Needed: Alliance Change Token - for Players and Guilds

agegarton · October 2018

I know, I know...... this isn’t the first post to discuss Alliance Change Tokens. I have got to the stage where I not only want one, but all of the arguments that I have read about why such a thing should not exist are just so much rubbish. I need one !

My main achievement hunter and crafter is allied to the Daggerfall Covenant. He was originally a Breton Magicka Sorcerer, but my desire for greater DPS led me to switch him to a High Elf. Most of my gaming friends used to run with Daggerfall, but over time the crowd I play with most are in the Aldmeri Dominion. I want to be able to switch my main to Aldmeri, so that chasing achievements - especially PVP ranks and related achievements- can be done with my current gaming mates.

The story with my Guild is identical. I can’t capture anything when I’m playing as Aldmeri, because the guild was set up to mirror my main character - it’s Daggerfall (with an admittedly broad spectrum of players / alliances).

I appreciate that some will say I should roll a new toon. Well, I have them all. In fact I have several accounts, too. The point is, my main is my main and until we have account-wide achievements, this guy is my serious achievement hunter. Some others will say it will destroy the balance in PVP if players can switch Alliances. Ironically, these are often the guys who tell me to roll a new toon, effectively negating their argument in the same sentence! But the reality is, few people will pay real money to switch alliances unless they have a good reason, and there’s nothing stopping ZoS from implementing a token that can only be activated at the end of a campaign (they do this already with campaign switching).

So, @ZOS_GinaBruno, maybe you can give us an official take on this old subject? Could Alliance change tokens be on the cards, or is it just too much of a technical nightmare?

VaranisArano · October 2018

I would like an Alliance Chage token. I only play EP in PVP, but I made an AD and DC character before One Tamriel. I do have the Any Race, Any Alliance upgrade, so that wouldnt be a problem.

My Vestige and 8 other characters yell "Blood for the Pact!"

*awkward silence from my AD hero and DC Silencer*

"Blood for the, uhm, Green Pact?"

"Blood for the Night Mother. The sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear."

Pwoo · October 2018

I am about to remake my level 50 Imperial stamDK just because she's my only DC character, and I haven't used her in ages as most guilds I'm in only do PvP with AD (and I would never betray my Queen, duh). I'm going to lose all her titles/achievements and maxed out mount upgrades but I guess that's the price I have to pay for being loyal.

I would welcome permanent alliance change tokens as I still have 2 dunmer EP characters who I never play with anymore for the same reasons.

Danikat · October 2018

Can I just check: when you say we need alliance change tokens for guilds you mean the ability for players to change their alliance would benefit guilds, right? You're not asking for a way to change the allegiance of an entire guild together. Because the first is IMO a valid point but the second would be absolutely horrible.

But as long as it's each playing choosing, and you only change at the end of a campaign I'd be in favour of it and I think you're right that charging for it would mean people think about it and don't just change on a whim. That seems to be how it works in other games - of course you do get the glory hunters with more money than sense changing teams at every opportunity to try and piggyback off the winning team, but most people won't swap unless they think it will be worthwhile in the long-term.

agegarton · October 2018

Danikat wrote: »

Can I just check: when you say we need alliance change tokens for guilds you mean the ability for players to change their alliance would benefit guilds, right? You're not asking for a way to change the allegiance of an entire guild together. Because the first is IMO a valid point but the second would be absolutely horrible.

But as long as it's each playing choosing, and you only change at the end of a campaign I'd be in favour of it and I think you're right that charging for it would mean people think about it and don't just change on a whim. That seems to be how it works in other games - of course you do get the glory hunters with more money than sense changing teams at every opportunity to try and piggyback off the winning team, but most people won't swap unless they think it will be worthwhile in the long-term.

No, I mean I want to change the Alliance affiliation of my guild.

