Am I the only one that think ending faction conflict was a bad idea?

Lore Story Forum
103

I see this kind of comment a lot, which is frustrating. How does making all the same mistakes just flipping who the roles make any difference?

I think it stems from people not understanding the problems on the other side.

In reality, the first time they did it was the Horde as the aggressors. It was a bad experience for Horde players AND a bad experience for Alliance players, just for different reasons. Switching the roles doesn’t suddenly make it a good experience for anyone. It it just flips the reasons for it being a bad experience to the other side. It is still bad for everyone.

You are applying a reason that the facts do not support. I know people tend to like to blame ‘the other side’ for the bad things that happened to ‘their side.’ But Blizzard was not catering to the Alliance players in any way. Blizzard was to busy screwing things up for the Alliance as well.

This kind of hits on the fundamental reason the wars could not ever work. It doesn’t matter if it is the Horde or Alliance being the aggressor, a resolution can never be had. The status quo has to be restored. Neither side can ever win.

104

Funny. You didn’t say anything when the Horde was damaged beyond repair by BFA but suddenly when the pendelum swings back to your side you get afraid and try to save yourself. Hypocrisy as the peak. I don’t expect any decency from alliance players anymore.

105

It could even the moral score a little bit. Though, that might be the only thing to be said for it.

I don’t say this without receipts. I am referring to Kosak’s tweets, which I quoted upthread (relevant bits bolded by me) :point_down:

I think most people get that, but apparently it doesn’t stop Alliance-centric players from feeling frustrated.

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106

Few things here.

  1. Straight up wrong. I have been saying it was bad to force the Horde into the villain role since Cata.
  2. The Horde is not damaged beyond repair. Nothing in the game is. Past mistakes can be corrected going forward.
  3. If you really feel the Horde is that bad off, you need to quite playing. If you are obviously not happy with the game and are unable or unwilling to see a good future you need to walk away.

Also, thank you for providing a nice example of someone that can’t or wont see the problems on the other side.

How do you think I am trying to save myself? Nothing we say here will change what Blizzard will and wont do. We can have a discussion about the future, what would be good or bad, how things could or should play out, etc. But that is just players having a discussion. It wont change anything. While I would love to stop any faction war regardless of who was made the villain, I don’t and never will have the power.

Your lack of self awareness never disappoints.

Stop being a child.

Honest question here, how so?

Players didn’t choose. So, I hope you are not suggesting that the Horde being used as the aggressor in previous wars in any way taints Horde players. From a player point of view I hardly think anything needs balanced.

For the faction itself, Blizzard made a point of shifting the blame away from the faction as a whole. And they have repeatedly pushed the narrative that both sides made mistakes and are treating them as equal moving forward.

If you are looking for some kind of moral score I think that is just something you are seeing.

Go read your quoted tweets again.

Ausspiritual claimed Horde were villified in MoP. You said that was done because Alliance felt bad about the invasion of the Barrens.

Now, again: How does 'letting the Alliance storm the enemy capital in any way translate to Horde were made more villainous. It just means that they decided to not allow the Horde to simply depose Garrosh (which was where Cata was leading). SoO was them trying to have some form of Alliance win. Which leads nicely into:

That is true. And as an primarily Alliance player it was frustrating. And I knew it was going to be. But that frustration comes from more than just ‘why can’t we stop these bad guys.’

Particularly in the case of Cata the Alliance player experienced loss after loss. Go back and look at the zones, it was REALLY blatant. So, the Alliance players did feel like we were just a punching bag for that entire time. Blizzard tried to ‘balance’ that by having the Alliance ‘win’ by raiding the Horde capital. But, Horde can’t actually lose. So the Horde had to become rebels and share in the win.

