Remove racials ?

[Lollis]

Alliance have stronger racials right now, removing them won't help. People aren't swapping because they don't want to lose the massive player pool on horde side, which comes with many advantages more significant than the racials alone.

Alliance racials are stronger than horde racials currently actually, so.......bait post I assume.

I keep seeing this being spread around, despite it not actually being that true. And even where the racials do make any real difference, we are talking less than 3% for DPS between the best and worst races.

Since the usual talking point for the imbalance is relating to PvE, I went over the top 3 best races for each class as well as the difference in DPS between the first and third, first and last, and the difference between the best Horde and best Alliance race:

• For thirteen out of twentyfour class/spec dps combos, an Alliance race has the highest dps.
• Twenty out of twentyfour class/spec combos have their best race dealing less than 0.5% more than the third best race.
• The average DPS difference between the best and worst races (excluding Demon Hunters) is 1.43%
• The highest DPS difference between the best and worse races is 2.31% for a Vulpera Arcane Mage (Troll is best)
• Nineteen out of twentyfour class/spec dps combos have Horde as the worst race, eleven of those are Vulpera.
• There are eight class/spec combos without a Horde race in the top three.
• There are zero class/spec combos without an Alliance race in the top three.
• The average difference between the best Alliance race and the best Horde race when the Alliance is best is 0.35%
• The highest difference for the best A>H races is Forsaken Outlaw rogue at -0.90%.
• The average difference between the best Alliance race and the best Horde race when the Horde is best is 0.38%
• The highest difference for the best H>A races is Kul Tiran Balance Druid at -0.87%

So basically, while Alliance races have a very, slight benefit in the number of times they have the best race for each class/spec combo (13 times compared to 11), the gap between the best Alliance race and the best Horde race is more beneficial from the Horde side.

Saying that Alliance racials are better fullstop is simply not true.

When we talk about none DPS racials, it is well known how useful Goblin Rocket Jump is, and it is barely matched by the Void Elf port.
Bleed and Dot removals via Dwarf/Dark Iron racials have, as we saw in CN been quick to get nerfed.
And things like Night Elf Shadowmeld is—in the vast majority of raid situations—just used as a way to drop combat when a wipe is happening.
With survivals, such as Mechagnome. Everyone already knows that surviving in encounters is MUCH easier to train than getting extra DPS. It's far easier to learn to dodge a rock than to do an extra 100 damage with your fireball.

[Accendor]

If that was the case we would see WF guilds going alliance in a heartbeat. We don't tho.

The difference is so small that the advantages as horde simply outweigh them. Removing racials would not change that.

[Kyux]

Stripping away features in order to make a MMORPG more competitive is missing the point of MMORPG's in the first place. Yes there should be pvp, and yes ideally it's balanced, but the game needs to be a rich world first and foremost. The more you streamline it, the less it becomes what people subscribe for.

This. The game has become too much about numbers and performance at the cost of RPG.

[Thundering]

Alliance has comparable, if not better racials in Classic, Horde is still more popular. It's not the racials. If anything they need to expand on racials because they are super boring right now.

YES in Classic Alliance did have more players than Horde.

In Classic TBC The horde got much better racials for everything so the Alliance is now far fewer players than horde weird huh......

- - - Updated - - -

I keep seeing this being spread around, despite it not actually being that true. And even where the racials do make any real difference, we are talking less than 3% for DPS between the best and worst races.

Since the usual talking point for the imbalance is relating to PvE, I went over the top 3 best races for each class as well as the difference in DPS between the first and third, first and last, and the difference between the best Horde and best Alliance race:

• For thirteen out of twentyfour class/spec dps combos, an Alliance race has the highest dps.
• Twenty out of twentyfour class/spec combos have their best race dealing less than 0.5% more than the third best race.
• The average DPS difference between the best and worst races (excluding Demon Hunters) is 1.43%
• The highest DPS difference between the best and worse races is 2.31% for a Vulpera Arcane Mage (Troll is best)
• Nineteen out of twentyfour class/spec dps combos have Horde as the worst race, eleven of those are Vulpera.
• There are eight class/spec combos without a Horde race in the top three.
• There are zero class/spec combos without an Alliance race in the top three.
• The average difference between the best Alliance race and the best Horde race when the Alliance is best is 0.35%
• The highest difference for the best A>H races is Forsaken Outlaw rogue at -0.90%.
• The average difference between the best Alliance race and the best Horde race when the Horde is best is 0.38%
• The highest difference for the best H>A races is Kul Tiran Balance Druid at -0.87%

So basically, while Alliance races have a very, slight benefit in the number of times they have the best race for each class/spec combo (13 times compared to 11), the gap between the best Alliance race and the best Horde race is more beneficial from the Horde side.

Saying that Alliance racials are better fullstop is simply not true.

When we talk about none DPS racials, it is well known how useful Goblin Rocket Jump is, and it is barely matched by the Void Elf port.
Bleed and Dot removals via Dwarf/Dark Iron racials have, as we saw in CN been quick to get nerfed.
And things like Night Elf Shadowmeld is—in the vast majority of raid situations—just used as a way to drop combat when a wipe is happening.
With survivals, such as Mechagnome. Everyone already knows that surviving in encounters is MUCH easier to train than getting extra DPS. It's far easier to learn to dodge a rock than to do an extra 100 damage with your fireball.

any source for the data?

