Warmode and faction balance.

PVP War Mode and World PvP
1
I was skimmng thru the Bluetrackers last week when I read this topic on the US forums about some servers having very low, to no participation of in this case the Alliance in WarMode. Phallanx, a Game Designer made this reply to that post:

It is likely because there is a significantly greater number of Horde active in War Mode at the moment. Essentially your shard is the "leftover Horde" shard.

The system maintains a number of shards which attempt to maintain a degree of faction balance within them. When we have an excess of one faction, those are put into their own shard until more of the other faction arises.

Not ideal, and we're doing what we can to reduce the frequency of that occurrence.


https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20766366541#post-2

So theere is an issue with Warmode in wich the factions are very badly balanced overall with some servergroups simply being dominated by 1 faction to an extreme, and that gets reflected in terms of WarMode participation.

Basically, due to the way people have been going to the Horde due to the idea that the Horde is better for PvP, and the devs not acknowledging that enough, they have created a huge inbalance between the factions, and that is causing a lack of Alliance players, and so a lot of shards are consisting of mostly Horde players.

And this will only get worse since the players on the dominating faction can turn on WarMode and get its bonus rewards relative safe, while the oposite is true for the other faction, wich do get attacked a lot, but the rewards are then worthless. And so those players will feel forced to either turn WarMode off, or join the dominating faction, exceterbating the whole issue.

And this whole thing can very easely be fixed by this simple idea:

Make the WarMode incentive bonusses scale to reflect factionsize balance.

Basically the idea is that when the Horde has 50% more players, the Alliance gets a 50% higher WarMode bonus (so 15% instead of 10%)
And it might also work to add a "Call to Arms" type bag (like the one for using the LFG-tool as a needed role) for playing with WarMode on for a certain amount of time wich scales with faction balance; being shorter when there are fewer players on your faction.

And lastly it is a good idea to show faction balance in a UI element together with an indicator that shows how much the WarMode bonus gets scaled.

In the end, there needs to be an honest balance between the risk vs the reward of WarMode. And at the moment, that simply is not there.
2
There's no risk involved regardless. Only irritation.

Leveling up a tiny little bit slower is not a risk. And it's certainly not something worth to grant extra rewards for.

PvPers need to stop thinking that just because they like a certain activity in a game, that somehow makes them more badass (and entitles them to special bonuses). Because it doesn't. Your taste is just different.
3
28/07/2018 17:05Posted by Mirun
And this will only get worse since the players on the dominating faction can turn on WarMode and get its bonus rewards relative safe, while the oposite is true for the other faction, wich do get attacked a lot, but the rewards are then worthless. And so those players will feel forced to either turn WarMode off, or join the dominating faction, exceterbating the whole issue.

This is my biggest fear, and it's sadly what I've experienced mostly so far. In the EU - more so than the US - The Horde dominates in numbers.

And it's Wintergrasp all over again. Back in WotLK Blizzard struggled a lot with faction balance on individual servers when it came to Wintergrasp. Eventually they came up with the idea of Tenacity, i.e. if your faction was under-represented you got an increase in stats so you could match the enemy faction.

But it didn't work.

There is strength in numbers.

And it doesn't seem as if Blizzard have ever figured out a good solution to faction imbalance when it comes to PvP.

And Battle for Azeroth looks like it's a repeat of WotLK and its failures all over again, unless Blizzard comes up with a better solution this time.

It will always be more lucrative and appealing to play on the dominant faction (Horde), so the issue grows bigger and bigger as more people decide to play that faction.

We see it in PvE already, as more raiding guilds switch to Horde, and it just snowballs as it goes on.

And we'll see it in PvP too, unless Blizzard does something.
4
I know a pretty good solution for faction imbalace... they should try out balancing racials, horde has incredibly usefull, ofthen for both PvP and PvE racials, while alliance has mostly either PvP or PvE used racials and even PvP focused racials are ofthen weaker, then what multifunctional racials horde has.
And now they wonder, why only 10% of the playerbase is in the alliance...
5
28/07/2018 17:05Posted by Mirun
Basically, due to the way people have been going to the Horde due to the idea that the Horde is better for PvP, and the devs not acknowledging that enough, they have created a huge inbalance between the factions, and that is causing a lack of Alliance players, and so a lot of shards are consisting of mostly Horde players.


