Misconseptions About the Alliance Change Idea

SerasWhip

Hello everyone! I was checking the forums and I realized that there is a huge amount of prejudice about the ''Alliance Changing'' idea. If we want a game that continuously develops, we should be open for new thoughts and I think under some circumstances, the Alliance Change idea may be usefull.
(Most of those statements are inspired by other users' comments about this topic).

First lets see why some people may be against this idea,

1.It will cause a huge disbalance on pvp because everyone would rush themselves to the winning side.

A- No, it would not. Before chosing a campaign players can see which side is most likely to win anyways and they probably chose accordingly.
A- But even if thats the case, also there will be some players who are on the ''winning side'' whom would like to look for some challange and change their alliance. I have 2 friends who are EP members and they tell me that every morning, when they wake up, they see EP captured 4 more strongholds xd. And they say that feeling kinda useless is inavitable in an alliance which is crowded that much.
A- A lot of players taking these alliances seriously. You know, like football teams. No matter how hard you lose you don't get to support the team that you consider an enemy afterwards. So most people wouldn't like to change their alliances anyways.

2.Why not just reroll rather than changing your alliance?

A- Some people may have valuable items like crafting motifs which they can't transfer to their other characters.
A- It is okay if you are lvl 30 or lower. But for veterans the idea of rerolling is just crazy, personally I think that people who are working or going to school may not find the time to reroll their character for another veteran rank.
A- Well, this one may sound a little awkward but for some people roleplay is important. Especially in these kind of games. As an example, I spent nearly an hour to prepare my character's pysical appereance. Some players wouldn't like to start playing as another character after creating some bonds with the current one!

But again under all these circumstances, we need to add some rules to serve a stabilized gameplay for everyone.

Possible Solution #1- As I mentioned, there will be a migration to each winning and ''not winning'' sides. And in order to reduce the speed of these migrations, developers should only allow players to change alliances only when they get Veteran ranks. Just like the system of Cadwell's Silver/Gold.

Possible Solution #2- Why not make it cost a boadload of gold? Lets say 30,000 gold? Expensiveness makes it a serious decision.

Possible Solution #3- With Crowns..

Possible Solution #4- Lets say that these ideas are not sufficent. At least they should make this happen for the Imperial Edition users. I mean the only nice thing you get is a beautiful horse and a unique armor. There are a bunch of people who are Imperial fanatics, including me. Imperials don't have their own storylines to take part in and they are always bashed by the other alliances in quests. Having some Imperials in a pve area of another alliance wouldn't destroy the game's essence either, since Imperial races can take part in any alliance! And this would also boost the sales of Imperial Editions, so it is a win-win for both the developers and players!

I hope this reaches to the Zenimax. I felt the need of writing this because there are lots of players out there who think that they made the wrong choice from the start and realized it too late to make a reroll. In the beginning of the game we blindly choose the faction that we want to take part in. At least there should be a second chance. So why not have the ability, after coming to the full understanding of game, to make a final decision on which faction to support?

RAGUNAnoOne

What about this: All your quests are based off of and/or reference your alliance the last thing I want is for them to have to overhaul the code of EVERY quest to accommodate this especially since every patch has a 50% chance of screwing up quests they don't even touch.

LiquidSchwartz

it would never work zos would mess it up and end up making your toons lv 0 in an attempt to transfer it

im happy being on crappy ep who loses everything in scourge and haderus
makes me shine even more

only thing i want is race change

SerasWhip

RAGUNAnoOne wrote: »

What about this: All your quests are based off of and/or reference your alliance the last thing I want is for them to have to overhaul the code of EVERY quest to accommodate this especially since every patch has a 50% chance of screwing up quests they don't even touch.

I don't think that they would mess up, I have faith in those guys. Pretty fascist position though, basically just lock people into a single alliance and force them to fight for it their entire lives.

RebornV3x

Well maybe after beaten Cadwell gold you could unlock a one time alliance change this way there's no quest to mess up since you've done the important ones and one time so people can't just pick the winning alliance every week.

Destyran

I have done every quest in the game and i think its good. But with new patch it should change all your toons to one faction that locks you in said alliance you can change with money 5000 crowns

Stratforge

SerasWhip wrote: »

Possible Solution #2- Why not make it cost a boadload of gold? Lets say 30,000 gold? Expensiveness makes it a serious decision.

