Let's Talk Alliance Loyalty and Lockouts:

SwampRaider

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

This patch is a perfect opportunity to finally do it, being a big PVP update patch.

There needs to be a long cool down on alliance switching. Be it 24 hours or a week.(Reasonably, Let's say 24 hours)

As a competitive group hardcore DC PvPer, its hard to maintain faction loyalty when people can jsut switch between characters so fast and join the winning side. I want people to work through blood sweat and tears..and Strategy! for their campaign rewards. Hell...I've even seen DC guild leaders switch to EP or AD characters when the going got tough. But another Issue is scroll trolling among others.

Call me old fashioned, but I miss the 1 character per campaign lock.

I know this gets blasted time and again, but it just needs to happen. The days of Alliance Loyalty need to return to bring that special feel back to Cyrodiil. Like we are actually fighting for a cause.

Turelus

Wheeler did say that they had plans in place for it in the main PvP updates announcement, but doesn't have anything to announce yet.

Kelces

Classic opportunism - old habits die hard. Ancient habits maybe don't die at all.

Narvuntien

But every Stam Character needs Caltrops and Vigor and every tank and healer Warhorn.

So I don't have the option to only stick to one alliance.... if I don't want to be forced into sub optimal race choices.

Iselin

Narvuntien wrote: »

But every Stam Character needs Caltrops and Vigor and every tank and healer Warhorn.

So I don't have the option to only stick to one alliance.... if I don't want to be forced into sub optimal race choices.

That's what "Any race, any alliance" is there for. I got it as a pre-order bonus so I never had to pay crowns for it but all my Orcs, Argonians, Bretons, Redguards and Dark Elves (sorry Nords, I just can't take you seriously) are also AD.

ezeepeezee

When it's not possible for a single, organized group with heal springs and destro ults to roll the map, I might begin to even consider this. Until then I don't blame people for just swapping to that side.

Turelus

Narvuntien wrote: »

But every Stam Character needs Caltrops and Vigor and every tank and healer Warhorn.

So I don't have the option to only stick to one alliance.... if I don't want to be forced into sub optimal race choices.

Battlegrounds, even if you lose it is fast AP gains for skill lines.

heaven13

Narvuntien wrote: »

But every Stam Character needs Caltrops and Vigor and every tank and healer Warhorn.

So I don't have the option to only stick to one alliance.... if I don't want to be forced into sub optimal race choices.

I only just recently purchased Any Race, Any Alliance. So I've got a couple characters not in DC. What I do is separate them by campaign. Right now, my DC characters all PVP in Shor, my EP is in Sotha, and my one AD hasn't actually joined a campaign in over a year so I can't remember.

So even if you switch characters, you can keep yourself 'honest' by splitting them between campaigns.

Jaxaxo

SwampRaider wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

This patch is a perfect opportunity to finally do it, being a big PVP update patch.

There needs to be a long cool down on alliance switching. Be it 24 hours or a week.(Reasonably, Let's say 24 hours)

As a competitive group hardcore DC PvPer, its hard to maintain faction loyalty when people can jsut switch between characters so fast and join the winning side. I want people to work through blood sweat and tears..and Strategy! for their campaign rewards. Hell...I've even seen DC guild leaders switch to EP or AD characters when the going got tough. But another Issue is scroll trolling among others.

Call me old fashioned, but I miss the 1 character per campaign lock.

I know this gets blasted time and again, but it just needs to happen. The days of Alliance Loyalty need to return to bring that special feel back to Cyrodiil. Like we are actually fighting for a cause.

What about ppl who rather prefer to play on underdog alliance, instead of zerging they want just solid fights? And if there are 2 cp campagin maybe that's ok, but we have only 1 noncp, what about ppl who prefer playing noncp but with lock wouldnt be able to play with friends from other factions?

