A suggestion for factions.

[Yalp]

just curious ... do faction thieves get penalized?how about faction crafters?

Maybe the best way to stop all the whining is to eliminate faction arties altogether. Seems patently unfair to penalize faction peeps for going to tram ruleset.

Seems patently unfair to allow pvp on any ruleset, especially considering the rampant cheating in pvp.

Seems patently unfair to any faction crafter who doesn't live in fel.

Seems patently unfair to allow faction toons to have better gear than non-faction toons in tram rule set situations.

But until the situation is changed, I can see peeps continuing to join factions just for the faction arties.

 

[Petra Fyde]

I think Faction points and rank should decay noticably while staying in Trammel. There should be a noticable penalty to points crossing into Trammel rulesets. This can easily be explained as a toll for amnesty crossing into the protection of Lord British's domain, and the factions aren't too fond of its members leaving the battlegrounds for extended periods of time.

This idea I like! (and yes I am watching this thread now I'm awake)

It kind of counters the 'double fame in fel' for pvmers, I think 'double decay in tram' for awol factioneers would be fair?

I admit to never having played factions, and knowing little of how they work, so from a total outsider's point of view. Does everyone in a particular faction guild store points on the same non-combat char? If so, would a restriction on how many people can transfer points to a particular character help? and possibly a restriction on the number of 'donated' points a character can receive in one day. Many other things in game have a 'saturated' condition.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

I remain confused as to the actual issue, it seems to vary by poster and thread. Emotions seem to become elevated once the Tram/ Fel divide is envoked, which occurs as rapidly as a new thread is posted. It seems that at the end of the day, it boils down to a debate about "buffed" items. The simpliest and most comprehensive recommendation I've seen, not original to me, is to unequip faction items when departing the Fel rules set, and not allowing them to be re-equipped until returning to Fel. Does that solve the issue?

I think you have more or less hit the "issue" and the solution you say is the most popular one, but also the most debated one. (I had hit reply almost an hour ago and did not type anything so I do not remember what I had planned on saying) But mostly this is the idea behind all of these threads, so maybe that helps clear the confusion?

 

[Tina Small]

this isnt about fel vs tram its about people exploiting the system and using faction gear w/o risk of of ever being attacked by a rival faction member. when the faction arties were put in it was meant as another means to stimulate pvp not a means to exploit a system for easy gear.

In my opinion, Kaleb hit the nail on the head right here.

The way things stand now, someone who only wants to be in factions to get the gear only actually has to go Fel long enough to stand in the base to donate silver and buy the arties he wants. Which arties he can purchase (and which he can equip on a particular day) depend on his rank, which is based on his current kill points in comparison to the current total kill points in that faction. The arties are linked to a particular character (i.e., unequippable by anyone else) but are not blessed.

All the other risk involved in getting into factions and obtaining the arties can be assumed for a factioneer by someone else:

(1) The leader of a guild can add the entire guild to factions. No need for individual members to go to Fel to join the faction.

(2) Someone else in the faction can kill enemy faction characters or steal sigils to amass kill points. Then that character or characters can transfer points to other members of the same faction. A character can only transfer away points once each day and the character making the transfer must have at least 10 kill points. One point is lost in the trade (e.g., the character making the transfer loses 5 points and the one receiving the transfer only gets 4 points).


(3) Someone else in the guild can kill certain monsters, kill enemy faction chars, steal sigils, or remove traps to earn silver. Some people are even selling silver on vendors. When Trammel cities were being invaded, a faction character could earn silver in Trammel by killing invasion monsters and corrupted NPCs.

(4) The faction arties lose durability and can only be repaired through the use of Powder of Perseverance. This item (like several other faction "aids") is also purchased in the faction base, but could be purchased by anyone in the faction and given to other factioneers. I think some may even be selling it and the other faction aids, as well as silver, on player vendors.

(5) War horses can be purchased from a horse breeder by anyone in the faction and transferred to another character in factions. Your character must be at least rank 2 to be able to ride a war horse. I believe characters new to a faction are currently starting out at rank 2 and can ride a war horse from day 1. A factioneer can rez his own bonded war horse using a bandage and without the need for vet skill. Their stats are significantly higher than a regular horse, but nothing spectacular.

(6) Having everyone in the guild quit the faction can also be accomplished by having the guild leader go to the faction stronghold and quit. Thus, no individual guild member has to quit the guild and go to the stronghold themself to quit.

