Factions Testing Commencement

[ProZac]

*deeeep breath*

Viquire, go wipe off your face. I know brown nosing admins is a specialty for some people, but this game needs honest feedback now more than ever. If they're taking the time to get the real concept they don't need someone advocating clear mistakes in their designs for this game.

Berethrain, your arguments all hold plenty ground. A LOT of people are holding back throwing punches but many of us are thinking the -exact- same things that you have said.

Lore, good reply. I know your name.. were you always an axer in Minax on TC some years ago (6+) or am I going crazy?

As much as I appreciate the fact that you guys are actually addressing factions, I think the vision has just become wrong for it. I seriously cannot see how it's beneficial to revamp the system completely at this point and aim blindly like this. I'm personally scared that a bunch of people who have never played or appreciated REAL factions/pvp are going to back a bunch of awful ideas that will cause the system to be entirely dead once the fresh car smell fades. Please take in the suggestions people who actually know the system give and adjust fire based on that. Factions DO need love, just make sure you give them the right kind.

Your response to all of this is pretty.. interesting. What fires me up is when people developing a game I love seem to be so out of touch with the actual game it's scary. I guess it's inevitable that the people developing this game have no idea what it was like 5 or 10 years ago. Now it is just starting to become very clear that this is the case - I feel like you aren't in touch with what caused people to enjoy factions in the past or why it was so popular and enjoyable. I guess it's just frustrating to see in all honesty. It also seems like you've taken a lot of peoples comments personally. Probably not a good idea. Might want to take a step back and ask yourself why people are getting upset. You mention you don't want a group of two taking on a group of.. things like this are why UO is UO. A group of two who play smart and strategical *CAN* do that. If fields and greater dragons are the issue, tweak that instead.

I'm going to refrain from letting my emotions get the best of me and speaking my mind (or as I would to your face, as you would say Mark ) with what is going on here. If I get the time I will post my personal constructive ideas and ways I think this system really needs to be fixed to help our game. I really just have a bad vibe from this approach/current things you have brought to the table and don't see them working in this game, with this amount of players, and these types of players (no one who pvp's (factions) in UO gives two s**** if a keep looks like someone lives in it.......). I feel like these are things you should already know seeing as you design the game, but it is what it is.

 

[Malador]

Factions for simpletons

1. Create three faction bases on opposing corners of Magencia island. Make them simple i.e. leave out all the nifty artwork no one cares and it slows older machines.
2. Disallow magencia access to non-faction players. No boats. No gate access. Treat non faction players like reds in trammel
3. rebuild the city in the middle of the island.
4. rework faction arties. Remove all the stupid over balanced bonuses. A faction onry should be the same as a non faction orny.
5. Have magencia merchants sell faction artis to any faction player based on allowed rank and sigil control.
6. Have magencia merchants sell faction mounts to any faction player based on allowed rank and sigil control.
7. rework and activate faction balancing system.
8. rework point system. remove bonus areas. wipe points. Stop focusing on kills and focus on contribution. Award 1 rank point to player who did the most damage. Remove 1 point from the player who died. If the dead player is at 0 no points are awarded or removed. Track these points as they determine current ranks. Possibly track total points awarded for over all lifetime scores.
9. rework sigils. Place one town stone and monolith in middle of magencia. Eliminate others. Shorten times for everything. a complete cycle with the sigil should be about as long as the average players playtime.
10. remove statloss. If you die you get booted from the island for 20 minutes.
11. Faction warfare restricted to island.

Hell I had more ideas but I canot remmber them now

 

[Locryn Finck]

To the Dev who made the bases:

I think people make too much of it. You did a fine job - but it IS the internet. Don't let it bother you enough to make a post. The vision is sound. Work out the kinks and it should be all good.

To the people who advocate FOR statloss and no reduction:

Why? Make the case. Plenty of people have explained how it creates LESS PVP in no uncertain terms. It is a pvp system that in practice leads to less pvp. You seem to think that is a good idea? How does statloss help the gameplay experience for anyone? It eliminates extended epic fights. It isolates smaller groups of pvprs who would rather not even bother than face a 6 man gank crew. It ended the era of defending/raiding/recapturing champ spawns. Explain yourselves.

And once again: Eliminate bonuses on faction items and hue them cool colors. To the people complaining about the fact that they spent a ton of money to make those artis work in a suit: Maybe have 50 DCI instead of 65? Maybe... God forbid, USE A SHIELD INSTEAD OF RUN AROUND ONE HANDED TO CHUG WITHOUT EVEN A SIMPLE MACRO?! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Seriously. If you can't fathom a reality in which you have to make a suit without the obscene faction bonuses even with imbuing then you are soft.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

The stat loss on the Faction server is currently 5 minutes. I've seen one post in this thread that seems to have noticed. As far as I can tell, he's the only poster who has mentioned stat loss that has actually played on the Faction shard. (Thank you Cardell!)

Factions is NOT just pvp so a lot of us are interested in defending bases, strategy, ways the bases will be exploited, how we can steal and get out, steal and hide to refresh, etc. The fact that only one person mentioned the stat loss timer, to me is not surprising but it appears it is to you.

Have a little faith regarding a fiction based transition to a three faction system. This isn't going out for ***months***. The new factions are a part of the new story line. We are trying to test mechanics here, not story line. My current live story line has a timeline that takes us through the end of the year.

Great news, if factions in this form are to survive, we will need strong and possible fiction to back it up.

I played last night and had no lag in any of the keeps. I was using the enhanced client. It is helpful to hear from people who are having lag and we will be glad to make improvements. Hear-say and speculative reports of probable lag is not helpful, we know it *might* cause lag.

2D client here and a lot of lag, running into impassable areas because of objects on 2nd floors, etc.

I'll just go ahead and say it, though I realize that a couple of people have called for me to be fired, I designed those keeps. I designed them to support the story. I designed them to actually look like a castle and not an arena. I play a lot of pvp in many games and I always hated the way the keeps look in other games... they don't look like anyone lives there, I'm not even sure I would want to defend such a crappy building. I designed the keeps to make them places that people would take ownership of and want to defend. I designed them so that players could have a fight while running through a castle. I designed them to be part of a virtual world where people fight for a cause and have homes and lives.

Your art work is impressive but too elaborate. They are beautiful and I commend you on the art work ... here comes the "but".... No one in their right mind would bring the battle to their "home"... why in heavens name would we defend the sigils in a working community? Defending them in a stronghold, that is what makes sense. TB base was the exception to the stronghold principle and a lot of the complaints were NPCs, size of base, etc. So I find it interesting you not only design the new bases with the same premise but even larger.

The halls are wide to prevent cheesy stuff like 2 people who happened to be in the area stopping a 10 man raid that you spent the past hour putting together with a pile of impassable items

I've had that happen way too much in poorly designed keeps. I designed these keeps so that if some jerk piles candelabras to block a hallway, they are going to need a truckload. I designed them so that greater dragons are not overpowered... or energy fields..

Why not just make the candelabraas, bag balls, etc., passable... simple "uncheck" of the tiledata and you are done? Most players have already modded their files to make them passable so why not make it official and do it game wide. And I resent that you call defenders "jerks" by using a game mechanic that EA provided or failed to correct

I want keeps to give the defenders an advantage but I want them to be fun too. 3 defenders should have an advantage over 5 attackers in their own keep but not 3 defenders beating 10 attackers... unless the 10 just suck.

You have opened up the bases to force run and fight and, I for one being a non-pvp factioner, am not stupid enough to stand in that sort of base waiting to hand the uber pvpers points. Without us none pvpers to try to guard sigs and run sigs there will be no sigs in base and the fights will only be at yew gate.

I want to say something briefly to the haters in this thread. I get up in the morning thinking about the players of UO and how I can entertain you. I spend all day working on it. I would appreciate a little consideration. You don't have to like what I designed, but speak to me as if I was actually standing in front of you.

