The problem with faction lock for the veteran PvP players

Elong

Glory wrote: »

Ormtunge wrote: »

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

I want a campaign than locks out faction loyalists. If you home the faction lock campaign, you should be able to play ONLY that campaign, ever. No guesting other campaigns. You have to stay loyal to your faction in that campaign forever.

Lock everything except one 30 day CP campaign, which will remain unlocked and only for people who have not homed the other servers. I DO NOT want to play with toxic faction loyalists. They ruin pvp in my opinion. I would like to be able to play only with other like-minded people who appreciate fair teamwork and good sportsmanship, rather than blind tribalism and virtual xenophobia.

So u want to play with other players who dont want to fight to win the campaign? That doesnt care about their faction/team, to get fair teamwork and good sportsmanship?

1. I've won and lost so many campaigns the meaning has lost value to me. This is a game design issue, as the incentives to play for campaigns lost meaning around 2015.
2. The people I've met who have poor sportsmanship are almost always "faction loyalists", as they accuse people of cheating because they don't understand the game or are toxic because of their loyalty.
3. Some find it more interesting to try to alter the outcome of the campaign by moving to a faction which is heavily outnumbered (i.e. if DC on PC/NA/Vivec is so wildly outnumbered, I am likely to want to play on that faction more because I don't like steamrolling and prefer a challenge instead). That should be ok.

Well said.

Mr_Walker

MipMip wrote: »

Ormtunge wrote: »

josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »

I want a campaign than locks out faction loyalists. If you home the faction lock campaign, you should be able to play ONLY that campaign, ever. No guesting other campaigns. You have to stay loyal to your faction in that campaign forever.

Lock everything except one 30 day CP campaign, which will remain unlocked and only for people who have not homed the other servers. I DO NOT want to play with toxic faction loyalists. They ruin pvp in my opinion. I would like to be able to play only with other like-minded people who appreciate fair teamwork and good sportsmanship, rather than blind tribalism and virtual xenophobia.

So u want to play with other players who dont want to fight to win the campaign? That doesnt care about their faction/team, to get fair teamwork and good sportsmanship?

For me a faction is not a team. It is a large mass of players most of whom I do not know, of whom many do not know each other, etc.

What I care about and am proud of are my guilds - these are players whom I know and with whom I can enjoy great teamwork. I want my guilds to have good fights and successful raids and never even look at the faction score.

Damn son, you're treating it like it's just a game!

karekiz

Rename all campaigns <boom nobody will know which is vivec>, and change the 7 day to a 30 day.

Campaign A - 30 day CP - Faction lock
Campaign B - 30 day No CP - Faction lock
Campaign C - 30 day CP - No lock

Fixed.

People will lose 7 day campaign that is ignored mostly CP will just play by Faction lock rules.

frozywozy

Haashhtaag wrote: »

Calling it now

1) longer queues to Vivec because of faction lock
2) AD/EP will dominate Vivec(PCNA) because of numbers
3) DC will get tired of Vivec and guilds there will home Shor and make it a buff server
4) Sotha camps will be just a numbers game with action only during prime time and weekends such as now.

We’ve literally done this dance before when the game was far more populated and we had the same results.

200-300 queues to Vivec that people for whatever wait on.
The off camps were essentially buff servers for whatever faction. People only care about transmute stones as reward, especially PVE players because they’re not able to access them as easily as PVP players are. Faction locks essentially kill their geode gains.

Why do the same thing and expect different results?

Finally the true litmus test for this would have been to make shor 30 days and mimic Vivec scoring and rewards. Faction lock that campaign and see how much traffic it gets.

This Vivec lock thing will only be a false positive in the scheme of the test as people have ALWAYS gravitated to the main campaign. It’s almost like this faction lock is designed not to fail.

if the queues get as big as you suppose, people will get tired of them and will move to other campaigns. Especially guilds who play several times a week. Nobody like waiting in queues. Personally I don't even think we are going to get there. I know for sure that one of my pvp guild is rerolling Sotha already this week. Action has been great there and it's looking promising.

Kaiz

@Glory

Enkil

karekiz wrote: »

Rename all campaigns <boom nobody will know which is vivec>, and change the 7 day to a 30 day.

Campaign A - 30 day CP - Faction lock
Campaign B - 30 day No CP - Faction lock
Campaign C - 30 day CP - No lock

Fixed.

