I have two 120 character I play everyday. One horde and one alliance. Both with war mode on all the time because I like world PvP. With the Horde character it's almost always peaceful. I attack almost any Alliance I come across, but there are just too few of them.
But when I log on my Alliance character, dear God. Champions of Azeroth quests are the worst, with 10, 20 hordies against me alone. It doesn't matter if I'm playing on an Alliance dominated realm (77% at level 120, according to Realmpop), because the horde comes from many different realms.And here we have the latest in a long history of examples, dating from Ultima Online, that when given a choice, people choose the non-PvP option, especially when it's likely they will lose.
So how would we fix this, or at least bring it up to reasonable parity?
Here's my idea:
- Balance War Mode zones to be equal Horde and Alliance. Move all unmatched Horde players into empty zones without Alliance. Better some Horde have no Alliance to kill, than all Horde. These Horde would still get the War Mode bonus.
- War Mode raids automatically get moved into an empty zone. As well, the War Mode bonus stops applying in raids.
Basically, we are trying to guarantee two things. First, War Mode is always equal in terms of numbers. Second, War Mode is about individual and small group combat. There's no more forming a large raid and steam-rolling all the opposition.
I think those two guarantees would be enough to allow Alliance to feel like there is a level playing field, and make them more willing to try War Mode. Restricting War Mode to small groups also feels more even.
The downside, though, is that you do give up the raid vs raid clashes, as in the old days of Southshore and Tarren Mill. It also would make Capital City raids, to kill faction leaders, rather weird. You might need special rules for faction zones.
But I think it would improve the day-to-day experience of War Mode in the regular leveling and expansion zones.