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Faction Points Being Wiped

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
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well, looks like its rebuild suit day!
 

slayer888

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I feel that keeping kill points in the system really mess up totally.

The faction gear should be available for every person as its been out for many years already in which its not gonna affect anything unbalance anymore. If everyone is wearing faction gears to pvp, where is the unbalance?

By keeping kill points and needed kill points for the gears really discourage people to open up more type of pvp or pvm characters to try.

In another word, make the motiviation for opening up or keeping extra accounts to decline.

Like me, I got 6 accounts now, each accounts got almost all chars in faction pvp and pvm, besides the crafters.

Having the faction items allow me to customize different chars much more easier and bring it over to pvp or pvm actions more efficiently.

In my opinion, by making faction kill points deleted, means that after the patch, all my 40+ pvp and pvm chars will be half naked and all armor and items needed to recustomize again. I aint gonna do it honestly and it gonna further make me need to combine all my items into 1-2 accounts and then stop the rest which is what I am gonna do if this patch comes in.
 

Berethrain

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Having the faction items allow me to customize different chars much more easier and bring it over to pvp or pvm actions more efficiently.

Faction equipment was not intended for pvm. If you want to pvm, I'd suggest that you play in trammel.

No more kill shots giving millions of points so you can deck all of your characters out in faction gear.

If you dont want to suit your characters, close the accounts and let everyone else who wants to keep points play factions.


No more free rides.
 

Lynk

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Faction equipment was not intended for pvm. If you want to pvm, I'd suggest that you play in trammel.

No more kill shots giving millions of points so you can deck all of your characters out in faction gear.

If you dont want to suit your characters, close the accounts and let everyone else who wants to keep points play factions.


No more free rides.
What? Factions enables people who aren't otherwise financially able to partake in PvP.

I'll be pissed if they make points a pain in the ass to upkeep.

I play on 9 or so servers with 2 or 3 characters per server. This game is so ****ing dead that in order for me to log on and find quick PvP or a Raid, i need to be on all of these servers.

If I am going to have to buy 9 -12 new ornys and crimmies just to PvP I won't even bother.

Don't listen to slayer888 - he's still upset over the duel he lost and then backed out of buying me a transfer token to get back to a real shard.
 
L

longshanks

Guest
Agree with Lynk on this one. Given all the new gear out there now with the dungeon revamp they should do away with the rank system all together.

lets just suit up and have fun on whatever shard the action takes you too.
 

Poo

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as a multi shard faction player i couldnt agree with this more!

be done with the infernal ranking system and open it up!
 
V

Vyal

Guest
Won't the points just get way out of hand in like a week anyways.

Remember the last point wipe? In a week people had a million points on most shards on ATL people had like 200 million.

Anyways I doubt this will ever happen anyhow.
 

Kellgory

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Won't the points just get way out of hand in like a week anyways.

Remember the last point wipe? In a week people had a million points on most shards on ATL people had like 200 million.

Anyways I doubt this will ever happen anyhow.
They got rid of the triple and double points being rewarded, so people won't be able to farm points like they did in the past.
 
M

Marcus Aurelius

Guest
taking everyones faction points to zero is a great idea IMO. I have long wanted to pvp on other shards, but have hesitated due to resources available to me on said shards. making crafters on other shards from my home seems like a waste of time, since I would only be going to another shard to pvp. Also buying xfer tokens is not always possible.
 

Berethrain

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he's still upset over the duel he lost and then backed out of buying me a transfer token to get back to a real shard.
You can't afford to suit characters, but you can afford to waste transfer tokens for pointless duels? Com'on dont give me that.


I have characters on multi shards, it does not take that long to make a suit.

It also does not take that long to farm enough gold to get a decent suit. People simply dont want to have to put in any work into making them.

Seriously, if that's the biggest arguement, it looks like we're good to go.
Besides after the point wipe, it will only take a few kills to begin with to get rank back up.
 

Lynk

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You can't afford to suit characters, but you can afford to waste transfer tokens for pointless duels? Com'on dont give me that.
No, I've already spent money on those 36 or so suits spread across multiple servers (and that isn't including my GL suits).

I've already spent a fortune remaking the suits after imbuing came out.

I am in the process of spending another fortune rebuilding to account for some new properties with shame loot / reforging.

All of this money is spent around 3 fcr on a crystalline, or the increased dci on folded steel, or increased resists on totem, or 10 DI on mace and shield.

Removing my ability to us these items not only requires me to purchase the artifacts in question, but also requires me to completely re-do my suit to account for it.

The amount of gold required for me to remake these suits is astronomical.

Sure, if I want to make a suit to be competitive with one of your crappy archers it would only cost me a couple mil. I have higher standards.
 

Berethrain

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Let me sum up your argument for you. "I don't want to."


Let's take a look at your argument here:

What? Factions enables people who aren't otherwise financially able to partake in PvP.
Yet, you tell us this:

No, I've already spent money on those 36 or so suits spread across multiple servers (and that isn't including my GL suits).

I've already spent a fortune remaking the suits after imbuing came out.

I am in the process of spending another fortune rebuilding to account for some new properties with shame loot / reforging.
If you (or they) can't afford to make a suit, they probably shouldn't be playing that many servers.

And though I may have a crappy archer or any other template you care to suggest, I'm certainly not the one complaining about suiting it/them either.
 

Lynk

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I didn't complain about suiting them, I'm providing my feedback on a change that has not yet taken place. A change that I feel would make the game worse.