It can be very very easy for someone who belongs to a somewhat organized guild to enjoy the benefits of faction arties and only have to go to his faction's stronghold on an occasional basis to purchase new arties. No need to actually DO anything that is remotely related to factions such as steal sigils or defend them, no need to PvP and try to kill someone else's character, no need to even go to a potential hot spot to kill monsters for silver, or to track down a horse breeder to buy a war horse. And now that multiple characters from the same account can join a faction, it's very easy to use extra accounts for the purpose of stuffing characters in an enemy faction and then taking them to a remote corner of a faction town and slaughtering them for points. It didn't take long for people to figure out how to game the bonus kill point system in effect in "war zones" since about October of last year and rack up unbelievable kill point totals. If you don't believe me, just check out the factions "leader board" and oooh and aahh over the characters with over 1 billion kill points. (Yeah, it says "billion" there, folks.) http://town.uo.com/factions/

Additional Info: You get double the normal kill points and silver for killing a faction character on the opposing side of the conflict (TB/COM are on the "Order" side and SL/Minax are on the "Chaos" side). The bonus can be up to 3X normal kill points and the silver amount up to 4X the normal amount if the killing happens in one of the eight faction cities. The victim, however, loses only the normal amount of kill points (i.e., 10% of his or her current kill points). The rules governing "normal" loss/crediting of kill points are described here in the Playguide: http://www.uoherald.com/guide/guide.php?guideId=208.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

(2) Someone else in the faction can kill enemy faction characters or steal sigils to amass kill points. Then that character or characters can transfer points to other members of the same faction. A character can only transfer away points once each day and the character making the transfer must have at least 10 kill points. One point is lost in the trade (e.g., the character making the transfer loses 5 points and the one receiving the transfer only gets 4 points).

I do not think this information is accurate (tho I do realize all the official sources say this, almost word for word if not actually word for word). I am fairly sure you can honor more than once per day, in fact you may be able to do it countless times per day, I have honored my wife and friends more than once a day before, Once when we first got into factions and then there may have been a few other times that we lost a bit and i honored them so they could keep their items for the next days fight. Admittedly it has been awhile since this has happened but unless they changed something, this is in fact broken. The rest of your post is sadly true tho =\ (and this one point, if it is wrong, actually makes it worse >.<)

 

[Tina Small]

I do not think this information is accurate (tho I do realize all the official sources say this, almost word for word if not actually word for word). I am fairly sure you can honor more than once per day, in fact you may be able to do it countless times per day, I have honored my wife and friends more than once a day before, Once when we first got into factions and then there may have been a few other times that we lost a bit and i honored them so they could keep their items for the next days fight. Admittedly it has been awhile since this has happened but unless they changed something, this is in fact broken. The rest of your post is sadly true tho =\ (and this one point, if it is wrong, actually makes it worse >.<)

I haven't been the recipient of kill points so I didn't know that this too is now broken. The official playguide says you can only honor once per day. It helps explain some of the obscene kill point totals.

 

[Yalp]

The bugs would have to be worked out with points.. .ie being able to honor same player more than once per day, stealing points is buggy as hell right now too.

And just a thought here, perhaps the reason for being unable to amass rank because of the total points held by the top point leaders is that the faction system on your shard is unbalanced? Perhaps this is a mechanism to prevent 2/3rd's of the shards pvp'rs from sitting in the same faction, and encouraging players to spread across all 4 factions? Just a thought.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

The bugs would have to be worked out with points.. .ie being able to honor same player more than once per day, stealing points is buggy as hell right now too.

And just a thought here, perhaps the reason for being unable to amass rank because of the total points held by the top point leaders is that the faction system on your shard is unbalanced? Perhaps this is a mechanism to prevent 2/3rd's of the shards pvp'rs from sitting in the same faction, and encouraging players to spread across all 4 factions? Just a thought.

This is true, but not always I am sure I have seen shards where all 4 factions were ridiculous when it came to the points. While I am unable to think of any right now it is an issue. As I am all for keeping the ranking system based on a percentage, the system is still broken due to who ever is exploiting it on any given day, and not only that but as I mentioned if you happen to be faction fighting in a city there is a high possibility that you will get 250+ points a kill, and when you die you would only lose a tenth of that while they gain 30pct. So even if everything was balanced as far as the number of active faction members, this alone would present a problem for ranking (at least in the beginning as once you gain rank you could most likely keep it)

 

[Wenchkin]

Or, rather than a decay, how about once a faction char leaves Fel, the system basically keeps him a faction member but he loses all his perks once he leaves the faction facet and effectively goes "off duty". So no faction arties would work outside Fel, making the system completely unappealing to Tram players who want the extra kit for PvM.

I'm not sure decay would really put off the worst abusers of the system, although it would be a lot better than no deterrent at all. While I don't like the idea of folks scurrying off to Tram and avoiding their responsibilities defending their faction, I don't think opening up Tram to factioning is the answer either. Players can run guild wars in Tram if desired, Factioning in Tram isn't a necessity before you can experience PvP in Tram.

Wenchy

 

[Tjalle]

My suggesting would be that either let factions fight in trammel or make it so faction artifacts cannot be equipped in tram.

This.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

The Argument Against Faction Artifacts Being Felucca-Only

Before it becomes conventional wisdom that Faction Artifacts should be made Felucca-only, I thought I'd remind everyone that, yes, there is a case against this.

The idea of Faction Artifacts, as near as I can figure was to offer a reward for participation in Factions that was external to Factions.

By this I mean a reward for participation in Factions that applied to other aspects of the game.

