the faction complaints are embarrassing

[tmamass]

And yes, cross faction raiding is the only solution to the problem.

*shiver* no thats no solution, rather nerf all traits to the ground *shiver*

[Kumorii]

And the problem is that because of the faction system, it just gets reset into the same status quo at the end of expansion. We've had the same conflict twice now, yes, but there's been zero ramification from it. The factions are still there. They are still exactly the same. Players still have the same limitations. It's silly.



But there is zero impact in game. Because of the faction system, it's still Horde Vs Alliance all the time, even when it doesn't make sense. The mechanic at play prevents the story from moving forward. It always has to reset itself at the end through ridiculously convoluted means in order to keep that faction dynamic. Imagine that scenario where the Forsaken need the Alliance to come save them from, I dunno... Klingons. At the end of the battle, when Forsaken and Worgen stood side by side and are victorious and they shake hands and fireworks go off and we celebrate. Then that Worgen player runs to Undercity to see his new friends and gets cut down by guards immediately. Because factions.
Gnomes can easily not engage in any more wars. They just do like Baine did and oppose to it, but instead of working against it they just do nothing and stay out of it story wise.



Of course not, because nothing is ever so ridiculously simplistic as all of one race hates all of another race. The game makes it that way, but that's the point. It doesn't need to be. You can have conflict between races that need not affect guilds at all, since they are separate from any political structure. RP guilds can roll it into their narrative, which would be cool, but those who don't RP at all need not ever worry about it. It doesn't affect them. Guilds are the same. Except now all races can join.



Except that need not be the case at all. You can keep the same friends. The same guilds. The same everything. The story happens around the players and the players participate as they want, but it need not exclude anything. Factions dictate exactly what the story is going to be and split everything, to the point that we have imbalances in PVP and PVE. In creates story crutches that force the writers to keep people apart, for no real reason. Why not bring people together and let the story drive the conflict, not the faction mechanic? Let the world grow and evolve and let the story change. The status quo has gone on for 15 years. It's time to try something new.



Why do you have to? Why is it so binary as that? It doesn't exist in the real world, so why should it be the case in WoW? Guilds can have members with different "beliefs" and political allegiances. It need not create any separation in that regard. There's no reason for it to. That's the faction system. Where everything is one or the other. It's ridiculous and it's that mentality that is handcuffing this game.

This to me sounds like it currently is... story happens around the player and it has little impact on your groupings and what not. Which means your choice as a player has 0 agency as it currently is. Factions isn't the reason why races end up the same at the end of an expansion... Blizzard writing does. If X Race still wants to dislike or hate Y race they can keep writing it so. Since there are no ramifications of who you can group with based on your story choice it's a redundant choice except for story reason... which we got with Sylvanas and Saurfang choice. Although that was poorly implemented and they could write that much further apart if they dared to. Once again, had little to do with factions and more to do with blizzard writers.

You keep typing that factions drive conflicts instead of story when that in facto isn't true in the least... We HAVE story driven conflicts where both factions work together, with each other, at peace, at war. Different races being at war with another race while rest don't bother and races within the same faction working against each other... it's all there already.

What's the point of having a story where you chose your factions but then you go and join the ones you hate in your guild and you are buddy buddies and then go kill some other dude together? Doesn't that ruin the immersion? It makes the choice irrelevant, doesn't it?

As i've mentioned earlier that blizzard have no qualms in writing disputes and fights within factions, proven over and over again, especially among hordes. There is no reason for them other than themselves that they can't keep a grudge between Baine and taurens and people who chose saurfang and Sylvanas and undeads + the ones choosing to be loyalist to keep going for 4 expansions. There is no faction rule that determines it HAS to be ended so quickly beyond themselves.

And since there is 0 ramifications when it comes to grouping it's a story no one of us will impact or make a difference to us, just like you say it is now. It will happen around us...I agree on that part it's what the story does. I just don't see "removing factions" would somehow fix that when it's writing that's the problem.

- - - Updated - - -

I think someone else mentioned earlier in the thread the idea that raids and dungeons can be seen as a neutral area where players can group for common goals like treasure and a larger, common enemy.

