Would you like to see FACTIONS reworked?

[Vlaude]

I was wondering if anyone else thinks the current Felucca factions system should be reworked. I am personally for seeing the current system scrapped and redone from the ground up in a way that encourages more participation besides just getting nice items. But maybe I'm the only one who feels that way. Please vote yes or no in the poll (and don't vote if you don't care or aren't sure).

I have a few ideas for how they could be done but I'll save those for if there is even interest in this. Feel free to share your own ideas too Thanks.

 

[jaashua]

Totally reworked.

When they added Trammel, they obliterated the self-motivating factors involved in PvP. I was never a red, but I spent a good chunk of my time playing, fighting other players to defend my way of life in UO. I would defend my friends, avenge prior deaths, go to recover corpses, just try to defend myself when hunting in highly profitable areas, etc. So, YES, since they took that away, they need to replace it. THEY need to give ME a reason and motivation to PvP besides the annoying spitting contests in Yew. Factions, as they are now, I couldn't care less about. Sigils are just a MacGuffin. At least DAOC and WAR tried to give you something to fight over.

 

[Woodsman]

The former EVE Online player in me says let's make PvP really hardcore and allow control over certain areas, with the ability to loot players dry (no insurance, no blessed items) as well as drive players from their homes, with some kind of serious benefits for controlling those areas. I'm not talking sigils and cities, I'm talking control of areas outside of the cities including player housing. I would toss in some kind of way to have external killboards and maps that show who is killing whom and which guild controls which area(s) as well as a good alliance mechanism.

Have Britain be the equivalent of "high sec" with complete NPC control and guards that instantly or near-instantly react to PvP attacks, have a few towns (say three) be "low sec" where there is a 15 minute period where other players and NPCs who witness any unprovoked attacks can attack somebody who engages in an unprovoked attack. Have the remaining cities and all areas outside of the cities as a version of "null sec" where there is no security and PvP is completely unrestrained.

There are problems with that. The UO player in me says that would make a lot of people uncomfortable, especially those who live in Fel who want nothing to do with PvP for the most part and/or have had homes there for years. Being looted dry or losing your house and everything in it is the kind of risk that would turn many players off.

I also don't know what you could do that would make it meaningful as far as the benefits from controlling areas. Housing would be a benefit, especially say capturing castles, although the very things that would make it desirable would cause players to leave their stuff either in a Tram house on an alt account, or live out of their bankbox.

It would be only fitting to take a look at EVE since they based some of their PvP on the early days of UO's PvP, but it's such a hardcore PvP style that...very few players have been exposed to it. It definitely would encourage people to join together. If you have enough people, crummy armor and crummy weapons can wreak a lot of havoc in such a situation.

Of course you would need an upgraded in-game messaging/communications system.

 

[Viquire]

This was looked at last year, and apparently there are a lot of differing ideas about what factions should or should not be. Good luck!

 

[Vlaude]

This was looked at last year, and apparently there are a lot of differing ideas about what factions should or should not be. Good luck!

Well it's being asked again now. It's unfortunate when the "a lot of different ideas" excuse is made for not adding new content. The general idea behind factions is good, the system they run on however, can be redone. Thank you.

 

[Adolphus Wilhiem]

This poll is pointless because only people who care about factions will click on it.

I voted no. You have a system for factions and most of the time you sit at yew moongate and talk crap non stop in general chat.

Id rather see the dev time used on something else.

 

[Vlaude]

This poll is pointless because only people who care about factions will click on it.

I voted no. You have a system for factions and most of the time you sit at yew moongate and talk crap non stop in general chat.

Id rather see the dev time used on something else.

The whole point is that people who play factions vote on it. I would prefer people who don't play them (or would never be interested) not to vote. You have other topics you can discuss, like Magincia flower gardens.

 

[[JD]]

You have other topics you can discuss, like Magincia flower gardens.

LOL

 

[Prime.]

Not reworked, fix whats broken and wipe faction points clean. Couple shards they're in the billions.

 

[Dannyboy]

I would prefer people who don't play them (or would never be interested) not to vote.

Maybe I shouldn't vote then. I do have a very limited amount of pvp experience and that is between guild mates and not very serious. But if the faction guys and people who just like pvp full stop think it needs changing, or even just refined then yeah why not. Sadly a lot of things need working on and the uo community being so divided on topics makes it hard for the game to move forwards I think.

But If the pvp was improved, maybe more people would also begin to take part in it and surely that benefits the community when any aspect of the game has more players engaging in it, more people to interact with, boost the economy maybe due to pvp goods being more desired.

Will be interesting to see what this arena feature mentioned in hoc video will add to the game, maybe this will be a good thing for pvp.

