Factional differences in the player community? Wait what...

kichwas

The last thing I expected coming from WoW to ESO was that ESO would have differences in the player base attitudes / culture based on which Alliance a player was in.

After all, in ESO, especially since One Tamriel, it is all kind of blended together. And I figured most people have characters across all of the races and Alliances and really didn't care about an 'Alliance loyalty' or anything - just played the Campaigns for spirited fun when in them and then went back to the 'shiny happy community as a whole' after leaving the PvP zone.

BUT...

I'm noticing something odd.

Maybe it's just the luck of which campaign and what time of day...

But I'm leveling in this game, so I went into the 'under 50 campaign' across 10 different characters...

The last two being my Argonian and Dunmer. So I've been playing the campaign for a month now on 8 other characters and then realized that for some reason these two hadn't gone in and unlocked the Assault and Support lines. So in I went - while still switching to other characters now and then to advance those skill lines.

What I notice is that if I go in on an EP alliance, and I type 'LFG', I get ignored... If I type 'X', I get jokes back like people reciting the alphabet.

If I do the same thing on the other campaigns, some large massive group invites me within 5-10 minutes at the MOST.
Sometimes I've had an invite waiting for me by the time I loaded into the campaign... (well, maybe once).

In the EP, I have seen some large groups... one requiring 'Teamspeak' which I didn't even know was still around (I thought that app died 10 years ago..., everybody uses Discord now, before that Mumble, and before that Vent, and then before that TeamSpeak... I mean, back when Everquest 2 came out, in 2005, people getting 'Vent' were making fun of TeamSpeak as too old to use... :O ). But often I just see a lot of people trying to find someone to follow, and they wander aimlessly until somebody seems to be moving with a purpose...

Now I could start becoming the person to invite people - it is a solveable problem.

My observation is more about... what am I seeing here?

Is there actually a different player base in each Alliance? Do people actually just pick a favorite race or two and only play that and develop Alliance loyalty here? Like in WoW? I've been reading the forums here since early 2017 (I took some time off, and I took forever to get to PvP), and I have never seen any indication of that kind of thing. Flip over to WoW and you have people getting positively tribal over their faction loyalty - selectively interpreting lore in the light that paints "their guys" best and "those horrible people over there playing the other faction" as bad people for their choice of gaming character...

- But here... I figured I'd escaped all that.

But this minor little detail about how the groups organize in PvP has me curious... a different culture can only develop if there's different people gaming there... In WoW, most of the playerbase, shockingly, sticks to just one faction (always seemed weird to me as I played both there to cap and into raiding, and had to sit there in groups listening to people make the exact same rants about each other)…

So am I just blowing an observation out of proportion?

My sample size too small? I need to try going in at different times of day and so on?


Does ESO even have players that only play characters of one Alliance?

Hippie4927

I only play EP characters. I am partial to Dunmers and when I started playing, my Dunmers had to be EP. I now have 'Any race, any alliance' but still only have EP characters. I am very loyal to EP! BLOOD FOR THE PACT!!

Leeched

I currently have 15 characters - 10 out of em are DC the other 5 ones EP and AD.
I was only playing DC for a long time but after a while I made quite a few friends on AD and EP sides, thats why I made characters in those factions.
Funny thing: if i log on EP and ppl see me, they call me traitor and spy (still dont have a clue what exactly I am spying but ok) In the end I dont rly mind em and sometimes will even start baiting just for the lolz
AD on the other hand is kinda cool. No insults or anything.

So yeah, there is quite a difference between the alliances. Most EPs are really loyal towards their own faction.

Sporigudinai

Of course there´s different in every faction. It makes the PVP funny. If you had people in the factions with no spirit on it, or just playing with no loyalty, PVP would be dead.

It´s nice on ESO because you still can go to other faction with different toons, if you have friends in there, etc., and if you are playing only PVE you will not see that much hate between alliances

i think i´m still really new in the game, but it´s nice to have people who play only for one alliance. I do it myself.

And yes, i think you have some diff in every faction, i only play on DC but what i can see is that ADs are better organized, DCs don´t give a *** about groups, and EPs have they zergs and same groups ever. At least at Kyne.

VaranisArano

I can only speak for myself.

I started playing before One Tamriel, back when Alliance mattered for who you could group with, which guilds you joined, and what zones you played in what order.

