WoW: Major Changes to Battlegrounds Incoming!

Tags : wow major changes, battlegrounds changes, wow news    

Today Blizzard announced some sweeping changes to the way Honor Points and Battlegrounds will work in World of Warcraft:

We have several changes planned for Battlegrounds in the next minor content patch and would like to share them with you now. This patch will be available for public testing and we encourage you to participate, queue up and provide some feedback on these changes.

• Firstly, say goodbye to Battleground Marks of Honor. We feel this currency system is a bit outdated and are getting rid of it. Any items which require these marks as currency will have their costs adjusted appropriately to remove this requirement. The quest NPCs will still be available to award players Honor for turning in leftover marks, including individual Marks of Honor if a player has more marks from one Battleground than another, but this is only to help players clear this expired currency.
   
• Next, the Battleground holiday weekend will now be denoted as "Call to Arms" in the Battleground tab and Calendar. If you prefer a specific Battleground over all others, look for those words next to its name to determine whether or not you'll receive bonus Honor. The bonus awards for Call to Arms Battlegrounds have been adjusted.
  
  
  • Winning a Call to Arms Battleground for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
  • Additional Call to Arms Battleground victories after the first win for a player that day will award them with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
  • Losing a Call to Arms Battleground will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
     
• To bring the rate at which players obtain PvP rewards with Honor more in-line with the rate at which players obtain PvE rewards via the Dungeon Finder, we'll also be increasing the amount of Honor awarded for an Honorable Kill by 100%. In light of this, the amount of experience provided from an Honorable Kill, and the amount of Honor awarded for completing the Wintergrasp weekly quests, have been reduced by 50%.
  
  It's important to note one thing about these 50% decreases. All Honor awarded for completing objectives in Battlegrounds and Wintergrasp is actually based on an Honorable Kill conversion rate. So if you destroy a tower in Alterac Valley for example, the Honor you're awarded is actually based on a flat number of Honorable Kills. Since Honorable Kills will now award 100% more Honor, completing such objectives will also award more Honor. This is why experience gains based on completing Battleground objectives and Honor awarded from the Wintergrasp quests are being decreased by 50%. 
   
• Now that we hopefully have your attention, we're pleased to announce the implementation of the Random Battleground system! This system will work virtually the same as the Random Dungeon option in the Dungeon Finder and will replace the Battleground daily quests. Players can queue with a group of up to five players for a Random Battleground in the Battleground tab. As with the Random Dungeon option, the Battleground chosen will not be revealed until players zone into the Battleground for which they are selected. The bonus rewards for this system are identical to the updated Call to Arms bonuses.
  
  
  • Winning a Battleground using the Random Battleground option for the first time in a day will award players with 30 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency and 25 Arena points.
  • Winning additional Battlegrounds using the Random Battleground option after the first random win will award players with 15 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
  • Losing a Battleground using the Random Battleground option will award players with 5 Honorable Kills worth of additional Honor currency.
  • When using the Random Battleground option, players will not receive additional rewards if the Battleground chosen is under the effects of the Call to Arms bonuses. In other words, the bonuses do not stack. In addition, if a player has been rewarded 30 Honorable Kills worth of bonus Honor currency from either the Random Battleground system, or the Call to Arms Battleground, he or she will be rewarded 15 Honorable Kills worth of bonus Honor currency that day for each additional victory. This applies whether the Random Battleground system is used, or the Call to Arms Battleground is chosen specifically, as a player cannot be rewarded the full amount of bonus Honor more than once per day.

All of these features and changes will be available in the next minor patch which should be hitting the public test realms in the near future. Please help us out by testing this system and providing your feedback so we can make some fine-tuning adjustments before the patch's release.

After the resounding success of the Random Dungeon Finder system implemented in patch 3.3, Blizzard seems to be taking a similar approach to Battlegrounds. Battlegrounds right now are generally viewed as a slow, and sub-par way to gain Honor Points. Many battlegroups have extremely long (40+ minute) queues for some battlegrounds, particularly Isle of Conquest.

This change seems geared towards getting players back into battlegrounds rather than gaining honor exclusively through Wintergrasp. This is obvious given their 50% reduction to Wintergrasp weekly quest honor, which is a questionable decision. This will result in Wintergrasp weekly quests yielding a rough total of around 9300 honor per week, down from 18600.

While I personally am unenthused by the Wintergrasp changes, it has yet to be seen how exactly this change will affect the honor gain in battlegrounds. Either way, players will no doubt flood the battlegrounds when this goes live.

One has to wonder what the consequences will be for the less popular BGs once the marks of honor and combined turn-ins are gone. Few players seem to enjoy the new vehicle oriented BGS, and many play them only because they feel forced to by the current system. We will also have to see exactly how the random battleground finder tool addresses the issue of different sized battlegrounds. Will it randomly decide that Isle of Conquest or Alterac Valley will be next, and wait until there are 40 people queued? Or will it try to allow players to get into a game as quickly as possible and turn up as Warsong Gulch frequently.

Many questions have yet to be answered, and we will keep you posted as more information about these changes is unveiled.

Source: tentonhammer.com

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