What if there was a Neutral faction?

BigES

What if people were allowed to declare themselves neutral from the Alliance War when entering Cyrodiil (white flag)?

You could still group and play with your friends, but only people in your group could teleport to any resources, keeps, or towns that you control.

Currently there is no way to prevent people in your faction from following you around and leeching your AP, but this might be a start at combating zerg gameplay.

Just a thought. Criticize away as usual!

BllyDnsr

No.

NightbladeMechanics

People have been calling for this since launch. I personally want to declare my guild neutral and just kill you all.

DHale

It's called EP: run in humugous packs hitting random buttons then when the see one single solo player they neutral that player.

BigES

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

People have been calling for this since launch. I personally want to declare my guild neutral and just kill you all.

Yeah, I don't understand the resistance.

The worst that could happen is that a large guild will declare themselves neutral and take the map. So, no change. Still a large guild zerging hard.

I'd rather fight a large guild declared neutral than fight that exact same guild + extra randoms in the same faction piggy backing and adding to the overall lag and permanence issues in that general area.

Ghost-Shot

Sign me up!

HoolDog

Great idea

BigES

DHale wrote: »

It's called EP: run in humugous packs hitting random buttons then when the see one single solo player they neutral that player.

Well what I'm proposing is that there could be multiple "neutral" groups, not necessary individual players.

This would probably only work if there were realistic group size restrictions.

(obviously there are no "group" size restrictions if you decide to play on a faction - everyone is friendly in your faction)

mandrakethebard_ESO

BigES wrote: »

Just a thought. Criticize away as usual!

Unfair. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they're being unreasonable.

BigES wrote: »

Currently there is no way to prevent people in your faction from following you around and leeching your AP, but this might be a start at combating zerg gameplay.

Sounds less like an actual need than a personal problem.

BigES wrote: »

What if people were allowed to declare themselves neutral from the Alliance War when entering Cyrodiil (white flag)?

You could still group and play with your friends, but only people in your group could teleport to any resources, keeps, or towns that you control.

Now to the meat of your idea. I disagree with your basic premise, that a "neutral" faction could interfere in the war. that would make everything in Cyrodiil far more complex than it already is, with 4 factions running about, and the Alliance dynamics are already complex enough as it is.

However, the idea of Cyrodiil neutrality has some merit, in my opinion. Perhaps a neutral character could have nothing to do with the war itself and nothing to do with PvP combat/PvP objectives, but they could instead do the PvE content that exists in Cyrodiil. I like that idea.

There are 3 objections that occur to me about this *and* the original idea as well. (1) There is really no way to prevent the neutral party from interfering with the war, be it attacking objectives or even just spying on various faction behaviors for their friends. (2) Having a fourth faction around would drastically increase lag in Cyrodiil, which is already a recurring problem. (3) Programming it would probably be a massive headache and increase the chances of additional bugs to crop up.

I do have a counter-proposal, though. Suppose a mirror of Cyrodiil were created in which there is no PvP and no objectives, just the PvE content? Perhaps all of the existing keeps, farms, mines, etc. could even be left in place as simply PvE challenges for whoever came by. It's a thought.

Mojmir

That would be daedra,kill everyone including your own

BigES

mandrakethebard_ESO wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Just a thought. Criticize away as usual!

Unfair. Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they're being unreasonable.

BigES wrote: »

Currently there is no way to prevent people in your faction from following you around and leeching your AP, but this might be a start at combating zerg gameplay.

Sounds less like an actual need than a personal problem.

BigES wrote: »

What if people were allowed to declare themselves neutral from the Alliance War when entering Cyrodiil (white flag)?

You could still group and play with your friends, but only people in your group could teleport to any resources, keeps, or towns that you control.

Now to the meat of your idea. I disagree with your basic premise, that a "neutral" faction could interfere in the war. that would make everything in Cyrodiil far more complex than it already is, with 4 factions running about, and the Alliance dynamics are already complex enough as it is.

However, the idea of Cyrodiil neutrality has some merit, in my opinion. Perhaps a neutral character could have nothing to do with the war itself and nothing to do with PvP combat/PvP objectives, but they could instead do the PvE content that exists in Cyrodiil. I like that idea.