People will lose 7 day campaign that is ignored mostly CP will just play by Faction lock rules.

I wish they would have taken an approach similar to this (also locking Kyne).

frozywozy

Glory wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I was at ZOS and heard from the devs why they are doing this.

It wasnt about transmute stones, it wasn;t about lag, it wasn;t about spreading population out, it wasn't about any of those ancillary reasons. It was about precisely what the people who have argued from locks form the past year have said: to stop people from abusing AP gains by switching factions.

Now, you may personally think the devs don't know what's going on, they are wrong, this is dumb, etc., but the reason they feel this way is because the overwhelming amount of feedback they have gotten has communicated that view. If they ignored these requests, they would be - correctly - accused of ignoring the community.

One thing I have become more cognizant of as a Rep is that ZOS does take a while to make changes. Part of it is because they debate with each other whether to do it. Part of it is because for each patch they have a theme they want to cater to. Part of it is because it takes a legit long time to make changes. but mostly because they are backlogged with so many things they want to do. It was probably a year a ago when Wheeler first intimated ZOS was thinking of doing something about faction locks. People who like this got all excited and then nothing. For months. Many thought they forgotten or ZOS put this on the backburner. Both those who wanted it never stopped making threads, never stopped arguing why it would be a good idea, which only fortified a decision ZOS was leaning a long time ago.

I guess I didn't realize we had to continue being vocal about a topic I felt was reasonably settled. I always looked at threads like "faction lock for us loyalists please" as those kinds of threads where, as a player who experienced the decision to go without faction lock and One Tamriel, you shook your head and said "thank goodness the community and Zenimax already sorted this out."

I hope the loud vocal outcry of people who are against faction locks that are currently occurring (and most of them being well-respected, well-reasoned arguments) is an indicator to Zenimax that this change is nonsensical. As I am guessing this change will go through anyway, I hope the non-stop complaints this forum will see about wildly unbalanced populations and the inability to play with friends, alongside dead campaigns, will indicate to whoever is making this decision that it is the wrong one.

I see it the other way around. The fact that there are no faction locks encourage people to switch faction in the same campaign instead of trying a new campaign. As a result, it's much harder to populate a second campaign and make it active 24/7. With faction locks, people are encouraged to home different campaigns and expand the fights while reducing the latency and the queues (medium to long term).

frozywozy

Glory wrote: »

Why are people acting like this is some sort of compromise? It's literally just flipping a switch and removing the ability for people on multiple factions to play where they want to.

Without locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players can play on whatever faction

With locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players are forced to be loyalists or play on dead campaigns

Also, arguments for "compromise" saying that people should just play on these currently dead servers? That's just saying we need to segregate an already hemorrhaged PvP community, further dividing the game's minority group (PvP is definitely a minority) into different buckets. Thanks for saying forced segregation is a good thing.

Sotha is not a dead campaign. It's max pop everyday with the exception of EP being the weakest. This campaign is very close to be active during the day and have action 24/7. I believe that faction locks are going to make it even better.

Deep_01

Ranger209 wrote: »

If there are as many people into this faction swapping side of things as some say there are, then the new 7 day server should have plenty of people on it. Meanwhile, those that prefer the factions to be locked will now also have a place to play. They stated they are blowing up the current servers and starting with 4 fresh new ones so everyone will have to pick a new server to begin with. Now there will be a choice so that those that faction loyalty means something can play on a server where that is a thing, and those that don't care a thing for faction loyalty can play on a server where that is a thing. Sounds like win-win.

@ManwithBeard9 where is that info? Eso streams?

frozywozy

Deep_01 wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

If there are as many people into this faction swapping side of things as some say there are, then the new 7 day server should have plenty of people on it. Meanwhile, those that prefer the factions to be locked will now also have a place to play. They stated they are blowing up the current servers and starting with 4 fresh new ones so everyone will have to pick a new server to begin with. Now there will be a choice so that those that faction loyalty means something can play on a server where that is a thing, and those that don't care a thing for faction loyalty can play on a server where that is a thing. Sounds like win-win.

@ManwithBeard9 where is that info? Eso streams?

