Let's Talk Alliance Loyalty and Lockouts:

Marginis · April 2018

eso_nya wrote: »

Last time i pvped was the month before morrowind launch.
My only reason to go to Cyrodiil was, that i found out on pts, that many bothans would need to die in coldfire to get me the 4,6m AP to purchase a new crafting motif.

So, in order to make the grind as effective as possible i played on all of my chars, no matter the faction.
I picked the fullest campaign, to not have downtime in hotpsotgrinding. First grp of chars, where the ones where i didnt bother with grinding out wahorn/caltrop/vigor yet. Than i made sure that all chars had ~400k ap, thus whoever won the campaign, i'd get extra rewards on 2 chars. Didnt really need it, but i'd never turn down free gold.
I fight for Queen Emeric the Skaldking, so not loyal to any faction. I tried not to get involved in the outcome of the campaign tho, out of fairness, but well playing the map, scrollruns and that aint really good for ap/h anyways. I'm not under the illusion that i could actually have changed the outcome xD

Im not sure how many other players r out there with similar motivations for factionhopping.
Don't try to force ppl to grind content they hate.

Sounds like a flaw in the rewards system more than players abusing their freedom. Either way, I think we can agree we don't want this way of playing to be the norm.

Cously · April 2018

Player puts his Character 1 in an campaign, Vivec. That campaign must be locked for that toon for the duration of it, can't use alts on the other side to join it. Player can still put his Character 2 in another campaign in another faction, same deal.

ClockworkCityBugs · April 2018

TequilaFire wrote: »

ClockworkCityBugs wrote: »

even if ZOS will lock account under 1 campaign its easy avoidable with multiple accounts
many pro pvp players have few account only for spying for other factions in pvp

lol spying is usless against organized groups unless you are in them.
Maybe you can report back the latest zone chat fight though!

you can report camp locations for example

MajesticHaruki · April 2018

You can't expect loyalty when others decide your alliance side.

Joy_Division · April 2018

TequilaFire wrote: »

Joy_Division wrote: »

SwampRaider wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

its hard to maintain faction loyalty when people can jsut switch between characters so fast and join the winning side.

This keeps getting repeated ad nauseam and assumed to be a huge problem, but how many people actually do this, especially in a competitive campaign that's pop locked? It's just an excuse that ignores DC is losing a campaign because their strategy consists of faction stacking and potatoing into Chalman even when losing home keeps

More to the point, why and when would I do this and what exactly am I gaining? If I were a bandwagon hopper, then I would have joined AD because they won last campaign. But now that we're far enough into the campaign, I'd have to hop back to EP, start at zero, have zero chance for emperor, and play every single day just to get what exactly, some rings of curse eater, Beckoning Steel, and Arch Mage that aren't worth anything. What exactly are the lucrative campaign rewards that I'm hoping over for?

Happens to the extreme on PS4 NA.
We had to start kicking people from our PvP guild it caused so much trouble.
It just not just about winning the campaign it is about elite groups flipping the map one color changing alliances and flipping the map back the other way all in the ap farm abuse. Not to mention changing just to heckle in the oppositions text chat.

Why do all these things happen on every server except the pop locked server that I play on every night?

How exactly do elite groups "flip the map"? Are the other players on PS4 NA so bad they can't even zerg down some resource farmers? The best guilds on PC NA, the Dracs, the Omnis, and even a faction stack of DC guilds are incapable of "flipping the map." They can flip a keep and that's it because as soon as they leave it gets flipped back.

Or are you trying to say that these groups will just flip every resource on the map and then, because none of the resoruces have been taken back, log into their alts to "flip the map" back. So now the issue is that apparently PS4 NA players are so bad they can't even take undefended resources from NPCs?

Or, is this an empty server that is being PvDoored and subject to abuse because of precisely that, it's a empty campaign that lacks the population to contest them in the first place?