I think it’ll be interesting to see how Covenants will work since that could be a good template for how to include separate non-Alliance/Horde factions that entail real story driven choices for players to experience.

So immersion breaking and an irrelevant choice which makes the story happen around us with 0 agency.
It makes as much sense for me to go pvp against a Saurfang loyalist then group up afterwards and kill some other enemy. This doesn't solve the issue of fights being forgotten or returned to the status quo, it just shift where it happens.

[Wyrt]

*shiver* no thats no solution, rather nerf all traits to the ground *shiver*

It's far, far too late for balancing racials to fix anything. The time to balance racials was back in Cata/MoP when Alliance Mythic guilds started faction changing to Horde. Mythic raiders are Horde at this point because it has the much larger pool of raiders.

[Adamas102]

So immersion breaking and an irrelevant choice which makes the story happen around us with 0 agency.
It makes as much sense for me to go pvp against a Saurfang loyalist then group up afterwards and kill some other enemy. This doesn't solve the issue of fights being forgotten or returned to the status quo, it just shift where it happens.

I literally just explained the benefit of more in-game choices AND an RP way to maintain grouping in certain situations to maintain immersion...

And yes, the whole point is to shift where those choices happen. Instead of it only being at character creation, it can actually be made part of the game that evolves as the story does. The whole point is to add more layers. I’m just trying to make it clear that you CAN pull away from the 15 year old conflict in order to give the game more depth.

[Kumorii]

I literally just explained the benefit of more in-game choices AND an RP way to maintain grouping in certain situations to maintain immersion...

And yes, the whole point is to shift where those choices happen. Instead of it only being at character creation, it can actually be made part of the game that evolves as the story does. The whole point is to add more layers. I’m just trying to make it clear that you CAN pull away from the 15 year old conflict in order to give the game more depth.

Won't be new depth unless Blizzard writing gets more depth... has little to do with factions. I'm trying to make clear that faction choice have little to do with depth at all. We still have story choices like Saurfang and Loyalists which is irrelevant because you still can group with anyone regardless of that choice, which you seem to agree on that any story choice shouldn't limit our choices of who we group with. That leaves us exactly where we already are, except cross faction play.

I don't have as much faith as you with that removing factions for some reason makes the story any better or have more significant choices when we already have varied conflicts across and among factions and choices in the similar fashion both of you describe would be possible without factions. As you said earlier that covenants could do it...but they can do that with or without factions. a third party faction introduced and their story choices have little to do with current faction locks. In fact most expansions are about finding some new faction or society. Yet blizzard haven't given us any particular choices to play with...because of them writing it not to be as such, not because of factions existing.

I get the argument that cross faction play would increase amount of players being to play with whom..but that's about it. The rest about story driven choices and immersion being held back by factions is something I don't agree with and I think factions are more immersive that no factions for reasons I've specified earlier. Even then, cross faction play is also possible with factions since you can just have peace in the story and voila...done.

But I think we just talk past each other and don't understand each others point fully.

[Adamas102]

Won't be new depth unless Blizzard writing gets more depth... has little to do with factions. I'm trying to make clear that faction choice have little to do with depth at all. We still have story choices like Saurfang and Loyalists which is irrelevant because you still can group with anyone regardless of that choice, which you seem to agree on that any story choice shouldn't limit our choices of who we group with. That leaves us exactly where we already are, except cross faction play.

Actually, I don’t fully agree with this. I’m just throwing out basic ideas. What I presented was a way to keep your raid group together, but I think it would be great for those players who want to prioritize RP that there’s a choice for them that MIGHT involve more stringent grouping mechanics. Again, it’s just ideas to increase depth and immersion overall. I’d imagine most players would rather just be able to play with as big and stable a player base as possible for raiding, but other players might prefer to focus more on faction allegiances for PVP or solo PVE.

The basic idea is to first put everyone together, and THEN give them the choice of how they want to play.

You could have allegiances to different factions within the horde and alliance or even perhaps branch out to unaffiliated factions. I know the overarching story is determined way in advance, but perhaps they COULD have story beats that involve player participation in different factions where players can actually determine the outcome.

