Faction imbalance a social issue? Requiring a social solution?

[ravenmoon]

I know.

If you ask me, we talk about what's "core" for each faction and in terms of the Elves, the Arcane Elves (Blood Elves) were the first playable iteration of Arcane Elves in WoW and we had that very clear distinction between what Night Elves and Blood Elves stood for. Now though, with Nelf Mages - that is when it truly became muddled, because Blizzard tried to do something with them and it just didn't work.

Tanny, the way the game is currently, is dull for the lore and taking sides in a faction.

This is because the alliance is lame. One of the main reasons the alliance feels lame is because one of it's founding core races is sitting with the best of its features, and very alliance type character on the horde, either forcing you to switch to the horde and get a sub-par story , (because blood elves, being essentially high elves and very alliancey, will never dominate the horde story line as it would make the obvious alliance influence even more plain).

you're really not getting it, it's dull and un-exciting, not just because of the elves, but you really aren't seeing it if you think that the horde keeping blood elves in such a shiny state isn't having a major impact on both the alliance and the players. it is well beyond social issues, this is part of the driving force of why the population problem ahs become a social issue, or you don't realise it had to start a trend to the red side first before it got to this stage.

The thing is with the passionate people, they all go horde, this is where the most exciting things happen and the coolest things go and where most people congregate, no one who like or plays the alliance is inspired.. but how can they be? The best of the night elves went horde with the Nightborne, the best alliance core race, the high elves went horde, what's left is boring , and dull and no effort to improve it.


But they don't believe this actually is a factor, they are wrong.. the casuals aren't inspired to play wow more, because it's just a game, the fantasy /lore part of it is usually the source of inspiration, and it is so poorly managed and promoted. You use to be excited about what race you played and what faction you picked, it has no meaning now, this is a huge plus for Warcraft that his being eroded by this mixing on the horde.. it is very important, without it, you just come on for a bit of fun, liek you would a sports game, it's enough for a small past time, but not enough for a fandom.

Warcraft is not inspiring any more fans anymore, because the story/lore, the passion originally generated through the faction systems is all gone.. because of what they have done/ And warcraft will go into the ground and they will never see it coming, because they don't want to believe this is a problem.

Nor will they read my posts, because clever fans like you are actively blocking any post or topic that hints this, and I'm not active everywhere you are to call you out on it and explain, , plus they'll never read this.

they don't understand the value of inspiration, and fandom. The difference between a sports game and a religion/obsession - that's why they have pretty much acted so callously with their lore, changing it for every slight gameplay reason they needed, without doing a competent job of properly executing the changes form a lore perspective.

Warcraft is not inspiring any longer at all. They forget Warcraft was popular based on its red vs blue - this is its thing, and it's niche and now, it's all jumbled up, that part has little meaning and losing more, and with it goes all the flavour and heart that was Warcraft.

It will have to redefine it self or return to its roots to avoid dying completely. I don't think the people that work there care about it in this way to realise this is what they need to do. And I'm willing to bet neither you or the majority of those who don't like hat i have to say would bother to read this response. It marks our time, no one wants to listen properly. If it's not a one liner, attention is gone, only interested in what they wanna say.

[Rhlor]

Tanny, the way the game is currently, is dull for the lore and taking sides in a faction.

This is because the alliance is lame. One of the main reasons the alliance feels lame is because one of it's founding core races is sitting with the best of its features, and very alliance type character on the horde, either forcing you to switch to the horde and get a sub-par story , (because blood elves, being essentially high elves and very alliancey, will never dominate the horde story line as it would make the obvious alliance influence even more plain).

you're really not getting it, it's dull and un-exciting, not just because of the elves, but you really aren't seeing it if you think that the horde keeping blood elves in such a shiny state isn't having a major impact on both the alliance and the players. it is well beyond social issues, this is part of the driving force of why the population problem ahs become a social issue, or you don't realise it had to start a trend to the red side first before it got to this stage.

