Are Daily Quests bad for Battlegrounds?
When the Call to Arms weekends first started for Battlegrounds, there were a lot of complaints about the honor junkies causing losses and generally noobing it up. The regulars were right to a point, playing Battlegrounds on non-honor bonus weekends usually means you are playing with people who know what they are doing. But, in my opinion, because both sides had honor farmers during the Call to Arms weekends, it pretty much evened out.
Since Patch 2.3, we have the Battleground Daily Quests. They are great for cash, honor (if it works) and even experience if you aren't max level. They are also easy to get, since you just have to be the qualifying level of the BG in order to do the quest. You don't have to do pre-quests or collect anything -- nothing except win a BG to complete the quest.
So now, on weekdays and when other BGs have honor bonuses, questers are infiltrating the games that used to be reserved for the well-practiced BG regulars. The difference between the Daily Quests and the honor bonus weekends is that it is different by realm. During the Call to Arms weekends, everyone has the same Battleground for bonus honor. If your Daily Quest is for Warsong Gulch on your realm, the other realms in your Battlegroup have different BGs for their quests. The noobs may all be on one side, with the other filled with veteran twinks.
For example, I picked up the WSG Daily Quest on my level 19 Warrior and lost 10 times in a row. My fellow Hordies ranged across the 10 to 19 level range and many of them had no clue. In most games, a bunch of them would spend the whole game whining about losing instead of actually trying to win. The Alliance were regularly populated with level 19 twinks, whose guild names proclaimed thier WSG prowess. The process was painful. The next day, when the Daily Quest had changed to AV, I tried to win my one WSG game for my incomplete quest. Now, my team was nothing but level 19 twinks and the Allies had noobs. We won quickly and easily.
Of course, there will always be new players, just as there will always be do-nothing whiners and control freaks. There will also always be jerks who do things like ask for the flag in WSG just so they can purposely lose the game. And these people are in your Battlegroup, so you're stuck with them unless you transfer servers. But then there will just be different players dragging down your BG experience. Meet the new noobs, same as the old noobs. It's part of the fun of Battlegrounds -- you never know who your teammates are going to be. Well, except for premades. But even then, your guildies aren't necessarily the best players either. I remember joining an Alterac Valley with a partial premade of guildies from a former guild. Actual dialog:
Me: What's the plan?
Guildie: Kill stuff.
Me: Ha ha. No, seriously.
Guildie: This is supposed to be fun. If we use strategy, we might as well be in a raid.
I'd like to think that over time, most of the Daily Questers will read up on strategies or listen to their fellow PvPers and become better Battleground players. Or, if it is taking them 10 tries to complete the quest, that they will give up on the BG Daily Quests all together. No matter what, I do agree with commenter Dave, that the short term results are painful, but over time it will probably get better.
What do you think? Are Daily Questers bringing down the quality of the Battleground experience? Or do you think the influx of new BG players is welcome to bring down queue times?
