The horde cave, numbers

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
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From US forums OG poster https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/the-horde-cave-numbers/450188

Something I haven’t seen yet is actual numbers regarding the impact the Horde cave makes on a game, so I decided to time it myself. Times were done on an epic mount with a carrot on a stick, mithril spurs and riding skill gloves.

For the Alliance to reach Stonehearth GY’s flag from Stormpike Graveyard and reinforce it, it took 49 seconds. 10 people on the Alliance side can respawn at once at SPGY.

For Horde, from the cave to Iceblood Graveyard with the same mount speed takes me 21 seconds along the road. The Horde cave also respawns 20 players at a time.

If Horde cave pushes out 20 players at a time every 30 seconds and it takes us 21 seconds to reinforce IBGY, the Alliance can expect to have to fight those 20 players a minimum of 11 times (11.76, lets assume the .76 doesn’t make it in time) before they successfully capture IBGY. That is 220 HKs over the full 5 minute capture time.

Conversely, the Alliance graveyard is respawning 10 players every 30 seconds and those players have an additional 49 second ride to SHGY. The Horde has to defeat 7 (7.59) respawn waves of 10 in order to capture SHGY. Thats 70 HKs over the full 5 minute capture time.

Obviously you don’t always end up waiting the full 30 second respawn, but this is true for both sides and therefor equal.

I offer no bias and no opinions, just numbers. Form your own conclusions.

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And dun baldar is more fortified than FW keep, especially with NPC density as well as all the bunkers being harder to cap solo compared to all the horde towers.

There are pros and cons to both sides, and alliance have a closer GY to the area near balinda which is where you actually end up facing each other for the first time on mounts at max speed. Which makes it faster for Alliance to replenish their forces than it does for the horde, at the first clash, which basically sets the pace of the BG (very hard to reset in full force from this without extreme coordination unlikely for randoms to perform).

All in all, the BG itself is decided by the stronger collective force of PvP prowess (for lack of better term). It’s just that some people focus more on the extrinsic reasons, and doesn’t look at the whole map and compare the two sides, and rather just point out specific things like the Americana OP did, with clear bias by neglecting to mention the big picture of things.

In other words, some people doesn’t view it as being their own fault but rather the fault of something else which just so happens to remove all responsibility from themselves at the same time. Funny coincidence, right?

“I’m not to blame, the WORLD is to blame!”

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The ordinary elite npcs are NOTHING, only the boss and entourage npcs are worth a damn. This is true for both factions.

One difference however is that once the flag is capped in an ally tower the archers despawn while the horde archers in the vice versa scenario do not despawn.

etc

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No, they do.

They just don’t despawn while they’re still in combat. So you’d have to find a way to disengage the archers’ combat after assaulting the tower to despawn the archers.

It’s like when you pull a warmaster and the timer on the tower it’s “connected to” runs out, but because of the warmaster still being in combat it won’t despawn.
The warmaster despawns after resetting however, as long as the tower had burnt down during the time it was in combat.

PS:
The alliance side doesn’t have “towers”, they’ve got bunkers. This reply became very confusing because you couldn’t tell those words apart, so now I have to write this to clarify it.

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Is this for real? If it is, no wonder horde have had such success with their recall tactics.

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I personally haven’t kept track of the number of ppl ressing, but if it’s like that in the horde cave then it’s the same cap in the alliance cave.

The American’s post (or, well, that part of the post) was about how the people ressing can go as one wave for the IB GY once Alliance has fortified their position there, and the implications of it.

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The cap in the alliance cave is 10.

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Then it’s the same on the horde side.

Kinda reveals the American poster’s bias even more there, with that slip.

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There is no slip. The op claims there is a difference. You assuming there isn’t any are no better source than the op/American. If av was balanced there wouldn’t be any difference in travel times, but anyone who have played av knows there is.

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No, there is. He claims the horde cave’s spirit resser can ress twice as many people as other spirit ressers, and you’ve said the alliance cave’s spirit resser can’t.

It’s way more likely to be just a slip.

It’s interesting to see how quickly you were willing to believe the OP’s slip though, despite the OP stating such a ludicrous thing as a single spirit resser being different from all the other spirit ressers in AV.

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I could be wrong then, but seeing how often I end up not getting ressed in the alliance cave I always assumed that the cap is 10 like all other ressers.

Having half the travel time to where the action is after ressing is a huge advantage regardless of the number of players who are ressing though.

