Faction imbalance a social issue? Requiring a social solution?

[ashblond]

Yes, I think today's faction imbalance is a social issue now, as it has been a long time.

To solve the faction imbalance, I can only think 2 possibilities:

1. Remove faction
2. Give alliance massive racial advantage until pop is balanced.

I don't think 1 is a good solution for wow as an MMORPG and I don't think blizzard will do it.

And I really doubt Blizzard will do 2 either.

[Rhlor]

And as a person who's played this for 17 years nearly, thought and written an incredible amount on this over that time, can you appreciate I may be seeing something you don't and that understanding it would take more than one liner catch phrases to say. I did address your observation in the high elf discussion thread, acknowledged the impact racials would have, but also took time to explain to you why this is neither the root or heart of the issue, nor the best way to address it.

Just because you think everyone here agrees with you and haven't talent he time to try to understand, doesn't mean I am wrong. Sometimes, when people have great insights about a thing, it's not common, and when it feels so out there because it's not in the usual mindset, it takes a while to understand, you should then at least make the effort to try and see, but you won't do that, b y quick skimming and fast replies. I notice you don't even bother to properly quote the sections you are replying to, tells you don't take the time to go through this properly.

the earth is a sphere that orbits around the sun. Most of us believe that and there are some who think that the earth is flat. sometimes what the majority believe is true because all the evidence and logic tell us that truth.

Tell me do you think there is a population imbalance in things like M + and pvp?

If you think that is true and I believe that that is also true, what would be the way to make guilds as a method return to the alliance? They left because they want to make that content, so the best way to make them come back is to give them an advantage in the alliance so that making that content is easier than in the horde.

the only way to get pro players back into the alliance is to give them better racials

[Cæli]

remove combat racials same thing as the last 10 years
then make people able to play cross factions
that will return the ratio to 50/50 over a few years

[A Chozo]

I can only think 2 possibilities:

1. Remove faction

They don't need to remove factions, they just need to allow groups to be formed between factions. Dwarves still can't enter Orgrimmar without being hunted, Trolls still can't mount Mechanostriders.

We won't even need a 50/50 ratio if this happens.

[Simple Rick]

They don't need to remove factions, they just need to allow groups to be formed between factions. Dwarves still can't enter Orgrimmar without being hunted, Trolls still can't mount Mechanostriders.

We won't even need a 50/50 ratio if this happens.

I guess i don't really see a lore reason to why the factions exist... its been in lore what 25 years of combining forces to combat X bad guy. Never mind the cross breeding at this point there being two big factions rather then dozen of splinter groups feels contrived.

Even in vanilla they seemed to stretch the narrative that horde and ally players would fight that much openly. Worse whenever they try to kick off a war expansion they always blunder the story line so badly we get a mustache twirling villain because no person beyond edgy mcedgey would ever go along with the insane self defeating plan and reasons for the war.

[A Chozo]

I guess i don't really see a lore reason to why the factions exist... its been in lore what 25 years of combining forces to combat X bad guy. Never mind the cross breeding at this point there being two big factions rather then dozen of splinter groups feels contrived.

Even in vanilla they seemed to stretch the narrative that horde and ally players would fight that much openly. Worse whenever they try to kick off a war expansion they always blunder the story line so badly we get a mustache twirling villain because no person beyond edgy mcedgey would ever go along with the insane self defeating plan and reasons for the war.

Well they do have several cultural particularities.

Also picture King Wrynn saying that the factions are no more and that Stormwind is open for all Horde members. What would come next would be civil unrest / war, crimes commited by the new visitors, crimes commited by the old visitors taking advantage of the precarious situation, etc. "Traitor King! Coward King!" would be shouted on the streets because he's praticaly inviting members of the faction that is the "descendant" and culmination of the first and second invasion of Orcs, free-willed Scourge, Trolls that battled the northern Humans for ages, Goblins that exploit and polute, etc.

And this is only the prejudice that the Stormwind Humans could have with the Horde as a whole. There are the other factions inside the Grand Alliance, and the Horde got "reversal prejudice" towards the Alliance.

You can't erase the factions because you can't erase everyone's memory. Memory is powerful.

But you can make an optional effort to join the champions of both factions, like the Ashen Veredict, the Champions of Azeroth, etc. But the factions as a whole? They won't be gone unless you erase one.

[Simple Rick]

Well they do have several cultural particularities.

Also picture King Wrynn saying that the factions are no more and that Stormwind is open for all Horde members. What would come next would be civil unrest / war, crimes commited by the new visitors, crimes commited by the old visitors taking advantage of the precarious situation, etc. "Traitor King! Coward King!" would be shouted on the streets because he's praticaly inviting members of the faction that is the "descendant" and culmination of the first and second invasion of Orcs, free-willed Scourge, Trolls that battled the northern Humans for ages, Goblins that exploit and polute, etc.

