Should players be locked into a faction for the duration of a campaign?

Vivecc

Yes

i would very much like to have the old system back. One alliance char per campaign. And they would have to stop the ways to go around that rule to make pvp a much more "honest" experience as it is intended

Nermy

Yes

Cogo wrote: »

Nermy smells nice.

A polite good pact leader. Smells so nice!

Awwww.... Tyvm mate. Btw, you smell bloody awful. Need to take that armour off once in a while and wash all the blood off it...

QuebraRegra

Yes

technohic wrote: »

I'd go entirely opposite of this direction and let players queue their toons for any of the 3 factions. If one faction is outnumbering the other 2; let the other 2 pool their resources.

at first I was going to "HELL NO" this as a knee-jerk... then I realized it would be a solution to wanting to campaign with friends from a different faction (they would of course be required to join me in DC).

The problem is 99% of people will queue for the winning team. There are no real "loayalty" bonuses (there should be, and they should be retroactive... I'm ready to get paid!!!!). They also need to somehow buff the underdog faction at any time.

geonsocal

No

QuebraRegra wrote: »

The problem is 99% of people will queue for the winning team. There are no real "loyalty" bonuses (there should be, and they should be retroactive... I'm ready to get paid!!!!). They also need to somehow buff the underdog faction at any time.

i can only speak for myself, and, a few other gamers whom i've come to know fairly well - i have 8 characters split up on all the factions, all on the same map - i go out of my way to stay off my characters on the winning side (normally i wait util a couple of weeks into the campaign and the "winning" side starts thinning out before i play them, plus i'll only stay on each character a day or two to reach the tier 3 level rewards for 'end of campaign')...

personally there is so much more fun in fighting for the losing sides (most important - you normally don't have to travel too far to find a fight )...

i'm not naive enough about human nature not to know that there are probably a bunch of bandwagon pvpers...but, i believe a lot of us cross faction type folks generally do our best to support the undermanned factions...

there is a campaign loyalty payout for each character you keep in the campaign (3,300 gold) - but, no payout for fighting for just one side...

100% agree on buffing the underdogs in a campaign...once the campaign score gets out of hand - a lot of folks will leave...it would be great to allow for some kind of "catch up" mechanism to tighten up the race for first....

playsforfun

Yes

only reason i say yes is due to dedication issues

reiverx

Yes

geonsocal wrote: »

QuebraRegra wrote: »

The problem is 99% of people will queue for the winning team. There are no real "loyalty" bonuses (there should be, and they should be retroactive... I'm ready to get paid!!!!). They also need to somehow buff the underdog faction at any time.

i can only speak for myself, and, a few other gamers whom i've come to know fairly well - i have 8 characters split up on all the factions, all on the same map - i go out of my way to stay off my characters on the winning side (normally i wait util a couple of weeks into the campaign and the "winning" side starts thinning out before i play them, plus i'll only stay on each character a day or two to reach the tier 3 level rewards for 'end of campaign')...

personally there is so much more fun in fighting for the losing sides (most important - you normally don't have to travel too far to find a fight )...

i'm not naive enough about human nature not to know that there are probably a bunch of bandwagon pvpers...but, i believe a lot of us cross faction type folks generally do our best to support the undermanned factions...

there is a campaign loyalty payout for each character you keep in the campaign (3,300 gold) - but, no payout for fighting for just one side...

100% agree on buffing the underdogs in a campaign...once the campaign score gets out of hand - a lot of folks will leave...it would be great to allow for some kind of "catch up" mechanism to tighten up the race for first....

Ok but think about the implications of what you're saying. We both play PS4 NA Scourge so know the map pretty well.

Playing for the losing side might seem like helping but it's really just an artificial way of creating a balance. If every player done the same thing, it would be nothing more than a game of alliance leap frog. And face it, everyone has their favorite alliance, so while it might be nice to see the other factions catch up, a line is drawn when they get too close.

I remember last year when AD went without a campaign win from March to December. People were not hopping over to help. In fact, the total opposite happened and people left AD in droves. They joined other alliances, went to Haderus, or simply left the game in disappointment.

Now that AD are dominating we are seeing exactly the same thing. People from other alliances are joining AD and this has only served to shift the pendulum in the opposite direction.

