Faction balance on PvP servers is critical. An imbalanced server makes the game suck for both sides. It’s not fun 5v1’ing people, and it’s even worse being on the receiving end.
It’s beyond me why Blizzard sticks their head in the sand on this issue. Over the entire history of the game, I’m not aware of a single thing that’s been done to even remotely improve balance. In retail, there’s literally one balanced PvP server: Emerald Dream (back when PvP servers existed, anyway). The other, what, 40-60+ retail PvP servers were horribly imbalanced, which ruined WPvP. You let things get so bad, you came up with that garbage “Warmode” system to try to address it, which made things even worse.
Why does managing faction balance continue to be ignored? Why has literally not one single change been made to even try to help balance servers over the last 15 years?
Classic is already well beyond what I’d consider a critical state, and if you don’t make it a priority to resolve balance issues, then you’re going to see your sub numbers decrease, because people aren’t going to stick around for 5v1 (or worse) WPvP.
Suggestions:
For overpopulated servers, only allow the dominant faction to transfer off the server. This should have been in place on day one, and I can’t comprehend why you didn’t at least try this approach. It was flat out moronic to allow an underrepresented faction to transfer off the server. It’s too late for it to make a huge difference now, but nevertheless, it should still be standard practice.
Most PvP servers are Horde heavy, and most PvE servers are Alliance heavy. Open free transfers to allow the Alliance on the Alliance dominated PvE servers to come to Horde dominated PvP servers. I cannot possibly express how much I don’t care about someone who had an easier PvE leveling experience getting a free transfer to a PvP server. Faction balance is 1000x more important than worrying about something so stupid.
Allow free faction changes on imbalanced servers for the dominant faction only. Don’t make the mistake again of just opening faction changes both ways. That will make things much worse, as history has already proved.
Use queues. If a server is 70:30, queue the 70% faction and offer a free transfer or faction change while they wait. 30% faction would get right in. Keep increasing the queue time until the server is balanced.
Do whatever it takes, because this is important, and critical for the well being of the game. Give lvl 60 Alliance a free token for transferring to a Horde dominated server, or whatever else you can come up with. Whatever it takes.
Bottom line: Managing faction balance on PvP servers needs to become a priority. It never has been, and that’s why things got so bad in retail, and it’s definitely a factor in your poor sub numbers. Make an investment to improve balance, and PvP server players will stay subbed for much longer.
Also, if the MAJORITY of PvP players wanted balance, then they wouldn’t have accepted the transfers. Alliance players wouldn’t have moved if the Horde ganking and bullying wasn’t so prevalent.
PvP players have never wanted fair fights. They’ve always wanted every advantage they could get (hence ganking.)
If World PvP had been as popular as some say, then it wouldn’t have had to be incentivized later on.
Face it. This is a PvP player mindset created issue, and Blizzard is under no obligation to try to change the mindset of that type of player that has been that way for 15 years.
Blizzard should offer paid transfers and be done with it. No need to look at the issue beyond that.
That’s a very simple minded way to look at it, and you’re flat out wrong. Players do want balance, and when they only ever see a sea of red when they’re out in the world and get farmed 1v5 all day, they’re going to take the transfer every time, whereas they’d happily stay if the factions were balanced.
Do you even play on a PvP server? If not, this post doesn’t even concern you, and I’m not remotely interested in your opinion.
OP balance means nothing. You assume because there’s 100 horde to 30 Alliance that all 100 horde is available and willing to fight as a team.
Here’s the reality. You have 100 horde all with their own individual agendas not caring about each other since most people treat mmos like a 1st person shooter these days and 30 Alliance that’s organized in a few groups working together. The Alliance will stomp those 100 horde and people will still shout imbalance.
You know people that will transfer off of their current server, where they have a faction numbers advantage, to go to a server where they will have issues being out numbered?
Please show me those unicorns.
You can say only let people from the dominant faction transfer off a server, what is their motivation to transfer off?
I really have to ask how you actually balance pvp servers without straight up forcing people to pvp / forcing people to not pvp both of which are awful solutions. Even heavy incentives like Heroic Hotel Azshara gear isn’t enough for most Alliance.
All of these solutions are just bandaids. The actual issue is that splitting your player base in half will be very difficult to balance in so many ways. Just remove the artificial barriers and allow people to interact fully.
Faction PVP should be a RP aspect of the game, not a mechanics part of the game. Allow people to freely communicate , associate, group, and attack each other.
You can still have stuff like Horde vs Alliance and faction rep but start people off with default allegiances and allow them to grind to different ones. Just like the Forsaken start out neutral to the Horde and have to work to friendly at first. Make it like the centaur reputations or the booty bay ones, grinding one rep changes other reps.
But no matter the rep still allow players to freely do stuff together or fight each other. Only then will these silly faction imbalances become trivial.
Balance is everything. I’m playing on Herod, and it’s becoming increasingly rare to see any Alliance out in the world, whereas I see Horde everywhere. That’s not a fun experience, and it goes against everything a PvP server is supposed to be.
Your 30v100 scenario is wishful thinking. It may happen every once in awhile, but day to day, WPvP is complete trash on imbalanced servers.
They had a golden opportunity to use queue times as an incentive early on, but completely squandered it. It will be much more difficult now. They could re-implement queue times, or offer tokens as incentive. They should at least try rather then sit on their hands while the situation continues to degrade.
Plausible solution, but not practical for Classic. Better fit for retail.
I played on Emerald Dream, where balance was close to 50:50. WPvP was perfect. Everything else falls in line and comes together when the factions are balanced. No one ever had to be forced to do anything. There was always organic, balanced WPvP.
I’ve played on several servers that were 65:35 or worse, and WPvP was complete trash on them all. For those types of servers, there is no hope. Incentives to PvP do little to nothing. You need faction balance.
The majority of players will just stop playing when the game gets like that. People hate to change and are often on a server because of guilds or friends. Yes, some people will switch but far more will either tough it out or quit the game altogether.
I play on Herod as well (even started as horde) and as for my wishful thinking. I do recall the Alliance using and abusing your capital city just a few days ago.
Right now there’s no incentive for wpvp when you could be gearing. Wait a bit. Just a few days longer and we can revisit this conversation.