Let's enforce alliance choice

Cryptical

I made this comment in another thread, but I think it should be its own topic...

Hoft wrote: »

With coming update (One Tamriel) players from all alliances will receive more freedom in PvE. But limitation in PvP will be more visible.
What about to add option to choose alliance in entering campaign?

I'm going to go in the other direction on this.

With any starting character able to go to any of the other alliances and play as one of them from the very start, the lines between alliances need to be made stronger and deeper in cyrodiil/pvp areas or the entire alliance war will no longer mean anything.

So I propose that alliance allegiance be made account-wide.

Example: A person may have any mixture of characters that began as AD / DC / EP and played through those first levels from any mixture of Kenarthi / Stros / Bleakrock. When they enter their first campaign, they choose an alliance, and that choice holds for all their characters.

This isn't as strict as it may at first seem.

Consider...Outside of pvp, everyone will be mixed into the same world. Yes yes yes, different instances, but there won't be an alliance boundary separating an AD character standing in wayrest from a DC character standing there. If someone wants to play a EP khajiit, they roll one up and first thing they do is travel from kenarthi to bleakrock and start doing quests/grinding there.

I'm on console, so the text across alliance boundaries will be new, but maybe the fact that there have been so many alliance boundaries that are coming down puts us console people in a position to more clearly see the need for stronger pvp alliance borders.

With effectively nothing to distinguish one alliance from another in pve areas, the capability to have a traitor-alt on another alliance just to do sabotage in pvp will increase. Not to mention alliance point farming, boosting, tel var farming, and eavesdropping. It's a crappy thing to be trying to defend a keep and an alliance "ally" takes your siege when you try to do a quick repair, and turns it around to shoot at your own keep. Or to go stealth to avoid a group of enemies and an "ally" spams light bow attacks at your location, telling those other alliance players you are there.

So, I think the alliance gameplay will need to have cross-alliance players choose. Or the dirty dealing will get worse.

Alpheu5

That'd make the Adventurer Pack I bought more useless than it is about to be.

Cryptical

Alpheu5 wrote: »

That'd make the Adventurer Pack I bought more useless than it is about to be.

No. You still got your choice.

Edit: and I got the explorer pack, so I'm talking about limiting myself too.

ArchMikem

Im strictly Ebonheart by choice, seeing as i prefer the Nords and Argonians and why they fight. Its purely out of self preservation in the face of threat, which is the most honorable.

I dont like the idea of restrictions being enforced upon us. People just need to be more like me and have an honor code.

Voxicity

I would love this to happen, but honestly the amount of people who would cry about it leads me to believe ZoS wouldn't even consider it at all ever

Rohamad_Ali

My personal preference is staying one faction during a campaign . I just hold myself to this . I played DC only two years and did not play any other alliance . Now I am AD and plan to stay for at least the next two years . Just my personal preference .

SirAndy

Cryptical wrote: »

So I propose that alliance allegiance be made account-wide.

I paid for a game where i can make more than one character and choose an alliance for each character at creation.
I have 4 main characters i play frequently. They span all 3 alliances.

It's not me personally who is choosing an alliance. It's my characters in-game that belong to an alliance.
I play my characters, not the other way round.

How do you propose to make that work "account wide"?

arkansas_ESO

So if I, an AD player, meet a DC player outside of Cyrodiil and befriend him, and we both like to PVP, we'll never be able to PVP together, only against each other? I'll pass.

Voxicity

SirAndy wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

So I propose that alliance allegiance be made account-wide.

I paid for a game where i can make more than one character and choose an alliance for each character at creation.
I have 4 main characters i play frequently. They span all 3 alliances.

It's not me personally who is choosing an alliance. It's my characters in-game that belong to an alliance.
I play my characters, not the other way round.

How do you propose to make that work "account wide"?

''I paid for a game which...'' argument is invalid and irrelevant; here's why:

You paid for access to a server and the licence to download a game. You also accepted the ToS which pretty much states that ZoS can do anything they want with the game, and you have no right to sue them or take them to court.

They could literally turn all NPC's into pink unicorns and you wouldn't be able to use the ''I paid for a game which...'' argument.

It's irrelevant.

Unsent.Soul

There's 2 topics related to this already, we needed a 3rd?

Hempyre

People play the game they paid for in any fashion they choose, and as well they should be able to. Restrictions of any kind only stifle game play and enjoyment.

Forcing people into a specific playstyle whether it be forced factions or eliminating tower farms etc... Only limits the enjoyment of the game for everyone as different people enjoy different aspects.

Changes that force a specific playstyle limit the variety and potential of the game and would enevitably lead to more people getting bored faster and leaving the game sooner.

Bad idea.

Voxicity

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

My personal preference is staying one faction during a campaign . I just hold myself to this . I played DC only two years and did not play any other alliance . Now I am AD and plan to stay for at least the next two years . Just my personal preference .

