Changing between factions

[Luieburger]

I searched the forum and couldn't find any information about this.

How easy is it to switch from one faction to another? Is it as simple as a mouse click?

Do your class skills and certs carry over? Do ranks carry over? Essentially... can I max out everything on NC and then switch over to TR and keep the same skills and everything?

[Mr DeCastellac]

The game isn't in beta yet, no one knows.

[Luieburger]

How did it work in PS1? Or was it irrelevant? I don't know anything about PS1.

[neonlazer]

Characters in PS1 are completely separate. You can switch between empires, but you cannot change empires again for 12hrs.

[Hamma]

As far as I recall you need to use multiple accounts if you want to switch between empires on the same server. I'm not sure if that is set in stone or not though.

[Kayos]

They said it would be one faction per server for PS2.
Not sure if they have changed their minds or not but that's the last they said.

[Mr DeCastellac]

In Planetside 1 your character was restricted to whatever empire you chose when creating him. You could create multiple characters on different factions, but, for example, if you played a VS character and wanted to log into a TR one, you would have to wait 8-12 hours.

[p0intman]

just have multiple accounts (3 works) for each faction on a single server.

[Harrod]

One faction per server is a completely meaningless principle when you're allowing people to create as many F2P accounts as they want.

It was confirmed by purrr in the day2 stream. One char per account per server.

[The Kush]

It would be unfair to allow someone to level up as X empire and then transfer over your skills,ranking,certs,ect. to Y empire. Imagine someone mastering a scythe and getting credit for mastering a reaver when they switch. Or someone maxing out a jackhammer and switching to get max stats on the minichaingun. You may or may not be certified as high as you should be with another factions equiptment, Conclusion: it wont happen.

[Qel]

One faction per server is a completely meaningless principle when you're allowing people to create as many F2P accounts as they want.

Yes but if you have to have multiple accounts to do that then presumably SOE are thinking you'll also be willing to pay twice to get all of your custom items as well.

[GuyFawkes]

People will switch to the winning side, because being on the winning side with less configuration options for your character is better than being on the losing side. 20% power differential between high- and low-level chars right?

therein lies the problem, and the detriment to the original , and most other pvp type mmo's Ive been in .warhammer is a great example. if only there was a way to lock to an IP address:rolleyes:

soe proposal wont entirely discourage such cowardice , but at least they can cash in on said person maybe having to buy more sc for their other accounts. more income, more chance to keep the hackers at bay .

[JimmyOmaha]

I for one will not be trading empire. If my guys are loosing the will to fight; we don't need em! :]

[Bags]

One faction per server is a completely meaningless principle when you're allowing people to create as many F2P accounts as they want.

This. I see no reason to force us to make 3 accounts. Maybe charge us for the ability to make multiple factions per server?

[Malorn]

I'm fine with a faction change as a paid service. 1500 smedbux or something along those lines. Assuming the certs map 1:1 across factions shouldn't be much of an issue.

[DOUBLEXBAUGH]

Even if they let you make characters from another empire on 1 account on the same server, unless you care about the stores cosmetic stuff, its better to make a second/third account for them. They have said you can only train 1 character at a time per account, and their will be off-line training. So if you have them on the same account you can train your main or your alt, but if they are on different accounts you can have one training off-line while your playing and training the other.

[ThermalReaper]

I don't see why I should chicken out and join the winning team just because my current team is losing. It's war, no one wins forever.
However, I wouldn't mind having to pay to get other chars for different empires so I won't use it. :D

[Dagron]

I don't see why I should chicken out and join the winning team just because my current team is losing. It's war, no one wins forever.

Sadly for a fight to keep going, numbers are needed... and most people are selfish idiots (not you guys, i love you) and will jump ship, leaving a few to get steamrolled. That's not fun even for the winning team.

A little faith in people is important, but not taking steps to prevent this kind of behavior is a naively huge ammount of faith. :p

[Sladuog]

It was confirmed by purrr in the day2 stream. One char per account per server.

Interesting. I hope it gets uploaded soon so I can confirm this.

[Luieburger]

Thank you all for replying to my thread.

I'm glad to hear that they will only allow one character per account, per server. It should be difficult to swtich, and a faction decision is not something to be taken lightly.

The reason why I posted this thread was because my friends and I are trying to figure out which faction to play. We're a little divided about what to pick, so we were wondering how easy it would be for us to try out all of the factions during beta.

Now it seems that picking a faction is not exactly trivial.

