Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Balancing Factions?
Zyxx
Member UncommonPosts: 49
Ok, i've been thinking about how they will be balancing the factions so it will be fair for all parts?
Poll from http://elderscrollsonline.info/races with the races/factions, it will look like this. Ebonhear Pact gets 1050 votes, Aldmeri Dominion gets 750 votes and Daggerfall Covenant gets only 450 votes. So how are they gonna make it fair for all players when we only have 1 server? I know we can't use those numbers, but it raises an important question of how they are gonna solve that issue?
Comments
Well AD 750 and DC 450 = 1200 > 1050 EP . This is how you solve that issue.
In theory, the two smaller factions should gang up on the larger one. People often claim it worked it DAoC, but that's not entirely true. Faction imbalance can also be "solved" by gradual home turf advantages, but many don't consider being constantly outnumbered and having to rely on outside assistance fun.
And what if AD and DC wont fight together? Or if they are having some kind of dissagrement? Or just pissed at each other? Then EP will rule the game, because AD and DC are stubborn..
I don't think that solution is viable..
In DAoC I played Midgard, and we where the under dogs all the time. But we learned how tho win battles. We had to work more as a team to be able to win and we had to put in more effort then the other factions. We had to split up the alb zerg and use guerilla tactics to win.
When we could cause enough havoc on the battle field, we could slaughter the albs like sheeps.
Same was with the hibi's.
So moar does not mean better...
It worked in DAoC, why shouldn't it work in ESO?
BTW always winning can get as boring as always losing. So ppl will change sides and it will balance out. The beginning can get a bit rough, that's true but it evens out.
OP,
Ignoring the fact that my following suggestion would make even less sense than racially locked factions in an ESO game, here's what I think would balance out the factions.
1 Elf race per faction, 1 Human race per faction, and 1 Beastly race per faction. Judging by current trends in the MMO market, people tend to gravitate towards the factions that are either all gruff and ugly or all pretty (elves).
Scalpless,
In my experience on the Lancelot server in its glory days, the two least dominate factions would team together to beat the dominate faction, and then turn on each other in the end. So in theory, it should still work. However, judging by more recent releases with 3 factions and the type of community that dominates the genre now, I have my doubts. Take GW2 and TSW for instance. I don't recall ever seeing the two least dominate servers/factions banding together to overcome the larger one. Instead, I see people just not PvPing if their side is losing...or worse in GW2's case, people transfer servers to the winning side.
The thing about teaming up isthat it requires a tight-knit community and some coordination. Modern MMO players have neither. I remember trying to team up with another server in GW2's WvW, but then some random zerg decided not to listen to chat and attacked their keeps, leading to their zerg attacking back and so on. Speaking of GW2, its autobalancing is a step in the right direction IMO, but I don't know how it could work with real factions.
As for DAoC, Midgard was indeed nearly always outnumbered. On some servers, they teamed up with another faction just fine, but I don't think it was always that easy. My knowledge on the subject is a bit lacking, though.
I remember playing some WvW a few months ago. Our zerg was engaged in epic player vs. door combat when we broke the wall next to that door with a trebuchet. Guess what? The zerg continued banging the door. I tried telling them to ignore the gate and go in through the hole in wall in /say and map chat, but it took several minutes until they noticed. That's what modern MMO gamers are like.
It's a thorny issue to be true.
If the populations end up being split this way on the beta then they may have to manage it actively.
Perhaps by putting in hard caps on numbers of players from each faction in Cyrodil (cue complaints about not being able to join battles with your freinds...) or by giving some kind of buffs to the underdogs (cue complaints about 'least common denominator' gameplay...).
If they leave it unbalanced, then getting steamrollered by the big faction will either lead to semi-permanent alliances between the two smaller factions or endless complaining, alt swapping and/or ragequitting behaviour - 'hardcore PvP'ers of the ganker subgroup hate being ganked after all...
If however they take a deep breath and go with the 'whatever happens, happens' routine, then it will at least mean interguild and interfaction politics will be a major game factor and alliances and betrayals will become part of the furniture...
... I personally would welcome that.
However, unless there are interguild and interfaction game tools to allow alliances and betrayals to be set-up and managed effectively, then this option will be an utter balls-up.
I hope they go for the grown-up option of FFA alliances et al - and pray that they get the UI right for facilitating it!
I think the reason we haven't seen it in GW2 is because the teams change every however often. Forming an alliance with another faction, even a temporary one, takes time. In GW2 the 3 servers involved in each war shifts every so often. Who's going to put the effort into negotiating an alliance if 2 weeks later the servers shift and you aren't with the same servers?
In (old) DAoC the players you were fighting with/against didn't change. The entire population of Hib didn't suddenly change 2 weeks down the line.
I would wait until closer to launch, its all speculation atm as every poll ive seen says a different result, for instance this one
And tbh even if the underdog factions dont join forces the large faction will still be fighting a war on 2 fronts, so as long as they arent massively more popular it shouldnt be a big issue
You're right as far as forming alliances, but maybe players were just smarter then. It seemed to be common knowledge that Red is Dead, unless a bigger force of Red is dominating the map. So in this case, if Albs is rolling all of the frontiers, anyone can open their map and see this. We'd run across Mids, stop, bow, wave, and let him live. No organized alliance needed, players of both factions knew Albs were rolling us and that the we'd settle our own differences after the Albs were stopped. Those were the good ol' days of course.
The Ebonheart Pact will likely end up being the highly populated Albion of the game, given that Skyrim was just released (Nords) and everyone loves Morrowind (Dark Elves). I don't think we need any more polls to come to that conclusion.
The Aldmeri Dominion ends up being the Hibernia equivalent, not only because they both hug trees, but because they'll be in the mid-popularity zone. It seems like the faction which will attract most of the weeaboos, furries, bronies, and associated anime connoisseurs. Aside from that, we all know how many people love rolling elves (in this case wood elves) with bows.
Nice to see the Daggerfall Covenant as the underdog. Looks like it's going to end up being the Midguard of TESO without the snow, which is fine with me. Orcs are generally unpopular, the Bretons are somewhat queer compared to the Nords and Imperials, and from my experience players tend to ignore the desert races.