Blizzard will NEVER get PvP right

BGs ruined open world PvP because you can't find anyone outside of a gank. All there is to kill is questers, levelers, and farmers. Also gear is completely slanted in this game. You get PvE gear from PvE and PvP gear from PvP. But if you PvPed in the open world for years you would never get past rank 5... ever! I proved that fact by open world PvP for 2 months straight and never breaking rank 5. My friend went from rank 1-10 in battlegrounds in the same period of time playing less than I did. And it is 10x worse now because the honor gained per week now is unfuckingbelievable.

On top of this before honor came out you had no real reward for killing players other than maybe helping a friend level or clearing an area for use like fighting over an ore vein. So open world PvP really confined itself to competing for something or getting ganked just because you were red. A lot of confrontations between players ended up in both parties realizing there was nothing but lost time and moving on.

When honor came out people went to where people were in abundance to kill. SS vs TM zergs became the FOTM. But whats funny is most of those zergers were on the bottom of the PvP ranks. The top dogs were in the Burning Steppes, Felwood, Winterspring, EPL, and other high level zones. 5 man groups ruled these areas and you had to fight for your right to be there.

Battlegrounds sucked 99% of those players out of the world and stuck them in Ironforge and Orgrimmar once the battlemasters were put in. How you can't see why that ruined open world PvP is beyond me.

Oh I totally agree that gear imbalances kill PVP - but that's not particular to BGs. And I know you wouldn't get past rank five in world PVP. Who cares? That is, "Who cares?" unless you're trying to get epix! I find people all the time on my PVP server...often it's 2 v 1 (people like to move in groups - I like to hunt solo), but they're out there. Another good way to bring people out of the woodwork is to kill quest-related mobs in places like crossroads...lowbies cry and the 60s come out to try and defend them.

People still farm materials, have to kill mobs to get gold for repair bills, etc. It's easy to find those people, and easy to engage in PVP with them. Sure, they sometimes run to the forums QQing. They say things like, "If you want to PVP, go to BGs!" But they get mocked (by the server, not just me) - they rolled on a PVP server: they should be prepared for PVP.

So basically what you're saying is BGs ruined honor for world PVPers. But I granted that at the very beginning of my post. You won't reach rank 10 doing world PVP. But if you were doing world PVP for honor, you had issues in the first place.

See you are talking almost about griefing... not really player directed conflict. Sure I can run out to lowbie ally town and kill until a level 60 comes, but I shouldn't have too.

Yes honor was ruined. In a game like WoW where the progression of your character is tied to gear... not being able to get gear stops your progression and for the most part your motivation to play. I love to go open world PvP. I love to make videos while doing it. However without progressing in some way it is no longer worthwhile. It was fine when NO ONE ELSE was progressing, but now with people progressing through carebear capture the flag... it alienates me and shows me Blizzard doesn't care about my playstyle. Which is plenty of reason for me to be pissed off.

It is an insult to me to play a game where people that don't step outside a battleground walk away with the "PvP rewards" meant to distinguish them as champions of the realm. You speak of two reasons to world PvP... honorable (defend a lowbie zone, attck and enemy zone) and dishonorable (killing quest NPCs, griefing). Don't get me wrong I love to do both (other than griefing), but after the 1,000 time with no progression of my character I grow bored. Not to mention how long it can sometime take to even get a response from the enemy.

The honorable world PvP I mentioned should of been the basis of world PvP. EVERY ZONE should have points of control and the reward buff is a GREAT IDEA. When you come into a yellow/red zone you should feel like it is truly contested. You SHOULD HAVE TO worry about running into guard patrols if your realm doesn't control towers in certain areas. You should be at a disadvantage in the zone until you get control. The BUFF should be very worthwhile both in PvP and PvE. Once again every yellow/red zone should of felt like it was truly contested.

Now back before BGs the PvP zones did feel very contested. There was a large spread out population of PvPers looking for action. I can run through zones now a days and run into 1/10th the people I used too. I used to have great fights in Felwood/Winterspring with the same set of people every night. Along with them there was ALWAYS new blood coming into the zone to fight. Sometimes they rolled in strong and defeated me... other times I killed them until they cried uncle and left. That PvP is gone.

I think back to what I've thought about that could fix WoW battlegrounds. What Blizzard is doing with them in 1.12 could work if they REMOVE HONOR from battlegrounds and provide a ladder style tournament to the BGs with new rewards based on that. That would give these world PvP objectives some rhyme and reason to go back out into the world again. They provide that little bit of competitive rush to set off huge battles. Remember when you couldn't zone into BGs from the capital cities? People waiting in queues would wander down from WSG into the crossroads. One little confrontation could result in massive waves of fighting. That was a true pleasure to be part of.

Another fix is to limit battlegrounds to certain days. For example... Arathi Basin would only be open Sunday, AV open only on Saturday, and WSG only open on Wednsday. That way people couldn't just do them as fast as possible to gain rewards.

I prefer the first though. Why? With no honor out of battlegrounds players are more apt to really form good teams to go compete. Pick up groups would play against pick up groups because the organized teams would win out and then face off against more organized teams.

With all honor coming from world based PvP you suddenly have a lot less honor being gained. Instead of 500,000 honor needed per week you only get upwards of 90,000. The barrier for entry is a lot lower and maintaining a high rank is thus easier. Suddenly a stabilization of the rank structure occurs. People stop progressing unless they start doing better. The lower ranks will still have fluctuation as people go in and out, but seeing a higher ranking person walking around will make you feel like they've actually done something.

The only issue left would be to get rid of the TM/SS zerging which is as simple as beefing the guards up to elites + giving them webs. Remove the quests to run in and out of the towns for levelers and you are good to go. It worked in Booty Bay... can work here.