this is good content, thanks Anshlun
Racials aren't really that important, don't know why this is so emphasized all the time...the issue at hand is more of a momentum thing where majority of raiders in EU and NA raiders on higher level have went Horde because it is is easier to find players to join your guild. Currently the NA and EU Alliance raiding scene is in shambles...maybe I am overstating but still that is the feeling I get. On Alliance if you're not top of the top then you will have a very hard time finding ppl for mythic progress thus ppl switching over to Horde. It did start with racials though...
I have a hard time believing all of this is caused by a preference for Horde racial abilities. I suspect the basis for the faction transfers and the ultimate statistics is the PVP imbalance. Horde racials and Mythic raid success seems to be more correlation than causation.
Stats and charts <3! This is a great analysis, it's really cool to see the information laid out like this. The cost of faction changes is certainly very prohibitive. I don't know what it is in other countries, but in Australia it's $40 per character. I don't envy a person who tries to get their whole raid team to pay for that.
The reason why Uldir is so bad is because the game lost 40% of its subs from August to November. I would imagine most of those were Alliance characters/players, thus there were simply fewer people playing. I know my Alliance guilds basically disintegrated by November. Horde took a hit but not quite as badly. I think Horde players are more fanatical in their devotion to the game. Also, Warmode made it more frustrating for Alliance which further drove them away.
Meanwhile in pvp land...
well biggest problem is factions nothing else realy, one faction will always be bigger, be it due to racials, or coolnes, Factions is a dying thing, something that should have been scrapped probably already in wod totaly, there is realy no true reason to have faction, exept for an artifical war between them, that at most times do not make any sence anyways.
“I don’t see anything wrong with this faction imbalance. You alliance are just full of babies.” - terrible horde player that benefits by association“Why should you or I care whether or not the top 1% plays horde or that there has been a snowball effect in terms of faction transfers? The elites level of play has no impact on what I do in the game.” - anti-social alliance player that doesn’t do any form of content beyond waiting in queues“If the faction imbalance was such a problem why is it that OC and China are predominately alliance?” - Clueless poster that doesn’t know that China holds quite a few stereotypes that aren’t PC in the western world. Along with Oceanic servers predominately being alliance because alliance had been better in pvp for years and the largest servers in Oceania were pvp servers. Imbalance in racials got this mess started. Even after the nerfing on them to being far less useful than what they once were (odd how Belf managed to change exactly with the paradigm of mechanics for bfa), that doesn’t change the momentum and peer pressure revolves around the horde being the more motivated faction to clear content. Horde right now is being to look like a black hole and everyone is standing around wondering why everyone is leaving alliance. Nobody that plays this game, to do content that requires the presence of others, wants to play with less dedicated, objectively worse players. When they can just decide to jump ship with their small group of friends (or even more easily solo) to play in objectively greener pastures.The situation we are in right now cannot be resolved with a patch or even an expansion. It requires a change in mindset within Blizzard to recognize the tools that they have given the player base which has led to the damage that has happened. I saw that someone was suggesting that they just remove racials or prevent their use in raids. Ok. So what good will that do to bring people to the alliance? None. Why? Because you removed a bit of flavor from the game that could potentially draw more dedicated people to have stuff done more quickly (which means more fun in their eyes). You are no better than blizzard for such a suggestion, especially in the frame of ability pruning since WoD. As much as neutral raiding or the removal of factions should become after the end of bfa, I just don’t see any baby steps that blizzard has put forth to help realize that goal. No alliance member so far is allowed to help Saurfang in terms of questing, only the horde are allowed that option. If there was truly to be a no-faction WoW, there have been myriads of other times when we banded together to help stop a foe. Since those events did not lead us to making peace with one another I don’t see Blizzard changing pace for 9.0.The only solution is to recreate the conditions that resulted in this imbalance in the first place. Like a chemical reaction but in reverse. And let this continue on just enough until it reaches a point of true equilibrium, and then at which point Blizzard should shut the gates and make both sides equally neutered. That however is too complicated for a small indie company and would really really ruin the already strained relations us players have with blizzard. And as for everyone complaining that the faction imbalance doesn’t affect them just look at the top. If you choose to not play with others in higher forms of gameplay that is fine. But don’t take a dump on others that desire to better themselves.Overall the faction imbalance is really low in terms with what is wrong with bfa and current WoW. The game has turned in Skinner box on steroids these past few years, and I’m surprised that so many people still play. That in itself isn’t so bad (it’s still bad though), but the biggest problem with bfa is how horrid almost all the specs play and feel. They are boring and don’t at all keep me interested in wanting to play for hours. To be honest I care less about the rewards that come from said content than the actual tools I use to achieve said rewards. When classes feel like they’ve regressed even further back in comparison to what they were at level 100, you know you got a problem. Not only does that completely undo the progress that Legion had done but it really disenfranchises those of us that actually like to move forward rather than backwards or stationary in terms of how the game plays. Remove the GCD and undo the tediously high amount of stats needed to achieve equivalent amounts of stat percentages as to what we used to have in prior expansions.Faction imbalance is like issue number 5 or so in the scheme of things. I just want the game to not feel as if I running through molasses.
I honestly do not see any other possible fix than to overbuff Alliance racials to the max and then tune them down. Removing racials overall would give nothing and is a cheap way out. Sure, the top raiders will whine, but... game needs to be healthy. This is not healthy.And Blizzard is affraid of radical decisions, so I do not see anything being done as this just gets worse.