Massive migration from Alliance to Horde

[Khain]

I feel like they should lift faction restrictions for retail wow, there's very little RP left in the modern game to justify the split of this dwindling community.

[Sialina]

Firstly, the overall population between the factions in all regions is as close to 50-50 as it can get.
The myth that there are more Horde players have been debunked numerous times.

Secondly, who the fuck cares about BG's? Especially random BG's?
We were talking about THE HIGHEST of the highest players, top 100 mythic raider guilds.

It's saying that "dayum, these high end players keep ruining my random arena skirmishes"... There are literally no correlation there.
You can do rated BG's/arenas and you will most likely face people with the same rating, I can guarantee you that.

IDK what your BG example had to do with the topic at all.

You don't seem to understand what we are saying, the 1% don't play just with themselves. Yeah, they don't play with you, but they play with someone that played with someone that played with you. People you played with might've been alliance before, but they changed because of Horde having more pugs and a Deeper recruitment pool.
Then your friends go horde because they play mythic, they bring the casual parts of their guild with them, people that don't dabble in mythic raids.
On horde pugging a 20 key like you said is very easy, not so on alliance, you won't find many 20 keys on alliance, a few during prime hours, maybe.

Very few people play in a bubble, everyone knows someone.

Heck, go on raider.io and check the guilds that killed a single mythic boss and it all tells the same story, 70-80% horde.

we can speculate why realm data still shows close to 50/50, (even that is starting to slide, it's 56/44 horde/ally in EU now)
Is it because people want to experience the story on both sides? Gold making being a bit easier on ally?

Whatever the reason might be, if you want to do anything, and I mean anything, you want to be horde, and there are people, like me, that care about aesthetics, we just care more about being able to play the game.

Take myself for example
Be horde, play a race I dislike -> High m+, play with friends, easy HC pugs
Be alliance, play a race I like -> Low m+, rl friends on the other faction, HC puggs way less capable

oh, and I have 25 alliance characters and 3 horde, and I'm a horde main.

[Xilurm]

Except, they did address this already: there will not be cross-faction grouping because it goes against the core of what WoW is.

Why is it always Alliance players whining about this?
The alliance is more casual, it's that simple.

I'm Alliance and hate the idea of cross-faction or faction merge. If I wanted that I'd just play the other 100s of MMOs out there.

[Kithelle]

Yup....then you got the Horde hand wavers claiming that everything is fair and even claim the Devs show a Alliance bias.

- - - Updated - - -

Except, they did address this already: there will not be cross-faction grouping because it goes against the core of what WoW is.

Why is it always Alliance players whining about this?
The alliance is more casual, it's that simple.
Maybe if people took more time actually playing and improving at the game instead of whining about not getting the 4th version of playable elves to RP with in Golshire you wouldn't have this "issue".

Which is not an issue in itself as who cares what faction the top guilds are, they don't care either.
The only way you can force-migrate them back to Alliance is if you actually buffed alliance output by a shit ton.

And spoiler alert, even if you did that you did not fix shit, you simply switched the sides and now no-one plays horde.
So congratz.

Let people play what they want, you are not affected by the top 1% anyways, outside of high-end mythic raiding the factions are 50-50.

I agree with you...they should nerf Horde racials to be similar with Alliance so people can play what they want and not worry about something being slightly better! Glad you agree the Horde needs to be nerfed!

[Kyphael]

Not gonna matter in the next the expansion after SL, Factions will be cross so anyone can join any guild.

That's what we all thought would happen in Shadowlands, so I wouldn't hold my breath. Blizzard is married to the idea that the 2-Faction system defines WoW.

[Krimzin]

That's what we all thought would happen in Shadowlands, so I wouldn't hold my breath. Blizzard is married to the idea that the 2-Faction system defines WoW.

I disagree. I think they are paving the way for factions to be more open. From Mercing for the opposing faction to all the changes to Faction leaders, I think they are setting up for the future.

[Sialina]

I disagree. I think they are paving the way for factions to be more open. From Mercing for the opposing faction to all the changes to Faction leaders, I think they are setting up for the future.

I honestly think they can have the best of both worlds, keep open world stuff Horde versus Alliance, warmode on or not, keep the language barrier, the only thing we need is to be able to join a group for PvE as the opposite faction. That way they can do all the PvP stories the want, we can fight as much as we want, just when we go into an instance we are on the same team.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Factions are stupid and split up the playerbase, so people move to the better one where the majority of (good) players are.

Solution: Abolish factions.