People want to be on the winning team and the current setup has turned the campaign into something meaningless. It's good that you take the side of the losing team but you only get to do that because 99% of the players don't.

Zaldan

Yes

although I'm surprised ZO$ hasn't removed factions from the character entirely and made Cyrodiil the same as battlegrounds, you choose which side you que for, characters aren't really faction locked anyway with the way the main story runs

Kram8ion

Yes

dont need to give reasons again

SneaK

Yes

100%

This "I play every alliance and have friends everywhere" mentality is sickening. You should all change your gamertags to Benedict Arnold.

geonsocal

No

reiverx wrote: »

Playing for the losing side might seem like helping but it's really just an artificial way of creating a balance. If every player done the same thing, it would be nothing more than a game of alliance leap frog. And face it, everyone has their favorite alliance, so while it might be nice to see the other factions catch up, a line is drawn when they get too close.

People want to be on the winning team and the current setup has turned the campaign into something meaningless. It's good that you take the side of the losing team but you only get to do that because 99% of the players don't.

howdy @reiverx ...as much as i'd like to disagree (cuz, it benefits me to be able to do what i want) - i can't...

more and more i see the truth behind the troubles caused by "alliance hopping"...not sure that locking folks into alliances will actually help with faction balance - but, it would definitely lessen the "grief" which gets spread throughout the campaign...

i don't know - the thought of having some of my characters split into either 7 day campaigns (with crappy payouts) or, on the "not so heavily populated" azura's star map - doesn't thrill me...

the 30 days of scourge gives me a good opportunity to ensure all 8 characters reach tier 3 rewards (i make about 120k or so at the end of each campaign - and, new gear sets are expensive )...

however, being a "healthy" member of the community is important to me...as much as i want to "get mine" - i'd like to help create the best pvp environment possible...

"And face it, everyone has their favorite alliance, so while it might be nice to see the other factions catch up, a line is drawn when they get too close."

very true statement - as much as i've striven for neutrality over the last year and a half or so of pvp - i do in fact have a favorite alliance (my main's alliance)...

Edit: just because nobody else really cares - second thought on the whole favorite faction thing...

I do have a favorite faction; however, not sure I can say I have a favorite character...

geonsocal

No

SneaK wrote: »

100%

This "I play every alliance and have friends everywhere" mentality is sickening. You should all change your gamertags to Benedict Arnold.

ordraveeb17_ESO

Yes

hate jumpers.....

White wabbit

Yes

Well Zos the people have spoken ! Please take note

Twohothardware

Yes

They absolutely need to go back to the way it was before. What's going on now on PS4 is ridiculous. AD has become completely overpopulated the last couple of months with players and guilds leaving the other two alliances to join easy mode and this month AD has built up such a huge lead in Scourge thanks to a full 3 bars with a queue 24/7 that with just a week to go they're leaving it and all piling into the other campaigns to map cap them as well.

If players cared enough about the game to self manage the population and the better players didn't all run to join the winning alliance for easier stat padding then we could have unrestricted campaign play but that's never going to be the case so there needs to be restrictions to keep the alliances balanced.

geonsocal

No

Twohothardware wrote: »

They absolutely need to go back to the way it was before. What's going on now on PS4 is ridiculous. AD has become completely overpopulated the last couple of months with players and guilds leaving the other two alliances to join easy mode and this month AD has built up such a huge lead in Scourge thanks to a full 3 bars with a queue 24/7 that with just a week to go they're leaving it and all piling into the other campaigns to map cap them as well.

If players cared enough about the game to self manage the population and the better players didn't all run to join the winning alliance for easier stat padding then we could have unrestricted campaign play but that's never going to be the case so there needs to be restrictions to keep the alliances balanced.

unfortunately, the primary by-product of this: bridge fighting 24/7...

yep, our map is a mess...seems like a very long time ago when the aldemeri dominion was those loveable losers filled with a lot of cool people, but, undermanned and dysfunctional groups/guilds...

