[Cross Faction Trials] ZOS, I Personally Thank You For Ruining END GAME Competition

Nifty2g · March 2016

Cross Faction Trials
You will now be able to form a group with friends from outside your faction and play through any of the available Trials including Hel Ra Citadel, Aetherian Archive, Sanctum Ophidia, Maw of Lorkhaj and Dragonstar Arena.

All you need to do is manually invite other players, regardless of their faction, to your group.
As with cross-alliance dungeons, you will only see player characters from other alliances within the Trial.
Note: Everyone will be displayed as a member of the Aldmeri Dominion once you enter the Trial. This is not a permanent change, and you will be reverted back to your original alliance once you leave the Trial, or the group is disbanded.
If you enter Cyrodiil or the Imperial City while in a cross faction group, the group will be disbanded.

Feel free to voice your opinion and vote over here: Click Me!

Cross-Faction grouping in trials. I don't care, be my guest.
Cross-Faction weekly rewards. I don't care, be my guest.
Cross-Faction overall leaderboards. No.

Just for clarification before I head on my little rant, it has been confirmed this applies for leaderboards.

TL;DR: Cross Faction is totally fine, however including scores will induce a heavy amount of elitist attitude not wanted - keep the Cross Faction, Remove the Leaderboard Scores from being earned from it.

This is pretty much the end for all End-Game Raiding, and I hope this gets reverted before it gets to Live before you see how much harm than good this provides. What is the point of alliances, what is the point of guilds for that matter now, you're pretty much putting a stop to all of this with this sort of this. Honestly if you allow this but remove the leaderboard rankings, I think it's perfectly find and fun to hang out with friends.
However, I don't see how it slipped your minds whoever was in charge of this to completely obliterate the Leaderboards, not only that but cause internal guild clashes and a lot of potential fightings. What is the point of even having a leaderboard at this rate?

Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't we have a meeting with the Top Guilds from NA and EU a few months back where you specifically told us and informed us that cross faction is coming, however it wont impact leaderboards - what happened to that?

At this rate, this is pretty much the end for all of the End Guilds that had stuck around competing with each other supporting the game and waiting for new content, and now this is the sort of decision that has been made?

I'm not one to throw this word around, but I hope you guys realise how awful it will be and how much elitist attitude will be brought to the table from this.

This is a complete slap in the face to the guilds supporting your End Game and giving you the feedback;

The Order of Mundus
Crown Store Heroes
Learn 2 Play
Almost Heroes
Baby Face Bananas
Kung Fu Bananas
Beyond Infinity
Hodor
Sigma Draconis
Blut & Schweiss

This here is the guilds currently raiding and have about 50+ members and are all (majority) against decisions like this as it's going to ruin the gameplay and friendship between guilds.

Jhunn · March 2016

I'm not a competitive PvE'er, nor in any top PvE guilds, but even I can see this is stupid.

Lifecode666 · March 2016

The fact that they even spent time on Cross Faction Trials makes me just........

DisgracefulMind · March 2016

This is a shameful decision on ZoS' behalf. Endgame competitive raiding is already almost nonexistent because of the neglect that has been shown to raids and, overall, endgame content. And, now, they throw cross-faction leaderboards at us, which is, indeed, a crushing blow to our guilds, our alliances, and our, overall, desire to stay raiding and competitive. Who would think this is a good idea? What's the point of alliances? Of guilds? I really, really hope they realize that this is an AWFUL choice and revert it.

I think that cross-faction raiding is fine, but PLEASE let it not count for leaderboards.

Nifty2g · March 2016

I just hope we can get enough community feedback on this to stop this from getting live

Lifecode666 · March 2016

I see so many pages of classbalance issues, performance issues in cyrodil, and the lack of content in cyrodil and raiding.

So many other things that means so much for so many players to get fixed..
But no... spend time on this... lol..

Erraln · March 2016

I'm sorry, I don't get it. Being able to team up with more people is a bad thing? The existence of the feature somehow sullies your pure-faction team score?

Nifty2g · March 2016

Lifecode666 wrote: »

I see so many pages of classbalance issues, performance issues in cyrodil, and the lack of content in cyrodil and raiding.

