[Column] Elder Scrolls Online: Asymmetrical Factions

Ozivois

Races, sex, religion and alignment should all be factors in a great RPG game. In this manner, your character feels unique and every player brings different skills and abilities to the party/raid etc.

 

And IMO balance should always be like rock/paper/scissor because when developers worry about making every class balanced for 1v1 pvp the classesd get dilitued and the game, muted.

3-4thElf

Originally posted by BrainMongerSyndrome

Originally posted by nate1980

This may be a MMO with the TES spirit, but it isn't The Elder Scrolls.

1. There shouldn't be any race locked factions.

2. Where are the Imperials? No excuse!

3. There shouldn't be any classes.

4. Any word on joining The Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood and etc? Those factions are really integral to TES.

5. Hotbars to replace the equivalent to what they were in the TES, I can agree with, but Hotbars to hold abilities that never existed in any TES game just because it's an MMO and they think every MMO should have abilities to put on a hotbar, unacceptable, as is their copying of GW2 from what I'm hearing with having Elite abilities and etc.

6. Any word on if there'll be a big "!" or something similar above NPC's heads to signify they have a quest? Anyone every remember having any of that in TES games? If it does, it's not a true TES game.

7. No housing at launch, unacceptable.

 

Basically, it should be what every TES game has been in the past with the addition of multiplayer. Nothing should be taken out to accomodate the genre, or else that's admitting the game doesn't belong in this genre. It's time to break out of the pre-established moulde, and create a pure game. TES purists will surely be pissed at everything these developers are doing to this great IP.

 

W00T!!! Forum High-5 for breaking the mold!

 

Well Imperials are basically Nords, that's always been in the lore. There wasn't quite an Empire in the setting they're going with (which is stupid in my opinion) so that's why they're not there. 

ragz45

Other than fan assumtions, have the Dev's personally said why there is no Imperial option?

Kruul

The unique classes each realm had was the true difference between them. Mythic had such a hard time ballancing the realms because of it. Thats why the game had the nickname Dark Age of Nerfalot.

nate1980

I've never cared too much about class balance. DAoC had the rock paper scissor thing going on, and was obviously balanced for group play, not solo play, but I still loved that game. I'd rather have unique races (concerning stat bonuses and racial traits) and classes ( not mirrored or even close to being mirrored) than class balance.

caballero89

There is one major problem with having something like this. It was all good in older games, but nowadays people are looking to min/max MUCH more than they were.

 

People will end up playing a race because its the best "Stat" wise. They need to be very carefull if they do something like this

sapphen

Originally posted by caballero89

There is one major problem with having something like this. It was all good in older games, but nowadays people are looking to min/max MUCH more than they were.

People will end up playing a race because its the best "Stat" wise. They need to be very carefull if they do something like this

I agree with this to some extend.  I'm almost wondering if what everyone is missing are these inconsistances.  Min/Max balance can get boring even if we don't realize it, although that's just a theory.

Unknown

Originally posted by sapphen

Originally posted by ShakyMo
This is a good thing, different classes on each faction breeds animosity and rivalry.

It's always "they are overpowered because they have paladins" etc.. great news, well done for not giving into to the balanced obsessed wow kiddies.

Balance is an illusion.  There will always be OP classes, that is the nature of the MMO - it is constantly changing.  The trick is to make the imbalanced fun and entertaining.

Very well said, and yet balance in MMO can be achived but there need to be 3 major factors put into play.

 

First - the game need to give us the skills to aproach each class and situation with different set of skills(skill chains) while maintaining the individual feel of the race/class.war hammer had great faction ballance and rift mastered the classes balance as perfect as i can imagine.

// I loved playing my WL in war and it did feel chlanging PvPing against curtain classes but the biggest joy is always beating the odd's due to your skill or lack of such in our opponent, while in rift good knowledge over the skill trees of all classes allowed me to use the next "balance update" which for instance switched the favor from the "scissors" build to the "rock" build, and thus leading me to the new patch ultimate build ( "rock") and so forth and so forth

 

Second - is the player base. Players have different needs and in order to catch us interested we need different "hooks" , PvP,PvE, social features. We need enough freedom to be our characters and yet good teacher to lead us trough our paths.