I didn't know it was you that did the designing and in earlier post I offered to give Devs access to our vent, my ICQ, my email, my IM, whatever you want so that I can talk to you face to face. I don't see anyone hating you, but I do see a lot that hate the proposed direction for factions. If we are failing to understand your true intent, the time is now to make us see. Again, those of us the play factions 3 to 5 hours EVERYDAY are the ones that can get the word out to the rest of the players. Fill us in, let us give you real feedback.

Believe me, if the keeps are truly "crap" then they will ***never*** go live. I didn't spend hours upon hours to design them so that I could "ruin the game". To be honest, I'm completely surprised that more people don't say, "Wow, finally some bases that actually look like they belong in a fantasy role playing game."

I had my friend say to me today "I actually feel sory for whoever designed these bases". This person understood the work put into them, as do I, but I feel you were not well advised as to what faction players wanted. We don't want a trammel-esque (sorry Galen, stole that from you) setting in the land of conflict. Sorry, just a fact of fel players mindsets. If we wanted all pretty and frilly and family like we would be in trammel facet.

I realize there will always be those sad people who just come to the internet to spread their hate. I also realize that many people fear change. I also realize that I'm not always right. I also realize that the test shard went live at 3:30pm yesterday and most people haven't had a chance to try the new stuff.

You are missing the point... your RABID, OBSESSED, daily faction players were first on the scene. These are the mainstay of faction play in UO. It feels as if you are discounting them because they have provided you negative feedback. True, more casual players will be on this weekend but more likely they are not your passionate faction players. These are the players that jump on for an hour here and there with one account. The people that logged on the minute Factions went live on TC are the ones that have multiple accounts BECAUSE of factions. IMO, this shows that you have an idea of what factions should be in your mind and if the players don't view it the same way then they are wrong. Again, my opinion and I will gladly "face to face" discuss this with you.

I will be interested to see feedback that will be coming through this weekend when people have more time to actually play on the new server. And finally, for the record, I have never played WOW and I do not think playing it would make me better at designing UO.
Peace.

I came, I played and I know what I want in factions. The fact that what you have heard here is being discounted in hopes that what you hear from the "weekend" crowd is more positive is depressing. FYI, factions happen all week long....

 

[Berethrain]

I agree with every bit of tinkz post. She put it a lot more delicate than I was going to so I had to refrain.

 

[Viquire]

*deeeep breath*

Viquire, go wipe off your face. I know brown nosing admins is a specialty for some people, but this game needs honest feedback now more than ever. If they're taking the time to get the real concept they don't need someone advocating clear mistakes in their designs for this game.

Thank you for your interest! My feedback has been and will be completely honest and unbiased. I would love greater direction on exactly which "clear mistakes" I was advocating.

You make allusions to some facts that are obvious to "real faction/pvpers" and I would ask what on earth makes you think that the system is required to cater exclusively to this rather small subset of the UO population.

Group effort is about more than just the actual confrontation on the battle field. Just as thieves and scouts have their place, but are by and large not considered pvp templates. And yet they are important and neccessary to the outcome of the groups effort.

The pvpers support the efforts of the thieves and the scouts support the efforts of both of the aforementioned groups. Crafters can and should support all of them. I dunno, I understand your hesitation in light of all that we have experienced as players over the past thirteen years, but it seems to me your vision is cast in miniature to what could be.

I am and will be happy to make recommendations where I see need or room for improvement. But I'm not about to throw out all the babies because the bath water seems to be a bit dirty.

To date I have done little more than stealth through the bases, so complaint on your part through vigorous testing could be more than justified.

 

[Mark_Mythic]

Pro Zak, I appreciate your feedback. I'm interested to hear more.

I also want to say to all of you that I realize that about every 2 years some designer comes along and tries to "fix" factions... and in the past it hasn't really helped.

Maybe it would be appropriate to say a little about where we would like to head. None of this is set in stone but it might make what we have presented in the first release make more sense:

I can say that we intend to do something about faction arties, even if it is just making them exactly like the ones that you can get in pve. None of this is really decided. Current discussions involves giving crafters some part to play in it.

I can say that we want to make pvp more new player friendly, this speaks directly to stat loss. We understand that you need to be able to route an enemy but a new player dies about 4 times to every time he gets a kill... that is a lot of down time with the current system.

We also have intent to do some stuff with crafting in factions, which is why there is crafting equipment there. I would like to allow them to be upgradable with faction silver too. The main reason there are bankers in there is for the crafters... no one is going to craft in there if they can't ditch their stuff when the building gets raided. Perhaps I should make them be something else that isn't a banker... like maybe just a magic chest you can put things in at the base to protect it during a raid.

Also, we are looking at ways to make towns upgradable using faction silver. Maybe towers that can be added that give bonuses of various types. With this, other ways to create things to spend faction silver on... like insurance.

Another part of the plan is to focus sigil fighting. Current thinking is to make it so one town is "vulnerable" to overtaking at a time. Then you log in looking for some action you know that right now you need to head to Britain, or Moonglow, etc.

We are very conscious of the fact that thieves are really important to factions and we intend to continue to support them moving forward.

We have a lot of ideas on paper but we wanted to put stuff on this new server in stages and then adapt to how the fans of the game want to go. We don't want to go down a new road 20 miles and then turn around and no one has come with us... so far, we have gone about 2 miles and yesterday we looked back.

Another goal is to just get more people involved. There is some feedback that I don't seem to know how this faction game is played, but I would argue that the way it is currently played doesn't attract many people. I'm trying to turn a fringe game that isn't even really acknowledged by the larger world of Sosaria and turn it into a cause. If at all possible, I want to keep our current faction players and double that number. The fact that more people don't play factions makes it hard for our bosses to let us spend time on it. I hope you all well help us push factions farther into the spotlight so we can get more time to work on it.

Please hang with us and help us make factions better. It really does matter to us as much as it matters to you that you want to play in factions. Also, I appreciate the change in tone on this thread to a more civil conversation. Now it sounds like a community of people who love UO and are just trying to protect it for the sake of everyone (including me, who feeds my family by doing this). I appreciate your passion for UO.

 

[MiNi MaGi]

I'm sorry, but that just isn't true. Part of the reasons factions have become so prevalent is because people are compelled to join for the prohibitively powerful bonuses to faction items. They are NOT just replicas, they are vastly more powerful and instantly allow for a faction character to assemble a suit better than even the BEST farmable items. 3 MR on the Orny? Crystaline Ring with 3 fcr? Hit chance on the warrior talisman? The list goes on.

Are you going to remove these bonuses from the new items? Please god do it. Set the pvprs free.

why not just remove the items in general then. i dont know of anyone who cant afford a crimson or orny besides newbs. and a newb has no place in fel/pvp. so if your gonna remove the bonus then remove the items. and all this has been taken care of with the new point system AND imbueing being around.

 

[MiNi MaGi]

Pro Zak, I appreciate your feedback. I'm interested to hear more.

I also want to say to all of you that I realize that about every 2 years some designer comes along and tries to "fix" factions... and in the past it hasn't really helped.

Maybe it would be appropriate to say a little about where we would like to head. None of this is set in stone but it might make what we have presented in the first release make more sense:

I can say that we intend to do something about faction arties, even if it is just making them exactly like the ones that you can get in pve. None of this is really decided. Current discussions involves giving crafters some part to play in it.

I can say that we want to make pvp more new player friendly, this speaks directly to stat loss. We understand that you need to be able to route an enemy but a new player dies about 4 times to every time he gets a kill... that is a lot of down time with the current system.

We also have intent to do some stuff with crafting in factions, which is why there is crafting equipment there. I would like to allow them to be upgradable with faction silver too. The main reason there are bankers in there is for the crafters... no one is going to craft in there if they can't ditch their stuff when the building gets raided. Perhaps I should make them be something else that isn't a banker... like maybe just a magic chest you can put things in at the base to protect it during a raid.

Also, we are looking at ways to make towns upgradable using faction silver. Maybe towers that can be added that give bonuses of various types. With this, other ways to create things to spend faction silver on... like insurance.

