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It is official, only 3 factions in new system

JC the Builder

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A question and answer from the HOC tonight.

Phoenix mentioned having his head buried in the factions system. Are you all at a point where you feel like you can discuss what direction you want to take factions and what ideas you might have right now?

Mythic_Phoenix We are working to get a lot of good stuff to a public test center. These include a brand new score and ranking system, leaderboards, and three brand new Faction strongholds. For the score system, we want to move in a direction of having scores measure several areas of player combat performance and comparing them to shard-wide averages, to create a system of relative scores that tells you how you stack up against everyone else.

Mythic_Phoenix The fortress changes create new strongholds that are more balanced and move them all away from town guard zones. Our engineers have also worked up a system to allow us to publish the fortress maps to Test Center without affecting live shards!
Basically they are reworking everything we had already instead of focusing on areas which would actually improve the system. What a waste of effort.
 
S

Sickshine

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I may be misreading what he said, but it looks like they are making 3 new bases away from town. That does not mean necessarily they are removing one of the factions. To me this could mean they are moving com and tb while also changing either sl or minax. I could be wrong just a thought. I think its a little early to start complaining about what they are doing before at least knowing all the plans.
 

JamezC

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"three brand new Faction strongholds" doesn't necessarily mean only 3 factions. Maybe they're basing the new bases of of the most successful factions base. I don't think it would be a good idea to drop a faction. Cant wait to see what they do though.
 
A

A Rev

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It was said a while ago there was thoughts of removing a faction.

This kind of confirms that.

Why is it a waste of time? Ive never understood that approach. Factions is FUBAR! So changing the whole thing would be a much more efficient use of time than having to go through and change the hundreds of bugs/glitches/exploits which are prevelant.

Personally, im looking forward to a shake up.
 

Petra Fyde

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There's another relevant quote further down:
Zephenia <Galen> As a follow up for my own Faction question, and the related one by someone else that was just answered as I type this, does '3 new strongholds' mean there will only be 3 Factions now, or will 1 stronghold remain untouched and the 3 remaining ones all changed?

MythicShade There are going to be 3
factions.
Following on from the recent fiction arc, I would imagine that the faction that will be lost will be Shadowlords, since the shadowlords have been defeated? That's only my guesswork though.

Faction bases out of guardzones can only be good though? It's something that's been asked for repeatedly.
Though I'm not sure why they need to build 3 new ones, Minax is a fairly recently built stronghold that's outside of guardzones. Moved from Lost Lands.
 
A

A Rev

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Im hoping it means there attempting to make base fighting a little bit more interesting!

Im wondering if there even going to be called the same thing. Wouldnt surprise me if they change the names all together
 

Arabella

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A question and answer from the HOC tonight.


Basically they are reworking everything we had already instead of focusing on areas which would actually improve the system. What a waste of effort.
As usual the Dev, don't listen to the people that have played factions for a long time! It is no wonder people quit this game all the time.
 

kelmo

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I will take a wait and see attitude. Factions is so screwed up a do over may be in order.

I hope it gets some extensive testing. I doubt the Siege rule set will get a test pass but I can always hope.
 

Petra Fyde

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Not sure how you reached that conclussion. The only thing we know for sure is that they're moving the faction bases out of guardzones. That's certainly something I've seen players request, many times.
 

kelmo

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I believe moving the bases is a good thing. *nods*
 

JC the Builder

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Opps, I forgot it was split into 2 questions. Thank you for posting the second half Petra.

Why is it a waste of time? Ive never understood that approach. Factions is FUBAR! So changing the whole thing would be a much more efficient use of time than having to go through and change the hundreds of bugs/glitches/exploits which are prevelant.
Factions isn't as messed up and buggy as most people think. There are a couple issues. Most of which are from chances made over the years which never took factions into consideration. For example, faction guards never got elemental resistances when Age of Shadows was released and are still ridiculously easy to kill. It used to take 12 players a minute to kill a single guard. Now you can solo one with a single mage combo.

We already have scoring, ranking, and leaderboards which work. Why they keep dancing around the most basic thing factions needs (incentives) is beyond frustrating. Imagine all that time and work hours which could have been better spent making factions more fun to play.
 

