So I know one of the big complaints about the Faction Conflict is that the Horde destroys a ton of the Alliances stuff then get’s off scot free. If we want to be technical, the horde tends to lose an equal amount of things as the alliance in game… It’s just the value of those things are vastly different do to how blizzard developed and portrayed the factions.
The Alliance was a lot more developed at launch then the Horde, it was made first while the Horde was rushed to get it in by the deadlines they had to meet. As such Alliance towns are a lot more fleshed out, being actual settlements, meanwhile the Horde just has Military bases to their name, with one or two exceptions. It feels a lot worse to lose a town then a fort. This means that when the Horde does lose they often can’t be hit to hard because well, the only settlements they actually have are their racial capitals, and the only characters they have are their racial leaders. As such you can’t punish the horde without horribly crippling the faction or some of the factions races (Like Forsaken at the end of BfA).
Another issue is the fact that in order to fix the Zone Imbalance during Cataclysm the Horde was seen invading alliance zones and the alliance had some of their only settlements in some zones removed. This sucked for alliance players as despite technically having a similar amount of wins, they felt more like losses.
Finally the different way blizzard portrays the losses of things is a big point of contention. Blizzard is very big on Black and White morality while most players expect grey morality and such such will portray Alliance losses as this huge tragedy and Horde losses as just a thing thats expected to happen no biggie. It’s why Horde players get so venement over the Purge and Taurajo, they are some of the only times the game has ever portrayed the Horde as being unjustly attacked Hordeside (Allianceside had a ton of damage control to make them less evil because blizzard fears making the Alliance Grey). This also leads to the point that losses are a lot more emphasized then victories for both factions. The Alliance won in all the Night Elven Lands in Cataclysm, but do to a refusal to update zones after their completion they don’t show the alliance victories, meanwhile Andorhal, one of the possible solutions to the Hordes lack of Attatchment to their settlements was never updated to show how the forsaken moved in. The combined lack of development post war and the lack of logisitical knowledge by blizzard makes every victory feel like a loss as they never bring an army closer to complete and utter victory. This means with the combined PC shaming, every horde victory doesn’t make up for the Moral Loss that accompanies it, and Every Alliance Victory doesn’t change the fact they feel miserable for effectively having their teeth punched in.
Lol the purge in unjust do horde even play the game imagine you let a bunch of terrorist into the country so they can attack someone the government should be ok with this? Lol at least the camp was a victim of the actual war
I think you have hit at the heart of the problem. I struggle still to understand why/how Blizz ends up here. It isn’t like this is an intractable problem.
The Horde could have been written with more justification and morality for its actions.
Zones could have been rebalanced in Cataclysm without kicking in the Alliance’s teeth.
Proper phasing to show progression could have been used.
So why don’t they? Is it lack of imagination? Lack of budget? Lack of time? Are they just seeing a different story than the rest of us?
I remember during the Cata beta it was reported that Southshore was destroyed by a tidal wave caused by the cataclysm. While it sucked to lose an iconic Alliance town, it made sense given the expansion’s gimmick. Then we find out that nope, it was destroyed by the Horde and almost all of the NPCs there died horribly. It was like Blizz went out of their way to make it as painful a loss as possible to Alliance players. The kick in the teeth, as it were.
Agreed. And as a further example, take the Andorhal questing. I would argue that it failed for both factions. On the Alliance side, it was pointless. As in why did Blizzard even bother to send the Alliance player through it? On the Horde side, it was a missed opportunity, it could have been Horde v. Scourge, with a nice rebuilding arc that ended with Andorhal rebuilt as a fully functioning Forsaken town. Instead, it just served to delete Koltira for a few xpacs for no good reason as it turned out.
Im not one to defend Blizzard’s narrative or their choice in direction, but as far as technical stuff goes I don’t think it wasn’t in their arsenal yet in a number of ways.
The rush that Cataclysm experienced as well surely didn’t help. Of course we learned they tiered the zones to the ones that needed the most work and was focused on first and those with the least. I believe WPL was on the higher end, but I could be wrong. Regardless, the rush didn’t allow development to really test and play with, what was then, a new tech to Blizzard in phasing.
