From here on out I will begin to update this with good ideas after we tease them out. If we can keep this relevant maybe we can get ZOS to consider this
This idea is for the small scale community and to provide players the opportunity to play with friends in different factions, but at a cost. Grant every player the option to "desert" their faction in Cyrodiil making them able to be attacked by all players to include their previous faction and by all other deserters as well.
-The only people a deserter can group with inside Cyrodiil is another deserter of ANY FACTION and their group caps out at 4-6 players (population dependent), this will prevent people from abandoning their faction to zerg. Maybe require the group to be formed outside of Cyrodiil before traveling in.
-Only the deserters in the same group cannot attack each other.
-Deserters can still cap resources and keeps, but the guards take time to spawn and are weaker than normal guards initially, but can grow stronger the longer it is held by that group. When the group leaves the resource/keep the guards begin to revert back to the Faction that previously owned it, fighting each other until it reverts completely back to the previous Faction's control.
--In the event the Keep or Resource in question is a tri/home keep to a particular faction the Resource/Keep will always revert back to the Faction area that it is in, rather than it being the previous owner. This could help to combat gate camping by the Emp faction, but instead you'll have to only fight a 4 man and their weaker guards or wait for them to leave.
---This idea allows Deserters a chance in defending, but prevents Deserters from having a negative lasting influence on the map and instead could be beneficial. Factions could wait to cap keeps that are in turmoil as they are flipping out of Deserter control.
----In the event multiple Deserter groups are inside the inner keep while it is flipping to Deserter control, it will still flip to Deserter faction, but the first Deserter group to attack the other Deserter group will be attacked by NPCs, much similar to the way NPC Guards attack you for crimes in the rest of Tamriel and the group will be unable to peacefully remain in the keep. If a keep is capped and only one Deserter group is in it, then the keep is unfriendly to any Deserters who approach that were not present upon its capture.
-Deserters get an 10-15% AP bonus in defending their resources or keep.
-No keep or scroll bonus to Deserters, unless a group member is currently carrying a scroll or is in control of a keep.
-The only place a Deserter can rez is in one of 4-6 random Imperial/Bandit Camps spread over Cyrodiil, in a keep currently in the group's control, or maybe even on a controlled resource.
-Deserters still have the same access to siege and forward camps.
-Allow a player the option to desert his/her faction when joining a campaign for 1,000,000 AP.
--Make the cost of rejoining the faction 2,000,000 AP. Of course this AP cost for joining and rejoining could be wratcheted up.
-ZOS can make a quest line and DLC for it too and costumes so they can profit in that way.
Please offer comments or ideas. I think this would be an easy way to bring a new and lasting dynamic to Cyrodiil and won't break the factions as is.
@ZOS_GinaBruno please take this to other developers.