This event has taught us that Alliance Lock was not that popular after all.

kaushad · July 30

Until just now, I didn't care enough to read what Alliance Locking was, so I used the "Standard" servers. It sounded inconvenient to me. And as it turns out, it is. Today, I wanted to complete a Cheydinhaal quest. So being locked into the AD would have given me a longer journey and increased the odds of getting killed by local players. And when I want Transmute crystals, I can hedge my bets with three different sessions. Also, my characters have different abilities, so the variety makes it more interesting.

Aurielle · July 30

Highwayman wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

Many of us would hate that. Better to have options.

I agree it is better to have options, that is where I was coming from initially on this topic. I unfortunately think we are quickly getting to a place where options are the enemy of quality. I'd rather have one good campaign than a handful of bad ones.

If management decisions need to be made cutting resources (or not adding as complexity grows), it would be nice for the resources that are used to be spent in a manner that keep some minimal level of game quality.

I am excited to see what next quarter brings though. Also, I appreciate you addressing what I said, even minimally.

We do (in my opinion) already have a good campaign: it’s called Gray Host. What makes that campaign good (again, IMO), is the fact that none of the shenanigans we see in Blackreach on the regular can happen there, because the ruleset prevents it.

I tried to make BR work for me for almost a year, because I really liked my guild mates who mained EP in BR. Eventually, I just had to move on and make new friends in Gray Host. The fights in GH are more evenly matched, the score actually matters, low pop abuse is minimal, and I don’t find myself facing the same DC players on their AD characters (and vice versa) depending on who’s dominating the map that day.

If the devs were to increase population caps and roll GH and BR into one, giving the campaign BR’s looser ruleset in the process, I’d probably start playing another game. I wouldn’t be the only one. I’d rather see ZOS increase the population caps without merging campaigns or changing their rulesets. There should be a place for those who don’t have faction loyalty and a place for those who do.

darvaria · July 31

The game can NOT handle higher population caps. It simply can NOT be done.

And you can play any faction on Black Reach so they already have the option of switching factions. And routinely, if there is a competitive map in BR, players switch over to see "where a faction is going" or if there is a camp up.

EdjeSwift · July 31

darvaria wrote: »

The game can NOT handle higher population caps. It simply can NOT be done.

And you can play any faction on Black Reach so they already have the option of switching factions. And routinely, if there is a competitive map in BR, players switch over to see "where a faction is going" or if there is a camp up.

It definitely can, but the price you'd pay for that cap might not be worth it.

shadyjane62 · July 31

I do not like the locked feature. It limits where I can take one or the other of my two level 50's. Sometime one faction or the other is in control of map. I don't like Raven because it is no proc. So at level 50 I can't use the under 50, I don't use Raven and the other will be locked for one of my two chars.

If that one has a faction not my own in control there is no where for me to play.

spartaxoxo · July 31

It's been full most times I have checked on PS

CrashTest · July 31

I don't know about other platforms but PCNA Gray Host is always the most popular campaign even when there's no event. Blackreach is like a lobby where you go to wait for your GH queue to pop.

WaywardArgonian · July 31

Aurielle wrote: »

I’ve long seen the “I can’t play with my friends” argument against faction locks. You can play with your friends at any time: on Blackreach. Just have to get your friends on the same page. They’re friends, right? If they want to play with you as much as you want to play with them, it shouldn’t be an issue. And if you’re not satisfied with the gameplay on Blackreach? Decide which friends you’re going to play with on Grey Host on a month by month basis.

Yeah duh. Of course I will opt for Blackreach provided there is content there. There is no use in persuading all of my friends to go to Blackreach if there is no good PVP to be had there. Now there is, but it's not a given.

divnyi · July 31

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Alliance lock was a very good idea.

Alliance Change Token was a very terrible idea....

This, thousand times.
Alliance should be picked at the start of the campaign.
This is a reason why casual players don't play cyro.
People can't naturally end up on the same side and they aren't that involved in PvP to buy crown store items for that.
Thus, casual guilds have at least twice smaller population during raids than they could have.
Those are the kind of runs that could have made some players hooked at the endgame content.

ZOS is shooting their own game's retention with the desire to cash out immediately.

Aurielle · July 31

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

I’ve long seen the “I can’t play with my friends” argument against faction locks. You can play with your friends at any time: on Blackreach. Just have to get your friends on the same page. They’re friends, right? If they want to play with you as much as you want to play with them, it shouldn’t be an issue. And if you’re not satisfied with the gameplay on Blackreach? Decide which friends you’re going to play with on Grey Host on a month by month basis.