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The distance from the horde cave to FW gy (which is SP gy’s equivalent) is further than the distance from the alliance cave to SP gy.

But the difference in distance from the alliance cave to SH gy compared to the horde cave to IB gy is indeed not equal.

Overall however, there are pros and cons to both sides as stated earlier.

Alliance gets something working better for them on the alliance side of the map, while the horde gets something they’re better at. So on and so forth.

The problem here is player perception however.

^ Like this for example. Classic example of a problem with player perception and misunderstanding the mechanism to assume bias in the design instead of figuring out the true reason.

^ This as well.

You can go into the specifics of an endless number of situational advantages for both sides, however when it comes down to it, the side that beats the other in PvP is the side that wins in the end.

Personally, I don’t get why people want sterile map designs where everything is exactly the same on both sides, just because it’s a map design for PvP.
It feeds better into the faction RP this way, and this is an RPG after all.

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Noone in this thread is asking for sterile map design where everything is exactly the same. Adjusting map distances so they become somewhat balanced would have no impact on the RPG feel of the game. Buildings and NPC’s contribute to the RPG element, distances and number of players ressed does not.

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It did when they changed it in burning crusade and moved the starting cave to where it’s now in retail. Now you start so far away from everything with a horde flag on it that it makes it more bland, in retail.

It was a hyperbolic statement to illustrate a point. You are asking for a perceived unbalance favoring the horde side to be changed, even though you can’t make such an isolated comparison on a map design like the original AV design where the starting cave starts where it was initially designed to.

You have to look at the map as a whole before you claim it’s favored for one side or the other, and to examine it in great detail from a game designer’s perspective.

If you want a truly proper suggestion, then moving the horde cave to where both at max speed meets up in the middle of middle would be the best place.

Not where it is in retail.

But then you’d probably complain about the SH gy being further away than the horde gy, but as already mentioned right now the SH gy is closer than IB gy to the first clash point on the map, from a design perspective.

You don’t see Horde picking up their pitchforks and claiming injustice over that though.

Or that alliance spawning in cave after SP gy is capped, can via ranged attacks shoot down anything that can’t make it up to them fast enough to hit them as a melee. Like rogues for example.

It goes on and on.

It’s also easier to lock horde in their starting cave than it is to lock alliance in theirs, since the travel distance is so short from IB gy to the horde cave, compared to the roundabout distance you need to run from SP gy to the alliance cave.

So in the end, it actually does come down to the PvP after all. The side that wins in PvP is the side that wins the BG. As simple as that.

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When fighting for IB graveyard, the alliance respawns in SH gy, with 10 people max. The horde respawns at the starting cave, 20 people max.

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If anyone has ever actually witnessed 20 Horde respawning in the cave then that means the Alliance at that point have killed half the Horde team. That would suggest the Alliance are winning the battle.

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What do u guys expect?
Its horde map horde territory, frostwolf clan. Mighty Thrall ppl!!! (Orc imps)
And who is Vandar?
Some random private mining company security officer.
It is waaaaay horde favored and it should be!
As someone who love lore I approve this and as someone who played 300+ AVs on 3 alliance and 300+ on 1 horde toon and with both eyes working fine and iq of 169, I can tell u that AV map is insanely horde favored.
How can alliance achieve even 1 win is truely phenomea.
For the Horde!!!

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Beware, a Beware lvl 110 priest who won’t show his BS classic char for “reasons”, who loves trying to sound inteligent, but his grammar overshadows his intellectual abilities, will hop off his chair to prove you wrong with BS arguments written in a way that makes you forget the initial point he was trying to make by the time you read the whole thing… BEWARE!

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Lets assume, we meet in the middle. What difference would it make if Alliance still try to pass through and half of them not trying to fight back.
What happens now, more often thank before, is Alliance raid split in two parts. One part goes to SF GY (and not Galv as they used to) Second part try to reach IB GY from east side. There are 10-15 Horde players waiting there, just out of SH Archers reach. Even if we lose this fight, less Alliance reach IB GY, and they rarely manage to hold it even when they cap it.
If Horde cave is moved souther, we will meet in the middle and its just 1 fight more than before.
In my opinion, its more about zerg and group fights. If you constantly win these, the Valley is yours.
Just my observations and opinion.

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I have no problem with the cave location for the initial push, my question is - If you die mid and IB is taken, does horde spawn in CAVE or at FWGY?