Allied Races made faction imbalance even worse.

[czarek]

allied race should never have been implemented.

No they are ok in idea but this went wrong. 1st of all is too much of them at specific time at once. Racials are to OP. Some like Maghar and BlackIron Dorfs should work just like barber. Its just more about marks and colors. Model is pretty same. These are more like clans not specific race.

[Kithelle]

So your choices for Alliance races are literally 3 races that blizzard would have had to Straight up obliterate any pretense of lore to make work?

Broken, sure, they work.

High elves? Not happening. Ever. Get over it. That ship sailed long ago.
Vyrkul? Not happening. The Vyrkul HATE humans, like, literally consider them deformed weaklings who should be left out to die from exposure at birth, and straight up have 0 reason by even the craziest twisting of the lore to work with the alliance.
Mechagnomes? They aren't even a "race" in the proper sense. They are Titan constructs. There is about as much chance of them joining the alliance as "allies" as the Earthen. Any "True" Mechagnome would probably view 90% of Azeroths inhabitants as aberrations in the titan's great plan, rather than something to be approached as a partner.

According to Ion himself he said High Elves are possible, but just not during BfA. SO anything is possible

[Doctor Funkenstein]

I can't wait for the day Blizzard gets their brains working properly and removes race/class restrictions and allows defectors (or whatever you want to call allowing all races on both factions).

It's going to be interesting to see what rational dunderheads come up with to tell themselves is the reason for the imbalance when that happens. Especially since it's all in their head for the most part, outside of world PVP, and no one with an actual brain gives two shits about world PVP.

[Scrysis]

i find it hard to believe people change factions SIMPLY because of race...

most people change factions because
"hey all my friends are doing this"
"Hey the raiding guild I applied to is the opposite faction"
"Hey I hear the horde is a bit better on X server than the alliance is on My server"
or if MMO champ is to be believed "The X suck at Y so I should be a Z"

Allied races aren't exactly the MAIN reason..its more hey look there's something else I can change to. Especially since Blood Elves, Night Elves, and Humans are still the 3 most popular races

This. The numbers the OP posts are very misleading because it doesn't take into account root causes.

[Powerogue]

Considering blood elves still massively outnumber everyone else, and the second most popular allied race is void elf, I don't think the issue is in the faction imbalance.

The forbidden allied race is clearly the only option.

Alliance murlocs, obviously.

[qwerty123456]

Because the point about Void Elves vs Nightborne has nothing to do with the point about what the data suggests or not that I was replying to? Void Elves are more popular than Nightborne and that is something that the data from the OP explicitly shows. And given how both Nightborne and the Void Elves are not only an Elven AR but one that allowed for some faction bender where Alliance got a Thalassian model and the Horde got quasi Night Elves, out of the original six Allied Races this pairing is the most fair. Meanwhile the point about the data suggesting things was about it suggesting Allied Races contributing into people dropping the Alliance. Which, unlike the data bout how Nightborne or Void Elves are, is nowhere on the chart.

First off the data isn't completely accurate. Second just because more Alliance players are on a Void Elf currently over Horde players on a Nightborne doesn't mean they are more popular. There are several reasons why this could be the case like Mechagnomes being a harder/longer unlock then Vulpera and so the Alliance players who create one of every race for the heritage armor or just to have one may still be playing their void elf while the people who do the same for Horde may be creating and playing their Vulpera currently. Or maybe because Zandalari and Vulpera were wanted badly by the playerbase while on the Alliance side they got Cyborg Gnomes instead of actual Mechagnomes and fat humans instead of Vykrul the people who create an allied character on Alliance just stuck with their void elf while on Horde they are busy switching between their new characters.

MY own personal example:
I only have 3 allied races at 120 Lightforged, Nightborne, and Vulpera. Because of other games and stuff I've only been doing the new patch stuff on a couple of toons. Because I saw people complaining how hard the visions are on a mage I chose to not play my Nightborne for now until at least I get good at clearing them on the chars I'm currently doing them on. My lightforged I logged into just to do Darkshore to try and get the gloves (i think) that I'm still missing. So if you looked at my data from that website you would assume I loved Lightforged and Vulpera but in reality Nightborne and maybe Vulpera are my favorite allied races and I like Lightforged less than the normal Draenei but logged on him for an extra chance at a transmog.

