BG Pet Peeves

[Kasal]

I catch on slow, I guess. After levelling my third toon to 70, I just discovered the joy of battlegrounds a couple of weeks ago. Gear to drool over, a few hours' grinding, and I can come and go as I please with no sense of responsiblity to guild members or group companions. Plus, it's a ton of fun to boot.

But even this early on, I've noticed a few things that do drive me a little batty (from a Horde point of view).

In Alterac Valley, when the entire team runs right past the SH and IW bunkers en route to Dun Baldar. Even in victory (which is rare in these cases), the honor you get is negligible. Or worse, when the entire team stays back to defend and drags the fight out to 45 minutes.

In Arathi Basin, with your team down 4 nodes to 1, and 11 guys defending the farm.

In Warsong Gulch, watching the flag carrier speed off ahead of you, only to be slaughtered because you couldn't catch up to him.

But hey, I've been doing this two weeks. What do I know? :grin:

[twosheds]

I catch on slow, I guess. After levelling my third toon to 70, I just discovered the joy of battlegrounds a couple of weeks ago. Gear to drool over, a few hours' grinding, and I can come and go as I please with no sense of responsiblity to guild members or group companions. Plus, it's a ton of fun to boot.

But even this early on, I've noticed a few things that do drive me a little batty (from a Horde point of view).

In Alterac Valley, when the entire team runs right past the SH and IW bunkers en route to Dun Baldar. Even in victory (which is rare in these cases), the honor you get is negligible. Or worse, when the entire team stays back to defend and drags the fight out to 45 minutes.

In Arathi Basin, with your team down 4 nodes to 1, and 11 guys defending the farm.

In Warsong Gulch, watching the flag carrier speed off ahead of you, only to be slaughtered because you couldn't catch up to him.

But hey, I've been doing this two weeks. What do I know? :grin:

Think of it as if the Horde were the Fresno Bees and the Alliance were the New York Yankees; the Bees know they are going to lose, so it doesn't much matter what they do. Blizz's failure to do something about the huge Alliance population advantage, and the biased AV map means that every Alliance PUG will out-gear us, even if they aren't that great. Our Relief hut falls within 3-5 minutes, because a drunk gerbil can get past the "defenses" at our base. Alternatively, when Horde tries to defend at the famous "choke point", Allies ride right past. Horde are still trying to reach the Alliance base when Alliance are drinking beer and eating pretzels at our Relief Hut. THere is no strategy that can overcome the inherent advantages enjoyed by the Alliance faction, and Blizz does not care.

At least in the old days before this ....innovative.... cross-server Battlegroup nonsense you could assemble a pre-made and at least have a chance, even though Allies still had more peeps and more gear. Now, it's just a matter of statistics. Just spent 25 frustrating minutes in EOTS, trying to beat fully S-3 and, for all I know, S-4 geared players....lost 500 to 2000. Started 3 down, by the way. Until Blizz makes the factions even somehow Horde know that EOTS, AB, and WSG are just big time sinks for grinding out those 20, 30, and 40 marks, one at a time. Too bad Blizz is not the NFL....THEN we'd have parity.

[Shadowfern]

/rant on

I sense a little frustration on your part. Unfortunately the fact of the matter is, we all go through losing streaks no matter what server or faction we belong to. I am on the Bladefist server, Whirlwind battlegroup and at times I go through the same stuff only from an Alliance point of view. Some nights I can win 8 AV's in a row, other nights I will lose 8 in a row. I will agree that we seem to have a slight edge in AV, unless you guys turtle which results in a 45 minute beer and pretzel fest as you stated above. The slight edge we have in AV is nothing compared to the dominating one sided Horde edge us Allies have to endure in AB and WSG. You guys flat out own AB and Warsong hands down. I dread grinding for badges in those two BG's. EOTS seems fairly even for both factions and is a favorite of mine. I think AB's nodes should be as close as EOTS's bases are and they should make the Blacksmith node into a Flag reset which we could capture to cap our controlled nodes. Now that would be interesting! Just my little old opinion. Thanks for listening.

