Alliance buffs coming in 8.1

#1 - Nov. 8, 2018, 4:56 p.m.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hnewman/2018/11/07/blizzard-working-to-balance-warcrafts-alliance-and-horde-players-in-war-mode-raiding/#3d6f24cb3c18

But as we go ahead to [patch] 8.1, Tides of Vengeance, we're actually looking at offering some kind of increased rewards for the less-represented faction in War Mode, so the risk and reward are better calibrated.

Hazzikostas said said Blizzard suspects many Alliance players had "rough experiences early on and opted out" of War Mode, and the increased rewards may bring people back in. While the new systems are intended to give additional rewards of experience while leveling and world-quest currency at max level to anyone participating in War Mode in a faction that's under-represented, right now that's "basically Alliance," he said.

The point of the War Mode bonuses has always been to offset the inherent inefficiency of, sometimes you go to World Quest, but you can't because of Horde players there, or you get killed," he said. "Stay away from the assassins on the map, but we want to keep that equal. And so if you are outnumbered, you should get a bigger bonus for being a part of that. That's something we want to do.

Ythisens

Community Manager

#41 - Nov. 15, 2018, 12:37 a.m.

11/11/2018 03:49 PMPosted by Wintel
11/08/2018 08:56 AMPosted by Triskeriaki
Blizzard suspects many Alliance players had "rough experiences early on and opted out" of War Mode, and the increased rewards may bring people back in.
Is Ion for real? He thinks that increased rewards will bring alliance back into warmode, when the vast majority of alliance have forgotten that warmode even exists?

This kind of measure is too little too late. A few alliance may turn on warmode, find themselves getting facing repeated 10v1 situations and then turn it off again.

Some time ago we made a hotfix to War Mode which enforces all War Mode shards that have both Alliance and Horde in them to have a stricter, more even ratio. We’ve been monitoring the results and so far we’ve noticed a significant improvement in “fair and balanced” shards. So much so that it’s safe to say that if you are Alliance, and you see Horde in the outdoor world in War Mode, you are a relatively even horde to alliance ratio shard. There are some rare exceptions, such as when a raid of 40 players enter a zone. It may take a bit for the “shard manager” to compensate and balance the shard.

We do have some plans in store in Tides of Vengeance (Patch 8.1) to entice the underrepresented faction with greater rewards to increase participation and create more active Horde/Allianced mixed War Mode shards. The intent of those rewards is not to give the underrepresented faction some “compensation” for being outnumbered in a War Mode shard (since that really can’t happen anymore).

We're also looking forward to what you all think about the Incursions in War Mode for 8.1, since it brings Horde and Alliance to the same location which should create some pretty fun skirmishes.