Fixing One of the Biggest Problems in PvP Today

Hammy01

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Sygil05 wrote: »

Are spies really that big of an issue?

I see people complaining and making accusations about it constantly in zone chat, but it seems like a lot of effort for very little gain. The Cyrodiil map has remained pretty much the same since the start of the game, and, depending on which alliances hold which keeps, the battles typically take place in the same spots over and over again.

Based on that, this seems like a fix for a problem that doesn't really exist.

It has nothing to do with "spies". It is the exploit of flipping an entire map between 2 factions several times within several coordinated groups, all with the same players' accounts. There's no competition when everyone is on every team. Choosing a faction should be an important choice - it could be where your friends are or perhaps the faction's aesthetics you enjoy - either way, the game as it is right now doesn't make faction choice matter in any way. Players flip-flop all day long, disrupting folks who just want to play the game rather than turn the entire map into a massive keep-flip farm.

I agree.. The spirit of Cyrodiil was ruined when we were able to start faction swapping. There is no sense of pride and fighting for your alliance anymore. The way it is now people take the ""path of least resistance"... why fight against the zerg when I can be part of the zerg mentality.

DenMoria

Hammy01 wrote: »

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Sygil05 wrote: »

Are spies really that big of an issue?

I see people complaining and making accusations about it constantly in zone chat, but it seems like a lot of effort for very little gain. The Cyrodiil map has remained pretty much the same since the start of the game, and, depending on which alliances hold which keeps, the battles typically take place in the same spots over and over again.

Based on that, this seems like a fix for a problem that doesn't really exist.

It has nothing to do with "spies". It is the exploit of flipping an entire map between 2 factions several times within several coordinated groups, all with the same players' accounts. There's no competition when everyone is on every team. Choosing a faction should be an important choice - it could be where your friends are or perhaps the faction's aesthetics you enjoy - either way, the game as it is right now doesn't make faction choice matter in any way. Players flip-flop all day long, disrupting folks who just want to play the game rather than turn the entire map into a massive keep-flip farm.

I agree.. The spirit of Cyrodiil was ruined when we were able to start faction swapping. There is no sense of pride and fighting for your alliance anymore. The way it is now people take the ""path of least resistance"... why fight against the zerg when I can be part of the zerg mentality.

"Sense of Pride"????? It's a video-game. The very fact that you're even playing it should make you ashamed, not give you pride.

Tholian1

I wanted flags for each faction so I made characters to get them. I only PvP for AP and transmute crystals and am not even aware enough about anything else going on in Cyrodiil as far as who is “winning”.

dtsharples

Hammy01 wrote: »

This could be solved very easy by Zos allowing us to play any character for any faction but you had to choose once faction to play with for that whole campaign. So if you and YOUR FRIENDS decided you wanted to play AD next campaign, you would all pick AD when the campaign started. This means that essentially for the next 30 days or 7 depending on which campaigns you like to play all your characters are now AD. When the campaign end you can choose to change to another faction or keep playing for AD.

This would be sooooo much better than what we have now because now it is all faction swappers constantly moving from one faction to another mostly to play with the zerg. Not to mention that some people actually faction swap to purposely grief other players.

I think this is a good idea.
And scrap the usual Alliances entirely. And introduce the Battleground identifiers:

DC - Storm Lords
EP - Fire Drakes
AD - Pit Daemons

Aesthier

"Brilliant. Why is it that the people with the most ridiculous ideas are always the ones who are most certain of them?"

~Abnur Tharn

Datthaw

Sorry but faction swapping is not one of the biggest problems they are as llisted

1 performance
2 performance
3 performance
4 performance
5 performance

Hope that clears it up

TequilaFire

DenMoria wrote: »

Hammy01 wrote: »

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Sygil05 wrote: »

Are spies really that big of an issue?

I see people complaining and making accusations about it constantly in zone chat, but it seems like a lot of effort for very little gain. The Cyrodiil map has remained pretty much the same since the start of the game, and, depending on which alliances hold which keeps, the battles typically take place in the same spots over and over again.

Based on that, this seems like a fix for a problem that doesn't really exist.

It has nothing to do with "spies". It is the exploit of flipping an entire map between 2 factions several times within several coordinated groups, all with the same players' accounts. There's no competition when everyone is on every team. Choosing a faction should be an important choice - it could be where your friends are or perhaps the faction's aesthetics you enjoy - either way, the game as it is right now doesn't make faction choice matter in any way. Players flip-flop all day long, disrupting folks who just want to play the game rather than turn the entire map into a massive keep-flip farm.

I agree.. The spirit of Cyrodiil was ruined when we were able to start faction swapping. There is no sense of pride and fighting for your alliance anymore. The way it is now people take the ""path of least resistance"... why fight against the zerg when I can be part of the zerg mentality.

"Sense of Pride"????? It's a video-game. The very fact that you're even playing it should make you ashamed, not give you pride.

How about being ashamed of always being a troll poster on a video game forum.