TequilaFire

nvm

ClockworkCityBugs

even if ZOS will lock account under 1 campaign its easy avoidable with multiple accounts
many pro pvp players have few account only for spying for other factions in pvp

VaranisArano

If we had 3 CP campaigns and 3 No CP campaigns that were all active, I'd be right there with you. And I'm a diehard EP player.

But until then, I really doubt ZOS is going to hard lock people in a faction during a campaign. I could see extra rewards for faction loyalty though.

TequilaFire

ClockworkCityBugs wrote: »

even if ZOS will lock account under 1 campaign its easy avoidable with multiple accounts
many pro pvp players have few account only for spying for other factions in pvp

lol spying is usless against organized groups unless you are in them.
Maybe you can report back the latest zone chat fight though!

yttoks

They tried that out of the starting gate. People hated it.

If you have a lot of toons, you don't necessarily want to play only one faction, but in your system that player is out of luck. Even if they don't PvP at all, and would like toons on different factions, they're out of luck because they won't be able to get vigor, caltrops, etc. when the campaigns are locked.

vamp_emily

I'm a loyal DC player, and was against faction swapping but I changed my mind.

Recently DC has been so bad at PvP, I often think, "Why should I stay with such a terrible alliance?". Then I started thinking about other players that have swapped sides. I think it would really suck if players didn't have an option to flip sides if they didn't enjoy the alliance they currently are on.

I think there should be a cool down. However, I really don't see a problem in campaigns that are poplocked or fairly even. Who really cares if a few players swap sides if the population is balanced.

I said this around 3 years ago, and still believe it now. Fix population balance in low populated campaigns and most tears will disappear. We would have less players complaining, and more players having fun.

TequilaFire

yttoks wrote: »

They tried that out of the starting gate. People hated it.

If you have a lot of toons, you don't necessarily want to play only one faction, but in your system that player is out of luck. Even if they don't PvP at all, and would like toons on different factions, they're out of luck because they won't be able to get vigor, caltrops, etc. when the campaigns are locked.

You would be locked out of one campaign your character is in, your alt on another alliance can still play in another campaign and earn his alliance skills.

VaranisArano

TequilaFire wrote: »

yttoks wrote: »

They tried that out of the starting gate. People hated it.

If you have a lot of toons, you don't necessarily want to play only one faction, but in your system that player is out of luck. Even if they don't PvP at all, and would like toons on different factions, they're out of luck because they won't be able to get vigor, caltrops, etc. when the campaigns are locked.

You would be locked out of one campaign your character is in, your alt on another alliance can still play in another campaign and earn his alliance skills.

I think thats pretending that all campaigns are equal. On PC/NA, leveling skills is very different on Vivec and Shor. If someone prefers No CP Cyrodiil, they only have the one option. Yes, there's Battlegrounds, but that doesn't really help people who want to play in the Cyrodiil campaigns.

dotme

Reposted from another thread where I made this suggestion:

The faction in 1st place each scoring period (evaluation) earns 100% AP from everything for the next hour. The faction in 2nd place earns 150% AP, and the faction in last place earns 200% AP (Double AP).

People who remain faction-loyal will probably see times during the campaign where they earn 100%, 150% or 200% AP, while players who faction-hop as a way of life have a decent (personal gain) incentive to switch to a losing side, not pile on to the winning side.

Given our ever-shrinking list of playable campaigns, I don't think a hard lock would be workable unfortunately.

TequilaFire

VaranisArano wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

yttoks wrote: »

They tried that out of the starting gate. People hated it.

If you have a lot of toons, you don't necessarily want to play only one faction, but in your system that player is out of luck. Even if they don't PvP at all, and would like toons on different factions, they're out of luck because they won't be able to get vigor, caltrops, etc. when the campaigns are locked.

You would be locked out of one campaign your character is in, your alt on another alliance can still play in another campaign and earn his alliance skills.

I think thats pretending that all campaigns are equal. On PC/NA, leveling skills is very different on Vivec and Shor. If someone prefers No CP Cyrodiil, they only have the one option. Yes, there's Battlegrounds, but that doesn't really help people who want to play in the Cyrodiil campaigns.

