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The Broken Alliance System - How can we fix it and make PvP more engaging?
Pr0jektile
✭✭✭
ZOS, I really hope you read this one. I doubt you will, but I'll throw it up here anyways.
Just to set a back-drop. I love Elder Scrolls. I like MMO's. I'm huge on immersion and customization. My friends and I, shortly after Morrowind released, were clamoring over one another to try and build a multi-player ES experience. Mostly so that we could stop carrying heavy tube TV's to each other's living rooms and negate any cooling via A/C with the heat of four or more XBOX's running in the living room. (This was an issue in Florida in the summer, by the way). As we failed at doing anything meaningful, we relied on Oblivion and Skyrim to fill the void. While both great games, we were longing for that multi-player experience.
Then, it's finally here! Here comes ESO! Bethesda and Zeni finally listened to all of us nerds screaming for a multi-player Elder Scrolls game. I jumped at the opportunity to play the beta. It was great! I was immediately enveloped by how similarly it really played to an ES game, especially fro being an MMO. I played in first person for awhile, just for funsies. Then the game dropped, and I got it on XBOX. Again, super excited about the whole ordeal. However, the more I play, the more I am saddened by the seeming lack of thought that was put into it. From the bugginess, to the rushed release schedule, I feel like things were just overlooked in exchange for a quick money grab between Skyrim and the next major ES installment.
Now, down to business.
Many people have shunned your three-alliance PvP system for many reasons, mostly being balance. I tend to disagree with them. I think the vacated central leadership being eyed by three factions is a fun and interesting theme. I think the premise is great, but the execution was lackluster. By my observations, the 'balance' isn't necessarily what is wrong. It's cross-alliance play. There wasn't really much emphasis placed on building loyalty to any of the alliances. It was just kind of, "Red, Yellow, Blue, Go!" Players were just cast into the color swatches to fall wherever they landed.
You see, the first thing that I feel is wrong with the PvP is that too many players switch back and forth between alliances as tides shift, simply to capitalize on the campaign rewards. For instance, if NewPlayer123 notices that Daggerfall is gaining an early lead, he may jump off of his Aldmeri character to PvP on behalf of the Covenant. Because he likes DC more? Nope. Because he's more likely to win the campaign rewards, and possibly get that gold piece of gear he's been eyeing for so long, that he can now put in his bank and use on his main AD character. You could easily limit players from creating cross-alliance characters. Here's how:
1.) Simply Disallow it. Since you play through all three story lines on one character, there's really no need to create characters in another alliance. The 'experience' isn't really changing too much by creating a Pact or Dominion character. You could simply disallow creation of players across separate alliances.
2.) Allow for defection. This would be combined with number one. Create a mechanism whereby you could change the faction affiliation of a character, but it required you to go through a series of quests to defect and change your loyalties. Requirements may include having completed the main faction quest in Cadwell's silver or gold before defecting to that alliance. Once the character defects, it is no longer able to share the bank with that player's other characters, or all characters become defected as well.
3.)Disallow banks to be shared across alliances. Players' banks should be limited to alliance. AD can share within AD, DC within DC, EP within EP. This would be very effective in minimizing cross-alliance play. Since they cannot get their gear from one character to another, players will be more apt to stick with one alliance. There will still be those who simply like to play across alliances to upset balances, or to simply feel like a winner, but it will be reduced.
The second place where I feel the PvP went awry, was actually in PvE. What I mean by that is, the main story already covered Molag Bal. While it could have been part of the main faction quest, it should not have been the end-game for the factions as well. Trying to bring the leaders of each faction to common ground to battle Molag Bal was in its own right a noble idea, but could have been left out. We already had the main quest to bring us to Coldharbour. We could have just as easily done our own work in that quest to yield the same results, which was nothing from the factions and everything from the Fighters' and Mages' Guilds.