Yeah duh. Of course I will opt for Blackreach provided there is content there. There is no use in persuading all of my friends to go to Blackreach if there is no good PVP to be had there. Now there is, but it's not a given.

It’s up to players to change that — not ZOS. If PVP sans alliance locks was truly as preferred for PVP as OP claims it is, there’d be no shortage of good fights to be had in BR. Alas, the lack of locks tends to encourage a boring PvDoor, AP farm sort of playstyle. Steal all the scrolls, flip the map one color, swap to your characters on another alliance and repeat. If that playstyle isn’t appealing to you (it certainly isn’t appealing to me), you and your friends can try to change that culture.

Alas, when there’s no faction loyalty, there’s much less of an impetus to aggressively capture and defend key keeps. Simple.

dcrush · July 31

I just spent some time in Blackreach PC/NA after getting bored of being zerged down by 40EP every time someone tried to take a resource in GH.

Pop-locked AD was taking keeps with 10 people and couldn’t take scrolls from DC who had 1-2 bars because nobody showed up.

Seems to me Blackreach is where people go to do quests.

Aurielle · July 31

dcrush wrote: »

I just spent some time in Blackreach PC/NA after getting bored of being zerged down by 40EP every time someone tried to take a resource in GH.

Pop-locked AD was taking keeps with 10 people and couldn’t take scrolls from DC who had 1-2 bars because nobody showed up.

Seems to me Blackreach is where people go to do quests.

It’s pure PvDoor/AP farm, enabled by the lack of faction locks. DC players log into their AD characters to get the low pop bonus on DC, quickly flip most of the map, then log back on to DC to retake what they took on AD with the low pop bonus applied and most/all scrolls in possession. The ball groups on both alliances just harass the few remaining EP loyalists to maintain the status quo. That’s why the AD/DC score is so close. They just flip back and forth.

Gray Host would devolve into the same thing if faction locks were removed.

Edit: thanks for the insightful, enjoy the AP!

xylena_lazarow · July 31

All those players screaming for faction locks, years later, are still screaming about spies in zone chat.

Like many real world political causes, it's popular, but ineffective nonsense in practice.

ToRelax · July 31

Highwayman wrote: »

McMasterx wrote: »

There's no reason to force GH to be the same as Blackreach, why even bother having 2 of the same campaign then?

This is precisely my point from the beginning. I'd like to see the resources merged into a single higher population cap campaign with less restrictions.

Despite appearances, ZOS are in fact video game developers and not deities of the Aurbis. If they could turn the resources they use to maintain extra campaigns right now into effective anti-lag machines, they would.

Highwayman · July 31

ToRelax wrote: »

Highwayman wrote: »

McMasterx wrote: »

There's no reason to force GH to be the same as Blackreach, why even bother having 2 of the same campaign then?

This is precisely my point from the beginning. I'd like to see the resources merged into a single higher population cap campaign with less restrictions.

Despite appearances, ZOS are in fact video game developers and not deities of the Aurbis. If they could turn the resources they use to maintain extra campaigns right now into effective anti-lag machines, they would.

I'll happily grant that we don't know what their infrastructure actually looks like. I do however bet it is easier than you think.

I know people like raging on devs but I am sure they haven't completely ignored the last 25 years of virtualization and cloud hosting advancements in building this. There might not be a simple dial, but this is far from the most difficult thing they have accomplished here.

Iriidius · July 31

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Blackreach has been the more popular server on EU for a while now, but a lot of it has to do with reasons not related to faction lock. It's more that EP was poplocked for most of the day and other factions eventually grew tired of it and moved to Blackreach. This happened once before and the situation will revert again when one faction flees back to Gray Host for the same reason.

Though I agree that faction lock is annoying and would often prevent me from playing with certain friends back when Blackreach was a ghost town.

I think blackreach startet to be the more popular campaign somewhen around the beginning of the campaign/month. Strongest alliance in blackreach PC EU changed often, currently DC is strongest with EP second and AD last while on Blackreach AD is first, EP second and DC last. Many EP came blackreach too. If other alliances fled from EP why did EP leave too and are only second now?
For me it rather seems like the EP coming from Grey Host to Blackreach made it the main campaign, other than previous cases where DC and AD went Blackreach to farm outnumbered EP (Exactly the ones that did not zerg them at Grey Host and already are outnumbered without DC and AD from GH coming to BR) while Grey Host EP stayed there and enjoyed uncontested control of the map.