[Popastique]

That would help the alliance a bit,and prolly a new race next exp for them to fix the imbalance ?

No it wouldn't.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Remove racials ?

Why would you want to remove one of the last things that make WoW feel unique? No! Give more meaningful racials! Give Tauren plainsrunning!

[Rageonit]

I always wonder why Blizz doesn't allow cross-faction PvE content. I mean, the heroes of Alliance and Horde often already work together - why not the players? Makes sence that Alliance and Horde should be able to band together to defeat the Jailer (or any other baddie).
But no, they rather decide to allow cross-faction PvP content, which thematically makes no sence at all What's even more ironic, if they had allowed x-faction PvE, they wouldn't have to worry so much about x-faction BGs, because it would certainly help with player balance.

[Xykotic]

For Classic, yes. For Retail? No.

[Al Gorefiend]

Most people play Blood elf, Night elf or Human by a massive ridiculous margin, so most people do in fact want to play races close to human. Further, across the entire population faction distribution tends to even (and might be slightly alliance favoured).

The issue for faction balance is the horde outnumbers the alliance when it comes to endgame organised PvE content

Kul'tirans are also humans and aren't that popular with the Alliance.

What you meant to say was, races with females that most closely resemble the kind of women you'd see in pornography are the most popular.

Been saying it for years, you want to fix the Alliance faction imbalance you need to give them a sexy Lola Bunny race like what final fantasy did. Instead they got mechagnomes.

Like look how already crazy popular void elves are and get back to me on the subject.

[muto]

I don’t care if they keep or remove them. Just give people a reason not to play Blood Elves. They’re everywhere.

[StillMcfuu]

YES in Classic Alliance did have more players than Horde.

In Classic TBC The horde got much better racials for everything so the Alliance is now far fewer players than horde weird huh......

- - - Updated - - -



any source for the data?

At the beginning of Classic Alliance had a balanced population with the Horde. As Classic wore on more people stayed on Horde vs Alliance.
Unless you are referring to Vanilla, which did have a bit of an Alliance early lead, but that was worn away and IIRC at the end of Vanilla the Horde were equal if not ahead, TBC didn't help as everyone rolled BE.

[LowFass]

Remove races altogether, everyone should be forced play gnome so we can finally put an end to racism /kappa

Mod Edit: Don't use giant fonts in this fashion.

[Necromantic]

Alliance has the better racials. They'd have to make them overwhelmingly better to help with that, and it wouldn't ever fix the imbalance.

Even with no racials, the imbalance would eventually have happened. The faction divide itself is the issue.

I was about to say this. I'm mostly Horde but I much prefer Alliance racials. Human and Void Elf racials are amongst my favorite.

[Myradin]

Even with no racials, the imbalance would eventually have happened. The faction divide itself is the issue.

This. From a pve point of view there's no point spreading out between the two factions and there never has been. Sure there's some races and lore that might appeal to you, and that's why things aren't even more 1-sided than there are, but being a game that's about group content it makes more sense to have all the pve's in one big group.

Of course ironically PvP is already cross-faction anyway.

[Jshadowhunter]

This sounds like those CRT lunatics deciding to remove the notion of "evil races" because it's racist... somehow.

[Triceron]

Just open races to both factions. That's the best way to balance it out, really.

[psyquest]

That would help the alliance a bit,and prolly a new race next exp for them to fix the imbalance ?

It is too late now. Racials used to be the reason people went horde, but since they have buffed the racials and alliance have now the better ones.

In order to help the alliance this is what they should try (might work or not):

1- free guild migration to alliance and unlimited free migration of characters from horde to alliance.
2- if 1 is not enough, then blizzard should consider dropping factions war and allow guilds to have horde and alliance players. all players are in the same guild and can raid together and tag pvp as either a horde affiliated group or alliance affiliated group. world pvp should be about affiliating your guild to either horde or alliance as the GM can chose and all players will be affiliated to that faction until the GM select otherwise.

[khazmodan]

GOOD IDEA. Remove more RPG aspects. We already have enough of it ingame.

No. Serious now. This game is nothing more than a dead lobby game right now and a lobby game since legion. We do not need more RPG elements removed just to make it fit for esports.

Straight up correct, WoW has been gutted of the fun parts of an rpg and saving it now would take more talent than they are willing to pay for. Even if they could put some awesome talent in place, Bobby Kotick would screw it up with his clueless short term cash grab mentality.

[huth]

Saying that Alliance racials are better fullstop is simply not true.

Actually, you just proved it true. For the majority, it is. It's not a big difference, but it is still true.

It's rather besides the point as well, though. Racials no longer have a noticeable impact on the matter.

It's not entirely correct that survival can more easily be trained for; some encounters have serious unavoidable damage, where having less pressure on the healers can be more valuable than more immediate damage.

[Swnem]

Actually, you just proved it true. For the majority, it is. It's not a big difference, but it is still true.

It's rather besides the point as well, though. Racials no longer have a noticeable impact on the matter.

It's not entirely correct that survival can more easily be trained for; some encounters have serious unavoidable damage, where having less pressure on the healers can be more valuable than more immediate damage.

I think it's exaggerated to say they are stronger for alliance. They are mostly balanced now. In the past they were severely skewed towards horde for a long time.
Alliance racials being negligibly more powerful now will not make any effect. They need to be OP for that. Blizz is just not willing to do for the alliance what they did for the horde. Thus, the current conundrum.