And this is only the prejudice that the Stormwind Humans could have with the Horde as a whole. There are the other factions inside the Grand Alliance, and the Horde got "reversal prejudice" towards the Alliance.

You can't erase the factions because you can't erase everyone's memory. Memory is powerful.

But you can make an optional effort to join the champions of both factions, like the Ashen Veredict, the Champions of Azeroth, etc. But the factions as a whole? They won't be gone unless you erase one.

I mean the alliance has conquered the horde...2?3? times now and just given it back everything asking for nothing in return.

You make good points but only if you overlook how badly the story has been blundered. It really doesn't feel like a stretch for the trade districts to be open while other areas are locked off but to pretend that the story supports this angry attitude just doesn't hold up. Blizzard just picks one female character to go crazy with vengeance per expansion and one male character with good reasons for mistrust uncovering the other sides crazy bitch for a lack of a better turn.

Happened with jaina then sylvannas and im sure it will repeat with tyranda? ((think i misspelled all three of their names.)

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

As of today.
63 Alliance guilds on 10/10 Mythic Castle Nathria, 19 on 9/10.
227 Horde guilds on 10/10 Mythic Castle Nathria, 165 on 9/10.

It's not even funny how bad the faction balance in the raiding community is, the solution is obvious- however unpopular it might be.

[Jujudrood]

How about this?
Faction imbalance is not a problem.
Who cares that the Top 100 is like 85 Horde?
It's only a problem if you choose for it to be a problem and let it affect you.

If you want to compete at the highest levels, you roll Horde.
It's not because the racials are so good (that was the issue that started this 12 years ago), it's because the player pool is bigger.
If you adamantly want to be Alliance at the top level, you are knowingly and willingly handcuffing yourself, so that's on you.
Blizz can't do a damned thing about that because anything they try will result in either a pendulum switch to Alliance favor (by making Alliance racials stupid powerful) or absolutely nothing happening at all (removing racials, balancing them, etc).

The only way to "fix" this perceived issue is by the players choosing to do it.
If the players *really* want faction balance, the playerbase as a whole would achieve it by having large guilds switch to Alliance while keeping notable ones Horde and actively working together to keep recruiting pools relatively equal in both, but why would the playerbase do this when there is literally nothing to gain and a lot to lose, in terms of recruiting for your faction as well as the cash it would take for this mass transfer.
It would be Horde guilds saying "yeah, it's too easy for us. let's make it harder for no reason other than because of a perceived issue."

So, yes, they are right a social solution is the only way, but a social solution will never happen because there's absolutely no reason for it to happen.

[A Chozo]

How about this?
Faction imbalance is not a problem.

Now that's some galaxy-brain take. "Your actual problem doesn't exist!". lol

[Gorsameth]

Faction imbalance is only a problem if you are stupid and try to play Alliance...

/facepalm

Yes if you pretend the Alliance doesn't exist then there is no problem. congratulations you have solved the problem...

[Jujudrood]

Now that's some galaxy-brain take. "Your actual problem doesn't exist!". lol

Quality response.
And how would you suggest Blizz "fix" this?
Eliminate factions? Nope.
Cross-faction raiding? Doesn't fix or address anything; it just lets more people play together (which is a good thing and something that should happen), but they are still Horde, even in an Alliance-dominant Raid setting.

Should Blizz just hijack realms and force server cluster regrouping based on active population?
That would split up guilds into different clusters, split friends up, etc.
Would that be better?

If this problem really is a problem, it's one only the playerbase can fix, but the playerbase has zero motivation to do so, so why would they?
It's been this way for a dozen years and I don't see it changing without the players.

[A Chozo]

And how would you suggest Blizz "fix" this?
Cross-faction raiding? Doesn't fix or address anything; it just lets more people play together (which is a good thing and something that should happen)

Yes, cross-play raiding, pve and pvp. It's the root of the problem. Faction imbalance isn't bad just because there's more of one than the other, it's bad because it reduces the available pool of players, which leads to slow group-making.

The problem only exists right now because the Horde has more players and that is an advantage on itself regardless of racials and style. It started with racial imbalance, but right now? It's a social issue.

Hell, there are many Horde players who would go back to Alliance if they could, but are only there because of the bigger population. And there's a lot of Horde players who want to switch to Alliance but won't for the same reason.

[Jujudrood]

Yes, cross-play raiding, pve and pvp. It's the root of the problem. Faction imbalance isn't bad just because there's more of one than the other, it's bad because it reduces the available pool of players, which leads to slow group-making.

