Faction imbalance a social issue? Requiring a social solution?

[Simple Rick]

Alliance needs more metal races (like heavy metal, not metallic). Horde has a mix of cutesy and metal. Alliance only has cutesy for the most part. Worgen were a good start, but the models were so bad for so long that they are only now getting more popular.

Give them Vrykul, Drust, Man'ari eredar, Krokul broken, saberon, or sethrak. Maybe even go all out and flip the script like with Blood Elves and give Alliance Gorian ogres from Draenor. Do something big like that and watch the players flow into Alliance en masse, just like happened when the Horde got vulpera. I like Kul Tirans and mechagnomes personally, but I have no illusions about how unpopular they are with most players.

It wouldn't matter... the good players have picked their side since mop utterly broke the racial balance. The only way to revitalize the alliance end game scene would be to give them op racials then watch the horde die.

The best option would be to remove factions as this game has and still is doing a terrible job making factions matter from anything other then a world pvp perspective.

[Rhlor]

As a mainly Alliance player, I find this really interesting as I tend to feel we're the worst written faction. As much as the Horde was dragged through the mud in BfA, they actually had plot & character movement throughout the expansion. The Alliance on the other hand spent most of the expansion basically watching the Horde. We had the Jaina stuff in the beginning, then we spied on the Horde and helped save Baine. Our characters & faction aside from Jaina were really just window dressing. Admittedly, I have been bitter about the faction writing ever since the Horde had a major role in setting up Vol'jin's revolution while the Alliance played with a robo-cat, so I may have read more into what happened than the devs intended.

Either way, I definitely think both factions need better writing. Neither one should be inherently "evil" in what they are doing, nor should either one just be ignored. If Blizz can't give both factions real writing, then IMO they are doing their players a disservice by continuing to keep them split.


Agreed. There are so many good stories to tell on a race level that constantly get ignored. How is the cleanup of Gilneas going? Where are the Forsaken/Night Elves/Mag'har Orcs going to live now? And how does each race feel about the conflicts at hand?

Personally, I'd love to see them ensure each playable race has a capital city/area. Then, move in some breadcrumb quests to those capital cities each patch while the leader or someone related to them talks about what is going on in each area and how the race feels about it. Imagine the lore you might get from a simple line of dialog with the Forsaken leader talking about how they rebuild post Sylvanas. Or the Pandaren racial leaders looking at the chaos that N'Zoth was inflicting upon the Vale.

I'd also like to see a quest chain for each race per expansion just showing their progress in some race related task. Doesn't have to be a long one, but too many of WoW's races just languish for years with no real story or movement in the plot.

you can't understand how we feel about all this shit! Can you imagine that Varian said the alliance is nothing and kill Genn? that happened to us!

You can't imagine how frustrating everything we horde players are going through is writing about how blizzard blatantly lies to us "sylvanas is not garrosh" "BFA is not mop 2.0" as characters like varok or rastakan die and characters like Sylvanas and Gallywix betray us. it sucks!

It would be great to have races campaigns as we had a class campaign in legion!

[AngerFork]

you can't understand how we feel about all this shit! Can you imagine that Varian said the alliance is nothing and kill Genn? that happened to us!

You can't imagine how frustrating everything we horde players are going through is writing about how blizzard blatantly lies to us "sylvanas is not garrosh" "BFA is not mop 2.0" as characters like varok or rastakan die and characters like Sylvanas and Gallywix betray us. it sucks!

It would be great to have races campaigns as we had a class campaign in legion!

I would've hated that as I'm sure most Alliance players would have. The Horde definitely did not get a great story to work with, especially with all the talk about "morally grey" which was just cover for "Sylvanas is evil, but we can't say it yet." I kept up a couple horde characters in BfA and always felt like I needed a shower after doing quest chains, it all just felt so evil for no good purpose. I feel like I would not have wanted to keep progressing had that been my main story. But at the end, there was at least something the Horde was doing. The Alliance on the other hand was mostly just there for the ride.

Kinda sucks that Blizz figured the best narrative choices for BfA were be cartoonishly evil or be ignored.

[huth]

for the next first kill

Without the specific advantage that Stoneform would have granted in Nathria, they'd have better chances to do that on Horde. So that's a reason to switch back, not one to remain.

