Spooncraft

Ahh PVP. The lifeblood. Blizzard actually gave us some pretty good insights to the PVP game coming up in Wrath of the Lich King.

Like my previous posts this is a massive dump of information but it’s been organized into something less painful to read. Click “Read More” to see the full post as all of the information (also some repetitions) will be found after the break.

Lake Wintergrasp

• PvE elements are being added to this PvP Zone, for example the equivalent of Elemental Plateau in Outland is in Lake Wintergrasp.
• Siege Combat will be in both Lake Wintergrasp and the new Battleground (see below)
• Siege vehicles incude air combat with flying vehicles.
• You can destroy the buildings within Lake Wintergrasp and in the Battleground.
• Lake Wintergrasp will feature an attack/defend game type. Just like the Auchindoun Spirit Towers, when your faction holds a tower it will keep it for a certain amount of time and retain all the advantage for a few hours.
• Northrend “Spirit Shards” will be used to reward players. When your faction controls Lake Wintergrasp all the bosses in Northrend will start dropping them. You can then use these shards to buy rewards from a merchant, they won’t be more powerful any other reward but just an alternative to other sources of equipement (like gearing up for PvP very quickly).
• “Wintergrasp Marks of Honor” will drop as well and will be redeemable for items through the honor system and other NPCs.
• Bridges will be used as “choke point” in the map, siege vehicles can’t travel through water.
• The goal of Lake Wintergrasp is to capture the “Wintergrasp Keep”, everything in that keep is destructable and you will have to break into the keep to capture the point.
• Players will be able to control stationnary cannons on each tower to defend the keep.
• Bridges are very large and very tall, players should be able to see them from anywhere in the map. They’re also totally destructable as well.

Siege Vehicles
The Demolisher

• The Demolisher has both short and long range attacks
• It is meant to bombard players and buildings from a long distance, it’s also equipped with a ram to siege buildings.
• It can hold up to 3 passengers, passengers are exposed and can be targeted individually. However, players can cast while the vehicle is moving if they’re in it.

Forsaken Catapult

• The catapult is faster than the demolisher but its range is slightly lower.
• It does slightly less damage.
• It cannot hold any pessenger.

The Siege Engine

• This is the siege weapon with the longest range.
• The gunner is sitting in the turrent and has full control of the turret.
• The driver is only moving the vehicle.
• The passengers in this vehicle are fully protected but can’t shoot other enemies.
• It’s also got a very powerful ramming attack

Flying machine

• Flying Machines can bomb enemies, they’re swift but very vulnerable to anti-air attacks.

Goblin Shredder

• The shredder is an anti-air vehicle.
• It will use anti-air rockets, they’re long range homing missiles.
• This is a personal armor suit, if the vehicle is destroyed the player just jumps out and keep fighting on his own.
• You can use your sawblade as close range melee attacks.
• The shredder can jump into the air just like rocket boots for players. This can also be used to jump over walls.
• The shredder is very vulnerable to siege damage.

Arenas

• The point is to keep arenas simple, while leaving room to innovate.
• Stream lost at this point, will update later.

Dalaran Arena

• The arena is fairly small and mounts won’t be allowed here.
• Arenas will introduce new “movable” objects, changing the line of sight of the battlefield every few seconds in the arena. For instance pillars might go up and down randomly, on a timer, etc …
• There is a pipe coming from the ceilling, every once in a while a column of water will start dropping from this pipe.
• Each team will start in a pipe on one side of the map, as the match begins a column of water will “push” the teams out of their pipes to prevent camping.

Orgrimmar Arena

• There might have objects dealing damage to players, pillars moving up and down based on a timer. There will be visual signs on the battleground to warn players before something happens.
• Triggered objects will deal damage to players, for example when the pillars go down spikes will come up.
• Teams will be very close to each other at the beginning of the match. Players will start in elevators rising from the ground and will start 10 yards away from the enemy team.
• Mounts will be allowed in this arena.
• If you stay on a pillar when it rises up you go up with it.
• There will be spikes around the elevators, they will go down a few seconds after you reached the fighting area to let you the time to check what classes you’re facing.

Northrend Battleground

• This battleground is located on an island south of Dragonblight
• This is also an attack/defend game type battleground.
• One team will attack and the other one defend, you will have a specific amount of time to succeed. After the end of the round teams will switch sides.
• Attackers will come from boats and defenders will start in the middle of the beach.
• There are 3 sections of walls in the Area, after each wall there are capture points and graveyards to make the attack on the next points faster.
• Attackers will get more siege vehicles depending on their progression throughout the siege.
• The battleground will be either 10vs10 or 15vs15, this isn’t decided yet.

Q&A

• The battleground reporting system is being tuned to let player police themselves easier.
• A spectator mode is planned, but devs keep in mind that some players won’t want to have other players spectacting them.
• Everything is done to make outdoor PvP more pleasant and prevent server crashes. All objectives in Wintergrasp are all spaced appart to prevent players from gathering at the same point, that’s also why there are a lot of rivers in the zone.
• There isn’t any plan to add racial abilities to each race.
• PvP rewards won’t be changed, you will still be able to get some of the best item for some slots from the honor system, and the 5-part set from the Arenas.
• Battlegrounds starting without even teams is definitely a problem. Some changes will be made to the queue system to prevent the overlapping between the queues of each battleground and make sure that matches start with the same amount of players on each side.