If it only cost 30k I'd swap alliances everyday to troll-kill my friends.

I wouldn't mind if an alliance change is implemented but I don't think it's necessary. I play with plenty of people whose original maxed out chars were EP or DC but they switched over once they saw the light.

SerasWhip

Stratforge wrote: »

SerasWhip wrote: »

Possible Solution #2- Why not make it cost a boadload of gold? Lets say 30,000 gold? Expensiveness makes it a serious decision.

If it only cost 30k I'd swap alliances everyday to troll-kill my friends.

I wouldn't mind if an alliance change is implemented but I don't think it's necessary. I play with plenty of people whose original maxed out chars were EP or DC but they switched over once they saw the light.

its not necesarry but why not? The amount was an example by the way.

SerasWhip

RebornV3x wrote: »

Well maybe after beaten Cadwell gold you could unlock a one time alliance change this way there's no quest to mess up since you've done the important ones and one time so people can't just pick the winning alliance every week.

Exactly.

SerasWhip

Destyran wrote: »

I have done every quest in the game and i think its good. But with new patch it should change all your toons to one faction that locks you in said alliance you can change with money 5000 crowns

I would pay for it. And there are lots out there who would also pay for it.

Enodoc

RAGUNAnoOne wrote: »

What about this: All your quests are based off of and/or reference your alliance the last thing I want is for them to have to overhaul the code of EVERY quest to accommodate this especially since every patch has a 50% chance of screwing up quests they don't even touch.

This is the real problem here. Those in the OP are just player-related issues (PvP imbalance, re-rolling); quest progression is a technical issue.

If you changed alliance in the middle of 1-50 levelling, you'd break your own alliance story, and either be coming in at the middle of you new alliance's story (meaning the story wouldn't make sense), or have to start the story from the beginning (meaning you'd be over-level for some of the content).

If you changed alliance at any other time, whether that was after completing Cadwell's Gold or not, there would still be issues. Say you hadn't completed a Level 20 quest in your original zone, and then changed alliances. That uncompleted quest would now be a VR quest, and you'd get much more XP and higher level rewards than you would have done before. This could be exploited so that you changed alliances at certain times to always get more XP and better gear from certain quests.

Conversely, say you changed to EP from DC. You've just nerfed your XP gain from the entire area of what should have been your Gold alliance by making it a 1-50 area.

TheShadowScout

Enodoc wrote: »

This is the real problem here. Those in the OP are just player-related issues (PvP imbalance, re-rolling); quest progression is a technical issue.

Agreed, though I still think that most of those issues could be avoided by simply making any alliance change option unavailable until after completing all of cadwells. No breaking the story that way, and it -would- mesh well with meridias "Experience the other alliances" fluff for cadwells in the first place, with an follow up along the lines of "now that you know, you can make an informed choice..."

Then there would be few XP shennannigans, since everyone played through three stories (main, silver, gold) already - the "nerfing area" would be a non-issue thhere, since all areas shifted as well, and all areas were already done, more or less.

Yes, leaving quests undone and then doing them in veteran mode would be possible, but that would be a minor thing, easily balanced by spending an extra day doing cyrodil dailies or such. Especially since leaving too many quests "for later" would be iffy all in itself, due to underlevelling content... and thus require some extra grinding, dungeon-crawling, Cyrodil-ing or such... which then taken together would likely translate back into the "average" time/XP ratio...

Samadhi

SerasWhip wrote: »

...

2.Why not just reroll rather than changing your alliance?

A- Some people may have valuable items like crafting motifs which they can't transfer to their other characters.
A- It is okay if you are lvl 30 or lower. But for veterans the idea of rerolling is just crazy, personally I think that people who are working or going to school may not find the time to reroll their character for another veteran rank.
A- Well, this one may sound a little awkward but for some people roleplay is important. Especially in these kind of games. As an example, I spent nearly an hour to prepare my character's pysical appereance. Some players wouldn't like to start playing as another character after creating some bonds with the current one!

...

If motifs are an issue, make that character into a crafter.

If time is an issue, can assure you that rerolling will take less time than convincing ZOS to provide transfers and waiting for those to be implemented.