[Xires]

The "better racials" has been debunked completely.

No, people follow what other top guilds, top pvpers are doing.

If they want to influence a faction change they need to give top guilds and top pvpers a reason to go alliance.

1. free unlimited transfers
2. free guild transfers - unlimited gold.

this would create a momentum but they need to start with the top guilds and pvp players, the rest will follow.

Debunked? What? Nice claim. It hasn't been "debunked". It is 100% why MANY of the best raiding guilds went Horde. The racials WERE severely OP on the Horde side.
Horde Shaman, Horde Ret Pally, Troll racial, Toren racial, etc etc
Debunked? No...they were 100% the reason why the faction imbalance skewed one way. Once people really got into raiding and saw the superiority of the Horde racials (that blizzard has had to nerf over and over and over since vanilla)
The racials aren't as strong now as they were before...but the damage was already done because of them.

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I would've hated that as I'm sure most Alliance players would have. The Horde definitely did not get a great story to work with, especially with all the talk about "morally grey" which was just cover for "Sylvanas is evil, but we can't say it yet." I kept up a couple horde characters in BfA and always felt like I needed a shower after doing quest chains, it all just felt so evil for no good purpose. I feel like I would not have wanted to keep progressing had that been my main story. But at the end, there was at least something the Horde was doing. The Alliance on the other hand was mostly just there for the ride.

Kinda sucks that Blizz figured the best narrative choices for BfA were be cartoonishly evil or be ignored.

Bfa pissed me off. The Horde got the best story of course...and you had to be Horde to really understand the story in Dazar'alor because alliance side was clueless.

[FossilFree]

It wouldn't matter... the good players have picked their side since mop utterly broke the racial balance. The only way to revitalize the alliance end game scene would be to give them op racials then watch the horde die.

The best option would be to remove factions as this game has and still is doing a terrible job making factions matter from anything other then a world pvp perspective.

I agree racials are a big factor, maybe the biggest. But I think more people pick things based on the cool factor of aesthetics, so I'd put racial abilities right behind the "rule of cool."

Dark Iron dwarves were a great addition to meet that cool factor. The one problem though is that regular dwarves are already very metal, so I think it was mostly a switching up of people already on the Alliance. Bronzebeard dwarf players swapped to Dark Iron dwarves more than Horde players switched to them.

That's why I think Alliance needs something really cool that doesn't just play off what it already has. This is why sethrak would have been so ideal. Maybe some other lizard race could fit the bill, like drakonids. Would Horde players switch to Alliance to play an actual dragon? I'm betting yes.

[Gorsameth]

I agree racials are a big factor, maybe the biggest. But I think more people pick things based on the cool factor of aesthetics, so I'd put racial abilities right behind the "rule of cool."

Dark Iron dwarves were a great addition to meet that cool factor. The one problem though is that regular dwarves are already very metal, so I think it was mostly a switching up of people already on the Alliance. Bronzebeard dwarf players swapped to Dark Iron dwarves more than Horde players switched to them.

That's why I think Alliance needs something really cool that doesn't just play off what it already has. This is why sethrak would have been so ideal. Maybe some other lizard race could fit the bill, like drakonids. Would Horde players switch to Alliance to play an actual dragon? I'm betting yes.

No they won't.

Because being a dragon but having nothing to do because everyone playing high end content is on the other side is worse then being a cow, but actually having people to do content with.

[Simple Rick]

I agree racials are a big factor, maybe the biggest. But I think more people pick things based on the cool factor of aesthetics, so I'd put racial abilities right behind the "rule of cool."

Dark Iron dwarves were a great addition to meet that cool factor. The one problem though is that regular dwarves are already very metal, so I think it was mostly a switching up of people already on the Alliance. Bronzebeard dwarf players swapped to Dark Iron dwarves more than Horde players switched to them.

That's why I think Alliance needs something really cool that doesn't just play off what it already has. This is why sethrak would have been so ideal. Maybe some other lizard race could fit the bill, like drakonids. Would Horde players switch to Alliance to play an actual dragon? I'm betting yes.

I just can't really agree with this... if anything having the more appealing races is what is currently keeping the alliance active.. The problem isnt imbalance in terms of numbers overall they are pretty close. The issue is the mass majority of the high end community is all clustered onto one side to the point you are actively working against yourself if you go alliance.

