Play Across All Factions | Forums

[Willaguy2010]

As the title tells, I think it would be a good idea to have the ability to play across all three factions. I'm not sure if this is already possible but I think it would allow everyone to play and decide which faction they like in particular. Plus, if we have friends that like a different faction than us, we can simply play with them as their faction.

Thoughts and feedback?

[Havemercy87]

My guess is going to be that you'll have the option for more than one account. I don't think they would leave this option out. They should have at least 3 character files, one for each faction.

[MisterWillow]

They could have it like Planetside 2, where you have multiple character slots, and you pick whatever faction you want (classes can be swapped at any time), but if you want to try another faction, you have to use a different slot. You can go back to your other 'character' at any time, though, unless you delete that slot.

The only downside to this system is that experience doesn't transfer, so if you invest heavily in one faction, and decide to try a different one, you're back at square one, but not knowing how leveling works or if weapons and armour have stats---and therefore, if you can get a sword that does more damage, or whatever, than another sword---I don't know how much that would actually be relevant, considering you could just be unlocking cosmetic elements that would probably not even apply to another faction anyway (since I'm assuming you won't see a samurai with a viking helmet on).

[Eiddard]

I cannot be certain, but for the interviews it was pretty obvious that this has nothing to do with a RPG.

You will not have a "character" per se, it will be like a MOBA, in each game, you choose your Hero and play with him that much.

There will be some customization to adapt each Hero to your playstyle, but again, you wont create your "Put epic name here" warrior, level him, and play always with him. I don't expect even to be able to play always the faction you do want in ranked.

I am really concern about so many people thinking this is some kind of RPG.

[Willaguy2010]

I cannot be certain, but for the interviews it was pretty obvious that this has nothing to do with a RPG.

You will not have a "character" per se, it will be like a MOBA, in each game, you choose your Hero and play with him that much.

There will be some customization to adapt each Hero to your playstyle, but again, you wont create your "Put epic name here" warrior, level him, and play always with him. I don't expect even to be able to play always the faction you do want in ranked.

I am really concern about so many people thinking this is some kind of RPG.

I don't know if there will be a character system or not. But with the way Ubisoft is talking about how you choose your favorite warrior that you find inside of you, I'd think that you would always get to play the faction that you want to. Also from the two gameplay demos we've seen, I think it's safe to assume that there won't be any mixing of the factions on either team.

[MisterWillow]

I cannot be certain, but for the interviews it was pretty obvious that this has nothing to do with a RPG.

You will not have a "character" per se, it will be like a MOBA, in each game, you choose your Hero and play with him that much.

There will be some customization to adapt each Hero to your playstyle, but again, you wont create your "Put epic name here" warrior, level him, and play always with him. I don't expect even to be able to play always the faction you do want in ranked.

I am really concern about so many people thinking this is some kind of RPG.

Didn't mean to imply any of that.

Planetside isn't an RPG. You pick a faction, and name a character---with some minor customisation---which is tied to a save slot. That's the only real RPG element present, and it affects nothing. Your character doesn't have conversations with other players, or has a story arch, or anything. It's a pretty standard shooter. As you rank up (among other things), you earn credits that you can use to buy weapons, attachments, etc. etc., but those credits can only be spent on weapons and such within that faction, and in order to earn things for a different faction, you need to make another save slot, where you name a different character.

To echo what Willaguy said, with the way the devs are wanting each person to philosophically identify with a specific faction, such a save-slot-is-a-character/faction system seems a perfect fit. It's the same in Planetside, where each faction has their own vague sense of purpose and motivation, but there is no real story, just background lore to establish a reason for the conflict. For Honor at least will have a campaign to cement this.

In terms of the ranking and unlocks, the methodology is hardly any different than your standard Call of Duty or Battlefield, and those are obviously not RPGs, unless your definition varies wildly from mine. You can, as your character, be any class within your faction at any time, so you aren't locked into a playstyle, and are able to adapt to situations. I imagine it will be the same with For Honor.