I can still remember the animosity my red and yellow characters had for the daggerfall covenant which ruled campaign after campaign...

looks now like one tyrant was overthrown and replaced by another...

if zos has no plans to restrict player accounts from participating on multiple factions within the same map - something has to be done to help balance the scores in order to keep everyone engaged for the full 30 days...

it won't help with the players whom take joy from griefing other players in chat, running the scrolls in the wrong direction or letting others on enemy factions know where different ally groups are heading...

finding some method to keep the scores close at least will force some to choose a side...

White wabbit

Yes

Scourge on Xbox Eu has gone that way that Ad are overpopulated the campigans need balancing as no point logging on to just get zerged down

Gilvoth

people just make another character and make other accounts and use different computers ect ect ect ...
to stop this type of thing, we would have to have it programmed into the game long before its beta.
eso is designed to allow spies and cheat so, this type of thing in eso is too late sorry.

llllADBllll

Yes

I really can't understand how this hasn't been a thing since Launch. Sure switch alliance each campaign but jumping to the winning side and siding with the bigger group is so common.

ilander

Yes

In the last week or so we've seen the same ball group guild playing for the reds and the yellows on PC EU TF. Seeing as this is legal within the game, the no naming and shaming policy does not apply so i can tell people without my post being taken off what i observed in the last week.

We saw Zerg Squad (well known ball group on EU) logging their red and yellow chars within minutes last week to work on how they want the map to be dominated or who they want to farm and where. They're a very effective group at farming solo players and less organised groups and also are highly capable of changing how the map looks quite fast when they're not just farming.

Should they really be permitted to decide how 2 sides in the campaign are performing within the same hour??? I honestly don't think so and i guess that only people from Zerg Squad and their associates will disagree with me on this one.

The reason zos started to let cross factioning happen i think is because it was already possible to cross faction when it wasn't supposed to be and they're lacking the resources or skills to stop it from being done so they just decided to make it a "feature" pretty much the same as all of the other broken stuff they can't be bothered fixing for one reason or another.

This just has people who are only interested in their own personal advancement instead of helping their faction laughing at all of the people who actually have true faction loyalty and i think, for this reason, that it is really bad for PvP in general and a terrible decision by ZOS that should be reversed and fixed properly as a priority instead of fixing things how shoulders on the Mannimarco set clip through the side of argonian's neck's or whatever.

dotme

Yes

ilander wrote: »

....people who are only interested in their own personal advancement instead of helping their faction...

Ah, yes indeed. So there is an alternative. I was a big proponent of placing more AP rewards into campaign objectives, and I think that change has improved things. There's a fix for the problem you mention as well.

1) ZOS should do an accurate population count (not based on exit/entry counting, but an actual server process that sweeps each campaign every 5 minutes, does a head-count, and updates the "bars" every time it sweeps). Now we have accurate pop counts that are current at all times.

2) If a faction outnumbers another faction in the campaign, player individual AP earned from capturing keeps, resources and kills is reduced by a percentage - the greater they outnumber their opponent, the less AP those players earn.

I would do away with the broken "low population bonus" as it doesn't work, has been exploited, and only affects faction campaign score and not individual rewards

The idea is that when you go to enter your home campaign, there would be a personal benefit (more AP earned) to joining the faction with the lowest population.

This could well provide the balance we're all looking for, while not locking people into a faction for a 30 day campaign. Just a thought.

Heruthema

Yes

I think the ability to faction swap has been one of the worst decisions ZOS has made. It has turned campaigns into nothing but an AP farming fest. Take all or a lot of keeps as one faction and switch sides and take them back. It has allowed large guilds to jump whenever they want and completely change the course of the campaign.
ZOS needs to go back to the way it used to be. If you start a campaign as EP, AD or DC you can not play another faction in that campaign until it is over. Next campaign change factions if you want to but not during the campaign.

FearlessOne_2014

No

Sure if there was either more of the same campaign type. Or if characters was not locked to a faction. ZOS could make it so Alliance War is account bound, so if you was EP then everyone of your characters on your account is EP. But then that would make their Adventurer Pack worthless now wouldn't it.

With what you are saying is that. People with characters in multiple factions should not have a choice to the Cyrodiil playstyles they can be apart off.

Not to mention all those PvE must have abilities tied to Alliance War level. So unless you are willing to convince ZOS to make it so they are not locked behind Cyrodiil. Then hell no, allow players to swap and do what even they want.

