Factions...

[kelmo]

What do you folks want to see? I know very well not all Siege folk are going to be in factions. I also know very well factions effects no other shard (I can not/will not speak for Mugen).

i am seriously upsetting some folks I think. I am being good and not using personal attacks and trying really hard not to troll... really hard. Really really hard.... *bites tongue*

I am doing some time line research on Siege, factions, population etc. I have a lot of work to do.

My premise is that factions artifacts (2008) destroyed Siege. It was a bugged system. It took over 3 years to get attention.

It took over a year for non faction folks to even compete here... maybe longer as imbuing took awhile to learn. (SA 2009)

During that time PKers ran rampant and PvP had a moment.

Faction Pub 56... (yeah 2008) Created the hide/stealth mode.

Pub 56 created a super character that no other could compete with. If you were not in factions... you were dead and usually dry looted back then. So the non faction folk went away or adapted. Those that adapted carried carried little or went underground.

Why not? We had soulstones too! (note if we could go way back... I hated the idea of soulstones on Siege too. That was a different time...)

Factions is everywhere here. There is no hiding. It is everything many of those "other shard" faction folks ask for. Yet they really do not want... It takes a special player to leave trammel... forever.

 

[Symma]

I'd be happy seeing just the simple chaos and order system back.

But I don't see them spending anytime or money on that project.

 

[Wolfman]

Just lose it completely on Siege.
All necessary PvP options can be used through guildwarsystem.
Besides that, factions just gives an unfair advantage.....why can they take and use non faction armor (and make it unusable for the original char by dying it evil/good) but not vica versa to just name one.....do not get me started on the monster ignore.

 

[FrejaSP]

I would be so happy to see factions gone from Siege.
I do understand we would need something else to let people choose to PvP without risk for getting murder counts.
Maybe something like the old Ordre/Chaos system and Evil/Hero but not with a shield as the item to turn it on and off.
I'm not sure how long it should take to turn it on and off. You should not be able to just turn it on and attack or just turn it off to be safe
It could be an options in the context menu to make you Hero or Evil with tag. It will flag you to the enemies. Evil should flag red to everyone. Hero should flag orange to Evil and green to other Heroes.
Evils can attack both Evils and Heroes for free but Heroes can only attack Evil for free.
Now the revards for joining it and to make more want to PvP.
I think Heroes should gain the 2 x resource and Fame they have on normal shards Felucca, that will give peaceful players a reason to take the extra risk.
I'm not sure with the Evils, they already get one revard vs murderers, they get no murder counts from killing Evil/Heroes. They also get an options to flag them self red without not being able to deal with npc vendors.

 

[Raptor85]

soooo....the order/chaos system then? (I mean..you pretty much described how it was before they turned it off, could declare yourself or guild to it, didn't require holding shield). No complication necessary, all it does is allow declaration of loyalty to one side of the fight or the other.....without the artifact vending machine + afk silver grinding nonsense.

 

[Heavenless]

soooo....the order/chaos system then? (I mean..you pretty much described how it was before they turned it off, could declare yourself or guild to it, didn't require holding shield). No complication necessary, all it does is allow declaration of loyalty to one side of the fight or the other.....without the artifact vending machine + afk silver grinding nonsense.

How about the devs force everyone to join factions and while they're at it turn off the guard zones, have random spawns of fire ants everywhere and a magic fountain that spews silver for all the afk slackers.

 

[Wolfman]

How about the devs force everyone to join factions and while they're at it turn off the guard zones, have random spawns of fire ants everywhere and a magic fountain that spews silver for all the afk slackers.

I hope this was ironic!!!

Uo never was about one playstyle! But factions give unfair advantages to those who join, compared to others who are willing to fight but are in a guild that does not participate in faction wars (because the majority is PvE interested perhaps).
So it is an unfair system that needs to be taken out.
The old system Freya and Raptor talk about make much more sence for Siege.
I am not sure, but is it realy necessary? Can't you just use the war/guildsystem like accept all war invitations, and if you want to join the wars, just form a guild of your own and jump in of join a guild that has already lots of wars going on..... (but I have not messed with the guild-war system enough to know if it would suffice)

 

[Baby Doll]

How about the devs force everyone to join factions and while they're at it turn off the guard zones, have random spawns of fire ants everywhere and a magic fountain that spews silver for all the afk slackers.