I joined EP. My friends joined EP because that was the only way to group together to play. I joined EP guilds, one of whom only PVPed as EP.

Now, I only PVP for EP. My PVP guild is EP only for PVP purposes. 8/11 of my characters are EP (the other 3 were made prior to 1 Tamriel).

Alliance loyalty doesn't suit everyone, and I understand that. I understand that the other two alliances are made up of ordinary players just like my faction is. Nevertheless, I'm loyal to EP, have been for the year an a half or so since I first started PVPing in Cyrodiil, and I intend to remain fighting for EP, win or lose.

kichwas

Huh...

I really expected to be laughed at for even suggesting faction loyalty and people who only play one faction might exist...

I didn't expect anyone to actually even partially confirm it...

I guess now I know why it's so impossible to get into groups on EP... it has a different player culture than the other Alliances and I've yet to 'figure it out'.

On DC and AD things are casual and you can get into a group by just asking.

VaranisArano

kichwas wrote: »

Huh...

I really expected to be laughed at for even suggesting faction loyalty and people who only play one faction might exist...

I didn't expect anyone to actually even partially confirm it...

I guess now I know why it's so impossible to get into groups on EP... it has a different player culture than the other Alliances and I've yet to 'figure it out'.

On DC and AD things are casual and you can get into a group by just asking.

I'm not sure which platform and campaign you are playing for EP. I play on PC/NA Vivec, primarily. There are usually a couple groups that can pick up people from zone chat when they are on. So I guess I would guess that if you are just looking for an LFG group, you kinda end up with whoever is on at the time. The rare times I do LFG, I usually get picked up unless there are no groups running. If you want someone to regularly play with instead, it might be worth looking at the guilds on your platform to find one that allows cross faction play and does PVP regularly,

JobooAGS

I have 10 characters, 8 dc, 2 ep

dtsharples

A lot I guess depends on which Campaign you play.
Having not played the pre-50 campaign in quite some time I honestly couldn't comment on that one.
But I would imagine for a start, that the pre-50 camp has a lot fewer guilds who invite LFG's.

But, on other campaigns, certain Alliances do seem to have certain 'behaviours' that they get recognised for, and then generally those behaviours are attributed to everyone else within that faction in that Campaign - regardless of if they actually participate in those actions or not.

For example:

X v 1
Morning / Night Capping the entire map
PVDoor
Zerging
Baiting
'Spying' behaviours / Actively Misleading
etc etc

This can cause some genuine resentment. And with Humans being innately drawn to tribal tendencies, we tent to 'stick to our own' and defend our Alliances actions at all costs.

For example the capping of EU Vivec in the early hours of every day.
Obviously it's only a portion of the AD faction who are involved in that, but now everyone knows the AD in Vivec EU as 'Morning cappers' who exploit their way to a win each month.
But obviously, someone playing as AD in Vivec will vehemently defend those actions, as it benefits them, and its part of that Tribal mentality.

geonsocal

Rilis wrote: »

I currently have 15 characters - 10 out of em are DC the other 5 ones EP and AD.
I was only playing DC for a long time but after a while I made quite a few friends on AD and EP sides, thats why I made characters in those factions.
Funny thing: if i log on EP and ppl see me, they call me traitor and spy (still dont have a clue what exactly I am spying but ok) In the end I dont rly mind em and sometimes will even start baiting just for the lolz
AD on the other hand is kinda cool. No insults or anything.

So yeah, there is quite a difference between the alliances. Most EPs are really loyal towards their own faction.

that's funny, although we are on different platforms (you = pc, me = ps4) - my perception of the alliances is very similiar to yours...

Defilted

Any race any alliance . I Always choose AD. I have never and will never be caught playing a red or blue. Disgusting! Lol....

technohic

All DC for me. Spies used to be a serious concern and guilds required it early on. I’ve been tempted to roll other factionsat times but then I just don’t see the point

THEDKEXPERIENCE

kichwas wrote: »

Huh...

I really expected to be laughed at for even suggesting faction loyalty and people who only play one faction might exist...

I didn't expect anyone to actually even partially confirm it...

I guess now I know why it's so impossible to get into groups on EP... it has a different player culture than the other Alliances and I've yet to 'figure it out'.

