Greetings. Battleground Blitz is upon us, and no doubt a lot of changes and polishing will be made.
I’m a veteran WoW player, i remember original vanilla PvP grinds, and excitement of a new game mode back in Cata, when it was cool to grind a brand new HoTH/A titles.
Very rapidly, few expansions since excitement was gone, RBG scene has evolved, at least in my personal opinion, into second sort activity, players of which usually consist of “not good enough for arena” type, or some enthusiasts, that play every season, and feed off everyone less dedicated than they are.
Nowadays, RBG is by far least popular PvP bracket. SS (Solo Shuffle) was a massive success, because of its accessibility and “stimulating” reward system, it will become “locomotive” of WoW PvP for years to come. Next, in our rating of popularity, we will have 3v3, it provides R1 and unique mount, and is the most prestige bracket, because SS is way more RNG. Then we have 2v2, which is mostly for fun, since s6 WOTLK.
And only then, comes RBG, the only unique reward it has is a title that don’t even have a “seasonal” flavor in it, its always the same - Hero of the Horde/Aliance.
Back to the point:
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Map pool is too big, a lot of maps will be unpopular, lower bracket players will lose their coordination on most of them, also RNG will explode through the roof. Some maps are also graphically outdated. Lets start from the beginning, let it be only WSG/AB maps, but highly polished, with ton of wise metrics, that will determine impact of each player, and his rating changes. Add exclusive new maps for Battleground Blitz later on, which are developed and designed especially for it.
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Make sure rewards are worth it, add some new prestige icons for high raters, or add some grindy achievements for average players.
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Solo/duo queue idea is good, but should not be limited to healer/dps combo.
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If this new mode will be released, as it is intended to be right now, it will be least popular bracket, or popular among the worst part of PvP community, with even more RNG crying, won’t attract any new players, and will disappoint most of the old. Devs should prioritize to reinvent BGs, instead of making them more accessible. SS approach won’t work with BGs.
Now, i’ll try to draw some parallels between two version of WoW, its necessary to explain my point, please don’t consider it offtopic.
I would like to point out, that since WoW classic release, overall feedback brought some nice changes to both “sides” of WoW. For example, classic players had slightly better user experience than original classic players, they were spared of patches with bad balancing, had some interface additions etc etc.
Retail adopted talent trees back, no more borrowed powers, and the last expansion is very “Azeroth” themed, it screams “we are back to our roots” kind of. Maybe im imagining, but there is some kind of symbiosis between retail and classic.
Hardcore came to WoW classic, because it was popular. It is a matter of time, until Classic+ content will come to WoW classic too, because there is demand for it (maybe even at this yr Blizzcon?).
Align new WoW Classic content, or season, with Battleground Blitz release. Blitz should feel like a fresh start, based on fundamentals of the game, develop it further, and it will be great. That would be cool and complete experience, new “shift” for WoW, on “both sides”.