Shortly before 8.2, only 13/100 Alliance cleaned CoS

[Kikazz]

But even then, why would they transfer. Realistically as the pool of players in this game keeps decreasing over time (because the game is old, subs are getting fewer and there are far too many servers and not enough connections) it is to the best interest of the player base to gather on one side of the faction divide so they don't further split the base when it comes to recruitment or even PuGing. The only way to solve this issue is to remove the faction barrier for instanced PvE, which of course also requires cross faction community features or guilds.

in all ohnesty they need to merge all servers,
NA - Megaserver 1
NA - Megaserver 2
OCE - Megaserver 1
OCE - Megaserver 2

etc... 1 or two mega servers,

compress the playerbase,

yes they will lose out on realm changes, but who cares, the playerbase will be happier,

and they can fix the overpopulation with sharding which they already do,

legit they have sharding active on DEAD servers, like oce Dathremar, fuck all people there i was getting sharded trying to hunt rares....
like legit they shard for no reason on some servers and shard when they feel like it.

[Nathasil]

One might think the faction switch in BoDA is a test run for a PVE mercenary mode

If that was the plan i hope the backlash over it blew it out of their minds. If they implemented a "mercenary mode" where there is different content in dungeons+raids+world depending on faction and you could go to an NPC to disguise yourself as a member of the opposite faction to join them and do their side of the story....it would simply mean that the Alliance never gets to play their own content, as there would be 100 Horde groups looking for people to join and ~5 Alliance groups. In practice, you would be FORCED to play the Horde content because only there are groups available to join.

If that truely ever was their plan, it was a real shitty one to begin with....producing one of the worst RPG-raiding-experiences in Dazar'alor ever.

The only solution is to get rid of the factions and just have ONE PvE narrative. That may enable them to actually have a plausible PvE storyline again, too, instead of the plot-hole-infested brainfarts that BFA threw at us at every single corner.

[Omedon]

Nothing will ever solve the faction imbalance. The only way to fix it is to get rid of it and allow cross faction play.

Edit: in fact, I'd be surprised if cross faction (at least instanced) PvE isn't a feature of the next expansion.

Hell it might be a feature of 8.3 at this rate! And before anyone calls that impossible: LFR, LFD, transmog and mythic raids were patched-in features. It doesn't have to be an expansion launch feature!

(That'll be the level squish )

[Mardux]

I did read what he posted. He has absolutely zero facts. He is trying to claim his opinions as fact after the lore clearly proves him wrong. Translating your post is "I am just going to jump in for no reason just to troll".

Thing is, "he" did exactly what you have been doing. And you've been doing exactly what you accused the person you quoted of doing. The only difference being you're trying to insult people while also trolling and pretending that your opinions are facts.

[rrayy]

Thing is, "he" did exactly what you have been doing. And you've been doing exactly what you accused the person you quoted of doing. The only difference being you're trying to insult people while also trolling and pretending that your opinions are facts.

Wrong on all counts. All I have done is point to the lore which are the facts set forth by Blizzard. That means I actually have facts to back me up. His posts are nothing more than his opinion and he claims his opinion is fact and the lore is not. So, no "he" did not do exactly I did. I cited facts. He did not.

- - - Updated - - -

The only solution is to get rid of the factions and just have ONE PvE narrative. That may enable them to actually have a plausible PvE storyline again, too, instead of the plot-hole-infested brainfarts that BFA threw at us at every single corner.

That "solution" would cause the game to have to be completely re-written from the ground up. Meaning it is no solution at all.

[Raugnaut]

The lesson learned from this should be to unlock cross-server raiding for everybody when a total of 100 guilds of either faction finishes mythic in their region.

I'd be fine with cross-faction guilds and raiding/mythic+ too. Only thing that shouldn't be cross-faction is PvP. The factions should remain unfriendly in the lore, but impact on gameplay is becoming too high.

Eh. If blizzard was just to make it 200 guilds of either factions, would also be fine - We would still see only 10-20 alliance guilds clean up, but Horde can carry their lame asses.

It's a similar story with Warmode, BGs, and such. Total population is actually slightly in the Alliance favor, so why does Alliance get...
1: Almost constant enlistment bonuses...
2: Larger WM bonuses, along with the occaisonal "high" ilvl piece...
3: Merc mode enabled, which was almost entirely for Horde participating on the Alliance side...

Lets face it - The vast majority of the Alliance is in Goldshire (D)ERPing.

[ID811717]

It's to warm outside to play games. When horde are raiding we're at lake with cold beer!

It should be "too warm", not "to warm".

[rogoth]

This thread is the perfect example of how players ask Blizzard to remove roleplay aspects of the game to cater to esports. (Wahhh...even Tho racials are a difference of .1% they need to be removed and remove faction barriers! This is the problem with the game. People demanding complete balance everywhere by sacrificing important roleplay aspects and gameplay for some perceived "imbalance". Over the years it's just killed the game and left a hollow shell.

yeah sure thing buddy, it's not perceived at all, it's an actual fact, and just so we're clear you're suggesting that because 15 years later the archaic 'roleplaying features' that were once a conerstone of the game should be kept intact when in reality they haven't mattered in a decade and are just there to annoy and frustrate players in the current iteration of the game, and with the apathetic attitude you have it's no wonder things are in the bad state they are.