On DC and AD things are casual and you can get into a group by just asking.

geonsocal wrote: »

Rilis wrote: »

I currently have 15 characters - 10 out of em are DC the other 5 ones EP and AD.
I was only playing DC for a long time but after a while I made quite a few friends on AD and EP sides, thats why I made characters in those factions.
Funny thing: if i log on EP and ppl see me, they call me traitor and spy (still dont have a clue what exactly I am spying but ok) In the end I dont rly mind em and sometimes will even start baiting just for the lolz
AD on the other hand is kinda cool. No insults or anything.

So yeah, there is quite a difference between the alliances. Most EPs are really loyal towards their own faction.

that's funny, although we are on different platforms (you = pc, me = ps4) - my perception of the alliances is very similiar to yours...

100% of my characters are EP, and it’s the exact same way on XBox. The faction loyalty of the EP knows no bounds.

The landscape has changed a bit over the years though. In 2016 EP was dominated on XBox by 3 to 5 huge guilds. At this point I’m not even sure if we even have one dominate guild. A lot of the players from “competing” guilds now know each other and, since the tactics are similar, don’t even bother grouping because we all know what the plan generally is.

In 2018 EP’s main guild on XBox really is just the EP. There is way less infighting then their was a few years ago - I’m assuming most of the most cancerous types moved on - and now we’re essentially left with 100 one man armies all doing the same thing.

Edit: also, to the OP’s other point the main language of EP is sarcasm. We’re generally quite friendly but the ball busting sarcasm never ends. You actually did a really accurate job of describing us EPers. Haha.

usmguy1234

Better to be dead than red.

THEDKEXPERIENCE

usmguy1234 wrote: »

Better to be dead than red.

Fightin’ Words!!!

idk

Not really sure what OP is talking about, EP joking in zone chat or the use of Team Speak.

TS surpassed Mumble a long time ago and is still used by some serious raiding guilds over Discord since it provides more controls.

Puzzlenuts

I only pvp as DC. But, I do have some yellow and red toons for pve.

anadandy

Puzzlenuts wrote: »

I only pvp as DC. But, I do have some yellow and red toons for pve.

This.

SRASinister

Honestly it pretty much is the same on every alliance now in attitude towards the game at least on xbox one. It used to be a lot different for each alliance. Most people have friends on each alliance not to mention zone chat is basically the same on each alliance too. EP used to have this radical loyalty to the faction where anyone who plays on another faction is a traitor. AD eventually got around to this side too when the player base shifted.

p00tx

10 Characters, all DC.

That being said, I've watched all of the players on all of the alliances while in Cyrodil. There are some strong similarities across the board (Like sportsmanship issues, ie. teabagging, sending hatemail, etc), but there are also some unique behaviors that have developed in each faction.

On Xbox NA in Vivec, AD tends to have smaller, highly organized groups of super talented players, and they play ugly. Like...mean ugly. They like to wait until you've just about captured a keep, then back cap you rather than doing the work themselves. I call them "hyenas" for that reason.

EP tend to be just one huge hive-mind of squishy players who move in groups of 40-60. I don't know how they manage to organize that many players at once, but they do. Hats off to them for having the patience and foresight.They do how ever have some super dirty, talented players who have been putting in an appearance lately, but the numbers are small.

DC tends to be the disenchanted, "I hate everything including my own teammates you all suck" group, but each of those people, when they bother to play instead of talking trash in area text chat, tend to be really good, seasoned players. They're just lazy and too full of their own ego to be bothered contributing. The only thing that keeps DC afloat are the organized guilds who keep their members focused and on point. It seems like some new ones are popping up and some older ones are making an appearance lately, which bodes well for the future of DC, if we don't all leave the game over the continuing server issues.

Heimpai

I thought about making another character in a different alliance for sotha..but i figured it’d be a waste of time to lvl up and have the same issues as AD, hardly ever find groups these days..my guilds don’t really play it anymore

However the thought of doing a different alliance pve story might be worth it? And if so what’s better dc or ep?

Arobain

decides that EP has an entire culuture of immaturity of the vast playerbase in EP after one experience




logic

dtsharples

p00tx wrote: »

10 Characters, all DC.

That being said, I've watched all of the players on all of the alliances while in Cyrodil. There are some strong similarities across the board (Like sportsmanship issues, ie. teabagging, sending hatemail, etc), but there are also some unique behaviors that have developed in each faction.

