- The Truth About Factions in ESO -

NirnStorm

This is gonna be a longie. Please bear with me on this.
Otherwise, tl;dr in the end.

I remember the 2nd day of open beta.
Me and my friends got on our lvl1 horses and rode across Auriel's Bow (OG 30 days camp) completley unaware of transits existence, only to realize the scroll gate is shut and we can't steal DC scrolls. Funny story.

Those friends are long gone. Haven't played eso in 4 years.
But I have. I've played this game for 5 years+ now, and I made new friends. Many new friends.
Some are EP mains. Some are DC mains. Some are AD mains. Some play all three regularly.
One Tamriel ensured I'll run into people from all factions and get to play with them all.

And so, I've got quite a few groups of friends, on all factions. And since my only fun in ESO atm is PvP, I've PvPed with all 3.
I even made my PvP guild out of members of all three alliances, knowing we can all pick a side and play together as we wish.
As ESO enabled us to do, and even encouraged - by removing the original faction locks and implementing One Tamriel- causing us to run into all factions in PvE zones, quest with all, do events with all, have trade guilds with mixed factions and queuing us into dungeons with all factions.

And now you tell me I can't play with my friends. I have to choose just one group.
My guild can't keep playing in the main campaign if people main different factions.
We have absolutley no way to keep active as a guild unless people turn against their groups of friends on their main faction and choose to commit to play with just us.

You can tell me we can go to the 7days campaign, but knowing my timezone and the amount of players in Cyro off-primetime, I know it will be dead empty.
It's go loyal or go home. But you can't just be loyal to your friends.


TL;DR:
I boohoo about faction-lock because I will miss my stupid frendz.


Now to the most important thing:
I recently started an online petition asking ZOS to not re-introduce faction lock.
I've gathered a few like minded friends of mine to sign it but I am sure there are so many more people out there who agree with us. So please-
If you agree that faction lock should not be introduced to the game the way it's planned to, please take 5 seconds of your life and sign this petition.
You can use your ingame name or any name you like and it seriously takes no more than a few seconds to do.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/community_petitions/Zenimax_Online_Studios_Remove_Faction_Lock_From_ESO/details/



A petition and a forum post may not be likely to help our impending doom- but heck if I wont try to stop it anyways, and the same goes for you.

Nermy

You know, you could decide as a guild to play the campaign for EP and the next DC and rotate. Your members would soon get used to it.

I can understand your frustration but do you remember faction-loyal players' frustration when One Tamriel did away with faction lock?

They maybe closing the barn door after the horse has bolted (google it lol) but isn't ZoS known for that? lol

gepe87

Just move your guildies and friend to the no locked campaign, the prizes are about the same. Oops but you cant farm on low level players - they stay on locked campaign.

NirnStorm

Nermy wrote: »

You know, you could decide as a guild to play the campaign for EP and the next DC and rotate. Your members would soon get used to it.

I can understand your frustration but do you remember faction-loyal players' frustration when One Tamriel did away with faction lock?

They maybe closing the barn door after the horse has bolted (google it lol) but isn't ZoS known for that? lol

My guildmates main different factions though. Are you telling me I should request them to not play with their other friends 2/3 months?

And yeah I understand the frustration faction loyalists have experienced, but they could still play with their friends. I can't. And playing with friends is why I still play this game.

gepe87 wrote: »

Just move your guildies and friend to the no locked campaign, the prizes are about the same. Oops but you cant farm on low level players - they stay on locked campaign.

Shor will be 100% empty outside of primetime, and my timezone doesn't allow for primetime play. Guess I should farm NPCs instead huh?

Nermy

NirnStorm wrote: »

Nermy wrote: »

You know, you could decide as a guild to play the campaign for EP and the next DC and rotate. Your members would soon get used to it.

I can understand your frustration but do you remember faction-loyal players' frustration when One Tamriel did away with faction lock?

They maybe closing the barn door after the horse has bolted (google it lol) but isn't ZoS known for that? lol

My guildmates main different factions though. Are you telling me I should request them to not play with their other friends 2/3 months?

Well maybe you could suggest that each month they main a different faction? Just like you have been faction hopping to play with them.