Anazasi · April 2018

The game is designed based on objectives (scoring). This infers by the mechanics that a group of players are always working towards the same goal. The problem that we are calling loyalty is the realization that a groups faction changes far to quickly on a daily basis. The fact that the group of players always has the option the switch sides during none population locked times to further whatever agenda that group has at the moment is the issue that directly opposes the design of objective based play. The counter argument to this is that players will self regulate the groups in order to achieve a balance over time. The issue is this assumes that players aren't bad trolls with an agenda to spread discontent amongst their hosting faction. Play as you like asserts that players will make good choices when in fact players don't. They choose to further their own agendas instead of the games objectives. It is a reasonable expectation that when this happens on a regular basis that measure would be put in place to enforce the objective based design. One instance of proof, that no one can argue against: The initial game design included faction locks because the initial game designers understood what was being created and understood human nature. The fact that this was changed thereafter was because players had discovered how to bypass the faction locks and ZOS was unable, at the time, to fix the work around. Most people have the potential to act in "good" faith. Unfortunately there are people who simply are "bad" and have nothing better to do than troll a game. If ZOS wants to make faction loyalty a founding principle as it was initially designed 4 years ago they simply have to accept the fact that there will always be a low population server. Adding 2 30 day campaigns ensures that players have choices and that at least 1 of those servers will become the competitive server; 3 factions with 2 identical rule set servers ensures that at least 1 server will be populated with all 3 factions. Activating the faction locks as well as fixing the broken mechanic that was present at launch will bring back meaning to the objective based 3 faction conflict.

Players will not like this in fact many will argue and threaten to leave. But my guess is the players who argue the most are the players who troll the most. This change would do more good than harm to the overall community if ZOS would simply take a stand on the current issue.

Rohamad_Ali · April 2018

SwampRaider wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

This patch is a perfect opportunity to finally do it, being a big PVP update patch.

There needs to be a long cool down on alliance switching. Be it 24 hours or a week.(Reasonably, Let's say 24 hours)

As a competitive group hardcore DC PvPer, its hard to maintain faction loyalty when people can jsut switch between characters so fast and join the winning side. I want people to work through blood sweat and tears..and Strategy! for their campaign rewards. Hell...I've even seen DC guild leaders switch to EP or AD characters when the going got tough. But another Issue is scroll trolling among others.

Call me old fashioned, but I miss the 1 character per campaign lock.

I know this gets blasted time and again, but it just needs to happen. The days of Alliance Loyalty need to return to bring that special feel back to Cyrodiil. Like we are actually fighting for a cause.

Marginis · April 2018

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

SwampRaider wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

This patch is a perfect opportunity to finally do it, being a big PVP update patch.

There needs to be a long cool down on alliance switching. Be it 24 hours or a week.(Reasonably, Let's say 24 hours)

As a competitive group hardcore DC PvPer, its hard to maintain faction loyalty when people can jsut switch between characters so fast and join the winning side. I want people to work through blood sweat and tears..and Strategy! for their campaign rewards. Hell...I've even seen DC guild leaders switch to EP or AD characters when the going got tough. But another Issue is scroll trolling among others.

Call me old fashioned, but I miss the 1 character per campaign lock.

I know this gets blasted time and again, but it just needs to happen. The days of Alliance Loyalty need to return to bring that special feel back to Cyrodiil. Like we are actually fighting for a cause.

Oddly enough, I don't remember characters being locked out of PVP for being a faction, ever.

Silver_Strider · April 2018

What they should do is make Alliance choice optional when going into Cyrodiil.
You pick what Alliance you wish to support in that Campaign and it locks your account into that decision for the remainder of that campaign. So if I pick to support EP in a 30 day campaign, all my characters will be on EP until that campaign ends, even on the guest server.

As for Faction Loyalty, I feel that giving unique drop boxes for choosing to continuously support an alliance would help in that regard. This Drop box can range from anything, from PvP gear to motif pages to rare cosmetics available for that Alliance alone (Think along the lines of the Alliance Rider Horse/Gear from the Crown Store but not necessarily those items) Give it a tier reward system, similar to the current PvP tier reward system, that increases every time you support the same alliance and switching to a different alliance means starting all over from tier 1, even if you switch back the following campaign. Make it so that 7 Day campaigns give less experience towards tier rewards than 30 days to prevent people from reaching the higher tiers quicker as well. It'll be a grind to get to max tier and should naturally reward better items the higher up you are.

DaveMoeDee · April 2018

I don't care who is winning a campaign. If I want to level a character's alliance skill lines, I will take that character into Cyrodiil. Not all my characters are DC. No restrictions needed.

Did this quite a bit grinding dailies these past few weeks.

MasterSpatula · April 2018

I don't feel at all comfortable playing more than one alliance in the same campaign and definitely feel it shouldn't be allowed.

However, there are only 2 CP campaigns, and I utterly refuse to set foot in the IC without CP. I just don't have the extra time it takes to kill things in there. So I cross over, even though it feels wrong.

