Alliance lose rate

Community General Discussion
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Let’s have a serious talk, this could very well be related to racials, hear me out:

Anyone here that has had experience playing both horde and alliance? It seems that Alliance tends to lose more often in random BG’s nowadays, like at least ~70%, and maybe that’s me being generous. Not talking about old AV, that thing is almost always a horde win.

Could just be bad luck, but as someone that used to enjoy BG’s… it’s quite underwhelming.

p.s. I know this has been discussed to death in the past, but I don’t think the difference has ever been so glaring. I believe it started being this bad after the butchering of ‘Every Man for Himself’, perhaps we lost a lot of good players. I mean, take a look at arena stats, MANY more horde players have 1800 plus rating, like… almost double. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s what I recall.

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It is a problem of reputation.
The reputation is that the horde outnumbers the alliance, got better racials and players.
Where the alliance is the faction played by losers.
No mather how false this reputation is it is what alot of people believe.
Many alliance players have given up trying to win or reroll horde.
Nobody wants to stay with a faction that has people saying let them win every bg.

The alliance has given up.
The alliance needs to get its confidence back.
How i dont know.

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The statistics that have popped up over the years do indicate that Horde has a positive win-rate in all Battlegrounds. Some more than others, but you do win more as Horde, generally speaking.

There are probably a lot of factors for it. I’m not sure if racials are that impactful though, at least not anymore.

I’d say the biggest factors are quality of players and queue times.

Horde has more high-end progression players, so you have to assume that on average the Horde team is going to be better geared than the Alliance team. And gear matters.

The Horde also has substantially longer queue times. That creates some urgency.
If you’ve been sitting in a queue for 20 minutes, then once you get into the battleground, you really want to win, so you try your hardest.
Alliance queues are instant. If it doesn’t look like you’re about to win, just concede defeat, because why bother? You can just queue again and get into another battleground right away.
I think the long queue times for the Horde help foster a mentality where it matters and where it’s worthwhile to actually tryhard.
The instant queues for Alliance foster a mentality where the individual battleground doesn’t matter, and it’s more efficient to play many battlegrounds as opposed to fighting really hard for a long time to win a single one.

And yeah, there’s probably something with a creeping mentality of losing as well. The more you get accustomed to losing as Alliance, the harder it is to find confidence in your ability to win. Those sentiments where some players are very quick to give up probably spur from that, to some degree.

Not sure if there’s too much to do about it. I think the individual player still has some degree of control over their own success-rate in random battlegrounds. Gear and role matters, and ultimately you can queue with a group as well. So as an individual you’re not entirely at the mercy of the system, I think, even if it does appear that Horde is generally more successful.

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There is a back lack of Alliance mentality. I see every day how many quit the BG even if there is a single sign of a lose, so they just give up rapidly and bring the team a disadvantage with it. The Horde mentality is much better and the text chat less harsh, but sometimes you also have luck and meet some motivated Alliance teams which give everything to win this.

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I think the fact that good players gravitate towards the horde due racials doesn’t help, but yes, certainly not the main reason. There’s way more horde players, longer queues and as a result the phenomenon you described occurs.

Blizzard could do things to help alleviate this, stronger racials, more interesting story and better races would help, but it would take time. Latest example, Vulpera are a vastly popular race, mechagnomes are extremely niche, another addition that doesn’t help and only makes things worse. I guess this is a non-issue for Blizzard, and that’s just sad. Even 50% extra in WM wouldn’t cut this.

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Alliance needs more edgy -racials- races in their faction to start winning. Goody-good have weak spines. Eredar or Venthyr is what they need to start winning more.

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I agree, I think it’s more a problem with perception than a reflection of what actually happens.

I have not found a reliable site that gives accurate stats on PvP that isn’t rated, but randomly looking at some regular PvP players and comparing their win/lose stats on both sides don’t seem to vary that much.

Taking the two busiest realms:-

This is the person with the most honorable kills on Silvermoon, an Alliance player (Human Paladin) who seems to have an average win rate of 50-60% in BGs
https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-gb/character/eu/silvermoon/ypung/pvp

This is the person with the most honorable kills on Draenor, a Horde player (Pandaren Priest) who seems to have a similar win rate of 50-60% in BGs

Going by honorable kills

You can see more

https://www.wowrealmpopulation.com/wow-eu-highest-honourable-kills.php

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It’s funny but in a way true, also, Venthyr are bloody cool (pun intended) but if they’re ever added to any capacity… it’s going to be horde.

