I always thought Baine should have been a shaman. If he starts now maybe in 2 xpacs they can make him the leader of the Earthen Ring!
They can power up anyone really. Why canât warriors use magical priorities to enhance their physical strength. They did it with varain. I think the main issue is horde races are bigger and stronger in order to balance that blizzard started this trend of strong allaince characters. But they never show horde races being stronger. For example you see NE and Tauren soldiers fighting, but a Tauren should be able to take on multiplayer ne counter parts. Same goes for other races, orcs are big and strong, troll are agile and have stupid healing, forsaken are dead no organs donât need to breathe, BE are a magical race. This is just never shown.
Not to toot my own horn too much, but I actually wrote a thread on a subject quite similar to this, including the Alliance phenomenon of not being able to use most of their toys. The short version is that the ledger is so hilariously imbalanced at the present moment that if the Alliance actually used everything they had at their disposal, the war would last maybe ten minutes.
My thread, for those interested.
In any case, not much more for me to add to this. I feel like itâs pretty apparent what theyâre trying to do; in the main narrative, only specific Forsaken themes are allowed to come to the fore, so that when it comes time for the inevitable civil war and raidbossing, they can more cleanly divide away the âbad guyâ themes from the âgood Hordeâ themes.
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This has always bugged me since vanilla. Back in warcraft 2 everything was essentially 1 for 1 in an effort to balance things (spells aside) However when warcraft 3 came out, suddenly there was this beautiful asymmetry within the units.
An orc is naturally stronger than the average footman, a tauren can easily stand up against cavalry veterans and each and ever other unit had their ups and downs as well.
Essentially this built up the theme that the Horde was always more powerful and that the alliance either needed numbers or more powerful heroes to deal with it. Where this starts to break down of course is we never see this represented in game, and also that both factions have heavily moved on from just orcs and humans.
Night elves should be few in numbers, same with gilneans and dranei however each of these factions are naturally leagues more powerful than your average human/dwarf/gnome but their scarcity is never drawn upon. Orcs/Tauren/Trolls are strong too and theyâve gained goblins, blood elves and undead but as others have stated, these allies feel overshadowed by the alliance. Perhaps if the game were to actually showcase how a single tauren can take on five human soldiers when fielded then the threat that the Horde is made up of powerful monsters would feel relevant. On the other hand, when the alliance does field elves or worgen or dranei, theyâre also just as powerful but theyâre few in numbers and each loss of one is a blow to their race.
As far as heroes go though Iâd like to say âpower levels are bull****â Jaina is exactly as powerful as the situation demands and as others have again said, since the alliance are heroes they wonât use their powers while the Horde will but canât keep em. Jaina can teleport from and to anywhere in the world seemingly at will while also able to flash freeze armies, yet she canât just teleport from one flying ship to another? She could have frost bolted sylvanas or got the alliance on the boat in an instant yet she didnât. Tyranda didnât need a power up, she has always been able to moonfire armies and rain death across the countryside. Yet suddenly only now did she feel she wasnât good enough so she needed a super power and still only tied with some archer guy. Speaking of archer guy, nathanos is also exactly as powerful as the writers need because reasons. The problem is he isnât flashy and weâve never had any back story for much of why heâs so good. At the end of the day though heâs still a level 20 ranger and tyranda was a level 20 arcane archer. Garrosh was a level 20 warrior and jaina is a level 20 mage, guess which one âfeelsâ more powerful?
The best, and sadly worst answer, is that the alliance will never ever actually harm the party or storyline so the dm gives them so many toys. While the Horde is that **** starter player that would party kill and derail the dmâs story if given a chance so they never get to keep anything fun. Bad guy horde has no moral/desire to keep alliance around and would murder them on the spot. Good guy naive alliance really wants to help horde be the warm fuzzy buddy true blue knows they can be and thus would never hurt them.
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it is extremely sad that if the alliance stopped caring about horde civilians and go full nuclear there would be no war.
and there is also another problem, if the alliance already can win without challenging their morals thanks to the incredibly imbalance
of power then that makes it boring because there is no line to cross by the alliance, there isnât morally gray actions. and that âthe alliance is as bad as the hordeâ.