Another part of the plan is to focus sigil fighting. Current thinking is to make it so one town is "vulnerable" to overtaking at a time. Then you log in looking for some action you know that right now you need to head to Britain, or Moonglow, etc.

We are very conscious of the fact that thieves are really important to factions and we intend to continue to support them moving forward.

We have a lot of ideas on paper but we wanted to put stuff on this new server in stages and then adapt to how the fans of the game want to go. We don't want to go down a new road 20 miles and then turn around and no one has come with us... so far, we have gone about 2 miles and yesterday we looked back.

Another goal is to just get more people involved. There is some feedback that I don't seem to know how this faction game is played, but I would argue that the way it is currently played doesn't attract many people. I'm trying to turn a fringe game that isn't even really acknowledged by the larger world of Sosaria and turn it into a cause. If at all possible, I want to keep our current faction players and double that number. The fact that more people don't play factions makes it hard for our bosses to let us spend time on it. I hope you all well help us push factions farther into the spotlight so we can get more time to work on it.

Please hang with us and help us make factions better. It really does matter to us as much as it matters to you that you want to play in factions. Also, I appreciate the change in tone on this thread to a more civil conversation. Now it sounds like a community of people who love UO and are just trying to protect it for the sake of everyone (including me, who feeds my family by doing this). I appreciate your passion for UO.

would help if u delete TC1 so everyone who plays test is on the faction one...

 

[JC the Builder]

I can say that we want to make pvp more new player friendly, this speaks directly to stat loss.

PVP is not new player friendly due to the atmosphere that has been created since the Age of Shadows. There are no longer any opportunities for a player to go out on their own and learn to combat other players. You are pretty much forced to join a guild, but most don't accept new players.

Today's UO combat is decided in the first seconds of battle. There is no recovery. If you want to make factions more new player friendly, then the focus should be on balancing PVP in general.

 

[MiNi MaGi]

*deeeep breath*

Viquire, go wipe off your face. I know brown nosing admins is a specialty for some people, but this game needs honest feedback now more than ever. If they're taking the time to get the real concept they don't need someone advocating clear mistakes in their designs for this game.

Berethrain, your arguments all hold plenty ground. A LOT of people are holding back throwing punches but many of us are thinking the -exact- same things that you have said.

Lore, good reply. I know your name.. were you always an axer in Minax on TC some years ago (6+) or am I going crazy?

As much as I appreciate the fact that you guys are actually addressing factions, I think the vision has just become wrong for it. I seriously cannot see how it's beneficial to revamp the system completely at this point and aim blindly like this. I'm personally scared that a bunch of people who have never played or appreciated REAL factions/pvp are going to back a bunch of awful ideas that will cause the system to be entirely dead once the fresh car smell fades. Please take in the suggestions people who actually know the system give and adjust fire based on that. Factions DO need love, just make sure you give them the right kind.

Your response to all of this is pretty.. interesting. What fires me up is when people developing a game I love seem to be so out of touch with the actual game it's scary. I guess it's inevitable that the people developing this game have no idea what it was like 5 or 10 years ago. Now it is just starting to become very clear that this is the case - I feel like you aren't in touch with what caused people to enjoy factions in the past or why it was so popular and enjoyable. I guess it's just frustrating to see in all honesty. It also seems like you've taken a lot of peoples comments personally. Probably not a good idea. Might want to take a step back and ask yourself why people are getting upset. You mention you don't want a group of two taking on a group of.. things like this are why UO is UO. A group of two who play smart and strategical *CAN* do that. If fields and greater dragons are the issue, tweak that instead.

I'm going to refrain from letting my emotions get the best of me and speaking my mind (or as I would to your face, as you would say Mark ) with what is going on here. If I get the time I will post my personal constructive ideas and ways I think this system really needs to be fixed to help our game. I really just have a bad vibe from this approach/current things you have brought to the table and don't see them working in this game, with this amount of players, and these types of players (no one who pvp's (factions) in UO gives two s**** if a keep looks like someone lives in it.......). I feel like these are things you should already know seeing as you design the game, but it is what it is.

GJ. someone had the balls to finally say this

 

[Cetric]

Pro Zak, I appreciate your feedback. I'm interested to hear more.

I also want to say to all of you that I realize that about every 2 years some designer comes along and tries to "fix" factions... and in the past it hasn't really helped.

Maybe it would be appropriate to say a little about where we would like to head. None of this is set in stone but it might make what we have presented in the first release make more sense:

I can say that we intend to do something about faction arties, even if it is just making them exactly like the ones that you can get in pve. None of this is really decided. Current discussions involves giving crafters some part to play in it.

I can say that we want to make pvp more new player friendly, this speaks directly to stat loss. We understand that you need to be able to route an enemy but a new player dies about 4 times to every time he gets a kill... that is a lot of down time with the current system.

We also have intent to do some stuff with crafting in factions, which is why there is crafting equipment there. I would like to allow them to be upgradable with faction silver too. The main reason there are bankers in there is for the crafters... no one is going to craft in there if they can't ditch their stuff when the building gets raided. Perhaps I should make them be something else that isn't a banker... like maybe just a magic chest you can put things in at the base to protect it during a raid.

Also, we are looking at ways to make towns upgradable using faction silver. Maybe towers that can be added that give bonuses of various types. With this, other ways to create things to spend faction silver on... like insurance.

Another part of the plan is to focus sigil fighting. Current thinking is to make it so one town is "vulnerable" to overtaking at a time. Then you log in looking for some action you know that right now you need to head to Britain, or Moonglow, etc.

We are very conscious of the fact that thieves are really important to factions and we intend to continue to support them moving forward.

We have a lot of ideas on paper but we wanted to put stuff on this new server in stages and then adapt to how the fans of the game want to go. We don't want to go down a new road 20 miles and then turn around and no one has come with us... so far, we have gone about 2 miles and yesterday we looked back.

Another goal is to just get more people involved. There is some feedback that I don't seem to know how this faction game is played, but I would argue that the way it is currently played doesn't attract many people. I'm trying to turn a fringe game that isn't even really acknowledged by the larger world of Sosaria and turn it into a cause. If at all possible, I want to keep our current faction players and double that number. The fact that more people don't play factions makes it hard for our bosses to let us spend time on it. I hope you all well help us push factions farther into the spotlight so we can get more time to work on it.

Please hang with us and help us make factions better. It really does matter to us as much as it matters to you that you want to play in factions. Also, I appreciate the change in tone on this thread to a more civil conversation. Now it sounds like a community of people who love UO and are just trying to protect it for the sake of everyone (including me, who feeds my family by doing this). I appreciate your passion for UO.

Just a couple things to note.


Good idea on the whole "make one town vulnerable at a certain time. This would create many more fights that say, if one factions teals all the town sigils and defends them all at once. Trying to take one city a day would be very interesting.


Also, happy to see you are looking into the faction arties. It would be nice to involve a crafter, and scale the artifacts down to the normal ones that are obtainable via pvm. maybe the rank and silver requirements stay, but the items need to be created by a faction crafter, in the faction base. They could then be placed on a "vendor" or in the "magic chest" for other people to obtain.


i've beat stat loss into the ground enough already.


Please take a look at Lore Denin's post about controlling towns, i think it holds alot of merit, the building of towers and things sounds interesting too, maybe even add turrets that can be controlled by a certain player type. Say...a thief can control a turret, etc.



And just a suggestion, what about a "Faction Chat" like general chat, guild chat, etc, where you can speak to other people in the faction you are in.

Would also like to see something pop up if you are in factions, sort of like the server going down for maintenance message.

like, The base is Under Siege, Britain is in the process of being corrupted by the Guardians Legion, etc etc etc etc etc.


I like the bases you created, but maybe change them around just a tiny bit. i about got lost in the new GL, old Min base, as has been said there are plenty of places for a thief to hide in a corner, and there are way to many "dead ends" to get trapped in. And since you cannot teleport, a few simple fields will do the trick.


OH AND BEFORE I FORGET. if any fighting is to be taking place in a town like you hinted at, please remove guard zones from the faction towns.