I can only assume that those who wish to make Faction Artifacts Felucca-only disagree with this aim, and feel that Faction rewards should be returned to only being for Factions....For the aspect of the game from which they were intended.

Here's a few quick arguments against this.

1. This would actually, by definition fail at making Faction rewards exclusive to Factions, because more things go on in Felucca than Factions. If this were really about participation in Factions, you who support this would be as concerned with the issue of Fellies who don't participate in Factions but use point-farming to get high-end artifacts for non-Faction activities in Felucca.

2. To the extent that it would make Faction rewards internal to Factions....Do you also want Doom Artifacts to fall off in Felucca? What about those Replicas that can only be obtained from the Trammel-rules only spawns? What about that Robe that can only be obtained from the Harrower? In other words, can anyone think of any aspects of the game where the rewards obtained from a system are only internal to that system?

If people were already interested enough in Factions that rewards only internal to Factions would interest them, then these rewards wouldn't have been necessary, because people would have participated in Factions just for the fun of it and no incentives would have been necessary.

And for the record....Yes, I am in Factions. No I do not own a single Faction Artifact. While I can't guarantee I won't ever use one or two, I wouldn't consider it likely. I don't use any Replicas either, and don't think I ever will. Same for Imbued items. (You can probably see a pattern emerging here.)

-Galen's player

 

[Scratch]

faction arties are only one of many rewards they get for joining.
lets not forget the mounts that you can rez without any vet skill
or the potions that are far beyond anything available to any other player
or the fact that the faction arties are way beefed up

link said factions is 100% pvp which is false.... you cannot pvp anywhere but fel in factions so why let them in tram anyway since they offer great rewards without the consequence of having to fight for them. they raise the requirements for ranking level 10 and most trammy factioneers never go to fel.

faction gear should be restricted to fel only use unless they are going to permit faction battle in all facets. trammies now get their cake and can eat it too.

personally id make factions for reds only, you want the added boonuses from joining factions then you have to be willing to play red, which would keep the faction arties and other stuff out of tram and would require that you play red and suffer stat loss in order to gain the above mentioned bonuses.

two requirements for the player (play reds and stat loss)
several bonuses for the player (pets, pots, buffed arties, and social status for the player, not to mention the ease of getting the buffed arties)

imho, factions is for the weak that cant pvp with all the OoOOooBer armor available out there now made with thousands of duped hammers, so they need the extra advantage.
its not like anyone really gives two ****z about town control

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

personally id make factions for reds only, you want the added boonuses from joining factions then you have to be willing to play red, which would keep the faction arties and other stuff out of tram and would require that you play red and suffer stat loss in order to gain the above mentioned bonuses.

Thank you for the post, especially for the above excerpt, which shows what this argument is really about.

*chuckles*

-Galen's player

 

[Tina Small]

If this were really about participation in Factions, you who support this would be as concerned with the issue of Fellies who don't participate in Factions but use point-farming to get high-end artifacts for non-Faction activities in Felucca.

Uh....why do you assume that some of us aren't concerned about this issue too, Galen?

2. To the extent that it would make Faction rewards internal to Factions....Do you also want Doom Artifacts to fall off in Felucca? What about those Replicas that can only be obtained from the Trammel-rules only spawns? What about that Robe that can only be obtained from the Harrower? In other words, can anyone think of any aspects of the game where the rewards obtained from a system are only internal to that system?

Did you actually mean to say Doom artifacts should fall off when you're not in Doom and replicas from Tram champ spawns should fall off when you leave those areas?

If people were already interested enough in Factions that rewards only internal to Factions would interest them, then these rewards wouldn't have been necessary, because people would have participated in Factions just for the fun of it and no incentives would have been necessary.

Pretty much what my position's been all along, Galen. Get rid of the faction arties and make factions more interesting and fun in its own right to more people.

And for the record....Yes, I am in Factions. No I do not own a single Faction Artifact. While I can't guarantee I won't ever use one or two, I wouldn't consider it likely. I don't use any Replicas either, and don't think I ever will. Same for Imbued items. (You can probably see a pattern emerging here.)

I started using a faction arty last week on one of my faction characters. She's the only one out of my 14 characters that are in factions that uses an arty. I've been against them from the very first time I heard about them and expressed my opinion accordingly, but I doubt anyone who could have taken it into consideration at that point was paying any attention.

I own one replica...a ring that a guildmate gave me last week on Lake Austin. It's sitting in my bankbox. And imbuing doesn't interest me in the least. Would rather use gear that can be repaired.

 

[Ailish]

Thank you for the post, especially for the above excerpt, which shows what this argument is really about.

*chuckles*

-Galen's player

Actually, for MOST of us, the arguement is about getting the benifits without any risk. At least the PvPers who join factions just for arties still can be killed, redistributing their points, and they are taking on the full risk (no guard zones, stat loss, point loss). Because of this, they do not have as large an impact on the system that is based on faction-points-total for rank.

And rank DOES have impact over just what arties you can wear.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Thank you for the post, especially for the above excerpt, which shows what this argument is really about.