Try to follow along here, you from the south or something?
 

Berethrain

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Lynk, I really have no intentions on making this personal against anyone. If you want to that's fine, but no matter how you put it you were complaining.


I'll be pissed if they make points a pain in the ass to upkeep.

I play on 9 or so servers with 2 or 3 characters per server. This game is so ****ing dead that in order for me to log on and find quick PvP or a Raid, i need to be on all of these servers.

If I am going to have to buy 9 -12 new ornys and crimmies just to PvP I won't even bother.

No, I've already spent money on those 36 or so suits spread across multiple servers (and that isn't including my GL suits).

I've already spent a fortune remaking the suits after imbuing came out.

I am in the process of spending another fortune rebuilding to account for some new properties with shame loot / reforging.

All of this money is spent around 3 fcr on a crystalline, or the increased dci on folded steel, or increased resists on totem, or 10 DI on mace and shield.

Removing my ability to us these items not only requires me to purchase the artifacts in question, but also requires me to completely re-do my suit to account for it.

The amount of gold required for me to remake these suits is astronomical
 

Lynk

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Lynk, I really have no intentions on making this personal against anyone. If you want to that's fine, but no matter how you put it you were complaining.
Holy **** man, please pay attention.

I'm explaining why I don't want this publish to go through.

Do you get it? Should I try to express this in one syllable words for you?

No where did I say "boy I'm mad that I had to spend so much money to make suits on all the servers I play on". I'm saying "I think this publish should not go through because......."

I don't know how else to say it. Shouldn't you be attempting an extremely poor defense of Brit base (a 2 tile choke that you can't seem to hold)?
 

Berethrain

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No where did I say "boy I'm mad that I had to spend so much money to make suits on all the servers I play on".
What? Factions enables people who aren't otherwise financially able to partake in PvP.
I'll be pissed if they make points a pain in the ass to upkeep.

If I am going to have to buy 9 -12 new ornys and crimmies just to PvP I won't even bother.

Sure, whatever you say.
 

Kellgory

Certifiable
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I guess when they wipe the points on test, we can see if everyones rank is set to rank 1, 10, or somewhere in between.
 

Arabella

Lore Keeper
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I really hate when they drop these little bombs without any further information other then say they will be announced at a later time.
 

Berethrain

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Yeah, I'm not sure what was really wrong with the faction decay rate. It seemed the biggest problem that the regular 10% decay rate wasn't keeping up with the 2x or 3x point increase being gained from players. And now that there are billions of points floating around they're wondering why it's taking so long to decay.

If they weren't decaying at the daily 10% I could see it being a problem. Though, I'm guessing they didnt ever think a player could have almost 2 billion points.

Now that they're wiping the points it should fix the problem.
As far as faction ranks, they should all be back to rank 1.

As far as what Lynk was trying to say, I also hope they don't over compensate the point decay rate because of this.
 

Arabella

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I only hope they don't break it more! But you would think after all these years, they would figure out if there is a bug or exploit out there it will be found and used!
 

ShadowTrauma

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Stratics Legend
I can see the reasoning in pretty much everyones opinions at this time. If I had a character on multiple shards built around these faction artifacts I too would be frustrated. However I also believe the points at this time are quite rediculous, so I see benefit of a reset with whatever fix they have planned.

My opinion on the whole faction point mechanic is that in the past it really was just about bragging rights until these artifacts were added. Currently many people join factions for these artifacts to build highly customized suits or play across multiple shards. Whether or not everyone actualy participates much in factions is another issue, however its a slippery slope. I personally would love for more people to take part in factions, but at the same time I don't care to penalize people that want to just inlcude these powerful artifacts in suits or use them to play on multiple shards. For me braggin rights are/were enough, but I know there are many different types of gamers and playstyles to support.

Possible suggestions/Topics of discussion:
Don't require rank for the artifacts.
Have these artifacts drop on champs.

Factions in general could use an update, but I'm sure we all can agree on that.
Possibly (and I realize we have not seen the full benefit of city loyalty) tie faction city control into this system. All that most people ask for is a reason to do factions. For me its all about the pvp, but I see no downside to adding incentives or activities to get others involved.

Regardless as a pvper I strive to constantly adapt, so I will be here when the changes occur (whatever they may be). Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I look forward to reading your opinions, I know it can get heated at times. I just hope that we can give some good feedback that will get considered.
 

Winker

Babbling Loonie
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The points should be reset to 100 for everyone, that way we will still be able to wear our faction gear and PvP and the point system will have most of the points taken out. I feel a total whipe out of points is a bit OTT
 

Berethrain

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If the ranking system in factions worked correctly, it wouldn't matter if you reset the points for everyone to 0, 10, 100, 1000 etc since the ranking system is set on a scale of percentage of points in that faction. If everyone has the same points then the scale is the same so everyone would be rank 1 which is the rank that you can wear a lot of the faction arties anyways. (the same as if it were zero or any points mentioned above)

Just "giving" the items to the players isn't an incentive in which it was intended to be. You actually have to PLAY FACTIONS to use the items if the points are wiped out for a little while at least.

Faction arties were not ever intended to be used just so people can suit 30 characters on one shard, or 10 shards. That's why they tied ranking into them to begin with.

In fact if people stopped playing 10 different shards at any given time, and started playing 1 or 2 all the time, they'd find factions would be more lively and they'd spend less time suiting X amount of characters.
 

