Faction imbalance a social issue? Requiring a social solution?

[burek]

It is a social issue, it has nothing to do with the alliance or horde...

On EU and US servers when it comes to endgame the alliance is dead. But on the other hand, it's the opposite in Australia & China where alliance side is the stronger one. So buffing alliance racials or any other similar idiotic idea won't do shit. Cross faction PvE is the only way to go.

[chiddie]

They don't plan to do anything about the global population, because the global population isn't the one with the issue. It's specific subsections of the population.

Which is why something like removing the faction barrier may well be the best option, it doesn't really change anything for lower level characters who are mostly questing and doing queued content but solves the specific issue in question.

I don’t know if they will ever remove factions, mixed guilds could mean the paid faction change option becoming completely useless for large part.

If they have the option to balance things so that a chunk of players will use the paid service to move to alliance again (or for the first time) imho they will follow this way.

And aside from money stuff, I would also like factions to be still like Tom&Jerry (basically enemies, sometimes allied against a third greater for both menace). Even if greyed out in comparison with the past, it’s still the salt of the game for me.

[Ragedaug]

It is a social issue, it has nothing to do with the alliance or horde...

On EU and US servers when it comes to endgame the alliance is dead. But on the other hand, it's the opposite in Australia & China where alliance side is the stronger one. So buffing alliance racials or any other similar idiotic idea won't do shit. Cross faction PvE is the only way to go.

I concur. I would only have it work in party (for open world play) and probably consider only allowing it with war mode turned off. Would feel silly to be in "war mode" if you are playing with those you are at war with.

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I don’t know if they will ever remove factions, mixed guilds could mean the paid faction change option becoming completely useless for large part.

If they have the option to balance things so that a chunk of players will use the paid service to move to alliance again (or for the first time) imho they will follow this way.

And aside from money stuff, I would also like factions to be still like Tom&Jerry (basically enemies, sometimes allied against a third menace). Even if greyed out in comparison with the past, it’s still the salt of the game for me.

I don't think they have to remove factions, but I would be in favor of cross-faction guilds. Trade and gbank access would need to be faction specific, but otherwise I don't see a problem. You had Broxigar who was best buds with some night elves and is somewhat of a hero to them, so there is president in lore.

[Feanoro]

A social problem, LOL. ANYTHING but admit they screwed up.

They made Horde racials superior in PVE for ages, complete with GC's famous slip up about admitting they'd consider balancing only when they thought the flood of transfers would die down. The top all swapped for that advantage, high and mid tier swapped for the advantage, and the snowball became an avalanche. Eventually, even without racials, the problem became all the good players were Horde, such that you either go Horde or enjoy super casual. Only now when the Halls of Fame blindingly point out the imbalance for the world to see do they reluctantly admit there might be a teeny little problem.

Social problem, my foot.

[chiddie]

A social problem, LOL. ANYTHING but admit they screwed up.

They made Horde racials superior in PVE for ages, complete with GC's famous slip up about admitting they'd consider balancing only when they thought the flood of transfers would die down. The top all swapped for that advantage, high and mid tier swapped for the advantage, and the snowball became an avalanche. Eventually, even without racials, the problem became all the good players were Horde, such that you either go Horde or enjoy super casual. Only now when the Halls of Fame blindingly point out the imbalance for the world to see do they reluctantly admit there might be a teeny little problem.

Social problem, my foot.

They won’t ever balance this kind of “big” stuff around HoF, HoF is like 200 guilds out of 20.000 or more.

If they acknowledged the issue, it probably invests the whole game population.

[AngerFork]

Solid thread. I really tend to agree with the OP that the faction imbalance is at best a self created social issue, though even calling it a social issue feels weird. IMO, whether or not it is a social issue today, it is an issue that came about for gameplay reasons in the past and keeps getting worse, affecting gameplay for many Alliance players. It affects M+, it affects raiding, and realistically it probably is partially to blame for some of the Alliance issues in BGs (not all, but some). A "social" fix is really not going to be enough, as we've already seen with how little people seem to care about the Hall of Fame achievement.

I'm not sure that changing the story to make the Horde more alien is a great fix though. While story is important, gameplay is generally king when it comes to where people play. Even if the story goes more towards Alliance/Horde going different directions, I'm not sure that would move the needle as far as what high end players play in which areas.

