Never really thought about that before, but now im curious:

What r the reason to join any of the factions?
Why r u loyal to a faction?

I mean, when u start the game, u usually dont know any of the lore yet and prolly dont have friends to tell u what to pick.

I am completely on board with:

If you join a campaign as guest with one alliance, you have to wait 20 hours (essentially a day) to join the same campaign with a toon from a different alliance. If you have three EP toons - all can be in that same campaign though.

If you have a campaign as your "home" campaign, only toons in that alliance can join that campaign (as guest or as home).

I am not in agreement with the "one toon per campaign" idea - there are not enough campaigns for that, IMHO. I've been in groups that needed my healer worse than my DPS, for example - if I want to split my AP between the two, it's not hurting anyone else, since I'm still being loyal to my alliance (on that campaign).

If there is any move to force loyalty -- you gotta give us the ability to move toons between alliances (which I'd be all for, to tell the truth - as long as it's thoughtfully implemented to avoid faction hopping to increase AP gains, therefore not fitting with the loyalty theme.

Just going to throw in my 2 cents here: I agree with the posters calling for account-wide factions.

Long ago before One Tamriel this game was very different. There were a multitude of reasons to pick a particular faction for a particular character, and PVP was just one of them. However, I think that many players did not and still do not grasp the full weight of their faction choice when first creating characters. I made characters of all 3 alliances just for RP and thematic reasons, as well as to play PVE with friends from other alliances. I didn't really think about the consequences for PVP, and tbh I didn't even try out PVP until I was more experienced and higher level. I don't think I'm alone in this regard either, and a lot of players don't try out PVP until they've played their character(s) a lot and feel comfortable. Now that I'm actively PVPing, I'm stuck with characters that I really want to PVP on, but they're not part of my primary faction. It sucks that it's a permanent decision made so early on when you're not even fully aware of all the consequences.

The point I'm trying to make is that the game is very different now and
1) players should not be deciding their faction at character creation, it should be at the point of first entering PVP
2) faction choice should be account wide to enforce faction loyalty
3) faction choice should not be permanent, alliance change tokens should exist in the crown store

Faction choice now matters only for PVP, so it makes sense to tie that choice to PVP when first entering Cyro. Whatever alliance you chose should be the alliance you fight for with ALL your characters. Set up like this, I wouldn't be opposed to ZOS adding an alliance change token in the crown store (at a high cost). I am pretty salty that I have old characters from a time where you had to be on the same alliance to play overland PVE with a friend, but now that restriction is gone and yet I'm still stuck with characters spread out across all alliances. I would gladly pay money to make all my toons DC :'(

tl;dr make your faction account-wide and you choose it the first time you enter Cyro on any character

Anazasi wrote: »

usmguy1234 wrote: »

Yes because changing sides during a war is so rare... I'm looking at you 1943 Italy.

ha ha only after they had surrendered to the allied forces. I'm sure that being occupied by the allied forces and the death of Mussolini had nothing to do with it.

It didn't. The Allies had not even landed on the Italian mainland at that point and Mussolini did not die until 1945.

History lessons aside, If the 90% figure of DC and AD players are "hardcore all about faction loyalty" provided by vocal proponents of the change can be believed, than that suggests there is a lot more faction loyalty than is being made out to be in this thread.

jaws343 wrote: »

Kingslayer513 wrote: »

Just going to throw in my 2 cents here: I agree with the posters calling for account-wide factions.

Long ago before One Tamriel this game was very different. There were a multitude of reasons to pick a particular faction for a particular character, and PVP was just one of them. However, I think that many players did not and still do not grasp the full weight of their faction choice when first creating characters. I made characters of all 3 alliances just for RP and thematic reasons, as well as to play PVE with friends from other alliances. I didn't really think about the consequences for PVP, and tbh I didn't even try out PVP until I was more experienced and higher level. I don't think I'm alone in this regard either, and a lot of players don't try out PVP until they've played their character(s) a lot and feel comfortable. Now that I'm actively PVPing, I'm stuck with characters that I really want to PVP on, but they're not part of my primary faction. It sucks that it's a permanent decision made so early on when you're not even fully aware of all the consequences.

The point I'm trying to make is that the game is very different now and
1) players should not be deciding their faction at character creation, it should be at the point of first entering PVP
2) faction choice should be account wide to enforce faction loyalty
3) faction choice should not be permanent, alliance change tokens should exist in the crown store

Faction choice now matters only for PVP, so it makes sense to tie that choice to PVP when first entering Cyro. Whatever alliance you chose should be the alliance you fight for with ALL your characters. Set up like this, I wouldn't be opposed to ZOS adding an alliance change token in the crown store (at a high cost). I am pretty salty that I have old characters from a time where you had to be on the same alliance to play overland PVE with a friend, but now that restriction is gone and yet I'm still stuck with characters spread out across all alliances. I would gladly pay money to make all my toons DC :'(

tl;dr make your faction account-wide and you choose it the first time you enter Cyro on any character

And never play with your friends again...

