Simple - allow for cross-faction raiding, m+ and pvp. So many people are gated to stay horde because their friends/guild play on horde. If you allow for cross-faction activity (which would btw go with the spirit of Horde&Alliance vs the evil of the world), people will consider changing races, getting a fresh air of new faction etc. Please Blizzard.
11 Likes
We can see it coming. I believe Ion hinted at it a few months ago and that was before the edifice of Shadowlands crashed around him, making him more receptive to player desires. I imagine they will do it so that you can invite anyone from the opposing faction so long as they have warmode off, and you wonât be able to turn warmode on again unless your group contains nobody from the opposing faction.
I doubt they will allow you to queue for pvp cross-faction as there is already a system in place for that (mercenaries) and it would be a bit of a bridge too far to have Horde and Alliance fighting together openly against Horde and Alliance. It maybe that you COULD queue for PVP as a cross-faction group, but that the members of your group from the currently dominant faction would then be placed in mercenary mode and you would always fight for the weaker faction.
They MIGHT extend mercenary mode to warmode so that players from the majority faction of the time could enter mercenary mode in the open world in order to group with their friends of course but that is just an idea.
Arenas are arenas, I imagine cross-faction teams would be no problem here.
You would also be able to guild together and join communities together but you wouldnât be able to visit the capital cities of the opposing factions or be safe in their zones, that Void Elf friend of yours is going to be cut to ribbons by the Silvermoon guards if they try.
Over time these changes would probably lead to people race changing back to Alliance for their racials or for their aesthetic preferences and would ultimately restore a degree of balance to the game (if blizzard wished for player goodwill, given it was their mismanagement of Horde racials that created the imbalance, they could offer free faction changes without server moves for a limited time to encourage people who only went Horde because of the faction imbalance to go back). This also preserves the faction conflict as the factions still exist as story and PVP elements, it just hands choice back to players on whom they associate with.
I feel like itâs not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when. And the answer to that question is sooner rather than later since you canât fight demographics trends. Pragmatism is all aboot remove wrongly broken done things.
7 Likes
Oh itâs definitely a matter of when. Iâm a fan of the faction divide, always have been, but it has been badly mismanaged by Blizzard and right now itâs hurting the game. It needs to be greatly softened.
They should NEVER have given the races racials which impacted player power. When they decided to do so, they should never have allowed them to impact player power to the degree they have. I am old enough to remember people pointing out the long term problems of racials in classic. WoW players pointing out the obvious and Blizzard ignoring them to end up with catastrophic results is not just a recent trend.
You can already fight your own faction in rated PvP, so thereâs not much of an issue really.
2 Likes
Even tbc classic and tbc private servers highlighted the issues caused by racials because most of the p servers were heavily Horde dominated, around 80% of players being Horde. So what aboot official tbc classic realms then? The answer is as simple as saying there has been a 10 % shift towards the Horde between classic and tbc classic, moving the Horde share up to 63% from 53%. I mean, 53% was within the balanced margin but 63% is quite a large advantage, knowing that mostly happened on pvp servers which were in fact balanced. But overnight, the Horde population doubled while the Alliance population remained the same, which lead the Horde being the majority faction.
Racials were the cause of the imbalance, but at the end of the day, people are know going where most of players are.
True, but the difference is that both factions in those fights are composed entirely of members of the same side. Blizzard doesnât like that but they allow it for the good of the game. What I canât see them allowing is Horde and Alliance in one group fighting Horde and Alliance in another. The factions will have to serve a purpose beyond story in a world after the boundaries are greatly weakened, and PVP is it. Mercenary mode is their solution to that issue and one I suspect they will go further with if required.
I donât think classic can be fixed sadly given the nature of the beast. Blizzard can work around the problems of the faction imbalance there, but they probably cannot fix it.
Retail however might be fixed with an imaginative approach. I think the one I outlined above is not a million miles away from what will be implemented in the end. Keeps the factions relevant and important, but hands the choice of who we associate with back to us.
My main concern is world pvp and game consistency.
For example, cross-faction talk. It should just be enabled across the board. It doesnât make sense to be unable to communicate with a player up until you invite them to your party. Hell, you need to be able to talk to players before inviting them. So cross-faction talk should be simply available all the time.
The second is warmode - now, I am all for making warmode FFA, with guilds being able to form alliances, which will mean everyone in the guild alliance will not be autoflagged for pvp for you. But you can still attack them if you want.
Personally, Iâd much rather have Blizz take action to restore the faction balance. The first step is to ban Ally > Horde faction transfers, and give the Alliance a decent buff for being the underdog (maybe buff materials obtained, loot drop chance in raids and M+, etc). Then discount Horde > Ally faction transfers. This is like⌠the most common-sense approach that other MMOs Iâve seen employ. You can always only transfer from the dominant faction to the underdog faction.
This doesnât make sense. Being able to play with a player but be hostile in their city?
The goal of every suggestion should be consistency across the board. In order for crossfaction play, the factions must cease existing.
