Faction Imbalance at an all-time high H80-A20

[MoanaLisa]

What's the several sources the OP is citing?

Despite several requests for some harder data and later posts by the account that started the thread, no 'sources' seem to be coming. One can presume that there aren't any. I haven't been able to find anything that seemed reputable.

That said, being generous, faction imbalance on a realm-to-realm basis is a reality so the question about whether there's anything that can be done about it is a fair one for discussion.

[Gorsameth]

As with all WoW numbers we don't have hard numbers. But anyone involved in guild recruitment with experience on either side and anyone that played on Alliance and transferred to Horde can attest to the difference in players.

[Nymrohd]

As with all WoW numbers we don't have hard numbers. But anyone involved in guild recruitment with experience on either side and anyone that played on Alliance and transferred to Horde can attest to the difference in players.

Can we even get hard numbers anymore? Is it possible to let a crawler mine the armory through activity feeds to at least check active characters if not active accounts per faction? Some things should be moderately easier; checking to see how many characters are actively raiding, doing M+ or rated PvP should have easier flags to identify.

[czarek]

for the horde since 2004

[Recovery]

This is what I initially thought but would be a lot of extra work to put it into the new talent trees for every spec vs. making a new tree in a different tab/row (like PvP talents, but a bit more options).

Would it be that much work? I mean.... literally just make one of the rows of the new tree the "racial tree" for every spec. Actually, just make it the first thing you pick at level 1. lol

[loras]

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?

What should have been done at the start: Active balancing.

- Server change to dominating faction? 100% more expensive. Server change to underdog side? 100% less expensive.
- Proper balancing of racials, also ensuring more archetypes are present; the Alliance is hopelesly homogenous.
- Less crap writing for the Alliance, stop pretending that tanking a genocide without retaliation is in any way, shape or form "good" or "noble".
- Mitigating the effects of disbalance by:
1. mitigating for PvP; This is already done to some extent with warmode stuff, but so long as the system is not expanded to rated pvp (or other roads to max lvl pvp gear) it's still effectively nothing.
2. Mitigating for PvE; Guilds and pugs have it way harder.
3. Mitigating for market; supplies are far fewer as they are ultimately zero-sum - leaving more for the dominators.
4. Mitigating for gear advantage in general; Itemlvl continues to matter far too much due to the four tiers of difficulty per tier of raiding. A 30k hp player has no chance against an 80k hp one, so you will need to account for that somehow (yes, it's an exaggeration, that's for clarity).

Or you can try to ignore it and keep that sweet server and faction change money flowing.
Until you realise that that inavoidably ends when everyone is Horde and one of the pillars of your game has been allowed to thoroughly rot away.

[Lochton]

Would it be that much work? I mean.... literally just make one of the rows of the new tree the "racial tree" for every spec. Actually, just make it the first thing you pick at level 1. lol

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.

[Lanesra]

Once horde reaches 100% wow will end and warcraft 4 starts with a horde victory

[Accendor]

I wouldn't want that, that sounds awful. I don't need my hand held.

All they have to do is enable cross faction play across all levels of gameplay. Including guilds.
When that happens you'll see the alliance come back slowly but surely.

People are moving horde just because it has more people. The players left on the alliance right now are only die-hards and less informed people.
Once all the cons to being alliance get removed there won't be many players already playing alliance going horde. Because they would've done that already.
You however may see droves of horde players come back to the alliance since their preferred faction is no longer in shambles gameplay wise.

It's not about "holding your hand", its about pressuring players into switching factions, because thats exactly what we need to do now.
It is sad, but IMO the only solution.

- - - Updated - - -

Eh, sounds a bit too extreme in the simple term, as it would force people to pick something they don't enjoy. Hence my other idea with permitting players to make the racial they see fit for the race they wish to be, as overall faction instanced content is more or less gone in 9.2.5.

The problem with your solution is that it won't help. The point of my proposal is to "force" players to faction switch. Your solution MIGHT have worked 10 years ago, when racials actually were relevant, but Racials have not been the reason for thats exactly what we need right now. People are already "forced" to pick horde right now, so at least for a while we need to turn it around until we get back to 50:50

[Utrrabbit]

Plenty of people have one main and very few alts that they barely play. As the alliance dies off, it becomes harder for alliance players to find proper raiding, w hich leads them to go horde as well, compounding the problem.