Okay fair enough. All my friends play DC now, so I guess I got a little narrow minded about cross-faction friends existing. However, I still stand by enacting account-wide locks for a given campaign. I don't think it's a big deal if there's flexibility in changing alliances after a campaign ends, but right now there's so much flexibility all around that we constantly see people simply logging into whatever team is dominating the map at that particular moment because it's easy. IMO the benefits outweigh the downsides with campaign locking.

I guess I am a byproduct of a forgotten era, an era that new players never knew about, yet they chose 1 of 3 alliances at character creation. An era that wasn't so long ago that was fueled by alliance pride an hatred. How cyrodiil is/was supposed to be. Cyrodiil has not changed, yet the system around it has. Leading to confusion and mistrewn gameplay elements. Guilds allowing all alliances into them changed yet cyrodiil did not.

All I am asking for (and others agreed to) is a cooldown of some sort so that you can't play with 2 different alliances in same campaign for a certain number of time. Perhaps even adding rewards for those that stick with one alliance like cyrodiil is supposed to be played and how it was first started: 3 alliances competing against each other, fiercely trying to claim the throne and the heart of the Empire for themself. The throning and dethroning of various high ranking alliance leaders trying to become emperor.

eso_nya wrote: »

Never really thought about that before, but now im curious:

What r the reason to join any of the factions?
Why r u loyal to a faction?

I mean, when u start the game, u usually dont know any of the lore yet and prolly dont have friends to tell u what to pick.

There are a lot of players who played the older ES titles, so many picked EP because they loved Morrowind, others wanted to go back to Daggerfall, so they picked DC (like me). My 1st memories with this game, starting from beta, are from the DC areas, and after questing a lot for the Covenant Hero title, DC is my favorite.

But I think the alliance concept outside PvP is obsolete since Tamriel One and the upcoming release of Summerset. ZOS should create tokens to change the alliance, or remove it outside pvp

schattenkind wrote: »

To those who say "good leading" is the key:
Maybe. But leading means a lot of work, except if you lead an organized group.
I m not a leader, but did lead random groups many times in the past anyway. The hard thing is communication and the other staying together.

Communicating via chat is not possible, all you can do is tell where to go. For more the game lacks tools, and I dont mean addons, inbuild game leading tools, like commands you can display at members screen by using hotkeys (f.e. "wait", "attack", "enemy incoming" etc., short, easy commands), stuff which is essential to react. Just telling ppl where to go is no leading. And playing tactical without commands that can be given on demand is very frustrating.

The other point, its hard to hold a group with many different people in it. 10 minutes it works great, until one decides to not follow and go elsewhere, then another goes there and 2 go totaly different location. After another 15 minutes, half of the group is spread all over the map and doing all, but not following. Then the leader spends more time to either recall the lost members or kicking and reorganizing group than actual leading.

This game lacks any group-leading-tools.

Until youre not organized and have voice chat (which a lot dont like), leading a random group is no fun.

I totally agree. This game unfortunately lacks good raid tools. One of the reasons I loved group PVP in ArcheAge, was because you could Mark people different icons that you could assign different roles to. For example, anyone that was marked could invite people to group and ping on the map. This may need managing so much more efficient. In fact I was never a real leader in ArcheAge PVP, but it was always a good read manager. I was able to keep the track of who needs invites to the group and was able to ping out enemy locations map during battles. This allowed the raid leader or shot caller to focus on their duties so we can be more successful in PvP.

So, this game needs better raid management tools for PVP, and some sort of time block out to prevent quick Alliance switching. Perhaps even Alliance Loyalty Rewards since cyrodiil is an alliance War.

ESO pvp is designed to be faction vs faction vs faction. It was advertised as such. The game rules and scoring are set up to that end. It IS the game. Pandering to the special-interest folks by allowing at-will faction swapping detracts considerably from the integrity of the campaign game. As a former DC player who now bleeds Pact red, I fully support your right to swap sides and play with new friends, however there needs to be a campaign minimum requirement per account or Cyrodiil just becomes another Battlegrounds.

My two cents.

kookster wrote: »

There are many people who dont give a crap about the winning faction, or anything at all about factions, they just want a good fight. These people will typically switch to the losing faction so they can get fights. So naturally I think such a rule which would punish the players who try to balance out the fights is a horrible idea. Perhaps you can think of a better way to solve this issue.

Agreed 100%

Quantum_V wrote: »

You can be a hardcore PvPer alliance fanatic; that doesn't mean others must.

People want to play with friends in other alliance. No player should be limited to basic MMO elements, such as PvPing with friends whenever they want to, because some individuals have a RP-induced loyalty to a color in this game.

Please don't try to dictate how people should play this game.

This game, was designed and marketed as an RvRvR game. As such, there should be rules in place to enforce that playstyle. You are supposed to be loyal to your faction, and fight for it and lead it to Victory.