Ok I just just find Heavenless's statement cutely funny. Seriously though talk all ya want, as this is a thread for that. However factions and the faction gear here to stay. UO/EA is not going to remove them. Talk about the old days all ya want, but they to are gone, merely fond memories. Look towards the future and tweak /fix currents problems with new solutions. The new reforgeing abilities and upgraded loot from Shame and Wrong close the gap between faction gear and non faction gear. I want factions ! >>>>Baby Doll, I4NI (COM)

 

[Sprago]

I hope this was ironic!!!

Uo never was about one playstyle! But factions give unfair advantages to those who join, compared to others who are willing to fight but are in a guild that does not participate in faction wars (because the majority is PvE interested perhaps).
So it is an unfair system that needs to be taken out.
The old system Freya and Raptor talk about make much more sence for Siege.
I am not sure, but is it realy necessary? Can't you just use the war/guildsystem like accept all war invitations, and if you want to join the wars, just form a guild of your own and jump in of join a guild that has already lots of wars going on..... (but I have not messed with the guild-war system enough to know if it would suffice)

if factions are so much of advantage why isnt everyone in it

also in faction they made arties the high end ones really hard to obtain do to the lack of people in factions so honestly there isnt that many arties being used nowadays

now that ive said that we should set up a doom night i need to obtain an onry

 

[Shh!]

if factions are so much of advantage why isnt everyone in it

I'll answer this: risk. Factions certainly aren't perfect and do need a revamp, but doing away with them without a replacement isn't the right thing to do. We've had some serious fun the past few weeks with sigils. I think it all comes down to certain people/guilds not wanting to be freely attackable and not liking the advantage given to those that choose the extra risk.

 

[Bo Bo]

Bo is a killer and is currently in factions. Bo hasnt worn a piece of faction gear since the dungeon revamp. So all those people complainin about factions because they think the gear is over powered just doesnt understand how to make good gear nowadays. Or you dont know how to pvp, which is mostly likely the case.
To get back to the OP, Bo believes that Kelmo is wrong in his assumption that "factions artifacts (2008) destroyed Siege". The fact that the faction gear and the good gear at the time wasnt readily available when someone died that is what killed Siege. Simple facts people dont like losing the gear they worked hard to get. And here comes the big bad word all Siege players hate but if INSURANCE was here people would have stayed. It would make dieing to someone with faction gear, a gimp stealth tamer, a crummy stealth bok boker, a gank, or any other flavor of the month a lot less painful.

 

[Wolfman]

Who started to complain about the strength of arties?
I was talking about the ability to wear "my" non fation gear when they loot me, but me not being able to wear their stuff if I loot them. Second the ability to ruin "my" equipment with that stupid hero-evil dye option.
Third, why can't I teleport on siege out of a battle with a single dblclick, oh right you need a faction rune for that.
Fourth, monster ignore: Why was that established? Right, so that PvP can go on everywhere that the monsters do not bother the participants---->Siege complete bogus since the faction PKs just kill you while Irk keeps attacking you and ignores the PK.
Fifth, a second blessed item? Oh that would be cool, since I could wear my mace and shield glasses in addition to my weapon.... oh no wait that is just a faction option.....Siege has one blessed item and that is the way it is supposed to be...factions gives (again) an unfair advantage.
Get rid of all those things and faction can stay as it is.

 

[Raptor85]

My complaint on faction artys is more of a price/power ratio, they are easily some of the strongest items in the game, no mistake, even compared to much of the shame stuff (though there is a CHANCE if you grind long enough to find better pieces). Non faction I'd spend a small fortune purchasing parts of a suit to match a faction suit that I can make quite easily with a pair of EV's and about 30 minutes. Remember I joined siege pretty much right when faction artifacts were added, so I've quite clearly seen pvp then to pvp now......nobody want's to fight faction vs non-faction now (unless they're a stealth tamer) because the non-faction people quite rightly do NOT want to have to wear millions of gold in items, or hard won shame/wrong items that can take days/weeks to farm ones to build a suit on to match something those of us in factions can toss together in 10 minutes.

