If TBC becomes a thing, Blizzard needs to make "change" to prevent faction imbalance

[jzhbee]

And I did acknowledge in the OP that faction imbalance cannot be combated as a whole. And of course, it is player driven. But to repeat once more, we aren't talking about a "minor" 65-35 faction imbalance. If left unchanged the data we have available shows us that every single server ends up as a single faction in a very short amount of time, drastically and permanently changing the way the game is experienced for both factions. I am not aiming to perfectly balance the factions, but this one relatively minor change will single handed remove a huge incentive for PvE guilds to reroll to horde.

And yes, faction locks are most likely needed as well. What do you believe will go down better with the players: Faction locks or every single server being Flamelash-EU?

a)Blizzard doesn't have the full extent of private server data, so making the decision off of data that they did not compile is unlikely
b)Private server data can be skewed by a few different variables, including playerbase and knowledge (a lot of people who play Classic don't research at all, and just play the game).
c)Players will drive their own faction balance. Some people refuse to play on horde, and that's okay. Some people love Blood Elves, and that's okay. Don't change either.

[crazyman2]

I didn't start until TBC so I don't know if battlegroups were a thing before that, but I can't imagine "TBC classic" having so many people that you'd have more than one battlegroup. In BGs you're looking at faction imbalance across the entire population, not on a per-server basis. It probably makes it worse, but it also means there's absolutely nothing you can do about it without making *major* changes that are probably inappropriate

[Kaver]

Ok dumb it down for you

If someone when trying to make a character gets stopped and forced into the other faction instead of playing said other faction they will just not play

9 times out of 10 that is what will happen

As I said I understand what you are trying to argue, but what you're saying is simply not true.

[Protean]

Blizzard made MASSIVE changes to WoW Classic so that it is nothng like vanilla.

The core of vanilla gameplay is an in-game community. The FIRST thing they did was strike at the HEART of that by adding layers. That prevents people from being forced to socialize to organize quest kills at low levels. So they FIRST thing they did was try to KILL the in-game community. Right off the bat. That promoted an antisocial game play that did not exist in vanilla. Then they made the servers incredibly huge, which ALSO attacks and destroys the in-game community because with small server sizes found in vanilla, in-game communities are much easier to form.

So don't tell me they won't change anything. They absolutely did. And the changes were massive and missed the entire point of classic.

Stop blaming Blizzard for players being selfish elitist shits. Layers didn't prevent in-game communities.

[Aleksej89]

A lot of interesting points but i think most are moot.

Imho blizzard will just hook on TBC like a skin over Classic infrastructure and just leave it there

I think blizz will let TBC be 99% horde and wont even consider a solution cause its not worth the dev/design costs.

[Hashtronaut]

The biggest issue with faction in balance, is the long bg queue times that ensue on horde as a results.

If they did the mercenary thing for bgs (ability queuing up on underrepresented faction) that would fix any problem I would have. Then they can let the servers be all horde for all I care.

[Thundering]

If Classic is anything to go by, Blizzard will not change anything.

Their primary objective has been authenticity from a gameplay perspective and only changed things when the actual change didn't have much of an impact on the experience as far as gameplay is concerned (like hiding the Number of which AV you are going to join).

Giving Alliance Paladins Seal of Blood just for the sake of Faction Balance is thus unlikely, because it is a clear deviation from it.

I mean, let's just assume for second that the Paladin / Shaman situation in Classic would have been far more in the favour of one of the two, would Blizzard have changed it?
I doubt it personally.

It's a difficult call, because one can argue that the Horde Paladins being better was quite frankly a part of it, similiar to how DoT Classes were crippled by the debuff cap, despite Blizzard having the power to remove it.
The other side of it is that you're intentionally screwing with player experience for the sake of authenticity because of a single spell.

However, in regards to re rolling, unless Blizzard chooses to hard reset the TBC launch via starting from level 1 or 58 pre mades, i doubt you will see a lot of people re rolling.
Yeah, the try hard Alliance players will level a Horde character to switch over once TBC hits, but i don't think a lot of people will throw all of their 60 Alliance characters (alongside vanity stuff) away to have a slight advantage in TBC.

But if they're going to start from scratch and don't add Seal of Blood to the Alliance, you will see a massive Imbalance in favour of Horde across the board.



To be fair, that effect kicked in on quite a few servers thanks to the release of the honor system without BG's.
My server went from "slightly Horde favored" to "No Alliance here" within two months (thanks Blizzard for keeping free character transfer open in EU).

Blizzard change what they want,

Like paladin reckoning is nerfed, av can be group qued ect.... There is many changes.


There is already pretty big issues and TBC will be worse,
If they want to keep some form of Alliance they need to
Balance racials a bit.
Balance retribution paladins.

Othervise the game will brake like retail.

[Synical123]

Most importantly I'd say give Alliance what was it, Seal of the Martyr? The equivalent to Seal of Blood they added in I think the pre-Wrath patch.

I don’t see an issue with it tbh. I don’t think this would really fix the issue tho

[FelPlague]

I've always wondered why they didn't try to force the servers to be a little more balanced.

But I don't see them implementing your suggestion.

Edit: to the poster below me...they could have made a few servers where you couldn't roll on the more-populated faction or something. I mean nobody would ever be happy all the time, but there's ways they could have encouraged it.

