Faction lock was a bad thing for pvp from the start..

So, let me see if I have this straight.

PVP population is low in the unlocked campaign.

The only populated campaign is the faction-locked one. (And it wasn't done purely to stop trolling. ZOS said they had concerns about AP farming, and the class reps said that the sustained campaign for faction locks made ZOS think it was popular - which, well, it IS the most populated CP campaign.)

Therefore, the populated faction locked campaign should have its ruleset changed to match the less populated unlocked campaign?

That doesn't really make sense. If the ability to switch sides to the underdog is really what was going to bring players back to PVP, then I would expect to see that the unlocked campaigns ruleset is more popular. Yet even you admit that it's not.

Sorry, this seems like asking for the more populated campaign to be changed to your favored ruleset, even though there's no evidence that it's actually more popular.

VaranisArano wrote: »

So, let me see if I have this straight.

PVP population is low in the unlocked campaign.

The only populated campaign is the faction-locked one. (And it wasn't done purely to stop trolling. ZOS said they had concerns about AP farming, and the class reps said that the sustained campaign for faction locks made ZOS think it was popular - which, well, it IS the most populated CP campaign.)

Therefore, the populated faction locked campaign should have its ruleset changed to match the less populated unlocked campaign?

That doesn't really make sense. If the ability to switch sides to the underdog is really what was going to bring players back to PVP, then I would expect to see that the unlocked campaigns ruleset is more popular. Yet even you admit that it's not.

Sorry, this seems like asking for the more populated campaign to be changed to your favored ruleset, even though there's no evidence that it's actually more popular.

While I do agree with some things you say. I think part of the reason why gray host is more popular than the other campaigns is because faction locking exists. Some people hate the idea of seeing other people playing or associating with people of other colors. And they flock to gray host because they think it's free of "spies". Because there's a population of people who play there strictly because faction lock exists that makes the population imbalances more severe. Which leads to more people being forced into GH despite not wanting to play there.

I don't think removing faction locking will magically remove all problems PVP has, but it would slightly alleviate problems PVP has.
At least there would be a population of players who would make moves on the map as opposed to people not wanting to try at all because the entire map is one color. Anything improvement is better than no improvement imho.
I can totally see why people would be against it but I think having more people who want to keep the game active is better than just living it in a limbo state of it staying dead or inactive. Dead PVP is fun for no one.

Yes, removing the faction lock would be great! So frustrating for example to log on and see that the faction I am locked on is dominating the map. Agree very much with OP: 'A lot of people would enjoy Cyrodiil more if they had the chance to find fights'

VaranisArano wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

So, let me see if I have this straight.

PVP population is low in the unlocked campaign.

The only populated campaign is the faction-locked one. (And it wasn't done purely to stop trolling. ZOS said they had concerns about AP farming, and the class reps said that the sustained campaign for faction locks made ZOS think it was popular - which, well, it IS the most populated CP campaign.)

Therefore, the populated faction locked campaign should have its ruleset changed to match the less populated unlocked campaign?

That doesn't really make sense. If the ability to switch sides to the underdog is really what was going to bring players back to PVP, then I would expect to see that the unlocked campaigns ruleset is more popular. Yet even you admit that it's not.

Sorry, this seems like asking for the more populated campaign to be changed to your favored ruleset, even though there's no evidence that it's actually more popular.

While I do agree with some things you say. I think part of the reason why gray host is more popular than the other campaigns is because faction locking exists. Some people hate the idea of seeing other people playing or associating with people of other colors. And they flock to gray host because they think it's free of "spies". Because there's a population of people who play there strictly because faction lock exists that makes the population imbalances more severe. Which leads to more people being forced into GH despite not wanting to play there.

I don't think removing faction locking will magically remove all problems PVP has, but it would slightly alleviate problems PVP has.
At least there would be a population of players who would make moves on the map as opposed to people not wanting to try at all because the entire map is one color. Anything improvement is better than no improvement imho.
I can totally see why people would be against it but I think having more people who want to keep the game active is better than just living it in a limbo state of it staying dead or inactive. Dead PVP is fun for no one.

Most players, I suspect, want to play on the most populated campaign. They don't care about the locked v unlocked ruleset.

So what we're seeing is that the segment of players who really, really want faction locked play is generally higher than the segment who really, really want unlocked play...and so Gray Host and Kaalgrontiid were consistently higher pop than the unlocked alternatives. Thus, the faction locked campaigns with the higher pop consistently pull in more players who don't care about locked vs unlocked.

It doesn't make sense to change the faction locked campaign (with the higher number of players who really, really want faction lock) over to unlocked rules. The players who really, really want unlocked play can't even fill out their own campaign enough to make it attractive to the players who really don't care either way.

