Revert Faction Locks. We've Been Through This Already

Ixtyr · April 2019

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_BrianWheeler

I've been playing this game for five years now. In that time, I've developed a lot of relationships and friendships with many players.

Don't force me to abandon those friendships.

I have multiple guilds that I play with. My AD guild plays twice a week. My pals on DC play on two different nights. Both groups play the same server, because that's where the fights are.

Your re-introduction of faction locks will force me to choose one of those two groups to outright abandon and no longer play with. *** that. *** that so much.

Several years ago we had this debate. Your team elected to remove faction locks after recognizing that they didn't accomplish much beyond artificially preventing people from playing with their friends.

Since that time, many players have taken advantage of the freedom you chose to give back to us to make alts, play with new people, and join groups on different alliances.

Don't fragment your community even more than it already is. I can't believe you had to bring this back up, when the issue was settled years ago for the better.

Edit:

Lock rewards to the first faction you log in on, fine. I'll live with that. But don't outright block me from logging on and playing with my friends.

Phaedrathallassa · April 2019

I PvP very casually. I like being able to tell my friends that I can play on any campaign, any faction. Buddy needs help getting skyshards? I'm there. Want to farm up some transmute crystals? Need help with an achievement? No problem.

Now I will only be able to play... uh... why did you have to make the campaign names so hard to type... Bahlokdaan on my primary faction, Kaalgrontiid on my secondary, and any AD friends will be stuck in Yolnahkriin if they want to play with me.

That sucks.

I can't even figure out what problem this is supposed to solve. Spying? People already use multiple accounts anyways. People switching just for the rewards? Maybe decrease the disparity in rewards between winning and losing - we all know it's about the gloire anyways.

Who was asking for this?

pzschrek · April 2019

Phaedrathallassa wrote: »

Who was asking for this?

Short answer? Bad players hunting for excuses.

As to the OP, I'm in the same boat. Now I get to pick between friends. It isn't okay. There are a lot of solutions to the alleged issues that don't involve ZOS choosing to destroy friendships.

There are the old saws "play other campaigns, BGs, etc." Those are not satisfactory, because my friends don't play those. We hate BG cancer, and the 30 day CP is where the action, and therefore people, are on all factions. It's the one that matters.

If you want faction locks, lock Shor. That's where the biggest alleged problems actually happen anyways.

chris211 · April 2019

@ZOS_GinaBruno sorry for the tag what I recommend is a soft lock where you can still play on other faction but only get on the leaderboards on 1 faction, Don"t lock people out from playing with their friends? What about those on oceanic time zones where a faction can own the entire map and you're locked to said faction what are we going to do? play in shor its completely dead at those times same with sotha

MipMip · April 2019

pzschrek wrote: »

It isn't okay.

That sums it up correctly.

Forcing faction lock on everyone just isn't ok (no the non locked campaigns as planned now are not a real alternative)

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · April 2019

Phaedrathallassa wrote: »

I PvP very casually. I like being able to tell my friends that I can play on any campaign, any faction. Buddy needs help getting skyshards? I'm there. Want to farm up some transmute crystals? Need help with an achievement? No problem.

Now I will only be able to play... uh... why did you have to make the campaign names so hard to type... Bahlokdaan on my primary faction, Kaalgrontiid on my secondary, and any AD friends will be stuck in Yolnahkriin if they want to play with me.

Idk for me it's quite funny to see the campaigns named bahls and grunt. As for the 7 day campaign I think the name suits it perfectly... Nah

DisgracefulMind · April 2019

It's honestly very, very wrong that they are suddenly ripping communities apart. They are worried about people flipping the map for AP? They need to rip oticks away then; give less incentive for the pvdoor, seriously, but let us play with our communities.

zyk · April 2019

I generally prefer the concept of a faction lock, but I think ZOS is making a terrible mistake by introducing inflexible locks.

The fact is that ESO didn't have inflexible hard locks for very long, if ever. The game launched with obvious loopholes that ZOS ignored for years. It was after they tried to close those loopholes that they decided to remove locks entirely because AvA already had a predominantly multifaction culture.

So it's completely unfair to the players to lock factions now, five years in, after cultures have developed around the sanctioned ability to play for multiple factions.

Further, I think this will be such a contentious issue that disgruntled players will not allow the locked campaigns to be successful. Some will protest by doing all of the things that locks are supposed to prevent.