Lynk

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In fact if people stopped playing 10 different shards at any given time, and started playing 1 or 2 all the time, they'd find factions would be more lively and they'd spend less time suiting X amount of characters.
How on earth do you justify this horribly mislead opinion? Have you played UO lately? It is dead.
 

Berethrain

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How on earth do you justify this horribly mislead opinion? Have you played UO lately? It is dead.
Common sense.

Let's see here, which one of the following options would have the most action:

1. A group of players spread over 10 shards.

2. A group of players spread over 1 or 2 shards.

I'll give you three guesses, I'm sure you'll need all three.
 

Lynk

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Common sense.

Let's see here, which one of the following options would have the most action:

1. A group of players spread over 10 shards.

2. A group of players spread over 1 or 2 shards.

I'll give you three guesses, I'm sure you'll need all three.
Uh.. yea, no ****. If you're suggesting that there is a shard merger then I would agree.

Seriously dude? Your original post suggested that I stop playing multiple servers and there would be more fights. This is only true if EVERYONE does that and not only that, but everyone migrates to one server.

Your logic is so twisted I feel dumber reading your posts.
 

Berethrain

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This is only true if EVERYONE does that and not only that, but everyone migrates to one server.
In fact if people stopped playing 10 different shards at any given time, and started playing 1 or 2 all the time, they'd find factions would be more lively and they'd spend less time suiting X amount of characters.​
Well genius, perhaps you should go back and read. You even quoted what I posted, how did you not manage to understand the post?​
Hell, the post wasn't even directed at you. If we can get past your overinflated sense of your self importance, perhaps we can get back to the topic at hand.​
As far as mergers, yes it would be nice but it isn't the point.​
Wipe the points and keep/fix the ranking system. Everyone who wants to play factions will regardless of the faction arties.​
 

ShadowTrauma

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You two obviously have different view points, but from mine it boils down to this:

Berethrain's posts reference what could be a better situation if everyone could manage to do so collectively.
Lynk's posts refer to the situation as it is currently is and don't involve other peoples playstyles.

I tend to agree more often with Lynk as I don't care to dictate or require anyone to play a certain way. Before that sentence gets picked apart I'm not saying that is how you think I couldn't know for certain, its just what I've been able to gather by reading the posts. If people want to play a ton of shards good for them, as it stands now it is one of the only ways you can get the most consistant pvp if that is how you desire to play.

I put forth the suggestion of not requiring rank for the artifacts or having them as drops in addition to being avaiable to faction players. My thinking was not along the lines of giving them away. It was comming more from removing the need for people who are not interested in factions aside from the artifacts (then hanging out in tram), so that those in factions are there solely because they choose to pvp. I see your point about that even for a little while it would boost faction participation. I was looking more long term so I concede that you made a good point.
 

Berethrain

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Berethrain's posts reference what could be a better situation if everyone could manage to do so collectively.
It wasn't really the point I was getting at, though faction arties shouldn't dictate where/how you play to begin with. But I digress.

As far as a long term scenario, neither option for the faction gear is a solution. The cycle will repeat itself either way, and it is likely people will still grab the gear and head to trammel. However, people that wante to play factions will still play.

The original opposing argument was against the influence of faction decay and resetting the points about how it will severely affect some people's accounts (I mean people in general Lynk) because they rely heavily on the faction gear to suit a majority of their characters.

I do agree that the decay rate should not be modified in a manner to affect ones ability to wear these consistently, even on however many shards one chooses to play. But I don't agree with that the points shouldn't be wiped or the gear should just be given to people with no sort of incentive to play factions.

This is where we come into your posts Shadow. I've not thought about new ideas to increase longevity, but rather to start with fixes first and then see what happens.
 

ShadowTrauma

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On your original point I can see where you are comming from and I definately agree that it shouldn't prevent people being able to keep their characters equiped after reaching the required rank, considering they still partake in some minimal faction pvp. It mostly comes down to frustration I think that like you said the process will repeat itself, and me desperately wanting to avoid that. Do I think points are rediculous at this time, yes they are on most shards. So it is difficult to argue that they shouldnt be wiped in some manner. Most of this conversation is a bit premature as we don't even have the specifics on all the intended changes, just feeling hesitant that the right changes will be implemented.
 

Lynk

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By play factions Berethrain I can only assume you're referring to your little trammy friends casting chain efields in a 2 tile choke at TB base.

You have a skewed definition of what "playing factions" is.

If you want people to try to raid your joke of a defense, there needs to be incentive to own towns. As it is no one cares, there is no incentive. Changing the rank requirements will do absolutely nothing for your mission.
 

Berethrain

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If you want people to try to raid your joke of a defense, there needs to be incentive to own towns. As it is no one cares, there is no incentive. Changing the rank requirements will do absolutely nothing for your mission.
1. Then why did you come and "raid" and die on your character Tank?
2. If there is no incentive to play factions or own towns, why do you need faction gear?
3. Also then, why did you go out of your way to even grief our "joke of a defense" on your blue character in TB?
4. I do not want the rank requirements changed.

If your best sense of accomplishment is to attempt to talk down to others because you think you are good at pvp on a game, then I feel sorry for you.

For someone who talks a lot, you have very little to say.
 

slayer888

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Lynk is a joke. After all these years he could still bring up to the topic that he used a transfer token to come over to Formosa under his 200+ pings and then kill someone under 40pings within the 30 seconds to 1 minute in his fake video. In which his fake opponent couldn't even CURE level 1 poison after casted the spell and have so little insurance gold after death. Then posting a photo showing his paperdoll with his Rank 10 faction arties on hand after transfer (after transfer you could wear faction arties?).

