What is the weakest faction?

Out of the three alliance, which one is least likely to win?

Ohhh tough one. I think it will be almost impossible to tell until release. Though I suspect that it will change every so often. The DC seem to be heavily outnumbered but honestly, from what I have seen, the EP seem to have the most amount of TES and MMO 'noobs'. I suppose we will have to wait and see.

Inb4 imminent flame war

I can see this getting biased. People won't badmouth their own faction.

(August 5th 2013, 01:20 PM)Nevvarine Dark-Blade Wrote: I can see this getting biased. People won't badmouth their own faction.

Even though I am in DC, I agree that DC will be at a disadvantage when it comes to numbers

"Oh my gaaad we are totes going to winnnn DC and EP suck!!" Lol why don't we keep this discussion till after game release
(I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for this :P )

WARNING: The following flame war may contain vulgar language (including, but not limited to, racial slurs, swear words, and death threats), hate messages, and written depictions of violence. Viewer discretion is advised.

Hard to say it would be EP since they consistently have the most people. Even if they are mostly noobs, it would be a war of attrition. The DC likes to think they are the underdog heroes and what not, but I think they are likely going to be the weakest. A numbers advantage is hard to overcome without serious strategy, which would be really hard to accomplish in game throughout the whole faction. There might be guilds that hold the lines in places, but as a whole they are the most likely I think.

Only reason I can see AD being weaker is because there is a healthy amount of people that dislike the faction for one reason or another. In this theory, the other two factions would just be focusing on killing AD first before each other. That isn't something that would last for too long anyways I think. Eventually the AD would be retreating and the EP and DC forces would have to duke it out.

Well, I think we're all even. AD had no races built for close up combat, while EP has no race that is based on Magic. While DC is good at magic, brilliant with Tanks and alright with rouges, it lack the advantage of numbers. I'd agree, we really can't know until TESO begins.

From a lore perpective, it somewhat depends on whether the Ebonheart Pact can disregard racial differences. Those three races normally don't get along, to say the least, but the threat of domination from both Molag Bal and the other alliances take precedence... for now. They are formidable opponents.

I remember reading that Redguards do not make good soldiers. Lone swordsmen, yes, but they aren't military fighters, so the Covenant may be at a disadvantage there, though the Bretons and Orcs may make up for this.

The Bosmer and Khajiit may get sick of the Altmer's arrogance, but the Dominion seems stable. Some say we have no capable warriors, but that is wrong. The Khajiit make good warriors, especially the Cathay, and Altmeri warriors strive for perfection in their art. What they may lack in physical strength, they make up for in skill and determination, though arrogance may lead to underestimation of enemies.

Numbers will have nothing to do with anything except the fact that the percentage of noobs will probably be higher in the EP and most DC players will be closer to pros (Of course just a speculation, no proper proof). Most people in the AD are bound to be ranged, be it magic or bow and arrow, and will lack in melee (Yes there will be plenty of AD tanks, but the ranged-melee ratio of the players in Cyrodil will be unbalanced).
Here's the Advantages and Disadvantages that I can think of at the moment (probably forget some but hey):

Advantages:

DC: Best melee (leaning towards tanking)

AD: Best ranged

EP: Best overall (leaning towards DPS)

Disadvantages:

DC: Probably lack of archers... can't think of much more (NUMBERS MAKE NO DIFFERENCE IN CYRODIL ALL WILL BE EVEN) I'm tired and can't think of anything else, not to say there isn't.

AD: Lack of melee, mainly tanks.

EP: Mostly noobs and maybe lack in mages (though I expect to see many Dunmer mages)

I haven't the time to carry on, so there you go.

Players can chose any type of class for any type of race they want in the game setting, there is no limitations. So I don't think it would be accurate to say that the DC has the best melee and the AD has the best ranged or that the EP is best dps wise. In the lore that might be more true, but it would be pretty bad game design to make factions have inherent disadvantages to a play style. I'm just not sure where you get the numbers for knowing that most AD players will be ranged for example, but it's just unfounded unless you can back it up with some evidence. Still many month away from release so it's hard to know anything for sure. This whole topic really was probably just made to stir the pot up for that matter.

I'm not quite sure why everyone is determined their faction will 'win'. It's an on-going thing. Nobody can win. Technically, one jarl from Falkreath and his Atmoran buddy (who then precedes to kill him) win, about three hundred years after the game.

But the weakest faction?
Well, it would be between DC and AD. People complain about EP being made up of 'noobs'. From what I've seen, that's a load of bullshit. But even if it were, would that make them any worse at PvP? They may not be able to name the continent the game's on, but they can click and use strategies picked up from WoW etc. And number-wise: yeah, a single battle is even, but what if you've just fought a battle and your strength is down to nothing, then you get hit by another 200? Or what if you're fighting a battle, and another army goes behind you and takes your fort?
DC may lack on archers and sharpshooters. I think that's why, in the trailer, the Breton is a rogue. It's to show those who haven't played before that "Hey look, Bretons can be neat rogues" despite the fact that everyone who has played an ES game will probably go for them being mages (except for me, but hey, I'm special)
Aldmeri Dominion again, don't have any stereotypical 'Warrior' races. Bosmer have a 'sneaky & shooty' role, Altmer are made out to be mages and Khajiit are shown to be thieves and rogues. Again, a lot of the advertisements have shown Khajiit as warriors as well, balancing out the odds.

It all comes down to numbers eventually, but who knows maybe DC will actually turn out to be the underdog heroes, maybe AD may have the most tanks between all the factions, and maybe EP won't necessarily become the winning faction. But who knows

(August 5th 2013, 01:26 PM)SpellSword Wrote:

(August 5th 2013, 01:20 PM)Nevvarine Dark-Blade Wrote: I can see this getting biased. People won't badmouth their own faction.

Even though I am in DC, I agree that DC will be at a disadvantage when it comes to numbers

We have to remember that the number of people who choose a certain faction doesn't have to necessarily be an exact indication of the faction's strength in PvP. Many people can concentrate mostly on PvE and take little part in PvP.

A faction that overall has the lowest number of players could still be an effective in RvR if it gets a core of dedicated PvPers.

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(August 5th 2013, 02:13 PM)Grape Drank Wrote: In the lore that might be more true, but it would be pretty bad game design to make factions have inherent disadvantages to a play style.

Yet Mythic achieved that in WAR (which is a better game than it is given credit for being). I played a Sorceress, which was a deliberately inferior class to Bright Wizards even when they were faction equivalents and should have been mirror classes. Mythic tried to balance factions, not classes and it went wrong. On my server Destruction never succeeded in the siege of the Imperial capital until the server merges closed the server.

So, my point is that devs can and will make mistakes with the best of intentions, but in this case I think what was meant by the post is how existing TES lore will guide the choices of players when they create characters for different factions - so that even when there is great freedom, the players will still end up making their characters based on speciess and faction stereotypes and existing characters in the lore, which will mean that different factions will not have an equivalent numbers of healers, tanks and dps.