Is cross faction coming?

[tomten]

Yeah, continuing from the conversation I was having with Val above… it does seem like a strange video to put out without any prompt, unless they’re trying to gauge community reaction? I haven’t picked up any chatter recently at all from blizzard regarding cross faction

They clarify the tweet with a response. "It's just a funny video".

[Lochton]

From world of Warcraft’s official twitter account.

https://twitter.com/Warcraft/status/...7Ctwgr%5Etweet

I feel like that is a negative, as they mark in the little clip, it doesn't look right.

Though, I wouldn't mind a cross-faction setup via questline of 30+ quests but from the start.

Though, from Horde, Tauren, Goblins and the Elves could easily jump between factions.

[Caprias]

It should be from a gameplay perspective... they can retain the divide story wise for the Puritans.

What divide? We fight together against big bad evil dude every other raid.

[RobertMugabe]

From world of Warcraft’s official twitter account.

https://twitter.com/Warcraft/status/...7Ctwgr%5Etweet

maybe in 10.0

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I think there's a lot of confusion going around - there's no need for factions to be merged or changed in any way.

What we need is cross faction guilds and instanced pve. Open world doesn't need changes nor war mode/pvp (which has mercenary mode already for the sole reason of keeping queues short enough).

It's fun, because if you look at the sheer active character numbers they're pretty balanced. But if you look at endgame activities, from casusal to high end horde simply trumps alliance because of the grouping limitations. For pve you want the biggest pool of people, so over time players flocked towards one specific faction. It's horde only because of old racials that don't matter anymore now.

THIS^^^^ /10chars

[Lahis]

Hey if the userbase ever drops low enough theres no way they will keep the userbase split, look at what happened to Rift.

Eh, soon the playerbase won't be split regardless.
Everyone is just playing Horde.

[Coldkil]

Eh, soon the playerbase won't be split regardless.
Everyone is just playing Horde.

Basically. If Blizzard doesn't do it players will eventually end all in the same faction (probably server based, so it's not like alliance will simply disappear).

[loras]

From world of Warcraft’s official twitter account.

https://twitter.com/Warcraft/status/...7Ctwgr%5Etweet

The video implies "No" i would say, but i could still see it happening.

Gotta say that it would be at best a bandage for thoroughly balance-fucked servers, they should just start to actively manage server balance through more serious incentives and disincentives, like free transfers to the disadvantaged side.

[Daronokk]

I hope cross faction never happens. It would kill the identity of the franchise.

[FuxieDK]

From world of Warcraft’s official twitter account.

https://twitter.com/Warcraft/status/...7Ctwgr%5Etweet

I hope cross faction NEVER EVER comes in any form of shape; the strife between the factions is a vital driving force of the game/lore.

However, I do hope, that we get a lengthy quest line, where a character can become a renegade of his old faction, and start earning reputation in the other faction, starting as hated and attacked on sight by every NPC (of both factions), until you work up rep in the new faction and effectively is e.g. a Horde Dwarf.

[Nathanyel]

I hope cross faction never happens. It would kill the identity of the franchise.

The identity of the franchise that was originally intended to be a licensed Warhammer game? With just enough differences in the first iteration to be legally distinct when that license fell through?

[Kauko]

This devs just don't get it... Who said we want Stormwind Taurens? NOBODY. The same was with covenants. Every high ranked player in the world was warning them... but they just did not understand where is the problem... Like if they don't speak the same language... Or with soloQ, we just wanted a possibility to que for a RBG or arena alone, but again, they made some weird brawl that will last forever...

[Khaza-R]

I doubt you'll ever see full cross-faction.

Will probably start only being enabled for raiding (after a long grind of course) and eventually maybe open it up for dungeons and open world questing.

[Blackmist]

Come on man, you can't just expect Blizzard to implement a feature that is desperately needed.

Give them about five more years of "you think you do but you don't" until they come around to thinking it's actually their idea and then they'll do it. The last two alliance guilds will be delighted.

[Nathanyel]

This devs just don't get it...

Maybe you don't get it? This was essentially "loud thinking", them pondering a possible approach and then going "nah, this one wouldn't really be good".
It just means they're thinking about ways to implement the abstract idea of "cross-faction play".

[Violent]

Hey if the userbase ever drops low enough theres no way they will keep the userbase split, look at what happened to Rift.

unfortunately, this is very true...
Think of an out ratio'd server, en mass.

Blizz - "Well thank goodness we still have 100k Subs!"
99k Horde, 250 Alliance, the rest are bots for both sides.