*chuckles*

-Galen's player

Galen I already presented to you the problem with your argument of "participation". From as far as I can tell (this is an assumption based on what you have said so you can correct me if I am wrong about it) your opinionated form of participation can not take place all day every day, the system does not allow for this, in fact prior to the shadow event the system did not even allow you to do it for days at a time.

There is no other system in the game that is exclusive to fel or tram, "Champion spawns" is an entire system, you can not break it up into each individual champion. That being said every champ drops replicas so it is exclusive to the champion system as there is no other way to get these.

But to counter this argument of keeping faction items in fel only I will point out that they were introduced to try and increase activity in Factions, In Fel. The argument that this is not the case would be like saying keeping power scrolls in Fel is not to keep activity in Fel.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Uh....why do you assume that some of us aren't concerned about this issue too, Galen?

Because I'm the only one I've ever actually seen addressing it, and I ain't no Fellie. Indeed, when I raise this issue, I'm typically dismissed by Fellies. On the Factions Board I was told something like "those people at least fight," which (if they meant Faction fighting, which I think they did) is not accurate. The people I was talking about don't do Faction fighting, unless it stumbles upon them and even then.

Did you actually mean to say Doom artifacts should fall off when you're not in Doom and replicas from Tram champ spawns should fall off when you leave those areas?

No, I meant to do as many Felucca players do, which is to lump all Trammel rules Facets together as "Trammel."

Though when I originally wrote that, it did you read as you suggested. I.e., Doom artis for Doom only, ToTs for Tokuno only, etc.

-Galen's player

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Actually, for MOST of us, the arguement is about getting the benifits without any risk. At least the PvPers who join factions just for arties still can be killed, redistributing their points, and they are taking on the full risk (no guard zones, stat loss, point loss). Because of this, they do not have as large an impact on the system that is based on faction-points-total for rank.

And rank DOES have impact over just what arties you can wear.

I exaggerated.

Whether I did so on purpose, or believing what I wrote when I wrote it?

Excellent question.

-Galen's player

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

On the Factions Board I was told something like "those people at least fight," which (if they meant Faction fighting, which I think they did) is not accurate. The people I was talking about don't do Faction fighting, unless it stumbles upon them and even then.

I am still at a loss about this as you have not explained what participation in factions entails.
--

Here is for idea's tho. They could expand on the system to the rest of the fellucia facet, or at least a good portion of it. And add various different objective / things to do / control abilities and other intimate faction details then there would be a greater basis for "participation" and then We can all argue about removing the faction related stuff from tram since no one could complain about it then. Of course we could just remove the faction items but then how many of the current faction pvpers would stay in factions? I do not have a clue to the answer to that question but I assume not many since not many player before hand =\

 

[Tina Small]

What might be the most interesting question of all is whether UO's development team feels like the faction arties accomplished something good for UO. I've looked and cannot find anything that went out to the general public from anyone on the development team that specifically states what they wanted or expected to happen.

One of Jeremy's last FoF announcements from October 3, 2008 says, "The next round of content adds completely new rewards and incentives for Factions." (My emphasis added.)

None of Cal Crowner's letters from last year even mention the faction artifacts.

I think the closest we got to any kind of explanation was in Draconi's letter from April 11, 2008 when he announced the start of the next event arc (Warriors of Destiny). He made the comment that there would be "interesting rewards for participating in the war while in factions." Did he mean only the silver you got from killing invasion mobs and corrupted NPCs while playing on a faction character, or was he also referring to the faction artifacts that were still six months in the future at that point?

Did any of the development team specifically address the faction arties and why they were being introduced in any of last fall's Town Hall meetings? Nothing comes to mind.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

The only place I can think of that there were discussion or any sort of addressing of this was done in the focus group. Wonder if that information is still off limits since the testing and nda is still effectively in place. Will have to find out later heh. (unless someone else knows?)

 

[Tina Small]

The only place I can think of that there were discussion or any sort of addressing of this was done in the focus group. Wonder if that information is still off limits since the testing and nda is still effectively in place. Will have to find out later heh. (unless someone else knows?)

I looked at that information a few minutes ago and assume it is still under the NDA.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Ahh, saves me a slight bit of time then I suppose. Gotta be careful what to post and what not heh.

 

[Flutter]

Pretty sure everything on the internal boards is perminantly NDA material.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Pretty sure everything on the internal boards is perminantly NDA material.

Was not that way in the past tho. Unless you just mean until they disband the Group it is permanently nda, but you could be correct. (this is officially off topic now)

 

[Kaleb]

The Argument Against Faction Artifacts Being Felucca-Only


1. This would actually, by definition fail at making Faction rewards exclusive to Factions, because more things go on in Felucca than Factions. If this were really about participation in Factions, you who support this would be as concerned with the issue of Fellies who don't participate in Factions but use point-farming to get high-end artifacts for non-Faction activities in Felucca.

On pacific most of the PvPers are in a faction or have a spur of thier guild that is a faction guild.