But this post is the shining example of "Well this problem doesn't affect me so the rest of you should stop complaining about it"

No its the shining example of "you people are whining just to sound like entitled children, and I am tired of hearing the stupidity"

[kranur]

What's the several sources the OP is citing?

Did a quick math for the EU and US realms based on the data on wowprogress and the ratios are H 60 - 40 A
So probably the OP's sources are ... from the ass, or he's just counting only the ones participating in raiding or something

The OC ones even have more Alliance than Horde, but the numbers are quite small

[arkanon]

Did a quick math for the EU and US realms based on the data on wowprogress and the ratios are H 60 - 40 A
So probably the OP's sources are ... from the ass, or he's just counting only the ones participating in raiding or something

The OC ones even have more Alliance than Horde, but the numbers are quite small

What criteria where you searching for?

[kranur]

What criteria where you searching for?

https://www.wowprogress.com/realms/rank/eu

No particular criteria

Just slapped the data into an excel and made calculations

[arkanon]

https://www.wowprogress.com/realms/rank/eu

No particular criteria

Just slapped the data into an excel and made calculations

That appears to be heroic boss kills, correct? Or am i reading that wrong?

[kranur]

That appears to be heroic boss kills, correct? Or am i reading that wrong?

Think it's chars that are in a guild with someone that has killed at least 1 boss in heroic

[arkanon]

Think it's chars that are in a guild with someone that has killed at least 1 boss in heroic

So heroic raiders. Hardly covers the entire player-base, does it?

Its chars that EITHER have killed a heroic boss themselves, or, are in a guild that has killed a heroic boss. That would be a TINY percentage of players. What im not sure about is if the GUILD need the boss kill - like, a guild kill (i forget the breakpoints now, think it used to be 8/10 guildies?) or if just some random dude who happens to be in your guild happens to have killed 1 or more heroic bosses.

[Lochton]

The problem with your solution is that it won't help. The point of my proposal is to "force" players to faction switch. Your solution MIGHT have worked 10 years ago, when racials actually were relevant, but Racials have not been the reason for thats exactly what we need right now. People are already "forced" to pick horde right now, so at least for a while we need to turn it around until we get back to 50:50

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.

[MoanaLisa]

Can we even get hard numbers anymore? Is it possible to let a crawler mine the armory through activity feeds to at least check active characters if not active accounts per faction? Some things should be moderately easier; checking to see how many characters are actively raiding, doing M+ or rated PvP should have easier flags to identify.

No, there are no hard numbers that are accurate, updateable and reliable about the game population. I'm not sure that it would matter. The usual point about faction differences often refers obliquely if not directly to raiding which is a subset. It may track with the general population, it may not. We don't really know. Then you have to sort out whether it's characters or accounts being counted.

[rhorle]

No, there are no hard numbers that are accurate, updateable and reliable about the game population. I'm not sure that it would matter. The usual point about faction differences often refers obliquely if not directly to raiding which is a subset. It may track with the general population, it may not. We don't really know. Then you have to sort out whether it's characters or accounts being counted.

Isn't the balance of raiding and M+ the only important part of balance though? It doesn't matter much what the general population does if they don't also partake in those aspects. It is clear from Hall of Fame for this tier that there is a faction balance issue. Over 100 horde guilds have cleared Mythic while only 12 alliance guilds have cleared it. Though I suppose Rated Battlegrounds would be impacted by faction balance as well since they don't have mercenary mode.

[Gorsameth]

Isn't the balance of raiding and M+ the only important part of balance though? It doesn't matter much what the general population does if they don't also partake in those aspects. It is clear from Hall of Fame for this tier that there is a faction balance issue. Over 100 horde guilds have cleared Mythic while only 12 alliance guilds have cleared it. Though I suppose Rated Battlegrounds would be impacted by faction balance as well since they don't have mercenary mode.

correct, for the player base that doesn't do group content the faction imbalance doesn't matter, outside of perhaps AH item availability.

- - - Updated - - -

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.

not being able to join a guild will still be a major barrier. Yes in theory a Horde guild can invite your Alliance character for their raids but it means your spending the rest of the time alone outside of the guilds ingame social structure.

So long as cross-faction guilds do not exist this is not 'fixed'.