Spy, Spy, Spy

bruceb14_ESO5 · July 2014

It is unfortunate that spies seem so prevalent in Campaigns. The nice side of me wants to include others in helping take a keep or a resource, but that cynical side says, SPY, or wonders and doesn't invite the unknown player. It is too bad.

Yes, I realize there are spies in real life and aspects that we are emulating. The difference is that in reality a spy can be taken out. We can't touch them here, just ostracize or ignore best that we can. We need to rely on game design to help.

One problem that could be addressed with the game mechanics is to limit travel from one campaign to another especially with toons of different factions. That should change!

NorthernFury · July 2014

Good point. many other games I have played where there is PvP don't allow the creating of toons in multiple factions.

This doesn't stop someone from creating a second account to make 'spy' toons, but that seems like a serious commitment

Avidus · July 2014

The problem with that is because there are not loads of servers, if I want to play characters on 2 different factions, I would have to delete my current characters just to play on the other side.
I would not be able to just jump servers.

The Spy problem will be mostly sorted when the new campaigns come out.
Well at least for the Vet Only

bruceb14_ESO5 · July 2014

@Avidus, I do agree with you about choice of playing other factions. That can be facilitated by limiting traveling to a specific campaign in only 1 faction for a lockout period (24 hours).

Ley · July 2014

bruceb14_ESO5 wrote: »

@Avidus, I do agree with you about choice of playing other factions. That can be facilitated by limiting traveling to a specific campaign in only 1 faction for a lockout period (24 hours).

^ this

OrangeTheCat · July 2014

Yeah, how about if you log in to PvP in one faction, you cannot log into PvP in another faction for 24 hours?

kijima · July 2014

Spy's can easily enough be locked out with just a few changes as it stands currently. BUT it's not going to stop spying using things like TS channels if ZOS were to introduce something more to the game to combat spying.

I'm not pro spy at all, but you won't ever stamp it out so why bother?

Just look at any past world war, they are well documented and you'll find spy's have always been used to infiltrate the enemy.

Why should PvP be any different to real war tactics considering we have three factions all vying for supremacy that have history steeped in deception and lies. Again, I'm not pro spy, but you'd have to admit, it does add a certain 'flavour' to PvP even if it's a nasty taste in your mouth.

Kybotica · July 2014

kijima wrote: »

Spy's can easily enough be locked out with just a few changes as it stands currently. BUT it's not going to stop spying using things like TS channels if ZOS were to introduce something more to the game to combat spying.

I'm not pro spy at all, but you won't ever stamp it out so why bother?

Just look at any past world war, they are well documented and you'll find spy's have always been used to infiltrate the enemy.

Why should PvP be any different to real war tactics considering we have three factions all vying for supremacy that have history steeped in deception and lies. Again, I'm not pro spy, but you'd have to admit, it does add a certain 'flavour' to PvP even if it's a nasty taste in your mouth.

That said, in real life we have ways of dealing with spies. Including but not limited to death, imprisonment, torture, etc. Since the ability to catch spies and punish them isn't available, trying to prevent spying is necessary.

bruceb14_ESO5 · July 2014

I agree that we aren't going to be rid of them, but to at least make it a bit harder with something as 'simple' as a 24 hour lockout for cross faction campaign visits at least adding a limit. It is way to easy right now. It also is so simple for a spy to see every Forward Camp on the map, add FCs in lousy positions, burn them up with extra deaths, pinpoint positions, point out stealthed groups... Thus some low level wants to join a group...NO WAY!

What about new players to the game wanting to join PVP, not very welcoming.

Mitharus · July 2014

OrangeTheCat wrote: »

Yeah, how about if you log in to PvP in one faction, you cannot log into PvP in another faction for 24 hours?

This would unfortunately kill it for me.

I do have cross faction chars in the same campaign (travel-to guild members), but I try my damned'est to not pay any attention to guild chat that could have any info on the what one of the other factions may be doing; Chat tabs are setup for one per guild, so I can make it so I don't see anything from them without purposely swapping to it.

Luckily, most of the important conversations happens in group chat so even if I didn't try, I wouldn't see much of anything important.

But sometimes, some folks aren't on at a given time or aren't PvP'ing at the time (Craglorn, trials, etc...), so I hop on with a different char with a few people who are on, but happen to play in a different faction.

My lvl 11 cannon fodder needs to have fun dying!! My main as well!!

-M

Tintinabula · July 2014

one day we will log in and find every EP is actually an AD spy..and every AD is actually a DC spy..and every DC is actually an EP spy..square one!

bruceb14_ESO5 · July 2014

OrangeTheCat wrote: »

Yeah, how about if you log in to PvP in one faction, you cannot log into PvP in another faction for 24 hours?

Can log in to any character, could PVP, just not same campaign in 24 hour time period (time of course just suggested as an example).

New campaigns will bring changes with a short duration non-vet campaign I'm assuming.

Ley · July 2014

Kybotica wrote: »

That said, in real life we have ways of dealing with spies. Including but not limited to death, imprisonment, torture, etc. Since the ability to catch spies and punish them isn't available, trying to prevent spying is necessary.

I absolutely agree with you.

I thought about this for a moment and had an idea.

I understand that some people just want to be able to play their characters, no matter the faction and pvp when they want, where they want. While I may not agree, I must accept this; for now.

I also understand that there isn't really a way for us to be able to kill, imprison or torture (I like the sound of that) a spy, if we were to identify them.

What if whenever someone changed from pvping in one faction to another, on the same pvp server, within a 24 hour period, they had their name marked in chat/group in some manner. So we could easily identify them and decide whether or not we wanted a potential spy in our group or not. It wouldn't entirely solve the problem, but it would allow us to feed them counterintelligence or at the very least, keep them out of our groups.

We'll never get rid of spies and it is a part of real wars, but we should have a way to defend against it.

BrassRazoo · July 2014

I think the five Guilds thing helps this out.
In a one Guild game there seems to be more loyalty and also more familiarisation with who someone hangs out with and talks to.
Five Guilds makes it very easy to become a spy.