KraxisSingular

The inception of changing faction certainly would be a good time to do something radical about racials.
Personally I don't like the fact that certain racials are utter crap for certain classes. And that certain racials are just that much better overall (looking at you Draenei).

But racials in some form should remain. Racial identity is a considerable portion of the game for many people. No, it won't show up all the time, but honestly, which race is the most popular Shaman on Horde? Is it the super powerful Orc, the situational Troll or the big lump of meat that is called the Tauren? Well, it is the Tauren, eventhough the Orcs have the best Shaman lore, and the Trolls have the most ingame Shaman NPCs (personal observation, might not hold water). Many people just love the Taurens and they will defend their choice.
To remove part of that identity would not be a good move, and I'm sure Blizzard knows that.

So my solution is to remove all combat, raid and pvp racials. Only retain stuff like the Human Diplomacy and the profession racials. Heck make one a utility racial like Diplomacy and one a profession racial. For instance, the Orc Axe (and soon Fist) spec could be changed to "always at max skill level". Overpowered? No, but certainly handy. Undead could get a small XP bonus, Dwarfs being able to not only track treasure but open locked chests (with limitations of course) etc etc. I would still think that Diplomacy would likely be one of the most coveted racials though.

However, looking at the streamlining of Berserking, I am quite certain that any real change in racials won't happen.

 

Asimo

I have a sneaking suspicion that Blizzard was working on a race change buyable feature to go with the gender/face/hair/name changer. There's a lot of complexity to this that isn't immediately obvious, such as certain quests (admittedly mostly low-level ones) only being available to certain races, differences in faction levels (hordeside most noticeably where half the races start neutral with the other half rather than friendly), limited options for certain classes, and so on. Once you have the technology in place to deal with that, swapping factions isn't that much more complex; it's a matter of scope of what needs to be changed rather than the methodology of doing so.

 

Endus

Sorry, my main's a Draenai shaman, and I just don't see it. Sure, the 1% hit aura is nice, for the raid, but in those cases, you need at most 4 Draenai in the 25-man raid to pretty much buff everyone in question, since healers don't benefit. Yes, 1% hit to the party is nice, but that's the thing; everyone gets the benefit of your racial. And they get their own racials. On top of your aura. You get nothing. Good day sir.

If Draenai got a bigger boost, say 2% for themselves and 1% in an aura, then sure, it's a great racial. If it weren't an aura and was self-only, again, great racial. As it stands, I would MUCH rather some other guy be Draenai and let me get something else.

Not to mention, Horde racials are generally pretty decent, too. Sure, no hit aura (but I think the aura part of it, clearly, is bogus to begin with), but they have some of the best personal racials available, both for PvE and PvP. Orc racials, especially, in 3.2, are basically like saying "oh, here's everything a shaman could possibly ever want, have fun".


And I'm really tired of people saying stuff like "Diplomacy is the best racial ever!" Congrats. You finish rep grinds 10% faster. This generally means other people need to tag on an extra day or two of questing or whatever. And once you've wrapped up your rep grinds, it's absofreaking useless. Diplomacy is quite possibly the worst racial in the game. With the possible exception of the profession-boosting ones, since there's no recipes that require greater than max level, and it only saves you the cost of the first 15 points, not the last 15.

 

Exiliad

A single character's racial being able to grant 1% hit to an entire 25-man raid (even after subtracting out healers) is still the most powerful racial in the game. Hit is often the most valuable stat to dps classes (assuming you gear appropriately so as not to surpass the cap), making the stat choice of +hit% over other alternatives all the more powerful.

Trying to argue that it should benefit you more than others is entirely unrelated to the discussion of relative power of the racials. Furthermore, claiming that a "self-only" 1% +hit bonus is a "great racial" but upon extending that benefit to all your allies in battle all of a sudden diminishes its value does not follow at all.


[Edit] To weave this back into the on-topic discussion: the fact that the horde don't have the opportunity to take your stance of "I would MUCH rather some other guy be (Draenei) and let me get something else" is a significant imbalance. Considering it is significantly more powerful in PvE progression than any other racial, a fair argument could be made that unless the racial system is restructured, assuming that no losses are incurred by switching factions (items/achievements/rep/etc), then raids would be better suited switching to alliance. [/Edit] (Double editted to fix holy run-on sentence batman!)

 

Beliandra

I suppose that would be quite a powerful racial ability, if it existed. Luckily it doesn't. Draenei's aura is party-only, not raid-wide.

 

Shaewyn

I don't know if that would be the case - on the alliance side, the Draenei racial is the basically the only meaningful racial for casters. It's not so much that you hope someone else is Draenei and get your own racial, it's more you hope someone is Draenei so you get any benefit from racials. For me, for example, the Gnome racial would be ~55 Int which would translate into 0.32% spell crit (I don't go OOM enough for the extra mana to be useful), and the Human racial would be ~18 spirit, which would translate into 0.22% spell crit (9.9 crit rating) with Glyphed Molten Armour. Both are nowhere near enough to consider dropping my guaranteed 1% hit, considering not all raids have enough space-goats for everyone.

