ESO Alliances are messed up

Iccotak · November 2017

Jarryzzt wrote: »

So essentially the OP wants more content.

Well, fine. I want more content too. Does not mean I am going to get such, outside of a once in six-to-twelve months DLC. Unless the OP wishes to make ZOS a gift of enough money to finance an extra 50 developers, testers, voice actors, etc. to make and integrate said content, which I personally do not and cannot, for one.

And here we have snarky replies. yay.
The only reason they made the other zones playable was because they realized that each alliance did not have enough PvE content.
This is why I said at the end of the post that I would like to see future expansions make your alliance choice matter more in the story. As opposed to a massive update.

My understanding, and I agree with this game design philosophy, is that ZOS did not want any exclusive content but rather to make all content (eventually) available to all players (at the same level of subscription or non-subscription).

Problem being, that design choice on a story level completely removes any incentive to try out the other alliance and it makes your alliance choice meaningless in a large part of the base game. Because DC & AD will treat you like you are one of them.
I am very curious how ZOS are going to work around EP and DC players going to Summerset Isle seeing as how that is AD home base. (I am NOT saying make DLC exclusive to factions)

What I mean by that is, how many players would play three characters through nine "factions" worth of quests?

Maybe don't make three characters for each alliance? If done right you would not be missing out on rewards if you stuck with one character storyline.
Again, encourage and reward alliance loyalty.

What I -would- have loved were more "special" choice options. Like... special choices that only appear if you are playing that quest in cadwells with a member of the right alliance. Kinda like that one quest in Alik'r, where you catcvh a pact spy... there really is no logical reason for any DC character to let her take the blueprint and scurry off, but all my pact characters playing that storyline did so... more like that would have been fine. Meet some of your original faction during cadwells? Go easy on them (unless they are cu... uhm... not worth it), whereas all others get the logical choices...

I find stuff like this a perfectly acceptable request. Just little things added here and there giving you choices based on your alliance. Not rewriting the whole zone.
If ZOS could just add little touches for acknowledging player alliance then I would be happy.

Kiralyn2000 · November 2017

Iccotak wrote: »

What I mean by that is, how many players would play three characters through nine "factions" worth of quests?

Maybe don't make three characters for each alliance? If done right you would not be missing out on rewards if you stuck with one character storyline.
Again, encourage and reward alliance loyalty.

No, I'm talking about just three characters, one for each alliance.

Make an AD character, have to play through three factions of storylines (AD, AD-adventuring-in-EB, AD-in-DC).
Make an EB character, play through three factions of storylines (EB, EB-in-DC, EB-in-AD)
Make a DC character..... etc.

Unless I misunderstood what you meant when you said a Faction A character should have their own "Faction A" quests when they adventure in Faction B & C areas....

And who cares about "alliance loyalty"? Every MMO I play, I make a character in each faction/race/etc, so that I can see all the storylines. What 'loyalty', it's just experiencing narrative, why would I limit my gameplay experiences like that?

(Is this a pvp thing? Cause I don't care about that. And even if I did care, Cadwell's explanation of "here, experience this dream of what would have happened if you washed ashore in a different place" seems like a perfectly fine narrative hook, so the Silver/Gold thing isn't a problem. /shrug)

Surgee · November 2017

Open world pvp is what made WoW amazing. Rushing into stormwing 40 strong and killing anything in the auction house before guards take us down...ah the memories.

It made the whole conflict believable. You see someone from the other side, you fight to defend your land. World pvp in eso would be amazing, but then ESO doesn't have enough players (zos greed).

dsalter · November 2017

Iccotak wrote: »

To put it simply. How the Zenimax handled the Alliances in Elder Scrolls Online was poor.

They hyped up how important the Alliances were in the game. Much like how WoW did. Making the Alliance War as a/the central conflict in the game. Problem being, unless it's PvP, Alliance doesn't really matter in the game.
The decision to let players, after they complete their factions story, to visit the other alliances made the option to choose a side kind of meaningless.
Why would I make a character in the Daggerfall Covenant to learn about them, when I can still do that storyline with my Ebonheart Pact character?

