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World of Warcraft: Rated Battlegrounds FAQ
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
World of Warcraft's Cory Stockton has posted a short but effective FAQ about the 'rated battlegrounds' coming with the Cataclysm expansion next month. Pardo indicated that the topic had generated confusion and hoped that the FAQ would help alleviate it. The FAQ covers the rewards gained for competing in the rated battlegrounds, as well as the requirements for entering.
Judging from the posts on the forum, it looked like most players were confused about what rated battlegrounds really are and how to interact with them. Hopefully this FAQ can help clear up some of those questions. Feel free to respond with any other questions you might have and we will do our best to post up the answers in this thread.
Rated Battlegrounds are broken down into three brackets. 10v10, 15v15 and 25v25. These brackets rotate weekly and can be viewed in-game via the calendar by activating the battleground holiday filter.
Players must create a raid with the full number of players required for the current bracket before entering the queue. Any level 85 player of your faction may participate in the battle (regardless of guild association).
Read more here.
Comments
This has Epic Fail written all over it. It's about as much of a disaster as when they copied the EQ model, and copied over raiding, which by their own admission at the first Blizzcon most people don't even do. When I first heard about rated Battlegrounds I thought "wow, they are learning, this is going to be awesome. Something to keep me playing as finally loot would be fair to everyone now, not just hard core raiders". So the morale of the story is that apparently you have to be hard core. A good solution, would have been to just let people form 5 man teams and go at it. As now, rated BG's serve no purpose, not even the 10 man. Why bother when I could just go get 5 friends and join into an arena team? That's a whole lot less hassle than to even waste my time bothering with rated BG's. It just doesn't seem very well thought out. I'd much rather fight in the arena (as silly as that is conceptually speaking), than waste all the energy and effort on rated BG's. So according to previous information we'll get less points than people who fight in arena's fighting in rated BG's and have MORE of a hassle than people who fight in arena battles. At this point, why even bother having rated BG's at all?
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
I hear kids crying...
I'm looking forward to those BGs!
I was kind of hoping a rated battleground would try to match the people up based on their past performance in the random battleground queue. The whole point of battlegrounds for me was I could just queue for them and not have to actually form a team.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
QQ more?
sorry but like the other guy said QQ moar.
The point of these rated battlegrounds was that to give battlegrouns more importance and another way to do competitive pvp that isnt arena. Some of us dont like arena and omg now they are giving us the choice to do either rated bgs or arenas or get this....both! For some of us playing the game isnt about maxing our points gained each week but the quality and type of battle in PvP we want.
Man I cant wait to get into some competitive 25v25 action. Premade vs Premade no pugs! This sounds like the best battles are yet to come!
It's not a QQ so much as a, "meh". I'm sure it'll be popular because Blizzard isn't stupid...they are really good at their job. I just don't see this as a long term draw for me, but then I'm pretty tired of WoW anyway so I guess that's not too surprising.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Banegrivm
Leader of the 1st Fist of Light
www.1stfistoflight.com
Actually, the Rated Battlegrounds are intended for the hardcore PvP players so the casual PvP players can enjoy the battlegrounds. I would recommend that you read the full FAQ at the WoW website (link was included in the original post, but here it is - http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=2000&topicId=27607280587). It isn't a very long read, but provides more context than the original post here.
Going through the FAQ, it becomes apparent that the Rated Battlegrounds are just an extension of the Arena system (note the 3rd bullet in the WoW FAQ post). PvP ratings will now come from your highest score from Arena 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, or Rated Battlegrounds 10v10, 15v15, 25v25. Basically, it is just larger Arena PvP, but using the existing battlegrounds that have sufficient space to handle the number of concurrent players.
Sounds awesome, and has been what people on my server have been asking for.
We already setup premades for battlegrounds, and have a few big PvP guilds, so this just adds more incentive and better rewards for a past time we already enjoy.
What this will do though, is make the competition tougher. Right now I can't remember the last time i lost in a premade battleground group.
I expect the people who cry the loudest will be those who afk or slack during battlegrounds for the free points, are always complaining about how they take to long, and ask for a quick loss if its not a definitive win. Those people just want their treats with minimal effort. Quite honestly the way Blizzard has this system setup, they are practically handing you rating/conquest points you don't have to register a team or anything, just join any random BG pug.
