Nurturing the Bracket [US]

Inkobah

Inkobah

OG
The F2P twinks have been around for nearly 1 month now and everyone has varying opinions (including me) on what needs to happen to nurture the 20-24 bracket. In an effort to begin encouraging fair play and to keep the bracket alive and well I wanted to create a discussion to determine what the biggest threats to the bracket are and how to limit those threats from killing off everything.



I'm not so naive to think that Twink Info is going to fix all the problems but am hopeful that the TI community can help lead the charge towards a flourishing 20-24 bracket. So there's 2 questions I want to ask of those that have played in the community:



1. What are the biggest threats to the 20-24 bracket? (If any)

2. What compromises need to be made to keep the bracket flourishing? (If any)



If you're offering your suggestions and haven't played in the bracket at all, keep it to yourself as this bracket is a whole different animal than any other bracket before. I will personally be moderating this thread so keep things civil, productive, and on-topic please. Bans and infractions will be given out to those that don't heed my warning.



-Ink
 
I think Twinked out 24's and p2p 20's with full enchants and maxed out professions will be the biggest threat. I think all boa gear can and should be used just limit the enchants on the gear to what f2p twinks have access too. Just my two cents.
 
I started a F2P account, got my toon to 20, have some OK gear and have played a few BGs. It was fun, but right now I am not sure what my incentive is to play the 20 vs. playing the 19 p2p I just made with twice the stats (and half the queue time). I am disc priest on both (ally p2p, horde F2P). While I like the concept that the F2P bracket would be less gear dependent, the reality is that I am just intentionally gimping myself. Now if I had a full team of players I always ran with and we took it as a challenge to try and have skill overcome gear, then that might be fun.



I haven't played wargames yet on any character, but it sounds like that is probably the only realistic way to have any control over anything. It is clear that even the people on this forum can't be convinced to follow any sort of 'fair play' rules attempted, so reaching anybody who doesn't read the sub-forum or doesn't come to this site is impossible.



While I personally would not knowingly make a 24 to stomp the F2P twinks and I chose to jump into the trial account fun, I can't honestly say I see what they are doing as wrong. Sure they might kill the bracket, but they pay for their account the same as I do (or don't in the case of F2P) and whatever entertains them should be the only thing they are concerned about.



With that said, I think players who started F2P accounts did so because they enjoy a little bit of a challenge. I may not decide to hop on my F2P too often, but I still plan to check it out when I need a break from other toons.
 
They may well be paying for their accounts, but they have 15 other BG brackets to choose from.



The only possible reason, with a P2P account, to pick this bracket over other brackets that are already more established, is to outgear F2P players and take advantage of the fact that they are limited due to their gear options and max possible level.



There is nothing to stop someone who already has a P2P account from making a second F2P account to play the bracket (or at least sticking to the same restrictions), besides their unwillingness to face competition on equal terms.







I've seen many 24s making the excuse that they are doing it to support F2P for the less represented faction.



WE DON'T NEED YOU, AND WE DON'T WANT YOU.



If you really wanted to support us you would have rolled 20's and restricted yourselves to F2P gear, professions, and enchants. We want to get enough players to have regular war games, and you are no help to us in getting those, because your gear and level will exclude you from them, and you are driving away newcomers to the game who would otherwise stay in BGs, and possibly join us for F2P BGs.
 
Yasueh said:
The only possible reason, with a P2P account, to pick this bracket over other brackets that are already more established, is to outgear F2P players and take advantage of the fact that they are limited due to their gear options and max possible level.



There is nothing to stop someone who already has a P2P account from making a second F2P acount to play the bracket, besides their unwillingness to face competition on equal terms.
Click to expand...



I do agree with most of what you said but I do not agree with the above. I am currently playing on a P2P char to scope out the bracket (since I had a char close to the lvl already) to see if it was worth it. I do think it's worth it...but I haven't decided if I'll roll a F2P because it's 1 more account I have to mess w/ when I can gear the same as a F2P on my P2P already made. Plus if I stick w/ the P2P 20 I can initiate conversations and invite people to group w/o the friends list headache.



The 2nd part is that the queue times are much better for this bracket atm than just about any other bracket (though I'll admit I haven't tried 19s lately and they might be better there).



So my disagreement is that there are other reasons to roll a twink in this bracket on a P2P. I just think that 24s have got to go and perhaps there needs to be some reasonable expectations set for P2P 20s to keep things flourishing in the bracket.