It is a flaw of the faction war concept. There aren’t a lot of choices. If you want it to be fair you have to mirror the losses. But that just feels bad to both sides and it is bad story telling. Since you can’t mirror the losses inevitably one side will have to lose more. Which is what happened (in Cata is was basically all the Alliance losing culminating in a city being turned into a crater). That means the losing side is going to feel even worse the whole time. If it was not a duel faction game the end result of losing a lot would be rising up and finally triumphing over the aggressor. That would make the overall experience feel good because the struggles become worth the payoff. But it is a duel faction game, so that can’t happen. Blizzard’s solution was to try and have a sort of win, where the side that lost almost every fight got to raid the other’s capital. But, Horde had to be a part of that. So, functionally it was not the Alliance winning. It was the Horde and Alliance teaming up to win, against the loyalist. Which means instead of ‘winning’ and raiding the enemy capital Alliance ultimately was helping the Horde reclaim their capital. That feels bad for the Horde players and really bad for the Alliance players.

There is no way to ever resolve a faction war that really gives any players satisfaction.

Every faction war boils down to:
Side 1: Villain, sucks to be villain batted.
Side 2: Punching bag, less story. Sucks
Side 1: Civil war fighting it militant members. Sucks.
Side 2: Saved by the other side rebels, helps them reclaim city. Sucks.

Regardless of which you think is worse, they both suck. Personally (entirely subjectively) I think the Alliance got the worse end of the stick. But I can’t see a good argument for repeating a scenario that was bad for everyone, even if the Horde ended up getting the worse end of the stick next time.

1 Like
107

Of course it is. The Alliance was allowed inside Orgrimmar for a second time. Almost all our leaders are gone. The Zandalari hate us for doing nothing to Jaina. The replacements suck. And two of our allied races are homeless. Blizzard doesn’t care. The only thing they want is screentime to the OG cast of the blue team and it shows.

108

I don’t agree.

But, if you really believe that, for your own health and happiness: It is time for you to walk away.

You have clearly decided you cannot be happy with the game. You have clearly decided the game will never be what you want it to be. So, why are you still here?

109

I stay the RP and the alts. But Blizzard removed every race leader I care about and that makes me bitter with the whole lore.

110

We know you are bitter. And there is no sign of that ever changing. From everything you post it appears VERY clear that the game is making you unhappy. And it is even apparent that you are in a spiral. The more unhappy you get the more bitter you feel, which in turn makes you more unhappy, round and round we go.

Games are meant to be fun, make us happy. If WoW is making you bitter it is time to move on. Find a game that doesn’t.

111

While I will typically disagree with Erevien on principle, I actually do agree with him here. For extremely different reasons than his, of course.

The Horde is absolutely damaged beyond repair, from a Horde main standpoint. I mean, we literally have whole threads of Horde mains expressing this exact view. Because no amount of future corrections will remove from the player experience:

  1. Twice following leaders who decided to have some genocide.
  2. Twice having to turn against those leaders and ally with the Alliance to remove said warchief by marching on the gates of Orgrimmar.
  3. Twice having to accept that we behaved “without muh honors” and go through a period of remorseful silence in the immediate aftermath.
  4. Twice being denied a chance to kill said genocidal warchief (because they had to cause the next expansion) ourselves.
  5. Spending the intervening years between these two incidents learning that a core Horde race, the orcs, might just be genetically predisposed to going on genocidal campaigns if a leader with a high enough charisma score tells them to.
  6. Realizing that of the original four Horde leaders; one died in a book, one got backstabbed by trash mobs, one f’d off to hang with Zovaal then do Maw dailies for a few years all after telling us we’re nothing, and the last one has left-returned-left-returned-left-returned and then disbanded the most iconic position within the Horde…
  7. For some ambiguous council of self-appointed Congresspeople that has has less development in the four years since it debuted than centaurs and gnolls.
  8. And the Horde’s entire story since Cataclysm began has just been this.

I’m not saying the Alliance has it better, and will not waste time responding to anything like that.

But yes, from a Horde main perspective, the damage done to the Horde is irrepairable without an IRL time machine that can undo at least a quarter of the mistakes, at minimum.

7 Likes
112

I guess that depends on what you mean by “beyond repair.”

I wont disagree that damage has been done. I just don’t think it is something that can’t be fixed.

I think this is probably the key question. Does past bad experience forever taint something? In my mind repair is something that is done to make it better for all the future experiences.