Desiato wrote: »

Highwayman wrote: »

Yeah, I probably would have voted that way at the time too, because it didn't matter to me and it would have seemed like something that some would get enjoyment from. Can you point out this vote? Did it happen to have an "I don't care but go ahead and try it" option?

It matters now to me with extreme population imbalances and low pop cap exacerbating the issue. It's doing more harm than good, where it was a meaningless gesture for role players back then.

There was no ballot box. Players choose which ruleset they prefer based on the campaign they join. I know not everyone who plays on GH prefers faction lock, but obviously the majority lean that way or the other ruleset would be the main campaign.

The low pop caps actually help minimize population imbalances. There are times now on PC/NA/GH when EP is poplocked and DC and AD have 2-3 bars. If more EP players could join during these periods, the imbalance would be worse. By now, I mean non-event conditions.

When the per-faction cap was theorized to be 150-200 players, we would often see one faction poplocked with another at 2 bars. PC/NA AD went through a brutal, extended period of being completely noncompetitive, depleting its playerbase. And this was before faction locking. I'm not trying to argue for lower caps, I'm just pointing out that they don't result in larger imbalances.

Players did not choose which ruleset they prefer.
Althought Zos created new campaigns when they introduced faction lock it was obvious which new campaign succeeded which old campaign because they otherwise keept old ruleset and players joined successor of previous campaign usually.
30 day cp campaign Vivec was replaced by 30 day cp faction lock Kaalgrontiid and 1 year later Gray Host with same rules,
30 day no cp campaign Sotha Sil was replaced by 30 day no cp faction lock Bargrothar and 1 year later Ravenwatch with same rules(no faction lock),
7 day cp campaign Shor was replaced with 7 day cp unlocked campaign Saagrothar (keeping same players)than 1 update later with 30 day cp unlocked campaign Yolnakriin (where most of now campaignless Saagrothaar players joined but few from Kaalgrontiid and Baalogdan) and next year with Blackreach (keeping same players),
7day u50 Kyne became Mulaanmir than Icereach
and most players (stayed in same ruleset and) chose the obvious successor of their previous campaign probably because their friends and other players were doing the same.
It is practically like ZoS put faction lock on the full campaigns(greyhost, ravenwatch before noproc) and not on the empty (blackreach previously) and players just stayed.

Iriidius · August 1

Highwayman wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Highwayman wrote: »

Yeah, I probably would have voted that way at the time too, because it didn't matter to me and it would have seemed like something that some would get enjoyment from. Can you point out this vote? Did it happen to have an "I don't care but go ahead and try it" option?

It matters now to me with extreme population imbalances and low pop cap exacerbating the issue. It's doing more harm than good, where it was a meaningless gesture for role players back then.

There was no ballot box. Players choose which ruleset they prefer based on the campaign they join.

Seems a bad voting method. Play where the action is or don't play to prove a point. Let me know when there is a real vote.

Also, I personally always just played the top campaign if they were empty, what control does your voting method use for that behavior?

Why if they are empty? You mean if there is no queue? Normaly players prefer full campaign.

Playing main(first) campaign because it is full seems to be what most PvPers are doing. It really is no voting if ZoS just put faction lock on (obvious successor of) most populated alliance.

Desiato wrote: »

Highwayman wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Highwayman wrote: »

Yeah, I probably would have voted that way at the time too, because it didn't matter to me and it would have seemed like something that some would get enjoyment from. Can you point out this vote? Did it happen to have an "I don't care but go ahead and try it" option?

It matters now to me with extreme population imbalances and low pop cap exacerbating the issue. It's doing more harm than good, where it was a meaningless gesture for role players back then.

There was no ballot box. Players choose which ruleset they prefer based on the campaign they join.

Seems a bad voting method. Play where the action is or don't play to prove a point. Let me know when there is a real vote.

Also, I personally always just played the top campaign if they were empty, what control does your voting method use for that behavior?

I suggest showing some leadership and supporting the ruleset you prefer. If you're correct and most players prefer non-locked factions, then all they need to do is support the ruleset they prefer to make BR the main campaign. Be the change you want to see.

Most players dont have leadership and cant get others to follow them to other campaign, only group/guildleaders can take enaugh players to other campaign to make a difference. And other factions will not follow because most players prefer outnumbering their enemys and therefore less enemies (except the competitive players/groups find no action anymore and follow them, leaving the
uncompetitive players alone unless they follow).

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

TheMajority wrote: »

says nothing other than that pve players are going into blackreach to turn in quests and stuff cause they ain't locked to one faction and can go in on whatever has the map

On EU it was the case way before the event as well. Multiple PVP guilds/groups I'm in have switched their focus from GH to BR for a while now.