 

[Tinsil]

I think they're okay now.. The actual faction part of taking towns and such needs to be redone, but at least people are actually in them now.. Faction artifacts are one of the things they did right.

 

[Vlaude]

Maybe I shouldn't vote then. I do have a very limited amount of pvp experience and that is between guild mates and not very serious. But if the faction guys and people who just like pvp full stop think it needs changing, or even just refined then yeah why not. Sadly a lot of things need working on and the uo community being so divided on topics makes it hard for the game to move forwards I think.

But If the pvp was improved, maybe more people would also begin to take part in it and surely that benefits the community when any aspect of the game has more players engaging in it, more people to interact with, boost the economy maybe due to pvp goods being more desired.

Will be interesting to see what this arena feature mentioned in hoc video will add to the game, maybe this will be a good thing for pvp.

Well, I was mostly trying to say that as, if you don't play and also don't care about factions then don't vote. If you don't play factions, but would rather see the developers work on other content for the game then that could be a "no" vote to leave them as they are. Thanks for your polite comment.

 

[Dannyboy]

Thanks for your polite comment.

Your welcome! I wasn't having a dig at you but ta for clarifying!

 

[kelmo]

Factions is screwed beyond repair. I played factions. Now, I do not. The powers that be decided that a vending machine for artifacts was a good thing.

The vending machine has different effects for your shards. Most can just bless that crap.

On Siege it can not be blessed... well, one piece can be I suppose.

Yet. on Siege. it has a name on it. No one else can use it... kinda makes you think you own it.

The only thing you own on Siege are the things you walk away with. Wether you win a fight or escape with your stuff, it is a win. If you keep your stuff,you win.

Factions was fun once. Now, it is not.

Once it was about cities. Now it is about points and items... The points are just stupid. As are the items.

The crew that runs UO really screwed up here.

 

[olduofan]

Factions is screwed beyond repair. I played factions. Now, I do not. The powers that be decided that a vending machine for artifacts was a good thing.

The vending machine has different effects for your shards. Most can just bless that crap.

On Siege it can not be blessed... well, one piece can be I suppose.

Yet. on Siege. it has a name on it. No one else can use it... kinda makes you think you own it.

The only thing you own on Siege are the things you walk away with. Wether you win a fight or escape with your stuff, it is a win. If you keep your stuff,you win.

Factions was fun once. Now, it is not.

Once it was about cities. Now it is about points and items... The points are just stupid. As are the items.

The crew that runs UO really screwed up here.

signed

I couldn't have said it better (no really)


I say remove it until you can come up with something better hell the old order-chaos system was better and it was found to be lacking...

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

They tried to rework Factions some time ago. Posts about it are scattered around on the Factions board and on the Test Center board.

They made two errors. Firstly, they pitched their changes not at the hard-core Factioners (who do Factions for Factions' sake and its RP significance), but at hard-core direct confrontation PvPers (who do it for artifacts and to have an excuse to PvP). (All Factioners are PvPers, but not all PvPers in Factions are Factioners in any meaningful sense.) So they had things like minimal or no choke points in the new bases, and a high-total, free-wheeling point system, and have one city always in play at all times. Things to create an environment more like FPS game-style open field fighting than sieges and strategy.

Secondly, they misunderstood their intended audience of hard-core direct confrontation PvPers rather badly. They thought hard-core PvPers would be impressed by neat trimmings in the Faction bases, for example, like a flying carpet as an elevator in one base, and self-described "vampire-chic" decor in another.

So, more briefly, they pitched to the wrong audience, then they misread the audience they pitched to.

Rather than come up with a new plan, they scrapped the idea of Faction changes entirely, and largely walked away from Factions save for moving the CoM stronghold.

This is a shame. I think they could make great strides in Factions by going back to the 1 kill shot 1 point system, nerfing the highest-end Faction Artifacts, changing the fictional environment of the Factions, and by forcing a higher degree of Faction activity to use the Faction Artifacts. From there you could design more improvements, like more reasons to own the towns.

Factions is a great idea that's, like the game to which it belongs to, merely showing its age and the result of having a lot of different things stitched onto it.

-Galen's player

 

[jaashua]

This poll is pointless because only people who care about factions will click on it.

Urgh. Look. For better or worse, once Trammel came into the picture and they realized nobody was PvPing any more, Factions became PvP. They are now linked. You neglect factions you are neglecting PvP.