I believe there are a lot of issues related to faction hopping, but there are far better methods of addressing them: At a rewards level, for example. If locks must be implemented, there needs to be some flexibility.

The game should encourage players to play for one faction or to help weak teams, but should not force them to regardless of all other factors.

White wabbit · April 2019

It hasn't even gone live and people are crying about it, let it play out for a few months to see how it will actually play out ! Then ask for a change as I cant see zos making a u turn on it straight away

Ixtyr · April 2019

White wabbit wrote: »

It hasn't even gone live and people are crying about it, let it play out for a few months to see how it will actually play out ! Then ask for a change as I cant see zos making a u turn on it straight away

Why don't you just stop playing with 50% of your friends that you currently play with "for a few months and see how it plays out".

And for no reason other than some completely arbitrary mechanic being reintroduced after being put to bed years ago, at that.

code65536 · April 2019

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people play on has to be a 30-day?

pzschrek · April 2019

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

It's pretty simple: Everyone plays there because everyone plays there.

Ixtyr · April 2019

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

At the end of the day it boils down to where the fights are, for most people. If everyone consciously chooses to migrate over, great. But if not, you end up with hopelessly lopsided campaigns.

Player behavior and choice here will play a big part in dictating how this plays out, but it still doesn't change the fact that this is a totally arbitrary change that wasn't necessary. And for many players, where their guilds choose to play on a given night isn't their decision alone. If someone's guilds don't choose to swap to the less-restricted campaign, they're screwed. I can hardly expect my entire DC guild to change servers to cater just to me and 3-4 other people who play other alliances, particularly if them changing servers means a more lopsided campaign and/or fewer people to fight.

jaws343 · April 2019

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people play on has to be a 30-day?

The end of campaign rewards are different, with Transmute stones being the biggest difference. Plus, a 30 day campaign provides far more opportunities to change the outcome of the campaign if you are not winning. 23 more days to influence the campaign, compared to it resetting every week.

code65536 · April 2019

pzschrek wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

It's pretty simple: Everyone plays there because everyone plays there.

So you're saying that people are on the 30-day not because it's 30-day, but because of inertia? But since all existing campaigns are closing down and people will be forced to select a new campaign when Elsweyr launches, why would that inertia matter? Why not just have everyone pick unlocked? It seems like that would simultaneously fix the problem and send ZOS a message (in the form that ZOS seems to care about the most--player statistics). Again, sorry if this sounds like a dumb question--I'm genuinely curious.

Ixtyr · April 2019

code65536 wrote: »

pzschrek wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

It's pretty simple: Everyone plays there because everyone plays there.

So you're saying that people are on the 30-day not because it's 30-day, but because of inertia? But since all existing campaigns are closing down and people will be forced to select a new campaign when Elsweyr launches, why would that inertia matter? Why not just have everyone pick unlocked? It seems like that would simultaneously fix the problem and send ZOS a message (in the form that ZOS seems to care about the most--player statistics). Again, sorry if this sounds like a dumb question--I'm genuinely curious.

Rewards play a large part as well. You get more Transmute Stones from the 30-day campaigns (unless they just changed that, I haven't gotten through the full Patch Notes yet).

That, and if everyone *does* swap, Shor right now isn't a totally dead server. They get a couple bars on every faction most nights. Now we may end up with even more people trying to pile into one server than we currently have. Sotha, Vivec and Shor people all piling into one server? That could be atrocious for queues.

People generally want to play where the fights are better and the rewards are better. They're making people who want to play together all settle for lesser rewards and migrate to a server where there potentially won't be as many players - or if everyone moves over, *too many* players, and performance will be even worse while we have to deal with even longer queue times.

We'll see how it plays out and if everyone migrates to the 7-day, but that still doesn't change the fact that this is a hopelessly pointless reversion of a change that fragments the community even further by its design.

