Yep so true
In the story, Goblin engineering and Forsaken blight are almost always depicted as evil. They ruin the environment, are created by people who are either maniacally greedy or sadistic, and are only used for violence. But druidism and the worship of Elune are almost always depicted as good. They heal the environment, are wielded by kind and brave people, and are used for either peace or protection. So I don’t know if Blizzard is really thinking about the battle in a tactical way. They are probably thinking about it as evil vs good, so they are inclined to lean toward good being stronger.
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The blight has been being deployed for 6 x-pacs now (Wrath-Present) and it has become a crutch to the forsaken story. They either win because they have the blight or lose because it has been countered. At Undercity it was still more powerful than the shiny new Azerite tank. What is the reason for fighting over Azerite when both sides should be tossing blight canisters at each other cause those are more effective. It has reached its shelf life as a productive story tool.
The fight between Tyrande, Malfurion, Nathanos, and the Val’kyrs was silly. Was either side even remotely satisfied with it?
If you are going to power up Tyrande, then she should have been a wrecking ball and it being shown, not told. Whoever she faced should have gotten wrecked otherwise the power up was going to be a joke. Especially when you put Malfurion at her side.
If you intended Nathanos to continue forward as a character then he shouldn’t have been there. By having him there they then had to resort to the story gymnastics needed to get him out of it and it left a sour taste on the story.
That entire segment should have been sent back to the drawing board and started over with a clear picture of what that story was supposed to accomplish cause it looks like it at two opposite goals and it failed to reach either one.
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This presentation makes me curious.
I’m pretty sure this statistic was put in to make night elf fans feel better about still losing, but I can’t help but feel that it undermines some of the favorite kaldorei themes.
I do like that the night elves are presented as strong and ferocious warriors, but I never got the impression that their strengths were in toe-to-toe, drawn-out combat, and it feels a bit weird when those are the skills that are being lauded by this 8-to-1 kill ratio.
I would have much preferred for the night elves to have gotten a similar ratio not because of their melee combat prowess, but because they could launch ambushes and then disappear into the woods whenever they started to lose a fight. And I would have preferred for the majority of Ashenvale civilians to do the same.
To me, this evasiveness and guerrilla tactics (and the survival of more civilians) would have been something so much cooler and something much better at building/conserving faction pride than having the army be able to out-melee tauren.
On top of that, I think that this presentation would have made the Horde’s decision to burn/chop/blight the forest look less evil, because it would have been shown rather than inferred that this was a strategy for defeating the night elves rather than wanton villainy.
I am curious if other night elf posters here would agree or disagree, and whether Horde posters would have seen this as better for Horde pride as well.
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Well, that’s kind of what we have going on in Darkshore now, right? The Horde was victorious but the Night Elves have continued a kind of guerrilla campaign. At least that’s what the cinematic released with the Darkshore Warfront seemed to represent.
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Him not being utterly obliterated makes perfect sense, because of the total lack of effort Blizzard put into actually even out the absolutely absurd power-imbalance between the factions.
Bluntly, ANY of our reps put into that situation would have resulted in the same outcome; Nathanos was just the one to pull the short straw (because apparently Blizzard REALLY wanted an undead Summermoon and SIra for some bizarre reason). The Horde rep roster is weak, TOO weak to let SUPER Tyrande actually show off. Few (if any) of our character list could have taken NORMAL Tyrande, but this Elune Charged Vengeance monster is out of the question. So … how then do you show off her new power-up? Well, you McGuffin the absolute crap out of an encounter with a contentious Horde character (but because Blizz has done an absolutely atrocious job building up Horde reps over the last 15 years … they can’t actually just let her go around instakilling him).
Its stupid. I hold absolutely nothing but vile and contempt for the writers for taking the easy way out and forcing the Horde to play the aggressors in a war we are constantly told we could never hope to win (without the Alliance being super handicapped); because they didn’t want to bother actually putting in the work to deal with the MASSIVE power-imbalance between the Blue and Red Teams before hand. The two factions aren’t even operating in the same friggen Genre of fantasy anymore, but apparently the Horde needs to be the baddy again (can’t have the Alliance, even for a moment, get a speck of dirt on their flawless selves).
