Against Overwhelming Odds - Shadowlands

PVP War Mode and World PvP
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I wanted to make this topic to address the impact that the aforementioned quest has on World PvP and the “Warmode ON” players, but before I do that I would like to point out two things: Firstly, this is my first time ever posting, so my apologies if I posted this in the wrong location or if there is a similar topic that I did not find in my search a few minutes ago and lastly English is not my first language so bear with me as I try to express my thoughts on this topic.

With those things out of the way I will start with some information about me and my server. As you can see I am a Horde Priest from Twisting Nether and my server is highly Horde-dominated. For that reason, I believe, and because we are a very populated server we are “connected” with some of the big Alliance-dominated severs like Ravencrest and Sylvanas in order to achieve a balance in numbers which is completely understandable.

For those that are not aware or not entirely sure, the quest “Against Overwhelming Odds” is given to the faction that is underrepresented, so in my case the Alliance, as a way to encourage them into Warmode, to make it more competitive and balanced, but in my opinion it has failed to fulfill its purpose and instead it went the opposite way entirely. Many of my friends have quit Warmode and are never switching it back on because of Alliance raids spawn camping them in world quest areas as well as the Maw.

I am sure that some will say or think “just make your own group and kill them if it bothers you that much” but it’s not that easy. In the beginning of Shadowlands, were people played more the “open world” content and not the “endgame” content as much, it was easier to find others and engage in such activities. Now that the game is all about the “endgame” content there isn’t a single group going on about world PvP and the reason is simple - There is absolutely nothing to gain if you play on the side that doesn’t get this weekly quest.

Moreover, since this quest can be done in a raid group, it fails to preserve the balance between the factions because more often than not, it is completed in a way where a full raid-group of one faction is farming random wandering players of the opposing one, and in my eyes at least, that is not fun for anyone nor is it “world PvP”.

As closing thoughts, I would like to propose a few ways that I think could help mitigate this issue if not negate it at all. First candidate solution would be to give both factions the same quest (as it was in BFA) where we would see both factions have something to gain for using Warmode and therefore more participation from both sides. Also remember that even if one server is highly Horde or Alliance dominated the quest is usually completed via the Looking for Group tool, so in essence, people from different servers fight people from different servers.

As second solution in order counter this issue would be to remove the quest altogether, although this would further discourage people to participate in world PvP or have their Warmode ON, so I do not think this solution would be best.

Lastly, a viable option would be to make this quest unable to be completed in a raid group, which would create a better balance in numbers and less one-sided battles where one raid is bullying one or two players questing.

So, these are my thoughts on this matter, can’t wait to read what you guys think.

4 Likes
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I agree, I dont think this quest should get progress while in a group, as it defeats the point of the quest to begin with; To bring players of the supposed “lesser” faction, into Warmode in order to balance the scales.

Imo if you make a group in warmode, it should put the group in a shard with other groups, and if there are none, put them in an empty shard. If people want grouped pvp, instanced pvp has always been, and always will be an option.

I have played on both factions for extended amounts of time, primarily doing pvp, and the “just make your own group” argument, doesnt work when people arent in Warmode to begin with.

When one faction gets a boon to join Warmode, and makes large groups to tip the scales too hard in their balance, it defeats the purpose of the quest to begin with, and makes the opposing faction avoid the mode, making the scales even more unbalanced.

When that opposing faction then starts exiting Warmode due to it being impossible to do a lot of activites, like the Maw, because of it, you cant really just “make a group”, as there wont be anyone to make a group with.

And if you propose to make a group with guildies etc, this is rarely possible, due to not everyone being into pvp, or even online at all times.
Same as with organizing a raid for PvE, takes planning if its done in a guild.

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It can’t be completed in a raid group.

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Can’t be completed in a raid group as others have said, though to be honest…it’ll always be alliance under dogs due to how unfavoured it is for alot of players based off of poor sharding to even consider using WM.

I like being the middle-man without a faction but theres so much abuse you get for killing people in w-pvp its unreal, especially when its part of a quest. Overwhelming odds is basically bait and it goes off a majority % to attract pvers to partake in pvp when its getting grossly one sided in essence.

Warmode will never be close to how original server PVP used to be presented, it was people from this server no more, no less which is what caused this problem of having 1x-faction sided servers to begin wth.

When people are too inept at playing the game, they cry for help. Pull in as many people as avaliable to deal with the problem with numbers and causes threads like this, it does really ruin fun shards when people pull in raids worth of players from other servers I fully agree, it ruined Nazjatar for me in BFA to give perspective on it so I ended up having to result in getting my fun via using the n’zoth toy.

