No Mention Of Faction Imbalance

[seleri]

Blizzard cant help it if Alliance dont want to turn War Mode on. Its an entirely player-created problem.

That's the point of this thread and the others like it. I don't think most people think there's some huge imbalance in the factions as far as character count goes.

When people talk about the imbalance they mean things like the mythic raiding and war mode scenes, which heavily favor Horde at the moment.

[Surreality]

Faction imbalance is a problem with no solution. You can't just make people do something that they don't want to do. I didn't choose Horde to "join the winning team". I rolled Horde way back in 2006 because I wanted to play an orc. I didn't even know what racial traits were even about then.

[Doomchicken]

You guys... uh... you DO realize that the factions actually aren't imbalanced?

The numbers are actually pretty even across the factions in all regions - usually only a ~4% difference between Horde and Alliance.

Been that way almost since the start.

Individual SERVERS were/are VERY imbalanced; however, for instanced PvP that ceased to matter the moment cross-realm BGs became a thing, and for War Mode, its the same.

The actual balance on your server is irrelevant - its the service-wide population that matters, and they are... fairly even. All that matters is the number of people on each faction turning War Mode on.

Blizzard cant help it if Alliance dont want to turn War Mode on. Its an entirely player-created problem.

Except you, like everyone else that brings up faction numbers is missing a critical point. You are looking at OVERALL characters, and not level 120 characters. You change the statistics for that and the alliance drops to about 43 percent and horde raises to around 57 percent. That is a hell of a lot more difference than merely 4 percent.

[ls-]

Technically, there's no huge imbalance at 120, according to sources we have, e.g., realmpop, factions are almost equally split, 56% vs 44%, A and H respectively.

The problem is that Ally players are less active in PvP, it happens in BGs as well, even though the Alliances gets more incentives to do them, they're less active there anyway. So even if they added some additional incentives for Allies to trun WM on, it's unlikely that it'd change much, if at all.

[Zoreyai]

They don't care. It's pretty obvious when you consider just how much better the Horde racials are compared to the Alliance ones..

[Torto]

They should have bounties available to be killed by both sides. Let the horde eat their own.

[Alopex Major]

They won't fix it because they don't give a hoot about Alliance. Ion doesn't even have the achievement for having leveled one.

[therealbowser]

How do you expect Blizzard to fix this? Force players to be in a faction that is not of their choosing? That's really always been the problem with faction imbalance. What do you do when the majority of players want to be on one faction?

I'm not contradicting you but it's hard to see how Blizzard creates a balance out of thin air. In fact I think it was mentioned sometime this week that faction balance is the primary driver for warmode sharding. But you still are going to run into the problem when the imbalance is 65-35 or more.

One solution to faction balance is a relatively simple one, really. Just offer free optional faction transfers on the servers that are in bad shape. It wouldn't solve the problem, but it would help soften some of the edges.

If I'm not mistaken, not all of the realms share the same cross-realm zones, either. They could perhaps expand on that a bit in hopes of offering better balance that way, too, in theory. But I somehow doubt that would be easy to handle. I think they are already trying to do this, too, so that's good if so.

To say that there's no solution and there's nothing they can do would be wrong, but there certainly isn't a magical solution that will just turn everything to normal overnight, aside from forced transfers I suppose (which is ridiculous, of course).

I'm just bugged that they aren't even acknowledging the problem. I mean, I love War Mode, but the sheer faction imbalance on many servers kills the system for me at times. Ah, well.

[ls-]

That's the point of this thread and the others like it. I don't think most people think there's some huge imbalance in the factions as far as character count goes.

When people talk about the imbalance they mean things like the mythic raiding and war mode scenes, which heavily favor Horde at the moment.

The problem is there's nothing Blizz can do to address the issue unless they decide to remove the faction barrier.

Even if both factions were absolutely equal from the get go, one faction would end up being dominant in either PvP or PvE or both, simply because players w/ similar interest would like to be together in one faction, it's just waaaaay easier to recruit new people for your group or to find a group that fits your needs in such environment.

That's a a well-known downside of 2+ faction systems, literally all games that had multiple factions w/ faction barriers suffered from it. So as long as there's 2 factions that can't cooperate w/ each other, this issue will exist.

[seleri]

The problem is there's nothing Blizz can do to address the issue unless they decide to remove the faction barrier.

Even if both factions were absolutely equal from the get go, one faction would end up being dominant in either PvP or PvE or both, simply because players w/ similar interest would like to be together in one faction, it's just waaaaay easier to recruit new people for your group or to find a group that fits your needs in such environment.

