WoW's broken PvP model

[Abalieno]

Since the title wasn't considered "polite enough". Let's see if there isn't something else behind.

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.

[Karthun]

I would be happy if they gave minor amounts of xp per kill in BG's so I dont need to worry about that 19 rogue twink who crits SS's for over 200.

[Abalieno]

Porting some comments from the killed thread:

Cybsled:
Most people dont bother grouping in AB when they see a guild/core group pitted against them, because at least you can avoid the shitty raid penalty on honor earned from the kills you do get.

Non-diminishing returns wouldnt resolve that issue.

Wrong.

People do not group because you are rewarded only for the first four kills (and practically only for the first two). Then you get nothing for 24h.

If you aren't in a group this means that you'll get more points from those four kills before the diminished returns kick in.

But if the diminished returns are removed the penalty to join groups not only would be removed, but you'd actually GAIN MORE POINTS IF GROUPED. since you are sharing all the kills without the "four kill" cap.

Clericnon2boxed:
If they could keep track about those real good groups, they could stage them against a larger team of pickups, would maybe even out thing s a bit and make it interesting for both sides (if they actually still go into BGs to have fun).

The "real good groups" (that basically are those with epic items, skill doesn't matter much) would be extremely valuable for PUGs.

Why? Because you are supposed to gain way more honor if killing an higher rank.

So we don't need any lame matchmaking mechanic that binds catasses with other catasses and PUGs with other PUGs.

We just need those stupid and useless diminished returns to go.

[ex-genj]

eh diminishing returns don't need to go but what does is non-scaled diminishing returns. In other words currently if you kill someone worth 200 points 4 times you'll get a total of 500 points when you're ungrouped. If you're grouped with 10 guys (who are nearby/non dead) and you kill someone worth 200 points for 4 times you get a total of 50 points and that's it, you can't kill them and get points any more. What should happen is it should scale down - if you kill 1 guy for the 2nd time while you're in a group of 10 you should receive a much smaller diminshing returns penalty so that you'll continue to receive points for killing someone so that eventually (after a lot more kills) you'll receive your "full" 500 points.

[WillzZz]

Originally Posted by Abalieno

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.

Something I've been asking for since BG's were released. No, it's not a perfect answer, but it's better than what we have now. The problem is that the entire PvP rewards system is broken and was a horrible idea from release.

The best thing that can happen to WoW right now, is the complete rehashing of the PvP rewards system. It could bring back a great deal of players, especially if it wasn't as "time->reward" focused.

[Abalieno]

Again commenting from the other thread.

People are worried that no diminished returns would bring to just arranged and endless graveyard camping.

As I wrote, if the diminished returns are removed the honor rewards from accomplishing goals in a BGs should be obviously rescaled properly.

If you can get 50k honor from the direct kills, rewarding 1k for the goals would be just plain stupid.

It's obvious that the system would need to be rebalanced.

But the main point is that without the diminished returns you can even add short timeouts (like 1 or 2 minutes) that would prevent you from receiving points from the same kill.

Another good fix that would prevent the arranged encounters would be about preventing full groups to queue a specific instance. So that it would be impossible for two groups to meet together (and if they aren't full there would be a spot for someone else joining in and reporting the abuse).

[ex-genj]

I just love how people just throw out that the wow pvp system is shit and needs a "revamp". OK einstein's when you figure out how to fix it speak up. I'm hardly a blizzard fanboi but I think they did the best the could except for a few obvious errors like the AV free epix and DK system (and fucked up grouping dimin returns). The real problem with wow pvp is server population imbalances.

What really needs to happen is cross server and weighted (JAG vs JAG instead of pugs) bg pairings in 2.0. I would like to play my main again more than 5 hours a week, but I refuse to spend an hour in queue to smash a pug.

[Zaptruder]

'Skill' based match making with cross servers in implementation is a better solution.

Actually fun/close matches, because you're evenly matched? Yes please.

Ideally, they'd match any server/faction group with any other server/faction group, fuck backstory, who needs it when you can actually have on demand even matches with more tactical variety then otherwise?

It would almost make BG as popular as independent games like Quake 3, CS... but with the added hook of using customised , time and emotionally invested characters/assets with which to play against other people.

[Neppy]

Cross server BGs with matches determined based on rating. You win your rating goes up, you lose your rating goes down. Players will hit an equilibrium based on their own personal skill, base your honor rewards on rating. Problem solved.

It has 2 issues:
1. class imbalance will push certain classes to the top and certain to the bottom. A rating system would make it hugely obvious which classes underperform at PVP and I don't think blizzard wants that.
2. Leaving the BG has to count as a loss.

Solve those problems and you can just rip off warcraft 3's match maker. In fact I would be willing to bed that such a ratings based system is in the works, because atm the battlegrounds rest totally on faction rewards and that will collapse when the expansion comes out.

[Abalieno]

Beside the fact that this would dumb down an already dumb PvP system, tell me, how would you measure "skill" in groups of 20+ players with every kind of equipment and classes?

[Abalieno]

Wait a second, I'm losing track of the goals here. What is the purpose of creating just "even" matches based on some sort of "ratings" (if it was possible) ?

The goal that generated my ideas is that a group of PUGs should still be motivated to fight a battle even if it is going to probably lose. Which brought to the marks of honor, the 10-minute rule and the recent penalty to the queue.