No,the alliance is simply defeating the bad guy with conventional warfare and âhonorableâ combats.
They even donât want to attack the zandalari during the funeral simply to pay respects for their deaths even if that means a massive military win at the cost of civilians.
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Unfortunately the alliance is never actually placed in a situation where they even need to make hard choices. Every war the alliance has ever fought when it comes to the Horde has always ended in either the enemy killing themselves or the alliance having exactly as much firepower to barely win. Itâs like some odd metroid situation where samus loses all her gear between games. The alliance starts at zero when fighting the Horde yet comes out swinging a hundred against anyone else.
Now seeing as the devs have basically admitted this is indeed MoP 2.0, Iâd like to bring up the thing I hated the most that entire expansion. I donât think Iâve seen it discussed before but to me this is the most blatant tell-tale sign of the alliance. Itâs the quest line where the hero and varian were called to see if the Sha could be made a viable weapon. Now naturally the player knows full well this thing is completely evil and history has told us Varian will say no because alliance = lawful good.
And so Varian is about to maybe make a morally grey choice when just before the words no are about to leave his lips, the universe proves him right by having the Sha lash out before his eyes. Boom, easiest choice to stay lawful good ever.
Now what if Admiral Taylor had gone ahead anyway? What if the alliance was moments away from losing handedly! Suddenly she presents Varian with the same choice but this time if he doesnât use it, thousands will die and thereâs a solid chance they will lose the war. Now regardless of choice, this is more grey with either the choice to use it making them look like monsters and alienating potential allies. Or donât use it and maybe just barely win but now the alliance is fractured due to their forces furious at the loss of so much potentially avoidable life.
Azerite shows that the alliance are completely willing to use the same weapons as the he horde so long as thereâs no visible proof it might be evil.
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Come back when new expansions regularly start off with a horde town being wiped off the map.
What does that have to do with being scrappy underdogs (or not)?
The common response to alliance fans wanting to wipe out a horde town is that there arenât enough horde towns/cities to spare. Because like I said in another thread, Blizzard refuses to build up the Horde.
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I agree with all that. Iâm just confused as to our recent exchange:
You: âYou donât get powerful characters because youâre the scrappy underdog faction.â
Me: âThe theme of being scrappy underdogs isnât currently in the game.â
You: âCome back when new expansions regularly start off with a horde town being wiped off the map.â
It just seems like a non-sequitur.
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The Horde is still the scrappy underdogs because they canât ever take a hit like the Alliance regularly has in the past. All thanks to Blizzardâs staunch refusal to build up the Horde.
The Horde isnât perceived as scrappy underdogs except when the butcherâs bill comes. The Alliance regularly lost cities and towns to kick off new expansions or to show âthe faction war is serious this time!â Siege of Ogrimmar? Minimized as a minority of orcs with super tech.
Even in BfA, the Alliance is only winning the war because they are drowning the horde in bodies. Even Brill and Undercity had most of their population evacuated, compared to Ashenvale and Teldrassil where weâre throwing the word âgenocideâ around.
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I donât think that makes us scrappy underdogs, though. It just makes us weak. To be a âscrappy underdog,â you have to have a certain attitude which has been lacking in recent expansions. Iâm not even sure when we last had it. Pre-Garrosh, probably.
But anyway, when you said âCome back when new expansions start with Horde cities being wiped out,â it sounded like you meant âWhen Horde cities are wiped out, then you will be scrappy underdogs.â Which still doesnât make sense to me. Was that not what you meant?
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Perhaps âpaper-tigerâ is a better description. The horde seems fine on the offense, but has a glass jaw that requires severe plot-armor to protect.
Iâd say the times I most felt it was some of the Horde early questing. Stuff like Kezan and the island after it. That early quest when you just get out of the troll starting area and deal with that group of marines. The interactions with the Horde in the Pandaren starting zone.
Thatâs what felt like a scrappy underdog to me. (At least, as far as I can remember it, because I refuse to go through the Goblin starter zone again)
I donât really know how to recapture that feeling properly, though, when the writers refuse to write the Alliance as threatening without a dose of âand you deserve thisâ.