On Xbox NA in Vivec, AD tends to have smaller, highly organized groups of super talented players, and they play ugly. Like...mean ugly. They like to wait until you've just about captured a keep, then back cap you rather than doing the work themselves. I call them "hyenas" for that reason.

EP tend to be just one huge hive-mind of squishy players who move in groups of 40-60. I don't know how they manage to organize that many players at once, but they do. Hats off to them for having the patience and foresight.They do how ever have some super dirty, talented players who have been putting in an appearance lately, but the numbers are small.

DC tends to be the disenchanted, "I hate everything including my own teammates you all suck" group, but each of those people, when they bother to play instead of talking trash in area text chat, tend to be really good, seasoned players. They're just lazy and too full of their own ego to be bothered contributing. The only thing that keeps DC afloat are the organized guilds who keep their members focused and on point. It seems like some new ones are popping up and some older ones are making an appearance lately, which bodes well for the future of DC, if we don't all leave the game over the continuing server issues.

Your idea of DC, sounds quite apt for Vivec EU PC also.
We do seem to be a bunch of grumpy old Men + Women
Zone chat is often a pi**ing content of who can be the grumpiest.
Zone chat completely devolving into arguments and bashing each other isn't rare either lol.
But mostly it's just banter, and poking jibes at AD.

EP does have a tendency to zerg, everywhere unfortunately.
But they do have some very organised 'small scale' groups of 4-8 who I have a lot of respect for.
And IMO they have the nicest people in game. They all seem genuinely lovely.
Except for the ball-group ofc who seem to think they are gods, and have a habit of being terrible losers who send abusive hate messages lol.

AD on the other hand are the complete opposite of yours.
They are an even bigger zerg. Like just one huge faction zerg. Zerg at 5am, Zerg at Noon, Zerg at 10pm.
And they are ANGRY! Like seriously angry. And rude, and very Childish.
Every other word in their zone chat is 'Purple Alliance' though lol
Such a disillusioned sense of superiority. PVDoor is very taxing on their 'warriors' you know.

Cuthceol

kichwas wrote: »

The last thing I expected coming from WoW to ESO was that ESO would have differences in the player base attitudes / culture based on which Alliance a player was in.

After all, in ESO, especially since One Tamriel, it is all kind of blended together. And I figured most people have characters across all of the races and Alliances and really didn't care about an 'Alliance loyalty' or anything - just played the Campaigns for spirited fun when in them and then went back to the 'shiny happy community as a whole' after leaving the PvP zone.

BUT...

I'm noticing something odd.

Maybe it's just the luck of which campaign and what time of day...

But I'm leveling in this game, so I went into the 'under 50 campaign' across 10 different characters...

The last two being my Argonian and Dunmer. So I've been playing the campaign for a month now on 8 other characters and then realized that for some reason these two hadn't gone in and unlocked the Assault and Support lines. So in I went - while still switching to other characters now and then to advance those skill lines.

What I notice is that if I go in on an EP alliance, and I type 'LFG', I get ignored... If I type 'X', I get jokes back like people reciting the alphabet.

If I do the same thing on the other campaigns, some large massive group invites me within 5-10 minutes at the MOST.
Sometimes I've had an invite waiting for me by the time I loaded into the campaign... (well, maybe once).

In the EP, I have seen some large groups... one requiring 'Teamspeak' which I didn't even know was still around (I thought that app died 10 years ago..., everybody uses Discord now, before that Mumble, and before that Vent, and then before that TeamSpeak... I mean, back when Everquest 2 came out, in 2005, people getting 'Vent' were making fun of TeamSpeak as too old to use... :O ). But often I just see a lot of people trying to find someone to follow, and they wander aimlessly until somebody seems to be moving with a purpose...

Now I could start becoming the person to invite people - it is a solveable problem.

My observation is more about... what am I seeing here?

Is there actually a different player base in each Alliance? Do people actually just pick a favorite race or two and only play that and develop Alliance loyalty here? Like in WoW? I've been reading the forums here since early 2017 (I took some time off, and I took forever to get to PvP), and I have never seen any indication of that kind of thing. Flip over to WoW and you have people getting positively tribal over their faction loyalty - selectively interpreting lore in the light that paints "their guys" best and "those horrible people over there playing the other faction" as bad people for their choice of gaming character...

- But here... I figured I'd escaped all that.