Then it wonât be done. Theyâve made clear over a number of years that the Horde and Alliance are regarded as fundamental to the Warcraft universe. A point driven home by Shadowlands which has really been our first expansion without the Alliance and the Horde and which in many ways feels like a different game as a result.
They will not be removing the Alliance and the Horde. The model I have suggested is based on what other MMOs have done before. It removes the barriers to grouping between players and players alone so that people are able to group with who they wish to group with and play together, but it maintains the all important architecture of the two factions. This is not a huge limitation, you are excluded only from a handful of core zones that belong to the other faction, their major cities and their bases, i.e how things are now. Your interactions with the other factionâs NPCs would not change. Only your relations with players of the other faction will alter.
But please do not think that the solution to the faction imbalance is to entirely tear out the factions. They arenât going to do it and pretending that they will even entertain the possibility of scrapping two of the most iconic and marketable fictional factions in gaming is to invite wholy unreasonable expectations.
2 Likes
I donât see how not being able to enter certain capital cities is an issue at all. The only thing I would change would be the zones for capital cities - the same way Horde and Alliance have their separate Dalaran zones which cause the players of opposite faction to be teleported out of the place upon trying to enter - capital cities should be treated exactly the same. This would solve the issue of âoh but they are attacking me and weâre supposed to be friendsâ. I think keeping capital cities âAlliance/Horde onlyâ would keep the immersion and uniqueness of the faction. It would also enourage players to meet outside the walls and revitilize the world outside of the major cities.
World pvp - âWarmodeâ in particular could be changed into âPvP modeâ(simple) which could be turned into FFA with guildies and party members being flagged as friendlies. Iâd personally kept the old-style BGs and EBGs the way they are right now (queues wonât be as much of an issue anymore with the new wave of people swapping over to Alliance) with of course, the ability to become a mercenary(which after re-balancing would still mainly serve the purpose of creating faster queueâs for people that donât really care to play their original race). If there is a group of both Horde and Alliance members queueing up together, the groupâs leader would be a deciding factor in assigning the group to a particular side of the conflict, putting all other players who arenât part of the faction into mercenary mode. Cross-faction pvp should be mainly treated as a way for Arena players in particular to freely queue up together.
Allowing for cross-faction raiding would finally fix the issue with hall of fame being stuck for unneccesary amount of time because there is not enough competetive guilds on Alliance. Assuming Blizzard would take a look at re-balancing racials in particular I feel like there could be some more interesting race choices for both raid and m+ players, finally being given the choice between all races (please rework Dwarf racial so itâs not âliterally the best m+ racial in the gameâ).
Also I do not see why would cross-faction talk not be allowed. In the lore, characters of the opposite factions talk to each other constantly without any issues or stuttering giving a feeling that the common tongue really is just as known to all races in the game as e.g English language in real life. Again, I see no reason why the restriction should remain as part of the game.
5 Likes
Cross-Faction Gameplay Suggestion: As a compromise for those who feel that faction war is important, players will have the following choices:
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A Friendly / Hostile Toggle. Just like you can enable or disable PVP when right-clicking your char frame, the same way youâll be able to make yourself Friendly to the opposite faction so that you can chat, group together, raid, add friends, etc. OR you could be Hostile, meaning your name will appear orange and you wonât be able to speak or group up with opposing faction players.
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Itâll be possible to create a Peace Community guild that will allow the addition of both Horde and Alliance characters in it. Regular guilds will have the option to convert to Peace Communities for free if they so wanted, OR they could choose to not become a peace community guild and thus not welcome members of the opposing faction in it. This will add a graceful grey area in the Horde-Alliance relationship and a UNIQUE flavor to the game, allowing an internal moral conflict of whether to stick to a war-friendly culture, or put our differences aside and work together.
And thatâs the problem - you can play with others, but you canât get near them. You canât talk to enemy faction players, but youâre expected to group up with them. This is not good. WoW is already an RPG mess and you want to make it more messy. Warmode will cause so many complications. Imagine youâre in a party with an alliance player as a horde⌠can other horde players attack that alliance player? Can you attack the horde, or can they attack you?
I personally think banning transfers from the less populated faction to the more populated one, combined with boosted raid and M+ drop rate will go a long way to fixing the imbalance. Hell, give the alliance the ability to pick 2 items from the great vault.
Banning transfers wonât be a solution because guilds that plan to move would move anyways
1 Like
Firstly, you are clearly demanding too much with the desire that the Horde and the Alliance be removed entirely. I can already tell you that isnât going to happen, and you donât have to be a developer to know this. The Horde and Alliance are simply woven too deeply into the fabric of the game to be yoinked out.
The goal of weakening the restrictions between the factions is to facilitate player choice on who they group with and do content with, it is not to completely upend the entire structure of the game. It is a question of how one player relates to another player rather than how the NPCs of that faction react to you.