But again, we don't know if there is an unlock system similar to a shooter---where you can unlock faster or more powerful swords, or more protective armour (I don't know how exactly something lie that would work)---or if everything you unlock is entirely cosmetic, so it might not even be that much of an issue. And you could be right as well, that we pick from a handful of 'Heroes' instead of simply switching classes. We just don't know.

[Eiddard]

You put Planetside as an example, but that is a bad example to compare with For Honor.

For Honor is based on matches of around 10min, Planetside 2 is a huge map, continously in war, they force you to play a faction because if they didnt, you could be switching to the winning side all the time, making the ingame experience really bad. The only game that is kind of like Planetside 2 is the WvWvW on GW2, but in this case it has a lot more of RPG than FPS.

For Honor is a mixture between MOBA and Shooter, it has a lot of things from both. One of the main features of those games is that you are not forced to play always the same thing, you are free to play each "faction" or "hero" in the game. But you can have something favourite and play it constantly, I think that is what the devs meant by favourite faction/class.

It would be one really bad design decision to force people to pick faction. I dont know how matchmaking will works, maybe is like Heroes of the Storm, in Quick Play you will pick your character before finding a match, maybe that is the case in For Honor, you pick Faction before finding a match, or maybe its different and there is a votation within teams to pick Faction.

Actually, I think that for Ranked matches one team has to select first faction, withing a team votation, the most voted faction is selected, if there is a tie, the faction will be selected randomly between those 2 tied factions. Once the first team has a Faction the enemy team does the same with the remaining factions.

But that is just my opinnion and the devs might have other method.

For "normal" matches I think is fine to select faction before the match is find.

Anyway, I am 100% sure that they won't force you to play only one Faction.

[Havemercy87]

I think MisterWillow has it pegged down, mind you I've not played Planetside so I'm not 100% on the reference. I imagine the solo campaigns will be a bit different for each faction, keeping them separate will most likely be necessary.

[Solid_Altair]

You put Planetside as an example, but that is a bad example to compare with For Honor.

For Honor is based on matches of around 10min, Planetside 2 is a huge map, continously in war, they force you to play a faction because if they didnt, you could be switching to the winning side all the time, making the ingame experience really bad. The only game that is kind of like Planetside 2 is the WvWvW on GW2, but in this case it has a lot more of RPG than FPS.

For Honor is a mixture between MOBA and Shooter, it has a lot of things from both. One of the main features of those games is that you are not forced to play always the same thing, you are free to play each "faction" or "hero" in the game. But you can have something favourite and play it constantly, I think that is what the devs meant by favourite faction/class.

It would be one really bad design decision to force people to pick faction. I dont know how matchmaking will works, maybe is like Heroes of the Storm, in Quick Play you will pick your character before finding a match, maybe that is the case in For Honor, you pick Faction before finding a match, or maybe its different and there is a votation within teams to pick Faction.

Actually, I think that for Ranked matches one team has to select first faction, withing a team votation, the most voted faction is selected, if there is a tie, the faction will be selected randomly between those 2 tied factions. Once the first team has a Faction the enemy team does the same with the remaining factions.

But that is just my opinnion and the devs might have other method.

For "normal" matches I think is fine to select faction before the match is find.

Anyway, I am 100% sure that they won't force you to play only one Faction.

This. And it seems the same faction can go against itself, which would facilitate matchmaking/open the choices a little more. It'd be crazy to force players to go always with the same faction. What if I wanna play with a friend who picked something else? This is a match-by-match game. The thing of pick your faction is just a cute publicity stunt. Nothing against it, btw.

And I don't think I want matches where one team has mixed factions in it, if that's what the OP is asking.

[Havemercy87]

It might be geared for a strong multiplayer but with a full solo (possibly co-op) campaign in there it changes things a bit.

Also, they wouldn't be forcing anyone to stay with one faction. If you want to switch simply log in to your other file. Yes that means players will have to work on each individually, but that would make you really work with each faction and learn the skills.

I'm not saying that they will go that way with it, they may go a number of other ways with it. They may decide to make us jump between factions in the campaign, familiarizing ourselves with each and that would open it up for more of the other way. Something like, main menu you pick which faction and you can jump between and xp, skills, level, etc etc cover all 3.