The Cons of Moving Faction Combat to Other Facets

[GalenKnighthawke]

This is in response to this thread in the "Ask the Devs" forum.

The Pros of moving Faction Combat to other facets will, I am sure, be covered by others. These Pros exist, are worthy of consideration, and I am sure will be considered by the teams.

Therefore, I will devote myself to the Cons, with the hope that they will be given equal consideration.


1. It defeats the purpose of Factions in the fiction of the game. In the fiction of the game, political control of Trammel is held by the Crown, currently occupied by Queen Dawn. Practical control of Felucca is held by whatever the dominant PK guild of the moment is. And political control is held by whichever Faction has whichever city.

So....Why have the fighting in Trammel, unless you are changing the fiction. And to have yet another few years of "realm in chaos" would just be.....Lame. We've just come through Warriors of Destiny, it smacks of desperation to in essence replicate that, yet again. How often can you have "realm in chaos" as a plot device before it just gets....Stupid?


2. It defeats the gameplay purpose of Factions as well. I've always thought of Factions as a form of PvP apart from the "under constant assault" aspect of life in Felucca. Even when Factioners couldn't be healed in Trammel, the Faction life could still be escaped from to some degree. Factioners can come to Trammel to RP, for example. To enable Faction fighting outside of Felucca effectively turns a Faction character into only a Faction character. You could effectively not use your Faction character for RP or for the Doom Gauntlet. It would be too easy for ones Faction rivals to effectively "grief" you and be well within the game's rules.


3. As a consequence of point 2, and to a lesser degree point 1, such a move would lessen participation in Factions, and I fear restrict it to those who want to PvP from the moment they log in until the moment they log out. And those people already have an outlet: It's called remaining in Felucca, especially if they are willing to go red. Given how comparatively under-populated Felucca is, what do you think the result will be if you decide to effectively bring more of Felucca into Trammel?


4. Will there also be Faction skill loss upon death? Will there be Silver farming? Food for thought.


5. Are you going to also re-enable non-healing of Factioners in Trammel facets? If so be aware that the logical consequence of this will be to cut off Factions from much of the rest of the game.


I don't intend to address this issue much, if at all, after this post....So if any of the team is curious, please read this now before it's crushed under the weight of "Pro" posts. Be assured, though, that if you could somehow distill the opinion of the majority of your players.....your customers....They would be closer to mine than to the other Stratics residents.

I'm fully aware that there's counter-arguments for all of my points. This post is just to bring to light the "Con" side of the argument.

The anti-deserter code would be a far better option.

-Galen's player

 

[Viper09]

5. Are you going to also re-enable non-healing of Factioners in Trammel facets? If so be aware that the logical consequence of this will be to cut off Factions from much of the rest of the game.

This was disabled?

 

[Trebr Drab]

I agree, Galen.

There's one more reason too. It's related to your issue number 1.
Trammel players aren't going to appreciate seeing Trammel cities turned into war zones. It doesn't make sense that a war being fought in Felucca can be fought in Trammel, while guards stand by cowering or placing bets, or whatever they would be doing.

The most important issue, though, is that of lost faction members. No one cares if the people who join for bennies but don't participate quit factions. But there's going to be some who will quit factions because suddenly they are prey at Trammel banks and everywhere else. Free running gank squads in search of points will make the rest of the game less enjoyable for everyone who doesn't want to play that way.

 

[taglol]

Free running gank squads in search of points will make the rest of the game less enjoyable for everyone who doesn't want to play that way.

Then don't play that way? :/ Don't join factions.

 

[Ken of Napa]

Free running gank squads in search of points will make the rest of the game less enjoyable for everyone who doesn't want to play that way.

Then don't play that way? :/ Don't join factions.

Fine, lets let Faction fighting happen in Tram! But as soon as it does, I demand that I be allowed to travel Fel without being attacked as long as I'm not in factions.

Fair is Fair after all.

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

I agree, Galen.

There's one more reason too. It's related to your issue number 1.
Trammel players aren't going to appreciate seeing Trammel cities turned into war zones. It doesn't make sense that a war being fought in Felucca can be fought in Trammel, while guards stand by cowering or placing bets, or whatever they would be doing.

The most important issue, though, is that of lost faction members. No one cares if the people who join for bennies but don't participate quit factions. But there's going to be some who will quit factions because suddenly they are prey at Trammel banks and everywhere else. Free running gank squads in search of points will make the rest of the game less enjoyable for everyone who doesn't want to play that way.

Guards in Trammel take bets? Cool, what odds are they giving and when are the payouts. Do they accept options? I would like to place some puts/calls on who wins.

Hopefully, we can get a graph of historical data on the Vesper bank...nope. Where is the historical data kept?

-Lorax

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

I'm in favour of it.

 

[Lythos-]

As a pvper i am glowing they are considering cross facet pvp again.

However i'd rather it be a Chaos/Order type system not the ranked factions.

Many of us have mules in factions to make tinker traps. Will these new changes force us to put battle skills on or become deserters? Or will placing traps be sufficent enough?

Another issue that should be looked at is drobing to reset stat if this goes into effect. I expect to see an increase of stealth archers camping healers.

 

[Basara]

Truthfully, the only place that it should be an issue is Trammel.