Your warmode example is not a good one. In the structure I believe it is most likely Blizzard will implement, they will not allow you to group up in the open world if warmode is on and they will disable the ability to turn warmode on if you are grouped with a player of the opposite faction. Warmode would thus exist for PVP purposes. The scenario you propose would never arise.
You cite the language barrier, stating we wouldnât be able to talk with them. Implicit in the model is that the language barrier would be removed and so again, wouldnât be a problem.
These are changes with that one goal, to make it easier for players to do the content they want, on the race they wish to be and to play with the people they want. That is the problem that needs solving. It does need to involve, nor will it involve, the scrapping of the entire two faction system. Opposite faction NPCs will still be hostile to you. You will still be unable to go to opposite faction cities or zones safely. The game will still be predicated in many ways on the hostility between the Alliance and the Horde.
But individual players can decide whom they group with for most forms of content. And with the ability to join guilds and participate in PVE content with anyone, people who prefer Alliance races will finally be able to start drifting back that way which should over time restore the faction balance to a better state of health for things like battlegrounds and warmode.
1 Like
Cross-Faction Gameplay: As a compromise for those who feel that faction war is important, players will have the following choices:
-
A Friendly / Hostile Toggle. Just like you can enable or disable PVP when right-clicking your char frame, the same way youâll be able to make yourself Friendly to the opposite faction so that you can chat, group together, raid, add friends, etc. OR you could be Hostile, meaning your name will appear orange and you wonât be able to speak or group up with opposing faction players.
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Peace Community Guilds: These Guilds will allow the addition of both Horde and Alliance characters in them. Regular guilds will have the option to convert to Peace Communities for free if they so wanted, OR they could choose to not become a peace community guild and thus not welcome members of the opposing faction in it. This will add a graceful grey area in the Horde-Alliance relationship and a UNIQUE flavor to the game, allowing an internal moral conflict of whether to stick to a war-friendly culture, or put our differences aside and work together.
Factions are an essential part of the game and they have been there since the beginning. I personally would like to have no contact with the other faction and to cooperate as little as possible through the story, but since we have a problem then I will not be selfish and I agree that something needs to be done. First of all, intolerance between factions should always be present, but that does not mean that they can never cooperate. Therefore, cross-faction raiding and m+ is more than acceptable (with all restrictions except language), but everything else big NO. Mercenary mode should also be removed.
1 Like
Why? Just call it military training. Thats what it would come down to in the end anyhow.
I proposed a pretty solid solution, Iâd say, for fixing the faction imbalance. That being providing a tangible advantage to the underdog faction, one that hardcore metaslaves would want to pursue.
This is idiotic and an admission your suggestion wonât work.
Simply allow the underdog faction to pick 2 (two) items out of the vault and give them a flat 50% boosted drop rate in M+ and raids. Then BAN transfers from the less populated faction to the more populated one.
Itâs much simpler than saying âwell, you can group up with them in the open world, but not if youâre in warmode but also the grouping shouldnât really work in the open world and if you group up with a player you wonât be able to get near them if they are in their capital and also we have no idea how trading will work and by the way removing the language restrictions will mean gnomes will flame you when you kill themâ.
Just give the underdogs more loot. Imagine having to pick between the faction that has a 1.5% drop chance for the Sylvanas bow and the faction that has a 3% drop chance for the Sylvanas bow.
To term someone elseâs solution as idiotic and to then propose a solution that is, to put it mildly, daft and to put it accurately is completely insane takes chutzpah.
Have you actually thought through your solution and what it entails?
First, this idea of banning transfers from the underdog faction. You are removing choice from players. What if that player has a good reason to want to change, such as they have just returned from a long break and all their friends have gone to the Horde. Were your solution implemented they would not be allowed to do so, and would have to keep playing on the Alliance despite their friend being elsewhere. They will either reroll or they will quit.
And the forums will go into meltdown. If Blizzard were dumb enough to do this, and as we have all seen they are pretty dumb but even I have my doubts theyâd be this dumb, the change would be reverted within hours alongside a grovelling apology from Qwik about them having been so dumb to have done it in the first place.
Secondly, allowing them to get more loot unbalances the game by rewarding players with more loot for the same effort as their counterparts. How will that be perceived? Itâll be perceived as Blizzard charging people to use the faction transfer service in order to get gear faster. Again, the backlash would be intense and this notion would not survive it.
Your solutions are not simple, they are foolish. You have solved the problem to your own satisfaction without taking into account the human element that would ignite a firestorm in response to them.
The solution actually employed will be one that weakens the boundaries between the factions so that people can group with each other. It involves only small changes to how the game works now and keeps the factions intact for story and pvp purposes.
Nor is an idea that âyou can group horde and alliance with warmode off but not with warmode onâ as complex as you make out. You seem oddly fixated that NPCs will still behave exactly as they have towards players as they have for eighteen years and that this somehow undermines the entire game or will confuse players. This will of course come as news to players of other MMOs where players from competing factions can group but cannot visit the cities of those factions or interact with their NPCs, because it certainly works fine for them.