There's a couple fixes I see that could move the needle somewhat. The easiest that I could see to help would be old fashioned bribery via pets/mounts. Right now, the Hall of Fame really means nothing. If it were incentivized by a special pet/mount that could only be gotten by getting the Hall of Fame for that tier, I suspect we'd at least see some Horde groups go Alliance to work for the pet/mount each tier. Probably wouldn't be super effective, but it's a low effort solution that could move the needle some.

Merging the factions would definitely fix the issue, and would probably help a ton of other players as well. It would be nice to be able to turn my Night Elf Druid into a Zandalari Druid and still get to play with my friends if I so choose. Most of the issues with BGs/World PvP and the like have already had great fixes proposed elsewhere and thus wouldn't necessarily be a major obstacle. The main issue here is the loss of faction identity, which to Blizz's point does very much have a place in WoW right now. We'd get used to it and it would certainly fix a lot of weird story issues as well, but losing faction identity would definitely feel wrong for a bit.

One possible idea if Blizz wants a half measure would be an idea I call Alter Egos. In essence, we'd meet up with an Ethereal in a portal dimension linked to SW/Org who would allow us to create the other faction version of ourselves in a sort of spy mode setup. I could have my NE version for Alliance stuff and my Zandalari version for Horde stuff. This would be opt in, so you don't have to be forced to do it, but doing so allows for cross faction play. We'd then have an extra check mark on the LFD/LFR/PvP section where we could opt into using these alter egos to match whatever faction the group leader opts for. With this in mind, guilds could then be cross-faction as could chat. Raids/M+ would go off of whatever faction the group leader is, though we'd need to somehow add in some sort of message for those without Alter Egos set up if the group leader is the other faction. War mode would still be set in SW/Org, but you could change to the other faction by taking the portal and going to the other city.

[fatgunn]

You mention SWtOR. The Empire is way more pushed in that game than the Republic. Every major event ends up being because of the imps. Half of the expansions are because of the Sith EMPEROR. The best class stories are on the Empire. The only Republic stuff that was hyped is Revan.

[loras]

A social problem, LOL. ANYTHING but admit they screwed up.

They made Horde racials superior in PVE for ages, complete with GC's famous slip up about admitting they'd consider balancing only when they thought the flood of transfers would die down. The top all swapped for that advantage, high and mid tier swapped for the advantage, and the snowball became an avalanche. Eventually, even without racials, the problem became all the good players were Horde, such that you either go Horde or enjoy super casual. Only now when the Halls of Fame blindingly point out the imbalance for the world to see do they reluctantly admit there might be a teeny little problem.

Social problem, my foot.

This, too.
The transferring and faction changing was a big part of the problem in itself too, since the herd will always try to congregate on whatever it deems superior that day.
As such transfers, faction changes and boosts that would reduce the imbalance should be encouraged via i.e. a discount, and perhaps those that worsen imbalance should be discouraged.

But yeah, balance is a neccesity, and they've taken the first step in acknowledging the problem at least.

[Baconeggcheese]

My dude didn't we just have a conversation about how you're quitting the game for good? Now you're writing essays on faction imbalance?

[Relapses]

Ah yes, "Blizzard's lying, please validate my opinion that this company hates its players by refusing to {insert request here}."

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Did you really shoehorn in your opinion on the state of elf races AGAIN?


Hooooollllyyyyy shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit my guy.


And you wonder why people respond to you in the way they do.

[huth]

This, too.
The transferring and faction changing was a big part of the problem in itself too, since the herd will always try to congregate on whatever it deems superior that day.

Except it's been said that Alliance is statistically better, but the big players still won't change because Horde is where the recruitment pools can be found. That's kinda the point of saying it is a social issue at this point - game balance no longer impacts things.

[Argorwal]

A social problem, LOL. ANYTHING but admit they screwed up.

They made Horde racials superior in PVE for ages, complete with GC's famous slip up about admitting they'd consider balancing only when they thought the flood of transfers would die down. The top all swapped for that advantage, high and mid tier swapped for the advantage, and the snowball became an avalanche. Eventually, even without racials, the problem became all the good players were Horde, such that you either go Horde or enjoy super casual. Only now when the Halls of Fame blindingly point out the imbalance for the world to see do they reluctantly admit there might be a teeny little problem.

Social problem, my foot.

