Mercenary Faction in Cyrodiil (or Imp City?)

The7thLettter

Exactly what the title says. Let this thread be filled with pros and cons or if anyone has any other input, feel free to discuss.

Pro’s: has the ability to fight whoever, whenever (even fellow mercenaries) without factions being an issue.
Can avoid having toons left out of the one pop locked campaign because of faction lock.

Con’s: can’t cap keeps, only outposts (could be a pro depending on who you ask)
Can’t get emp.

Grimlok_S

I would love to see a pilot for this in IC.

No factions, group cap of 4-6 you queue in with. Everyone else is hostile.


It's kind of lame seeing the city wash from one colour to another, there are very few nights I see groups contest each other.

Due to the spawn timers of the bosses one faction generally ends up stacking together and moving in a wave across the city, this would add a lot of competition to boss rewards.

The7thLettter

Grimlok_S wrote: »

I would love to see a pilot for this in IC.

No factions, group cap of 4-6 you queue in with. Everyone else is hostile.


It's kind of lame seeing the city wash from one colour to another, there are very few nights I see groups contest each other.

Due to the spawn timers of the bosses one faction generally ends up stacking together and moving in a wave across the city, this would add a lot of competition to boss rewards.

Another great idea and maybe it would work better in IC. Love to hear things like this.

geonsocal

would love to see a free for all in the imperial city districts...once you leave your alliance platform - no colors, everyone on the ground is independent...

would be really cool to have a week of that type gameplay...

VaranisArano

No thank you. I feel like it promotes trolling the alliances and means that the alliances who're fighting for objectives are even more outnumbered. Its not a healthy choice for Cyrodiil.


1. A Mercenary alliance is going to attract players who don't care about the alliance war and just want to fight. The easiest way to get fights is to attack an alliances home keep or resources and farm whoever comes for it.

Okay, that's pretty normal in Cyrodiil, right?

Yes, but when the regular factions do it, you can go capture their home keeps or go around them to threaten to crown an emp. Their own Faction mates can tell them "Hey. We need you" in zone chat. If they mess around too much, their faction loses score and possibly rewards. There are downsides to focusing too much on "good fights" to the exclusion of everything else.

Mercenaries don't have that. All they want to do is fight until they are killed. It's the perfect farming setup.

If that's what you like in Cyrodiil, fine. Just realize that if you ever complained about ball groups farming in back keeps or advised people to just ignore them, you can look forward to Mercenary groups farming in back keeps with absolutely no reason to move on until they are killed.


2. Just because you can't capture keeps, crown an emp, or (the OP didn't say it, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt) pick up Scrolls or the Hammer doesn't mean you can't interfere with the Alliances. Even allowing them to capture resources means they can cut transit to keeps.

What happens when a Mercenary group kills a scroll carrier and then fights to prevent others from picking it up even though they can't use it?

What happens when a mercenary group breaks down the doors to a keep, then runs around the top floor farming players who come to take it back?

What this creates is a situation where people who don't care about the score are able to directly interfere with the players who do care about the score, and take no penalty for it. In fact, Mercenary players get rewarded for it with the "good fights" they want.


3. Cyrodiil is designed for AvAvA. It often feels like Av A+A, as per the many complaints against Team Green/Orange/Purple.

Now consider adding another team. Assuming the population caps remain the same, as I think we must assume, then Alliance population gets cut to 25% to make room for a new faction of enemies. Moreover, it's entirely possible that a faction would fight themselves fighting all three factions at once.

"Oh, but the mercenaries would surely fight everyone equally! They just want good fights! They would never pick on the underdog!"

Uh huh. I have some beachfront property with a great view of the ocean I'd like to sell you.


I'm an Alliance-loyal player. Blood for the Pact! So I admit I'm biased in favor of that playstyle.

I hate the idea of a Mercenary faction who gets rewarded with "good fights" for interfering with Alliance-focused gameplay and no downsides. I would especially resent losing population slots from the main campaign to fuel a fourth Mercenary faction who really don't care about the Alliance war at all.

hafgood

Just no, there are enough trolls in Cyrodiil as it is without adding a whole tribe of them. I appreciate people coming up with ideas, I think people just need to think them through a bit more before presenting them as the best thing since sliced bread. There is no way this could ever work in Cyrodiil

The7thLettter

VaranisArano wrote: »

No thank you. I feel like it promotes trolling the alliances and means that the alliances who're fighting for objectives are even more outnumbered. Its not a healthy choice for Cyrodiil.


1. A Mercenary alliance is going to attract players who don't care about the alliance war and just want to fight. The easiest way to get fights is to attack an alliances home keep or resources and farm whoever comes for it.

Okay, that's pretty normal in Cyrodiil, right?

