New Elder Scrolls Online dev Q&A details faction battles and siege warfare

Elder Scrolls Online developers are counting, at least in part, on the power of underdog alliances to help balance faction battles in their upcoming MMO, according to a new Q&A with the team at ZeniMax Online Studios. An important part of the RPG's meta-game will involve conflicts between the three alliances for control of Cyrodiil, and the dev team maintains that a three-sided fight often has a way of balancing itself.

"If one side is over-populated, the other two sides usually gang up on that alliance," according to the developers. "That being said, there are alliance population caps per campaign to make sure one alliance doesn't fill up a campaign entirely."

We've had a look at the different ESO alliances before, and it appears that any factions that fall behind in the larger game of resource and keep control will be given some incentives to keep fighting hard, according to the Q&A. Keep sieges in ESO are based around attacking specific resources and weapons which allow for the capture of two flags. When both flags are in the control of one alliance, the keep is in their possession.

"You'll get more points by taking keeps and resources from the winning alliance and holding your own keeps, helping you catch up in the overall score," the developers said. "Lastly, keeps can be captured with smaller groups than you may expect, so even under-populated alliances have a real shot at claiming the throne."

But what's in store for you if like to roam the wilderness in order to hunt, explore, or maybe cause some trouble? It looks like even if you want to skulk off into the hills, there'll still be some faction politics at work.

"There will be lots of chance encounters and roaming players to kill in Cyrodiil," according to the Q&A. "Many of the quests from towns and from alliance entry locations are designed to send you into enemy territory. If you're looking for a fight outside of large-scale keep battles, there's a good chance you'll run into enemies near Chorrol, Cheydinhal, Bruma, Cropsford, or Vlastarus."

The full Q&A covers a variety of specific topics and information about the current state of the game. Still in closed beta, the most recent round of invites hit inboxes on September 4 . If you haven't managed to get an invite yet, you can always check out our hands-on with the game from earlier this year.

Latest in The Elder Scrolls
Serana from Skyrim, modded to look like a desiccated corpse.
Skyrim realism mod fixes your vampire girlfriend, giving her a voice and look more suited to someone who just got out of a coffin after 2,000 years
Image of a sweetroll with a candle in it
Bethesda marks Oblivion's 19th with a sweetroll, a candle, and absolutely no happy birthday gift for fans eager for the still-unannounced remaster
Skyblivion
Fan remake of Oblivion in Skyrim has a new video, looks amazing, is set for release 'this year,' and I struggle to imagine the rumoured official Oblivion remake doing much better
Skyrim man fighting a wolf
Skyrim was 'personally rebalanced' by producer Jeff Gardiner just 2 weeks before launch: 'Well, I hope this is good'
Skyrim intro cinematic skill - Hey, you. You're finally awake.
A Skyrim dev broke the game before launch when they made thousands of tiny ants cast individual shadows: 'Why is the game running so slow?'
Gang wars in modded Oblivion
Bethesda refuses to announce that Oblivion remaster to spite me specifically, so I'm consoling myself with this gamejam based on its terri-brilliant persuasion wheel
Latest in News
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event