Discussion: Twinks allowed to turn exp on to play a few games? Thoughts: Yay or Nay?

Yay or Nay?

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Shizentai

Legend
Ok so I got called out today for being a twink in an exp on bracket.



A guy posted on the forums and flamed me etc etc specifically for being a 64 rogue, in an EXP ON wsg - and then accused me of exploiting where I wouldn't gain any exp. I dismissed that promptly and then came a whole shitstorm of arguing over whether twinks should play in exp on games at all...



Now here is the situation as I see it:

I waited around an hour with no pop (60-64 exp off bracket) - as I did not get any games and was bored I switched my exp ON so I could get my pvp fix after not playing for a month. I did 6 or so games in EXP ON (stayed to the end each time) and in the last game a horde twinker saw me and then brought up the discussion about how what I did was just wrong, like really wrong + inc flames.



My question to you guys is:



What are your thoughts about twinks in their respective brackets turning exp back on to play in exp on games, assuming they have exp to spare? Yay or Nay?



For me, I've done this on many toons where I've wanted to grind honor or am bored and bgs are not popping. Now don't get me wrong, I have many toons and have played heaps of games in exp off but sometimes I simply can't be ****ed waiting for a pop and turn exp on for a few games. But to this guy and others they see it as a absolutely taboo thing to do which seems weird to me o_O.



I'm curious what do you twinks think?



Original discussion here: 60 Thread 51 of Doom and Loving - Forums - World of Warcraft
 
nay , same thing when there was no xp on / off "join normal bg as a full twinked super hero to pwn ppl who just lvl"

i say if you wanna play low lvl bgs just get all boas for a cha and only lvl via bgs so your opponents got the same chances
 
I see what you both mean and in all the games I played, I always played for objectives and for the win. There was no GY farming, I returned flags and did not afk out at anytime. I played the games legitimately and took the exp, and did the same whilst leveling through bgs from 60 to 64 where i stopped my rogue.



In terms of balance and fairness, the 60-64 bracket is special in that it is the first pvp bracket to offer a full set of welfare PvP gear and that the majority of twinks in exp off are lvl 60 twinks. Meaning that most people in exp on are geared adequately (often better geared than a 60) and that there isn't a substantial gap (like in the past such as 60's vs 51's in AV) between them and a fully decked out twink. Adding in the fact of class imbalance and high damage, exp off often feels the same as exp on as a sub rogue - you still explode people either way. The biggest difference with exp off is less bots and there actually being some form of teamwork at times.



So basically, I still don't get what all the fuss is about. I can see where they are coming from but to me it doesn't warrant flaming and accusations for just making an appearance. Hence I made this topic for some other opinions before brushing them off as childish and ignorant.
 
Your posts seems quite ambiguous (either that or I skimmed it too quickly). Are you asking whether people think it is acceptable for a twink to play in unlocked experience as long as they do not hamper experience gains, or are you asking is it ok for them to be in unlocked exp BGs no matter what they do there?
 
I guess that would be the first - acceptable for a twink to play in unlocked experience as long as they do not hamper experience gains AND play objectively.



I went into much more detail in the original wow topic but sifting through or posting more long winded posts again isn't very appealing lol
 
Understand that there are two schools of thought about twinking in general: hero play vs. competitive play. You either twink to be a hero, or you twink to get the best PvP games you can. Not by coincidence, your poll so far is evenly split.



Your knowledge of twinking helps you create a juggernaut. Skill may be greater than gear, but gear counts for a lot, especially at level 60 and up. Combine skill and gear, and you have a twink who can single-handedly battleground-hero a team to victory. This is how twinks earned such a bad reputation before the XP-off patch. Not even a fully-BoA'd toon can match the kind of stats a fully gemmed/enchanted 64 can muster.



You take your knowledge of gear and abilities for granted, but most XP-on players have very little of either. So the ethics of turning on XP for games depends on your motivation for twinking. If you want to crush and roll players, then there's no issue. But if you want competitive games with the nail-biting, clutch-capping, down-to-the-wire intensity of good PvP, bringing your massive rogue to newbieland is unethical, even though you meant no harm.