Ilshenar, Malas, Tokuno and Ter Mur weren't around for the Tram/Fel Split, and there should be no reason for them to NOT allow faction combat.

Only Trammel should have a ban on faction combat.

 

[Viper09]

Fine, lets let Faction fighting happen in Tram! But as soon as it does, I demand that I be allowed to travel Fel without being attacked as long as I'm not in factions.

Fair is Fair after all.

Sure, if you go and let every PvP type in tram.

 

[Viper09]

Truthfully, the only place that it should be an issue is Trammel.

Ilshenar, Malas, Tokuno and Ter Mur weren't around for the Tram/Fel Split, and there should be no reason for them to NOT allow faction combat.

Only Trammel should have a ban on faction combat.

 

[Basara]

Furthermore, One of the Peerless dungeons in Tokuno is predicated on Travesty being in league with Minax....

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

I am pro fighting in another facet, but in a new and different way that doesn't affect how things are now. Personally, with the way things are with so many shards and such a large land mass I would rather they made a facet that all shards would have faction wars in and it should be a smaller land area, but big enough.

All shards would access it and there are no dropping items or transferring between players etc. There would be faction towns and taverns where people could talk, but no transfers.

All faction fighting could take place there for massive wars. I could see getting back to 50 to 100 man fights or larger. If they could pull it off it would be amazing.

Maybe have the new facet only allow 1000 players from each faction to enter. I would want lots of cool places like tunnels and hideouts and fighting strategy plus open grass land for massive battles. King of the hill areas and what nots.

Privatized and highly enhanced chat system that included voice chat.

Stealing sigils wouldn't really work for such large battles and a new 'thing' would need to be invented.

Sorry my mind is so far away from where factions are currently, but I played Shadowlords when factions were first introduced and had lots of fun. I think factions are pretty messy right now, but I haven't taken the opportunity under the new faction system to participate. I'm biased. I don't mean to derail everyone’s thought about the current system, but I probably won't participate how things are now.

-Lorax

 

[Helfgrim]

I'd like to see some form of it allowed in other facets, perhaps not Trammel, but facets not being used much like the lost lands or Ilshenar.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Truthfully, the only place that it should be an issue is Trammel.

Ilshenar, Malas, Tokuno and Ter Mur weren't around for the Tram/Fel Split, and there should be no reason for them to NOT allow faction combat.

Only Trammel should have a ban on faction combat.

Furthermore, One of the Peerless dungeons in Tokuno is predicated on Travesty being in league with Minax....

That's an interesting point.

But wasn't Tokuno taken from Minax? Wouldn't that land be under control of Order, and no longer at war? I don't know.

I could certainly see Malas and Ilshenar being contended. Ter Mur, wouldn't that land be under the Garg control?

That's some good thinkin' there, Basara. Some food for thought for the Devs.

 

[Storm]

Truthfully, the only place that it should be an issue is Trammel.

Ilshenar, Malas, Tokuno and Ter Mur weren't around for the Tram/Fel Split, and there should be no reason for them to NOT allow faction combat.

Only Trammel should have a ban on faction combat.

lol make luna a faction town works for me....
either way i dont care as long as it does not make it so i have to participate .. If it takes away from my play areas I vote NO other than that i could care less where faction people kill each other!

 

[Beastmaster]

I have one simple question for faction players. Why do you need more physical area to fight in?

You frame your arguments around the premise that these other lands are not Trammel and therefore should be included. In reality what you seek is not more room to fight, but rather less room for your opponents to escape to.

I don't participate in factions, have no desire to whatsoever. I also don't care where you kill each other. I do wish you would be honest about why you ask for changes though.

 

[Tina Small]

As far as I'm concerned, factions should stay in Fel and faction artifacts should just disappear. Restore the rules that got thrown out the window in the interest of maybe making people actively participate in factions because it's clear they did no such thing. They just made a huge joke out of the whole system and brought more hackers and cheaters into it.

 

[Viper09]

As far as I'm concerned, factions should stay in Fel and faction artifacts should just disappear. Restore the rules that got thrown out the window in the interest of maybe making people actively participate in factions because it's clear they did no such thing. They just made a huge joke out of the whole system and brought more hackers and cheaters into it.

They could keep the faction arties as long as they made it so they could only equip them in fel.

 

[Tina Small]

The developers need to wipe the rosters and the kill point lists clean. Restore the faction balancing rule. Restore the "no beneficial acts" rule outside of Fel. Keep the 20-minute skill loss period for faction-related deaths. Put back the rule for one character per account per shard in factions. Eliminate the ability to transfer kill points between characters. Redesign the bases so they are closer to each other in terms of being able to break into them or defend them. Pay attention when people actually try to explain what's being exploited or what's seriously broken. Find some additional ways to reward team work instead of just rewarding what individual characters accomplish.

Yeah, then maybe they can keep the faction artifacts and have them work just in Fel. Restore the faction system so it represents something that people want to participate in because it's challenging and fun and also because it requires teamwork and intelligence. Don't just make it another "flavor of the month" kind of thing. This game's already got enough fads in it that come and go like clockwork. Make people sacrifice a bit of convenience to be in factions if it's going to offer rewards they can't get elsewhere in the game. Make faction membership really mean something once again.