Who do you all think you are? To try to impose your will on other players, in this sense. At this point of the game this proposal will be completely game breaking for many players, who are not role playing AvA tryhards, and just want game basics like Vigor and Caltrops, for their PvE game play.

Preyfar

No

I vote no, but here's why:

I played Planetside for almost 6+ years. They intelligently realized later on that, with server populations, the ability to cross factions was important for the health of the server and to keep people going on in PVP. But they did so smartly. Timers were introduced that prevent you from swapping alliances. If you didn't like playing one, you could switch, but the moment you switched a restrictive timer took place that prevented you from changing back factions again for X hours.

This also made joining servers with underpopulated factions worthwhile because because the population bonuses for joining them were much higher. It encouraged a more even spread of players.

This is what Cyrodiil needs. I've literally had a player fighting by my side, and about five minutes later, had the player swap, fight against us... and seen him back on his DC about half an hour later. What's the point of that? How does this benefit the gameplay in any one way?

TequilaFire

Yes

FearlessOne_2014 wrote: »

Sure if there was either more of the same campaign type. Or if characters was not locked to a faction. ZOS could make it so Alliance War is account bound, so if you was EP then everyone of your characters on your account is EP. But then that would make their Adventurer Pack worthless now wouldn't it.

With what you are saying is that. People with characters in multiple factions should not have a choice to the Cyrodiil playstyles they can be apart off.

Not to mention all those PvE must have abilities tied to Alliance War level. So unless you are willing to convince ZOS to make it so they are not locked behind Cyrodiil. Then hell no, allow players to swap and do what even they want.

Who do you all think you are? To try to impose your will on other players, in this sense. At this point of the game this proposal will be completely game breaking for many players, who are not role playing AvA tryhards, and just want game basics like Vigor and Caltrops, for their PvE game play.

And who do you think you are?
Doesn't affect PvE in anyway as before PvE was not faction locked when PvP was do some research before you get holier than thou.

mvffins

No

Eh if you are a PC player now with 3 CP characters in each alliance then only 1 of your character can play in the populated campaign while the other two are forced to play in the dead campaigns, so no.

The AP farming and spying? Guess what? 99% of people who do this have multiple accounts so locking an account to a single faction within a campaign is already an obsolete measure!

mvffins

No

In addition leaving a losing faction to join the winning faction is no different than leaving a trial group that is wiping for a better trial group; they both are fundamentally the same ethically but do we see tons of polls asking whether people should be allowed to leave parties to join another one? No.

dodgehopper_ESO

geonsocal wrote: »

Deja vu???

this is one of those topics which gets raised fairly frequently @Enipfodnuos

honestly though - pretty good reasons for this (primarily due to trollsome/exploitive type players)...pretty good reason against (folks with multi characters stuck in unbalanced or dead campaigns/maps)...

I have 8 characters at the moment and have them all hanging out in the same map...

got to admit - it makes me smile to see a friend show up on my death recap

although all my characters actions during the campaign pretty much cancel each other out - i will say though: each character is very loyal to their own alliance...

that's probably the most role playing I do in the game is keeping the different characters allegiances straight - red fights blue/yellow, blue fights yellow/red, yellow fights blue/red...

after doing this for almost two years now...each character is all in for their alliance...

That's how it should be. Play for who you are at the time of playing.

RDMyers65b14_ESO

Yes

I guess that I am a rarity. I only play one faction. I don't even have characters in any other faction because all the PVE content can be done by anyone in any faction. Why bother with alts in another faction?

reiverx

Yes

mvffins wrote: »

In addition leaving a losing faction to join the winning faction is no different than leaving a trial group that is wiping for a better trial group; they both are fundamentally the same ethically but do we see tons of polls asking whether people should be allowed to leave parties to join another one? No.

There may be similarities between leaving a trial group that keeps wiping and leaving a PVP group that keep wiping. But comparing trials and PVP as a whole.... nah.

npuk

Yes

It should be locked per faction per campaign, this would stop the people who switch to the winning side with the most numbers part way through a campaign. This would also stop people farming rewards in the quite campaigns by using multiple alliances to flip maps to a fro.