Afterwards telling everyone that he have spend another token immediately to transfer back to his own shard immediately on the same day. Everyone should know transfer token x 2 couldnt be used on the same day.

Anyways, his fake video making really entertains a lot of (no brain) peeps here although showing how cheap he could get to.

But back to the faction kill points, I do agree that it is quite annoying to customize suits all over again for the many chars I've got as well. Not sure about other shards, but in my shards, most people who do not participate in factions no longer are wearing any faction arties or even join factions. They usually use a blue to do spawns in Felucca only. So in another words, not a big community can grief faction arties and then go back Trammel to farm.

I have 30 chars pvp and pvp in Formosa and I have to say that I am 90% pvp chars with faction arties and 10% pvm chars with faction arties. That's all I gonna say. Anyways, no matter what we're saying here, I think the points are being wiped anyways and all my chars will go half naked...

What I will do is reorganize some of my chars in focussed 1-2 accounts and then unsubscribe the rest. Not that I want to quit UO is because I cant manage so many chars anymore after this patch goes in without the faction arties so its not longer necessary to have so many accounts active.
 

Berethrain

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The character management seems like a false argument, since you are still able to obtain more points with a 1% decay rate instead of the old 10% making it easier to maintain them.

I'm not sure why anyone would be in favor of keeping millions of points around if they actually pvped other than they have to get more points initially to wear the same arties?

Doesn't seem very rational to me if what they're saying is true.
 

Black Majick

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Most peoples main complaint with the point wipe is that people have used factions arties to help equipe characters on multiple servers to be able to PvP when they can find a fight. Sometimes your home server is dead, so you go somewhere else.

I say just let anyone in factions wear whatever one. They have a cost in silver (cheap, yes) but instead of faction fighting just being in Felluca, open it up to all facets. This will actually keep the "Pure PvM" characters from coming over and just getting the arties and going back to tram. Keep the KP if you want to help determine rank for faction offices, and bragging rights. If they did that. I would be just peachy with the changes.
 

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
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uggghhh

i took off my faction artys on my guy on ATL and put on the normal items..... ugghhhhhh the suit is dreadful and the resists are nasty.

this is gonna hurt!
 

Tina Small

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Maybe some analysis might help. I've pulled together various bits and pieces of information and present it below for your review!

To start with, the original notes for Publish 75 said:
  • All faction scores will be reset to 0.
  • All Faction members will return to Rank 1.
  • Faction score now decays at a rate of 1% (rounded down) of score per day. Scores of 199 or below will decay 1 point per day. Scores of 200 to 299 lose 2 points per day, etc.
  • Players with 0 Faction score will always be assigned Rank 1 and are no longer counted in Faction membership totals when determining the size of ranking brackets.
However, on Friday, March 16th, Bleak posted in the Test Center forum the following very important modifications that I'm not sure everyone is aware of yet:
  • All faction scores will be scaled down instead of wiped.
  • All faction members’ rankings will be updated to reflect the new scaled points.
  • Faction score now decays at a rate of 1% (rounded down) of score per day. Scores of 99 or below will have a scaling chance to decay 1 point per day. The closer the score is to 0 the smaller the chance is of having point decay.
  • Players with 0 Faction score will always be assigned Rank 1 and are no longer counted in Faction membership totals when determining the size of ranking brackets.
Assuming that nothing has changed from past years, the percentiles for determining faction rank are as shown below:
  • Rank 1 - Below 20%
  • Rank 2 - 20% to 39%
  • Rank 3 - 40% to 49%
  • Rank 4 - 50% to 59%
  • Rank 5 - 60% to 69%
  • Rank 6 - 70% to 79%
  • Rank 7 - 80% to 89%
  • Rank 8 - 90% to 94%
  • Rank 9 - 95% to 99%
  • Rank 10 - 99.1% to 100%
The various faction artifacts are listed below, showing which ranks can wear them and the property which makes them better than the non-faction version of the same artifact. (This is information from UOGuide, so I hope it's accurate. EA never provided any official list of the artifacts and their rank requirements in the notes for Publish 59. )
  • Rank 10 only – Mace and Shield Reading Glasses (with 10% Damage Increase); Ornament of the Magician (with 3 Mana Regeneration); and Inquisitor’s Resolution (with resists of 10%, 10%, 20%, 10%, 10%).
  • Ranks 9 and 10 – Clainin’s Spellbook (with 10% LMC); Crystalline Ring (with FCR 3); Folded Steel Reading Glasses (with 10% DCI); and Order Shield – Museum of Vesper Replica (with no -1 FC penalty).
  • Ranks 7 through 10 – A Primer on Arms Damage Removal (with 10% HCI); Spirit of the Totem (with 20%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10% resists); Tome of Lost Knowledge (with 3 Mana Regeneration); Wizard’s Crystal Reading Glasses (with resists of 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%).
  • Ranks 4 through 10 -Crimson Cincture (with +5 Dexterity); Heart of the Lion (with 20%, 15%, 15%, 15%, 15% resists); Hunter’s Headdress (with 10%, 10%, 15%, 10%, 10% resists); Ring of the Vile (with 10% Hit Chance Increase).
  • All Ranks – Fey Leggings (with 15%, 11%, 10%, 4%, 22% resists); Kasa of the Raj-In (with 10% DCI); Rune Beetle Carapace (with 8%, 6%, 17%, 6%, 17%); and Stormgrip (with 10% HCI).
Here are some other faction rank-related perks/privileges:
  • Ranks 2 through 10 - Can ride a faction war horse.
  • Ranks 6 through 10 - Can run for office in elections for the Commanding Lord of a faction.
I set up a spreadsheet on Google which includes the percentile and faction ranking calculations and scores for 50 fictional faction characters with faction scores of 1 or more.You can find it here: Welcome to Google Docs free to make your own copy of it and play around with the faction scores to see how percentile rankings work and how I think the faction ranking system works. Just make sure each faction score you add is 1 or more, since the updated method for calculating percentiles and faction ranks is going to EXCLUDE all characters who have a faction score of 0 or less. It's definitely interesting to see how the percentiles and ranks work out when you have the majority of characters with very low positive scores and a few large ones at the top.

