Faction Imbalance at an all-time high H80-A20

[LostSinclair]

Honestly besides hurrying up with cross faction changes the only real way I can see them helping slow or change the imbalance would be shameless fan service. Give the Alliance some Allied Races that have been long requested and overwhelmingly popular. Arrakoa/Saberon/Naga blah blah... Unless there is incentive to play the other side people won't. At least this way it wouldn't upset end game balancing a lot.

[gcsmith]

Lol they fixed that real quick. Which tier were goblins the best in for a while cos of their rocket jump? And didn't trolls have a while in the sun too cos of their racial?

Well, goblins are regularly good for various fights. As are Trolls.

[Neuroticaine]

It's bound to happen when one said has generic, copy-paste, high fantasy races, and the other side has slightly more interesting races with a little bit more unique lore.

Letting people play cross faction is about the best you could do at this point.

[rhorle]

I don't care enough to pay to faction change though what always stopped me was alts and having to pay for all of them. Honestly though factions don't make much sense when practically all of the stores have us unite and work together by the end of the expansion. Conflict between the factions can still exist since we've always had "neutral" groups while other groups were at war. Like the BG factions that were always at odds when the greater alliance and horde were not at full war.

The "lore" is there to allow players to work cross faction and still have conflict. Or just make it "mercenary" mode where there is no lore basis. Anyone who says it ruins the game or removes conflict is just silly sine like I said earlier the factions have always come together or worked with neutral parties to end the big threats.

[Raisei]

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

It would probably help to not give the Horde races all the best racials AND then also make it so that the new class/race combinations exclusively benefit the Horde, while the Alliance can hope that maybe at some point they can play the combos they want to play, once the Horde has again gotten all their dreams.

On top of that it would probably help if the story wasn't focussed on the Horde for the last 6 years, with the Alliance varying from punching bag with no right of self-defense to saving the Horde from itself again and again.

I mean Blizzard has just decided that the House of Wrynn will die out because Anduin steps down as king, while the Horde will definately get Sylvanas back in the first patch of 10.1.

No wonder the Alliance players keep quitting or switching left and right. Only so long you can take this obvious Horde favoritism.

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

What can be done? Something more than cross realm grouping needs to be done? Why?

Either way, your "sources" aren't to be concerning.
You can see the actual facts on Raiderio.
Its about 2:1 Horde to Alliance doing keys, which as far as I'm concerned is the end all - be all metric.
Not good, but not that bad, and about to matter a lot less in however long.

[qwerty123456]

Nobody likes to lose and nobody likes "wins" where everything goes back to the status quo except for all the shit they lost from the war so you got both the people who want an easier time raiding/pvping and the people that are sick of their side always letting the horde steamroll them and then forgiving them switching factions.

The only way to fix it is to permanently end the faction conflict, having cross faction raiding/dungeons, having Horde/Alliance factions focus on saving the world/universe, turning pvp into conflicts between smaller factions, and giving people an incentive to play Alliance like having the next two expansions where the Alliance gets 2 badass and/or sexy races while the Horde gets two dogshit races plus not fuck over the Alliance anymore by giving them horses instead of unique mounts. They just gotta make sure that what ever incentives they give for going Alliance don't end up just swapping the imbalance in favor of the Alliance.

[Gorsameth]

Honestly besides hurrying up with cross faction changes the only real way I can see them helping slow or change the imbalance would be shameless fan service. Give the Alliance some Allied Races that have been long requested and overwhelmingly popular. Arrakoa/Saberon/Naga blah blah... Unless there is incentive to play the other side people won't. At least this way it wouldn't upset end game balancing a lot.

Won't help. Players are not going to play their main on a faction where they can't find groups for content just because the race looks pretty.

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Nobody likes to lose and nobody likes "wins" where everything goes back to the status quo except for all the shit they lost from the war so you got both the people who want an easier time raiding/pvping and the people that are sick of their side always letting the horde steamroll them and then forgiving them switching factions.

The only way to fix it is to permanently end the faction conflict, having cross faction raiding/dungeons, having Horde/Alliance factions focus on saving the world/universe, turning pvp into conflicts between smaller factions, and giving people an incentive to play Alliance like having the next two expansions where the Alliance gets 2 badass and/or sexy races while the Horde gets two dogshit races plus not fuck over the Alliance anymore by giving them horses instead of unique mounts. They just gotta make sure that what ever incentives they give for going Alliance don't end up just swapping the imbalance in favor of the Alliance.