Bring in new heroic characters. Have the Horde stand tall and do good. Have players experience the noble side in the future. Etc., etc. In my mind you fix the Horde by filling the holes created and telling better stories in the future. The past happened, we can’t change it. But I don’t think that makes it unrepairable.

You don’t repair a care by making an accident never happen. You replace the broken/lost parts, fix the damaged ones, and clean/repaint. Same for either repairing either faction. Replace the good parts that were stripped out, correct the lingering threads left open, and don’t make the same mistakes over again.

113

Also in the sense I think that blizz realized After BfA, it’s uhh…going to come off extremely tone deaf if we try to make the horde faction heroes again

And they haven’t even bothered trying since. Thrall and a handful of horde NPCs are salvageable, but I think The Horde as a faction is pretty thoroughly sullied to point of no return and everyone knows it.

I’m sure there are ways to fix the faction, but NOBODY has come up with any ideas that works. But that’s me

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114

There’s definitely some paths forward to spin gold out of turds, but SL, DF, and TWW have been so averse to any tension or drama. The plan seems to be to bland their way out of the debacle, and that for sure won’t win anyone over.

In the interest of not coming off entirely negative all the time: Dragonflight was a necessary breather. It was the right expansion for the right moment. But they really needed to come out swinging for TWW. It hasn’t been bad on the whole, but specifically regarding the factions, I would argue it has only lengthened a deafening silence.

4 Likes
115

Is not going to happen. Nobody cares for Thrall and his stupid Family. In case you didn’t notice it the whole new generation of Orcs we helped killing when Garrosh was deposed off. And the rest of the screentime goes to the alliance and their leaders.

116

So the people who keep score will no longer be able to say “All the war crimes are on one faction,” of course.

It sure as heck lets us in for a lot of flak on the forums. Which might lessen if the devs were a little more even-handed.

My experience on the forum tells me I am far from the only one.

Because they had to come up with a reason for the Alliance to storm the enemy capital and feel good about it. And how do you make the Alliance feel good? You have them triumphing over baddies, of course.

I don’t disagree, but what chaps my hide is that they tried to use the faction war to make up for their own inability to write a decent Barrens story.

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117

As far as I’m concerned, it broke the day the cinematic “The Negotiation” dropped.

The only way I can make it work now is to take every expansion as its own AU, where anything in the past that isn’t specifically referenced doesn’t exist.

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118

Because Kosak failed to realize that to get to that point, they had to, DOUBLE DOWN on the mistakes in Cata by having the Alliance lose Theramore, and for what, so Thrall could get the kill in WoD? We didn’t even damage Ogrimmar!

Not to mention Robo kitty.

119

I have been watching way too many tiny home and small dwelling videos, so pardon the analogy coming up.

You cannot build a solid, stable house on top of a ruined foundation. All you’ll get is a house that if you’re lucky only manages to settle unevenly and require near-constant repair.

The foundation of the Horde has been damaged beyond repair. No amount of paint you apply to it will fix that damage. No amount of wood can build a good Horde story with a broken foundation.

Future expansions don’t undo the past experience, especially when players can revisit that past by talking to Chromie and play through a rough vesion of it all over again.

It’d be one thing if this was only a crack. Only Cata and MoP. If we only deposed one warchief, then returned to blood and thunder, lok’tar ogar, remember honor. But it wasn’t a single crack. It was a compounding series of cracks that only ended when the Horde was just not even talked about.

To build a better future, you need to repair that foundation.

But the thing is, once that foundation is broken, and its filled with cracks and it’s unstable, the worst thing you can do? The absolute worst?

Ignore it. Just don’t address it at all and keep on going on as normal, with the full load of the house wearing down on it.

Because while it might look like you’re not doing anything to it at all, you’re actually allowing it to get worse.

I’m gonna switch analogies now, because this isn’t just a foundation of a house.

It’s a wound on the body of the Horde. An exposed wound, caused by an escalating series of injuries, and left untended. And untended wounds get infected. And ignoring them just leaves them to fester.

