What's your stance on faction loyalty?

ajkb78 · March 4

Each of my characters are loyal to their respective faction.

Each of my characters are loyal to their own respective factions. Having said that all my characters are AD except my PVE main (DC) who occasionally does BGs but doesn't fight in Cyrodiil and a random healer (EP) who I made before I had any race, any alliance, and also doesn't partake in PVP.

Thysbe · March 4

I, the player, am loyal to one faction across all of my characters.

kind of - I do ofc play other factions across my characters but in my heart I will always be AD

that even goes as far as kamikaze runs into AD groups when I playing another faction

Ulvich · March 5

I, the player, am loyal to one faction across all of my characters.

I played AD during beta, but since April 3, 2014 (release date) I have been playing only EP on my main account. My second account has one AD, while the third has DC.

Xarc · March 5

Other (please describe your thoughts)

After 3 years as AD then 7years as DC, I just switched to the pact the character i'm actually playing, not because i prefere pact, I think I'm deeply for the Daggerfall alliance, but because I want to see Cyrodiil from another point of view.
I don't rule out going back to the blue side of the force, I'm already thinking about it, but it's good to change a little I think, otherwise we quickly go around in circles especially in Cyrodiil.

AvalonRanger · March 5

Other (please describe your thoughts)

My characters doesn't have loyalty for any of faction.
They keep in touching with each other, and sharing lucrative information of combat field.

Well....they're bad girls.

Delimber · March 5

Each of my characters are loyal to their respective faction.

20 toons, sort of divided "equally" between the 3 factions. (Yes I know, 20 does not divide equally into 3...)

As I go through phases, I like to have pvp setups, pve setups and solo, dungeon and trial builds. And since I get board of some classes, I have builds in all classes. Although Sorc is my least favourite class to play, thus one of my 2 sorcs could end up on the chopping block.

I find being able to play in all 3 factions offers flexibility in playing and making AP. I'm most loyal to DC as it was a DC guild that helped be Emp a while back, so I won't fight against them in that campaign.

Another reason for playing in 3 factions has to do with night caps in PvP. You know, log on your EP toon, jump over to Cyrodiil and what do you know, the whole map is red. Now what are you going to do.

From the PvE side, I didn't like the Cadwell's silver and gold. If I just did all the questing for EP and now I have to "turn" on them. I didn't enjoy that.

gary.mcleodeb17_ESO · March 5

I, the player, am loyal to one faction across all of my characters.

I've only played on EU DC with multiple characters over the years. It would feel strange to join another faction. I recently began to ponder why two of my DC characters who are Dunmer have fought for DC. Should they actually one of the races that would naturally fight for that faction (Breton etc). In any case they have happily retired and enjoy crafting from their home in Vvardenfell.
I also wondered what the other two faction bases might be like. I have never seen them in 11 years! I hopped onto NA, levelled up two chars AD, EP just to enter Cyrodiil and finally got to wander around both bases. Both bases were reflective of what I imagined them to be like. Beyond the gates and around the Temple areas, (AD in particular is beautiful, vast and seemingly rich in Runestones and therefore probably Psjiic portals too) There are also some areas with some cool story backgrounds. Cyrodiil just keeps on surprising me.

Major_Toughness · March 5

Other (please describe your thoughts)

Sad.

Toanis · March 5

Other (please describe your thoughts)

I, the player, have no interest in the factions, but i am not my characters. In PVP or group PVE there is no place for roleplaying at all, If it has a red health bar I attack it, that's it, nothing personal, no patriotism to a video game faction.

If we're talking about the RPG in MMORPG, then even though none of my chars are hardcore patriots they mostly support their factions, with some notable exceptions:

My EP Argonian Dragonknight, while lukiul, is loyal to his fellow Saxhleel first and foremost, should they split away from the pact (or rebel against the Hist), he will stand with them.

My DC Breton Arcanist couldn't care less about the war, and it would be ill-advised to try and draft him. If he really had to chose a side, it would be House Telvanni.

My AD Imperial Necromancer's true allegiance is with the Empire. For this cause he supports the Dominion, knowing that once the other alliances are beaten, the Dominion can be collapsed simply by removing Ayrenn, whereas the Pact is more likely to crumble from infighting than winning the war, and the Covenant would be hard to get rid of once they're in power.

tomofhyrule · March 5

VoxAdActa wrote: »

The game really kind of goes out of its way to make the AD look bad. The entire Shadowfen zone quest is all about taking a break from internal strife and just fighting the AD.