You can still have Horde vs Alliance conflict. Just place the players above the factions, guilds made up of both factions fighting to save the world while the silly Horde and Alliance fight among themselves. Which is basically the exact story of Legion Order halls.

[Diatribe]

I started on Alliance and raided in Vanilla for awhile there, but always found myself playing Horde (specially the shaman class) but had IRL friends on Alliance side, so I stayed there. But after awhile, I found the lure too great and finished leveling up my shaman and was remained a healer through almost the end of TBC where I went Elemental. Ended up going back to Alliance at the behest of friends and ran there (with occasionally dipping back into Horde part time) till BFA where my IRL friends were all but gone and then I said screw Alliance went Horde full time and never looked back.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

According to several sources, the faction imbalance on both retail and classic is at an all-time high.

Which sources are these?

[Lochton]

They are doing the absolute bare minimum. You can manually invite a cross faction person to your raid.
This won't meaningfully change the exodus from Alliance to Horde because if you want to actually join a guild you still need to change faction.

You could just join a community? It is going to have almost all the same tools as a guild, and cross faction?

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They need to make cross-faction guilds. Then it won't matter.

They are doing the softer step. Cross faction community groups, where you can sign up and join through without a guild, while still having all tools like a guild except for the guild bank.

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Which sources are these?

These sources are commonly the same sources of questionable numbers of player number status. So, take the numbers with a grain of salt.

[qwerty123456]

Won't help. Players are not going to play their main on a faction where they can't find groups for content just because the race looks pretty.

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You can still have Horde vs Alliance conflict. Just place the players above the factions, guilds made up of both factions fighting to save the world while the silly Horde and Alliance fight among themselves. Which is basically the exact story of Legion Order halls.

Nah there can never be a winner. And the Alliance will always have to forgive and let the Horde off Scot-Free. These are global superpowers who are constantly saving the world together the Horde/Alliance bullshit needs to end. Let the faction conflict be between smaller factions, let these other factions shape lesser parts of the world while X and Y stays Horde or Alliance territory. Have a bg where rival goblin cartels compete against each other and hire us, then let the eventual winner grow in power in the world and supply the Horde and Alliance with shit in the next expansion. Then maybe D.E.T.A. gets pissed off at the cartel for abusing animals and goes to war against them, then through pvp we determine the winning side and get a reward based on which side won(even if you chose the other faction) but you lose out on the other item.

[Baine]

I have difficulty to admit that there is such an imbalance, unless it is for a specific activity.

As for me, I play both factions, so I don't care much about the imbalance.

[PsychoSe7eN]

Alliance are boring. Sticking with Horde.

[TheramoreIsTheBomb]

Faction imbalance is going to be a thing forever, until there is only one faction.

I started out as Alliance in Vanilla, went Horde in TBC (Blood Elf Paladin), and was Horde till end-legion, then went Alliance again.

Another way to solve it is by making a racial talent system, have people put points into various racial abilities, the more points, the stronger/more bonus, after 5-10 points, it unlocks multiple racial activation abilities where you can select two, opening up to racial builds such as:

2-3 stats bonuses following various combinations of activation abilities such as:

Orc: Bonus Reputation (Human), Frost Damage Resistance (Dwarf), Increased versatility (HM Tauren), Rocket Jump (Goblin), Enrage to increase dmg (Orc).
Human: Increased Stamina (Tauren), Resistant to arcane dmg (Blood Elf), Increased agility, Int, Str (Draenei), Arcane Torrent (Blood Elf), Shadowmeld (Night Elf).
Troll: Increased dodging (Night Elf), Critical Chance increased (Worgen), Reduced duration of Poisons, curses, and diseases (Mag'har), Cannibalize (Undead), Stoneskin (Dwarf).

Note: Worgen's transformation, is not a racial, but part of the race.

Pros: There won't be racial restrictions on races and options, and with 9.2.5, you can basically pick whatever faction you wanna be, you can still raid with whatever people you are able to on either faction.
Pros: Another selection of options for players to make their favorite race theirs to play.
Cons: It'll more or less toss another shred of racial fantasy off, leaving only appearance, lore, and homeland as the only thing making it different from other races.
Cons: Another system implemented.

I think it would be cool if we could unlock other racials by getting exalted with their factions such as Arcane Torrent with exalted Silvermoon as well as getting the Allliance equivalent just in another color.