-Ink
 
Its funny to see all the twinks in the f2p bracket in a similar situation to how it was for non-twinks before xp turn off. I find it funny because the 24 twinks are doing nothing wrong and are just having fun "stomping" undergeared / underleveled players. If you dont like that your getting stumped by 24's, make one yourself. That was the attitude twinks always had towards non-twinks. I just think it is strikingly similar and I find it funny that these so called "f2p twinks" are reacting in a similar way to non-twinks prior to xp off. I personally have not played in this bracket (besides me turning off xp on a 22 druid just to see what the games were like) and with not much experiance in it I can not give a full opinion. But honestly you can not stop people from doing something they like. Just deal with it imo.

---

-Stabbed
 
Stabbedurazz said:
Its funny to see all the twinks in the f2p bracket in a similar situation to how it was for non-twinks before xp turn off. I find it funny because the 24 twinks are doing nothing wrong and are just having fun "stomping" undergeared / underleveled players. If you dont like that your getting stumped by 24's, make one yourself. That was the attitude twinks always had towards non-twinks. I just think it is strikingly similar and I find it funny that these so called "f2p twinks" are reacting in a similar way to non-twinks prior to xp off. I personally have not played in this bracket (besides me turning off xp on a 22 druid just to see what the games were like) and with not much experiance in it I can not give a full opinion. But honestly you can not stop people from doing something they like. Just deal with it imo.

---

-Stabbed
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That's good criticism to consider Stabbed. I see your point but I never really got into twinking to stomp non-twinks back in the day so I have a different viewpoint. And to me with this whole thing: activity > anything else. So my efforts here aren't to be an ass to people that have 24s...I just want to help promote activity and I fear 24s and other things will do the opposite.



-Ink
 
The biggest threats to the 20-24 bracket is probably the p2p players at level 24, we can all agree to that. But what I find interesting is that these 24s isn't hard to kill at all, the difference isn't as big as non twink against twink in vanilla/bc. Sometimes I like to see 24s in the battleground to get more challenge, otherwise you pretty much win every game as ally. I heard about a lvl 24 shaman saying that he's supporting the horde side of the bracket to get more wins. He may think he's doing it but it will probably encourage more people doing 24s, the state will get even worse.



Another threat is that classic mid farm made by the players who are new to the game, I don't think we can do something here cause we will always meet new kids everyday at the trial bracket and we need to respect them who they are. I mean, we have all been that noob.



It's very hard to find a solution to these things but one thing I know for sure, if we get more events going at Aerie Peak US this thing will blow!
 
Inkobah said:
That's good criticism to consider Stabbed. I see your point but I never really got into twinking to stomp non-twinks back in the day so I have a different viewpoint. And to me with this whole thing: activity > anything else. So my efforts here aren't to be an ass to people that have 24s...I just want to help promote activity and I fear 24s and other things will do the opposite.



-Ink
Click to expand...



Don't get me wrong I agree that the 24's are hurting the bracket. However I do not believe that there is anything people can do or say to prevent them from making 24's. I think that the less attention that you pay to them, the less there will be. Making threads and such about it will give people the idea to do it and its almost like advertising for the 24's.
 
The difference is that trials do not have the ability to level past 20, to max professions, or obtain the best possible enchants. There is no amount of in game effort that they can put forth to level the playing field against BiS 24s. That's why 24s disgust me, they achieve an advantage that they know is insurmountable. I don't think that it is a coincidence that all the 24s I've seen so far keyturn and skey. 24s are the biggest threat to the bracket, but I can think of no way to stop them. It keeps getting worse, I see more and more 24 twinks daily and I'm sure it will get to the point where f2p is no longer possible. It really is a shame because there is so much potential, unfortunatly it only takes a few assholes to ruin it for the many.
 
Hidden, you say 24s aren't hard to kill, but Gaslesstank was a wrecking ball with a healer or 2. As much as I enjoyed actually winning WSG today, it was a bit cheap. Granted I have seen more alliance 24s. I don't think the problem is as much 24s, but way more untwinked horde entering WSG, not sticking as a group like alliance does, and alliance running a million hunters and paladins that are hard to kill and have crazy dmg and slows/stuns.
 
