Blizzard, Can We Please Get an Official Response Regarding the Horde PvP Faction Lock?

WoW: Forever World of Warcraft: Forever General Discussion
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I understand why Blizzard implemented faction balancing for WoW Forever’s PvP ruleset. Nobody wants a massively one-sided faction population that ruins world PvP. However, the current system is creating another serious problem, and I think it deserves an official response.

There are potentially hundreds of players who want to play Horde PvP but are completely locked out of creating a character.

Many of us already have friends, guildmates, and established communities playing Horde on the PvP ruleset. We aren’t interested in rolling Alliance, and we don’t want to play on a PvE ruleset. We specifically came to WoW Forever to experience Horde world PvP with our friends.

In my situation, all my friends are already playing Horde PvP, but I cannot join them because character creation is restricted.

I’ve been following discussions on the forums, and I’m far from the only person experiencing this. Some players report trying for hours without success. Entire groups of friends and guilds are being separated by a system that was presumably designed to improve the player experience.

The problem is that we have no idea whether we’re supposed to wait a few hours, several days, or potentially weeks before we can play with our friends.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask Blizzard for some transparency here.

Could we please get a blue response addressing a few questions?

  1. Are there plans to adjust the current faction-balancing restrictions to allow more Horde players onto the PvP ruleset?

  2. How frequently is faction balance recalculated? Are character creation restrictions reevaluated continuously, hourly, or at specific intervals?

  3. Is Blizzard considering a way for players to join friends or existing guilds, even when their chosen faction is temporarily restricted?

  4. Is there any indication of how long these restrictions might remain in place?

  5. Does Blizzard recognize the impact this is having on established groups of friends and guilds?

I fully support maintaining healthy faction balance, but I also believe that being able to play with your friends should be a fundamental priority in an MMORPG.

Telling players to simply roll Alliance or play PvE isn’t a realistic solution when their entire social group is already established on Horde PvP.

I’m not asking Blizzard to eliminate faction balancing altogether. I’m asking whether there’s a better way to accomplish it without leaving large numbers of players unable to participate in the experience they specifically came here for.

At the very least, we deserve some communication about what to expect moving forward.

If anyone from Blizzard could provide some clarification, I think a lot of us would greatly appreciate it.

And for everyone else experiencing this issue, please share how long you’ve been trying to create a Horde PvP character and whether you’ve managed to get through.

Hopefully, we can get enough constructive discussion here to receive an official response.

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[FEEDBACK] - RuleSet - just ban me!
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You can have a faction balanced server

Or

You can have a server that lets you roll any faction you want at anytime.

These are mutually exclusive

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Faction balance has been around for years now, this isn’t new.

You either wait, reroll faction/ruleset or quit.

Take your pick!

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That’s presenting the situation as though there are only two possible options, when there are clearly more ways to approach faction balancing.

Nobody is arguing that Blizzard should allow unlimited Horde character creation without regard for population balance.

The issue is that players who already have established friends and guilds on Horde PvP are being completely locked out, with no indication of when they’ll be allowed to join them.

There are potential alternatives: faction-based queues, temporary population thresholds, guild-related exceptions with appropriate safeguards, or other systems that account for existing social groups.

Would those solutions be perfect? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean the current implementation is the only viable option.

Faction balance is important, but so is the social aspect of an MMORPG. A perfectly balanced server doesn’t accomplish much for someone who can’t play with their friends.

The question isn’t whether faction balance should exist. It’s whether Blizzard can maintain reasonable faction balance without completely sacrificing the ability for friends and guildmates to play together.

Those goals may require compromises, but they aren’t inherently mutually exclusive.

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No

That’s presenting two possible states that cannot coexist at the same time.

If a server is faction balanced, at some point one side won’t be able to make new character that’s what makes it balanced.

Yeah it sucks when the door closes right before you get in. But that’s how it IS a balanced server.

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Honestly a good way to fix it is just match up ally/horde numbers on a phase, then put the extra horde players in a phase by themselves with no allies.

That way people can join the faction they want and the world stays relatively balanced.

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If I can’t play with my friends at least refund the money I spent.

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Instead of mega server we should go giga server and everything is everywhere all at once.

My friends and I jumped ship the last minute from Horde PvP to Horde Normal and it feels like we dodged a bullet.

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Letting them would create the very thing you say you don’t want:

Get people to roll Alliance then, otherwise what you have is..

Let’s turn to our man of the hour, the myth, the legend, ace forum reporter Løgic for the answer as to why this is unlikely to happen:

That would create, as Løgic says..

Forever. If you want more Horde slots, you need more Alliance players.

Sunk cost fallacy, it’s been less than 24 hours. Restarting now has significant effort at all.

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Except when you join a party it puts you all on the same layer.

So either you go to the balanced layer, and it’s not balanced anymore (unless someone gets ejected into the empty layer)

Or you’re just on a pvp server with nobody to pvp with.

Thats not really a solution.

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Yea so put them on a layer with no allies, and open that slot to someone else.

Then don’t make a character? Idk what to tell you. Maybe some of you should have rolled alliance lol.

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You’re arguing against a position I’m not taking.

I understand that faction balancing requires restrictions at some point. Nobody is disputing that. What I’m disputing is the idea that Blizzard’s current implementation is the ONLY possible way to achieve it.

There’s a difference between maintaining reasonable faction balance and implementing a system that completely prevents established groups of friends and guildmates from playing together, with no queue, no estimated wait, and no clear path forward.

I’m not asking Blizzard to abandon faction balance. I’m asking them to acknowledge the problem, communicate with affected players, and consider whether there’s a better implementation.

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So the PvP players don’t get the world PvP they want and are shunted into the PvE mode? Why not just force them to roll PvE in the first place rather than a bait and switch?

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Better than not playing at all bro.

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Bro, that’s what IM telling them

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right, but in the past we have always still had the option of playing on a different server… Maybe not the one we want, but we can still play the game the way we want to play and on the faction we want to be.

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Man, people’s lack of empathy on this issue is really quite astounding.

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Where’s the empathy for the other side that would then get swarmed and have their enjoyment ruined?

There’s two sides to this. I gave a good middle ground and someone complained. Kinda on par for pvp players tho lol.

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It’s bad. I’m just not playing for awhile until I can make a horde on PvP lol. The faction locks are bad. Let us play what we want

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I mean they could pick RP-PvP instead, or Alliance, or any other ruleset and wait.

They can play, they just aren’t going to force their way past the thousands of other people also forcing their way in the same door. So you do the sane thing: Pick another door.

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