Remove Faction lock from Gray Host

StaticWave · October 22

Before I start, I just want to be clear on something in case people use that as an argument:

Let's be honest, nobody cares about the other campaign, aka Black Reach. It had many names before, and even when Gray Host wasn't faction locked, nobody cared about it either. So if anybody's going to use the argument "Black Reach is dead because it's not faction locked", then I'm going to have to correct you here. Black Reach is dead because people naturally gravitate towards the main campaign, not because it isn't faction locked. In fact, if you swapped their names and removed faction lock, the new Gray Host (formerly Black Reach) would still be dead.

Faction lock does nothing but to satisfy the hard core faction loyalists. When there's a clear imbalance of Cyrodiil population, you can't do anything about it for 30 days. Cyrodiil population bleeds out over those 30 days. What happens after those 30 days is people stay on the winning faction for sometime, then all migrate to another faction and the cycle repeats.

Faction lock needs to be removed to restore population balance. For example, on PC NA AD is always pop locked late into the day, while EP and DC are 1-2 bars. Without faction lock, guilds can swap to EP/DC and prevent AD from zerging over the whole map. When there's actual resistance, PvDoor doesn't become the norm, and people are more inclined to stay in Cyrodiil instead of logging off for the night.

Delphinia · October 22

I could be wrong, but I believe that GH has been the main campaign over the years, under various names, due to it being a 30 day. BR (also falling under numerous names) used to only be 7 days and was known for being an easy emp flip campaign.

Unless they’ve changed it again, it is now also 30 days. I don’t play nearly as much and only GH, so it’s possible that there is something I’m missing. But, to the best of my understanding, the reason GH has been considered the “main” camp is because it was the only 30 day campaign for years.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but the only difference between GH and BR now, is that one is faction locked and the other is not.

If the points are the same, it seems that BR could become the new “main” campaign if enough players decided to play there regularly.

It’s six of one, half dozen of the other for me. I wouldn’t mind if they made them both open or kept them as is. I used to think lock would help deter trolls, but as it turns out, they are alive and well and just as many of them litter zone chat as they ever did. It’s not about loyalty and I have no idea, nor do I care about the lore. It’s just about fair play, balance and healthy competition and to be honest, I haven’t seen any of that since the game released.

Major_Mangle · October 22

100% agree. Outside of "faction roleplay loyalty" reasons there is no reason for why the locks should exist. People can throw whatever strawman argument about "trolling" or "spies" as much as they want but so far I´ve yet to see any good reasons to why it needs to remain. All it does is limiting who you can play with. In my case this month I´ve basically locked myself out of playing with my friends. At the start of the campaign me and another friend (who now took a break from the game) went DC because we thought it might offer the best chances to get good fights (it didn´t). A few days later me and a few others (who hadn´t locked themselves to GH yet) got invited by another group that plays EP. So now, instead of all of us getting the option to play together half of us are locked out of that for a month. It´s so ridiculous that we´ve mechanics that doesn´t need to exists that prevents us from playing with our friends.

As static also said, people don´t play GH because it´s faction locked, they play there because it´s got the most people in it. (faction locks has never been the reason why certain campaigns are popular either). I´d not be against a small cooldown on how often you can change alliance (maybe put a 24 hour cooldown on it or something), and if you want an incentive for people to "stay loyal", and something spicy as a reward at the end of the campaign that´s actually lucrative. But for the rest of us that just want to play with more than one friend group, get rid of faction lock once and for all. Also increase the population caps and get rid of Blackreach, Icereach (sub 50) and one of the IC campaigns. We don´t need to spread out the PvP population more than it already is.

darvaria · October 22

NO.

Players begged for the No Proc gear to be CP. But ZOS would NOT budge. Therefore the no CP campaign died.

Joy_Division · October 22

Delphinia wrote: »

I could be wrong, but I believe that GH has been the main campaign over the years, under various names, due to it being a 30 day. BR (also falling under numerous names) used to only be 7 days and was known for being an easy emp flip campaign.

