War Mode Faction Balance Hotfix and Patch 8.1 Changes, Raid Testing - Nov 15th - 19th

Honestly most objections to War Mode that I encounter in discussions here or there are absolutely insurmountable within any reward structure they could/would implement. In these cases, it's not cowardice, it's pure respect for one's own time. It's a distance from the entire concept of having the uncontrollable variable of other players interfere with their scheduled play sessions, especially in the intentionally solo-attractive open world. They don't care, they won't care, they won't join, and War Mode will never be made "mandatory" enough for anyone holding this mindset to change their mind.

Years of unbalanced racials led to one side gaining all the PVP players (and pretty much most of the PVE players too). Now that everyone is horde and racials are balanced, why would anyone switch back? There is absolutely no reason for an alliance player to turn on war mode for 10% more resources. The best PVP players can play alliance and just get stomped, because of being outnumbered everywhere.

There are only 2 fixes:
1) Make alliance racials undoubtly better, and profoundly so. Let the factions balance themselves out for a year and nerf it into balance when everything is even again.
2) Make war mode a que. Right now horde just turns it on and forgets about it. Make it an opt in shard.
**) Open up free faction transfers to alliance while picking one of the above options
Nuclear option) Merge factions. Everyone can group up with each other. Let people pick their race, and pick between "green" and "purple" in a new expansion, idk

At this point I doubt blizzard will own up to their mistake of ruining faction balance.

I mean, I get what he's saying, but if the ratios are like we've experienced, there are either going to be shards where there are ONLY horde... or even if they are spreading them out more/better, Alliance will still be outnumbered 3 to 1.

Let's assume for a moment that a shard can contain up to 200 players at a time. Right now, that's probably 50 Alliance and 150 Horde. Either they are going to have to cap the number of Horde on a shard to match the number of Alliance in which case there will be some shards without any or it's just going to be the same as it is right now.

Originally Posted by Esper

I mean, I get what he's saying, but if the ratios are like we've experienced, there are either going to be shards where there are ONLY horde... or even if they are spreading them out more/better, Alliance will still be outnumbered 3 to 1.

Let's assume for a moment that a shard can contain up to 200 players at a time. Right now, that's probably 50 Alliance and 150 Horde. Either they are going to have to cap the number of Horde on a shard to match the number of Alliance in which case there will be some shards without any or it's just going to be the same as it is right now.

That is exactly what they're doing....

If a shard accepts 200 people and there are only 50 alliance in warmode, its only going to allow roughly 50 horde on that shard.

I'm not at all a fan for increasing rewards for alliance just because they're too pansy to turn on warmode. Sharding is there to make sure ratios are balanced, so any complaining at this point is just that, complaining.

No, the problem with warmode is even less "oh there's an imbalance" and more, every time I turn on warmode there's a group of 5-10 horde stomping alliance and no groups over 4 form to stop it, so we still get stomped.

Originally Posted by Alcsaar

That is exactly what they're doing....

If a shard accepts 200 people and there are only 50 alliance in warmode, its only going to allow roughly 50 horde on that shard.

I'm not at all a fan for increasing rewards for alliance just because they're too pansy to turn on warmode. Sharding is there to make sure ratios are balanced, so any complaining at this point is just that, complaining.

Would you rather play on alliance then? Or are you too pansy to play on anything except the overpopulated faction

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Originally Posted by Tonus

The problem is that "balance" is not an equilibrium state. Gradually, everyone will gravitate to one side or the other. Their only option is to keep putting their thumb on the scale every time they see it tilting, and that's lame.

Just get rid of factions.

It was equal for many years in the game. The problem stemmed from the horde racials when mythics were released and it took years to finally nerf them.
This is a recent problem. Removing factions would honestly make everyone happy at this point. Maybe let people choose their faction

Originally Posted by cityguy193

Would you rather play on alliance then? Or are you too pansy to play on anything except the overpopulated faction

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It was equal for many years in the game. The problem stemmed from the horde racials when mythics were released and it took years to finally nerf them.
This is a recent problem. Removing factions would honestly make everyone happy at this point. Maybe let people choose their faction

You can choose your faction now. And how lame it would be if they removed factions, it's the core of the game. If you dont like it I find it odd you picked up WoW in the first place.

IMHO, the very fact that there is a reward aside from the honor you get from killing someone is the problem in and of itself. As a Horde player I feel like I HAVE to have War Mode on because otherwise I'm squandering the free 10% bonus I get for being on the dominant faction. I don't have to worry about potential lost time when there isn't an enemy to act as a hindrance. If there was no bonus then I honestly wouldn't have War Mode on at all, and I know there are a lot of people who feel the same way. Remove the bonus and it'll naturally even out with just the people who actually do want to engage in world PVP. It was an interesting idea on paper that just doesn't seem to work in practice.

Originally Posted by Omedon

Honestly most objections to War Mode that I encounter in discussions here or there are absolutely insurmountable within any reward structure they could/would implement. In these cases, it's not cowardice, it's pure respect for one's own time. It's a distance from the entire concept of having the uncontrollable variable of other players interfere with their scheduled play sessions, especially in the intentionally solo-attractive open world. They don't care, they won't care, they won't join, and War Mode will never be made "mandatory" enough for anyone holding this mindset to change their mind.

Absolutely correct. No amount of increased rewards is going to get me to turn on War Mode. I refuse to have my play time interrupted by other players in ways I can't control.

