The real problem of why the raiding scene is becoming more Horde only

[Ningjinq]

At PAX East an interview mentioned the raiding imbalance at the hardcore level: “The developers are aware of the faction imbalance in hardcore raid guilds and have ideas on how to tackle the problem, but nothing to share quite yet.”

Tbh at this point there is only one solution to the imbalance, which is quickly growing still despite balanced racials, and that is free faction transfers or bulk transfers. (1 cost for all characters. Probably same price as live)

Unless they make Alliance racials ridiculously overpowered, it’s just far too expensive to transfer an entire guild. It’s thousands of dollars (or equivalent wherever you live) to even consider.

So I don’t see how any solution to the raiding population (and the trickle down effect) can work unless it involves drastically reducing the cost to transfer characters.

[Deleted]

You need to understand that "we are aware of issue and have ideas on how to take the problem but nothing to share quite yet " is the standard dodge question answer. It means there is nothing planned atm to shift anything.

[rda]

Another solution: allow raids to be cross-faction. That runs counter to their design for BFA, where people are supposed to see faction-flavored bosses, but perhaps that only applies to unimportant bosses (like those in warfronts).

[MisterBigglez]

Plenty of classes/specs actually benefit more from being alliance. Using the class I play as an example (warlock) Humans, Gnomes and Dwarves all have better racials which give the highest dps increase. Human is one of the most overpowered because it buffs all secondary stats.

With the stat squish happening and blizzards intentions of making secondary stats less valuable, we may start to see more imbalance. But right now, I honestly think Alliance has it better this time round.

[Teri]

The big realms also cause all sorts of other problems like AH, guild bank and overal server side lag.

While we have so many empty realms out there, nothing is done to balance the populations. Merging won't fix everything.

[lummiuster]

At PAX East an interview mentioned the raiding imbalance at the hardcore level: “The developers are aware of the faction imbalance in hardcore raid guilds and have ideas on how to tackle the problem, but nothing to share quite yet.”

Tbh at this point there is only one solution to the imbalance, which is quickly growing still despite balanced racials, and that is free faction transfers or bulk transfers. (1 cost for all characters. Probably same price as live)

Unless they make Alliance racials ridiculously overpowered, it’s just far too expensive to transfer an entire guild. It’s thousands of dollars (or equivalent wherever you live) to even consider.

So I don’t see how any solution to the raiding population (and the trickle down effect) can work unless it involves drastically reducing the cost to transfer characters.

Alliance has by far the best pvp racials and still they complain..

[Teri]

Another solution: allow raids to be cross-faction. That runs counter to their design for BFA, where people are supposed to see faction-flavored bosses, but perhaps that only applies to unimportant bosses (like those in warfronts).

Well, they do have the cross-faction tech already in place in mercenary battlegrounds, I can see it eventually becoming a thing for queued content at least if they become too slow.

For organized content it's far more complicated with added logistics/economy/trading.

[ls-]

At PAX East an interview mentioned the raiding imbalance at the hardcore level: “The developers are aware of the faction imbalance in hardcore raid guilds and have ideas on how to tackle the problem, but nothing to share quite yet.”

Tbh at this point there is only one solution to the imbalance, which is quickly growing still despite balanced racials, and that is free faction transfers or bulk transfers. (1 cost for all characters. Probably same price as live)

Unless they make Alliance racials ridiculously overpowered, it’s just far too expensive to transfer an entire guild. It’s thousands of dollars (or equivalent wherever you live) to even consider.

So I don’t see how any solution to the raiding population (and the trickle down effect) can work unless it involves drastically reducing the cost to transfer characters.

There's no way to solve faction imbalance in raiding, one faction will always be dominant, it's simply better for raiders to gather in one faction because it means bigger pool of people interested in raiding and less issues w/ recruitment, spreading evenly between two faction is not in serious raiders' interests.

The only way to "fix" this type of imbalance is to allow cross-faction raiding which isn't going to happen.

[McFuu]

They could just disable racials in Mythic raiding and Mythic+. Problem solved.

[rda]

They could just disable racials in Mythic raiding and Mythic+. Problem solved.

Not solved. The problem is that when the sides are uneven, there is an incentive to move to the more populated side and if you do move, you reinforce the incentive, producing a chain reaction.

The free moves won't solve it either, everyone will just move to the same single side faster.

If the goal is to keep raiders on both sides (for some reason), you either have to make raids cross-faction or, say, create two separate competitive scenes by having Alliance raids and Horde raids and disallowing Alliance to enter Horde raids and vice versa.

[Veiled Shadow]

Plenty of classes/specs actually benefit more from being alliance. Using the class I play as an example (warlock) Humans, Gnomes and Dwarves all have better racials which give the highest dps increase. Human is one of the most overpowered because it buffs all secondary stats.