Unless they’ve changed it again, it is now also 30 days. I don’t play nearly as much and only GH, so it’s possible that there is something I’m missing. But, to the best of my understanding, the reason GH has been considered the “main” camp is because it was the only 30 day campaign for years.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but the only difference between GH and BR now, is that one is faction locked and the other is not.

If the points are the same, it seems that BR could become the new “main” campaign if enough players decided to play there regularly.

It’s six of one, half dozen of the other for me. I wouldn’t mind if they made them both open or kept them as is. I used to think lock would help deter trolls, but as it turns out, they are alive and well and just as many of them litter zone chat as they ever did. It’s not about loyalty and I have no idea, nor do I care about the lore. It’s just about fair play, balance and healthy competition and to be honest, I haven’t seen any of that since the game released.

The biggest difference from day 1 is the "main" campaign has many players in it and thus a much greater chance for continuous action. It's not because it's listed first or has a faction lock or anything like that. It is because much of ESO's population has historically resisted a low population campaign, regardless of format, even though the performance on these campaigns has been consistently quite good.

Partly because there just isn't anything for many people to do individually in Cyrodiil, most people just go to wherever crossed swords are on the map, so low population campaigns are going to be boring to these types of players.

Desiato · October 22

StaticWave wrote: »

Faction lock does nothing but to satisfy the hard core faction loyalists. When there's a clear imbalance of Cyrodiil population, you can't do anything about it for 30 days. Cyrodiil population bleeds out over those 30 days. What happens after those 30 days is people stay on the winning faction for sometime, then all migrate to another faction and the cycle repeats.

Because these players are more important than they usually get credit for. If they weren't, everyone else would leave them and their faction locked campaign behind.

When I return to Cyro after a long break, I realize how important these players are. They usually aren't the best combatants, but they're loyal, reliable, and they care. They are the foundations of their factions and the reason why many other players log in regularly.

So maybe most players don't care about faction lock, but I think they benefit from the continuity provided by "faction loyalists" which is why they prefer to play on the same campaign as them.

reazea · October 23

Most people, even the people who complain about one faction running the entire map, will always migrate to the dominant faction. Faction lock at least prevents that happening except at the beginning of the month when new camps are started. Faction lock also prevents trolls from dropping in just to troll their opposing faction.

Reverb · October 23

Why? So even more people can swap to AD? Despite weak arguments that removing faction locks will balance the population all we’ve ever seen is people swap to the dominant side to pvdoor the map, then swapping to pvdoor it back.

xylena_lazarow · October 23

darvaria wrote: »

Therefore the no CP campaign died

The no-cp camp died because the format is unpopular outside a vocal forum minority. Extremely few players care that much about removing procs/cp or roleplaying loyalty, most just want consistent action and consistent mechanics.

Reverb wrote: »

Why? So even more people can swap to AD?

Yes, bad players will continue moving to the high pop zerg for easy "wins" but when you remove locks the strong players who can actually fight while outnumbered will switch to the underdog, balancing the scales.

StaticWave wrote: »

Let's be honest, nobody cares about the other campaign, aka Black Reach.

For real, the other camps simply aren't competitive at all. Not on the map, not on the field.

StaticWave · October 23

Reverb wrote: »

Why? So even more people can swap to AD? Despite weak arguments that removing faction locks will balance the population all we’ve ever seen is people swap to the dominant side to pvdoor the map, then swapping to pvdoor it back.

Nah, it’s so that top tier small scale groups on the dominating faction can swap to a weaker faction and put that dominating faction in check.

2 months ago, AD faction in Grey Host on PC NA received an influx of EP and DC players. EP was dominating for months at the time before it lost players to AD. Guess what? AD became the new dominating faction and has been so for 2 months.

If faction lock was removed, the top tier AD players who are sick of their faction PvDooring the map can swap to EP and mop the floor with those ADs. Map balance is restored once more.

Trust me, it only takes 1-2 good groups to wipe a bunch of pugs, which is what AD currently has a lot of lol.

reazea · October 23

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

darvaria wrote: »

Therefore the no CP campaign died

The no-cp camp died because the format is unpopular outside a vocal forum minority. Extremely few players care that much about removing procs/cp or roleplaying loyalty, most just want consistent action and consistent mechanics.