Perhaps someone can ask Bleak how the scores for inactive characters are going to be included in the calculations, i.e., will they be scaled according to the new publish changes and included in the calculations if the character is on an account that has been closed for less than 90 days (or some other arbitrary period), and after that will they not be included in the calculations?Also, how and when will decay of points for these characters take place? It would also be nice if he or Jeff Skalski could tell players how soon we will once again be able to view current faction leaderboard information to see who is hogging all the points and makes a worthy target!(Just kidding!)

With the scaling of points in the upcoming publish versus wiping all of them, it would seem that there is still a good possibility for many faction characters who actually have any amount of faction points to still be able to wear more than just the basic faction artifacts, assuming points for inactive characters are appropriately included/excluded, scaled, and made subject to decay.Hopefully this change will spur those who want to use the artifacts to actually participate in faction PvP, instead of using some gimpy method to get their points and then rarely giving the whole subject of faction PvP and maintaining rank another thought again.

Edited to add info on rank requirements for riding a war horse and for running for office as CL.
 

Berethrain

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I wonder how they plan to scale down a player with a billion points? If they scaled that down to what is was prior the the points explosion, what is the rest of our scores going to look like?
 

slayer888

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Stratics Legend
The character management seems like a false argument, since you are still able to obtain more points with a 1% decay rate instead of the old 10% making it easier to maintain them.

I'm not sure why anyone would be in favor of keeping millions of points around if they actually pvped other than they have to get more points initially to wear the same arties?

Doesn't seem very rational to me if what they're saying is true.
Wrong. We still wouldn't know about the decay rate at this moment. That is first point.

2nd point is that now all ranking is based on anyone with 1+ points. Anyone with 0 point = rank 1 forever and do not count forth the ranking system.

THIS IS REALLY THE MOST STUPID IDEA EVER IMPLEMENTED.

Guys, we are not playing in TEST CENTER, where there are billions of people playing and having 1+ points to roll into the ranking system! The normal shard (not the most populated ones) has only got like 20-30 players with 1+ kill points. So meaning those 20-30 people are rolling for ranking system (rank 10 = 10% of the whole community).

So meaning out of those 20-30 players = only 2-3 person can wear rank 10 artifact?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

1st day = A rank 10
1st day = B rank 10
1st day = C rank 10

2nd day = A rank 9
2nd day = B rank 7
2nd day = C rank 10
2nd day = D rank 10
2nd day = E rank 10

So meaning, A and B = have their armor dropped in the 2nd day...

Crappy idea which will desert Faction system pretty soon.

The point of playing faction is not to make people drop armours. Everyone is seeking for efficiently and fights in efficients, one battle come, and end then wait 20mins and restart. No one wants to freakin spend 10 hours everyday and maintain their kill points for their faction arties. In this situation, who will want to join faction? Everyone will be back to blue and red fights.

Factions will be dead if they don't delete this Ranking Bracekets rubbish.

And accounts will be unsubscribed, that I can 90% guarantee.
 

Berethrain

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wrong. We still wouldn't know about the decay rate at this moment. That is first point
What do you mean we dont know about the decay rate? Where do you think the 1% came from?

2nd point is that now all ranking is based on anyone with 1+ points. Anyone with 0 point = rank 1 forever and do not count forth the ranking system.
I'm not sure what your point is, it was like this from the start based on a scaled percentage of points.


As far as the rest of the post I've no idea what you're talking about.



On a side note, if this publish has been put through to all shards, why am I still running around with 32 million points on 1 character?
 

slayer888

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Berethrain,

#1. the decay rate they mentioned is 1%, but this 1% is still unknown, we never know what will happen. 1% can still mean 1 point decay per day even you only got 5-6 points. We cannot find out the answer for this until we play 5-6 more days on this

#2. Wrong, totally wrong.

Start means that everyone who joined that faction will be calculating into this ranking branket.

At current stage:-

Rank 10 = around 5-10% of the whole branket
Rank 9 = around 5% of the whole branket
Rank 7-8 = around 10% of the whole branket
Rank 1-2 = around 50% of the whole branket
Rank 3-6 = remaining %

Anyways, the above figure maybe little bit off, but as an example, I wanted to tell you the difference from now and from factions before:-

Example:

Assume you are in TB faction, the total number of TB players = 100

So in logically, there will be only 5-10 players able to acheive Rank 10 (this is how the system works before)


CURRENTLY with this stupid patch:-

Assume you are in TB faction, the total number of TB players = 100
10 players = 1+ points
90 players = 0 points or negative

At this moment, meaning there will be "0" or "1" player at rank 10 only out of the community of the size of 100 players.