 

[MiNi MaGi]

PVP is not new player friendly due to the atmosphere that has been created since the Age of Shadows. There are no longer any opportunities for a player to go out on their own and learn to combat other players. You are pretty much forced to join a guild, but most don't accept new players.

Today's UO combat is decided in the first seconds of battle. There is no recovery. If you want to make factions more new player friendly, then the focus should be on balancing PVP in general.

your postings should be removed, someone that doesnt pvp should be allowed to post about it. pvp has become alot more balanced since imbue/mysticism.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

I can say that we want to make pvp more new player friendly, this speaks directly to stat loss. We understand that you need to be able to route an enemy but a new player dies about 4 times to every time he gets a kill... that is a lot of down time with the current system.

*looks around*

Wait did I miss something? And that is a very serious question. Stat loss only happens to faction players but what you are saying is making pvp player friendly. The two are separate things. PVP in UO does not have stat loss ... only faction play does. If a player does not want to be in loss, then they don't join a faction. That is their choice. If they hit a faction stone, they have made a conscious choice to take the risk of stat loss. We are NOT forcing anyone to play factions.

Now, this leads me to the argument that a lot of the PVPers that hate stat loss are in factions because they want the arties to use in their PVP. Take out the arties and the "pretend factioners" will go back to being reds fighting at Yew gate without complaint of stat loss and pvp is back to being player friendly.

Factions is NOT forcing players to endure stat loss ... they are making the choice.

 

[Berethrain]

And just a suggestion, what about a "Faction Chat" like general chat, guild chat, etc, where you can speak to other people in the faction you are in.

I thought about this too but then again couldnt they just create a room in the chat system they have now?

 

[JC the Builder]

Here is a serious suggestion: if you guys want to change PVP then you need to go watch actual fights on production shards. I offered a long time ago when there was some interest in making PVP changes, to come and watch one of the nightly champion spawn fights we have. There are obviously some glaring problems with how group battles are conducted now. Making changes to make group fights more fun and interesting would go a long way to enhancing Factions.

In addition, I have posted dozens of fights on my Youtube channel. Here is one I selected at random. It even shows factions fighting each other.

Improving Factions will go a lot better if the people making the changes know how PVP works today.

 

[Berethrain]

I can say that we want to make pvp more new player friendly

Honestly Mark, I'd suggest that you test the stat loss timer in increments 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and wait for the feed back from that. You're most likely going to **** some of the older faction players off but in the end the amount of numbers increasing or decreasing in factions will tell you what to do.

 

[Cetric]

I thought about this too but then again couldnt they just create a room in the chat system they have now?

Yep that would be fine as well, just as long as everyone and their brother couldn't join it, just that faction.

 

[Cetric]

*looks around*

Wait did I miss something? And that is a very serious question. Stat loss only happens to faction players but what you are saying is making pvp player friendly. The two are separate things. PVP in UO does not have stat loss ... only faction play does. If a player does not want to be in loss, then they don't join a faction. That is their choice. If they hit a faction stone, they have made a conscious choice to take the risk of stat loss. We are NOT forcing anyone to play factions.

Now, this leads me to the argument that a lot of the PVPers that hate stat loss are in factions because they want the arties to use in their PVP. Take out the arties and the "pretend factioners" will go back to being reds fighting at Yew gate without complaint of stat loss and pvp is back to being player friendly.

Factions is NOT forcing players to endure stat loss ... they are making the choice.

I believe between the faction artifacts, and some of the lore, there is a big push to try to get most of pvp turned into factions. Since the artifacts were introduced, it has become this way, whether the artifacts were superior or not i think it would just because they would be cheaper to obtain.

In a way it is a good thing, to go along with his new players involved in pvp thing, a new player can't afford an orny, but he might be able to get a decent imbued suit and go beat up on some enemies to get one.

 

[Locryn Finck]

*looks around*

Wait did I miss something? And that is a very serious question. Stat loss only happens to faction players but what you are saying is making pvp player friendly. The two are separate things. PVP in UO does not have stat loss ... only faction play does. If a player does not want to be in loss, then they don't join a faction. That is their choice. If they hit a faction stone, they have made a conscious choice to take the risk of stat loss. We are NOT forcing anyone to play factions.

Now, this leads me to the argument that a lot of the PVPers that hate stat loss are in factions because they want the arties to use in their PVP. Take out the arties and the "pretend factioners" will go back to being reds fighting at Yew gate without complaint of stat loss and pvp is back to being player friendly.

Factions is NOT forcing players to endure stat loss ... they are making the choice.

It is a choice. A choice between having to spend huge amounts of money for gear that that is ultimately not even comparable to what can be achieved with factions, or easily obtaining a suit with ABOVE max HCI/DCI, max resists, enhance pots, etc etc for virtually nothing. A choice to run solo when almost all significant felucca guilds are faction aligned or to actually have a vent/map and group the run with.

The fact is, the bonuses on the items made every powerplayer pvpr want to go faction. Which made the competition do the same. Which made any new people to the scene feel forced to or get beaten down on dice rolls. Remove the item incentive and you will actually give people a REASONABLE choice to make. The reason there is so much discussion extending beyond "Oh the bases look cool" is due to the fact that factions have effectively BECOME pvp in UO. It used to be if you were faction, you were part of a minority. Now it is the opposite. So when the devs decide to tackle factions, they unfortunately have to bite off the larger implications to pvp as a whole.

 

[tink'r_toiz]

It is a choice. A choice between having to spend huge amounts of money for gear that that is ultimately not even comparable to what can be achieved with factions, or easily obtaining a suit with ABOVE max HCI/DCI, max resists, enhance pots, etc etc for virtually nothing. A choice to run solo when almost all significant felucca guilds are faction aligned or to actually have a vent/map and group the run with.

The fact is, the bonuses on the items made every powerplayer pvpr want to go faction. Which made the competition do the same. Which made any new people to the scene feel forced to or get beaten down on dice rolls. Remove the item incentive and you will actually give people a REASONABLE choice to make. The reason there is so much discussion extending beyond "Oh the bases look cool" is due to the fact that factions have effectively BECOME pvp in UO. It used to be if you were faction, you were part of a minority. Now it is the opposite. So when the devs decide to tackle factions, they unfortunately have to bite off the larger implications to pvp as a whole.

*nods*

I understand the attraction to the arities, inexpensive and simple to make a good suit and that leads to mandatory faction memebership which leads to potential stat loss which makes it difficult for the limited time players to enjoy the game. I just want the Devs to consider their actions carefully. The pvp players, by nature, are vocal and easily heard and sometimes it is easier to do what the vocal masses want than really fix something. Stat loss was meant to be a consequence of faction play and enriched the tension and drama of the fight because of the risk.

For me, removing stat loss or shortening the length too extremely takes out the little bit of risk and exhileration and stategy. When I go in a base I know that there is a consequence for my thief getting caught. It FORCES me to be a better player. If I have no stat loss, I will just run over and over and re-supply inbetween. Takes out the necessity for strategy and the exhileration of "getting out alive".

 

[MichelNOTmichael]

An Idea that might help.

The biggest complaint thus far about the new bases, is that they are entirely too big. Practically undefendable without a zerg force.
My idea would solve this and another issue. There is currently not enough incentive to owning the sigils. Why not tie in the sigil ownership to the new bases. What I mean by this, is if say you own a town. One room becomes "unlocked" . Say for instance a crafting area, which although currently useless... could give faction crafters a bonus % when inside. Owning another sig could unlock another area for more benefit (the back passageway, which only should be accessable by your own faction of course.) Owning half would unlock the bank ... Owning all sigils would unlock a mini-champ style spawn similar to those in the abyss on one of the levels in your base. The rewards for doing the champ could vary, but silver... faction replicas. Im just throwing ideas out there. These bases are huge, and are in need of purpose for being huge. Ill post later on my current view of the point system. ty - AND please delete or modify faction runes so they cannot be used in combat situations

 

[Cailleach]

Guys, can we please keep this constructive? You have a wonderful opportunity here to actually get some input into the systems that you play in within the game. Don't spoil it because you've got your 'smart ass' posting head on. This is not UHall. If you like something, say so, and say why. If you don't like something, ditto. But if you flame our Devs here, they're not going to want to come and see what you've got to say and you're going to screw up what is, so far as I can tell, a near unique opportunity.