I'm definitely leaning more towards this idea, because then if you befriend someone of a different faction outside of cyrodiil, you would merely have to wait until the campaign reset until you can play together. I can't really think of any flaws with a system like this

Voxicity

[SNIP]
''I paid for a game where i can make more than one character and choose an alliance for each character at creation.''

Just saying this statement is irrelevant because when you signed up for the game you basically handed over the keys to ZoS to do whatever they want. Doesn't matter if you bought the game and subbed since launch, you paid for an ever changing and evolving product.

Maybe I took it too literally but I thought you were implying they can't make such a change because it wouldn't be what you paid for. Sorry

[Minor edit for removed content]

Sigtric

Don't like this at all. I have EP so I can pvp with my EP friends and DC so I can play with my DC friends. This would hurt my end game experience greatly.

Drdeath20

Being able to make alternate toons for multiple fractions is unacceptable. What's to stop a big guild from sending spies to the other fraction to grind the sewers and flood your population.

Example.

If-
AD usually has 3 bars of popluation
EP usually has 1 bar of population
DC usually has 1 bar of population

It's more beneficial for some 20 AD players to go grind the sewers on their EP or DC alternates than it is to be in cyrodil on their AD character.

They will artificially increase the other alliances population and at the same time they can earn AP, gold, XP and other stuff in the sewers.

SirAndy

KaiVox22 wrote: »

Just saying this statement is irrelevant because when you signed up for the game you basically handed over the keys to ZoS to do whatever they want. Doesn't matter if you bought the game and subbed since launch, you paid for an ever changing and evolving product.

But this thread is neither about ZOS nor the TOS nor my sub nor me suing anyone nor going to court nor pink unicorns.
I didn't mention either of these in my post.

When i created my 4 main characters i had a *choice* of the alliance for each character.

My question to the OP is still the same:
How do you propose to make that work "account wide"?

Cryptical

.

SirAndy wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

So I propose that alliance allegiance be made account-wide.

I paid for a game where i can make more than one character and chose an alliance for each character at creation.
I have 4 main characters i play frequently. They span all 3 alliances.

It's not me personally who is chosing an alliance. It's my characters in-game that belong to an alliance.
I play my characters, not the other way round.

How do you propose to make that work "account wide"?

Guess what, you could still start a character in kenarthi and play the entire AD main storyline while also starting a character in stros and play the entire DC main storyline. There's the game you paid for, in whatever alliance YOU chose for that character, in whichever race you picked.

The game created by Zeni is the pve. The gameplay we create for ourselves is the pvp. Zeni constructs and orchestrates all of the objects and events in creation - in pve. Zeni constructs the land and items but orchestrates NOTHING - in pvp. In pve, Zeni writes the script and we simply have to speak our lines at the right time to get to the end of the play. In pvp, we write the script and make up our own lines.

1T is going to be nearly erasing the lines between alliances in their pve world. The pvp world needs those lines enforced in order to function, because there are a-holes who wear one character while actively work for a different alliance.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

SirAndy wrote: »

Cryptical wrote: »

So I propose that alliance allegiance be made account-wide.

I paid for a game where i can make more than one character and choose an alliance for each character at creation.
I have 4 main characters i play frequently. They span all 3 alliances.

It's not me personally who is choosing an alliance. It's my characters in-game that belong to an alliance.
I play my characters, not the other way round.

How do you propose to make that work "account wide"?

Here's a way it would work, and really the only way that would make sense. Allow players to change their characters alliance at anytime, (or at the end of campaign), for gold/crowns/AP. I would prefer that your alliance choice be enforced account wide, but that will never happen. So the next best thing is to allow players to switch, at will, to whatever alliance that will net them the most AP at any given time. Please don't say that this idea will "break" the alliance war or that it's unfair. People are already farming AP with multiple cross alliance characters.

SirAndy

Cryptical wrote: »

The pvp world needs those lines enforced in order to function, because there are a-holes who wear one character while actively work for a different alliance.

My characters belong to an alliance , regardless of PvE or PvP. It's still the same character.
The character alliance belongs to the character, not me as a person.


It sounds like you're just bitter about people changing factions within the same campaign ...

Shad0wfire99

Why stop there? Go ahead and take more choices away. Maybe once you choose to play a DK, make every character you create have to be a DK. Or better yet, once you equip a bow, all your toons must use bows. No.

TheShadowScout

Personally I would not mind the idea... though would much rather see it as selectable... as in, select one alliance to PVP for, then only those characters get to enter cyrodil, and you can switch the PVP-alliance just like campaigns, with a delay and perhaps cost if you really like or want to switch for population reasons...

But hey, that's just me, and I only PvP on my EP mains anyways, so...

DMuehlhausen

This is why One Tamriel is a joke. I bought the CE so I would have the advantage of choosing any race and faction combo including Imperial.

Now anybody can be essentially everything and play with anybody. What is even the point of the Cyrodil after this? Run a dungeon with somebody one minute fight them the next...