Are there issues with both forms of play? Yeah. That's why you get to pick your favored mode if you really care about the issues in faction-locked or the issues in unlocked play.

It doesn't make sense to take away the faction-locked campaigns when the clear result from the last two campaigns is that most CP players either prefer faction-locked PVP or simply don't care enough about the issues it has to migrate over to the unlocked campaign.

Can't speak on state of PC server, but on PS na it's not like that at all. It's not overwhelming in favor of one campaign. GH has more people in it during prime time, but BR when it's active can get 2+ bars of each faction. Though you only ever see the population difference later in the day. If you log on around lunchtime EST, both GH and BR barely have any population. Most of the time when you login prior to prime time, there's barely anyone in gray host till the evening except Daggerfall who mostly server zerg that campaign and outpop Ad and EP.

Gh barely has an edge in population over BR most of the day, with the exception of DC but most of that population don't do anything since they control most of the map all the time. Which only changes during the evening time, when more bars start to log in(but simultaneously BR also jumps in population at that time as well). I assume those faction lock loyalists and people forced into GH due to the other campaigns being dead make the difference that keeps it from being just as dead as BR.
Though this is just me speaking on PSNA from what I see. Can't say the same for xbox or PC

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

xDeusEJRx wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

So, let me see if I have this straight.

PVP population is low in the unlocked campaign.

The only populated campaign is the faction-locked one. (And it wasn't done purely to stop trolling. ZOS said they had concerns about AP farming, and the class reps said that the sustained campaign for faction locks made ZOS think it was popular - which, well, it IS the most populated CP campaign.)

Therefore, the populated faction locked campaign should have its ruleset changed to match the less populated unlocked campaign?

That doesn't really make sense. If the ability to switch sides to the underdog is really what was going to bring players back to PVP, then I would expect to see that the unlocked campaigns ruleset is more popular. Yet even you admit that it's not.

Sorry, this seems like asking for the more populated campaign to be changed to your favored ruleset, even though there's no evidence that it's actually more popular.

While I do agree with some things you say. I think part of the reason why gray host is more popular than the other campaigns is because faction locking exists. Some people hate the idea of seeing other people playing or associating with people of other colors. And they flock to gray host because they think it's free of "spies". Because there's a population of people who play there strictly because faction lock exists that makes the population imbalances more severe. Which leads to more people being forced into GH despite not wanting to play there.

I don't think removing faction locking will magically remove all problems PVP has, but it would slightly alleviate problems PVP has.
At least there would be a population of players who would make moves on the map as opposed to people not wanting to try at all because the entire map is one color. Anything improvement is better than no improvement imho.
I can totally see why people would be against it but I think having more people who want to keep the game active is better than just living it in a limbo state of it staying dead or inactive. Dead PVP is fun for no one.

Most players, I suspect, want to play on the most populated campaign. They don't care about the locked v unlocked ruleset.

So what we're seeing is that the segment of players who really, really want faction locked play is generally higher than the segment who really, really want unlocked play...and so Gray Host and Kaalgrontiid were consistently higher pop than the unlocked alternatives. Thus, the faction locked campaigns with the higher pop consistently pull in more players who don't care about locked vs unlocked.

It doesn't make sense to change the faction locked campaign (with the higher number of players who really, really want faction lock) over to unlocked rules. The players who really, really want unlocked play can't even fill out their own campaign enough to make it attractive to the players who really don't care either way.

Are there issues with both forms of play? Yeah. That's why you get to pick your favored mode if you really care about the issues in faction-locked or the issues in unlocked play.

It doesn't make sense to take away the faction-locked campaigns when the clear result from the last two campaigns is that most CP players either prefer faction-locked PVP or simply don't care enough about the issues it has to migrate over to the unlocked campaign.

Can't speak on state of PC server, but on PS na it's not like that at all. It's not overwhelming in favor of one campaign. GH has more people in it during prime time, but BR when it's active can get 2+ bars of each faction. Though you only ever see the population difference later in the day. If you log on around lunchtime EST, both GH and BR barely have any population. Most of the time when you login prior to prime time, there's barely anyone in gray host till the evening except Daggerfall who mostly server zerg that campaign and outpop Ad and EP.

Gh barely has an edge in population over BR most of the day, with the exception of DC but most of that population don't do anything since they control most of the map all the time. Which only changes during the evening time, when more bars start to log in(but simultaneously BR also jumps in population at that time as well). I assume those faction lock loyalists and people forced into GH due to the other campaigns being dead make the difference that keeps it from being just as dead as BR.
Though this is just me speaking on PSNA from what I see. Can't say the same for xbox or PC

Fair enough, I'm on PC/NA, where Gray Host (and Kaalgrontiid before it) had a marked population advantage over the CP non-locked campaigns.

