Yeah the issue here is the racials, people have it in their head that somehow the horde racial makes them better at pvp, that it is absolutely necessary to be cutting edge, when the vast majority don’t need it because they are not cutting edge players.
This is why even with a free faction swap, I expect most would not switch, even for low queue times.
Racials would need to be targetted.
I suspect that if they were like “All racials removed.”, Horde players would then start to swap to alleviate queue times because the perceived advantage would no longer apply. - of course in this case, the claim that players play horde because of faction identity and don’t care about queue time length would really be put to the test.
Not that I think that would ever happen, but who knows, I also never thought I would see Horde vs. Horde unrated battleground queues.
I think Blizzard discussed this issue a while ago.
Even if Blizzard removed all racials, it would still be difficult to maintain a 50/50 faction split in PvP.
Top arena players would likely end up on the same faction because they want to play together. Then, all the glads who want to play with the r1s would follow suit. Then, all the duelists who want to play with the glads would follow suit. And down the line it goes.
One faction becomes the better choice for PvP.
Twitch probably amplifies this because players can see that most of the top PvP streamers are on the same faction, and they want to be able to play with their favorite Twitch streamers.
Yeah that makes sense, but to alleviate queue times the balance wouldn’t need to necessarily be 50/50. Those ratios would be impossible without faction lock to force creating in the less populated faction, but no game has ever successfully used that mechanism to my knowledge.
In any case, I would still expect horde to be more populated, but I would imagine the pvp community would be more keen to swap if racials weren’t a factor just so they could have fun and not sit in queues….but I could be imagining wrong.
My main point is that unless you are a roleplayer, faction choice is tied almost exclusively to racial advantages.
Absolutely. It doesn’t need to be 50/50 though. 60/40 would be fine though…
Honestly though another thing that would help? Make it so alts don’t suck monkey nuts. I used to play both factions for the most part. Feels reeeaaallll hard right now.
Honestly, same faction matchmaking was great for me also! The benefits for players who just want to play the game and have an opportunity to get better in PVP are amazing. Without it I don’t even feel like I can grind much, and I don’t even want to think about arena.
I am not a casual/new player but still to me whenever I go in bgs without same faction matchmaking I lose which is very frustrating as a player. It does not feel like the players have an opportunity to influence the outcome of their matches. Last weekend though! It was endless, sure there were some premades but the loss didnt feel as terrible when you could lose only 5min and queue it up after to get in a new one in a couple of minutes! It felt like the bgs were more balanced overall!
Personal preference is the reason why people choose horde vs alliance, not racials. Alliance has always been boring to me, I tried a few times and could never make it past level 30 - it’s just not as interesting.
This horde racials argument is getting very old. The racials aren’t going to make or break pvp encounters for the average player. It’s only the elite players that are waiting for their opponent to make a mistake that will get an edge. Even then… dwarf priests, human rogues? I mean give me a break.
Not true. What happens is the leaders swap, and followers follow them. Response to big racial changes at the start of an expansion is very different than that to long queuetimes sometime mid-expansion.
That’s where your argument keeps falling apart, because so few change for shorter queuetimes that it makes no difference.
Free swaps to alliance, seriously. Are you going to swap to take advantage of getting a faction change you don’t want for free? No. Would you want someone on your team who only swapped because they thought they were getting something for free, even though they didn’t want to play alliance?
You’re expecting other players to take the hit so you won’t have to do anything different.
Yeah, the effect wouldn’t be perfect. Never will be. If we could get to a 60/40 though, can’t complain about that.
Why not? You’re tired of waiting around? Why don’t you and a few friends bring an alt over to play at the very least. Makes perfect sense to me.
No, I’m expecting players to live with the consequences of their decisions. You all chose to play horde so live with it. I purposely swapped to alliance because I knew people were going to be ridiculous.
But if the result of a queuetime imbalance has never been a large enough wave of faction transfers to make a difference, but you’re counting on a huge change, that’s faith in something that is demonstrably false.
Overall faction balance right now is 45/55.
If the faction imbalance is worsening, it is a blizzard-caused problem related to changes in PvE gearing and requirements of such gear to do well in PvP. As Alliance PvEers go Horde to find better access to their content, those Alliance players left have more difficulty finding PvE groups. This includes serious PvPers, who definitely would go Horde to get that gear they need. Those left are in even a worse spot. They won’t be faction changing, because they are less serious. If they even do continue to do PvP, their success rate in randoms will be even worse, and they will continue to fall behind.
Completely agree with all the points made here, thank you for constructive feedback instead of just complaining. WoTF definitely needs a nerf, at least get rid of the 5 second immunity BS after the fear break, its absurd.
Free faction transfers to alliance would be a great addition to that list too.
I think H vs H bgs is a great idea. It will help the horde get honor gear finally. I saw someone complaining about how the alliance are underpopulated and H vs H bgs will make it even easier to kill alli in wpvp. This isn’t true at all. Besides…alliance has had a huge head start in honor gaining. If you’re alliance and you’re not full honor gear yet, did you really ever try?