Alterac Valley, Horde POV

[Niko]

Hello!
First off, let me thank the nost management for a neat patch version of AV where actually both sides are popping summonables and farming the necessary items together as a team, it's fun!

Secondly, I want to adress the minor details that are doing the bigger differences in this battleground and mainly from a horde point of view. Do not see this post as an attempt to get any changes reversed, rather to get things balanced out.

We're all familiar with the bottleneck in alliance base at the stormpike bridge, how it's easily choked by a few mages and with the help of hunters - to have the alliance archers barrade down whatever dares to push across. These things are naturally nothing that will be adressed, these are unchangeable things.

What is necessary to fix is the spawnrate of the alliance npcs, seeing those have very strategical locations within the Dun'Baldar area. Most of them will agro you if you get too close and they even get pulled by horde guards, once the base is under horde control. These vendor npcs have tenfold the health of the horde elite guards, which is redicilous as they clear out the graveyard flag and leave it vulnerable for a single alliance player to recapture.

Not to mention, how these npcs can be strategically used to kite some poor idiot horde player into so that he agros and then tries in attempt to flee back -- agroing them to other hordes who are fighting Vanndar's elite marshal guards or even other alliances. This does not happen at all in horde base, which is a major concern as it's constantly happening in every game that someone pulls these elite vendors onto healers and forcing the tank/dps to waste even more time fighting those.

As of late, alliance and horde teams have been quite balanced when it comes to leveld players, geared ones and skillbased which then makes it pretty much a draw out to who is the best of using the map into their favour. All of the npcs that are crowded into Dun'Baldar once you get across the bridge, along with the merciless arrows of the archers, makes the alliance heavily favoured and make it even possible for a handful of players (mages, hunters) to be able to fight off almost tenfold the amount of hordes on the bridge chokehold.

I do not want 10min rush games, at all. That is not Alterac Valley as I remember it in vanilla.
However, I do not either want an unbalanced game where one team has the map in their favour, thus even if they get outplayed in the battlefield (now, take in consideration the games usually are quite balanced in the battlefield), can fall back to their base with only ~15 defenders near the Dun'Baldar archers and fend off 30-35 horde attackers. Meanwhile the hordes are forced to a major offensive push with almost all players, a solo non-stealth alliance player can with ease rush down to Frostwolf and safely take down a tower without getting completely obliterated because the archers aren't as close to as lethal as the alliance ones and they're far from as reliable to use for a defensive chokehold. How is this balanced?

It needs to get adressed, the npc spawnrate must be tuned and possibly the health of these vendors need to be reduced, or remove their agro of range.

[Bioness]

Why do people insist on making TL:DRs, you could have condensed all of that into 3 sentences.

Alliance isn't the only side with high spawn rates, you just don't notice the ones on Horde because you're not having to fight them.

[Niko]

Might as well add to horde spawn timers then, but the alliance vendors are a huge factor. It's basically like adding up another 5-6 alliances to almost every fight you engage in Dun'Baldar or at Aid Station.

[Niko]

Before you even get to frostwolf towers or even relief hut, all of them have reset. All of them.

[Niko]

Not to mention the redicilous respawn of archers in bunkers, they reach almost all angles upstairs where it's necessary to be in order to interrupt captures. They respawn even if the bunker is being destroyed, this is just crazy compared to how safe you are inside the hut of a horde tower whilst destroying it.

[Simonich]

Agreed, i've been making the same complaints, this should be -fixed-, well, balanced.

Nostalrius devs have to see the issues. I think back then, they didnt respawn that fast either. But even if they did, it shouldnt happen. Nostalrius devs need to look into it themselves and realise the imbalance. The terrain is already in favour of the alliance, but that doesnt really matter, its not that big of a deal. But extra npcs with the health of elite commanders that respawn every 3 minutes is ridicilously and obviously imbalanced.

[riq and snog]

Horde choke hold is just as bad. Well positioned u can hold us before we even reach the tower + u have an easy way out to recapture frostwolf gy from within your base. Your npcs aggro all the time aswell and have the same spawn rate. U even have those fucking shamans right next to your aid station making for an easy recapture cuz ally npcs are dead at the gy 24/7... in conclusion horde choke can be just as bad if played correctly 10 ppl can hold of the attackers without problems.
Get npc support to break trough is necessary as it should be:-)

[Stalk]

I'd say the first thing that needs to be fixed is the landmine density on the Horde side of the map. There are many places where 3 or 4 mines are within 5 yds of each other. Next, the Mine Layer and Explosives Expert need to have their melee damage reduced a bit and an investigation needs to be done about how they were scripted because there is no way that these NPCs worked this way in retail vanilla. Then, the placement of the Explosives Expert needs to be moved near the captain garrisons like they were on retail.

[Niko]

Horde choke hold is just as bad.

... horde choke can be just as bad if played correctly 10 ppl can hold of the attackers without problems.

Nope, nope. Nope.
No.

Try it out as a horde clothier, then try it as an alliance.
Which base can you solo cap the bunker or tower the easiest?
Which base can you then solo defend against say, two or three other players, the easiest?

Yes, you will come to one conclusion.

[riq and snog]

Horde choke hold is just as bad.

... horde choke can be just as bad if played correctly 10 ppl can hold of the attackers without problems.

Nope, nope. Nope.
No.

Try it out as a horde clothier, then try it as an alliance.
Which base can you solo cap the bunker or tower the easiest?
Which base can you then solo defend against say, two or three other players, the easiest?

Yes, you will come to one conclusion.

I played both sides defense. Its possible to push back both sides equally bad with smart positioning