Many guilds welcome players from every faction - but the guild itself is one thing or the other. So in my guild, for example, I can capture keeps and resources with a Daggerfall character, but not with an Aldmeri character- because the guild was set up as Daggerfall. My guild is a trade guild, so it matters little to anyone else but me. Changing the affiliation doesn’t affect the affiliation of any of the guild members.

burglar · October 2018

I really hope ZOS saw ahead of time that by allowing people to change character creation decisions would only result in more problems down the road.

As we see here, "I changed my race and I'm feeling elvish, I even hang out with elves. Ergo, I should be allowed to shift the origin of my character from daggerfall to the adlmeri dominion. Yes, yes... making this switch accessible can be abused and exploited by many pvpers, but that's really just a rubbish argument. Make an argument I don't think is rubbish."

I think you see your concern for vanity more important than maintaining a fair and balanced playing environment. Also, it's not other people's responsibility to educate you on the risks involved with making these kinds of changes accessible. As it stands, even without faction change tokens, great imbalances exist between pvp populations because people have migrated just to be on the winning team, whether by playing an alt or rerolling in that alliance.

The great thing for you is that this ability already exists, albeit in a manner you might find hard to tolerate; create a new character, or begin earning the same achievements on one of your aldmeri characters. Why should you have to suffer this penalty? Because you penalize every other daggerfall pvper when you leave to another alliance.

agegarton · October 2018

ProbablePaul wrote: »

I really hope ZOS saw ahead of time that by allowing people to change character creation decisions would only result in more problems down the road.

As we see here, "I changed my race and I'm feeling elvish, I even hang out with elves. Ergo, I should be allowed to shift the origin of my character from daggerfall to the adlmeri dominion. Yes, yes... making this switch accessible can be abused and exploited by many pvpers, but that's really just a rubbish argument. Make an argument I don't think is rubbish."

I think you see your concern for vanity more important than maintaining a fair and balanced playing environment. Also, it's not other people's responsibility to educate you on the risks involved with making these kinds of changes accessible. As it stands, even without faction change tokens, great imbalances exist between pvp populations because people have migrated just to be on the winning team, whether by playing an alt or rerolling in that alliance.

The great thing for you is that this ability already exists, albeit in a manner you might find hard to tolerate; create a new character, or begin earning the same achievements on one of your aldmeri characters. Why should you have to suffer this penalty? Because you penalize every other daggerfall pvper when you leave to another alliance.

It’s a nice long post that does exactly what I predicted. “It is wrong to change because I have dreamed up a fictional imbalance. Oh, but you can change anyway by building a new character”.

Change the record mate. You have no new argument and the argument you do have makes no sense whatsoever. In addition, you have not responded to the point, only tried to belittle.

Turelus · October 2018

As I keep saying, I still think the best way to deal with Alliances is to untie characters and guilds from them at creation and instead make it something of a choice when you join campaigns (and locked to that until season end or you leave).

Make us more like mercenaries than enlisted soldiers. To handle the Coldharbour intro quest have it that once you escape have a dialogue come up saying you see three locations, a cold island, a desert island etc. and the players can choose which one they land and and which faction are they start in.

Danikat · October 2018

agegarton wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

Can I just check: when you say we need alliance change tokens for guilds you mean the ability for players to change their alliance would benefit guilds, right? You're not asking for a way to change the allegiance of an entire guild together. Because the first is IMO a valid point but the second would be absolutely horrible.

But as long as it's each playing choosing, and you only change at the end of a campaign I'd be in favour of it and I think you're right that charging for it would mean people think about it and don't just change on a whim. That seems to be how it works in other games - of course you do get the glory hunters with more money than sense changing teams at every opportunity to try and piggyback off the winning team, but most people won't swap unless they think it will be worthwhile in the long-term.

No, I mean I want to change the Alliance affiliation of my guild.

Many guilds welcome players from every faction - but the guild itself is one thing or the other. So in my guild, for example, I can capture keeps and resources with a Daggerfall character, but not with an Aldmeri character- because the guild was set up as Daggerfall. My guild is a trade guild, so it matters little to anyone else but me. Changing the affiliation doesn’t affect the affiliation of any of the guild members.

