Shift the brackets to x5 and x0

Kirise

Kirise

OG
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At the genesis of WoW battlegrounds (and before my time), brackets spanned 11-20, 21-30, and onward. Later, brackets shifted to 10-19, 20-29, etc., and only relatively recently bifurcated to 10-14, 15-19, etc. With Mists of Pandaria coming in several months, and the "prepatch" coming before then, PvP will certainly see significant changes. But that's still months away. If Blizzard would like an immediate improvement in battlegrounds, I propose the following.



It's time to shift brackets one level up again. Every active bracket community stands to gain. Beyond some new abilities, and an extra talent point for all of the x5 brackets, consider the impact on your favorite brackets.



Lower Brackets:

  • 11-15: Becomes the only bracket without mounts. Making 11 the minimum level slightly nerfs the tremendous secondary stat scaling that made 10s (in)famous, but still keeps the lower end of the bracket viable, while 15s gain some interesting gear options and an extra talent point to make up for the secondary stat loss. In some ways, it becomes what 19s used to be a couple of years ago.
  • 16-20: Combines F2P players with the most populous lower bracket, and provides important abilities for a couple of classes to make them viable again, without harming the quality of premades for which 19s were known. Also raises non-gathering professions to 225 and adds mounts. While this may be the most controversial shift, I ask you in all sincerity: would shifting the bracket to 20 really make that much of a difference to the way 19 PuG battlegrounds or F2P battlegrounds play right now?
  • 21-25: Becomes a pure 20s bracket, with no TBC enchants. Also brings gathering professions to 300, adds a talent point, and gains the first set of glyph.



Middle Brackets:
  • 26-30: Opens up more TBC-enchantable gear options for 29s, reducing the perceived impact of grandfathered items.
  • 31-35: Currently a dormant bracket. 35s get non-gathering professions to 300, strong (netherweave) bandages, and the Eye of the Storm battleground.
  • 36-40: 39s gain faster mounts, relics that can take cata gems, and gathering professions to 375.
  • 41-45: Currently a dormant bracket, which could get Alterac Valley.
  • 46-50: 49s gain non-gathering professions to 375, making engineering a must-have and providing extra stamina against the tremendous burst of the bracket. In addition, 50 brings a second set of glyphs, and a 5% stat bonus for wearing all of the appropriate armor type.
  • 51-55: Currently a dormant bracket. Gathering professions reach 450.





Upper Brackets:
  • 56-60: 60s regain their traditional vanilla-capped bracket, with some good TBC gear options for interested players. Dormant 59s lose out, being forced to move up.
  • 61-65: Becomes a pure 60s bracket, with many cata gem and enchantment options, plus an extra talent point. Non-gathering professions and first aid reach 450. Strand of the Ancients comes available.
  • 66-70: 70s regain their traditional TBC-capped bracket -- minimal impact to one of the largest twinker communities in the game. Dormant 69s lose out (maybe seven of them?), being forced to move up.
  • 71-75: Potentially a pure 70s bracket, with gathering, non-gathering, and first aid professions reaching 525. Isle of Conquest comes available. But I highly doubt enough current 71-74 players exist who would want to schedule game nights.
  • 76-80: 80s would maintain an interesting mix of cata-geared and wrathful-geared players -- minimal impact to the current community.
  • 81-84: Would this bracket die? I don't know how many twinkers PvP above 80. This bracket would most likely come to life when the next expansion makes it 81-85.



What would be the real impact?



While brackets would undoubtedly experience balance shifts and new play dynamics, overall every live bracket would at the least see a minimal positive impact, and some would experience significant improvements. The most populous brackets have much to gain, and the less populous brackets would see some improvements to the issues they face. 59s, 69s, 71-74 and 81-84 players may lose out, but they represent a very small minority of twinkers. As someone with four twinks who would lose out to such a bracket shift, I say do it. The gains will be worth it.



But the real impact comes from the boost that the bracket shift would bring to the twinker communities in each bracket. Right now, many brackets are split between multiple worlds: expansion vs. no expansion, F2P vs. P2P, grandfathered vs. non-grandfathered, etc. While this shift would not completely resolve the tension (and a little tension is a good thing), and lower level PvP still needs serious help from Blizzard, a bracket shift would certainly bring worlds closer together. Stronger brackets not only help twinking as a whole, they boost the interest in WoW as a whole.



If the brackets did shift, which brackets would interest you the most? Is there a bracket you would leave if it shifted? Would you divide the brackets differently? Let's hear it!



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None of this would happen unless they made mounts train able at 16 or else 16-20 leveling bracket would be broken.

So honestly I doubt this change will happen.
 
going from 49 to 50 would be interesting with all the benefits, including a lot more gear opening up that was changed when cata came out. but it would just be so weird to not have 49s anymore...even now when i rarely play my 49s they always hold a special place since ive been playing the bracket since vanilla. would just feel weird to see 50 as the new top



80s alone would only be positively affected imo. with 76-79 not really viable everyone would be forced to play 80, and not have to worry or qq about those 81-84 (tho a real player in the bracket is not concerned with them at the time being anyways).

not very many 81-84s pvping out there, but for the few that do it would suck since there arent enough to support a bracket atm and they would be screwed out of all their time and effort. at least for the time being, but if blizz did change it to 81-85 i couldnt really see the lower lvls putting up too much of a fight when 85s can have the top tier glad gear or pve gear and 81-84s are stuck with their inferior pve gear, and dont have super scaling stats to help them out. and 81-85 would be a weird bracket since that would leave 86-89 a smaller group (only 4 different level choices, like 81-84 would be if they did your idea now), with 90s alone



mostly positive changes across the board. but i dont see another bracket shake up happening in the near future. way less work for them to just keep 80-84, then when panda launches make 85-89 and have 90s stand alone.
 