The thing is with the passionate people, they all go horde, this is where the most exciting things happen and the coolest things go and where most people congregate, no one who like or plays the alliance is inspired.. but how can they be? The best of the night elves went horde with the Nightborne, the best alliance core race, the high elves went horde, what's left is boring , and dull and no effort to improve it.


But they don't believe this actually is a factor, they are wrong.. the casuals aren't inspired to play wow more, because it's just a game, the fantasy /lore part of it is usually the source of inspiration, and it is so poorly managed and promoted. You use to be excited about what race you played and what faction you picked, it has no meaning now, this is a huge plus for Warcraft that his being eroded by this mixing on the horde.. it is very important, without it, you just come on for a bit of fun, liek you would a sports game, it's enough for a small past time, but not enough for a fandom.

Warcraft is not inspiring any more fans anymore, because the story/lore, the passion originally generated through the faction systems is all gone.. because of what they have done/ And warcraft will go into the ground and they will never see it coming, because they don't want to believe this is a problem.

Nor will they read my posts, because clever fans like you are actively blocking any post or topic that hints this, and I'm not active everywhere you are to call you out on it and explain, , plus they'll never read this.

they don't understand the value of inspiration, and fandom. The difference between a sports game and a religion/obsession - that's why they have pretty much acted so callously with their lore, changing it for every slight gameplay reason they needed, without doing a competent job of properly executing the changes form a lore perspective.

Warcraft is not inspiring any longer at all. They forget Warcraft was popular based on its red vs blue - this is its thing, and it's niche and now, it's all jumbled up, that part has little meaning and losing more, and with it goes all the flavour and heart that was Warcraft.

It will have to redefine it self or return to its roots to avoid dying completely. I don't think the people that work there care about it in this way to realise this is what they need to do. And I'm willing to bet neither you or the majority of those who don't like hat i have to say would bother to read this response. It marks our time, no one wants to listen properly. If it's not a one liner, attention is gone, only interested in what they wanna say.

do you read the answers of this thread? Almost everyone here knows that the problem was that the horde has better racials than the alliance and that the only way to improve this is to give it better racials.

there is no population imbalance in the number of players as a whole. the difference is that in the horde there are more M + and PvP players and in the alliance there are more casual players, RP and battle pet.

if you want more M + and PvP players to go to the alliance you have to give them an advantage

[Tanaria]

SNIP.

All what you said is your personal feelings on a none-issue.

Do you know the best time of WoW was WoTLK. Back when the Alliance and Horde real distinctions and yes - that included the Blood Elves being on the Horde.
WoW losing subs has nothing to do with Blood Elves, Silvermoon and Quel'Thalas being on the Horde. It never has. It's to do with bad system designs and bad class designs. I can tell you, the covenant system is awful. I hate it. Every Wednesday night feels like a chore, having to gather 1000 anima and then rescue 20 souls.

Plus, the playerbase ages, people move on - people start families, get jobs, go travelling. It's all part of people moving on. Two races of Elves being on the Horde has nothing to do with this. Only a small portion of players, who didn't like Blood Elves, who clearly didn't have much of impact, considering the subs were at an all time high in 2010, when Blood Elves were a fully-fledged Horde race.

And Nightborne aesthetics and player models are nowhere near the scale of Night Elves or Blood Elves. Why do you think Night Elves are far more popular than Nightborne? Because Night Elves look better. Again, the reason you whine about Horde Elves is because Blizzard created that distinction in WoW, where the Arcane Elves were a "Horde thing" with the Blood Elves, being the first playable iteration of Arcane Elves in Arcane City. Now, you have read the lore about how Blood Elves descend from Highborne Night Elves and how you want everything that comes under the "Highborne" to be Alliance, but that really won't happen, because the distinction between Highborne descendants and common Night Elves was made in TBC and that is what many people, night elf and blood elf fans alike, really loved.

Do you know, I'd love for Blizzard to delete nelf mages because they created this muddle in the first place, but that isn't going to happen.