Don't just look at the problems; try looking at the solutions. I know it's not perfect but I am just throwing it out there.

Ranger209

Even on a locked campaign you have the ability to do the same thing you are doing now. It's just bigger blocks of time. Instead of swapping once a day to play with them you can swap once every 30 days to play with them, or your guild can move to the campaign where you can still do this every day. There are options. For people who are interested in the score and want to know that the guy they are fighting along side right now won't be fighting against them in 30 minutes, well now there will be an option for that as well. There currently is no option for those people at all.

NirnStorm

Nermy wrote: »

NirnStorm wrote: »

Nermy wrote: »

You know, you could decide as a guild to play the campaign for EP and the next DC and rotate. Your members would soon get used to it.

I can understand your frustration but do you remember faction-loyal players' frustration when One Tamriel did away with faction lock?

They maybe closing the barn door after the horse has bolted (google it lol) but isn't ZoS known for that? lol

My guildmates main different factions though. Are you telling me I should request them to not play with their other friends 2/3 months?

Well maybe you could suggest that each month they main a different faction? Just like you have been faction hopping to play with them.

Don't just look at the problems; try looking at the solutions. I know it's not perfect but I am just throwing it out there.

That's just what I am saying though. Even if the guild mains each faction once per 3 months 2/3 months the members of said faction who plays with the guild have to choose either the guild or their other friends, which makes no sense to them or to me..

caeliusstarbreaker

Just tell your friend next door that you are gonna have to hang out with your friends from the other neighborhood for 30 days, and you’ll resume hanging out with him in 30 days because someone who only plays in a 3rd neighborhood thinks you should only have fun with those in one neighborhood.

JTorus

Remember that time Michael Jordan ran across the field and caught Brett Favre's pass?

Yeah, me neither.

Pick your team for the season, and play. Next season, do something different.

Gilvoth

petitions are against TOS
not allowed on forums, its the rule and i agree with that as a rule.
and i also agree with all the others, that the faction lock is a good idea.

MipMip

Ranger209 wrote: »

For people who are interested in the score and want to know that the guy they are fighting along side right now won't be fighting against them in 30 minutes, well now there will be an option for that as well. There currently is no option for those people at all.

If some people want to play exclusively with other people who care about the faction score I am totally ok with creating a campaign for them.

But the way the lock is planned now this is not the case. Since the only popular & populated campaigns (the 30 day campaigns) will be locked if this goes live, people who are not interested in the score will be forced to play there too, and you will be playing alongside people who don't care about the score and whose actions will not be directed at winning the campaign.

Ranger209

MipMip wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

For people who are interested in the score and want to know that the guy they are fighting along side right now won't be fighting against them in 30 minutes, well now there will be an option for that as well. There currently is no option for those people at all.

If some people want to play exclusively with other people who care about the faction score I am totally ok with creating a campaign for them.

But the way the lock is planned now this is not the case. Since the only popular & populated campaigns (the 30 day campaigns) will be locked if this goes live, people who are not interested in the score will be forced to play there too, and you will be playing alongside people who don't care about the score and whose actions will not be directed at winning the campaign.

No you will be choosing to play there because you will be prioritizing a fuller server over your playstyle of faction jumping. The same thing could be said if the shoe was on the other foot that faction loyalists would be forced to play there on the 30 day faction hopper campaign because there won't be enough people to fill a 7 day locked server. In either case there is a choice. What you people are doing is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. You are all preaching don't go there as there will not be enough players there, which will make no one go there and not be enough players there. Give it a shot for 7 days, it's only 7 days. We also do not know how this will play out over 3 - 6 months. There will certainly be more reasons to play the 7 day campaign now than there have been on live for the last 2 years.

frozywozy

Ranger209 wrote: »

MipMip wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

For people who are interested in the score and want to know that the guy they are fighting along side right now won't be fighting against them in 30 minutes, well now there will be an option for that as well. There currently is no option for those people at all.

If some people want to play exclusively with other people who care about the faction score I am totally ok with creating a campaign for them.

But the way the lock is planned now this is not the case. Since the only popular & populated campaigns (the 30 day campaigns) will be locked if this goes live, people who are not interested in the score will be forced to play there too, and you will be playing alongside people who don't care about the score and whose actions will not be directed at winning the campaign.