PoseidonEvil

This might help those who pvp on Xbox lol. Seems to me that all the best pvpers have toon in DC and AD that they use to switch between to farm or get emp or what have you. EP used to be over populated there now that alliance is almost dead

Cryptical

SirAndy wrote: »

KaiVox22 wrote: »

Just saying this statement is irrelevant because when you signed up for the game you basically handed over the keys to ZoS to do whatever they want. Doesn't matter if you bought the game and subbed since launch, you paid for an ever changing and evolving product.

But this thread is neither about ZOS nor the TOS nor my sub nor me suing anyone nor going to court nor pink unicorns.
I didn't mention either of these in my post.

When i created my 4 main characters i had a *choice* of the alliance for each character.

My question to the OP is still the same:
How do you propose to make that work "account wide"?

Once 1T hits, the place your character is born is not the place your character must call home.

Once 1T hits, you will be choosing a birthplace, and can freely haul your auridon-born toon over to bleakrock to shout "blood for the pact" until your fingers bleed. Play the game that zeni provides how you want.

The 'any race any alliance' thing bought by many will be effectively granted to everybody, as they can teleport any race they want from their birth zone to the starting zone of their choice. That's coming with 1T, whether you realize it or not.

If you're looking for a nuts-and-bolts view of how to balance out the coming 1T alliance-freedom in the game with my one-chosen-team proposal so you can knock it down, I'm not going to do that. You can just look to how zeni has phased out pvp options in the past if you care.

Edit: one thing is also coming, for sure. The opening of text chat / voice chat across-alliance in area and zone will increase the dirty playing in pvp. So far it's guild voice that allows a group of one alliance to coordinate with a 'spy' wearing a different color. That's now expanded to guild text. It will soon expand further. The alliance war areas are about 3 distinct groups. If the lines between those groups are not kept, then they might as well dissolve them completely and make the whole thing a free-for-all where there are no allies.

Phinix1

With respect to the OP, this is a terrible idea.

This MIGHT work in some other game, though forced limitation is a good way to shorten the lifespan of ANY franchise. But this particular game is first and foremost an Elder Scrolls game, which is the symbol of RPG.

To impose some arbitrary and quite frankly nonsensical limitation on ALL character's and their ability to RP their unique story just because ONE character joins an alliance, is really an idea that makes no sense at all.

What is even the projected purpose of this? A fear that One Tamriel will make PVP "meaningless" (your words)?

Sounds like a lack of imagination on your part, again no offense.

But trying to forcibly limit the imagination and ability to RP of others because you personally can't see PVP as meaningful without twisting people's arms to behave the way you need them to?

Yeah. No.

Karivaa

Alliance allegiance makes sense. I am sick of buff campaigns because everybody wants great rewards so they make characters of every faction and then play on all of them during the same campaign depending on who is winning.

IcyDeadPeople

I understand you feel like you want to encourage faction loyalty, etc. But from what I hear, it seems your proposal doesn't work.

You would like to have players restricted from making a new character in a different faction until campaign resets. How about all those who already have characters in all three factions, we are not allowed to enter Cyrodiil on these characters?

Many of us have zero interest in this game outside of PVP, so how could it even be determined which of our characters we can play and which we cannot?

And for those who want to make new characters, consider the many, many players who don't have the Explorer pack. If their first character is a Nord, they will never be able to make Redguard, High Elf, Bosmer, Khajiit, etc.

acw37162

Stated Goal:

Reduce barriers.

Purposed Action:

Create a barrier.

I see an issue here.

IcyDeadPeople

Karivaa wrote: »

Alliance allegiance makes sense. I am sick of buff campaigns because everybody wants great rewards so they make characters of every faction and then play on all of them during the same campaign depending on who is winning.

Several months ago when the PVP reward sets were not so common, I noticed more people seemed to do this, but at this point I doubt anybody is playing for the 30 day campaign rewards. It wasn't necessarily that they tried to influence a different faction to get higher score, but they were trying to get multiple characters into the top few percent.

However, even the purple and gold jewelry from those sets is not worth much at all anymore.

Some of the guilds switch faction in order to improve the balance, playing on a faction with less players, which is a positive IMO. Then those of us who mostly play solo, not belonging to any raid guilds etc, often we are simply trying to learn how to play different classes/build ideas or play with friends on another faction.

As for the "buff campaigns" - at this point the buffs no longer apply outside of cyrodiil, and on PC NA at least, there are only 2 campaigns that allow champion points, so there is not currently a buff server for any faction.

newtinmpls

Cryptical wrote: »

So I propose that alliance allegiance be made account-wide.

.

No

No

No

No

My Pact characters are very pleased to be Pact

My DC are very pleased to be DC

My Auridon characters are very loyal to their queen.

Khenarthi

No from me too. I have 10 AD characters (only the first on ever set foot in Cyro because I do not really enjoy pvp) and recently created one character in each of the other factions just to be able to buy the specific alliance style stones form the Tel Var vendor. With your proposal, I would no longer be able to buy the DC and EP style stones to get armour crafted with them. Yeah, no thanks.