The faction quests should have been aiming at the Imperial throne. Perhaps the first zone could be orientation and learning about the sub-cultures of Tamriel. The rest, though, should have been a progression toward Cyrodiil. While geographically, that seemed to be the case, it didn't seem like the story carried me to Cyrodiil to fight in the name of my faction. It was really kind of, "Thanks for all this help with the Worm Cult. By the way, there's this other stuff going on over in Cyrodiil. You can go there too, if you'd like. You can kill other factions there.
There were a few instances of invasions by other factions in each campaign, but it could have been more heavily relied on. There could have been some missions that took you to instanced battles on other factions' lands. (a la a trip to Vivec's Antlers in the DC quest lines).
There was some level of uniting the different races and city-states within each faction, but it wasn't really clear why I was doing it. Like Simon Sinek says, start with "Why". Then the how and the what are easy. When I washed up on the beach in whatever strange island starts my faction's quest, I should be condemned as a spy from another faction. We're at war, here! I must prove myself, and rise in the ranks to be useful in the task of taking the ruby throne. That should have been the long play since quest one.
To get back on the subject of PvP, it seems care was not taken to develop a character as a member of their starting faction. I know there's no real clarity in the origins of the character, other than a soul-less escapee from Coldharbour, but come on. The faction quests are your propaganda! Do something with them! Instill some loyalty in your players so they go out to Cyrodiil to beat the other factions.
The next piece is something that I just miss. I think the only thing EverQuest ever really did right, was allow you to PvP in faction zones. Now, there have to be common sense rules around this, off course. For instance, there was a level cap where if I was level 50, and you were level 45 or below, I could not initiate combat with you. You could, however, with me should you so choose. This is obviously destroyed by the whole veteran/champion system allowing you to travel to friendly scaled instances of each zone. However, the Journey through Cyrodiil, from the highest level zones down through to the lowest level zones, with all faction NPC's hostile. Cities and Towns could remain available for merchants, guild traders, etc.. and would make it that much more inconvenient to get to guild traders in other factions.
Also, requiring guilds to be registered under a faction could be a great tool to creating loyalty. This of course, comes with creating incentive for guilds to work together, which guilds are an entirely different topic.
Honestly, all I really want is for this game to thrive. I want the PvP to be relatively balanced, and most of all, engaging.
Just to set a back-drop. I love Elder Scrolls. I like MMO's. I'm huge on immersion and customization. My friends and I, shortly after Morrowind released, were clamoring over one another to try and build a multi-player ES experience. Mostly so that we could stop carrying heavy tube TV's to each other's living rooms and negate any cooling via A/C with the heat of four or more XBOX's running in the living room. (This was an issue in Florida in the summer, by the way). As we failed at doing anything meaningful, we relied on Oblivion and Skyrim to fill the void. While both great games, we were longing for that multi-player experience.
Then, it's finally here! Here comes ESO! Bethesda and Zeni finally listened to all of us nerds screaming for a multi-player Elder Scrolls game. I jumped at the opportunity to play the beta. It was great! I was immediately enveloped by how similarly it really played to an ES game, especially fro being an MMO. I played in first person for awhile, just for funsies. Then the game dropped, and I got it on XBOX. Again, super excited about the whole ordeal. However, the more I play, the more I am saddened by the seeming lack of thought that was put into it. From the bugginess, to the rushed release schedule, I feel like things were just overlooked in exchange for a quick money grab between Skyrim and the next major ES installment.
Now, down to business.
Many people have shunned your three-alliance PvP system for many reasons, mostly being balance. I tend to disagree with them. I think the vacated central leadership being eyed by three factions is a fun and interesting theme. I think the premise is great, but the execution was lackluster. By my observations, the 'balance' isn't necessarily what is wrong. It's cross-alliance play. There wasn't really much emphasis placed on building loyalty to any of the alliances. It was just kind of, "Red, Yellow, Blue, Go!" Players were just cast into the color swatches to fall wherever they landed.