Be Polite!

 

[Cetric]

*nods*

I understand the attraction to the arities, inexpensive and simple to make a good suit and that leads to mandatory faction memebership which leads to potential stat loss which makes it difficult for the limited time players to enjoy the game. I just want the Devs to consider their actions carefully. The pvp players, by nature, are vocal and easily heard and sometimes it is easier to do what the vocal masses want than really fix something. Stat loss was meant to be a consequence of faction play and enriched the tension and drama of the fight because of the risk.

For me, removing stat loss or shortening the length too extremely takes out the little bit of risk and exhileration and stategy. When I go in a base I know that there is a consequence for my thief getting caught. It FORCES me to be a better player. If I have no stat loss, I will just run over and over and re-supply inbetween. Takes out the necessity for strategy and the exhileration of "getting out alive".

You also have to understand tinkr, you aren't pvping, you are the thief. It is much much much harder to kill a thief than a straight mage for instance. The same applies for why, now, because of stat loss, everyone runs templates that have ninjitsu for animal form, stealth/hide for smoke bombs, etc etc etc. Rather than "enrich the tension and drama of the fight" it has now turned into running, hiding, anything you can do to stay alive so you don't get "statted"

I have died about 3 times in the past few months on my thief, one was 2 a very well executed gank involving 3 dismounters and someone chain casting thunderstorm. One was because i tried to push a grinder at a harrower to get some scrolls, and another was to rikktor trying to steal someones scrolls, he eqd and insta targeted me lol. Most thieves have all defense skills, can hide/stealth, and smoke bomb/animal form on top of it. The thief char is a very important one, but dieing isn't easy.

 

[Vyal]

Holding sigils should grant the faction that captures and returns them to their posts a special ability, buff of some kind.

Faction A captures Brit sig (they get a special ability)
Faction A looses the Brit sig (they loose their ability)

each sigil grants a special ability.

I'm thinking along the lines of DaoC here but..

There still is no rhyme or reason to capture sigils other then to try and get the other faction to come fight & even then people don't do it cause the people in the base have traps and three times the numbers as the other people because there is no reason for people to really want to get the sigils to begin with.

Good luck with your faction system, I done quit already anyhow

 

[Cetric]

Honestly, if they gave a really really good reason to get the sigils, like those bonuses you mentioned, or other nice reasons. Then they also would need to spread out the sigils to different days and not all at one time. This in itself would also solve the problem of the base being so large, as i think more and more people would get involved in base raiding and defending.

 

[Berethrain]

Honestly, if they gave a really really good reason to get the sigils, like those bonuses you mentioned, or other nice reasons. Then they also would need to spread out the sigils to different days and not all at one time. This in itself would also solve the problem of the base being so large, as i think more and more people would get involved in base raiding and defending.

They could tie it into being able to use traps, guards, etc

 

[Cetric]

They could tie it into being able to use traps, guards, etc

Guards, traps, and the like isn't something very enticing to the overall population. important, but not enticing.

Say you can only ride your war horse if you own skara, you get half the stat loss time if you own xx city, you get get double silver if you own this city, etc etc. Very USEABLE things. I think the guards should stay in place, but that should be the grand incentive to owning the towns. You give the population something fantastic, and everyone will be in factions, fighting to obtain that fantastic thing. That means your base defenses are huge, your base raiding is fun, you have not a few, but a small army of thieves trying to get the sigils, etc etc, etc etc etc.

Just my opinion.

 

[Viquire]

some other things I seem to remember having been asked for:

In the category of vendors:
Necro Regs, Arrows, bolts, hides or leather, scrolls.

Don't get me wrong I like the big pie in the sky incentive of holding a town too, but several little things could add up nicely

 

[Lord Strahd]

Its a catch 22 you say that factions cant get good funding because only a low amount of people play it. However thats because this system obviously needs the most attention.

Lets start off by saying that the stat loss timers should be thrown out completely that serve no meaningful purpose except to discourage faction play. If it stays as a 5 minute timer then yes It takes me that long to go get and equipment back and doesnt have much of an affect, however my point is if it doesnt have and affect then just throw it out. LET GO OF IT MAN.

I liked the bases decoration ...very immersive and it wasnt laggy on my end.

I like the crafting stations and banks, these will help add realism and it also encourages crafters to get involved.

So now that Ive gotten past some of the stuff thats already in game now lets talk about stuff that needs to be in game...stay tuned for my next post.

 

[o2bavr6]

Pro Zak, I appreciate your feedback. I'm interested to hear more.

I also want to say to all of you that I realize that about every 2 years some designer comes along and tries to "fix" factions... and in the past it hasn't really helped.

Maybe it would be appropriate to say a little about where we would like to head. None of this is set in stone but it might make what we have presented in the first release make more sense:

I can say that we intend to do something about faction arties, even if it is just making them exactly like the ones that you can get in pve. None of this is really decided. Current discussions involves giving crafters some part to play in it.

I can say that we want to make pvp more new player friendly, this speaks directly to stat loss. We understand that you need to be able to route an enemy but a new player dies about 4 times to every time he gets a kill... that is a lot of down time with the current system.

We also have intent to do some stuff with crafting in factions, which is why there is crafting equipment there. I would like to allow them to be upgradable with faction silver too. The main reason there are bankers in there is for the crafters... no one is going to craft in there if they can't ditch their stuff when the building gets raided. Perhaps I should make them be something else that isn't a banker... like maybe just a magic chest you can put things in at the base to protect it during a raid.

Also, we are looking at ways to make towns upgradable using faction silver. Maybe towers that can be added that give bonuses of various types. With this, other ways to create things to spend faction silver on... like insurance.

Another part of the plan is to focus sigil fighting. Current thinking is to make it so one town is "vulnerable" to overtaking at a time. Then you log in looking for some action you know that right now you need to head to Britain, or Moonglow, etc.

We are very conscious of the fact that thieves are really important to factions and we intend to continue to support them moving forward.

We have a lot of ideas on paper but we wanted to put stuff on this new server in stages and then adapt to how the fans of the game want to go. We don't want to go down a new road 20 miles and then turn around and no one has come with us... so far, we have gone about 2 miles and yesterday we looked back.

Another goal is to just get more people involved. There is some feedback that I don't seem to know how this faction game is played, but I would argue that the way it is currently played doesn't attract many people. I'm trying to turn a fringe game that isn't even really acknowledged by the larger world of Sosaria and turn it into a cause. If at all possible, I want to keep our current faction players and double that number. The fact that more people don't play factions makes it hard for our bosses to let us spend time on it. I hope you all well help us push factions farther into the spotlight so we can get more time to work on it.

Please hang with us and help us make factions better. It really does matter to us as much as it matters to you that you want to play in factions. Also, I appreciate the change in tone on this thread to a more civil conversation. Now it sounds like a community of people who love UO and are just trying to protect it for the sake of everyone (including me, who feeds my family by doing this). I appreciate your passion for UO.

Mark i think most of us do appreciate the effort you are putting into factions and UO as a whole. But there are a myriad of problems with PvP in general, let alone factions.

It would have been nice if your first post would have said, stat loss on the test server has been reduced to 5 minutes. This issue is more important to most players than some of the other information that was posted. But with that said, we now all know, so all is good.

I know that this may be a bit premature for you to address or maybe you cant address it, but another thing that most pvpers care about more than faction is the rampant hacking and scripting and speeding that goes on in pvp.

So no matter what effort you put into the faction system it will not attract a percentage of players due to all the cheating.

Call me crazy but I would think that the cheating in PvP would need to be addressed first, and then revamp factions.

Nothing is more frustrating than being chased down by people when you are 2 screens ahead of them, or having people cast lightning faster than you can cast a lesser heal.

