Once again Gnomeaggedon proves Gnomes can't Art!
There are many objectives in a battleground. In fact there are several objectives for running an battleground in and of itself.
Objectives of running a BG:
- Honor: Honor = gear, gems and other stuff.
- Arena Points: the 1st random BG each day award you arena points. You need Arena Points to get some of the better PvP gear.
- To Learn: you learn to kill effectively, you learn situational awareness, you learn how to hate the enemy, you learn so you can:
- Have fun: the better you get and your team mates perform, the more fun you have. Some of the best BGs I have been in were losses… I told you about one a while back.
Objectives when running a Battleground:
- Capping Towers & Bunkers
- Recapping Towers and Bunkers
- Capping Graveyards
- Capping Resources
- Killing bosses
- Blowing gates
- Destroying demolishers
- Disarming bombs
- Touching relics
- Capping workshops
- Destroying Towers
- Running and Capping Flags
- Protecting your flag carrier
- Stopping enemy flag carriers and returning flags
- Protecting your healers
- Killing or CCing their healers
- Winning the Battleground
I could go on, but now is the time to make one thing very, very clear…
Midfield is NOT an objective!
It is just a means to an end.
- Field of strife – not an objective
- Roads – not an objective
- Graveyard farming – not an objective
- Farming WSG midfield – NOT AN OBJECTIVE!
More Honor for doing right than taking (and losing) needless lives
Let’s get another thing straight, you will get more honor from a quick win than farming honor – at least if you entered through the random daily option. You get more honor for winning ANY battleground through the random interface that most people got in a good Alterac Valley previously. You get more honor for losing a WSG than your did for winning one previously.
If people stuck to the plan, most battlegrounds would be over in 10 minutes and you would be queuing for MORE. You can do 3 WSGs – right, in the time it takes to do one wrong!
We can’t cap if you can’t return
If you are new to battlegrounds, you may not be aware that us holding the enemies flag is not enough.. we need to hold our flag as well. If the enemy has it… well that right there is wasted time.
I was in a WSG the other night where I was Offense… and I was defense. To be fair I had the assistance of a Resto Shaman for the 5+ minutes I held the flag at our base, fighting off waves of Horde trying to take it back, in between spamming
Get our F’n Flag!
The good news is that the Alliance took down the enemy flag carrier and I capped.
The bad news is that the only reason we did, was that the enemy flag carrier left the boring uncontested safety of his own base to go honor farming as well. I doubt anyone intentionally took down the flag carrier… I dare say his raptor tripped and he broke his neck in the fall.
All down hill from there.
Unfortunately from then on I was defense. I was the one chasing the flag carrier down into their base. I was the one trying to stop them leaving our flag room. 8-9 other people just milling about in the mid-field doing diddly-squat.
We lost… it took a long time.. I was pissed off.. I had to re-queue knowing that I was probably facing another bunch of players that don’t know the difference between a football ground and a goal post.
Midfield is not an objective!
You have probably been told that if you control midfield you control the game.
This is true, but you need to add in why you are controlling mid-field.
You are controlling midfield to:
- Help you flag carrier get to the enemy base by distracting the enemy.
- Slow the enemy flag carriers giving your side precious seconds to cap 1st – preferably stopping them in their tracks
- Help your flag carrier make it back through the mid-field with your flag
- Stop the enemy flag carrier getting back through the midfield to their base.
That’s it…
that’s the only reasons you should be in midfield!
If you flag carrier is in trouble you should quit the midfield to help!
If the enemy flag carrier has made it to their base, you should quit the midfield to get the flag back!
If you can see it, call it.
If you can see the enemy flag carrier, call it out…
CALL IT OUT!
Can’t call it out, too busy doing uber dps?
PING THE MINI MAP!
Once you have called it… GET IT!
If I die in the flag room I make a point of waiting to see if the enemy flag carrier has gone down the tunnel. If they have I call:
tunnel!
If they haven’t I call:
ramp or gy.
Then I release, then I pwn them no matter which direction they are heading.
Why don’t you join me?
If I can do it, you can do it and probably better.
I’m just a poor little gnome.. you guys are big and forceful.
Apply that force in the right manner and we will win.. Win… WIN!
I can run the flag.
I can take down a flag runner
You can too!
BTW: Thanks for all the honor I receive from your farming… yeah I get that too!
Grrrrrr! It just happened again… I so want to smack you people around the head until you play the game… to win.
PLAY THE GAME!
Gnomer and Out!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
http://gnomeaggedon.net/2010/03/31/midfield-is-not-an-objective/
This battle my dear Gnome, is long lost.
I share the pain though.
Heck, if I who do PvP once in a blue moon in PvE gear can actually lead the cap, defend and return scoreboard and place myself reasonable well on the kill scoreboard, it’s sad.
My PvP style revolves around two things – selecting a convenient place of keyboard to smack my head against and wiggling my mouse like there is no tomorrow.
Don’t lose heart my fellow gnome. I’ve noticed one thing since the randoms began. There are a LOT more noobs on the Horde side than there used to be. Their team’s unlikely to be any more organized than yours, and they’re just as likely to have the one who doesn’t know, say, not to cap South GY as you are.
It may be a temporary aberration but these are not the days of Horde domination in WSG. At least not in Vindication group.
Amen brother Gnome.
I’m not a huge PvPer but I do enjoy the occasional BG (cheap gems and heirlooms) and can’t stand it when other players don’t at least try and achieve the objectives of the BG. It is a wonderful feeling when you are in a battleground and the entire group seems to understand the point and actually tries to capture/defend the flag, capture and hold the resources, and the other objectives of the BGs. The times when the other team members don’t do these things, I really wish I could attack members of my own faction.