They did not mention that they were closing the current campaigns, but rather, add new ones. I sincerely hope they won't add new campaigns since we don't have the population to cover them all. What they should do and what they should have done since the beginning is to add a minimal amount of campaigns and add one more as the queues get bigger.

Mr_Walker

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Why are people acting like this is some sort of compromise? It's literally just flipping a switch and removing the ability for people on multiple factions to play where they want to.

Without locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players can play on whatever faction

With locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players are forced to be loyalists or play on dead campaigns

Also, arguments for "compromise" saying that people should just play on these currently dead servers? That's just saying we need to segregate an already hemorrhaged PvP community, further dividing the game's minority group (PvP is definitely a minority) into different buckets. Thanks for saying forced segregation is a good thing.

Sotha is not a dead campaign. It's max pop everyday with the exception of EP being the weakest. This campaign is very close to be active during the day and have action 24/7. I believe that faction locks are going to make it even better.

I don't know what server you're on, but on Xbox NA it's deader than King Tut.

frozywozy

Mr_Walker wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Why are people acting like this is some sort of compromise? It's literally just flipping a switch and removing the ability for people on multiple factions to play where they want to.

Without locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players can play on whatever faction

With locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players are forced to be loyalists or play on dead campaigns

Also, arguments for "compromise" saying that people should just play on these currently dead servers? That's just saying we need to segregate an already hemorrhaged PvP community, further dividing the game's minority group (PvP is definitely a minority) into different buckets. Thanks for saying forced segregation is a good thing.

Sotha is not a dead campaign. It's max pop everyday with the exception of EP being the weakest. This campaign is very close to be active during the day and have action 24/7. I believe that faction locks are going to make it even better.

I don't know what server you're on, but on Xbox NA it's deader than King Tut.

PC NA

Ranger209

Deep_01 wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

If there are as many people into this faction swapping side of things as some say there are, then the new 7 day server should have plenty of people on it. Meanwhile, those that prefer the factions to be locked will now also have a place to play. They stated they are blowing up the current servers and starting with 4 fresh new ones so everyone will have to pick a new server to begin with. Now there will be a choice so that those that faction loyalty means something can play on a server where that is a thing, and those that don't care a thing for faction loyalty can play on a server where that is a thing. Sounds like win-win.

@ManwithBeard9 where is that info? Eso streams?

Yes, they are posted in some of these threads about faction locking post their announcement of it.

Ranger209

frozywozy wrote: »

Deep_01 wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

If there are as many people into this faction swapping side of things as some say there are, then the new 7 day server should have plenty of people on it. Meanwhile, those that prefer the factions to be locked will now also have a place to play. They stated they are blowing up the current servers and starting with 4 fresh new ones so everyone will have to pick a new server to begin with. Now there will be a choice so that those that faction loyalty means something can play on a server where that is a thing, and those that don't care a thing for faction loyalty can play on a server where that is a thing. Sounds like win-win.

@ManwithBeard9 where is that info? Eso streams?

They did not mention that they were closing the current campaigns, but rather, add new ones. I sincerely hope they won't add new campaigns since we don't have the population to cover them all. What they should do and what they should have done since the beginning is to add a minimal amount of campaigns and add one more as the queues get bigger.

No Wheeler said they are blowing them up on an ESO stream. Which makes sense so that everyone will pick a new campaign and allow the opportunity for everyone to join a new campaign without having pre-established ties to a current campaign.

The second ESO stream from Gameplay days - Wheeler says they are "nuking" the old campaigns and create four "brand new" campaigns. Around 2:12:55 on the video if the direct link doesn't work.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/403596314?t=02h12m52s

ManwithBeard9

Ranger209 wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Deep_01 wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

If there are as many people into this faction swapping side of things as some say there are, then the new 7 day server should have plenty of people on it. Meanwhile, those that prefer the factions to be locked will now also have a place to play. They stated they are blowing up the current servers and starting with 4 fresh new ones so everyone will have to pick a new server to begin with. Now there will be a choice so that those that faction loyalty means something can play on a server where that is a thing, and those that don't care a thing for faction loyalty can play on a server where that is a thing. Sounds like win-win.

@ManwithBeard9 where is that info? Eso streams?

They did not mention that they were closing the current campaigns, but rather, add new ones. I sincerely hope they won't add new campaigns since we don't have the population to cover them all. What they should do and what they should have done since the beginning is to add a minimal amount of campaigns and add one more as the queues get bigger.