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Thing is, it happens for both factions, its not strictly for Alliance only. The matter at hand is the quest flips the faction imbalance on its head, and encourages driving it even harder in the supposed lesser factions favor.

Doesnt matter if its not raid group based, that wasnt the implication either, the implication was that it encourages group farming vs singular players.

When the quest encourages one faction to group up, to the point the other faction stops going into warmode alltogether, it makes it so that the few who actually remain, are stuck with the groups farming that quest, and cant actually make groups on their own, due to people not wanting to get farmed, so they leave Warmode due to it.

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I mean there is nothing in the quest text per say which encourages grouping up, players do it out of instinct. Its very problematic but easily by passable by just shard hopping, the ability to 1 vs x died with Legion / BFA for most classes which is why it feels oppressive when being jumped by multiple players as a singular player.

Sure the quest pressures people to toggle it in for conquest but thats the problem in itself of its a large amount of currency & Anima, horde generally out number alliance and thats the slightest tipping point. We’ll see with this reset if its a tipping point to the extent where it balances back out to a more “equal” playing field or not based on what the alliance warmode bonus is.

I wanted to add something more on the subject but we’ll see if alliance continue to have the overwhelming odds quest or not, if we don’t. It’ll prove a point of the amount of alliance compared to horde who actively use war mode depending on what the bonus is and what can be done to make it equally appealing to both factions without it being BFA syndrome where warmode was basically horde mode.

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Your missing the point here, its not about what the quest says or not, its what the result of what the quest gives, compared to what the original intent was for its implementation.

Its implementation was to try to get more people from the lesser faction into warmode, but when they join en masse with grouping up, and the faction without the quest, leave en masse, because they dont have the quest, it results in the quest flipping the faction imbalance on its head, it doesnt solve anything, it just mirrors it, and if anything, makes it worse because it can be done in a group.

edit;
When the quest is given to all in a faction, swapping shards does little, and is not an intended feature by Blizz. If they did intend this as a direct official feature, they would have included a button for it,

To add to this, they even nerfed people realmhopping a while back by requiring people to be in the same zone to jump, so its clear this is not what is intended as a solution to anything.

Also its been this way since as far back as I can remember from BfA, but its intensified in Shadowlands due to places like the Maw

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I have never played alliance, but seeing their numbers in the Maw I always thought that the quest can be done in a raid group. Even if that is not the case, the issue remains the same in my opinion. As I explained in my original topic post, the idea behind this quest is to “support” the under represented faction in a way that encourages more people to participate in World PvP via Warmode. In reality though, it creates an even bigger unbalance in numbers, as one side tries to complete the quest in parties of 5, and on the other side people just switch their Warmode off, because if they do not do that and instead keep their Warmode on, they are farmed by these parties.

Imagine now, if both sides had the same quest and rewards. It doesn’t matter if one server is Horde or Alliance dominated because most (if not all) servers that are not balanced in their faction ratio are “connected” with servers that the opposing faction dominates, so when it comes down to World PvP, Alliance and Horde will be about equal in numbers.

A good example for this (as I said again in my original post) is my server Twisting Nether. I am connected with two big Alliance dominated severs (Ravencrest and Sylvanas) because my server is heavily Horde dominated. But because of the lack of rewards most of the server is permanently Warmode off and those of us that are brave enough to keep their Warmode, are greatly outnumbered by the Alliance from different servers.

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Just to clarify, I have seen the Alliance have that quest, every single week, since I saw Warmode have that quest added in BfA.

Yet the issue still stands, especially now in Shadowlands when the zones are shared even more than in BfA

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Yes, they had it every single week cause they were the minority faction in Warmode. If I had the images to share I would but I basically had to do my mechagon dailies out of warmode to avoid being goon squadded by the 40 man horde raid which sat, obstructing the questing zone since it wasn’t a sanctuary every time there was a “kill x-number of players” for either nazjatar or mechagon.

We saw a similar scheme like this in BFA (which co-existed along side with overwhelming odds), it didn’t resolve anything. Alliance were still the minority. Thats why I don’t think theres a reasonable solution to warmode without it being disgustingly one sided due to sharding & horde simply having the higher player count actively.

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The solution is sharding out groups, from shards that have a majority of opposing faction, as singular people not in groups.

Or just disable progress for it while in a group - letting the shard system work as it was supposed to.