JC the Builder

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Additionally, I have a suspicion that the 3 new faction bases are going to be identical except for some decorations. If they are it is just :sad4:
 

kentuckyjoe

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The biggest problem I have with factions is that since the Faction Artifacts were released, 95% of all people in factions only go to Fel to kill a point mule so they can get enough points to be able to wear the artifacts. The arties are too good not to pass up, but it severely dilutes the system. I think that if they plan on keeping the arties in play, they should fix the scoring system so that only those that actively participate in Fel Faction PvP/sigil stealing can be able to wear the arties.
 

GalenKnighthawke

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Not sure how you reached that conclussion. The only thing we know for sure is that they're moving the faction bases out of guardzones. That's certainly something I've seen players request, many times.
I'm assuming that this post is in reply to this post of Arabella's:

As usual the Dev, don't listen to the people that have played factions for a long time! It is no wonder people quit this game all the time.
If I am right, then for how she reached that conclusion, I think it's important to keep-in-mind all of the Faction-relevant quotes from the HoC, outlined here, in a post of mine in a separate thread on this board.

I think Arabella's conclusion stems in part from the following, I think rather telling, quote from a team member:

For the score system, we want to move in a direction of having scores measure several areas of player combat performance and comparing them to shard-wide averages, to create a system of relative scores that tells you how you stack up against everyone else.
For a long time, Factions was nearly-dead on most shards, but on some it had a moderate to even high level of activity, mostly populated by people who played Factions for Factions' sake, and/or for the sake of the RP purpose behind it: To fight for political control of the Felucca facet. TB wanting to reclaim the "old lands" for Lord British, the SLs wanting to fight for the mysterious Shadowlords and the weird cult that sprung up around them, CoM thinking that Lord British had lost his way but not wanting to let Min. or the SLs have Felucca either, and Min,. wanting to complete the conquest of the facet she had begun years prior.

From a fictional perspective, there was something both beautiful and tragic about having people who still cared about who had political control of Felucca even when "ground level" control had long-belonged to whatever Champ Spawn Guild was dominant at the moment.

The new point system hinted at by the team last night suggests, rather strongly, that the new system is designed not with those long-term Faction players in-mind, but rather with the newer crowd, who is interested less in Factions' fictional purpose than in acquiring kill points and proving that they can "own" other players.

Further, the new system doesn't appear from the brief description we have so far to be terribly thief-friendly. Thieves tend to play Factions for the purpose of Factions, which is winning cities, not to rack up corpses. Letting thieves obtain points from stealing sigils was a great idea and I'd hate to see it go. The sigil thieves are the heart of Factions. You literally cannot "win" Factions on any terms other than raw numbers of dead bodies on the floor without your sigil thieves.

Further, the fact that the strongholds will be moved from guard zones likely means the TB stronghold, if indeed TB would still exist in its present form at all, would be moved. This has its advantages. Even as a "hero blue" before I rejoined Factions recently, I found the guard zone a tad annoying and didn't call guards on people even when I could have. (My repayment for showing this honor, btw, was to be smacked talked to, which I found amusing and pathetic, and which made me rethink my policy.)

However, by definition it also means that TB wouldn't be fighting for Lord British's physical Throne anymore. When you consider the place of that Throne Room in history, the symbolic value it has is difficult to underestimate.

Think about it....What's 0'0 on sextant coordinates. The Throne. And what shape is the throne in? the UO symbol. The throne, literally, said UO.

*shrugs* I have a luxury that many Faction players don't have, and that is that I'm an occasional, casual Faction player at most. I can see some value in what the team's doing. I can see some value in changing the fiction after I have no idea how many years Factions has been around. I could even see some value in scrapping Factions entirely and starting with an entirely new system.

But, I can surely see the point of view of the people who played Factions before Faction Artifacts and before "punkte" replaced fiction as the purpose of Factions. People who truly played Factions for Factions' sake were a rare and interesting, if occasionally frustrating, breed.

At the time Faction Artifacts were proposed I supported them, because I thought that Factions would benefit from having rewards that were external to Factions. I didn't anticipate the point exploits, foolish me, and thus assumed that the Artifacts' being point/rank dependent would by its nature force participation in Factions.

Instead, however, as we all know, major point exploiting occurred. If one guild in a Faction did the point exploits, then all the guilds in the Faction basically had to do it, or none of the honest guilds could wear the Artifacts, and since all of your opponents are wearing them, that's condemning yourself to losing.