You can't have everything, there has to be some rules and objectives to call it a game and not a free for all.
ESO PvP has become a shadow of what it was because of jumping to the winning side to farm ap.
"Playing with friends" is just lip service.

Chaos2088

Yeah kinda think a campaign should be allianced locked til it is over. Just my view.

yttoks

TequilaFire wrote: »

yttoks wrote: »

They tried that out of the starting gate. People hated it.

If you have a lot of toons, you don't necessarily want to play only one faction, but in your system that player is out of luck. Even if they don't PvP at all, and would like toons on different factions, they're out of luck because they won't be able to get vigor, caltrops, etc. when the campaigns are locked.

You would be locked out of one campaign your character is in, your alt on another alliance can still play in another campaign and earn his alliance skills.

That sounds good on the surface, but if you have 10 toons and there are say 4 playable campaigns (not sure how many there are atm), you will find yourself out of luck. Like I said, it was like this in the early days. The problems that arise are not obvious on the surface, but you would find that you have characters that cannot go to Cyrodiil at all because they are all locked by alts.

Marginis

This topic has several threads about it already, and you can look through my personal opinions there. My point here is simply that I don't think there's widespread enough support to implement a change as controversial and unecessary as this, at any time, let alone now specifically. And that completely discounts any time and energy required by ZOS to put in these changes that a large portion of the playerbase would get up in arms about.

TequilaFire

A large percentage of the PvP playerbase is up in arms about the alliance hopping abuse already and ZOS is looking for a solution. You have players that have abused alliance hopping to thank for it.
Unfortunately a lot that care have given up and moved on because of the mess that has been made by switching.
A good example is PS4 NA Vivec where AD got the lead so every one switched to AD and now they have a 10,000 point lead against the other 2 factions which is a larger than normal spread.

I wonder how the top trial guilds would feel about their members changing guilds and competing against them at a whim.

Rianai

Alliance loyality is worthless without campaign loyality. Most winning team joining and population imbalance is a result of campaign swapping/stacking.

heaven13

yttoks wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

yttoks wrote: »

They tried that out of the starting gate. People hated it.

If you have a lot of toons, you don't necessarily want to play only one faction, but in your system that player is out of luck. Even if they don't PvP at all, and would like toons on different factions, they're out of luck because they won't be able to get vigor, caltrops, etc. when the campaigns are locked.

You would be locked out of one campaign your character is in, your alt on another alliance can still play in another campaign and earn his alliance skills.

That sounds good on the surface, but if you have 10 toons and there are say 4 playable campaigns (not sure how many there are atm), you will find yourself out of luck. Like I said, it was like this in the early days. The problems that arise are not obvious on the surface, but you would find that you have characters that cannot go to Cyrodiil at all because they are all locked by alts.

I'm not sure I follow. Sure you might have 10 characters but there are only 3 alliances and each of your characters belong to ONE of those alliances. Three campaigns for three alliances (4 if you count Kyne but it's under level 50 only so I don't) and all 10 of your characters have somewhere to go.

It's a more valid discussion point to debate the campaigns since they're different (Shor and Vivec are both CP campaigns, one shorter than the other) and Sotha is no CP but same duration as Vivec. If you want all your characters in 30 day, CP campaigns then you run into an issue but you'd still not be locked out of Cyro entirely.

Marginis

TequilaFire wrote: »

A large percentage of the PvP playerbase is up in arms about the alliance hopping abuse already and ZOS is looking for a solution. You have players that have abused alliance hopping to thank for it.
Unfortunately a lot that care have given up and moved on because of the mess that has been made by switching.
A good example is PS4 NA Vivec where AD got the lead so every one switched to AD and now they have a 10,000 point lead against the other 2 factions which is a larger than normal spread.

I wonder how the top trial guilds would feel about their members changing guilds and competing against them at a whim.