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Doesn’t fix nothing, does more harm than good in the grand scheme of things. World pvp is meant to be dynamic, not scripted. Sure it forces randoms to group to gank, but thats the closest we’ve likely ever had since horde / alliance would kill the opposite factions leaders in all honesty.

Only difference now is that sharding is so poorly optimised / controlled that it feels like you’re sometimes the only member of your faction in that zone and the issue of there being a few obvious choke points of entering some zones.

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Having that quest to begin with, is scripting world pvp. It pushes people who arent there to have it on all the time to begin with, into the mode for the rewards.

Due to this, these players are usually large in numbers, but inexperienced in pvp, and as such resort to pure quantity of players, denying any sort of fair fight.

If the quest was intended to incentivize players to pvp, it should not be doable in a group, as it defeats the point of having the quest in the first place, as people will just farm it out in a group, then leave the mode.

edit;

a solution that would work better than the quest, is just increasing the enlisted bonus more, instead of give a huge reward for a small time window, give a smaller consistent reward over the entire week

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So you’re implying then that friends shouldn’t be able to party up to do it, now that is a yikes since thats equally if not more damaging on the health of world PVP to begin with… They can’t do it in a raid, that’s the win in itself.

The enlisting bonus is a bg bonus, that wouldn’t impact anything outside of battle grounds…and it gives horde access too it, when the point is meant to be pushing alliance to participate / give it a try.

There isn’t a short term solution of what you’re seeking for since you’re basically feeling attacked that people are allowed to group up in parties to do a weekly quest which involves actively ganking a player of the opposite faction.

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Thats the thing tho, it doesnt involve actively ganking opposite faction players. Its a massive reward for a set amount of players (25 I believe atm). Because of the nature of human beings in general, most people would try to finish it ASAP, which leads to grouping up to rush it down.

To counteract this, the enlisted bonus would work better.
It seems as though you are unaware of the fact, but the Enlisted bonus, is a different number based on what faction you are a part of. I am not talking about some event that comes and goes (like pet battle week, timewalking etc), I am talking about the buff you get when turning Warmode on.

This buff increases Anima, AP, War Resources and Gold rewards (or xp) by 10% for Horde currently, but 20% for Alliance.

This buff is applied at all times in open world.

The Enlisted buff you get, incentivizes staying in Warmode for the benefits, and in turn, living in Warmode, which means fighting other players, even if its in retaliation of other ganks.
Having a constant “small” buff, instead of a major one-time quick fix that is completeable in a couple hours, is a better solution from the way I see this.

Edit;
I also think it would be better to have this scale more dynamically, like daily or something, and rather be a massive bonus, enough to get people to join the mode, but reduced when enough players join the next day for example, then buffed when people leave.

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There were many instances in BFA that I was overrun and outnumbered by groups of Alliance players so at least in my server I would say BFA was pretty balanced in that regard. Also the fact that Horde has a higher player count actively is not true according to the last count of distribution in all EU and US servers (at least that is what google says), and even if it was true the margin would be significantly slight and it would not affect World PvP that much.

You could make the argument that bigger percentage of Horde players tends to play with Warmode ON than their Alliance counterparts, but that choice belongs to the player base and is exactly the reason I made this topic.

Think about it for a moment. As a Horde player on Twisting Nether, why in the world would I leave my Warmode ON right now? Is it really worth to get spawn camped from Alliance raids for 10% bonus rewards? The answer is simple. NO.

From my experience in my server, Alliance players are fine in regards to their numbers (even surpassing us most of the times - again because of the way realms are connected right now), while Horde are playing it safe without Warmode. But then again, that might be true on my server only…

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Stop trying to get in on my free 500 anima and 200 conquest. Shoo.

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Sharing is caring… Spread the love !

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As the more pve minded Horde turn off WM, bonus drops back below 20% and AOO gets removed automatically. And if Horde pvers then increase again, AOO kicks in, repeat. Good system.

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They Enlistment Bonus has been 15% for a number of weeks now, meaning no AOO. So I am not entirely sure why this comes up now.

The rewards overall should be changed imo. It is or was used too much by non-PvP minded players. Combine that with the weird way sharding words when it comes to groups you get Nazjatar behaviour (1 sided battles).

It’s not the quest that’s the problem. It’s the freedom to turn WM on and off constantly, the lack of rewards on the dominating side (there is 0 reason to group up and fight back. All you do is feed them conquest) and grouping up in sharding causing severe imbalance.