For anyone who does not believe faction artifacts are a huge advantage on siege, I fall back to my old test. You buy me a "real" version of all the artifacts to make the equivilant of a faction suit (or items with identical stats) and I'll buy you the "faction" version of it, is it a fair trade? I'm sorry but as annoying as 20 minutes of stat loss is the "upside" of saving a few million gold per suit on siege is insanely overpowered.

I have no idea how many faction HOTL's, stormgrips, fey leggings, and whatever that stupid deer mask with +20 archery is called, I lost in both pvm and pvp....I didn't really care, they were easy to replace. And yes I used them with full knowledge that they gave me a HUGE advantage in cost of armor over non-faction people (that's actually kinda why I used them....).

I would much rather see more pvp in general than fewer people in total pvping but all of them in factions, everyone else in stealth all the time, because that's what the faction arty system did...it turned pvp into a "factions thing" and turned away most who didn't want to join...because...you know....people have their guilds and all and most aren't willing to drop them and be attackable in town for cheaper armor..they'd rather just ignore pvp or any soft of attempt at even defending themselves and stealth around. (this isn't even a siege problem too, faction artys did this to every shard, it's just more apparent here since we have the full loot, while ML essentially cleared everyone out of fel in general on all other shards, the faction artys was basicly twisting the knife for any non-faction pvp guilds left)

 

[Bo Bo]

wait did y'all miss where Bo doesnt wear any faction gear! And still manages to kill anyone and everyone on this shard! If you believe you need faction gear to compete than you suck! If you think Bo is lying load up on all the faction gear you can and challenge the Bo to a duel (no pets) and prove it.
As far as the wolfman you stated alot of crap that Bo never uses. The reason bo doesnt use that stuff is because when you kill our own faction you lose the points to use that ****, and bo kills everyone. Maybe the spawn is attacking you cause you are the first one running thru it aka the pk is chasing you and you run like a pancake!
Bo will go faction-less and still kill everyone with the current gear available without an issue. Again learn how to pvp and grab a good template and stop complainin

 

[Raptor85]

wait did y'all miss where Bo doesnt wear any faction gear! And still manages to kill anyone and everyone on this shard! If you believe you need faction gear to compete than you suck! If you think Bo is lying load up on all the faction gear you can and challenge the Bo to a duel (no pets) and prove it.
As far as the wolfman you stated alot of crap that Bo never uses. The reason bo doesnt use that stuff is because when you kill our own faction you lose the points to use that ****, and bo kills everyone. Maybe the spawn is attacking you cause you are the first one running thru it aka the pk is chasing you and you run like a pancake!
Bo will go faction-less and still kill everyone with the current gear available without an issue. Again learn how to pvp and grab a good template and stop complainin

I believe I missed the part where Bo killed me when I used to play on my faction PK, I remember Bo attacking me but not being able to do enough damage to be effective with his silly sword that keeps breaking pieces off (not sure why you'd fight with a sword that's falling apart) and Bo chain casting blood oath on me over and over until I deemed not worth fighting Bo as i'd only keep hurting myself with all the blood oath.

It's wonderful though that Bo doens't use the extra advantages available to him, when shard of the dead was up I didn't use the glass swords either....but that doesn't mean they weren't brokenly overpowered.

Perhaps one day when heph is a bit better situated skill wise I'll do some pvp on him, I just hit 90 magery yesterday so I only have 2 kills on Gilfane members and some random guy who looked at me funny so far (yeah...I know...nothing to really brag about....but he does only have about 200 total points in combat skill, but pretty much GM in all crafting skill!, so I'm getting there). A arena duel without pets proves nothing though, that's not a "real world" situation as you can load up and have nothing to lose, and purposefully saying "no xxxx" because your template is weak to that when "xxxx" IS commonly used by those who you would normally be fighting does not really work.