[exochaft]

It's probably coming, because there aren't many good answers to faction balance issues left. Depending upon your region, the faction imbalance when it comes to participation in end-game instanced content is really skewed towards just one faction. Add on that the imbalance only gets worse since the smaller faction will just transfers to where the players are at, and the logical conclusion is that either everyone that wants to do end game seriously will likely all be one faction... or they'll just quit out of frustration.

In all honesty, there's already cross-faction end-game content in the game... it's PvP. We've had mercenary mode for a while, which allows people to queue up to help with faction imbalance and queue times for a reward. Even with rated content, you can play against the same faction. There's even outdoor FFA zones where you can kill the opposing and same faction if you're not grouped. It's not some crazy idea that hasn't been done before, it's been in the game for a while, the only difference would likely be the ability to manually group up for PvE purposes.

I think the way to implement this isn't actually that hard: restrict cross-faction grouping to non-War Mode, disabling the feature if you have War Mode on. That way, the faction conflict stays in the game for those that want it. Furthermore, it allows flexibility if you like murdering the other faction, but you're tired of only have 19 out of 20 people for your mythic raid because your faction lacks players to maintain a roster. There's some downsides to implementing the system this way, but they're honestly minor compared to the issue they're trying to fix.

You know the reason for Blizz not wanting to have cross-faction PvE? Faction identity, and one of the last character-defining aspects that cannot be changed... without money. Want the real reason? Money, as there's a ton of money in faction/server xfers... but if they start hitting the sub numbers point where the juice isn't worth the squeeze, that ripcord will be pulled hard. This is why those observing this situation feel that the sub numbers must be absolutely terrible right now, as this sort of decision has large revenue aspect to consider.

[Coldkil]

This devs just don't get it... Who said we want Stormwind Taurens? NOBODY. The same was with covenants. Every high ranked player in the world was warning them... but they just did not understand where is the problem... Like if they don't speak the same language... Or with soloQ, we just wanted a possibility to que for a RBG or arena alone, but again, they made some weird brawl that will last forever...

Again, another post about "FACTION MERGE BAD".

Cross-faction is NOT merging factions. It's literally "let players create groups with people from both sides to do raids and dungeons". Which has been the basic story from Vanilla onwards.

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You know the reason for Blizz not wanting to have cross-faction PvE? Faction identity, and one of the last character-defining aspects that cannot be changed... without money. Want the real reason? Money, as there's a ton of money in faction/server xfers... but if they start hitting the sub numbers point where the juice isn't worth the squeeze, that ripcord will be pulled hard. This is why those observing this situation feel that the sub numbers must be absolutely terrible right now, as this sort of decision has large revenue aspect to consider.

Also this. I suppose that with way less people playing also the movement towards horde basically died aswell. When majority of pve players are on a single side, people don't move.

[OrangeJuice]

I doubt it. They'd have to overhaul the entire PvP systems from cutoff % to mmr and ranking systems. Glad couldn't be 2400 anymore and R1 cutoff would be insanely high.

[AngerFork]

I feel like it almost certainly has to be coming in some fashion, the sheer disparity in high-end player group between Alliance & Horde make it seem like an inevitability. The real question to me is what form it will take. Simply adding in a mercenary mode for Raiding or M+ won't do much of anything to solve the issue given how people tend to do most raiding with their guild. So you almost need to open up cross-faction groups & guilds as well with it to ensure recruitment can occur. That though brings in issues with War Mode. If you can group with the opposite faction, how does that look for War Mode? You could potentially solve this by letting people choose some new grouping for War Mode, though that would still risk having one side constantly dominant.

My guess? We get a setup in the 10.0 pre-patch that allows for cross faction raids, dungeons, groups & guilds with the language barrier gone. However, Horde & Alliance will not be able to group up in War Mode still, or at the very least War Mode rules will usurp cross-faction rules.

[arkanon]

I feel like it almost certainly has to be coming in some fashion, the sheer disparity in high-end player group between Alliance & Horde make it seem like an inevitability. The real question to me is what form it will take. Simply adding in a mercenary mode for Raiding or M+ won't do much of anything to solve the issue given how people tend to do most raiding with their guild. So you almost need to open up cross-faction groups & guilds as well with it to ensure recruitment can occur. That though brings in issues with War Mode. If you can group with the opposite faction, how does that look for War Mode? You could potentially solve this by letting people choose some new grouping for War Mode, though that would still risk having one side constantly dominant.

My guess? We get a setup in the 10.0 pre-patch that allows for cross faction raids, dungeons, groups & guilds with the language barrier gone. However, Horde & Alliance will not be able to group up in War Mode still, or at the very least War Mode rules will usurp cross-faction rules.

I think it's a perfect opportunity to expand and improve the community system.