[Elias01]

yeah sure thing buddy, it's not perceived at all, it's an actual fact, and just so we're clear you're suggesting that because 15 years later the archaic 'roleplaying features' that were once a conerstone of the game should be kept intact when in reality they haven't mattered in a decade and are just there to annoy and frustrate players in the current iteration of the game, and with the apathetic attitude you have it's no wonder things are in the bad state they are.

And appealing to current very low players base what dipped below 1m active subs isnt solution. Blizzard have to bring back those millions they have lost no to cutter game even more for current active player base. Becouse you guys are minority.

[Mashanerz]

How much can you really pull from a raid that a lot of guilds didn't even bother to put in serious attempts?

[Gorsameth]

How much can you really pull from a raid that a lot of guilds didn't even bother to put in serious attempts?

It still shows the disparity in raiding population. One can reasonably assume that the lack of Alliance kills isn't because Alliance didn't bother more then Horde but because there are a lot less Alliance high end raiding guilds then Horde.

Which is what this thread is about.

[rogoth]

It still shows the disparity in raiding population. One can reasonably assume that the lack of Alliance kills isn't because Alliance didn't bother more then Horde but because there are a lot less Alliance high end raiding guilds then Horde.

Which is what this thread is about.

it's almost like even when this is spelled out to people they still can't grasp the concept.

[david0925]

As people already pointed out before, faction imbalance was the issue of Blizzard failing to address racial discrepancy for PvE since TBC in favor of Horde, and the power discrepancy shifted all the good guilds to horde to gain that advantage, which basically started a positive feedback loop to the point of no return once they finally made racials to be largely inconsequential for PvE performance.

The only way to truly restore balance is to introduce stupidly overpowered Alliance pve racial to entice guilds to convert back, and cutting that off when sides are relatively even. This is nice in theory but hard to execute and honestly extremely shady. A compromise is basically cross-faction raiding which we have been doing since Vanilla anyway barring a few raids like Trial of the Grand Crusader or a few fights like Gunship in ICC.

And for those who loves to talk about "War"Craft: WoW is built on WC3, which in RoC is basically just everyone vs Burning Legion, and in TFT everyone doing their own thing. There are some faction tension but never really a war.

[Mashanerz]

It still shows the disparity in raiding population. One can reasonably assume that the lack of Alliance kills isn't because Alliance didn't bother more then Horde but because there are a lot less Alliance high end raiding guilds then Horde.

Which is what this thread is about.

Definitely agree with all that, but it's been this way since what, Naxx 40? The racials helped drive an imbalance and blizz has done just about nothing to correct it.

[Felshatner]

You do realize that, if anything, this is *for* roleplay aspects, right? As in, I'd prefer to play Alliance and I did for many years, but currently this is almost impossible to do while still being able to raid mythic on a decent level. If you care so much about roleplaying, you wouldn't need to use any cross-faction grouping... or just roll on a RP server. But we all both you don't really care about RP nearly as much, only using it as a convenient argument against retailers.

The person you responded to was clearly referring to roleplaying game elements, not roleplaying as in an RP server. Class and racial homogenization is a direct response to the playerbase's tendency towards faction-based min-maxing for n'th degree gains.

[Gorsameth]

Definitely agree with all that, but it's been this way since what, Naxx 40? The racials helped drive an imbalance and blizz has done just about nothing to correct it.

Yeah that's why we talk about snowballs and feedback loops so much.
The point is that recently (Legion and on, one can argue before that) the effect has, very noticeable, been visible as the Alliance dies out faster and faster as a raiding community.

Its a critical mass problem, it starts off slow and picks up the pace more and more as the pool of Alliance raids shrinks more and more causing more guilds to compete for the smaller pool until they give up and go Horde aswell.

We talk about it now because its reached critical mass and there is almost no Alliance raiding scene left.

[Gaidax]

Well the upside of that is that I got Famed Slayer of The Harbinger last reset

Perk of being Alliance for what's it worth (and not having meme lore as well).

[Simmias]

To be fair, I didn't feel it my responsibility to clean an evil shadow lair.

I did however clear CoS, but am in the 13 you list.

Curiously though - 4 of the 7 US guilds on your list of 13 are Aussie guilds

Oceania has long surpassed the u.s guilds in ranking lol.

[Kraineth]

I really don't see the issue. Cross-realm mythic CoD will unlock next week when cutting edge is removed.

More than half of the alliance kills have happened since the power creep gained in this patch, but they still won't fill. That's what happens when you release a raid that is as hard as CoS was, while having such lackluster loot.

They could have chosen to keep cutting edge available like they did with Helya in Legion, but they chose not to.

[KaPe]

I really don't see the issue. Cross-realm mythic CoD will unlock next week when cutting edge is removed.

More than half of the alliance kills have happened since the power creep gained in this patch, but they still won't fill. That's what happens when you release a raid that is as hard as CoS was, while having such lackluster loot.

They could have chosen to keep cutting edge available like they did with Helya in Legion, but they chose not to.

So wait, you don't see the issue, yet explain the exact issue in the next paragraphs.

It was terribly designed raid, made solely to please the very best guilds and not adjusted for people beyond world 100. Essences gave a small push for some people to finish off Uu'nat, but were not nearly enough. Loot was terrible and Benthic gear makes it even more useless. I certainly hope we don't get repeat of such raid in the future, it's waste of their development time.