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You are not mistaken. Horde are now using iron horde aka blackfuss tech. The animus stuff is meh, I remember easily destroying it, along with a ton of bloodknights, as a wq.
How cool was it to see jaina swoop in on a magic ship, defuse the blight, then blow a hole in the walls of lorderon? Compaire that to watching sylvanas make the call to blight the field. How about watching Malfurion take out a guarded supply caravan like a regiment of horde soldiers are insects at best? Was pretty sweet watching the only survivor, who was let go, try not to poop himself. Go watch varian and voljins deaths again. I felt all the pride that was possible as a long time horde player. Not that varian didnât deserve an epic death, he 100% did. Voljin just deserved to not be footnote in the look how cool alliance are cinematic. That doesnt even top how bad cairns deat was. Just to make baine the tauren leader and do nothing until golden started writing stuff for him.
Jainaâs actions make alliance players feel awesome and a part of something cool. Sylvanasâ make horde the bad guys again. Yay! We get blight! Because all I wanted to do was reenact the tyrannical government of ww2. Cool.
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You mean you want more of this?
And less of this?
Aside from thinking âwho the heck is this?â When I first saw the zandalar intro, it was pretty cool. Guess the princess summons wind dinosaurs.
I like Rastakhan, I was excited to see him out to kick butt and take names and it was lame to see it end in another failure. I am not at all happy with Rastakhan dying or talanji replacing him. Even though she can do cool stuff, she is boring and all her lore takes place in bfa. There hasnt been enough character development for the players to care at all.
Itâs like having void elves as the major lore race for an entire expansion instead of alongside another as the intro to allied races. Actually, the void elf leader has a long history. Killing off Alleria at the begin of the expansion would be equivalent to having Rastakhan taken out, except umbric is interesting as a replacment.
What annoyed me the most about that entire Scenario was how Sylvanas was already more or less the Warchief, calling all the shots, talking to Varian as a fellow leader of a global superpower, while Volâjin barely got a single line of text at all.
Volâjin deserved better, EVEN IF he was going to come back as a Loa/Super Ghost.
I feel he has the potential to be interesting, but like Talanji, he suffers from us knowing very little about him. We have the whole, âcomrade Umbric,â joke going around and all, but as far as Thalassian go, we really donât know much about his past, his history. How did he survive the Third War? Did he always oppose the Blood Elves joining the Horde? Why didnât he defect immediately if so?
Right now Blizzard is trying hard to make him likeable by doing cool stuff and being shown as kicking butt and taking names, but heâs still pretty two-dimensional. We donât see him or any other Void Elves even really explore their transformation and itâs ramifications beyond concern for their sanity. Theyâve been drastically altered to the point they have tentacles in their hair.
At least the Zandalari, one way or another, have a culture to explore and such. The Void Elves are so disappointingly boring as a people that all theyâve got going for them is flashy void powers. Thereâs no depth to them as a race. Their struggle barely is more than a footnote. Itâs something that should be played up but seems inconvenient to do so, like the Blood Elvesâ and magic addiction, or the Worgen and the risk of losing themselves to the Beast.
Incoming LOOOONG post:
This is a really good thread and its something that Iâve thought about years ago as well, although back then my opinions came from a more pvp-centric perspective of the game. Back then people were always complaining about balance and nerfs (World of Roguecraft, anyone?), and it got me thinking about Blizzardâs mechanics behind the game. And although this is a story forum, I think game mechanics is a crucial part of the plot and how the plot is delivered (the âshow me, donât tell meâ part of lore).
Take the Tauren/Orc vs Human strength comparisons raised by other posters in this thread - lore wise, the strength discrepancy is there, but the problem is you canât let a Tauren/Orc Warrior do more damage than a Human warrior because then PvP and PvE content becomes unfair. Many of the âRPGâ elements of WoW (Raid firsts, Arena, Battlegrounds) require 1:1 balance ratios.