No Wheeler said they are blowing them up on an ESO stream. Which makes sense so that everyone will pick a new campaign and allow the opportunity for everyone to join a new campaign without having pre-established ties to a current campaign.

The second ESO stream from Gameplay days - Wheeler says they are "nuking" the old campaigns and create four "brand new" campaigns. Around 2:12:55 on the video if the direct link doesn't work.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/403596314?t=02h12m52s

@Deep_01 Ranger's got it. Current campaigns being nuked. Whether or not they'll be nuked on May 20th or June 4th remains to be seen. But they will close them at whichever date and youll pick a new one after.

Dutchessx

I am not online today because I am traveling but a friend posted this in a Discord that I am in and I want to show y’all what we have to put up with and why keeping No-Cp unlocked is important.
Sorry not letting me upload the file from my phone.
https://imgur.com/gallery/u6DynhY


The map is all red... there are different times the map is always 1 color. How are we suppose to pvp like that? There is literally NO other options if you like to play No-Cp.

I respect your guys opinions who are faction loyalist especially those on Sotha Sil but tell me what are we suppose to do? Please don’t say go do something else because what if that is your only time to play because that is just selfish in my opinion.

Haashhtaag

Don’t worry duchess frozen just said drac is going to home their next camp

Dutchessx

Haashhtaag wrote: »

Don’t worry duchess frozen just said drac is going to home their next camp

The problem is we need balance for all the factions there. EP and DC need people who regularly play during US Prime and during the day, problem is that it seems to fluctuate during the day. I am also assuming the EP painting the map red happens during Oceanaic time so another faction needs to be represented during those times. If people are looking for fights on other servers during off times look at Sotha. During the day a handful of EP hold the map red.

frozywozy

Ranger209 wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Deep_01 wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

If there are as many people into this faction swapping side of things as some say there are, then the new 7 day server should have plenty of people on it. Meanwhile, those that prefer the factions to be locked will now also have a place to play. They stated they are blowing up the current servers and starting with 4 fresh new ones so everyone will have to pick a new server to begin with. Now there will be a choice so that those that faction loyalty means something can play on a server where that is a thing, and those that don't care a thing for faction loyalty can play on a server where that is a thing. Sounds like win-win.

@ManwithBeard9 where is that info? Eso streams?

They did not mention that they were closing the current campaigns, but rather, add new ones. I sincerely hope they won't add new campaigns since we don't have the population to cover them all. What they should do and what they should have done since the beginning is to add a minimal amount of campaigns and add one more as the queues get bigger.

No Wheeler said they are blowing them up on an ESO stream. Which makes sense so that everyone will pick a new campaign and allow the opportunity for everyone to join a new campaign without having pre-established ties to a current campaign.

The second ESO stream from Gameplay days - Wheeler says they are "nuking" the old campaigns and create four "brand new" campaigns. Around 2:12:55 on the video if the direct link doesn't work.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/403596314?t=02h12m52s

I must have been distracted during that part of the stream. Thanks for correcting me.

frozywozy

Haashhtaag wrote: »

Don’t worry duchess frozen just said drac is going to home their next camp

I am not part of Dracarys anymore. I left the guild a month ago. I have no idea what their intentions are.

Glory

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I was at ZOS and heard from the devs why they are doing this.

It wasnt about transmute stones, it wasn;t about lag, it wasn;t about spreading population out, it wasn't about any of those ancillary reasons. It was about precisely what the people who have argued from locks form the past year have said: to stop people from abusing AP gains by switching factions.

Now, you may personally think the devs don't know what's going on, they are wrong, this is dumb, etc., but the reason they feel this way is because the overwhelming amount of feedback they have gotten has communicated that view. If they ignored these requests, they would be - correctly - accused of ignoring the community.

One thing I have become more cognizant of as a Rep is that ZOS does take a while to make changes. Part of it is because they debate with each other whether to do it. Part of it is because for each patch they have a theme they want to cater to. Part of it is because it takes a legit long time to make changes. but mostly because they are backlogged with so many things they want to do. It was probably a year a ago when Wheeler first intimated ZOS was thinking of doing something about faction locks. People who like this got all excited and then nothing. For months. Many thought they forgotten or ZOS put this on the backburner. Both those who wanted it never stopped making threads, never stopped arguing why it would be a good idea, which only fortified a decision ZOS was leaning a long time ago.

