- Author: Taladril
- Date: July 10, 2021
- Updated: July 10, 2021
- Expansion: TBC Classic
The same-faction battleground experiment has concluded for now. While there were reddit memes about the event it seemed like the community consensus wasn’t wholly a negative one. In addition to community reaction and anecdotal opinion, Blizzard has given us some insight into the results that they saw.
- Without same-faction battlegrounds often players on the imbalanced side of queues would join a BG queue but then be unable to get into a battleground, often waiting for over an hour with no success before abandoning the queue. Depending on the time of the day this was especially apparent.
- With same-faction queues, were seen to be universally short and reliably so.
- A question that Blizzard wanted to see an answer to with the test was what the effect on world PvP would be with more reliable battleground engagement. Their answer to this point isn’t very clear, however it seems like when same-faction battleground was enabled because of the faction queue imbalance, outdoor PvP reduced to a more reasonable 50/50 split. This would imply that when servers have a bad imbalance you get a lot of want to engage in PvP and more reliable battleground access is the needed pressure relief valve to get what you want. If there is no opportunity for battlegrounds, then the player seeks out PvP in open world and because of that you see more one-sided PvP encounters.
- The last data point shared with us is that same-faction battlegrounds showed an even 50/50 win rate. This result would point to the obvious truth that skill>racials. While a lot of talk goes on about the strength of some faction’s racial advantages in PvP, the reality is that, while the difference might be the deciding factor in some cases, organization will always be a better decider of success.
Blizzard plans to test again, however they are still analyzing the data and see about other tweaks they can make for the system, however the data looks promising so it’ll be good to see a more valanced system moving forward. Maybe it’ll even help to balance out some of the server faction populations for many people. Time will tell.
First and foremost, thank you to everyone who played Battlegrounds last week and sent us thoughtful and informed feedback on same-faction play. While we don’t plan to re-enable it again over the next few days, we’re analyzing the data we collected, and we’re planning to test more soon.
Here are some of our initial findings that will inform our next test:
- Before this test, most players who joined the queue were unable to get a match, sometimes after waiting for over an hour and/or dropping out of the queue altogether. This was particularly unfortunate at some times of day or in some regions. During the test, BG queue times became short and reliable for both factions.
- Prior to the first test, we wondered if the queue was having an effect on PvP in the outdoor world, and we now have data showing that when same-faction Battlegrounds were available, PvP deaths in the outdoor world were very close to 50/50 between the factions.
- Similarly, win-rates for the two factions when facing the other faction in Battlegrounds were close to 50/50.
We’ll let you know as soon as we’ve completed our analysis, have decided on any further tweaks to the system, and are ready to test it again.
And again, thank you very much for your feedback as we explore potential solutions.
About the Author
Would rather see the following applied first before they devastate the community with this pvp change.
-Remove the ” 3 Q limit”. Let the Horde q for all Bgs at once + arenas and this will let the time in between feel faster.
-at the end of bg screen, add “requeue” and let the team requeue with fellow teammates. This also helps stop “premades” because these pug premades could form and partially fill pugs leading to more competitive matches.
– Faction Transfers offered H -> A on PVP servers to encourage more alliance in the system.
-Debate removing restriction on faction on a pvp server. Many players may be more likely to reroll and have an alt for the lower Q if they are on the same server and can feed them mats through neutral auction houses.
All of these would be way less devastating than giving Horde the outright cheat codes to the game.
This is blizzards fault for not acting before the expansion with fresh servers, and giving people the option to reroll blood elf before launch.
“Remove the ” 3 Q limit”. Let the Horde q for all Bgs at once + arenas and this will let the time in between feel faster.”
“at the end of bg screen, add “requeue” and let the team requeue with fellow teammates. This also helps stop “premades” because these pug premades could form and partially fill pugs leading to more competitive matches.”
“Faction Transfers offered H -> A on PVP servers to encourage more alliance in the system.”
“Debate removing restriction on faction on a pvp server. Many players may be more likely to reroll and have an alt for the lower Q if they are on the same server and can feed them mats through neutral auction houses.”
“All of these would be way less devastating than giving Horde the outright cheat codes to the game.”
Being able to play a part of the game without waiting an hour is an “outright cheat code” now?
This test has proven one thing, that’s for sure. Alliance need dedicated “Safe space” servers. A place where they don’t need to concern themselves with changes impacting the other faction (not them). Let’s call them “Normal” servers.