/rant off

:heart: Shadow

[twosheds]

RANT ON:

Frustration does not begin to cover it. I truly believe that the huge Alliance population advantage places Horde at a permanent disadvantage.

First: we literally cannot get a full group on any BG except AV until 2-5 minutes into the game. On the 3 little BG's that's a loss, period.

Second: Assuming Horde and Alliance are all made up of human beings on planet Earth, their playing abilities are more or less the same, as are their desires to play and win. I'm just don't buy all the "Alliance are 12-year-olds" crap. Thus, the population advantage means Alliance will always have more and better geared players; it's just a matter of statistics.

Third: Since Alliance have more and better-geared players they win more BG's and progress at 2-3 times the rate of Horde. Horde never catches up.

Yeah, maybe being at a constant disadvantage means Horde might be forced into being better at PVP, but even if that's true, and not a desparate rationalization, those "better" players are still spread thinner than a pat of butter over a cracker the size of Vermont

I'd like to be wrong. However, there is one EASY way to settle the matter: Blizzard: publish the win/loss ration for each Battlegroup in each Battleground and we'll see who's paranoid and who's perceptive.

RANT OFF. :wink2:

[clevins]

you're generalizing from your experiences. rampage has no issues getting even matches most of the time.

Kasal - one reason I LIKE AV is that I still get about 200 honor even if we lose. Contrast that to a quick loss in WSG which is about the same time... and I get 20 honor. ewww

[Kasal]

you're generalizing from your experiences. rampage has no issues getting even matches most of the time.

Kasal - one reason I LIKE AV is that I still get about 200 honor even if we lose. Contrast that to a quick loss in WSG which is about the same time... and I get 20 honor. ewww

Indeed, clevins. I calculated it out over 10 matches in AV and found that I average about 300 honor points per match. And we lose far more often than we win.

twosheds, I don't know where you're playing but I find that the Horde rules in every battleground except AV, and even there we're running at about 40%. I'm guessing about 75% in AB, 65% in Warsong and 50/50 in EoTS. I am at a loss to explain why we so rarely lose in AB.

[twosheds]

Bloodlust. Like I say, anecdotal evidence is only that. I want to see the hard numbers, not someone's (even my) latest experience. Show me the numbers that say Horde is not at a disadvantage and I'll kiss Vann's ass and vacuum the DB bunkers for a year. And I'll stop *****ing....FOREVER:thumbsup:

[twosheds]

I can't BELIEVE they blocked "*****ing".:ponder::ponder::ponder:

[surodat]

I can't BELIEVE it's not BUTTER!

[Kasal]

Bloodlust. Like I say, anecdotal evidence is only that. I want to see the hard numbers, not someone's (even my) latest experience. Show me the numbers that say Horde is not at a disadvantage and I'll kiss Vann's ass and vacuum the DB bunkers for a year. And I'll stop *****ing....FOREVER:thumbsup:

Someone posted a link in the official forums last week showing just that information for the last several hundred BG's. For the life of me I can't find it now.

[twosheds]

Someone posted a link in the official forums last week showing just that information for the last several hundred BG's. For the life of me I can't find it now.

Someone? Please?

[clevins]

Um... you want the info... why don't you go search for it?

[Kasal]

Um... you want the info... why don't you go search for it?

He may have already, with no success. I googled six ways to Sunday and wasn't able to.

[twosheds]

Um... you want the info... why don't you go search for it? Yes, I googled it 6 ways from Sunday (even Saturday) too, but no luck. Clevins, I respect your knowledge and your well thought out and informative posts, but personal experience is a relatively worthless yardstick in a group of...what...10,000,000 players. If Blizzard does keep a record of the win/loss percentages (and who else has the time or resources, I wonder) it either supports my thesis or knocks it on its ass. Show me the numbers. Please.