 

[Freelsy]

This is in response to this thread in the "Ask the Devs" forum.

The Pros of moving Faction Combat to other facets will, I am sure, be covered by others. These Pros exist, are worthy of consideration, and I am sure will be considered by the teams.

Therefore, I will devote myself to the Cons, with the hope that they will be given equal consideration.


1. It defeats the purpose of Factions in the fiction of the game. In the fiction of the game, political control of Trammel is held by the Crown, currently occupied by Queen Dawn. Practical control of Felucca is held by whatever the dominant PK guild of the moment is. And political control is held by whichever Faction has whichever city.

So....Why have the fighting in Trammel, unless you are changing the fiction. And to have yet another few years of "realm in chaos" would just be.....Lame. We've just come through Warriors of Destiny, it smacks of desperation to in essence replicate that, yet again. How often can you have "realm in chaos" as a plot device before it just gets....Stupid?


2. It defeats the gameplay purpose of Factions as well. I've always thought of Factions as a form of PvP apart from the "under constant assault" aspect of life in Felucca. Even when Factioners couldn't be healed in Trammel, the Faction life could still be escaped from to some degree. Factioners can come to Trammel to RP, for example. To enable Faction fighting outside of Felucca effectively turns a Faction character into only a Faction character. You could effectively not use your Faction character for RP or for the Doom Gauntlet. It would be too easy for ones Faction rivals to effectively "grief" you and be well within the game's rules.


3. As a consequence of point 2, and to a lesser degree point 1, such a move would lessen participation in Factions, and I fear restrict it to those who want to PvP from the moment they log in until the moment they log out. And those people already have an outlet: It's called remaining in Felucca, especially if they are willing to go red. Given how comparatively under-populated Felucca is, what do you think the result will be if you decide to effectively bring more of Felucca into Trammel?


4. Will there also be Faction skill loss upon death? Will there be Silver farming? Food for thought.


5. Are you going to also re-enable non-healing of Factioners in Trammel facets? If so be aware that the logical consequence of this will be to cut off Factions from much of the rest of the game.


I don't intend to address this issue much, if at all, after this post....So if any of the team is curious, please read this now before it's crushed under the weight of "Pro" posts. Be assured, though, that if you could somehow distill the opinion of the majority of your players.....your customers....They would be closer to mine than to the other Stratics residents.

I'm fully aware that there's counter-arguments for all of my points. This post is just to bring to light the "Con" side of the argument.

The anti-deserter code would be a far better option.

-Galen's player

What are you scared of? You think a big scary murderer is going to come through your precious gate and kill you?

Unless your the dude that only joined factions for the artifacts. You have nothing to worry about. Then again, if you are that guy, you're in for a real eye opener. I play Siege so its open pvp everywhere. But it would be awesome if they open up pvp on prodo to other area's than fellucia.

And if you are that guy that joined for the artifacts. You'll love the rush of trying to make it to the bank without getting ganked/pwnd on a character that cant really pvp. My sampire on Siege has incredible gear, and its pretty scary keying up for peerlesses or farming monsters when I could be attacked at any moment and lose everything...but then again, you won't have that problem since you have insurance. But its a thrill none the less.

 

[Rider1000]

I have one simple question for faction players. Why do you need more physical area to fight in?

You have to kind of understand the mind of some of these players. When they have a PvP character, and they're very active in the PvP scene, that's all there is - PvP. Ideally, their world is one with no borders or boundaries. Kill everyone, kill everywhere. Similar to guild warring and order chaos from many years ago, the attitude is that if you want to be orange than you have to be on your toes no matter where you go. And of course, it would disrupt all the guys using faction items in the trammel facets who don't PvP.

I would be for it. It would be fun to catch people in Malas and Ilshenar. And some of us really enjoy that sense of danger, no matter where we are on the game, or what we're doing. So I think it would just be a bit more fun for the faction players who really dedicate their faction character to doing, well, just factions.

 

[Coragin]

If they make it available in Malas, I say this...

Powerscrolls available from Tram champs, ALL PS's!

Second, it better work in Luna!

Because I want to kill the opposing faction "bank sitters" while they are afk working off their murder counts! Muhahaha!!!!!

 

[Aurelius]

Much as I'd love to see a better Faction system for those who enjoy it, it still has no appeal to me as a playstyle, but one thing really does need doing - if this is to be 'tested' in any meaningful way those 'test servers' HAVE to be clones of existing, Faction-active and fairly well populated servers to get any meaningful information from them before they release such a big change, and it needs to be running on Test for more than the usual stupidly short test period.

The usual EA approach of "for a day or two we stuck it somewhere nobody has genuine characters with years of stuff and groups of friends and it looked OK from the ten people we saw using it" just will not do any more. Even though it's cheap, which seems to be the main criteria for EA nowadays, it's worthless doing inadequate testing and try covering up the results of the subsequent failures with PR bull and emergency patching.

For once, do the damn job right to begin with, not chuck out 'that'll do, we can fix it later' product. Much as 'Captain Cal' seems to want the game airborne again, he needs to produce more than hot air and a lot of spin to get it there. He could start with making sure the resource in people and time is there to test things properly - or he can stick with 'cheap'. My suspicion is he'll opt for cheap.......