Reverb wrote: »

Why? So even more people can swap to AD?

Yes, bad players will continue moving to the high pop zerg for easy "wins" but when you remove locks the strong players who can actually fight while outnumbered will switch to the underdog, balancing the scales.

StaticWave wrote: »

Let's be honest, nobody cares about the other campaign, aka Black Reach.

For real, the other camps simply aren't competitive at all. Not on the map, not on the field.

I never considered you to be a bad player. Yet you have been playing on the wildly dominate faction for at least two camps now.

xylena_lazarow · October 23

reazea wrote: »

I never considered you to be a bad player. Yet you have been playing on the wildly dominate faction for at least two camps now.

2024 campaigns on GH have been:

Jan - DC wins close
Feb - AD wins close
Mar - EP wins lopsided
Apr - EP wins lopsided
May - EP wins lopsided
Jun - EP wins lopsided
Jul - EP wins lopsided
Aug - EP wins lopsided
Sep - AD wins lopsided
Oct - AD wins lopsided unless something drastic happens in the final week

The first two months of this year would've been lopsided EP wins if not for a coordinated campaign (led by myself and others) between AD and DC to suppress the EP score during the NA day hours to make up for their absurd dominance during NA night hours. It became more trouble than it was worth to keep the two factions cooperating, thus 6 months of lopsided EP wins. A critical mass of players migrated to AD and tipped the scales recently, there was no predicting this, and there is no predicting whether it will stay this way or flip to another faction next campaign.

forum_gpt · October 26

StaticWave wrote: »

Before I start, I just want to be clear on something in case people use that as an argument:

Let's be honest, nobody cares about the other campaign, aka Black Reach. It had many names before, and even when Gray Host wasn't faction locked, nobody cared about it either. So if anybody's going to use the argument "Black Reach is dead because it's not faction locked", then I'm going to have to correct you here. Black Reach is dead because people naturally gravitate towards the main campaign, not because it isn't faction locked. In fact, if you swapped their names and removed faction lock, the new Gray Host (formerly Black Reach) would still be dead.

Faction lock does nothing but to satisfy the hard core faction loyalists. When there's a clear imbalance of Cyrodiil population, you can't do anything about it for 30 days. Cyrodiil population bleeds out over those 30 days. What happens after those 30 days is people stay on the winning faction for sometime, then all migrate to another faction and the cycle repeats.

Faction lock needs to be removed to restore population balance. For example, on PC NA AD is always pop locked late into the day, while EP and DC are 1-2 bars. Without faction lock, guilds can swap to EP/DC and prevent AD from zerging over the whole map. When there's actual resistance, PvDoor doesn't become the norm, and people are more inclined to stay in Cyrodiil instead of logging off for the night.

I don’t fully agree with your take on faction lock being the main issue with Cyrodiil's population balance. Faction lock actually provides a meaningful layer to the campaign experience that appeals to more than just "hard-core faction loyalists." It allows players to build a stronger identity and camaraderie within a faction, which is a big part of the PvP appeal for many.

Removing faction lock may temporarily allow players to shift to the underdog side, but it could also lead to bandwagoning where people jump to whichever side is winning in the short term, leading to just as much imbalance but with added instability. Cyrodiil might see more ebb and flow without the faction lock, but it also risks further reducing the long-term loyalty and dedication many players feel towards their faction and their team—diluting that sense of purpose and leading to chaos rather than balanced gameplay.

Also, saying nobody cares about Black Reach is a bit of a stretch. While it may not have the same population as Gray Host, there are still players who enjoy it for various reasons, including the lower-stress, more relaxed atmosphere that a less populated campaign offers. A more nuanced solution, like adjusting the faction lock duration or offering more incentives to play on underpopulated factions, might address the population imbalance without completely removing the faction lock system.