No. Trolls are better for (affliction) warlocks than any of the mentioned races. Even for demonology/destruction, human/dwarf sim about even with trolls but fall behind in real play due to CD timings on various fights.

[McFuu]

Not solved. The problem is that when the sides are uneven, there is an incentive to move to the more populated side and if you do move, you reinforce the incentive, producing a chain reaction.

The free moves won't solve it either, everyone will just move to the same single side faster.

If the goal is to keep raiders on both sides (for some reason), you either have to make raids cross-faction or, say, create two separate competitive scenes by having Alliance raids and Horde raids and disallowing Alliance to enter Horde raids and vice versa.

There will never be a reverse of the faction imbalance. It's been here since Vanilla since Alliance had the "kid's side" stigma.
Other than forcing guilds to move over there is nothing to be done. Removing racials from the equation, which started to become the reason Horde was preferred, will at least start to slow the leak. Now Horde is pretty much go to because of racials and imbalance. But outside of giving the Alliance game breaking abilities/racials to bring raiders back, it's never going to happen.

Not to mention giving each faction their own raid content means very little, Horde will still have their own raids and that is what everyone will compete for. Even if an Alliance guild clears their mythic tier first, it will just be seen as players in the minor league vs the actual raids they want.

The other part of cross faction raiding would require cross faction guilds. But that would cause more problems because then guilds are only going to look for Human/Gnome Mages or Troll Healers, etc... It would amplify the problem and really just drag in racials as the only deciding factor.

When raiding became serious, racials were the deciding factor. With Blizz trying to homogenize challenges and mythic+ it only makes more sense to remove racials from the mix. This way Alliance guilds won't feel like they are a step down from Horde guilds.

The Alliance has a massive player base, so it's not really players leaving that's the issue. It's players not staying. When people start to get serious into raiding it's because they are developing in the game, with a guild and they keep pushing. More hardcore raiders will stand up behind the current and outgoing hardcore raiders as they start to step down. But if a guild or players don't feel the need to have to switch factions in order to be relevant, they won't, and that switch largely stems from racials.
The damage is done and there is an imbalance that simply can not be changed in the short term, it will likely never go away throughout what's left of WoW. But with the hole plugged, up and coming raiders will have less of a reason to switch.

[MisterBigglez]

No. Trolls are better for (affliction) warlocks than any of the mentioned races.

Best horde race. Humans and Dwarves are still ahead.

[Cathfaern]

The only way to "fix" this type of imbalance is to allow cross-faction raiding which isn't going to happen.

Or just remove factions altogether.

[Justpassing]

They could just disable racials in Mythic raiding and Mythic+. Problem solved.

Yeah then all the current Horde raiders will buy faction changes and transfers for hundreds of bucks. Solved indeed!

[Emancptr]

Unless they make Alliance racials ridiculously overpowered, it’s just far too expensive to transfer an entire guild. It’s thousands of dollars (or equivalent wherever you live) to even consider.

How do you think all of these guilds became Horde in the first place?

They spent that money/gold to get there. Off the top of my head I can name 5+ guilds that have transfered their entire guild (alts and everything) from Alliance to Horde this expansion. Vision, AK, Midwinter, Easy, and Vodka are all in the US top 20 and have made an entire guild transfer. The cost is not the problem, especially when gold is very easy to make for top end raiding guilds.

The problem was the imbalance in racials that moved some top end guilds to Horde and once the balance starts to shift it can easily tip. Now Horde has the majority of the good players and if you're interested in progressing at a high level and/or simply playing with your friends you will end up going Horde.

The Hall of Fame (top 100 guilds on each faction get rewarded for completing content) is obviously Blizzard's answer to the problem. The Hall of Fame for Horde ends up being world top 130ish, while you can go all the way down to World 300-400 before you wouldn't make the Hall of Fame as an Alliance Guild. If they make the rewards interesting/prestigious enough then people will go back Alliance for a guaranteed/easier spot in the Hall of Fame.

[Veiled Shadow]

Best horde race. Humans and Dwarves are still ahead.

You can look at a generic sim here. In reality having the value of the troll racial being in a CD means that the difference is higher on many fights like Kin'garoth/Argus/etc.

[kamuimac]

The big realms also cause all sorts of other problems like AH, guild bank and overal server side lag.

While we have so many empty realms out there, nothing is done to balance the populations. Merging won't fix everything.

merges would solve so much - but they would have to merge like 20 dead realms together instead 2 or 3 .

but they make to much $$$ from server transfers to ever do that

[Unholyground]

Or they merge the PvE aspects of the game among the factions, it is so pointless to keep the factions separate in the PvE this far into the game.It splits the user base in half reducing the amount of people you can do content with. The vast majority of people I talk to agree that it is pointless now, just like war in real life.

[Tradu]

Alliance has by far the best pvp racials and still they complain..

Pretty sure that hasn't been the case in a very long time.