Parfait said:
Hidden, you say 24s aren't hard to kill, but Gaslesstank was a wrecking ball with a healer or 2. As much as I enjoyed actually winning WSG today, it was a bit cheap. Granted I have seen more alliance 24s. I don't think the problem is as much 24s, but way more untwinked horde entering WSG, not sticking as a group like alliance does, and alliance running a million hunters and paladins that are hard to kill and have crazy dmg and slows/stuns.
Click to expand...



For now the 24s isn't geared enough and they are mostly running around with only 200 more hp than 20 twinks. The difference isn't so huge if you ask me, well yeah, maybe cause I play the OP healing class I guess. I can understand it's a harder job for you.



Yep, alliance is actually playing more objectively than horde and the result of that is more ally wins.
 
Inkobah,



Looks like my edits went through while you were still writing your post.



I wanted to clarify that I've nothing against P2P players who can stick to the restrictions of F2P.



As for the queues, they may well change if F2P picks up and we can get enough on at peak times to focus on war games, as well as have a big enough presence that F2Pers from outside the twink community want to join us for them.





That's what the 24s are hurting at the moment, we just need some time to get the numbers high enough so we can play war games outside regular BGs (Horde on AP more than the Alliance). Once we've got that stability, and can play normal BGs as an option, instead of our only option, we can focus on recruiting other people who've started F2P, and keep our numbers up.



Right now though 24s are driving away both potential F2P twinks, as well as the regular F2Pers that make up the pool we could be recruiting from in future.



I'd really like to see their disruptive presence in this forum stamped down on, because they are giving a false impression that they are actually ruining the bracket. From what I've seen they are far more of a threat here than they are in games. They are no threat to the bracket at all if we have enough P2F2P people to help us get war games, and that's what needs to be made clear. How many people do we have with paid accounts, who can help us get those war games? (If this was being started up in the EU I'd be one of them, even going so far as to put some more time on my cancelled account).



From looking at the WoW programming guide, I could even put together an addon so all it would take from a P2Per, is that they run the addon, aren't in another group, and are either sat in a town or have added some of us as friends. They needn't see any requests from us for group invites, the addon would handle everything.
 
Rivfader said:
The difference is that trials do not have the ability to level past 20, to max professions, or obtain the best possible enchants. There is no amount of in game effort that they can put forth to level the playing field against BiS 24s. That's why 24s disgust me, they achieve an advantage that they know is insurmountable. I don't think that it is a coincidence that all the 24s I've seen so far keyturn and skey. 24s are the biggest threat to the bracket, but I can think of no way to stop them. It keeps getting worse, I see more and more 24 twinks daily and I'm sure it will get to the point where f2p is no longer possible. It really is a shame because there is so much potential, unfortunatly it only takes a few assholes to ruin it for the many.
Click to expand...



Do they not have the ability to level past 20? I am pretty sure it takes 10 dollars and a will :)
 
Stabbedurazz said:
Do they not have the ability to level past 20? I am pretty sure it takes 10 dollars and a will :)
Click to expand...



And then free to play is no longer free to play. Would you support blizzard if they offered a new "premium" subscription that cost an extra $14 a month, allowed you to gain 4 more levels, allowed higher profession caps, access to exclusive gear, and were still able to PvP against people with the normal account? That's basically what's going on.



edit: wow, guess my enter key got stuck lawl
 
Me and some other players from AP will work on good scheduled times for war games, ATM we decided to do some this Thursday 2pm ST on AP just to see how it will turn out and how we can build more games in the future. What we really need more of is p2f2p 20s, so far I only know of a few.
 
Rivfader said:
And then free to play is no longer free to play. Would you support blizzard if they offered a new "premium" subscription that cost an extra $14 a month, allowed you to gain 4 more levels, allowed higher profession caps, access to exclusive gear, and were still able to PvP against people with the normal account? That's basically what's going on.
Click to expand...



Hey, so long as Mom's paying for it ;)
 
Stabbedurazz said:
it was designed to not have people sitting on trails
Click to expand...



Check the news.



The design changed.



For all we know the whole game could be going F2P and funded by microtransactions.
 
Its damn pointless, all the retards roll 24 and no matter how much you explain to them, they are just to dumb to understand.



It is not about the money, its about the ****ing balance at 20 F2P. If everyone were lvl 24 it would be horrible burst and the whole bracket would collapse.



It is also the fact that we need the new trials to get a queue and trial is at lvl 20.
 
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