Faction Imbalance at an all-time high H80-A20

[Raven]

According to several sources, the faction imbalance on both retail and classic is at an all-time high. The active player-base makes up of 80% Horde and 20% Alliance and is dropping even lower. Several Alliance dominated servers are seeing a growth in Horde population and a decrease in theirs as many people faction change their characters. Cross-faction raiding and dungeoning comes in 9.2.5 but will it even be enough to stop the numbers? It's a huge no from me. Perhaps it is time to remove the factions entirely from the gameplay and just keep them incorporated in the story to have faction pride available. You also should be able to use 'war mode' and choose a faction to support but this would easily be abused.

At this point, the game is 18 years old. What can be done at this point?

Pretty much only thing that be done to level out the % is making Alliance racials alot more op, but thats just a temp fix until the problem will become the opposite with alot more alliance then horde.

Or offer free race changes from Horde to Alliance and hope now when racials are more even that alot of people will race change but the cost of doing it have stopped them before.

[Kallisto]

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.

But the Horde racials are inferior to the Alliance ones in raids, M+ and pvp. This has been the case for 2-3 expansions now. If it were about racials the guilds at the top would have jumped over by now.

They have not. The limits, echos etc of the world all say the same thing. That "The alliance racials are superior but the recruiting pool is just too small to justify jumping over and come 9.2.5 you'll likely see some finally doing so because of cross play."

[Amaterasu65]

That's what happens when you leave Horde racials OP for a long time. Now it's not even a racial issue. It's just that all the competitive players went Horde in small waves over the years. And recruitment has become very hard for the Alliance.

[Recovery]

Wouldn't it just be easier to have it separate, just needing a 'tick' to make available than build it into a talent tree that will get overhauled again? I mean, we're talking racials, shouldn't be on class talent trees.

No need to even call them racials anymore. Get away from that stigma and just bake them into utility / let us choose which one we want. Races should be purely aesthetic.

[Flarelaine]

The Horde is what is unique about WoW. Not other game lets you play as the warmongering savages, or as beastmen

The Charr say hi.

[Coldkil]

But the Horde racials are inferior to the Alliance ones in raids, M+ and pvp. This has been the case for 2-3 expansions now. If it were about racials the guilds at the top would have jumped over by now.

They have not. The limits, echos etc of the world all say the same thing. That "The alliance racials are superior but the recruiting pool is just too small to justify jumping over and come 9.2.5 you'll likely see some finally doing so because of cross play."

And even then they simply won't. Because they don't need to - the opening of xfaction guilds makes so the already bigger Horde pool can also poach into the Alliance ranks for recruiting.

All in all, the change is actually a game changer for Alliance players and not so much for Horde. There will be people or teams changing but the builk of people will just remain Horde until true xfaction guilds are implemented and faction won't have any meaning anymore for PvE.

[psyquest]

And even then they simply won't. Because they don't need to - the opening of xfaction guilds makes so the already bigger Horde pool can also poach into the Alliance ranks for recruiting.

All in all, the change is actually a game changer for Alliance players and not so much for Horde. There will be people or teams changing but the builk of people will just remain Horde until true xfaction guilds are implemented and faction won't have any meaning anymore for PvE.

about 70-80% of my guild will transfert to alliance if they implement cross faction guilds.
I don't know where you get your "impressions" but they are just that, unfounded fears.

Cross faction will only bring a positive outcome to the alliance where guilds wont fear the recruitment hellhole that is the alliance faction. This means more people will be able to play alliance without fear of being in the faction where any group activity is a hell to organise.

[Amariw]

the upcoming cross faction is exactly an attempt to solve this, and if accepted well enough will probably be followed by more cross faction features, possibly to the point factions won't matter outside war mode.

That's probably the logical way to go about it, so i think the fear reflected in the OP is a bit unfounded. It took them too long, but we're getting the solution.

[Gorsameth]

about 70-80% of my guild will transfert to alliance if they implement cross faction guilds.
I don't know where you get your "impressions" but they are just that, unfounded fears.

Cross faction will only bring a positive outcome to the alliance where guilds wont fear the recruitment hellhole that is the alliance faction. This means more people will be able to play alliance without fear of being in the faction where any group activity is a hell to organise.

I very much prefer the Alliance story, area and races. Yet I played Horde for the player pool size. I would 100% go back to Alliance if they introduced cross faction guilds. (not for this half way 'can invite them to instanced groups' stuff)

[Lochton]

No need to even call them racials anymore. Get away from that stigma and just bake them into utility / let us choose which one we want. Races should be purely aesthetic.

That is basically what my main post in this thread was about.

[Caprias]

That is basically what my main post in this thread was about.

I'd rather have racials tuned up a ton with new creative effects that fit in, outbursts of haste for gnomes/goblins for example instead of a boring "1%".

Together with that, deactivate all racials in current instanced content so they are old content and open world only.

[Coldkil]

about 70-80% of my guild will transfert to alliance if they implement cross faction guilds.
I don't know where you get your "impressions" but they are just that, unfounded fears.