[clevins]

Yes, I googled it 6 ways from Sunday (even Saturday) too, but no luck. Clevins, I respect your knowledge and your well thought out and informative posts, but personal experience is a relatively worthless yardstick in a group of...what...10,000,000 players. If Blizzard does keep a record of the win/loss percentages (and who else has the time or resources, I wonder) it either supports my thesis or knocks it on its ass. Show me the numbers. Please.



Thanks for the compliment first. But I don;'t have that data. Presuming it's out there, I think it's up to you to go find it - it's not something I care about enough to pursue. And yes, personal experience is biased... and also battlegroups are different.

[Kasal]

Presuming it's out there, I think it's up to you to go find it - it's not something I care about enough to pursue.

Right. And if you've done that with no luck, there's no harm in coming here to ask if anyone else knows where it is.

I was at work when I clicked on the link, and I was just able to give it a glance. I was sure it was the official site but I've been wrong before (my previous post history is ample proof of that). When I went back later I couldn't locate it. Maybe I was mistaken, but if I wasn't it would sure put a lot of arguments to rest.

[jrichard]

RANT ON:

Frustration does not begin to cover it. I truly believe that the huge Alliance population advantage places Horde at a permanent disadvantage.

First: we literally cannot get a full group on any BG except AV until 2-5 minutes into the game. On the 3 little BG's that's a loss, period.

Second: Assuming Horde and Alliance are all made up of human beings on planet Earth, their playing abilities are more or less the same, as are their desires to play and win. I'm just don't buy all the "Alliance are 12-year-olds" crap. Thus, the population advantage means Alliance will always have more and better geared players; it's just a matter of statistics.

Third: Since Alliance have more and better-geared players they win more BG's and progress at 2-3 times the rate of Horde. Horde never catches up.

Yeah, maybe being at a constant disadvantage means Horde might be forced into being better at PVP, but even if that's true, and not a desparate rationalization, those "better" players are still spread thinner than a pat of butter over a cracker the size of Vermont

I'd like to be wrong. However, there is one EASY way to settle the matter: Blizzard: publish the win/loss ration for each Battlegroup in each Battleground and we'll see who's paranoid and who's perceptive.

RANT OFF. :wink2:

First: Let's see the numbers. You're making a claim here and not backing it up in any way. Unless you yourself are in every single game played in your battlegroup this comment is crap.

Second: You might want to check out the realm and battlegroup population numbers. Alliance does NOT outnumber Horde on every one. That being the case, any hypothesis put forth on the assumption alliance does is invalid. Under this assumption the alliance should have the same bg experience as you on the battlegroups in which they are outnumbered.

Third: Once again, you proceed off the assumption that the ally have both more players as well as better geared players and provide no data whatsoever to back it up.

I find it very amusing that you tell everyone else they need to provide hard evidence to dispute what you are saying when you yourself have just made a mass of assumptions and speculation. This all reads to me like the standard official forums QQ.

[Kasal]

I must have been seeing things. Just checked again using a variety of searches, and nada.

[clevins]

Right. And if you've done that with no luck, there's no harm in coming here to ask if anyone else knows where it is.


Agreed.... but the initial post read to me like a demand that someone produce it. That the OP was owed this information. And, frankly, he's not.

The are several blue post aggregation sites - http://blue.cardplace.com/ is probably the easiest. You can do a site search on that using google

http://www.google.com/search?q=battlegroup+site%3Ablue.cardplace.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

is a search for the word battlegroup confined to that site.

[Kasal]

Thanks clevins. Still nothing. If it's slow at work this week I'll continue the search. I feel like a kid with an imaginary friend that no one else can see.

[clevins]

You mean the large rabbit behind your left shoulder?

[Kasal]

You mean the large rabbit behind your left shoulder?