Yes, but when the regular factions do it, you can go capture their home keeps or go around them to threaten to crown an emp. Their own Faction mates can tell them "Hey. We need you" in zone chat. If they mess around too much, their faction loses score and possibly rewards. There are downsides to focusing too much on "good fights" to the exclusion of everything else.

Mercenaries don't have that. All they want to do is fight until they are killed. It's the perfect farming setup.

If that's what you like in Cyrodiil, fine. Just realize that if you ever complained about ball groups farming in back keeps or advised people to just ignore them, you can look forward to Mercenary groups farming in back keeps with absolutely no reason to move on until they are killed.


2. Just because you can't capture keeps, crown an emp, or (the OP didn't say it, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt) pick up Scrolls or the Hammer doesn't mean you can't interfere with the Alliances. Even allowing them to capture resources means they can cut transit to keeps.

What happens when a Mercenary group kills a scroll carrier and then fights to prevent others from picking it up even though they can't use it?

What happens when a mercenary group breaks down the doors to a keep, then runs around the top floor farming players who come to take it back?

What this creates is a situation where people who don't care about the score are able to directly interfere with the players who do care about the score, and take no penalty for it. In fact, Mercenary players get rewarded for it with the "good fights" they want.


3. Cyrodiil is designed for AvAvA. It often feels like Av A+A, as per the many complaints against Team Green/Orange/Purple.

Now consider adding another team. Assuming the population caps remain the same, as I think we must assume, then Alliance population gets cut to 25% to make room for a new faction of enemies. Moreover, it's entirely possible that a faction would fight themselves fighting all three factions at once.

"Oh, but the mercenaries would surely fight everyone equally! They just want good fights! They would never pick on the underdog!"

Uh huh. I have some beachfront property with a great view of the ocean I'd like to sell you.


I'm an Alliance-loyal player. Blood for the Pact! So I admit I'm biased in favor of that playstyle.

I hate the idea of a Mercenary faction who gets rewarded with "good fights" for interfering with Alliance-focused gameplay and no downsides. I would especially resent losing population slots from the main campaign to fuel a fourth Mercenary faction who really don't care about the Alliance war at all.

This a solid rebuttal. I do think I’m also biased not being loyal to one faction. I just miss the days of old when I could switch to another toon on another alliance when I wanted too.

You make a lot of solid points about mercs not being penalized. Not sure I put much thought into countering your points but this is a place for that... hopefully someone could come back to them.

The7thLettter

hafgood wrote: »

Just no, there are enough trolls in Cyrodiil as it is without adding a whole tribe of them. I appreciate people coming up with ideas, I think people just need to think them through a bit more before presenting them as the best thing since sliced bread. There is no way this could ever work in Cyrodiil

Edited the title. Maybe I think sliced bread is terrible!

Ranger209

Biggest con in my mind for Cyrodiil would be they would have to cut the population of the 3 factions by 1/4 to keep the same overall player cap in place by adding a 4th faction.

The7thLettter

Ranger209 wrote: »

Biggest con in my mind for Cyrodiil would be they would have to cut the population of the 3 factions by 1/4 to keep the same overall player cap in place by adding a 4th faction.

Maybe the mercanaries have a smaller pop?

Sedare38

@VaranisArano a significant number of people already don't care about the alliance war. they just hop factions over the course of an evening and do what they want to troll whoever they want. Hell some swap factions just to come and gripe at someone in that opposing faction in /zone. Comedy gold right there.

I'd love a mercenary faction. No keeps, your spawn points are either the 3 towns or some dedicated little rabble merc camps spread throughout Cyro and out of the way, so you have to travel. Put in a bidding system like guild merchants for guilds in any of the factions to hire your services--earn money. Your guild has to be designated as Merc and you can't just swap to another toon to play in a faction. Instead of competing for top 1% of your faction you have to do so for all factions to get gold rewards. All the daily quests can be found at the main merc camp along with a transitus.

I am definitely for a mercenary designation. Lords of the Shaft would enroll in that immediately.

VaranisArano

Sedare38 wrote: »

@VaranisArano a significant number of people already don't care about the alliance war. they just hop factions over the course of an evening and do what they want to troll whoever they want. Hell some swap factions just to come and gripe at someone in that opposing faction in /zone. Comedy gold right there.

I'd love a mercenary faction. No keeps, your spawn points are either the 3 towns or some dedicated little rabble merc camps spread throughout Cyro and out of the way, so you have to travel. Put in a bidding system like guild merchants for guilds in any of the factions to hire your services--earn money. Your guild has to be designated as Merc and you can't just swap to another toon to play in a faction. Instead of competing for top 1% of your faction you have to do so for all factions to get gold rewards. All the daily quests can be found at the main merc camp along with a transitus.

I am definitely for a mercenary designation. Lords of the Shaft would enroll in that immediately.