Originally Posted by cityguy193

Would you rather play on alliance then? Or are you too pansy to play on anything except the overpopulated faction

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It was equal for many years in the game. The problem stemmed from the horde racials when mythics were released and it took years to finally nerf them.
This is a recent problem. Removing factions would honestly make everyone happy at this point. Maybe let people choose their faction

Been playing Horde for like 6 years now. I'm not going to faction swap just because people on alliance are pussies. In fact your reply really meant nothing at all, there was nothing of value in your statement...

Raids is why I stopped using war mode. To me, fun world pvp is random encounters in small numbers. It's unpredictable and exciting.

What I kept running into, however, was raid groups numbering 20-40. And no, my idea of a good time isn't scraping together another huge raid to fight them. If that's what I cared about then I'd queue for a pvp instance.

Originally Posted by Tonus

Define "many years"... in the US, faction balance was a distant memory by Cata. Sure, in Classic wow people didn't care, but as people got better and the game matured, faction balance died a swift and decisive death. Sure there were some servers that were 100% horde and some were 100% ally, but that's not balance.

Server specific yes, there was always one-sidedness
But this is the first time that as a whole, the entire game has a faction imbalance. Take a look at PVE and PVP rankings, all the best players switched to horde, a lot because they had to. Alliance guilds struggle to recruit players cause the population keeps shrinking, so guilds are disbanding, which leads to a positive feedback.

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Originally Posted by Alcsaar

Been playing Horde for like 6 years now. I'm not going to faction swap just because people on alliance are pussies. In fact your reply really meant nothing at all, there was nothing of value in your statement...

I see that you do not understand anything that I wrote.

Enjoy being a pussy afterall.

Originally Posted by cityguy193

Server specific yes, there was always one-sidedness
But this is the first time that as a whole, the entire game has a faction imbalance. Take a look at PVE and PVP rankings, all the best players switched to horde, a lot because they had to. Alliance guilds struggle to recruit players cause the population keeps shrinking, so guilds are disbanding, which leads to a positive feedback.

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I see that you do not understand anything that I wrote.

Enjoy being a pussy afterall.

How ironic coming from an alliance player.

Blizzard has stated over and over that faction imbalances in warmode have been mostly resolved via sharding. You don't need extra rewards just because alliance are pussies.

Originally Posted by Alcsaar

How ironic coming from an alliance player.

Blizzard has stated over and over that faction imbalances in warmode have been mostly resolved via sharding. You don't need extra rewards just because alliance are pussies.

Oh pray tell, internet tough guy, why am I pussy because I dislike PvP or getting ganked due to 10v1? This is a game, Mr. Serious, nothing more. You do not have to prove anything to anyone.

Originally Posted by cityguy193

At this point I doubt blizzard will own up to their mistake of ruining faction balance.

Yeah don't forget the years of "good-natured teasing" by the devs at BlizzCon which included telling Alliance players that they should die.

No, the lack of interest in Alliance story or characters is embedded deep and goes years back. This won't change anything, and no, they won't admit their hand in it.

No amount of rewards will ever get me to turn on war mode

Originally Posted by Easo

Oh pray tell, internet tough guy, why am I pussy because I dislike PvP or getting ganked due to 10v1? This is a game, Mr. Serious, nothing more. You do not have to prove anything to anyone.

He wont, because he is insecure, and needs to hide behind an overpopulated faction to have fun in pvp

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Originally Posted by Alcsaar

How ironic coming from an alliance player.

Blizzard has stated over and over that faction imbalances in warmode have been mostly resolved via sharding. You don't need extra rewards just because alliance are pussies.

I play horde? I just care about the general health of the game or you and me will not have a game to play, mr. tough guy

I'd just like Blizz to allow me to turn off that annoying "You have a new PvP talent" notification. I don't give a flying flip about it.

Originally Posted by cityguy193

He wont, because he is insecure, and needs to hide behind an overpopulated faction to have fun in pvp

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I play horde? I just care about the general health of the game or you and me will not have a game to play, mr. tough guy

i will said that at least on my shard alliance tent to not do wpvp, so they let the horde raid to do what they want. At least till some ppl show up from alliance side.

They cannot win this. And most people who thought about warmode when it was announced realised this.

Factions & Balance don't mix. You could start with a perfectly balanced 50:50 ratio...and as soon as there is the PERCEPTION of one faction winning more it will instantly go 45:55...from this point on it will only get worse, because people join the larger faction. You only care about the players you can play/group with. You do not care aout players you cannot play/group with.

Of course all raiders want to play the same faction to have the biggest possible pool of recruits for the guilds AND the biggest possible pool of guilds for the recruits.

Of course "real" PvP players want to play the same faction, as this allowes them to form groups for rated. And since rated does ignore factions you can even have a healthy rivalry AND be able to group up for other nights. How awesome is that?

Of course good M+ puggers want to all play on one faction. They are very picky about their pugs and once you go >15 the pool of available players is small enough already.

So, there really is no reason to not play the larger/more active faction. Hall of Fame is a neat idea...but recruiting is the worst part about being a mythic raider and i doubt a title will offset the hassle of harder recruiting for most GL. But it might at least stop the bleeding towards the red faction.

As for Warmode in particular....there are 2 types of shards you can be on (as a Horde player): A shard with a somewhat 50:50 A:H population that gets turned upside down all the time due to raid WQs....and 100% Horde shards with not a single Alliance on them. Now...for whom exactly will increasing rewards be beneficial?

Warmode could be absolutely awesome if it was FFA and the faction barrier for grouping would be removed. You could actually have brawls with anybody not in your group that you come across....kind of waht should be the point of a World PvP Mode....