Soul_Demon wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

Believe it or not, players have already "voted" on what campaign they want. You vote every time you click on your favorite campaign. If you only go to the one most populated, then you are only following the crowd. That, in itself, should tell you something. If the most populated server IS the one with faction locks, isn't it more logical to believe that people want that server? In a way, then, the majority of players have already voted for faction locks.

About your point that it isn't about faction locks and people just want to play their characters … It may be more important for some people to just simply play their characters, but for others like me, winning is more important. How does one win? By having a bigger score for my team. Games are not won by the skirmishes. It's won by consistent and constant outplaying of your enemy. Hour after Hour.

I think what this discussion boils down to is the same old problem of people believing that what they want is the only viable way to play. Let me assure you that your way is not the only way of everyone on the map nor the only way that one should play. I don't want anyone to speak for me and the way I like to play. I'll do that myself. There is no viable reason why we all can't exist and play on the same map without disparaging each other's play style. Some people like to play small man, don't care about points, etc. Okay. That's what you like so go for it. However, myself and my guild love the thrill of excellence in gaining the most score, so please do not presume that MOST players like what you like. You can only attest to what you and your friends like. Not me and my friends.

My last point is about "faction lock doesn't really do anything else other than promoting faction pride." What's wrong with that? As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing. You seem to want to downplay something you disagree with, but as I stated earlier, no everyone thinks like you. If someone chooses to be faction loyal, that is their choice to make. You trying to make others choose what you have chosen is seen more as an attempt to manipulate ZOS into believing and doing what you want, rather than look at the "voting" that has already taken place.

Let's agree that both styles of play CAN exist on the same map and coexist in positive ways.

I agree.....I think the swappers see the points being made and understand 'following' anyone as a necessity to play means you are not the majority nor do 'most players' want that play-style. If a server opens with locks and a large portion selects that- its showing that is what they want.....all the rest who 'follow' have made their choice just as those who initially moved did. Parasitic play-styles rely on others to get fights and cant populate a server- that is made up largely of swappers....and they know it. Precious resources are being spent 'investigating' what many already knew and its taking time from addressing lag and bugs in game. Time to stop with the excuses as to why the non locked camps bomb immediately. Excuses can keep being rolled out but if you step back and look its clear...the largest part of the player base wants locks and 'all the rest' simply follow those players wherever they go to play. Why keep ZOS from addressing what that same larger base wants right now- lag and bug fixes? Its wasting resources and time for what the players really want.

pieratsos wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

idk wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

KINGOFTHESKULLS wrote: »

Funny , I've never seen a faction loyalist with a bad behavior but every time I see a filthy swapper they seem to be the toxic one and trolly one.

There is always good and bad people in groups , factions and clans and I personally have a lot of friends that change factions and I don't really have a problem with the "idea" of swapping factions itself but lets be honest here there are more people that abuse it than the ones that actually use it the right way , which it's balancing the population and playing with their friends Fairly.

This is a MMO RPG after all , you choose to be a proud Ebonheart Pact warrior and it should stay that way , same thing with other factions.

I've spent thousands of hours in no cp , leading groups and helping my faction win and dealt with countless scroll/volendrung and zone trolls and sure as hell I can tell that faction lock never stopped trolls from being sad miserable wastes of flesh but it did have a great impact on lessening it.
Not being able to switch to a different faction any time you want helped a lot.

Now for spies , If they are really that miserable to buy a new account just to be pests again well you can't really do anything about it.
Now let me explain it to you how spies are ; there are few types of them :
- ones that tell their friends where your camps are.
- ones that simply read the zone chat to find out your next move.
- ones that tell their friends where you are stealthed at.
- ones that follow you around or even get into your group to constantly know where you are going.
Now imagine that happening to you , would you be able to have fun with that happening ?
And they always happen to be the ones that support no faction lock , funny right?
Which ones harder for them to do ? being able to switch whenever they want without a faction lock or buying another copy of the game?