PvP servers in Europe were mostly Horde players.
6
28/07/2018 17:31Posted by Melthor
I know a pretty good solution for faction imbalace... they should try out balancing racials, horde has incredibly usefull, ofthen for both PvP and PvE racials, while alliance has mostly either PvP or PvE used racials and even PvP focused racials are ofthen weaker, then what multifunctional racials horde has.
And now they wonder, why only 10% of the playerbase is in the alliance...


Oh yes, nerfing the Hordes racials is on itself a good idea. However it wont stop the current unbalance and the bleeding of Alliance players in WarMode. For that will only happen after the nerf to the Horde racials.

And in the end, the same issue will still be around no matter wether the Horde has better racials or not since there always will be a faction that has a majority of the players. And so the encouragement for the lesser played faction to join WarMode, an incentive thats more in line in terms of the risks taken, will always stay.
7
28/07/2018 18:19Posted by Someoneelse
28/07/2018 17:05Posted by Mirun
Basically, due to the way people have been going to the Horde due to the idea that the Horde is better for PvP, and the devs not acknowledging that enough, they have created a huge inbalance between the factions, and that is causing a lack of Alliance players, and so a lot of shards are consisting of mostly Horde players.


PvP servers in Europe were mostly Horde players.


Yes, they were. And PvE servers were more Alliance focussed. Hench why I did not go for just nerfing Horde racials, but took in account the idea that there will always be 1 faction that has more players.

If only it were just the Horde racials, or some other singular thing. But no, this issue is more complex then that, and so needs a more generalised solution.
8
28/07/2018 17:10Posted by Tahra
There's no risk involved regardless. Only irritation.

Leveling up a tiny little bit slower is not a risk. And it's certainly not something worth to grant extra rewards for.

PvPers need to stop thinking that just because they like a certain activity in a game, that somehow makes them more badass (and entitles them to special bonuses). Because it doesn't. Your taste is just different.


You kinda miss a huge elephant in the room: why would someone not turn on WarMode when there are no players of the oposite faction and so get free rewards for doing nothing?

That 10% more XP and Azerite, Honor Talents and the likes are really nice and powerfull enough to make people gravitate towards turning on WarMode when they are on the dominating faction. And since you wont get any forced PvP what so ever then, the risks are simply not there.

This while the other faction will bleed members since people switch factions and are forced to keep WarMode off since it would be a 10 v 1 insta-death mode wich noone likes.
9
28/07/2018 18:20Posted by Mirun
28/07/2018 17:31Posted by Melthor
I know a pretty good solution for faction imbalace... they should try out balancing racials, horde has incredibly usefull, ofthen for both PvP and PvE racials, while alliance has mostly either PvP or PvE used racials and even PvP focused racials are ofthen weaker, then what multifunctional racials horde has.
And now they wonder, why only 10% of the playerbase is in the alliance...


Oh yes, nerfing the Hordes racials is on itself a good idea. However it wont stop the current unbalance and the bleeding of Alliance players in WarMode. For that will only happen after the nerf to the Horde racials.

And in the end, the same issue will still be around no matter wether the Horde has better racials or not since there always will be a faction that has a majority of the players. And so the encouragement for the lesser played faction to join WarMode, an incentive thats more in line in terms of the risks taken, will always stay.


I have not said it anywhere, that horde racials should be nerfed, I said, that racials should be balanced out and that horde racials are better and more flexible, than alliance racials in many cases.

Also, if you want a solution for quick rebalancing, just give the underplayed side a crazy strong wintergrasp tenacity-like buff, that's all.
The end result will be either alliance players will be able to oneshot horde ones in warmode regardless of their numbers or people start to at least turn off warmode, so warmode population will even out. So in the end at least for those that want to PvP, it will be still there and balanced for those, who want PvE only it stilldoesn't matter.
If someone from horde gets pissed by the huge boost for alliance players in warmode power, then they will start to go to alliance to get that huge power boost and then things will slowly be balanced out.
The buff itself is also an easy one:
- 1% increased stat for every single % increase in the opposing faction.
- also a 1% cc resist buff with same scaling mechanic, escept it starts from 50% increased participation on the opposing faction and it naturally capps at 100% resist.

This way at 2,5 times opposing faction participation the outnumbered faction participants will become raid bosses, so they can faceroll enemies until the enemy gets bored of it and either turns warmode off or goes to the opposing faction.
10
28/07/2018 18:32Posted by Melthor
28/07/2018 18:20Posted by Mirun
...