It doesn’t need to only be who you can or can’t group with. A lot of content could be tailored around players choosing whether they want to be part of a faction or not.

[jellmoo]

This to me sounds like it currently is... story happens around the player and it has little impact on your groupings and what not. Which means your choice as a player has 0 agency as it currently is. Factions isn't the reason why races end up the same at the end of an expansion... Blizzard writing does. If X Race still wants to dislike or hate Y race they can keep writing it so. Since there are no ramifications of who you can group with based on your story choice it's a redundant choice except for story reason... which we got with Sylvanas and Saurfang choice. Although that was poorly implemented and they could write that much further apart if they dared to. Once again, had little to do with factions and more to do with blizzard writers.

See, I think you're conflating the notion of the storyline portion of Factions with mechanical function of Factions. It's the mechanic here that is the problem, because the mechanic is what's forcing the story. Mechanically, the factions require a reset each and every time to continue functioning as they do. If you are a member of race A, members of Races X, Y and Z will attack you on sight and you cannot enter their cities. It's the mechanic that causes the storytelling problem. The fact that the writing is bad makes the problem worse, absolutely, but the caveat is that maybe the writing wouldn't be so bad if they didn't need to keep finding ways to drive the faction system and live within those boundaries. Player Agency is absolutely lacking, and forcing the faction system on everyone is a huge part of it.

You keep typing that factions drive conflicts instead of story when that in facto isn't true in the least... We HAVE story driven conflicts where both factions work together, with each other, at peace, at war. Different races being at war with another race while rest don't bother and races within the same faction working against each other... it's all there already.

It absolute is true. Because no matter how many times the factions work together, it's meaningless to the player. No matter how many times an Alliance player can be involved in freeing Orgrimmar, they still cannot visit the place simply because of the faction mechanic. And again, it's the mechanic of red vs blue that's the problem. Wars can and should happen around the player, but the fact that after 15 years, after all that's happened and all the times the races have fought together that they still have the same limiting mechanic is ridiculous.

What's the point of having a story where you chose your factions but then you go and join the ones you hate in your guild and you are buddy buddies and then go kill some other dude together? Doesn't that ruin the immersion? It makes the choice irrelevant, doesn't it?

You don't need to choose a faction though. That's the point. The story happens around you. Think of a guild as a sort of Mercenary group (which is pretty much what a Guild is). You can have members of said Guild from all races, even races that hate one another politically. But within the guild, they work together. This can be as immersive or not immersive as individual players want to be.

As i've mentioned earlier that blizzard have no qualms in writing disputes and fights within factions, proven over and over again, especially among hordes. There is no reason for them other than themselves that they can't keep a grudge between Baine and taurens and people who chose saurfang and Sylvanas and undeads + the ones choosing to be loyalist to keep going for 4 expansions. There is no faction rule that determines it HAS to be ended so quickly beyond themselves.

Except in never matters. The Undead are still members of the Horde despite everything that occurred. Same for the Orcs after SoO. Nothing changed with the mechanic of the factions. The Horde and Alliance worked together to liberate Orgrimmar twice, and nothing came of it. We have Baine show up in Stormwind to hang out with Anduin, but players themselves cannot do this because of the limitations of factions. The actions of each and every expansion simply do not matter as the same mechanic exists today that existed when the game launched. Red vs Blue.

And since there is 0 ramifications when it comes to grouping it's a story no one of us will impact or make a difference to us, just like you say it is now. It will happen around us...I agree on that part it's what the story does. I just don't see "removing factions" would somehow fix that when it's writing that's the problem.

Because what would be allowed to happen is that the writers could write stories that affect fewer races (not just one faction vs another) and players could work around these arbitrary limitations. Players could justify actions based solely on what their character thinks. Right now, my Dwarf just follows Alliance stuff because, you know, Alliance. There is zero choice. Why not have a system where it's not so simple? Where my Dwarf can say "Huh, that Anduin is a prick. To hell with that." Give the player the option to roll with more story options. To see the world in a different way. Let players decide who they group with. Who they play with. How their actions can actually work within the game world. Other games do exactly this.