Once you took away motivations for PvPing--besides its own sake, you tore the heart out of UO. By a vast margin, the most populous segment of UO, in classic days, were the casual non-hardcore PvPer. This was the guy who didn't want to go red and was afraid to duel anybody, but, when he saw a group of NPKs heading to intercept some reds, would go along. It was the PvM guild that would band together to get revenge on a red who'd killed a member a day or week or month ago. It was the guy who put himself in precarious situations to feel that jolt of panic and then excitement when he suddenly found himself in peril. It was the NPK who had plenty of idle time between PK sightings and would otherwise dispose himself by engaging in guild politics. It was the soccer mom having a bad night who just wanted to go jack somebody up.

That's all gone.....every last ounce of it. All that zest. The complexity and vagueness and uncertainty of that giant gray area. Now it's a bunch of sharks cannibalizing themselves. Nobody wants to get involved in that and for those who do don't seem to find it very fulfilling.

It's not an option. Factions needs to be reworked. It needs to be priority 2 or 3. Yet, according to the HoC, they aren't touching this subject with a 10 foot pole because they feel completely inadequate to handle the task. Or maybe they're just acting that way as a passive aggressive method of chiding us so for not appreciating and liking what they did last time.

 

[Widow Maker]

Reworked.

1. Remove all affects of faction gear outside of Fel. Hit the gate and leave Fel..poof..regular armor or it drops to backpack and can't be worn.

2. Shorten sig timer to 4-6 hours. 10 hours is just....foolish.
3. Wipe all points and remove double points from opposing factions.

Simple changes. Big effects.

 

[Gunga_Din]

You forgot an option. The removal of factions and just going back to Order vs Chaos. Factions were always dumb as mongbat balls.

 

[Lord Frodo]

1. Remove all affects of faction gear outside of Fel. Hit the gate and leave Fel..poof..regular armor or it drops to backpack and can't be worn.

 

[Vlaude]

Well I know that this isn't the most popular topic in UO (especially right now) but I do hope to get a few more votes before I send it to Cal to do whatever he wants with it. And I think it is an important topic to most of us who enjoy pvp. I'm not expecting any immediate change, but if the poll continues trending toward "yes" on this then I would hope it could at least be on their radar rather than just a "we can't touch that" issue. Early indications show that people do want something done.

Here are a few ideas I have:

1. Give the factions a true nexus of power to fight over. For example, a territory outside of their original bases that they can really have control over. Allow the controlling faction to grant/ban access to and from it (at least for certain areas) and make defending it worthwhile. Give it significance, such as a place with 2.5 times increased resources for miners, lumberjacks, tailors and fisherman, increased speed skill gain training grounds (where spawn can be turned on/off and controlled), a notification system for when harrowers are summoned, and a place for when the controlling faction is defending within the territory "murders" can't be counted.

2. Once a player character decides on a faction they are set for life on that account. They can either decide to be in the faction or not in the faction, but they cannot leave a faction to switch to another. If they want to play in a different faction they must be on a different account. This will avoid everyone bandwagoning.

3. Incorporate more PvM with factions. Give each faction a legion of beasts and a champion that they can summon into battle with them (but make it require a certain number of members to be in the same area to bring them forth). This will create an even bigger need for character diversity within group battles.

These are just ideas I came up with off the top of my head to give factions more appeal and balance. If nothing else, they are just examples of what "reworking" can mean. Feel free to pick them apart if you want, but I would rather see people coming up with more ideas to rework factions of their own.

 

[Freelsy]

Eliminate factions. Bring back order and chaos. The only special items you get are either a chaos shield or an order shield. Everyone must choose a side. You are born in a world of violence. You will either live a virtuous life or an evil life.

With the inception of trammel, it makes no difference. Those that don't want to participate in the bloodshed can stay in Trammel. However, it would make for hella huge battles in fellucia when you have only two factions to choose from.

No cities, nothing like that. No sigils to steal, no points to acquire. Just two opposing factions battling it out.

 

[Vlaude]

You forgot an option. The removal of factions and just going back to Order vs Chaos. Factions were always dumb as mongbat balls.

Well, I tried to leave out of the poll the "how" factions should be reworked. It's basically just a yes or no poll, with an option for small changes rather than big ones (that's the not reworked, but add some changes option). The "how" can be discussed in more detail if this even gets any consideration at all from the devs. I understand the order/chaos thing, I was there for it too. I think one thing we all want to see are the larger scale battles like we used to see around the time order/chaos was around. So really I'm for anything that will bring that back

 

[Cadderly]

Not reworked but with some changes. The last attempt at revamping factions on test center had some good ideas but over all was a flop. The original system was pretty well thought out and worked. Lack of attention and incentive to participate slowely destroyed it. Sad thing is they mentioned that they wanted to concentrate on fixing the game economy. Useing the old faction finance minister system with a couple tweeks to control all facets npc vendor prices seems like a good start to me.

 

[Vlaude]

Alright that should be good, can one of the mods please move this thread/poll over to the factions forum now? Pretty please?

