#43 - June 26, 2015, 3:44 a.m.
Hello everyone, I'd like to address some of the common points I'm seeing mentioned in this thread.
First, I want to stress that the intent of Ashran is to provide a very different play experience than Arenas or Battlegrounds. The vision is a large PvP space where players are moving throughout the zone, competing for rewards, in a faction themed conflict. As many of you know, there hasn't been enough fighting in Ashran, for a number of reasons and we're looking to change that.
One of the most important factors driving player behavior in Ashran is the reward structure and how efficiency drives group behavior. Specifically, I mean that when the same reward is available in multiple locations at the same time, the two factions avoid each other. It is easier and more efficient to not fight for an event if killing a rare offers the same benefit. Right now, at the launch of 6.2, we are in an atmosphere where the primary concern for most players is earning Honor. Honor can be earned throughout Ashran in a number of ways and as a result, there isn't a lot of competition going on.
The new season will begin soon and inevitably players will turn their attention to earning Conquest. There are only two ways to earn Conquest in Ashran in 6.2. The first is to complete the quests to kill the faction leader and win 4 events. This will put both factions in direct competition with each other over events and the Road of Glory. The second is to kill 200 players of the enemy faction. Obviously, this drives players to kill each other. Our expectation is that if players feel they can compete for these rewards they will.
We're obviously concerned from comments we've seen on these forums and within the game that the Horde feel they cannot compete at events and the central road. When it comes to PvP, players will only participate if they feel they can compete. This is the primary motivation behind the mechanic Lore explained above. When a faction falls behind, it is easy for everyone to go their separate ways and never engage the enemy. This buff should help players win some engagements and hopefully build the confidence (and numbers) needed to compete in the larger battles.
On a related note, I've seen comments that the Horde think they are outnumbered in Ashran, but this just isn't true. We strictly enforce faction balance numbers in Ashran. If there are ten Horde players in Ashran, we will not let an eleventh Alliance player in. We've looked at the data several times and it is clear. The number of Horde and Alliance players in any given Ashran is the same at all times. However, there are a lot more Alliance waiting to get into Ashran. Since we enforce faction balance, the only way to get more Alliance players into Ashran is to get more Horde players into Ashran.
As a small note, I know some people have compared this new buff to Tenacity, but the situation is very different. Tenacity was a buff that scaled based on how lopsided faction balance was in the zone at any given time. Players would have several stacks of Tenacity but they would be terribly outnumbered. We don't allow either faction to be outnumbered in Ashran. This buff is primarily in place to help the faction that's losing recover and hopefully win the next big fight.
Finally, we've have seen the feedback about the desire to see premade raid groups return to Ashran but we don't think this is a good idea. Ultimately, it led to a situation where if you knew to use the premade group finder, you would wait a long time but get into an Ashran where you were guaranteed to win. Unfortunately, if you didn't know about the premade group finder, you would get in immediately but were almost guaranteed to get demolished. We don't think this is a healthy environment for the zone to be in.
We appreciate how passionate everyone has been about the zone. We'll continue to monitor your feedback here and in-game. Thanks for playing and we'll see you on the battlefield!