Now the adventure pack that allows players to pick any race for any faction DOES have some lore that supports it.
For Example: Not all the Argonians were ok with the Ebonheart Pact because they didn't want to ally themselves with the Dark Elves, so they fled and found safe haven in Valenwood.
There is also the fact that the major guilds are not involved in the war and therefore have members of all races.

I understand that people want to play with their friends no matter their alliance and I understand that people do not want areas closed off to them. I am not arguing against that.
I perfectly understand on a game mechanics level where that perspective is coming from.

I am speaking from an Role Playing point of view; ZOS does not make faction loyalty matter in the world and story.
The reason I have a problem with this is because the players themselves don't really care about alliances. From personal experience; It is more fun when people care more about what's going on in the world. ZOS should encourage player investment in factions. ESO should have players with firm political identities who feel strongly about their alliance.

Perhaps instead of Ebonheart players going through the exact same storylines as players from AD & DC did in their zones (and vice versa), they could have their own alliance storylines.
When I am in Glenumbra I want Ebonheart specific storylines.
If I am from AD and am in Shadowfen then I want storylines unique to my alliance. (like maybe hunting down the renegades who went about killing Argonian children in the name of the Domion)
If you have friends in another faction that want to join in then share the quest, but otherwise it should feel like a continuation of your story and not restarting in another alliance.

However, I do not see this happening now but it is something I would like ZOS to take into consideration for the future. Maybe have an Expansion that updates the base game zone quest content to be more relevant with what is going on currently and add more alliance related stuff to do, therefore making alliance choice more pertinent.

What Are Your Thoughts? Comment Below!

i hear ya, the alliance vs horde stuff in warcraft was one of the best thing, the chanting, the "my side is better" attitude, the fighting to make the map red/blue in open world areas.
was wonderful, but then battlenets ingame chat happened, since then the game has slowly drifted from this ideology and become bland for it

Kiralyn2000 · November 2017

Surgee wrote: »

Open world pvp is what made WoW amazing. Rushing into stormwing 40 strong and killing anything in the auction house before guards take us down...ah the memories.

It made the whole conflict believable. You see someone from the other side, you fight to defend your land. World pvp in eso would be amazing, but then ESO doesn't have enough players (zos greed).

Open world pvp in WoW was annoying and a license to grief. Max-level PvP <expletives> running around lowbie zones nuking questgivers & flightmasters to inconvenience PvE players, trolls flagging-up and then standing in large crowds around popular neutral-city quest NPCs so that you might accidentally attack them while trying to click on the NPC (at which point the NPC guards slaughtered you & incurred repair costs), lag from the giant zerg crawling back and forth between Tarren Mill & Southshore, corpse-camping graveyards, etc.

And let's not forget the Internet Tough Guys running around the pvp forum proclaiming how squishing lv10's on their lv60+ was "real pvp" because "two players are involved". Sure, buddy.

edit: Ooh, yeah! I'd almost forgotten about the rogues who'd camp near the handful of PvE quests that accidentally pvp-flagged the PvE'ers doing them, so they could gank them and somehow feel that this made them cool/successful/macho. /eyeroll

Worst part of playing that game, honestly.

Iccotak · November 2017

Surgee wrote: »

Open world pvp is what made WoW amazing. Rushing into stormwing 40 strong and killing anything in the auction house before guards take us down...ah the memories.

It made the whole conflict believable. You see someone from the other side, you fight to defend your land. World pvp in eso would be amazing, but then ESO doesn't have enough players (zos greed).

While I am not all for Open world PvP. Something to make the conflict more believable and therefore make use more invested in would be great.

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

What I mean by that is, how many players would play three characters through nine "factions" worth of quests?

Maybe don't make three characters for each alliance? If done right you would not be missing out on rewards if you stuck with one character storyline.
Again, encourage and reward alliance loyalty.

No, I'm talking about just three characters, one for each alliance.

Make an AD character, have to play through three factions of storylines (AD, AD-adventuring-in-EB, AD-in-DC).
Make an EB character, play through three factions of storylines (EB, EB-in-DC, EB-in-AD)
Make a DC character..... etc.