 

[Poo]

*waves the magic fairy wand*

 

[PJay]

Faction fighting in Trammel. Simples.

If u can take your faction armour to trammel u can fight in trammel oviously ud have to be a blue factioner. And lets face it u signed up to be at war with opposing factions so why should u be any safer in trammel?

Points - remove massive point bonus's 1 point per kill would suffice and stop farming.

Faction armour - Remove the rank system so points arnt a requirement to wear different pieces.

Sigil fighting no longer offers any advantages other than lame vendors which are in modern uo just pointless.

Stop allowing factioner a to heal factioner b and stop any non factioner from being able to heal any factioner and vice versa no factioner can heal a non factioner.

Love PJay
[Disclaimer :- These views do not express the views of 2.0 or its leader Mervyn]

 

[Raptor85]

Eliminate factions. Bring back order and chaos. The only special items you get are either a chaos shield or an order shield. Everyone must choose a side. You are born in a world of violence. You will either live a virtuous life or an evil life.

With the inception of trammel, it makes no difference. Those that don't want to participate in the bloodshed can stay in Trammel. However, it would make for hella huge battles in fellucia when you have only two factions to choose from.

No cities, nothing like that. No sigils to steal, no points to acquire. Just two opposing factions battling it out.

If it means the removal of the faction arty system, I would take this is a fair compromise (as it would make my currently non-faction chars forced to take sides) (just make all existing suits brittle, and the problem with them will solve itself over time)

 

[Cardell]

Why rework/rebuild/remake a faction system that was completely fine with exception of a couple things.

1. Rewards for owning cities.
2. Point System needed tweaks, more exploits needed to be fixed than anything.
3. Additional content for people other than pvpers.
4. Base balancing. Or what i like to call 'common sensing the system'. This apparently is concept that escapes the devs so they'll have to research common sense.... as well as the faction system because its apparent to anyone who plays them that they dont know wtf they are doing.

These are the big ones. But be careful what you ask for. They told us they were going to make some good changes pretty much every patch and look at where we are now. If there is one thing that will never change, its these devs will **** something up and then let it destroy the community for a good 2 or 3 years before they acknowledge there is a problem.. And then 2 years later they will **** it up even more..

 

[NoBuddy]

Personally, I think stat loss should be just that...stat loss, not skill loss. I understand the argument on either side of that debate, but I feel losing stats over skills would be more beneficial to the PvP game. Less hp/mana/stam for a period, but not utterly useless for 20 min.

 

[Chap]

I voted: "Yes, I would like to see them reworked."

The reason for this:
I dont think its benefitual to only fix bugs. In 2005 this was a good idea, but now in 2011 I believe more changes are needed. The reason for this is that controlling towns with their vendors selling resources is getting old. They have been selling the same resources for 8 years(since UO:R), theres not much interest in controlling towns appart from economy.

Thus I believe a fundamental change is needed, more advantages for controlling towns, not only resources. perhaps expand it to dungeons, look we got whole felucca as playground.

I wont write any specific ideas here, I trust the devs and their brainstorming & test process. (make sure you got the playerbase with you, not against you)


But keep in mind whatever is done to factions, for gods sake keep the themes, faction names, colours, horses, HQ locations. Its about history and identity.

 

[Cardell]

I voted: "Yes, I would like to see them reworked."

The reason for this:
I dont think its benefitual to only fix bugs. In 2005 this was a good idea, but now in 2011 I believe more changes are needed. The reason for this is that controlling towns with their vendors selling resources is getting old. They have been selling the same resources for 8 years(since UO:R), theres not much interest in controlling towns appart from economy.

Thus I believe a fundamental change is needed, more advantages for controlling towns, not only resources. perhaps expand it to dungeons, look we got whole felucca as playground.

I wont write any specific ideas here, I trust the devs and their brainstorming & test process. (make sure you got the playerbase with you, not against you)


But keep in mind whatever is done to factions, for gods sake keep the themes, faction names, colours, horses, HQ locations. Its about history and identity.

The factions do not need to be 'reworked' to add more content/features. No on disagrees with you about the factions needing more purpose. The bottom line is the devs aren't going to fix everything because they just don't know how to.

 

[Nightly Spirit]

Faction armor should not be able to be worn in Tram.

 

[Poo]

Faction armor should not be able to be worn in Tram.

sure it should.
its a treat for being good and loyal to your faction.

its called the spoils of war!

 

[Lord Essex]

Do away w/ factions.. Bring back Order & Choas.. Each side has permant control over a couple cities.. w/ other cities being able to be captured.. Leave Britian as a neutral city.. Better yet create new strongholds in a few places.. say 3-4 per side w/ a main keep as their headquarters

 

[Poo]

allmost sounds like the stuff they tryed to bring in last year that everyone hated.