But this minor little detail about how the groups organize in PvP has me curious... a different culture can only develop if there's different people gaming there... In WoW, most of the playerbase, shockingly, sticks to just one faction (always seemed weird to me as I played both there to cap and into raiding, and had to sit there in groups listening to people make the exact same rants about each other)…

So am I just blowing an observation out of proportion?

My sample size too small? I need to try going in at different times of day and so on?


Does ESO even have players that only play characters of one Alliance?

must be a NA thing because Ep on EU is nothing like that

VaranisArano

Heimpai wrote: »

I thought about making another character in a different alliance for sotha..but i figured it’d be a waste of time to lvl up and have the same issues as AD, hardly ever find groups these days..my guilds don’t really play it anymore

However the thought of doing a different alliance pve story might be worth it? And if so what’s better dc or ep?

Which Alliance has the better story depends on what you want in the story.

DC has the more linear story with more recurring characters, so if you want to adventure through the zones while saving the kingdom with a fun set of characters, go for DC.

EP has the more fragmented alliance, so its story focused on immersing you into each culture first and then bringing everyone together to fight together. So if you want to make a diverse set of friends and allies and then forge alliances to face common foes, go for EP.

Whereas AD is pretty much that you serve as a spy and elite agent for Queen Ayrenn by helping her defeat threats and secure the future of the Dominion for the Altmer, Bosmer and Khajiit, in every single zone. AD has the most linear story and the most recurring characters of all the 3 Alliances.

Heimpai

VaranisArano wrote: »

Heimpai wrote: »

I thought about making another character in a different alliance for sotha..but i figured it’d be a waste of time to lvl up and have the same issues as AD, hardly ever find groups these days..my guilds don’t really play it anymore

However the thought of doing a different alliance pve story might be worth it? And if so what’s better dc or ep?

Which Alliance has the better story depends on what you want in the story.

DC has the more linear story with more recurring characters, so if you want to adventure through the zones while saving the kingdom with a fun set of characters, go for DC.

EP has the more fragmented alliance, so its story focused on immersing you into each culture first and then bringing everyone together to fight together. So if you want to make a diverse set of friends and allies and then forge alliances to face common foes, go for EP.

Whereas AD is pretty much that you serve as a spy and elite agent for Queen Ayrenn by helping her defeat threats and secure the future of the Dominion for the Altmer, Bosmer and Khajiit, in every single zone. AD has the most linear story and the most recurring characters of all the 3 Alliances.

They both sound more appealing than AD‘s ._. I’ll try DC first, i just assumed they were all the same

Rickter

I have one character and he is DC and DC is he.

Twist67662

when I started playing pvp back in summer of 2015 I had one toon and he was ep when I hit vet 2 I made another toon to try something different so I made a templar in ad and really liked the play style but I was a bit bumed out she was not ep but had to much time vested in her to switch , I started making more and more friends and at the time all the factions weren't blended together like they are now and it just began not feeling right to switch to my ep toon and pvp and seeing people I call friends across from me so now all my pvp toons are ad , I guess I have some kind of weird loyalty problem I played sports as a kid and was in the army switching teams just doesn't feel right to me

npuk

15x Characters on xbox, 2x on pc all DC....

danielclarkb16_ESO

Prime difference between the factions in WoW and the factions here is that with WoW, the whole story is centered around Alliance v Horde. While we have seen faction wars in ESO, it's only been a small part of the story, so I dont think we see as much faction loyalty here.

dtsharples

There used to be a lot more faction loyalty, back when it wasn't quite so easy to simply log onto another char in a different faction, whether with 'innocent' or 'malicious' intent.

Guilds still have what remains of the intended faction loyalty, pre One-Tamriel.
Guilds are still listed as either AD, EP or DC.
This is evident when you try to claim a keep for your guild - you can only claim it for the faction that you are currently playing.

It's a real shame that they removed faction locks. It would solve a lot of the undesirable behaviour we are seeing an increase of recently in PVP.
Faction locking accounts like they used to be would be, imo, very healthy for Cyrodiil.
If people still want to group with people outside of their faction, go to a Battle Ground - or choose a different Campaign.
Any sense of faction loyalty has gone right out the window, along with any real incentive to play the map strategically.
Cyrodiil is a pretty Toxic, unhealthy place right now - it needs a good shake up.