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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Have rated battlegrounds met your expectations?
by Aiden James Kosciesza 
Mar 8th 2011 at 8:00AM
When Blizzard announced the concept of rated battlegrounds, many players, including myself, were ecstatic. Only my old vanilla main has a PvP title, and I'd always wanted to try getting one on my druid. I imagined that we would queue for battlegrounds as usual, but that our ranking on the ending scoreboard would combine with our personal win/loss ratio to create our personal battleground rating. Over time, players would be separated by rating and would wind up in battlegrounds with others of similar skill. The way I imagined it, forming premade groups would be an advantage, but not a necessity for rated play.
Needless to say, that's not how things turned out.
I understand the reason why Blizzard requires full premade groups for rated battlegrounds, and I can see how very good players could wind up with a less than stellar personal rating due to unlucky battleground groups. Still, it's not what I had envisioned, and the fact that my favorite large battlegrounds like Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest are not represented is disappointing. Blizzard recently announced that it's eliminating the 15v15 bracket, making all rated battlegrounds 10v10, which might help groups that are scrambling to find enough players -- but will (at least for the moment) exacerbate the problem of battleground diversity. Blizzard plans to adapt other maps for the 10v10 bracket, but for now, the available rated battleground scenarios are much less numerous than normal, unrated battleground options.
Have you tried rated battlegrounds? Were they everything you'd hoped for? What do you think Blizzard could do to improve the system ... or do you like it just the way it is?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
loop_not_defined Mar 8th 2011 10:13AM
If Blizzard had simply added ratings to normal BGs, would you have been happy?
Greyhame Mar 8th 2011 10:21AM
It certainly would have been a more interesting system if they had done something like that as opposed to what it is. As it is, it's just a fancy premade group that get different points for doing the same thing I do anyway.
The problem is that the rating system isn't terribly good. I realize that actually developing a rating system for battlegrounds that judge you based on certain factors that couldn't be abused is really hard to do. Impossible? Maybe. But it would be better than the system they have now.
Aaron Mar 8th 2011 8:37AM
I thought it was going to be pugable and was very excited about the whole concept, but the mark was missed when they decided you had to roll premade. The few times I've joined a premade it took so long to fill in the missing pieces that people got antsy and would end up dropping group. Keep it 10 v 10, but allow smaller groups to join. I'd love to run it with my 3s partners. :D
Arann Mar 8th 2011 8:41AM
Rated who-zi-whats?
OH, does this have to do with that there "peeveepee" you talk about being the cause of most of the nerfs to my favorite class(es) almost every patch?
Honestly, I haven't touched 'em. I wish they'd stop touching my PvE. That's a bad touch. :P
Kenan Mar 8th 2011 8:43AM
Allowing players to queue in groups of 5 should make the queue times less, and allow for large BGs like AV and IOC to be included in the rated system.
Creating a group of 5 to join rated BG should be alot easier than 10 man , it well give small guilds a fair chance too.
MattKrotzer Mar 8th 2011 8:45AM
I was hoping rated BGs would herald a return to the pre-zerg days of AV. Then they cut AV from the rated BG thing, and I lost interest. All it does is put premades against premades. It's like XP-locked BGs, really. It'll work for a small number of people, and not matter a whit to the rest.
Ice Mar 8th 2011 8:46AM
We are having fun but there is few problems I'm really annoyed about rateds. Thing is, at first I thought rateds were the best idea ever. Rated AB? Rated warsong? Wildest dreams, man! Large scale tactics, assaults, 15 people on vent having fun! but then.. it kinda went "meh".
-Class balance issues and blatant abuse of class skills-
For example if you are rogue your job is not to kill people you are smoke bomb spammer and you literally SPAM fan of knives with crippling poison(70% slow..) etc. It doesnt matter can he kill anything - you either stay near flag carrier and spam fok to slow other team drastically or in Gilneas you stay near flag and spam fok so noone can capture it because damage interrupts flag capping.
And thats all they are meant to do. Thats all they seem to happily do. I took rogue as example, theres plenty of other classes who are there just for the couple spells/specs they have..making them "good bg classes".
It sadly feels that you are there for that "one annoyance spell" and your job is to spam it nothing else. No matter how good PvP player you are.. Just "spam that skill to annoy other team!"
Also to add in battle for gilneas there is few really annoying things.
1) Alliance wins on tie - doesnt matter on pugs but rated? Erm.. ok.