Jaimeh · April 2019

But you can still play with your friends: the IC campaign (both CP/no CP), the 7-day campaign, and the <lv50 one are all unlocked. As well as with some of your friends, like you said, on the two main campaigns. Yes, that's where the fights are, but you can't have your cake and eat it, we pick factions for our characters for a reason. Also, besides community, there's also the case of faction pride, playing strategically, etc., and it's funny how most people decided to 'play with other friends' when it's most convenient map-wise... Like a commenter said above, let's wait and see how it turns out, maybe it's a healthy change for PvP, I for one, am tired of having frequent enemy encounters with the same players that I then later see being trolls or generals in my alliance's zone chat.

jaws343 · April 2019

Jaimeh wrote: »

But you can still play with your friends: the IC campaign (both CP/no CP), the 7-day campaign, and the <lv50 one are all unlocked. As well as with some of your friends, like you said, on the two main campaigns. Yes, that's where the fights are, but you can't have your cake and eat it, we pick factions for our characters for a reason. Also, besides community, there's also the case of faction pride, playing strategically, etc., and it's funny how most people decided to 'play with other friends' when it's most convenient map-wise... Like a commenter said above, let's wait and see how it turns out, maybe it's a healthy change for PvP, I for one, am tired of having frequent enemy encounters with the same players that I then later see being trolls or generals in my alliance's zone chat.

Stop, just stop. Everyone. Stop bringing up the IC campaigns as options. It is not, in anyway, the same PVP that you find in Cyrodil. It is not an option to switch to to avoid faction locks. Period. So stop throwing it out there.

Arkray · April 2019

Agree with the OP, it's too late for faction locks.

Ixtyr · April 2019

Jaimeh wrote: »

Yes, that's where the fights are, but you can't have your cake and eat it

Except the thing is, until now, we have been able to have that cake.

ZOS chose to let us have it. They encouraged people to play with their groups of friends, wherever they wanted to, regardless of which campaign they were on.

They removed faction locks as we knew them, years ago, because they didn't provide value to gameplay, instead restricting players from playing together.

It's incredibly insulting to be told, after years of being able to play the content we want to play together, "go play some other content if you want to keep playing with your friends". Why? Why is the solution to shove me into IC when what we want to do is continue playing in Cyrodiil together? My guilds aren't consciously trying to fix campaign results or troll one another. My AD group fights on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my DC one is on Wednesdays and Fridays. Those core groups are mostly people not swapping between alliances - I just want to play with both groups of friends. And I've been permitted, if not outright encouraged, by ZOS to do so for years now. Except now I can't? How the hell is that even remotely okay?

Elong · April 2019

Reverb · April 2019

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people play on has to be a 30-day?

I prefer a 30-day score board. A month in which the top spot typically changes hands often, and map dynamics shift in response. Where you are on the scoreboard, and where the other factions are in relation, are part of the discussion when prioritizing where to attack and where to focus defense.

I’ve moved with guilds to 7-day campaigns several times over the years, and I always find myself missing the longer term dynamic and switch back.

In a short campaigneverything will turnover in a few days, and the end of campaign rewards aren’t as good, so scoreboard doesn’t really matter. Most people on those campaigns fight in the short term, “where’s the action right now? where can we find good fights tonight?” Really it seems perfect for people who play multiple factions.

Ranger209 · April 2019

Ixtyr wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

At the end of the day it boils down to where the fights are, for most people. If everyone consciously chooses to migrate over, great. But if not, you end up with hopelessly lopsided campaigns.

Player behavior and choice here will play a big part in dictating how this plays out, but it still doesn't change the fact that this is a totally arbitrary change that wasn't necessary. And for many players, where their guilds choose to play on a given night isn't their decision alone. If someone's guilds don't choose to swap to the less-restricted campaign, they're screwed. I can hardly expect my entire DC guild to change servers to cater just to me and 3-4 other people who play other alliances, particularly if them changing servers means a more lopsided campaign and/or fewer people to fight.

But you have no issue asking the entire game to cater to you and those 3-4 other people? As stated above this is a fresh start and the best way for people to show their numbers as to locked or not locked is to join the campaign that has what you want. If enough people do this and it is shown that faction hoppers outnumber faction loyalists then maybe they will swap the 7 day and 30 day as to which is locked and which isn't. If you all just take a defeatist attitude and join the locked campaign even though you are against it then ZOS will never know. They changed battlegrounds to CP then back again to no CP. They also have stated that this is somewhat of a trial to see how it is received, as well as to see if they can spread population among servers and reduce map flipping. I would say each person should state their case in game by joining the server that suits their play style.

Elong · April 2019

Ranger209 wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

At the end of the day it boils down to where the fights are, for most people. If everyone consciously chooses to migrate over, great. But if not, you end up with hopelessly lopsided campaigns.