The point exploiting thus allowed Felucca guilds to use Faction Artifacts for non-Faction Felucca purposes, such as Champ Spawns, Harrowers, and random Yew Gate fighting. For some reason, this gets "translated" on your message boards, Petra, as "Trammies" who "bank sit" in their Faction Artifacts and "never go to Fel." While this happens, it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as the scenario I described.

I still feel that Faction Artifacts, without the point exploiting, would have been a positive move. But, alas.

At any rate, from the team member's statements, it appears as though the new system is designed to favor the post-Faction Artifacts Felucca crowd, which isn't interested in Factions per se, but rather sees the system as an excuse to fight. Sometimes guilds raiding Faction Strongholds don't even have thieves to steal the sigils they will win if the succeed in the raid. Sometimes, Petra, on your boards they will disparage even the idea of having thieves, stealing sigils, and defending strongholds.

We'll see what they have in mind. As a much more casual Faction Player than most, I have the luxury of waiting to see and taking, or leaving, what comes.

I keep my fingers crossed that, whatever it is, the new system will preserve something from the old.

-Galen's player
 

Flutter

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I'd rather see MORE factions instead of less.
 

Lady Michelle

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*comes out of hiding*
With the talk about wanting factions open to all facets by some of the players, maybe the new faction bases will be built in trammel in the 2ta area.
* quickly goes back into hiding, and stealths away before the explosion pots start flying towards her*

but seriously I do wonder where the new faction bases will be at. 2ta area would not be a bad place no housing there. where do you think the new faction bases will be?
 

Poo

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im interestet to see what they are gonna call them and what the background stories are gonna be.... IF there is even a background story to them.


i fear we are gonna either be Jades army

the garg queen army and some other refugee army
 

Arabella

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I'm assuming that this post is in reply to this post of Arabella's:



If I am right, then for how she reached that conclusion, I think it's important to keep-in-mind all of the Faction-relevant quotes from the HoC, outlined here, in a post of mine in a separate thread on this board.

I think Arabella's conclusion stems in part from the following, I think rather telling, quote from a team member:



For a long time, Factions was nearly-dead on most shards, but on some it had a moderate to even high level of activity, mostly populated by people who played Factions for Factions' sake, and/or for the sake of the RP purpose behind it: To fight for political control of the Felucca facet. TB wanting to reclaim the "old lands" for Lord British, the SLs wanting to fight for the mysterious Shadowlords and the weird cult that sprung up around them, CoM thinking that Lord British had lost his way but not wanting to let Min. or the SLs have Felucca either, and Min,. wanting to complete the conquest of the facet she had begun years prior.

From a fictional perspective, there was something both beautiful and tragic about having people who still cared about who had political control of Felucca even when "ground level" control had long-belonged to whatever Champ Spawn Guild was dominant at the moment.

The new point system hinted at by the team last night suggests, rather strongly, that the new system is designed not with those long-term Faction players in-mind, but rather with the newer crowd, who is interested less in Factions' fictional purpose than in acquiring kill points and proving that they can "own" other players.

Further, the new system doesn't appear from the brief description we have so far to be terribly thief-friendly. Thieves tend to play Factions for the purpose of Factions, which is winning cities, not to rack up corpses. Letting thieves obtain points from stealing sigils was a great idea and I'd hate to see it go. The sigil thieves are the heart of Factions. You literally cannot "win" Factions on any terms other than raw numbers of dead bodies on the floor without your sigil thieves.

Further, the fact that the strongholds will be moved from guard zones likely means the TB stronghold, if indeed TB would still exist in its present form at all, would be moved. This has its advantages. Even as a "hero blue" before I rejoined Factions recently, I found the guard zone a tad annoying and didn't call guards on people even when I could have. (My repayment for showing this honor, btw, was to be smacked talked to, which I found amusing and pathetic, and which made me rethink my policy.)

However, by definition it also means that TB wouldn't be fighting for Lord British's physical Throne anymore. When you consider the place of that Throne Room in history, the symbolic value it has is difficult to underestimate.

Think about it....What's 0'0 on sextant coordinates. The Throne. And what shape is the throne in? the UO symbol. The throne, literally, said UO.

*shrugs* I have a luxury that many Faction players don't have, and that is that I'm an occasional, casual Faction player at most. I can see some value in what the team's doing. I can see some value in changing the fiction after I have no idea how many years Factions has been around. I could even see some value in scrapping Factions entirely and starting with an entirely new system.