Oh yes, nerfing the Hordes racials is on itself a good idea. However it wont stop the current unbalance and the bleeding of Alliance players in WarMode. For that will only happen after the nerf to the Horde racials.

And in the end, the same issue will still be around no matter wether the Horde has better racials or not since there always will be a faction that has a majority of the players. And so the encouragement for the lesser played faction to join WarMode, an incentive thats more in line in terms of the risks taken, will always stay.


I have not said it anywhere, that horde racials should be nerfed, I said, that racials should be balanced out and that horde racials are better and more flexible, than alliance racials in many cases.

Also, if you want a solution for quick rebalancing, just give the underplayed side a crazy strong wintergrasp tenacity-like buff, that's all.
The end result will be either alliance players will be able to oneshot horde ones in warmode regardless of their numbers or people start to at least turn off warmode, so warmode population will even out. So in the end at least for those that want to PvP, it will be still there and balanced for those, who want PvE only it stilldoesn't matter.
If someone from horde gets pissed by the huge boost for alliance players in warmode power, then they will start to go to alliance to get that huge power boost and then things will slowly be balanced out.
The buff itself is also an easy one:
- 1% increased stat for every single % increase in the opposing faction.
- also a 1% cc resist buff with same scaling mechanic, escept it starts from 50% increased participation on the opposing faction and it naturally capps at 100% resist.

This way at 2,5 times opposing faction participation the outnumbered faction participants will become raid bosses, so they can faceroll enemies until the enemy gets bored of it and either turns warmode off or goes to the opposing faction.


That kind of buff is nice in theory, but kinda defeats its purpose as a solution to balance WarMode by creating the issue of players being bullied into turning off WarMode (wich you even describe yourself in the last alinea); and thats not what should be the solution.

Everyone that wants to should be able to turn on WarMode. And by both a huge faction imbalance, and by that kind of tenacity buff, you discourage that whole idea where you want to encourage players.

And be honest: is it fun to oneshot players in PvP? I know that some might like that kind of powertrip; but most will dislike it, especially in the long run when it is all "been there, done that".
11
28/07/2018 17:10Posted by Tahra
There's no risk involved regardless. Only irritation.

Leveling up a tiny little bit slower is not a risk. And it's certainly not something worth to grant extra rewards for.

PvPers need to stop thinking that just because they like a certain activity in a game, that somehow makes them more badass (and entitles them to special bonuses). Because it doesn't. Your taste is just different.


You kinda miss a huge elephant in the room: why would someone not turn on WarMode when there are no players of the oposite faction and so get free rewards for doing nothing?

That 10% more XP and Azerite, Honor Talents and the likes are really nice and powerfull enough to make people gravitate towards turning on WarMode when they are on the dominating faction. And since you wont get any forced PvP what so ever then, the risks are simply not there.

This while the other faction will bleed members since people switch factions and are forced to keep WarMode off since it would be a 10 v 1 insta-death mode wich noone likes.


The bolded part is what is wrong with warmode and the underlined part is what will make Alliance even more of a ghost town than it already is. People will play horde exclusivly after BfA because of the Azerite bonus.

"Lets nerf the best racial in the game, oh and also lets give horde 10% more AP in the next expansion" /Facepalm.
12
28/07/2018 18:32Posted by Mirun
28/07/2018 17:10Posted by Tahra
There's no risk involved regardless. Only irritation.

Leveling up a tiny little bit slower is not a risk. And it's certainly not something worth to grant extra rewards for.

PvPers need to stop thinking that just because they like a certain activity in a game, that somehow makes them more badass (and entitles them to special bonuses). Because it doesn't. Your taste is just different.


You kinda miss a huge elephant in the room: why would someone not turn on WarMode when there are no players of the oposite faction and so get free rewards for doing nothing?

That 10% more XP and Azerite, Honor Talents and the likes are really nice and powerfull enough to make people gravitate towards turning on WarMode when they are on the dominating faction. And since you wont get any forced PvP what so ever then, the risks are simply not there.

This while the other faction will bleed members since people switch factions and are forced to keep WarMode off since it would be a 10 v 1 insta-death mode wich noone likes.