[HateTrain]

...the *plunk* of a crap splashing down into the water...

If I had too much time on my hands I guarantee that I can tie my most disliked part of the lore into why any problem exists with the game too.

[Minikin]

nah, horde racials were OP for too long and now that they're even the damage is done. People join Horde because there are more horde players doing the content they want to do. It's just that simple.

This man gets it.

As for the story. OP you gotta give me more than "horde is awesome and alliance is lame". Give me some examples man.

[ravenmoon]

All what you said is your personal feelings on a none-issue.

My personal feelings matter to me you know. but just because you call it "my personal feelings" doesn't mean it is.

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If I had too much time on my hands I guarantee that I can tie my most disliked part of the lore into why any problem exists with the game too.

Living up to your avatar name, i see. Don't mind me.

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do you read the answers of this thread? Almost everyone here knows that the problem was that the horde has better racials than the alliance and that the only way to improve this is to give it better racials.

there is no population imbalance in the number of players as a whole. the difference is that in the horde there are more M + and PvP players and in the alliance there are more casual players, RP and battle pet.

if you want more M + and PvP players to go to the alliance you have to give them an advantage

I don't agree with "almost everyone"

[Mysterymask]

You're screaming at a brick wall man. Doesn't matter how much logic and truth you use, it's still a brick wall.

You may of just described MMO Champion Forums in one sentence

[Rhlor]

My personal feelings matter to me you know. but just because you call it "my personal feelings" doesn't mean it is.

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Living up to your avatar name, i see. Don't mind me.

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I don't agree with "almost everyone"

Seriously man, could you please accept something that we all know to be true?

method went to the horde to be able to make content at the end of the game, do you think he would return to the alliance because in the lore it says that suramar belongs to the alliance? or would they return to the alliance because racial allows them to do the first world kill?

the answer is obvious, racial.

If you want to steal content from the horde, look for a better excuse because this is the worst you could think of.

[Wilfire]

The solution to faction imbalances is giving factions things to actually do. Why the fuck, in a game that boasts 2 million people, all goals are solo or small group-oriented? Would it kill them to give the Horde and the Alliance faction-wide goals to work towards with faction-wide rewards? You know, actually have people work together instead of fighting each other over r.io score in LFG?

[Araevin]

not really. in order to fix it Blizzard would have to make Alliance Racials OP then completely rework racials again to make things balanced.

Or just let you create cross faction groups and communities (and maybe even guilds). The main issue imo is not faction identity; that is just the issue that is easy to present. The real issue is trolling. They are afraid to open groups to cross faction pugs cause the trolling would be insane. It's why you don't really know who joined your group as a mercenary in random BGs. I legit expect that if we could suddenly have cross faction PuGs there would be a significant increase in the number of people who just try to get into M+ PuGs to ruin people's keys. Yet if cross faction grouping was limited through social means, through cross faction guilds or communities, several players who play Horde now because that's where the top level action is, would switch to Alliance because they prefer the story/aesthetics of that side over the Horde.

[SoundOfGuns]

To be honest, the alliance is not distinct enough from the horde, and not focused enough at all, nothing screams exciting, or come to the alliance for anyone. The only thing going for it is if you look at the player models and prefer the look of a race that is on it.. but when you get into the game, the story, and as things come in expansions and patches, it's horde that's clearly the place to be.. only blizzard won't admit it because they're in the same bubble and bias.

I honestly couldn't disagree more to the second part, while i agree to the first. The Horde has been kicked in the shins for the better part of 16 years of WoW, had most of its Warcraft 3 Parentcharacters nixed left and right like it's on sale, showing ineptitude at its finest by design and on and on. The Alliance got to be the Heros of every story that had a dedicated Hero. The Horde only got to be Heroes when the other half turned Villian. This happened two times on an expansion spanning scale and the Horde never even got to actually resolve it themselves without the great Heroes of the Alliance helping the pittiful Horde to clean up their mess. Even now the entire expansion is essentially "lol bad horde lead turned villian 2, electric boogalo; the reckoning" and i like to point out that i played on both sides with a ton of characters for those whole 16 years i am playing this, so i am certainly not in that supposed bubble with that supposed bias.