Here's the thing , by simply having a score indicator in PvP , that just automatically encourages people to fight for a singular Cause : Winning, but there problem is when there is no faction lock , the scores don't really mean anything and for people that are used to it is annoying.
After all what is the point of fighting a war when there is no goal and cause ? that's what faction lock does , it ruins the score and takes away the thrill and competitiveness of winning the war.
So why even have a score indicator when there is no faction lock? because people will home whatever campaign that it winning anyways.

Now there are other things that ZoS could implement to try keep both parties happy :
1 - Add a cooldown to switching factions , could be a day , could be an hour but a cooldown would definitely help.
2 - Add a locked no CP campaign (unfortunately with the game's current state it would be extremely dead).
3 - Give out better end of campaign rewards to encourage players fight for a cause.
4 - Placing No CP on top of the campaign list instead of CP.
5 - Removing the score indicator for no locked campaigns.
6 - Create a blacklist for those who abuse the game features and troll visible for everyone in the campaign to see.

I don't blame you for supporting no faction lock but don't forget that there are many of you who abuses and it make you all look bad and that is a FACT.

Faction lock doesn't prevent you from talking to people from a different faction so pretty much all ur spy arguments go out the window. They can happen either way.

Campaigns are not competitive because the rules governing the campaign are not promoting a competitive game. If u want people to play for their faction then u need to encourage them to do so. Not force them into one faction. People don't care about campaign scoring cause there is really no reason to do so. You are knocking on the wrong doors.

True. Spies were used in the early months of the game when there was no such thing as an unlocked campaign. The groups that form from Zone are the best targets. They are easy to detect if the leader pays attention.

Another tib bit of information. The first scroll was stolen in the first week of the game using a character from the alliance that owned the scroll. Once again, faction lock was in place from day one.

So faction lock never stopped any of this and never will.

Just a minor thing but I have been told by some reputable sources that even back then when you were not supposed to be able to home enemy factions on a server, many exploiters used to 'guest' the camps as there was hole in game mechanic that allowed them to do that. So, there have been exploiting players since game came out- not so much anything else. The locks discouraged the behaviors and kept things somewhat controlled to just a few vs much larger volume lifting them caused.

I do not recall as most of my characters are in one faction. However, I do recall not being able to enter a campaign I had an alt of a difference allainc homed in no matter what I did. So it may have been the case at one point then eliminated later.

Regardless, locks do not really discourage the behavior fans of faction lock think it does. It might pretend it for some that do not have a second account but I guarantee I have played more than one faction in a locked campaign by using my alt account and Zos has publicly stated it is not against the ToS.

Faction locks do not stop anything.

See....here is the thing. We keep hearing how many don't like the locks and don't care about score. Yet since inception of all and any non locked have crashed and burned miserably. As I asked before, how are they doing now? It was rhetorical as we can all see they are again failing miserably. The reasons why have been argued ad nausium at this point and it just doesn't matter why.......the swappers cant populate a server and keep it playable.

So why keep up the demands others accept this ridiculous charade any longer. People who do want locked populate and keep alive any server they are on with constant fights- exploiting players are and have always been the dirtbags of the game and now is no different- Locks dont stop all of it...... but they keep it to minimum of true losers who can think of nothing else to do. Any further discussion is academic at best since swappers can NOT populate anywhere and keep gameplay going on any server....bottom line is you cant populate and are not the majority of players in the game. Never were.

It´s fairly easy to prove that there´s no correlation between faction locks and populated campaigns. Take the 30 day NO-CP campaign as a prime example (will only speak from PC-EU perspective since I´m not on NA or play console). Regardless of faction locks being implemented or not, the campaign has always been filled with people.

Now you may say that it´s cause people that want to play NO-CP have no other choice, but the same pattern can be seen on campaigns such as the main 30 day CP one (Vivec, Kaalgrontid, Trueflame etc...). No matter if faction locks has been in the game or not, the "main" 30 day CP campaign has always been the most populate one.

I´m not saying you can´t prefer one or the other when it comes to faction locks, but there´s no correlation between population and faction locks.

Or it merely proves that the preference for No CP is stronger than the preference for alliance locked play when alliance-locked means swapping their builds and characters over to play in a CP campaign.