[Mightytasty]

They put such a huge amount of work into Kul’tirans and no one plays them. Maybe give alliance a race they actually want? And trash gnomes - a worse version of a universally hated race - how did they not see this coming? I play horde, btw

- - - Updated - - -

Considering blood elves still massively outnumber everyone else, and the second most popular allied race is void elf, I don't think the issue is in the faction imbalance.

The forbidden allied race is clearly the only option.

Alliance murlocs, obviously.

The solution seems so easy. Give alliance murlocs and give horde ogres.

[uopayroll]

I was looking out of curiosity at the mecha gnome numbers lately and was shocked about the overall numbers of allied races. I was guessing it was bad but not in that margin.

Zandalari Troll	5504	19,4	H
Void Elf	5089	17,9	A
Nightborne	3895	13,7	H
Vulpera	3686	13,0	H
Mag'thar Orc	3164	11,2	H
HighMountain Tauren	1913	6,7	H
Dark Iron	1833	6,5	A
Lightforged Draenei	1832	6,5	A
Kul Tiran	847	3,0	A
Mechagnome	591	2,1	A

(23.Jan.2020 Src: Warcraftrealms)
Only 31.7% of all allied races characters are Alliance. Given that the numbers of warcraftrealms aren't complete but the margin is big enough to see a strong trend here.
The only Alliance allied being able to compete are void elves. The rest is played less than the least played horde allied race (Lightforged and Darkiron are close but still less). Mechagnomes and Kul Tiran are over 6 times less played than their counterparts with Vulpera and Zandalari. (Who would have guessed )
Zandalari alone are more than Lightforged, Darkiron, Kultirans and Mechagnomes combined (19,4% vs 18,1%)

This is what happens when you give one side races that they wanted and the other one ones that they never asked for.

Considering that website clearly states

"How can YOU help? By taking a census of your own server using the CensusPlus UI Mod and submitting the data here! The more data we get, the more accurate and current this display becomes!"

that just means, of the people that downloaded the add on and helped populate a realm, those numbers show up. I filtered to my main realm and it said no data, so the site is useless as a tool to perform analysis. It does seem to be a good tool to jump to conclusions with though.

[Frenchvince]

During shadowlands, I hope that blizzard will also improve Allied races as soon as the basic races are done. Allied races also deserve to have more customizations and parentage options as the Bronzebeard Dwarves / Darkspear Trolls will receive.

For example, I would like:
- the elves of the void receive the high-elf option,
- the zandalari receive the forest / ice trolls option,
- the dark iron dwarfs receive the frostborn option,
- the highmountain tauren receive the Taunka option.

They need to have more "of everything" too!

[bowlink]

i like to point out that out of all the races the Worgen and Undead are the only ones that don't have an alied race based on them.

Human - Kultiran Human
Dwarf - Dark Iron Dwarf
Gnome - Mecha Gnome
Night elf - Nightborne
Draenei - Lightforged Draenei
Worgen - ????

Orc -Mag'har Orc
Troll - Zandalari Troll
Tauren - Highmountain Tauren
Undead - ????
Blood Elf - Void Elf
Goblin - Vulpera (ill admit this one is a bit of stretch)

And Pandaren don't get one for multible reason mainly because they start out neutral.

Blizzzard hasn't been clear if we will get anymore allied races at all, especially now that all the base races are getting more costumising options i don't remember if TBC and Cata races were included in that statement.

[Aeula]

Vulpera being higher than Mag’har.

Please no.

[paxen]

It's the "I wanna be pretty" thing, nothing more, nothing less. Zandalari and Mag'har are buff and statuesque, Vulpera are cute AF (and furry), and, well, Void Elves and Nightborne are elves.

Other stuff is rounding errors. Zandalari have dinos and paladins, but Kul Tirans have sick druid forms and direct links to the coolest part of BfA (Drustvar). It's a bit harder to grind rep for alliance races, which does have an effect, but Void Elves (hardest of the Legion races to unlock) are in second place.

[Claymore]

Allied Races were indeed a poorly thought-out idea. There's no uniformity, and Void Elves were a complete ass-pull if I've ever seen one.