 

[Omnius]

remove guard zones, triple point decay for people that spend more than 60 minutes a day in factions, and we'll call it a day.


Maybe have points connected to your whole account?

 

[Cardell]

allmost sounds like the stuff they tryed to bring in last year that everyone hated.

who ever thought that **** up was way just off on so much ****... I looked at the test shard and I could literally not pick anything out that the faction community had asked for.

1. Fixed bugs/exploits/flaws/irrelevant NPCS
2. Fix point system

Instead of doing 1, they just scrapped everything and remade a ****tier version of the factions with ****tier bases built for mass pvp. Unfortunately they neglected the factions and the pvp community far too long for mass-pvp to be a realistic outcome. Thus making everything they aimed for a complete and utter FAIL. Instead of fixing the old problems they just made a new untested system with complete new ones.

**And before I move on I would like to point out again, for the 2398423984032803482 time that the NPCs in TB base are useless and do nothing but get people guard whacked and annoyed by stam blocking and all that bull ****. Please for the love of all that is good, intelligent and not trammy, remove them... It wont take long, I promise. ****ing christ almighty... Remove them... 2 minutes... 2 ****ing minutes..

Instead of doing 2, they made a completely new flaming pile of **** system that awarded people for the dumbest **** you could possibly imagine. Points for healing? Really? People need points for this? Points for activity? There is a reason successful pvpers were successful.. They didn't need a reason to cross heal each other and they were active. Awarding ppl for healing just makes the system a) exploitable and b) irrelevant. Kill Points should have stayed the same, maybe adding things like losing less points when dying in your base (defending it) but the most important thing the point system needs is to make sure the points lost by one player is equal to the points gained by another. This way points dont inflate the servers like they currently are... All the other thief related points, bonuses stats could have taken another form, a thief ranking system of a sort or something.

I don't know or care since common sense ideas like these will never have a place in UO because in order to explain this stuff to the devs you have to beat your head against the wall until your autistic and then stand on your head and speak to them backwards to speak their language.

And I can't say this enough, the point system could easily have been fixed by going back to the old system and adding 2 things. Point regeneration when a character has <0 points and point decay to not start until people have over 20 points.

For **** sakes.. why even bother here any more.. The devs don't ask the ppl who know wtf they are talking about... they ask the ****ties around them that dont know there ass from their elbow when it comes to factions.....

Other things they could have tweaked and played around with to boost activity could have been STAT Loss vs Skill Loss like suggested in this thread (and like 8 years ago), additional faction vendors, balancing the faction vendors and their affects on the player markets, new bases/factions (yes a 5th factions), maybe pvp in tram (omfg yes I said it), more control over the guards and rules each faction town has when a faction owns them, etc... Things like that... Which would clearly add to the experience and not be completely detrimentally affecting the factions. Like that joke of an event that made everyone quit because it was completely ****ing useless to control the cities because they could be taken back the next god damn morning.


:loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser:



oh yeah, sup Poo.

 

[Cardell]

who ever thought that **** up was way just off on so much ****... I looked at the test shard and I could literally not pick anything out that the faction community had asked for.

1. Fixed bugs/exploits/flaws/irrelevant NPCS
2. Fix point system

Instead of doing 1, they just scrapped everything and remade a ****tier version of the factions with ****tier bases built for mass pvp. Unfortunately they neglected the factions and the pvp community far too long for mass-pvp to be a realistic outcome. Thus making everything they aimed for a complete and utter FAIL. Instead of fixing the old problems they just made a new untested system with complete new ones.

**And before I move on I would like to point out again, for the 2398423984032803482 time that the NPCs in TB base are useless and do nothing but get people guard whacked and annoyed by stam blocking and all that bull ****. Please for the love of all that is good, intelligent and not trammy, remove them... It wont take long, I promise. ****ing christ almighty... Remove them... 2 minutes... 2 ****ing minutes..

Instead of doing 2, they made a completely new flaming pile of **** system that awarded people for the dumbest **** you could possibly imagine. Points for healing? Really? People need points for this? Points for activity? There is a reason successful pvpers were successful.. They didn't need a reason to cross heal each other and they were active. Awarding ppl for healing just makes the system a) exploitable and b) irrelevant. Kill Points should have stayed the same, maybe adding things like losing less points when dying in your base (defending it) but the most important thing the point system needs is to make sure the points lost by one player is equal to the points gained by another. This way points dont inflate the servers like they currently are... All the other thief related points, bonuses stats could have taken another form, a thief ranking system of a sort or something.

