Faction imbalance a social issue? Requiring a social solution?

[ravenmoon]

do you buy that?

Sounds to me a self created social issue, when you over 14 years pull all the cool the horde way, and all the best attributes that identified the alliance were present on the horde when the blood elves went over - effectively made the alliance fairly redundant and the horde having the best picks of what was to offer.


The observation is that end game content is heavily skewed in favour of the horde, they at least acknoweldge this, and feel this is purely social. Oh dear.. they just don't see.. ever asked themselves why?


I'll tell you why, because people who get into Warcraft go horde - everything is horde centric when you get into the game, from the lore , state, all the best things going, and this has created a buzz for the players who actually keep wow going.

Overall they say the populations are pretty even - but why are most casuals only alliance, because it doesn't matter who you play when you are casual, and most of those are old people (form the RTS days who stopped engaging with the game) or new people, who play humans because the models of every other race is just weird(yes they look weird - even blood elves with their overly long ears) I w ill never forget my first reaction to seeing Warcraft elves, I thought they looked terrible, the style has grown on me since though the overly large hands, and ears and eyebrows, but I got into the game.



My Opinion and Observation

If oyu really want to know what I think, here it is, otherwise the paragraphs above is the jist in a nutshell.

To be honest, the alliance is not distinct enough from the horde, and not focused enough at all, nothing screams exciting, or come to the alliance for anyone. The only thing going for it is if you look at the player models and prefer the look of a race that is on it.. but when you get into the game, the story, and as things come in expansions and patches, it's horde that's clearly the place to be.. only blizzard won't admit it because they're in the same bubble and bias.

Ever stepped outside Warcraft, and played a game like Wildstar, Swtor - games that have two factions or more, so including Elder scrolls and FFXIV - having followed those games and world of Warcraft, I can assure you I have never seen anywhere a faction more heavily pushed and favoured in a two faction system than the horde has been in the world of Warcraft over the last 14 years.

in my experience, it is easy to see, I have found it is horde fans, the real ones that never seem to accept this because they are so into the horde and any slight disfavour they thing that blizzard is favouring the alliance.. but if blizzard is favouring the alliance, why doe the horde always get the cooler things and are always at the centre of the story for world of Warcraft? The alliance in Warcraft has been super lame.. when you play SWTOR, TESO, groups like the Republic, the Aldmeri Dominion or Daggerfall Covenant, you never get the impression that one is more favoured than the other or more lame than it's opposite counterpart, regardless of how the story goes.. but in Warcraft you do.

Sounds to me they need to examine this mixture and decide what to do. But as it stands right now, for anyone who gets more involved in Warcraft, the horde is the cooler place to be. It has everything.. alliance elements, and horde elements alike .. it makes the alliance mostly redundant and they don't care enough to raise it's profile because they've mixed it up to much.

One solution out of it would be to take elven civilizations which are very alliance themed, away from the horde and exclusive to the alliance, and build a new concept on the horde with the blood elves and Nightborne that is more unique, then promoting both sides for what they are.

The only other solution is that faction doesn't matter anymore... and this is where they are going. In my opinion the blood elves on the horde and failure to sufficiently support and distinguish the alliance post a high elf exit, has muddles and completely undermined what the factions stood for and meant. They were built on the alliance standing for one type of things (humans, elves , dwarves - their concept of life, civilization, structure, justice, nobility, arcane magic etc) and the horde standing for something else. They changed this, but they did this by bringing more alliance elements into the horde, and then focusing all their attention there, this meant the factions looked less distinct over time, and as such had little meaning. And with all the attention /focus on the horde, the alliance seems secondary.

the faction concept and presentation is broken and flawed, this is why it's having so much trouble. There is little separating them, and little reason to pick the alliance over the horde from any vantage point Horde looks better, horde has better (even of the things the alliance is supposed to be about - and that's thanks to blood elf and Nightborne stuff being too high elven and kaldorei empire based which are too alliance themed)


The solution I has always been to take the horde in a more alien direction, but not a more alliance one, can you reverse what's been done? The only way would be for the blood elves and Nightborne to lose the alliance based civilizations and to remove that stuff form the horde, making the horde elves become something different, while the alliance ones double down on those things. Ensure that the horde becomes is cool, but the alliance also remains a powerful and visible symbol - then fix the social issues , and things will even out...otherwise, scrap the factions .. focus on individual stories of great characters, and let everyone hold hands and fight demons.

[Traveler Voltin]

i say they are full of it. they are the ones who created this issues by making horde racials OP.

[iosdeveloper]

warcraft to me is like 50% music, that's why i always pick alliance, when creating a toon
listening to war drums during your chill time is bad for your health, 100% guarantee

[HateTrain]

You just don't stop do you? Every other post of dubious worth you make is a wahh wahh about Horde elves/take Horde elves. Your gimmick is awfully tedious.

[Puri]

It's always funny when people come up with any lore, story or flavour based reasons why something is the way it is.

We are talking about a game where some specs have 98%+ same covenant prevailance in raid logs.

People choose horde (now) because that's where most players are. Easier to find raids, easier to find groups, easier to progress. That's it.

[Kumorii]

i say they are full of it. they are the ones who created this issues by making horde racials OP.

Yes, that caused the issues, but maintaining the issue today is the social aspect.

[Traveler Voltin]

Yes, that caused the issues, but maintaining the issue today is the social aspect.

not really. in order to fix it Blizzard would have to make Alliance Racials OP then completely rework racials again to make things balanced.