There are 3 objections that occur to me about this *and* the original idea as well. (1) There is really no way to prevent the neutral party from interfering with the war, be it attacking objectives or even just spying on various faction behaviors for their friends. (2) Having a fourth faction around would drastically increase lag in Cyrodiil, which is already a recurring problem. (3) Programming it would probably be a massive headache and increase the chances of additional bugs to crop up.

I do have a counter-proposal, though. Suppose a mirror of Cyrodiil were created in which there is no PvP and no objectives, just the PvE content? Perhaps all of the existing keeps, farms, mines, etc. could even be left in place as simply PvE challenges for whoever came by. It's a thought.

Not following your personal problem comment in any way. Most people in PvP (I hope) want a challenge and to rank up. Goal is to obtain AP. I have to fake out same-faction players (fake going through door - fake teleport) all the time to get them to leave. Pretty frustrating since the AP system is a shared pool.

I'm not suggesting "neutral" means your invulnerable and can do PvE content in a PvP zone. That's the last thing we need in solving Cyrodiil lag/performance issues.

Agree with your point that "faction" is probably a bad term. My suggestion is to allow groups to declare themselves neutral (and thereby hostile to all players not in their group).

Ghostbane

GRoMD is the only faction that will win the alliance war.

NightbladeMechanics

Mojmir wrote: »

That would be daedra,kill everyone including your own

Why isn't this on my character creation screen?

All these worm cultists and dremora everywhere. I want to see what the other side lives like! Would be cool to advance up to being a Xivkyn..

Crispen_Longbow

All alliances have "Neutral" guilds they are "Farmers". Now if you could just farm your own alliance it would solve a lot of problems.

BigES

Crispen_Longbow wrote: »

All alliances have "Neutral" guilds they are "Farmers". Now if you could just farm your own alliance it would solve a lot of problems.

Yes, exactly! There are several tight knit groups in each faction that really don't care about the alliance war or "winning" or taking keeps. They are just looking for good outnumbered (or even) fights.

It would be nice to allow these groups to just declare neutral so they are equally a bother to every faction.

The benefit to those groups would be they get more opponents to fight.

The benefit to the alliance war is that the group (in this example) will now be hostile to all three factions. So they would be likely get overrun by all three factions if they declare neutral and tried to interfere too deeply with the Alliance War.

(again I'm suggesting reasonable group size restrictions with this idea)

Crispen_Longbow

BigES wrote: »

Yes, exactly! There are several tight knit groups in each faction that really don't care about the alliance war or "winning" or taking keeps. They are just looking for good outnumbered (or even) fights.

Battlegrounds should solve this for those types of groups.

If you want larger groups then 4, farming works for now. If you want to farm your own alliance that's when you jump on your Alts.

The benefit to the alliance war is that the group (in this example) will now be hostile to all three factions. So they would be likely get overrun by all three factions if they declare neutral and tried to interfere too deeply with the Alliance War.

The real benefit to the alliance war is that they aren't clogging up the queue of their own alliance for players that want to play objectives. Also a reason that district and sewers shouldn't count towards campaign population.

it really wouldn't be much different then it is now though

NightbladeMechanics

@Crispen_Longbow lol why on earth should players who don't care to play objectives be excluded from Cyrodiil? It's open world with no obligation to conform to any one play style. The only rules are friendly fire off, ressing rules, and AP on kills.

And if IC objectives counted toward the campaign, and IC had more of them, the campaign objective players would only benefit. You'd have a greater number and variety of objectives to fight over, and you'd draw some of us neutral players who love IC PvP into participating in the campaign.

Chuga_Rei

If you believe the rumors their is a neutral faction in cyrodiil, its just invite only.

Crispen_Longbow

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

@Crispen_Longbow lol why on earth should players who don't care to play objectives be excluded from Cyrodiil? It's open world with no obligation to conform to any one play style. The only rules are friendly fire off, ressing rules, and AP on kills.

No one said they should be excluded from Cyrodiil. I said that having a 4th neutral alliance one benefit to the alliance would be that they aren't counted against them.

If you have a basketball team and can only have 5 players on the court at a time and 2 of those players just want to play hockey on the court. That's fine but you are handicapping the basketball team to only 3 basketball players versus 5 basketball players. Now if those two hockey players weren't counted towards the basketball team so that the basketball team can field 5 players you don't see how that is a benefit to the basketball team?

