First off, I understand, I think, why the recent changes to faction points were made. Faction gear was meant to be used by people who played factions, not by people who entered Felucca once to join a faction, then never set foot in it again, and used their great faction gear to solo Mel, or whatever. So I think the recent changes to faction point decay etc. as well as the reset, was meant to deal with those abuses. However, I think the exact opposite has happened. Right now, the only characters that can maintain enough faction points to wear faction gear, are those who aren't pvp'ing, and are being fed faction points by those who are.
Before the reset, I had no problem maintaining enough faction points to wear faction gear. I had enough for myself, and I could spare enough for others. However, since the last publish and the faction point reset, it has worked like this for me. I kill ten faction enemies, and I gain maybe a dozen points, if I'm lucky. Over that time I die maybe three or four times in faction battles, and lose anywhere from twenty to forty faction kill points. You do the math. I've had friends feed me dozens of points, but it doesn't matter. Even though I do generally get more kills than I die, I simply cannot maintain enough faction kill points to wear anything but the very lowest level faction gear.
Now I thought, ok, this is just me. I just have a bad habit of walking into a lot of ganks, so I just need to play smarter. But again, the math is completely against me, and I realized today, that this is happening to everyone that I know of, that is playing factions. I've had to completely rework my suit, so that I no longer require any faction gear, and when I gain points, I feed them to people who are still attempting to work with a suit that requires faction gear.
And my guess is that is what is happening throughout factions. Most have redesigned their suits so that they don't require faction gear, and when they get points, they immediately feed them to their pvm characters that they rarely, if ever, pvp with. They die and lose one point, meanwhile the poor schmucks who are attempting to use faction gear as it was intended die once, and lose ten to twenty points (this is based on Atlantic numbers). And to add to the injustice, those pvm characters that are not actually doing anything faction related, the "point holders", are keeping the level requirements for faction gear artificially high.
The last publish, while I believe it was well intentioned, has, in my opinion, accomplished exactly the opposite of what it was intended to accomplish.
Before the reset, I had no problem maintaining enough faction points to wear faction gear. I had enough for myself, and I could spare enough for others. However, since the last publish and the faction point reset, it has worked like this for me. I kill ten faction enemies, and I gain maybe a dozen points, if I'm lucky. Over that time I die maybe three or four times in faction battles, and lose anywhere from twenty to forty faction kill points. You do the math. I've had friends feed me dozens of points, but it doesn't matter. Even though I do generally get more kills than I die, I simply cannot maintain enough faction kill points to wear anything but the very lowest level faction gear.
Now I thought, ok, this is just me. I just have a bad habit of walking into a lot of ganks, so I just need to play smarter. But again, the math is completely against me, and I realized today, that this is happening to everyone that I know of, that is playing factions. I've had to completely rework my suit, so that I no longer require any faction gear, and when I gain points, I feed them to people who are still attempting to work with a suit that requires faction gear.
And my guess is that is what is happening throughout factions. Most have redesigned their suits so that they don't require faction gear, and when they get points, they immediately feed them to their pvm characters that they rarely, if ever, pvp with. They die and lose one point, meanwhile the poor schmucks who are attempting to use faction gear as it was intended die once, and lose ten to twenty points (this is based on Atlantic numbers). And to add to the injustice, those pvm characters that are not actually doing anything faction related, the "point holders", are keeping the level requirements for faction gear artificially high.
The last publish, while I believe it was well intentioned, has, in my opinion, accomplished exactly the opposite of what it was intended to accomplish.