Pros and Cons of faction lock!

ShadowDisciple

Let me preface i play from the time faction lock was default setting. And im very pro faction lock. Recent outcry on forums actually baffles me to a point i considered to be wrong about the whole thing.

I want to have CIVIL disscussion about it and list pros and cons..or at least what you feel pros and cons are AND ARGUMENT IT.

Ill start:

Pros:

-Balanced Population - Forcing people into 1 faction creates a natural division of playerbase and artiffically distributes players to a more equal state, WITHOUT giving players a chance to faction-hop and break the equilibrium for the sake of overnumbering other factions and reducing their power and ability to attack/defend that way.

-Faction loyalty - This one is somewhat moot as some dont care about the story of it all so they wouldnt neccesarily care about the faction, but for those who do care it is a great way of siding with the that they think should "win" the war.

-No power-hopping - People wont be able to go to a currently winning faction in order to power-farm AP by crushing other alliance further into the ground. This way LEVEL OF COMPETITION THROUGHOUT THE DAY/NIGHT IS MORE BALANCED.

-No "spies" - There wont be people who will abuse zone chat to feed information about your faction to enemy in order to better anticipate and prepare for an upcoming attack.

Cons:

-Forcing a race - for people that dont have "Any Race, Any Alliance", they are forced to play certain 3 races that belong to the faction...this one is somewhat problematic and i can see it as a con and decently big con if i may add.

Wierd thing people mention:

"I cant play with my firends" - I dont understant this at all... If u are friends, why cant you decide on a faction and play there together. Creating a battle ready Cyrodiil toon is extremely easy and it takes like 10h of playtime...ESSPECIALLY if u have friends to speed up the grind.

Discuss. But please be civil and argument your statements.

Blood for the Pact!

Rygonix

Unfortunately, while faction-locks are account bound that's as far as it goes. Plenty of people own more than one account and use said account to swap factions whenever it suits them.

LeagueTroll

Yeah, ip faction lock is needed zos.

ShadowDisciple

Rygonix wrote: »

Unfortunately, while faction-locks are account bound that's as far as it goes. Plenty of people own more than one account and use said account to swap factions whenever it suits them.

Well some things u cant controll, but i believe these are a very small minority and shouldnt affect the balance to a critical, or even noticable state

frostz417

Cons:
imbalance of population when one faction is zerging down the only relevant campaign as the other 3 are abysmally dead making it impossible to play said faction.
I mostly play DC. If dc has the entire map zerged down then my fun is taken away since I don’t pvdoor when I PvP. I actually go out and fight players. Not castle guards.
Makes a lot of people not want to play from the other side as well. It discouraged many players to even touch cyrodiil when they login to see them nearly gated.

Another con:
Pve players who don’t care about faction loyalty and others suffer because now they lose out on transmutation crystals due to most players who don’t PvP just have all other factions and they enter vivec just to acquire tier 1-3 rewards for gems.
It’s the best way to get gems since all other ways aren’t nearly as beneficial as this.

Another con: we can’t play with friends in other factions. Some people don’t give a rats ass about faction loyalty they just want to PvP and have a fun time with their friends. Wether it be small scale or zerging, they don’t care about factions just play with friends, now this faction lock disables that since on most platforms vivec is the only campaign with people. Shor is dead 90% of the time and when it’s not it’s just one faction zerging down the entire map with 3 bars while the others have 1 or less bar.

It’s not like the faction lock in the past didn’t fail miserably. This truly shows how ignorant people are of the past. Veteran players actually understand how the past, faction locks failed and resulted in dead campaigns. But I guess history will have to repeat itself.
Ladies and gentlemen, here’s to the next few months of PvP faction locks potentially failing.

therift

Pro: No snatching captured scrolls to give back to that scroll's Alliance

Pro: Not so easy to boost to the top of the leaderboard.

Pro: Not so easy for a guild to farm Emp

Pro: Virtually eliminates zone chat taunting. This is a minor issue in my view, but it's there. My Block list is huge


Con: I'm not convinced about the balanced population argument. While I have extensive anecdotal evidence that some players abandon the third place Alliance for the first place Alliance, there is a possibility that dominance by one Alliance may cause players of the third place Alliance to skip playing the balance of the campaign, which would be virtually the same effect.

Rygonix

One thing I noticed is that DC has been kicked back to its true 'underdog' state it was in before One Tamriel. In all 30-day campaigns DC is behind by thousands of points, and only when streamers or good pvp guilds run do they start taking anything more than their tri-keeps.