So many other things that means so much for so many players to get fixed..
But no... spend time on this... lol..

Hmm? You meaning getting rid of the feature, cause I don't believe that will take that much time, it's just not adding something.

Or do you mean Cross Faction? If so I agree, because this is just a step in the wrong direction.

One step forward two steps backwards.

Nifty2g · March 2016

Erraln wrote: »

I'm sorry, I don't get it. Being able to team up with more people is a bad thing? The existence of the feature somehow sullies your pure-faction team score?

The first part of this is fine, I support it - why not play with friends.
The second part, no. Scores should not factor, this is not competition, and it's going to end up being the top 12 players and then turn into incredibly elitist attitude. Don't you realise how much this affects end game guilds - the ones currently competing with each other for the past 2 years

DisgracefulMind · March 2016

Erraln wrote: »

I'm sorry, I don't get it. Being able to team up with more people is a bad thing? The existence of the feature somehow sullies your pure-faction team score?

Teaming up with more people is fine, it will allow players to get the content done that some previously couldn't. HOWEVER, this does NOT mean that cross-faction grouping for trials should impact leaderboards. Perhaps you are someone who has not competed on those boards like Nifty and I have, but for those of us who do actively compete in endgame PvE this is a disaster, and a crushing, crushing blow to our guilds, to the alliances we chose, and an insult to competitive endgame PvE in this game (which is already almost dead).

Sythen88411 · March 2016

Good job zos....good job...

Erraln · March 2016

Nifty2g wrote: »

Don't you realise how much this affects end game guilds - the ones currently competing with each other for the past 2 years

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

but for those of us who do actively compete in endgame PvE this is a disaster, and a crushing, crushing blow to our guilds, to the alliances we chose, and an insult to competitive endgame PvE in this game (which is already almost dead).

Right, so the problem is not the function, but the social implications. You fear the top 30 players game-wide splitting off to form the olympic team, drawing their presence and efforts away from those who helped them reach their level of proficiency.

Yea, that would take the spirit out of quite a few groups.

Iyas · March 2016

Care to explain the problem? I dont see it.

No troll or so

Nifty2g · March 2016

Iyas wrote: »

Care to explain the problem? I dont see it.

No troll or so

Destroying lore
Destroying the competitiveness across factions
Encouraging elitist behavior
Removing the competition between all current top guilds.

All for what, so those who don't currently compete can play with each other and get scores, which honestly is a small partial and many don't even know each other cross alliances, so what's the point? The only people who know each other are the guilds I listed in the OP which are mostly against it.

I don't mind cross faction trials, just remove the scoring from it.

Iyas · March 2016

Nifty2g wrote: »

Iyas wrote: »

Care to explain the problem? I dont see it.

No troll or so

Destroying lore
Destroying the competitiveness across factions
Encouraging elitist behavior
Removing the competition between all current top guilds.

All for what, so those who don't currently compete can play with each other and get scores, which honestly is a small partial and many don't even know each other cross alliances, so what's the point? The only people who know each other are the guilds I listed in the OP which are mostly against it.

I don't mind cross faction trials, just remove the scoring from it.

I dont know if you read this post from Gina:

ZOS_GinaBruno
admin
Cuyler wrote: »
@ZOS_GinaBruno could you elaborate on the effect cross-faction trials will have on leaderboards? Will alliance still be represented on the boards?

Your alliance isn't actually changing, it'll just appear that way while you're in the Trial (code reasons). This won't affect the leaderboard at all; you'll still be listed as your proper, original alliance.

So you still compete with the other alliances ?

EgoRush · March 2016

Happy for cross faction with grouping, but I agree that the scores should only apply to the leaderboard if the team consists of a single faction. As it stands, even after this change our guild has said we'll remain EP-specific. We have loyalty to making the reds top of the leaderboards and will continue to do this. If people care so much about gaming with other people then they can level another character. There are 8 slots and 3 factions...

I don't understand why ZOS didn't prioritise alliance change in the crown store and made money out of this rather than giving cross faction.

Keep cross faction sure, but ablate it from applying to leaderboards. FOR THE PACT!

DisgracefulMind · March 2016

Iyas wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Iyas wrote: »

Care to explain the problem? I dont see it.