 

[Mairut]

If they do open faction pvp in other lands, I'd like to be able to steal there too. It would absolutely, positively kill the thief profession if pvp'rs could go somewhere else to fight and not be stolen from.

Chaos-order system on other shards without the ability of thieves to do our magic would effectively do the same thing.

Well...ok...maybe not absolutely, positively and completely kill the profession...

But you'd probably see a lot more infiltration thieving if they made faction/order-chaos pvp open on other shards without making it possible for thieves to steal there. That, and nobody except us would have the SoTs because that would be just about all there was to steal in Fel. Do you really want that?

For some people, killing the thieving profession would be enough of a reason to do this, but there is no other MMO that has a thieving profession like UO. If you kill pvp thieving in UO... I shudder at the thought of one of the coolest professions in any RPG, and especially an MMO getting the nerf. When it comes to doing this in UO, which has the best system for it...ugh.

Fun fact: Did you know that in UO, you don't need anything other than your skills to train thieving? Nope, I'm telling you right now, you don't need that packy. Nothing other than your skills (skill points) to steal. Bards need an instrument, a tamer would need bandages to heal their pets, thus scissors to cut cloth... etc.

Anyways, you need fess up... we add a little spice to your lives, don't we? Wouldn't you feel just a little less excited if you weren't keeping half an eye open for us? If in the down-time of pvping at Yew gate, you didn't have the chance to para-spank one of us?

Just keep in mind that thieving wasn't killed with insurance, and you're not going to like it if we have to resort to other means to steal (always using the stealing skill, of course).

(Disclaimer: This has nothing to do with PvM stealing, and it's what I would do... I don't actually know about anyone else.)

Kthx!

 

[A Rev]

This is in response to this thread in the "Ask the Devs" forum.

The Pros of moving Faction Combat to other facets will, I am sure, be covered by others. These Pros exist, are worthy of consideration, and I am sure will be considered by the teams.

Therefore, I will devote myself to the Cons, with the hope that they will be given equal consideration.


1. It defeats the purpose of Factions in the fiction of the game. In the fiction of the game, political control of Trammel is held by the Crown, currently occupied by Queen Dawn. Practical control of Felucca is held by whatever the dominant PK guild of the moment is. And political control is held by whichever Faction has whichever city.

So....Why have the fighting in Trammel, unless you are changing the fiction. And to have yet another few years of "realm in chaos" would just be.....Lame. We've just come through Warriors of Destiny, it smacks of desperation to in essence replicate that, yet again. How often can you have "realm in chaos" as a plot device before it just gets....Stupid?


2. It defeats the gameplay purpose of Factions as well. I've always thought of Factions as a form of PvP apart from the "under constant assault" aspect of life in Felucca. Even when Factioners couldn't be healed in Trammel, the Faction life could still be escaped from to some degree. Factioners can come to Trammel to RP, for example. To enable Faction fighting outside of Felucca effectively turns a Faction character into only a Faction character. You could effectively not use your Faction character for RP or for the Doom Gauntlet. It would be too easy for ones Faction rivals to effectively "grief" you and be well within the game's rules.


3. As a consequence of point 2, and to a lesser degree point 1, such a move would lessen participation in Factions, and I fear restrict it to those who want to PvP from the moment they log in until the moment they log out. And those people already have an outlet: It's called remaining in Felucca, especially if they are willing to go red. Given how comparatively under-populated Felucca is, what do you think the result will be if you decide to effectively bring more of Felucca into Trammel?


4. Will there also be Faction skill loss upon death? Will there be Silver farming? Food for thought.


5. Are you going to also re-enable non-healing of Factioners in Trammel facets? If so be aware that the logical consequence of this will be to cut off Factions from much of the rest of the game.


I don't intend to address this issue much, if at all, after this post....So if any of the team is curious, please read this now before it's crushed under the weight of "Pro" posts. Be assured, though, that if you could somehow distill the opinion of the majority of your players.....your customers....They would be closer to mine than to the other Stratics residents.

I'm fully aware that there's counter-arguments for all of my points. This post is just to bring to light the "Con" side of the argument.

The anti-deserter code would be a far better option.

-Galen's player

1.) Its gone well past fiction unfortunatly, the fiction of factions must be getting a re-vamp due to the whole re-vamp of factions the devs are intending.

2) The faction system is designed to promote PvP, not Pvm. PvP in factions is designed to open up PvP to the whole facet(felluca). The only difference i would make is that town[faction] guards are still in place in trammel. The faction system is not designed for players who want to go to doom, they can do that fine without the need for joining factions...unless of course, they need the arties cheap (risk vs reward...if it changed)

3) The result will be more fun for factioners, it will in no way affect any trammel players...unless of course, they have abused the system to get cheap arties.

4) Yes, of course there will be stat loss...it works exactly the same if you war faction guilds. PvP is open on all facets and stat loss is achieved. No, silver farming wont be available on any other facets. Part of the fun of a PK (non faction) is finding people farming silver and killing them.

5.) Hmmm, only one that poses an interesting question. I would say the healing rules should go to basic flagging rules, the person flagged cannot be healed. This can help reduce afk killing [although, if it is open to all facets and your stupid enough to go afk in luna you deserve to die! you wouldnt go afk alive at yew gate after all!]