That's a a well-known downside of 2+ faction systems, literally all games that had multiple factions w/ faction barriers suffered from it. So as long as there's 2 faction that can't cooperate w/ each other, this issue will exist.

I'm well aware. That's part of the reason I dislike the faction barrier. It's outdated and does much more harm than good for the game these days.

[Chromu]

Forget about it. Blizzard gives the flying frak for it...

Back the days of the Lich King (3.1), they removed the faction restriction in pvp servers and A LOT of people warned about the population imbalance it would cause. Crap, i remember the begin of Cataclysm and the zones with 40 hordes for 1 alliance (and a lot of BS saying it was normal, live up the "world pvp experience" again)

Alliance pve racials suck compared to the horde ones and only EMFH gave Alliance a PVP flavour (after the huge nerf at Will of the Forsaken).

EMFH glory days are gone and it took a heavy chunk of the Alliance player base - since PVE racials are bad as it goes.

Back them, most people said "racials didn't matter that much", but 99% of the top guilds are horde just because of... racials. Having more top guilds, means better economy, better chance for "rushes" and more people.

Also, Lorewise the game went down the drain, many alliance npcs just went neutral (Khadgar, Alonsus, Bolvar, Magni, Tirion, Mograine, Malfurion (until now) and others) or just died in stupid ways (Benedictus, Admiral Taylor, Varian).

Two "old legends" are around the horde (Saurfang and Sylvanas) excluding alternate universe Grom (if AU counts, alliance is more frak up), and while all alliance legends are... dead or neutral or mad (Yrel here) or a joke (Jaina).

So,

racial, horde has the edge
lore, horde has the lead
npcs, horde has the edge
raiding guilds, horde has the edge.

Why should anyone play alliance?

This problem isn't new and shows that blizzard never actually gave a flying frak for the playerbase they had.

[Bhorin]

They should have never put a PvE incentive to go with PvP participation. Really dumb on their part. If they removed the 10% bonus the faction imbalance wouldn't matter really outside of the fact that if you want to raid your only choice is horde. Realistically sometime down the line they will need to allow cross faction PvE or risk of completely losing out on Alliance PvE players.

[Paraka]

Alliance needs help, I just don't know how.

Give them 13 more Elven races. Certainly they'll start switching over.

[Super Kami Dende]

The Ratio at 120 is 55:45. Hardly a Game changing imbalance. Outside of completely blocking People from making characters on Horde there is very little that can be done about Faction imbalance. I'd say at LEAST 90% of players don't even factor in or care about Racials when they create a Character. So the imbalance is due to free choice.

PvPers tend to be moreso horde as well since I always found the more edgy kids I knew that like to Gank or PvP went Horde just because they were the "bad guys"

[sirmalta]

Yeah, its bullshit. They need to do away with servers and do full on phased zones, or at least blend more off balanced servers together.

[NED funded]

Yeah, I agree. I gave up on warmode after a while. The solution is pretty obvious, Blizzard has to give alliance races better racials than those of the horde, at least for a time and juggle who gets the op racials from time to time.

[Kagthul]

That's the point of this thread and the others like it. I don't think most people think there's some huge imbalance in the factions as far as character count goes.

When people talk about the imbalance they mean things like the mythic raiding and war mode scenes, which heavily favor Horde at the moment.

Then you need to read the thread. Half the posts are people complaining about population imbalance, full stop. Hell, half of them dont even realize that for War Mode, their server is totally irrelevant, and assume they never encounter the other faction because their server is imbalanced.

Except you, like everyone else that brings up faction numbers is missing a critical point. You are looking at OVERALL characters, and not level 120 characters.

Uhh.. no, actually i'm not. Why did you make that particular ASSumption? I'm looking at max level characters, per region. Pulled straight from the armory. The US is a little horde heavy - about 54% to 46%, and the EU is actually a little less canted - its about 51% to 49%.

You change the statistics for that and the alliance drops to about 43 percent and horde raises to around 57 percent. That is a hell of a lot more difference than merely 4 percent.

Math isn't your strong suit, apparently.

No one has claimed there are more horde players, its the participation numbers that are imbalanced.

Half the people in the thread are claiming EXACTLY that. Read the thread, man.

And in case you didn't realise, for there to be a conflict there needs to be 2 sides, warmode doesn't work when only one side shows up.

Uhh.. yeah. I said that. It's a player-created problem. Population is balanced, or close enough not to matter. Alliance isn't turning on War Mode for whatever reason. That's not Blizzard's fault.

One solution to faction balance is a relatively simple one, really. Just offer free optional faction transfers on the servers that are in bad shape. It wouldn't solve the problem, but it would help soften some of the edges.

If I'm not mistaken, not all of the realms share the same cross-realm zones, either.