And that’s what we Horde mains are talking about; the injuries from Cata, from moP, from WoD and from BfA have been left festering. They went septic in Shadowlands, when smaller cuts and pokes and prods were done to the wound. Dragonflight just threw a dirty blanket over the wound to hide it. Septic shock has already set in, and a Horde-ish goblin patch isn’t antibiotics or surgery. It’s asprin at best, if you ignore (as I admittedly have chosen to do) that at the end of the day, it’s also a patch where the Horde part of the story is a Horde leader going after a former Horde leader that ends with that former Horde leader presumably dying.

If you can’t ignore that? It stops being asprin for the septic shock. It becomes dirt rubbed into the still-open wound.

That’s why we feel the damage is beyond repair. Nobody will even try to close the damn wound, let alone give it proper treatment. And the longer it goes on, the more impossible treatment became, where we really just want some morphine for the pain at the very least.

Putting a very pretty bandaid on the wound in the future isn’t going to fix the septic shock within the Horde.

Putting a new house on top of it won’t repair the broken foundation.

I should watch different things on YouTube.

5 Likes
120

I feel like that is the problem of the people fixated on that.

Anyone giving players flak for Blizzard’s choices is just wrong.

You are not the only one. But I still argue it is wrong.

First patch of Cata had plenty of reason for Alliance players to ‘feel good’ about storming Orgrimmar.

Their reasoning was made very clear in the tweet. They felt the Alliance being beat up in Cata was why they were letting them raid Orgrimmar. They clearly believed the Alliance already had reason to feel good about it.

Can’t they rebuild the foundations? New characters rise up and take the reigns. Set new patterns and build.

Don’t get me wrong, I do understand your frustrations. I really do. I just think that it can be repaired, rebuilt stronger. The past doesn’t have to define the future.

Maybe the difference is I see the characters as driving the factions nature. That is why I never saw the Horde of Vanilla the same as the Horde of WC1 & 2. So, as the good characters that are still part of the Horde are joined by new characters I think it can go forward stronger.

Don’t play them over and over. To me, this is like a bad movie, I don’t have to watch it again.

Take Cata. It was, IMO, the single worst expansion in the game, period. Certainly the worst expansion to play Alliance. How many times have I touched it in Chromie time? Zero. Even back when Cata was live most of my Alts languished because I just had no interest in playing through it again.

I get it. I think we are just going to have to disagree on the beyond repair part. I wont fault you for your complaints. I just think the future can correct it.

/Shrug
Watch what you like. :wink:

121

Wrong or right, it exists and is something I would be happy to see go away. So, you asked what the benefit would be of making the Alliance the aggressors, and my answer is that this is it.

Notice, though, that I also said that may be the only thing to be said for it.

So they did some overkill. (shrug)

Only because the devs felt they “needed a win.” But they still had to orchestrate the story to make that win happen.

That was what Thrall’s Horde in WC3/Vanilla was supposed to be. If you do that again, it just starts to become silly.

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122

Thing is, I don’t think that would make it go away. There will always be people keeping score. Heck, I am confident you could do 3 faction wars with the Alliance as the aggressor and you would still have the same people making the same wrong argument.

I think the part I am taking issue with it the idea that the Horde was made more villainous to make that ‘win’ happen. I think if they had not decided to give the Alliance a ‘win’ we would just have had a Sha themed raid instead of SoO. Horde would have deposed Garrosh and then made peace. After that he would have been put on trial and still escaped to WoD. And still died there. I think the only difference is they thought letting the Alliance ‘put boots on the ground’ inside Orgrimmar would have made up for being a punching bag for two expacs.

The way I think about it: They said they decided to let the Alliance attack Orgimmar because they felt like the Alliance was losing so much to the Horde. Do you really think someone thought ‘Oh, Alliance needs a reason to raid the Horde?’ The fact the Alliance already had a reason was why they were doing the raid.

Maybe I am being to generous. But I don’t think a second round immediately goes to silly. Treating it as the last vestiges of the Old Horde type thinking finally being purged and new heroes coming up that reject any notion of that mindset could go a long way. Forming a new nation from different groups, including two different races that were former members of genocidal armies is bound to have some bumps.

But, I do get where you are coming from. I just don’t think it is quite that hopeless.