Cross faction will only bring a positive outcome to the alliance where guilds wont fear the recruitment hellhole that is the alliance faction. This means more people will be able to play alliance without fear of being in the faction where any group activity is a hell to organise.

Yeah, i said nowhere that it would turn out to be different or as a negative - just the actual amount of people caring about racial abilities is very very small. There will surely be people changing faction left and right because they now finally can, but i don't think the most people will do.

In the end as you said, people won't actually need to swap faction anymore. So the ones that will swap are either people who are totally bent down into minmax (which are not that many) and the ones who simply like the look of Horde races but are "stuck" with Alliance because of the group of people they play with, and are fine with the price fee to faction swap (i'm one of them).

Horde is already pretty much functional by itself, and the xfaction helps way more Alliance than Horde. But if had a functional and progressing Horde guild, i wouldn't migrate it all to Alliance because i can simply let people do the switch and play with them anyway. It's just the fact that the Horde doesn't need to do anything given the situation.

I'm actually pretty curious how numbers will turn out to be after the patch. And if they manage to deliver actual xfaction guilds, factions will have way less meaning at least for PvE.

[vincink]

For a solution, I'd like to see cross-faction play for at least dungeons and raids, but with a twist: when the system is building a dungeon/raid group, it converts everyone to one faction or the other just for that instance session. As soon as players exit, they are back to their faction. The system randomly chooses what faction the players will assume during that session. Or the players can vote, with the system resolving a tie.

The whole thing would be an opt-in system.

(And maybe this is what everyone means when they talk about cross-faction play rather than mixing horde and alliance together in the same party.)

[Gorsameth]

For a solution, I'd like to see cross-faction play for at least dungeons and raids, but with a twist: when the system is building a dungeon/raid group, it converts everyone to one faction or the other just for that instance session. As soon as players exit, they are back to their faction. The system randomly chooses what faction the players will assume during that session. Or the players can vote, with the system resolving a tie.

The whole thing would be an opt-in system.

(And maybe this is what everyone means when they talk about cross-faction play rather than mixing horde and alliance together in the same party.)

Why?
Like seriously, why jump through all those hoops?
Do you care that much about the "horror" of an Orc fighting together with your party of humans to end an evil cult of vampires?

[vincink]

Why?
Like seriously, why jump through all those hoops?
Do you care that much about the "horror" of an Orc fighting together with your party of humans to end an evil cult of vampires?

Which hoops? The opt-in part? The automatic switching to one faction or another? The switch back after exiting a dungeon/raid?

[Gorsameth]

Which hoops? The opt-in part? The automatic switching to one faction or another? The switch back after exiting a dungeon/raid?

all of it basically. why go through all that rather then just letting an Orc fight with a Human to save the world? Like we have done numerous times before.

[vincink]

all of it basically. why go through all that rather then just letting an Orc fight with a Human to save the world? Like we have done numerous times before.

It would be awkward to be in an Alliance-specific scenario in a raid or dungeon and be a member of the Horde beating up a boss from the Horde. Better to convert everyone to one faction or another for the sake of the story. This would also gave players who stick to one faction a chance to see the content of the other faction without having to level up a toon.

[Gorsameth]

It would be awkward to be in an Alliance-specific scenario in a raid or dungeon and be a member of the Horde beating up a boss from the Horde. Better to convert everyone to one faction or another for the sake of the story. This would also gave players who stick to one faction a chance to see the content of the other faction without having to level up a toon.

1 BFA raid and some different trash in 1 dungeon is I believe all the difference in 'faction specific raids/dungeons'. Not worth the effort to make mechanics for race switching with votes and whatever.

[rhorle]

It would be awkward to be in an Alliance-specific scenario in a raid or dungeon and be a member of the Horde beating up a boss from the Horde. Better to convert everyone to one faction or another for the sake of the story. This would also gave players who stick to one faction a chance to see the content of the other faction without having to level up a toon.

That already happens now though. Battle for Dazar'alor had people "change factions" when the story required it. It just seems silly to make a complex problem when simple solutions exist already. You don't need a group for most instances to be "one faction". The times where it made sense like Caverns of Time Blizzard already gave players an illusion.

There is no reason to over complicate this or have it be some big system. Just allow people to group. Put illusions on if needed for the few times Blizzard creates a faction/race specific story.

[ifrah]

Racials were one of the big things that got us into this mess. But they won't get us out of it, since it's WAY too late now. As you rightly said, racials are in favor of the Alliance now (for the most part); and while the top-end guilds all readily admit they'd be Alliance instantly if that was all that mattered, it is NOT all that matters. The fact that so much of the world-first race now depends on community efforts means that leaving Horde for a fractionally smaller Alliance population would DESTROY the community advantage for the big raiders. So it's not even a point of consideration.

For racials alone to be the thing that flips it they would have to be so absurdly overpowered they'd break the entire game balance in half - which for obvious reasons has other problems, and a whole slew of them. It really is far too late now.

Cross-faction play and - hopefully soon thereafter - cross-faction guilds is really the most realistic option at this point.

Well said, and agree on that. Have heard the "would re-roll, but" from many horde players as well. Since the game isn't growing any more as in the heydays, yea, it's as you said.