Uvtha is on the right track.
I've put a lot of thought into a system that would work best for siege, as well as short and long-term effects of my proposed changes. I honestly feel like this plan will make actually playable. In it's current state, you basically hve to be friends with your enemy so they sell your gear back cheap or give it back. Without those relationships (which require mature people, and PvPers aren't mature), Siege literally would NOT be playable.
1) RoT is fine how it is. It's a good skillgain system and it works for siege.
2) One character has always been one of the "veteran" characteristics of siege. I'd leave that go
3) Add cursed artifact drops in DOOM at a high drop rate. They're doom artifacts, and doom doesn't get farmed much anymore. It only makes sense.
4) Make ToTs drop permanently in tokuno. You can't transfer to or from siege, so there isn't a fear of them being moved from shard to shard. Some of those no-longer-obtainable pieces are bread and butter for pretty much every class, be it tamer, mage, or dexxer.
5) Make it so you can have a house on siege and on other shards. Treat siege like a separate deal, seriously. You can't transfer to or from, and there is PLENTY of room on siege for more housing. We're at the point where there's a spot open in inner-walls luna (PvP hotspot) and nobody even cares. Years ago that spot would have been worth so much.
6) Remove ALL blessings except for the stuff that is supposed to be blessed. Yes, some of the GMs don't know what they're doing and had blessed a few items that shouldn't be blessed.
7)Faction artifacts. Reduce the cost for them to that of production shards. Base the ranking system off of ACTIVE ACCOUNTS rather than all accounts that ever existed. Did you know that because of all the inactive accounts on siege, if you have a faction score of ONE, you're rank 10? That's right, a score of ONE falls in the top 98%! Either do that or make up a new ranking system. Faction artifacts currently are the only crutch holding siege together.
It's hard to believe that siege is in the state where abusing a broken system is literally the only thing holding the current players.... Seriously.
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Let's look at how this will affect Siege now.
All expansions are being used. AOS (Doom), Tokuno (ToTs), ML (Minor/Major arties), SA (Imbuing), High Seas.
- Currently, nobody really does ANYTHING with tokuno or doom, because there literally is no point. Sure am glad I bought those expansions!
There will be PK hotspots (killing FARMERS) in Tokuno, Doom, etc...
- Currently, the only PKing we get to do on siege is AFK silver farmers. Isn't that dandy?
People will be able to construct suits with a bit of farming or trade. Tokuno, Doom, ML, imbuing, all of it. People will also be able to move items and re-establish an economy. With 1 char slot, I don't have taming, so I'd be a guy who would have to buy cursed artifacts.
-Currently, people literally cannot make a suit worth a damn unless they farm for days and days, or possibly weeks unless they use faction artifacts. The broken faction system allows for everyone to use all artifacts, which is literally the only crutch holding siege up.
I hope I didn't type this mess out for no reason. I honestly feel like this is a bullet-proof approach to fix siege.
And devs, there are people making systems up like this on free shards, and they aren't even getting paid. They do it out of love for the game - So don't tell us you can't put a fix in. Earn your money.