Now, if the diminished returns are removed, the PUGs will have very good reasons to fight against stronger players. Simply because higher ranked players yelds more points.

So why this wouldn't be already an optimal solution?

[Zaptruder]

Originally Posted by ex-genj

I just love how people just throw out that the wow pvp system is shit and needs a "revamp". OK einstein's when you figure out how to fix it speak up. I'm hardly a blizzard fanboi but I think they did the best the could except for a few obvious errors like the AV free epix and DK system (and fucked up grouping dimin returns). The real problem with wow pvp is server population imbalances.

What really needs to happen is cross server and weighted (JAG vs JAG instead of pugs) bg pairings in 2.0. I would like to play my main again more than 5 hours a week, but I refuse to spend an hour in queue to smash a pug.

Completely agree with you. And here's how I think they should make it happen.

Players queue up with people on their own server and faction, whether randomly, or by organised groups (basically the same system they have now).

Once those groups are formed; its listed on the cross battlegrounds server.

Here's the catch. Each group will have an approximately skill/ranking level (ranking is misleading; the idea isn't to have a system where people occupy discrete, occluding spots, like in a real ladder) which is a sum of the skill level of the team.
That group is then paired to the closest available skill level group*, regardless of faction/server. So you could potentially have alliance vs alliance matches, or horde vs horde matches. It doesn't matter if the story can't quite cope with the idea (it somehow managed to cope with it in the Warcraft games), the real benefit is that it completely and utterly ignores the effect of population imbalances in factions. It also grants a massive pool to draw appropriate opponents from; so basically the wait that individual players would have to go through between matches would be the wait for their server/faction side to pool up enough people to form a single team for the appropriate game.
*Matched against the closest available skill level; with an algorithm that basically searches for the closest, then after about 30 seconds, searches a bit further out... so that after about 5 minutes, while unlikely to require to wait that long, if need be groups of disparate skill levels are matched up, so that no one is ever standing around for way too long scratching their nuts if they want to be playing.

Skill for the player is then modified by the total skill level of the opposing team, modified by a win modifier or a loss modifier, then divided between all members of the team.

So the skill level for each player then is a sum of all the skill points recieved from games they've participated in, divided by the number of games they've participated in.

The win modifier basically means players move up, the loss modifier means they move down.

The more consistently they win, the further up they move; the higher skilled opponents they'll be pitted against, the more points they'll stand to gain or lose in the matches (the skill banding is logarithmic in skill points)

The other important part is that, skill standings aren't rankings... they're independent of the honor system in the sense they don't offer rewards. Only match ups.
That said, it would only make sense for higher skilled matches to grant more CP for players.
If players take a break from PVPing; their rating decays; but they're still recognized as their highest attained ranks ever (with the title to match). Just that if they wish to resume, they need to PVP back the rating decayed before they can gain anymore rating.
Additionally a players rating can only ever decay to half of the maximum of what they've achieved.

Along with some other logical inclusions such as extra maps for a single game type; corresponding with different group sizes (e.g. WSG with maps supporting 5v5, 10v10, 15v15 and 20v20).

And I think pretty much all the BG problems (outside of class balance, which are extremely minor compared to the problems solved by this suggestion) will be fixed, allowing players to enjoy the original intent of BGs.

[Zaptruder]

Originally Posted by Neppy

It has 2 issues:
1. class imbalance will push certain classes to the top and certain to the bottom. A rating system would make it hugely obvious which classes underperform at PVP and I don't think blizzard wants that.

It's true to some extent... but can you imagine the top tier fights occupied by warriors and hunters only? Neither could I; the top tiers then will be occupied by organised groups. Which is fair enough; you're not going to consistently win in PUGs, regardless of how good you are. But if you're good, you'll make some headway up the skill levels, and find yourself with more and more competent players that you might even start recognizing and working cohesively with.

[Phoenix]

Easiest fixes to make the BG expierence 100x better;

1. Cross-server BGs. This would effectively elimnate the disparity between low population servers or servers with a certain factiont aht is severly stacked. Not only that but it would do away with wait times.

2. Only allow PUGs to go up agaisnt PUGs and the same for those who join as a group. This would make the bring balance to the BGs and bring a challenge aswell. Afterfall, its a no brainer whos gonna win when a guild who has full MC/BWL/ZG and on ventrillo goes up agaisnt a PUG with ubrs/strath/scholo gear.

3. Finally, when people do join as a group, average out their ranks and make it so only people close to their average ranks will face each other. This would also ensure players with relative skill and equipment face each other.

[Zaptruder]

Originally Posted by Abalieno

Wait a second, I'm losing track of the goals here. What is the purpose of creating just "even" matches based on some sort of "ratings" (if it was possible) ?

The goal that generated my ideas is that a group of PUGs should still be motivated to fight a battle even if it is going to probably lose. Which brought to the marks of honor, the 10-minute rule and the recent penalty to the queue.

Now, if the diminished returns are removed, the PUGs will have very good reasons to fight against stronger players. Simply because higher ranked players yelds more points.

So why this wouldn't be already an optimal solution?

I don't know about you, but in games where I were in PUGs that got steam rolled, we really got steam rolled. In a competent group (on my side) against the same opposition, I could rack up a few kills... but a lot of the times, these guys (the steam rollers) wouldn't even barely let you get 1 or 2 kills total.

When you're waiting 30 minutes between matches for 1-2 kills, there are no diminishing returns for honor kills. Just pure frustration.