And of course, x-faction playing doesn’t mean that NPCs have to change their line. Orcs have no need to tolerate humans in Orgrimmar, nor humans to tolerate orcs in Stormwind.
X-faction play just means allowing formation of groups/communities/guilds regardless of faction. If half of them can’t go into the home city of the other half, well that’s not a big problem, frankly. There’s nothing that needs them to. Outside of RP groups, nobody going to care - and RP groups will work with it rather than against it. Finding ways to smuggle your vulpera friend into a bar in Ironforge will be entertaining
Meanwhile, bigger player pool for everyone - even Horde will find their pugging and recruitment options expand by about 40-50%, while Alliance will see theirs triple. Players who prefer one race over another will have a free choice, regardless of what faction their guild and friends might play on.
There just isn’t a downside to it.
And it really is inevitable. Doing nothing eventually results in 100% of mythic raiding and M+ guilds being on Horde. Faction merge complete, everyone lives in Orgrimmar now.
There is huge problems, cuz this game basically alts-unfriendly and solo-unfriendly, very gear dependent and very grindy. Average player chose 1 side, 1 spec and play and just reroll is very very painfull. Even playing on both sides is almost impossible for casual players. In swtor for example u can even send BiS TOP gear thru mail and play both sides. But in general game have like 80% imps and 20% reps, but u will never face any problems cuz its roll free and alt-friendly.
Honestly, as a Silvermooner on a Ahead of the Curve/few mythic bosses guild, I don’t have problems with faction unbalance. If you have a good guild, the game is good, and the bleeding of players at my “level” is of possible replacement (think it’s easier than if it was horde, as the guild pool is shorter).
My “war” here is that I just don’t think it makes sense.
-Story-wise, we should be able to join the other faction to party up and do game content. I don’t advocate cross-faction guilds, although would allow communities. (This is because I think that being of a realm should still mean something, and if I were alliance on a heavy horde realm, that is because I want to be one of the “few”).
-Praticality wise, it doesn’t make sense. Having friends playing on the other faction, we are so far away as playing a diferent game. You’re gonna tell me that I can’t party up with a horde player due to some old lore stuff, while my leaders can? My character isn’t able to decide by himself if the horde player is worth of fighting alongside me, although Jaina can?
Just wanted to stress this part of the argument. I believe that people suffer from faction unbalance and it is a problem that must be adressed. But beside that, I think there’s a rational pov to allow cross-faction play.
Most of forum users are booleans thinking that cross faction play implies the overall destruction of the factions as a core pillar of the game which is completely dishonest.
That’s why I used the slash. Should’ve probably made it clearer. I either chat up blood elves using Thalassian, or talk in Common to other Hordies who I see using the elixir.
Didn’t know about the elixir, it could be a one way out of this problem:
Make it a “spell” like the destruction warlock green fire, where you go to a npc to toggle it and you’re able to speak and party up with other hordes who “drank” the elixir as well. LFG could have an option for party leaders to allow other faction players who toggled the elixir to queue up.
Just shooting out ideas, think this could be a way to go, although I understand it could over-complicate things.
See, that’ sounds like a decent idea but… the elixirs cost gold and also require you to go to a very specific spot to purchase them. Both a NPC toggle and drinking the elixir seem like a bit too much work.
But then, we’re having a plenty of over-complicated systems in Shadowlands so that would fit right in
The warlock green fire you only toggle it once, and if you want it off, you talk to the chap again. Was thinking of something like that.
Basically it would be like the solution that they came up for war mode, which turned out to be a failure imo, unfortunately. Not sure if that “hole” should keep being digged, or the cross-faction party could be tied with war mode.
The elixir idea was more of a “RP set-up” to make you learn the language.
It’d be worse, since the potions are ultimately behind a paywall unlike our war mode toggle. And also, what if someone’s potion ran out mid-combat? Would they suddenly become hostile to half the group or get kicked out?
What you are basically asking for is a band aid fix that only applies to Alliance, with a big WHAT IF and a lots of assumptions that Horde players will switch to Alliance with no logical explanation except - “because I said so”.
If gameplay is all you care about, and I don’t, your problem has a fix and it costs 30 euros.
But you, yourself, Coldshade, said that - players from Alliance change over large period time (previous expansions) for reasons of Horde having better racials and what not to which I agreed. That is not mass exodus.
If I would see flying elephants and things that only happen in my head, I would laugh as well.
That’s where the issue originated from in the first place. A few expacs back. What we’re now experiencing (and every tier seems worse than the previous on the stats) is indeed a mass exodus of Alliance endgame players choosing Horde player pool instead.
Well, I mean, Alliance is the way lower populated faction so of course they are the party that needs a solution more than the Horde. I’d like to ask you something though, Feltwist. What is your genius, infallible idea of fixing the faction balance that does not include letting us play together cross-faction? It’s not a ‘band-aid’ when it is the only way you can resolve the disbalance issue without turning it into the reverse of the current situation.
It underlines why this game has so many problems. The community happily paying Blizzard to fix the problems Blizzard caused. It’s their business model.
You have any idea how much profit Blizz made off the faction problems in terms of server transfers?
