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.5 patch removal of faction swap mechanic

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
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You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

@ZOS_Kevin

Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?
@Solar_Breeze
NA ~ Izanerys: Dracarys (Videos | Dracast)
EU ~ Izanagi: Banana Squad (AOE Rats/ Zerg Squad / Roleplay Circle)
  • Avran_Sylt
    Avran_Sylt
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    You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

    @ZOS_Kevin

    Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?

    You can still swap factions on other campaigns, you just don't get to bypass the alliance locked aspect of Grey Host.

    Although a bit surprised as this seems like it would be a marketing trick to pump whales, instead they're showing integrity.

    Though given your annotations kinda glad you won't be abusing that anymore lol.
  • Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
    Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
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    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

    @ZOS_Kevin

    Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?

    You can still swap factions on other campaigns, you just don't get to bypass the alliance locked aspect of Grey Host.

    Although a bit surprised as this seems like it would be a marketing trick to pump whales, instead they're showing integrity.

    Though given your annotations kinda glad you won't be abusing that anymore lol.

    I've never used that mechanic but a lot of players return to the game, pop into cyrodiil to check out pvp and then find a group of players they used to play with have swapped factions. They then can't join them for a month and often quit due to that.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has it's flaws but still its ok as a concept) but players should be able to swap factions with a long cooldown or large cost independent of the campaign cycle. Removing this is just pushing potential new / returning players.
    Edited by Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO on 14 October 2025 14:34
    @Solar_Breeze
    NA ~ Izanerys: Dracarys (Videos | Dracast)
    EU ~ Izanagi: Banana Squad (AOE Rats/ Zerg Squad / Roleplay Circle)
  • Avran_Sylt
    Avran_Sylt
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

    @ZOS_Kevin

    Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?

    You can still swap factions on other campaigns, you just don't get to bypass the alliance locked aspect of Grey Host.

    Although a bit surprised as this seems like it would be a marketing trick to pump whales, instead they're showing integrity.

    Though given your annotations kinda glad you won't be abusing that anymore lol.

    I've never used that mechanic but a lot of players return to the game, pop into cyrodiil to check out pvp and then find a group of players they used to play with have swapped factions. They then can't join them for a month and often quit due to that.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has it's flaws but still its ok as a concept) but players should be able to swap factions with a long cooldown or large cost independent of the campaign cycle. Removing this is just pushing potential new / returning players.

    This is niche enough of an interaction that I doubt few people actually used such a mechanic outside of heavily involved players who would have known who was doing what already: Needing to spend money on a faction change token, then purposely queue and change faction to probably enter Cyrodiil with the queued request post faction change, likely causing an internal server tick to change the faction associated with that character on the faction locked server.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has its flaws but still its ok as a concept), and it's cooldown is a month, the campaign cycle.

    I don't know exactly if this is what was occurring, but given the cost is an alliance change token, there was no cooldown. Now there is, like you wanted.
  • Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
    Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
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    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

    @ZOS_Kevin

    Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?

    You can still swap factions on other campaigns, you just don't get to bypass the alliance locked aspect of Grey Host.

    Although a bit surprised as this seems like it would be a marketing trick to pump whales, instead they're showing integrity.

    Though given your annotations kinda glad you won't be abusing that anymore lol.

    I've never used that mechanic but a lot of players return to the game, pop into cyrodiil to check out pvp and then find a group of players they used to play with have swapped factions. They then can't join them for a month and often quit due to that.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has it's flaws but still its ok as a concept) but players should be able to swap factions with a long cooldown or large cost independent of the campaign cycle. Removing this is just pushing potential new / returning players.

    This is niche enough of an interaction that I doubt few people actually used such a mechanic outside of heavily involved players who would have known who was doing what already: Needing to spend money on a faction change token, then purposely queue and change faction to probably enter Cyrodiil with the queued request post faction change, likely causing an internal server tick to change the faction associated with that character on the faction locked server.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has its flaws but still its ok as a concept), and it's cooldown is a month, the campaign cycle.

    I don't know exactly if this is what was occurring, but given the cost is an alliance change token, there was no cooldown. Now there is, like you wanted.

    Except the cooldown isn't 1 month, the cooldown is the time until the campaign ends, meaning that its arbitrary whether your cooldown is 30days or 5 depending on when you want to change. If it's a niche interaction that poeple didn't use why remove it as an option then?
    PVP already has low entry participation, why remove things which took care of some barriers to entry.
    Edited by Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO on 14 October 2025 17:53
    @Solar_Breeze
    NA ~ Izanerys: Dracarys (Videos | Dracast)
    EU ~ Izanagi: Banana Squad (AOE Rats/ Zerg Squad / Roleplay Circle)
  • Avran_Sylt
    Avran_Sylt
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

    @ZOS_Kevin

    Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?

