Farming honor can be annoying in World of Warcraft. Now it is even harder, and especially newcomers suffer.
PvP in World of Warcraft is a closed book for many players. Many have taken a look during their WoW career, then got thoroughly “beaten down” and subsequently decided: I won’t look at this again. With Midnight, the developers wanted to solve this problem and introduced a new mode that is supposed to appeal especially to newcomers. However, this very mode has been changed so drastically that it is hardly worth it. The community is correspondingly angry.
What is this new mode? The “Training Grounds” are a PvP game mode played against bots. The bots are significantly smarter than in the “K.I.nderspiel” mode, so they can pose a real challenge if you don’t know what you’re doing.
The mode is perfect for learning the ropes in PvP and understanding which classes attack with which abilities, which cooldowns to pay attention to, or how to coordinate with the team on different objectives.
Additionally, you can earn a lot of honor here. You need this to earn solid starting gear for PvP. Because special PvP gear is much stronger in battlegrounds than regular PvE gear, as the item level increases drastically. Moreover, there are usually set bonuses that provide additional stats and advantages.
Half honor, double farming
What has Blizzard done? In a hotfix, the honor earned in the training grounds was reduced by 50% – quite drastically. This means that you now need to spend much more time obtaining good PvP gear or you struggle in regular battlegrounds to earn honor significantly faster but get run over consistently.
This is how the community discusses: There is widespread incomprehension in the community about the change. The new game mode was precisely designed to offer newcomers a way into PvP and to be able to train against bots first. At the same time, you could farm honor there and earn solid starting gear before heading into “real” battlegrounds. Accordingly, the comments reflect this, for example on wowhead:
- “Wait, wait, wait. Didn’t they introduce the training grounds specifically so new players interested in PvP could earn gear and try it out without getting flattened by experienced pros? And now they reduce the honor by half? That makes no sense!” – Grizzlemaw1993
- “I don’t even play PvP and still think this is a dumb change. It’s highly likely to lead to new players just not wanting to engage anymore when they are simply rolled over in PvP and don’t play it anymore.” – Shammyren
- “One step forward, two steps back.” – Talth
With this nerf, Blizzard probably hasn’t done itself any favors, as some will turn their backs on PvP again if they cannot at least earn their starting gear in a somewhat easier environment. Generally, there are some questionable decisions in WoW, as even the housing community is “mildly dissatisfied”.