Ah ok, I didn't realise guilds had an actual affiliation too. I've never tired to claim anything in PvP and all my guilds accept people from any alliance. I thought it was just a choice some guilds made to insist on everyone being from the same alliance.

In that case I'd be fine with the guild being able to change too, as long as it doesn't affect the players. I just don't want to log in and find I'm forced to change alliances on one or more characters because one of my guilds decided to switch.

Turelus wrote: »

As I keep saying, I still think the best way to deal with Alliances is to untie characters and guilds from them at creation and instead make it something of a choice when you join campaigns (and locked to that until season end or you leave).

Make us more like mercenaries than enlisted soldiers. To handle the Coldharbour intro quest have it that once you escape have a dialogue come up saying you see three locations, a cold island, a desert island etc. and the players can choose which one they land and and which faction are they start in.

IMO that's what they should have done all along.

If they'd planned it that way from the start they could have made it work like the start of Skyrim - you escape from Coldharbour and then everyone gets dropped into the same starter island which introduces you to all 3 alliances and at the end of that quest you choose one to join - which determines which area of the mainland you go to and who you fight for in Cyrodiil. Which has the added bonus that you'd be about level 10 and ready to enter Cyrodiil when you make the choice.

(One important difference from Skyrim - don't make it so 1 side is trying to kill you and generally being terrible people and the other side is nice to you and commiserating about how terrible the other side is, because I think that affected a lot of people's choice. They should all be equally good and bad, but with different motives to reflect their cause.)

Then of course it would also make more sense to have a way to change allegiance. They could even implement an in-character way to lock you out of the campaigns until the reset - like you have to 'prove yourself' fighting in the PvE maps for a while before you're allowed into Cyrodiil.

anadandy · October 2018

ProbablePaul wrote: »

As it stands, even without faction change tokens, great imbalances exist between pvp populations because people have migrated just to be on the winning team, whether by playing an alt or rerolling in that alliance.

A friend of mine kept (unscientific) track of the Cyro populations in Vivec for a few campaigns by having one character from each alliance earn some pittance of AP (like doing one wall repair) to barely get on the scoreboard and then keep an eye on their position in the leaderboard. The actual spread between Alliances was <500 players. And a different alliance was "on top" each campaign.

I don't think an alliance change token is going to affect anything like that at all. I also think most people wanting this are not looking for a way to flip around alliances at a whim, but some kind of permanent/semi permanent way to switch a long played character to the alliance of choice.

agegarton · October 2018

Turelus wrote: »

As I keep saying, I still think the best way to deal with Alliances is to untie characters and guilds from them at creation and instead make it something of a choice when you join campaigns (and locked to that until season end or you leave).

Make us more like mercenaries than enlisted soldiers. To handle the Coldharbour intro quest have it that once you escape have a dialogue come up saying you see three locations, a cold island, a desert island etc. and the players can choose which one they land and and which faction are they start in.

I absolutely love this concept, and it fits the game so well. It also overcomes the flip/flopping that some people fear by tying in a playing to an Alliance until the end of each campaign (at least). Maybe we could even “sign up” for a certain number of “tours” for some sort of enhanced reward ?

TheShadowScout · October 2018

As I keep posting when this comes up... I am all for alliance change, if Done RIGHT!

Meaning, rather then an "alliance change token" that just pops you over to a different faction, I would love to see a "cloak and dagger" (Well, this is ESO, so maybe... "Hood and Dagger"?

) themed DLC with an "faction loyalty called in question" storyline, that has a big choice in it - stay loyal to your alliance and ferret out the real traitor to prove your innocence and demonstrate your solid loyalty, or fu... uhm... forget loyalty and defect to greener pastures with some other alliance. Boethiah might be involved, this "overthrow lawful authority" sort of thing would be up her alley, right?

