#1 - Dec. 13, 2010, 1:09 a.m.
This post is to get Blizzard to stop ignoring our demands to hear how they plan to fix Tol Barad. The mechanics of the fight are very broken and I refuse to acknowledge the fact that the people at Blizzard are too ignorant to realize how flawed the fight mechanics are. To realize how utterly ridiculous the fight is, all you have to do is go into a Tol Barad. As defense, the fight is stupid how easy and as offense, your better off not attacking the towers so that the inevitable defeat does not come as swiftly.
=Why is Tol Barad broken?=
--On my realm, Tol Barad has changed hands exactly twice and both times came at 3 in the morning. However, there are many realms in which Tol Barad is yet to change factions! That is nearly a week of content people have not had the ability to experience some of the new content and complete the dailies available in Tol Barad. That is absurd. There is no way the entire player base is just to incompetent to successfully take Tol Barad, the problem is strictly due in part to a flawed fight.
----->Main Problem: The Circle Jerk/Zerg<------
--The defending team is attacking most of the time and the attacking team spends more time defending. That makes no sense to me. There is no reason to defend and, most importantly, it is detrimental. Why should the defending team try to sit and defend a node when they rez can just go to another node? There is absolutely no incentive for the defending team to fight at all! The most fighting that I see in Tol Barad is the small group of players on the attacking team defending a node and then just getting rolled by a 40 man zerg. Sometimes, if your lucky, the defending team will run into the attacking teams zerg that finally catches its tail that it has finally caught. However, by the time the defense zerg dies, they are back on the road taking nodes and zerging once again to one that is not defended.
The elements of the fight that cause the Circle Jerk/Zerg:
--Graveyards -- Poorly placed. They are outside the nodes so it is the defending team's one way ticket out of the node and off to another node.
--The Main Keep-- Sure, use it as a strategical advantage, but don't use it to exploit the flawed mechanics of the fight. It's not even fought over and I'm not sure why. Ultimately, we are fighting for the perks of this keep yet there is no regard for this place in the fight. However, what is worst of all is that this place has a graveyard that the defending team can use to get to any node in no time at all. If the attacking team goes here, it's dooming the players to fight on roads which is the well known key to failure of every BG Blizzard has ever created.
--The Towers-- Due to the flawed mechanics of the fight, there is no incentive for the defending team to defend these towers. Every single time, these towers fall with no resistance at all. In Tol Barad's current state, this is just guaranteed extra time that no one will dispute.
Solutions: **I have put much thought into this post and have been considering some solutions that seem to resolve the problems with Tol Barad. It's just my two cents but in return I would like to request two seconds of you time to at least put them on the table.**
--The Towers and Graveyard Problem Resolved--
1. Make them graveyards for the defending team as well. Scrap the graveyards by the nodes and make it so that it is worth defending so that the defending team can retain a strategical advantage by holding these towers.
2. Put the Graveyards in the back of the nodes so that the defending team can't just run away without caring that they lose that node.
**For any of these Graveyards solutions to work though, the middle can't be merely a graveyard for the defending team and a one way ticket out of battle.**
--The Mechanics of the Nodes--
1. Have the ability to destroy these buildings. The defending team will not just up and leave as soon as they see someone coming if they know that they won't be getting it back.
2. Give the attacking team "diminishing returns" for retaking nodes. If they lose a node, make it so the next time around they can't capture the node as quickly. Soon or later, the defending team will be forced to actually defend the nodes.
--The Main Keep--
1. After the nodes are destroyed or the towers fall, fight over the Keep. Give the Keep some sort of significance in the fight.
2. The attacking team can destroy the keep walls. Personally, not a fan of this solution but at least it won't let the defending team run laps around the zone until time runs up.