In this stage, if people do not get the faction arties equipment and have their armour dropped, they might just quit the faction totally. Making the ranking branket goes smaller and smaller, in which in the end deserts will be nearly deserted.

The picture clearly shows this stupid system will be forcing factions to run downhill because the size of the community who will benefit from it GREATLY decrease.

Again, so its in favor for few players, but not in favor for majority of players.

Fair?
 

Berethrain

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
#1. the decay rate they mentioned is 1%, but this 1% is still unknown, we never know what will happen. 1% can still mean 1 point decay per day even you only got 5-6 points. We cannot find out the answer for this until we play 5-6 more days on this
They were supposed to have implemented this yesterday. Go read patch notes for pub 75.



#2. Wrong, totally wrong.
What? Go up and read Tina's post. It gives the scale on how it has always been figured. Minus those with 0 score of course.


As far as the patch, I don't see it as a bad thing. In fact, I think it's good. Your scenario sticks to a player base that remains at 0 score for the entirety. This isn't rational. Plus this enourages those with 0 score to actually participate more in factions. In reality, only crafters etc should remain at 0 points. Those that aren't that good and can't achieve at least a handful of points never had to worry about achieving rank 10 anyways.

The more people that participate in factions and earn points the broader range of ranks will be earned.


Your only worry here seems to be the loss of rank 10 faction gear. Sad really.
 

Bleak

UO Software Engineer
VIP
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Maybe some analysis might help. I've pulled together various bits and pieces of information and present it below for your review!

To start with, the original notes for Publish 75 said:
  • All faction scores will be reset to 0.
  • All Faction members will return to Rank 1.
  • Faction score now decays at a rate of 1% (rounded down) of score per day. Scores of 199 or below will decay 1 point per day. Scores of 200 to 299 lose 2 points per day, etc.
  • Players with 0 Faction score will always be assigned Rank 1 and are no longer counted in Faction membership totals when determining the size of ranking brackets.
However, on Friday, March 16th, Bleak posted in the Test Center forum the following very important modifications that I'm not sure everyone is aware of yet:

  • All faction scores will be scaled down instead of wiped.
  • All faction members’ rankings will be updated to reflect the new scaled points.
  • Faction score now decays at a rate of 1% (rounded down) of score per day. Scores of 99 or below will have a scaling chance to decay 1 point per day. The closer the score is to 0 the smaller the chance is of having point decay.
  • Players with 0 Faction score will always be assigned Rank 1 and are no longer counted in Faction membership totals when determining the size of ranking brackets.
Assuming that nothing has changed from past years, the percentiles for determining faction rank are as shown below:

  • Rank 1 - Below 20%
  • Rank 2 - 20% to 39%
  • Rank 3 - 40% to 49%
  • Rank 4 - 50% to 59%
  • Rank 5 - 60% to 69%
  • Rank 6 - 70% to 79%
  • Rank 7 - 80% to 89%
  • Rank 8 - 90% to 94%
  • Rank 9 - 95% to 99%
  • Rank 10 - 99.1% to 100%
The various faction artifacts are listed below, showing which ranks can wear them and the property which makes them better than the non-faction version of the same artifact. (This is information from UOGuide, so I hope it's accurate. EA never provided any official list of the artifacts and their rank requirements in the notes for Publish 59. )

  • Rank 10 only – Mace and Shield Reading Glasses (with 10% Damage Increase); Ornament of the Magician (with 3 Mana Regeneration); and Inquisitor’s Resolution (with resists of 10%, 10%, 20%, 10%, 10%).
  • Ranks 9 and 10 – Clainin’s Spellbook (with 10% LMC); Crystalline Ring (with FCR 3); Folded Steel Reading Glasses (with 10% DCI); and Order Shield – Museum of Vesper Replica (with no -1 FC penalty).
  • Ranks 7 through 10 – A Primer on Arms Damage Removal (with 10% HCI); Spirit of the Totem (with 20%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10% resists); Tome of Lost Knowledge (with 3 Mana Regeneration); Wizard’s Crystal Reading Glasses (with resists of 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%, 10%).
  • Ranks 4 through 10 -Crimson Cincture (with +5 Dexterity); Heart of the Lion (with 20%, 15%, 15%, 15%, 15% resists); Hunter’s Headdress (with 10%, 10%, 15%, 10%, 10% resists); Ring of the Vile (with 10% Hit Chance Increase).
  • All Ranks – Fey Leggings (with 15%, 11%, 10%, 4%, 22% resists); Kasa of the Raj-In (with 10% DCI); Rune Beetle Carapace (with 8%, 6%, 17%, 6%, 17%); and Stormgrip (with 10% HCI).
Here are some other faction rank-related perks/privileges:

  • Ranks 2 through 10 - Can ride a faction war horse.
  • Ranks 6 through 10 - Can run for office in elections for the Commanding Lord of a faction.
I set up a spreadsheet on Google which includes the percentile and faction ranking calculations and scores for 50 fictional faction characters with faction scores of 1 or more.You can find it here: Welcome to Google Docsfree to make your own copy of it and play around with the faction scores to see how percentile rankings work and how I think the faction ranking system works. Just make sure each faction score you add is 1 or more, since the updated method for calculating percentiles and faction ranks is going to EXCLUDE all characters who have a faction score of 0 or less. It's definitely interesting to see how the percentiles and ranks work out when you have the majority of characters with very low positive scores and a few large ones at the top.