In terms of asymmetric faction racials, Alliance has Heroic Presence, but Horde has Berserking as well as Blood Fury as meaningful DPS increasing racials. Alliance doesn't have any "burst" racials to compare. Expertise racials are pretty much a wash - I can't see people changing factions because they got an axe instead of a sword. I would not expect to see much, if any, faction changes for PvE purposes. PvP, on the other hand...

In passing, does anyone else wonder if this is potentially leading up to something with the next expansion? Or is this faction-transfer thing just there to help people "play with their friends"... or, more pessimistically, as a money-grab?

 

KraxisSingular

I mentioned Diplomacy as the top racial should all combat racials be removed and only utility and profession racials remained. 10% cutback on repgrinds is a really nice timesaver on the stuff that actually matters. It, of course, can't compare to combat racials.

Anyway, Heroic Presence is utterly overpowered compared to the expertise and ranged specs (which are the comparable racials since they too are passive). 1% hit to not just a specific weapon, but everything, and to the buddies around you as well. It's always there, and unless you change raiders on a massive scale it really shouldn't be too hard to find 4 Draenei. Heck you would likely have two just for getting the Shamans, and last I looked Draenei are pretty common as Hunters too.
Draenei numbers aside, the simple fact is that you can plan with the aura in mind, and plenty guilds do because it is simply worth it. No other racial can provide as much rDPS as it can. That is what makes it the most powerful racial of all. And regardless of the Draenei can actually take advantage of it or not himself, it will still give 80% of it's value.
Just like it can be argued that there aren't enough Draenei it can equally be argued that there aren't enough Orcs and Trolls in Horde raids. Trolls are after all the least represented race, at least on my realm in terms of not only numbers but also percentage of the faction. And Orcs are in fact secondlast.
It is considerably harder to plan around having max numbers of them for DPS classes assigned, than it is to find 4 people of one race, regardless of role (though 4 Draenei healers is of course less optimal, with likely the tanks missing out).

 

Machinator

It would be silly to not implement a same faction race change along with faction change. You would get the same result switching sides and then back again.

But once that is done, they either need to water down the racials so that they have practically no effect on a character or, balance them in a very detailed way, possibly giving different bonuses depending on class. Similar to how they try to balance professions.

"Information is ammunition."

 

KTalisman

A 6+ month cooldown on faction changes would put a dampener on this methinks.

There's also no guarantee we get to pick which race we are when we switch.

 

Rhaegal

That's not entirely true. Take the Draenei Gemcutting racial that gives +5 bonus to JC. This not only lets you start out higher, but it also raises the skill point at which each recipe changes from orange to yellow, yellow to green, etc. by 5. It ends up making the professions with this bonus cheaper to level for the appropriate races, and makes the really annoying parts of a profession, where all you can make are either expensive items or green items, not take as long to get through. It's obviously not going to make you look better on Recount, but it's certainly a bit of a time and money saver.

As to the Draenei +hit aura racial, think of it like this. For every person affected by the aura, it's worth the equivalent of roughly two [Rigid Autumn's Glow] for physical DPS or one pure hit gem and a mixed gem for casters. (Both actually underestimate slightly, but they're close.) For a hunter, the racial is worth a passive 64 AP or 32 Agility; for a mage, it's worth 28-29 SP. Multiply that by 5 people in the group, and the racial is worth 320 AP or 140 SP, passive. The Orc Blood Fury racial grants 322 AP/163 SP for 15 seconds every two minutes, or 40 AP/20 SP average, used on cooldown. (Of course, having an extra cooldown to pop during burn phases like Saronite Animus increases the value by a good bit.) A Draenei gets just as much benefit (arguably more, maybe less on fights with specific short burn phases) from the 1% hit aura than an Orc gets from Blood Fury, one of the best Horde PvE racials, plus the rest of the group gets the same benefit.

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!

 

atua

This is completely wrong. It absolutely does save you the cost of the last 10 points. I was able to level using [Superior Wizard Oil] in TBC well after the skill had gone "gray" at 360, to get to 370 in game. Not having to level the extra 10 enchanting skillups back in Novemeber when WotLK was first released, saved me close to 1k gold worth of mats at the time. Hardly worthless, in my opinion.

 

Leviathon

Blizzard answered some questions.

World of Warcraft (en) Forums -> 01/07 Faction-Change Service in the Works

 

Lazi

Do you think this is because love Tauren so much though and not because they're forced to (Druids) or because of War Stomp/Endurance? I play a Horde Druid because, after a hiatus from the game before BC, I played Horde, and the people I was going back to play with were all still Horde. I played a Troll Shaman beforehand and wanted a change, but retaining the flexibility my Shaman offered...and as everyone remembers, there was a glut of Paladins early on so I went with Druid, even though frankly I hate how Tauren look but I absolutely love the Druid class.

I would hope that the change really is "as close to a reflection of the other faction as much as possible." otherwise I can't see the market being very big. My Druid has a lot of achievements and I certainly wouldn't want to sacrifice them - as has been already pointed out, if I wanted to, I would have rerolled already. Levelling is not the hard part.

 

Machinator

That may be, but once they implement a way to change to a different race of a different faction, what would be the justification for not having the ability to change to a different race of the same faction?