The problem only exists right now because the Horde has more players and that is an advantage on itself regardless of racials and style. It started with racial imbalance, but right now? It's a social issue.

Hell, there are many Horde players who would go back to Alliance if they could, but are only there because of the bigger population. And there's a lot of Horde players who want to switch to Alliance but won't for the same reason.

Yeah but at the end of the day, Horde is still Horde and the imbalance still exists.
If 5 of Horde join an Alliance raid, once the raid is over, they are still Horde in Horde capitals seeing Horde general chat and all that jazz.

Cross-faction raiding would be one step, sure, and I agree it should happen.
Cross-faction guilds, friends/grouping in other content, even sharing chat channels, that's a bigger thing, because that's effectively the removal of faction lines as a whole since, in this scenario, the faction no longer has a bearing on anything.
But that would "balance" the available pool in that everyone is available for anything, per server cluster.

I guess what I'm getting at is that, by blurring that line completely in every area, it makes factions essentially pointless, and factions are one of the core components of the "warcraft" series.
If this is how Blizz wants to solve imbalance, it's on them to do it, but I just don't see them going that far.
I kind of expect cross-faction, non-mythic raiding this xpac at some point, but that still won't be enough in the grand scheme of things (though it would be a nice alternative to help bolster the LFG pool).

PS I personally don't care either way, more just looking to invoke real conversation about it since most of the drivel in this thread is really just one big whinefest.

[huth]

do you read the answers of this thread? Almost everyone here knows that the problem was that the horde has better racials than the alliance and that the only way to improve this is to give it better racials.

Did you? Because anybody who actually thought about the issue agrees that this wouldn't do anything but switch sides around. It doesn't do crap to solve the actual issue.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah but at the end of the day, Horde is still Horde and the imbalance still exists.
If 5 of Horde join an Alliance raid, once the raid is over, they are still Horde in Horde capitals seeing Horde general chat and all that jazz.

Which isn't an actual problem. The problem is that right now, that Alliance raid is just stuck at 15 players and can't do anything.

[Araevin]

Except those people would go play Horde because that is where everyone already is. The problem has been ignored for way to long for a fix like that. Not to mention "lol just get another few million players" is not a solution.

I talked about engagement, not expansion. They'd have to find a way to get more people from those already playing to engage with M+ and Mythic raiding.

[Lastgope]

Reposting what I said originally in the "High Elf Discussion" thread when you brought up the idea of moving Elves off of Horde months and months ago...

"This sounds extremely awful honestly and I am glad Blizzard would never do this.

I like the blending of different cultures and hate when they try to make each Faction so cookie cutter."

[Araevin]

Reposting what I said originally in the "High Elf Discussion" thread when you brought up the idea of moving Elves off of Horde months and months ago...

"This sounds extremely awful honestly and I am glad Blizzard would never do this.

I like the blending of different cultures and hate when they try to make each Faction so cookie cutter."

Honestly given how bad blizzard is at giving the different races in each faction diverse character from the main faction body, having more factions and having each of them be more homogeneous would probably have been more satisfying. Problem ofc is that then you'd need 4-5 factions and we have had expansions were Blizzard struggled to give the existing factions a story (Horde in Wrath?) let alone five factions.

[Hopsu]

For me there's 2 issues at the moment. I can't play with my returning friends if they happen to be on different faction and I'm not going to reroll out from my guild just to play with them casually and the lack of high end players on Alliance. I mean I'm not even talking about +20 keys etc. Pretty sure the problem there is even worse. But yesterday 21 CET with +15 search on dungeon finder Alliance had 13 groups looking for players and according to my battle.net friend Horde had so many he doesn't want to count them but most likely hundreds. That's massive difference and it really needs to be fixed during this expansion.

[Jujudrood]

Did you? Because anybody who actually thought about the issue agrees that this wouldn't do anything but switch sides around. It doesn't do crap to solve the actual issue.

- - - Updated - - -



Which isn't an actual problem. The problem is that right now, that Alliance raid is just stuck at 15 players and can't do anything.

But cross-faction raid is more of a bandaid to that.
I mean, in today's world of discord and "always connected", keeping a few Horde guys around for raid is very doable, but they aren't part of the guild, they aren't contributing to anything.
They are effectively hired mercenaries at that point and, if they become more regular participants, would just be better off faction swapping.
That's kind of my point; there's still that divide and they are still Horde and, outside of discord/bnet, they are not part of anything that the Alliance are part of.

Don't get me wrong, good first step for sure, and maybe it's enough to 'sate the hate', so to speak, and I'm all for it if it helps people.
It just won't move the needle with actual populations, so recruiting pools will still be pretty meh, even with discord channels and forums being avenues to "recruit" to the Alliance-hosted raids.