 

[A Rev]

If they do open faction pvp in other lands, I'd like to be able to steal there too. It would absolutely, positively kill the thief profession if pvp'rs could go somewhere else to fight and not be stolen from.
Kthx!

Sorry if you said this, im lazy and couldn't be bothere to read it all

I agree, faction thieves should be able to steal from faction players. They of course would run the same risk as faction players [stat loss if caught and killed]

 

[Merion]

I totally agree with the Original Post!

Think about how many people were in faction prior to the the changes! The faction artis are nice, but if you allow faction fighting and faction restrictions in Trammel and other faction again, then factions will be as dead as they were before.

I know for sure that 90% of the people I know will leave factions then. And then the handful of hardcore PvPers will be alone again, without the occasional trammie to slay at the faction arti chest.

 

[Connor_Graham]

This is in response to this thread in the "Ask the Devs" forum.

The Pros of moving Faction Combat to other facets will, I am sure, be covered by others. These Pros exist, are worthy of consideration, and I am sure will be considered by the teams.

Therefore, I will devote myself to the Cons, with the hope that they will be given equal consideration.


1. It defeats the purpose of Factions in the fiction of the game. In the fiction of the game, political control of Trammel is held by the Crown, currently occupied by Queen Dawn. Practical control of Felucca is held by whatever the dominant PK guild of the moment is. And political control is held by whichever Faction has whichever city.

So....Why have the fighting in Trammel, unless you are changing the fiction. And to have yet another few years of "realm in chaos" would just be.....Lame. We've just come through Warriors of Destiny, it smacks of desperation to in essence replicate that, yet again. How often can you have "realm in chaos" as a plot device before it just gets....Stupid?


2. It defeats the gameplay purpose of Factions as well. I've always thought of Factions as a form of PvP apart from the "under constant assault" aspect of life in Felucca. Even when Factioners couldn't be healed in Trammel, the Faction life could still be escaped from to some degree. Factioners can come to Trammel to RP, for example. To enable Faction fighting outside of Felucca effectively turns a Faction character into only a Faction character. You could effectively not use your Faction character for RP or for the Doom Gauntlet. It would be too easy for ones Faction rivals to effectively "grief" you and be well within the game's rules.


3. As a consequence of point 2, and to a lesser degree point 1, such a move would lessen participation in Factions, and I fear restrict it to those who want to PvP from the moment they log in until the moment they log out. And those people already have an outlet: It's called remaining in Felucca, especially if they are willing to go red. Given how comparatively under-populated Felucca is, what do you think the result will be if you decide to effectively bring more of Felucca into Trammel?


4. Will there also be Faction skill loss upon death? Will there be Silver farming? Food for thought.


5. Are you going to also re-enable non-healing of Factioners in Trammel facets? If so be aware that the logical consequence of this will be to cut off Factions from much of the rest of the game.


I don't intend to address this issue much, if at all, after this post....So if any of the team is curious, please read this now before it's crushed under the weight of "Pro" posts. Be assured, though, that if you could somehow distill the opinion of the majority of your players.....your customers....They would be closer to mine than to the other Stratics residents.

I'm fully aware that there's counter-arguments for all of my points. This post is just to bring to light the "Con" side of the argument.

The anti-deserter code would be a far better option.

-Galen's player

You forgot one-

6. PvP trash talk will be present where the majority of the population doesn't care to have it.

One of the biggest complaints of Tram players as to why they don't care for UO PvP is the childish trash talk that is prevalent around any group of PvP'rs.

 

[A Rev]

You forgot one-

6. PvP trash talk will be present where the majority of the population doesn't care to have it.

One of the biggest complaints of Tram players as to why they don't care for UO PvP is the childish trash talk that is prevalent around any group of PvP'rs.

Unfortunatly, global chat has made this all to possible anyway

The good thing is you can of course then know who to ignore

 

[Connor_Graham]

Unfortunatly, global chat has made this all to possible anyway

The good thing is you can of course then know who to ignore

Which is why a good number of people disabled chat almost immediately after it was added to the game. Also, you should not have to constantly stop gameplay just so you can go through and ignore yet another group of trash talkers.

 

[A Rev]

Which is why a good number of people disabled chat almost immediately after it was added to the game. Also, you should not have to constantly stop gameplay just so you can go through and ignore yet another group of trash talkers.

You wont need to, generally faction fights are fast and frantic and the aftermath is the **** talking. If they are freely able to be attacked, on any facet, at any time, they arent going to have time to stop and **** talk.

Maybe

 

[Gowron]

I recognize the Cons that the OP listed, and for the most part are valid concerns.
However, I will go this far; If you join Factions, like Order/Chaos, expect combat anywhere at anytime. I listed the plot line as a valid reason not to take Factions to Tram, however, I am open to the War in Felucca spilling over into minor conflicts across the other lands with Tram rule sets, providing reds are still confined to Fel.

However, what I see as the major problem with Factions is the simple fact that Faction fighting is most likely to occur in the strongholds or at champ spawns. I think what the primary thing Dev's need to consider would be implementing some steps that would drive combat into the cities that are in question.