:grin::grin::grin::grin:

[Kasal]

I found it.

http://www.warcraftrealms.com/bg_list.php?id=0&lb=7&b=ab


It doesn't look like every result of every BG, but rather a random sampling taken over a long period of time. At the time of this posting, these were the results to date:


Alterac Valley
Horde 18,283 (50.5 %)
Alliance 17,882 (49.5 %)

Arathi Basin
Horde 17,329 (66.0 %)
Alliance 8,898 (34.0 %)

Warsong Gulch
Horde 19,281 (55.2 %)
Alliance 15,626 (44.8 %)

Eye Of The Storm
Horde 3,796 (60.7 %)
Alliance 2,460 (39.3 %)

[nweed]

Wins Horde Alliance
Alterac Valley 1,802 1,132
Arathi Basin 952 649
Warsong Gulch 626 376
Eye of the Storm 447 267

[nweed]

Bloodlust Battlegroup
Horde VS Alliance
AV 1802 1132
AB 253 66
WSG 436 659
EOTS 65 22

Looks like Horde win 2 outta 3 in AV, 5 outta 6 in AB, and 3 outta 4 in EOTS. Horde win 4 outta 10 in WSG. I wouldn't do WSG so much if I was you. Looks like you guys have alliances butts kicked in the other BGS atleast as of the last server reset this morning.

[Kasal]

Bloodlust Battlegroup
Horde VS Alliance
AV 1802 1132
AB 253 66
WSG 436 659
EOTS 65 22

Looks like Horde win 2 outta 3 in AV, 5 outta 6 in AB, and 3 outta 4 in EOTS. Horde win 4 outta 10 in WSG. I wouldn't do WSG so much if I was you. Looks like you guys have alliances butts kicked in the other BGS atleast as of the last server reset this morning.

It's important to note that the numbers you posted are just for your battlegroup. The link I posted spans the results across all battlegroups. I'm sure the numbers vary from group to group.

It is interesting that the Horde has the advantage in all of them...

[clevins]

It's interesting to see all the QQing about AV when it is, across the board, the most even of all of the BGs.

[drewid]

I am in the Bloodlust battle group, and no im not in every bg but that eots 65 - 22 seems way of the mark, sure ive been in a couple of eots wins but in my personal experience and from comments from other guildies EOTS is an alliance white wash no matter what time of day we play.

Id agree with the rest tho, i generally win AV AB and get creamed in WSG.

[clevins]

Something else I thought of... I wonder how those stats are affected by the daily, BG weekends, etc. Such things could change who plays and thus the outcomes

[Kasal]

It's interesting to see all the QQing about AV when it is, across the board, the most even of all of the BGs.

Exactly.

I am in the Bloodlust battle group, and no im not in every bg but that eots 65 - 22 seems way of the mark, sure ive been in a couple of eots wins but in my personal experience and from comments from other guildies EOTS is an alliance white wash no matter what time of day we play.


Quite different on Emberstorm. We're about 50/50 in AV and EotS, but we win 85% of the time in AB and 75% in WSG. Those last two numbers I can personally vouch for.

[Kasal]

Something else I thought of... I wonder how those stats are affected by the daily, BG weekends, etc. Such things could change who plays and thus the outcomes

I thought of that too. But all things being equal you would think both factions would be similarly represented.. ?

But then again, all things being equal you wouldn't expect one side to win 4 out of 5 in a particular BG, like the Emberstorm Horde does in Arathi. Go figure.

[twosheds]

First: Let's see the numbers. You're making a claim here and not backing it up in any way. Unless you yourself are in every single game played in your battlegroup this comment is crap.

Second: You might want to check out the realm and battlegroup population numbers. Alliance does NOT outnumber Horde on every one. That being the case, any hypothesis put forth on the assumption alliance does is invalid. Under this assumption the alliance should have the same bg experience as you on the battlegroups in which they are outnumbered.

Third: Once again, you proceed off the assumption that the ally have both more players as well as better geared players and provide no data whatsoever to back it up.

I find it very amusing that you tell everyone else they need to provide hard evidence to dispute what you are saying when you yourself have just made a mass of assumptions and speculation. This all reads to me like the standard official forums QQ.