Well my stance on the matter is that these bonuses shouldn't exist in the first place. They're not warranted at all. The PvP talents aren't PvP talents at all anymore. they should rather be called 'Warmode Bonus Talents'. Or you know... they should be usable ONLY on players. That would make them actual pvp talents.
13
28/07/2018 17:31Posted by Melthor
I know a pretty good solution for faction imbalace... they should try out balancing racials, horde has incredibly usefull, ofthen for both PvP and PvE racials, while alliance has mostly either PvP or PvE used racials and even PvP focused racials are ofthen weaker, then what multifunctional racials horde has.
And now they wonder, why only 10% of the playerbase is in the alliance...
if Alliance has had best pvp racials with dwarf and human for ages.

And if blizz makes raciasl disabled or so in pvp tomorow, it wont change anytjing signifacnt. Cause why would they swap back and pay more money when it makes no difference.
14
...

You kinda miss a huge elephant in the room: why would someone not turn on WarMode when there are no players of the oposite faction and so get free rewards for doing nothing?

That 10% more XP and Azerite, Honor Talents and the likes are really nice and powerfull enough to make people gravitate towards turning on WarMode when they are on the dominating faction. And since you wont get any forced PvP what so ever then, the risks are simply not there.

This while the other faction will bleed members since people switch factions and are forced to keep WarMode off since it would be a 10 v 1 insta-death mode wich noone likes.


The bolded part is what is wrong with warmode and the underlined part is what will make Alliance even more of a ghost town than it already is. People will play horde exclusivly after BfA because of the Azerite bonus.

"Lets nerf the best racial in the game, oh and also lets give horde 10% more AP in the next expansion" /Facepalm.
isnt wrong with them. the bonsues are far time lost in pvp combat. keep that in mind.
YOu loose more time in pvp combat iwth other players often very long. So you get more but it still equals out cause withotu warmode its done quiker thus gets quiker onto new sources.
15
Or...

They can open a free week for faction change before bfa.

No server transfer, only horde "to" alliance transfers are free within same server. So no name change required too.

This solution looks so simple but probably im missing something :)
16
29/07/2018 12:00Posted by Cyri
YOu loose more time in pvp combat iwth other players often very long. So you get more but it still equals out cause withotu warmode its done quiker thus gets quiker onto new sources.

You dont lose time if one faction controls the areas due to overwhelming numbers
17
29/07/2018 12:09Posted by Râlph
29/07/2018 12:00Posted by Cyri
YOu loose more time in pvp combat iwth other players often very long. So you get more but it still equals out cause withotu warmode its done quiker thus gets quiker onto new sources.

You dont lose time if one faction controls the areas due to overwhelming numbers

except you do. any fight means lost time, and getting to control that area is lsot time aswell.
18
29/07/2018 12:12Posted by Cyri
except you do. any fight means lost time, and getting to control that area is lsot time aswell.

No what i mean is the way it is going it would be a waste of time for alliance to bother activating the warmode because horde controls the whole place with a raid usually. Or just by having huge numbers everywhere, therefore horde wont have any competition later on in warmode because everyone from the alliance would have just disabled it living horde with a passive 10% bonus on everything with only very rare inconveniences of a rare random ally using warmode.
19
29/07/2018 16:01Posted by Râlph
29/07/2018 12:12Posted by Cyri
except you do. any fight means lost time, and getting to control that area is lsot time aswell.

No what i mean is the way it is going it would be a waste of time for alliance to bother activating the warmode because horde controls the whole place with a raid usually. Or just by having huge numbers everywhere, therefore horde wont have any competition later on in warmode because everyone from the alliance would have just disabled it living horde with a passive 10% bonus on everything with only very rare inconveniences of a rare random ally using warmode.


This is what people are all to easy to forget:
When an Alliance player has no way to have a fun and balanced time when playing in WarMode, they will not turn it on. This in terms makes the Alliance have even fewer players in WarMode, putting off even more players and so in the end the Horde has an as good as "private" WarMode because there are no Alliance players to speak off.

And this was also the case for most PvP realms; most often the Horde dominated those realms, and the Alliance players had 2 choices, suck it up, or faction/realm change. And most of them did the latter, making PvP realm balance get even more Hordesided.

So unless Blizzard doesn't make the faction balancing better, WarMode will be a useless feature that only Horde players will be able to enjoy the bonusses of.
20
Tenacity would be a good idea for wpvp
Giving 100% damage and health increase when you are 1v2 is fair game