2. To the extent that it would make Faction rewards internal to Factions....Do you also want Doom Artifacts to fall off in Felucca? What about those Replicas that can only be obtained from the Trammel-rules only spawns? What about that Robe that can only be obtained from the Harrower? In other words, can anyone think of any aspects of the game where the rewards obtained from a system are only internal to that system?

You cannot group Faction items with normal items/arties being you have to be in a faction to get said items, Factions are a pvp system and part of the outcry is that people who want to have nothing to do with fel let alone PvP are currently exploiting the system

If people were already interested enough in Factions that rewards only internal to Factions would interest them, then these rewards wouldn't have been necessary, because people would have participated in Factions just for the fun of it and no incentives would have been necessary.

Factions were thriving up until runics came out with the unbalance of blessed runic faction weapons and lack of fixing longtime bugs faction activity fell through the floor, until recently

And for the record....Yes, I am in Factions. No I do not own a single Faction Artifact. While I can't guarantee I won't ever use one or two, I wouldn't consider it likely. I don't use any Replicas either, and don't think I ever will. Same for Imbued items. (You can probably see a pattern emerging here.)

If you do not PvP why be in a faction unless its to exploit the faction system/perks?

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Kaleb, If you read his other posts he does pvp. But other than that I agree with your post, and would still like a reply as to what he thinks "participation" is =\

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

Kaleb, If you read his other posts he does pvp. But other than that I agree with your post, and would still like a reply as to what he thinks "participation" is =\

(Sorry for the long post.)

Oh, I get it now.....I was holding off on answering until I felt I understood the question better.

You mean....Since I'm not counting just being in Felucca as participating in Factions, what DO I count as participating in Factions?

If that's the question, then the answer is thus....

Participating in Factions is the following:

Doing Faction-specific things, such as killing monsters for Silver; participating in sigil runs; actively seeking out oranges to engage in combat with; and raiding strongholds.

I do count fighting monsters for Silver, because this is specifically Faction-related.

I do not count doing champs, or hanging out in a tavern in Felucca, because you're not out looking for Faction fights, just subjecting yourself to it. If I'm doing a champ in The Lost Lands with my guild, I don't really have a reasonable expectation of running into oranges. I mean, unless there's specific conditions on a given shard....Like the big champ spawn guild also happens to be your biggest competitor in Factions, and you're doing spawns with the specific intent of attracting them for a fight. Or let's say you convinced me that the absolute best way to get Silver was to chain the Abyss spawn, because you discovered a high silver yield from the demons on level 4.

I do not count the RP event I referred to earlier, where I was warred to a Minax guild and ended up getting kill points and silver, thus participating in Factions purely by accident of game mechanics. However, if I'd remained perma-warred to that guild....And had a reasonable expectation of running into them and fighting them in Trammel pretty often? Then I think I WOULD count that as participation.

Bank sitting in your Faction Artifacts is definitely NOT participating in Factions.

Faction crafting I'd call borderline, but ultimately I'd count it. If I understand Faction crafting right, you have to be in a Faction City? So you're not only being subject to attack, but you're doing a Faction-specific activity to boot.

I 100% admit this is not a perfectly worked out, rational system. Rather it's an intentionally fuzzy one, based on intent and orientation, both of which are hard to determine.

Also....In case it wasn't clear, I was presenting a case for leaving the Faction Artifacts useful in Trammel. I wasn't supporting that case, I just felt it was very important that people know there WAS an argument for it.

Sometimes, people "win" arguments just because it doesn't seem like there's a counter-argument, which of course there almost always is, it's just that decision-makers don't always hear it. And that's a damn shame.

My own thoughts on Faction Artifacts are a little "blah" and neutral. I think they were a great idea. I think there needed to be a reward for Faction participation that wasn't only internal to Factions, but also impacted other aspects of the game.

But I feel they should have been new items, rather than enhanced versions of items that were already pretty damn good to start with.

Maybe some stuff like this:

Nosfentor's Scepter
Scepter
Spell Channeling
SSI 30
Hit Physical Area 75%
DI 55
SDI 10
UBWS
(oriented towards use in raids, area effect + area effect spells)

Dupre's Pride
(Sorry for the inadvertent sexual connotation there.)
Broadsword or Longsword (I forget which one has the better PvP specials)
SSI 50
DI 50
HCI 25
DCI 10
Hit Mana Leach 80
When wielded by the Commanding Lord of the TB Faction against a Faction foe, an additional ability:
Hit Word of Death 20%
​

I don't use the Faction Artifacts myself, or at least I haven't yet!, because I very, very much like the idea of having a "forever" suit.

But Faction Artifacts as presently constituted basically offer the advantages of existing artifacts, while removing the disadvantages. The disadvantages of those artifacts are extremely important to them.

Having said that? All these artifacts really do is make it easier to reach caps, and there's other, better and more permanent, ways to achieve that.

