Faction imbalance a social issue? Requiring a social solution?

[ThrashMetalFtw]

The "better racials" has been debunked completely.

No, people follow what other top guilds, top pvpers are doing.

If they want to influence a faction change they need to give top guilds and top pvpers a reason to go alliance.

1. free unlimited transfers
2. free guild transfers - unlimited gold.

this would create a momentum but they need to start with the top guilds and pvp players, the rest will follow.

It's been many years since people went Horde "because the top guilds are there". At this point, people go Horde because they have to. Alliance simply doesn't have a large enough population if PvE raiding is what you want to do. It's a domino effect that has been going on for 10+ years at this point. For every Alliance player that throws in the towel and goes Horde, the recruitment situation is made even worse for the remaining Ally players.

It started with the top guilds during WotLK, Cata and MoP. And why exactly do you think the topguilds all went Horde during this period? Oh, who knows, maaaybe it had something to do with Horde racials being objectively superior during this era?

Prenerf Berserking while snapshotting was still in the game, was some of the most broken shit ever. Horde casters basically had another major CD that Ally casters didn't have access to. If Warrior 1 can use Recklessness, but Warrior 2 has to remove it from his bars, Warrior 1 will probably do more dmg, assuming equal skill. That's how Troll casters vs non-Troll casters performed in Cata and Mop. It was already OP in WotLK, when it gave 20% attack/casting speed. It's still crazy how Blizzard didn't see that making it 20% Haste would make it completely broken, when we were going into an expansion that were going to make all DoTs scale with Haste by default.

[Relapses]

If you really want the alliance to have more pro players in pvp and M + the only answer is better racials.

Hey, is this the reason why every MDI team plays Alliance? Because Horde's racials are better?

[A Cunning Plan]

Horde is the cool faction. And better one too, in all aspects: these so called "OP" racials, better at starting and losing wars, maniac warchiefs, genociding and shitty writing. Plus the master-race above anyone else: Orcs / Mag'har. Deal with it, alliance.

[Ethas]

TLDR Horde is just cool and Alliance is nothing despite Blizzard actively pushing Alliance agenda for 10 years.

No amount of golden-writing can change the brutality of Orcs and Thrall and nothing can change how cool The Banshee Queen is.

[Lollis]

The "better racials" has been debunked completely.

No, people follow what other top guilds, top pvpers are doing.

Such confused logic. People follow what other top guilds i.e Horde because that's where the population is, which was directly caused by racials.

It's a 100% fact that guilds went Horde because of OP racials, it began with Arcane Torrent in TBC pushing people to go Horde for Arena and went further in PvE in WotLK and beyond especially because of Berserking and somewhat Blood Fury.

There's no ifs or buts about it, the racials in TBC, Wotlk -> are what made most guilds go Horde, and when you have the best racials AND subsequently the higher recruitment pop, more and more go Horde creating a vicious cylce.

By the time they bothered to balance racials it was too late. With Horde having the numbers and now racials being practically meaningless it's the population that is the driving force. The only way the balance could ever be resolved or reversed (outside of cross faction play) is if Alliance were given OP racials which is the complete wrong way to go about it.

[A Chozo]

Of course it's a social problem. It wasn't, but now it is.

People aren't Horde because they are OP, they are Horde because there's more people there. It's a snowball, and a social problem. The allure of easier grouping is too strong. Ion aknowledged all of this and is even aware of solutions like cross-faction grouping.

[Argorwal]

It’s interesting that it’s region specific too.

Like oceanic is completely alliance dominate, and alliance is more represented in China.

For a long time EU PvP was alliance dominated while US PvP was horde dominated, but that slowly changed because EU PvE was growing as horde so eventually PvP followed.

Cross faction play is really the only realistic solution path.

[huth]

come on man! read the comments here and in similar threads on the official forums. the answer that everyone gives is always the same because everyone knows what the problem is because they play the game! the racial ones!
Why did the pro players go to play the horde? for the racial!.

Because they're idiots who just keep parroting the reason it originally got this way, but haven't figured out that it's gotten bad enough that even Alliance racials being stronger now isn't causing things to turn the other way. Switching to Alliance now would just mean losing access to your recruitment pool, which isn't worth the minor gain that racials make up.

[Razion]

The population has heavily skewed to Alliance before. Remember Wrath? So yeah, I can buy that because I've experienced and seen the game in a state where it has flopped twice over before. Every time the faction lines swapped it was a migration to the other side because of racials - but in situations where racials are neutral we saw Alliance dominance before. But as we see more recently when Horde racials were overtuned for progression and damage centric metas, suddenly Horde got more popular in the competitive side. So yeah, at this point I think it's a social problem -- because how else are they going to balance this? It's been rebalanced many times over to try and inch factions closer and it has always missed the mark. A new solution is needed.

[huth]

It’s interesting that it’s region specific too.

Like oceanic is completely alliance dominate, and alliance is more represented in China.

For a long time EU PvP was alliance dominated while US PvP was horde dominated, but that slowly changed because EU PvE was growing as horde so eventually PvP followed.

Cross faction play is really the only realistic solution path.