// every mmo theme attracts vast variety of players, from very different paths of life, knowing the players invlved is crucial to maintain the interest. Don't balance pvp when everyone is interested in instances/pve

 

Third - and most under looked factor is the knowledge of the second. As every player invest curtain amounts of time in the favored game our knowledge over it changes and so do our needs and understanding over the game and our desires from the game.

For example a good mix of the three IMO is to have the distinguished flavor and traits of the asymetrical races so players can find their inner soul and relate better to their characters(story), and yet maintain a good symetrical skill trees as in rift where the trees will be able to have benefits over each other preferbly again in asymetrical structure of our favorite and well known "rock,scisor,paper" style of course there will be needed constant balance "tweaks" on the classes till they are polished enough to give us freedom, then  

 

THE FUN BEGINS. 

As once the game is balanced the only way to balance the 3rd factor(player base knowledge )  is the game to throw "favors". I see it as the developers playing "god" and bless curtain faction for a timed period with a stat boost and rotating it through the faction's like a seasons blesing ( encouraging todays weak to walk the bad days off and deliver a walk in the promised lands ). Also preventing for ultimate builds to be ultimate forever and encouraging the min/max builders to stay on their toes ( BUILD WAR'S !!! YARRR ), and of course leave us a door to gain the "blessing" as individuals trough ingame/hard currencies for the less active or hardcore competitors with a nice hardcap on the available blessing duration to remove the option for griefing of the 1st from the 2nd. 

 

As balance is not a static but rather fluid state.

 

 

 

Sideras

Originally posted by Azrile

3 factions was the beauty of DAOC and 2 factions the downfall of Warhammer.

The problem is, with 2 factions.. they do have to be balanced.

With 3 factions, if the devs mess up and make one faction slightly stronger than the other two, the two weaker factions will almost always gang up on the stronger faction.  This was constantly the case with DAOC, when one side started to get an advantage, the other two sides would start to cooperate more and more.

There is just a lot more wiggle room for the devs when there are more than 2 factions.

Not sure this is the case anymore though. After playing GW2 this idea is lost to me. Now this could be a simple design fuck up on Anets behalf, but every match up in GW2 ended with the middle server harrassing the weak server while the winning server was attacking the weak server aswell.

Bottom line people today are retarded, the gaming communities are bloated with casual morons with some zerg mentality.

komarr

Originally posted by Sideras

Originally posted by Azrile

3 factions was the beauty of DAOC and 2 factions the downfall of Warhammer.

The problem is, with 2 factions.. they do have to be balanced.

With 3 factions, if the devs mess up and make one faction slightly stronger than the other two, the two weaker factions will almost always gang up on the stronger faction.  This was constantly the case with DAOC, when one side started to get an advantage, the other two sides would start to cooperate more and more.

There is just a lot more wiggle room for the devs when there are more than 2 factions.

Not sure this is the case anymore though. After playing GW2 this idea is lost to me. Now this could be a simple design fuck up on Anets behalf, but every match up in GW2 ended with the middle server harrassing the weak server while the winning server was attacking the weak server aswell.

Bottom line people today are retarded, the gaming communities are bloated with casual morons with some zerg mentality.

I believe part of the problem is players AND games today focus on individual rewards, even for participating in group activities like RvR.  In DAoC the main rewards for winning in RvR were realm wide bonuses and control of Darkness Falls.  Plus of course the simple joys of crushing dirty Albs and Hibs like bugs and watching them run crying for mommy

kiltak

I agree PVP rewards should not be based on one player but on the faction it self. Reward the faction not the players indivually. I know some players will think that sucks especially those who are billy bad ass and can leave a string of corpse in there wake. However while billy bad ass is destorying enemy players and reaping the rewards is he/she really being effective.

I have seen fights loss because great players won't work as a team. Mean while players who may not be billy bad ass but could be better if other players worked with said player get loss in the shuffle. I think most players are decent enough that in a team effort that can be effective. 

