The Faction Lock system will certainly create problems for many people. I think that splitting the population into 2 Factions (like tradition MMOs) is kinda of ok, but when go over that, to three of more Factions, it creates problems. Especially in ESO that people want to play specific races. I personally have friends who would only play Khajit and others who want to play Nords. In any case, I think there is a simple solution to this problem, that is both easy to implement and consistent with lore without removing the Faction Lock itself.

DIPLOMATIC PASS FEATURE:

1) Any player can invite a person from an Opposing Faction to a group. – This would be an 10 second castable out-of-combat ability (this way you cant just call reinforcements when you need them)

2) At the end of the cast, the Invited Person would be teleported to the location of the person who invited him/her.

3) The Invited Person would get a Diplomatic Pass Debuff while in group.

4) People with the Diplomatic Pass Debuff would not be able to interact with NPCs or start new quests except for selling and buying basic supplies. To make it more realistic, you can add NPC dialog for people with the Diplomatic Pass Debuff (i.e. “Your kind is not welcome here” or “Go away outsider”).

5) While having the Diplomatic Pass Debuff you would be able to complete the quests available to your group (i.e. the people who invited you) – The quests you do under the Diplomatic Pass Debuff WOULD NOT AFFECT 50+ or 50++ content in any way, you would still be able to do these quests again at 50+ and 50++.

6) When you leave (or are removed) from group, you are instantly teleported back to your alliance and the Diplomatic Pass Debuff is removed.

7) You would also be able to invite someone from another Faction when in a Raid Instance.

8) The Diplomatic Pass Feature would not work in Cyrodiil. But if you want to, its certainly workable. For example it could make you change Factions while the Debuff was active (so if you are a Nord with a group of Altmer the other Nords would want to kill you - which is very realistic). – You would not get Alliance points while PvPing with the Diplomatic Pass Debuff.

I think this feature is easy to implement (it should require some but not a ton of new programming), realistic and consistent with lore. I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with it and I see no serious reason why ZOS should not implement something similar. It fixes the downsides of the Faction Locks system without creating any serious problems.

lol, its not happening man.

Thats what people said about first person, Endgame PvE, and even action combat. I don't see why you are against potentially improving a game system, unless you hate the game and want it to fail

(Edit: I am clearly teasing. No I don't think that Carde wants to the game to fail. lol. not sure how that got misconstrued ^.^).

1) No it will not happen because it is a core feature of the game will set them back a great deal

2) How is liking the 3 locked faction system mean that the game will fail?

3) How is getting rid of it instantly going to improve the game? Game isn't even out yet you can't base anything off speculation.

Factions are part of the core design philosophy of this game, which would not benefit from being discarded on the whim of players who sadly "just don't get it".

Decent enough idea.

I'm hoping for something along your idea to be implemented. Perhaps we might not need it, each faction might flesh out nicely.
but it would be nice for an ingame party searching mechanic for instances or adventure zones, even quests. So if people of other factions qued for the same instance or w/e then they could be grouped with some sort of parlay in place.

If I had a dollar for every time someone said "they changed first person, so they'll change this" argument...

Nice attempt at demonizing anyone who disagrees with you btw. "Any one who says different wants this game to fail!". Sorry pal. Faction locks are staying, and the game'll be better for it. Take it or leave it.

You're being intentionally argumentative if you think first person view 8+ months ago is the same as a core mechanic in the plot and gameplay less than 8 months before launch.

Also, I'm one of the staunchest defenders of a video game which makes me laugh because its a video game and I can't believe the outright toxicity that people can generate over such a thing because it 1) simply exists and 2) doesn't exist in the way they want it to. This all feels like one long joke with a very disappointing punchline.

I don't think removing faction locks would improve the game, either. The AvA is designed in an awesome way and it will be the masterpiece of this game. Sounds like you kind of want it to fail more in my opinion.

A Core feature is one that the game cannot work without it. How is inviting your friends to quest with you going to set the game back a great deal? I just don't see it. Besides if you read my suggestion, I am not arguing for removing the Faction Lock. The Faction Lock is still in place.

The game will NOT fail because of that, but it will certainly become less popular. Here some conversations I am 100% will happen with the Faction Lock in its current state:

-”Hey John, lets all play something”

-”Sure thing, what do you have in mind”

-”How about some ESO?”