I guess I didn't realize we had to continue being vocal about a topic I felt was reasonably settled. I always looked at threads like "faction lock for us loyalists please" as those kinds of threads where, as a player who experienced the decision to go without faction lock and One Tamriel, you shook your head and said "thank goodness the community and Zenimax already sorted this out."

I hope the loud vocal outcry of people who are against faction locks that are currently occurring (and most of them being well-respected, well-reasoned arguments) is an indicator to Zenimax that this change is nonsensical. As I am guessing this change will go through anyway, I hope the non-stop complaints this forum will see about wildly unbalanced populations and the inability to play with friends, alongside dead campaigns, will indicate to whoever is making this decision that it is the wrong one.

I see it the other way around. The fact that there are no faction locks encourage people to switch faction in the same campaign instead of trying a new campaign. As a result, it's much harder to populate a second campaign and make it active 24/7. With faction locks, people are encouraged to home different campaigns and expand the fights while reducing the latency and the queues (medium to long term).

If no faction locks encourage people to switch faction in the same campaign, then why are the queues so drastically different? People are already willing to sit and wait in 90 queues when they have the ability to go elsewhere already. All this is doing is removing another option. Current Shor isn't filling despite 90+ queues to Vivec, and faction locking is just ensuring that you stay in your 90+ Vivec queue instead of maybe switching to the ~10 Vivec queue on another faction.

Say I play two factions, EP/DC (not even going to mention scenarios for those who play 3). Assuming there are two 30 day campaigns (as the third will likely be a gated 30 day low level, and the 4th a faction lockless): I faction lock Campaign A on EP, thus I am not allowed to play as DC on campaign A. So I can either lock into Campaign B or go to factionless on Campaign C.

If I lock my DC to campaign B:

• I can only play EP on A or C. If A has insane queues I am forced to either wait in line or go to C. If A and C are empty and B is moderately populated for EP, too bad.
• I can only play DC on B or C. If A is the only busy campaign outside of prime time (i.e. current state Vivec), I can't PvP on DC whatsoever.

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Why are people acting like this is some sort of compromise? It's literally just flipping a switch and removing the ability for people on multiple factions to play where they want to.

Without locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players can play on whatever faction

With locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players are forced to be loyalists or play on dead campaigns

Also, arguments for "compromise" saying that people should just play on these currently dead servers? That's just saying we need to segregate an already hemorrhaged PvP community, further dividing the game's minority group (PvP is definitely a minority) into different buckets. Thanks for saying forced segregation is a good thing.

Sotha is not a dead campaign. It's max pop everyday with the exception of EP being the weakest. This campaign is very close to be active during the day and have action 24/7. I believe that faction locks are going to make it even better.

This is also completely neglecting the fact that people have had extremely divisive perspectives on Champion Point/non-CP campaigns. There have been countless arguments from both sides about basically hating to play in the alternative (i.e. non-CP saying they won't set foot in CP).

With this new faction lock, assuming new campaigns will be created similar to current design (30 day CP, 30 day no-CP, 30 lowbie, 7 CP):

• If you play two factions, but heavily prefer no CP you can only play one faction. That's it, or be forced into CP.
• If you play two factions, but heavily prefer CP, you can play on one faction on 30 day, and go to 7 day which will likely be empty.

Dutchessx

Glory wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I was at ZOS and heard from the devs why they are doing this.

It wasnt about transmute stones, it wasn;t about lag, it wasn;t about spreading population out, it wasn't about any of those ancillary reasons. It was about precisely what the people who have argued from locks form the past year have said: to stop people from abusing AP gains by switching factions.

Now, you may personally think the devs don't know what's going on, they are wrong, this is dumb, etc., but the reason they feel this way is because the overwhelming amount of feedback they have gotten has communicated that view. If they ignored these requests, they would be - correctly - accused of ignoring the community.