2) Once you lose second base you basically lost the game. They have teams on 2 bases and they can just spam aoe near flag and the opposing team will never ever get it with cast time to cap the flag, also the map is way too small. Bring on the AB, now THATS what I want since its big enough map for travelling to matter!
Capture the flag works on RBG's not capture points - at all. They need to fix gilneas or remove it from the RBG's. Its okay map as pug, not as rated.
Those are major flaws in RBG's I've seen so far. Theres plenty but that would be nitpicking.
But I still enjoy them. Its just annoying when we meet teams with "perfect setup" and it always feels that you just got horribly abused by spell X.
Thing I see as very good is that you are basically forcing people to talk on vent. We usually have very very few people who actually talk on vent - even if everyone has mics. 3/10 people talk on vent..thats a joke. With RBG's its basically good "therapy" to get people more talkative on vent, since you HAVE TO do that no matter how much you do it - you wont always know whats coming unlike raid bosses that stay same week to week.
Thats what I can praise it about a lot.
Normalbgs Mar 8th 2011 9:02AM
I tought i could sign for bg's, and then at the end i would get a rating based on my performance.
I cba to join a 10v10 premade, takes to much time creating and shizzle, i just sign for bg's i wanna play do the achievs for points, and be happy with my 13k achievpts.
TonyKP Mar 8th 2011 9:04AM
This and Lol Barad were the two things that kept me going through the dark night of the end of WotLK and the exceedingly uninspired build up to Cataclysm, and the failure of both to live up to my expectations were two of the bigger reasons (of many, to be fair) why I canceled my accounts last month. It's not too late for the developers to make them right, and I can see where they are at least trying in the case of Lol Barad, but in the interim they're great examples of Blizzard's PvP team not thinking things through.
Cavis Mar 8th 2011 9:13AM
I'm really disappointed with RBGs.
My guild is more PvE oriented and we rarely are able to get 10 people for PvP. But it's doable. So this one weekend evening we decided - let's have some fun, get on Ventrilo, join RBGs and see how it goes.
We were basically slaughtered. Then second and third time. Twin Peaks against some group with horde hunter engineer who jumped/parachuted through half of the BG every single time which was like as slap to us.
We decided we are not ready. We need gear, we need practice - all those things are doable, require just some time. So instead of joining next RBG we wanted to join normal BG in 10 people to have some practice... AND WE COULND'T. Normal BG doesn't accept 10 people in one raid, maximum 5. So here we are - we can't practice in more nab-friendly way on normal BGs and we are slaughtered without chance to learn anything on RBG. No middle ground. It's not hard to guess we never ever tried it again.
This is really very bad implementation of the whole idea.
loop_not_defined Mar 8th 2011 10:17AM
I believe Blizzard limited premade access to BGs because of the "Slaughter Effect". Now that hardcore BG players have incentive to play Rated BGs, and not normal BGs, Blizzard ought to revisit the decision to limit premades into normal BGs.
You know what, I'm going to post about this on the O-Boards.
Hensonite Mar 9th 2011 3:08AM
To get more than 5 People into a bg, use this addon:
http://wow.curse.com/downloads/wow-addons/details/preform-av-enabler.aspx
Jenks Mar 8th 2011 9:35AM
I hit High Warlord about a month ago, here's my biggest beefs with RBGs right now:
The biggest problem is inconsistent points loss. We have people who go through 2200s, 2300s and beyond not losing points on a loss. Other people begin losing points as early as 1800. We have people who got 2200 with 60 wins; others have 140 wins and are just getting it now (with the same win ratio, and playing in most of the same games). Blizzard has seemingly blessed and cursed certain players, randomly (you will not experience this until you get above 1800).
For reference: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2140185778
I'm disappointed in getting rid of the 15 man weeks. Even if it wasn't as popular as 10's, it provided a great break. Now we're playing 3 maps from now until eternity. Eventually it gets old, no matter how much you love CTF. Hate on SOTA all you want - after a few hundred of the same few maps, you'll miss your hot wheels. AB and EOTS are sorely missed.
Gilneas flag caps: impossible. There are just too many AOEs that prevent flag capping, and 8 seconds is wildly long. The change to 5 seconds was great - for the 1 day they left it live. Bring it back. Gilneas right now is decided by who gets 2 nodes first. Just get 2, then play out 15 minutes of boredom to your win.
