Thiefs stealing faction ranks

[Maleachi]

Good day dear readers!

Chances are that you will be confused when you read the title of this thread, but as you might expect, I will try to elaborate!
Hopefully this issue has not been adressed to in any previous threads.

I am one of the faction players still left on Europa.
The faction I play for is TB, one of perhaps 15-20 players who have chars in TB.
What happens is the following....

As plenty others have noticed already, it is hard enough to get any faction points at all at the moment on the low populated shards, since if you're lucky you might get 1 or 2 kills in on a day and there seems to be another problem.

Be it deliberately or by accident, there are a couple of thiefs in our faction who are stealing our faction ranks! By taking sigils they get many, many points...
The thiefs stealing the sigils dont actually play actively in factions, and the theft of sigils serves no purpose at all atm since the only places we fight over are champ spawns.

By gaining these points, the thiefs have since today, set back every active TB factioneer to rank 1!
Where I could perfectly wear my Crimson 4 days ago with my 26 score, I have now become rank 1...

So even if the new faction item system works properly, many still cant be bothered to try factions again cause it doesnt matter if you kill a player or two.. You cant beat the thiefs anyway!

Like stated before.... Maybe one of our fellow factioneers is accidentally stealing our ranks, or maybe one of our opponents is doing this to spite us!

Let me know what you think...

Kind regards,

Maleachi

 

[Tina Small]

Hmmm....maybe you could encourage the thieves in another faction to steal the sigils, rack up points, and then go kill them? Or make your own TB thief and take the sigils back to town once they're corrupted? You only need a thief to get them off the monolith and can then hand the sigil to the character that you really want to have the points, so you don't lose points doing a points transfer.

 

[Maleachi]

Hmmm....maybe you could encourage the thieves in another faction to steal the sigils, rack up points, and then go kill them? Or make your own TB thief and take the sigils back to town once they're corrupted? You only need a thief to get them off the monolith and can then hand the sigil to the character that you really want to have the points, so you don't lose points doing a points transfer.

I understand where you come from, but why should I have to do an extra effort, besides the killing I already do, just to keep the faction scores balanced?

There is no reason to steal sigils, so why would others steal them? There simply is no point in doing this....

The way it is designed at the moment just frustrates the faction scores... Not to mention the players!

 

[kelmo]

This will all be a moot point soon as all faction artifacts will be set to level one.

 

[Tina Small]

There is no reason to steal sigils, so why would others steal them? There simply is no point in doing this....

LOL. I really don't know how to respond to that statement.

*Walks off laughing.*

 

[virtualhabitat]

...the theft of sigils serves no purpose at all atm since the only places we fight over are champ spawns.

By gaining these points, the thiefs have since today, set back every active TB factioneer to rank 1!
Where I could perfectly wear my Crimson 4 days ago with my 26 score, I have now become rank 1...

So even if the new faction item system works properly, many still cant be bothered to try factions again cause it doesnt matter if you kill a player or two.. You cant beat the thiefs anyway!

Like stated before.... Maybe one of our fellow factioneers is accidentally stealing our ranks, or maybe one of our opponents is doing this to spite us!

Let me know what you think...

Kind regards,

Maleachi

Sounds to me like a new battle ground and a new purpose to fight for. Of course you'll have to go where the battle is if you want to win it.

 

[Martyna Zmuir]

Unless you want to farm silver all day, every day, rank is still important when purchasing the artifacts.

 

[Maleachi]

This will all be a moot point soon as all faction artifacts will be set to level one.

Irrelevant?

Tis not going to be irrelevant at all... Since the price of faction artifacts is based on the rank you have.

If say, only 2 "inactive" faction players, make sure the rest of the faction have rank 1, that will bump up the price of artifacts for the rest, won't it?
Silver isn't at all hard to get, but if you need to get 20-50k, per artifact, per month, for 4 or more characters, you'll find yourself bored with farmin silver pretty soon!

Even though I myself have or will addept my suits so I wont need faction artifacts, I see plenty who can't because they lack the funds or who won't cause they lack the time. Those are just 2 possible reasons why people can't be bothered!

 

[kelmo]

Farm the silver farmers.

 

[Maleachi]

LOL. I really don't know how to respond to that statement.

*Walks off laughing.*

Europa is going the longer, the more inactive... It's hard enough to find a faction fight.
Why spend any time stealing sigils back and forth, cause there won't be any fights over towns.

 

[Tina Small]

If say, only 2 "inactive" faction players, make sure the rest of the faction have rank 1, that will bump up the price of artifacts for the rest, won't it?

So you're calling the two faction players who are stealing the seven sigils every three days, walking them to the base, making sure they sit there safe for 10 hours or more, and then walking them all back to the towns "inactive" faction players? Ummm...town control is pretty much what factions has always been about, since long before faction artifacts came along, and you don't get "town control" if you don't have thieves on your side who are willing to put in the time to grab the sigils, watch over them, and then take them back to the towns and keep repeating that over and over.

I understand that you're upset that the thieves are gaining rank on you, but why is that so? Because they're putting in the time to make it happen. Maybe you guys need to join a different faction and kill the TB thieves if it's bothering you so much. Your faction wouldn't need to have thieves, just thief-killers.

 

[Phangs_of_Phage]

This will all be a moot point soon as all faction artifacts will be set to level one.

Have you looked at the silver cost between the ranks. Its a very valid point that thiefs on a dead shard are farming points via sigels when the pvpers cant possibly get enough to offset it due to inactivity.