No you will be choosing to play there because you will be prioritizing a fuller server over your playstyle of faction jumping. The same thing could be said if the shoe was on the other foot that faction loyalists would be forced to play there on the 30 day faction hopper campaign because there won't be enough people to fill a 7 day locked server. In either case there is a choice. What you people are doing is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. You are all preaching don't go there as there will not be enough players there, which will make no one go there and not be enough players there. Give it a shot for 7 days, it's only 7 days. We also do not know how this will play out over 3 - 6 months. There will certainly be more reasons to play the 7 day campaign now than there have been on live for the last 2 years.

I don't want to be pessimist and encourage a bad behavior but we have to be realistic here. We barely have enough population to cover 2 campaigns which are currently Vivec and Sotha. Don't get your hopes up thinking that people will actually populate a third campaign or switch from Vivec / Sotha to a third one. The best and most logical odds would be that people spread between two campaigns first, and when the game gets more popular / attractive / playable, then think about a third one.

Ranger209

If, and this is a big if, the 3 over 50 campaigns were all at a solid 3 bar faction at prime time that could be a good thing. I think there are enough people who want to swap factions, or have characters that will be locked out of a locked campaign and still want to get geodes on, that this could potentially happen. As always the big guilds will influence the population split the most. If some of those big guilds go to the 7 day on the regular or even have nights dedicated to geode farming on locked out characters this is within the realm of possibility. Some of the no CP players may even venture in there for geode farming. Maybe I am being hopelessly optimistic, but we will find out I guess.

dazee

I'd sign but not giving my real info to some random website census. I 100% agree with you and wonder how anyone in their right mind could want faction locks (unless theyre just malicious trolls who want to ruin the fun of anyone who plays differently from them)

Elong

Ahtu showing faction loyal players are the most toxic ones.

Kikke

If all that was crying about faction locks being a bad thing just went to the 7-day campaign, it would not be dead.

DisgracefulMind

Kikke wrote: »

If all that was crying about faction locks being a bad thing just went to the 7-day campaign, it would not be dead.

Not everyone plays in primetime

josh.lackey_ESO

Ranger209 wrote: »

MipMip wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

For people who are interested in the score and want to know that the guy they are fighting along side right now won't be fighting against them in 30 minutes, well now there will be an option for that as well. There currently is no option for those people at all.

If some people want to play exclusively with other people who care about the faction score I am totally ok with creating a campaign for them.

But the way the lock is planned now this is not the case. Since the only popular & populated campaigns (the 30 day campaigns) will be locked if this goes live, people who are not interested in the score will be forced to play there too, and you will be playing alongside people who don't care about the score and whose actions will not be directed at winning the campaign.

No you will be choosing to play there because you will be prioritizing a fuller server over your playstyle of faction jumping. The same thing could be said if the shoe was on the other foot that faction loyalists would be forced to play there on the 30 day faction hopper campaign because there won't be enough people to fill a 7 day locked server. In either case there is a choice. What you people are doing is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. You are all preaching don't go there as there will not be enough players there, which will make no one go there and not be enough players there. Give it a shot for 7 days, it's only 7 days. We also do not know how this will play out over 3 - 6 months. There will certainly be more reasons to play the 7 day campaign now than there have been on live for the last 2 years.

Why not make the 7 day faction locked, and you can go there and try it if you like it. Give it a shot for 7 days, it's only 7 days.

What you are omitting from your analysis here is that without the faction lock, everyone can play all their characters. People can choose to be faction loyal or they can choose to be multi faction. But if you implement the lock, you FORCE people into only one style of play -- you can no longer make a choice. You want to ZOS to force everyone to play your way because you can't convince people to do it by choice. If you want people to commit to your faction, why don't you try persuasion?

Professional teams pay big contracts. Maybe if you want certain people or even a guild team to be loyal to your faction you should consider paying them a contract fee for the campaign. (I will consider any offer over 3 million or 15,000 crown gifts to stay loyal to your faction, rank on the leaderboard. For an extra 2 million or 8,000 crowns I will even coordinate pug groups to play the map.)

