Daggerfall vs Ebonheart Aggresiveness

Doctor_David · January 2020

I've been running though the basic game story (yes, I'm new) for the Daggerfall Covenant and the Ebonheart Pact. So far the former has been about uniting the faction by bringing in the Orcs. The Latter has been more about stopping the Daggerfall from invading.

Is the Daggerfall more aggresive and/or has more initiative in the faction wars? Or was that just what the dev's came up with for a plot?

VaranisArano · January 2020

The Ebonheart Pact's questline features the Three Banners War much more heavily than the other two alliances' questlines.

Aigym_Hlervu · January 2020

I am a Pact warrior. So, yes, the Daggers are really out of it along the Dominion. I wish the Pact could have at least a single quest to retaliate, to ravage those Breton and Altmeri lands for everything they've done to us. Moreover the Bleakrock Isle is still under the Breton occupation! The remnants of those invading forces, those armed survivors, holdovers (I can't pick up the right word regarding them) are still walking our lands. It is disgusting to be unable to kill those s'wits totally. A pity it isn't as if we could join those Jackdaw "Pirates" in their mission to destroy that filthy Aldmeri town in Grahtwood - we are bound to oppose them!.. So all we are left to do is to murder those Covenant and Aldmeri soldiers and workers in Cyrodiil and to tramp down their corpses with a certain emote command.

redgreensunset · January 2020

VaranisArano wrote: »

The Ebonheart Pact's questline features the Three Banners War much more heavily than the other two alliances' questlines.

I only recently finishes the main zone stories for all three factions and honestly the EP qere the only one who really felt like they were at war. DC and AD were too busy either getting invaded by daedra or dealing with internal stuff and the actual war going on felt like addon when it is even mentioned.

Jacen_Veron · January 2020

The Pact actively performs necromancy in Auridon. The Covenant also attacks Auridon by the sea. The Dominion attacks Glenumbra by the sea.

Those are the only ones I remember, but there are lots of instances where each alliance appears in opposition lands. It usually occurs in delves.

But the Pact's main questline deals with it more up front, it puts the focus on the war as each great foe in the war is featured as a regional antagonist.

Doctor_David · January 2020

The question I was wondering about was whether this was a lore, or just what different writer were able to come with.

Is it lore that the only real invasion of home territory was the DC invading the EP? Of is it just that the writers for EP thought the war was an interesting storyline and the other's found different thing to focus on? Or maybe they were deliberately different so that people who wanted to see the war could play EP and those who wanted other plots could play the other factions?

VaranisArano · January 2020

Doctor_David wrote: »

The question I was wondering about was whether this was a lore, or just what different writer were able to come with.

Is it lore that the only real invasion of home territory was the DC invading the EP? Of is it just that the writers for EP thought the war was an interesting storyline and the other's found different thing to focus on? Or maybe they were deliberately different so that people who wanted to see the war could play EP and those who wanted other plots could play the other factions?

We do see some smaller quests in the AD and DC faction questlines that hint at smaller invasions from the other factions, including EP. We learn from Stonefalls that EP is taking prisoners from the other alliances to use as slaves, replacing Argonians.

The other factions have their own invasion arcs - AD has the Maomer and the Imperials, DC has the Imperials. EP just has the only full-scale invasions by the other factions as a major focus.

Aigym_Hlervu · January 2020

Doctor_David wrote: »

The question I was wondering about was whether this was a lore, or just what different writer were able to come with.

Is it lore that the only real invasion of home territory was the DC invading the EP? Of is it just that the writers for EP thought the war was an interesting storyline and the other's found different thing to focus on? Or maybe they were deliberately different so that people who wanted to see the war could play EP and those who wanted other plots could play the other factions?

I'm not sure if I understand your question right, sorry.. Answering your questions: 1. It is the lore, 2. It is just the writers and 3. It could be that way of those writers thinking. The game lore is written by those writers, why do you separate the lore and those who create it by opposing your questions among each other? Though I could read it some wrong way..