Campaigns have clearly set objectives for scoring and winning the campaign. When you choose not to help your alliance with objectives you are not helping them win the campaign. There is a long queue on TF for plenty of players that want to help win the campaign and play objectives. When these spots are filled with players that aren't pushing campaign objectives it's not helping the campaign score.

I stopped caring about the campaign score along time ago. I have played since beta. I do play objectives but it's only to get good fights I really don't care who wins. Having said that, I did care the last few hours of the TF campaign last cycle it was so close anything you did mattered so it was fun.

If there was a 4th neutral alliance I would probably join that just to get more fights.

And if IC objectives counted toward the campaign, and IC had more of them, the campaign objective players would only benefit. You'd have a greater number and variety of objectives to fight over, and you'd draw some of us neutral players who love IC PvP into participating in the campaign.

Agreed if they counted but they don't currently. So either count them as objectives or separate the population. The population being included was only part of "Locking out" mechanism that they got rid of. Either of those are better for the alliance.

I can recoginize when my playstyle isn't helping the alliance. When I take my group to just bridge farm because my group is tired of playing objectives, I don't pretend I'm helping them win. We will be at the bridge farming for a while until we hear DC start complaining in zone chat about losing more keeps and asking for help so we then jump to the slaughter fish below and go help them out.

We don't do it to win the campaign but we do go and help them.

BigES

Crispen_Longbow wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

Yes, exactly! There are several tight knit groups in each faction that really don't care about the alliance war or "winning" or taking keeps. They are just looking for good outnumbered (or even) fights.

Battlegrounds should solve this for those types of groups.

If you want larger groups then 4, farming works for now. If you want to farm your own alliance that's when you jump on your Alts.

The benefit to the alliance war is that the group (in this example) will now be hostile to all three factions. So they would be likely get overrun by all three factions if they declare neutral and tried to interfere too deeply with the Alliance War.

The real benefit to the alliance war is that they aren't clogging up the queue of their own alliance for players that want to play objectives. Also a reason that district and sewers shouldn't count towards campaign population.

it really wouldn't be much different then it is now though

I disagree it wouldn't be different.

Note - again I"m not suggesting a neutral "faction" that lumps everyone together. I chose a poor description. If you declare neutral its simply you and your group.

Goal is to allow any character to declare neutral regardless of their base faction. They can play with a set/restricted number of people who also queue up neutral (regardless of faction). Suggesting everyone have 3 copies of a character they play more frequently doesnt seem like a logical solution. Also, the goal is to increase the player pool of hostile targets (33%).

Like your point that they shouldn't add to the population total of their base faction! That for sure would have to be implemented.

(note: total server population should probably remain unchanged - ZoS suggested total population is less relevant compared to the amount of people concentrated in a single grid area, but I've yet to see that - pop-locked servers chug more in empty areas IMO)

I love the idea of Battlegrounds. I've been pushing for it since day 1. But Battlegrounds is probably going to mean the death of competitive Cyrodiil PvP (actual quality players). Nobody in their right mind will step into a zerg/lag fest Cyrodiiil when they have a balanced and ranked competitive option. This is an attempt to save it.

Note that some campaigns are already being axed due to a declining interest/population. Without some other way to revitalize the current system, its doomed to be filled with large groups (factions) of swarming zergs. Anyone who gets frustrated is just going to leave rather than take an adjacent objective and hope that they can draw smaller packs of players to them.

BigES

One other quick random point - Vicious Death. How many times have you been killed by Vicious Death because some random lowbie in your faction (not in your group) was following you around, basically a ticking time bomb?

NBrookus

So much opportunity for griefing and politics with a neutral faction, and it does undermine the whole concept of a 3 alliance war. (Even tho I personally would like to play neutral.)

We just need a separate version of some unused corner of the map where everyone in group = friendly and everyone not in group = enemy. You know you've won when everyone else gangs up on you and forms one large group to kill yours.

Cyrodiil: Zerg alliance warfare; competitive large groups
IC: PvE, farm zone, and ganker paradise
Battlegrounds: Competitive small groups
New spot: Chaotic brawling

BigES

NBrookus wrote: »

So much opportunity for griefing and politics with a neutral faction, and it does undermine the whole concept of a 3 alliance war. (Even tho I personally would like to play neutral.)

We just need a separate version of some unused corner of the map where everyone in group = friendly and everyone not in group = enemy. You know you've won when everyone else gangs up on you and forms one large group to kill yours.