SwampRaider · April 2018

ezeepeezee wrote: »

When it's not possible for a single, organized group with heal springs and destro ults to roll the map, I might begin to even consider this. Until then I don't blame people for just swapping to that side.

I am on DC in one of those groups. Our response usually is " get with the meta" and our group is on the losing side. EP Has way more groups like that

MLGProPlayer · April 2018

It's a shame alliance choice isn't account-bound in this game. Most, if not all MMOs with AvA-style PvP don't let you change alliances (without paying real money). I've been PvPing a lot lately as I farm transmute stones, and it's been a very poor experience.

SwampRaider · April 2018

Anazasi wrote: »

The game is designed based on objectives (scoring). This infers by the mechanics that a group of players are always working towards the same goal. The problem that we are calling loyalty is the realization that a groups faction changes far to quickly on a daily basis. The fact that the group of players always has the option the switch sides during none population locked times to further whatever agenda that group has at the moment is the issue that directly opposes the design of objective based play. The counter argument to this is that players will self regulate the groups in order to achieve a balance over time. The issue is this assumes that players aren't bad trolls with an agenda to spread discontent amongst their hosting faction. Play as you like asserts that players will make good choices when in fact players don't. They choose to further their own agendas instead of the games objectives. It is a reasonable expectation that when this happens on a regular basis that measure would be put in place to enforce the objective based design. One instance of proof, that no one can argue against: The initial game design included faction locks because the initial game designers understood what was being created and understood human nature. The fact that this was changed thereafter was because players had discovered how to bypass the faction locks and ZOS was unable, at the time, to fix the work around. Most people have the potential to act in "good" faith. Unfortunately there are people who simply are "bad" and have nothing better to do than troll a game. If ZOS wants to make faction loyalty a founding principle as it was initially designed 4 years ago they simply have to accept the fact that there will always be a low population server. Adding 2 30 day campaigns ensures that players have choices and that at least 1 of those servers will become the competitive server; 3 factions with 2 identical rule set servers ensures that at least 1 server will be populated with all 3 factions. Activating the faction locks as well as fixing the broken mechanic that was present at launch will bring back meaning to the objective based 3 faction conflict.

Players will not like this in fact many will argue and threaten to leave. But my guess is the players who argue the most are the players who troll the most. This change would do more good than harm to the overall community if ZOS would simply take a stand on the current issue.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler if you only glance at this thread at once, I really hope it's this post.

SwampRaider · April 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

It's a shame alliance choice isn't account-bound in this game. Most, if not all MMOs with AvA-style PvP don't let you change alliances (without paying real money). I've been PvPing a lot lately as I farm transmute stones, and it's been a very poor experience.

Back in the days of faction locked campaigns that lasted 90 days long.... I really miss those days. Can you imagine a 90-day campaign that is faction locked now? I can't. But I miss it. That's why I really am pushing for it faction lock campaigns even if the lockout is a week.

Dojohoda · April 2018

I play on two factions, sometimes on the same day, and not for nefarious reasons. I do not want any of the proposed changes.

IAVITNI · April 2018

TequilaFire wrote: »

yttoks wrote: »

They tried that out of the starting gate. People hated it.

If you have a lot of toons, you don't necessarily want to play only one faction, but in your system that player is out of luck. Even if they don't PvP at all, and would like toons on different factions, they're out of luck because they won't be able to get vigor, caltrops, etc. when the campaigns are locked.

You would be locked out of one campaign your character is in, your alt on another alliance can still play in another campaign and earn his alliance skills.

I have 15 characters and friends on every alliance. If I want to play with my friends why can’t I?

If alliance lock simply prevented players from ranking on leaderboards I’d be ok with that. Still allow players to get T3 rewards (which can be done in a few hours and most rewards are trash anyways) but beyond that there’s no need for app to count for anything.

Mannox · April 2018

SwampRaider wrote: »

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

This patch is a perfect opportunity to finally do it, being a big PVP update patch.

There needs to be a long cool down on alliance switching. Be it 24 hours or a week.(Reasonably, Let's say 24 hours)

As a competitive group hardcore DC PvPer, its hard to maintain faction loyalty when people can jsut switch between characters so fast and join the winning side. I want people to work through blood sweat and tears..and Strategy! for their campaign rewards. Hell...I've even seen DC guild leaders switch to EP or AD characters when the going got tough. But another Issue is scroll trolling among others.

