Breakfast Topic: BG Twinks
by Jennie Lees 
Feb 6th 2006 at 7:00AM
Battlegrounds are fun, most of the time, but sometimes you run up against a team that seems to have it all. They're at the top end of the level bracket, with the best equipment available, and level 300 enchants on everything -- plus, they have bags full of swiftness and free action potions at the ready, and you don't stand a chance. Yes, BG twinks are not new, but they are causing some fuss on the boards at the moment.
What do you think? Should people be allowed to invest their hard-earned gold in lower-level alts and dominate the battlegrounds? The main example of twinking here is the enchants -- should there be a level restriction on high-end enchants?
[Thanks, Josh]
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Sam Mellick Feb 6th 2006 3:23PM
I've had limited BG experience - whenever I hit the x9 level, it's always on a tuesday night about 20 minutes before the server goes down. So I just level, and have fun world PvP (which strangely enough, I prefer).
I'm a casual gamer, and although I'm great at PvP...gear is a good substitute for skill. Lag, good players, and gear are the only things that beat me in PvP.
However, I do plan on making a twink. This is because, like I said, casual player in a casual fun guild of mates, and I doubt I'll be runnning raids (often at least). And getting steamrolled whilst I'm using my limited gear by alliance in epics when I do level 60 bg doesn't look fun for me. So, my plan is to roll an alt and have some fun in BG.
Not an extensive twink mind you - I'm not running to deadmines. I'll just buy the best gear I can get, maybe some +sta / +hp enchants...
crsh Feb 6th 2006 4:18PM
The older the server, the more twinks you're likely to run into; we all have alts for different purposes, and it's nice to be able to send money to that char from my main to purchase some better stuff (read here: greens, not blues, I don't think a lv10/20-something actually can put a 25g (overpriced, targetted at twinks) blue sword to good use, it's a waste of money. You (fortunately) can't buy good playing skills anyway, all the blues in the world won't save a twink from a pending death; if players are into the expensive sponsoring required for twinking low-lv alts, so be it.
goochoz Feb 6th 2006 5:32PM
Twinks do bring up the good point of level restrictions for enchantments. I think everyone is forgeting that people buy gold to twink their characters.
When someone can buy 2000 gold with a new character, they just have to look for the nearest high level enchanter to twink to their heart's desire.
Nanatsusaya Feb 6th 2006 7:30AM
I'm pretty put off trying a BG for this reason. I have little to no PvP experience and I don't think being killed continuosly by people I can't hope to defeat is a great way to spend my game time. I think a lot of people forget that there are a large group of players levelling their first or second character, not all of us have level 60s to 'help us out'
Kovert Feb 6th 2006 8:10AM
I personally have nothing against the BG twinks. In fact, I often find that my lvl 18 rogue "twink in training", can pretty much own any duel fiery guy with minimal "good" items. (Not to say I dont HAVE any good items to use, its just that i have alot of my future blues in the bank with a lvl 19 requirement). And, although I guess its a tad unfair to "noobs" trying BG for the 1st time, it also teaches them a valuable life lesson - No matter how good you think you are, there will always be someone else with more skill and better items. But i digress. Simply put, having a twink in battlegrounds is FUN. When all the pressure of high end raids got you down, its just nice to switch to that lvl 19 of yours and relieve some of that stress on the other team by kicking thier ass. There shouldnt be a lvl restriction on enchants, because I say that if you want to put fiery on that fancy Cruel Barb, as long as you can afford it, why not?
(Though I do admit I am against using anything other then basic pots in BG, swiftness potions and free action are cheap indeed)
Mig! Feb 6th 2006 9:51AM
I personally have not seen too many instances of this in my BG experience. I try to play AT least 10-15 BG a week. I like playing the BG right now better than leveling:)
I do think some of the BG experiences are way overbalanced on some of the games I experience, but not in a twink kind of way. 8 rogues in a group of 15 does not make a balanced game.
I beleive this was the original reason for "twinking". You get your heinie handed to you enough times, you are gonna shell out as much as you can to get higher up on the BG food chain.
For this reason I think Blizzard should re-establish the que feature to get rid of some of the balance issues of this first, and maybe the "twinking" will rub itself out.
srammij Feb 6th 2006 9:55AM
Honestly i don't care too much for BG at lower levels... especially Warsong Gultch. It's like playing Quake III Arena, minus the cool guns to blow people away.
I do think when it comes to PvP though, that there should be caps on the enchanting of items. It doesn't seem fair to the lower level players that are playing their mains.
Making enchants have a level requirement like all other professions is a great way to deal with this problem. Now let's just see if Blizzard will actually respond to it.
jennie Feb 6th 2006 10:07AM
Nanatsusaya -- don't let your BG inexperience put you off, battlegrounds are great fun even if you've hardly done any PvP at all (playing on a PvE server, I hadn't). Not everyone has level 60 alts; not everyone in BGs is twinked. I occasionally run up against teams that are using potions, but I've only seen proper enchant twinks a couple of times. There's no penalty for losing, and even if you don't stand a chance, you can still get a fair bit of honour for it. When I first decided I wanted to try BGs, I rolled an opposite-faction alt with the same class, and put her in BGs at level 10. Surprisingly, one match later and I had 28 honour kills and gained a rank -- and just because I could practically be one-shotted by a 19 didn't make it any less fun. Though I'd not advise doing the same unless you really, really like dying.
Ouch Feb 6th 2006 11:31AM
Unfortunately, I don't think there are enough players on a server to ensure an even playing field, to say nothing of a wait-time that's less than 15 minutes. Thankfully I play on the Horde side, so there is generally little wait for a match, but imagine if you placed further restrictions on the players. The real solution is for Blizzard to create an inter-Realm BG, with some real PvP functionality. This would assure that there are enough teams available to actually do some matchmaking...kinda Halo-ish if you get my drift. To say nothing of other features like teams, leagues, organized competitions, etc. The fact is, this game has been around for awhile, so it's only natural you'll have players that are way more buffed than you. I mean seriously...you don't expect a 14 year old to have an even chess match with Kasparov do you?
Ouch Feb 6th 2006 11:45AM
Also...twinking is one thing...but imagine being an average lvl 60 rolling against a full tier-2 geared team on ventrilo voice chat. Not fun either. Sometimes you'll be matched against that team all day, other times you won't. Just keep up with it, and remember, you earn honor even if you lose.
Jim Feb 6th 2006 11:54AM
Enchanting does need some work - having a +15 Agility enchant laid on the equipment of a lvl 29 or 39 "dedicated BG character" is certainly something of an unfair advantage. Most other professions have level limits for usage (armor, weapons, and potions all have level requirements).
Mike Feb 6th 2006 12:28PM
Of course people should be able to gear their twinks, it's not even really a question. Wether there should be a level requirement on enchants is a question that is being passed around some, though.
I dont have any twinks myself, hell you can't even use the good PvP rewards until 58. I could see playing a twink if you can get BG's at the 60 bracket, but I've never had that problem. The other thing is that Twinks often seem played because their mains can't hack it in the end bracket, playing against people who have been spending just as much or more time with WoW PvP.