Perhaps someone can ask Bleak how the scores for inactive characters are going to be included in the calculations, i.e., will they be scaled according to the new publish changes and included in the calculations if the character is on an account that has been closed for less than 90 days (or some other arbitrary period), and after that will they not be included in the calculations?Also, how and when will decay of points for these characters take place? It would also be nice if he or Jeff Skalski could tell players how soon we will once again be able to view current faction leaderboard information to see who is hogging all the points and makes a worthy target!(Just kidding!)

With the scaling of points in the upcoming publish versus wiping all of them, it would seem that there is still a good possibility for many faction characters who actually have any amount of faction points to still be able to wear more than just the basic faction artifacts, assuming points for inactive characters are appropriately included/excluded, scaled, and made subject to decay.Hopefully this change will spur those who want to use the artifacts to actually participate in faction PvP, instead of using some gimpy method to get their points and then rarely giving the whole subject of faction PvP and maintaining rank another thought again.

Edited to add info on rank requirements for riding a war horse and for running for office as CL.
Note: As stated above ranking brackets are based on total active(players with points) faction members. However Factions has two methods of ranking players:
1.Factions with 20+ members are ranked based on the percentage of total active members within the faction which is the norm for most shards. 2.Factions with less than 20 active members are ranked based on the highest score in the faction. In this case the closer a player is to the highest score the higher their rank will be. If a faction has 10 members and all of them have a score of 10 then all of them will be ranked 10.
 

slayer888

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
They were supposed to have implemented this yesterday. Go read patch notes for pub 75.





What? Go up and read Tina's post. It gives the scale on how it has always been figured. Minus those with 0 score of course.


As far as the patch, I don't see it as a bad thing. In fact, I think it's good. Your scenario sticks to a player base that remains at 0 score for the entirety. This isn't rational. Plus this enourages those with 0 score to actually participate more in factions. In reality, only crafters etc should remain at 0 points. Those that aren't that good and can't achieve at least a handful of points never had to worry about achieving rank 10 anyways.

The more people that participate in factions and earn points the broader range of ranks will be earned.


Your only worry here seems to be the loss of rank 10 faction gear. Sad really.
Berathrain

1. I know it has already been implemented yesterday and based on the experience (maybe I am just unlucky), most of my chars with "1" points become 0 point today. So the scaling chance of decay rate seems quite high

2. You dont see it as a bad thing? This encourages those with 0 score to participate more in factions, to die more and what? I don't get your point honestly. Participate into faction will automatically gain in kill points from 0 to positive????? So from your statement, you're saying that, those without the time to guard sigil for 10 hours and those without the skills to pvp, to be always not able to wear higher artifacts? And you call this fair?

What this scenrio tells you.

Person A = rank 10, hes always the winner
Person B = rank 7, hes always the loser, and he becomes Rank 4 and Rank 1, and loses his Rank 7 armours. And he still continue to participates in faction and fight his way up even he loses his armour? Urg... your biased logic doesnt work and your calculations of math seems to have some issue.

Could you take out a calculator and I teach you how to do a simple math.

1. Assume now the player base increase that there are 200 players with 1+ kill point in ONE faction (which is impossible)
2. Now use your calculator based on Tina Small scale percentile and calculate, how many character can be Rank 10

200 x 1% = 2, CORRECT, its a whooping 2 players that can become Rank 10.

3. Assume your word is true, that more participation is going in, and people work hard enough to the top. So the previously, Rank 10 member upon the next day loses their hard working armour, and gotta re-adjust again.

DO YOU SEE THE TREND HERE? So basically, you want people to work their arse hard for artifacts for the system. But you dont want people to be realistic and play / pvp under a more efficient system.

You've got good point honestly. If today EA hire you to be the factions developer, it will be end of the factions because of your biased opinion that WONT ever listen to others even the fact is that this system is "NON SENSE"
 

slayer888

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Note: As stated above ranking brackets are based on total active(players with points) faction members. However Factions has two methods of ranking players:
1.Factions with 20+ members are ranked based on the percentage of total active members within the faction which is the norm for most shards. 2.Factions with less than 20 active members are ranked based on the highest score in the faction. In this case the closer a player is to the highest score the higher their rank will be. If a faction has 10 members and all of them have a score of 10 then all of them will be ranked 10.
Bleak, honestly, not trying to do any attacks on you. But I hope you would kindly take out a calculator and do a simple math yourself and with your team on what you guys did WRONG in the calculations.

By putting that "0 kill points doesnt count forth the total membership of the faction ranking brackets" is a WRONG, TOTALLY 100% wrong approach to revive factions. The participations WONT increase. Trust me, it won't.

You're telling everyone that to keep on wasting time to work your ladder and keep on the top in order to use the artifacts.

Maybe by maintaining 1-2 characters is possible, but you gotta realize that, this won't be possible to manage multiple characters anymore. What this picture tells you honestly? More CHARACTERS leave factions, and then what does this tell you?

Less participation, simple as that.

Please, rethink twice again on what you did wrong. This move is 100% totally wrong WRONG and wrong. Within 1 month, you can take out your statistic and find out that the participation in factions "declined" and you can realize that what you do is totally wrong and a failure.

Too bad, I am so straight and I want to tell you right ahead the main point of factions from a 10+ years experience into it since the start of factions came out.

Main point of faction is not to get people to work like a dog for the artifacts, main point of faction is to IMPROVE pvp actions under a convenient environment.
 

Berethrain

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Thanks for clearing that up Bleak.