Synapsis123 · October 26

StaticWave wrote: »

Before I start, I just want to be clear on something in case people use that as an argument:

Let's be honest, nobody cares about the other campaign, aka Black Reach. It had many names before, and even when Gray Host wasn't faction locked, nobody cared about it either. So if anybody's going to use the argument "Black Reach is dead because it's not faction locked", then I'm going to have to correct you here. Black Reach is dead because people naturally gravitate towards the main campaign, not because it isn't faction locked. In fact, if you swapped their names and removed faction lock, the new Gray Host (formerly Black Reach) would still be dead.

Faction lock does nothing but to satisfy the hard core faction loyalists. When there's a clear imbalance of Cyrodiil population, you can't do anything about it for 30 days. Cyrodiil population bleeds out over those 30 days. What happens after those 30 days is people stay on the winning faction for sometime, then all migrate to another faction and the cycle repeats.

Faction lock needs to be removed to restore population balance. For example, on PC NA AD is always pop locked late into the day, while EP and DC are 1-2 bars. Without faction lock, guilds can swap to EP/DC and prevent AD from zerging over the whole map. When there's actual resistance, PvDoor doesn't become the norm, and people are more inclined to stay in Cyrodiil instead of logging off for the night.

I respectfully disagree with your assessment of faction lock in Cyrodiil for several reasons:
Population balance dynamics: While it's true that players tend to gravitate towards the main campaign, faction lock serves an important purpose in maintaining long-term balance. Without it, there would likely be even more dramatic swings in population as players constantly hop to the perceived "winning" side.
Strategic depth: Faction lock encourages players to develop strategies and adapt to challenges within their chosen alliance. It promotes faction loyalty and creates a sense of identity and competition that many players find engaging.
Unintended consequences: Removing faction lock could lead to a "bandwagon effect" where the majority of players cluster on one side, creating an even more severe imbalance than what currently exists.
Alternative solutions: Instead of removing faction lock entirely, other measures could be implemented to address population imbalances, such as offering incentives for playing on underdog factions or implementing a more dynamic balancing system.
Community impact: Faction lock contributes to the formation of stable alliances and rivalries, which are crucial elements of the PvP experience in ESO. Removing it could disrupt established communities and social dynamics within the game.
Historical context: The faction system has been a core element of ESO's PvP design since launch. Radically altering it could alienate long-time players who have invested in their chosen factions.
While your concerns about population imbalance are valid, I believe that removing faction lock would create more problems than it solves. A more nuanced approach to balancing, combined with efforts to make all campaigns equally appealing, would likely be more effective in addressing the issues you've raised.

Just_Attivi · October 26

My time in blackreach prior to moving to GH taught me this:

1-There are a LOT of players that just want to hop to the winning side to zerg surf AP

2-There are a few skilled PVP'ers who will jump faction to contest the 'winning' faction

3-There are an equal (ish, sometimes I think more than the above) number of players that would faction swap just to troll a specific player/guild/factions to keep their favorite faction winning.

---
I fully agree with faction locks in their current form being removed. There have been campaigns where I would have preferred to play a different faction in my timeslot for a whole host of reasons. But my experiences in blackreach strongly suggest that there needs to be a cooldown/limit on swapping (there was a few great discussion threads about this around a month ago, im too tired to go dig them up). Be it 24 hours cooldown on faction change, or just in general shorter campaigns, ability to play all characters on one alliance each camp, I think there are great ways to appease all sides on this. But the inability to swap factions on a whim is a driving factor for many to play in grayhost due to the trolls in point 3 above (and I could elaborate on behaviors, but we have all seen it, be it scroll 'divers' or siege turners or VD bait, etc).

outright removing faction locks is a problem, but I do think there are easily implemented solutions that are genuinely the best of all worlds to allow people to still play with friends, change factions after the initial 5 minute timer each camp, etc.

Sleepsin · October 27

I remember when there were no faction locks on any campaign. The amount of trolling was obnoxious. You would have clusters of forward camps for away from the fights, just to limit the number of camps that could be properly places. Oils would be put on the ground just to reach max siege, rams would be placed on the back of keeps far away from doors. Anytime a scroll was picked up, to was a 50/50 chance it was a troll. As for the people that would switch to the underdog team, they were so few that they had zero impact. If ZOS were to have no faction lock, they would have to have an in-game moderator (referee) in order to maintain and idea of a competitive PvP campaign.