Yeah, at least 2 EP smallscales switched from Grey Host to Blackreach at the beginning of the month with both trying to hold emperor until MYM. On the other Faction it should be similar althought they were already more populated before. Seems like many followed them including the ballgroups.

Desiato wrote: »

Highwayman wrote: »

So now you are going to strawman this? That wasn't my argument at all. My argument is most people don't care about alliance lock in and of itself. I already have made the change I want, and am continuing to do so here in a public forum. Thanks for your concern though.

Edit: just for clarity, the change I made was playing multiple accounts.

That wasn't a strawman. In any case, let's not devolve into arguing semantics. I'm not sure what you're arguing for then. Players currently have a choice.

The playerbase as a whole chooses which rulesets they prefer based on which they choose to play on. That doesn't mean everyone who plays on GH prefers faction lock or has a binary opinion on the subject. But obviously more players care about faction lock than those who do not to tilt the balance, at least on PC/NA. I think it's also true on all platforms/regions.

You are right with

Desiato wrote: »

That doesn't mean everyone who plays on GH prefers faction lock or has a binary opinion on the subject.

There are many players on Grey Host who complain about faction lock and change faction every month or regulary.
Players do not choose campaign because of faction lock or no faction lock but rather for the population(numbers and playstile/behaviour) and performance.
Some choose full campaign with all factions pop locket and zerging at primetime, ballgroups, lag, queue,
others prefer empty campaign (with unbalanced factions), stronger factions overrunning weaker factions or no fights at all but no queue, lag and ballgroups.

MasterSpatula · August 1

Your facts don't line up to the reality I'm seeing.

WaywardArgonian · August 1

Aurielle wrote: »

It’s up to players to change that — not ZOS. If PVP sans alliance locks was truly as preferred for PVP as OP claims it is, there’d be no shortage of good fights to be had in BR. Alas, the lack of locks tends to encourage a boring PvDoor, AP farm sort of playstyle. Steal all the scrolls, flip the map one color, swap to your characters on another alliance and repeat. If that playstyle isn’t appealing to you (it certainly isn’t appealing to me), you and your friends can try to change that culture.

Alas, when there’s no faction loyalty, there’s much less of an impetus to aggressively capture and defend key keeps. Simple.

That is the exact sort of playstyle that is prevalent on GH EU and the reason why Blackreach is more popular now. Faction loyalist groups tend not to care about finding good PVP and instead just do what they can to paint the map in their preferred color.

The same can be seen on non-locked campaigns and it is nearly always the zealous faction loyalist groups doing this sort of thing because they are the only ones who actually still care about the campaign.

What happens on a faction-locked server is that one faction (the one that cares the most about the campaign) will start dominating the scoreboard, and then the next campaign many casual players flock there for easy end-of-campaign rewards. So if you happen to be on that server when that shift happens, you are stuck there for the remainder of the month. I've had the experience multiple times where we'd have to take a break from a campaign 1 week in and wait until we could switch at the end of the month, simply because there was no challenging content to be found even as a 6-man with our faction being too dominant. The passive-aggressive suggestion that a faction lock is only an issue when you want to PvDoor is a weird one since some of the most frequent faction-swappers tend to be smallscales, ballgroups and 1vXers who don't want the help of a 40-man zerg in their fights.

WaywardArgonian · August 1

Iriidius wrote: »

I think blackreach startet to be the more popular campaign somewhen around the beginning of the campaign/month. Strongest alliance in blackreach PC EU changed often, currently DC is strongest with EP second and AD last while on Blackreach AD is first, EP second and DC last. Many EP came blackreach too. If other alliances fled from EP why did EP leave too and are only second now?
For me it rather seems like the EP coming from Grey Host to Blackreach made it the main campaign, other than previous cases where DC and AD went Blackreach to farm outnumbered EP (Exactly the ones that did not zerg them at Grey Host and already are outnumbered without DC and AD from GH coming to BR) while Grey Host EP stayed there and enjoyed uncontested control of the map.

I don't know, I didn't play for a month and when I came back, this situation was the reality. All I know is that some Blackreach AD were complaining that they no longer got easy wins now that DC and EP were there, which I find a funny notion.

The previous time this happened, it was because 12-man EP ballgroups + zergs were pushing every keep/resource that was breathed on by another faction even outside of prime time. Whether it was EP that did that this time or another faction is ultimately not relevant; it seems like the popularity of Blackreach starts to surge every time one faction in GH starts becoming too dominant.