Neirin Mar 8th 2011 9:39AM
One big problem with rbgs is that it's easier to just go arena for conquest points. Why go through the trouble of finding 9 other people when you could just find 1-2 friends for arena?
Also a problem: the majority of regular BG players are casual PvPers, but they get almost 0 representation in rbgs. When they do, it's almost worse because they're probably pugging, which is little different from doing a normal bg except you have a higher chance of facing off against a premade.
I think the situation is kinda sad since I think RBGs were intended to sort of be the raid content of PvP (where arena is heroics). All the same skills from arena are used in rbgs (or are intended to be, bgs are kinda ~eh), but on a larger scale and with actual objectives in mind rather than just killing anything that comes in front of you. Instead, you basically got what regular bgs were already except with fewer map choices and the occasional 10 gladiator team for opponents.
Parrin Mar 8th 2011 9:41AM
I know Blizzard has succeeded by appealing to many different play styles. But the changes with Guilds, Heroic Dungeons, and Rated Battlegrounds feels like Blizzard is trying to FORCE players to get into long-term groups and play together as teams.
I’m ok with encouragement; a lot of content, that Blizzard spent a great deal of time and resources towards developing, is only available if you are playing with a team. On the other hand, I don’t like to be obligated to others in-game, and have them depend on me.
I’m paying the same monthly subscription as everyone else, but if I want to play Heroic Dungeons or Rated Battlegrounds, my game time is already limited by others’ schedules. It may not be what I want to do that evening, but I can’t depend on them not to bail if they can’t depend on me.
I love Aiden’s idea for Rated Battlegrounds, and hope Blizzard invests in making it a reality. But it sounds like the wonderfully open ideas behind Wrath’s LFD tool, which Blizzard apparently hated based on the limitations they’ve placed on its success with Cataclysm dungeon difficulty.
…so I’m leveling alts. I’ve got one doing battlegrounds, another running as a tank, and a third just enjoying the new PVE environment. Once they’re all at 85, if I still don’t want to play as a long-term team, I’ll see if SWTOR or Rift is willing to let me enjoy a game without depending on others. I’m paid to depend on others at work, and it’s not fun. They have to pay me to go there every day. When I come home, I want to relax by playing a game however I want to play it.
Firestyle Mar 8th 2011 9:44AM
While I can understand where you're coming from, it is an MMO. You're meant to play with other people - it's the whole point.
Parrin Mar 8th 2011 10:00AM
Please don't misunderstand, Firestyle (nice tag, BTW). I love the MMO part of the game. It allows me to connect with my brother in another state, my former manager who is with another company now, and several in-game friends. I just don't want to feel forced into doing this. It's something I want to utilize when I want to, not when I have to.
Bossamnesia Mar 8th 2011 9:42AM
Rated battlegrounds are fantastic. Too bad, blizzard removed 15v15 - why couldn't it run side by side with the 10v10?
I guess, people need to get used to it some more. After all, it's a whole new set of skills that has to be developed, rolewise and groupwise.
But to disqualify myself: I have never been a fan of NPC monsters that will stupidly employ the exact same mechanic EVERY encounter ("Oh dear, 2:00 Min. already? Gotta use my aggro resetting green wall of stun-slime while shouting FOOLS YOU WILL NEVER PREVAIL").
Xenikos Mar 8th 2011 10:03AM
Everyone who wishes you could queue for RBGs individually - you're living in a fantasy world. It would never work to have it so that your rating was at the whim of random people you were thrown together with. Not only would the amount of whining and complaining be absurd, it would mean the system was plagued with bots and griefers. Your rating would be more or less meaningless, and no serious pvpers would ever ever ever touch the thing.
Not only that, it would be terrible play. You need people to be coordinated, and that only happens if you're on the same vent/mumble server. The goal was to have arena-quality PVP in battlegrounds, and that only happens with premade teams. There is no viable alternative that preserves that goal of the system.
My only concern thus far is that losing rated 15s was a huge blow, because Arathi Basin and Eye of the Storm were my two favourite maps to play. They were balanced and required a lot of coordination. Gilneas is a mess, which leaves the only two good maps both being capture the flag.
dannyleitner Mar 8th 2011 9:56AM
Only thing i really enjoyed about the new system was the war games against my own guild mates.This was cool because we all know each other and know how each other work, so its nice to have equal matches and not go against the pro's :/ Makes for a good guild get together event, even if we are murdering each other. :P