One thing I have become more cognizant of as a Rep is that ZOS does take a while to make changes. Part of it is because they debate with each other whether to do it. Part of it is because for each patch they have a theme they want to cater to. Part of it is because it takes a legit long time to make changes. but mostly because they are backlogged with so many things they want to do. It was probably a year a ago when Wheeler first intimated ZOS was thinking of doing something about faction locks. People who like this got all excited and then nothing. For months. Many thought they forgotten or ZOS put this on the backburner. Both those who wanted it never stopped making threads, never stopped arguing why it would be a good idea, which only fortified a decision ZOS was leaning a long time ago.

I guess I didn't realize we had to continue being vocal about a topic I felt was reasonably settled. I always looked at threads like "faction lock for us loyalists please" as those kinds of threads where, as a player who experienced the decision to go without faction lock and One Tamriel, you shook your head and said "thank goodness the community and Zenimax already sorted this out."

I hope the loud vocal outcry of people who are against faction locks that are currently occurring (and most of them being well-respected, well-reasoned arguments) is an indicator to Zenimax that this change is nonsensical. As I am guessing this change will go through anyway, I hope the non-stop complaints this forum will see about wildly unbalanced populations and the inability to play with friends, alongside dead campaigns, will indicate to whoever is making this decision that it is the wrong one.

I see it the other way around. The fact that there are no faction locks encourage people to switch faction in the same campaign instead of trying a new campaign. As a result, it's much harder to populate a second campaign and make it active 24/7. With faction locks, people are encouraged to home different campaigns and expand the fights while reducing the latency and the queues (medium to long term).

If no faction locks encourage people to switch faction in the same campaign, then why are the queues so drastically different? People are already willing to sit and wait in 90 queues when they have the ability to go elsewhere already. All this is doing is removing another option. Current Shor isn't filling despite 90+ queues to Vivec, and faction locking is just ensuring that you stay in your 90+ Vivec queue instead of maybe switching to the ~10 Vivec queue on another faction.

Say I play two factions, EP/DC (not even going to mention scenarios for those who play 3). Assuming there are two 30 day campaigns (as the third will likely be a gated 30 day low level, and the 4th a faction lockless): I faction lock Campaign A on EP, thus I am not allowed to play as DC on campaign A. So I can either lock into Campaign B or go to factionless on Campaign C.

If I lock my DC to campaign B:

• I can only play EP on A or C. If A has insane queues I am forced to either wait in line or go to C. If A and C are empty and B is moderately populated for EP, too bad.
• I can only play DC on B or C. If A is the only busy campaign outside of prime time (i.e. current state Vivec), I can't PvP on DC whatsoever.

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Why are people acting like this is some sort of compromise? It's literally just flipping a switch and removing the ability for people on multiple factions to play where they want to.

Without locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players can play on whatever faction

With locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players are forced to be loyalists or play on dead campaigns

Also, arguments for "compromise" saying that people should just play on these currently dead servers? That's just saying we need to segregate an already hemorrhaged PvP community, further dividing the game's minority group (PvP is definitely a minority) into different buckets. Thanks for saying forced segregation is a good thing.

Sotha is not a dead campaign. It's max pop everyday with the exception of EP being the weakest. This campaign is very close to be active during the day and have action 24/7. I believe that faction locks are going to make it even better.

This is also completely neglecting the fact that people have had extremely divisive perspectives on Champion Point/non-CP campaigns. There have been countless arguments from both sides about basically hating to play in the alternative (i.e. non-CP saying they won't set foot in CP).

With this new faction lock, assuming new campaigns will be created similar to current design (30 day CP, 30 day no-CP, 30 lowbie, 7 CP):

• If you play two factions, but heavily prefer no CP you can only play one faction. That's it, or be forced into CP.
• If you play two factions, but heavily prefer CP, you can play on one faction on 30 day, and go to 7 day which will likely be empty.

Exactly

Iskiab

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Why are people acting like this is some sort of compromise? It's literally just flipping a switch and removing the ability for people on multiple factions to play where they want to.

Without locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players can play on whatever faction

With locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players are forced to be loyalists or play on dead campaigns

Also, arguments for "compromise" saying that people should just play on these currently dead servers? That's just saying we need to segregate an already hemorrhaged PvP community, further dividing the game's minority group (PvP is definitely a minority) into different buckets. Thanks for saying forced segregation is a good thing.

Sotha is not a dead campaign. It's max pop everyday with the exception of EP being the weakest. This campaign is very close to be active during the day and have action 24/7. I believe that faction locks are going to make it even better.