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Driote hits the nail on the head. A lot of these problems could have been alleviated if blizzard bothered to develop the horde at all, instead the bfa horde feels weaker than vanilla horde whereas Alliance has received a massive roster of powerful characters since wow started.
It really sucks to be part of a war as an agressor and know you have literally zero chance of winning at anything unless blizzard does backflips to explain why your enemy hasnt obliterated you and won the war in the first 10 seconds. If the horde is suppose to be the antagonists in this story, then we are literally the most pathetic antagonist in the history of wow.
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I agree and disgree here both sides need devolpment that isnt here have powerful charscters. The horde needs to be written more passivly so they atent out murder death killing because they burn through reasources at an insane rate. And the alliance needs to be more antagonistic they need to feel like the horde should fear them not lsugh when somone says the alliance will attack.
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Well, you are right. In general, this game is WAY overdue for a winddown expansion. In effect, an “Anti-Cata” Expansion … solely existing for the purpose of world and character development. Considering the best parts of Vanilla really were he exploration and bonding with the characters and peoples of each race and faction; would could only hope Blizz could take a clue.
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If the alliance attacked first in bfa, that would have made for a more interesting narrative, because then the horde being the weaker faction in a conflict would make sense because they are the defender.
what does NOT make sense is for a faction that is vastly inferior to attack a much superior one without provacation.
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I recall this sort of hit-and-run tactic being used by the druids in the novellas, using their cat and flight forms to quickly move as reinforcement from one group of sentinels to another.
But then, one would expect a group that uses guerilla tactics of their own (and is supposedly in tune with the land) would have been alert for a pincer attack coming on their flank.
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I agree of course sylvanas sold it as the alliance might possably maybe in time maybe 100 years msybe possably attack the horde.
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Which weirdly IS an argument that makes sense for HER to make; considering she plans to live for eternity (and is unlikely to cease her disturbing behaviors, due to being incapable of really trusting anyone with her eternity on the line; least of all the Blue team).
Yeah but a smart thing to do is play nice actully try to make bonds between the two while she works around in the back ground. She has eternity to make the alliance trust the horde if she is nice and helpfu and seemingly kind then in a grnrstion or two she will be trusted.
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It’s an argument that makes sense for her, but I find her solution of “so let’s start a war we probably won’t win right now!” to be the part that’s out of character for the banshee queen who used to skulk around in the shadows until she had an advantage.
Maybe I just have an unreasonably high opinion of “old” Sylvanas, but to me she seemed like the type to smile and make nice to your face while her plans proceed in the background. That’s the Sylvanas I remember from Gilneas; “Of course I’ll stop production of the blight, Warchief…okay, he’s gone, deploy the blight.”
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Hmm … well again, the thing that bothers me the most about this expansion is that we still have no idea what she has planned for this war. Why did she want it SO BADLY? Why did she burn she burn the tree? What ARE her “True Objectives”? What were the terms of her deal with Heyla? What was the nature of this “new era” she bragged to the Alliance about in Helheim? And finally … will any of this benefit the Horde (or are we merely tools to be used)?
It is decidedly hard to judge the means, without knowing the expected result.
If she actually does have a plan, then I think the dev team has done too good a job keeping it from the players. Some hint of her actual endgame might make her actions more palatable, but as it stands, it just feels like the devs are throwing in things that sound cool to them, with no definite endgame.
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Her wnd game is to be kerigan after brood wars
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The means are already judged; They are aborant. Whatever end result required a massive war and a tree of civvies burned alive is a result that I think most would rather avoid.
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Well, I meant more their effectiveness towards the pursuit of her goal.
We don’t know her end-game, but I’d wager she’s committed to it now (if not since the start of the War, at LEAST since she Burned that Tree). I also HIGHLY doubt that her endgame is in anyway going to benefit the greater Horde as a whole (and somehow I still doubt that it may even benefit the Forsaken). Her motives are just too opaque to be secretly altruistic (it would also be OOC).
What I do expect is that Sylvie will betray the Horde. I expect that ALL of this has something to do with BOTH her quest for immortality AND her still murky deal with Heyla. I expect Heyla to still have a part in all of this … for she still survives. Beyond that though … we’ll have to wait for the reveal to really understand what she’s doing (and I doubt its going to end up well for anyone but her).
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