I'm not inherently sympathetic, however, to rewards available in a given Facet that are specific to that Facet. And I don't think disallowing Faction Artifacts outside in Felucca fixes very much other than those folks who don't like the idea of grubby, Trammie hands touching anything that has to do with Factions. And, yes, I do think that's what this is really about for a lot of people.

And I still think the underlying issue is point farming. I think ultimately the solution is to limit (not do away with, but limit) honoring leadership. Distributing points through honoring leadership serves important functions, but it's very quickly reached heights I am ashamed to admit I didn't even come close to anticipating.

As to whether or not I PvP? I'm content to let others answer that, as definitions of PvP differ widely....And tend to change a lot.

*chuckles*

Sorry for the long post.

-Galen's player

 

[Kaleb]

Um pretty long read.

but about champs, If your in a faction period and in fel and up for attack anywhere by rival faction members you are involved in faction activities. if you only hang out in tram ruleset areas and pvm and are in a faction your not in involved in faction activities.

So say your faction guild is doing a spawn and a rival faction shows up (very likely on pac) that to me is factioning. Now if a red guild comes in and attacks the faction members well its fel it happens no matter if your in a faction or not, but just the fact that people are in fel and in factions are indeed doing faction activities. your not going to stop the reds/blues non faction from attacking red/blue faction members thats always going to be the case in fel, Its been like that since the start of factions but again as long as your in a faction and doing activity's in fel you are factioning. Faction members shouldnt be penalized like say staying in fel they are not murderers (unless they are red and in a faction Duh), they dont deserve to missout on 90% of the content brought into the game for just being in a faction thats why allowing factions to fight anywhere is the best idea. That in its self is saying I consent to PvP where tram is consent only correct?

 

[Tina Small]

Faction crafting I'd call borderline, but ultimately I'd count it. If I understand Faction crafting right, you have to be in a Faction City? So you're not only being subject to attack, but you're doing a Faction-specific activity to boot.

I think faction crafting definitely qualifies as a faction-related activity because of the strict conditions attached to it:

(1) The crafter must belong to a faction.
(2) The crafting must occur in the appropriate type of NPC vendor shop in a town that is currently controlled by the crafter's faction.
(3) The crafter must be carrying and use up silver to make the faction items.
(4) When the crafter creates the item, he/she must select which of his or her faction's two colors will be used to hue the item.
(5) For three weeks, the crafted item can only be used by and is blessed for any member of the crafter's faction.

At this point, I think faction crafting doesn't happen much because the faction blessing and huing only last for three weeks. Theoretically, you could use runic tools to make stuff and faction bless/hue it, but unless you're sitting on tons of runic tools that you're willing to burn up just to get one usable item and have lots of insurance gold and room in your backpack to insure the good stuff that you don't want to faction bless as you craft it (you are pretty much a sitting duck if someone finds you), I just don't think many people will ever use it beyond maybe making specific types of faction blessed/hued clothing (e.g., footwear).

The silver costs and things you can create and faction bless/hue are as follows:

Armor (metal types): 1,000 silver
Armor (leather types): 750 silver
Weapons (melee): 1,000 silver
Weapons (archery types): 1,000 silver
Clothes: 200 silver (This is stuff made from cloth such as hats, cloaks, robes, footwear, pants, skirts, etc.)
Scrolls: 500

(Faction scrolls info quoted from the Stratics pages on factions, since I have no experience making/using or even seeing these: "Faction Scrolls: These are Faction Imbued scrolls of heal, greater heal, harm, fireball, and lightning. These scrolls may be used by a player of at least 90 inscribing skill upon a faction-crafted gnarled staff, in order to charge the staff with a number of charges of that spell. The number of charges is equal to 40 divided by the circle of that spell (rounded down). Example: A lightning scroll would provide the staff with 10 charges of lightning, a fireball scroll would provide 13 charges of fireball, and so forth. Staffs (staves) cannot be recharged. A new staff must be created in order to accept a new enchantment.")

Faction colors are as shown below. If the crafter has enough silver in his/her backpack when the item is created, a gump pops up asking if the item should be faction hued and if yes, which color to use. You don't get a chance later to add the blessing and hue...can only be done when the item is created.

CoM: Blue-white and Blue
Minax: Blood Red and Black
SL: Black and Green
TB: Purple and Gold

 

[Tina Small]

Galen, I think participating in other stuff in Fel on a faction character, while not strictly a faction-related activity, has such definite drawbacks to it that faction characters shouldn't be penalized by not being able to use the artifacts at that time.

If you're doing a champ spawn on a faction character and you're killed by an enemy faction character, you still suffer 20 minutes of skill loss. And if you were the victor, you potentially earn kill points and silver.

As you know, it's often the case that a faction doesn't bother with guarding sigils unless it can hold a significant number of them (unless they're extremely interested in one specific town for a particular reason, e.g., TB wants Brit because they don't want enemy guards posted in front of their stronghold). So, it used to be and I think still is pretty common that you guard all the sigils, corrupt them, put them back in town and then you are free to do other stuff until the sigils are purified again.