    You can still swap factions on other campaigns, you just don't get to bypass the alliance locked aspect of Grey Host.

    Although a bit surprised as this seems like it would be a marketing trick to pump whales, instead they're showing integrity.

    Though given your annotations kinda glad you won't be abusing that anymore lol.

    I've never used that mechanic but a lot of players return to the game, pop into cyrodiil to check out pvp and then find a group of players they used to play with have swapped factions. They then can't join them for a month and often quit due to that.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has it's flaws but still its ok as a concept) but players should be able to swap factions with a long cooldown or large cost independent of the campaign cycle. Removing this is just pushing potential new / returning players.

    This is niche enough of an interaction that I doubt few people actually used such a mechanic outside of heavily involved players who would have known who was doing what already: Needing to spend money on a faction change token, then purposely queue and change faction to probably enter Cyrodiil with the queued request post faction change, likely causing an internal server tick to change the faction associated with that character on the faction locked server.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has its flaws but still its ok as a concept), and it's cooldown is a month, the campaign cycle.

    I don't know exactly if this is what was occurring, but given the cost is an alliance change token, there was no cooldown. Now there is, like you wanted.

    Except the cooldown isn't 1 month, the cooldown is the time until the campaign ends, meaning that its arbitrary whether your cooldown is 30days or 5 depending on when you want to change. If it's a niche interaction that poeple didn't use why remove it as an option then?
    PVP already has low entry participation, why remove things which took care of some barriers to entry.

    Since the people likely using such a mechanic are likely brow-beating new entrants to begin with, doubly-so now they're in their preferred ball-group.
  • Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
    Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
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    ✭✭✭
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

    @ZOS_Kevin

    Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?

    You can still swap factions on other campaigns, you just don't get to bypass the alliance locked aspect of Grey Host.

    Although a bit surprised as this seems like it would be a marketing trick to pump whales, instead they're showing integrity.

    Though given your annotations kinda glad you won't be abusing that anymore lol.

    I've never used that mechanic but a lot of players return to the game, pop into cyrodiil to check out pvp and then find a group of players they used to play with have swapped factions. They then can't join them for a month and often quit due to that.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has it's flaws but still its ok as a concept) but players should be able to swap factions with a long cooldown or large cost independent of the campaign cycle. Removing this is just pushing potential new / returning players.

    This is niche enough of an interaction that I doubt few people actually used such a mechanic outside of heavily involved players who would have known who was doing what already: Needing to spend money on a faction change token, then purposely queue and change faction to probably enter Cyrodiil with the queued request post faction change, likely causing an internal server tick to change the faction associated with that character on the faction locked server.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has its flaws but still its ok as a concept), and it's cooldown is a month, the campaign cycle.

    I don't know exactly if this is what was occurring, but given the cost is an alliance change token, there was no cooldown. Now there is, like you wanted.

    Except the cooldown isn't 1 month, the cooldown is the time until the campaign ends, meaning that its arbitrary whether your cooldown is 30days or 5 depending on when you want to change. If it's a niche interaction that poeple didn't use why remove it as an option then?
    PVP already has low entry participation, why remove things which took care of some barriers to entry.

    Since the people likely using such a mechanic are likely brow-beating new entrants to begin with, doubly-so now they're in their preferred ball-group.

    So it seems that your main objection is that it's a player who occasionally plays a style of pvp you don't like is raising the point?
    @Solar_Breeze
    NA ~ Izanerys: Dracarys (Videos | Dracast)
    EU ~ Izanagi: Banana Squad (AOE Rats/ Zerg Squad / Roleplay Circle)
  • Avran_Sylt
    Avran_Sylt
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

    @ZOS_Kevin

    Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?

    You can still swap factions on other campaigns, you just don't get to bypass the alliance locked aspect of Grey Host.

    Although a bit surprised as this seems like it would be a marketing trick to pump whales, instead they're showing integrity.

    Though given your annotations kinda glad you won't be abusing that anymore lol.

    I've never used that mechanic but a lot of players return to the game, pop into cyrodiil to check out pvp and then find a group of players they used to play with have swapped factions. They then can't join them for a month and often quit due to that.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has it's flaws but still its ok as a concept) but players should be able to swap factions with a long cooldown or large cost independent of the campaign cycle. Removing this is just pushing potential new / returning players.

    This is niche enough of an interaction that I doubt few people actually used such a mechanic outside of heavily involved players who would have known who was doing what already: Needing to spend money on a faction change token, then purposely queue and change faction to probably enter Cyrodiil with the queued request post faction change, likely causing an internal server tick to change the faction associated with that character on the faction locked server.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has its flaws but still its ok as a concept), and it's cooldown is a month, the campaign cycle.