On top of that, phasing prior was only used in Icecrown during their introduction quests, if I even remember that right. It was a zone that almost everyone had to go through and once finished, you moved on. Hardly anyone noticed it. Cata phasing was different. It was sparse, spread out. Entire zones had phasing that really could mess with party groupings or experiencing certain content, like mining nodes disappearing or wanting to do some PvP stuff.
That is the case with Andorhol. Phasing for it lasted the entire WPL quest line. Horde side you’re sent there, sent away, sent back, sent away again, and then finally wrap it up. The Alliance also quest there, so its not a one sided experience. They had to code phasing in for both and how they wanted to present it, making the whole mix confusing, especially with a new tech. End phase Horde, Alliance Andorhol is just empty with the exception of a flight master. Alliance can’t even see Horde that finish the quest line. Horde can’t even see them.
Its not so much defending but understanding that back in 2009 during development, it wasn’t particularly understood or used technology and we see areas suffer for that. Same thing happens in Stonetalon and Silverpine, others too Im sure that Im forgetting.
I think at the time, they thought that increased faction rivalry would “spice up” the game. Especially since the Horde and Alliance had been cooperating a lot in BC/Wrath. They were wrong, but I can forgive them for thinking it would be good for the game … ten years ago. I can’t see why they are still clinging to that idea now, though.
This is the real reason. So far most of the writers and including Metzen only care to play favorites and try to sell their characters as if they were superheroes and critical at the lore of the game which has only harmed the game at the long run with killing any character outside of that club and shoe-horning their taste over what their own players want.
Not for nothing the phrase “you think you know what you want but you don’t” has become famous because they actually believe they are above us and our tastes doesn’t matter.
The only way to re-balance is by having the horde suffer an equally devastating and well deserving defeat.
Otherwise the problem will remain forever.
of course that i am not going to accept that “the purge and taurajo make the alliance as bad as the horde” when you have literal cities and civillians reduced into dust or ash.
To me it seems like blizzard is scared to actually kick the horde’s teeths at the hands of the alliance.
At one point, I might have agreed with you, but not anymore. It would only serve to keep the cycle of toxicity between players going. At this point, they and we just need to walk away and hopefully focus on rebuilding stories.
The issue with that, if you remember my post, is that it’s impossible in the Hordes current state without destroying the faction outright. The Horde doesn’t really have towns you can destroy that aren’t racial capitals. The Horde was never as developed as the Alliance was, probably do to the belief horde players just want military camps.
I like how Etheldald refuses to count Siege of Lordaeron, where the Horde is utterly defeated and forced to retreat, and Sylvanas is forced to blow up Lordaeron. Also, you know, Siege of Zuldazar. It’s never enough. It will never be enough.
This is a subjective matter and where would you drawn the line?
Because “victory over the Horde” can be twisted at many different shapes and it is not going to be enough for many groups or even make happy a good chuck withing the alliance playerbase (looking at you)
No, you just don’t like the way the victories over the Horde are handle to you which is totally different.
Yeah maybe we should define what “develop” really means because as far as i know, the ones with most focused lore is horde. Cata, MoP And BfA proves that.
utterly defeated? or more like “losing on our terms” that’s a beneffit that the alliance never really had after literally FAILLING the main goal of capturing both sylvanas and the city itselft.
Meanwhile when the alliance fails to defend something is never really under their terms.
Same issue, hell you guys could even beat 2 ally leaders in a raid fight. remind me again, when the alliance could get a complete victory without any “but”.
just 100 % victory like the horde had.
No, Blizzard refuses to give the alliance totally victories over the horde. that is a fact. And of course that we can’t have the victories on screen or better portrayed because it may hurt the horde playerbase too much. But what about ally players?. Screw them right?. thats my point.
Our terms is still losing. We were forced to retreat to Orgrimmar. We were still forced to destroy the Undercity.
“bawwwwwww the Horde beat two characters. it doesn’t matter if they lost.”
You lost a character designed to be killed. We lost one of the most important trolls in all of Azeroth’s history.