I was playing WoW the other night and running battlegrounds as has been my wont. I’m finding playing on a PvP server isn’t that much of a different experience from playing on a PvE server, but the people are very different. People are just much more aware of how to maximize your gameplay - how to play your class, what stats you should have, what you should do if jumped in a dark corner by the evil Alliance.
This makes for much better battleground experiences as well. However, some things are the same everywhere. To recap for the uninitiated, Warsong Gulch is a game of capture the flag. 10 players on each side try to steal the other side’s flag and run it back to their own base where their own flag must remain. All to often each side grabs the flags and hides forever. Then we spend 45 minutes trying to take it back from each other.
Blizzard has a change live on the PTR for WSG -
- When both flags are held, the flag carriers will receive 50% increased damage done to them after approximately 10 minutes and 100% increased damage after approximately 15 minutes.
- Flag carriers can now be tracked 45 seconds after picking up the flag.
This is trying to address the turtling problem. I’m not sure how it will pan out, but maybe they should try implementing the bug I experienced this weekend as a feature instead.
I was helping guard the flag carrier and sitting inside our base. We were chatting to the raid for progress updates and calling out tips. We got bored of turtling, so the three of us decided to run out midfield and try to draw out the opposition. That’s when we noticed that everyone was dead and no one was respawning. No one answered our chat either. We continued on our way to the enemy base where their flag carrier was hiding with a few remaining guards. We took them down, though I died along the way. I then sat in the graveyard and could read chat but not talk back. The two left alive managed to capture our flag at which point we all respawned.
Sudden death was actually a fascinating mechanic. It really made you value your heals and smart play. Sometimes, in the current WSG, dying is actually a boon. You respawn in a position that can be tactically beneficial sometimes for recapturing a flag that is running out of your base. You respawn with full health and mana. At worst you have to wait 30 seconds to spawn. And in general, this is good. But wow, there was so much more tactical thinking and tension when I realized that if I died that was it. I went down healing our flag carrier and helped make sure we won the game.
Now that’s a solution I’d be curious to see them try.