 

[Tina Small]

Would bringing back the "faction leaderboard" on the uo.com site help any so you know who has the most kill points?

 

[Maleachi]

Would bringing back the "faction leaderboard" on the uo.com site help any so you know who has the most kill points?

If it would be working! ^^

 

[Mithryl Elves]

We have this same issue on LS. Our problem is that a guild we fight against in SL added a thief to another account and went CoM where we are. He obtained rank by farming points and has since ran for commanding lord then got it by of course using other accounts to get the vote. Now heres our problem, all of us are now rank 1 while having 20+ points but cant get a character to even run now because we dont have rank. Meanwhile the thief has set the tilth to 100% to the faction therefor screwing us from farming silver. We're essentially locked out completely.

 

[Tina Small]

Mithryl, here's some info regarding faction elections that might help:

Voting for Faction Commanding Lord | Stratics Forums
Faction Commander - UOGuide, the Ultima Online encyclopedia

You need to get someone up to rank 6 to run for CL. (In COM, the "Diviner" title covers ranks 4-6. "Luminary" covers 7-8, "Archon of Principle" is rank 9, and "Inquisitor of the Council" is rank 10. "Mystic" is ranks 1-3.)

 

[Mithryl Elves]

Thx Tina, I understand how it works. Ive played the game from day one and have been in factions the entire time.

My point is, that with thieves getting 10 points every time they corrupt and place the sigil on the Monolith they are obtaining so many points that its forcing other members of the faction to low ranks. Thats fine. However, when its someone from the enemy faction doing it on second, third, etc accounts then changing the rate to 100% to faction then its an issue.

 

[Tina Small]

Thx Tina, I understand how it works. Ive played the game from day one and have been in factions the entire time.

My point is, that with thieves getting 10 points every time they corrupt and place the sigil on the Monolith they are obtaining so many points that its forcing other members of the faction to low ranks. Thats fine. However, when its someone from the enemy faction doing it on second, third, etc accounts then changing the rate to 100% to faction then its an issue.

Do you think it will get any better when you start getting more kill points for faction kills with this next publish? I think the points awarded are supposed to be based on the victim's rank:

• Ranks 1 - 3 are worth 4 points.
• Ranks 4 - 6 are worth 8 points.
• Ranks 7 - 9 are worth 12 points.
• Rank 10 is worth 16 points.

 

[Nonel]

Steal the sigs first and guard them. Kill the thieves. That's factions.

Though, as a long-time faction thief, I'll be the first to say that thieves getting KILL points for sigs is absolutely ludicrous. A lot of us were against the change.... but they never did heed our warnings when it came to faction changes, did they?

 

[kaio]

so the OP and his TB friends spy on champ spawns, in order to get a fight...
Now it seems that you have to spy on sigils as well...

Faction is about capturing sigils, holding towns..etc etc..
It has never had anything to do with champ spawns...

I'm so sorry, but I don't really see the problem...Except that your'e lazy..
chop chop go work for it

 

[Promathia]

Steal the sigs first and guard them. Kill the thieves. That's factions.

Though, as a long-time faction thief, I'll be the first to say that thieves getting KILL points for sigs is absolutely ludicrous. A lot of us were against the change.... but they never did heed our warnings when it came to faction changes, did they?

Shh, Draconi is a saint, all of his changes were amazing to factions!.........


Anyways, I agree with your post. Isnt it a novel idea to ask someone to actually PLAY factions?

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

Be it deliberately or by accident, there are a couple of thiefs in our faction who are stealing our faction ranks!

Maleachi

*cough*thieves*cough*...la

 

[Shamus Turlough]

1. Work stealing to GM
2. Soulstone stealing onto your faction character
3. Steal sigils
4. Profit

 

[Tina Small]

1. Work stealing to GM
2. Soulstone stealing onto your faction character
3. Steal sigils
4. Profit

You only need 80 stealing to steal sigils.

 

[Tina Small]

Thieves are critical to faction and, on one level, their not having points for what they did was ridiculous. The cities cannot be taken without them and isn't taking cities the point of Factions?

Having said that, it appears to have been the combination of thief points being granted, the War of Shadows point bonuses, and probably other things I've forgotten about that led to the great point exploits and things like that.

Also, many Faction Thieves seem to have been marginally content before the change and merely getting points doesn't seem to have changed their lot all that much. Those who are in Factions solely for an excuse for direct confrontation PvP still scorn and ridicule the thieves just as they did before, because they have never been in Factions for Factions, and thieves getting points doesn't matter to them.

And this whole thread will become more or less moot when the Publish hits anyway.

There's no real easy answer here. Hell, there may not even be a hard answer.

Factions is a hard nut to crack. It is an idiosyncratic system which features a unique mix of playstyles and provides constant content for those who want that particular mix. Attempts to fix it focused almost solely on those who were interested in one particular aspect of Factions (direct confrontation PvP), with the sole exception of granting points for Faction Thieving, and ended up alienating those who had appreciated it for the mix. But there were fewer and fewer of those so was doing nothing really an option?

As can be seen it's possible to go back and forth and round and round on this stuff pretty much forever and never really arrive at a useful place.

-Galen's player

Agreed. Hopefully some good lessons were learned by all out of the experience and maybe someday the developers will actually take the time to sit down with players and hash out some new systems/content to satisfy everyone that's tried to be involved in factions in the last couple of years.