ShadowDisciple

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:
imbalance of population when one faction is zerging down the only relevant campaign as the other 3 are abysmally dead making it impossible to play said faction.

This is what happens now with faction hopping..this is the main aspect that faction lock improves..

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:

Another con:
Pve players who don’t care about faction loyalty and others suffer because now they lose out on transmutation crystals due to most players who don’t PvP just have all other factions and they enter vivec just to acquire tier 1-3 rewards for gems.
It’s the best way to get gems since all other ways aren’t nearly as beneficial as this.

This just doesent make any sense.

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:

Another con: we can’t play with friends in other factions. Some people don’t give a rats ass about faction loyalty they just want to PvP and have a fun time with their friends. Wether it be small scale or zerging, they don’t care about factions just play with friends, now this faction lock disables that since on most platforms vivec is the only campaign with people. Shor is dead 90% of the time and when it’s not it’s just one faction zerging down the entire map with 3 bars while the others have 1 or less bar.

If u are friends..decide on 1 faction and play there..easy peasy

idk

Pros. Some of us with alts will get more use out of our alts once again. There is nothing in the ToS that makes this a violation. Alt accounts are great for scroll stealing and Zos did nothing to change this. What makes this even better is players will have no idea who's alt account it is.

I have been saying that faction locks will not stop what people claim is happening without faction locks. But Zos is great at giving people what they want instead of actually fixing what the problem is because that takes more work.

Pros. it will bring back guilds forming alliances across factions to help with Emp Farming.

Cons. The first and most outspoken reason Zos gave for reinstating faction lock was that people asked for it. They did not provide any statement that they saw exploitation that had a great effect on the campaigns.

Again, Zos gave the people who requested this exactly what they asked for, alt armies.

Sanguinor2

Cons. Cyro buffs dont get applied in PvE anymore so it makes no sense to reintroduce dead buff campaigns like they were last time we had faction locks.

ShadowDisciple

idk wrote: »

Pros. Some of us with alts will get more use out of our alts once again. There is nothing in the ToS that makes this a violation. Alt accounts are great for scroll stealing and Zos did nothing to change this. What makes this even better is players will have no idea who's alt account it is.

I have been saying that faction locks will not stop what people claim is happening without faction locks. But Zos is great at giving people what they want instead of actually fixing what the problem is because that takes more work.

Pros. it will bring back guilds forming alliances across factions to help with Emp Farming.

Cons. The first and most outspoken reason Zos gave for reinstating faction lock was that people asked for it. They did not provide any statement that they saw exploitation that had a great effect on the campaigns.

Again, Zos gave the people who requested this exactly what they asked for, alt armies.

Can u share what the problem is exactly.. would love to know what problem isnt fixed and was satiated by adding faction locks.

frostz417

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:
imbalance of population when one faction is zerging down the only relevant campaign as the other 3 are abysmally dead making it impossible to play said faction.

This is what happens now with faction hopping..this is the main aspect that faction lock improves..

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:

Another con:
Pve players who don’t care about faction loyalty and others suffer because now they lose out on transmutation crystals due to most players who don’t PvP just have all other factions and they enter vivec just to acquire tier 1-3 rewards for gems.
It’s the best way to get gems since all other ways aren’t nearly as beneficial as this.

This just doesent make any sense.

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:

Another con: we can’t play with friends in other factions. Some people don’t give a rats ass about faction loyalty they just want to PvP and have a fun time with their friends. Wether it be small scale or zerging, they don’t care about factions just play with friends, now this faction lock disables that since on most platforms vivec is the only campaign with people. Shor is dead 90% of the time and when it’s not it’s just one faction zerging down the entire map with 3 bars while the others have 1 or less bar.

If u are friends..decide on 1 faction and play there..easy peasy

How does my gem argument not make sense. If you’re a pve player who has multiple faction characters and you go to vivec to get rewards for 50 gems.. you can no longer do that if you have a lot of characters on different alliances. It will heavily impact the amount of stones you will no longer be able to acquire since main 30 day campaign is faction locked.
Also regarding your “just play the same faction” argument.
People have ranks, achievements on certain characters. You’re literally saying just forget about that and pick one faction to play. Yep makes total sense. Your ignorance and delusions is so absurd I’m not even going to argue with it.

AndyMac

Pro - people are forced to declare loyalty.

I play on PC Na CP server - can’t think of the name - a number of players who would occasionally play EP have gone back to their factions and are now the enemy- which they seemed to be anyway when they were playing EP.

That alone sells it lol😀

Con - haven’t seen one yet really.

