Faction Imbalance at an all-time high H80-A20

[guisadop]

lore-wise there hasn't been a reason for the "hard" faction split for a long time now. let us play with players on the other faction, and leave war with the featured NPCs

[Accendor]

Racials are still relevant enough to pick a faction. With 9.2.5, the only thing making a difference is your race, as faction can more or less be ignored within planned PvP/Raiding.

What are you talking about? The way cross faction if going to be implemented will hardly matter for PVE, since cross guilds are not possible.

[rhorle]

What are you talking about? The way cross faction if going to be implemented will hardly matter for PVE, since cross guilds are not possible.

Communities can be cross faction.

[Nymrohd]

correct, for the player base that doesn't do group content the faction imbalance doesn't matter, outside of perhaps AH item availability.

I'd say it absolutely matters. Try questing in a new zone in the first few days in a sea of gray mobs since Horde will just tag everything. Or try turning War Mode on as Alliance and alternatively even as Horde in OC or EU RP (not sure about the other RP shards). Faction balance affects everything.

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No, there are no hard numbers that are accurate, updateable and reliable about the game population. I'm not sure that it would matter. The usual point about faction differences often refers obliquely if not directly to raiding which is a subset. It may track with the general population, it may not. We don't really know. Then you have to sort out whether it's characters or accounts being counted.

I think M+ is affected just as much. My Alliance characters have fewer options and outside peak times might not even have options while on Horde side LFG will filled with groups pretty much at all times.

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Communities can be cross faction.

I think they need to transition all guild functionality into communities and then find a way to just turn existing guilds into communities as well. It will probably be easier to do that than to actually create cross-faction guilds, it seems many things in early WoW were hard-coded and thus very hard for them to alter.

[SinR]

just make Factions a background thing. You're still limited to Alliance or Horde by race, and you as a Human can't just go chill in Orgrimmar whenever you feel like it. For the people in War Mode you'll still have the whole Red VS Blue thing going on.

Random Battlegrounds can be explained as entertainment brought to you by the local Goblin Cartels in agreement with the Battleground Factions. Silverwing Sentinels and Warsong Outriders (Maybe?) get a cut of the betting money for lolLore reasons.

[MoanaLisa]

I think M+ is affected just as much. My Alliance characters have fewer options and outside peak times might not even have options while on Horde side LFG will filled with groups pretty much at all times.

This is true. I left it out for the simple reason that making a group of five is a different thing than putting a raid of 10-20 or more together. You're right though. Smaller pools of players can cause issues at any level. There are realms where finding 20 capable mythic raiders is likely impossible.

[Lochton]

What are you talking about? The way cross faction if going to be implemented will hardly matter for PVE, since cross guilds are not possible.

With 9.2.5, you can literally ditch the guild and make a cross-faction community. Communities have almost the same tools as guilds and will work cross-faction, for contact and forming groups for, as mentioned, planned PvP/Raiding/M+, heck, even social events.

[Lolites]

As with all WoW numbers we don't have hard numbers. But anyone involved in guild recruitment with experience on either side and anyone that played on Alliance and transferred to Horde can attest to the difference in players.

personal experience is not "several sources" though, its just that, personal and subjective...
and sorry, but from personal experience you might say there is more horde players (and youll be most likely right), but not that the imbalance is at all time high and its 80/20, thats literaly imposible to say without objective data...

[Lochton]

not being able to join a guild will still be a major barrier. Yes in theory a Horde guild can invite your Alliance character for their raids but it means your spending the rest of the time alone outside of the guilds ingame social structure.

So long as cross-faction guilds do not exist this is not 'fixed'.

With 9.2.5, you can literally ditch the guild and make a cross-faction community. Communities have almost the same tools as guilds and will work cross-faction, for contact and forming groups for, as mentioned, planned PvP/Raiding/M+, heck, even social events.

[Toby451]

With 9.2.5, you can literally ditch the guild and make a cross-faction community. Communities have almost the same tools as guilds and will work cross-faction, for contact and forming groups for, as mentioned, planned PvP/Raiding/M+, heck, even social events.

Wont fix the problem unless they allow cross faction guilds. Some important features, such as guild achievements and the potential return of master loot, currently require a minimum % of players in the guild to receive credit. Now of course, if you allow being part of the same "community" to allow functionality of these features, that works as well, doesn't really matter what you call it, guild or community.




That is the only fix. If they simply allow cross faction play while also bringing back master loot that requires people being in the same guild, nothing will change

[cparle87]

Racials should not effect combat only visual effects.

All races should have unique spelleffects to match it's race across all classes when needed.

So you can play whatever you like and maybe restore some balance? I am also for mixed horde and alliance dungeon and raid groups, maybe even community groups.

Blizz said in an interview back in MoPish, maybe late Cata that if they could send one tidbit of advice back to themselves it would be to make racials cosmetic only.