I wouldn’t say EP is the weakest. It’s a time of day thing. Red at night in oceanic flip everything and have a huge faction. At other times there are more yellow and blue.

One issue we’re having as AD is sometimes the other factions are light so it’s not fun. We’re going to try to change our schedule so we encounter other larger pvp guilds.

I think everyone who plays on the server agree when fengrush is on blue, animosity and warpath red, with a good yellow presence it’s the most fun. 3 way battles are the best. Lots of epic fights, with lots of opportunities for small scale to gank and do their thing. I think I’ve seen up to 8 pvp guilds all battling.

It might even be a good idea for the guild leaders to coordinate playtimes so everyone’s on at once. It’s normal for pvp guilds to coordinate which server to roll on before release, this would be sorta the same thing.

frozywozy

Glory wrote: »

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

I was at ZOS and heard from the devs why they are doing this.

It wasnt about transmute stones, it wasn;t about lag, it wasn;t about spreading population out, it wasn't about any of those ancillary reasons. It was about precisely what the people who have argued from locks form the past year have said: to stop people from abusing AP gains by switching factions.

Now, you may personally think the devs don't know what's going on, they are wrong, this is dumb, etc., but the reason they feel this way is because the overwhelming amount of feedback they have gotten has communicated that view. If they ignored these requests, they would be - correctly - accused of ignoring the community.

One thing I have become more cognizant of as a Rep is that ZOS does take a while to make changes. Part of it is because they debate with each other whether to do it. Part of it is because for each patch they have a theme they want to cater to. Part of it is because it takes a legit long time to make changes. but mostly because they are backlogged with so many things they want to do. It was probably a year a ago when Wheeler first intimated ZOS was thinking of doing something about faction locks. People who like this got all excited and then nothing. For months. Many thought they forgotten or ZOS put this on the backburner. Both those who wanted it never stopped making threads, never stopped arguing why it would be a good idea, which only fortified a decision ZOS was leaning a long time ago.

I guess I didn't realize we had to continue being vocal about a topic I felt was reasonably settled. I always looked at threads like "faction lock for us loyalists please" as those kinds of threads where, as a player who experienced the decision to go without faction lock and One Tamriel, you shook your head and said "thank goodness the community and Zenimax already sorted this out."

I hope the loud vocal outcry of people who are against faction locks that are currently occurring (and most of them being well-respected, well-reasoned arguments) is an indicator to Zenimax that this change is nonsensical. As I am guessing this change will go through anyway, I hope the non-stop complaints this forum will see about wildly unbalanced populations and the inability to play with friends, alongside dead campaigns, will indicate to whoever is making this decision that it is the wrong one.

I see it the other way around. The fact that there are no faction locks encourage people to switch faction in the same campaign instead of trying a new campaign. As a result, it's much harder to populate a second campaign and make it active 24/7. With faction locks, people are encouraged to home different campaigns and expand the fights while reducing the latency and the queues (medium to long term).

If no faction locks encourage people to switch faction in the same campaign, then why are the queues so drastically different? People are already willing to sit and wait in 90 queues when they have the ability to go elsewhere already. All this is doing is removing another option. Current Shor isn't filling despite 90+ queues to Vivec, and faction locking is just ensuring that you stay in your 90+ Vivec queue instead of maybe switching to the ~10 Vivec queue on another faction.

As mentioned in my post, Sotha Sil is filling very well, not Shor. Faction locking force you to pick the faction that you consider playing at the beginning of the campaign (I believe for you it would be the weakest) and stick with it. Then pick Sotha Sil for your second faction.

Say I play two factions, EP/DC (not even going to mention scenarios for those who play 3). Assuming there are two 30 day campaigns (as the third will likely be a gated 30 day low level, and the 4th a faction lockless): I faction lock Campaign A on EP, thus I am not allowed to play as DC on campaign A. So I can either lock into Campaign B or go to factionless on Campaign C.

If I lock my DC to campaign B:

• I can only play EP on A or C. If A has insane queues I am forced to either wait in line or go to C. If A and C are empty and B is moderately populated for EP, too bad.
• I can only play DC on B or C. If A is the only busy campaign outside of prime time (i.e. current state Vivec), I can't PvP on DC whatsoever.

frozywozy wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

Why are people acting like this is some sort of compromise? It's literally just flipping a switch and removing the ability for people on multiple factions to play where they want to.