For War Mode, they do. Everyone who is in War Mode that is not on an RP server, you're in the same pool of zone instances, across the entire region. The RP servers have their own separate pool... because they whined about being included with people who wouldn't RP.

They could perhaps expand on that a bit in hopes of offering better balance that way, too, in theory. But I somehow doubt that would be easy to handle. I think they are already trying to do this, too, so that's good if so.

To say that there's no solution and there's nothing they can do would be wrong, but there certainly isn't a magical solution that will just turn everything to normal overnight, aside from forced transfers I suppose (which is ridiculous, of course).

Except that there aren't a lot more Horde players than Alliance players. Absolute population is NOT the problem. There are not 3x as many people playing horde or anything. Its single-digit percentages. If Alliance players dont turn War Mode on.... what can Blizzard do, exactly?

I'm just bugged that they aren't even acknowledging the problem.

Uh... theyve talked about it several times. The solution is: Alliance players need to turn War Mode on. That simple.

I mean, I love War Mode, but the sheer faction imbalance on many servers kills the system for me at times. Ah, well.

... except it has literally not one thing to do with what server you're on. Server population imbalance is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO WAR MODE. When you flag for War Mode, you're in a pool with the ENTIRE REGION.

Yeah, its bullshit. They need to do away with servers and do full on phased zones, or at least blend more off balanced servers together.

.... thats literally how its been since at least WoD. How do you not know that? And for War Mode.... the ENTIRE REGION is in the pool.

[NED funded]

Technically, there's no huge imbalance at 120, according to sources we have, e.g., realmpop, factions are almost equally split, 56% vs 44%, A and H respectively.

The problem is that Ally players are less active in PvP, it happens in BGs as well, even though the Alliances gets more incentives to do them, they're less active there anyway. So even if they added some additional incentives for Allies to trun WM on, it's unlikely that it'd change much, if at all.

The incentives is just a little bit more of honor, so its not really worth the trouble. I gear one of my alts through random bgs and its a pain in the ass, I immediately quit if its temple of kotmogu. More conquest points would really make it worthwhile IMO.

[Revamp Man]

While that is somewhat true, it doesn't help that Blizzard has in the past and continues to exacerbate the problem by designing fights where horde racials are vastly superior than the Alliance racials and they do this every expansion. I'm not talking just numerically either, but obviously utility wise too. And once all the hardest of the hardcore choose one side, the side where utility wise and damage numerically wise they are superior and stay there, the wannabes are going to follow suit and it's just a snowball effect from there.

It also doesn't help that this expansion particularly they've gone out of their way to give literally no one a good reason to play the Alliance. You want lore where your leaders are not made to look like incompetent goofs, Play horde. You want to be on the side that actually gets their victories shown in game, Play horde. If you want to be the faction that has urgency and not passivity, play horde. You want new, fresh inventive mounts instead of recolored horses play horde. You want good racials for raiding or mythic plus you play horde. You want to actually want to win in random/world PvP you play horde.

Doing a half baked lame ass hall of fame isn't going to fix anything while everything else is still so fundamentally fucked for the alliance.

The damage bonus horde has has been offset by void elves and now DI


As for utility...I think every human pops their racial on vectis if targeted

The story for horde: get your ass stomped at every corner while you fail at the one job you have

Alliance: you have Azshara to the north the devil to the east and some good old fashioned pirates to the south...plus the level cap quest that gives jaina development.

The PvP and raiding is again a community issue and again can't be fixed


"Free transfers fixed it" no just more horde because community choices

[therealbowser]

For War Mode, they do. Everyone who is in War Mode that is not on an RP server, you're in the same pool of zone instances, across the entire region. The RP servers have their own separate pool... because they whined about being included with people who wouldn't RP.

I thought it still divided between server clusters. I am not sure though.

Except that there aren't a lot more Horde players than Alliance players. Absolute population is NOT the problem. There are not 3x as many people playing horde or anything. Its single-digit percentages. If Alliance players dont turn War Mode on.... what can Blizzard do, exactly?

Uh... theyve talked about it several times. The solution is: Alliance players need to turn War Mode on. That simple.

... except it has literally not one thing to do with what server you're on. Server population imbalance is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO WAR MODE. When you flag for War Mode, you're in a pool with the ENTIRE REGION.

I doubt it's exclusively an issue with "Alliance won't turn war mode on". Plenty of people turn it on, but if you're being camped in a server where the Horde outnumber Alliance 10-1, or even worse, there's a good chance people are going to turn it off simply so that they can participate in the game.

If it's an issue with unsatisfying rewards for participation, then that's simple enough to fix. I really, really doubt it's that.