Why is Ebonheart Pact the least popular?

Mercutio

Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems as if EP is the least popular of the factions. As it is my favorite, I am baffled. Any ideas why this is, or am I mistaken?

Please feel free to share your opinions, I am curious.

ers101284b14_ESO

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

People just feel more sorry for the DC and AD.
I mean they are weak and pathetic like a newborn puppy struggling to even walk. I feel bad for them too I'm just not a traitor.

Nox_Aeterna

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

Dunno if it is or not , but personally i find it to be by far the worse faction.

AD is awesome and DC is just below it ... now EP , EP is just boring and plain lols.

dodgehopper_ESO

When I started the game, I chose to play Aldmeri Dominion purely because it is the area that was least showcased in previous games. Oddly, I would have expected Ebonheart Pact to be the most popular since it is Skyrim and Morrowind all rolled into one. Apparently that didn't do it for people.

R1ckyDaMan

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

When I started the game, I chose to play Aldmeri Dominion purely because it is the area that was least showcased in previous games. Oddly, I would have expected Ebonheart Pact to be the most popular since it is Skyrim and Morrowind all rolled into one. Apparently that didn't do it for people.

The marrowind area's sure do not feel like marrowind area's sadly, thought I would love EP, cannot stand it, go figure.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

EP is the last faction I am playing through in PvE, and I don't think it's bad. The Morrowind landscape in Stonefalls is more hostile and barren than the first zones in DC and AD, and the quest stories are perhaps slightly less engaging, but it's not bad, far from it. For various reasons, I now find myself with three characters in the EP zones at once, one from each faction, and that is a bit of a grind, but the EP zones are fun and varied.

Rodario

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

If more people thought like I did, then it might be because we didn't want to belong to the faction that is populated by people who only started playing ESO because of Skyrim.

MADshadowman

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

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PVP based

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AD and DC have many cheaters and exploiters (no offense), so everyone who likes an easy game just joins them.

I've done a lot of pvp and one thing i could see from the beginning is that EP seems to have the fairest players. EP tries to play a normal AvA play style focused on getiing keeps and having an emperor.

What i see AD and DC doing is zerging and farming.

DC got pretty strong in pvp, although they're sometimes using questionable methods.

AD is not very good, but gains some strength, cause DC is sometimes helping them out. I don't know why that is, but AD players seem to adapt this pretentious behavior we all know from the aldmeri and thalmor.

EP, like i said, seems to be the most honest faction to me. Sure there are some exploiters lately, but after 6 months of playing i've only seen a handful of them. AD and DC on the other hand seem to enjoy the unfair play style a little more.

I hope i didn't offend anyone here, i just wanted to tell you what i've been experiencing over the last 6 months.

ExiledKhallisi

You are mistaken.

Faction populations are:

EP>DC>AD

SoupDragon

You are mistaken.

Probably because people wanted to explore some new areas. At least I think that's how it started out!

I, however, find DC the most boring faction of all. I quite like the other too, although I can't stand the thalmor.

david271749

DC was least popular prior to launch. AD was always most popular. I think people just wanted to experience new areas. AD's scenery is what won me over. I couldn't care less about faction population. The only reason it matters to people now, is beacause of how unbalanced the campaigns are.

CapuchinSeven

You are mistaken.

MADshadowman wrote: »

AD and DC have many cheaters and exploiters (no offense), so everyone who likes an easy game just joins them.

Cry me an anecdotal river.

Stop making things up.

david271749 wrote: »

DC was least popular prior to launch. AD was always most popular.

This, in fact on the two EU PVP maps I play on DC is the least populated while AD and Pact are locked early in the night running around the maps in giant blobs.

shadowz081

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

MADshadowman wrote: »

---

PVP based

---

AD and DC have many cheaters and exploiters (no offense), so everyone who likes an easy game just joins them.

I've done a lot of pvp and one thing i could see from the beginning is that EP seems to have the fairest players. EP tries to play a normal AvA play style focused on getiing keeps and having an emperor.

What i see AD and DC doing is zerging and farming.

DC got pretty strong in pvp, although they're sometimes using questionable methods.

AD is not very good, but gains some strength, cause DC is sometimes helping them out. I don't know why that is, but AD players seem to adapt this pretentious behavior we all know from the aldmeri and thalmor.

EP, like i said, seems to be the most honest faction to me. Sure there are some exploiters lately, but after 6 months of playing i've only seen a handful of them. AD and DC on the other hand seem to enjoy the unfair play style a little more.

I hope i didn't offend anyone here, i just wanted to tell you what i've been experiencing over the last 6 months.

Well I most definitely did not join AD because I wanted easy pvp...I joined during early access because I was AD during the weekend beta and wanted to continue where I left off. That said I do have a toon in EP...Just haven't got around to playing it yet...And don't really see the point to as most of the people from my guild guild and contact list are AD so I would have very little people to help me out.

From my personal point of view, lots of people joined AD because there was apparently a lot of other players in AD in contrast to other fractions at the start. And more people there is the easier to find other people to sell stuff to or to do stuff with. So the population just kept getting higher and higher off course this was just at the beginning, I think it is starting to even out a bit now. But I still hear from time to time how AD have the highest player pop of the 3 factions.