Jameliel

I'm in one PvP guild and they only allow AD in the Vivec campaign. Thinking about leaving since said guild hardly runs any groups nowadays. On PC/NA there are some cool players in AD/Vivec. Sadly most others seem lacking in basic reasoning skills. They just run around in small random groups or solo, doing random things. For once I would like to play for a more well-organized faction. I've been contemplating trying another faction a couple of campaigns later.

SakuraRush

Jammer480 wrote: »

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Jammer480 wrote: »

The pic below is exactly why accounts must be prevented from switching campaigns. Someone from either the house of smurfs or the banana republic came to the faction of the gods and decided to max out the number of camps that can occupy a campaign by a single faction.

EP is currently doing it to AD this campaign. DC did the same thing to players last campaign. All factions are doing stupid crap like this. This is a great example of why a faction lock is needed in this game.

Agreed, I don't care who is doing it to who, it's absolute bs. I think if ZOS would try to implement a fix, the kids that do this kinda crap would leave the game(and go back to COD) and sadly the pvp might become a ghost town. lol

It's a very small number of people doing it and each faction probably knows who is doing it. Hell it might even be the same fellow doing it to all the factions because he is a well known troll.

Faction locking wouldn't help this anyway. On console you can just make an infinite number of accounts if need be. It's the same reason there is no ending the botting on console.

Vercingetorix

SakuraRush wrote: »

Jammer480 wrote: »

Vercingetorix wrote: »

Jammer480 wrote: »

The pic below is exactly why accounts must be prevented from switching campaigns. Someone from either the house of smurfs or the banana republic came to the faction of the gods and decided to max out the number of camps that can occupy a campaign by a single faction.

EP is currently doing it to AD this campaign. DC did the same thing to players last campaign. All factions are doing stupid crap like this. This is a great example of why a faction lock is needed in this game.

Agreed, I don't care who is doing it to who, it's absolute bs. I think if ZOS would try to implement a fix, the kids that do this kinda crap would leave the game(and go back to COD) and sadly the pvp might become a ghost town. lol

It's a very small number of people doing it and each faction probably knows who is doing it. Hell it might even be the same fellow doing it to all the factions because he is a well known troll.

Faction locking wouldn't help this anyway. On console you can just make an infinite number of accounts if need be. It's the same reason there is no ending the botting on console.

There actually is a way to help end botting on consoles: ZoS needs to forward their findings to Microsoft who can then brick the actual CONSOLE ITSELF, thus making much harder to continue botting. Right now, you're right - a botter can simply make a number of dummy accounts on the same console each time an account gets (maybe) whacked by ZoS. Instead of killing the individual wasps that wander out of the nest, ZoS needs to be forwarding their findings to Microsoft so that they can burn the actual nest to the ground. I know Sony takes that sort of thing seriously and wouldn't hesitate to brick a PS4 if it's found botting.

Universe

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno Can you please add a campaign faction lock in one of the next PTS incremental patches ?
Short summary: An account will be faction/alliance locked to a certain campaign and will only be able to play one faction/alliance in the specific campaign.
It was asked many times by multiple players.
I believe the time to act is now, please do something.

Here is my idea I suggested months ago:

Universe wrote: »

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Campaign lockouts based on Alliance swapping on a temporary level have been discussed and are still on going.

It will be great if you would implement a campaign alliance lock(account based) so we will once again have more alliance loyalty and less treason/plays all sides kind of gameplay.
I would suggest the following:
Char example 1 joins campaign 1. Char example 1 Alliance: AD
Char example 2 can't join campaign 1 for the duration of the campaign. Char example 2 Alliance: EP
Char example 3 can't join campaign 1 for the duration of the campaign. Char example 3 Alliance: DC

*If char example 1 abandoned campaign 1(penalty of ap, 500K-1M/other AP), only then it is possible to join campaign 1 with other alliance chars(only if they are all same alliance) and only after 24-72 hours have passed since char 1 abandoned the campaign.
*Once the campaign has ended, all players will receive a campaign reset(free of charge) so they may choose with which alliance to play(Only one alliance, AD/EP/DC). This reset will encourage to play until the end of campaign and not use the above option.

Thanks!

RobbieRocket

Your idea is very good, and I would say one of many possible solutions.
The fundamental point is that players should never be able to swap sides in a single campaign.

Lysette

Is it an abuse or tactics?- Seen from Sun Tzu, the art of war - it is a viable and very promising tactic to use spies. So this is debatable.

RobbieRocket

...before I would go that far though, I would simply have "no entry" for a player who tries to enter a Campaign on an alliance in which they have already entered on a different alliance. When I say Campaign I mean 7 days/30 days, not forever.

This removes anything drastic like account/faction/character locks and big game changes.

DeadlyRecluse

It used to be this way, and that brought it's own set of problems.

Neither faction lock nor fully open campaigns are perfect--I think I like the current way more at the moment due to how few campaigns (esp. if you like actually active campaigns) there still are.

Back when there were 2x as many options for campaigns, the lock made a little more sense.

shadowwraith666

even if zos does implement a faction lock, spies can still communicate and share plans through other means outside the game which ZOS has zero control over.