Every other alliance is all about dealing with domestic, internal threats, with a side quest or a delve here and there where the other alliances show up (like the Ra'Gada pirates in Malabal Tor, but I don't think they're even actually affiliated with the Covenant).

Which is another reason I think the Pact storyline is disjointed and weird. Every other alliance has had enough daedra-strewn discord to fill out all the main zone quests with purely internal matters, but the writers got to Shadowfen and just... Couldn't think of a reason why there would be any Argonian unrest? We have to take a breather from dealing with the machinations of Molag Bal to fight elves. For that matter, Molag Bal barely had anything to do with Stonefalls, either. And Bleakrock was also about an alliance invasion.

Like, what, did Molag Bal look at the Pact and go "Nah, no way I can enflame any tensions between Nords and Dark Elves and their former slaves, they all just love each other too much!"

I do find this interesting in the way that so many of us can see the same story and get such different views out of it. I've always found ESO to be incredibly biased toward the AD and against the EP in particular.

The AD storylines are generally thought of as the most cohesive, while the feeling the the EP lines are extremely disjointed is also very common. There's even the example of how the beginning of the Shadowfen and middle of Eastmarch stories have the same exact plot: an enemy who magically disguises themself as a Pact higher-up to infiltrate them. However, I also find it interesting that the EP lines are the only ones that really tend to make it feel like there is a three-banners war since you have to deal with invasions from the other two alliances. The AD and DC lines really only have the other alliances as a delve or sidequest here and there, and that's about it.
In addition to the above, the fact that Ayrenn is introduced in the first city of the first zone of the AD line and is followed throughout, whereas Jorunn is not even introduced to the EP player until the 4th zone
At any point when the three leaders are together, Ayrenn is always portrayed as the voice of reason whereas the other two are portrayed as brutish idiots. This is particularly bad with Emeric, actually, as he's shown to have quite the opposite characterization when he's met alone. And of course, we're not able to throw the Shadowfen 'eating babies' fact in her face, even though she's definitely come back with a "well, that was this general's idea and I disavow it."
The High Isle story showed again how much the ESO team dissed on the Pact. Which was the only alliance whose ship captain was not a character we knew from before? Which was the only alliance whose leader couldn't even be bothered to attend the peace talks? Which was the only alliance whose representative spent half the time in his basegame (and low resolution) outfit while the other two got brand new looks for the occasion?
(As to that, I realize the issue was Peter Stormare's unavailabilty. Still, they could have dubbed Jorunn with a different actor, or better yet given him a good excuse for missing such an important meeting, especially considering there's still a massive flu going around in the lore. Instead, it was "lol all Nords are drunks and womanizers amirite?")
We all know that all three alliances will have to collapse at some point in the future. By the time Tiber comes around 300 years later, we're already on the 2nd AD, so the first needs to have collapsed before then. But still... there are no cracks shown in the AD through all of its quests. The EP is obvious enough since the Dunmer have a superiority complex over the Nords and the obvious tension with the Argonians, not to mention that only parts of Skyrim, Morrowind, and Black Marsh even sign on in the first place (Eastern Skyrim is under Svargrim and not involved, the Telvanni lands and Vvardenfell are mostly independent, and most of the Marsh refuted the Pact). Likewise, the Orsinium story leaves the Orcs' future in the DC in question, not to mention the fact that much of Hammerfell is questionable due to various Crown/Forebear conflict. However, we really don't get to see any major tension in the AD outside of lorebooks and things like the College of Aldmeri Racism questline (which itself reads as so eye-rollingly overt that it's not believable in the slightest).

As to Ayrenn herself, she's character shilled every time she's on screen - see how she's never portrayed as being in the wrong at all and is always the voice of reason. Not to mention that she's way too young for her role. As an Altmer, whose lifespans are 3x as long as humans, her being only 27 is almost sexist in the idea that the woman has to be younger than the men, despite the fact that that would make her a child to the Altmer. This is even more confusing since the Altmer are a very conservative and traditionalist society, and yet she never in person makes any implications that she in any way believes in the lore-stated goals of the AD in Altmer supremacy. In fact, she seems to be extremely progressive for an Altmer, which would naturally put her at odds with a culture which is so regimented and planned out that marriages take decades to plan out and must be between suitable partners. But of course, everyone who opposes Ayrenn is also an evil Daedra worshipper, so Divines forbid that anyone be in danger of making legitimate points against her.