-instead of one sigil mount in the city, put up 4, and require a faction to recover all 4 to bring back to their stronghold. The posts in the stronghold don't need to be physically changed, just be able to display it has x of 4 sigils.
-even if one faction thief shows up in an opposing faction city, the members of owning faction receive a notice that "their city" is "under attack"...or something to that effect.

Just a couple of thoughts. If proper incentive is provided to drive combat to occur in multiple areas, then Faction folks will have a more complex nature in which to deal.

Also, I think a consideration should be made to linking what occurs in Fel to Tram however, not to the full extent that the whole Shadowlords storyline went, but something that may drive folks to actually leave Tram and participate in Factions.

If you haven't participated in Factions at all, well, then you really don't have much to say here as it won't really affect your play much at all.

 

[Konge]

This is in response to this thread in the "Ask the Devs" forum.

The Pros of moving Faction Combat to other facets will, I am sure, be covered by others. These Pros exist, are worthy of consideration, and I am sure will be considered by the teams.

Therefore, I will devote myself to the Cons, with the hope that they will be given equal consideration.


1. It defeats the purpose of Factions in the fiction of the game. In the fiction of the game, political control of Trammel is held by the Crown, currently occupied by Queen Dawn. Practical control of Felucca is held by whatever the dominant PK guild of the moment is. And political control is held by whichever Faction has whichever city.

So....Why have the fighting in Trammel, unless you are changing the fiction. And to have yet another few years of "realm in chaos" would just be.....Lame. We've just come through Warriors of Destiny, it smacks of desperation to in essence replicate that, yet again. How often can you have "realm in chaos" as a plot device before it just gets....Stupid?


2. It defeats the gameplay purpose of Factions as well. I've always thought of Factions as a form of PvP apart from the "under constant assault" aspect of life in Felucca. Even when Factioners couldn't be healed in Trammel, the Faction life could still be escaped from to some degree. Factioners can come to Trammel to RP, for example. To enable Faction fighting outside of Felucca effectively turns a Faction character into only a Faction character. You could effectively not use your Faction character for RP or for the Doom Gauntlet. It would be too easy for ones Faction rivals to effectively "grief" you and be well within the game's rules.


3. As a consequence of point 2, and to a lesser degree point 1, such a move would lessen participation in Factions, and I fear restrict it to those who want to PvP from the moment they log in until the moment they log out. And those people already have an outlet: It's called remaining in Felucca, especially if they are willing to go red. Given how comparatively under-populated Felucca is, what do you think the result will be if you decide to effectively bring more of Felucca into Trammel?


4. Will there also be Faction skill loss upon death? Will there be Silver farming? Food for thought.


5. Are you going to also re-enable non-healing of Factioners in Trammel facets? If so be aware that the logical consequence of this will be to cut off Factions from much of the rest of the game.


I don't intend to address this issue much, if at all, after this post....So if any of the team is curious, please read this now before it's crushed under the weight of "Pro" posts. Be assured, though, that if you could somehow distill the opinion of the majority of your players.....your customers....They would be closer to mine than to the other Stratics residents.

I'm fully aware that there's counter-arguments for all of my points. This post is just to bring to light the "Con" side of the argument.

The anti-deserter code would be a far better option.

-Galen's player

I love how you blatantly implied the DEV team is stupid and can't think of cons against the system and that they need your help as only you can think of the cons.

Not really trying to attack, it's just your wording... but then of course you abandoned the thread after you started it since apparently no one else has a worthy opinion?

But on an actual productive note, your post is generally about Factioneers doing non-pvp things...

Rping, as noted in point point 2

pvm noted multiple times.

Couldn't someone just make multiple characters and, ideally, wouldn't that be better?

factions is kind of PvP based. If you didn't get cheat, better arties for factioning up, I'd agree with some of your points, but you do.

The rping aspect would be a problem... you could RP that you're in league with Minax, or whatever so you'd logically join factions. This could hurt the RPer, ultimately, it's up to the DEVs to decide what is best for the game. I just hope they don't fail.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I love how you blatantly implied the DEV team is stupid and can't think of cons against the system and that they need your help as only you can think of the cons.

Not really trying to attack,

Actually, "attack" is by definition what you did.

That's ok. There have actually been less insults in reply to this than I'd expected. I'm gladdened by this.

it's just your wording...

I nowhere said they were stupid. So, no, that's your wording, not mine.

I do, however, worry that opinions the majority of their players would probably agree with wouldn't get a fair hearing.

This is a different thing from being stupid. Drastically different.

but then of course you abandoned the thread after you started it since apparently no one else has a worthy opinion?

On the contrary....you appear to have missed the multiple times in my post where I said I knew quite well that Pros existed, and that many of them were worthy points.

I thought it more useful to present a positive argument than it was to go negative on someone else's.

*shrugs*

It's kind of funny though....One of you all was criticizing me yesterday for posting too much. You criticize for my not posting enough, at least not in this thread. I'm insulted, and then am attacked as insulting for not responding in-kind. When I just don't respond at all, I'm criticized for being aloof and not respecting others' opinions. When I do respond though, I'm considered insulting because I respond with an intensity that mirrors the intensity that's thrown at me. Some of you think I'm a Trammie who is "afraid" of Fel. Some of you think I'm obviously in Factions, but only for the Artifacts. Of course being in Factions at all would require me to go to Felucca which I'm apparently too afraid of to step foot into. If I'm indeed too afraid of Felucca to step near a Faction Stone I should simply not address these points at all, I am told. This would make sense, if Factioners weren't part of broader life on the shard, which they are (and should be), or if we weren't discussing bring Faction combat into non-Felucca areas, which we are.

