Can blizzard find a better way of achieving faction balance than what they're doing?

[Mace]

Last time I checked you can find plenty of Horde race members who co-operate and assist the Alliance and vice versa. It doesn't seem too far-fetched that some would want to go to the other side.

i know right, there's a bit too much co-operation, even in the so called Horde v Alliance expansion, why do they keep doing that and can't maintain a decent conflict plot to sinpsire the players to keep fighting each other.

[ravenmoon]

people who choose faction based on lore are a minority. The majority play a certain faction because they started with that one or have social connections through that faction on that realm. imo, blizzard can't fix population as much as they would want to, they may be able to affect it somewhat but it will never be 50/50.

that's true, lore only becomes a factor after there first character or when they get into the franchise.

Aesthetics plays hte biggest role to a brand new player .. what tends to happen in nearly all of my friends i introduced to wow, was going human. Sure there were a few who thought some of the horde races were cool, blood elves pretty, but weird looking. They almost always picked human.

and i think blizzard are happy with 45/55 it's close enough, but, it's costing the lore , the story and the franchhise too much.. without humans or human looking race on the horde, the things are attracting to players to the horde are cool stuff. Cool moves, cool stories, cool quests, cool victories, cooler racials - no one is blind enough to say that since TBC the main thrust of warcraft has been Horde, even the Lich King had the horde roles more predominant and the story line more engaging...the novels were flooded with horde lore, a massive drive.

this has grossly imbalanced the game, you dare not give alliance cool stuff without giving the horde even cooler stuff because you have to keep people picking the horde and if they have litle aesethetic reaason to do so you must provide other incentives.

i don't like the wow story any more, warcraft lore use to be engaging, and every time I go back to WC1-3 TFT ..i'm like wow, i cna't believe this came from blizzard cos what we are getting now is so much worse.. limitatinos of an mmorpg to tell a story aside, the focus and thrust is way too lopsided it's not much fun.

and you can kiss sub groups like high elves, or really cool looking demon-hunteresque night elves from ever being a playable reality without something even more cool being on the horde, and the only way i can see this being ifxed is giving a cool looking human-like race or sub-group to the horde. with that, you'll get peeps now picking horde because of those humans and the blood elves, that should be enough to sustain the horde wtihtout a massive story drive.

e.g.s
1. New Race: Azorath - or whatever they're called, make them looking nearly human closer than blood elves, make them good looking
2. New race: Horde: Vrykul - bring the vrykul into the horde as a playable race

3. Sub-race Forsaken Humans - when you introdcue sub-races give forsaken humans either
a) a small group of undead got the undeath curse reversed or cured into living flesh or a state of unliving - (flesh restored but not really alive either) - they look like humans, just blood drained - i recommend using the blood elf models and just giving them human ears/eyes/eyebrows - throw in human skin tones without red hues (unless they're living then you can have the red hues) throw in some additional facial hairs - and voila pretty humans on the horde - even if a sub-group
b) Unliving humans - tragic experiemnets of an ambitious San'layan that found a way to control humans through a biting (vampire like basically), he manipulates and converts all the Lorderaon surivors still fighting the forsaken in Tirisfal Glades/WPL - they are not really dead, but not alive either - Sylvannas herself leads a small party to take him out, she succeedsd, they're free from the mind control but no longer alive, no longer dead.

c) Cult of the damned cultists - literally worship the forsaken and they crave becoming liches and undead - some new means is discovered that doesn't require the Valkyrie - the uclt of the damned are part fo the forskaen now, those lucky enough get this new treatemnt, it's not a 100% rate, you either become undead or trapped in this unliving state

d) Syndicate ally with the forsaken.

just that you end upgetting them. Sub-races will defiinetly change the character creation screen, blizz just nee dto make living/unliving human forsaken easily visible at the start to give players a fair chance on picking them up rather than just seeing oh ..alliannce, Human - first race, i'll go with that.

[Deleted]

Again it's been re-iterated by the Devs, Faction balance is very important:

Faction balance has zero impact on the current Wow model, so i disagree.

Back in vanilla and TBC it was very important due to the game itself being designed towards both fgactions fighting each other on the same realm. We all remember the world pvp events happening daily. BGs were also setup so u can only play against the opposite faction on your own realm. Your realms forum was full of posturing between both sides, the rivalry was tangible.

That rivalry has completely disappeared now.

And thats not the fault of the players, the games been designed away from faction mattering at all in Wow. The only part of Wow where your faction is relevant is in random BGs. Even in Rated BGs u play against your own faction so factions r irrelevant.

I would love to see how Blizzard propose to backtrack 3 expansions of game design away from faction relevance.

[Mace]

then why not just allow free for all pvp and allow you to group up with the oposite faction? why say it is very important?

i think it is a very high priority, and they have tech to fight low population, like all the cross realm stuff, but teh whole ethos of the game is built on opposing factions, and for best play , balance is important.. altho balance is now not as crucial on a relam to relam basis, it is still crucial overall

if you end up getting one super server that parttiions players, at the end of the day you still need equal numbers because if there isn't ther ewill be environments where one faction really suuffers like the old days, and this still happens, it's just not as much thanks to cross realm

[ravenmoon]

then why not just allow free for all pvp and allow you to group up with the oposite faction? why say it is very important?

i think it is a very high priority, and they have tech to fight low population, like all the cross realm stuff, but teh whole ethos of the game is built on opposing factions, and for best play , balance is important.. altho balance is now not as crucial on a relam to relam basis, it is still crucial overall

if you end up getting one super server that parttiions players, at the end of the day you still need equal numbers because if there isn't ther ewill be environments where one faction really suuffers like the old days, and this still happens, it's just not as much thanks to cross realm

it's still an issue.. it doesn't appear to matter much because the factions are nearly balnaced. it's roughly something like 55% alliance, 45% horde overall, not on individual realms.

however the reason you have such a high percentage of horde is because of blood elves and all the horde driven focus.. basically blizzard is locked into maintainingi this status quo, to keep the numbbers blanaced.

racials also play a part, and tho racials are a lot more equal in 6.0, any pro will tel you orc/troll/forsaken still have a slight advantage. not ein every situation, but their racials are still beter for pvp and for burst damage boosts, used well it's a tiny tiny advantage, but blizzard ensured that this remains anyway, cos all they need to stop you switching alliance is maitnain the perception horde racials are better, and they are, but very slightly. those who felt trapped to play horde or at least orc/troll/forsaken won't have to. this may not necessarily fuel more alliance players , i predict it will not, unless you really want to play a new aliance model, most poeple will stick with twhat tthey have, in fact, you may see more players witch to blood elf and tauren now that they have offensive racials


but make no doubt, faction matters, and a lot of fwork is been done horde side and the game is horde focused to keep you playing that 45%.

I think in answer tot he OP, that the price is to high, the price to maintain this 55/45% is way too high on the game, it's butchering the lore and resulting in crap plots, furthermore it is stopping allinace getting some really cool stuff. I think thee solution lies in humans, fgive the horde another pretty race, night elves won't cut it, , but a human sub race would, the alternative if youdon't do sub races, is to do a brand new race, maybe from the owrld that turalyon and alleria are, i it has to be a high-tech or highy civilized world, and they have to be beautiful, i would go for very human like, but a little different, so they'll use a different model

i think that iwll drawmany more players to the horde a lot more than a horde driven franchise and poeple will naturally pick horde as much as they do alliance.. then you can be free to give alliance cool stuff like high elves, or a sub race of demon hunter night elves..stuff you wouldn't dare do currently because it will drain horde numbers