These two thing together make no sense, it is completely arbitrary to disallow same faction race change with this. It seems like a missed opportunity for revenue too.

"Information is ammunition."

 

ildon

Which just proves the point that their goal is not revenue but to add a service that players have been requesting for a long time. I'm sure that for the majority of their services, the price is more there to prevent abuse or to make using the service a decision you actually have to think about instead of something you just do all the time on a whim, or at most to simply recoup the development/maintenance costs, rather than as some secondary revenue source.

 

Leviathon

While Blizzard may want money they still want to prevent some dumb things from happening. They don't want people just changing races to the current FotM race such as every horde shaman going orc in 3.2. By making limits they are making it more of a cosmetic change (as it should be) rather than having people just change based on racials.

 

Zaniel

I believe they're disallowing the inter-faction choice specifically to limit the amount of people that would switch just for different racials. They don't want to have to completely rebalance the racials again. They're trying to make them (more or less) equivalent already, but we all know how that's gone.

If they allowed inter-faction race changes, then while it would garner more changes (due to people wanting that 1% increase in character ability), it would also be pointing a finger at one of Blizzard's biggest failings -- the lack of parity in racials.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not defending the decision. I can, however, see some of the reasons for it. I'm glad there won't be people swapping simply to get the FOTM racial every arena season (or month? /shudder).

 

Melchior

There's still going to be plenty of people that use this service for the explicit purpose of getting new racials. The difference is that those people are going to affect the faction and/or server balance (if they are forced to move on a PvP server) every single time instead of only part of the time, because some of those folks may have just switched races within their current faction.

If anything, the fact that they are planning the entire development of a feature around this just seems like an open admission that they don't intend for racials to really be balanced at all (unless the deployment of this feature coincides with the removal of racials altogether, which isn't very likely). We're still going to see an increase of UD Rogues, they're just going to be ex-Gnomes or ex-Night Elves instead of ex-Trolls. It's completely arbitrary and points to a very large design failure that they have to make such large considerations in the first place.

http://sig.gamerdna.com/quizzes/INFL...erks/Junon.png

 

JuhnorX

I wonder how Blizzard will control the faction change in terms of which server, and alts on the same server as the character you wish to change.

I can only see the option as if you wish to change faction, it would have to be to an alternate realm, or to delete alts if on the same realm, or to move them. Otherwise we would completely lose the current world order which Blizzard originally created by not allowing factions to converse, or to have one of each faction on the same realm.

Could make for some great neutral AH abuse otherwise, could completely destroy the economy.

 

Valerian

Its only PvP realms where you can't have characters on both factions I thought.

 

dexx

I expect that the faction-change facility will look at the ratio of Horde/Alliance before proceeding. If the number of horde on a given realm is too high, for example, the facility will not allow you to move from Alli.

 

Glayde

It will be interesting to see what they put in place to address faction imbalances. As of yet we haven't seen any limits on server transfers based on faction. We have seen a couple of free transfers that are faction specific but it never disallowed transfers to the larger faction. If they do limit it, it would be logical to extend the limit to server transfers as well.

People wanting to move chars to the larger faction who already have established (level and/or time) characters there, would have little or no impact on the imbalance, and should be allowed to transfer. I'd be afraid that any simple limits would overlook this.

And if they limit faction transfers but not server transfers by faction, you could simply transfer off, swap and transfer back in 30 days. Granted it costs extra money.

In reality, some servers are so unbalanced and there's really nothing they can do to fix them. There is very little incentive to move to an underpopulated faction, especially on a pvp server, and a lot of incentive to move away from one.

 

Rhaegal

They already have a track record for ignoring things like this, and forcing the restrictions despite the presence of other characters on that account at the desired destination. At one point when server transfers to Zul'jin were locked, I had 2 or 3 max level characters on the server that I was playing regularly, and wanted to transfer a couple others here (mostly to abuse their professions), but even though ZJ was obviously my primary server I was unable to do so. I talked to a GM and had some e-mail "conversations" with customer support, but all I ever got were canned responses saying that transfers were locked and to check back regularly, as the lock might be lifted at any time.

Stand back! I'm going to try SCIENCE!

 

Orin

I think where Blizzard is really going to make some cash here is from the people who have an opposite faction character on some random realm, and they want to do do two things with it. Switch it's faction, and then transfer it to play with friends. Blizzard then gets two payments from the customer, and a nice boost in profits.

 

Tinwhisker

From the /LFGuild forum:
"The creation fee is not there to merely pad our pockets; it also serves as an effective deterrent to those wishing to recruit for their comedy/vanity guilds and for those unwilling to craft a thoughtful advertisement."

A cooldown on faction transfer is all well and good but attaching a fee to it also adds quite a bit to the idea that this isn't something that should be done "willy-nilly." Rolling a new character is easier than ever and if all you want is to play the opposite faction, then that should be the obvious choice.

Faction transfers need the restrictions of cooldowns and fees to impress the seriousness of the change and impart a sense of permanence to it.

You're a lot of DPS, you know that? You wanna' earn 14 achievement points the hard way?