Unless I misunderstood what you meant when you said a Faction A character should have their own "Faction A" quests when they adventure in Faction B & C areas....

And who cares about "alliance loyalty"? Every MMO I play, I make a character in each faction/race/etc, so that I can see all the storylines. What 'loyalty', it's just experiencing narrative, why would I limit my gameplay experiences like that?

(Is this a pvp thing? Cause I don't care about that. And even if I did care, Cadwell's explanation of "here, experience this dream of what would have happened if you washed ashore in a different place" seems like a perfectly fine narrative hook, so the Silver/Gold thing isn't a problem. /shrug)

Why would the AD player be going through the exact same stuff as the EP player? Why would an AD play through three factions storylines? That's what makes no sense. They should be paying through their own storyline.
There should be consequences for your choices. Story wise; You should not have access to everything each faction has. Same rewards absolutely, but not the exact same stories.

Because everyone can pretty much play through any of the stories it undermines a major part of playing one side. You say you make a character in each alliance, Why? When each character experiences the exact same storylines no matter the order which they experience each factions campaign.

That's the problem is that people don't want to pick sides. They want everything homogenized. They want to experience everything that all the other players got to.
That kind of thinking removes the options of choice. There needs to be choice and clear consequences for those choices. If everyone does the same thing then that removes the unique individuality of each player.
Forget WoW. Look at Morrowind. The ES game that is consistently praised as the best one. You could not access all the guilds, because not everyone got along.
There were two fighters guilds. Two Mages guilds, etc. They all had different ideologies and you had to choose sides.

Iccotak · December 2017

In future chapters and DLCs ZOS should bring back Alliance story to your character.
Make your alliance relevant. Give people who are of different alliances different quests. Something.
Maybe give alliance specific activities.
Maybe introduce Alliance based Battlegrounds on enemy shores or new remote islands
Put in Sea Ship Combat

jcaceresw · December 2017

From a gameplay perspective, ZOS should give us a alliance change token. In the first days of ESO, you could only play the zones from your starting faction. Later, they opened the other alliance zones for exploring.

Also, in the first days of ESO and long time before they made the changes on One Tamriel, you needed to be on a specific alliance so the enemies on the silver and gold areas could drop their monster collectibles (because of the five levels limit to get loot).

And when Dwemer motif came for the first time, you needed to be in a gold zone to get the motifs as loot (again, because of the 5 levels limit) and thus you were forced to create a toon in a different starting alliance in order to the gold zone to give you the motifs.

All those gameplay limitations were being removed and changed until we got One Tamriel. However, nothing was done to fix the alliance change issue because of these changes. People may say to delete the character and start again. I am sorry but I have put lots of time and gold to max my fighting and crafting skills, all three horse attributes, learning rare motifs and completing achievements.

So they should implement and offer us alliance change tokens. I also would want a class change token too since most classes have changed dramatically and I have no fun playing with those ones.

DeadlyRecluse · December 2017

Alliance used to matter way more (for PvE grouping and overworld interaction). It was annoying.

With a bigger pop, having stricter alliance grouping rules could be really great, especially if you had meaningful competition between different faction PvE guilds in addition to PvP conflict, different metas and opportunities in different alliances, etc. etc....

Bhaal5 · December 2017

Have said it before and will say it again, zenimax doesnt even have to touch any core gameplay of pvp at all just "campaign setup" to be more inline with "one tamerial".
1. Remove campaigns completely, add in servers 9,12,15 or more this will be the base for a tier base competition, all match ups are the same, all weekly start at X time and finish at Y.
2. Make your eso account bound to these servers (only for the purpose of pvp) this step eliminates campaign swaping, ap boosting and creates a sense of purpose to who you are fighting for (and if you want to change you pay a 'x' amount of gold (2 million lets say) or 1500 crowns).
3. Now since your account is to a server, no need for factions (oh no controversy). Just like battlegrounds, your weekly match up you may start from a different point each week (red one week blue the next), as now your fighting for your server not a faction so shouldnt matter where you start.
4. With this as your server wins a week, determines with you move up a teir or move down. Yes some servers will be weaker than others but they will face of with other servers of equal strength, top servers will have to fight to keep there spots if not they will drop out back down to tier 2 or 3 and someone else will replace them.