Anyway, I don't know what those writers had thought, but the result they wrote became the lore. If you mean if the Alliance storylines had been written in TES series before the ESO was created, then no - they are the product of the ESO lore team. But the Interregnum period we live in there was created at least ~20 years ago in the times of TES III.

If I remember it correctly, before the ESO the Interregnum period was only known from books as the period of great turmoil, anti-intellectualism of audiences, the time when Chim-el Adabal was lost during "the petty wars of gone-heathen kings", West and East knew no union then and all the lands outside of them saw Cyrodiil as a "nest of snakemen and snakes". Well, there were some records on the Aldmeri Dominion if I recall it correctly. The detailed events we witness in the ESO are the creations of the ESO writers but they are the lore events too. I hope I've answered your questions.

Danikat · January 2020

It's just the way the maps storylines are designed. In lore all 3 alliances are pretty much equal, none is more or less agressive or has an upperhand over the others, which is a deliberate decision so players can choose the one they want without feeling like there's obvious good or bad choices.

If you're not familiar with Elder Scrolls history here's what happens at the end of the Three-Banners War:

Everyone loses. The war goes on in one form or another for a couple of centuries until a man called Cuhlecain and his general Tiber Septim form a 4th faction. They successfully conquer Cyrodiil and then Tiber Septim goes on to conquer the rest of Tamriel and unites it into the 3rd Empire, which rules for about 700 years.

storm105 · January 2020

All 3 alliance stories are pretty different. The Pact storyline is the most involved in the war, while the dominion mostly focuses on internal conflicts, and the Covenant focuses a lot more on beating the worm cult and molag bal. Most of the villains in the covenant are just evil wizards who are occasionally allied with the worm cult and attempt to take over. The war is just some ongoing conflict occasionally mentioned in by characters and the only quests in the covenant that involve the war are side quests. There is a Dominion invasion in Glenumbra and Pact slavers in Stormhaven but that's it.

Nomadic_Atmoran · January 2020

Doctor_David wrote: »

I've been running though the basic game story (yes, I'm new) for the Daggerfall Covenant and the Ebonheart Pact. So far the former has been about uniting the faction by bringing in the Orcs. The Latter has been more about stopping the Daggerfall from invading.

Is the Daggerfall more aggresive and/or has more initiative in the faction wars? Or was that just what the dev's came up with for a plot?

I personally think that the Developers did not have a crystal clear idea of what they wanted to do with the Ebonheart Pact. The storyline makes it seem like after 10 years the EP has not really unified in a meaningful manner. But there is really nothing to strongly support that position. In fact their own story supports the idea that they were working closely together from the beginning and that the spats we witness in the game are minor issues between individuals rather than representative across the alliance.

In Stonefalls we are up against the clock in the first half trying to get word to the rest of the EP that the DC is invading. And once we are in Davonswatch we see the EP effectively defeat the army laying seige to the city rather quickly. But once we move to Ebonheart its as if no one cares about the army amassing on the nearby beaches even though everyone seems to be itching for a fight. All of the parties involved are present but you have to drag them screaming and kicking to the battle even though its in their best interests to defend them selves against an outside threat.

When we reach Shadowfen, which should be a hotbed of mistrust and infighting due to its history, we witness some shallow but meaningless accusations about who is behind the attacks. But by the time you get a short ways down the road from Stormhold, and find yourself at Tenmar Wok, its the last place you encounter any sort of mention of internal issues amongst the alliance. From then on out the storyline focuses heavily on stopping the AD from commencing with a genocide against the Argonians.

Out of all of the alliances in the game. The EP has one of the most difficult to believe pair-ups. And in my opinion ZOS did a poor job of addressing the multiple elephants in the room. The racism of the Dunmer, and even the Nords, are never truely addressed. The mistreatment and lack of equality afforded the Argonians is barely mentioned. The means of how the EP functions as an alliance or government is never spoken of. The AD storyline does a better job of addressing the inequalities within its alliance than the EP does.

We still have some Pact regions to explore in the future and hopefully we get more insight into these issues there. But they really dropped the ball with the base game.