I somewhat have to agree. Maybe not abolishing it, but certainly softening the restrictions. After all I can literally play for the opposite faction PvP but for PvE where we constantly work together the restriction is a rigit as it has been 15 years ago.

I kinda hope this trend continous and forces Blizzard to at least let people group with the opposite faction. Then I can at least play the characters that I want. I also low key hope this will prevent us from getting another shittastic faction war plot after SL, even though they already set it up with Turalyon & co.

[Kyphael]

I disagree. I think they are paving the way for factions to be more open. From Mercing for the opposing faction to all the changes to Faction leaders, I think they are setting up for the future.

I hope so, but I gave up hoping after expecting that in Shadowlands and instead getting more borrowed powers, covenants and nothing else new and exciting.

[Amsden]

They should have cross faction guilds and groups. Keep factions for story purposes, and turn off cross faction gameplay when warmode is on. Keeps what's left of WPVP alive without splitting the community in PVE.

That would allow me to go back to dwarf and human master races regardless of my guild's poor decisions

[Krimzin]

I honestly think they can have the best of both worlds, keep open world stuff Horde versus Alliance, warmode on or not, keep the language barrier, the only thing we need is to be able to join a group for PvE as the opposite faction. That way they can do all the PvP stories the want, we can fight as much as we want, just when we go into an instance we are on the same team.

I think its more about being to open up the social aspect of the game by not making people choose a Horde or Alliance guild just because they are a certain faction. I think it also opens up that many more faction transfers to people who want to play one side but still be able to join any guild. Blizzard is all about the money and If you think for a moment that if Blizzard figures another way to get paid, they are going to be all over it.
Even more so now that they are retiring the Appearance change from the Store.

[Beatman]

Firstly, the overall population between the factions in all regions is as close to 50-50 as it can get.
The myth that there are more Horde players have been debunked numerous times.

Secondly, who the fuck cares about BG's? Especially random BG's?
We were talking about THE HIGHEST of the highest players, top 100 mythic raider guilds.

It's saying that "dayum, these high end players keep ruining my random arena skirmishes"... There are literally no correlation there.
You can do rated BG's/arenas and you will most likely face people with the same rating, I can guarantee you that.

IDK what your BG example had to do with the topic at all.

It's one example. I even said that in my post. It's not a matter of caring about X content. It simply shows that the horde dominates more than just high difficulty content like mythic raiding and that your claim that this only affects 1% of players is pretentious.

[Daedius]

I'd suggest when it comes to raids and dungeons they should do away with faction division and let people group up so everyone gets the same player pool instead of this huge divide... but people want to retain said division...

There's a lot of nonsensical things already in the game, keep the lore of the divide there still... just for game play sake let all be able to group up.

[Sentynel]

Sad truth the answer to that question is Bloodlust.

Already in Classic that pulled the hardcore raiders towards Horde and the Alliance side really never recovered even though Bloodlust became avaviable to both sides.

Bloodlust is a BC thing.

[Doffen]

Sadly the cross faction thing had it last breath of hope flushed down the toilet with Shadowlands seeing the Horde and the Alliance are at "peace" now and still it didn't happen. Even with the teasing all over the place in 8.2/8.2.5.

And blizzard said that Tyrande is not happy with the Horde so they still thought factions matter. Hope I am wrong, but I moved on at least

[Sentynel]

You still don't get it.

I have never claimed that Horde didn't have more high end players. What I keep saying is that it DOES. NOT. MATTER.

Competition does not CARE whether you are red or blue.
Real competitors don't care what they are, that's why they are horde.

Being a high end player and doing that type of content is important TO THEM.
Casuals are not impacted the slightest, and by casuals I mean everyone under the 1%.

You keep saying that "but I have a more skilled playerbase to play with", no I don't.
Do you honestly think that I have ever even been in a group with a high end player? I'm casually doing +20 keys right now and I have never met one.
IT DOES NOT MATTER what color is in majority at the top 1%.

The single only reason it matters TO YOU is beacuse you would feel better if it was the other way around.

But hey, we can keep going back and forth, I can keep saying it doesn't matter and you will just keep saying "but there is more horde" like that is a counter argument when it isn't.
Let's see your proposed solution.

Should we give away free HC or Mythic gear for Alliance like they did in 8.2? That's fair.
Should we randomly reroll top-end guilds into Alliance? That's fair.
Should we buff Alliance racials to the point where they are literally broken so they transfer themselves? That's fair. And by the way, we have yet to have a world first with the last 2 alliad races and I personally think Mechagnome racials are beyond OP and the world first for 9.0 should be a raid full of Mechagnomes.