Can relate to the roleplay factor though -- you spent almost half as long on your physical appearance as I spent creating backstories for my characters, which helped me figure out which alliance to be in before playing.

Waffennacht

Can we please fight for the other guys in PvP.

I really want to kill this guild in my faction. I mean Ive never wanted to kill anyone as badly as this.

I just don't wanna get another toon to v16 just for revenge

NewBlacksmurf

I'm going to just put it out there and suggest what I'm often against, but in this case, it seems to be the only logical option.

Within the crown store only:

There could be an option if you have open character slots, to buy a level 50.
Period....for lets say 5k in crowns or so.

So you would make a new character, and then pay for them to be leveled to 50. But not include paying for all skills to become level 50, however lets say it auto levels class skills to 35 and weapons to a min of 20.
-I think this could include green gear but other than that....you would have to go back and do all the quests for skills, etc just like on PTS.

Its not a perfect solution and its not even a swap alliances but its one of the logical options....in my opinion cause ppl associate this swapping of alliances as a paid change.

Valrien

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

I'm going to just put it out there and suggest what I'm often against, but in this case, it seems to be the only logical option.

Within the crown store only:

There could be an option if you have open character slots, to buy a level 50.
Period....for lets say 5k in crowns or so.

So you would make a new character, and then pay for them to be leveled to 50. But not include paying for all skills to become level 50, however lets say it auto levels class skills to 35 and weapons to a min of 20.
-I think this could include green gear but other than that....you would have to go back and do all the quests for skills, etc just like on PTS.

Its not a perfect solution and its not even a swap alliances but its one of the logical options....in my opinion cause ppl associate this swapping of alliances as a paid change.

I would be okay with this. Doubly it fixes class changing since rerolling becomes less of a chore.

Enodoc

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

This is the real problem here. Those in the OP are just player-related issues (PvP imbalance, re-rolling); quest progression is a technical issue.

Agreed, though I still think that most of those issues could be avoided by simply making any alliance change option unavailable until after completing all of cadwells. No breaking the story that way, and it -would- mesh well with meridias "Experience the other alliances" fluff for cadwells in the first place, with an follow up along the lines of "now that you know, you can make an informed choice..."

Yeah, the lore is all set up for it being possible (which is why I approve of the earlier suggestions that alliance change could be the big reward for completing Cadwell's Gold).

Then there would be few XP shennannigans, since everyone played through three stories (main, silver, gold) already - the "nerfing area" would be a non-issue thhere, since all areas shifted as well, and all areas were already done, more or less.

Yes, leaving quests undone and then doing them in veteran mode would be possible, but that would be a minor thing, easily balanced by spending an extra day doing cyrodil dailies or such. Especially since leaving too many quests "for later" would be iffy all in itself, due to underlevelling content... and thus require some extra grinding, dungeon-crawling, Cyrodil-ing or such... which then taken together would likely translate back into the "average" time/XP ratio...

Consider that less than a third of a zone's quests are required for Cadwell. That leaves two thirds of every zone ripe for the exploit (or nerf issue); the zones are certainly not "more or less already done" in this situation, and to me, that's considerably more than a "minor thing". I would accept it though, with one caveat -- ZOS would need to introduce "Cadwell's Bronze", to make sure that the necessary quests from your own alliance are done (since it is technically possible to complete the main quest and never touch the Alliance Story [and now technically possible to do no quests at all and still get to the Veteran zones]).

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

There could be an option if you have open character slots, to buy a level 50.
Period....for lets say 5k in crowns or so.

Only if you had to forfeit another character to do so. Otherwise you're getting a reward (levels) for no effort (XP). The Crown Store should never offer reward for no effort, as that is (one of) the exact definition(s) of Pay to Win.

Prabooo

SerasWhip wrote: »

RAGUNAnoOne wrote: »

What about this: All your quests are based off of and/or reference your alliance the last thing I want is for them to have to overhaul the code of EVERY quest to accommodate this especially since every patch has a 50% chance of screwing up quests they don't even touch.

I don't think that they would mess up, I have faith in those guys. Pretty fascist position though, basically just lock people into a single alliance and force them to fight for it their entire lives.

reroll, you have 8 char slots

Samadhi

Question for AD or EP members that have done Daggerfall zones
Does Darien actually appear in the DC questline during vet content?
Interested if the Gold and Silver sends the Vestige back in time or what.