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MMO-Champion did a snapshot over it back in 2011 and 2014 that I recall (and therefore could easily google!):

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2187-Battleground-Horde-Alliance-Win-Ratio-Setup-of-the-Month

https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/3707-Battleground-Win-Ratios-Upcoming-SoO-Changes-Feedback-Blue-Tweets-DLC-424

And then there was a guy on the forums who pointed out that MMO-Champion weren’t differentiating between rated and unrated battlegrounds, so he did his own for unrated specifically, also in 2014:

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1586951-Dispelling-a-Myth-–-Battleground-Win-Rates

And I recall a few more in my unorganized memory, one on ArenaJunkies and another on the US forums, but google is less cooperative with those. :upside_down_face:

Either way, every time these have been done, they’ve shown the same. Horde has had an edge in all Battlegrounds except Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest.

But I’m sure if a similar analysis was done today it would reveal that the Horde are now also winning the majority of games in those Battlegrounds, since Blizzard have made changes to them that have caused the Alliance’s old winning strategies to no longer work (Blitz and Glaives, respectively).

So yeah, Horde dominates in Random Battlegrounds. That’s sort of the conclusion each time datamining has been done on the subject. If you google a bit you may find a few more examples than the ones I dug up.

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Sadly I’ve not seen anything more recent.

That seems to put the rate at 50/50 though for EU.

Unless someone does something similar with the API again, we will just endlessly see claims that Horde dominate everything.

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The question always is for how long have people been playing. On some of my charas I have still a solid win/lose ratio because I played rnd BGs nearly every day in Cata-WoD, just a few per month in Legion, and a few more now in BfA.
So the overall winrate is still in a solid 45-55% range despite losing more often now.

But it’s not the many lost games that drove me away from casual PvP. It’s more the lack of rewards. Previously PvP was a cool 2nd way of progress: you got better gear the more you played. How well you were equipped through PvE didn’t matter.
But now there isn t anything worth the effort. The gear you get is useless, the honour lvl rewards take ages to get and most of them are underwhelming, especially when a lot of others already have them through the Tower WQs in Legion. And for the honour lvl it doesn’t really matter if you win or lose.
And it’s not like in previous expansions where you csn craft basic PvP gear and be somehow viable from the beginning. So you have to fight against enemies with 150-200k more HP that also deal 3-5times more dmg.
Without the return of PvP gear there is no real motivation for many to continue playing PvP, or even start because of masdive power-differences.

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I so hope they fix PvP gearing in Shadowlands but we all know Blizzard can be stubborn when they think they know best.

Just look how many would love to return to tier sets, only for us to be told at BlizzCon we’re still not getting it back.

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Not really though.
The reason why it’s overall 50/50 is because Alliance had a 92% win-rate in Alterac Valley and an 88% win-rate in Isle of Conquest. That alleviates all the negative win-rates in the other battlegrounds.

But my point is that Blizzard have changed these Battlegrounds since, in the Horde’s favor.

Alliance can no longer Blitz in Alterac Valley. The zerg strategy now favors the Horde. The Alliance struggles to win in Alterac Valley today as a result.

Likewise in Isle of Conquest. The Glaives used to be overpowered. And the Alliance strategy was to get the Glaives and win. And it worked. Then Blizzard changed it, nerfing Glaives and buffing the Workshop. And now the Horde tends to win more, because their strategy has always been to go for the Workshop, and that pays off more now.

All the other Battlegrounds have never been touched (minus Strand of the Ancients, which was removed, so Alliance effectively lost their edge there too). The small edge the Horde has in Arathi Basin? There’s nothing that would indicate they don’t still have that.
Same with the rest.

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I’m not sure I understand the glaives justification. The Horde equally had use of them. It was a standard tactic for either side to go and take docs.

AV there was no way around, it was much harder to win as Horde for years. Many used to blacklist it.

However I still think it would be beneficial to have more up to date stats.

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I don’t think it’s about edgy races, racial abilities or lore (since when have PvPers cared about lore?). It’s a matter of attitude and interests of the faction. Basically, alli queues need more PvPers instead of pet-battle experts and world quest masters and they need to get rid of the “k guys, let’s lose fast” mentality.
Unfortunately, this can be done only by heavy horde mercing. Or Blizz could get rid of factions altogether.