[Jurani]

nah, horde racials were OP for too long and now that they're even the damage is done. People join Horde because there are more horde players doing the content they want to do. It's just that simple.

[Nite92]

not really. in order to fix it Blizzard would have to make Alliance Racials OP then completely rework racials again to make things balanced.

Mhm... That's what they should do. Definitely nobody would make a single Thread complaining how shit their solution is, that they just do it to make people pay etc.

[Amunrasonther]

I think it really just comes down to racials and with the BFA, better Allied Races on the Horde side. For the Alliance, the Kul'tiran were very poorly done, and nobody wanted freaking junker gnomes. The Horde got Zandalari, Nightborne, and the extremely popular Vulpera. The only popular allied race the Alliance got were Void Elves.

But for racials, the only way they can remedy the situation is to give the Alliance a clear PVP/PVE racial advantage for an expansion or two.

[Traveler Voltin]

Mhm... That's what they should do. Definitely nobody would make a single Thread complaining how shit their solution is, that they just do it to make people pay etc.

people whined when they had to switch to horde. no matter what people will whine.
there is no other way to fix the imbalance.

[evertonbelmontt]

Yes, that caused the issues, but maintaining the issue today is the social aspect.

That's exactly right. Me and my guild changed to horde because of mythic raiding.

We don't want to be horde, but we have to. For Brazillians the only full realm would be Azralon and that is 99% horde.

This could be easily solved with letting alliance and horde players do content togheter. They already do this in game for things like mercenary mode.

The game has been advancing in this direction for quite a while but they always seems to step back at the final moment. Just imagine the sheer ammount of money they would get just from race changes. Lol
I'd become human again in a heartbeat.

Sixteen years old of the same shit, people. Almost no one cares about horde vs alliance nowdays unless you're new to the game. Or are you still hyped about the same old story that no faction ever wins and we have storylines like SlYvAnUs that is completelly bullshit and no horde nor alliance likes it, just the simps that have a special place in their head for her.

[Littleraven]

At this point I do somewhat agree. That said it is a problem of their own making. They never should have attached player power to racials and kept them cosmetic. They let them get too far out of control and now that the genie is out of the bottle there is nothing they can do that doesn't piss people off on either side.

Sure they could buff Alliance to be OP but then who does that really help? The issue is too far gone for an easy fix.

[Flurryfang]

The faction imbalance problem, is as OP has identified, a problem with Blizzard having a faction imbalance.

The Horde is what is unique about WoW. Its what carries it and its story completly. The Alliance, even with the elfs and worgen, are quite fantasy standard when it comes to the rest of their theme.

That said, im quite sure the faction imbalance can also be fixed with a social solution....whatever that might be. With the huge balance of racials, its become clear, that players just want to play Horde more, so to get them to go Alliance, would require some form of social "persuasion".

Personally, i would just focus more of the story on Alliance zones, characters and have their theme be updated a bit. The horde had a complete overhaul with Cata, maybe its time that the Alliance had that aswell. It seems like Anduin will not return as king, so maybe with Turalyon as leader of the Alliance, he might be able to turn the Alliance into a Light focused race, with most of the races getting more Light motives.

All i can say is, that the two factions are not equal in the eyes of Blizz and until that changes, the faction will always have a player imbalance.

[psyquest]

The "better racials" has been debunked completely.

No, people follow what other top guilds, top pvpers are doing.

If they want to influence a faction change they need to give top guilds and top pvpers a reason to go alliance.

1. free unlimited transfers
2. free guild transfers - unlimited gold.

this would create a momentum but they need to start with the top guilds and pvp players, the rest will follow.

[Amunrasonther]

The "better racials" has been debunked completely.

No, people follow what other top guilds, top pvpers are doing.

If they want to influence a faction change they need to give top guilds and top pvpers a reason to go alliance.

1. free unlimited transfers
2. free guild transfers - unlimited gold.

this would create a momentum but they need to start with the top guilds and pvp players, the rest will follow.

You don't think the top PVPers went horde because it gave them an advantage? Will of the Forsaken, Hardiness, Warstomp, Blood Fury, Berserking, Arcane Torrent - all of these gave the Horde a major advantage for so long. And I firmly believe that were the PvP crowd goes, the PvE crowd follows too.

[Kumorii]

not really. in order to fix it Blizzard would have to make Alliance Racials OP then completely rework racials again to make things balanced.

Making things purposefully OP isn't a good solution. I don't think it will go well with the PR that Blizzard make OP racials promote faction changes, which they earn money through.

[Nnyco]

not really. in order to fix it Blizzard would have to make Alliance Racials OP then completely rework racials again to make things balanced.

Always love this stupid comment.

[Itisamuh]

It is absolutely a social issue without a doubt. Either faction could easily argue favoritism so it has nothing to do with developer bias. Having the player pool split inherently makes the game worse and people naturally want to follow where the best are. If they changed the racial balance so much that the best or most popular players decided they wanted to switch factions then people would just follow them again. Then it would simply be the same situation again in reverse which fixes nothing. Removing factions is the best thing they could do for the game at this point. In terms of lore the factions are basically identical anyway so that stopped being an excuse more than a decade ago.

[evertonbelmontt]

For a very, veeeery long time when the problem was actual imbalance, the best racials for pvp was from alliance. Human, and NE.

So nah, the pvpers did not went horde for any advantage beyond trying to get gear from raiding and PVE where the scene is much better in horde. (But then eventually they would swap back to alliance if they actually did transfer for that reason)