Faction specific server capacity

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

Greetings,

So, there are certain servers with a huge domination of one faction in terms of population, even in some extreme cases one faction has 3 or 4 times more players than the other.

With the honor system coming in a few days, for the low populated sides on those servers, things doesn’t seem very optimistic. Since there will also be no BGs until phase 3, the chances are very high that the low-populated faction won’t even be able to stand a chance against the extreme zerg potential of the other faction.

On the other hand, with the world pvp, servers will have a lot of lag issues, crashes etc. with the new phase, which will possibly cause Blizzard to reduce the player capacity greatly, leading up to long queues.

Combining both of those issues will be an extremely unpleasant experience for the low populated faction.

So here is a suggestion:

Make the server capacity faction-specific, for instance, instead of putting a 20k capacity on a server, make it so that it is a 10k alliance and 10k horde capacity at a given time.

This way:

  1. World PvP will be much better and even for both factions.
  2. Both factions will be able to get some honor.
  3. We will be able to see more fair fights.
  4. Lag issues will be reduced in major cities and hubs since the dominant faction will have less clusters of players.
  5. A lot of flight paths&locations will be contested so there will be less chances of one faction killing all the NPCs in a certain zone and camp the flight paths.

Without such a solution, I think the game will discourage most players to log into their characters on the low-populated faction and reroll on another server on the dominant faction, and this may lead to cases that we saw on retail wow.
I used to play on Twisting Nether on retail, and made my first character there 12 years ago. At first, it was 30% alliance and 70% horde. As time went on, more and more allies quit the server and the last time I checked it, it was 99.2% horde and 0.8% alliance there.

In classic wow, world pvp and faction-war theme becomes more important, and I can foresee this becoming a huge issue creating a similar situation in the long term, ESPECIALLY since BGs are cross-realm, there is no point being on the faction being constantly camped.

Best,
A royal gnome

13 Likes
2

What about the people who want to play on a one faction only server, so if blizz reduces the server cap and people stop playing they will still find groups?
Your example was 20k, but server caps was like 8500 a couple of weeks ago when I have checked. Maybe blizz will reduce it further.

3

Well, if the server is a PvP server, they shouldn’t want it to be a one-faction server as it is antithetical to the reason why PvP servers exist in the first place.

If it is a PvE/Normal server, they could make the faction-cap more flexible since players of the minority faction can always opt out of getting ganked and can still play the game.

So it could be something like:

For PvP servers: 60% - 40% faction cap at any given time.
For PvE/normal servers: 80% - 20% faction cap at any given time.

Sounds like the best solution.

6 Likes
4

Not a bad thought. I am similarly slightly concerned about the faction imbalance on Ten Storms, once PvP gets going. The last thing I want is the Horde driving Alliance players off the server. Once a server gets overly imbalanced it just gets worse and worse and worse for the minority faction and it kills the server in the end.

Ten Storms is a high populated and healthy, strong server but it would really suck if the imbalance destroys the realm at some point down the line.

2 Likes
5

I think it’s a really bad idea. Why not let people from France have a priority queue? It’s an idea with the same level of credibility as yours.

6

The French are quarantined in their own servers.

Very poor analogy, comparing real life ethnicity with an ingame faction.

4 Likes
7

I don’t quite understand how your mind actually works and it doesn’t merit a proper answer but I will be kind and tell you why: (I’ve already explained it in the OP)

People from France doesn’t create a situation where one faction is being constantly ganked, camped, all their NPCs are being killed over and over so they can’t do quests, their flight masters are being killed so they can’t travel and all dungeon entrances are being camped so the minority faction can’t get into dungeons.

However, one faction being overly dominant in a server creates the situation above, which leads to all the minority players quitting the server, which then leads to a 100% horde or alliance populated server and that leads to zero world pvp and bad economy.

5 Likes
8

How about this. PvP isn’t meant to be fair and Blizzard have never said that it would be fair, ever.

And making queues longer for no real reason at all is wrong. Wouldn’t that make people quit too?

Edit: Also you can report people for killing NPCs, even on PvP realms.

9

It won’t make queues longer for everyone, it will be longer for the dominant faction and shorter for the minority faction, which will give people an incentive to roll characters on the smaller faction and will lead to a more balanced population.

It is a good trade-off for the health of the game.

3 Likes
10

No it won’t. they will complain on the forums and to Blizzard. And they will be right to. Let me guess, you are on a horde dominated realm, well that’s the thing, there are more horde PvP players than alliance everywhere.

That is complete rubbish, people will like one faction more than the other and forcing people into changing is wrong on so many levels.

11

You are a weird person after all.

  1. No, you can’t report players for killing NPCs, it has never been a reason for punishment over the last 16 years and I’ve almost every day killed NPCs since open beta on retail wow. On a PvP realm, everyone, I mean everyone will be killing NPCs for one reason or another and if that was something to report everyone should get banned. I don’t really know what you’re talking about.