In other words, as a twinker, you're (hopefully) far better than the typical XP-on PvPer, and playing in XP-on battlegrounds for any other reason besides leveling up is simply stomping and discouraging newbies for the sake of doing so. Again, I don't think you were being malicious -- you were very clear that you were bored waiting for an XP-off pop, and hadn't gotten to play for a long time. But consider that playing in an XP-on BG as a fully geared twink insults both the XP-on players who clearly are no match for you, and the XP-off players who must deal with the fallout that your actions provoke.



You have every right to go crush XP-on battlegrounds with your juggernaut XP-off rogue if you wish, but it's not in the spirit of good competition. That's why you took so much heat for turning your XP back on, even though you just wanted games.
 
Nice post and it did clarify a lot. I guess in the end it really does seem to come down to ethics. It seems you are against it and I would like to discuss some of your points:



"hero play vs. competitive play" + "You either twink to be a hero, or you twink to get the best PvP games you can"



The issue I have with these schools of thought and applying them in general is that it isn't always so black and white (coughironyatpollcough), especially in the bracket I am playing in. At least to me, over time this line has become much more blurred since cata was introduced and I don't see them as being mutually exclusive either.



Looking back, I had no qualms with killing levelers back in the day when 60 twinks were allowed to play 51-60 AV and I often had much fun doing so. It was part of being a 60 pvp twink because the brackets were set so and in order to fight along/against other twinks; 95% of the time you had to do that in AV. Being a hero and carrying a bg was simply a fun by product. At the same time I enjoyed more "competitive play" by your standards by playing wsg/ab when the brackets were still 60-69 - so much so I only played in 60-69 after awhile.



On competitiveness:



Again this can be incredibly subjective and because of the nature of this bracket, I'm unsure whether 'competitive' is even the right word to describe it. "Broken" is better suited.



What I've experienced in exp off - games full of mostly averagely geared n skilled level 60s, a few 64s (good and bad) and then some newbies in greens in blues woh get roflstomped. Games are often so one sided and fast due to faction imbalance, class stacking, high damage and retards. So exp off competitiveness in this bracket is not all that. It is ruined by a lot things and is often not even fun. I can honestly say I've had much better and challenging games in exp on at times where most people are above 60.



In regards to 60 twinks; imo they are in fact not competitive (in PvP) anymore because they are not twinking to their max potential. The brackets have changed and my take on it is - if you aren't feeling nostalgic, then get on my level or stfu - anything else about getting smashed by 64's is considered to be invalid because you are effectively gimping yourself in pvp. And if you want truly want competitiveness, go 85 since things are more balanced at that level + arena etc...better yet play a different game.



True...while skill in conjunction with gear can lead to a very powerful character, anyone who chooses to pvp and has little to no skill is no concern of mine. If I am more skilled, I will destroy them and not look back. It is their own fault if they don't know how to fight. Aforementioned, at this level everyone basically has full epic 60 pvp gear or better and while it may fall short of a 64 twink (note not 60) - class matters ten billion times more. Games are practically exactly the same as when I pvped as a 60 rogue with the welfare pvp epics. And games are still practically the same in exp off or on - you become a juggernaut not just because of your gear but mostly because of your class and knowing how to pvp.



"and the XP-off players who must deal with the fallout that your actions provoke."



What exactly is this fallout you speak of? And who exactly am I provoking? Because last time I checked twinks have already had a the fallout when exp was introduced to bgs and brackets were separated. Other than people crying, I don't see how this would affect them significantly or why they should care so much. It is after all a separate bracket now. If people are to be sore about anything, it would be and currently is about people dominating exp on bgs with enchanted BoAs + low lvl imbalance issues. If enough people cry, maybe then things will become more balanced and competitive but until then, I'm not going to associate the terms "fair, balanced or competitive" with the term "twink".



So my motivation now is mostly the same back then minus the nostalgia factor - I play for myself, I play to bring out the full potential of a twink and to have fun and win. So where does this put me on the spectrum exactly? Given the past history of the twink that played to dominate and my circumstances, does this still make me the bad guy in your eyes?
 
Quality rebuttal. This may be one of the best discussions I've seen in the 60-64 bracket, and I hope more players from this bracket read it, because it exactly addresses the ailments of the bracket. TL;DR version of this post at the end.