I think you miss the point. Let's assume that Horde and Alliance players are more-or-less normal inhabitants of Planet Earth, i.e., neither Horde nor Alliance players have any special abilities or disadvantages. A player is as likely to advance in leveling as either Horde or Alliance. IF Alliance outnumbers Horde by a significant amount on a particular server, statistically there MUST be more well-geared players on the Alliance side. It follows that guilds on Alliance side will be able to concentrate more of these better-geared players in more and better guilds, thus improving their raising progression speed. It also follows that, given the greater amount of well-geared Alliance players, there will be greater numbers of well-geared players available for the Battlegrounds. That means more wins, EVEN IF THE BATTLEGROUND NUMBERS ARE EQUAL. And, the numbers are almost never equal. Horde almost always starts out at a numerical disadvantage, which could never happen if your argument holds water. Of course, this is only a personal observation from every single game I have played in, so you may well decide to ignore it. The last article I was able to find indicated a 70-30 overall Alliance/Horde ration on PVE servers, and about 55-45 on PVP servers.
Since I play on PVE servers, the better balance on PVP is o help to me.

Parenthetically, why are you so sure Blizzard didn't screw up the game model? In this decade multi-billion dollar companies have gone bankrupt, 2 Federally chartered lending institutions, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, are about to go bust, FEMA bolixed the Katrina relief effort, and Iraq continues...you really think Blizzard is, somehow, immune to making a basic error in their game model?

[clevins]

The problem with your argument is that it doesn't appear to be true that Horde loses most of the time. When reality contradicts you, it's usually a sign you're wrong.

[twosheds]

The problem with your argument is that it doesn't appear to be true that Horde loses most of the time. When reality contradicts you, it's usually a sign you're wrong.
OK...fine..Im give up. WoW is fine, the BGs are well balanced, one's personal experience is useless and always wrong and things could not be better. The emperor is well dressed, your feet are not wet and you are not able to see the pyramids. And, if anyone comes up with numbers that say different they are just....pick your perjorative. I'm re-rolling an Ally. Of course, that cannot possibly make any difference, can it? Nothing works. :laughing:

[jschild]

You seem to miss what people are saying. On your Battlegroup, Horde might lose more often. On others, Alliance lose more often. On some Horde always wins AV, some its 50/50, some its always Alliance.

In your experience (I would assume, since you never gave any numbers, try HonorFu as it tracks your actual wins and losses and gives you numbers to back up random claims) Horde loses more often. Of course, it can be what time you play. If I play in the morning or early afternoon, Horde always smears alliance in pretty much every BG. At night, We win AV most of the time (around 75%), we about break even in AB and WSG (we win slightly more AB , lose slightly more on WSGS) and we generally get trounced in EotS (about 30% win rate there).

We are saying that overall BG's are balanced. Is Blizz supposed to adjust for every single server population AND skill level of its BG players for every single match? That is what you apparently want.

[Kasal]

RANT ON:

Frustration does not begin to cover it. I truly believe that the huge Alliance population advantage places Horde at a permanent disadvantage.

First: we literally cannot get a full group on any BG except AV until 2-5 minutes into the game. On the 3 little BG's that's a loss, period.

I've seen this to a lesser degree on my battlegroup. In our case, though, it's never been enough to make the difference. By the time we're 1 minute in both sides are balanced. [/QUOTE]

Second: Assuming Horde and Alliance are all made up of human beings on planet Earth, their playing abilities are more or less the same, as are their desires to play and win. I'm just don't buy all the "Alliance are 12-year-olds" crap. Thus, the population advantage means Alliance will always have more and better geared players; it's just a matter of statistics.

Third: Since Alliance have more and better-geared players they win more BG's and progress at 2-3 times the rate of Horde. Horde never catches up.

This is a common, but faulty, statistical assumption. The Alliance will also have more players equipped in inferior gear as well. In fact, they'll have more players equipped in every level of gear out there, because there are more of them. Assuming "Horde and Alliance are all made up of human beings on planet Earth, their playing abilities are more or less the same", then you'll have the same percentage of players on both sides in elite gear. If you have 1000 Alliance players, and only 100 Horde players, and 20% of each group is decked out in elite gear, and you randomly pick 10 players from each faction for a battle, the percentages don't change. You'll still have 20% of each side in the BG decked out in elite gear.