Cyrodiil in its basic and intended form is designed so that you stay on one side and fight for that side. That's why there needs to be cool Downs in place to prevent faction swapping. At least to the point where it's instant. We are just asking for some kind of cool down so you can't immediately swap to another character on the opposite faction.

Although I would prefer that characters are locked into the campaign that they joined and that they have to be one faction, it's all about compromise. I personally would prefer that people can only stay on one Alliance, but at the very least myself and others would prefer some kind of cool down so you can't do it instantly.

Switching right away just to play with your friends, does not sound like a massive Alliance vs Alliance War. It sounds like a Battle Ground.

SwampRaider wrote: »

Quantum_V wrote: »

You can be a hardcore PvPer alliance fanatic; that doesn't mean others must.

People want to play with friends in other alliance. No player should be limited to basic MMO elements, such as PvPing with friends whenever they want to, because some individuals have a RP-induced loyalty to a color in this game.

Please don't try to dictate how people should play this game.

This game, was designed and marketed as an RvRvR game. As such, there should be rules in place to enforce that playstyle. You are supposed to be loyal to your faction, and fight for it and lead it to Victory.

Cyrodiil in its basic and intended form is designed so that you stay on one side and fight for that side. That's why there needs to be cool Downs in place to prevent faction swapping. At least to the point where it's instant. We are just asking for some kind of cool down so you can't immediately swap to another character on the opposite faction.

Although I would prefer that characters are locked into the campaign that they joined and that they have to be one faction, it's all about compromise. I personally would prefer that people can only stay on one Alliance, but at the very least myself and others would prefer some kind of cool down so you can't do it instantly.

Switching right away just to play with your friends, does not sound like a massive Alliance vs Alliance War. It sounds like a Battle Ground.

The game was deigned and marketed as a lot of things. And all of that was quickly abandoned and ZOS's direction, resources, and development has gone elsewhere, pretty much right after the Lighting patch killed the PvP population.

How can we have hardcore end-game PvP when ZoS has drastically limited the population caps such there is a small amount of players on a huge map and yet we still barely maintain a single campaign? PvP isn't end-game. There isn't any meaningful rewards for winning. ZOS has not bothered to make meaningful changes or adjustments to the map even though the flaws in it are apparent to everyone who plays. There's just a campaign to do anything and that one campaign has to be versatile to accommodate all of the customers who play this game. You may think your vision is awesome. And perhaps it is. But it's a vision dependent on the way the game was years ago that is totally different from what it is now. You are trying to force your vision upon everyone else. If a cooldown is put in, that means people who don't subscribe to your vision will often not be able to play, let alone unable to play with their friends, because often there is only server that any playing is going on.

How is that a compromise? People who hold the "hardcore faction" view aren't giving up anything. It's just hey, here is what we want, here is how the game was meant to be played, ZoS needs to take steps only in this direction. If you play it differently you're a spai, you're a traitor, you are an unhealthy influence in this game, you're the problem, you're playing the game wrong, and ZOS needs to only takes steps away from that direction. Where is the compromise? There isn't any. It's just play the game how we think it should be played (which by the way I do: I rez everyone, put down camps, actually make accurate call outs - unlike the "AD ZERG AT ASH!" which turns out to be like 7 not even high ranked players messing around at the mine - pour multiple oils on people I know from other factions, etc.)

If there was a high PvP population, multiple pop-locked servers, a map and scoring system and robust population that encourage strategy, if there were actual end-game rewards or character progression, I'd be all for the "faction hardcore" approach because there would be actual meaning for it. But that's not what ESO is. It's play with your friends and the PvP in this game is far from hardcore. When CU comes out, hell yeah, put in a faction lock because there's actual consequences (we can build our own castles there). But none of this is ESO.

Edit: Also you yourself say that 90% of DC faction plays the way you want. Someone claimed the AD also has a 90% figure. In my experience, I'd say EP is the same. ESO is already 90% of what you want.

schattenkind wrote: »

Maybe it would take some stress out, if the game would make it easier to get any race/any alliance, to not force ppl into an alliance they dont want to go with (f.e. coz most of the friends are in another alliance).
I dont get it anyway, why there is a resctriction for those choices, except for making money of it by selling for crowns. Totaly annoying, especially for new players who lack all the knowledge about races/alliances, put a lot of time and work into raising a toon and one day recognize that they cant play with their friends.

Sure it wouldnt solve all problems but some, which is better than nothing.

Fair idea, but I think there was a point to making the any race; any alliance a bonus instead of open for everyone. It did (and still kinda does) promote a certain general makeup of the alliances, to make player choices a bit more lore-appropriate. Not sure if this is important enough to outweigh that suggestion's benefits, but it's something to think about.

kookster wrote: »

@Quantum_V perhaps the best solution for us just want to fight players, is allow us to join a rogue group, that just kills anyone not in their group? But at that point i have no clue how you would work out spawn points or anything with IC.... just a random thought.

Absolutely.

I made a thread about going rogue a few months ago. Sadly, it got no response from ZoS.