F2ps were with 19s - it was terrible, games were terrible, they removed f2ps from 19s and game quality increased dramatically. There were a couple of decent f2p twinks but mostly it was just ugly...bringing back f2ps to 19s would not be beneficial to the bracket at all imo
 
1. lol @ this . . . remove 10's. Maybe it should be 20 and onward . . . and kill the OP 19's. Oh wait that would suck for them.



2. Satchel loot and dungeon quests @ level 15 = let's waste the 11's to 14's - creating a major imbalance.
 
I may be wrong, and been before, but I think, except they make mount at level or 16 or something, the principal twink bracket, 15-19 woould be the most broken bracket in the history. Mount vs no mount? Nah that can't be real.



And I also find it hard to believe that they would kick 10 out of PvP. Since that's when you get acess to talents and such.
 
It's not our fault that Blizzard tweaked the stat scaling to favor 10's, and removing their ability to do ANY BG is stupid. We're already in XP off BG's which hardly ever pop. Besides I've said it before and I'll say it again, "casual PvPers" have completely ruined WoW. By casual I mean those idiots that can't be bothered to learn how to play their class or how to PvP and complain to Blizz constantly that X class always beats them and they need to be nerfed. Doing so causes PvE to be screwed because Blizz is too ignorant to figure out how to seperate PvP abilities and effects from PvE like Trion Worlds did with the launch of Rift. I don't in any way agree with your proposed breakdown of BG brackets, they're fine the way they are.
 
A lot of good responses already!



The best issue brought up so far is learning mounts at the end of the 15-20 bracket could cause complaints in XP-on. Not sure what to do about that one. I hadn't heard that F2Pers in 19s were that bad -- I'll defer to experienced 19s on that one.



10s would do fine as 11s. The random satchel cloak at 15 is on par with the BoA cloak, leaving the random satchel belt as BiS. All the 11s would go fishing for Stendel rings to keep their crit scaling and replace some of the lost throughput from the haste drop. Far from dying, 11s might actually get XP-off pops from 19s who decide they'd like to try out 15, and the bracket would have more variety.
 
10s would do fine as 11s.
Click to expand...



NOBODY that twinks 10's is gonna go "oh well, lets do 11 now because some random guy thinks it would be cool". There is nothing wrong with the brackets now (they're actually great split like they are) and NO, 11's are NOT gonna get any more xp off BG pops than 10's do now, it's moronic to even think they would. This whole idea is the worst possible thing, likely thought out by someone who never really learned to play their class and complained to Blizz constantly that every other class was too OP and needed nerfing.
 
Leave everything as is except create new, single-level brackets, specifically for x-pack locked levels.



That would mean separate 20, 60, 70 and 80 brackets*, for those players who have stopped gaining XP through not buying an expansion. The new brackets would still be accessable to xp-locked players, except items in their inventory that are unavailable to the x-pack for that bracket, would be disabled upon entering the BG.



Blizzard need to realise that balance (class, gear and level) and fair play is what really makes games fun. Farming the opposition is only accepted because it makes up for all the times it's happened to you. Either of those extremes would be as unappealing as the other, to all but the most uncaring of players, if it wasn't for that alternation. Really, it is the hard fought games, whether they be wins or losses, that are the most rewarding, and which give the rush that keeps you playing.





*While true F2P would be the 20 bracket, there could also be a 'freemium' 40 bracket available through microtransactions, with a limited xp lock (a yes/no, 'Do you want to continue levelling?' prompt on dinging 20, so you could still play that bracket), mail working to your own alts, a higher level of trade skills, and of course levelling to 40 if you choose to.
 
I like this idea, for twinks only, and not for normal bg's. They made it this way because every 10th level you gain really good stuff, and would be more overpowered than the levels below you. This way, level 60 twinks with epic armour provide good competition with the 63-64 levelers in greens. And the same goes with every level.



However, in the xp off bracket this is a definite plus, because then we wont have ultra geared 64s or 74s one shotting us.
 
I srsly cant believe that ppl her think its a bad idea only coz 10s will get flushed.



All the top brackets gain direct benefits. Sounds most exciting for 49 bracket, DMG in there is off the scale and allot of classes are broken coz stuff got moved to lvl 50(intercept and HoFreedom). So getting those missing abilities and new beefy engineering items would help allot.



For 60s id say extreme improvement while for 70s and 80 minimal impact.



As for mounts in 15-20 in XP-on, i wouldn't worry a slight bit. The path from 15 to 20 is very short for ppl to get bitchy about not having mounts, 2 hours of leveling and you got your mount!
 
The 60's bracket will always hold a place in my heart. To see it come back through this modification of brackets is almost too much to think about...
 
This would make more sense for those twinking at 60 and 70 especially since they would not have to deal with 64's and 74's. I know that was a pet peeve of mine having to deal with those kids when I was in those brackets for a short while. Would also solve the level 24 problem of taking advantage of F2P. Although, I cringe to think that 19s bracket would have mounts. And this change would likely encourage F2P even more so than now. It's likely Blizzard would recognize this, so I question whether it would be a very sound business decision on their part.
 
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