
The one thing I don't like about Strand of Ancients and Wintergrasp, is seemingly once the Horde or Alliance get to that final room, it's game over. AV, they had to get there, capture the GY (or else reinforcements were too far away) and try to take out towers along the way to make the last objective easier. There was a chance that an effective defense could hold the opposing offense off just long enough for their own offense to get a win.
Also the whole, one faction on offense and one on defense of Strand and to some effect, Wintergrasp seems too lopsided, the only reason to divide up forces is because there are two gates. Wintergrasp does have the bonus of being able to go on the Offensive and capture workshops and towers, however, the benefits of doing so can be limited, and the duration of the matches doesn't help.
It's not like those AV matches where someone reports that Alliance is on Drek, and you know it's go time on Vann whether the towers are down or not. I've had some really exciting and close matches where we finished off Vann when Alliance were at 10% on Drek. There's basically no chances for this in Strand, or Wintergrasp. Once the opposing faction breaks down the walls, you just hope the clock counts down fast enough.
Right now, I think a lot of people aren't doing PvP. AV, while maybe still popular has 5 instances at most on my BG, from what I've seen. There used to be far more instances and I could usually queue instantly on my Horde toon. People just do their Wintergrasp then go PvE it seems. I'm not sure though if that's changed since the recent weekly Wintergrasp quests though. Strand, I think, is the only instant queue BG, and it's so small and anemic I just don't enjoy it.
rare to see horde player who likes AV since alliance allways win it AV has past its peek long time ago ever sicne WOTLK its been on a nose dive the av Battles used to be epic the fights on teh bridge could last for half an hour some times you know that discription sounds farmillar thats exacly waht blizz said when they released AB abd it droped from its peak before BC even came out i think aerial machinery VS drakes would be awsome to see teh reason AV is the most playd BG is because its cap is 40 players while all the other is 15 nd 10 isle of conguest should comine all of the BGs first the 2 fractions compete for the flag which could be like a key t oopen tehe gates and move on to the next place one a fraction gets though the gate its all out war across the plane are 2 fortresses emphasis on teh owrd fortresses and insside of the fortress is a relic of the titan the 2 fractions are suplied with deadlies of war machinery the fortesses are guarded by Ivus the Forest Lord or Lokholar the Ice Lord.depending on your fraction in you're way are legions of horde and alliance the only way to stop them from coming is to destoy thier bases but some bases you ave a choice of eaither destoying it to taking for youre self to replenish youre resources and in the sky is the power house that saparates you from the oposing fractions fortress the factory powers the waponary of your fortress who ever captures it get a buff that slightly again amphasis on the word slightly inhance you're vehicle strangh once you beat your oposing fraction lord the gates to the fortress opens great job now all you haave to do is step over the thrash hold and retrieve your prize sounds easy you are met the king of stormwind or thrall depending on your fraction they give allitle speech and then he andhis forces try to fend you of at this point you can no longer control a vehicle but if you control the factorys you can cantrol the blesters inside the fortress to help you fend of the invaders once you get teh kings to 1 healph point lady jaina appearsto port am away once you defeat the oposing fraction forces and all the players and destoy the canons you are finnaaly free to claim the prize its a battle that i think i hope would take a long time but it return ae worth lots of honnor points those 5 minet battle arent doing it for me
i would estimatethis battle would last atleast an hour giving 5 grand in honnor points not counting the bonuses like being the one to unlock the geat controling the facotries and how fastyou complete the BG i porisnaly injoy the long battles like this i know not everyone wants to spent so long on one battle but aside from AV and the acasional AB you dont see these kind anymore usaly its alliance hopelessly trying to catch up let along win
i forgot i think it would allso be cool that you had option of conguaring the mines like matera said which when combine wih the factorys give you a stronger buff and more honnor in the end also the amount of npc/ players the whole group killed and the person who got the killing blow on the king gets bonus honnor
@Blight
Definitely agree.
I thought it was silly when they made the Wintergrasp offense objective insta-click. And, like I said, SotA just feels kind of wimpy for a battleground. I thought the scenario would be compelling, but in practice, it just feels like going through the motions.
The problem with battlegrounds is that we don't get new ones very often, so changes in structure tend to come all at once or not at all.
But I still maintain, as I did in the article, that the ultimate goal is to make it feel like everybody is participating in one of the grand battles found in the RTS Warcraft games. Conquest sounds frighteningly close, especially since it has been recently hinted that players can be launched across the map in catapults, a la Flame Leviathan. :)
i like ur post and ur ideas and from what i hear this should be one of the best BG's to date but then SOtA sounded cool and was not
They need to stop making Bgs with seige vehicles (god i cant spell that) the whole point of pvp was to kill other people,not kill vehicles now pallys have 3 lives +their healing. get in siege run through stuff when siege dies kill people till u get low bubble heal kill people again until after 6 hours OMGUDIE=O=O=O=O=O. "Ps,dont nerf rogues or Bm hunters for pvp i like ganking cows =D"
I like the idea of a new BG very very much.
Maybe like WSG, but the objective is more...killing based, instead of CTF?
Not killing-a-npc style that Alterac Valley is.
And yes, I want it to be the waiting time of Warsong Gulch but the scale of Alterac Valley.
@cocopuff - I have a question... what is this period doing in this rambling: "the Forest Lord or Lokholar the Ice Lord.depending on your fraction"
I find it funny that your walls of text usually have 1 period right in the middle. Kinda blows my mind a bit. Accidental period?
Personally, I am not a fan of these "wild" ideas of vehicles and shit. I prefer the nice, close-quarters, fast combat of WSG to the running around of AB. My perfect BG would be a skirmish on a timer of maybe 20-30 minutes, something which could be determined by the people queueing up. How would you "win"? It would basically be Team Slayer from Halo; the team with the most kills would be the winner. Simple bg's=more running around fighting=more fun. As such, WSG is probably my favorite battleground. My favorite matches are the ones where the teams are pretty much evenly matched, so it lasts longer and there is more actual PVP involved.
I would love Blizz to make almost a new Av. with the same amount of honor and fast pace just as the one live is....
But they really need to bring back the old Av.... I remember the first time the Ally summon Ivus the Forest Lord and i watched him kill 40-50 of the Horde.
Im just saying it would be cooler if they brought back the old Av, than just throwing a new Bg at us.
All I can really say is I miss the epic fights between Ice Jesus and the Tree Devil.
So, more deets on the Isle of Conquest:
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=9520915563&sid=1
Sounds almost exactly what I was asking for. A few additions though, an Airship, that seems like it's just on a set course around the map, so no player controlled flying vehicles, but you can control the access to the airship and use it to drop behind the enemy wall, very interesting.
I guess pictars will be available SoonTM.