Then you would have about 10 balanced servers
And 50 servers that have 0 alliance and only horde

[Thundering]

I don’t see an issue with it tbh. I don’t think this would really fix the issue tho

For Retribution paladins it would fix alot, Retri is broken without seal of blood untill T5+.

[A Chozo]

Balanced factions isn't a feature of tBC, and players like to be the overwhelming majority in a server. They think it's fun.

[Coldfrostzero]

If they gave Horde Paladins Seal of Vengeance I would be fine with it. Make it work like Wrath as well where once you hit 5 stacks, you deal direct Holy damage when it refreshes.

Gives Alliance Ret paladins a no RNG DPS seal and Horde Prot Paladins a better option for tanking.

[Unholyground]

It is a non issue on PvE servers so it really doesn't matter for the most part.

- - - Updated - - -

If they gave Horde Paladins Seal of Vengeance I would be fine with it. Make it work like Wrath as well where once you hit 5 stacks, you deal direct Holy damage when it refreshes.

Gives Alliance Ret paladins a no RNG DPS seal and Horde Prot Paladins a better option for tanking.

What were the ability differences I completely forgot.

[Ielenia]

And I did acknowledge in the OP that faction imbalance cannot be combated as a whole. And of course, it is player driven. But to repeat once more, we aren't talking about a "minor" 65-35 faction imbalance. If left unchanged the data we have available shows us that every single server ends up as a single faction in a very short amount of time, drastically and permanently changing the way the game is experienced for both factions. I am not aiming to perfectly balance the factions, but this one relatively minor change will single handed remove a huge incentive for PvE guilds to reroll to horde.

There is nothing that Blizzard can do about that short of actively blocking people from making characters of a given faction. The current state of 'faction balance' is the result of the Horde having the best racials for the longest time back during the game's earliest life, which led to the overwhelming majority of serious raiders and PvP'ers switching to Horde... and remaining Horde after the racials were better balanced.

And yes, faction locks are most likely needed as well. What do you believe will go down better with the players: Faction locks or every single server being Flamelash-EU?

What I think will "go down better" with the players? Every single server being Flamelash-EU. Because it'll allow you to pick the best-looking race. Because it'll allow you to pick the race with the best racials. Because it'll allow you to choose which faction with the best lore. Because it'll allow you to play with friends.

[Thundering]

There is nothing that Blizzard can do about that short of actively blocking people from making characters of a given faction. The current state of 'faction balance' is the result of the Horde having the best racials for the longest time back during the game's earliest life, which led to the overwhelming majority of serious raiders and PvP'ers switching to Horde... and remaining Horde after the racials were better balanced.


What I think will "go down better" with the players? Every single server being Flamelash-EU. Because it'll allow you to pick the best-looking race. Because it'll allow you to pick the race with the best racials. Because it'll allow you to choose which faction with the best lore. Because it'll allow you to play with friends.

If racials had been balanced i think it would have been a more 50/50 ratio in retail and that would most likly have made story telling for both sides a prio.
But since Horde has become Dominante due to better racials Half the game has died....

For the short peroids where Alliance had better racials the Alliance goten a bigger population.

[Shibito]

Most importantly I'd say give Alliance what was it, Seal of the Martyr? The equivalent to Seal of Blood they added in I think the pre-Wrath patch.

Thats the lvl 62 spell paladins get in tbc

- - - Updated - - -

So all it comes down too is a alliance player wanting changes since he cant have blood elves.

[vitor210]

This will never happen and you know why? Because modern day playerbase cries about everything. If you don't implement, most pvp servers will be horde favored andd alliance will complain. If you implement this, horde players will complain Blizzard is favoring Alliance.

[Synical123]

For Retribution paladins it would fix alot, Retri is broken without seal of blood untill T5+.

I know it would, but I don’t think it’s going to fix the problem if there is one. I would even wager if the seals were completely swapped and ally got blood and horde got martyr then the faction imbalance toward horde would still be there. Unfortunately it’s a community created problem that blizzard can’t really do too much to fix without making the game feel quite a bit different.

And I’m not advocating that #nochanges mindset where I want the game to be EXACTLY like it was back in the day but there is a point where changes start to ruin the integrity of tbc. And of course these are all subjective. For example, I personally believe that the sunwell patch that removes attunements and adds that vendor that gives you gear better or equiv gear to BT needs to be removed completely. But some might believe this is a crucial part of tbc

[Ragedaug]

The only way to balance the world population between the two factions is to make world PVP fair. Since next to no one playing on any PVP servers wants fair world PVP, the population will never be balanced. Since PVPers don't want fair PVP while also not wanting to be on the disadvantaged faction, they will simply reroll or transfer to servers that are imbalanced in their favor. If Blizzard comes down and tries to take an iron-fist approach to force players to play on a server they don't want, or not to play on servers they do want, those players will just stop playing WoW.

Unfair, no rules PVP leads to imbalanced servers ==> leads to folks in the lesser populated faction not going out into the world ==> leads to the death of World PVP.


WoW open world PVP is like playing checkers where you start with only 4 checkers and your opponent has all 12 of his. You complain that it's not fair, and voice suggestions on how to make checkers more fair. For your trouble you are told that this type of checkers isn't for you, that you should play against the computer or not at all. Then your previous opponents starts complaining that there isn't anyone to play checkers against and bemoans the fact that Milton Bradley isn't forcing people to play checkers with him.

[justandulas]

Or you could just roll horde. Nothing blizzard can or will do will change people rolling horde