Vercingetorix

shadowwraith666 wrote: »

even if zos does implement a faction lock, spies can still communicate and share plans through other means outside the game which ZOS has zero control over.

Communication has far less of an impact compared to using up a faction's tent limit or artificially capping a faction's pop to limit the amount of opposing players at keeps. This change is important and needs to happen. Your statement doesn't invalidate my suggestion.

xxthir13enxx

Spies have always been...players used to actually place Troll Camps in bad position near keeps...to give advantage to attackers...Faction Locking won’t change that.
The primary issue I see with Open Campaigns is the number of players that Jump to the winning Alliance instead of fighting back to regain a lead.

Night_Wolf2112

I find it very odd that the majority of players complaining about this issue are EP! Not that it means anything... but are you covering for something?

Thogard

Everyone I know who faction swaps, myself included, does so to swap to the lowest pop faction for the AP bonuses.

I don’t know any serious PvPer who cares about any of the end of campaign rewards apart from the transmute crystals, which are available to everyone.

Locking factions would lock in the imbalances and it would prevent the talented groups that prefer fighting outnumbered from taking advantage of the many incentives already in the game that promote playing for the less-populated faction.

TequilaFire

Night_Wolf2112 wrote: »

I find it very odd that the majority of players complaining about this issue are EP! Not that it means anything... but are you covering for something?

It is no secret that AD has the highest game population and floods the PvP servers with players and we loose a lot of players from EP who jump on the yellow bandwagon on PS4 NA.

BRogueNZ

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

I wouldnt hold your breath...

I also think you are overstating the issue. I just dont think there are that many people that are parking in alternate alliances to spy on zone chat. People want AP for themselves, and every alliance has a streamer that can easily be followed by anyone without wasting the effort. There are bigger fish to fry that dont require fundamentally changing the entire game.

Is that the issue? or is it particular guilds worth of people rolling the map one colour then rolling it another, AP both ways.

TequilaFire

Thogard wrote: »

Everyone I know who faction swaps, myself included, does so to swap to the lowest pop faction for the AP bonuses.

I don’t know any serious PvPer who cares about any of the end of campaign rewards apart from the transmute crystals, which are available to everyone.

Locking factions would lock in the imbalances and it would prevent the talented groups that prefer fighting outnumbered from taking advantage of the many incentives already in the game that promote playing for the less-populated faction.

There are many guilds that don't even allow cross faction play on the same campaign.
We don't care about the rewards as much as winning the campaign though.
I laugh at the incentives for playing on the under populated alliance and point at the buffs that the overpopulated alliance gets just because of greater numbers which far outweigh under pop bonus.

AlnilamE

How about you can only join a campaign with one faction for the duration of that campaign, but at the end of each campaign period, you Home or Guest campaign gets blanked out and you have to re-select it.

Because that would help get around one of the reasons why they removed the faction restriction in the first place: People who don't PvP a lot being locked out of a guild activity because they character from another faction had been in Cyrodiil several months prior to get skyshards and now they can't enter the campaign with the character of the faction that their guild wants to play on.

When the game launched and we had 10 campaigns, it wasn't such a big deal, but I remember when they pared down the campaigns and we were running characters of different factions through Cyrodiil to get skyshards and it took us several weeks to get everyone able to join the campaigns with the "right" faction.

Troneon

As usual zos behind all other games on this. It's so obvious that in a faction pvp game this would be needed.

Sergykid

how is this the "main" problem? i don't see it as a minor problem either. Your character is locked to a faction and that's enough. So what if i have 3 different races from 3 different factions? In pvp problems like being full defensive together with full offensive at once and class unbalance is a major problem for me, not this.

Gythral

Nothing will ever stop PvPer whining

Shame is it's a tiny minority painting the community so badly to everyone else

Ragebull

I'm not gonna restrict myself to a 3rd of the campaign experience just because some take the war too seriously.

Very few players are spies, most just get bored with their factions situation or annoyed with chat blabbering so they switch.

Hurtfan

Ragebull wrote: »

I'm not gonna restrict myself to a 3rd of the campaign experience just because some take the war too seriously.

Very few players are spies, most just get bored with their factions situation or annoyed with chat blabbering so they switch.

Boy that sounds like a lot of fun...just go to battle grounds, the campaigns I play in are competitive, that's what makes it a blast...(PS4 vivec). There are spies everywhere and a lot of smack talk.

And what are you experiencing that's different between the 3 factions?

This sounds like a thread you don't belong in.

AlnilamE

Hurtfan wrote: »

Ragebull wrote: »

I'm not gonna restrict myself to a 3rd of the campaign experience just because some take the war too seriously.

Very few players are spies, most just get bored with their factions situation or annoyed with chat blabbering so they switch.

Boy that sounds like a lot of fun...just go to battle grounds, the campaigns I play in are competitive, that's what makes it a blast...(PS4 vivec). There are spies everywhere and a lot of smack talk.

And what are you experiencing that's different between the 3 factions?

This sounds like a thread you don't belong in.

The map is all wrong when you are not on an EP character. :-P