You don't provide solutions to your apparent "issue". Because it's a non-issue. Nobody is impacted but those who choose to participate. And at that level what matters to you is being top 100 or top 10 or WF, not being blue or red. That is the facts.

The thing is, it's not about the 1% anymore.

More and more people are going Horde because it's more populated at every level.

Forming a Warfront group (which is more of a casual content) as Alliance takes ages. Did the same on Horde side, I felt like I was a streamer or something because people just kept popping up in the queue.

Same goes for low-ish/semi-high M+ (level 15-19 range). You simply can't find decent Alliance players that you would invite to your group, whereas in Horde your group fills up within minutes with players that actually have a clue what to do.

Arenas and PvP content in general is no different. Alliance RBG scene is dead, no one plays it, at least in Horde you can put together a group of people in a matter of minutes and you can queue up even if you lose to tryhard hacker Russian fucktards.

The only solution to this problem is to enable cross-faction play. You'd have a larger pool to pick from no matter which side you're on, both for PvE and PvP. Why divide the remaining playerbase with this outdated bullshit system?

You can still have your shitty hOrDe vs AlLiAnCe in Classic, but retail should leave it behind for good. 16 years of this outdated concept was more than enough.

And stop pretending that it doesn't matter, because it does.

[Louz]

PvE, where players canonically band together/"overcome their differences" to fight for greater good - no crossfaction allowerd, "IT'S WARCRAFT, HORDE VS ALLIANCE!!!"

PvP, where players fight the opposite faction because "it's WARcraft" - feel free to join the opposite faction lmao

SL seemed like Blizz would finally come to senses, as the story (as stupid as it was in BfA) once again led to a truce, and with the covenants being the main thing, it felt like we would be able to play together regardless of factions, even if just in the Shadowlands.
But nah, good old status quo

[corebit]

Every year a thread like this pops up beating this dead horse. First time I saw a thread like this was back in 2015, and Midwinter was already considering switching to Horde.

No one at the high-end gives two fucks about the story, or aesthetics, or even racials now (since racials are so close). Mythic raiding has always had a small population, and that population keeps shrinking as more and more players get bored or get burned out. Recruitment of talented players is issue #1 for the absolute majority of progress guilds. It only makes sense that they all congregate to one single faction where they can easily recruit more players.

And I keep seeing the same stupid suggestions being made:
#1 Buff Alliance racials out the whazoo? It only swings the pendulum to the other end.
#2 Give out free heroic/mythic quality loot like BFA did with the weekly PVP quest? Again, same as #1, either loot is too good and everyone transfers or no one bothers.
#3 Provide free-transfers? This is not even a money problem.

At this point, the ONLY solution is to open up cross-faction grouping, but Blizzard will NOT pull this lever unless absolutely necessary, because it will completely shit on their Horde vs Alliance motif, which is pretty much the beating heart of the entire Warcraft series. It's one of those red lines that Blizzard won't cross.

[Ange]

By this reasoning shouldn't everyone be Alliance now for the shadowmeld skips.

Shadowmeld skip is for MDI pulls. BE AoE silence did not require more than 1 big pull and AoE, what everyone could do.
Legion also had trolls for raiding and somehow Blizzard "forgot" to check certain horder racials for raiding even in BfA - Azshara with trolls for easymode.

Fixing it will be difficult and will have its price.

What would it need to even consider progress raiders to change to ally? 3% DPS/HSP? 5% DPS/HPS? What kind of buffs could offset the issues with recruiting?

The sitting it out and letting first gather numbers (for years) will break the game in one way or another. They cant even blame the community for this, because its negligence over years and multiple expansions.

[Engal]

At this point, the ONLY solution is to open up cross-faction grouping, but Blizzard will NOT pull this lever unless absolutely necessary, because it will completely shit on their Horde vs Alliance motif, which is pretty much the beating heart of the entire Warcraft series. It's one of those red lines that Blizzard won't cross.

They could do it, and push the faction conflict upon guilds. Faction won't be relevant but faction guild can start wars and such, it'll make guild relevant in the lore and it'll bring more incentive on joigning one and playing as groups

They could just make five official guilds for the lore and PC's guild just have to pledge or be affiliated with one of those guilds.

'faction' conflict with still be there ( aka for example a Worgen / NE guilds that is at war with a Forsaken guild ) but you can group with whoemever you like anyway