ShadowDisciple

frostz417 wrote: »

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:
imbalance of population when one faction is zerging down the only relevant campaign as the other 3 are abysmally dead making it impossible to play said faction.

This is what happens now with faction hopping..this is the main aspect that faction lock improves..

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:

Another con:
Pve players who don’t care about faction loyalty and others suffer because now they lose out on transmutation crystals due to most players who don’t PvP just have all other factions and they enter vivec just to acquire tier 1-3 rewards for gems.
It’s the best way to get gems since all other ways aren’t nearly as beneficial as this.

This just doesent make any sense.

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:

Another con: we can’t play with friends in other factions. Some people don’t give a rats ass about faction loyalty they just want to PvP and have a fun time with their friends. Wether it be small scale or zerging, they don’t care about factions just play with friends, now this faction lock disables that since on most platforms vivec is the only campaign with people. Shor is dead 90% of the time and when it’s not it’s just one faction zerging down the entire map with 3 bars while the others have 1 or less bar.

If u are friends..decide on 1 faction and play there..easy peasy

How does my gem argument not make sense. If you’re a pve player who has multiple faction characters and you go to vivec to get rewards for 50 gems.. you can no longer do that if you have a lot of characters on different alliances. It will heavily impact the amount of stones you will no longer be able to acquire since main 30 day campaign is faction locked.
Also regarding your “just play the same faction” argument.
People have ranks, achievements on certain characters. You’re literally saying just forget about that and pick one faction to play. Yep makes total sense. Your ignorance and delusions is so absurd I’m not even going to argue with it.

If achiements are more important thn playing with friends..then good friends...and as for your other cons?? could you explain those one better?

therift

frostz417 wrote: »

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:
imbalance of population when one faction is zerging down the only relevant campaign as the other 3 are abysmally dead making it impossible to play said faction.

This is what happens now with faction hopping..this is the main aspect that faction lock improves..

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:

Another con:
Pve players who don’t care about faction loyalty and others suffer because now they lose out on transmutation crystals due to most players who don’t PvP just have all other factions and they enter vivec just to acquire tier 1-3 rewards for gems.
It’s the best way to get gems since all other ways aren’t nearly as beneficial as this.

This just doesent make any sense.

frostz417 wrote: »

Cons:

Another con: we can’t play with friends in other factions. Some people don’t give a rats ass about faction loyalty they just want to PvP and have a fun time with their friends. Wether it be small scale or zerging, they don’t care about factions just play with friends, now this faction lock disables that since on most platforms vivec is the only campaign with people. Shor is dead 90% of the time and when it’s not it’s just one faction zerging down the entire map with 3 bars while the others have 1 or less bar.

If u are friends..decide on 1 faction and play there..easy peasy

How does my gem argument not make sense. If you’re a pve player who has multiple faction characters and you go to vivec to get rewards for 50 gems.. you can no longer do that if you have a lot of characters on different alliances. It will heavily impact the amount of stones you will no longer be able to acquire since main 30 day campaign is faction locked.
Also regarding your “just play the same faction” argument.
People have ranks, achievements on certain characters. You’re literally saying just forget about that and pick one faction to play. Yep makes total sense. Your ignorance and delusions is so absurd I’m not even going to argue with it.

Hmmmm...

30 day campaign = 608.3 Transmute Crystals annually.
7 day campaign = 520 Transmute Crystals annually.

Alliance loyalty = 1 more item transmuted every year with a good bit started towards the next item next year.

You're right. With 16 characters, you'd be able to transmute 16 extra items every year.


I'm going to call that an Alliance Loyalty Reward buff for playing faction-locked campaign.

ShadowDisciple

therift wrote: »

Hmmmm...

30 day campaign = 608.3 Transmute Crystals annually.
7 day campaign = 520 Transmute Crystals annually.

Alliance loyalty = 1 more item transmuted every year with a good bit started towards the next item next year.

You're right. With 16 characters, you'd be able to transmute 16 extra items every year.


I'm going to call that an Alliance Loyalty Reward buff for playing faction-locked campaign.

Yee lol

idk

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Pros. Some of us with alts will get more use out of our alts once again. There is nothing in the ToS that makes this a violation. Alt accounts are great for scroll stealing and Zos did nothing to change this. What makes this even better is players will have no idea who's alt account it is.

I have been saying that faction locks will not stop what people claim is happening without faction locks. But Zos is great at giving people what they want instead of actually fixing what the problem is because that takes more work.

Pros. it will bring back guilds forming alliances across factions to help with Emp Farming.

Cons. The first and most outspoken reason Zos gave for reinstating faction lock was that people asked for it. They did not provide any statement that they saw exploitation that had a great effect on the campaigns.

