In every match of Alterac Valley, people bitch about the changes the patch brought. Their biggest problem is, of course, that we used to get twice as much XP. People complain about this a ton. Before the last patch, we didn’t even get XP in BGs at all! Blizzard tried giving us XP, realized we were getting too much, and tweaked it. On top of this, AV was giving ridiculous XP. Was it too much? Well, everyone was saying AV was the best way to level, and it always had a bunch of people AFK just for the XP. This seems like a problem to me. I don’t think Blizzard added XP to BGs as the new way to level. No matter their reasons for adding it, why would they want us to play only AV and not the other battlegrounds? This tweak puts AV more on par with the other BGs.
I’ve also seen complaints about increased queue time and reduced honor. I don’t know any details on the reduced honor. It does seem like I’m getting less, maybe 3/4 of what I used to get. I’m not sure on the reasoning for that, but it doesn’t seem so bad. The increase in queue time makes sense given that my bracket now excludes 80s and people aren’t here just to level any longer.
Overall, I think this is a great change. Yes, I’m sad that I can’t take advantage of the XP, but that was clearly a problem anyways.
I do have to say, only allowing players to queue for two battlegrounds rather than three really sucks. Both Strand of the Ancients and Isle of Conquest have really long queue times in my bracket. Previously I would queue for those two and a third that would pop more frequently. Now I get to participate in BGs much less frequently. When already inside another BG, you can accept a queue to another BG even when in combat or dead. This is pretty cool. But what about while in combat while outside of BGs? The amount of time you have to accept has been reduced significantly, and already I’ve found myself unable to get out of combat in time.