-”Well Mary and Eric are playing AD with their Khajiits, and Bob is playing EP with his gaming guild”

-”You know what? [censored] ESO. Lets play some Destiny”

-”That’s cool. You know the new LoL season started too!”

-”Awesome, let me call everyone. Log in, I will see you online!”

-”Yeah see you there. Btw I think I will cancel my ESO subscription, there are so many other things to do, it seems too much trouble”

-”Yeah me too. Its too many logistics problems will all those restrictions. besides there are so many other things we can all do together.”

-”ok logging on. see ya soon”

—————————————————————–

-”Hey Mike! I just talked to Pete and Lisa and they have started playing ESO also”

-”Awesome, we should play with them. We can help them level”

-”Oh I think they said they started as Argonians, Lisa really likes their lore”

-”Well we are AD so this is not going to work”

-”Hey lets all play something else”

-”Sounds good, let me give them a call”

Well, if you believe that being able to play with friends who are playing other races will NOT improve the game, then I am not sure that makes any sense.

In your opinion this will improve the system. In mine it breaks it.

3 faction pvp is self correcting as one overpopulated realm will still have problems beating back both of the underpopulated ones if they work together.

If there are just 2 factions this 3 sided war of unpredictability can not happen. Sorry your idea doesn't improve the situation only makes it worse.

Fairly well constructed, coluld give this drop of salt to game crowd, the 50+ would be a bit surprising when you could visit your own land but without own alliance players - but same time would be only option to visit it in this way.

the idea is for pve only.

Well thank you for posting without reading the original post or the thread.

Just to clarify no one said to reduce the Factions to 2 or to remove the Faction Lock. Next time, please read the post and the thread before posting, thanks

While I agree that the faction lock is bad for the game, it is pretty much set in stone.

I think your idea is entirely too complicated for such a simplistic answer. Which is "just let people group up for instanced PvE no matter what faction/race they are". We already know we can do other factions content in this regard, why not just let us group up for it? I agree with this much. But there's no need for diplomatic blah blah blah.

We can join the same guilds regardless of faction, just let us dungeon up together regardless too. Easy fix, everyone's happy. If you want to quest together, svck it up and find compromise and pick a race you both can agree on. We all had to do it in other faction based games, nothing is different here other than some people are needlessly set on OH MY GOD I GOTTA BE A CAT MAN BUT MY FRIENDS WANNA BE LIZARD MANS. Tough.

I think the better way to react to such posts or threads would be to think of it more like a food for thought theory. There isn't really a good reason to shut down a suggestion or an idea like this by just saying: "Nope, ain't happening, pack your bags, get out".

While I agree with you, this idea is limited to instanced content. On the other hand, the Diplomatic Pass Debuff idea allows people to quest together also, which in my opinion is a good thing. I personally don't think its too complicated, but then again, I like complicated stuff. lol.

So same wish you got, you just do not like "diplomatic" and do not like walking other factions inside your world, but agreed with the idea.

Spamming the same topic with a new thread every week or so certainly isn't going to help your case.

Besides like others side its a core mechanic, its not going to change. they already compromised with 50+ and 50++ content. Take it or leave, please.

-"Hey Steve, did you hear about the small group of players that quit because they couldn't all group up in TESO?"

-"What do you mean they couldn't group? I've never heard of TESO restricting the characters you can make."

-"No, it's not that. They refused to make different characters. They wanted to play certain characters and it was more important than playing with friends."

-"What are they? 9 year olds?

-"Indeed."

"yea, I always make a new character every week, it gets to level 10, I love MMOs you can have so many characters created"

Forgive my confusion but it looks like you are stating in the opening paragraph you don't like the 3 faction system.

Pve or pvp the game is currently written (quests lore ect) on a three faction system. It would require likely the entire story and quest system to be rewritten to accommodate anything other than a pure 3 faction system.

And as all the faction lock does is for you to play for a certain alliance based on your racial choice. I retread your post an still don't et the over all point.

Your diplomatic buff or whatever allows my nord to run with a member of the AD alliance but what if the nord version of the instance is to kill the queen? In that situation you run into continuity problems as well as breaking the story for the AD player. Since I doubt the queen would welcome them back to court after forcing her to respawn.

Spamming the same topic after one was locked earlier is not a good idea, posting the same contents as it was locked for is even worse.