When purification used to take 72 hours and you were able to corrupt 8 sigils at a time on a consistent basis, this left you with THREE DAYS of not a lot of other things you could do that might be considered strictly faction business...unless you call killing your enemies wherever you find them faction business. (Other stuff you could do but I doubt it would fill up 72 hours: Farm for silver. Craft stuff. Vote in an election. Put up or take down vendors. Place traps in a town you control and hope an enemy blunders over them.) And I think in a certain sense, hunting down your enemies in that 72 hours (or now just six hours) should count as faction business because potentially you could be demoralizing them into leaving factions, or better yet, you're stoking their anger so they come after you and the sigils the next time with a vengeance, or maybe even better still, they'll decide to enter into an informal alliance with you to go after another faction. In other words, those 72 hours can be useful for faction politicking. Killing an enemy where you find them can also be useful for running up your own personal rank so you can do things like run for office as the CL of your faction and be able to appoint sheriffs and finance ministers and set the tithing rate. (Uh...more faction politics, I believe.)

Will purification ever take 72 hours again? I don't know. If it doesn't, then perhaps that puts even more importance on the purification periods for engaging in "faction politicking"?

 

[Black Majick]

Make it too wear faction artifacts cannot be equiped in a non PvP facet an problem solved....

 

[Tina Small]

I'm kind of wondering how the folks who are in factions on Siege feel about the faction artifacts and the possible need to impose restrictions beyond just belonging to a faction on being able to wear them. Are they having problems with folks who wear the artifacts using them primarily for PvM purposes and doing little or nothing with regards to fighting over faction towns?

And what about Mugen that has Fel-type rules on all facets, including Trammel, Ilshenar, Malas, and Tokuno? Does anyone who frequents this forum belong to factions on Mugen?

 

[Malek234]

(4) The faction arties lose durability and can only be repaired through the use of Powder of Perseverance. This item (like several other faction "aids") is also purchased in the faction base, but could be purchased by anyone in the faction and given to other factioneers. I think some may even be selling it and the other faction aids, as well as silver, on player vendors.

This must be broken now to because all u need is a faction crafter and u can repair all faction items with out loss to durability i do not know if this goes against the total repairs a faction item can get which is suppose to be capped at 5 times. I have only used my crafter to repair my stuff 3 times [i wait for it to get low first] So if anyone else knows about this maybe they can tell me if its capped at 5 for a crafter to repair it or not

 

[Tina Small]

(4) The faction arties lose durability and can only be repaired through the use of Powder of Perseverance. This item (like several other faction "aids") is also purchased in the faction base, but could be purchased by anyone in the faction and given to other factioneers. I think some may even be selling it and the other faction aids, as well as silver, on player vendors.

This must be broken now to because all u need is a faction crafter and u can repair all faction items with out loss to durability i do not know if this goes against the total repairs a faction item can get which is suppose to be capped at 5 times. I have only used my crafter to repair my stuff 3 times [i wait for it to get low first] So if anyone else knows about this maybe they can tell me if its capped at 5 for a crafter to repair it or not

Good catch. I was under the impression that the items could only be repaired through use of the Powder of Perseverance. Since I've only had an arty for about a week now, I hadn't tested it. Just did now. Seems that you can use repair deeds made by nonfaction crafters to repair the items and that the repairs work as you would expect (either the repair works with no durability loss, works with durability loss, or fails with durability loss).

It looks like the Powder of Perseverance is used like Powder of Fortification to restore or reset durability, but each container of Powder only has 1 charge and restores durability up to a certain level depending on how many times Powder of Perseverance has already been used on the item.

The publish notes (http://www.uoherald.com/news/news.php?newsid=448) that describe Powder of Perseverance say this about it: "On use, player can target an equippable faction reward to restore/reset durability on it. The recharge is 1 charge only. Each time the player uses a recharge on the item, the total durability will decrease (new item 255/255, 1st time 225/225, 2nd time 200/200, etc.). Equippables can be recharged a maximum of 5 times. "

I take this to mean that you can bring the durability back to these levels with each use of the Powder:

1st use: Restores to 255 durability.
2nd use: Restores to 225 durability.
3rd use: Restores to 200 durability.
4th use: Restores to 175 durability.
3rd use: Restores to 150 durability.

I honestly don't know if it's a bug that you can use a crafter or repair deeds to repair these items. I was under the impression you can only use the Powder of Perseverance on them but that doesn't seem to actually be the case.

 

[GalenKnighthawke]

I honestly don't know if it's a bug that you can use a crafter or repair deeds to repair these items. I was under the impression you can only use the Powder of Perseverance on them but that doesn't seem to actually be the case.

My impression was the same as yours.

Disturbing that we were wrong....I considered this to be one of the most important, balancing disadvantages of the Faction Artifacts.

Didn't you have to own cities to get the Powder too? I thought the message was.... "We are giving you these new uber items. But, not only will they eventually wear out, but if you don't own cities and acquire this Powder, you will also not even be able to repair them. So get out there and fight fir the cities, damn it!!!"