Clearly you didn’t actually watch or listen to anything in the interview because Ion said the same things you are.

Horde had a racial imbalance for too long a while back and top tier players have migrated there.

Currently the racials are about even, with alliance actually stronger in many cases, but they aren’t OP enough to make anyone want change back.

Racial imbalance caused it, but racials being equal going on 5 years now hasn’t and won’t ever cause the swing back to alliance. Why give up your recruitment pool just to be alliance?

[ravenmoon]

you must be joking? there is no imbalance in the population in numbers of players.
there is a difference between hardcore players and the only way to change that is to give an advantage in the statistics to the alliance that is to say better racials than the horde.
my opinion about this thread is that you are envious. It bothers you that the horde has aesthetic and lore elements that you want and use as an excuse that the horde has more pro players than the alliance. People who want to play in the horde because the racial troll allows them to kill a boss faster will not switch to the alliance unless the alliance has better racials.
so you really want the population of the alliance to grow in mythic + ask for better racials for the alliance

And this is why it's problematic, it doesn't matter if the alliance numbers are padded by tons of casuals, that barely play, when for the main playing population. Let's just say that's 60% of the total population, it's heavily horde - means that it's the horde the seriously players are much more excited about and keen about.

And look at this sub-forum, ever wondered why horde elf fans are the most active and strongest fans? While alliance ones are barely about posting on here, because the alliance isn't inspiring and attracting them to get into the game, the serious portion of the game, and the involved portion of Warcraft is horde dominated.


You have to be able to see this, to recognise where the problem is and fix it. Let's just say is even population overall the most important thing? or even population amongst the engaged player base???

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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.

I'd say you chose a very appropriate name for your avatar on here.

[HateTrain]

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I'd say you chose a very appropriate name for your avatar on here.

AHHHHH, I see that you have no defense for your terrible, poorly thought out idea. Good to see that you're at least consistent. Tired. Gimmick.

[Beloren]

Any organised endgame content pretty much. It gets worse the higher level it is. It's slowly starting to bleed through into lower level stuff as well. Global population includes people that just level up characters and then start over, or never reach max level, which naturally aren't affected and make up a considerable portion of the playerbase.

It's also not a good sign when this is the case either, it means whatever you are doing, is not engaging larger portions of your playerbase and is a sign of dwindling.. it's okay that you have them , so you collect their sub fee, but these would easily just drop it altogether if you don't get them more engaged.


It's down to inspiration. And the less of it you have the less people will hang on. But it also gives you a chance to majorly spark a revival if you do it real well.

[Daffan]

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.

Exactly.

They should give all Alliances players 50% more loot to compensate.

[Byleth]

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.

This was my first too. I knew the post was leading to wahhh Horde has elves, but I continued reading anyway. I regret that.

[delus]

You are told to hate half of the players in the game and you are made not to play with them. Now things are even more fractured with classic. What good is a multiplayer game with no one to play with?

[Rhlor]

And this is why it's problematic, it doesn't matter if the alliance numbers are padded by tons of casuals, that barely play, when for the main playing population. Let's just say that's 60% of the total population, it's heavily horde - means that it's the horde the seriously players are much more excited about and keen about.

And look at this sub-forum, ever wondered why horde elf fans are the most active and strongest fans? While alliance ones are barely about posting on here, because the alliance isn't inspiring and attracting them to get into the game, the serious portion of the game, and the involved portion of Warcraft is horde dominated.


You have to be able to see this, to recognise where the problem is and fix it. Let's just say is even population overall the most important thing? or even population amongst the engaged player base???

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I'd say you chose a very appropriate name for your avatar on here.

come on man! read the comments here and in similar threads on the official forums. the answer that everyone gives is always the same because everyone knows what the problem is because they play the game! the racial ones!
Why did the pro players go to play the horde? for the racial!
The developers said the total player population is balanced. the alliance dominates in RP and battle pet, the horde dominates in M + and PvP.

do you think an aesthetic change will change this? Obviously not. But that does not matter to you in the end you want an aesthetic change because you want our things that do not affect the end game!

Or do you think that someone who wants to kill denathrius faster cares if Suramar is alliance in lore or not?

this thread is the same thing you do in all the different threads wanting to steal our aesthetics and our lore.

If you really want the alliance to have more pro players in pvp and M + the only answer is better racials.