Without locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players can play on whatever faction

With locks:

• Faction loyalists can be faction loyalists
• Multi-faction players are forced to be loyalists or play on dead campaigns

Also, arguments for "compromise" saying that people should just play on these currently dead servers? That's just saying we need to segregate an already hemorrhaged PvP community, further dividing the game's minority group (PvP is definitely a minority) into different buckets. Thanks for saying forced segregation is a good thing.

Sotha is not a dead campaign. It's max pop everyday with the exception of EP being the weakest. This campaign is very close to be active during the day and have action 24/7. I believe that faction locks are going to make it even better.

This is also completely neglecting the fact that people have had extremely divisive perspectives on Champion Point/non-CP campaigns. There have been countless arguments from both sides about basically hating to play in the alternative (i.e. non-CP saying they won't set foot in CP).

With this new faction lock, assuming new campaigns will be created similar to current design (30 day CP, 30 day no-CP, 30 lowbie, 7 CP):

• If you play two factions, but heavily prefer no CP you can only play one faction. That's it, or be forced into CP.
• If you play two factions, but heavily prefer CP, you can play on one faction on 30 day, and go to 7 day which will likely be empty.

As I mentioned already in 5-6 posts part of faction locked threads, I believe the main objective right now should be to fill a second competitive campaign 24/7 to help spread the fights somewhere else while reducing the latency and the queues overall on both campaigns. To accomplish this, people will have to pick between playing in CP or no CP.

As you can see, Sotha Sil is nearly max pop every day of the week so there are some people who seem to enjoy that playstyle. This is a compromise that I am ready to take for the sake of populating an additional campaign.

ks888

@frozywozy I lub ya man, but it's gonna be the same as it was before. Back in the KHole days, we played almost exclusively on Had or Chill and it went like this - fun for a few hours during NA primetime, but died off quickly. There were maybe 1-2 guilds at most that populated the smaller campaigns. The queues NOW are at 70+ for EP during NA primetime and you know those people aren't moving because they want to zerg surf.

Faction locking didn't work last time, it's not going to work this time and ZOS is essentially telling me I should retire 2/3 of the toons on my account.

frozywozy

ks888 wrote: »

@frozywozy I lub ya man, but it's gonna be the same as it was before. Back in the KHole days, we played almost exclusively on Had or Chill and it went like this - fun for a few hours during NA primetime, but died off quickly. There were maybe 1-2 guilds at most that populated the smaller campaigns. The queues NOW are at 70+ for EP during NA primetime and you know those people aren't moving because they want to zerg surf.

Faction locking didn't work last time, it's not going to work this time and ZOS is essentially telling me I should retire 2/3 of the toons on my account.

There are 5 AD guilds, 3 DC guilds and 2 EP guilds on Sotha that play at primetime. It's getting better every week and faction locks are going to make it even better. People just need to have a positive attitude and help spreading out the fights between both campaigns for the best of all.

ks888

@frozywozy not everyone plays NA primetime though - that's a huge chunk of people being relegated to dead servers.

ks888

@frozywozy it's being realistic - when faction lock was in place before - those servers were still dead outside of appox 7-9 pm EST. I know, I played them almost exclusively. Eventually we ran out of fights and had to hop over to the 30 day via grp queue because the pop just wasn't there.

Ranger209

Unfortunately for Oceanic/Asiatic people fixing server stability is the most important thing to help increase population when you play. You can still lock yourselves to an underdog faction, you just can't flip between 2 of them if the other faction is continuously dominating. Hopefully your inability to flip impacts that time frame in a way that causes some of that dominating faction to splinter off to another faction. If not, perhaps other measures can be taken that takes the fun out of pvdooring the entire map one color.

Joy_Division

ks888 wrote: »

@frozywozy it's being realistic - when faction lock was in place before - those servers were still dead outside of appox 7-9 pm EST. I know, I played them almost exclusively. Eventually we ran out of fights and had to hop over to the 30 day via grp queue because the pop just wasn't there.

Are you trying to suggest that after years years and numerous attempts by ZoS and the community to get people to play in a dead campaign instead of waiting in a 100+Q, that this campaign lock won't be the silver bullet solution we have been waiting for?

You are too pessimistic!