 

[FrejaSP]

Who started to complain about the strength of arties?
I was talking about the ability to wear "my" non fation gear when they loot me, but me not being able to wear their stuff if I loot them. Second the ability to ruin "my" equipment with that stupid hero-evil dye option.
Third, why can't I teleport on siege out of a battle with a single dblclick, oh right you need a faction rune for that.
Fourth, monster ignore: Why was that established? Right, so that PvP can go on everywhere that the monsters do not bother the participants---->Siege complete bogus since the faction PKs just kill you while Irk keeps attacking you and ignores the PK.
Fifth, a second blessed item? Oh that would be cool, since I could wear my mace and shield glasses in addition to my weapon.... oh no wait that is just a faction option.....Siege has one blessed item and that is the way it is supposed to be...factions gives (again) an unfair advantage.
Get rid of all those things and faction can stay as it is.

I think you nailed it very well, I can only agree

 

[Wolfman]

wait did y'all miss where Bo doesnt wear any faction gear! And still manages to kill anyone and everyone on this shard! If you believe you need faction gear to compete than you suck! If you think Bo is lying load up on all the faction gear you can and challenge the Bo to a duel (no pets) and prove it.
As far as the wolfman you stated alot of crap that Bo never uses. The reason bo doesnt use that stuff is because when you kill our own faction you lose the points to use that ****, and bo kills everyone. Maybe the spawn is attacking you cause you are the first one running thru it aka the pk is chasing you and you run like a pancake!
Bo will go faction-less and still kill everyone with the current gear available without an issue. Again learn how to pvp and grab a good template and stop complainin

This thread is not about you!
And no need to whine about you, dropped you last time we met and you tried to explain to me how I should play my template.

 

[Heavenless]

My complaint on faction artys is more of a price/power ratio, they are easily some of the strongest items in the game, no mistake, even compared to much of the shame stuff (though there is a CHANCE if you grind long enough to find better pieces). Non faction I'd spend a small fortune purchasing parts of a suit to match a faction suit that I can make quite easily with a pair of EV's and about 30 minutes. Remember I joined siege pretty much right when faction artifacts were added, so I've quite clearly seen pvp then to pvp now......nobody want's to fight faction vs non-faction now (unless they're a stealth tamer) because the non-faction people quite rightly do NOT want to have to wear millions of gold in items, or hard won shame/wrong items that can take days/weeks to farm ones to build a suit on to match something those of us in factions can toss together in 10 minutes.

For anyone who does not believe faction artifacts are a huge advantage on siege, I fall back to my old test. You buy me a "real" version of all the artifacts to make the equivilant of a faction suit (or items with identical stats) and I'll buy you the "faction" version of it, is it a fair trade? I'm sorry but as annoying as 20 minutes of stat loss is the "upside" of saving a few million gold per suit on siege is insanely overpowered.

I have no idea how many faction HOTL's, stormgrips, fey leggings, and whatever that stupid deer mask with +20 archery is called, I lost in both pvm and pvp....I didn't really care, they were easy to replace. And yes I used them with full knowledge that they gave me a HUGE advantage in cost of armor over non-faction people (that's actually kinda why I used them....).

I would much rather see more pvp in general than fewer people in total pvping but all of them in factions, everyone else in stealth all the time, because that's what the faction arty system did...it turned pvp into a "factions thing" and turned away most who didn't want to join...because...you know....people have their guilds and all and most aren't willing to drop them and be attackable in town for cheaper armor..they'd rather just ignore pvp or any soft of attempt at even defending themselves and stealth around. (this isn't even a siege problem too, faction artys did this to every shard, it's just more apparent here since we have the full loot, while ML essentially cleared everyone out of fel in general on all other shards, the faction artys was basicly twisting the knife for any non-faction pvp guilds left)

I hate the focus on items too but what's the likelihood of them reverting to the chaos/order or hero/evil system? I'd have to say you're in for jack and $%*! and jack left siege.

 

[Bo Bo]

Alot of talkers here in this thread, talkin about killing people. If hide behind a different stratics name bo doesnt know who are you. And it seems we have alot of those big talkers.
Now to get back on point, the OP mentions a super character that was created and made it where no others could compete, really who was this super character, Bo is curious. There were and still are plenty of ways to compete, the artis, dyed armor, invoked powers dont make the player. Its the combo of skills and the person ability to play that template. Hoping for the removal of items or change like that is silly, because the devs will never take there precious time to go out of there way for siege. That has been stated many times over.