No troll or so

Destroying lore
Destroying the competitiveness across factions
Encouraging elitist behavior
Removing the competition between all current top guilds.

All for what, so those who don't currently compete can play with each other and get scores, which honestly is a small partial and many don't even know each other cross alliances, so what's the point? The only people who know each other are the guilds I listed in the OP which are mostly against it.

I don't mind cross faction trials, just remove the scoring from it.

I dont know if you read this post from Gina:

ZOS_GinaBruno
admin
Cuyler wrote: »
@ZOS_GinaBruno could you elaborate on the effect cross-faction trials will have on leaderboards? Will alliance still be represented on the boards?

Your alliance isn't actually changing, it'll just appear that way while you're in the Trial (code reasons). This won't affect the leaderboard at all; you'll still be listed as your proper, original alliance.

So you still compete with the other alliances ?

You do not compete with other alliances if you're a DC player in an AD group with some EP mixed in.

Nifty2g · March 2016

Iyas wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Iyas wrote: »

Care to explain the problem? I dont see it.

No troll or so

Destroying lore
Destroying the competitiveness across factions
Encouraging elitist behavior
Removing the competition between all current top guilds.

All for what, so those who don't currently compete can play with each other and get scores, which honestly is a small partial and many don't even know each other cross alliances, so what's the point? The only people who know each other are the guilds I listed in the OP which are mostly against it.

I don't mind cross faction trials, just remove the scoring from it.

I dont know if you read this post from Gina:

ZOS_GinaBruno
admin
Cuyler wrote: »
@ZOS_GinaBruno could you elaborate on the effect cross-faction trials will have on leaderboards? Will alliance still be represented on the boards?

Your alliance isn't actually changing, it'll just appear that way while you're in the Trial (code reasons). This won't affect the leaderboard at all; you'll still be listed as your proper, original alliance.

So you still compete with the other alliances ?

I don't think you understand the impact this is going to have.
Guilds well more so players are going to start nitpicking the Top Players, cause a lot of internal guild arguments and then we will see a team of 12 teaming up to get the best scores. No one will bother competiting as it will ruin the competition.

I am not complaining about Alliances showing up, that doesn;t bother me or anyone at all. What is bothersome is the fact you can play with the top players from all 3 factions and ruin it. Not only is that Lore Breaking but it is also highly unwanted by all the current top guilds. And by top guilds I am referring to the players holding the top spots in http://esoleaderboards.com/

Erraln wrote: »

Nifty2g wrote: »

Don't you realise how much this affects end game guilds - the ones currently competing with each other for the past 2 years

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

but for those of us who do actively compete in endgame PvE this is a disaster, and a crushing, crushing blow to our guilds, to the alliances we chose, and an insult to competitive endgame PvE in this game (which is already almost dead).

Right, so the problem is not the function, but the social implications. You fear the top 30 players game-wide splitting off to form the olympic team, drawing their presence and efforts away from those who helped them reach their level of proficiency.

Yea, that would take the spirit out of quite a few groups.

I totally agree.

Iyas · March 2016

Now i get it. Thanks

But i think its zos unwanted approach to help with the smaller population we see in eso. Do you really think ppl will leave their trial guild to play with other players. If they are this kind of ppl. I think its good to let them go

Nifty2g · March 2016

Iyas wrote: »

Now i get it. Thanks

But i think its zos unwanted approach to help with the smaller population we see in eso. Do you really think ppl will leave their trial guild to play with other players. If they are this kind of ppl. I think its good to let them go

I'm completely fine with cross faction, why not? But having scores in it, why not just remove the leaderboards at that point.

Believe me, it's going to happen. To guild having #1 scores, then getting the second best, or third best offers from some of their members to help out and replace some of the lacking members.
Trust me, end game raiding for a #1 spot gets like that sometimes, as a lot of elitist attitude tends to show out. It is a video game after all, no one is going to be a good sport.

DisgracefulMind · March 2016

Nifty2g wrote: »

Iyas wrote: »

Now i get it. Thanks

But i think its zos unwanted approach to help with the smaller population we see in eso. Do you really think ppl will leave their trial guild to play with other players. If they are this kind of ppl. I think its good to let them go

I'm completely fine with cross faction, why not? But having scores in it, why not just remove the leaderboards at that point.