In fact, everything I have said both positive and negative about Faction Artifacts (my reservations about using them, my not thinking their being used in Trammel is a big deal, etc.), assumed that they required Powder to repair; that one had to own cities to have the Powder; that Faction Artifacts would eventually wear out and there was no way around it.

-Galen's player

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

(Sorry for the long post.)Participating in Factions is the following:

Doing Faction-specific things, such as killing monsters for Silver; participating in sigil runs; actively seeking out oranges to engage in combat with; and raiding strongholds.

I do count fighting monsters for Silver, because this is specifically Faction-related.

I do not count doing champs, or hanging out in a tavern in Felucca, because you're not out looking for Faction fights, just subjecting yourself to it. If I'm doing a champ in The Lost Lands with my guild, I don't really have a reasonable expectation of running into oranges. I mean, unless there's specific conditions on a given shard....Like the big champ spawn guild also happens to be your biggest competitor in Factions, and you're doing spawns with the specific intent of attracting them for a fight. Or let's say you convinced me that the absolute best way to get Silver was to chain the Abyss spawn, because you discovered a high silver yield from the demons on level 4.

Or the Vermin spawn (much faster). But actually I do do champs to provoke the opposing faction guild, As I said I guess it depends where you play as it has been painfully obvious that our conditions are not the same. The fastest way I know of to start a fight is to simply go to despise and do the spawn till people show up. I am generally not interested in power scrolls, I do not sell them and I mostly have no use for them template wise. This was the basis for my argument about doing champs is participating.

I honestly don't care if people in tram use the artifacts or not, but I do back up the claims of others to fix what is inherently the problem, yes it is point farming BUT if there was not so many people that only play in tram "competing" with the fel point farmers I promise you the point amounts would half at least, this is a considerable drop when considering it would more than half the amount needed to get rank 10 (the math is a bit fuzzy but meh). Hell I can even be honest in saying I had to many points at one time and gave them to my peace tamer who's highest resist is like 40? I mean I do go to fel with him to get silver...but I would not say he was a factioneer or pvper at all lol, just no other char needed the points. The faction system is broken, and I have voiced a few things that would better fix it. I also agree with most of the idea's that have been given. I also point out that they all have extreme holes in their concept but at least people are thinking of ways to fix them.

 

[Cloak&Dagger]

Tina and Galen. Faction items can be repaired by anyone, and I am sure you could even use repair deeds to repair them (someone correct me if I am wrong on that?) But when the item gets low dura, say 25/25 you can use the Powder of Perseverance to restore the MAX dura of the item, so it would go back up to 255/255 except you inquire a loss and can only do this 5 times, I am fairly sure that is by design as I remember it was not to limit the repairing ability but to limit the use of Powder of Fortification on the faction artifacts, once you use the powder 5 times the item will "eventually" break, I have repaired my faction items maybe....twice since they came out? And have not used the Faction powder on them at all since there is no need yet (still at 253/253) so they do in fact last for a considerable amount of time.


Edit: oh yea almost forgot you can get the powder at anytime just like the other faction items, they are available at your base for silver (100 silver I think).

 

[slayer888]

I think that faction kill points should be wiped.

Faction rank requirement for wearing faction artifacts should also be wiped as well.

Right now, it is not the pvpers that are benefiting from the faction artifacts.

It is in fact the pvmers that steal sigils, exploit points system to wear the faction equipment.

Therefore, in my opinion, we should just open this faction equipment for everyone to use and have no restriction at all.

Let everyone have it then it will become fair ground.

A non pvper doesnt want to pvp, even you put what kind of rules, he also will not be pvping.

Therefore, putting whatever kind of restriction will also not force him to pvp.

It just make us pvpers worse as rank requirement points = climb up steadily overtime.

Because say today = 25 pts to rank 10

2 days later = 26 pts to rank 10

Because the situation is, once people know that 25 pts cannot be rank 10, they will find ways to look for 26 pts.

Moreover, adjusting armors arent very easy task.

I have 20+ pvp chars. About 10 chars needed to wear rank 10 equipment. So I don't play UO 10 hours per day.

In fact, I only got 2 hours to play and really have a hard ways to earn golds for uber artifacts or armors.

The faction armors and items did help me have more mood to get involved more into pvp system. Because I dont need to spend 10000 yrs to get my armor compete with the scriptors or xshard traders.

So if faction equipment are still to require rank to wear, it will just make ppl exploit the system to reach the level. It will be endless.

Then it will just drive REAL pvpers out. Because next day they log on = see their armor drop off from their bodies with nothing near to replace.


Please consider this issue and remove the rank requirement for faction equipments. Let it fair ground to everyone.

 

[CatLord]

Good reading... two points of view.

People make the most of what they have...
Pvpers hate to lose control...

* goes back to ToT hunting *

 

[wrekognize]

As was stated in another thread, force the Factions people to stay in Felluca were they belong. As in protecting a Ghost Town because Faction Players want it to be a Convenience.

The idea is to get people to join factions. I like playing in fel and trammel. this would just cause me to quit.