That's essentially because it is a social issue. Everybody goes where the big party is. What faction is throwing that party doesn't matter.

[Rhlor]

Of course it's a social problem. It wasn't, but now it is.

People aren't Horde because they are OP, they are Horde because there's more people there. It's a snowball, and a social problem. The allure of easier grouping is too strong. Ion aknowledged all of this and is even aware of solutions like cross-faction grouping.

let the factions be like the covenant. that people at the beginning of 10.0 have to choose faction

[huth]

The population has heavily skewed to Alliance before. Remember Wrath? So yeah, I can buy that because I've experienced and seen the game in a state where it has flopped twice over before. Every time the faction lines swapped it was a migration to the other side because of racials - but in situations where racials are neutral we saw Alliance dominance before. But as we see more recently when Horde racials were overtuned for progression and damage centric metas, suddenly Horde got more popular in the competitive side. So yeah, at this point I think it's a social problem -- because how else are they going to balance this? It's been rebalanced many times over to try and inch factions closer and it has always missed the mark. A new solution is needed.

You're missing the actual issue. Horde is now so populous in the high-end organised gameplay areas that it isn't flipping anymore because losing access to that player pool isn't worth the gains from stronger racials.

[Diaphin]

You just don't stop do you? Every other post of dubious worth you make is a wahh wahh about Horde elves/take Horde elves. Your gimmick is awfully tedious.

I mean, he's right. Blizzard basically gave the most popular potential alliance race, which was traditionally always alliance and in WC3 even part of the Alliance human faction, and gave it to the Horde. They also made most iconic Alliance heroes friendly towards the Horde and therefore neutral.

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Horde is the cool faction. And better one too, in all aspects: these so called "OP" racials, better at starting and losing wars, maniac warchiefs, genociding and shitty writing. Plus the master-race above anyone else: Orcs / Mag'har. Deal with it, alliance.

BArely anyone plays Orcs outside of a fringe minority. The Horde only has a population at this point due to Blizzard giving them Alliance races.

[A Cunning Plan]

Top guilds moving to Horde because racials since september 2nd 2009. People following them like a herd of sheep? Come on... Ion just took the easy way out when discussing the topic.

[Diaphin]

Top guilds moving to Horde because racials since september 2nd 2009. People following them like a herd of sheep? Come on... Ion just took the easy way out when discussing the topic.

To be fair, Ion is kind of not that good at his job. Wasn't he only accepted as a game dev because back in the day he was somewhere around the level of what nowadays would be a low-end casual player in mmos?

[HateTrain]

I mean, he's right. Blizzard basically gave the most popular potential alliance race, which was traditionally always alliance and in WC3 even part of the Alliance human faction, and gave it to the Horde. They also made most iconic Alliance heroes friendly towards the Horde and therefore neutral.

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BArely anyone plays Orcs outside of a fringe minority. The Horde only has a population at this point due to Blizzard giving them Alliance races.

Lol no, they're not "right". It's fucking conjecture, and barely so at this point. Don't play dumb. At MOST, the gimmick OP has a slight point is all.

Also, unless you have numbers, your Orc guess is also about as handy as tits on a bull.

[Swnem]

I mean, it's a social issue now, but it was caused by design decisions.

I don't think there is a magical social solution. Not sure what he even means. It's not like the community will decide to go alliance to even things out.

So, a design decision is needed to change it. At this point cross faction play is the only way out.

[Gorsameth]

OP your point is dead by the end of your first paragraph.

Alliance and Horde total population being roughly equal but high-end massively skewing Horde shows the issue is not that 'Horde has all the cool stuff and no one new will ever join Alliance'. Because in that case the total pop would skew Horde.

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It’s interesting that it’s region specific too.

Like oceanic is completely alliance dominate, and alliance is more represented in China.

For a long time EU PvP was alliance dominated while US PvP was horde dominated, but that slowly changed because EU PvE was growing as horde so eventually PvP followed.

Cross faction play is really the only realistic solution path.

Its region speific because it has nothing to do with the actual faction.
The issue is not Horde or Alliance.
The issue is that one side is bigger and therefor has an easier time finding people for activities, and over time more and more people make the switch to access this larger pool, which makes the drought on the other side all the greater causing more to switch ect ect and it snowballs along.

[Relapses]

To be fair, Ion is kind of not that good at his job. Wasn't he only accepted as a game dev because back in the day he was somewhere around the level of what nowadays would be a low-end casual player in mmos?

No game developer will ever make 100% of its players 100% happy 100% of the time. This community wants so many conflicting things that the fact that he's able to do anything at all is honestly kind of impressive. Limit Max could have Ion's position and most of this forum would still complain about every fucking change he made (or didn't make).

[omeomorfismo]

You don't think the top PVPers went horde because it gave them an advantage? Will of the Forsaken, Hardiness, Warstomp, Blood Fury, Berserking, Arcane Torrent - all of these gave the Horde a major advantage for so long. And I firmly believe that were the PvP crowd goes, the PvE crowd follows too.

pfffff.
alliance had the humans op for how many years? 8? infact until legion all pvp was basically alliance. still pve was dominated by horde