Believe me, it's going to happen. To guild having #1 scores, then getting the second best, or third best offers from some of their members to help out and replace some of the lacking members.
Trust me, end game raiding for a #1 spot gets like that sometimes, as a lot of elitist attitude tends to show out. It is a video game after all, no one is going to be a good sport.

It's just a nightmare.

BEZDNA · March 2016

I like these change very much!

I accepted simple fact few months ago that helped me to not care that much - game goes casual and noob-friendly mode and there is nothing you can do about it. We can disagree with that, we can hate it, but changes ZoS makes seems to slowly get ppl back, I see more and more ppl playing ESO lately and 99% of those players don't care about leaderbords and cross faction competition.

As a person who likes both PvP and PvE i like the idea that i can make many characters on any factions and still be able to play with my PvE guild on any of those characters.

So as I sad, I like these change. And if leaderbords is you only argument agains these change - well leaderbors were very badly implemented in these game for pve since the beginning.

Cinbri · March 2016

While we still here - who will pick me up to complete vMoL?

Nifty2g · March 2016

Cinbri wrote: »

While we still here - who will pick me up to complete vMoL?

You'll be in my C team

Woeler · March 2016

This is all about guilds and how they work. Especially on the competitive side it all comes down to guild --and with that faction-- rivalry. People, at the moment now have somewhat loyalty to their faction. If these cross-faction scores get on the boards it will totally destroy this loyalty and rivalry.

There is a bump in the road when for instance someone from Beyond Infinity (AD) wants to join Hodor(EP) which is the fact that one has to grind a new character. We all know that every raid group has 2 or 3 people that are just insanely good players. If from every guild those players leave and form their own group, cross faction it will completely eliminate any other guild that is trying to compete. Guilds like Hodor, Beyond Infinity, Almost Heroes etc become meaningless. It does not matter anymore in what guild you are in. Hodor is number one at the moment, hmm guess I'll just apply there and see if I can get in, leaving beyond infinity without a tank, might inform my friend Senaxu to also come over to the EP guild (just an example btw). In the end this will leave basically all guilds drained of their good members except for one. Competition is eliminated, because there is nobody to compete with. Boards will be dominated by one group, other guilds will suffer losses or even diffuse all together.

In our Council of Raiders meeting basically all the 150+ attending people asked to NOT make cross-faction trials count towards the boards for the sake of guild integrity. Yes, we feel ignored. Raid guilds have already suffered major losses due to the lack of content and this is basically the final nail in the coffin.

The people that want to do cross-faction trials are basically doing it for the trial, the fun, not the score or the boards.

I'm not going to lie about it, you are letting us down, and we feel let down, all of us in the top-end raiding guilds. Besides our leaderboard rivalry, we are all uniting here to tell you "No!". Us guildleads have a whatsapp group. When this news was picked up by one of us it dropped like a nuke. We were both furious and disappointed... especially disappointed. We seek you out on our own initiative to help you improve your product. I guess our reward is a slap in the face.

Really, if you want to kill something, at least do it quick.

*Shrugs and walks away disappointed*

--Edit--
And I hate doing these complain posts, but now I have no choice.

Moral of the story: Cross-faction trials, sure. Cross-faction leaderboard entries, no!

Nifty2g · March 2016

Woeler wrote: »

This is all about guilds and how they work. Especially on the competitive side it all comes down to guild --and with that faction-- rivalry. People, at the moment now have somewhat loyalty to their faction. If these cross-faction scores get on the boards it will totally destroy this loyalty and rivalry.

There is a bump in the road when for instance someone from Beyond Infinity (AD) wants to join Hodor(EP) which is the fact that one has to grind a new character. We all know that every raid group has 2 or 3 people that are just insanely good players. If from every guild those players leave and form their own group, cross faction it will completely eliminate any other guild that is trying to compete. Guilds like Hodor, Beyond Infinity, Almost Heroes etc become meaningless. It does not matter anymore in what guild you are in. Hodor is number one at the moment, hmm guess I'll just apply there and see if I can get in, leaving beyond infinity without a tank, might inform my friend Senaxu to also come over to the EP guild (just an example btw). In the end this will leave basically all guilds drained of their good members except for one. Competition is eliminated, because there is nobody to compete with. Boards will be dominated by one group, other guilds will suffer losses or even diffuse all together.