Couldn’t agree more. This is the single most frustrating thing about battlegrounds for me. The solution is actually kinda simple. Greatly reduce the amount of honor awarded for HKs and greatly increase it for battleground objectives. You could keep the amount of honor awarded for HKs the same in world PvP but once you enter a battleground, reduce the amount awarded for HKs and make the battleground objectives and winning the only thing the really rewards substantial honor. That’s the only way we’re ever going to get rid of this “farming honor” mentality. Winning needs to matter.
@arrow – I see where you’re coming from, and I like your intent, but there’s a problem: some factions on some Battlegroups simlpy can’t win some battlegrounds. If there weren’t the incentive of farming, then NOBODY would show up.
On my Battlegroup, Retaliation, I can count on losing ~3 BGs for every one I win (this is for Alliance on WSG, AB and a couple others)
As it is, I rarely run those because losing most of the time gets old. But at least I get *some* honor doing it.
If you take away that (small) carrot? I would NEVER run BGs. I would guess I’m not alone.
This would cause 2 “vicious circle” type problems:
1 – the only people that would enter those BGs (losing side) would be complete n00bs, and they would get a HORRIBLE experience, and would consequently probably stop playing them. (making the situation worse)
2 – the queue times, even for the “advantaged” side (Horde on my BG) would get really long because it would take forever to get enough Ally players to join. While the Hordies might be willing to wait for “free honor”, what Alliance player in his right mind would queue for a 20 minute wait, only to get trounced? (again making situation worse)
I’m not sure what the answer is, but more ideas are good things!
I agree, you have a good point about people not wanting to play if the rewards aren’t there. My feeling is that there has to be some way to incentivize the taking of objectives and strategies for winning a battleground. We’ve been able to do this with PvE in instances and raids where everyone has to follow a successful strategy to “win” the instance and receive their loot. I’m not sure Blizzard will even be able to do this with the new rated battlegrounds if all it does is measure individual performance. Hopefully, team performance will be factored in and we might then get some steps in the right direction. Again, good point.
I swear once I finish this morass of paperwork for my job I’ll write a strategy post and just link to you for WSG and Strand.
Midfield control *is* a viable strategy… if you do it for the reasons mentioned. Control their forces so they can’t group up en masse? Great. Taunt them so they charge off single file into your maw of destruction and death? Fantastic.
Just make sure it’s all done while your FC is running safely into the base, maybe stopping to smell the flowers in the pretty pretty Ashenvale grass along the way.
/salute
Maybe the honor could scale based on objectives completed.
0 flag win/loss = 1/3 honor
1 flag win/loss = 2/3 honor
2 flag win/loss = 3/3 honor
3 flag win = 120% honor.
Just as finishing an AV with all resources under your teams control equals (ed) twice the honor of a blitz.
Sure you can win and get *some* honor, but for full honor you need to complete the objectives.
Do you get 2 Frost emblems for completing an instance without killing bosses?
I don’t think so!
“Midfield is not an objective” and the corresponding WTF? artwork is awesome.
[...] Gulch: Protect the FC and kill the EFC. Midfield control is a means to one of those two ends. Stick together in groups both on offense and [...]
Oh god, Midfield farming occurs in pretty much all brackets if you ever PuG >.<
yes.. nearly every pug.. occasionally you will find a bunch that stick to the objectives
Screw that Midfield farming is the win. I play a resto druid, my buddy plays a disc priest. We just hog the midfield, heal every1 else and farm HK
It may seem efficient and possibly is a better honor return if you aren’t accessing the BG via the random interface.
However with a base of 1,800ish honor for a random win, the quickest way to get honor is not farming, it’s 3 capping while the opposition wonders where the organised group came from and ponders whether it is a premade.
Its funny how the team with the most heals usually wins in BG.
if those healers are playing the game too.. not just randomly sprinkling heals… and the dps protect the heals
A funny game was one where my team was 9 heals and I was the only DPS.
that can be a laugh.. or very frustrating if you are trying to take someone down… sure you never die.. but neither do they
Midfield is WSG is actually quite valuable. Not everyone needs to be there mind you. But in a game where people refuse to guard your flag it’s very helpful to mobilize the folks in mid to either hunt down EFC’s or help your FC get back to the fort safely.
If you guard poorly and a rogue or cat w/ a speed burst manages to get your flag and haul ass down the tunnel, you either get scored on very easily OR you have one of those awesome matches where both EFC’s have the opponents flag back at their based to no avail.
Having people in mid is very handy if you’re skilled enough to have people follow a little direction.
Midfield is a very important part of the map – but it isn’t the objective.
When 9 people in WSG are playing midfield, with one getting stomped every time they try to cap or return the flag, then midfield is playing wrong.
when midfield let enemy flag carriers run right past, or don’t support their own flag carrier, they are playing wrong.
if midfield is stopping enemy flag carrier, supporting friendly flag carriers then they are doing good.
there is nothing worse than being or chasing a flag carrier and realising there is no one to support.
How many WSG’s have you been in where both flags are being held, your flag carrier is under constant pressure, with little or no support and worse still the enemy flag carrier isn’t being chased… thus there is no point in holding our flag, because it can never be capped.
smart midfield is a staging point, ready to launch wherever it’s needed.
[...] As for the rest of the strategy? I will point you to Gnomeaggedon’s great WSG guide, Midfield is Not An Objective. [...]