The timelines are the main reason I can't in good conscience support her. We are told that in 573 (she would have been 18) that she was to have gone to the Sapiarchs to learn how to rule, but she abandoned her post and went galivanting around the world. Her brother was therefore named heir and went to the Sapiarchs in 575 (which, if we're assuming that 18 is the age at which that happens, he'd therefore be 2 years younger than her). He was the one who put in the work to be the ruler, but then she swooped in just after her father's death and took back the title without the requisite training and the fact that she let her younger brother do it all in her stead and then took all the credit herself. And... I'm supposed to be surprised that Naemon was mad about this? I'm supposed to think he's the villain of this story?!?
I've been in grad school and had a trusted partner steal my research and put their name on it instead of me the second I was out of the picture. There is nothing happy and friendly about someone you trust stabbing you in the back to elevate themself.

I will say that I do enjoy stories where people can see the same thing and come to different conclusions - it does make the game feel more alive and realistic (and it's much more fun to discuss politics in a fantasy world then watch the politics in the real world...). I just feel that the AD, and Ayrenn in particular, were played up a little too much, likely as a result of the AD in Skyrim and trying to make it clear that the 1st AD was nothing like the 3rd AD. But I will say that my personal experience with the research scooping has left me with an understanding of what Naemon was going through, and therefore also left me completely opposed to Ayrenn and her AD, and I especially am turned off since I do feel like that's the one that's being shoved in my face as the one I'm "supposed" to like.
...but I'll admit that it doesn't help that 9/10 times if I get ganged up on in Cyrodiil or the IC, it's an AD player/group as well.

VoxAdActa · March 6

Each of my characters are loyal to their respective faction.

I kind of think part of the problem is the way the alliances were structured in ESO to begin with. It's hard not to make Nords and Dunmer look bad, and sticking them together in the same alliance is a weird choice on top of that. And then throwing in the Argonians?

I mean, I guess the problem was that every race had to be part of some alliance or the base premise of the game doesn't work. But Bosmer+Kahjiit+Argonians makes way more sense, as does Bretons+Redguard+Nords. Neither Orcs nor Altmer are suited to empire-level friendly cooperation with other races as equals (and especially not Orcs with Bretons), so it'd make more sense that they're on their own and using the ruggedness/isolation of their homelands as a defense against being overwhelmed. Or, on the other hand, Orcs+Dunmer+Altmer makes just as much sense as the AD or the Pact in terms of "why are these people together?"

Ayrenn's whole character is basically a plot compromise required to make the AD work at all. Her not going through Sapiarch School and not getting the whole "We're awesome" indoctrination is one of the ways to make her attitude even halfway believable, but it's the kind of shallow punt that comes from the "it just works" attitude of Bethesda overall. Under any sort of traditional leader, the Altmer would either isolate themselves entirely or invade/occupy the rest of the AD, ruling them directly or through puppet leaders (see: Skyrim in 4E). So in order to have a balanced, even alliance, ZOS had to custom make, as if in a lab, a whole character who's totally different from the rest of the Altmer, and then turn all of those qualities up to 11 to try to drown out the cultural inconsistencies.

I like to draw the parallel between Queen Ayreen and King Kurog. It would make 0 sense to put Kurog in charge of the Covenant, no matter how anti-traditionalist he is, but it still makes more sense than an anti-isolationist egalitarian Altmer who came from nowhere. But putting any other AD ruler in the top spot over an Altmer was absolutely a bridge too far. So they were left without a lot of choices, and had to do some sneaky writing tricks and plot handwaves to try to mash it all together.

As far as age goes, I get the complaint, but we can't assume long-lived races mature proportionally to humans. If they did, humans would be seen as super-geniuses; by the time an Altmer is learning basic multiplication, a human can have already mastered calculus and earned several advanced degrees. They have to grow up at the same rate for a certain number of years and then dramatically slow down after that.

MageCatF4F · March 6

Other (please describe your thoughts)

My technologically advanced Khajiit support each other, the family, and most other Khajiit, although quite a few of those others are crazy in the head.

Shaveskin factions are all crazy in the head. Like tax collectors, we try to avoid them.

PDarkBHood · March 6

I, the player, am loyal to one faction across all of my characters.

I am utterly devoted to the Daggerfall Covenant, irrespective of my character, I only have one character for now, but any future characters will be part of the Daggerfall Covenant. My first and current character was born a Breton and will be a Breton forever, even though I switched to a nord for height reasons (don't ask). Glenumbra is my home province and Daggerfall is my city. For the Covenant, for King Casimir, and for the High King!

wolfie1.0. · March 6

Other (please describe your thoughts)

Faction loyalty for my characters is just a matter of happenstance and opportunity and will wear or display whatever banner is needed at the time to fulfill their goals.