I don't know or care since common sense ideas like these will never have a place in UO because in order to explain this stuff to the devs you have to beat your head against the wall until your autistic and then stand on your head and speak to them backwards to speak their language.

And I can't say this enough, the point system could easily have been fixed by going back to the old system and adding 2 things. Point regeneration when a character has <0 points and point decay to not start until people have over 20 points.

For **** sakes.. why even bother here any more.. The devs don't ask the ppl who know wtf they are talking about... they ask the ****ties around them that dont know there ass from their elbow when it comes to factions.....

Other things they could have tweaked and played around with to boost activity could have been STAT Loss vs Skill Loss like suggested in this thread (and like 8 years ago), additional faction vendors, balancing the faction vendors and their affects on the player markets, new bases/factions (yes a 5th factions), maybe pvp in tram (omfg yes I said it), more control over the guards and rules each faction town has when a faction owns them, etc... Things like that... Which would clearly add to the experience and not be completely detrimentally affecting the factions. Like that joke of an event that made everyone quit because it was completely ****ing useless to control the cities because they could be taken back the next god damn morning.


:loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser::loser:



oh yeah, sup Poo.

Ok.. I reread this post and I want to reply to myself:

Instead of being mean to the devs Cardell, why dont you explain to them what they are NOT doing right... Constructively criticize. Cardell, CONSTRUCTIVELY!

Ok Cardell, ok. You're right (again).

Devs, the problem with the factions is if you go to the Yew gates, or despise spawn, or anywhere and see anyone in the factions and you ask them: "Hey faction guy who owns the sigs". They will most certainly say 1 of 3 things.
1) I don't know/care. (interchangeable)
2) What are sigils?
3) Guild X (there is no guild X I'm just using it as an example) because they are the only active people.

Now, you see Devs. This is not good. Faction guy doesn't know or care what is going on with the factions because he gets no real bonus from actually fighting over the cities. He got his bonus as soon as he joined now he doesn't have to ever look at the strongholds again. This is bad. Very very bad. Game breakingly bad. Terribad. Just bad.

What can you do to fix this? Give people more of a reason to own the cities. Fix point system (duh). Fix/tweak current features to suit the current state of the game.

Don't change the bases too much. Don't change the faction names. Don't add new uber items. Don't add new uber pets. Don't add new uber facets that become ghost towns after 3 months. Don't waste your ****ing time on bull****.

Focus on correcting, fixing, and polishing what is in front of you. Focus on the people who have been there. Loyal for many many many years. They are the model of person you want to encourage other people to become (dedicated and consistant). You want players to play and compete against each other, and you want them to have something worth competing over. You don't want to ***** out their system to people who hide in tram.. You don't want to inflate their only illustration of pwnage (showscores/punktes) until its meaningless. You want to make things interesting by accurately and effectively keeping score. You want there to be as little exploits/bugs as possible.

And when you do make a mistake, for **** sake undo it asap. There is nothing wrong with undoing a ****-up. Thats actually a good thing. Believe it or not.

 

[Tecumseh]

Most people know me as being a trammie but what most people dont realize is that i have spent more hours guarding sigils than most people have in playing this game. Here is what I think should be done ASAP (lol asap means 3-4 years EA style). Sorry its true.

1. Wipe the slate clean on points (90% of all points have been created through expolits)
Anybody who truely loves factions would rather lose thier points to have the sytem fixed.

2. Do not include gold as currency in factions (player placed npcs) and also do not make silver sellable for gold.

3. Change what is sold on player placed npcs. Ore and regs were great 8 years ago but really have no use other than making non faction players rich off selling ingots etc. I think player placed npcs should have items such as traps, trap removal kits, enhanced bandaids hell anything that would help out a faction and be useful for factions only. Again for the cost of silver not gold.

4.Fix the damn bases. They have been broke since the beggining.

5. Faction armour was a great idea. But it just invited people into the factions just for the armour! Players do not care about the towns or the sigils. There has to be some sort of penalty for inactivity. I remember just 4 years ago when i was in SC (Spark Clan) on ATL prepring for days getting ready to guard the sigils, making candellabras by the thousands boxes ore, planing the route people would have to take to enter the base. It was alot of fun. The PvP was great. Punkte rarely made it over 50 points unless you were really good. Myself i enjoyed the beauty of being -6 at all times Being a thief and a crafter really didnt payoff in the points category hahaha. It was a good idea to add points for stealing sigils! 10 points woohoo! But unfortunately us crafters were left in the dark with the useless crafting sytem of the start of factions. So hell i dont even know what to do there. But something needs to be done. Crafters do not need points as factions is a pvp based system but a way to make SILVER off your items you make would be great.