In the RTS Warcraft 1, 2 and 3, this is okay because the lore is fixed. You complete the missions, and whatever happens is canon. Plus youâre fighting against the Ai, so there is no need to âbalanceâ. You can write a cut-scene where Tyrande one-shots units and that power discrepancy never affects the players. But everyone knows if you walk your in-game Lvl 1 Priestess of the Moon alone and let her get snared/swarmed, she dies in horrendous fashion to even basic units. In the RTS games, the only âbalanceâ issues comes from versus games, which has no bearing on the storyline. So in a sense, the mechanics is detached from the lore (the âshow me, donât tell meâ and âmechanicsâ occupy separate universes).
What comes next is half spitballing and half trying to recall an old argument I had with a guild mate years ago, so bear with me:
In WoW, we know the story cannot be split from the mechanics because the âshow me, donât tell meâ is the mechanics. How do you allow lore where a Tauren/Orc Warrior is supposed to be stronger than a Human without alienating your Human players? How do you show your Night Elves are super stealthy guerrilla fighters without alienating your blundering Goblin and Tauren players? (And make it âcanonâ. This will be important later)
Blizzardâs solution so far has been to make raid content the de factor âloreâ of the game. Again, like the RTS, Blizzard makes the Ai the punching bag to try and split the difference. Ever notice how in raids you have those little objections? Just like the RTS missions, the players get no choice in the objective. You finish the objectives, kill the Raid Boss, and Blizzard moves the story-line forward with each new raid content. This is how a 25-man Human group can kill the same Big Bad raid boss as 25-man Tauren group. Its the Ai that âlosesâ, and Human players can feel strong and powerful (the âshow me, donât tell meâ part of the lore) without affecting the mechanics (Tauren are supposed to be stronger than Human).
But we know this system completely deteriorates once we bring in player-to-player interaction. Because the Tauren player is supposed to feel stronger than his Human opponent, but for mechanic and balance reasons, we canât have that.
My solution is:
- Move away from instance-based raids and dungeons, and instead move WoWâs in the opposite direction and bring it to the open world RPG. World Bosses instead of Raid Bosses for PvEâers. World PvP for PvPâers.
- Mechanically - players must be solid
- Revamp the zones to add âassault zonesâ except for Capitals
- All those calendar events (time walking dungeons, etc.) - move them into the World
Its getting late, so Iâm going to vomit what comes next:
#1, #3 and #4 are tied together - Blizz can show âunequalâ mechanics because there will be numerous zones for the players with unequal terms (as it should be in real life and real WoW Universe). For example - SW City gives 100% buff to Alliance, -50% debuff to Horde attackers. Capital Cities are the highest tier of raid for PvPâers, as they should be. (I will get to PvE World Boss content later). Faction Leaders are Tier S characters and get LONG story-arcs. The story should no be going through Faction Leaders like theyâre the cast of Lost or The Walking Dead (killing them off left and right and bringing in new characters with zero development).
For PvPâer Lore - if Faction Leaders donât change, how will the players get to see story progression? (The âshow me, donât tell meâ dilemma) Well, this is where assault zones come in. My idea is to make EVERY ZONE an assault zone, except for Capital Cities. Why? To prevent stagnation. Blizzard has discretion to toy with EVERY zone and mix things up.
Blizzard has something similar with Battlefronts, but they need to bring it all into the Open World. All those calendar events? Scratch those and randomize them into PvP and PvE events. And make them NUMEROUS.
For example - this week, Horde are bringing an incursion into Ashenvale. NE are defensive - they have defensive buildings. Horde players are Offensive and get to hire mercenaries (NPCâs) that follow the player and do more damage then Alliance NPCâs. Tauren and Orc get buff to HP and damage, but debuff to movement speed. Alliance players get buff to range if they are standing on ramparts, and NE get buff to attack speed to represent agility. There is a Local Commander, but the PLAYERS also are ranked. Bring back PvP Ranks and highest Rank in the Zone gets a FLAG on them so enemy knows they are ranking commanders. Killing a ranking commander creates a debuff on the side that lengthens the graveyard resurrection.