 

[Ginsu's]

Bo is a killer and is currently in factions. Bo hasnt worn a piece of faction gear since the dungeon revamp. So all those people complainin about factions because they think the gear is over powered just doesnt understand how to make good gear nowadays. Or you dont know how to pvp, which is mostly likely the case.
To get back to the OP, Bo believes that Kelmo is wrong in his assumption that "factions artifacts (2008) destroyed Siege". The fact that the faction gear and the good gear at the time wasnt readily available when someone died that is what killed Siege. Simple facts people dont like losing the gear they worked hard to get. And here comes the big bad word all Siege players hate but if INSURANCE was here people would have stayed. It would make dieing to someone with faction gear, a gimp stealth tamer, a crummy stealth bok boker, a gank, or any other flavor of the month a lot less painful.

I don't PvP.. but yet i killed BO.. with Ginsu.. so factions do matter.

 

[Sprago]

Who started to complain about the strength of arties?
I was talking about the ability to wear "my" non fation gear when they loot me, but me not being able to wear their stuff if I loot them. Second the ability to ruin "my" equipment with that stupid hero-evil dye option.
Third, why can't I teleport on siege out of a battle with a single dblclick, oh right you need a faction rune for that.
Fourth, monster ignore: Why was that established? Right, so that PvP can go on everywhere that the monsters do not bother the participants---->Siege complete bogus since the faction PKs just kill you while Irk keeps attacking you and ignores the PK.
Fifth, a second blessed item? Oh that would be cool, since I could wear my mace and shield glasses in addition to my weapon.... oh no wait that is just a faction option.....Siege has one blessed item and that is the way it is supposed to be...factions gives (again) an unfair advantage.
Get rid of all those things and faction can stay as it is.

You can do all that you complain about if you choose, but sadly even as cool as you make factions sound you still fail to join. So what it basically comes down to is you choose to play the safer road, you choose to not use the above mentions overpowered items, you choose to remain non faction, so in short its your choice and you choose to not be able to use MI, faction arties, and faction dyed items. Plain and simple you could do everything you do and use everyting you complain about BUT YOU CHOOSE NOT TO

its all just a choice and you choose the safer route all of the faction perks are availbe to everyone but some choose not to

 

[Shh!]

You can do all that you complain about if you choose, but sadly even as cool as you make factions sound you still fail to join. So what it basically comes down to is you choose to play the safer road, you choose to not use the above mentions overpowered items, you choose to remain non faction, so in short its your choice and you choose to not be able to use MI, faction arties, and faction dyed items. Plain and simple you could do everything you do and use everyting you complain about BUT YOU CHOOSE NOT TO

its all just a choice and you choose the safer route all of the faction perks are availbe to everyone but some choose not to

^^^^^^ THIS!!! 100 times THIS!!!

Everything that everyone is WHINING about is available to ALL. Just go to the faction stone of your choice and sign up. There are pros and cons. Weigh them, decide if it's worth it and, if it is, sign up. If not, you've made your choice.

 

[Kael]

Sounds like alot of fun ... AFK silver farming so I can get high end faction items for free to use on my tamer so while my pet all kills someone I am able to survive

 

[Righty]

First and foremost, the siege ruleset is unique. All other shards suffer a disadvantage when it comes to game mechanics versus siege mechanics. I will explain my position concerning a few of these mechanics:
a. All gearing options are available to every character, if they choose (factions is a choice and you only will suffer statloss in "felucca" due to neverfixed bug). However, some exceptions do exist. The blade of brutality for example would allow for a diversified template not available to everyone. This is a one of a kind unique item and should not weigh into any sort of gearing discussion, but it was worth mentioning (there are other unique items, as well).

b. Faction artifacts are available only to the character who redeemed such item. This process involves pvm grinding the same as non faction gear, it is merely a different type of grinding. Player kills opposing faction monsters to obtain silver, silver is converted into reward points in a faction base, reward points are used to redeem a specific reward for participating in the system. This system is subject to abuse by afk silver farming which can be sold or transfered to another person before turning in for reward points. However, non faction items are still subject to afk farming. One could afk farm paragons forever because the artifacts appear directly into one's pack. No real difference in my opinion. The sale/transfer of silver is the same concept of the sale/transfer of a heart of the lion (non faction) from a seller to a consumer. The only limitation faction armor sufferes vs a parallel non faction item is that it is character bound.