Cyrodiil: Zerg alliance warfare; competitive large groups
IC: PvE, farm zone, and ganker paradise
Battlegrounds: Competitive small groups
New spot: Chaotic brawling

If you have specific examples on why you think it would be so undermining, please state them.

Youre suggesting an area of Cyrodill on the map where everyone other than your group becomes hostile? Interesting idea.

Vurian97

I think the "Neutral" term is incorrect. Mainly because neutral implies they fight no one. What if they were 'Imperial', defending the Imperial Empire? Since the Empire is broken up and is in the midst of civil war, most groups would not know who is loyal, etc, which would explain why other Imperial groups would clash, essentially being 1 group vs all. Would make sense lore wise and immersion wouldn't be broken.

NBrookus

BigES wrote: »

If you have specific examples on why you think it would be so undermining, please state them.

Aside from salty players/groups/guilds porting out and back in on whim to grief their own faction because they got their feelings hurt? Cross-faction players can do this do, but it requires investment in a new character and at that point anything they do benefits the other faction. A neutral group could just deprive their own faction of points and human resources while benefiting no one.

Less salty example: Imagine a large guild of particular faction logging in as neutral but still continues to strategically fight for their faction, while their faction reaps a low pop bonus. This would directly affect campaign scores.

I like the idea of playing neutral, I just wouldn't want it implemented in a way that rains on anyone elses' parade. And the people that like the competitive alliance war aspect would probably be happy to see the backside of the brawlers at the Bridge/Milegate/Chalman Mine.

sirston

always asked for a imperial only faction for defending cyrodil

BigES

NBrookus wrote: »

BigES wrote: »

If you have specific examples on why you think it would be so undermining, please state them.

Aside from salty players/groups/guilds porting out and back in on whim to grief their own faction because they got their feelings hurt? Cross-faction players can do this do, but it requires investment in a new character and at that point anything they do benefits the other faction. A neutral group could just deprive their own faction of points and human resources while benefiting no one.

Less salty example: Imagine a large guild of particular faction logging in as neutral but still continues to strategically fight for their faction, while their faction reaps a low pop bonus. This would directly affect campaign scores.

I like the idea of playing neutral, I just wouldn't want it implemented in a way that rains on anyone elses' parade. And the people that like the competitive alliance war aspect would probably be happy to see the backside of the brawlers at the Bridge/Milegate/Chalman Mine.

Thanks for providing examples.

First example, doesn't every faction have the same type of people? Equally as likely for either side. And I'm not sure its such a bad idea to just let kids who get in an epeen slinging contest to just fight it out instead of rambling on in chat. Either way I don't see this is anything that affects gameplay/combat. Kids will be kids.

Second example, same principle. Each faction will have some guilds dropping in and out. The game currently doesn't balance the population of each faction unless they are all pop-locked. You can already have 100 yellow fighting 20 red. Currently groups are limited to 24. Personally, I think it should be lower but either way I'm not sure a 24 man group can compete with 100-200+ people in each faction in a pop-locked server. 24 people cannot hold a map in a full server. Also, they will be hostile to the faction they are "coordinating" with, so friendly-fire would be a huge issue. The rest of the faction will have no idea they're actually "friendly" and trying to coordinate. They will just see a red target and attack.

AzuraKin

BigES wrote: »

What if people were allowed to declare themselves neutral from the Alliance War when entering Cyrodiil (white flag)?

You could still group and play with your friends, but only people in your group could teleport to any resources, keeps, or towns that you control.

Currently there is no way to prevent people in your faction from following you around and leeching your AP, but this might be a start at combating zerg gameplay.

Just a thought. Criticize away as usual!

be quicker at killing enemy players and taking keeps, problem solved.

PandaIsAPotato

Only if the Neutral players can attack other Neutral players that way all the mDKs left can declare themselves Neutral and cleanse the world of the filth and wretch, and mainly so they can all wear my glorious pink pony tabard. For reasons.

NightbladeMechanics

My immersions are very important to me.

Vurian97

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

My immersions are very important to me.

Immersion would permit "Neutral" players as you are all terming it. Mercenaries, etc. are "Neutral". Just imagine that: A guild is tired of getting pounded so they hire another guild from another faction to go Merc and beat up their own faction or something.