Call me old fashioned, but I miss the 1 character per campaign lock.

I know this gets blasted time and again, but it just needs to happen. The days of Alliance Loyalty need to return to bring that special feel back to Cyrodiil. Like we are actually fighting for a cause.

I can definitely respect your opinion. I've been playing MMOs a long time too and there was definitely a different way to enjoy PVP in older games where alliance loyalty mattered. I would say however that this lead to more drastic responses. In older games it was more difficult to alliance hop. Sure, sometimes it was completely discouraged by the games limitations as well. This usually meant players quitting the game. Or quitting PvP. Which in the long run ruins the growth of PvP gameplay. Where I think we all (who PvP) want growth. There are good historic examples out there. My most telling stories would probably come from my experiences in games like Shadowbane and Dark Ages of Camelot. Was alliance loyalty really ever important to having fun? I don't think it was. I think the best thing about it was that it gave perhaps more memorable experiences. I'd rather see players playing in the end.

mb10 · April 2018

Definitely agree with this and think it should be a 3 day cooldown.

You cant play for EP, watch AD take the scrolls then go to AD, then see DC become EMP then be a DC player all within minutes.

Ridiculous and promotes cheating so Im all for this personally.

Valen_Byte · April 2018

No one cares about score or faction win. How can we expect them to be loyal to anything. ESO pvp has turned into a call of duty style game. Just get in a fight as fast as you can. I wish they would make it much much more strict. I cant even take pvp serious anymore. I would love it to be an actual competitive game again.

I remember when we all knew who our opponents where. We met the same enemy in battle every day. There where true rivalries and frienemies. Then the walls came down. Factions broke up. Servers went to ***. Populations swung from one faction to the other while those of us who stayed loyal were all like, wtf man.

If they removed the faction from our characters, we could play that toon on any faction. So, our characters would not be tied to a faction. They would be like random people in the world that could go and fight for what ever side they believe in. That way your toon that is born in wherever can join the war for whatever side you chose. That would rid the world of the "i want to play with my friends" thing. They could play with there friends on any toon, on any faction. But, that would be the only toon they could have on that sever until the end of the campaign. Also, a month is way too long for a campaign. 2 weeks max. 1 week for all servers in this situation would be even better.

They do have to fix the population balance first though. That is why they unlocked the servers in the first place. They became unbalanced frequently. Unlocking them was there solution. Have to address that first (no idea how lol) then lock it back down. Get back to what made pvp in this game so good.

Marginis · April 2018

Valen_Byte wrote: »

No one cares about score or faction win. How can we expect them to be loyal to anything. ESO pvp has turned into a call of duty style game. Just get in a fight as fast as you can. I wish they would make it much much more strict. I cant even take pvp serious anymore. I would love it to be an actual competitive game again.

I remember when we all knew who our opponents where. We met the same enemy in battle every day. There where true rivalries and frienemies. Then the walls came down. Factions broke up. Servers went to ***. Populations swung from one faction to the other while those of us who stayed loyal were all like, wtf man.

If they removed the faction from our characters, we could play that toon on any faction. So, our characters would not be tied to a faction. They would be like random people in the world that could go and fight for what ever side they believe in. That way your toon that is born in wherever can join the war for whatever side you chose. That would rid the world of the "i want to play with my friends" thing. They could play with there friends on any toon, on any faction. But, that would be the only toon they could have on that sever until the end of the campaign. Also, a month is way too long for a campaign. 2 weeks max. 1 week for all servers in this situation would be even better.

They do have to fix the population balance first though. That is why they unlocked the servers in the first place. They became unbalanced frequently. Unlocking them was there solution. Have to address that first (no idea how lol) then lock it back down. Get back to what made pvp in this game so good.

I feel like that's more due to the influx of players who weren't that perfect mix of MMO veteran that wanted to try something new and TES player that genuinely wanted to play a TES rpg with friends that ESO had when it was still subscription based at launch, than anything else. Been thinking of a possible way to remedy that problem, but I haven't thought of any good solutions yet.

SwampRaider · April 2018

Valen_Byte wrote: »

No one cares about score or faction win. How can we expect them to be loyal to anything. ESO pvp has turned into a call of duty style game.

90% of the DC on PC/Vivec/NA are hardcore all about faction loyalty. We hate with a passion, the guilds that left us to join AD. The DC on Vivec are why I enjoy playing PvP, because its all about Faction to them.