Player behavior and choice here will play a big part in dictating how this plays out, but it still doesn't change the fact that this is a totally arbitrary change that wasn't necessary. And for many players, where their guilds choose to play on a given night isn't their decision alone. If someone's guilds don't choose to swap to the less-restricted campaign, they're screwed. I can hardly expect my entire DC guild to change servers to cater just to me and 3-4 other people who play other alliances, particularly if them changing servers means a more lopsided campaign and/or fewer people to fight.

But you have no issue asking the entire game to cater to you and those 3-4 other people? As stated above this is a fresh start and the best way for people to show their numbers as to locked or not locked is to join the campaign that has what you want. If enough people do this and it is shown that faction hoppers outnumber faction loyalists then maybe they will swap the 7 day and 30 day as to which is locked and which isn't. If you all just take a defeatist attitude and join the locked campaign even though you are against it then ZOS will never know. They changed battlegrounds to CP then back again to no CP. They also have stated that this is somewhat of a trial to see how it is received, as well as to see if they can spread population among servers and reduce map flipping. I would say each person should state their case in game by joining the server that suits their play style.

It isn't just him, it's a bloody lot of us.

Reverb · April 2019

Elong wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

At the end of the day it boils down to where the fights are, for most people. If everyone consciously chooses to migrate over, great. But if not, you end up with hopelessly lopsided campaigns.

Player behavior and choice here will play a big part in dictating how this plays out, but it still doesn't change the fact that this is a totally arbitrary change that wasn't necessary. And for many players, where their guilds choose to play on a given night isn't their decision alone. If someone's guilds don't choose to swap to the less-restricted campaign, they're screwed. I can hardly expect my entire DC guild to change servers to cater just to me and 3-4 other people who play other alliances, particularly if them changing servers means a more lopsided campaign and/or fewer people to fight.

But you have no issue asking the entire game to cater to you and those 3-4 other people? As stated above this is a fresh start and the best way for people to show their numbers as to locked or not locked is to join the campaign that has what you want. If enough people do this and it is shown that faction hoppers outnumber faction loyalists then maybe they will swap the 7 day and 30 day as to which is locked and which isn't. If you all just take a defeatist attitude and join the locked campaign even though you are against it then ZOS will never know. They changed battlegrounds to CP then back again to no CP. They also have stated that this is somewhat of a trial to see how it is received, as well as to see if they can spread population among servers and reduce map flipping. I would say each person should state their case in game by joining the server that suits their play style.

It isn't just him, it's a bloody lot of us.

I guess we’ll find out.

Ixtyr · April 2019

Ranger209 wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

At the end of the day it boils down to where the fights are, for most people. If everyone consciously chooses to migrate over, great. But if not, you end up with hopelessly lopsided campaigns.

Player behavior and choice here will play a big part in dictating how this plays out, but it still doesn't change the fact that this is a totally arbitrary change that wasn't necessary. And for many players, where their guilds choose to play on a given night isn't their decision alone. If someone's guilds don't choose to swap to the less-restricted campaign, they're screwed. I can hardly expect my entire DC guild to change servers to cater just to me and 3-4 other people who play other alliances, particularly if them changing servers means a more lopsided campaign and/or fewer people to fight.

But you have no issue asking the entire game to cater to you and those 3-4 other people?

That's 3-4 people in one of my guilds, not the entire game. I thought that was pretty obvious. Thanks for deliberately misconstruing my comment.

This isn't as simple as "every player state their case in-game by joining their preferred server" either. A guild has to make a decision on where it chooses to play based on what appeals to the majority of its active players. If the fights are significantly better on Server A, but you'll lose 4-5 people if you don't go to Server B, you're netting out to an unappealing decision either way.

This isn't like BGs having their ruleset changed. If you played noCP versus CP, that didn't outright prevent you from still choosing to group up with the same players to jump into a Battleground.

Lock rewards to one faction if you want to discourage fair-weather players swapping mid-campaign. Don't completely prevent people from running with their guild(s) by blocking them from logging in.

Jaimeh · April 2019

Ixtyr wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

Yes, that's where the fights are, but you can't have your cake and eat it

Except the thing is, until now, we have been able to have that cake.

ZOS chose to let us have it. They encouraged people to play with their groups of friends, wherever they wanted to, regardless of which campaign they were on.

They removed faction locks as we knew them, years ago, because they didn't provide value to gameplay, instead restricting players from playing together.

