PvP Faction Balance Updates (Nov 9 PST)

Blizzard community manager Kaivax posted this announcement on the forums on Nov 9 (Mon), 6:05 PM PST.

Announcement

It’s vitally important that the PvP rulesets in WoW: Forever have balanced factions where both factions vie for supremacy, creating memories of epic victories and stunning defeats that we all remember for years to come. While even the most extreme case in a region is currently at roughly a 55/45 split, that is not as close as we want it to be.
To better set the stage for the neck-and-neck conflicts we all want, we’ve adjusted the character creation system to better recognize the overall state of faction balance in each region’s PvP rulesets, rather than what may feel like snapshots of points in time. Our goal is to bring things as close to a 50/50 faction balance as possible.
In the short term, that means that it will become increasingly difficult to create characters on the more populous faction in each region – currently Horde on North American PvP rulesets or Alliance in EU Roleplay-PvP. As everyone settles and shifts, these may flip to the other side. We recognize that while restrictions are in place, it can be frustrating to not be able to start playing a specific faction in that moment, but this is a necessary trade-off for the long-term health of the ruleset, especially early on when guilds are being established and rivalries developed.
World of Warcraft: Forever’s PvP is at its best when the Alliance and Horde are on equal footing, and we are dedicated to helping maintain that balance so that we can all witness battles at the epic scale that has made WoW Forever PvP so memorable thus far.

Reply on trial characters

In the thread under the announcement, Alliance players said they were badly outnumbered in contested zones and doubted the 55/45 figure. Several claimed that Horde players had used Invite-a-Friend trial accounts to create level 1 Alliance characters that would never be played, getting around the faction restriction, so the real gap was wider. Others suggested counting only characters level 10 and above.

Others replied that there was no evidence of this, or that Alliance players should group up and fight back. Many argued that limiting character creation could not close a gap that already existed and called for faction balance per layer, free faction changes or login queues for the Horde.

On Nov 9 (Mon), 7:04 PM PST, Kaivax answered a reply saying the population must be far more skewed toward the Horde once trial accounts are taken into account.

“when taking into account the trial accounts.”
We did significant investigation into that, and there is no evidence that trial characters had any impact at all.
When we say 55/45, we’re looking at the active logged-in population across all levels over a specific period of time.

Lower population in congested zones

Alongside the faction split, the thread kept coming back to layering. Alliance players said contested zones were full of Horde on whichever layer they switched to and asked for faction balance per layer, while one Horde player wrote that layers were too full in general, with 20 people at every quest spot.

On Nov 9 (Mon), 7:11 PM PST, Kaivax added a change that had gone in earlier that day, without replying to a specific post.

It’s worth adding that earlier today, we implemented this change:
Lowered the population of players in various zones where there was significant congestion.
Developers’ notes: We’ve made this an even bigger change on the PvP ruleset, following feedback from players that they felt overcrowded in several places. We will continue to monitor how zones feel and make further adjustments as necessary.
You’ll see it also posted in our Hotfixes Update shortly.

What this means for players

Creating new Horde characters on North American PvP rulesets, and new Alliance characters on EU Roleplay-PvP, will become increasingly difficult.
The restriction now follows each region's overall faction balance rather than a snapshot in time. If the smaller faction grows past the other, the restriction can move to the other side.
The announcement does not say how the restriction works in practice or when it will be lifted.
Blizzard's 55/45 figure is the share of players actually logged in over a period of time (all levels), not the number of characters created, and Blizzard says trial characters had no impact on it.
Several congested zones now hold fewer players together, with an even bigger reduction on the PvP ruleset. The reply does not say which zones or by how much.

Source