Valrien

Enodoc wrote: »

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

This is the real problem here. Those in the OP are just player-related issues (PvP imbalance, re-rolling); quest progression is a technical issue.

Agreed, though I still think that most of those issues could be avoided by simply making any alliance change option unavailable until after completing all of cadwells. No breaking the story that way, and it -would- mesh well with meridias "Experience the other alliances" fluff for cadwells in the first place, with an follow up along the lines of "now that you know, you can make an informed choice..."

Yeah, the lore is all set up for it being possible (which is why I approve of the earlier suggestions that alliance change could be the big reward for completing Cadwell's Gold).

Then there would be few XP shennannigans, since everyone played through three stories (main, silver, gold) already - the "nerfing area" would be a non-issue thhere, since all areas shifted as well, and all areas were already done, more or less.

Yes, leaving quests undone and then doing them in veteran mode would be possible, but that would be a minor thing, easily balanced by spending an extra day doing cyrodil dailies or such. Especially since leaving too many quests "for later" would be iffy all in itself, due to underlevelling content... and thus require some extra grinding, dungeon-crawling, Cyrodil-ing or such... which then taken together would likely translate back into the "average" time/XP ratio...

Consider that less than a third of a zone's quests are required for Cadwell. That leaves two thirds of every zone ripe for the exploit (or nerf issue); the zones are certainly not "more or less already done" in this situation, and to me, that's considerably more than a "minor thing". I would accept it though, with one caveat -- ZOS would need to introduce "Cadwell's Bronze", to make sure that the necessary quests from your own alliance are done (since it is technically possible to complete the main quest and never touch the Alliance Story [and now technically possible to do no quests at all and still get to the Veteran zones]).

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

There could be an option if you have open character slots, to buy a level 50.
Period....for lets say 5k in crowns or so.

Only if you had to forfeit another character to do so. Otherwise you're getting a reward (levels) for no effort (XP). The Crown Store should never offer reward for no effort, as that is (one of) the exact definition(s) of Pay to Win.

Actually since you're winning nothing by simply having a level 50 character, it's nowhere near P2W.

Enodoc

Samadhi wrote: »

Question for AD or EP members that have done Daggerfall zones
Does Darien actually appear in the DC questline during vet content?
Interested if the Gold and Silver sends the Vestige back in time or what.

Yes, he does. The questlines for AD/DC veterans are identical to the questlines for new DC players.

Aquanova

I had suggested in a previous post that instead of having complete faction change which would mean adjusting zone levels, how about just choosing which faction to fight for at the beginning of each campaign and possibly a cool down? so your stuck there for so many campaigns. Ithe could be free or paid, idc.

clayandaudrey_ESO

If you buy a level 50 do you get a predetermined set of skills? Are they maxed out? With VR being removed I don't think this is needed.

Sordidfairytale

Enodoc wrote: »

RAGUNAnoOne wrote: »

What about this: All your quests are based off of and/or reference your alliance the last thing I want is for them to have to overhaul the code of EVERY quest to accommodate this especially since every patch has a 50% chance of screwing up quests they don't even touch.

...

If you changed alliance at any other time, whether that was after completing Cadwell's Gold or not, there would still be issues. Say you hadn't completed a Level 20 quest in your original zone, and then changed alliances. That uncompleted quest would now be a VR quest, and you'd get much more XP and higher level rewards than you would have done before. This could be exploited so that you changed alliances at certain times to always get more XP and better gear from certain quests.
...

Off the top of my head I can't think of a useful piece of gear that is from a faction specific quest.

If this were to happen the character in question would have to be past Cadwells Gold, and I also recommend that they have to attain a certain level of Achievement points in order to do so. This would mean that the character has explored all of their own faction and at least the faction that they are wanting to convert to (more than just Cadwells Silver or Gold quests in the faction). Make it a quest where they have to do all of the quests in their original faction before leaving even.

I understand the problem that this would mean for PVP. For me it's about utility, if they don't allow you to change alliances I would say change traits and motifs from character specific to account wide. Trait research takes months, and Motif collections are enormous.

This wasn't a problem before Imperial City, but with the crafting sets inside IC it becomes a pain trying to get your lone crafter in to make sets. And who knows where future crafting stations might be located.