It's incredibly insulting to be told, after years of being able to play the content we want to play together, "go play some other content if you want to keep playing with your friends". Why? Why is the solution to shove me into IC when what we want to do is continue playing in Cyrodiil together? My guilds aren't consciously trying to fix campaign results or troll one another. My AD group fights on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my DC one is on Wednesdays and Fridays. Those core groups are mostly people not swapping between alliances - I just want to play with both groups of friends. And I've been permitted, if not outright encouraged, by ZOS to do so for years now. Except now I can't? How the hell is that even remotely okay?

The fact that it's been happening doesn't make it right, and maybe ZOS didn't realize the extend to which it affects campaign outcomes (or emp crowing swapping), and is finally doing something about it. As it is now, it allows groups to swap to one faction, pvdoor the map, swap to another to do the same, and so on. It's disheartening to see all factions having 2 bars for example, and when faction X gains some ground, suddenly its poplocked, with factions Y and Z now empty. Your group might not do it, but it certainly happens. The locking and emp restriction will help with that. If you choose to play in a faction, then swapping to another one in the same campain is doing a diservice to the former faction, and it makes no sense immersion-wise, nor ethics-wise. As for the campaign rewards being locked to one faction, people mostly care for the transmute crystals, they can still get plenty since they'll likely have a few toons in the same faction. Again, let's see how it plays out; it will definitely build more camaraderie within factions, it will promote strategic play, which is the whole point, and at the end of the day, overland Cyro PvP is AvAvA: its illogical to think that unrestricted alliance hopping could be good for it.

White wabbit · April 2019

Ixtyr wrote: »

White wabbit wrote: »

It hasn't even gone live and people are crying about it, let it play out for a few months to see how it will actually play out ! Then ask for a change as I cant see zos making a u turn on it straight away

Why don't you just stop playing with 50% of your friends that you currently play with "for a few months and see how it plays out".

And for no reason other than some completely arbitrary mechanic being reintroduced after being put to bed years ago, at that.

Nice of you to imply that I have friends on here

Kadoin · April 2019

Elong wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

Ixtyr wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

Naive question from an outsider looking in: How important is the campaign duration? Or, to put it more directly, why doesn't everyone just migrate to the 7-day unlocked campaign and leave the 30-day campaigns behind as the "dead" campaigns? Is there a particular reason why the "main" campaign that most people plays one has to be a 30-day?

At the end of the day it boils down to where the fights are, for most people. If everyone consciously chooses to migrate over, great. But if not, you end up with hopelessly lopsided campaigns.

Player behavior and choice here will play a big part in dictating how this plays out, but it still doesn't change the fact that this is a totally arbitrary change that wasn't necessary. And for many players, where their guilds choose to play on a given night isn't their decision alone. If someone's guilds don't choose to swap to the less-restricted campaign, they're screwed. I can hardly expect my entire DC guild to change servers to cater just to me and 3-4 other people who play other alliances, particularly if them changing servers means a more lopsided campaign and/or fewer people to fight.

But you have no issue asking the entire game to cater to you and those 3-4 other people? As stated above this is a fresh start and the best way for people to show their numbers as to locked or not locked is to join the campaign that has what you want. If enough people do this and it is shown that faction hoppers outnumber faction loyalists then maybe they will swap the 7 day and 30 day as to which is locked and which isn't. If you all just take a defeatist attitude and join the locked campaign even though you are against it then ZOS will never know. They changed battlegrounds to CP then back again to no CP. They also have stated that this is somewhat of a trial to see how it is received, as well as to see if they can spread population among servers and reduce map flipping. I would say each person should state their case in game by joining the server that suits their play style.

It isn't just him, it's a bloody lot of us.

It's true! I've already prepared to do all the chapters I never completed, decorate my home, level all my chars PvE, marked bugged areas of the map to go and troll people with, etc. in preparation for the next patch when I don't step into Cyrodiil.

Those that want the lock can have it; I simply won't be playing in Cyrodiil in any of the campaigns. Especially not a dead one. I can't believe I'm saying this, but... "PvE was better anyway..." ugh...gotta wash my mouth out with soap now.

Ahtu · April 2019

ADAPT OR DIE.

Crixus8000 · April 2019

White wabbit wrote: »

It hasn't even gone live and people are crying about it, let it play out for a few months to see how it will actually play out ! Then ask for a change as I cant see zos making a u turn on it straight away

I don't get why some people always say this. Not everything has to be tested to see how it works, it doesn't take a genius to see that being unable to play with certain friends will be very annoying for many players.