This bonus as well as the honor bonus for BGs doesn’t make things better. Honor bonus for BGs on alli might make horde queues slightly shorter but it doesn’t improve the win ratio.
And the extra% in WM have turned WAR mode into World Quest Bonus mode where people don’t attack each other.

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The Glaives were just overpowered and did a lot more damage than the Airship, Demolishers, or Bombs did.
And by sheer coincidence, it just became the Alliance’s go-to strategy to grab the Glaives, so the Alliance won.
The changes Blizzard have made to Isle of Conquest since, they have definitely made it more balanced overall. The Glaives are now more comparable to the rest, which is good. But those changes have happened at the expense of the Alliance’s dominance. Now the win-rate is probably closer to 50/50.

That’s a thing as well, right?
If you look at that old data, there are 3 outliers: Alterac Valley, Isle of Conquest, and Strand of the Ancients.
To Blizzard’s credit, they have addressed all of them.

Isle of Conquest is a balanced battleground today. It just is. Solid job by Blizzard there.

Alterac Valley is better (because Blitz was litterally the simplest form of gameplay imaginable), but it heavily favors Horde now. They can zerg faster than Alliance, and they can defend easier as well, because of the Iceblood choke.

And then Strand of the Ancients was removed. Why?

Because Blacklisting, right? As Alliance you didn’t really have any blacklisting preferences. But as Horde you were definitely looking at the 3 Battlegrounds above as the ones you didn’t want to get into. So Horde players used to Blacklist 2 of them and complain about the remaining!

As an Alliance player you could sit in queue for Alterac Valley for a really long time, because most Horde players had it blacklisted. So whilst you had a high win-rate in Alterac Valley as Alliance, you didn’t actually play a lot of Alterac Valley games. The Horde simply avoided it.

Like I said, there have been more. I know there was one in 2016 or 2017, I think, on the US forums. It was during Legion if I recall correct. And it showed the same.
And I also recall one from Arenajunkies, but that site is no more. Not sure when it was from.
But I’m not going to spend more time on google than I already did. I feel like I’ve presented enough to make my point already.

Regardless, the most recent battleground changes Blizzard made were implemented in 2018. You can see them here:
https://eu.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/feedback-epic-battlegrounds/4904
And those changes, along with prior ones, have generally been good for the Horde.

I personally feel the evidence is rather conclusive.
Anecdotal evidence is solid enough on its own at this point as well, because you’re definitely not experiencing a 92% win-rate in Alterac Valley today as Alliance. Or an 88% win-rate in Isle of Conquest. And that 72% win-rate for Horde in Strand of the Ancients? Well that’s just gone now, isn’t it?

Alliance players should have been laying a consistent smack-down on the Horde in all the other Battlegrounds in the recent years to have an overall 50/50 win-rate today. But there’s nothing that would indicate that the Horde has lost their edge in Arathi Basin, Twin Peaks, or elsewhere. They didn’t for years in the past, why would they today? If anything, the Horde side just creeps toward more dominance, slowly but surely.

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I rarely leave BG’s but when its a clear lose i just leave and take the 15 min penalty i have no interest at all supporting horde achievement hunt or being part of grave yard farm.

I also leave immediately when silvershard mines pops up because i hate that **** hole alliance loses that constantly and has no idea what to do there most of the time people just fight at the middle and if you make the mistake of reporting the AFK’rs you find your self with 15 min penalty.

I wish this game had a BG where the only objective was to just kill people then maybe the middle farming idiots would stay in there and not come to capture the flag bg’s to farm their achievements.

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At this point it feels that Alliance is a lost cause in PvP when 90% of the teams are consisted of people who give up 30 before gates open and whiney moaning trolls who have serious mental problems.

I cant lie i am jealous when it comes to horde pvp community because i love pvp. Blizzard really screwed the pooch when they nerfed EMFH and did nothing to balance rest of the racials and because of that we are in the situation that resembles more of a dumpster fire than fun game.

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Good Alliance players changed factions to Horde because of Hordizzard.

Horde players sabotage our battles via using mercenary mode.

Good PvP players like me don’t use battlegrounds because of the reasons above.

Alliance battleground teams consist of troll Mercenary mode hordes and noobs mostly hence they lose more and winrate is much worse because of the reasons above.

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Personally I always had harder to win as Alliance but not that much so it’s not worth instant queues. It’s like about 10%. When I win as an Alliance I feel more satisfied too because I knew me and my team did a good job

After 5 minutes when everything doesn’t go Alliance way

Just lose, horde is better than us

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