Again, Zos gave the people who requested this exactly what they asked for, alt armies.

Can u share what the problem is exactly.. would love to know what problem isnt fixed and was satiated by adding faction locks.

Oops. Scroll stealing with an alt account is not impacted by faction lock. It is the easiest exploit in the game The second easiest it spying which is the other use for an alt account that groups that formed from zone struggled with back when we had faction lock before.

It will be glorious since there were quite a few threads that falsely stated faction locks were needed to stop the scroll stealing but ignored the realities, or were oblivious to them. ToS has nothing to prevent this and is a big reason Zos did not make exploiting the focus of this change. They know it will not stop anything.

BTW, alt accounts were used back when we had faction lock.

bulbousb16_ESO

frostz417 wrote: »

Another con: we can’t play with friends in other factions. Some people don’t give a rats ass about faction loyalty they just want to PvP and have a fun time with their friends.

The same old lie, here again. Nothing stops you from playing with your friends. You might be on the same faction, fighting together; or you might be on opposing sides, killing each other. But you're still playing with your friends.

Pro: faction locks are here to stay

Con: a lot of whining from the exploiters

ShadowDisciple

idk wrote: »

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Pros. Some of us with alts will get more use out of our alts once again. There is nothing in the ToS that makes this a violation. Alt accounts are great for scroll stealing and Zos did nothing to change this. What makes this even better is players will have no idea who's alt account it is.

I have been saying that faction locks will not stop what people claim is happening without faction locks. But Zos is great at giving people what they want instead of actually fixing what the problem is because that takes more work.

Pros. it will bring back guilds forming alliances across factions to help with Emp Farming.

Cons. The first and most outspoken reason Zos gave for reinstating faction lock was that people asked for it. They did not provide any statement that they saw exploitation that had a great effect on the campaigns.

Again, Zos gave the people who requested this exactly what they asked for, alt armies.

Can u share what the problem is exactly.. would love to know what problem isnt fixed and was satiated by adding faction locks.

Oops. Scroll stealing with an alt account is not impacted by faction lock. It is the easiest exploit in the game The second easiest it spying which is the other use for an alt account that groups that formed from zone struggled with back when we had faction lock before.

It will be glorious since there were quite a few threads that falsely stated faction locks were needed to stop the scroll stealing but ignored the realities, or were oblivious to them. ToS has nothing to prevent this and is a big reason Zos did not make exploiting the focus of this change. They know it will not stop anything.

BTW, alt accounts were used back when we had faction lock.

Ye i agree with you...and thats why i said some thing u cant control to the other poster..but since faction lock benefits other things and alt accounts cant be stopped, i take it faction lock doesent bother you otherwise?

EdoKeledus

Completely agree with the OP except for "Blood for the Pact"

Serouisly I'm a pro faction lock and I even asked for an account faction lock, I have never understood why ZOS allowed us to switch faction from the beginning.

It was a nightmare, the reasons why some players want remove faction lock are selfish (I want to play with friend) and perfidious (I gonna troll with the scrolls, prevent a poor guy to become emp or "spy")

Even if we have still some abuses(some bast***s in PC EU Vivec), faction lock set limits and promote faction loyalty; now ZOS need to be more brutal with the exploiters and abusers to have a 99,9% healthy Cyrodiil in term of faction rivalry and competition.

Royaji

Will this thread going to be anymore civil than the other ones? I somehow doubt it...

It does not matter what pros and cons we bring up since the other side does not really care about your pros and is extremly annoyed about those cons. It's an extremly subjective argument.

There's only one solution that will be fair.

30-day CP, faction locked
30-day no-CP, faction locked
30-day CP
30-day no-CP

Not enough players for that amount of campaigns? Close the one with the smallest population after two months. Done. No more pointless bickering, simple approach with objective outcomes.

idk

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

idk wrote: »

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Pros. Some of us with alts will get more use out of our alts once again. There is nothing in the ToS that makes this a violation. Alt accounts are great for scroll stealing and Zos did nothing to change this. What makes this even better is players will have no idea who's alt account it is.

I have been saying that faction locks will not stop what people claim is happening without faction locks. But Zos is great at giving people what they want instead of actually fixing what the problem is because that takes more work.

Pros. it will bring back guilds forming alliances across factions to help with Emp Farming.

Cons. The first and most outspoken reason Zos gave for reinstating faction lock was that people asked for it. They did not provide any statement that they saw exploitation that had a great effect on the campaigns.