But, I can surely see the point of view of the people who played Factions before Faction Artifacts and before "punkte" replaced fiction as the purpose of Factions. People who truly played Factions for Factions' sake were a rare and interesting, if occasionally frustrating, breed.

At the time Faction Artifacts were proposed I supported them, because I thought that Factions would benefit from having rewards that were external to Factions. I didn't anticipate the point exploits, foolish me, and thus assumed that the Artifacts' being point/rank dependent would by its nature force participation in Factions.

Instead, however, as we all know, major point exploiting occurred. If one guild in a Faction did the point exploits, then all the guilds in the Faction basically had to do it, or none of the honest guilds could wear the Artifacts, and since all of your opponents are wearing them, that's condemning yourself to losing.

The point exploiting thus allowed Felucca guilds to use Faction Artifacts for non-Faction Felucca purposes, such as Champ Spawns, Harrowers, and random Yew Gate fighting. For some reason, this gets "translated" on your message boards, Petra, as "Trammies" who "bank sit" in their Faction Artifacts and "never go to Fel." While this happens, it doesn't happen anywhere near as often as the scenario I described.

I still feel that Faction Artifacts, without the point exploiting, would have been a positive move. But, alas.

At any rate, from the team member's statements, it appears as though the new system is designed to favor the post-Faction Artifacts Felucca crowd, which isn't interested in Factions per se, but rather sees the system as an excuse to fight. Sometimes guilds raiding Faction Strongholds don't even have thieves to steal the sigils they will win if the succeed in the raid. Sometimes, Petra, on your boards they will disparage even the idea of having thieves, stealing sigils, and defending strongholds.

We'll see what they have in mind. As a much more casual Faction Player than most, I have the luxury of waiting to see and taking, or leaving, what comes.

I keep my fingers crossed that, whatever it is, the new system will preserve something from the old.

-Galen's player
Whoa Galen, I am very impressed you read my thoughts even with that short post :). The lore that will be lost when they remove our base and the others will be forgotten other then the few that still play. I understand change is necessary, but that won't make it any easier to lose the base
 

Tina Small

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I don't know why, but the first time I saw the map of the Abyss, all I could think about was how it might be an interesting place to have faction fights. At that time, we didn't really know exactly where the PvP zones in the Abyss were going to be located, so it was a very strange and mysterious place.

I still wonder if the Abyss and gargoyles might get pulled into this someway, somehow. Would be a good way to incent people to purchase the expansion, I guess.
 

kelmo

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Hey, Galen! Take the throne with you when you move to the new base. Seriously. As part of the story line, TB could pull the throne and some "history" to the new base to protect it for what ever reasons TB has.

Think about it. Factions could be restructured with a feel for the previous history. A good story to go along with it would be icing!
 

Lady Michelle

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Hey, Galen! Take the throne with you when you move to the new base. Seriously. As part of the story line, TB could pull the throne and some "history" to the new base to protect it for what ever reasons TB has.

Think about it. Factions could be restructured with a feel for the previous history. A good story to go along with it would be icing!
Maybe the story line of the mouse hole found behind the throne in the TB base will have something to do with TB having to move the base. in the fel base you can go behind the throne.
 

Poo

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as much as i LOVE the old story line (die hard TB here)

with minax dead, SL dead on all but like 2 shards (from the story arc) and Lord Brit was in game last....... when.......

and with mag gone, seems pointless for them to have a faction army.

so i guess we could maybe move this into the here and now.

they just better not put this in tram anywhere.

1/2 my toons in factions are reds, hahaha.

what they should have is just 3 generic factions.
Crow, Hawk and Pelican (i dont know!)
and then plop the bases on some land mass that they make out in the middle of the water all interconnected with bridges and boats and let us have our orgy of blood.

gonna be sad to see all the faction venders go away too.
and possibly he towns and such too.

wow..... what if they remove sigils!!!

what will i do all night!!!!
 
B

BlackMagus

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More factions, less factions, who cares. Most active guilds attack faction blues anyways, and prevalent town control will not disappear unless they radically change other factions mechanisms too... rolleyes:

* ducks and hides from the RP crowd *
 
B

bjornef

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problem with faction is not enuf competition since not all are intrested in fighing non stop you have to much dead time:sad4:
 

Bombastic Fail

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Further, the new system doesn't appear from the brief description we have so far to be terribly thief-friendly. Thieves tend to play Factions for the purpose of Factions, which is winning cities, not to rack up corpses. Letting thieves obtain points from stealing sigils was a great idea and I'd hate to see it go. The sigil thieves are the heart of Factions. You literally cannot "win" Factions on any terms other than raw numbers of dead bodies on the floor without your sigil thieves.