What you describe is precisely why I play on the Faction-locked campaign. It's not perfect - nothing can stop 100% of trolling - but it's a lot better than dealing with the regular bunch of toxic faction hoppers was.

I can't make anyone care about the alliance war, but I certainly oppose an idea that is only going to encourage mercenaries to interfere with the players who do. As described, mercenaries have no keeps to lose, no score to care about, and no goals except to fight. Those fights only happen because the players who DO care about the alliance war have to protect certain objectives like home keeps or maintaining transit to their outposts/keeps, and thus have no choice but to fight off the mercenaries.

I certainly understand why players who don't care about the war or their faction might enjoy that mercenary playstyle. They'd be the attackers, fighting where they want to, with nothing to lose from dying and no cooperation needed with their mercenary "faction mates." Players can already play like this right now on the non-locked servers; the mercenary faction would remove all the downsides the playstyle currently has.

The way I see it, as an EP player, I'd almost certainly lose 8% or so of my faction mates to make room for mercenaries (because ZOS is unlikely to expand the pop cap). Then, it's very likely that while we're fighting DC in the North and AD in the South as we always do, we'd also have mercenaries attacking our resources and back keeps, farming our PUGs. And unlike with AD and DC, it's not like we can strike back against these mercenaries. They don't own anything, so we can't go strike at their home keeps. They don't have a score to care about. Their only goal is to find "good fights" so they'll never stop farming unless we kill them so many times they go looking for easier targets (and then AD or DC can complain about getting tripled by Team Purple/Merc or Orange/Merc instead of us.)

There's a lot of downsides for any player who cares about the alliance war or who's part of the 75% of the alliance players that aren't mercenaries. There's no benefits...except that at least we don't have to listen to those players in zone chat, I guess.

Ackwalan

PvP does not need an alliance that is only there to grief everyone else there.

The7thLettter

Ackwalan wrote: »

PvP does not need an alliance that is only there to grief everyone else there.

So you think the monotonous run in circles and back cap keeps while the other two alliances fight is fun? [snip]

[edited for rude comments]

Sedare38

VaranisArano wrote: »

Sedare38 wrote: »

@VaranisArano a significant number of people already don't care about the alliance war. they just hop factions over the course of an evening and do what they want to troll whoever they want. Hell some swap factions just to come and gripe at someone in that opposing faction in /zone. Comedy gold right there.

I'd love a mercenary faction. No keeps, your spawn points are either the 3 towns or some dedicated little rabble merc camps spread throughout Cyro and out of the way, so you have to travel. Put in a bidding system like guild merchants for guilds in any of the factions to hire your services--earn money. Your guild has to be designated as Merc and you can't just swap to another toon to play in a faction. Instead of competing for top 1% of your faction you have to do so for all factions to get gold rewards. All the daily quests can be found at the main merc camp along with a transitus.

I am definitely for a mercenary designation. Lords of the Shaft would enroll in that immediately.

What you describe is precisely why I play on the Faction-locked campaign. It's not perfect - nothing can stop 100% of trolling - but it's a lot better than dealing with the regular bunch of toxic faction hoppers was.

I can't make anyone care about the alliance war, but I certainly oppose an idea that is only going to encourage mercenaries to interfere with the players who do. As described, mercenaries have no keeps to lose, no score to care about, and no goals except to fight. Those fights only happen because the players who DO care about the alliance war have to protect certain objectives like home keeps or maintaining transit to their outposts/keeps, and thus have no choice but to fight off the mercenaries.

I certainly understand why players who don't care about the war or their faction might enjoy that mercenary playstyle. They'd be the attackers, fighting where they want to, with nothing to lose from dying and no cooperation needed with their mercenary "faction mates." Players can already play like this right now on the non-locked servers; the mercenary faction would remove all the downsides the playstyle currently has.

The way I see it, as an EP player, I'd almost certainly lose 8% or so of my faction mates to make room for mercenaries (because ZOS is unlikely to expand the pop cap). Then, it's very likely that while we're fighting DC in the North and AD in the South as we always do, we'd also have mercenaries attacking our resources and back keeps, farming our PUGs. And unlike with AD and DC, it's not like we can strike back against these mercenaries. They don't own anything, so we can't go strike at their home keeps. They don't have a score to care about. Their only goal is to find "good fights" so they'll never stop farming unless we kill them so many times they go looking for easier targets (and then AD or DC can complain about getting tripled by Team Purple/Merc or Orange/Merc instead of us.)

There's a lot of downsides for any player who cares about the alliance war or who's part of the 75% of the alliance players that aren't mercenaries. There's no benefits...except that at least we don't have to listen to those players in zone chat, I guess.

