Tol Barad hotfixed to reward 360 honor on offensive win
by Mathew McCurley 
Jan 3rd 2011 at 5:00PM
However, Blizzard has just changed the amount of honor gained when the attacking side wins Tol Barad to 360 honor, down from 1,800. Let your servers know that the win-trading can stop.
Zarhym -- Tol Barad Honor ChangeAs you're probably aware by now, an update was applied to Tol Barad shortly before the holidays which granted the attacking side 1800 Honor Points for a victory. While the goal with that change was to provide more incentive for the attacking forces to claim victory, it ultimately led to an undermining of the spirit of competition in Tol Barad. We've just applied a hotfix which has lowered the attacking faction's gain to 360 Honor Points for a victory. The defending faction will still earn 180 Honor Points for a victory.
We appreciate all of your feedback regarding this change. We'll continue working to make Tol Barad a fun and engaging PvP environment.
We appreciate all of your feedback regarding this change. We'll continue working to make Tol Barad a fun and engaging PvP environment.
In addition, Blizzard is currently working on a fix for what many termed the "Tol Barad Bridge Marathon," where players would run across the Tol Barad northern bridge to enter the zone as the battle was ending to reap the benefits of the victory, even if they were not called to participate in Tol Barad.
Filed under: PvP
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
gewalt Jan 3rd 2011 5:02PM
It was great while it lasted.
Firestyle Jan 3rd 2011 5:39PM
Yep, now there is no incentive to lose. So, people will keep it and it'll rarely change hands. Back to square 1 it seems.
Belfonisis Jan 3rd 2011 5:42PM
Nothing but a big old giant Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma experiment from Blizzard. ;) We're nothing but rats in a maze!
Noyou Jan 3rd 2011 6:13PM
You are exactly right. At least when they made the 1800 buff there was that. I only played 1 Tol Barad match and personally it was ok. Nothing like WG. They probably should institute a 48 hour rule where if it is controlled by one faction for that long it automatically switches to neutral or to the opposite faction and lets them get the benefits for a period of time. I mean if they really cared about balance and the opportunity for all players to get a chance to get the same gear/benefits they could do something like that. The other option is a server transfer and they are not in the business of losing money so don't hold your breath.
Juzelle Jan 3rd 2011 7:10PM
the entire mechanics of the zone are borked. They should just close it and overhaul the zone, and re-release it when it's not hideously broken.
Eisengel Jan 3rd 2011 10:32PM
@juzelle I agree entirely. I always wonder if they actually tested the zone mechanics at all. Did they really expect it to work? Did they really expect a 10x difference to cause people to fight an unwinnable battle? (although - speaking of unwinnable battle, I still queue for heroics as DPS, so...)
artifex Jan 4th 2011 2:43PM
It's a bit hard to get a good PvP playtest on beta servers, unless you specifically ask for it. Most people in the beta just wanted to race to the end and test strategies against the new heroics and raids, practicing for world/realm firsts. Hardly anyone goes there to play a lot of PvP. So it's easy to see why Blizz may have overlooked it while concentrating on all the other stuff that they had to fix.
Dezaris Jan 3rd 2011 5:02PM
so much for having TB half the time =( It was kinda fun trading it off with the alliance for mutual gain.
Wulfhound Jan 3rd 2011 8:35PM
What, your server did, this, not mine, if the horde had it they held is with a strangle hold. If we wanted it we had to bust our ass and get it, witch only happened once while I tried. No win trading on my server, if there was, I wasn't around for it.
Astalnar Jan 4th 2011 3:14AM
Horde /salute: Strength and Honor.
There is no honor in win trading.
The whole zone is broken and this change won't help either because as proably stated before. The whole zone is in benefit to defenders. It probably wouldn't be bad idea to change capturing to flags and remove some of the graveyards from defenders.
Kaz Jan 3rd 2011 5:03PM
Sad panda. The win trading was great. A lot of people got real PvP gear, and both sides had plenty of fair shots at Argolath every week. I actually hope the win trading continues despite this change.
Kaz Jan 3rd 2011 5:04PM
Edit: Also the extra dailies and faction marks were nice.
gewalt Jan 3rd 2011 6:38PM
the win trading will not continue, because two defenses is the same as one offensive win plus a defensive loss. actually, if you do two defenses, you get access to one extra set of dailies.
so ya, there is more incentive to win on defense than there is to trade.
Baba Jan 4th 2011 6:03AM
@gewalt Actually it's technically more time-efficient to continue win-trading, since win-trading will net you 360 honor every 2 games in around 10 minutes total, whereas defending Tol Barad successfully for 2 games will net you 360 honor in around 30 minutes total.
potatoboy Jan 3rd 2011 5:04PM
I find it really hard to believe that they didn't assume an 1800 point victory would encourage win trading.
darkLogik Jan 3rd 2011 5:06PM
Did they fix the tons of issues of actually winning an attack on Tol that first lead to the win trading to start in this hotfix as well?
lol Didn't think so...
potatoboy Jan 3rd 2011 5:11PM
You can't hotfix a change to Tol Barad. A Hotfix is something that only affects the server side. Spawn rates, currency awards, etc. I'm sure a real fix to Tol Barad is coming.
The 1800 honor fix was akin to saying "There's a hole in this screen door. That can allow flys in. We have to fix it, but since they can come in the tiny hole anyway, we might as well knock out a wall."
Methuus Jan 3rd 2011 6:42PM
I agree. I usually assume that Blizzard has some reasonably clever people working there, so I don't understand how they couldn't see that the wildly lopsided rewards would produce win-trading. Game theory 101.
theRaptor Jan 3rd 2011 11:48PM
@potatoboy
Actually a "hotfix" means a fix applied while the servers are still up.
It doesn't mean "a fix applied so quickly that it has become hot from atmospheric friction" like so many people appear to (ab)use the word.
I think Blizzard did know it would produce win trading, what they didn't expect was the hundreds of people not even in the battle getting free honor. You could get most of a PVP set in a single day using the bridge glitch.
RuzGofDI Jan 3rd 2011 5:04PM
Granted it's less than the 1800 honor, but it's still more than a defense. Why are people going to stop win trading if it's still better to win on O than to win on D?