-Galen's player
Under our current system; this isn't true. You have your "sigil" thieves, who have either no skills except hiding and stealth and just go and "steal" over and over (even after dying because, with items, they can still STEAL the sigils, which is lame BTW). Or you have characters who run 20 stealing; kill the defenders, throw on some jewls, a bandana, and some legs, and WHAM!! Your a sigil thief.

If you want to go the "Thieves are useful" route, UP the skill required to steal them. Maybe even have a "not guarenteed" chance to steal. Say.. 50% at GM (REAL skill, not Jewled) 75% at 110 (Again, REAL skill), and 100% at 120 (Again, REAL Skill.) You may say "WOW! Lame! My template is already cramped!!" but you just said; thats what they are, right? Sigil thieves?

This would eliminate STAT'ed thieves, and characters using items to just "steal". Because let's be honest, how many characters are "USEFUL" when stat'ed? And no, You are not saying a mage who can "XHeal" because that 120'd out archer is going to eat him up in 3 shots, and you know it.

And can we PLEASE have it so you can't hide with sigils? And no houses?
 

Alezi

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Hey, Galen! Take the throne with you when you move to the new base. Seriously. As part of the story line, TB could pull the throne and some "history" to the new base to protect it for what ever reasons TB has.

Think about it. Factions could be restructured with a feel for the previous history. A good story to go along with it would be icing!
I want to be appointed "The King"!
 
A

A Rev

Guest
Nice idea but it wont work, the problem with saying that things need real skill means that when in stat it isnt adjusted.

Thats why a 90tactics dexxer can still perform all specials in stat, because its based on real skill.
 

Viquire

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I will take a wait and see attitude. Factions is so screwed up a do over may be in order.

I hope it gets some extensive testing. I doubt the Siege rule set will get a test pass but I can always hope.
This is the unfortunate truth and this whole meta system getting screwed over is the strongest proponent of a new client that is more readily adjustable than the old.

Why, just this very morning I found more messed up, but more on that somewhere else.

Limiting factioneers to less factions is IMHO the wrong direction. I respectfully disagree with this decision.
 

GalenKnighthawke

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Under our current system; this isn't true. You have your "sigil" thieves, who have either no skills except hiding and stealth and just go and "steal" over and over (even after dying because, with items, they can still STEAL the sigils, which is lame BTW). Or you have characters who run 20 stealing; kill the defenders, throw on some jewls, a bandana, and some legs, and WHAM!! Your a sigil thief.

If you want to go the "Thieves are useful" route, UP the skill required to steal them. Maybe even have a "not guarenteed" chance to steal. Say.. 50% at GM (REAL skill, not Jewled) 75% at 110 (Again, REAL skill), and 100% at 120 (Again, REAL Skill.) You may say "WOW! Lame! My template is already cramped!!" but you just said; thats what they are, right? Sigil thieves?

This would eliminate STAT'ed thieves, and characters using items to just "steal". Because let's be honest, how many characters are "USEFUL" when stat'ed? And no, You are not saying a mage who can "XHeal" because that 120'd out archer is going to eat him up in 3 shots, and you know it.

And can we PLEASE have it so you can't hide with sigils? And no houses?
lol

Yes, indeed, by "thieves" I meant "people who steal sigils in Factions."

I frankly thought it was a given that, in a discussion of Factions, the term "thief" would refer by definition to "people who steal sigils in Factions."

-Galen's player
 

GalenKnighthawke

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Hey, Galen! Take the throne with you when you move to the new base. Seriously. As part of the story line, TB could pull the throne and some "history" to the new base to protect it for what ever reasons TB has.

Think about it. Factions could be restructured with a feel for the previous history. A good story to go along with it would be icing!
I did not think of the new TB Faction, or whatever it's going to be, taking the throne with them, but I like the idea. And I do surely hope that the fictional basis of the overhaul, if there is one (and I hope there is), will keep the "old" fiction in-mind and be a logical outgrowth of it.

You know what'd be a nice touch?

Seeing Dupre in-game. (I had originally mentioned Keeonean too, but then I remembered he was dead already.)

Even if he was just an NPC quest giver.