Most amusing.

*shrugs*

But as I said....I know full well there are Pros. Airing the Cons, however, seemed like it'd be useful. And I think it has been already.

-Galen's player

 

[Stupid Miner]

@ Galen:
Remember, responding to most of this thread is comparable to arguing with Beauvina.

 

[Konge]

Actually, "attack" is by definition what you did.

That's ok. There have actually been less insults in reply to this than I'd expected. I'm gladdened by this.

An attack would be an insult, I stated simply, that, from your wording at least you seemed to think the Dev team was incapable of figuring out the cons by themselves.

I nowhere said they were stupid. So, no, that's your wording, not mine.

I said by your wording, not that you explicitly said it.

I do, however, worry that opinions the majority of their players would probably agree with wouldn't get a fair hearing.

This is a different thing from being stupid. Drastically different.

Stupid may have been the wrong word, but do you honestly think that the DEVs are that short-sighted as to not review others concerns that are not entirely PvPers?

On the contrary....you appear to have missed the multiple times in my post where I said I knew quite well that Pros existed, and that many of them were worthy points.

I did, in fact, miss your replies, I only stated that you abandoned the thread, because, of the wording of your OP, one could assume that you were merely going to open the can of worms, and leave

But as I said....I know full well there are Pros. Airing the Cons, however, seemed like it'd be useful. And I think it has been already.

-Galen's player

But why air the cons unless you assume the Devs need your help in finding them, thus lack the intellect to do their job?

Wouldn't this thread be better to discuss both the pros and cons?

It can be seen that the only reason you want only cons here would be that for some odd reason you're afraid of the change thus wish provide a negative light, so I can understand others calling you a trammy, ect.

 

[A Rev]

Stupid may have been the wrong word, but do you honestly think that the DEVs are that short-sighted as to not review others concerns that are not entirely PvPers?

Actually, The devs [not neccassarily this team] have a LONG history of not listening and/or reviewing concerns of the playerbase.

An example of this is how the speech in game has been adjusted to the right rather than centred and gets written over by following lines rather than scrolling up...this was noted in SA beta and still released...still not been fixed.

Minor point maybe, but it was a large point for the majority of beta testers...even created a few threads post SA release!!

So, these kind of threads, however pointless they are[not because of cont ent btw] are essential...one day the devs may actually read and take note of players concerns!!!

 

[Konge]

Actually, The devs [not neccassarily this team] have a LONG history of not listening and/or reviewing concerns of the playerbase.

An example of this is how the speech in game has been adjusted to the right rather than centred and gets written over by following lines rather than scrolling up...this was noted in SA beta and still released...still not been fixed.

Minor point maybe, but it was a large point for the majority of beta testers...even created a few threads post SA release!!

So, these kind of threads, however pointless they are[not because of cont ent btw] are essential...one day the devs may actually read and take note of players concerns!!!

You misinterpret what I've said. I'm not saying that the Devs are intelligent or that they're not. I'm just saying what I saw this thread to be.

That being said, you're not a DEV. So I'm pretty sure you or most people on Stratics, for that matter, understand what their job is like.

Perhaps they do listen, but their bosses don't let them fix the issue, and tell them to release the product anyway.

EA is notorious for doing this.

The DEVs aren't the highest on the food chain, they have a boss.

 

[Paps]

these kind of threads, however pointless they are,are essential...one day the devs may actually read and take note of players concerns!!!

I wouldn't hold yer breath though.

 

[Gellor]

I have one simple question for faction players. Why do you need more physical area to fight in?

You frame your arguments around the premise that these other lands are not Trammel and therefore should be included. In reality what you seek is not more room to fight, but rather less room for your opponents to escape to.

I don't participate in factions, have no desire to whatsoever. I also don't care where you kill each other. I do wish you would be honest about why you ask for changes though.

I think you must not have read the initial "dev post". And I think most faction PvPers will agree that the desire to "fight" in Trammel has nothing to do with needing more physical area. It has purely to do with all the Trammy players who join factions JUST for the items and never show up to PvP... EVER.

 

[Konge]

I think you must not have read the initial "dev post". And I think most faction PvPers will agree that the desire to "fight" in Trammel has nothing to do with needing more physical area. It has purely to do with all the Trammy players who join factions JUST for the items and never show up to PvP... EVER.

I like the idea, personally, of the risk vs reward in all facets... I don't actively PvP due to my connection speed, but the idea greatly appeals to me.

 

[Diggity]

I think one of the cons is that it creates a limited and watered down pvp environment. Reds, faction or otherwise, will still(?) be excluded from entering Tram and therefore can't participate. Secondly, will they still keep the different rules such as push through, area affects etc? Blue non faction healers in tram? Flagging? I think expecting the dev team to balance pvp under both tram and fel rulesets is asking too much. Just disable equipping faction arties except in fel.

OTOH, I can see faction fighting in the Abyss, doom, special events etc would add some spice to the game.

 

[Miriandel]

Keep the 20-minute skill loss period for faction-related deaths.