Which is the far more likely situation. No CP vs CP is a much bigger difference when it comes to gameplay.

Now, you might have a case if No CP players actually had a choice. But they don't. ZOS hasn't offered a second No CP campaign since Morrowind after Almalexia flopped. Where players have had a choice, CP players have twice chosen the Alliance Locked campaign - and one of those choices was an equal "everyone is removed, choose your campaign again" unless you think PVPers are too dumb to read the rulesets before they pick a campaign.

In other words, what you can prove from the No CP campaigns is:
A. Last update, No CP players stayed in the Alliance Locked No CP campaign rather than play in the only unlocked CP option
B. This update, No CP players stayed in the unlocked No CP campaign rather than play in the only alliance locked CP option

What I'm seeing?
Most No CP players don't want to play in a CP campaign.
This is not exactly surprisingly given, oh, years of arguments over the merits of CP and No CP PVP. Or the way CP players packed into Vivec when it was the only CP option. Most players don't swap from No CP to CP and vice versa lightly.

There is no choice if there is no population to support both. Period.

And no one picked alliance lock cp. They all picked the most populated main campaign cause they actually had no choice unless they wanted a dead campaign. Whether it was trueflame vivec, unlocked, locked, different scoring rules or whatever it was always the main cp campaign and the most populated one. Period. Attempting to give credits to faction lock for the main cp campaign being populated is the dumbest thing ever.

First up, is there a reason you can't seem to engage with what I'm actually saying when you reply to a comment?
I'm not trying to give credit to anything.
I'm pointing out that we can't use the No CP Campaign to draw conclusions about the CP Campaigns because it is, to use your phrase, "apples to oranges."
The entirety of that above comment is about how we can't tell jack-diddly about No CP players' preference for either ruleset from the No CP Campaign, because No CP players literally had no choice about the alliance locked/unlocked ruleset. Their only choice was No CP Unlocked. If they stayed in No CP Locked and No CP Unlocked over the last two campaign changes, that's a really good indication that what they really care about is playing in No CP PVP over and above caring about locked/unlocked.
Its hard to have a conversation when you keep changing the topic from what I was talking about. I don't enjoy repeating myself to clarify what I was actually talking about and if you continue to ignore what I've said in order to talk about your pet topic, I probably won't continue engaging with you.


But to respond to what you seem to want to discuss instead about : Choice and the CP Campaigns
Yeah, yeah, CP Players had no choice at all.

We didn't all get removed from the campaigns at the same time.
We didn't get to look at the rulesets to decide which ones we wanted to play.
We didn't know ahead of time that this was going to happen or have any chance to rally players or guilds to our chosen campaign ruleset beforehand.
We had no chance, no chance whatsoever, to make any CP campaign other than the one listed first (the one with the big ol' Alliance Locked ruleset written by it) the main campaign by getting players to log in and make it look like the most populated, most competitive campaign, thereby attracting more players.

That's, uh, not the case.
My guild decided we were playing in the faction locked campaign before the switch, no matter the order of the campaign listings. "Look for the Alliance Locked option. We want that one." As soon as I redownloaded the game, I hopped into Gray Host, because I knew players would go to the more populated of the two. If I wanted Gray Host to be the main campaign, I needed to do my part to show that it was going to be the most populated, most competitive campaign.

Did anyone do that for the unlocked Blackreach?
Did guilds decide beforehand that they were going to play in Blackreach en masse and make it look like the attractive, popular, competitive option from Day 1?
Did multifaction players and guilds use this opportunity to boycott Gray Host and bring people to Blackreach?

After all, if there are enough people and guilds who really care about multifaction PVP, there should have been enough people to do all that, making Blackreach a lot more attractive to the players who don't care. There was nothing preventing multifaction players from making Blackreach look like the most populated, most competitive option, which would have drawn all the players who just want a populated, competitive campaign like flies to honey. (Unless you are one of those who think most PVPers are too dumb to check out the different campaigns.)

