Fix AB.

Gene, its not even debatable that AB has issues. compare these wait times to other wait times...yeah.

And acutally, a good amount of people will still play on the "easy" side if they keep losing on the "hard" side.

Futhermore, if you dont like AB/dont think its broken, thats fine. Simply /notsign and go troll somewhere else.

Gene, its not even debatable that AB has issues. compare these wait times to other wait times...yeah.

And acutally, a good amount of people will still play on the "easy" side if they keep losing on the "hard" side.

Futhermore, if you dont like AB/dont think its broken, thats fine. Simply /notsign and go troll somewhere else.

AB is "lacking", not broken.

I guest over to the advantaged side all the time. Playing with a handicap isn't fun most of the time, due to the fact that the average AB player is mostly clueless and teams usually aren't good enough to overcome the disadvantage. Why should I waste my time playing on a map that I'm probably going to lose? Why should I waste my time making a little faction when I could be doing the same thing and be making a lot of faction?

There needs to be some incentive to play on a disadvantaged map. Playing with the extreme handicap is especially unfun. You win 10% of the time and most games your team isn't even competitive. Poor game design.

I completely disagree. I think on the extreme advantage maps, people would rush to both sides. One side gets an excellent chance at fat stacks of faction, while the other side would a shot at some sort of bonus/prize/drop/etc. This is a win/win situation as far as fun goes.

Right now, it's just dumb to play on the extreme disadvantage maps. You lose 90% of the time, and most games are completely un-fun blowouts. Whether I'm on the advantage or disadvantage side, those 500-180 games are completely lame.

Maybe "broken" is too strong a word in this case but, given Anet's balancing stance, AB could use a tweak to be sure. What needs to be "fixed" is some way to encourage a few more players to play when their side is disadvantaged, most especially because of the terrible wait time for AB play (last I was there anyway). In part due to imbalance in player numbers on a side but, also I suspect, something to do too with the servers, since I have waited a really long time on my side (I never switch) when it was disadvantaged too.

The idea for some faction amount tweaking was simply an incentive to help sort this out. Maybe there are other ways, but I dont think its possible to see the massive flow of people to and from the advantaged side as well as the long waits for a game and say nothing is wrong and everything is perfect.

In some cases, people go a bit too far in this direction, but its certainly not true always.

No actually, not if the advantaged side still earned more faction. The suggestion was maybe simply to be not quite as lopsided.

I know what I want at least - some way to play AB so that the wait times spent simply standing around idle are not quite so bad. Its why I at least often decide simply to do something else despite really enjoying AB.

My impression is that ABs are Anet's forgotten child. Which is a shame, because they can be really entertaining.

Well this explains a lot such as why AB can go long periods of time while one side continually rolls over the other side. So...people switch sides just to be on the winning side because playing with on a map that's more advantageous for the other side is....harder?!?!? Wow, how freaking lame is that? And I'm one of the stupid one who has tried to get people to play smarter, better, etc when my side is getting their butts kicked. No wonder that was pointless, apparently most of the "better" players have skipped over to the other side. When the going gets tough...the "tough" switch sides...lmao.

I mean winning or losing in AB isn't that big of deal, but getting in there and then earning less then 300 faction points in a match is a total waste of time. So when the tide is against my side I go do something else...but I guess what I should be doing is switching sides so that I have a better chance of winning. I could use the Balth faction but have no use for the other side's faction unless I go trade it in for a crafting material.

The really interesting thing is I have been in several guilds that were very AB focused and this was never mentioned. Wow...I guess the poster who said AB is not broken was very, very wrong.

Anet, please care about ABs again. Alliance battles own.

First thing...I like AB, it's one of the things I do most.
The issues AB has, wait time, will not be fixed by adding gimmicks and rewards and the such.
The way to "fix" AB is to add server capacity.
The problem is that there is a limit to the number of games that can be played at a given time and that is what is causing the wait time.
If AB was so "broken," then there would be no wait because no one would be playing (see Jade Quarry).
Next time come with a stronger argument instead of throwing out jabs at people.

Oh, and BTW, this is NOT the suggestion forum.

So "/notsigned" my rosey red...





So what you want to ask for then is more servers to handle AB matches.
The reason you wait is because there is no room on the servers to handle another AB game.
Doing something to attract more people is counter-productive (see double faction weekend), as is doing something that will chase people away.
AB is fine in it's current incarnation, people play it, that's why we wait.
More servers are what is needed and what the community should be asking for.
Capacity will lead to less waiting and more simultaneous games.

