Unbalanced realms - maybe players like it?

[Maniac2]

Im reading posts about unbalanced realms and Im thinking - why they exist?
Why in the past balanced realm lost one side and became unbalanced? Is it maybe people have gone to their-faction-heavy realm just to feel more safe in world pvp or just to grief minority faction? Maybe that is what people want?
Afaik, balancing realms is only important for world pvp, everything else is cross-realm.

Blizzard opened free transfers from heavy to heavy populated realms with single intention - realm balancing. In the past, they were doing free transfers from heavy to low realms, but this first time they did it heavy-heavy. So, is there any use of Blizzard doing this?

[Darkinfinity]

Blizzard opened free transfers from heavy to heavy populated realms with single intention - realm balancing. In the past, they were doing free transfers from heavy to low realms, but this first time they did it heavy-heavy. So, is there any use of Blizzard doing this?

I think......it's so they can merge horde heavy servers with ally heavy servers. Could be wrong though :P

[Talen]

Im reading posts about unbalanced realms and Im thinking - why they exist?
Why in the past balanced realm lost one side and became unbalanced? Is it maybe people have gone to their-faction-heavy realm just to feel more safe in world pvp or just to grief minority faction? Maybe that is what people want?
Afaik, balancing realms is only important for world pvp, everything else is cross-realm.

Blizzard opened free transfers from heavy to heavy populated realms with single intention - realm balancing. In the past, they were doing free transfers from heavy to low realms, but this first time they did it heavy-heavy. So, is there any use of Blizzard doing this?

There is indeed much to recommend an unbalanced server - if you are on the more populated side. If you aren't , it can be a living nightmare and can (and has in some cases) drive the population so low that world PvP effectively doesn't exist.

Unbalanced servers are not a good thing.

EJL

[Itisamuh]

Yeah I don't really understand it either, at least for PvP servers. I can kind of get it if it's a server that's simply always been imbalanced, and the side that's getting crapped on has people that transfer to get away from it. But I'd think that PvPers should want a server to be as balanced as possible. That's the only way to have good battle, after all. PvPers who specifically seek out servers heavily favoring their faction are cowards.

[Deleted]

Wow really? Your arguments screams of selfishness really.

Before you make a silly post like this please faction change from the extremely popular side into the weaker side and play there for few months before talking about the ''positive'' things about unbalanced servers.

[Giscoicus]

The heavily unbalanced pvp servers aren't really pvp servers since no one plays the other faction. Blizz is not going to correct this, but rather give a way out for the people who rolled the "wrong faction" on such servers. You cannot correct that imbalance without destroying the server community entirely.

When servers reach the population Illidan or Swiftyspear have, community is more dead than ever. It's dead on small realms anyway.

OT yes, they roll PvP to say they are on a PvP server and not care bear servers, but always mega servers and dominant faction. Then when stuff like Bloody Coins is released they get mad they actually gotta fight.

[corebit]

This is why world PVP fails and it shows that Blizzard fails at designing accessible content to everyone regardless of their population ratio. The majority of the playerbase does not want PVP on fair terms and does not want to the underdog. So they transfer to a server where their faction is dominant. Places like Timeless Isle are "out of bounds" if you are in a PVP realm and severely outnumbered. Who wants to be in that situation where you can't experience content?

Pretty much every server right now in WoW is unbalanced towards one side or another. It's a player-created problem but Blizzard doesn't have any incentive to fix the servers because they make too much money out of the transfers.

[Marrilaife]

Everyone likes to be on the winning side.
No one likes to be on the "worse" side and be forced to pay for realm or faction change multiplied by number of alts they levelled. It's either you suffer on the dead side (no pugs, no guilds, empty AH, on pvp servers tons of gankers, can't get a tag on world bosses) despite realm being "high" or you fill the pockets of Blizzard. I still don't understand why they can't at least give discount if you mass transfer / faction change all alts, would help people who are stuck on non-existent faction on their server.

[Giscoicus]

This is why world PVP fails and it shows that Blizzard fails at designing accessible content to everyone regardless of their population ratio. The majority of the playerbase does not want PVP on fair terms and does not want to the underdog. So they transfer to a server where their faction is dominant. Places like Timeless Isle are "out of bounds" if you are in a PVP realm and severely outnumbered. Who wants to be in that situation where you can't experience content?

Pretty much every server right now in WoW is unbalanced towards one side or another. It's a player-created problem but Blizzard doesn't have any incentive to fix the servers because they make too much money out of the transfers.

Or the fact that there is 0 incentive for players to not be all on one faction. Luckily coin farmers have made wPvP fun on unbalanced servers. But really how do YOU suggest a fix other than forcing players to change.

[Heldamon]

Now with connected realms blizzard should stop rolling a character on a faction on an unbalanced server. Say for ex a server has 3 to 1 A:H.
Only players that wanna play Horde should be able to roll on that realm, untill the numbers are almost equal again

[rda]

Yes, as regards PVP realms, players like being on an unbalanced realm.

Why? Because world PVP is &*^ and has been that for years, noone does it and noone really wants to after a couple of times.

No opinion on PVE realms.

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This is why world PVP fails and it shows that Blizzard fails at designing accessible content to everyone regardless of their population ratio. The majority of the playerbase does not want PVP on fair terms and does not want to the underdog. So they transfer to a server where their faction is dominant.

I think it's the reverse: world PVP fails, hence noone wants to do it, hence unbalanced realms to avoid it. There is a feedback loop, too, but the main chain is this.

[Antherios]

Let me tell you the story of why my server became 75-25 favoring Horde.