In all practicality? The multifaction players seem to have banked on that oh-so-magical-effect of being placed first on the list to attract players to Blackreach instead of, you know, trying to rally guilds and players beforehand to be ready and willing to swap to the unlocked campaign and make it the new main campaign no matter where it was on the list.
While I can't speak to how many players actually made a concerted effort to bulk up the population on Blackreach Day 1, I could tell that Gray Host had won the "we're gonna be the most populated, most competitive campaign" by the time we hit PC/NA primetime. Much of that is undoubtedly that incoming players looked at the available campaigns, said "That one's more popular" and jumped in, but the work to make it the most popular started as soon as players logged in. That could have easily been Blackreach if more players and guilds were willing to dedicate effort and play time to making the multifaction campaign the main one from the very beginning.


Now, I wouldn't say that the current pre-eminence of Gray Host says anything much about the desire of the general PVP playerbase for alliance-locked play. Most players care about having a populated, competitive campaign more than anything else. So I will say that if Blackreach had made a stronger early showing by attracting a strong core of multifaction players and guilds when everyone swapped campaigns, it would probably be the main campaign right now.

What do you mean not engaging with what you said. I literally addressed ur point that " where players have had a choice, CP players have chosen locked campaign". You are the one who said that so im not even sure what u are even talking about when u are telling me that im changing the topic and that you never gave credit to faction lock when i literally addressed what you said and that is exactly what u did.

Again, the concept of choice is based on the premise that you can actually make that choice. When the population cant support multiple campaigns to give players the freedom of making a choice then you dont really have a choice. The only choices u have are CP or no CP and populated or dead campaign and those will always be more important than lock or unlock. The CP main was always the most populated regardless of lock, unlock or whatever. Let me give you an example. I always preferred 7 day campaign over 30 day campaigns. And yet i never felt like i had a choice to play what i want because simply there was no population to support both campaigns and i was simply playing in the 30 day campaign too. It doesnt matter what you and ur guild does. Most people are playing casually, they dont go on discord with their guild to choose which campaign to home. They hop on, open the alliance war tab check which one is the most populated and home it. And yes which one is first probably does make a difference. Simply put i couldnt care less for faction lock or not and this is probably true for the majority of players. But if i logged on first after a patch and wanted to home a campaign before anyone else, i would simply home the first campaign in the list. It was always the most populated regardless of lock or unlock and most likely will always be the most populated.

It appears that what I meant as a simple statement of fact "Where players have had a choice, CP players have twice chosen the Alliance Locked campaign - and one of those choices was an equal "everyone is removed, choose your campaign again" unless you think PVPers are too dumb to read the rulesets before they pick a campaign" has been misunderstood as something far different.

Because they did choose the Alliance locked campaign. Most CP players, when they were removed from their campaigns and told to choose a new one to be their home campaign, homed themselves to the Alliance Locked campaigns. That's a fact, easily proven by looking at the relative populations of the campaign.

As to why that was? In my original comment, I made no claim as to why most CP players homed themselves on the alliance locked campaigns. But since you asked...

This might surprise you, but I don't think its because everyone loves faction lock. That would be silly, given that there's a ton of other reasons why players joined Gray Host, including feeling like they had no other choice once Gray Host filled up and became the most populated, competitive campaign. There's plenty of players on Gray Host because they like faction lock, plenty of players on Gray host who don't care, and plenty of players on Gray Host who dislike the faction-locked ruleset and are there anyway perhaps because they feel they now have no other choice unless they are willing to put in a lot of work in Blackreach now that the horse is out of the barn door.

At least this time, everyone got removed from their campaigns and given the choice as to which ruleset they were going to make their home campaign. That's in marked contrast to the last time, when ZOS completely mishandled the campaign reset and left unlocked Laatvulon dead on arrival.

So I'll thank you not to jump to conclusions, since I'm rather far from giving all the credit to the alliance-locked ruleset for why most players homed themselves to Gray Host or Kaal.

1. It's not that people are too dumb to read. It's just that they don't care. They just want to pvp. That's the process of thinking behind the argument "people just click on what's first on the list".