I'd like to be wrong. However, there is one EASY way to settle the matter: Blizzard: publish the win/loss ration for each Battlegroup in each Battleground and we'll see who's paranoid and who's perceptive.

You did see the results in the link above, right? Your experience may be different, but across all battlegroups, the numbers don't lie.

[jschild]

It's all perception. In AV in my battlegroup, Horde wins easily 3/4th's of the time. Alliance players complained and complained about how unfair the map was, and they eventually boycotted it. It too 60-90 minutes for a horde player to get into ONE AV match.

They they changed the starting positions, and lo and behold.

We still won around 75% of the time. Almost nothing changed except the ALLy's got more honor. We still trounce them because they make the same stupid mistakes, again and again. The map wasn't unbalanced. If it was, on all servers it would be the same story, Alliance wins, alliance wins, alliance wins. The fact that this doesn't happen pretty much proves that there is not any "serious" balance issues. Minor ones, yes, but nothing game breaking.

[clevins]

OK...fine..Im give up. WoW is fine, the BGs are well balanced, one's personal experience is useless and always wrong and things could not be better. The emperor is well dressed, your feet are not wet and you are not able to see the pyramids. And, if anyone comes up with numbers that say different they are just....pick your perjorative. I'm re-rolling an Ally. Of course, that cannot possibly make any difference, can it? Nothing works. :laughing:

Don't take this wrong... but you're being idiotic. First you DEMAND data. Then we get you some... which shows that Horde tends to win all fo the BGs though it's basically 50/50 in AV. And you then IGNORE what Kasal was kind enough to find and insist that the truth is opposite of the data that YOU demanded.

grow the f*** up.

Kasal - this is why I told him to find the data on his own. People like this don't really want the information they're demanding... they just want their preconceptions confirmed.

[MrBCorp]

Ha! I knew Horde wins most BG's in my battlegroup (rampage)! I just KNEW it. It's taken my something like a dozen EotS games to finally win one (tonight). I'm not sure if I've seen a WSG win yet. AV is the only one I feel we have an advantage (confirmed by my friend and reading stuff online). It's also the most enjoyable one for me, since it tends to be over quickly or we have a good tussle with the horde for a while.

If there are more alliance than horde playing BG's in general then shouldn't there be more well-equipped horde around? Shouldn't they be better at it? They will have a more tight-knit bunch of players who are better geared (and lesser queues).

[Kasal]

Kasal - this is why I told him to find the data on his own. People like this don't really want the information they're demanding... they just want their preconceptions confirmed.

Apparently so. I told you I catch on slow.

[Kasal]

I've seen this to a lesser degree on my battlegroup. In our case, though, it's never been enough to make the difference. By the time we're 1 minute in both sides are balanced.

Oh, btw, I take back this part of my argument. Last night in EotS the battle started with the Alliance holding a 15-8 edge over us in players. By the time the sides evened up the battle was 4 minutes old and we were down by 600 points. Call me picky, but that should never happen.

[clevins]

Oh, btw, I take back this part of my argument. Last night in EotS the battle started with the Alliance holding a 15-8 edge over us in players. By the time the sides evened up the battle was 4 minutes old and we were down by 600 points. Call me picky, but that should never happen.

I agree, but some of my most satisfying wins have come when we claw back and win those. Hard as heck to do... but when you do it, you love it.

The issue, of course, is that if you wait for 15-15 your queue times increases. I think the system tries to anticipate a rate at which people join and figured that you'd even up faster than that. The problem is worsened by people joining multiple queues and leaving your BG for another when its queue pops

[jrichard]

The system waits until there are 15 from each side queued. The problem mostly comes from that multiple queuing. Going back to only being able to queue one bg at a time is worse for building honor, however. Being unable to queue multiple bgs at a time lead to much fewer people in wsg and ab.