1. I know it has already been implemented yesterday
Then how can you sit there and tell me we won't know for days?



This encourages those with 0 score to participate more in factions, to die more and what? I don't get your point honestly. Participate into faction will automatically gain in kill points from 0 to positive????? So from your statement, you're saying that, those without the time to guard sigil for 10 hours and those without the skills to pvp, to be always not able to wear higher artifacts? And you call this fair?

Again, your argument takes worst case scenario. You're trying to tell me that everyone with 0 points will not ever gain a point and all they will do is die if they participate. I know you have been in factions at least a little while, but if it's in your case you've not managed to acquire a couple of points in that time frame, then my friend, either your shard is extremely inactive or factions just isn't for you.

And yes those without skill will not be able to wear the highest faction gear. It isn't supposed to be fair, it's supposed to be an incentive to participate. This was the reasoning all along.


Person B = rank 7, hes always the loser, and he becomes Rank 4 and Rank 1, and loses his Rank 7 armours. And he still continue to participates in faction and fight his way up even he loses his armour? Urg... your biased logic doesnt work and your calculations of math seems to have some issue.
I hear things are more fair in trammel, you may be interested. As far as math it wasn't an error. The ranks will still increase, just not all will hit rank 10.
Could they broaden it out a bit? Sure. I think rank 10 would be ok with top 10% instead of 1%.

If a person always loses in your scenario he probably wouldn't have been rank 7. But even at rank 1 you're still able to wear faction gear.
My "biased logic" simply doesn't work for those who think they should be handed everything in terms of "fairness". So should an opposing faction player stop and let you kill them if they gain a lot more points than you do? That'd be "fair" right? Or maybe they should take off some of their gear since you don't want to take time to put a suit together that doesn't consist of faction gear?

I had 32 million points on a mage that hasn't even been in factions for a month. You know how much faction gear I lost after the patch? NONE. I'm now a sentinel. When I came back, you know how much gold I had in the bank? 300k.

Right now I have 5 characters in factions, you know how much gear the rest of them lost? None.



. Assume your word is true, that more participation is going in, and people work hard enough to the top. So the previously, Rank 10 member upon the next day loses their hard working armour, and gotta re-adjust again.
Isn't that the idea? If people are participating this much that's a good thing and the faction gear incentive worked.
On the other hand, if everyone gets the same gear there's not much other incentive than bragging rights to be rank 10. (Though that's enough for me)
Hence less participation and more people like you using faction gear in trammel.
 

slayer888

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Thanks for clearing that up Bleak.




Then how can you sit there and tell me we won't know for days?






Again, your argument takes worst case scenario. You're trying to tell me that everyone with 0 points will not ever gain a point and all they will do is die if they participate. I know you have been in factions at least a little while, but if it's in your case you've not managed to acquire a couple of points in that time frame, then my friend, either your shard is extremely inactive or factions just isn't for you.

And yes those without skill will not be able to wear the highest faction gear. It isn't supposed to be fair, it's supposed to be an incentive to participate. This was the reasoning all along.




I hear things are more fair in trammel, you may be interested. As far as math it wasn't an error. The ranks will still increase, just not all will hit rank 10.
Could they broaden it out a bit? Sure. I think rank 10 would be ok with top 10% instead of 1%.

If a person always loses in your scenario he probably wouldn't have been rank 7. But even at rank 1 you're still able to wear faction gear.
My "biased logic" simply doesn't work for those who think they should be handed everything in terms of "fairness". So should an opposing faction player stop and let you kill them if they gain a lot more points than you do? That'd be "fair" right? Or maybe they should take off some of their gear since you don't want to take time to put a suit together that doesn't consist of faction gear?

I had 32 million points on a mage that hasn't even been in factions for a month. You know how much faction gear I lost after the patch? NONE. I'm now a sentinel. When I came back, you know how much gold I had in the bank? 300k.

Right now I have 5 characters in factions, you know how much gear the rest of them lost? None.





Isn't that the idea? If people are participating this much that's a good thing and the faction gear incentive worked.
On the other hand, if everyone gets the same gear there's not much other incentive than bragging rights to be rank 10. (Though that's enough for me)
Hence less participation and more people like you using faction gear in trammel.
#1. You still dont know who I am. and you talk about me being a Trammie. More biased opinion please?

www.uo.com

Look up for my chars:-

Ghost Mouse
Death Traveller
Sib Re Teka

UO.jpeg

one simple question for you. What is the CAPPED point in UO? Do you know?

I play the factions to pvp everyday and not to maintain my kill points to wear my artifacts.

I play the factions to find enemies to fight and not wait for enemies to re-build their armour to fight.

I join faction for the artifacts to customize my templates more easily, and without this, I will just quit faction. More people will have the view same as me which will eventually desert Factions.

Your point being said is very interesting:-

1. Anyone being the top pvper or top thief or that is a NERD can wear the higher end artifacts and continue to be the mentioned in order to keep their armour not drop in backpack? So meaning this person would not be able to go vacations or off for more than few days if they want to keep their armour not dropped? You mean this type of system is MORE FAIR compare to a system whereas everyone could wear the SAME artifacts to pvp?

Assume now there is no Trammel, and factions allow everyone to wear the same type of artifacts, will you agree? Or you still find it unfair with your BIASED opinion.

Moreover, just answer me one simple question before you go on with your biased opinion again:-

Will factions get more activities after this PUB 75? :)

Be honest, and be specific with your points :)
 
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