What faction lock comes off to me as is like begging your mom to make your friends play with you, or like middle school kick ball where you are the last person who gets picked everytime and so you want the gym teacher to make permanent team assignments for the semester so your feelings don't get hurt because people don't choose to play with you.

And look, consider this: If you lock the 7 day campaign, and it's dead, you could still come play in the unlocked flagship 30-day campaign no matter what faction you are. If you do it the other way around, multi-faction people cannot fall back to a locked 30-day because they are locked out on 2/3rd of their characters.

dtsharples

How about instead of saying "Oh the campaign will be empty and boring" like all the other faction hoppers are, plan to move your asses over to said campaign so that it ISN'T dead and boring.
Hey, being the all-faction-loving kinda guy that you are, you could possibly even sway a few other faction guilds into joining you there for some actual PVP It might be real tricky, or these people moaning might just be stubborn and unreasonable, who knows? But it looks like a pretty simple idea to me if I'm honest.

NirnStorm

dtsharples wrote: »

How about instead of saying "Oh the campaign will be empty and boring" like all the other faction hoppers are, plan to move your asses over to said campaign so that it ISN'T dead and boring.
Hey, being the all-faction-loving kinda guy that you are, you could possibly even sway a few other faction guilds into joining you there for some actual PVP It might be real tricky, or these people moaning might just be stubborn and unreasonable, who knows? But it looks like a pretty simple idea to me if I'm honest.

You do realize there are 3 bars avg per faction across ALL campaigns together off primetime?
Even if in theory we could convince half the people to move to another campaign it will be 1-2 bars for each campaign until primetime. That is basically ded campaign.

Why do you think people only play Viv off primetime in live patch? Because there aren't enough people to fill up even one campaign.

dtsharples

Then it seems your issue lies in your time zone, not a faction lock.
Try convincing those that play at your primetime (regardless of campaign) to come to join you in the same Campaign. That would help everyone.
Otherwise you'll be stuck with PVDoor as usual.

JTorus

NirnStorm wrote: »

Why do you think people only play Viv off primetime in live patch? Because there aren't enough people to fill up even one campaign.

Don't worry, school is letting out for summer soon, which may improve population during normal working hours. I'm sure a couple months of hate tells quality engagement is right around the corner!

NirnStorm

dtsharples wrote: »

Otherwise you'll be stuck with PVDoor as usual.

So much toxicity in all your messages, such a lovely debate partner.

And you seem legit like all those people who complain about night capping saying "you should shut down the servers whenever I am asleep".

Fact is, outside of those less than 6 hours defined as prime time, there is never more than populated campaign. I at least play on PC NA so there is SOME action, I hear EU has none at all outside of primetime.
The point is you can't just call it the perfect solution because it suits your timezone and *** with everyone elses. This will seriously ruin the PvP experience for everyone trying to get good fights off prime.

Glory

frozywozy wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

MipMip wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

For people who are interested in the score and want to know that the guy they are fighting along side right now won't be fighting against them in 30 minutes, well now there will be an option for that as well. There currently is no option for those people at all.

If some people want to play exclusively with other people who care about the faction score I am totally ok with creating a campaign for them.

But the way the lock is planned now this is not the case. Since the only popular & populated campaigns (the 30 day campaigns) will be locked if this goes live, people who are not interested in the score will be forced to play there too, and you will be playing alongside people who don't care about the score and whose actions will not be directed at winning the campaign.

No you will be choosing to play there because you will be prioritizing a fuller server over your playstyle of faction jumping. The same thing could be said if the shoe was on the other foot that faction loyalists would be forced to play there on the 30 day faction hopper campaign because there won't be enough people to fill a 7 day locked server. In either case there is a choice. What you people are doing is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. You are all preaching don't go there as there will not be enough players there, which will make no one go there and not be enough players there. Give it a shot for 7 days, it's only 7 days. We also do not know how this will play out over 3 - 6 months. There will certainly be more reasons to play the 7 day campaign now than there have been on live for the last 2 years.

I don't want to be pessimist and encourage a bad behavior but we have to be realistic here. We barely have enough population to cover 2 campaigns which are currently Vivec and Sotha. Don't get your hopes up thinking that people will actually populate a third campaign or switch from Vivec / Sotha to a third one. The best and most logical odds would be that people spread between two campaigns first, and when the game gets more popular / attractive / playable, then think about a third one.