My server used to be 50-50 even a little bit more sided to the alliance at the beginning of Wrath.
Then a horde world pvp guild decided to camp Wintergrasp, all week long, and since our realm is a pvp realm, but alliance never really pvped, there wasnt a fight back. So this horde guild single-handedly crippled the alliance for months.
And since the alliance guilds needed VoA for loot but couldnt raid it because we never had wintergrasp, some people started to transfer to the other side.

Then a hardcore pve guild showed up on the horde side aswell, and bam ... everyone started transferring to horde to be able to do VoA and apply to this new guild (and get rejected) .. this happened every patch, leaving the balance heavily favoring the horde at the end of WotLK.

TL;DR: People transfered to be able to do VoA, then since the other side was better at PvE, they stayed there, and it created a snowball effect that continues until this day.

[Deleted]

Yes, I greatly enjoy having an AH that has.. nothing.

Or when it does, it has absurd prices equal to trying to sell a Lamborghini in Cambodia.

[Mosotti]

I played on a very unbalanced server, probably 10 to 1, I was rarely seeing something green. And the thing is that only occasionally I was attacked, so the world PvP thing seems not to be a reason...

There is no "fix" without forcing it, and people will rage in that case. So there is no fix, but to get the hell out and move somewhere else. And of course pay a ridiculous amount to Blizzard.

[corebit]

Or the fact that there is 0 incentive for players to not be all on one faction. Luckily coin farmers have made wPvP fun on unbalanced servers. But really how do YOU suggest a fix other than forcing players to change.

The only fix IS to force players, either by restricting servers once a ratio is set, restrict paid transfers, and/or merge/connect one unbalanced server with another opposite one. If you as a company care about the longevity of the game, you have to make sure the servers are both populated and balanced as possible.

The playerbase will only choose the path of the winning side, they will never fix the problem themselves and only exacerbate it. It's up to Blizzard to fix it.

[Rivellana]

It just happens.

My old server, Smolderthorn-US, had a very healthy population back in early WotLK. To the point that they offered FCM off to another server, and a lot of people took it because they wanted their guilds to be server first instead of fighting for realm rank with the other guilds on server.

That started the death of the Alliance faction there, and over time people either quit playing or stopped playing on that server as it became more and more unbalanced. I eventually faction changed most of my characters from Alliance to Horde there as Horde still had a healthy population, but over time that has died off as well as people have flocked to higher pop servers.

[championknight]

Faction transfers, the start of the great 'unbalancing' act

Uncontrolled population growth i.e not locking full or high pop factions on certain realms and the slow implementation of Connected Realms just made it worse for almost 4 years running

[Maniac2]

Wow really? Your arguments screams of selfishness really.

Before you make a silly post like this please faction change from the extremely popular side into the weaker side and play there for few months before talking about the ''positive'' things about unbalanced servers.

Before answering like that, try read the post and understand it like others do.
This is about why realms became unbalanced and speculation that players maybe want them to be unbalanced.

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Faction transfers, the start of the great 'unbalancing' act

Uncontrolled population growth i.e not locking full or high pop factions on certain realms and the slow implementation of Connected Realms just made it worse for almost 4 years running

Agree on this point, they should lock high pop realms at some point in the past. Connected realms should go much faster also.
I just wonder what will happen with high pop realms when new expansion hits.

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Yeah I don't really understand it either, at least for PvP servers. I can kind of get it if it's a server that's simply always been imbalanced, and the side that's getting crapped on has people that transfer to get away from it. But I'd think that PvPers should want a server to be as balanced as possible. That's the only way to have good battle, after all. PvPers who specifically seek out servers heavily favoring their faction are cowards.

Yes, I would also think that PvPers want balanced server, but in practice thats not the case.
On Timeless isle, solo ally player never attacked me, but when he gets one more buddy of same faction, he suddenly attacks. Warcraft heroes, right?

[zoomgpally]

The heavily unbalanced pvp servers aren't really pvp servers since no one plays the other faction. Blizz is not going to correct this, but rather give a way out for the people who rolled the "wrong faction" on such servers. You cannot correct that imbalance without destroying the server community entirely.

Actually, they are not giving people a way out, or trying to correct it.
I play on EU-Darksorrow, everybody knows it at least 90% alliance(I believe its closer to 98).
Blizzard gave alliance free transfers from some of the biggest EU alliance realms to darksorrow, and when we made forum posts asking them to not make it even worse, they just told us we were wrong and the realm wasn't imbalanced.

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Agree on this point, they should lock high pop realms at some point in the past. Connected realms should go much faster also.
I just wonder what will happen with high pop realms when new expansion hits.

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Yes, I would also think that PvPers want balanced server, but in practice thats not the case.
On Timeless isle, solo ally player never attacked me, but when he gets one more buddy of same faction, he suddenly attacks. Warcraft heroes, right?

Locking high pop realms would cause a problems when new players can't play on the same server as their friends.
Real PvPers seem to want balanced realms, cowards do not..

Finally, I want to know which server alliance only does 2v1, i miss that fair PvP...

[ocis]

It's too late to force faction balance now, you'd piss off all the people who paid money to transfer their toons over to said servers. That's also why they haven't really done much to balance that through the connected realms either. There would be a lot more outrage going on if they suddenly balanced those high population servers. Blizzard instead just made world pvp irrelevant. It's not just pvp either, the imbalance changes things for pve - lots of guilds swap factions and research before server transferring which faction to be before transferring so they can have the larger recruiting pool. But that's the way it goes with competition, you'll always look for a way to find the edge.