The only way to promote Team work is by rewarding the whole faction, not the player themselves.

primetheus

I realy dont think everyone here has realy read up much about TESO i do beleive many people are confusing TES with skyrim the later of which is just a tiny fraction of the universe and in a minute fragment of time TESO is set way way before any empire or imperials way way back when Tamriel was a very different place to what many of you would understand .

Factions have and always will be integral to any elder scrolls game the fact that alliances are made between races throughout TES lore is key to its flowing conflicts throughout the ages.

As regards to balance issues TES has never been about balance at any lvl of the mortal realm when Deadra can interfere and often do with the balance of things when Races rise and fall from power every few thousand years , there has always been a dominant race/faction these races arent just slung together they are there in lore and are meant to be as they are dont go screwing with TES lore otherwise you will realy piss people of

I for one am very excited about this game and the fact its been voted most anticipated MMO on multiple websights suggest im not alone . These forums do tend to bread a distinct brand of hater but when you do hate please hate with some lvl of knowledge about the said subject

PyrateLV

Originally posted by primetheus

I realy dont think everyone here has realy read up much about TESO i do beleive many people are confusing TES with skyrim the later of which is just a tiny fraction of the universe and in a minute fragment of time TESO is set way way before any empire or imperials way way back when Tamriel was a very different place to what many of you would understand .

Factions have and always will be integral to any elder scrolls game the fact that alliances are made between races throughout TES lore is key to its flowing conflicts throughout the ages.

As regards to balance issues TES has never been about balance at any lvl of the mortal realm when Deadra can interfere and often do with the balance of things when Races rise and fall from power every few thousand years , there has always been a dominant race/faction these races arent just slung together they are there in lore and are meant to be as they are dont go screwing with TES lore otherwise you will realy piss people of

I for one am very excited about this game and the fact its been voted most anticipated MMO on multiple websights suggest im not alone . These forums do tend to bread a distinct brand of hater but when you do hate please hate with some lvl of knowledge about the said subject

Factions are fine and are definately part of ES Lore.

FORCED Faction locks and segregated zones, based on what Race you pick, for the sole reason of 3 way PvP is not

sapphen

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Factions are fine and are definately part of ES Lore.

FORCED Faction locks and segregated zones, based on what Race you pick, for the sole reason of 3 way PvP is not

I couldn't put it better.  There are some things I can accept from a ES MMO;  I understand that player housing may be difficult,  I'm not happy about the classes but if they don't limit weapons or armor I'll give it a chance, I don't like the idea of an abilitiy bar but casters had a lot of abilities so I'll be accepting --- BUT THERE WAS NO REASON TO LOCK THE FACTIONS!

3-4thElf

Originally posted by ragz45
Other than fan assumtions, have the Dev's personally said why there is no Imperial option?

No fan assumption. There aren't Imps in the era they set the game in.

sapphen

Originally posted by Torvaldr

Originally posted by sapphen

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Factions are fine and are definately part of ES Lore.

FORCED Faction locks and segregated zones, based on what Race you pick, for the sole reason of 3 way PvP is not

I couldn't put it better.  There are some things I can accept from a ES MMO;  I understand that player housing may be difficult,  I'm not happy about the classes but if they don't limit weapons or armor I'll give it a chance, I don't like the idea of an abilitiy bar but casters had a lot of abilities so I'll be accepting --- BUT THERE WAS NO REASON TO LOCK THE FACTIONS!

Both very well said.  I don't mind some of the standard mmo trope with hotbars and adjusting how the world works to make multi-player function well.  But contrived, locked factions don't make sense in this universe, and really they've not added a great deal to any mmo with the exception of DAoC.  It could very well be they're making a horrible assumption that the contrived locked faction mechanic will transfer over well.  I think it will not.

Indeed.  I wish they would've fleshed out the world with quests for everyone.  Then if people wanted to participate in PvP battles then they would have to join a faction.

