Cross-faction soon?

[Relapses]

Covenants hot swappable, the AOE cap removed and now for the trifecta... possibly cross-faction M+/raiding. It's a good time to be a WoW fan.

edit: I'm aware he said there is no "quick solution," but this is something that's been on their radar for awhile. Personally, I'm fine with the faction divide but it looks like there are a lot of ideas swirling around at Blizzard.

[Eazy]

I personally wouldn't like to see cross-faction game-play.

[rayvio]

it wouldn't surprise me if they implement it eventually, even if only for raids. possibly they'll make communities cross-faction to accommodate it

[Tziva]

IDGAF about lore so that is my bias, but it needs to be done for gameplay reasons. Merc mode in pvp is way more controversial from a story perspective, yet they implemented that years ago. It's grossly overdue for pve, if not a breaking of faction barriers completely.

That said, I also can't see it happening. Blizzard is too stubborn about certain ideas and if any thing they keep doubling down more on the faction divide.

[Nasuuna]

itd be nice seeing more actual M+ groups than advertisements during off peak hours on alliance

or we can just do forced pointless faction conflict > reconcile > horde warchief goes crazy < forced pointless faction conflict for another decade

[Empower]

Possible but hurts the cash shop so unlikely.

[Relapses]

Possible but hurts the cash shop so unlikely.

I'd love to give you a rebuttal for this myself but I think Max did better than I ever could on his stream earlier today.

[Caerrona]

I'd love to give you a rebuttal for this myself but I think Max did better than I ever could on his stream earlier today.

"Shoe sized iq take" pretty much sums it all up.

[InflaterMouse]

Honestly, a 3rd independent faction, even a neutral or neutral evil faction with some sort of agenda. Would be awesome to have a quest line allowing you to defect from the Alliance or Horde factions and join this faction, becoming hated and or KOS with them. I would love a different direction, allowing more races and possible class types in the game.

[Louz]

Boy their numbers must be low when you have Ion himself talking about crossfaction play not in a condescending ridiculing manner, but actually like something they are considering.

It's funny the only arguments you ever see against it are "GRUG NO WANT TO SEE HUMIES IN OGRIMAR GRUG PLAY TO KILL HUMIE!" when that's not something anyone really asks, apart from some turbo ERPers maybe.

Every expansion, it comes to "banding up to overcome some greater evil" - maybe actually allowing players play through it with other players and not some capeshit-tier NPCs would be swell, after all these years?

[Relapses]

Without buff for Alliance racials (or make them just the same as horde, just with diffrent names) hardcore players will still playing in Horde.

Alliance racials are currently better for a lot of competitive content. It's why almost all of the MDI teams run Alliance. There was a point nearly a decade ago when Horde racials were superior but the issue today is almost entirely social. Guilds a decade ago all went Horde leaving Alliance a ghost town. Since MoP, slowly but surely Alliance has attrited guilds as they "go Horde" to participate in the more competitive faction.

[uncl55]

It would be great to have cros faction PvE, as dying Aliance breed is harder and harder fint M+ groups..

[KaPe]

I'd love to give you a rebuttal for this myself but I think Max did better than I ever could on his stream earlier today.

Some people always focus on one side of the equation. "A lot of players switch factions = Blizzard makes money." They forget that at the same time, other players quit the game because they're stuck on a dead server/faction and don't want to spend extra money for a normal gameplay experience. It's hard to tell if one time payments make up for lost subs - and even if they do, it's nowhere near as profitable as some believe.

They *also* forget that people who switched to the Horde, have started as the Alliance - and plenty of them would like to go back once it no longer limited their ability to enjoy high end content. I know I'd do it in a heartbeat - I never wanted to play Horde, but it was either that or drop mythic raiding entirely. Changing my beautiful little fort for the shitty Horde garrison back in WoD... man, it sucked. Same with most of my guild - and multiple others, too.

I'm pretty sure that $$ isn't really the reason Blizzard haven't implemented this. It's their usual stubborness, combined with the issue being quite a bit more complicated than automated grouping in few minutes of instanced content. (mercenary mode is far less complex) I assume they could do cross-faction LFG/LFR relatively "easily", but anything that's not automated would need a lot more work.

[Kaver]

I personally wouldn't like to see cross-faction game-play.

Fair enough. But it would massively improve the gameplay experience for a lot of players.

[Clozer]

There are clearly different problems if you can't find groups with a 50/50 distribution. If they fix the game and players start playing again there won't be a reason for this faction bullshit.

[ryjkur]

It would be great to have cros faction PvE, as dying Aliance breed is harder and harder fint M+ groups..

MDI is always dominated by Alliance. They will be the dominant faction if they dont nerf ally racials.

[LedZeppelin]

MDI is always dominated by Alliance. They will be the dominant faction if they dont nerf ally racials.

I think you mean shadowmeld dominates MDI

[Unlimited Power]

Cross faction is something I've been greatly anticipating for years. I seriously thought that was what they were leading into in Legion with the cinematic showing Sylvanas fighting along Varian.

If Blizzard really insists on keeping their stupid faction divide, I wouldn't even mind a mercenary mode for PvE cross faction gameplay.

The soonest we'll see this happen is next expansion though. There's no way they're gonna implement such a heavily requested feature mid expansion when they can save it as a new highlighted feature of the next expansion.

[cuafpr]

correct me if i'm wrong but Merc mode for PVP only works cause players don't see you as an Orc fighting for the alliance right?

for PVE and pre-made grouping and such where you see horde races mixed with alliance ones no, not as a general thing.. factions need to stay as they are.

[Temp name]

Without buff for Alliance racials (or make them just the same as horde, just with diffrent names) hardcore players will still playing in Horde.

The only way they're make guilds go alliance is if Alliance racials were A LOT better than horde, so you'd basically be gimping your performance if you didn't.. And then all the best guilds would go alliance, and slowly the worse and worse guilds would come over until we have the same problem, but horde is the dead faction.

The way to make it so people play whatever they want without caring about what others play is to make it not have any impact on you what they play, and not have it impact them what you play. As in, allow cross faction play, and then you'll see a bunch of people go alliance races and raid with their horde friends, either because alliance races are better for that content, or because they like them better.