Really i could go on and on about changes, but really there is no need to change factions. The core is right. PvP and a currency that gold has no affect on is what needs to be focused on. The benefits of factions should be kept to within factions, not over sitting on peoples vendors in Luna. The people in factions should not be rolling around with 15 billion points that were originally worked up with exploits. The points are fake. Not real. Dont worry about pissing off people by taking thier points away. If they have any skill they will be right back up to where they are supposed to be in a realistic new point system. So lets put a little effort into it and bring factions back. For people that love PvP, Factions really is the way to go. It involves 1v1 and true field fighting. What UO is supposed to be all about. Instead of everyone fighting a whining about losing thier points lets put out heads together and work on a Felluca PvP based system that is not influeced by Trammel and the already riducoulous gold system that is a mess of its own.

Tecumseh
Great Lakes (trying to spark up the fights here on GL) E-Go Rulz
ICQ 8266519

 

[Viquire]

This is not, strictly speaking a factions related post, but it is related to the proposed revamp that miscarried.

I am still not certain that I understand how the proposed scoring system for that revamp worked. What was plain to me then, and remains plain to me now, was that it was designed to be able to give a snap shot of pvp activity on any given shard at any given time, with leaders on the scoreboards rising and falling largely due to a combination of skill and more-so activity.

The collective thinking of pvpers seems to be, and I'm sure someone will help me out if I am mis-stating things, that being "king of the Hill" even for an hour should never be something you can take to the bank in Luna and spam your leetness without fear of reprisal, better yet that would should be a surefire way to have folks crawling out of the woodwork for the chance at a scrap to remove the crown.

I'm certain this could be implemented, but it sure sounds more like order and chaos to me. Your enemy is always your enemy, no matter what facet you go to, and if you wanted to ensure activity, a random spawn across all facets could be implemented with spawns happening multiple times a day, hell hourly, accompanied by a system message "chaos is rising at *insert facet name and coords*" and bonus points for activity at that location could be given.

Would it need a command structure? No I don't think so. Would it need bases? Again I don't think so, that would depend on rewards. Its something worth thinking about, but the system could be initially begin without them.

The faction system is a good system and its core emphasizes teamwork and dedication. I think everyone here agrees these principles should not change. It needs some fixes and personally I would like to see crafters have something useful to contribute as envisioned and proposed at its inception, and greater purpose for town control. But if the Devs are still seeking a way to create a system that makes the player vs player aspect of UO more visible and promotable, there is a way to accomplish that without making drastic changes to a time worn and well loved system.

 

[Cardell]

This is not, strictly speaking a factions related post, but it is related to the proposed revamp that miscarried.

I am still not certain that I understand how the proposed scoring system for that revamp worked. What was plain to me then, and remains plain to me now, was that it was designed to be able to give a snap shot of pvp activity on any given shard at any given time, with leaders on the scoreboards rising and falling largely due to a combination of skill and more-so activity.

The collective thinking of pvpers seems to be, and I'm sure someone will help me out if I am mis-stating things, that being "king of the Hill" even for an hour should never be something you can take to the bank in Luna and spam your leetness without fear of reprisal, better yet that would should be a surefire way to have folks crawling out of the woodwork for the chance at a scrap to remove the crown.

I'm certain this could be implemented, but it sure sounds more like order and chaos to me. Your enemy is always your enemy, no matter what facet you go to, and if you wanted to ensure activity, a random spawn across all facets could be implemented with spawns happening multiple times a day, hell hourly, accompanied by a system message "chaos is rising at *insert facet name and coords*" and bonus points for activity at that location could be given.

Would it need a command structure? No I don't think so. Would it need bases? Again I don't think so, that would depend on rewards. Its something worth thinking about, but the system could be initially begin without them.

The faction system is a good system and its core emphasizes teamwork and dedication. I think everyone here agrees these principles should not change. It needs some fixes and personally I would like to see crafters have something useful to contribute as envisioned and proposed at its inception, and greater purpose for town control. But if the Devs are still seeking a way to create a system that makes the player vs player aspect of UO more visible and promotable, there is a way to accomplish that without making drastic changes to a time worn and well loved system.

First of all.. lets get one thing straight. That was not a miscarriage. That was an abortion.

Second. It does need a command structure, it does need a base. With out these 2 things factions loses a lot of its luster. Raiding and defending is a great part of the factions. The command structure also needs to be in. Absolutely. When the factions were utilized by the majority of the shards the command structure was very important and hard part of the factions. It made and broke factions "alliances". It can be made better yes, but these 2 features need to be in.

And tbh no one gives a **** if ppl in the factions can or can't go to Luna or Tram. They just don't want people to benefit from the factions and never participate. Its the people who join the facitons for the benefits like war horses and armor but never participate. The same goes for people in fel, but they can get away with it because they are at least attackable..

