#0 - Aug. 28, 2009, 3:52 a.m.
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Q u o t e:
There are several reasons (these are the highlights) not to allow players to solo-queue for rated battlegrounds.
1. When players have no commitment to any other members of their team, they're much more likely to try to game the system for minimal effort (afk'ing, or near afk-ing). If they're required to form a group in advance, it implies there is a previously agreed-upon power structure in the group (somebody is the leader, and can kick players that need to be kicked).
One of the reasons I was looking forward to rated BGs was because, as a soloist, I want to be able to get gear on par with the game's best without adhering to an ideology that "bigger group = better." I had no intention of AFKing in these rated BGs. I had every intention of being a team player. But now I'm told that, once again, because I don't care to socialize in WoW (as opposed to, say, RL), I'm second-class. And please don't tell me that getting gear less than the game's best isn't second-class; it's the only way to buff my stats at max level.
Why is there no solution for players AFKing? Why do many other MMOs implement systems where, in their versions of Battlegrounds, idle players are not rewarded and the fastest path to progression is to participate? I've observed a disturbing trend in Blizzard's design philosophies, one that sees players penalized for attempting to use the system to their advantage (i.e., playing the game), and one that Blizzard shuts down either with "soft" ToS clauses or in-game limits that act in lieu of real fixes to problems.
Q u o t e:
2. If players can queue for rated battlegrounds as either solo or as a group (and any mix thereof), it becomes far more difficult to matchmake teams appropriately, or determine how difficult of a win a win was, or how significant a failure on the part of the losing players a loss was.
This is BS. Yeah, I know I probably shouldn't be calling Kalgan's claims about his game BS, but this is BS. Regardless of how those people get into the BG, matchmaking teams and determining the validity of results is still reliant on all the people in the BG. To claim that the process of filling the BG itself has an impact on those metrics is, at best, absurd.
Q u o t e:
3. The endgame structure we have for WoW rewards for organizational effort (this is the primary reason that 25-person raids are rewarded more highly than 10-person raids). There is no organizational effort in solo-queue'ing for battlegrounds, yet the ilevel of the rewards are on par with 25-person raiding.
This ideology is flawed. It may be WoW policy, but it doesn't adhere to reason. And here's why:
If the organizational effort is what is primarily rewarded, then the rewards should, reasonably, only apply to activities that require that effort. This is NOT the case in WoW, as every reward is individually rewarding. And I'm not sure what you believe on this matter, but the individual contribution made to a 40-man raid is not proven to be inherently "harder" than the one made to a 25-man raid, or a 10-man raid, or a 5-man group, or even solo.
The rewards from a 25-man raid benefit a player in 25-man raids and every bit of PvE content requiring less people, all the way down to solo content. But the rewards from supposedly "lesser" content doesn't apply as well to its own content as 25-man raid gear does. You can use that superior gear in 10-man raids, or in 5-man heroics, or solo daily questing. The same applies to Arena gear being used in BGs, and now rated BGs (which cannot be queued up for solo) are the best path to progress to gear for regular BGs.
This will fall on deaf ears, I realize. There will be no reply, other than deletion or forum banishment. I pine for the day an MMO comes out where designers realize that me, the soloist, possessing Breastplate of Infinite Awesome +1 doesn't make any other instance of Breastplate of Infinite Awesome +1 any less "special."