Having him distribute Faction Artifacts, for example, instead of a mere chest.

Or, at the very least, having fiction that kills him off and/or otherwise explains why he isn't around

-Galen's player
 
K

Kylas

Guest
As usual the Dev, don't listen to the people that have played factions for a long time! It is no wonder people quit this game all the time.
Actually, they might be in this case. In my faction rework document I put out in the end of 2005 I specially recommended they drop down to three factions. It will be interesting to see which one got canned.

I specifically recommended that Minax and COM merge.

Here is a link to that document. Its a big rework and probably is out of date again. It was current as of 2006. This was my proposal for a total rework of factions.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ik1g5zgzznz

Dig
 
R

ReaperNI

Guest
Heres my take look at the bases Min looks like a mining hole. Com is one hugh faction guard zone with no real way out of it. Sl isnt as bad but a lil simplistic on design. I think that they are going to move com sl and min bases and put a lil more effort into making them look like something other then my 3yr cus made in a drawing. TB base i doubt will move seeing as how the whole world is base around it they proablly are going to switch entrance to the other side to defeat calling faction guards into base.

A dream would be that they add some obsticales in all the bases and make it like running the guanlet in american gladitor make great defencive and offencive (excuse spelling) points for both raider and defenders i would enjoy that. TYR
 
Z

Zara

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All of the bases need to be moved and revamped.

TB base may be the center but it is full of NPC guards which is detrimental to faction play when in these areas, especially for reds.

No faction base should be located inside of a town, and from what I am reading here, TB base will also be moved. It's said there will only be three factions and in discussions with other faction players it's been the buzz that it will probably be SL due to the past few story lines.

Either way it goes, factions need to change and the major problems fixed within the change. It makes no sense at all to change things without fixing all the crap we've been complaining about for years.

I really hope that the Dev's read some of the ideas that come from players here because I've seen many player ideas that hold a lot of merit.
 
C

COCOPUFF641

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Anyone Know If It Still Will Be SL/COM/TB/MIN???
Or Just New Factions In General??
 

Cardell

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A question and answer from the HOC tonight.


Basically they are reworking everything we had already instead of focusing on areas which would actually improve the system. What a waste of effort.
Your ignorance gives me a woody dood. Keep posting.. I love when I'm right about people....

This is what the factions need. They need to fix what is there and then reassess what is wrong or right. Now if we had competent Devs it would be possible to do a little implementation and feature fixing at the same time but we have to work with what we have and we need to let them take their baby steps. Because if they don't u get worthless ppl running around with 30 million points they don't deserve..
 

Cardell

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Anyone Know If It Still Will Be SL/COM/TB/MIN???
Or Just New Factions In General??
Nothing is curtain.

They say 3 new bases that will be more balanced but don't exactly explain what will happen to the current faction bases. You can assume that means one faction is getting the boot but you never know. They could just keep one of the bases as is and just make the other 3 balanced compared to that one. Who knows.

You can make an argument to get rid of any on of the factions its not even worth discussing.

As for whether or not its the original factions,, no one knows. It would be just as likely to keep the original factions as it would be to just make new ones...
 

JC the Builder

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
One faction is going to be named Order. Another will be Destruction. The third is yet to be announced.
 

Prime.

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Pfft. What'd it take? 3 seconds to come up with those names. Geez, thats about as unique as calling one a, b and c.
 

Berethrain

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Pfft. What'd it take? 3 seconds to come up with those names. Geez, thats about as unique as calling one a, b and c.
Lmao, glad I'm not the only one thinking this.
 

GalenKnighthawke

Grand Poobah
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Where is that posted at JC, did I miss a reponse from a dev?
Remember that JC is the same person who once posted that he was selling a portable Moongate that he had obtained from an old Seer Event somehow.

And that he had figured out how to modify the Cloaks of Corruption into something useful long before you could actually do it in-game.

He likes to post plausible-seeming scenarios that are later proven not true.

I can relate actually.

-Galen's player
 

Kat

Crazed Zealot
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Great. Three new faction bases, when they only needed to move 2 out of the towns AND.... still.... no real motivation to control the towns. The latter is what is most needed and has been for years! :lame:
 

Cardell

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Great. Three new faction bases, when they only needed to move 2 out of the towns AND.... still.... no real motivation to control the towns. The latter is what is most needed and has been for years! :lame:
I bet they are going to be 3 identical bases too.. so no one can complain about unfair bases. I love how they fix ****.