[Cembrelise]

/rant on

I sense a little frustration on your part. Unfortunately the fact of the matter is, we all go through losing streaks no matter what server or faction we belong to. I am on the Bladefist server, Whirlwind battlegroup and at times I go through the same stuff only from an Alliance point of view.

Yeah, Lightbringer/Alliance/Whirlwind here. I want to know what EOTS you go into that's fairly balanced, because all the ones I end up in result in us being brutally destroyed. D:

It seems like something like this can be applied, at least in Whirlwind:

Alliance has a larger population. A larger population results in a higher number of idiots relative to the population. Therefore, you're more likely to end up with idiots in your pug BG.

Granted, we used to slaughter in AV, but since the changes it's more towards 60/40 or so.

[clevins]

Ah, data, how I love thee...

results (number of wins) for the Whirlwind battlegroup:

Horde Alliance
Alterac Valley 1,269 1,196
Arathi Basin 603 275
Warsong Gulch 377 270
Eye of the Storm 123 79

[Kasal]

Ah, data, how I love thee...

results (number of wins) for the Whirlwind battlegroup:

Horde Alliance
Alterac Valley 1,269 1,196
Arathi Basin 603 275
Warsong Gulch 377 270
Eye of the Storm 123 79

Kinda begs the question, though: why does the Horde have such a high winning percentage? It would seem that there are too many people to simply say, "Well, Horde players are just better."

[jrichard]

You have to take the numbers from here with a grain of salt, to be honest. They're reliant on someone being there who is running the site's client. That's why the number of games it lists is so much lower than is actually played. The sample size is way to small to draw any real conclusions from. The site works better for realm populations, but not very well on data like battleground win/loss.

[Zachariah]

Out of interest I checked my own HonourFu addon, and the results follow those given above and previously in this thread: Horde (my own faction) enjoys an advantage in EVERY BG, with AV being the closest-run.

I was a little surprised to be honest, especially to see that my personal impression of AV (that it is mostly won by Alliance) is contradicted by the evidence gathered on my own computer. Looks like the same old psychological tricks are at work that make people believe in crazy stuff - we tend to forget things that don't fit in with our expectations and when things happen that do reinforce closely-held beliefs, we grant them undue importance.

Sucks to be Alliance in pvp!

[jschild]

It's how psychic's work.

Everyone remembers the hits, but forget the misses. Winning (usless it it a super hard fought win) is nice, but no one likes to lose and thus you remember the losses more in this case.

HonorFu and other mods are the only way anyone's personal stories have any meaning. Otherwise, as you said, perception = reality.

[clevins]

Agreed on all of the caveats on the data, though I don't think you can say the sample size is too small. Size of the sample isn't as important as distribution. Think of political polls etc which typically have samples in th e hundreds but are usually within a few percentage points of the final result.

ASide from the psychological factors, there are other things that influence wins/losses - else - time of day, day of week, whether the BG is the daily and whether that BG is the honor weekend BG. All of those influence who plays - and that will influence wins and losses. For example, do less experienced PVPers play on the BGs that are the honor weekend BG and the daily so that they can get honor faster? Do kids who mostly want to fight play in a BG more on the weekends? etc etc.

As for Horde/Alliance ratios... if those are accurate, then the Horde dsi win more often. I can see that being due to a few things

1) Selection bias. "Horde wins at PvP... I want to be good at PvP... I'll roll Horde" The populations are thus NOT equivalent.

2) Horde racials being better for PvP. War Stomp, WotF, etc.

3) Map imbalance.

4) Other population related factors aside from #1 - It may NOT be true that the two populations are equal. Perhaps serious gamers tend to roll Horde a bit more, etc.

At base, though, there's nothing we can do about it unless we're willing to reroll the other faction. So I play and if its fun, I continue. If people are being stupid and fighting in t he road etc... or if we're just running into better geared Horde time and again... I go do something else.

[jschild]

1000 sample size gives you an error rate of +/- 3% so around 500 would "probably" give you a 6% variance.