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.
Season 1 is already so scuffed. Just reimplement ASAP and be done with it, it’s clear to see that it worked. Many people just want to actually play the game instead of sitting there afk in a queue.
Good to read that the data supports that alliance gank as much horde as horde ganks alliance. Guess alliance no longer use that as a strawman argument!
Actually being able to queue BG’s was insanely game changing for me - made me want to keep playing for sure instead of just raidlogging for 5-6 days a week.
Why don’t you re-enable it over the next few days? Makes no sense why not just have this feature on that solves the current situation for everyone instead of your current clown fiesta. Cba. the hype is leaving in WAVES.
Why are we all on our knees applauding the fact they are now changing this… its been an Issue for ages and btw these guys are notorious for being silent. Great they added HvH and I was FINALLY able to play the horde factions pvp But why not have this HvH mode on till you figure out the solution or a better alternative legit makes no sense especially since we all know in reality it’s no bother for you guys this feature is pretty much effortless for you.
I actually got surprised queues went down to 15-35 min after your horde vs horde test. I’m totally fine with these queue times. But if you enable horde vs horde again I hope you enable it out-door as well since factions don’t really matter that much anymore. Make sure everyone can kill everyone except if you are in same guild.
The root cause of Horde BG queues is faction imbalance. Faction change service would have solved the BG queue issue AND the faction imbalance. Win-win. HvH actively makes faction imbalance worse. There are now not enough new Alliance players to replace natural leakage, because instaqueue was the only incentive to roll Alliance and take the disadvantages in every other aspect of the game.
Not only that, it creates a snowball effect, because the players who remain are demoralised seeing no new players levelling up behind them, and incentivised to transfer to megaservers. It has observably and materially affected small-to-medium Alliance PVP server populations already, making questing, grouping, farming, auctioneering, every aspect of the game that is not queueing for BGs, harder or impossible. Those left behind are only waiting to see how bad it gets.
Are Activision likely to care about this issue? No, because each of those transfers bags them $25 and we know from retail that short-term profit is their only motive anymore. Activision and the new game they’re creating with this change - because it’s NOT Classic anymore - seem soulless corporate enterprises. You think this is the last change they will make? There is no hype anymore, only a soulless grind and low expectations.
HvH is a retail-like novelty that not only doesn’t address the root problem, but punishes the victims. Why should Alliance players be negatively affected and even forced to pay real life money to fix a Horde problem? It’s grotesquely unfair. It’s a cynical corporate swindle that has corrupted the last remaining shimmer of Classic spirit left after boosts and store mounts. This is not the game that was advertised. This is not the game we dreamt of when Classic was announced. This is no longer Classic WoW.
RIP Alliance and Classic WoW.
By the way, the first direct confirmation I had this change was live was when I realised I was in a stinky mudhut with an orc mask on and about to be GY farmed by an Alliance premade. I should’ve quit there.
I read this (copypasted from the US forum) text multiple times. And while i wonder if it is truely plausible that the metrics are so similar in the US and EU that copypasting it would still leave it accurate…what hit me even more is the message it delivers. It clearly says that removing factions from the game improved the game in all of the metrics Activision currently cares about. They found absolutely NO downsides worth mentioning when removing factions.
It’s not only Activision that thinking short term it’s so many players in-game as well. Then at some point they realize less and less players playing the game and suddenly join the “fresh hype train” that probably will happen rather sooner than later.
Yep, all they see is average waiting time 1 min, not unintended consequences. Will they look at ratios on posts on twitter, youtube, etc to see what the silent majority thinks of this game-killing change? Or just dismiss criticism as Alliance trolls whose only motive is to stop them having fun. They can have our stuff, but it will be worthless in a dead game.
Cool that you look at data, but this is NOT classic anymore and NOT what was promised several years back.
GJ messing up my favourite expansion.
Know that long queues could have like, solved the problem? Make it interesting to roll alliance??? But no. You quickly cater to the cries of the many and want that sweet transfer $$$ from alliance to horde.