Exactly. Too much controversy to implement a change supporting one over the other, because either way you go, you're going against a large portion of the playerbase. What should happen is some kind of compromise or alternate solution that doesn't allow abuse of the alliance system AND doesn't restrict players unreasonably. They are already implementing some things for more mercenary minded players - perhaps something along those lines?

Feanor

It has something to do with the rewards also. From a reward standpoint it’s meaningless if you’re 3rd or 1st, and bragging rights were cool somewhere around 2015. It needs some proper incentive, and one that doesn’t encourage nightcapping or PvDoor.

Joy_Division

SwampRaider wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

its hard to maintain faction loyalty when people can jsut switch between characters so fast and join the winning side.

This keeps getting repeated ad nauseam and assumed to be a huge problem, but how many people actually do this, especially in a competitive campaign that's pop locked? It's just an excuse that ignores DC is losing a campaign because their strategy consists of faction stacking and potatoing into Chalman even when losing home keeps

More to the point, why and when would I do this and what exactly am I gaining? If I were a bandwagon hopper, then I would have joined AD because they won last campaign. But now that we're far enough into the campaign, I'd have to hop back to EP, start at zero, have zero chance for emperor, and play every single day just to get what exactly, some rings of curse eater, Beckoning Steel, and Arch Mage that aren't worth anything. What exactly are the lucrative campaign rewards that I'm hoping over for?

ezio45

This is actually a huge problem in terms of just balance, i play for Ad ps4 na, we lose a campaign and half of ad switches to dc, we win a campaign and they all switch over to ad again before the campaign even flips. Just to get a character in for rewards.

1 Thats really unfair to the ppl that worked hard to win that campign, they earned that

2 It created number problems, bonuses or not if a large number of players switch alliances its not good for gameplay balance. one side can effectively push on the other side with little to no resistance, not fun for either side.

TequilaFire

Joy_Division wrote: »

SwampRaider wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

its hard to maintain faction loyalty when people can jsut switch between characters so fast and join the winning side.

This keeps getting repeated ad nauseam and assumed to be a huge problem, but how many people actually do this, especially in a competitive campaign that's pop locked? It's just an excuse that ignores DC is losing a campaign because their strategy consists of faction stacking and potatoing into Chalman even when losing home keeps

More to the point, why and when would I do this and what exactly am I gaining? If I were a bandwagon hopper, then I would have joined AD because they won last campaign. But now that we're far enough into the campaign, I'd have to hop back to EP, start at zero, have zero chance for emperor, and play every single day just to get what exactly, some rings of curse eater, Beckoning Steel, and Arch Mage that aren't worth anything. What exactly are the lucrative campaign rewards that I'm hoping over for?

Happens to the extreme on PS4 NA.
We had to start kicking people from our PvP guild it caused so much trouble.
It just not just about winning the campaign it is about elite groups flipping the map one color changing alliances and flipping the map back the other way all in the ap farm abuse. Not to mention changing just to heckle in the opposition's text chat.

eso_nya

Last time i pvped was the month before morrowind launch.
My only reason to go to Cyrodiil was, that i found out on pts, that many bothans would need to die in coldfire to get me the 4,6m AP to purchase a new crafting motif.

So, in order to make the grind as effective as possible i played on all of my chars, no matter the faction.
I picked the fullest campaign, to not have downtime in hotpsotgrinding. First grp of chars, where the ones where i didnt bother with grinding out wahorn/caltrop/vigor yet. Than i made sure that all chars had ~400k ap, thus whoever won the campaign, i'd get extra rewards on 2 chars. Didnt really need it, but i'd never turn down free gold.
I fight for Queen Emeric the Skaldking, so not loyal to any faction. I tried not to get involved in the outcome of the campaign tho, out of fairness, but well playing the map, scrollruns and that aint really good for ap/h anyways. I'm not under the illusion that i could actually have changed the outcome xD

Im not sure how many other players r out there with similar motivations for factionhopping.
Don't try to force ppl to grind content they hate.