While i totally agree that it is fun to get your shit kicked in... this is a constant for the Horde in WoWs greater schemes and around the time Sylvanas turned villian the novelity was not only worn off but actually stinking off decay, escalating to something i would put on the same level as a vomitted turd made of pigeon guts when Saurfang got lolled out of the game.

[Araevin]

I honestly couldn't disagree more to the second part, while i agree to the first. The Horde has been kicked in the shins for the better part of 16 years of WoW, had most of its Warcraft 3 Parentcharacters nixed left and right like it's on sale, showing ineptitude at its finest by design and on and on. The Alliance got to be the Heros of every story that had a dedicated Hero. The Horde only got to be Heroes when the other half turned Villian. This happened two times on an expansion spanning scale and the Horde never even got to actually resolve it themselves without the great Heroes of the Alliance helping the pittiful Horde to clean up their mess. Even now the entire expansion is essentially "lol bad horde lead turned villian 2, electric boogalo; the reckoning" and i like to point out that i played on both sides with a ton of characters for those whole 16 years i am playing this, so i am certainly not in that supposed bubble with that supposed bias.

I think in general the story is not really rewarding for either faction. The Alliance only gets to be heroes when their heroes are treated as neutral and never gets to feel they actually win a faction war (even though practically they have won every one of them except for the First War). The Horde on the other side as you said constantly gets hit by the villain bat and have had most of their recognizable characters killed.

[Lei]

So what exactly is the so called "social solution"? Will they make posters like the old war recruitment posters "Bring one of your skilled m+ friend to the alliance!"? "The call of duty! Join the alliance! For (the) horde and country!" Or what? If they suddenly make alliance racials super OP, they will just bump the scale of imbalance to the other side. And then they'd have to keep it for a while, because some people would be "tourists" only. At this point I think the only real solution is to let alliance and horde to "instance" together.

[Araevin]

So what exactly is the so called "social soltution"? Will they make posters like the old war recruitment posters "Bring one of your skilled m+ friend to the alliance!"? "The call of duty! Join the alliance! For (the) horde and country!" Or what? If they suddenly make alliance racials super OP, they will just bump the scale of imbalance to the other side. And then they'd have to keep it for a while, because some people would be "tourists" only. At this point I think the only real solution is to let alliance and horde to "instance" together.

Well there is another solution. Increase engagement. If we had a significantly larger number of people doing M+ and Mythic raiding then the Alliance would not struggle to form groups.

[Gorsameth]

The solution to faction imbalances is giving factions things to actually do. Why the fuck, in a game that boasts 2 million people, all goals are solo or small group-oriented? Would it kill them to give the Horde and the Alliance faction-wide goals to work towards with faction-wide rewards? You know, actually have people work together instead of fighting each other over r.io score in LFG?

That would do the opposite of what you want. Horde is bigger and has "better" players who will complete their faction goals quicker/easier. And giving rewards to the smaller faction wouldn't fix it in the same way that WM hasn't fixed it and the Faction Hall of Fame hasn't fixed it.

The single most important issue with the faction imbalance is that on Horde you have 10.000 people to do serious PvE with and on Alliance you have 1000. (numbers obviously out of my ass)
That is the problem you need to 'fix' if you want to address faction imbalance.
People switching to Horde when they want to find a new guild or guilds switching when they can't find new recruits is not because of Lore or activities or 'Horde favouritism'. Its simply that there are more people to pug with, more guilds to chose from and more potential recruits for those guilds.

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Well there is another solution. Increase engagement. If we had a significantly larger number of people doing M+ and Mythic raiding then the Alliance would not struggle to form groups.