StihlReign · November 2

The faction lock should never be removed. The trolling and farming that prompted the lock was unrelenting. The lock sought to deter much of this behaviour as well as preserve the core intent of Cyrodiil which was to play the map and participate in Alliance campaign objectives to win.

xylena_lazarow · November 2

StihlReign wrote: »

The trolling and farming that prompted the lock was unrelenting.

And still is, between the ball groups running unflagged keeps, dead single color maps being gate camped, and zone chat spy conspiracy arguments. Loyalty won't mean much when there's nothing left to offer your loyalty to.

Jaimeh · November 2

Nope, actually I'd go even further and put more measures to lock in alliance choice and prevent swapping. Most swappers make a big deal out of swapping, bring nothing but drama to the new faction, and then end up just going back to their previous alliance.

Amottica · November 2

There is a reason why the boutique campaigns are fairly dead. They were a bad idea to start with. Further, if there was a real issue with players being able to play a different alliance in the same campaign, then all campaigns would be locked so it does not make sense regarding integrity. Then again, Cyrodiil is intended to be a fun PvP vs a truly competitive PvP due to the lack of controls on the size of each team most times of the day.

So, I agree that faction lock should be removed from GH, and I also suggest removing the boutique campaigns.

StihlReign · November 2

Amottica wrote: »

Then again, Cyrodiil is intended to be a fun PvP vs a truly competitive PvP due to the lack of controls on the size of each team most times of the day.

Competitive gameplay involves leaderboards, tracking methods and scoring, and rewards. Cyrodiil's design included these and more. Guild pride, pop caps, low pop bonuses, Keep and RSS claims, Tabards, Guild stores and PvE bonuses to name a few.

Amottica · November 2

StihlReign wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Then again, Cyrodiil is intended to be a fun PvP vs a truly competitive PvP due to the lack of controls on the size of each team most times of the day.

Competitive gameplay involves leaderboards, tracking methods and scoring, and rewards. Cyrodiil's design included these and more. Guild pride, pop caps, low pop bonuses, Keep and RSS claims, Tabards, Guild stores and PvE bonuses to name a few.

I agree that Cyrodiil is designed to feel competitive. After all, what is PvP if there is no winner or loser?

However, since there is nothing to control the size of each team outside of the short period the campaign is cap-locked, it is not truly competitive. eSport would balk at the idea that something like Cyrodiil be considered truly competative.

Also, the players that top the leaderboard do not reflect skill and prowess. Heck, repairing has historically been a big part of what someone would do to get to and stay on top of the leaderboard to get Emp. Unless we consider repairing keeps something that demonstrates skill in PvP, then, well, no.

It is designed to be fun, so it is a large group PvP so that even someone who is not very good at PvP can still enjoy it.

But again, it is designed to feel competitive even though a small group of players can turn the entire map to their alliance while everyone else is asleep which is key proof it is not truly competitive.

Joy_Division · November 2

Amottica wrote: »

It is designed to be fun, so it is a large group PvP so that even someone who is not very good at PvP can still enjoy it.

Considering how spectacularly this objective has failed, I'm almost inclined to believe that was not their design intention.

Amottica · November 3

Joy_Division wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

It is designed to be fun, so it is a large group PvP so that even someone who is not very good at PvP can still enjoy it.

Considering how spectacularly this objective has failed, I'm almost inclined to believe that was not their design intention.

As for the fun part, yes. I can see that.

I think GW2 WvW runs smoother because they broke up a campaign into four maps, each with its own pop cap, as part of one week-long battle. Also, they divide their population into different campaigns, and a player has no choice where they will fight outside of their guild choice. Formerly, it was on this loose server system.

iirc, each map has a pop cap of about 75 players per team and it is XvXvX like here. However, the game's design is much simpler.

They do not call them campaigns. Just using that term since it fits with what we have here.