That is why I say, make the small changes now. The easy impossible to **** up fixes. **** like
1. Removing the blue NPCs in LB Castle. WTF is there purpose? There is NONE. They literally do nothing but stam block people trying to pvp and get reds guard whacked.
2. Fixing the logging in and out of opposing faction bases.
3. Update the vendor prices, supply and who can buy from them. You can profit WAY to much from these vendors and because blues can buy from the vendors they can do it with no risk. There should also be a finite amount of items on vendors. Where as currently they keep on restocking up to 999 every 20 minutes or so. This allows people to buy millions of the items and it inflates the game. There is too much of a lot of resources in games, faction vendors is one way the inflation got out of control. This allows people to mass produce things like potions at ridiculous rates. EA has to start monitoring the resources put into the game so they can control what the market price is for things like wood, ingots, and regs. This would make things very competitive and that is what the factions are all about and need to thrive.
4. Kill points. dur.. if you need an explanation you need to be euthanized. There is literally no worse way to have the point system then it currently is. The easiest way to fix. Revert to old system. Add regeneration of points when a player is less than zero (so they dont get stuck at -6, and still give points every once and a while). Reduced or no point decay until a player reaches 20 points. This keeps points from being muled with decay and allows mediocre players to sustain a decent amount of points and not be bested by the decay system that was a just a tad bit too much previously.
5. Make faction rewards/armor AT LEAST 2x more expensive. Silver needs a bigger role in the factions. They need people competing over mobs that drop silver. The armor also needs to break faster. I have never had to buy a new piece of faction armor. That is ridiculous.
6. People who do not log into a faction character after x months need to be removed from the factions.

I could go on with the simple fixes forever. Hard to believe EA can't just do one.. **** .

 

[Viquire]

You know, Cardell, I love your passion man.

I might point out though, that my post was pointed towards suggesting the possibility of implementing an active order vs chaos as a fast paced alternative to an active factions system.

I think I'll just give every one a bit more time to read before I rebut further.

My apologies for placing this in a pre-existing thread. That was undoubtedly where the miscommunication occurred.

 

[KevinBrightstar]

I was wondering if anyone else thinks the current Felucca factions system should be reworked. I am personally for seeing the current system scrapped and redone from the ground up in a way that encourages more participation besides just getting nice items. But maybe I'm the only one who feels that way. Please vote yes or no in the poll (and don't vote if you don't care or aren't sure).

I have a few ideas for how they could be done but I'll save those for if there is even interest in this. Feel free to share your own ideas too Thanks.

How about Choas/Order
And then realying haveing to fight in a town or a fortfied strucker of some sort sounds fun.

 

[Tecumseh]

Hey Devs.......Can you guys at least clear the silver in the towns, for now? When you have towns with 26 mil silver its kinda redicoulous. Trying to bring down the silver myself on Great Lakes. But at this pace it willl take me over a year to bring down the silver:/

 

[Cardell]

Hey Devs.......Can you guys at least clear the silver in the towns, for now? When you have towns with 26 mil silver its kinda redicoulous. Trying to bring down the silver myself on Great Lakes. But at this pace it willl take me over a year to bring down the silver:/

dont be lazy tec. Place 40 guards and fire all of them 2600 times and you will burn that silver no problem.


This is also something ive been meaning to post about. There needs to be a cap on town stones. It probably wouldnt have been a problem if the factions were maintained by the devs but they were obviously abandoned and now the silver has build up 10 years of taxes. Do the math... 2600 x40 guards need to be placed and fired to burn through that silver hes talking about. It completely removes the element of tithing out of the game since all the dead factions and the towns are so wealthy.



I know this is falling on def ears... lol.

 

[Cardell]

btw Link. You need to make your polls unbias/clear. Its really hard to even learn anything from those options..

reworked to me means scrap and start over.

reworked to someone else may mean keep core system and rework majority of supporting features.

or it could mean anything...

its just not very clear..

 

[wee papa smurf]

reworked to me means scrap and start over

This

 

[Cardell]

This

saw u got a house in Mag, welcome to the neighborhood bra!

 

[Vlaude]

btw Link. You need to make your polls unbias/clear. Its really hard to even learn anything from those options..

reworked to me means scrap and start over.

reworked to someone else may mean keep core system and rework majority of supporting features.

or it could mean anything...

its just not very clear..

Reworked means reworked, try not to put too much thought into there buddy. No need for there to be 50 different options in what is supposed to be a simple poll. Scrapped and started over is what I was going for, which was stated in the opening post.

The poll has already been sent to Cal the producer (the intended recipient) and he understood it perfectly. Pretty easy and straightforward.