If they want balanced PvP, they would give players all the same gear to start with. But then there would be no reason to play for most.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Low and mid level pvp in battlegrounds is just lame. Druids and Rogues one shot me and get away very easy with their movement speed. Mage are very nerfed or they have always been like that?
The leveling gear is okay, because you can get almost as good gear from dungeons.
Fix it blizzard, you really need a kick somewhere to clear your mind.
They do this on the tournament realm. But yeah, in a gear focused game they will never do this like guild wars does.
This. I like the idea overall, but having to get a pre-made together is not the easiest thing to do. It's pretty much like trying to find a competent raiding guild (and I suppose applications, required playing-time, etc will become standard for this system as well). Hopefully my server will get on board with this, but it's not PvP so I'm not expecting much. Maybe someone in my battlegroup will be organized enought to get a battlegroup premade system going, but I have my doubts...
after reading blizzards notes on it. seems like a good system. I'd also like to see the general BG queue actually match up teams better. nothing worse than a random pug playing against a premade.
People have been complaining how the Dungeon Finder killed the realm community. So wouldn't bring back some of it by forcing people to actually group with people on their own realm to do rated BGs.
You are kidding yourself if you think pugs are going to work against guilds in a pvp rated bg.
Reading the 'blue posts' and all the comment, it really sounds like there is alot left to iron out.
I can see Blizzards point of rotating (as we have Call to Arms weekends), but queue times will likely be long for the 25v25 unless you have a guild that plans to have a PvP night. Trying to keep 25 people waiting (unable to queue for an instance or anything) for 15-20min +, is going to be a PiA.
I like BG's, with either a PUG or premade, and prefer WSG to the rest, but will play any/all of them. I like to PvP for fun and of course to win. Bragging rights, ratings and gear are pretty secondary. Nice, don't get me wrong, but it's the fun of working together and winning that I enjoy more than w00t I have a ---- rating score.
My biggest concern if this degrades into a being a job like raiding or overly stressful/not fun with the total asshats rolling though, I'll pass.
I guess I'll wait and see how it shakes out between now an implementation.
Proud member of Hammerfist Clan Gaming Community.
Currently playing: RIFT, EQ2, WoW, LoTRO
Retired: Warhammer, AoC, EQ
Waiting: SWToR & GW2
So....this is essentially premades from what I've read. Or maybe closer to a PuG Raid....and anyone who's done those two afore mentioned things knows it gets difficult to get a group after the novelty of the thing wears off.
When Isle came out my server had a premade going on just about every day...not anymore
When PuGing, you only really see it going on Tuesday and Wednesday (my server at least) after that everyone's saved or doesn't care to raid in the first place.
The biggest challenge Rated-BGs will have is keeping players interested past 1month; gear isn't enough. I rarely see Arena Team recruitment going on but I did see a lot of it when the arena system was first introduced. So obviously the better gear wasn't enough to keep the players' attention...nor is the Title & Mount combo.
---
I agree with one of the previous posters here that Rated-BGs should have been about pairing people with similar Personal Ratings.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall.
You'd be surprised.
The article forgot the 3rd possibility of playing BG's in Cataclysm.
Besides the free to play Bg's (system now), you not only have the rated ones (article), but also the "wargames".
Wargames are Battlegrounds organised between two guilds who choose a BG to fight it out. Those fights will be independant of factions. Even Allaince can play against Alliance.
If I were Blizzard I would include some bragging guild awards in these last kinds of fights (fluff of course).
So yes I think that the new backbone server structure is a boost to realm guild play. Odd isn't it.
I agree with the first poster 5 mans should have been sufficient.
All in all, we need something new, WoW holds no interst to me anymore. Playing for gear and progression is overated big time and has gotten old...no matter how many ways Blizzard will find to plan people's progresion, there is really nothing more in to it.
Good luck.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
good luck to you too! You will find it more fun if you dont play for gear and progression. I was playing my DK today and had the most crazy AV. We were winning then losing then we looked like we were making a comeback but the reinforcements were 10 us 20 horde. We thought we were gonners. Amazingly at our last stand in front of the frostwolf village we ended the game and won 6-0. Needless to say chat went crazy. I play for these moments and not for hmmm I need 15k more honor points for this this and this.