[Nymrohd]

This is true. I left it out for the simple reason that making a group of five is a different thing than putting a raid of 10-20 or more together. You're right though. Smaller pools of players can cause issues at any level. There are realms where finding 20 capable mythic raiders is likely impossible.

Really, any additional parameter will exacerbate the issue. Need to raid at odd hours? Want to push keys? Trying to do War Mode kill quests or farm rares?
Really the problem is not solved with just cross faction instanced content. Cross faction tagging and guilds will be needed in the future (and perhaps finding some way to get rid of the stupid 2X4 grind style and just make non-rare mobs tagged by the first 10 people who hit them or something similar).

[kranur]

Some important features, such as guild achievements

Do people actually care about this?

I believe the 9.2.5 cross faction will be an experiment and if all goes well, there's no reason not to expand it and let faction picking be for cosmetic preference only.

They can also try and do guild alliances.

[Lochton]

Wont fix the problem unless they allow cross faction guilds. Some important features, such as guild achievements and the potential return of master loot, currently require a minimum % of players in the guild to receive credit. Now of course, if you allow being part of the same "community" to allow functionality of these features, that works as well, doesn't really matter what you call it, guild or community.




That is the only fix. If they simply allow cross faction play while also bringing back master loot that requires people being in the same guild, nothing will change

Master Loot would most likely have communities in mind as well, or be the old version, where the handler controls 100%. And guild achievements are well, not that eventful anymore either, I at least don't recall any actual rewards other than a shiny golden number, which everyone gets anyways.

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Do people actually care about this?

Not that much anymore, as it is basically now just personal achievements having more value, and guild just gets an additional golden number.

I believe the 9.2.5 cross faction will be an experiment and if all goes well, there's no reason not to expand it and let faction picking be for cosmetic preference only.

They can also try and do guild alliances.

Currently, they are aiming for cross-faction communities, cross-faction trading within instances, cross-faction communication within raids (as well as /s /e /y), and the big game, which is sadly not that inclusive, is planned rated PvP, Raiding, and M+, no random implementation yet.

[Kaleredar]

Bring back the imba racials alliance used to have.


Boom, done.

[Coldkil]

Currently, they are aiming for cross-faction communities, cross-faction trading within instances, cross-faction communication within raids (as well as /s /e /y), and the big game, which is sadly not that inclusive, is planned rated PvP, Raiding, and M+, no random implementation yet.

Anything that goes through the LFD tool can be cross faction. So you can pug M+ and raids through it without a problem.

The major issue of not having cross faction guild is the old ass code. It's literally something from 17 years ago that was never touched and changing it now can break a lot of stuff. i know i'm going horde 9.2.5 and i have already sent my battle net id to my raid leader to get invited. We'll see how it's going to turn out.

[Lochton]

Bring back the imba racials alliance used to have.


Boom, done.

Speaking of bringing back.. I do miss 'Find Treasure' on Dwarves..

[Nymrohd]

And guild achievements are well, not that eventful anymore either, I at least don't recall any actual rewards other than a shiny golden number, which everyone gets anyways.

And perhaps that should change. Guild-based grouping is a far more socially stable environment for the game than the current situation where a very significant number of players does PuGs. There are already communities that have half a dozen different raid groups running using discord to keep people connected. Making guild achievements impactful and bring back guild perks without the ridiculous leveling requirements would give people a good reason to join a guild/community. And letting people join multiple guilds would remove the opportunity cost. I have had people who were raiding with my guild but wanted to stay in their own social guilds outside raids because of RP/friendships and especially back in Cata with the legendaries there was a lot of pressure for them to leave their guilds if they wanted to be eligible for the legendary.
You could even make guild challenges matter again (do they still exist?). That could make people want to run group activities with their guild instead of a PuG.

[Lochton]

Anything that goes through the LFD tool can be cross faction. So you can pug M+ and raids through it without a problem.

Can be, won't be yet though. 9.2.5 only makes cross-faction content for planned raid/pvp/M+ groups.

The major issue of not having cross faction guild is the old ass code. It's literally something from 17 years ago that was never touched and changing it now can break a lot of stuff. i know i'm going horde 9.2.5 and i have already sent my battle net id to my raid leader to get invited. We'll see how it's going to turn out.

But as mentioned, communities can fix that problem, all they need to do is implement the missing features from guilds (Ranks, and guild bank), and the rest is already there.

[Coldkil]

Bring back the imba racials alliance used to have.

Boom, done.

Alliance have already the best racials, though it's basically more or less the same across the board. People are all horde for the simple fact all people started going horde back in the day and never stopped. It's the same reason as to go in bigger servers - the more people you have to play with, the more likely is for you to be able to reach your goals.

nothing can change that at this point. I'm sure we'll have some going alliance since they can still play with their friends, aswell some going horse but i don't think we'll ever see the scale changing.