I still find it odd that while the Rated BG system was being worked up no one on the development staff stopped to think "Hey, y'know what? I bet most folks will expect this to be based on individual performance rather than being bigger Arena-style team matches. We might ought to warn them before hopes get all sky-high".

Cataclysm really isn't a terrible expansion, it just hasn't lived up to the hype. A little better communication and expectation management and more willingness to see things from the average player's perspective rather than that of a developer would have paid off for Blizzard in spades.

performance would be nice or even just a gear check "You need X resilience to enter" to keep out the less geared pvpers much like heroics.

Completely agree. That was what everyone was thinking before, and what it should have been. The only real debate at the time was "is it going to be performance, or gear". Then they dropped the bomb on everyone that it was nothing more than a raided arena team. I honestly cannot understand who there thought this was a good idea. And they wonder why people ask if they ever play the game /shrug

Wishing I could up-rate this comment and all the replies multiple times, and then stuff them all in an envelope and mail them to Blizzard. I can't begin to describe how utterly crushed I and the couple of friends I play with were when we found out that rated BGs were NOT going to be what you have all described. We thought the same thing.

To play devil's advocate a little, I often see complaints about being unable to solo-queue for rated BGs, but rarely anyone addressing the problems that causes. If no other changes are made than just allowing solo-queues...what's the difference between a Rated BG and a normal one? Nothing. It also comes with the same problems of AFKers, honor farmers and whatever else. (At least RBG doesn't force you to have the exact same team every time...though that's small consolation.)

Rating solo performance in a battleground is extremely difficult. How do you rate the contribution of the guy who's guarding the Mine? It's a valuable service to the team, but doesn't show up on the scoreboard. How about the guy who tracks down the flag carrier in WSG, takes out his guards, but someone else shows up to get the KB and cap on the flag. According to the scoreboard, this second guy is more valuable than the first when he's actually not. But then again, what if that was the plan of the two people all along? One distracts, the other accomplishes. There are tons of other examples, but it all boils down to this:

If you want solo queues for Rated Battlegrounds, how do you possibly "rate" that? Do you really want to make damage whoring and ignoring objectives any worse?

Rating solo performance in a BG is not hard at all, other games have done it with complete success(and I wasn't just talking about solo to begin with, just casual, it's a completely different thing). As long as you are doing something they can make it to where you get points(or however they wanted to implement it) towards your rating. Winning BG's, doing damage, doing healing, CC, getting damage done to you, CC'd etc... it can all be added in and it wouldn't be difficult for a programmer to figure out how to do it once they decided how to do it. Blizz never did it because it wasn't a part of their original vision for rated BG's is all. Once they get a vision on how or what they want to do, they are not going to deviate from it and make it they way they wanted. More power to them, it's their game after all. But in doing so they show the disconnect that they have with their playerbase.

Having the argument about defending certain objectives doesn't really fly however as well, I have seen numerous people 'defending' a mine, or an obstacle in AB, or a flag in AV to the point where they weren't defending anything. They just sit there, do nothing, only to let the opposing faction to take the objective anyway, and when no one is around(if then) then the re-cap. It is just a new strategy for them to go AFK without staying in the starting area and getting reported.

It would not be as hard as you might think to implement such things, some companies may have someone come out and tell you that, but it isn't true. The truth is that they just won't go away from their original plan, and they really can't in that respect otherwise it would take forever to come out with anything if they had to start doing something else mid phase of the plan. The people protecting flag room in WSG won't have to worry(unless they do nothing) because there will always be someone going for the flag, Protecting the leader in AV, no problem there either again, as long as you are doing something.

This. Rated bgs are an example of something that Blizzard should have taken into consideration, and then wisely scrapped in favor of numerous other community based ideas that they seem to often ignore/punt towards the waste basket in the drawing room.

If there's one thing I couldn't care less about in this expansion (even if it looks this good) then it's mounts. Please spend your time on something else Blizz. :(

"As long as you are doing something they can make it to where you get points"

That's the problem. What if you are NOT doing something that can be tracked? There's a variety of options, usually defending ones. Defending a node in Arathi Basin that isn't being attacked. The flag carrier in WSG at moments when he's left alone. Moments when you are doing what it takes to win, to be a team player, but aren't doing something trackable.

How are the points awarded anyway? I assume you're not thinking of some sort of constant ticker that awards points throughout the BG. So then it's a total point award at the end of the BG as it is now. Or separate awards through the BG for achieving certain objectives (like capping a flag). Again, how do you "rate" each player? If one player does one million damage and another only does one thousand, do they get the same points? You see the problem if they don't, right? If the person who does more damage gets more points, then the only "right" way to play the BG becomes to ignore defense, fight at the front lines and snipe HKs.

I guess what I'm asking is this: How would you award points differently in Rated BGs than in normal BGs? How do you rate an individual's contribution so that each player is properly awarded in accordance with their contribution? I clearly didn't understand your idea well enough.

Also, what is your ideal "casual RBG" playstyle? Since you say it's completely different from solo BGs. Your only queue options are 5-man or 10-man. Anything else requires solo-queue option.

Just to note:

I very rarely PvP. How all of the BG, Arena and related achievements/rewards works out is honestly irrelevant to me. I'm just pointing out the difficulties with Rated BGs. I'm not trying to say "this is the way it should be" just "these are the problems I see, what are the solutions?"