Now Dark Irons, I will grant are a cool addition. However, like most everyone else, I think they'd have been far better served as additional racial options, not a completely separate race.

Horde definitely got *FAR* more attention put into some of their choices, though. Vulpera are essentially an entirely new fucking race (yes, they're based on the Goblin racial rig, but there is *NO* confusing them for Goblins). Also, Kul Tirans are... Alright, I'm just going to say it; whoever thought they were a good idea, needs to get fired. Yes; that person, family or no, needs to lose their job. It was THAT bad of a decision. Vrykul would've made a far more compelling addition, and the story could have easily fit them in (ie. the original Vrykul who left Northrend, with the first human offspring, wound up on what it now known as Kul Tiras, where a single clan retains their Vrykul traditions, despite being smaller than the giants of Northrend; you slowly win them over before recruiting them).

Zandalari, meanwhile, are a perfectly valid addition. Sure, they're also "just Trolls", but they actually feel like more than just "additional options". Although... I suppose if you allowed them to stand upright, there wouldn't be *that* much division between Zandalari and Darkspear Trolls, besides a little muscle mass.

Regardless...

Blizzard made their biases plain to everyone with this expansion. People have accused them of Horde favoritism since the game launched, but this is the first time it really felt inescapably true. The shame being, in terms of JUST the landscape, I actually think Kul Tiras was remarkably well designed (it actually feels "full-scale", unlike every other zone in the game which feels like a "miniaturized" version of what it's supposed to be).

At this point, I really don't know how Blizzard can salvage this. Allied Races are now just a big, convoluted mess, and because Racials are involved (and Blizzard continues to insist that Racials should include Power), they can't really "condense things down", either. If Regular and Lightforged Draenei were combined into a single race, then people would just bitch about losing Lightforged racials (lol). And again, the Vulpera are an entirely different race and species, meaning for it to be "fair" or "even", they would need to create something additionally for the Alliance.

I suppose their best bet would be to implement a genuinely new race for the Alliance (ie. Gnolls, or maybe the dragon-looking humanoids from Cataclysm), and go something equally forgettable as the "Mechagnomes" for the Horde (ie. "undead elves" or maybe the Wretched that use the Forsaken models).

[WraithKingOstarion]

i didnt think people really even cared about faction balance unless it came to world PVP/war mode fun, but i guess it's a genuine concern? does it really effect things like mythic raid progression for guilds?
play what race you find fun is all i have to say. who cares about the supposed imbalance if you're having fun with the race you love on the faction you enjoy being apart of?

[Laqweeta]

Do what private servers do, provide incentives.

20% increase rep gain for Alliance, guaranteed satchel reward for any role etc. Stuff like this usually balances factions out at around 45/55 favoring Horde.

Or, they could go pretty drastic - lock creation of horde characters until it evens out.

[Laqweeta]

Does it matter if the factions aren't 100% equal? How many players are you ever gonna realistically see at once anyways?

- - - Updated - - -



alliance get 30% bonus xp and world quest rewards, and a free 445 every week

That's all pitiful. 30% bonus XP is fine, but WQ stuff is literally just war resources, so who cares. Include 30% rep in that and people will flock to Alliance

[Kyphael]

Vulpera being higher than Mag’har.

Please no.

I'm shocked Highmountain are so damn high. It's Tauren with f'n antlers. Mag'har should be higher, all those different cool skin options representing all the different clans makes them much cooler than lame green Orcs. I have like 3 Mag'har myself.

[FlubberPuddy]

Vulpera being higher than Mag’har.

Please no.

What do people expect when Blood Elves became the most popular faction Horde side. People want to play something beautiful/cute/any adjective that would describe my little pony characters basically.

Gone are the days where you play Horde to be some monstrous caricature. Majority has always been about what's been conventionally attractive to the human eye (since we're all humans obviously).

[melodramocracy]

allied race should never have been implemented.

I’d say allied races being locked behind rep requirements should have never been implemented.

[Aeula]

What do people expect when Blood Elves became the most popular faction Horde side. People want to play something beautiful/cute/any adjective that would describe my little pony characters basically.

Gone are the days where you play Horde to be some monstrous caricature. Majority has always been about what's been conventionally attractive to the human eye (since we're all humans obviously).

Vulpera being attractive to the human eye is a fundamentally disgusting idea.