Which also leads to 'bad' pvp, which you have noticed and sometimes me when I go in. Lots of people in AD that we get a higher mix of people who play competitively, people who just plays for fun after a hard days work and those that plays in between the to spectrum. And with a pop cap per server, sometimes we might see a higher ratios of 'just for fun' people, sometimes a higher ratio of competitive players are on and sometime just a-holes are on. While EP with a lower player base are able to have there experienced on more and not que up and wait for others to leave.

Off course I'm not sure if this is true or not and just speculations based on stuff I have read on forums or heard in game. Which is mostly baseless.

MADshadowman

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

shadowz081 wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

---

PVP based

---

AD and DC have many cheaters and exploiters (no offense), so everyone who likes an easy game just joins them.

I've done a lot of pvp and one thing i could see from the beginning is that EP seems to have the fairest players. EP tries to play a normal AvA play style focused on getiing keeps and having an emperor.

What i see AD and DC doing is zerging and farming.

DC got pretty strong in pvp, although they're sometimes using questionable methods.

AD is not very good, but gains some strength, cause DC is sometimes helping them out. I don't know why that is, but AD players seem to adapt this pretentious behavior we all know from the aldmeri and thalmor.

EP, like i said, seems to be the most honest faction to me. Sure there are some exploiters lately, but after 6 months of playing i've only seen a handful of them. AD and DC on the other hand seem to enjoy the unfair play style a little more.

I hope i didn't offend anyone here, i just wanted to tell you what i've been experiencing over the last 6 months.

Well I most definitely did not join AD because I wanted easy pvp...I joined during early access because I was AD during the weekend beta and wanted to continue where I left off. That said I do have a toon in EP...Just haven't got around to playing it yet...And don't really see the point to as most of the people from my guild guild and contact list are AD so I would have very little people to help me out.

From my personal point of view, lots of people joined AD because there was apparently a lot of other players in AD in contrast to other fractions at the start. And more people there is the easier to find other people to sell stuff to or to do stuff with. So the population just kept getting higher and higher off course this was just at the beginning, I think it is starting to even out a bit now. But I still hear from time to time how AD have the highest player pop of the 3 factions.

Which also leads to 'bad' pvp, which you have noticed and sometimes me when I go in. Lots of people in AD that we get a higher mix of people who play competitively, people who just plays for fun after a hard days work and those that plays in between the to spectrum. And with a pop cap per server, sometimes we might see a higher ratios of 'just for fun' people, sometimes a higher ratio of competitive players are on and sometime just a-holes are on. While EP with a lower player base are able to have there experienced on more and not que up and wait for others to leave.

Off course I'm not sure if this is true or not and just speculations based on stuff I have read on forums or heard in game. Which is mostly baseless.

No, i think your observations totally make sense.

One thing we should also mention is that the desired race might actually decide over which faction to join. In the beta i made an AD character cause i wanted to play a wood elf. But it was bugging me a little that i had to choose the AD to do so. That's why i decided to stick with the faction i like and live with the races EP has to offer.

I already learned to hate AD back in the skyrim days and i brought this over to ESO.

Pseudolo

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

EP is the less popular because everyone would like to be them, but they are forced to be AD or DC to preserve the balance! Therefore, they rage a lot and take it out on poor EP...

SantieClaws

Lizards n mud. Plus a fair percentage of ESO players are probably coming in fresh from Skyrim and if you didn't play Morrowind before then the EP environment may seem very alien.

Xeres14

I, too, think it is the least popular.

The Skald King is kind of a jerk.

Mondo

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

Because Aldmeri got this hot chick Queen! They would all like EP when they would know he/she is transgender

Arsenic_Touch

Has to do with the desired races. With the preorder pack you can make any race on any faction, however it's clear that the other factions have better racials than EP does. Which was one of the many reasons why factions were a dumb idea in this game.

Some will try to argue that the racials really don't matter but we all know that's not true, it's quite clear that certain races are much better for certain classes and playstyles and the racials make quite a difference.

Then you got the ones that will flock to the dominant pvp side, no matter what.
Even though cyrodiil is a fraction of the population, it does skew the numbers somewhat.

Another thing that drove people away from ebonheart? we had the most bugged quests early on, especially quests to get in to veteran content. So people flocked to other factions because they couldn't keep playing their characters and most never went back because it took them a long time to fix the end game for ebonheart at the time.

LonePirate

ExiledKhallisi wrote: »

Faction populations are:

EP>DC>AD

You must not play much PVP nowadays as that is certainly not the case. AD is the most numerous faction by quite a bit on the NA server. It is not even close. I would put EP as a distant second with DC behind EP. At least that is how it is during NA prime time. During other parts of the day, DC edges EP in population numbers while AD typically remains in front (though sometimes bested by DC).

MADshadowman

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

Mondo wrote: »

Because Aldmeri got this hot chick Queen! They would all like EP when they would know he/she is transgender

Nothing wrong with transgender people.

starkerealm

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

wenxue2222b16_ESO wrote: »

Lizards n mud. Plus a fair percentage of ESO players are probably coming in fresh from Skyrim and if you didn't play Morrowind before then the EP environment may seem very alien.