That's not necessarily true. I've seen many occassions where there simply weren't enough people in the zone to get another 12 man group in. We'd have to wait for a game to end... not to free space but to free people! (A good indication of this is when someone just comes out of a match and their group is immediately right back in with yours. No one on the queue ahead of them.)

This happens on the imbalanced maps... never see it in Saltspray.

You must be Kurzick. I always play on the Luxon side and I usually only have to wait for 1 minute max.

No Need for exaggeration You must realize that Im counting both International Districts & American Districts when I say 8 Districts & I will give you an example from several weeks though ... In Ancestral I stopped counting at 60 groups of 4 in the AD & IDs combined on the Kurzick side. Thats 240 Kurzicks players & thats when I stopped counting. It was almost 6 Districts if I recall. There were 13 people total on the Luxon side combined in AD & ID 1. As well I have waited 2 hours for a game,after a map change to Ancestral & thats when I gave up & left. Sir If youre gonna try to call me out like that You just dont know.

randomly putting jade quarry into the ab mix might be cool, wait times, i havent found it too bad when ive played, but theres no indiction the map has changed...

50% automatic donation of faction or something, thats free (earn 10k, 5,000 donation for your guild pops up) that would be a nice one for all faction gain

maybe 1 gold for each point earned in the match and for each enemy killed...

This is one of the most ridiculous conspiracy theory I've ever heard on these forums (and THAT is saying something). Mostly because its completely undocumented and unfounded.

The wait time is a problem. I don't know if it's limited servers or opposing players. If more servers opened up it'll be great. Opposing players, maybe some incentive though I don't think it should be anything huge. The incentive could be something really minor like the challenges, gold along with the current faction points reward. Gold could be 1 or 2 gold per point won.

Player flip flopping is a problem. Switching sides based on maps causes more problems. Total unloyalty doesn't mean anything to players doing it? There're people hopping over to your territory admitting they're on the opposing side and screwing things up intentionally. To the many people admitting to only playing or switching over to the more 'favorable' maps, does that not sound like a problem? Players are a problem on this part.

Maps are not a problem. The only 'favorable' maps are Kaanai Canyon and Ancestral Lands and I've seen the 'unfavored' win due to competence and due to those flip flopping players who like to ruin things. Anyone can win in the others. Inability to compete in Etnarn or Grenz means it's time to go back to the training yards.

The only thing anet could possibly fix would be the 1st part. The rest is on player side. Unless people want a complete change.

AB isn't broken...it's just SUPER unpopular. And that is caused by the fact that it's a poor form of PvP, and is just a heap of dumb players grouping up and killing everything. It isn't fun when in AB's, you opponents mob, and your team-mates try to mob against them.

There are plenty of other threads for all you haters to go post how much AB sucks, and is for noobs, and isnt broken. Lets not have this become a flame thread kiddies. If you dont want a change, /notsign and state your reasons and leave. If you do, then /sign and state your reasons and do your best to keep this place flame free.

Flaming= mods shut down threads. And since it seems to me that most mods already dont like AB (ive had several AB threads shut down by mods for no reason other than "AB sucks and no one cares"), thats the last thing we need. Lets all try and be mature about this. If we act mature, maybe Anet will actually take heed.

Haven't really played much AB since factions first came out. Just because of the wait times. Maybe it's because I only played kurzick (eyes traitors running to join the luxons if they're winning) but the wait times were roughly 20-30 mins. Maybe you think this is short, but I considered this to be too long to wait for a match. Still drop by now and then, but the wait hasn't really improved. Most of my guild think the same and won't take the wait cause it ruins the fun, and as a source of FF, in that time you can score about the same trapping house battles. So most don't really see much reason to AB.

Which is a pity, cause its fun. I like it mainly cause with the larger team sizes and NPCs, its the closest feeling to a battle rather than just a skirmish like normal pvp. If they made it even larger scale, like vizunah square (without the lame protecting togo/mhenlo bit) or consulate docks/dzagonur bastion, where you can have larger size teams and mobs of NPCs then it'd be even better. Would have been cool if they made eternal grove or gyala hatchery pvp (same as now, but including opposing faction human teams). But that's just me.

Don't really care about rewards, it's the wait times that are the issue for me.

I thought that's the fun part?

No way, the fun part is being able to play a proper match, where it's teams of 4 against each other. I remember playing that Luxon last map (the one where the Luxons were pushed back as far as possible) the first time ANYONE ever had, it was amazing. The map was bugged, but it was fun as, because teams were spread out and not mobbing.