My experience concerning the current competitiveness of the 60-64 XP-off bracket mirrors yours. If anything, I think you're a bit generous about the general skill level of 60-64 XP-off, but the end result comes out the same: the competitive level of the bracket, well, isn't. To be sure, the bracket has some great players, and the potential of the bracket remains amazing. I was in an AB last week that was as good as any AB I've seen in any bracket -- great communication, squad play, mobile defense, quality play from all classes -- everyone had a total blast in a very close game. That game was the lone exception to my experience.



To describe the "fallout" of what your actions provoke, let's zoom out to the larger picture of XP-off PvP. Before the XP-off patch almost two years ago, every bracket played like the 51-60 AV experience you had. Twinks ruled the battlegrounds, and people both hated them and looked up to them. Mostly hated them. Once the no-XP patch landed, those who worked for and played in XP-off games spent a year polishing their skills. For reasons I don't know (I wasn't in those brackets at the time), this polishing never happened in the brackets above 59.



When capped accounts got moved to XP-off, the outcry settled down in the 70-74 bracket relatively quickly thanks to the tremendously strong gear of TBC, among other factors. But 60-64 had no such luck. They had already lost Naxx, had some grandfathered engineers, and were already affected by wrath-caliber gems. With 69s out of the picture, 60s ruled the roost, but then weren't able to get games thanks to a horrendous queue bug that didn't get resolved until a couple of months ago.



My point is, the 60-64 bracket is only just now getting to a point where the 70-74 bracket was a few months ago, and where most other XP-off brackets reached well over a year ago, with regards to PuG PvP quality. Your take on the competitive level of the bracket is dead-on, but only for this bracket, which brings us to the "fallout" question.



To extend what you said, most WoW players do not associate the terms "fair, balanced, competitive" with the term "twink". Indeed, "twink" is the antithesis of the other terms, and the prevalence of BoA players in the XP-on brackets reinforces this. But consider that new players will no longer discover twinking by accident. Nobody accidentally turns their XP off. Therefore, to grow or even maintain XP-off brackets requires word-of-mouth and promotion of the XP-off brackets. Most new players level out of a bracket before seeing some of the patterns of decent play, lost in a sea of newbiness.



When you turn on XP for a fully-geared twink and enter an XP-on battleground, your combined might of gear and skill obliterates everything in your path. Before the XP-off patch, such a performance may have inspired a few people to work toward the same level of gear and skill as you have. But now, players won't be in your bracket long enough to see anything other than the negative stereotype of someone who spent way too much time min/maxing a character to grief newbies. That's not why you turned on your XP, but the victims on the business end of your melee prowess do not know that, and will not be around long enough to see otherwise.



As a juggernaut, you stand out in a big way. You turn the tide of battlegrounds, and players notice that and inspect/armory you. In merely decent gear, they respect you. However, when they discover you're a top-shelf twink, they assume you're only there to grief the battlegrounds, and it reinforces the negative stereotype. To be sure, BoA players do far more to upset battlegrounds overall than a twink who plays a couple of XP-on games. But there have been several twinks who exploited the battlegrounds system (as you were incorrectly accused of doing) for the sole purpose of rolling BGs as a battleground hero, and those incidents garnered a lot of attention. While that was not your motivation, rolling an XP-on BG for different motivations is still rolling an XP-on BG, and reinforces the same negative stereotype. That's not your fault, nor even your responsibility. But it is why you got a lot of flack for turning on your XP to play a couple of games, and why some players consider it unethical.



TL;DR version: You're completely right about the (lack of) competition in the 60-64 XP-off bracket. But rolling an XP-on BG as a fully geared twink reinforces the negative stereotype that a twink just maxes out stats to crush newbies, regardless of your true motivation. In a time when players no longer join twink battlegrounds unless someone either inspires them to do so or worth of mouth reaches them about how fun twink battlegrounds really are, your actions erode twinking precisely because you are better-geared and better-skilled than the BoA players who already aggravate XP-on battlegrounds.



People will get more open-minded about twinking when they see something happen besides an overgeared player obliterate an opponent in 1-2 gcds. This may sound ludicrous if your XP-off experience is confined to 60-64, but consider that the kind of games you hope to see are still fomenting in that bracket, and that the majority of XP-off players experience much more competitive games than what we currently have in the 60-64 bracket.
 
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