Except those people would go play Horde because that is where everyone already is. The problem has been ignored for way to long for a fix like that. Not to mention "lol just get another few million players" is not a solution.

[Rovsnegl]

You don't think the top PVPers went horde because it gave them an advantage? Will of the Forsaken, Hardiness, Warstomp, Blood Fury, Berserking, Arcane Torrent - all of these gave the Horde a major advantage for so long. And I firmly believe that were the PvP crowd goes, the PvE crowd follows too.

Not like everyone in PvP Was human in MoP Because of Every Man for himself, being able to have two dps trinkets while still having a pvp trinket, Blood Fury and Berserking is hardly noticible and Will of the Forsaken is just a worse Every Man for himself

[Yriel]

The Alliance only gets to be heroes when their heroes are treated as neutral and never gets to feel they actually win a faction war

I wonder what it would take to make the Alliance players "feel they actually win a faction war"...

[ravenmoon]

Seriously man, could you please accept something that we all know to be true?

method went to the horde to be able to make content at the end of the game, do you think he would return to the alliance because in the lore it says that suramar belongs to the alliance? or would they return to the alliance because racial allows them to do the first world kill?

the answer is obvious, racial.

If you want to steal content from the horde, look for a better excuse because this is the worst you could think of.

And as a person who's played this for 17 years nearly, thought and written an incredible amount on this over that time, can you appreciate I may be seeing something you don't and that understanding it would take more than one liner catch phrases to say. I did address your observation in the high elf discussion thread, acknowledged the impact racials would have, but also took time to explain to you why this is neither the root or heart of the issue, nor the best way to address it.

Just because you think everyone here agrees with you and haven't talent he time to try to understand, doesn't mean I am wrong. Sometimes, when people have great insights about a thing, it's not common, and when it feels so out there because it's not in the usual mindset, it takes a while to understand, you should then at least make the effort to try and see, but you won't do that, b y quick skimming and fast replies. I notice you don't even bother to properly quote the sections you are replying to, tells you don't take the time to go through this properly.

[HateTrain]

Living up to your avatar name, i see. Don't mind me.

I see that you didn't deny that you're pushing your gimmicky bullshit "Lol take Belfs/Nightborne form hord". Folks, that's all this is. This gimmick knows next to nothing about why the game is in the state it is, but they're sure it's related to the weird obsession of removing elf races from the Horde. It's a ridiculous take in the first place, but to double down like this *chef's kiss*.

And as a person who's played this for 17 years nearly, thought and written an incredible amount on this over that time, can you appreciate I may be seeing something you don't and that understanding it would take more than one liner catch phrases to say. I did address your observation in the high elf discussion thread, acknowledged the impact racials would have, but also took time to explain to you why this is neither the root or heart of the issue, nor the best way to address it.

Just because you think everyone here agrees with you and haven't talent he time to try to understand, doesn't mean I am wrong. Sometimes, when people have great insights about a thing, it's not common, and when it feels so out there because it's not in the usual mindset, it takes a while to understand, you should then at least make the effort to try and see, but you won't do that, b y quick skimming and fast replies. I notice you don't even bother to properly quote the sections you are replying to, tells you don't take the time to go through this properly.

Okey dokey, this is getting past the point of silly. Did you just seriously use "you just don't understand my greatness"? WOW. You might have gone from the worst poster to the greatest. I'm a fan now. Once you realize that this is a performance, it's actually pretty interesting.

[kamuimac]

do you buy that?

Sounds to me a self created social issue, when you over 14 years pull all the cool the horde way, and all the best attributes that identified the alliance were present on the horde when the blood elves went over - effectively made the alliance fairly redundant and the horde having the best picks of what was to offer.


The observation is that end game content is heavily skewed in favour of the horde, they at least acknoweldge this, and feel this is purely social. Oh dear.. they just don't see.. ever asked themselves why?


I'll tell you why, because people who get into Warcraft go horde - everything is horde centric when you get into the game, from the lore , state, all the best things going, and this has created a buzz for the players who actually keep wow going.