No it won’t. they will complain on the forums and to Blizzard.

They can complain all they want, in the end, people who constantly get camped on flight points will complain a tenfold more than those anyway so who cares?

That is complete rubbish, people will like one faction more than the other and forcing people into changing is wrong on so many levels.

Do you even know what an incentive means? None is forcing you to anything, you can play whatever you want, but if you roll on the disadvantaged side, you get a nice little reward. Incentives exist in retail wow such as the extra BFA quests for the low populated side with some gold and item rewards.

Whatever dude, good luck.

5 Likes
12

You can, it’s the only griefing behaviour that you can be reported for, jeez learn the rules will ya?

That is allowed up to a point on PvP realms.

I’m not stupid, do you even know what faction loyalty means?

13

No, killing NPCs can not and will never be reported, you should learn the rules. In fact, one of the most efficient methods for farming honor in vanilla/classic is to kill faction leaders, which are quest givers themselves, and to kill them a raid group will have to kill hundreds of NPCs in enemy cities.
I used to farm Tyrande during the original vanilla like 6 days a week for 12 hours a day with a raid group before BGs came in. So I remember quite well that all allies on our server skipped darnassus quests and went to ironforge. I don’t remember being reported or reported anyone for doing pvp raids, you make no sense at all.

That is allowed up to a point on PvP realms.

Yeah and that is what me and my team will be doing as well, which also proves that killing NPCs are allowed.

I’m not stupid, do you even know what faction loyalty means?

I’m not sure of that, yes I know what faction loyalty means but I don’t understand how it is related to the discussion.

You seem to make absolutely no sense to me. First the french example, then reporting for NPCs and now faction loyalty.

1 Like
14

You are wrong. Faction leaders are not the same as normal NPC quest givers. There is just no talking sense into you.

Common Problems

  • A player of the opposite faction is camping or killing NPCs
  • A player keeps killing me over and over
  • Keep getting camped and can’t play the game at all

The following actions may be considered dishonorable but are considered legitimate PvP tactics and will not be addressed by our Game Master staff:

  • Corpse camping
  • Killing players well below your level

Notice what is not included in that? That’s right killing NPCs.

15

You don’t even understand the text that you quote. That is so pitiful and sad dude.
Your text actually proves me right, which was unnecessary since I played this game for 16 years and killed NPCs for that long but thanks anyway.

The common problem addressed to Blizzard is:

  • A player of the opposite faction is camping or killing NPCs
  • A player keeps killing me over and over
  • Keep getting camped and can’t play the game at all

What is the Blizzard’s response to this problem?

  • The following actions may be considered dishonorable but are considered legitimate PvP tactics and will not be addressed by our Game Master staff.
  • If you do not wish to engage in PvP combat, do not activate War Mode.

Translation for the low:

Killing NPCs or corpse camping is legit and won’t be sanctioned in any way.

Faction leaders are NPCs as well (Non - Player Characters) and most of them give some very important quests. Additionally, they are located deep in the enemy cities so in order to kill them you need to kill a lot of quest givers along the way. Cba giving you examples, find out yourself.

Now, as we know the truth about this matter, you can continue spewing illogical mad stuff so I can keep refuting them.

2 Likes
16

Sorry to break it to you but you got it all wrong mate. Constantly camping and killing quest givers so that opposing faction cannot pick/complete them is against ToS rules and is a punishable offence. Read the link Dottie posted.

17

Constantly camping and killing quest givers so that opposing faction cannot pick/complete them is against ToS rules and is a punishable offence.

I read it all, it’s pretty short and I quoted it on the post above. So you do your reading now and tell me the results. Nowhere in the ToS tells that killing NPCs are punishable. If you think that is somehow true, find me one single player in the last 16 years that got banned for killing NPCs.

Also define what is “constantly”. If i kill the flight master in chillwind camp 6 times, does that count as “constantly”. What is the exact number of kills that make it constant.

What about I kill it 8 times, then I leave and another player comes in and kills it another 5 times. Then later on another comes in and kills it 9 times. So basically the NPC is dead for 24 hours straight but it is many different players killing it. Is that punishable too?

I don’t know what you are smoking.

1 Like
18

You want me to guess where you pulled that comparison from?

Its a trade off. You give something in exchange for something you consider more important. If alowing France to have queue prio had some game effect it should definitely be consideted if that would worth it.

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19

By the way, people from France should always get priority in queues for sure.

Vive la France!

:sunglasses:

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20

I think there can be an incentive similar to Retail.
They can give certain a PVP honor gain increase when you faction is in minority and have a reduced honor gain if you are in majority.
Maybe offer 10% off repair and flight paths.
But as Magesty has stated after a while servers turn into faction ghost towns where there is non of the opposite faction and you get no honor because there is no world PVP.
I seen it happen on Dentarg, Twisting Nether and Frostmane in the past. I hope It wont happen in Ten-Storms. Because as soon as server transfers are open people from the minority faction just go to another server.

2 Likes