Again, Zos gave the people who requested this exactly what they asked for, alt armies.

Can u share what the problem is exactly.. would love to know what problem isnt fixed and was satiated by adding faction locks.

Oops. Scroll stealing with an alt account is not impacted by faction lock. It is the easiest exploit in the game The second easiest it spying which is the other use for an alt account that groups that formed from zone struggled with back when we had faction lock before.

It will be glorious since there were quite a few threads that falsely stated faction locks were needed to stop the scroll stealing but ignored the realities, or were oblivious to them. ToS has nothing to prevent this and is a big reason Zos did not make exploiting the focus of this change. They know it will not stop anything.

BTW, alt accounts were used back when we had faction lock.

Ye i agree with you...and thats why i said some thing u cant control to the other poster..but since faction lock benefits other things and alt accounts cant be stopped, i take it faction lock doesent bother you otherwise?

Actually, the "benefits" you suggest are happening due to faction locks were not the real reason Zos implemented them again. If it was they would not have lead off with the reason being that people had requested it, not that there were exploits. Further, if Zos had really felt there were exploits they would have returned to faction locks long ago and locked all campaigns. But you can think what you want.

The real issue with Zos bringing back faction locks is the blatant disregard they have for the impact their own decisions have on the player base which is another sign of that Matt is over his head running ESO and Zos, which has been evident since before this game went live.

If they were actually concerned they would have offered a means to move characters to the faction of choice when implementing this restriction. Instead they chose the lazy route because they do not feel responsible for the fact they have no clue what needs to be done. It is real sad and pathetic but we see it all over the place. No priority with the worsened in-combat bug added last year. No priority for fixing the GF system that has been broken for 2 years and either lied to us that they thought they fixed it long ago or chose to ignore all threads on the subject for a year.

BTW, all but two of my characters are in the same faction and I have only PvPed in one faction outside of leveling up AvA to get skills on those two so I am not really impacted. This is a matter of principle and calling Zos out for yet another display of incompetent management. It is pathetic.

bulbousb16_ESO

Royaji wrote: »

There's only one solution that will be fair.

30-day CP, faction locked
30-day no-CP, faction locked
30-day CP
30-day no-CP

That will be "equitable", but will not be fair. All you are doing is segregating the cheaters into their own campaign, where they will reap the same rewards. It's a non-starter.

Faction lock for all campaigns!

ShadowDisciple

idk wrote: »

Ok i feel you.

Do you have a solution in mind that would help balance the factions out outside of faction lock. And any solution to other problems like alt accounts double crossing?

idk

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Ok i feel you.

Do you have a solution in mind that would help balance the factions out outside of faction lock. And any solution to other problems like alt accounts double crossing?

Sorry, but it seems obvious. It is either no faction locks, or choose one campaign for faction locks, or offer a faction change option. Zos chose none of that. Zos chose to avoid logic.

ShadowDisciple

idk wrote: »

ShadowDisciple wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Ok i feel you.

Do you have a solution in mind that would help balance the factions out outside of faction lock. And any solution to other problems like alt accounts double crossing?

Sorry, but it seems obvious. It is either no faction locks, or choose one campaign for faction locks, or offer a faction change option. Zos chose none of that. Zos chose to avoid logic.

Ok but this doesent help balancing factions and faction hoping...

_Salty_

I don't see a single con of faction lock.

ManwithBeard9

_Salty_ wrote: »

I don't see a single con of faction lock.

Forum threads.

_Salty_

ManwithBeard9 wrote: »

_Salty_ wrote: »

I don't see a single con of faction lock.

Forum threads.

^^^^^^ you are correct.

SydneyGrey

I only have one PvP character, so faction lock won't affect me most of the time, however, it'll affect me the next time I need to get Vigor/Caltrops on an alt that's not in the same faction. It's really going to suck the next time there's a double AP event, and the only campaign I can join with my new alts are those usually-empty 7-day campaigns. (Maybe the event will make them less empty, hopefully.) I know I can do Battlegrounds, too, but it's not my preferred way of doing PvP.

ManwithBeard9

SydneyGrey wrote: »

I only have one PvP character, so faction lock won't affect me most of the time, however, it'll affect me the next time I need to get Vigor/Caltrops on an alt that's not in the same faction. It's really going to suck the next time there's a double AP event, and the only campaign I can join with my new alts are those usually-empty 7-day campaigns. (Maybe the event will make them less empty, hopefully.) I know I can do Battlegrounds, too, but it's not my preferred way of doing PvP.

Under 50, 7 day, cp and no cp IC, there are options, you are ALLOWED to use them.