The issue being, the competitive DC scene has gone down. on Vivec/NA/PC its maybe 2 or 3 good DC pvp guilds vs EP's 6+ or AD. and If those DC that give up when the going gets tough, switch characters....we notice it and it hurts. This is a High popped campaign too. We have to deal with the Former DC that come in to troll zone chat before logging onto characters or making FAKE callouts etc.. in zone. we even have dealt with people logging on to DC characters to move a scroll to an AD keep.

Faction locking or temporary lockouts needs to be a thing, even just to prevent "Quick switching". There needs to be some kinds of cooldown.

Metafae · April 2018

Please no, I am a DC loyalist, but I do have 1 EP and 1 AD toon (And 13DC).

If I switch to my AD or EP toon it's because I'm wanting to play with a friend who only has a toon on that alliance, or I'm just trying to get tier 1 on all my toons. I would appreciate not having a cooldown to do this.

Not everyone switches sides because their current side isn't winning. Most people just log out and do something else.

Caulderone · April 2018

Anything like this would have to result in a change to how Transmutation Crystals are earned.

Rohamad_Ali · April 2018

Jokes aside I'm fine with how things are now . Vivec NA PC had one of the closest three way score at campaign end in history . All because a couple of guilds were able to switch faction an help AD who had not won in a long time . It's really up to great guilds and players like NI and TKG on NA PC to help keep things fun and balanced . Rules don't always lead to balance . I understand the frustration but this is the truth . When we had faction campaign locks people just found ways to exploit arose it or made multiple accounts . There was no way for ZoS to enforce campaign loyalty .

The only way to encourage campaign loyalty is with special worth while rewards for spending time with one that could not be accomplished with two or more . Somethings rare and exciting to win . Not the usual rewards at all in the usual way . That is the truth to me .

DuskMarine · April 2018

i kinda find this impossible to enforce now as everyone has at least a toon in every faction at this point. which unless were forced to choose our factions which will be kindve rediculous in a way cause then we cant jump around with friends. kinda takes out the whole choice aspect of pvp if you ask me.

Toc de Malsvi · April 2018

For the QUEEN!!!!

DRAGON_KILLER_HUNTER · April 2018

I play every alliance so i can always get some good fights in cyro.

kind_hero · April 2018

Silver_Strider wrote: »

What they should do is make Alliance choice optional when going into Cyrodiil.
You pick what Alliance you wish to support in that Campaign and it locks your account into that decision for the remainder of that campaign. So if I pick to support EP in a 30 day campaign, all my characters will be on EP until that campaign ends, even on the guest server.

As for Faction Loyalty, I feel that giving unique drop boxes for choosing to continuously support an alliance would help in that regard. This Drop box can range from anything, from PvP gear to motif pages to rare cosmetics available for that Alliance alone (Think along the lines of the Alliance Rider Horse/Gear from the Crown Store but not necessarily those items) Give it a tier reward system, similar to the current PvP tier reward system, that increases every time you support the same alliance and switching to a different alliance means starting all over from tier 1, even if you switch back the following campaign. Make it so that 7 Day campaigns give less experience towards tier rewards than 30 days to prevent people from reaching the higher tiers quicker as well. It'll be a grind to get to max tier and should naturally reward better items the higher up you are.

I support this idea. After Tamriel One and especially now with Summerset, the allegiance to a faction is no longer relevant outside Cyrodiil campaigns, so the faction should be something you choose only for PvP.

Anazasi · April 2018

SwampRaider wrote: »

Valen_Byte wrote: »

No one cares about score or faction win. How can we expect them to be loyal to anything. ESO pvp has turned into a call of duty style game.

90% of the DC on PC/Vivec/NA are hardcore all about faction loyalty. We hate with a passion, the guilds that left us to join AD. The DC on Vivec are why I enjoy playing PvP, because its all about Faction to them.

The issue being, the competitive DC scene has gone down. on Vivec/NA/PC its maybe 2 or 3 good DC pvp guilds vs EP's 6+ or AD. and If those DC that give up when the going gets tough, switch characters....we notice it and it hurts. This is a High popped campaign too. We have to deal with the Former DC that come in to troll zone chat before logging onto characters or making FAKE callouts etc.. in zone. we even have dealt with people logging on to DC characters to move a scroll to an AD keep.

Faction locking or temporary lockouts needs to be a thing, even just to prevent "Quick switching". There needs to be some kinds of cooldown.

This is the same perspective that AD has. If you think it's not look at the current score.