NewBlacksmurf

Enodoc wrote: »

TheShadowScout wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

This is the real problem here. Those in the OP are just player-related issues (PvP imbalance, re-rolling); quest progression is a technical issue.

Agreed, though I still think that most of those issues could be avoided by simply making any alliance change option unavailable until after completing all of cadwells. No breaking the story that way, and it -would- mesh well with meridias "Experience the other alliances" fluff for cadwells in the first place, with an follow up along the lines of "now that you know, you can make an informed choice..."

Yeah, the lore is all set up for it being possible (which is why I approve of the earlier suggestions that alliance change could be the big reward for completing Cadwell's Gold).

Then there would be few XP shennannigans, since everyone played through three stories (main, silver, gold) already - the "nerfing area" would be a non-issue thhere, since all areas shifted as well, and all areas were already done, more or less.

Yes, leaving quests undone and then doing them in veteran mode would be possible, but that would be a minor thing, easily balanced by spending an extra day doing cyrodil dailies or such. Especially since leaving too many quests "for later" would be iffy all in itself, due to underlevelling content... and thus require some extra grinding, dungeon-crawling, Cyrodil-ing or such... which then taken together would likely translate back into the "average" time/XP ratio...

Consider that less than a third of a zone's quests are required for Cadwell. That leaves two thirds of every zone ripe for the exploit (or nerf issue); the zones are certainly not "more or less already done" in this situation, and to me, that's considerably more than a "minor thing". I would accept it though, with one caveat -- ZOS would need to introduce "Cadwell's Bronze", to make sure that the necessary quests from your own alliance are done (since it is technically possible to complete the main quest and never touch the Alliance Story [and now technically possible to do no quests at all and still get to the Veteran zones]).

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

There could be an option if you have open character slots, to buy a level 50.
Period....for lets say 5k in crowns or so.

Only if you had to forfeit another character to do so. Otherwise you're getting a reward (levels) for no effort (XP). The Crown Store should never offer reward for no effort, as that is (one of) the exact definition(s) of Pay to Win.

Just on the crown store offering rewards with no work.

Motif, exp scrolls, food, drinks, potions, mount upgrades.....to me these all are paid and no work. Why would offering this as a means of Rerolling to another alliance be any different? It's exp only

Enodoc

Valrien wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

There could be an option if you have open character slots, to buy a level 50.
Period....for lets say 5k in crowns or so.

Only if you had to forfeit another character to do so. Otherwise you're getting a reward (levels) for no effort (XP). The Crown Store should never offer reward for no effort, as that is (one of) the exact definition(s) of Pay to Win.

Actually since you're winning nothing by simply having a level 50 character, it's nowhere near P2W.

What you would be "winning" is a Level 50 character that you haven't earned.

NewBlacksmurf wrote: »

Just on the crown store offering rewards with no work.

Motif, exp scrolls, food, drinks, potions, mount upgrades.....to me these all are paid and no work. Why would offering this as a means of Rerolling to another alliance be any different? It's exp only

You can buy all of those things directly in-game with gold. You can't directly buy XP anywhere. Even XP scrolls/potions don't give you XP directly, you still have to earn it from playing the game. If there was a way to craft instant-XP or insta-level potions in-game, only then would such a thing be reasonable to include in the Crown Store.

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

If this were to happen the character in question would have to be past Cadwells Gold, and I also recommend that they have to attain a certain level of Achievement points in order to do so. This would mean that the character has explored all of their own faction and at least the faction that they are wanting to convert to (more than just Cadwells Silver or Gold quests in the faction). Make it a quest where they have to do all of the quests in their original faction before leaving even.

Ah yeah, that would work, if the requirement was to have completed all three "Hero" achievements/titles then that would cover most of the quests.

SerasWhip

Prabooo wrote: »

SerasWhip wrote: »

RAGUNAnoOne wrote: »

What about this: All your quests are based off of and/or reference your alliance the last thing I want is for them to have to overhaul the code of EVERY quest to accommodate this especially since every patch has a 50% chance of screwing up quests they don't even touch.

I don't think that they would mess up, I have faith in those guys. Pretty fascist position though, basically just lock people into a single alliance and force them to fight for it their entire lives.

reroll, you have 8 char slots

there are couple of reasons why I can't/don't want to reroll, its on the main discussion