In regards to stat loss, I look at it like this (I may be wrong but its how I look at it). UO has stat loss to keep players playing for longer,which in turn makes us pay for longer. There is no place for stat loss in the game at all. I pay to play UO not to sit and wait, even for 5 minutes.

Flee of battle has its own issues. I cant count the times that I've been standing around talking to someone and to all of a sudden get ganked and killed, yet low and behold I AM IN FLEE!! why is this happening? Why has it not been addressed? This has been going on for years. And btw, I have no reflect phys armor on, in case you think that would be the reason.

Also if flee of battle will stay in the game, then why is it that when a group of blues gank a red, the blues don't become gray to the red for 2 minutes liek they are supposed to? they instantly become blue again to the red upon the reds death.

Again, I do thank you for the time you have put into the game and factions, but personally there is an overall fundamental problem with PvP that needs to be addressed first.

edit: on a side note, whats with the movement problem on TC1, if you run into something to fast, your motion gets all messed up. its like walking into invised people. I have also died a lot due to this because i had to wait for the client to re-sync so i can move properly again.

edit 2: why is it that on test center you can imbue amazing dexer weapons but god forbid you need to imbue a spell channel no pen weapon with dci. No for those you either need the dumb ingredients taht are not supplied or you have to spend time trying to craft one and then imbue it!! Its the things like this that annoy hard core pvpers like me.

 

[Cetric]

having people cast lightning faster than you can cast a lesser heal.

See man, its stuff like this that irks me. Cheating is real, speedhacking is real, tile hacking is real. casting lightning faster than you can cast a lesser heal is either a product of your system or your connection/ping. there is no cheat that can make this happen.

Cheating needs to be fixed, i agree, but people giving misinformation such as this does not help.


Back to Factions now.

 

[Mook Chessy]

I agree with alot of things in this thread...

First thing is to remove the "owned by tag"...Kelmo

Second, lower the silver cost on Siege...Asty

Third, lower the time for stat if the death happens in a base...Kat

It would really suck if we got a total overhaul and it did nothing to help, i think alot of people are waiting on these changes to decide their UO future.

Funny, SA was the best expansion in years IMHO, yet this looks like a poor attempt.

I will wait until I play a bit before I pass judgement.

GET IT RIGHT DEVS.....

Woot!!

 

[Lord Strahd]

Another goal is to just get more people involved. There is some feedback that I don't seem to know how this faction game is played, but I would argue that the way it is currently played doesn't attract many people. I'm trying to turn a fringe game that isn't even really acknowledged by the larger world of Sosaria and turn it into a cause. If at all possible, I want to keep our current faction players and double that number. The fact that more people don't play factions makes it hard for our bosses to let us spend time on it. I hope you all well help us push factions farther into the spotlight so we can get more time to work on it.

You dont need play testers right now...you need ideas, you need a mission, YOU NEED FUNDING!

But anyways here are some good ideas that will get those players off their butts and into factions. You can thank me later.

I think the strongholds should get vendor upgrades.. if we spend more silver we get better vendors. Maybe you can buy imbuing materials or crafting stuff on these vendors. Make them useful. THis is affecting the world in a meaningful way.

I think there should be a FACTION DUNGEON. This dugeon is only accessable by faction people. Maybe the door is controlled by the faction with the most controlled sigils. This is affecting the world in a meaningful way. It also gives us a reason to be.

Next we need some faction items ...stuff only faction people get, not replicated junk from the PVE side. WE WANT OUR OWN SPECIAL ITEMS. I want people to looks at me with a glance and know im in factions. These items should referance and back up the specific history of the faction.

The factions are to general, they need to be way more specific in story, it needs specific leaders, specific histories. Something we can relate to and get involved in.

Those things were free, for my good suggestions you devs are going to have to cough up some dough!

 

[R Traveler]

Just some ideas

As for faction crafting... err.. imbuing: allow over 100% mods with silver as 4th material. Total properties cap at 500 (or more for high rank?)
Make property cap tied to rank, 100%+5%*rank for example.
10 dex on a ring is 125% mod, so rank 5 required.

 

[Picus at the office]

The stat loss on the Faction server is currently 5 minutes. I've seen one post in this thread that seems to have noticed. As far as I can tell, he's the only poster who has mentioned stat loss that has actually played on the Faction shard. (Thank you Cardell!)

Have a little faith regarding a fiction based transition to a three faction system. This isn't going out for ***months***. The new factions are a part of the new story line. We are trying to test mechanics here, not story line. My current live story line has a timeline that takes us through the end of the year.

I played last night and had no lag in any of the keeps. I was using the enhanced client. It is helpful to hear from people who are having lag and we will be glad to make improvements. Hear-say and speculative reports of probable lag is not helpful, we know it *might* cause lag.

We might add the ability for people to get imbuing ingredients easily on the Faction shard, but for the time being you can get any artifact in the game on the shard by using the verbal commands. You can also set your stats and skills using verbal commands. The information is in a sticky on this forum but you can see the commands in game by just saying "help commands."

I'll just go ahead and say it, though I realize that a couple of people have called for me to be fired, I designed those keeps. I designed them to support the story. I designed them to actually look like a castle and not an arena. I play a lot of pvp in many games and I always hated the way the keeps look in other games... they don't look like anyone lives there, I'm not even sure I would want to defend such a crappy building. I designed the keeps to make them places that people would take ownership of and want to defend. I designed them so that players could have a fight while running through a castle. I designed them to be part of a virtual world where people fight for a cause and have homes and lives.

The halls are wide to prevent cheesy stuff like 2 people who happened to be in the area stopping a 10 man raid that you spent the past hour putting together with a pile of impassable items. I've had that happen way too much in poorly designed keeps. I designed these keeps so that if some jerk piles candelabras to block a hallway, they are going to need a truckload. I designed them so that greater dragons are not overpowered... or energy fields.

I want keeps to give the defenders an advantage but I want them to be fun too. 3 defenders should have an advantage over 5 attackers in their own keep but not 3 defenders beating 10 attackers... unless the 10 just suck.

I want to say something briefly to the haters in this thread. I get up in the morning thinking about the players of UO and how I can entertain you. I spend all day working on it. I would appreciate a little consideration. You don't have to like what I designed, but speak to me as if I was actually standing in front of you.

Believe me, if the keeps are truly "crap" then they will ***never*** go live. I didn't spend hours upon hours to design them so that I could "ruin the game". To be honest, I'm completely surprised that more people don't say, "Wow, finally some bases that actually look like they belong in a fantasy role playing game."

I realize there will always be those sad people who just come to the internet to spread their hate. I also realize that many people fear change. I also realize that I'm not always right. I also realize that the test shard went live at 3:30pm yesterday and most people haven't had a chance to try the new stuff.

I will be interested to see feedback that will be coming through this weekend when people have more time to actually play on the new server. And finally, for the record, I have never played WOW and I do not think playing it would make me better at designing UO.

Peace.

I'll finish reading this thread when I get home, but wow this is the first time I've read a member of the dev team telling people to get stuffed. And, frankly, I'm glad for it that at least this guy has some nuts.

I'm sure that there are changes being made that I will not like and some I will. I am worried about the faction suits as I have also sent chars to servers based around these items. I have made chars on said servers after sending limited supplies haveing not being informed that deletion of said items was possibly on the cards. A good amount of cash has been spent on this and I do not wish to be let down.

 

[Lilith Vysage II]

ok I appologise if earlier I was a bit heated about what I had to say but I stand by my main point in fel
we dont give a good god damn if something looks like someone lives in it role play is for trammel look at fel
it looks like tram got killed and left to rot, its supposed to be a war zone and an inversion of tram
I like the idea of one town being captured at a time to encourage fights that really would work
but I stand by what I said earlier the bases are way too big and I for one am really unhappy that your planing to change
the factions names, colours and remove one of them if you look into the pre-online history of uo you will see just how
esential factions have been to the story line.
if you are going to have faction fights in towns though you need to remove the auto-kill guards and replace them with the
deffending factions own killable guards

 

[Cetric]

Just some ideas

As for faction crafting... err.. imbuing: allow over 100% mods with silver as 4th material. Total properties cap at 500 (or more for high rank?)
Make property cap tied to rank, 100%+5%*rank for example.
10 dex on a ring is 125% mod, so rank 5 required.

that would go along with the problems with faction artifacts being overpowered.

everyone will be in factions for the sole purpose of imbuing better equipment.