Personally I would prefer to alliance but im not putting up with how much that limits my end game options.

[huth]

The racials WERE severely OP on the Horde side.

Yes, they were. But that's the point. They no longer are. So you're hanging on to an irrelevant point.

[Mumba]

The horde might have had better racials at one time, but they would have to buff the crap out of alliance now because the horde is the raiding scene. If you want to be sure to recruit talent then you have to stay.

[Kehego]

It wouldn't matter... the good players have picked their side since mop utterly broke the racial balance. The only way to revitalize the alliance end game scene would be to give them op racials then watch the horde die.

The best option would be to remove factions as this game has and still is doing a terrible job making factions matter from anything other then a world pvp perspective.

you do know that the alliance has had vastly better racials for at least 2 expansions now, right?

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Debunked? What? Nice claim. It hasn't been "debunked". It is 100% why MANY of the best raiding guilds went Horde. The racials WERE severely OP on the Horde side.
Horde Shaman, Horde Ret Pally, Troll racial, Toren racial, etc etc
Debunked? No...they were 100% the reason why the faction imbalance skewed one way. Once people really got into raiding and saw the superiority of the Horde racials (that blizzard has had to nerf over and over and over since vanilla)
The racials aren't as strong now as they were before...but the damage was already done because of them.

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Bfa pissed me off. The Horde got the best story of course...and you had to be Horde to really understand the story in Dazar'alor because alliance side was clueless.

the "best guilds" went horde because horde side is usually lighter of lol roleplayers and career lfr casuals.
they were able to find more likeminded individuals, dassit.

Funny enough pop balance is still 50/50.

[Simple Rick]

you do know that the alliance has had vastly better racials for at least 2 expansions now, right?

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the "best guilds" went horde because horde side is usually lighter of lol roleplayers and career lfr casuals.
they were able to find more likeminded individuals, dassit.

Funny enough pop balance is still 50/50.

I mean no it objectively hasn't... it has very slightly better racials. What caused the big move was when racials differences exceeded 5% of total damage done.

[Kehego]

I mean no it objectively hasn't... it has very slightly better racials. What caused the big move was when racials differences exceeded 5% of total damage done.

That happened for horridon and horridon only for trolls and only trolls.
Alliance, since the cata rework has had better racials in both pvp and pve.

[Simple Rick]

That happened for horridon and horridon only for trolls and only trolls.
Alliance, since the cata rework has had better racials in both pvp and pve.

It was to the degree it happened and there were a few bosses I recall thok being the big one myself. Though it didn't help that trolls more or less outperformed everyone by that point.

[psyquest]

Debunked? What? Nice claim. It hasn't been "debunked". It is 100% why MANY of the best raiding guilds went Horde. The racials WERE severely OP on the Horde side.
Horde Shaman, Horde Ret Pally, Troll racial, Toren racial, etc etc
Debunked? No...they were 100% the reason why the faction imbalance skewed one way. Once people really got into raiding and saw the superiority of the Horde racials (that blizzard has had to nerf over and over and over since vanilla)
The racials aren't as strong now as they were before...but the damage was already done because of them.

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Bfa pissed me off. The Horde got the best story of course...and you had to be Horde to really understand the story in Dazar'alor because alliance side was clueless.

Seems like we are saying the same thing and we are not reading each other. Let me reiterate.

Today, like now, ie this version of the game: racials are no longer the reason why there is an issue with player population. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, as a GM that have been playing this game for 16 years non stop.

We started alliance. We could raid without issue. TBC hit hard and we started having major issues finding alliance players that "fit". We move to horde, guild + faction change + server change. The result was that we had more opportunity to recruit, more opportunity to find players to play with etc.

Fast forward today: I would LOVE to go back to alliance, this has been niggling me and many players for the past 2 xpacs. BUT:
1. changing back to alliance = same problem with finding players. massive problem even running stupid mythic+ keys. The RISK is too great.
2. cost. moving an entire guild = losing players + imagine each account has 6 to 10 characters per player. It is too expensive. Last time we moved I had to pay for 5 bank toons to move people's gold.

I dont have the answer on how to socially move players to go alliance.
Blizzard wont make guild migration and character migration free.