Wintergrasp

• First outdoor world zone entirely dedicated to PVP
• Only a few PVE elements
• No control for number of opposing forces, only statistics help designing. Supports large and small scale combat
• Siege Weapons on ground and in air
• Destructable buildings
• Taking control of Wintergraps gives an Spirit Shard-like loot for every boss in Northrend
• Rewards will be unique version of other items
• Honor and “Marks of Honor”
• A river is also added, that ground siege weapons can’t cross.
• There are bridges, which are destructable of course. The bridges are wide and tall.
• Graveyards are capturable and help as the offense advances
• The goal is to capture a huge keep. Every wall of the keep is also destructable
• The walls have stationary cannons to defend against siege weapons
• Players can tell what percentage of the destructable elements are destroyed

Siege Weapons

• The Demolisher: baseline vehicle. Support short and long range attack type and ram attack. Bombard players and buildings. Houses the driver who fires the weapons. Also houses 3 exposed players who can fight with their own spells as if they were standing still.
• Forsaken Catapult: faster than the Demolisher. More agile than the rest of the siege weapons. Shorter range, but still longer than player combat range. Lower damage, flame breath attack at the front. 2 additional passanger. Costs less supplies at the siege warshop than other siege weapons.
• Siege Engine: hardest hitting, longest range ground vehicle. Driver controlls the ram attack, independent gunner in the turret that can turn around fires the main weapons. Additional passengers are protected.
• Fighter: very fast air vehichle, used for transportation, vulnerable against anti-air weapons.
• Bomber: fast air vehicle. Carries a pilot and a gunner who controls the bombs.
• Goblin Shredder: counter-air unit, long-range ground-to-air rockets against fighters and bombers. Also works as a personal armor suit, once the vehicle is destroyed the player can continue fighting on its own. Strong melee attack with its shredders. Ability to jump high to destroy incoming rockets and jump over walls. Vulnerable against ground siege weapons

Arenas

• Keep the new ones simple but still innovate
• Moving objects in the arena - dynamic LOS. Can be timed, can be set random. Helps focusing on player skill.
• Unique starting areas, that might be very close to each other
• 2 new arenas, one in Dalaran, one in Orgrimmar

Dalaran Arena

• Based on the new lore of the city
• Arena map is located in the sewers of the flying capital city of Northrend
• No mounts allowed
• Similarly sized as the Blade’s Edge arena
• The dynamic element is a pipe, a wall of water flows out of it sometimes, that is a complete LOS block
• Only a few ramps to the center area, player-height ledge on the sides
• Water shoots players out of the starting area, players can’t stay or return there

Orgrimmar Arena

• New area in the old world
• Dynamic objects that do damage to players (spikes)
• Moving pillars on timers, players will see a wheel spin up before that happens
• Extremely close starting areas - elevators bring players up to the center of the arena, only 10 yards away from each others, the spikes drop and the fight begins
• Mounts are allowed
• Bigger than Dalaran Arena
• Orcs like watching fights, so there are NPCs on the edges who make noise too!
• Players can stand on the pillars that sometimes move up. Still vulnerable to ranged damage there
• When the pillars go up, the spikes come out of the ground so the player has to decide what to do. Take the damage when moving across the area? Stay separated from the group?
• No other LOS objects
• Players have a couple of seconds to check out the opponents before the spikes go down and the fight starts

Battleground

• Located on an island off Dragonblight, which was a Titan testing area
• The zone has an attack-defend game type: when the event goes active one side attacks, the other defends. Once the time has run out, the winner faction gets control of the resources. If the attack fails the offense gets a resource advantage to help on the next wave.
• Destructable walls and buildings
• Siege weapons and warshops
• Attackers start on 2 steam battleships in the water and play to reach the top of the valley
• Defenders start on the beach close to the dock and play to defend the capture points at the top
• 3 sections of destructable walls in the valley
• Behind the walls there are siege warshops, the controlling side can use it.
• 10vs10 or 15vs15, not decided yet
• Similarly sized as the rest of the battlegrounds

Q&A

Some players lose battlegrounds on purpose to get marks faster.
They are tuning the winning and losing rewards to solve this, they are also using the Report feature for this.

Spectator mode in Arenas?
Still on the list, but some players don’t want to be spectated so it’s a complex issue. They are also thinking about spectating raids as well

City raids make servers crash. What’s going to happen in Wintergraps?
They are working on the technical side. If there are many players, you might see less into the distance to help computer and server performance. The objectives are also spaced apart so players don’t cramp up.

Will BG and Arena rewards be freed from each other?
The PVP loot structure will remain the same. Arena will give 5 slots and the weapons, honor will give the rest.

Some class’ CC abilities are better for PVP, others for PVE.
They don’t see that as a problem. They are trying to balance them.

Any change for Warlock pet resilience and AOE damage scaling?
They are happy with the pet scaling right now.

Faction imbalance in Battlegrounds?
It’s the result of being able to queue for more battlegrounds, and the starting time is the same as the popup question timeout. They are going to be changes to fix this.