At the same time, Gilneas is counter-attacking in Silverpine. Horde holds Shadowfang Keep. Human paladinâs gain a buff against Undead Players. No such buff against Non-UD players. All Worgen get stealth ability. But Horde players get to collect lanterns that when placed on certain points, create zones that Alliance players cannot stealth in. Tauren and Orc players get buff to HP, but get a debuff that gives Alliance players a guaranteed crit on first attack because Tauren/Orc are big and cannot stealth through the forest of Silverpine. NEâs get buff to attach speed, movement and crit because Silverpine is their natural element. But NEâs take debuff to HP.
For PvE - Twilight Hammer is doing something in Silithus. Alliance and Horde can participate. Horde Tauren/Orc get buff to HP and damage. Alliance Warriors and Paladins get passive defense buff if standing near each other. NE Hunters get passive attack speed and crit buff, but automatically get a debuff with enemy mob or Horde player gets within 5 yards of them. Both factions take extra magic damage from Twilight Hammer, but Undead takes reduced damage because they are dark and emo and would probably join the Twilight Hammer if they could.
Faction to kill World Boss gets epic loot. Factions can interfere with each other, but automatically get debuff that carries over when they fight World Boss. (So if a PvPer wants to mess with a PvEâer, he gets a debuff which will make raiding harder). Factions can also work together and share in the loot (this gives the PLAYER discretion and choice!)
At the same time, Silvermoon City is under attach from Demons and Burning Legion. Some reckless Blood Elves have tapped into forbidden magic, and now Demons are spawning everywhere. Horde get buff because its their territory and they outnumber any Alliance (as they should). Blood Elves get buff to magic, but -15% HP. Tauren/Orc Warriors have more HP/Melee Attack then Blood Elves (as they should), but take more damage from Magic. Alliance can try to participate, but they run the risk of getting swarmed by Horde. Better loot for Alliance than Horde.
And round and round we go. Blizzard would have 10 different zones going off every week. The Players have direction to join, fight, cooperate or even AFK. Player choice would be affected by what buff and debuff affects their race/class. And since its randomized, this week its Horde attacking some zones and Alliance attacking other zones, then next week the script gets flipped.
This also has the benefit of bringing in zones and factions that are never used from old expansions. They Death Knights - want some lore progression? Bolvar has lost control of the Scourge, and a new Undead Wave is coming. Necropolis are flying over Plaguelands, and Lights Hope Chapel is under siege. The Death Knights have a camp in one area of the zone, and the Knights of the Silver Hand control another area. Players can elect to cooperate to fight off the Scourge, or fight each other.
Hey Deepholm and Uldaman - what have you guys been up to the last couple of expansions? Oh nothing - well hereâs Blizzardâs randomized world event for you. A giant worm is tunneling in Deepholm and the Cenarion Circle needs heroes to assist. Uldaman - a Titan construct has gone haywire and need heroes to fight it. Dwarves and Gnomes get the spotlight and players have to help them create a device to stop the Titan. Dwarves and Gnomes get buffs, while other races donât. Horde players get no buff, but can choose to interfere with Alliance if they wish.
Character development - switch up NPCâs. Faction Leaders are S-Tier characters, but we have a bunch of middle character NPCâs. THESE are the characters that Blizzard and toy around with. And kill off. Horde Clan Commanders and sub-Commanders. Dark Rangers. Druids of the Claw.
Want more dwarf lore? Bring an assault zone in Twilight Highlands that show off Wildhammer clan lore. Dwarves can recruit Wildhammer NPCâs that fight alongside the player.
Want Undead Lore? Bring an Assault Zone in Northrend that ties in Undead with those Undead Blood Elf vampires. Want Paladin Lore? That same Assault Zone for Alliance would left Knights of Silver Hand attack said Undead Players/Blood Elf Vampires. Want even more Paladin Lore? Alliance Players get to work with Scarlett Crusader NPCâs and you have unified Paladins fighting the UD. Give Alliance players the option to âjoinâ the Silver Hand -OR- the Scarlet Crusade for this one Assault Zone as they fight against the Undead.
If you made it to the end of my post, god bless you. If you didnât, god bless you anyway. My TLDR is: Bring everything to the WORLD, and let Blizzard roll the dice and randomize all the zones every week.
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