I have a suggestion but it is a twisted one.
Make alliance racials so overpowered that it will again shift the balance forcing guilds and fans to move. Also offer at the same time free migration for guilds and characters with no gold limit.
Keep these two open long enough to see a good shift of population then balance the racials. This might take one xpac, keep it OP until such a time as there is balance.

[justandulas]

The answer is simple... since the horde player base makes up the vast majority of WoW, just have them be the winners of the final war and rule Azeroth.

The alliance can surrender, and serve under the horde.

That’s the only way it will be fixed is if one side is the victor

[ravenmoon]

You need to think of another solution then just "take elves away from the Horde"

Maybe instead of taking something away from the Horde, figure out what the Alliance needs to drive people to do high end things on that side.

Actually, my solution isn't take away elves form the horde, it's take away high elf character/setup/civilization type set from the blood elves - let them become something a bit more original - maybe liek the anti-hero types WC3 TFT was leading them to be. Let the alliance get high elves with their nobility, high ideals, anti-corruption etc.

I'm also not saying remove Nightborne, just let all that civilization, high ideals of the kaldorei, those things they have are all kaldorei stuff, it's too alliance, and associated with alliance, alliance concepts of civilization, more, magic etc.. , the horde doesn't need to lose Nightborne, it's the Nightborne in it hat should lose that stuff - because it is too alliance.

I'm not saying blood elves or Nightborne shouldn't be pretty or cool, I'm not saying they shouldn't even have homes or cool looking incredible stuff, I'm not saying they shouldn't be badass and desirable either, I'm saying it's important for the alliance to be the one that show cases alliance based stuff which includes high elves and their stuff, kaldorei and their stuff - both pre-sundering and post ( i would prefer the kaldorei be a neutral faction along with the Nightborne, and only the players join a small team of heroes from their peoples that work for the horde and alliance to help guide htem or at least prevent them form self destruct. I hink it fits the night people of elves, to actually have a very dedicated small core group who firmly believe that the younger races must beh elped and guided rather than abandoned and forsaken or destroyed despite their destructive tendencies, these guys see the good in them, but

1. They are a small portion of the night elven people - both kaldorei and Shal'dorei
2. They , like all elves who get into a cause are very dedicated to it, so they are fully committed to the horde here (nightborne) and alliance (Darnassian kaldorei only - specify Darnassian as their are other types of night elves and stress only a small faction of them), even though the rest of their people are neutral
3. They actually work to help the 2 major factions, but stirring them to be better and the voice of reason, wisdom, and of progress.
4. You the playable night elf and Nightborne are part of this small faction that are sent from the night elven collective to help

What does this achieve?
1. with night elves being neutral, it strips the alliancey aspect of the nightborne from the horde wih the bonus on allowing the night elves (nightborne too) to develop back to WC3/WotA levels of awesomeness
2. It allows the alliance to have a high elf focus instead, but the elven narrative will skew towards alliance, so the kaldorei, especially the druidic once will add some nice flavour to them.

Why?

The horde has too powerful an alliance premise in it through this guys, it's diluting the alliance, and at a fundamental level, making it redundant.

Sometimes the way to fix things is to cut off the problematic area, and rebuild it. Cut the high elf and kaldorei out of the blood elf and Nightborne, rebuild the blood elf and Nightborne on the horde, use the process to greatly show case the alliance and consolidate it, let it be amazing for what it represents which is different, then allow the new version of Belves and Nightborne to burst out on the scene again in a very cool way.

Remember, the aim is not to nerf any race or faction, but to have every thing be cool, however the process of doing so, will experience some undesirable events.. this has to happen. When we need to fix a kidney sometimes we need to cut out the affected area, and graft new healthy ones onto it. No one likes to undergo the pain of having stuff removed, but the aim is to make it better, and bring more great things down the line, for everyone.

The aim is not to prevent the horde from being cool or to lose them elves. But without this sort of action the alliance will NEVER recover.. the factions will likely die instead and become irrelevant. [for me since I noticed this problem, it's never been really lose the blood elves, just remove the alliance out of them - I then often go on to explain how, and sometimes maybe I don't need to.)