 

[Lilith Vysage II]

ok how about this:
you make each town have a mine or something the like the mine can only be accessed by members of the faction that currently control that town these mines each give off different special materials from each other that can be used by faction crafters to make specialized faction artifacts (not replicas in with the new) this means that the faction economy and production of items is purely in the players hands and gives a reason for defending or taking over towns.
I dunno I suppose you could make the mines raidable but then it kind of defeats the object of controlling the town I did like the idea of being able to add faction fortifications as well as guards to faction controlled towns.

 

[Lord Strahd]

ok how about this:
you make each town have a mine or something the like the mine can only be accessed by members of the faction that currently control that town these mines each give off different special materials from each other that can be used by faction crafters to make specialized faction artifacts (not replicas in with the new) this means that the faction economy and production of items is purely in the players hands and gives a reason for defending or taking over towns.
I dunno I suppose you could make the mines raidable but then it kind of defeats the object of controlling the town I did like the idea of being able to add faction fortifications as well as guards to faction controlled towns.

I fully support something like this good idea lilth.

 

[MichelNOTmichael]

Have a little faith regarding a fiction based transition to a three faction system. This isn't going out for ***months***. The new factions are a part of the new story line. We are trying to test mechanics here, not story line. My current live story line has a timeline that takes us through the end of the year.

I played last night and had no lag in any of the keeps. I was using the enhanced client. It is helpful to hear from people who are having lag and we will be glad to make improvements. Hear-say and speculative reports of probable lag is not helpful, we know it *might* cause lag.

We might add the ability for people to get imbuing ingredients easily on the Faction shard, but for the time being you can get any artifact in the game on the shard by using the verbal commands. You can also set your stats and skills using verbal commands. The information is in a sticky on this forum but you can see the commands in game by just saying "help commands."

I'll just go ahead and say it, though I realize that a couple of people have called for me to be fired, I designed those keeps. I designed them to support the story. I designed them to actually look like a castle and not an arena. I play a lot of pvp in many games and I always hated the way the keeps look in other games... they don't look like anyone lives there, I'm not even sure I would want to defend such a crappy building. I designed the keeps to make them places that people would take ownership of and want to defend. I designed them so that players could have a fight while running through a castle. I designed them to be part of a virtual world where people fight for a cause and have homes and lives.

The halls are wide to prevent cheesy stuff like 2 people who happened to be in the area stopping a 10 man raid that you spent the past hour putting together with a pile of impassable items. I've had that happen way too much in poorly designed keeps. I designed these keeps so that if some jerk piles candelabras to block a hallway, they are going to need a truckload. I designed them so that greater dragons are not overpowered... or energy fields.

I want keeps to give the defenders an advantage but I want them to be fun too. 3 defenders should have an advantage over 5 attackers in their own keep but not 3 defenders beating 10 attackers... unless the 10 just suck.

I want to say something briefly to the haters in this thread. I get up in the morning thinking about the players of UO and how I can entertain you. I spend all day working on it. I would appreciate a little consideration. You don't have to like what I designed, but speak to me as if I was actually standing in front of you.

Believe me, if the keeps are truly "crap" then they will ***never*** go live. I didn't spend hours upon hours to design them so that I could "ruin the game". To be honest, I'm completely surprised that more people don't say, "Wow, finally some bases that actually look like they belong in a fantasy role playing game."

I realize there will always be those sad people who just come to the internet to spread their hate. I also realize that many people fear change. I also realize that I'm not always right. I also realize that the test shard went live at 3:30pm yesterday and most people haven't had a chance to try the new stuff.

I will be interested to see feedback that will be coming through this weekend when people have more time to actually play on the new server. And finally, for the record, I have never played WOW and I do not think playing it would make me better at designing UO.

Peace.

I really like the design aspect to the bases. I know people fear the lag it may cause. I think, to move forward with the designs you have spent hours on... there needs to be a purpose to them.
I think the crafting areas could become quite interesting if insentives for their use are given. The training dummies in the bases could give skill gain bonus and could act similar to golems which can be trained on untill 120 cap.
I think the largeness of the bases in general could seem alot smaller if more people got into factions. And if the space inside the bases were usable. If the very reason why the bases were made so large was to discourage candelabra makers, then why not just make all craftable items passable? I know how to do that on my own... I dont do it, because I think tile modding is lame. However that would have been a far more simplistic idea.
There has to be incentive to own towns. Otherwise no matter the changes to bases and leaderboards/points , you wont have factions. Factions is capture the flag... give the flags more purpose. TY

 

[Coldren]

ok how about this:
you make each town have a mine or something the like the mine can only be accessed by members of the faction that currently control that town these mines each give off different special materials from each other that can be used by faction crafters to make specialized faction artifacts (not replicas in with the new) this means that the faction economy and production of items is purely in the players hands and gives a reason for defending or taking over towns.
I dunno I suppose you could make the mines raidable but then it kind of defeats the object of controlling the town I did like the idea of being able to add faction fortifications as well as guards to faction controlled towns.

I fully support something like this good idea lilth.

This is an excellent idea. A reason to hold a town, crafters more involved without fighting, and everyone has a purpose.

 

[Lady Michelle]

Pro Zak, I appreciate your feedback. I'm interested to hear more.

I also want to say to all of you that I realize that about every 2 years some designer comes along and tries to "fix" factions... and in the past it hasn't really helped.

Maybe it would be appropriate to say a little about where we would like to head. None of this is set in stone but it might make what we have presented in the first release make more sense:

I can say that we intend to do something about faction arties, even if it is just making them exactly like the ones that you can get in pve. None of this is really decided. Current discussions involves giving crafters some part to play in it.

I can say that we want to make pvp more new player friendly, this speaks directly to stat loss. We understand that you need to be able to route an enemy but a new player dies about 4 times to every time he gets a kill... that is a lot of down time with the current system.

We also have intent to do some stuff with crafting in factions, which is why there is crafting equipment there. I would like to allow them to be upgradable with faction silver too. The main reason there are bankers in there is for the crafters... no one is going to craft in there if they can't ditch their stuff when the building gets raided. Perhaps I should make them be something else that isn't a banker... like maybe just a magic chest you can put things in at the base to protect it during a raid.

Also, we are looking at ways to make towns upgradable using faction silver. Maybe towers that can be added that give bonuses of various types. With this, other ways to create things to spend faction silver on... like insurance.

Another part of the plan is to focus sigil fighting. Current thinking is to make it so one town is "vulnerable" to overtaking at a time. Then you log in looking for some action you know that right now you need to head to Britain, or Moonglow, etc.

We are very conscious of the fact that thieves are really important to factions and we intend to continue to support them moving forward.

We have a lot of ideas on paper but we wanted to put stuff on this new server in stages and then adapt to how the fans of the game want to go. We don't want to go down a new road 20 miles and then turn around and no one has come with us... so far, we have gone about 2 miles and yesterday we looked back.

Another goal is to just get more people involved. There is some feedback that I don't seem to know how this faction game is played, but I would argue that the way it is currently played doesn't attract many people. I'm trying to turn a fringe game that isn't even really acknowledged by the larger world of Sosaria and turn it into a cause. If at all possible, I want to keep our current faction players and double that number. The fact that more people don't play factions makes it hard for our bosses to let us spend time on it. I hope you all well help us push factions farther into the spotlight so we can get more time to work on it.

Please hang with us and help us make factions better. It really does matter to us as much as it matters to you that you want to play in factions. Also, I appreciate the change in tone on this thread to a more civil conversation. Now it sounds like a community of people who love UO and are just trying to protect it for the sake of everyone (including me, who feeds my family by doing this). I appreciate your passion for UO.