If only I could both agree AND lol...

Yeah, Shadowfen was a low point. Once I pushed through that and got to Eastmarch, it was a nice return to form.

Hypertionb14_ESO

MADshadowman wrote: »

---

PVP based

---

AD and DC have many cheaters and exploiters (no offense), so everyone who likes an easy game just joins them.

I've done a lot of pvp and one thing i could see from the beginning is that EP seems to have the fairest players. EP tries to play a normal AvA play style focused on getiing keeps and having an emperor.

What i see AD and DC doing is zerging and farming.

DC got pretty strong in pvp, although they're sometimes using questionable methods.

AD is not very good, but gains some strength, cause DC is sometimes helping them out. I don't know why that is, but AD players seem to adapt this pretentious behavior we all know from the aldmeri and thalmor.

EP, like i said, seems to be the most honest faction to me. Sure there are some exploiters lately, but after 6 months of playing i've only seen a handful of them. AD and DC on the other hand seem to enjoy the unfair play style a little more.

I hope i didn't offend anyone here, i just wanted to tell you what i've been experiencing over the last 6 months.

EP is the primary farming side in the otherwise AD dominated Haderus in the US server. you will see more major pushes from them than from DC. Any time there is a scroll stolen in that campaign its almost always a EP group farming AP.

my experience since the Campaign change.

I joined on AD side because i like the characters and the area more. EP just feels too much like a grab for those Morrowwind+Skrim players, and DC felt like a political game at times... Ayren is misguided in some ways but she is the most earnest of the 3 leaders.

Vuron

dodgehopper_ESO wrote: »

When I started the game, I chose to play Aldmeri Dominion purely because it is the area that was least showcased in previous games. Oddly, I would have expected Ebonheart Pact to be the most popular since it is Skyrim and Morrowind all rolled into one. Apparently that didn't do it for people.

The polls taken after the announcement of the game and during early Beta and PTS were always dominated by EP. AD was always a good bit behind and DC was always well behind. I believe this was due to many people coming from Skyrim and being familiar with the races.

Some players and guilds during PTS chose factions other than EP in order to try to balance things out and fight as underdogs. These guilds did a good bit of streaming, article writing, guides, and seemed to dominate the beta PvP tests . This seemed to have a snowball effect and more people started following them and joined AD.

You also had a few reviewers right before launch talking about how the quests in AD were easier and faster than the other factions.

The imbalance really swung when the late announcement came that you could play any race in any faction. Even the people that wanted to play the races from Skyrim could now play in the other factions and that's what happened.

Zorrashi

You are mistaken.

The least popular?

It has the nords and the dark elves, two of the most popular races. From Skyrim marketing and the general appeal of anything with "dark" in the name, the pact has among the largest populations....or at least, that's what I gathered pre-launch and the first few months post-launch.

But I suppose they are unpopular in the sense of stereotypes.....filled with dragon born wannabes and dark brooders and whatnot. No, seriously, I know a few people who avoid playing EP strictly because they sincerely believe it to be filled with "Skyrim kiddies".

That and their main PvP tactic in certain campaigns is to simply be the hoard and just come in numbers, only for the DC to strategically mobilize in the night along the AD.

I myself think of them as the most popular faction, and I can see why. They have the awesome sithis-worshiping beast race, the awesome brawn of the nords and the interesting dark elves and their tribunal.

starkerealm

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

Vuron wrote: »

The imbalance really swung when the late announcement came that you could play any race in any faction. Even the people that wanted to play the races from Skyrim could now play in the other factions and that's what happened.

Then that was tied to the Explorer pack only, and any late adopters were forced to restore balance.

*Wanders off to log in on his Pact Breton.*

Aoife32001

I'm not sure why everyone complains about the EP quests. I found the AD quest line with the Veiled Heritance completely blasé, predictable, and cliche. I began wondering if I'd ever actually be fighting, you know... the other factions we were supposed to actually be at war with.

Vahrokh

I, too, think it is the least popular.

In PvP I often see less EP players than other factions. In PvE I think they are a bit less than others but not by much.

I picked Dark Elf because that's what I play since a decade+ in every game.

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

Rodario wrote: »

If more people thought like I did, then it might be because we didn't want to belong to the faction that is populated by people who only started playing ESO because of Skyrim.

umm or morrowind.

phreatophile

Skeevers! Skeevers everywhere!

Certainly feels that way in PVP. With the decrease in campaigns we can't even put together a buff campaign.

Meanwhile, out in PVE land, been leveling an alt and Stonefalls, Deshaan, and Shadowfen are mobbed with players

smeeprocketnub19_ESO

phreatophile wrote: »

Certainly feels that way in PVP. With the decrease in campaigns we can't even put together a buff campaign.

Meanwhile, out in PVE land, been leveling an alt and Stonefalls, Deshaan, and Shadowfen are mobbed with players

that's because your guys' pvp leaders only know how to streak/batswarm/impulse!

WHAT NAOW!?