I've been EP since day 1 and have only swapped to an AD toon maybe 3 times when the map was a singular color and no movement could be made. I'm actually for faction lock. Mercenaries would only work on a faction locked camp IMO. The system would have to be in place. It couldn't be just a come in and kill everyone. It would have to have a method to the carnage. As it stands many many people don't care about the endless circle jerk of get a keep, lose a keep, get it back, get double-teamed, etc. Allowing mercs to come in and support the underdog via payment could actually be an equalizer of sorts.

VaranisArano

Sedare38 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Sedare38 wrote: »

@VaranisArano a significant number of people already don't care about the alliance war. they just hop factions over the course of an evening and do what they want to troll whoever they want. Hell some swap factions just to come and gripe at someone in that opposing faction in /zone. Comedy gold right there.

I'd love a mercenary faction. No keeps, your spawn points are either the 3 towns or some dedicated little rabble merc camps spread throughout Cyro and out of the way, so you have to travel. Put in a bidding system like guild merchants for guilds in any of the factions to hire your services--earn money. Your guild has to be designated as Merc and you can't just swap to another toon to play in a faction. Instead of competing for top 1% of your faction you have to do so for all factions to get gold rewards. All the daily quests can be found at the main merc camp along with a transitus.

I am definitely for a mercenary designation. Lords of the Shaft would enroll in that immediately.

What you describe is precisely why I play on the Faction-locked campaign. It's not perfect - nothing can stop 100% of trolling - but it's a lot better than dealing with the regular bunch of toxic faction hoppers was.

I can't make anyone care about the alliance war, but I certainly oppose an idea that is only going to encourage mercenaries to interfere with the players who do. As described, mercenaries have no keeps to lose, no score to care about, and no goals except to fight. Those fights only happen because the players who DO care about the alliance war have to protect certain objectives like home keeps or maintaining transit to their outposts/keeps, and thus have no choice but to fight off the mercenaries.

I certainly understand why players who don't care about the war or their faction might enjoy that mercenary playstyle. They'd be the attackers, fighting where they want to, with nothing to lose from dying and no cooperation needed with their mercenary "faction mates." Players can already play like this right now on the non-locked servers; the mercenary faction would remove all the downsides the playstyle currently has.

The way I see it, as an EP player, I'd almost certainly lose 8% or so of my faction mates to make room for mercenaries (because ZOS is unlikely to expand the pop cap). Then, it's very likely that while we're fighting DC in the North and AD in the South as we always do, we'd also have mercenaries attacking our resources and back keeps, farming our PUGs. And unlike with AD and DC, it's not like we can strike back against these mercenaries. They don't own anything, so we can't go strike at their home keeps. They don't have a score to care about. Their only goal is to find "good fights" so they'll never stop farming unless we kill them so many times they go looking for easier targets (and then AD or DC can complain about getting tripled by Team Purple/Merc or Orange/Merc instead of us.)

There's a lot of downsides for any player who cares about the alliance war or who's part of the 75% of the alliance players that aren't mercenaries. There's no benefits...except that at least we don't have to listen to those players in zone chat, I guess.

I've been EP since day 1 and have only swapped to an AD toon maybe 3 times when the map was a singular color and no movement could be made. I'm actually for faction lock. Mercenaries would only work on a faction locked camp IMO. The system would have to be in place. It couldn't be just a come in and kill everyone. It would have to have a method to the carnage. As it stands many many people don't care about the endless circle jerk of get a keep, lose a keep, get it back, get double-teamed, etc. Allowing mercs to come in and support the underdog via payment could actually be an equalizer of sorts.

It sounds to me like you would like the mercenaries to be a full faction with random targets chosen by the Alliances that they have to hit or else they lose score and/or monetary rewards?

While that might work for giving the Mercenaries something to do besides farming players, I have some concerns.

Is that actually something that most "Mercenary" players would be interested in? It sounds to me like that's more of a "Zone General" thing organizing players to go attack certain targets at specific times and its also my experience that most players who don't like the "ring-around-the-emp-ring" play also don't enjoy being told what to do right now by a Zone General. If they ignore the tasks, then we're right back at mercenaries farming players and doing whatever they want to do.

Is there any mechanism by which the mercenaries are going to be reliably supporting the underdog instead of piling on? If the alliances are hiring mercenaries to go get targets, then it doesn't seem likely that the faction who is the underdog in Cyrodiil atm is going to have the advantage in hiring the mercs.

Finally, I see zero benefit to the Alliance players. We lost 8% of our players, but now can spend AP/gold to hire disorganized mercenaries to maybe go attack an objective at some point that prior to this we would've just attacked ourselves on our own timetable. Seems like a raw deal.

Sedare38

You'd have to make factionless people have a disadvantage, as no-nation/guild players had in Shadowbane. No keep to go to to buy stuff, no trainers easily available except in the wild, etc. Having said that, this really only works if guilds were actually given keeps they cared about b/c they faced the very real and permanent loss of them. As it stands, all Cyro is, is endless capture the flag(s). It needs some refreshing someway.