I'm a trammy that is a base defender guarding sigils not a pvper
I'm really confused on how you think you are going to keep the current faction players, and double that number by going the way your going with factions especially with how you designed each of the factions bases making them harder for someone like me, and others to defend. I can only speak for myself but factions for me is getting the sigils, and seeing how long we can keep them from the enemy. To me it looks like your taking the defenders out of factions, and making factions all about the pvp side of it.
I can tell you now being a Trammy this is not the way to get me to go to felucca makes me want to get out of factions.

 

[Cetric]

making factions all about the pvp side of it.
I can tell you now being a Trammy .

Errrmmmm.... if they didn't want the defense part, there would be no need for a base, no need for sigils, no need for stealing them, etc etc...

your playstyle confuses me. you login to see how long you can hold the sigils? that is all you are in it for? that is your only purpose? If thats the case so be it... but just seems odd to me. I know plenty of people that are thieves that steal the sigils, but they like the thrill of the fight too..

 

[tink'r_toiz]

Errrmmmm.... if they didn't want the defense part, there would be no need for a base, no need for sigils, no need for stealing them, etc etc...

your playstyle confuses me. you login to see how long you can hold the sigils? that is all you are in it for? that is your only purpose? If thats the case so be it... but just seems odd to me. I know plenty of people that are thieves that steal the sigils, but they like the thrill of the fight too..

Actually I totally understand your confusion. It is hard to comprehend someone in a conflict based portion of the game that avoids, well, conflict. I am a non-pvper as well. I DO NOT go looking for a fight. I will defend myself (more likely stealth away or give em a good run), I will defend my faction mates, I will defend my base but I will not go looking for a fight. That isn't why I am in factions. I am there to steal the sigs from under the enemy's nose, get them in our base and help keep the enemy out until they corrupt.

A part of me strongly feels that the devs didn't fully understand that there are a number of us like Michelle and myself that don't see battle as the fun in factions but we contribute as much or more of ourselves than pvpers do.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Actually I totally understand your confusion. It is hard to comprehend someone in a conflict based portion of the game that avoids, well, conflict. I am a non-pvper as well. I DO NOT go looking for a fight. I will defend myself (more likely stealth away or give em a good run), I will defend my faction mates, I will defend my base but I will not go looking for a fight. That isn't why I am in factions. I am there to steal the sigs from under the enemy's nose, get them in our base and help keep the enemy out until they corrupt.

A part of me strongly feels that the devs didn't fully understand that there are a number of us like Michelle and myself that don't see battle as the fun in factions but we contribute as much or more of ourselves than pvpers do.

I do not really think the new faction system takes away from your play style, It might limit it to needing more than "one" player to defend the base, but you can still basically take the sigils and hold them in your base warding off any who would try to take them from you, You would simply just need 2-3 more people other than yourself (of course also depends on the opposing force). Perhaps there is something I am missing, either in your playstyle or in the system changes that would in fact prohibit you from playing as you do now, if so perhaps elaborate on how they overlooked your specific style of play.

 

[Lady Michelle]

Errrmmmm.... if they didn't want the defense part, there would be no need for a base, no need for sigils, no need for stealing them, etc etc...

I was hoping for smaller bases to defend not huge ones that are hard to defend.

your playstyle confuses me. you login to see how long you can hold the sigils? that is all you are in it for? that is your only purpose? If thats the case so be it... but just seems odd to me. I know plenty of people that are thieves that steal the sigils, but they like the thrill of the fight too..

Yes I know it is odd, but I don't just log into the game to just see how long I can keep the sigils. I also have trammy things to do also. hunting decorating Idocing things like that. actually sigil guarding is very relaxing, and i have met alot of nice players guarding them.

 

[Tina Small]

Actually I totally understand your confusion. It is hard to comprehend someone in a conflict based portion of the game that avoids, well, conflict. I am a non-pvper as well. I DO NOT go looking for a fight. I will defend myself (more likely stealth away or give em a good run), I will defend my faction mates, I will defend my base but I will not go looking for a fight. That isn't why I am in factions. I am there to steal the sigs from under the enemy's nose, get them in our base and help keep the enemy out until they corrupt.

A part of me strongly feels that the devs didn't fully understand that there are a number of us like Michelle and myself that don't see battle as the fun in factions but we contribute as much or more of ourselves than pvpers do.

Add me as someone who doesn't go looking for a fight and is more interested in getting and guarding sigils. I understand that the majority of people prefer to fight and that's fine. It's just not something I really enjoy doing. Being sneaky, pulling out traps, making traps, helping to find the enemy, helping out with rezzes, etc., are the kinds of "support" roles I enjoy. Couldn't care less about faction artifacts or points and only need silver for making traps and trap removal kits.

 

[Tina Small]

I do not really think the new faction system takes away from your play style, It might limit it to needing more than "one" player to defend the base, but you can still basically take the sigils and hold them in your base warding off any who would try to take them from you, You would simply just need 2-3 more people other than yourself (of course also depends on the opposing force). Perhaps there is something I am missing, either in your playstyle or in the system changes that would in fact prohibit you from playing as you do now, if so perhaps elaborate on how they overlooked your specific style of play.

Tinkz doesn't guard the sigils by herself and neither does Michelle. If you've ever played on GL in TB, you know it's very much a team effort.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

To many posts in here by the time I got to check the forum (Which was not to long ago) So I can not really quote everything I wish to.

Mark, I like that the team is trying to fix factions, Unlike most of my other Faction oriented players, I am not against you doing a total revamp of the system. I do not see the new system as being any more of an issue than the current system, so there.

On points, stealthing around at random to get points does not make much sense, perhaps if they have x amount of stealing and are in a faction base which has Sigils in it, or maybe right around the area of towns with Sigils. Or maybe only when they are holding the Sigils themselves? There are to many stealth type chars for it to just be "stealthing".

Healing Might need to be balance a bit more, for one Healing yourself should not count to the points. I am not against Healing being an option for points, as there are times in Battles I spend more than 90% of my time just keeping my fellow factioneers alive, and tend to come away with nothing along the lines of points, Other than People will transfer some to me some of those times, But with the removal of that perhaps this idea is not so bad.

The bases, Are large.....With large scale battles they could be Viable options, and of course with the "city" idea they are decently sized, but on most of the shards....The population is very small, the pvp population even smaller, and of course the faction population nearly not existent. So the large bases will make Defending on those small pop shards much harder, Even more so if this does not draw in any people.

StatLoss, In generic PVP stat loss is with out reason, in factions it holds a very solid purpose, Even more so for those who play in factions for factions and not just for over-powered PVP. If you are seriously trying to defend the Sigils at a base, or trying to keep hold of one you are trying to steal from a City, You do not want the entire opposing force coming back ever 3 minutes. On atl There are tons of people, on on that shard if I go into stat loss I do tend to sit the fight out, mostly due to the fact that I play with a small group of 4, on ATL it is not going to be possible to beat 10 people with 4 if we are in stat. On Napa however, I play with the same 4 people and on that server we are more able to defend and to fight back, when we die we tend to go right back into the fight, while in stat, so it does not affect us there while if the opposing players get into stat they are either now "even" with us (if we are in stat) easier for us to fight, if we are in stat or not, or they give up and wait 20 minutes to return, also giving us a chance to recuperate or to defeat their remaining forces. I understand many people do not like being in stat for 20 minutes, but it does not mean you "have" to stop playing, as most here suggest it does.

What else has been mentioned....Oh yea, Controlling Sigils. Most, if not all the ideas presented in this thread are very good Idea for additions to controlling the towns, I also think that having the Control of the towns in fel affect them in tram somehow could possibly increase the amount of participation in Factions, from the people in tram. Would need more feedback from the less Faction inclined, or even less pvp inclined. And maybe not have to so drastic as to where it prevents people from being in the towns, but a bit more subtle. A combination of some of the ideas presented here could be the best way to go.

I think that's all for now, I don't intend to get caught up in the arguing here so I will just stick with those thoughts for now.