Second, ESO would have been a flipping awesome game to have a PvP server/open world PvP - and I don't even like PvP servers.  Having a bounty system that made town guards attempt to arrest or kill players on sight that are careless murders.  Would be a proactive punishment to have your character stuck in a jail for 6-12 hours without the ability to skip time.  There even could be a high level NPC bounty hunter that would go after players that camp, harass or kill lowbies mercilessly and take them to jail (you know like having high level guards to protect towns but instead they'd go after players).

They squandered so many creative possibilities for the sake of common MMO expectations.

ShakyMo

Like I've said before if they copied daoc more and had daocs server setup instead of this silly megaserver nonsense.

The could have had core servers with the faction locked areas, for those wanting strong faction pride. (with the bonus of less cross faction shenanigans that this mega server would bring)

Ffa servers which would basicly be darkfall with a decent budget

And coop servers which would suit pure pve types who want to go do dungeons in the other regions and find dungeon groups easier.

Don't know why they haven't done it, everyone would be happy then, well apart from the "wow clone, burn the witch!" Brigade.

Vulturnus

the DAoC system is the best one I have come accross in any MMO I've tried and I've tried most. The differences and speration betwean realms really added to the game and although class balance was always an issue what it added to the game was so much more important.

PS. ToA fricken ruined DAoC. Post SI it was the best MMO in histroy.

tazarconan

Originally posted by health001
balance is boring,true MMO player can take any  classe and turn them into beasts:P

Agreed.Thats actually a factor im looking on to mmos and rpg's i play. Given ofc the tools by the devs so u can make a beast :P. I dont know if ESO will be a game with depth in character development. Hve missed many updates/news.

PyrateLV

Originally posted by Vulturnus

the DAoC system is the best one I have come accross in any MMO I've tried and I've tried most. The differences and speration betwean realms really added to the game and although class balance was always an issue what it added to the game was so much more important.

PS. ToA fricken ruined DAoC. Post SI it was the best MMO in histroy.

You do realise that the Lead Dev who brought about ToA is the very same Lead Dev that is in charge of making TESO?

Just thought Id throw that tidbit out there for ya

Darrgen

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Vulturnus

the DAoC system is the best one I have come accross in any MMO I've tried and I've tried most. The differences and speration betwean realms really added to the game and although class balance was always an issue what it added to the game was so much more important.

PS. ToA fricken ruined DAoC. Post SI it was the best MMO in histroy.

You do realise that the Lead Dev who brought about ToA is the very same Lead Dev that is in charge of making TESO?

Just thought Id throw that tidbit out there for ya

You do realise everything you just said is wrong. Matt firor actually lost an internal power struggle because during the production in ToA he thought they should be focusing on the RvR portion of the game rather than adding PvE but seeing as how Mythic was made up of a lot of EQ lovers, they wanted to add PvE content. Nice try though

PyrateLV

Originally posted by Darrgen

Originally posted by PyrateLV

Originally posted by Vulturnus

the DAoC system is the best one I have come accross in any MMO I've tried and I've tried most. The differences and speration betwean realms really added to the game and although class balance was always an issue what it added to the game was so much more important.

PS. ToA fricken ruined DAoC. Post SI it was the best MMO in histroy.

You do realise that the Lead Dev who brought about ToA is the very same Lead Dev that is in charge of making TESO?

Just thought Id throw that tidbit out there for ya

You do realise everything you just said is wrong. Matt firor actually lost an internal power struggle because during the production in ToA he thought they should be focusing on the RvR portion of the game rather than adding PvE but seeing as how Mythic was made up of a lot of EQ lovers, they wanted to add PvE content. Nice try though

Its not wrong. He is credited as the Lead Dev for ToA. Look it up

Camthylion

9 races?  And yeah I don't care about balance, Id rather have freedom and options to make my own kinda class and figure out the keys to sucess.

Protocol-117

indeed, Forget balance, at least in the sense that they have taken in the past years. Who cares if someone figures out how to Munchkin their character and make them a God? That's just a sign of a good, experienced player. I don't want to have to make a cookie cutter character that plays just like every other guy with that class/Race.

Darrgen

Just because he was lead dev doesnt mean he got to make the decisions on what the expansion was about. Dont you think the president has final say?