When the game goes live, we will have the option to make multiple accounts for free. This seems really dishonest though. Perhaps there is a way that they can verify who you are and allow only one account per person?

Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong. As some have stated, people will become attached to their primary characters because the unlocks are difficult to obtain. Outfits who are trying to decide who to trust can verify that someone is loyal by the time spent on that person's character or even the money spent on perks.

Either way, I'm glad to find out that changing factions is difficult or at least severely annoying.

[Mister Morden]

i don't like the idea of switching or several accounts, especially when ps2 is complete f2p.
it would be a good idea to sell this game once, like for 20 euro, so you have to buy it again if you want to play for another empire.

[Luieburger]

i don't like the idea of switching or several accounts, especially when ps2 is complete f2p.
it would be a good idea to sell this game once, like for 20 euro, so you have to buy it again if you want to play for another empire.

I agree, but then you lose the big boost in players that you get from F2P. There has to be some clever way (other than DNA testing, fingerprinting, and giving up your social security number) that we can confirm one person only has one account.

[Mechzz]

Dumb question,

but am I going to need a separate confirmation e-mail address for each account that I create?

If not, (and I hope the answer is no), then why are we being limited to one empire per account per server?

[Gogita]

i don't like the idea of switching or several accounts, especially when ps2 is complete f2p.
it would be a good idea to sell this game once, like for 20 euro, so you have to buy it again if you want to play for another empire.

I am a big supporter of empire loyalty, but I think this is a bad method so keep players loyal. First of all, people might change their mind about what empire they like more, especially in the beginning. By adding this cost to switching empire, you might lock people into playing an empire they dont like.

But this is also bad for non new players. I know several people that changed empire after a year or something, just because they felt like it.they weren't empire hoppers but kept on playing for that empire on.

[Immigrant]

I'm fine with a faction change as a paid service.

This. Just don't make it too cheap and it should be limited to once in 3 months so we don't see hordes swapping accounts quickly and regularly to join the winning Empire and grind resources.

I won't ever do that (TR till I die) however if someone wants to I don't see why should we force him to make a completely new account or character and start from zero.

Also in your first month you should have 1 chance to swap the Empire free of charge simply to prevent newbs from making a wrong choice and then having to make entirely new account to correct it.

[GuyFawkes]

Thought a bit more about this , and wondered if it would be better to allow people to make extra characters per account or not.

For instance, you make a TR character and only play that character , you will always log in as TR and get a priority login.

You make your account and make a TR , VS and NC character . The game server automatically locks out the faction(s) with the highest population , so if VS are lowest pop , you only get option to play VS. Once you on your VS char you are then locked on a timer to that faction for next 24hrs.

[EASyEightyEight]

Paid service with a cooldown timer attached, except when one empire REALLY needs the personnel. I figure SOE will have the tools to make the switch to the severe underdog free and painless if they felt they needed to encourage people, however, I imagine a lot of them would want some form of guarantee they can go back to their home empire once things even out a little. Planetside kind of auto-balances itself on the 3-way, keeping any one empire from dominating everything.

I am rather dumb founded there are limits at all, admittedly. F2P means there's really nothing stopping one from making an account for each empire, and constantly keeping training regimens going for each one so that no one account falls too far behind. Hell, it practically encourages non-empire hoppers to set up extra accounts and maintain training of those characters, just in case.

[Luieburger]

F2P means there's really nothing stopping one from making an account for each empire, and constantly keeping training regimens going for each one so that no one account falls too far behind. Hell, it practically encourages non-empire hoppers to set up extra accounts and maintain training of those characters, just in case.

Exactly. Unless they find some way to limit this, I'll definitely have training going on 3 different accounts. Maybe more?

[Mister Morden]

well you guys are right, maybe some people want to switch the empire for good reasons, so i think a limitation would be nice, like only switching every 3 months + money.

[TheBladeRoden]

There's going to be many servers, so you don't have to create a new account if you want to try different empires.

[Juturna]

In Planetside 1 your character was restricted to whatever empire you chose when creating him. You could create multiple characters on different factions, but, for example, if you played a VS character and wanted to log into a TR one, you would have to wait 8-12 hours.

When the game first came out it was one faction per server as well. They later changed this starting with only two empires then to three. Maybe they will follow a similar route in PS2.

[berzerkerking]

You will be shunned should you do so.

[FPClark]

You could just start playing as a VS and never have to worry about switching ;P