Blizzard have a choice to make, go hard on the blood elves/Nightborne and re-express them ot fix the identity issue or lose the factions and remake Warcraft into something different, no longer the era of the alliance and horde. Something a lot of people also ask for - but it remains to be seen if this would ruin Warcraft or not. However, leaving things as it will make it die a slow death, fixing the factions, might be a little unpleasant at fist for horde elf fans who may think they are losing stuff they like, but in the not to distant future, it will allow things to be much better for them and for the alliance as the whole.

So either suffer some disquiet and grumbling and take the scalpel and knitting needle to the affected area, or watch it die is a slow death or you kill it so you can cause it to be reborn .

My gut tells me they will let it die a slow death because they can't bring themselves to do this small thing, and this would be their undoing.. but then .. these things, as good as you may have found them, we never meant to last, they come to an end. Perhaps its end has come.

[Tanaria]

SNIP

So Night Elves must be removed from Kalimdor and killed onsite, if they remain because Blood Elves are being gutted for nelfs.

Get over your saltiness. You can't play as a Nightborne on the Alliance. It's been 3 years, so get over it. Arcane Elves belong in the Horde. They always have, since the first playable iteration of Arcane Elves to WoW was Blood Elf Horde Mages.
Your also quite obsessed over Nightborne only having lore moments with Night Elves. You got that in Zin-Azshari between Shandris and Thalyssra. There you go, there's your nelf/shal'dorei interaction - now the Shal'dorei will go back talking with their Horde allies.

If Horde Elves have to suffer, so do the Alliance Elves and that means Sin'dorei and Shal'dorei get both the Well of Eternity atop of Hyjal and the Sunwell. High Elves and Night Elves can have Suramar and Silvermoon, but they can't have Kalimdor or the founts of power. They belong to the Horde, since Arcane powers are a Horde asset.

You could just stop being racist and saying that if my blood elf characters identify as blood elves, then they have to suffer many losses before they can rebuild. Also, maybe you should actually look up Blood Elf lore since you don't seem to know it at all. Silvermoon Elves were never your "bad boy" blood elves. Stop making up these lies. They were Sunfury Blood Elves who, in the main were killed on Netherstorm and Quel'Danas. Only a small portion of Sunfury returned to help the Farstriders.
We've got Blood Elf Demon Hunters and if you do want to play an anti-hero, bad boy blood elf, then play a Void Elf, since they fit your niche for what you want.

And don't limit Blood Elves to only two aspects, them being some death elves (San'layn) and fel elves (Warlocks.) They are so much more than that. They have their Farstriders, Magisters, Blood Knights, the Reliquary, the Sunreavers and so much more.
The Farstriders, in the main are a core Horde Military Branch - as are the Blood Knights and Magisters.

Sorry, but you don't deserve these core areas of Horde sin'dorei and Silvermoon society.

[Gorsameth]

Snip.

How often do people have to tell you that your RP bullshit has NOTHING to do with this topic?

Go spout your ideas on the lore forum where no one else has to read them.

[Klueade]

To cut to the chase, I'd keep it as is till there's a tenable solution...

Personally, I'd work on a new engine new, new servers. Servers would be categorized PVE, and RP with limited to no phasing, and other various server wide settings. So one server wouldn't allow boosted characters, and another only max level characters can switch to them... Some combinations could be up to the user by being allowed to join one server regardless by a token or something... Free time gated server transfers would be nice, one week or next reset idk. Intention here is to regain server identity and retain some balance... So server restrictions along with some caveats such as allowing free server transfers for each faction depending on server. Set timers on servers so everyone has a heads up people can't switch to the server from a specific faction.

To break it all down, PVE and RP servers will have settings that at least appease more players including some who fall victim to imbalanced factions. For example, an RP server that makes your mount and hearthstone share cool downs. There's settings that include further follow up like servers with warmode phasing/phasing rotation or masterloot...

There needs to be a better map as well, google earth comes to mind. So each player gets a google Azeroth basically, because its just a snippet in time. However You can alter that through automatically(or toggle on/off or yes/no) replace the zone/subzone in your map to show the zone/subzone you were in when you completed the quest in-game or just at any time in-game... This has several implications depending on how you may envision the implementation. Being able to comb through the map or simply search timestamps/servers is a lot of moving parts. I will say though this solution is just as palatable as a social one. I don't concern myself with feasibilities.

As for Lore & Story, the racials, guilds, etc... I have too much to say about that.