    I don't know exactly if this is what was occurring, but given the cost is an alliance change token, there was no cooldown. Now there is, like you wanted.

    Except the cooldown isn't 1 month, the cooldown is the time until the campaign ends, meaning that its arbitrary whether your cooldown is 30days or 5 depending on when you want to change. If it's a niche interaction that poeple didn't use why remove it as an option then?
    PVP already has low entry participation, why remove things which took care of some barriers to entry.

    Since the people likely using such a mechanic are likely brow-beating new entrants to begin with, doubly-so now they're in their preferred ball-group.

    So it seems that your main objection is that it's a player who occasionally plays a style of pvp you don't like is raising the point?

    My main objection is a player bypassing the faction lock mechanic on a faction lock campaign, there are other campaigns that need players that have such a feature removed.

    My secondary objection is that its paywalled.

    Third is that it's niche enough of an interaction that it is only used by experienced PvP players, contributing once again to their advantage in PvP.

    Fourth is that the kind of player that uses this is doing so to better operate in organized groups. Now I understand this fourth reason is likely the main driver, but not my primary concern.
  • Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
    Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO
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    ✭✭✭
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    Avran_Sylt wrote: »
    You will now be removed from all campaign queues upon using an Alliance change token. All pending ready checks will also be automatically declined.

    @ZOS_Kevin

    Can the dev team explain why this functionality to allow players to switch factions if they want to stop playing during a campaign cycle has been removed?

    You can still swap factions on other campaigns, you just don't get to bypass the alliance locked aspect of Grey Host.

    Although a bit surprised as this seems like it would be a marketing trick to pump whales, instead they're showing integrity.

    Though given your annotations kinda glad you won't be abusing that anymore lol.

    I've never used that mechanic but a lot of players return to the game, pop into cyrodiil to check out pvp and then find a group of players they used to play with have swapped factions. They then can't join them for a month and often quit due to that.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has it's flaws but still its ok as a concept) but players should be able to swap factions with a long cooldown or large cost independent of the campaign cycle. Removing this is just pushing potential new / returning players.

    This is niche enough of an interaction that I doubt few people actually used such a mechanic outside of heavily involved players who would have known who was doing what already: Needing to spend money on a faction change token, then purposely queue and change faction to probably enter Cyrodiil with the queued request post faction change, likely causing an internal server tick to change the faction associated with that character on the faction locked server.

    Faction lock as a mechanic is fine (has its flaws but still its ok as a concept), and it's cooldown is a month, the campaign cycle.

    I don't know exactly if this is what was occurring, but given the cost is an alliance change token, there was no cooldown. Now there is, like you wanted.

    Except the cooldown isn't 1 month, the cooldown is the time until the campaign ends, meaning that its arbitrary whether your cooldown is 30days or 5 depending on when you want to change. If it's a niche interaction that poeple didn't use why remove it as an option then?
    PVP already has low entry participation, why remove things which took care of some barriers to entry.

    Since the people likely using such a mechanic are likely brow-beating new entrants to begin with, doubly-so now they're in their preferred ball-group.

    So it seems that your main objection is that it's a player who occasionally plays a style of pvp you don't like is raising the point?

    My main objection is a player bypassing the faction lock mechanic on a faction lock campaign, there are other campaigns that need players that have such a feature removed.

    My secondary objection is that its paywalled.

    Third is that it's niche enough of an interaction that it is only used by experienced PvP players, contributing once again to their advantage in PvP.

    Fourth is that the kind of player that uses this is doing so to better operate in organized groups. Now I understand this fourth reason is likely the main driver, but not my primary concern.

    Objection 1 - it's not bypassing the faction lock, players can still only play for 1 faction at a time, it's allowing them to switch the faction they play for at a cost

    Objection 2 - fair enough.

    Objection 3 - there's videos on the method available on YouTube. I don't think you can say conclusively who uses the option but I agree pvpers are more likely to engage with PvP mechanics

    Objection 4 - as I stated above normally I send the video on how to do this to anyone who returns to the game so they don't need to stress about faction locks and can just dip into PvP, see how things are then decide where to play. Very few of them play in/have gone on to play in organised groups. Having a bias due to what playstyle people engage in always leads to poor motives.

    Removing the option discourages players from going back into PvP in case they get locked on 'the wrong' faction.

    Additionally a lot can happen during a campaign, I think if players aren't having fun and no longer feel they can play for a certain faction due to that they shouldn't have to stop playing and wait for weeks to switch.
    Edited by Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO on 16 October 2025 10:38
    @Solar_Breeze
    NA ~ Izanerys: Dracarys (Videos | Dracast)
    EU ~ Izanagi: Banana Squad (AOE Rats/ Zerg Squad / Roleplay Circle)
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