⚔ Faction Imbalance: Why not mirror racials?

Community General Discussion
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So, as we currently know, there are no plans to allow cross-faction grouping for content, no dissolution of factions, etc. Thus far, it seems the status quo is to be upheld in that matter and that the faction imbalance issue will not be addressed (though there is obviously still much time to remedy that). Further, it seems distinct racials are going to continue existing.

With all that in mind, I have an alternative solution: Why not simply “copy” all racials that have to due with competitive play to both factions under different names?

Hardiness
Orc racial
Passive
Duration of Stun effects reduced by an additional 20%.

Arguably one of the best PvP racials in the game. It could plausibly be used for an Alliance race as well, though.

For example…

Earthborn
Dwarf racial
Passive
Duration of Stun effects reduced by an additional 20%.

This could apply for many of the other racial traits that are making many in the raiding and PvP communities feel forced to play on one faction in lieu of the one they’d rather without sacrificing the intended sense of racial identity the devs are persistent on.

Every Man for Himself
Human racial
Instant cast (3 min cooldown)
Removes all stun effects. This effect shares a 90 sec cooldown with other similar effects.

=

Will of the Forsaken
Undead racial
Instant cast (3 min cooldown)
Removes all stun effects. This effect shares a 90 sec cooldown with other similar effects.

Maybe…

Rocket Jump
Goblin Racial
Instant cast (1.5 min cooldown)
Activates your rocket belt to jump forward.

=

Propulsion System
Gnome Racial
Instant cast (1.5 min cooldown)
Activates your propulsion system to launch forward.

And so on. Feel free to speculate on some potential racial mirrors yourself!

But of course, therein lies the problem of certain racials being omitted entirely. Admittedly, it isn’t the perfect solution. But is there one? The racials known to make the most impact on competitive play would of course be left to the discretion of the devs to implement on both sides fairly.

I don’t feel this would resolve the issue entirely on the first go; however, imagine if on the same day it were implemented, there’d be a brief period in which faction changes from Horde to Alliance were discounted or free entirely? I feel it’d certainly help.

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It won’t change the viewpoint on what the alliance is at the moment. basically casual/Noobs VS the horde Where you go to raid/do end content.

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Not right away, no. But I feel it could help eliminate the root cause of that stigma.

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Indeed, though there has to be more changes than just racial…There has to be a “Benefit” To switching sides, and I don’t mean just warmode % bonus. There has to be a “reason” for people to switch back.

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Honestly, given free or discounted faction transfers as I’d mentioned above, I think the aesthetic preferences of many would win out and cover that for the most part. At least initially. After that, were an incentive necessary, I’d definitely throw in my two cents there.

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I mean, I figure every little bit helps. There’s no single magic fix, but I think there’s a number of fairly minor changes that could improve the situation.

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I said this a while ago, would of been great if they did this before all the high-end guilds move to one faction.

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Doing a better job of writing the Alliance is one of them. Maybe stop portraying us as helplessly incompetent cannon fodder in lore.

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At the point of this is ?. . .fix faction imbalance ?.

Because if im in the horde and the alliance have the same racial why would i waste almost 60$ to swap from server/faction to a faction that have the same racials ?.

Oc if we are talking about doing pvp or pve.

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Well, if your character is already established on one side or the other, then it likely doesn’t have much of a point for you specifically. But as others have pointed out, much of the “higher end” competitive scene in terms of both PvE and PvP are skewed in favor of Horde almost entirely. Most of said players are more than willing to shell out on race/faction transfers like nothing–probably because they make so much gold that it quite likely is nothing–and thus the trend of them all ditching Alliance to go Horde exclusively for racials would at least be done away with.

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Why would you choose alliance? Because you are loyal to the faction. IMO some of the most die hard players are the one’s sticking to their faction, and not jumping ship.

Horde are attractive for a load of reasons right now. PVP for sure, PVE apparently as well. Unless Blizzard come up with something genius, it’s going to remain the same for a long time to come. With less and less choosing Alliance.

I really don’t think the racials are making much difference at this point, I take down Orc’s in bgs a lot, does that make them bad players?

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the same reason that they chose alliance in the first place, whatever that is

if they switched to horde because they realized racials were better, why were they alliance to start with? they like the themes better? the stories? the capital cities? or races themselves?

those reasons are all still there, so whatever reason someone chose alliance to start with is still there, it just would be missing the racial ability imbalance

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Well, you know if you want some kind of Alliance benefit, maybe they could throw down a strip club in the Stormwind City district. That would attract many people to the Alli.

It would help the Alliance community with gold as well.

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The root cause of the stigma is a tangled web now. It was racials but now it’s pvp, raiding, m+, community, story focus.

It all mixes together to become this.

The Alliance is a bad brand. It offer inferior everything that is not a aesthetic choice.

The only viable path would be to make blatantly overpowered racials to give make the Alliance even start to have an appeal.

Anything else is a token or ineffective half measure.

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I dont think faction imbalance has been about the racials since like end of WoD.

Horde is just better you know.

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I… completely disagree, but I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t feel it’s as much a lost cause as many here do argue. I do understand the pessimism to some degree, though; there’s only so many decades of tackling the same issue one can bear before one feels it’s pointless to even address anymore.

Edit: Thanks, autocucumber.

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it was racials, its now a self fulfilling prophecy

people move to horde because horde has more people, which makes more people move to horde because horde has more people … etc etc

there is nothing inherent about pvp or raiding or m+ that makes the horde better, its just that there more competitive people there, so it attracts more competitive people

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That’s not a view point, that’s the truth. lol

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My reason for playing Alliance is for me they look better in their gear overall. I also hate the horde 110 zone in BFA. I detest it so much. I much prefer Bolarus and the alliance starting zones.

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That is because there is no faction inbalance. There is only a participation inbalance, and it is mainly due to by players choice, something that Blizzard can’t fix because it is not up to Blizzard on what people chose to do in the game.

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