Why does this problem exist?
Why do we have this faction balance and how do you propose we fix it?
We can already create both alliance and horde characters on the same realm, I have both.
Take Gehennas and Firemaw, the two big single-faction pvp-realms.
Why are they single-faction-realms. Why did alliance leave Razorgore to join Firemaw, and why did horde leave Firemaw for Gehennas.
If you’re always the minority and rarely win open world fights, then it’s no longer fun.
Guilds start PvP wars with guilds from the other faction who’s simply trying to raid.
Griefers keeps killing low-level players, as they find it fun to ruin other players experience.
The fun you expected ends up being an annoyance and if there’s an alternative you seek that.
Even balanced Anniversary realms or SoD realms uses layering to avoid the other faction.
The problem with PvP is, that it’s only really fun, when you want to PvP, not when you’re trying to do something else.
We all know that what griefers want the most, is to corpse camp and in every possible way keep farming you. It’s rarely just a one-off, “haha, I got you noob” and then they move on, no they stick to you like glue, taking the fun out of fair PvP.
How do we force-balance existing PvP realms?
Accepting griefers or not doesn’t really matter. What matters is that faction balance is enforced, but how?
Balance is extremely hard to achieve, especially on existing realms, and locking these mega realms would be even harder.
I have both alliance and horde characters on Firemaw, so I can play both sides.
You can only really lock new players from creating characters for the most populated faction, unless we’re forced to transfer, potentially breaking guilds and runining the community.
Potential Solutions
Yes, Firemaw and Gehennas are PvP realms, people who joined accepted that. Then entire factions decided to leave the realms essentially making them PvE realms today.
- Merge Firemaw and Gehennas - and maybe others - and accept the new combined realm is a mega PvE-realm and not PvP.
That way PvP is opt-in, and there’s no reason for an entire faction to suddenly emigrate the realm.
- Create a new PvP realm for Mist of Pandaria where factions are balanced and the balance is enforced.
Give all players a free transfer - including the option for free faction change if applicable - from their existing realms to this newly created PvP-realm.
This will reboot the PvP experience for MoP in a fresh realm instead of suddenly reinforcing PvP on realms that was previously both locked and considered dead / broken and now in a single-faction PvE state, potentially causing late mass emigration that could easily throw the balance right down the drain once again, unless Blizzard then forces players to swap faction to rebalance the realm.
- This is already not Classic MoP, but instead a modernized MoP with no LFR, new class changes and Celestrial H+ dungeons.
Why are we not just merging all the realms into a single PvE realm with War Mode implemented, so players are incentivized to participate for bonus experience and rewards?
This way PvP is a dynamic feature that can be controlled through balanced layering, keeping the layers as fair as possible.
Layers are essentially just dynamic sub-realms you can jump between through group invites.
An alternative to layering could be implementing sharding of zones. Assuming the plan is to merge Firemaw and Gehennas anyways, there’s no reason to fear loss of realm identity, as there’s no realm identity to begin with.
War Mode?
Ignoring how difficult it may or may not be to implement in Classic WoW, I say that War Mode is the best of both worlds, with the potential for balanced and fun PvP while incentivizing even causals to participate through rewards and bonus experience and reputation.