c. There is only ONE grossly overpowered faction item. That item is the faction crystalline ring. The faction crystalline ring offers the added benefit of FCR3, which allows for single template diversification, notably the ability to add 90 ninjitsu to a mystic mage template in order to circumvent a dismount gank attempt. The only other slightly overpowered faction item imo is the folded steel reading glasses with grant the wearer an extra 10% DCI. ALL OTHER FACTION ARTIFACT BONUSES ARE INSIGNIFICANT. An extra 7 resists on the fey leggings, MR 3 which is subject to dimishing returns on an orny, a few extra resists on the heart of the lion. These small resist bonuses on faction artifacts vs their parallel non faction artis have no merit for clamor on siege. If you'll remember, arms lore on siege got a boost to the resist bonus that prodo shards did not. This boost more than offsets the extra 7 resists that may be found on a faction artifact vs non.

d. The devs heard your cries for better loot. They accomodated with shame and wrong. These dungeons are capable of producing non faction items with the possibility of being more powerful than a faction artifact. The only major difference between the two is that of the rng. Loot drops are randomized and subject to not being exactly what you might want. Faction artifacts are pre-determined and are a reward for participation in the faction system. However, nerfs to shame loot and subsequent "tweaking" have lead to shame loot not being all that great, thus returning the REAL POWER of gearing to the crafters. The real power of getting geared up and properly optimized has always, and will always, resided with the crafter. If you are a crafter and you do not think this way, you are simply crafting incorrectly. Reforging and imbuing has offered previously unobtainable ways to get the mods a person wants. Granted, its a much longer and more expensive process, but you can create a reforged suit that far surpasses the total statistics of anything previously available.

e. The evil/hero system on siege is more of a burden than a benefit. Chiefly, the ability to faction hue an item. I personally do not faction hue anything because I find it rediculous, but there are many who hue their items. The hued items have been a source of constant frustration on siege for as long as the system as been in place. There should be some way to unhue these items other than unraveling them. Secondly, the additional "faction bless" is insignificant in terms of real usefulness. The bless only lasts 30 minutes and requires 60% of one's lifeforce to initiate. Thirdly, monster ignore is a major concern. However, non faction characters have the ability to initiate monster ignore if they so choose. Monster ignore for faction characters is subject to limitations. If broken, monster ignore cannot be reinitiated until the full timer for the original monster ignore has been used. If you are a non faction complaining about monster ignore, I'm here to tell you that it can be easily broken and that it would be in your best interests to educate yourself on how to do so.

There are many more points that I would like to make, but I'm getting tired of typing so I'll wrap it up. All gearing options are available to every player if they so choose. There is only one real overpowered faction item which is rank 9 and most probably wont be using it anymore. REAL POWER in gearing options resides with crafters, learn how to be a crafter. Faction hue sucks and should be discouraged at all times. Monster ignore is available to non-faction characters through a variety of methods. Faction monster ignore is limited and can be negated.

 

[Kael]

"The sale/transfer of silver is the same concept of the sale/transfer of a heart of the lion (non faction) from a seller to a consumer. The only limitation faction armor sufferes vs a parallel non faction item is that it is character bound."

You honestly can't tell me bud that someone afk farming silver then picking and choosing what they want really equals the random luck drop of a hotl on the random para?? People play factions for two reasons...one they are hard core pvpers and like the fights happening anywhere they can encounter them without guard zones and regardless of blue/red. The others are really only in it for cheap artifact vendors and very easy to obtain silver ( farmed present or afk farmed)

I understand and respect true pvpers that just want to fight, the bonus being that the dev's gift wrapped these faction arti's as a way to encourage others into playing factions. To the other players, those that never really got involved in factions until those said pvpers left the shard or the game its kinda like taking advantage of the situation. People on production shards are doing the same...joining factions and staying in trammel only just so they can reap the benefits of these free armor.