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They need to make cross-faction guilds. Then it won't matter.

This would help a bunch. But removing the factions from gameplay entirely needs to be the goal. Factions should be purely cosmetic at this point

[enigma77]

Good.

Zugs win.

[NineSpine]

This was always going to happen with two factions. Two factions leads to this. There should have been three factions:

Alliance:
Human
Night Elf
Dwarf

Horde:
Orc
Troll
Alliance

Exiled or whatever:
Forsaken
Blood Elf
Third race

Packaging the Fantasy of the “noble savage” and the fantasy of the “bad guys” into one faction was a mistake.

[Edgeta]

They are doing the absolute bare minimum. You can manually invite a cross faction person to your raid.
This won't meaningfully change the exodus from Alliance to Horde because if you want to actually join a guild you still need to change faction.

I completely agree. My previous post was more a lighthearted jab. I would actually like to see a sort of neutral faction where you could choose to be neutral and be able to chat/group/raid/guild with other neutral characters the same as you can currently with members of your faction. The kicker would be that there would be specific NPCs of both factions that you wouldn't be able to interact with; PvP NPCs obviously but also certain racial leaders (eg: Genn) unless it was required for story purposes. You also wouldn't be able to participate in any PvP activities or use warmode.

[Gurg]

Faction imbalance is going to be a thing forever, until there is only one faction.

This is true and will be true. But again, there will always be more Hordish players due to aesthetics and diversity of the races.

Another way to solve it is by making a racial talent system, have people put points into various racial abilities, the more points, the stronger/more bonus, after 5-10 points, it unlocks multiple racial activation abilities where you can select two, opening up to racial builds such as:

2-3 stats bonuses following various combinations of activation abilities

This also sounds like good idea - tho it would take extra development time i think that now, or maybe next expansion, while they are "refreshing core systems" would be great time to look into racial system and probably tinker a bit.

In BfA ist was the completely other way around. The war crime this time was much bigger than Theramore and yet the vast majority of the horde actually agreed with Sylvanas and stood behind her until the very end. It was not the horde who abandoned Sylvanas and decided to fight against her, it was Sylvanas who abandoned the Horde. The people who fought against her on Horde side where very, VERY few (there even was a cinematic about it) and even afterwards the general consensus was not "we as a faction condemn her and her action" but more like "Well, maybe she overdid it, better blame her to appease the Alliance."

Dunno where did you get "Well, maybe she overdid it, better blame her to appease the Alliance" idea since, as Horde only player who is generally mingling in Horde circles i can tell you that hardly any Horde player that i know of didnt condemn Sylvanas for her actions the moment they saw it.
I mean even people who played exclusively Undead's for their waifu were not happy with her actions.
She even killed bunch of her own people, which cant reproduce , at the Gathering in the Arathi Highlands, did she not?

The thing is that due to how the story was scripted we didnt have more impactful option how to deal with the issue.
That doesnt mean that we didnt condemn her actions, we just kinda didnt have the option to do so because.. well storywriters.
I mean only difference between two choices were few ingame cinematics and different lines of text and thats it.

My guild dealt with that issue the simple way - we all made Ally characters and played trough The Battle for Lordaeron Questline on Ally side to get her.
And left those characters behind us.

In fact, Horde backlash was so severe that they had to "wash" her actions with whole "its not me, its my Bwonsamdi/Zovaal" thing.

Im not gonna deny, Horde did some atrocious thigs, and as Horde player, im not proud of them, but please dont pin that shit event that was used as plot twist for poorly executed storyline and, in fact, poorly executed, forgettable expansion (Shadowlands) onto Horde.

Tho i do hope that Undead's will now get Calia Menethil as their fraction leader and Sylvanas being on backburner for some time.

[oplawlz]

First, please do NOT pin actions of crazed Elf who played with fire onto Horde.
Second, dunno where did you get "Well, maybe she overdid it, better blame her to appease the Alliance" idea since, as Horde only player who is generally mingling in Horde circles i can tell you that hardly any Horde player that i know of didnt condemn Sylvanas for her actions the moment they saw it.
I mean even people who played exclusively Undead's for their waifu were not happy with her actions.
As people said it - its not honorable thing to do.

Man I don't know who you hang out with but they sound terribly boring. Many people play horde because they *like* being the enemy of gnomes and elves, and recognize that it's a video game and there are no such thing as warcrimes in make believe land.