Overall they say the populations are pretty even - but why are most casuals only alliance, because it doesn't matter who you play when you are casual, and most of those are old people (form the RTS days who stopped engaging with the game) or new people, who play humans because the models of every other race is just weird(yes they look weird - even blood elves with their overly long ears) I w ill never forget my first reaction to seeing Warcraft elves, I thought they looked terrible, the style has grown on me since though the overly large hands, and ears and eyebrows, but I got into the game.



My Opinion and Observation

If oyu really want to know what I think, here it is, otherwise the paragraphs above is the jist in a nutshell.

To be honest, the alliance is not distinct enough from the horde, and not focused enough at all, nothing screams exciting, or come to the alliance for anyone. The only thing going for it is if you look at the player models and prefer the look of a race that is on it.. but when you get into the game, the story, and as things come in expansions and patches, it's horde that's clearly the place to be.. only blizzard won't admit it because they're in the same bubble and bias.

Ever stepped outside Warcraft, and played a game like Wildstar, Swtor - games that have two factions or more, so including Elder scrolls and FFXIV - having followed those games and world of Warcraft, I can assure you I have never seen anywhere a faction more heavily pushed and favoured in a two faction system than the horde has been in the world of Warcraft over the last 14 years.

in my experience, it is easy to see, I have found it is horde fans, the real ones that never seem to accept this because they are so into the horde and any slight disfavour they thing that blizzard is favouring the alliance.. but if blizzard is favouring the alliance, why doe the horde always get the cooler things and are always at the centre of the story for world of Warcraft? The alliance in Warcraft has been super lame.. when you play SWTOR, TESO, groups like the Republic, the Aldmeri Dominion or Daggerfall Covenant, you never get the impression that one is more favoured than the other or more lame than it's opposite counterpart, regardless of how the story goes.. but in Warcraft you do.

Sounds to me they need to examine this mixture and decide what to do. But as it stands right now, for anyone who gets more involved in Warcraft, the horde is the cooler place to be. It has everything.. alliance elements, and horde elements alike .. it makes the alliance mostly redundant and they don't care enough to raise it's profile because they've mixed it up to much.

One solution out of it would be to take elven civilizations which are very alliance themed, away from the horde and exclusive to the alliance, and build a new concept on the horde with the blood elves and Nightborne that is more unique, then promoting both sides for what they are.

The only other solution is that faction doesn't matter anymore... and this is where they are going. In my opinion the blood elves on the horde and failure to sufficiently support and distinguish the alliance post a high elf exit, has muddles and completely undermined what the factions stood for and meant. They were built on the alliance standing for one type of things (humans, elves , dwarves - their concept of life, civilization, structure, justice, nobility, arcane magic etc) and the horde standing for something else. They changed this, but they did this by bringing more alliance elements into the horde, and then focusing all their attention there, this meant the factions looked less distinct over time, and as such had little meaning. And with all the attention /focus on the horde, the alliance seems secondary.

the faction concept and presentation is broken and flawed, this is why it's having so much trouble. There is little separating them, and little reason to pick the alliance over the horde from any vantage point Horde looks better, horde has better (even of the things the alliance is supposed to be about - and that's thanks to blood elf and Nightborne stuff being too high elven and kaldorei empire based which are too alliance themed)


The solution I has always been to take the horde in a more alien direction, but not a more alliance one, can you reverse what's been done? The only way would be for the blood elves and Nightborne to lose the alliance based civilizations and to remove that stuff form the horde, making the horde elves become something different, while the alliance ones double down on those things. Ensure that the horde becomes is cool, but the alliance also remains a powerful and visible symbol - then fix the social issues , and things will even out...otherwise, scrap the factions .. focus on individual stories of great characters, and let everyone hold hands and fight demons.

horde is just more fun .

reality is that void elves should have been introduced around cata - alongside with 1-2 extra sexy races - then allience would have muhc more players.