I voted no but feel the need to elaborate.

A stagnant population IS bad for Cyrodiil. However, I do think being able to switch back and forth between alliances in the same campaign leads to toxicity (not that there isn't already toxicity, but there are more opportunities if you can flip around). I have two opinions on this.

1. alliance switch costing 3k crowns is absolute BS. There are plenty of people who would prefer NOT to play for the faction that can run the table 99% of the day. However, the idea of spending $25 just to turn one character is absolutely bonkers when it would BENEFIT the game. Either this price needs to be slashed in half OR there should be an in-game way of changing alliances. For example, what if there was a 2-3 hour quest a character would have to do to switch sides? This would still discourage flipping back and forth by requiring time outside PVP.

2. The only way I would endorse non-locked GH (as if my opinion matters lol) would be to merge GH and BR. You would have to leave it unlocked to not completely hose over players who genuinely just want to play with friends (as opposed to people who switch to steal scrolls and hammer). The big issue right now is GH is unplayable for many people due to hardware and software limitations, and BR is dead most of the time because most people will choose GH for the action. Well, if the populations were balanced, there would be plenty of action to go around. Merge the campaigns and combine the developer time and resources to having ONE CP campaign that works and is fully populated, rather than spreading everything out and putting forward the minimum amount of support.

The other point for #2 I want to say is right now, you often have a situation where a faction picks a campaign and loads up on it to completely control it. For a long time on XB this was Red GH, Blue BR and Yellow Raven. Trying to play an off faction in any of these meant you'd be running into a brick wall all night. (These have recently shuffled as factions have moved from one to another). I do think it would be better if we had one campaign that works, with the most population feasible, with the added camps during Midyear.

VaranisArano wrote: »

So, let me see if I have this straight.

PVP population is low in the unlocked campaign.

The only populated campaign is the faction-locked one. (And it wasn't done purely to stop trolling. ZOS said they had concerns about AP farming, and the class reps said that the sustained campaign for faction locks made ZOS think it was popular - which, well, it IS the most populated CP campaign.)

Therefore, the populated faction locked campaign should have its ruleset changed to match the less populated unlocked campaign?

That doesn't really make sense. If the ability to switch sides to the underdog is really what was going to bring players back to PVP, then I would expect to see that the unlocked campaigns ruleset is more popular. Yet even you admit that it's not.

Sorry, this seems like asking for the more populated campaign to be changed to your favored ruleset, even though there's no evidence that it's actually more popular.

Ye because it's not the "main campaign". Grayhost is the "main campaign", no one cares about Blackreach, not because it's unlocked... just because it's not Grayhost. And most people don't wanna play no proc so no cp is dead as well now. They should just get rid of Blackreach and Grayhost should be unlocked again. Faction lock is stupid. If people care about "spies" they need better priorities.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

So, let me see if I have this straight.

PVP population is low in the unlocked campaign.

The only populated campaign is the faction-locked one. (And it wasn't done purely to stop trolling. ZOS said they had concerns about AP farming, and the class reps said that the sustained campaign for faction locks made ZOS think it was popular - which, well, it IS the most populated CP campaign.)

Therefore, the populated faction locked campaign should have its ruleset changed to match the less populated unlocked campaign?

That doesn't really make sense. If the ability to switch sides to the underdog is really what was going to bring players back to PVP, then I would expect to see that the unlocked campaigns ruleset is more popular. Yet even you admit that it's not.

Sorry, this seems like asking for the more populated campaign to be changed to your favored ruleset, even though there's no evidence that it's actually more popular.

Ye because it's not the "main campaign". Grayhost is the "main campaign", no one cares about Blackreach, not because it's unlocked... just because it's not Grayhost. And most people don't wanna play no proc so no cp is dead as well now. They should just get rid of Blackreach and Grayhost should be unlocked again. Faction lock is stupid. If people care about "spies" they need better priorities.

There's nothing magic about being the "main campaign." All that means is that Gray Host was the most popular day one and has continued to be so. A fair chunk of that is faction loyal players or players who prefer to avoid the worst of the faction flipping. The majority probably don't care one way or another - those players could easily swap en masse to Blackreach if they thought the gameplay was going to be superior, yet they don't.

Not enough people cared about Blackreach the first day to make it the more popular choice, and its still true that not enough people care about unlocked play to persuade the players who don't care one way or another to swap away from Gray Host. For all the claims that unlocked play is superior or players don't like logging on to see their faction sweeping the map, there's never been the sort of mass migration of guilds and PUGs away from faction locked Gray Host that would make Blackreach the new main campaign. (That didn't happen with Laatvulon either, even though ZOS added it because of claims that lots of players wanted an unlocked CP option.)

