World of Warcraft: Current Year

They should just get rid of the faction thing by going guild based, that would spice things up for Warmode lovers and make absolutely no difference for anyone else. And don't start with "muh lore", it's their IP they can do whatever they want story wise, they've already proven that many times.

Would that answer the competitive raiding / PvP population balance problem? Probably not, but we're at a point where if you can't fix the problem, just make something that will allow people to go around it. Let people play with whoever they want, some people will always minmax anyway.

About server population, they could upgrade the old server infrastructure by going full megaserver, there's no server pride anymore and it's more of a hassle nowadays with AHs and player interactions. AHs should be regional and it's plain stupid you can't trade potions or components to people from another server.

Bondurant said:

They should just get rid of the faction thing by going guild based, that would spice things up for Warmode lovers and make absolutely no difference for anyone else. And don't start with "muh lore", it's their IP they can do whatever they want story wise, they've already proven that many times.

Would that answer the competitive raiding / PvP population balance problem? Probably not, but we're at a point where if you can't fix the problem, just make something that will allow people to go around it. Let people play with whoever they want, some people will always minmax anyway.

About server population, they could upgrade the old server infrastructure by going full megaserver, there's no server pride anymore and it's more of a hassle nowadays with AHs and player interactions. AHs should be regional and it's plain stupid you can't trade potions or components to people from another server.

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The people managing WoW are not the original game designers capable of intoducing new systems.

They are drones hired by a corporate system designed to keep a profitable model as low risk as possible, which means few changes and a very scripted "experience" for players.

If you have any hopes for WoW to be anything other than what it has been for the last decade, give them up and find a different game.

Mist said:

I kinda feel like if it ever stops being the Horde vs the Alliance it won't really feel like WoW anymore.

Some huge lore event would have to occur for two new factions to emerge that individuals or guilds could declare allegiance to.

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Some huge lore event like The Lich King threatening to turn all of Azeroth into his undead army? Or The Burning Legion wiping out the planet and turning it into a fel wasteland? Or the return of Sargeras trying to kill the planet before she turns into a Titan? Or the Old Gods awakening and trying to put everything and everyone under their control?

Some huge lore event like one of those?

Keep two factions, just allow cross-faction INSTANCED content. Exactly like BGs are right now.

Or else the raiding scene on alliance continues to dissolve into nothing.

xzi said:

Keep two factions, just allow cross-faction INSTANCED content. Exactly like BGs are right now.

Or else the raiding scene on alliance continues to dissolve into nothing.

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Or like eq2 cross faction normal grouping in general. Hell pvp has mercenaries let friends group.

I cant imagine it's hard coded. I would hope that it's just as simple as a flag/group on the character sheet that says which faction they belong to. Which when the character sheet is loaded, loads all the stuff that is assigned to that group. I have no idea why you would code it any other way, but then again.. I've only ever written basic programs to make my life at work easier. But to top it all off - (iirc) look back to the beta notes for WOD and you can see where the auction houses were elected to be shared across faction at one point and then decided against. If it's that easy to turn on/off functions between factions like that, then what is really the hold up here?

If it was even thought of as an option to look at - Shadowlands is suppose to propel us forward in time. So that just tells me that they can basically pick and choose whatever they want to do and not be hamstrung by lore (if they even cared to follow it at all now). God forbid this madness lasts another two years, but the expansion after Shadowlands will give them the perfect opportunity.

4 factions is easy.

Forsaken split from the Horde and become more Scourgelike, have an undead option for most races. No issues here.

Night Elves split from the Alliance, perhaps taking the other elven factions with them. Have them be super xenophobic after their various tragedies and very experimental with fonts of power.

Have the factions be looser, so you can do faction betrayal quests and swap factions, get rep with other factions to be a diplomat and have cross faction guilds/groups.

It'll make things a hell of a lot more interesting.

Big Phoenix said:

Faction system should have ended with TBC. There has never been relevant, compelling gameplay to come from it. It does nothing but needlessly shrink the player base for the customer.

