I wouldn't be happy but I would accept it (friendly fire example) as I'm not the only person who's gonna play this game, this is completely clear to me and I'm ready to adapt to the will of majority as this will means something otherwise this forum wouldn't exist and the devs wouldn't bother reading our opinions.

You don't understand again. It's not about me being right or wrong or anybody being right or wrong. It's about what the community wants, and this can be clearly seen in the poll, no matter what semantic games or hokus pokus stuff you will use.

I don't recall that personally but I'm not saying it's not true either. It's just strange that every time the devs are talking about business model for EC they only mention B2P + F2Whaagh orks and nothing more than that. It still doesn't mean you can buy any single faction and only this faction separately. But, hey, even if that's the case I see no problem here as far as FL is concerned. If you feel better with buying one faction only and there will be such a possibility, go ahead buy this one only, cool.

I really don't think you understand the way that I think, I'm not trying to change the poll or nullify the poll it's a 66% / 34% split and I sit in the 34%. To my mind that's a large enough percentage of opinion that it would be bad for the Devs to ignore it.

Sure 66% want a faction lock and I will support the community in that, but we also need to discuss why the 34% do not want it and then somehow modify the faction lock to accommodate those players so there is no risk of losing them.

Simply put if it's an either or decision it will always piss a group of people off, there needs to be some middle ground implementation to appease the vast majority as opposed to doing something that could alienate a large minority.

It doesn't work this way. The percentage proportions in the poll were almost the same for Friendly Fire (most ppl for it), there was 30 % against and the devs decisively stated FF is in. You can't exclude the risk of losing somebody and it's always better to run a risk of losing a minority than a majority, right ? You will never satisfy everybody. As simple as that.

Benefits outweight the cons.

In planetside its called fourth factioning, it used to be a big issue before when you could get alert event XP to the fullest on the side you were on, it was changed so that you only get a portion based on your time logged on.
Nowadays you can still see the factions slide between "Who has got the best toys" aka buffnerf-cycle.

I would rather cap the timer to 1-2h so it doesent hinder the gameplay too much.

I agree completely, still, this can still be avoided by buying several accounts. From a marketer's point of view, this is the best option because, Hell, more sales. But that wouldn't fix our problem. Personally, I have no problem with the game "losing" the part of the community that aren't fans and only play for K/D ratio, because, last time I checked, Warhammer isn't CoD. But that's just me, sales numbers would probably dictate otherwise. And as much as I like bE and its devs, I'm being realistic.
So what would solve this? Permanent faction lock would only leave open the option of buying another account, but that would also limit players who pick a certain faction when their friends are online, like Pouncey and Ulfgard, who I don't have anything against and think they should not be inconvenienced because of bandwagon scum.
Locking for a period of time only will present the same problem and still turn off those that are less patient from the game, thus, double the problems.
Incentives are a great idea, but thinking it over after last night's post, it would have to be a tremendous boost, otherwise people will just not care (see PS2's example). Still, it can't be that big of a bonus, because then progression would lose any meaning. Imagine getting from a Scout Marine to a Chaplain in one day. Or from a Guardian to an Autarch, etc. Although, they could make it so that you can't make any progression if you don't have the loyalty bonus. So you'll be stuck being a Cultist and getting one-shot by everything.
We have to think outside the "do we want faction lock or not and if yes, for how much time" box, because just faction locking alone won't help us eliminate griefing.

EDIT: Another idea a friend suggested is locking transfers based on factions. For example, the game would only let you play the underdog or a faction that is close in territory percentage to the one you're main-ing. Problems like swapping for an underdog character and not being able to swap back could be remedied by choosing a main race once a day when you join the game or when you make an account.
There are lots of options out there, they just have to be either balanced or thought out properly to not inhibit the experience of those that cause no harm to the game/community.

++BEGIN SCENARIO++

Login to your Spess Mehreen. go to deployment terminal on the StrikeForce Cruiser, or your little solo dingy. Seek out one of the many council made mission deployment zones to get some of that sweet xp and in on a big fight.

Click on the selected mission territory

Prompt comes up "You are now entering a SPESS MEHREEN mission zone, accepting this mission will lock you to SPESS MEHREEN until the end of the mission." "Do you accept" Yes or No

You hit yes.

UI changes to show lockdown timer or mission timer (120minutes and counting) you are now drop podding into that area knowing for the next 2 hours you are fighting solely for the Emprah of Mankind and Spess Mehreens, win or lose.

​

Oh noesss my friend logged on and is playing Eldar, but I am locked out...Oh noeessss..

But wait! I simply log out, and onto the Eldar who have a whole separate zone of objectives.

​

If the Eldar have the same objective as the Spess Mehreens, well looks like I won't get to fight there since I am on lockdown for Spess Mehreens in the area...looks like I can't kill my former allies in that objective zone.

I do however get to play with my friend on the majority of Arkhona, YAY, and I won't be negatively imbalancing the engaging player-driven gameplay that is council orders.

Back to the Strikecrusier or solo dingy in space to select an Eldar mission with my friend (Except the one you are still locked to for 110 another minutes), or maybe we will go fight in the carebear tunnels against the nids!
++END SCENARIO++

I beat this dead horse for the glory of the Eternal Crusade, to save its balance and maiden like purity from those who wish to defile her with their parnter swapping, team switching ways.The greater good demands some effort for balance, their cries can be heard in the warp. Plus its just fun n stuff and I hate how extra factions and bandwagon players ruin the value of multiplayer matches

Of course you go with the majority that is a given, but if the minority is large enough you cannot risk alienating them either and need to find a middle ground that both are happy with.

if it were a 90%/10% split then you could lose the 10% customer base without many repercussions but losing a 34% customer base? That is a risk no sensible business would take.

Which is why I suggested ages ago that the incentive should be RP because you spend it on time limited units, like terminators and things that get blown up, like vehicles, or ammo that you shoot off from your meltagun. Which makes RP a good option as it's a disposable resource.

Im just not convinced that a faction overpop would equal that faction roflstomping everyone. There are going to be some built in tools that would mitigate overpops without having to resort to faction locks.

Oh just watched this video of faction swapping in PS2 and realized it has the potential to be worse in 40kEC.

Why you ask? Well Planetside 2 has server caps per faction, per continent. This is because they host continents on a single server kinda tech and those can only handle X amount of players.

However 40kec with pikkoserver would technically have no population cap to speak of since as populations grow more servers are allocated to support the load.

So, that means there would be less of a scenario for the faction flipper to stay on the losing side for fear of not being able to log into the winning faction or get to the scenario/alert zone in time.

Ladies and gentlemen, this discussion has been elevated to DERPCON 4

@Sledgecrushr:

It won't be a roflstomping. It is more of a "the battle has 20 minutes left and it looks like the Eldar are going to win" kinda situation where the "random internet gamer locust" will drop the faction they were playing with to join the winning side.

So everyone switches to Eldar and it ensures they win from their now swollen ranks of Space Elves. So what may have been a final 20 min rush for a victory from the other factions, it is now a hopeless endeavor. That is assuming that pop. is relatively balanced for the "alert" scenario from the get go.

So yeah less roflstomping and more like more like a knife in the back or this kinda scenario