There we go, solution in a nutshell and will bring life back into a stale system. Zos just need to acknowledge their player base wants something done and actually get it done.

idk · December 2017

Not messed up at all.

Zos chose to have the story line continue to the other factions so a player only interested in rolling one character can still see everything. Not messed up since not everyone is into alts.

As for the Role Playing point of view you can pretend it's whatever you think it should be.

As for the story lines in AD being specific to the characters home alliance,

1, OP seems to have not completed the main story line which explains everything and
2. That's 9 faction story lines instead of 3 and it's pointless since it ain't gonna change now.

Drachenfier · December 2017

RebornV3x wrote: »

It should have been only 2 alliances no more no less.

I disagree. Warhammer Online was two alliances, and it was usually one side dominating the other. The game needs a third alliance for balance, just like DAoC. I prefer three alliances to two.

Iccotak · December 2017

idk wrote: »

Not messed up at all.

Zos chose to have the story line continue to the other factions so a player only interested in rolling one character can still see everything. Not messed up since not everyone is into alts.

As for the Role Playing point of view you can pretend it's whatever you think it should be.

As for the story lines in AD being specific to the characters home alliance,

1, OP seems to have not completed the main story line which explains everything and
2. That's 9 faction story lines instead of 3 and it's pointless since it ain't gonna change now.

1. By making that choice they removed re-playability of the game. This goes back to TES III: Morrowind, a player could not do everything in the game, their actions/choices had consequences.
Example: You could not join every guild, you had to choose between the Telvanni and the Mages Guild.
I would be more excited for playing my alternate character if I was playing in a location or through a storyline that I could not with my main guy. BUT all that is new for my Alt is Morrowind chapter. Which is why my main has not gone to Vvardenfel yet, my alt is busy there.

By giving everyone the ability to do everything and have everything it removes a large amount of re-playability. Thank Goodness ZOS has not put in a class change option as that is the only thing left that really adds re-playability.
This also why I appreciate limited time deals for cosmetics/houses/mounts, as it increases uniqueness and individuality among the player base.

2. When you say completed the main story do you mean the everyones faction story or just one alliance and the Molag Bal invasion?

If its the latter, I did complete the main story and I think the explanation for how/why you play in other alliances is Dumb with a capital D. It is clear that they ran out of ideas or did not plan for what happens after the main story and resorted to just letting you play the other alliances on the same character.

If it is the former then you are right, I have not played in every alliance yet because I have found that EP has the only interesting stories (imo). I did Daggerfall Covenant but I did not care for it and I do not care for AD. I will get to it eventually but only begrudgingly so.

3. Sure adding a faction specific storyline for each region is not going to happen. But in the future if they could take more consideration who are characters are would be great. How race and faction choice impacts a story would add more immersion

Varana · December 2017

In TES3:Morrowind, you can be a member of House Telvanni and the Mages Guild. You can be Telvanni Archmagister and Guild Archmage at the same time; you can be highest rank in both Tribunal Temple and Imperial Cult, and so on. You can become Telvanni Archmagister with an Argonian, or Khajiit, doing Twin Lamps quests freeing slaves.

The only thing you can't do is join two or three Great Houses. That isn't really much more than the Skyrim option of joining either Stormcloaks or Legion.

Bethesda games have always put player choice over worldbuilding restrictions. It's your choice whether you stay true to your Great House, or your Alliance, or not. Bethesda (and ZOS) don't force you to do so.

That was a bit different at first, as others have remarked - before One Tamriel, Alliance choice restricted you from seeing other parts of the world, at first. BTW, I hated that. Hand-holding is not why I play Elder Scrolls games.

Yes, that gets in the way of telling a compelling story. That's just the way it is; player freedom and storytelling are not entirely compatible. But then, I don't get the impression that story and quests is why many people play ESO. There's other instances where the game doesn't react to the order you do things, esp. with the DLC (Naryu not acknowledging that you know her from Morrowind; Raynor and Kireth Vanos being simultaneously in Deshaan, Orsinium, Clockwork City, and probably dead in Coldharbour (sorry, spoiler)).