Thank you for being realistic. Although I disagree with your stance on faction locks, it is nice to see that you agree that populations aren't healthy enough to see this mystical revival of non-faction locked campaigns.

Soul_Demon

NirnStorm wrote: »

This is gonna be a longie. Please bear with me on this.
Otherwise, tl;dr in the end.

I remember the 2nd day of open beta.
Me and my friends got on our lvl1 horses and rode across Auriel's Bow (OG 30 days camp) completley unaware of transits existence, only to realize the scroll gate is shut and we can't steal DC scrolls. Funny story.

Those friends are long gone. Haven't played eso in 4 years.
But I have. I've played this game for 5 years+ now, and I made new friends. Many new friends.
Some are EP mains. Some are DC mains. Some are AD mains. Some play all three regularly.
One Tamriel ensured I'll run into people from all factions and get to play with them all.

And so, I've got quite a few groups of friends, on all factions. And since my only fun in ESO atm is PvP, I've PvPed with all 3.
I even made my PvP guild out of members of all three alliances, knowing we can all pick a side and play together as we wish.
As ESO enabled us to do, and even encouraged - by removing the original faction locks and implementing One Tamriel- causing us to run into all factions in PvE zones, quest with all, do events with all, have trade guilds with mixed factions and queuing us into dungeons with all factions.

And now you tell me I can't play with my friends. I have to choose just one group.
My guild can't keep playing in the main campaign if people main different factions.
We have absolutley no way to keep active as a guild unless people turn against their groups of friends on their main faction and choose to commit to play with just us.

You can tell me we can go to the 7days campaign, but knowing my timezone and the amount of players in Cyro off-primetime, I know it will be dead empty.
It's go loyal or go home. But you can't just be loyal to your friends.


TL;DR:
I boohoo about faction-lock because I will miss my stupid frendz.


Now to the most important thing:
I recently started an online petition asking ZOS to not re-introduce faction lock.
I've gathered a few like minded friends of mine to sign it but I am sure there are so many more people out there who agree with us. So please-
If you agree that faction lock should not be introduced to the game the way it's planned to, please take 5 seconds of your life and sign this petition.
You can use your ingame name or any name you like and it seriously takes no more than a few seconds to do.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/community_petitions/Zenimax_Online_Studios_Remove_Faction_Lock_From_ESO/details/



A petition and a forum post may not be likely to help our impending doom- but heck if I wont try to stop it anyways, and the same goes for you.

If I read this correctly you not only recognize that you are given an option for the type of play you want, but go on to say you don't want that because you fear it wont be populated? Odd, because that is what others who DO want the lock have said for a very long time...those who don't want a lock are prolific posters in forums but less impact on campaigns regardless of representing themselves as the 'vast majority'. As a matter of fact you started not only this thread (one of many already up as proof of prolific posting by that minority) but also a petition to push the agenda of NOT let 'me' play the way I want....but to be very clear here 'don't let others have any options' cause I don't want the options you give me to play the way I want.

I respect you don't share my opinion that faction locks were and have been needed for a very long time and certainly hear you don't like this....but its not even live yet. Since 2016 we have had NO CHOICE to play on faction locked servers regardless of the cheats, exploits and flat trollish behaviors quoted by many not to mention the zone toxicity complained about....and now all I see are players saying they recognize that there is a very clear option for non faction locked players to play, but they are "majority" of players and are afraid that the option they are given will be under populated. So- in short continue to allow the minority of players who "just look for good fights" to bounce around at will and remove all choice from all other players who have already put up with incessant problems for well over 2 years now.

Is that about what you are suggesting with your post? Or did I miss something in there that was actually saying something different?

Imryll

If the new Shor is empty, that will be because players didn't care enough about locked/unlocked to give it a chance. Have PvP guild leaders to whom unlocked is important been talking to each other to develop a population base? If communities want to make sure they get to play with one another coordination and placing alts in different campaigns seem like good ideas.

Have you discussed what folks would like to do, given the upcoming restraints, in-guild? If you were to settle on one faction for the thirty-day campaign which would it be? Are your membership mains equally divided among the factions or is one dominant? Does everyone really care or would some be willing to play alts/develop a different faction main to facilitate playing with guildies?