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You never found world PvP to be compelling gameplay? What the fuck?

Chris said:

4 factions is easy.

Forsaken split from the Horde and become more Scourgelike, have an undead option for most races. No issues here.

Night Elves split from the Alliance, perhaps taking the other elven factions with them. Have them be super xenophobic after their various tragedies and very experimental with fonts of power.

Have the factions be looser, so you can do faction betrayal quests and swap factions, get rep with other factions to be a diplomat and have cross faction guilds/groups.

It'll make things a hell of a lot more interesting.


You never found world PvP to be compelling gameplay? What the fuck?

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World PvP is never and has never been compelling in WoW. It's been a zerg gankfest or 120s one shotting new players. There is no real in between. Warmode is probably the worst mechanic they have come up with in years.

Haha, what a guy. Defends all the absolutely terrible systems added or tweaked in the wrong direction during BfA. Pans one of the best new features added as "one of the worst".

Fyff said:

World PvP is never and has never been compelling in WoW. It's been a zerg gankfest or 120s one shotting new players. There is no real in between. Warmode is probably the worst mechanic they have come up with in years.

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You missed out, I've had some great moments in world PvP.

My favorite moments of world PvP since warmode was launched was one shotting noobs. What's yours ...

Honestly, what's compelling about Warmode? If you want slightly better rewards, you have to flag for PvP. You can't turn it off without going to a city though so if some dude in your dungeon group forgets to turn it off that sucks.

The rewards are not balanced between factions so people are transferring toons to race for world first because they get better rewards for a couple weeks. That's not all that compelling

You get more leveling exp which just creates griefing and ruins the new player experience. Like hey, here's this system that will let you level faster and catch up to your friends but some fag from the FoH board will randomly corpse camp you and one shot you for hours. That's fun right?

There is a reason the PvP servers died. World PvP in WoW is just not fun or compelling. Most world PvP is one person trying and one person running away. Arenas and BGs are something most of the population does for their weekly chest and then never touches again if they do it at all. WoW is just not a good PvP game.

Fyff said:

Warmode is probably the worst mechanic they have come up with in years.

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It's pretty cool for a lot of people, they can choose to play carebear or not with a capital teleport. Also before 8.2 Warmode had its moments, especially with the bounty system and zone chest drops.

Fyff said:

Arenas and BGs are something most of the population does for their weekly chest and then never touches again if they do it at all.

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You're entitled to hate PvP, but please don't falsely assume everyone hates it too.

Warmode in itself is a great system. When all players are on a semi-equal playing field, ie. Expansion Launch, then world PVP is lots of fun. If you're quick enough, you realize it isnt Warmode that's shitty game design - its the Eiffel Tower of power creep that happens every single expansion. World PVP in Classic was a lot of fun simply because the gear choices you had werent incredibly different between BIS and average for a long time.

Out of all the shit that they have tried and failed at in an effort to fix PVP - they just cant seem to fix it. If you disregard power creep for a second, and look elsewhere - you start to realize that classes overall have gotten to a point where there is no hard set Rock > Paper > Scissors, anymore. There are far less counters than there are abilities within the same class that have the exact same effect that counter was made for. Resistances not being a thing is a big thorn in the side too.

Warmode is great because it removed the problem of being stuck on a lopsided population PvP server unless you were willing to drop money and pay for a transfer. Now you can stay on the server, turn warmode off, and still get shit done instead of being constantly camped and outnumbered. And you can pick and choose when you feel like participating in PvP without it being a binary choice at character creation that you cannot undo without spending money.

Khane said:

Warmode is great because it removed the problem of being stuck on a lopsided population PvP server unless you were willing to drop money and pay for a transfer. Now you can stay on the server, turn warmode off, and still get shit done instead of being constantly camped and outnumbered. And you can pick and choose when you feel like participating in PvP without it being a binary choice at character creation that you cannot undo without spending money.

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This perfectly describes the situation my roommate went through. She was literally getting ready to quit the game due to the stilted population dependent PVP: war mode saved the game for her