Highwayman · August 1

Iriidius wrote: »

Highwayman wrote: »

Seems a bad voting method. Play where the action is or don't play to prove a point. Let me know when there is a real vote.

Why if they are empty? You mean if there is no queue? Normaly players prefer full campaign.

Playing main(first) campaign because it is full seems to be what most PvPers are doing. It really is no voting if ZoS just put faction lock on (obvious successor of) most populated alliance.

I agree, it seems a bad voting method. It also seems a bad first principle to work from. The argument there was a vote is flawed. Nobody will care though because egalitarianism isn't terribly popular even with people that claim it's what they want.

CrazyKitty · August 1

I think the data shows the opposite of the OP's assertion. It shows that people will wait in queue for over an hour, sometimes two just to get into their home campaigns.

Aurielle · August 1

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Aurielle wrote: »

It’s up to players to change that — not ZOS. If PVP sans alliance locks was truly as preferred for PVP as OP claims it is, there’d be no shortage of good fights to be had in BR. Alas, the lack of locks tends to encourage a boring PvDoor, AP farm sort of playstyle. Steal all the scrolls, flip the map one color, swap to your characters on another alliance and repeat. If that playstyle isn’t appealing to you (it certainly isn’t appealing to me), you and your friends can try to change that culture.

Alas, when there’s no faction loyalty, there’s much less of an impetus to aggressively capture and defend key keeps. Simple.

That is the exact sort of playstyle that is prevalent on GH EU and the reason why Blackreach is more popular now. Faction loyalist groups tend not to care about finding good PVP and instead just do what they can to paint the map in their preferred color.

The same can be seen on non-locked campaigns and it is nearly always the zealous faction loyalist groups doing this sort of thing because they are the only ones who actually still care about the campaign.

What happens on a faction-locked server is that one faction (the one that cares the most about the campaign) will start dominating the scoreboard, and then the next campaign many casual players flock there for easy end-of-campaign rewards. So if you happen to be on that server when that shift happens, you are stuck there for the remainder of the month. I've had the experience multiple times where we'd have to take a break from a campaign 1 week in and wait until we could switch at the end of the month, simply because there was no challenging content to be found even as a 6-man with our faction being too dominant. The passive-aggressive suggestion that a faction lock is only an issue when you want to PvDoor is a weird one since some of the most frequent faction-swappers tend to be smallscales, ballgroups and 1vXers who don't want the help of a 40-man zerg in their fights.

Well, YMMV. This has not been my experience at all with Gray Host on PC NA. It’s rare to take a keep uncontested on GH, whereas that is the norm on BR.

Heelie · August 1

CrazyKitty wrote: »

I think the data shows the opposite of the OP's assertion. It shows that people will wait in queue for over an hour, sometimes two just to get into their home campaigns.

At least on PC EU Grey Host is not capped at prime time at the moment, but Blackreach is, at 19:45 CEST.

Joy_Division · August 1

Still arguing this 5 years later?

I can only speak for PC/ NA as that's the only server I know and pay attention to. The faction lock campaign choice was always going to win on PC/NA from the moment of its announcement because a plurality of dedicated hardcore alliance players were and remain convinced that is is a crucial factor in limiting the sorts of spying, faction-hopping, double-teaming, scroll-trading shenanigans they feel undermine the sanctity of the campaign these players care very much about (despite them complaining about this in zone chat literally every night on the locked campaign). Because these are the same players who organized groups and sweaty min-maxers seek for their AP farms, the farmers were going to follow them there. And then there are players such as myself who could care less, whose main objective is avoiding dead maps and low population were going to follow them too. I remember back in the day when PvP actual had a player base with ques of up to 200 players to the "main" campaign: yeah, we all sat in that because we wanted fights, not a dead server.

A server that does not have tri locked faction populations is subject to extreme disparities in the relative power of factions, leading to very frustrating feelings of either getting constantly pushed back to your gates until some pity is shown or your own faction just face-stomping over-matched players I legit feel bad fighting against. Nope. I don;t care if I have to be a banana and play with strangers. Not dealing with that nonsense.

majulook · August 1

I really like Mayhem it is a fun event. That being stated, this will be the last one for me the removal of no-proc for all campaigns is the end for me.

TDVM · August 2

Cyrodil Gray Host with Alliance Lock has always been popular before this event, in past pvp events it was also popular and blackreach had very low online, but in a couple of weeks all the yellow players left there (Gray Host) abruptly, literally.
I don't think Gray Host is at this event with Alliance Lock is an indication of Alliance Lock's unpopularity.
PC EU