Taking it seriously that the Alliances are mortal enemies or something like that, would basically be barring you from ever visiting another Alliance's territory, except for PVP or Player-vs-Guards content, and that is a sacrifice that fortunately, ZOS didn't make. I like visiting other areas with my character.

In the end, whatever the advertising - in the game, the Alliance choice doesn't matter all that much, except for the Alliance War (i.e. PVP content). And I think that's good.

If you don't like Cadwell's, don't do it. Yes, it's awkward as hell, and I wish they'd done that with a better excuse. But the general option to do it is nice to have.

P.S./Edit: Races are fine. People are individuals. A world where various races live neatly separated within their own, convenient borders, is completely unnatural. There will always be people of one race in the "wrong" alliance - be it refugees like that Argonian tribe in Valenwood, traders or settlers that have lived in the "wrong" city for generations, individual people who had to flee their former country, or whatever. More restrictions on that would be bad.

disintegr8 · December 2017

I just think that One Tamriel ruined any affect alliance selection made for players. When I started, I actually rolled a character from each alliance, thinking that was the only way I was going to be able to discover all areas (I did not know about Cadwells silver/gold).

I agree it would have been nice for Cadwells silver and gold to have quests applicable to your alliance, rather than just doing the other alliances quests. I missed out on anything new in this regard because I had run them on other characters. I only completed Cadwells on one character because once 1T came in, I could take any character anywhere, so there was no point.

What did make it more interesting was that the areas were still leveling with me, so an area I defeated at level 15 on a new character, while easier, was not a complete cakewalk on a different character at VR 5. Progression was still valid and provided you followed the quest lines and did not 'over level', you could still find a challenge.

IMO, the scaling that came in with 1T overcompensates lower level players and can make them feel unchallenged while they are leveling. Problem there is that when they level up and lose this compensation, they struggle. Sorry - not on topic.

I disagree with the one account, one alliance suggestion. Especially since you have to buy 'expansions', crown store items, ESO+ or DLC's for each account, instead of each device or user.

Edd1eV3DD3R · December 2017

jabrone77 wrote: »

Just from a gameplay mechanic standpoint, I like that the factions don't mean too much. After playing WoW for years and having faction conflict being forced down your throat, even long after the point of it making any logical sence, ESO is a breath of fresh air.
As far as lore/roleplay goes, every faction side has a quest that has you, the player, try and bring your pact races together because your alliance is already on shaky ground and can fall apart in a moment. So, right from the jump, your alliance isn't really that strong. And this time frame is just a snapshot in Tamriel's history. The alliances sort of disolve after these events and the Aldmeri Dominion is really the only alliance that mores forward at least into the 4th era.

Wrong Dominion. That's the Fourth Dominion, a stark contrast.

Iluvrien · December 2017

Cadwell's always has been a lazy narrative hack to shoehorn in the possibility of visiting other alliance areas with the same character.

That a character should be able to visit all Alliance areas without penalty when they haven't completed many quests for any one should be possible. However, I have always thought that with rising fame should also come rising infamy. If your character stopped Alexandra Conele at Vivec's Antlers then their fame in the Pact should improve but they should be less liked in the Covenant. Take out Ruuvitar in Loriasel and the Pact will fete you but the Dominion will hate you, etc.

The more the character does to assist an alliance against the others, the more that this should affect the response of others in those alliances to the character. If your character killed the brother/sister/father/mother of an NPC then they are not likely to ask them to help clear the spiders from the local mine (except in the hope that it might get them killed).

Player choices should matter. The character's path through the world should matter.

The main quests ends with...

...our character bringing the alliances together to thwart Molag Bal. If you want the Hero of Coldharbour to be able to move between all of the people of the lands? That might make a bit more sense. At least while the truce lasted. Not an easy ride, but possible.

Before that point, and especially in the later zones, some restrictions on where a character can just blindly wander about in safety just make basic sense.

... and for the love of Azura, drop the Cadwell's explanation. It has always been terrible and makes less sense with every release.