For some it was the long-awaited step, for others far too little and for others it was the umpteenth beginning of WoW’s demise – that is to say the softening of faction boundaries. Because since patch 9.2.5 has arrived on the live servers, we are known to be able to go into mythical dungeons or raids together with players from the other faction. Orcs and humans fight side by side against the jailer or other villains.
And contrary to all fears, the world of WoW has not ended. Horde and Alliance players fight peacefully together rather than at each other’s throats in dungeons and raid reins. The interaction works so well that many players are already demanding the next step. Cross-faction interaction should be extended to systems like LFG and LFR.
Supposed advantages … at first glance
The advantages of this are obvious. More players usually means significantly shorter waiting times. And if you’ve waited in line for over an hour just to get into a group where most of the LFR bosses are already dead, or the dungeon group is on a sit-in for something, you’ll be happy if the next group is already standing faster.
It could also be used to elegantly and painlessly introduce players to cross-faction play. It would then be nothing new for them if one day in the endgame they suddenly faced a human with their orc. The only argument against this is that Blizzard doesn’t want to force anyone to play with the other faction. However, this would exclude these players from the automatic group search. Unless you make the function optional, like current ones in the normal group search. Check in or out for cross faction or not.
The advantage is a clear disadvantage
In this case, however, the supposed advantage would turn out to be a clear disadvantage on closer inspection. The result would be exactly the opposite of what you want to achieve – the waiting times would increase.
Because instead of two camps, the players would then be divided into three camps. Pure Horde players, pure Alliance players, and those who would play across factions. If you divide the amount from two pots into three pots, then fewer players remain per pot – you probably don’t have to have attended an advanced math course for that. In all probability, only the alliance players who activate the function would benefit. The rest would probably have fewer players available afterwards.
WoW: Cross faction play also for LFR and LFG? Sounds good, but it’s a crap idea! (3)
Source: Blizzard
Technical hurdles on top
In addition, it is probably not that easy to convert the system. As a user recognized so nicely, WoW (buy now ) an almost legendary “spaghetti code” in which everything is confusingly intertwined. According to the developers, it was already difficult to get the cross-faction game in its current form.
If you now put the LFG or LFR over it – including various filters, so that five hordlers can be thrown together, for example, even if three of them have switched it on across factions and the other two have switched it off, then more than one server bank will probably implode.
Conclusion: all or nothing
So if Blizzard wants to expand cross-faction play into LFR and LFG, there’s only one sensible solution: no choice. Anything else would bring a lot of trouble but little improvement for the players.
That, in turn, can currently be ruled out quite clearly. At this point in time, Blizzard is unlikely to force players to play across factions – if it can be avoided somehow. The voices against the original softening were too numerous for that. In a few months before the release of WoW Dragonflight, things could look very different. Blizzard knows the numbers and knows what percentage of players oppose the overarching game and how many accept it.
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