You see, the first thing that I feel is wrong with the PvP is that too many players switch back and forth between alliances as tides shift, simply to capitalize on the campaign rewards. For instance, if NewPlayer123 notices that Daggerfall is gaining an early lead, he may jump off of his Aldmeri character to PvP on behalf of the Covenant. Because he likes DC more? Nope. Because he's more likely to win the campaign rewards, and possibly get that gold piece of gear he's been eyeing for so long, that he can now put in his bank and use on his main AD character. You could easily limit players from creating cross-alliance characters. Here's how:
1.) Simply Disallow it. Since you play through all three story lines on one character, there's really no need to create characters in another alliance. The 'experience' isn't really changing too much by creating a Pact or Dominion character. You could simply disallow creation of players across separate alliances.
2.) Allow for defection. This would be combined with number one. Create a mechanism whereby you could change the faction affiliation of a character, but it required you to go through a series of quests to defect and change your loyalties. Requirements may include having completed the main faction quest in Cadwell's silver or gold before defecting to that alliance. Once the character defects, it is no longer able to share the bank with that player's other characters, or all characters become defected as well.
3.)Disallow banks to be shared across alliances. Players' banks should be limited to alliance. AD can share within AD, DC within DC, EP within EP. This would be very effective in minimizing cross-alliance play. Since they cannot get their gear from one character to another, players will be more apt to stick with one alliance. There will still be those who simply like to play across alliances to upset balances, or to simply feel like a winner, but it will be reduced.
The second place where I feel the PvP went awry, was actually in PvE. What I mean by that is, the main story already covered Molag Bal. While it could have been part of the main faction quest, it should not have been the end-game for the factions as well. Trying to bring the leaders of each faction to common ground to battle Molag Bal was in its own right a noble idea, but could have been left out. We already had the main quest to bring us to Coldharbour. We could have just as easily done our own work in that quest to yield the same results, which was nothing from the factions and everything from the Fighters' and Mages' Guilds.
The faction quests should have been aiming at the Imperial throne. Perhaps the first zone could be orientation and learning about the sub-cultures of Tamriel. The rest, though, should have been a progression toward Cyrodiil. While geographically, that seemed to be the case, it didn't seem like the story carried me to Cyrodiil to fight in the name of my faction. It was really kind of, "Thanks for all this help with the Worm Cult. By the way, there's this other stuff going on over in Cyrodiil. You can go there too, if you'd like. You can kill other factions there.
There were a few instances of invasions by other factions in each campaign, but it could have been more heavily relied on. There could have been some missions that took you to instanced battles on other factions' lands. (a la a trip to Vivec's Antlers in the DC quest lines).
There was some level of uniting the different races and city-states within each faction, but it wasn't really clear why I was doing it. Like Simon Sinek says, start with "Why". Then the how and the what are easy. When I washed up on the beach in whatever strange island starts my faction's quest, I should be condemned as a spy from another faction. We're at war, here! I must prove myself, and rise in the ranks to be useful in the task of taking the ruby throne. That should have been the long play since quest one.
To get back on the subject of PvP, it seems care was not taken to develop a character as a member of their starting faction. I know there's no real clarity in the origins of the character, other than a soul-less escapee from Coldharbour, but come on. The faction quests are your propaganda! Do something with them! Instill some loyalty in your players so they go out to Cyrodiil to beat the other factions.
The next piece is something that I just miss. I think the only thing EverQuest ever really did right, was allow you to PvP in faction zones. Now, there have to be common sense rules around this, off course. For instance, there was a level cap where if I was level 50, and you were level 45 or below, I could not initiate combat with you. You could, however, with me should you so choose. This is obviously destroyed by the whole veteran/champion system allowing you to travel to friendly scaled instances of each zone. However, the Journey through Cyrodiil, from the highest level zones down through to the lowest level zones, with all faction NPC's hostile. Cities and Towns could remain available for merchants, guild traders, etc.. and would make it that much more inconvenient to get to guild traders in other factions.
Also, requiring guilds to be registered under a faction could be a great tool to creating loyalty. This of course, comes with creating incentive for guilds to work together, which guilds are an entirely different topic.
Honestly, all I really want is for this game to thrive. I want the PvP to be relatively balanced, and most of all, engaging.
It is not your ability, so much as your willingness to do what is right that will set you apart from the rest.
2