Desiato · November 3

Joy_Division wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

It is designed to be fun, so it is a large group PvP so that even someone who is not very good at PvP can still enjoy it.

Considering how spectacularly this objective has failed, I'm almost inclined to believe that was not their design intention.

It most certainly wasn't. Cyrodiil PVP was designed with DAOC's audience in mind. The core combat was meant to appeal to core and hardcore gamers. It was accessible in the sense that anyone could participate with siege or by healing, but combat was much more difficult throughout ESO and especially Cyrodiil during the early years. Skyrim fans would literally lament on reddit and in the forums about their deaths to vet mudcrabs which made them feel less than heroic.

The audiences this game was [originally] designed for and the ones that play it now are quite different.

Consider, for example, the Imperial City DLC introduced in 2015. With it, the level cap was bumped from VR14 to VR16 with the mats necessary to craft VR15 and VR16 only found in IC!

Back then, IC was part of Cyrodiil. It could not be accessed directly. It could only be accessed through 3 entry points located around the ring in the center of the map. Of course, they were always camped -- by design. Getting into IC could be very challenging. For the average player, it took a team effort. Once in IC, they found monsters stronger than the regular NPCs in the game and enemy players stealing 100% of their Tel Var! And we [the pvp audience] loved it!

Can you imagine a fall DLC launching like that today!?! Cyrodiil was originally designed to be completely ruthless.

xylena_lazarow · November 3

Desiato wrote: »

Cyrodiil was originally designed to be completely ruthless.

It still is. Casuals who leave the zerg get instantly deleted. They dumb down ball group combat mechanically, but they don't reduce the amount of time, effort, minmaxing, logistics, and discipline required, so the ball group playstyle is still pretty hardcore by this game's standards, far beyond what most players are willing to put in.

AngryPenguin · November 3

I prefer faction lock on main campaign.

StaticWave · November 3

Some people here think removing faction lock would allow trolls, which is a fair point. But not removing faction lock will kill the map for 30 days and that isn’t any better either. Just look at GH on PC NA and you see what I mean.

At the very least, reduce the 30 day lock to 1 week so the “trolls” can’t troll as much and the ppl looking to PVP instead of PVDOOR can enjoy some PvP on a less populated faction.

SirCyanideRose · November 4

I've heard that some factions will use dirty tactics like joining a faction and using anti-idle, just so real players can't get in, and therefore getting an advantage. Locking it may be a way of preventing players from using sub toons to do something like this. Just a theory.....

edward_frigidhands · November 6

StaticWave wrote: »

Before I start, I just want to be clear on something in case people use that as an argument:

Let's be honest, nobody cares about the other campaign, aka Black Reach. It had many names before, and even when Gray Host wasn't faction locked, nobody cared about it either. So if anybody's going to use the argument "Black Reach is dead because it's not faction locked", then I'm going to have to correct you here. Black Reach is dead because people naturally gravitate towards the main campaign, not because it isn't faction locked. In fact, if you swapped their names and removed faction lock, the new Gray Host (formerly Black Reach) would still be dead.

Faction lock does nothing but to satisfy the hard core faction loyalists. When there's a clear imbalance of Cyrodiil population, you can't do anything about it for 30 days. Cyrodiil population bleeds out over those 30 days. What happens after those 30 days is people stay on the winning faction for sometime, then all migrate to another faction and the cycle repeats.

Faction lock needs to be removed to restore population balance. For example, on PC NA AD is always pop locked late into the day, while EP and DC are 1-2 bars. Without faction lock, guilds can swap to EP/DC and prevent AD from zerging over the whole map. When there's actual resistance, PvDoor doesn't become the norm, and people are more inclined to stay in Cyrodiil instead of logging off for the night.

Based on what the data shows, faction lock is popular and non-faction lock is not. There is already an option for people who don't want faction lock and the data shows that less people like it.

Your idea is to take away faction locked Cyro, which data shows more people like and enjoy, from the people who want it.

It's a bad idea. And that isn't an opinion, we can observe what people prefer to play and come to that conclusion ourselves without access to any internal metrics.