2. Removing everyone from the campaigns doesn't mean that you are given a choice. That's ur problem, that you actually think people have a choice. They don't because the game can't support their choice. It doesn't matter if u want unlock or lock. At the end of the day ur choice is going to be most populated.

3. You said that players chose alliance lock and stated it as a fact and in the very next paragraph said people in gray host migh like or dislike alliance lock or simply don't care. You literally contradicted ur own statement.

4. The only common choice between all those players is the choice of what's most populated. And no, you can't say the first people logging are choosing lock when literally in the same post you say many people in the campaign just don't give a damn. You are just going back and forth with ur arguments. Just like there are some people who choose it first because it's locked the same way some people choose it first because they don't care, because it's first on the list, because they got used to playing in the first on the list because they believe that it's going to be the most populated regardless of what they like.

5. And it's not even about not liking faction lock. People just want to play their characters and quite frankly thats more important than faction pride in a video game. Cause relatively speaking, faction lock doesn't really do anything else other than promoting faction pride.

I didnt jump to conclusions. Your arguments were simply put, all over the place.

thatESOdude wrote: »

Why is scroll trolling bad?

pieratsos wrote: »

Soul_Demon wrote: »

pieratsos wrote: »

Earthewen wrote: »

Believe it or not, players have already "voted" on what campaign they want. You vote every time you click on your favorite campaign. If you only go to the one most populated, then you are only following the crowd. That, in itself, should tell you something. If the most populated server IS the one with faction locks, isn't it more logical to believe that people want that server? In a way, then, the majority of players have already voted for faction locks.

About your point that it isn't about faction locks and people just want to play their characters … It may be more important for some people to just simply play their characters, but for others like me, winning is more important. How does one win? By having a bigger score for my team. Games are not won by the skirmishes. It's won by consistent and constant outplaying of your enemy. Hour after Hour.

I think what this discussion boils down to is the same old problem of people believing that what they want is the only viable way to play. Let me assure you that your way is not the only way of everyone on the map nor the only way that one should play. I don't want anyone to speak for me and the way I like to play. I'll do that myself. There is no viable reason why we all can't exist and play on the same map without disparaging each other's play style. Some people like to play small man, don't care about points, etc. Okay. That's what you like so go for it. However, myself and my guild love the thrill of excellence in gaining the most score, so please do not presume that MOST players like what you like. You can only attest to what you and your friends like. Not me and my friends.

My last point is about "faction lock doesn't really do anything else other than promoting faction pride." What's wrong with that? As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing. You seem to want to downplay something you disagree with, but as I stated earlier, not everyone thinks like you. If someone chooses to be faction loyal, that is their choice to make. You trying to make others choose what you have chosen is seen more as an attempt to manipulate ZOS into believing and doing what you want, rather than look at the "voting" that has already taken place.

Let's agree that both styles of play CAN exist on the same map and coexist in positive ways.

So you like faction lock. Let's say the most populated campaign was unlocked. You would be forced to play there since the other campaign would be dead. So according to you ur choice would be unlocked. Yeah I don't think that u understand the concept of choice.

Yes I know that some like to play for the win. No one is limiting you to do that in an unlocked campaign.

Nothing wrong with faction pride. I never downplayed it. I'm just saying that this is a video game and whether u like it or not people being able to play their characters is more important than having faction pride.

You are accusing me of downplaying
ur faction pride and trying to enforce my choice on others while u believe that ur faction pride is more important than the freedom of players being able to play their characters. How ironic is that

But that is not happening...if we were to suppose something lets suppose for a min that what if, what if the swapper players stopped complaining about absolutely everything done for them and that style over the last few years....from battlegrounds to the factions being able to be swapped over in Tam1 and now in some campaigns. Suppose that happened and instead ZOS was focusing effort and manpower on fixing bugs and lag in the game.

Do you think that is something the 'majority' of players would want? Do you or can you not see how the selfish approach of repeatedly complaining about being able to play that style of play could be hurting the dwindling community in PvP?

Being able to play ur characters is a playstyle now? Wow just wow. And before you comment about complaints look at the title of the thread genius.