MipMip

NirnStorm wrote: »

Now to the most important thing:
I recently started an online petition asking ZOS to not re-introduce faction lock.
I've gathered a few like minded friends of mine to sign it but I am sure there are so many more people out there who agree with us. So please-
If you agree that faction lock should not be introduced to the game the way it's planned to, please take 5 seconds of your life and sign this petition.
You can use your ingame name or any name you like and it seriously takes no more than a few seconds to do.
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/community_petitions/Zenimax_Online_Studios_Remove_Faction_Lock_From_ESO/details/

Many thanks for creating this petition! Indeed many people are disappointed / very disappointed by the plan to introduce faction lock on the main campaigns.

dtsharples

What are these 'main campaigns' that people keep on blathering on about?
All of the campaigns are being destroyed. FINI. Nuked.
The 'main campaigns' after this will be wherever you chose to populate - and that is up to you, nobody else.

If by 'main' you are referring to 30 Day Campaigns, please explain why that is an issue to you?
You say you don't care for the score. So a 7 day campaign should be just fine.
You say you don't care about rewards. So a 7 day campaign should be just fine.
You just want good fights....Know what, if you populate the 7 days campaign you'll find good fights!!!!
.....All this rocket science is blowing my freaking mind!!

Ranger209

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

Why not make the 7 day faction locked, and you can go there and try it if you like it. Give it a shot for 7 days, it's only 7 days.


And look, consider this: If you lock the 7 day campaign, and it's dead, you could still come play in the unlocked flagship 30-day campaign no matter what faction you are. If you do it the other way around, multi-faction people cannot fall back to a locked 30-day because they are locked out on 2/3rd of their characters.

If this were the case I would join the 7 day campaign and stay there. If this at some other point becomes the case I will go there and stay there.

frozywozy

Glory wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

MipMip wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

For people who are interested in the score and want to know that the guy they are fighting along side right now won't be fighting against them in 30 minutes, well now there will be an option for that as well. There currently is no option for those people at all.

If some people want to play exclusively with other people who care about the faction score I am totally ok with creating a campaign for them.

But the way the lock is planned now this is not the case. Since the only popular & populated campaigns (the 30 day campaigns) will be locked if this goes live, people who are not interested in the score will be forced to play there too, and you will be playing alongside people who don't care about the score and whose actions will not be directed at winning the campaign.

No you will be choosing to play there because you will be prioritizing a fuller server over your playstyle of faction jumping. The same thing could be said if the shoe was on the other foot that faction loyalists would be forced to play there on the 30 day faction hopper campaign because there won't be enough people to fill a 7 day locked server. In either case there is a choice. What you people are doing is creating a self fulfilling prophecy. You are all preaching don't go there as there will not be enough players there, which will make no one go there and not be enough players there. Give it a shot for 7 days, it's only 7 days. We also do not know how this will play out over 3 - 6 months. There will certainly be more reasons to play the 7 day campaign now than there have been on live for the last 2 years.

I don't want to be pessimist and encourage a bad behavior but we have to be realistic here. We barely have enough population to cover 2 campaigns which are currently Vivec and Sotha. Don't get your hopes up thinking that people will actually populate a third campaign or switch from Vivec / Sotha to a third one. The best and most logical odds would be that people spread between two campaigns first, and when the game gets more popular / attractive / playable, then think about a third one.

Thank you for being realistic. Although I disagree with your stance on faction locks, it is nice to see that you agree that populations aren't healthy enough to see this mystical revival of non-faction locked campaigns.

You must have misunderstood what I said. I am convinced that Sotha will get alot of new players, groups, even guilds trying it out and help that campaign get more active during offhours. The only reason why this could not work would be because of the pride of players who strongly disagree with faction locks and who want to prouve the world wrong.

I have always been very encouraged and motivated to play the most popular campaign since release because of the opportunities we get to have action any time of the day. This patch, we took the decision, as a guild, to move entirely to Sotha Sil. This was a hard decision but we believe that if we give it a chance, and encourage this behavior, the health of both 30 days campaigns will be much better in the end.

Groups who enjoy playing on different factions can also help make it better in their own way.