In our Council of Raiders meeting basically all the 150+ attending people asked to NOT make cross-faction trials count towards the boards for the sake of guild integrity. Yes, we feel ignored. Raid guilds have already suffered major losses due to the lack of content and this is basically the final nail in the coffin.

The people that want to do cross-faction trials are basically doing it for the trial, the fun, not the score or the boards.

I'm not going to lie about it, you are letting us down, and we feel let down, all of us in the top-end raiding guilds. Besides our leaderboard rivalry, we are all uniting here to tell you "No!".

Really, if you want to kill something, at least do it quick.

*Shrugs and walks away disappointed*

I mean, right now we are in the minority, but I can assure you, as all of the guys in the other guys a change like this will have a huge backlash.
However for now I'm going to walk away disappointed with you

eliisra · March 2016

I kinda get the concern. Seen this happen in other games. Once faction restrictions are removed from raiding, you might as well remove factions all together. They stop matter.

The problem is, if raiding guilds in the future wants to stay competitive and relevant, they will be forced to recruit from all 3 factions to get competent players. They wont have a choice if they want new top players with the right mindset. Just cant stay loyal to EP, AD or DC, when you have guilds from other factions snagging your own players.

So this also kills organised PvP. I care more about that part tbh. Because all these PvX guilds will turn into full PvE guilds, since you cant have PvP night twice a week when people aren't in the same faction.

Cross faction grouping comes with both good+convenient and really bad things. Will be easier for pug groups and such to make normal raids. But all raiding guilds, will all be cross faction in a year or less.

ElSlayer · March 2016

What's the fuzz about "Encouraging elitist behavior"?
You mean "We won't take you with us cuz you suck" attitude?
Well then chose one:
a) Don't suck
b) Stick to a group with your skill level
c) Start a new group and invite every noob you want and go wipe with them as much as you want

Nifty2g · March 2016

ElSlayer wrote: »

What's the fuzz about "Encouraging elitist behavior"?
You mean "We won't take you with us cuz you suck" attitude?
Well then chose one:
a) Don't suck
b) Stick to a group with your skill level
c) Start a new group and invite every noob you want and go wipe with them as much as you want

I'm in both NA top guilds right now, so hearing that from the top players posting in this thread, it means something.

Tonnopesce · March 2016

I still don't get the point i've readed all the comments but if cross faction trial leaderboards is coming the only thing that i see is that the top pve guilds ( that have anyway an elitist attitude) will compete for the same leaderboards making basically impossible for anyone else to reach the top positions (anyway the rewards will go to the top 100 so who cares?)
Or the leaderboards are already cross faction ?
In both cases i cant understand why is a problem, why it will increment the elitism, why it affects the lore???

Or the real issue is that members of your own guild will go with the top members of another faction guild erasing all the World records?

ElSlayer · March 2016

Nifty2g wrote: »

I'm in both NA top guilds right now, so hearing that from the top players posting in this thread, it means something.

What does it mean exactly?

Any competition leads to elitism by its own nature. Competition is all about e-peen measurement.
And you know what's the best thing to show off your e-peen? - Leaderboards!

I don't see how this feature will "destroy" leaderboards, but if it would be destroyed - THEN there would be LESS elitism.

Ok, now away from elitism.

This is MMO game.
There are cross-faction guilds.
There are people from different alliances who made friendship there and want to play together.
They would like to do Trials together AND to get scored, but don't want to spend time on leveling chars from same faction.

ZOS has made it possible.
ZOS has made a really usefull feature that help people to overcome their problems.
Friends have LESS restrictions when playing together and have access to FULL experience including ranking in leaderboards.
That feature was probably hard to implement in first place as there were barriers in software architecture (that "Aldmeri Dominion" thing points to that).

ZOS did an actually complex work that helped people.
[snip]

[Edited to remove bait]