There's just not that many people who want unlocked play bad enough that they'll vote with their feet.

And so we're reduced to threads like this, requesting that unlocked play be forced on players who, if they wanted it, could've made Blackreach the most popular main campaign.

Frankly, I'm happy that we've both got the option to play faction-locked and unlocked in different campaigns as we prefer.

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

NotTaylorSwift wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

So, let me see if I have this straight.

PVP population is low in the unlocked campaign.

The only populated campaign is the faction-locked one. (And it wasn't done purely to stop trolling. ZOS said they had concerns about AP farming, and the class reps said that the sustained campaign for faction locks made ZOS think it was popular - which, well, it IS the most populated CP campaign.)

Therefore, the populated faction locked campaign should have its ruleset changed to match the less populated unlocked campaign?

That doesn't really make sense. If the ability to switch sides to the underdog is really what was going to bring players back to PVP, then I would expect to see that the unlocked campaigns ruleset is more popular. Yet even you admit that it's not.

Sorry, this seems like asking for the more populated campaign to be changed to your favored ruleset, even though there's no evidence that it's actually more popular.

Ye because it's not the "main campaign". Grayhost is the "main campaign", no one cares about Blackreach, not because it's unlocked... just because it's not Grayhost. And most people don't wanna play no proc so no cp is dead as well now. They should just get rid of Blackreach and Grayhost should be unlocked again. Faction lock is stupid. If people care about "spies" they need better priorities.

There's nothing magic about being the "main campaign." All that means is that Gray Host was the most popular day one and has continued to be so. A fair chunk of that is faction loyal players or players who prefer to avoid the worst of the faction flipping. The majority probably don't care one way or another - those players could easily swap en masse to Blackreach if they thought the gameplay was going to be superior, yet they don't.

Not enough people cared about Blackreach the first day to make it the more popular choice, and its still true that not enough people care about unlocked play to persuade the players who don't care one way or another to swap away from Gray Host. For all the claims that unlocked play is superior or players don't like logging on to see their faction sweeping the map, there's never been the sort of mass migration of guilds and PUGs away from faction locked Gray Host that would make Blackreach the new main campaign. (That didn't happen with Laatvulon either, even though ZOS added it because of claims that lots of players wanted an unlocked CP option.)

There's just not that many people who want unlocked play bad enough that they'll vote with their feet.

And so we're reduced to threads like this, requesting that unlocked play be forced on players who, if they wanted it, could've made Blackreach the most popular main campaign.

Frankly, I'm happy that we've both got the option to play faction-locked and unlocked in different campaigns as we prefer.

ye and if the people who dont care about faction lock swap then u end up with split populations on the campaigns... even more so than now. People dont swap campaigns usually... ofc there is nothing "magic". But, people still treat it as the main campaign. I wouldnt go play blackreach now cos its dead. No one plays it. And people aren't gonna go move en masse because there is no one to organise anything like that. And most people wanna play where most players are.

So, since you think it'd result in a split population with a solid core of people who like faction lock, it really doesn't follow that people should be forced away from the campaign they've chosen to play in by removing the faction-locked ruleset and forcing everyone to play in the Blackreach equivalent.

Whether you use it or not, you still have the choice to play in unlocked Blackreach. (That you and many others don't does contribute to its general non-viability as a campaign.)

I mean, I'm sorry there's not a high enough population of PVPers who want unlocked play that Blackreach would also be populated. ESO PVP would be a lot healthier with more filled campaigns, and we'd see less gameplay like EmperorII describes. I just don't see the justification for forcing unlocked play on the faction-locked campaign - aside from the idea of "If we take away the option for faction players to play how they want, they'll have no choice but to play how I want, and finally unlocked play will be the only most popular choice!"

It's like the old joke.

"You're my favorite son."

"Dad, I'm your only son."

We've had unlocked-only play for a long time and what did that get us? Enough players persistently asking for a faction locked option that ZOS gave it back to us. (Also enough players persistently prioritizing faction locked play such that it's been the most populated from the beginning of Gray Host, and enough that you say you'd expect a bigger population split than we have now between Gray Host/Blackreach.)

Asking for Round 2, Electric Boogaloo with unlocked-only play forced on players that you know prefer faction-lock doesn't really make sense to me, but you do you.

Played some Cyrodiil this morning & GH was pop-locked all factions.
Blackreach was pop-locked for EP & 3 bars other 2 factions.
Ravenwatch was 2 bars all factions.

yet apparently unless the campaign is pop-locked on all factions it is 'dead' & 'no one goes there' lol


(edit) also played some Imperial City... which so many on the forum describe as 'dead'... & yet constantly got rolled over by enemy zergs lol!