Instead of small tweaks they just start over so we get 3 different jacked up and under tested bases. I cannot wait to see this ****.
 
H

Hurley

Guest
First off: I've been involved in factions for 10 years and moving strongholds out of guard zones is one of the most ridiculous ideas I've ever heard.

Why not turn off the guard zones in the existing bases? OR make ALL NPCs invulnerable now?

If you move faction bases out into the open that will increase the number of non-faction players (read: blues) that pseudo-participate in base attacks/defenses by attacking reds and those who are gray from xhealing reds. You already can't get in to bases unless you're an orange. Why make it so that you can influence base defenses w/ no repercussions.

If you're replacing bases, how hard could it possibly be to make them more elaborate? For example, Lord British's castle has stables, forges, etcetcetc...

On the subject of subtracting a faction: WHAT THE **** FOR?!?! What purpose could it possibly serve? It would have 0 benefits. If Faction Guilds wanted to, they could go join up right now in 3 factions. Against the people they fight... If ANYTHING we need to add one more faction. What happens if there are 5 dominant guilds on a shard and they don't want to PvP together? One guild ends up being in the same faction as a guild that they honestly don't like. Maybe we should add the option of the number of factions on shard population, and if you reach a certain tier you can petition to have a faction reopened/added. Really though, what a waste of time.

Another thing that should be fixed is the point system. You need, what, 10 points to be Rank 10? The top faction guild on UO.com has over 1 billion points. There's got to be a more reasonable way to score factions than allowing people to run around w/ millions of points and never having to worry about not being able to wear their arties. A thief can steal ONE sigil and be rank 10. That doesn't make sense. I'm all for a new scoring system, but let's not go overboard w/ who gets points for doing things. For example, if they were to make it where tinkers get points for their trap killing someone, then there would be thousands of traps all over faction territory. That's the worst possible thing I could imagine at this point, where we have so little involvement as it is. People will just cry and cry until you make faction traps worthless. We need to consider every template w/ the new changes because it would affect how factions are played.

I also disagree w/ JC on the faction guard thing. There should either be a SMALL limit on how many guards you can place or they should be easy to kill.

Finally, and most importantly, is the issue of INCENTIVEs. This is the absolute, number one, most important thing that everyone has wanted for years. When people still used regs, control of towns was important, because a guild could dominate a shards reg economy. That was one of the main reasons factions were big. There is NO reason to own the towns now, or even attempt to take them for that matter. You need a faction horse? Most likely there's still a vendor somewhere for your faction, to my knowledge there's not a way to get rid of them. Other than horses what could you gain from owning the towns? A) A place to run where you've placed 50 faction guards to attack other players, or B) cheap reagents for alchemy. Pointless. Furthermore, it's too easy to take towns in the first place.

Now, my suggestions:
Keep 4 factions.

Reduce the number of cities that can be captured. Yew... Why? Mag is dead, which is stupid (considering that's where the CoM base is). Maybe just keep the main cities: Brit, Glow, Skara, etc.
Or...
Create four or five controllable town-style dungeons/strongholds w/ shops, inns, etc. Captured by raiding it and gaining control over a certain amount of time, thieves etc would be needed, 3x rate given for resources, patrolled by faction guards, basically a faction city, if your faction controls all of these then your faction can gain access to a special peerless boss dungeon that drops new items or ALL replica/arty/peerless/etc items


Basically we just need something cool to give us a reason to be in factions, besides just items to put on and wear at Yew Gate...
Just PLEASE don't take out stat loss.
 

Kellgory

Certifiable
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
I think the majority of people are in agreement that the reduction to only 3 factions is a bad idea. Moving the bases out of guardzones, I can see the reasoning behind the idea, but they probably could have been solved in other ways. Problem one for the TB base is the NPC's...how hard would to have them not spawn in the base. Problem two and three is the ability to place faction guards and town traps around the entrances of the COM and TB bases. Someone had suggested way back when they first floated the idea of moving the bases that they could just move the entrance to the TB base to the side, and block the current entrance. It might require them to change the guardzones for that area. The COM base really doesn't have an easy solution since it has ocean on all the other sides, so that base would probably have been the only one that would need to be moved. I kinda liked the idea of COM and TB being good guilds located near towns and MIN and SL being the evil guilds located out in the woods.
 
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