With the second half (or two thirds, or whatever) of the questline being different depending on your choice - either uncovering the one who actually framed you, mobilize your old and trusted allies to gather support and track down the true conspiracy; or preparing your escape, courting your desired new friends grabbing some juicy secrets on the way out while dodging the agents coming after you, etc.

Such a story could have a neutral city as "spycraft" focal point (like vienna during the cold war, where spies and agents often went to spy hard between the two sides - for ESO it could be some place between the alliances, a former imperial town declared "free city" after the fall of the empire or even an post-anchorite-war isle of stirk...), but otherwise take you all over the old faction regions, possibly revisiting a few one-time-only maps with new mobs... and perhaps even meeting a few familiar faces (come on, wouldn't you love to slam a porticullis shut into Razum-dars face as you hop on a boat bound to morrowind with Naryu?

)

Such a questline could even have special titles depending on what you choose... "[original faction] Loyalist" or "[original faction] Defector"... obviously it would be a one-time only event, thus making serial defectors that change alliance depending on which one is currently top in cyrodil that some people always fear when this topic comes up an impossibility.

And it also might have drawbacks for PvP, like... reduced AP gain for several months, since noone fully trusts a traitor... or maybe having to re-earn all the AP up to your current rank before you start progressing again, representing your efforts to convince your new allies of your trustworthyness... and definitely increased AP rewards if a member of your original faction takes you down, because...

(there could even be a daily "hunt traitor" mission, and defectors from your PvP-characters alliance in cyrodil getting an visual clue while that mission is active...)

Also, this could be a option to add new factions to PvP. Like... have options to not just defect to one of the other two alliances, but also "go rogue" and join a new "Outlaw" faction (...black color and jolly roger flag, perhaps? Would be hostile to -every- other faction in cyrodil, and spawn at some new but unsecured base, thus very susceptible to enemy raids - trials of being an outlaw in the face of organized armies); or an "Imperial Remnant" faction (Purple imperial diamond flag, spawning in some ill-secured legion base somewhere, possibly at the nibenay border, and also fighting everyone else), or a "neutral" faction that is "yellow" to everyone (green flag and incapable of capturing locations, spawning at merchant camps and such...)
Might be too complicated, but would still be interesting!

thedude33 · October 2018

I agree this should be an option. When I started playing the game I didn't realize some Races were directly linked to a specific faction. I didn't realize it until I tried to enter Cyrodil. All my characters are EP. Two are AD. I won't use the two AD, although I would like to since they are leveled and ready to go.

I understand how Alliance changes can mess up a game. I played GW2, and it was messy and political. I think it's possible if you made it a very tight, and expensive deal. One character a year and charge $50. That would mitigate entire Alliances switching over.

Elsonso · October 2018

ProbablePaul wrote: »

I really hope ZOS saw ahead of time that by allowing people to change character creation decisions would only result in more problems down the road.

I don't think that "problems" is the right word. "Opportunities" works better in that sentence.

I don't know if guilds should have ever been aligned with factions in the war, but they are not neutral. I do think they should stick with the faction decision, once it has been made. Guilds are more of an organization that can be aligned with a government, and we can have 5 of them, so a player who wants to claim resources in three factions should have three guilds. Handling guild faction changes is a lot more complicated than with a single player. My advise to ZOS would be to leave things alone, unless they rebuild guilds from the ground up.

However, characters, who can join any guild, no matter whether the faction matches up or not, are different. They should be allowed to select a faction when they enter the Campaign for the first time. From that point on, in that Campaign, until it expires (or is retired), they will be account-locked to that Alliance.

The choice is account wide for that Campaign, so only characters of the same faction can enter that Campaign. Alts can enter other campaigns under a different faction. That Campaign then becomes faction-locked account-wide, too. Guest faction is selected only when no alt has that Campaign as a home, and is not permanent.

No tokens required. Also no chance of this happening, so if you don't like it, don't worry.