For me, it's basically a minor inconvenience. Unless I'm in pvp, then it depends on if I have addons installed. If I do factions don't matter, if I don't then I roll with ep because not doing so makes them hard to ID due to ZOS not having native colorblind mode options.

majorlginfidel · March 6

Other (please describe your thoughts)

For me, it depends on which factions have the most numbers, in the sewers and IC, I will play a faction with a lower population. I am typically on a Night Blade, so I like target rich environments.

WaywardArgonian · March 6

I prefer playing one alliance (AD) simply because I have every class on there and I know the most people there. I don't care much about alliances lore-wise as the concept was obviously made with gameplay in mind and doesn't always correspond well with the 'rp' aspect of the game. Also, reading zone chat in Cyrodiil is usually enough to dissuade me from having any warm feelings towards my faction on a meta level.

Ingenon · March 6

Other (please describe your thoughts)

I have characters in every faction, and login to the character whose faction "owns" most of either Imperial City or Cyrodiil when I am earning event tickets for Whitestrakes's Mayhem. Otherwise I do PvE, and factions don't matter when your are grouped and doing a trial or dungeon.

huskandhunger · March 6

Each of my characters are loyal to their respective faction.

🍭

Sheridan · March 6

I, the player, am loyal to one faction across all of my characters.

I have only one character for all 11 years, essentially this character is me, and I am loyal to Daggerfall Covenant and the goal of rebuilding the Empire from the very beginning. I have no idea how AD and EP alliance bases even look like; I've never been there.

Lumsdenml · March 6

I, the player, am loyal to one faction across all of my characters.

FOR THE PACT!

Pixiepumpkin · March 6

Factions mean nothing in ESO, I frankly think they are lame. Its kinda stupid to see your enemy in a BG, trying to kill each other, but then chumming it up at the local way shrine in Daggerfall. It just feels dumb.

sans-culottes · March 6

Each of my characters are loyal to their respective faction.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Factions mean nothing in ESO, I frankly think they are lame. Its kinda stupid to see your enemy in a BG, trying to kill each other, but then chumming it up at the local way shrine in Daggerfall. It just feels dumb.

Right? The War of the Chintz Roses has been little more than window dressing for years. The same window dressing, with no changes—just the status quo.

DP99 · March 6

Other (please describe your thoughts)

In PVE, lore wise, I don't think it matters, because your player characters are friends with all three of the rulers, and you're pretty much a mercenary who just does whatever if the gold is right.

In PVP, my only character is a Bosmer, so I pretty much have to be team yellow.

So, my personal loyalty as a player and for my character is superficial at best.

Reginald_leBlem · March 6

Other (please describe your thoughts)

#trifactiontrash

AvalonRanger · March 12

Other (please describe your thoughts)

We are "vestige" anyway. We can't put our name in the Tamriel history.
Moreover, we knew conclusion of that war already.

but...

....Can we take back our personality in some day ? Not just soul, but our name.
I don't want to end my character's whole life just as vestige.

Stx · March 12

Each of my characters are loyal to their respective faction.

I pretend the factions don’t exist. Im an adventurer, not a soldier. The idea of the faction war was kind of cool ten years ago but my characters ignore it 100% now.

salander7 · March 12

Other (please describe your thoughts)

I don't profess loyalty to kings or queens, lest them being digital ones.

I started on reds, bc my char was a nord, EP had a dragon and I like red colour. Met people who played yellows, so I my main char switched alliances to play with them. It's true that Ayreen feels a nicer person than Jorunn or Emeric, but all 3 are caricatures.
I'll switch back my char again once I have another one in AD at rank 45, so I can buy certain furnishings on more than one side.
On characteristics of actual pvp, those are bound to the players, not inherent to a faction. EP attracts more zergs, DC has a bit better groups but lack the numbers, and AD do terribly on retaining keeps when there's any actual competition, but have some ballgroups and small groups that are absolutely demolishing, but those groups are not there to capture keeps. That is PC/EU from my point of view, outside of event. Even with that, there's outliers, and things have changed.

On the roleplaying side, I played the questlines a long time ago, but if you understood anything, it shows people from all three factions are victims from actions by the other factions. As usual with the two most known IPs from Bethesda, it's a simple "war is awful, there's no black and white" message, yet people manage to make it a "what team do you like better" competition.

On the day to day, I use deshaan for convenience, not because some alliance. I've been tempted to switch to west weald, but it lacks undaunted pledges and my guild trader is usually in mournhold.
If all cities were almost as convenient, I'd probably go for another one based on aesthetics, but oh well, I can live with that.