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Posting this here because I believe it affects more than just PVP, like Raid firsts, server firsts etc…
First let me preface this with the little known fact that at the beginning of WoW very few players were playing Horde then one of the lead developers ( intentionally) let it slip in a game magazine interview that the Horde faction was made to be slightly stronger than Alliance and alluded to it being that way in the lore.
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Should be noted that back then the official Blizzard company guild was Horde and the developers were members of it, thus likely causing Horde favoritism right from the start.
This got a lot more players playing on the Horde side but also caused an uproar on the Alliance side, particularly on PVP servers. Claimed it was the racials eventually they allegedly made both sides the same by nerfing them but that was on the surface.
I learned of an addon called REFlex that tracked PVP BG win losses from this thread:
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...highlight=Bots
Also where I tracked wins/losses for a day, ended up with 3 wins 18 loses using it and where ando1510 said “
To get an accurate number you must do like +500 BGs or maybe even more”
This is what 503 BGs later looks like ( you show me anyone on Alliance with better stats I will show you a losing battle rage quitter) :
Now on the surface 240 wins to 263 loses appears pretty even however when you take away the IOC & AV wins/losses it reveals an unbelievably lopsided picture, 71 wins to 257 loses!
I would bet of those 257 loses less than 57 of them were even remotely close games.
Even more stark is the AV and IoC stats (I play them non-stop when they are the Call to Arms BGs and to farm honor for motes, plus IoC seems to pop a lot doing random) 169 wins 6 loses!
These stats confirm what I have experienced since vanilla WoW which is that there is something very wrong with WoW PVP.
The difference between AV & IoC and all other BGs is that Alliance does not have to face the Horde head on to win them but in every other BG they do and are completely dominated.
Why?
- It is not because of battlegroups they no longer exist and I would think with the merged servers the mix of players is more diversified than ever.
- It is not because the Horde has better players or out gears Alliance, it is a purely random environment that kind of consistency to bring about such lopsided wins loses in everything but AV and IoC is not even theoretically plausible. Besides that, nothing changes at the start of seasons when both sides are basically gearless.
- It is not because the Horde are more organized or play better as a team which is what both AV and IoC require to win and Alliance apparently excels at, see IoC & AV win/loss stats.
The only logical conclusion is the Horde faction is inherently more powerful!
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Now the AV and IoC stats could very well be communication problems in 40 man BGs; a dirty little secret in WoW seldom talked about but has been around since the beginning and could be the culprit. America is a country disliked around the world, on American servers it is assumed Alliance = majority American players. As such you get players from all over the world whom PVP on American servers as Horde for the single purpose of fighting American players.
So you likely have a lot of players that do not speak English on the Horde side which is not much of a problem in smaller 10-15 BGs but likely causing a lot of coordination/communication problems in 40 mans.
As I stated in the other thread, link posted above, I do remember someone calculating total damage for the top 5 Horde and top 5 Alliance players damage over a 20 BG period excluding AV & IoC assuming that the top 5 were players were most likely there the whole round. What they found was that the Horde players were averaging about 20% more damage and theorized that the Horde actually have 10% higher damage + 10% higher damage mitigation creating the 20% skew.
It is also believed they are 10% faster, best observed in SofA demos from a high point like a gun tower, and I cannot tell you how many times I have been chasing horde on foot on my ranged toon and have them pull out of range without speed burst or how many times they have ran me down in the reverse.
It is my belief they are 10% stronger across the board, have been since day one, and that Blizzard let it spiral out of control, now there is nothing they can do about it, in fact even have to mask it in RBGs by having factions switch sides.
If true;
And they admitted it but said they could not or would not do anything about it, then it would cause an uproar with the Alliance players, virtually all the Horde achievements would be ill gotten and should be stripped and cause mass faction changes to Horde killing the PVP part of the game.
If they just removed it covertly and not said anything all BGs could very well be like IoC and AV are now causing a Horde uproar, mass faction changes to Alliance or abandonment of the PVP altogether killing the PVP part of the game.
So no matter what we are stuck with it for the life of the game.
Also if true, and Blizzard is well aware that a lot of foreign players play on American servers as Horde and why they are doing it and deliberately made and kept the Horde faction stronger knowing full well that it would allow that faction to dominate the Alliance side, would it not make Blizzard and anti-America company?