Oh! what a brilliant idea!
It's sooooo fun when I get killed having to go watch TV for 20 minutes, now that's awesome game design we have here, haven't we?

But... maybe you have another account? with another PvP char? and wash the penalty from one while playing the other?

UO has always been about exploiting the rules, why would that change, heh?

 

[Tina Small]

Oh! what a brilliant idea!
It's sooooo fun when I get killed having to go watch TV for 20 minutes, now that's awesome game design we have here, haven't we?

But... maybe you have another account? with another PvP char? and wash the penalty from one while playing the other?

UO has always been about exploiting the rules, why would that change, heh?

Uh, none of the above. I usually use the skill loss period to go check out what the enemy is doing and report back to guildmates. Then I go get the character rezzed and restocked, take a bathroom break, get a drink, etc.

 

[Gowron]

If they make it available in Malas, I say this...

Powerscrolls available from Tram champs, ALL PS's!

Second, it better work in Luna!

Because I want to kill the opposing faction "bank sitters" while they are afk working off their murder counts! Muhahaha!!!!!

If you take away the lame attempt to bring a dead subject back to life, You'll have my concurrance.

 

[Widow Maker]

I think you must not have read the initial "dev post". And I think most faction PvPers will agree that the desire to "fight" in Trammel has nothing to do with needing more physical area. It has purely to do with all the Trammy players who join factions JUST for the items and never show up to PvP... EVER.

BINGO!!!!! This poster has hit the nail squarely on the head!!!!

Finally..a prime example of the clear and experienced understanding coupled with a forward thinking mind!! What took you so freakin' long to show up!! Observe this man, Galen, THIS is how you need to be thinking.

Stand up and be recognized Gellor....*applause*

When whatever or whoever agreed to join the Faction, as they did when they accepted it at the faction stone, they agreed that in return for getting some better class items, they are going to defend the right to wear them with their lives...AGAINST other faction players. So they either stick up to their agreement (which means I get to hunt them anywhere...and believe me...I WILL / DO hunt them mercilessly) or they LOOSE the rights to those items (drop in backpack when not in a Faction enabled facet).

End of story ...Galen.... -1 in game play comprehension.

 

[Stupid Miner]

It has purely to do with all the Trammy players who join factions JUST for the items and never show up to PvP... EVER.

If they want non-factioners to stop 'exploiting' the system, they would need to make faction benefits PvP-and-not-PvM benefits. No PvMer would take advantage of the faction system if it didn't provide such a huge benefit to PvM.
If the faction rewards were more on the lines of Supernova potions and faction bandages, much more suited to PvP than PvM, no one would exploit them.

Makes you wonder, why make such universally useful rewards exclusive to factions? You can't use these awards without being in factions. There is no similar system to compare for PvM or non-factions. Well, disguise kits is another similar system, but that's small, and of limited usage.
Anyone can buy powerscrolls, or artifacts, but faction items are for factioneers only.

So, since the industrious player-base is almost always more clever at finding loop-holes than the Devs are, the only way to stop the 'exploitation' of faction rewards would be to:
- Make them useful almost exclusively for PvP/Factions, or
- Make them universally obtainable within factions. (i.e. kill the rank requirement for artifacts)


... or they could, as usual, just go for the symptoms and never address the root cause of the problem.

 

[Tina Small]

No one who was in factions or even remotely interested in it ever asked for the faction artifacts. Two years ago before all the changes kicked in, the big excuses for not participating in factions were the faction balancing rule, the skill loss period and the application of the "no beneficial acts" rule in Trammel. Some people begged and pleaded until they got their way and those rules were relaxed, but then the big battles and jump in faction participation these same people predicted would occur never really happened. It was the developers who cooked up the idea of faction artifacts. They were warned by people who had many years of faction experience that it was a mistake, but to no avail. The developers took the easy way out once again and threw pixel crack at a busted system. I guess it worked to the extent that people joined factions in droves, but only on a few shards did the increased membership really seem to cause a sustained increase in true faction battles that revolved around corrupting sigils and maintaining town ownership.

I guess a few people maybe got their feet wet once again with regard to learning how to corrupt sigils and run a base defense. Some of the people who used to whine about the skill loss period even finally admitted that it serves a real and valid purpose. But here we sit almost two years later and I think most of the people who have characters in factions just stay in for the artifacts and still act like big babies when it comes to dealing with skill loss and the no beneficial acts rule. It's all just a big farce now as far as I'm concerned. Just like most everything else in UO it's one more system centered around the individual and feeding their greed. Gimme gimme gimme. The new mantra for UO. Gimme gimme gimme.............. And if it's not gimme gimme gimme, it's why does he/she have what I don't have?! Gimme gimme gimme.....I gotta have it all and I gotta have it now!

 

[Kellgory]

Simple solution to deter "trammies" from wearing faction gear or being in factions would be to put back the no beneficial acts by non-factions in trammel. The only exception would be for trading/transferring items. If you open it up to open faction fighting across all facets, they will pretty much have to impliment it anyways, otherwise, you will have 3 people in faction fighting with 5 non-faction mages keeping them healed.

My prediction is that the Devs will take a look at it, determine it's too difficult to program all the variables, and decide to go ride bikes in the park instead.