Let me just preface this by saying, please, for the love of UO:R, let's not devolve to trash talk here. If you want to outright talk shit about who bad, who mad and who sad, copy pasta whatever you want to rebutt angrily, into a Trash Talk thread. I would like to get the idea flow on the table for RATIONAL discussion of what is good about Factions now, what is broken and what can be done to make them better, short of just flat out removing them. On the subject of Corruption Timers, I have to say that with our present numbers, the 7 hour timer is a bit lengthy. I have chatted with a handful of other factioners who think 4 hours is a more healthy time for present count. Something that could potentially be done by a 3/4 man team without needing people with either no lives or different time zones, to help seal the deal. 7 hours makes great sense, if you've got 30+ people in each faction. As it stands now, it's going to be run by those with enough members across time zones, or those with nothing else to do and decent numbers. Let's face it, the majority of us are adults now, who don't have 7 hours straight we can sit around fighting over a sigil or sigils. Maybe something variable over time, so a base of 3 hours, with an additional hour for every 10 member increase (average across factions)? Up to but not exceeding 8 hours? On the subject of Murderers in factions, I'm of the opinion that one of two things should function. "I resign from my faction" should resign you, regardless of location, with the standard 7 day wait for removal, or an option in the [profile gump to select that you resign. This will allow those who have taken too many long counts to wait it out, to bow out and go do what they clearly wanted to do in the first place, murder. If you are murdering people you are not likely much concerned about mutual conflict or consentual combat. The entire premise of Factions is consentual combat, with goals and a reward system that I'll touch on later. Point being here though, I don't think Murderers belong in factions, and see no reason why, with a 3 account limit, that anyone who's serious about Factions, can't just have a blue/orange for it. Personally, I just see Factions as a large scale, time based Capture the Flag(s) with four teams. A means for mutual combat in the field without the outside interference of non-Factioners, as you might experience with just a guild war or Order/Chaos situation. Others may desire some business support from it, by way of Faction vendors, others may just want the Faction blessed weapons, however temporary. The problem with tangible incetives to Factions is that things will quickly stack in the favor of the dominant Faction and as I've heard tell, people will just Faction hop and piggy back on whoever is on top. So what's the big deal? There's a billion ways to make gold out there, why must Factions be another avenue for that? If platinum or other such rewards were present it would just open the door for exploit by way of back room truces and sigil exchanges to suit the players with all the muscle. So why can't we all just pick teams and go fight for the sake of fighting? Bragging rights are nice I suppose. It seems that back in the day, what with Trammel and all, that Factions town control benefits were just an old school Feluccian flare to provide a method of griefing your opponents by blocking them from doing business in the Faction towns. I'm cool with towns not even doing business with opposing factions, as long as there are ample alternative towns for those not in control to conduct regular business. TLR I don't really care what the benefit is, as long as it is not an unfair advantage or negative impact over non-factioners. TLR the whole page? If we don't come up with sound ways to improve factions in an effort to perfect the system, why not just remove them entirely?
I joined UO:R because of Factions and Housing, mostly. I still haven't gotten into factions yet, off and on but usually only 2 groups of people fighting. I think it just needs more people eager to fight for useless sigils. 7 hours or 4 hours, still end up with what? I haven't missed out on anything really. Factioners should get bad ass incentives, but I don't know what would be good now. May as well just stay a crafter and make it with the BOD system or fish that shit up. Which is why factions has lain dormant for so long here, there was no focus, no bonus, no incentives to join up. Maybe a faction captures all towns and that opens a time frame for an event for that faction. The enemy faction can prevent them from completing it and be rewarded for that. But wouldn't people work together? Don't they work together for just about every event we have had here? The rewards will be similar but if some candy ass wants the reward they should join a faction or just blow their gold on it. Isn't that what happens around here? I missed the leprechaun and cupid events but I can go and buy some of that junk. Maybe the rares can be permanent faction hued items that can only be worn by that faction, jump ship and you can't wear it.
I have not participated in factions at all, but other than agreeing with "no murderers in factions", my only suggestion is to dial down on the flashy colors.
^ this But also, in line with what Blaise said, I don't want any profit exploitation of factions as that will really kill the potential of what they have to offer. I've been skirting around it a bit, and I definitely think that I will have a Factions member soon. There is potential for an RP based Faction that can come help the Factioners take towns. There has been some discussion about a year end PvM award. What if there was something like that for factions, but quarterly instead of Year end? Some kind of a rank system: 1st place Faction gets X plat divided evenly among players who contributed the most and all factioners get a decorative plaque that says "Dominating Faction 2013", 2nd place gets X plat divided, to third and fourth place? (third and fourth would obviously receive very little plat, but it would at least ensure that all factioners gained something for participating in this) From what I've read, it's already a long process to 'resign' from a faction, but I would say if you join a faction you're stuck with it until the end of the quarter. If you join and then resign you can't rejoin any other factions until beginning of next quarter. I think this would prevent excessive 'faction' hopping during a quarter, but might also foster some folks 'trading' teams if they see a better match up for the next quarter. That just my two bits of gold. - Jupiter they Grey
I like the once a quarter kills, captures and possibly silver earner rewards. Also restricted them per quarter shouldn't be an issue, just so long as all your accounts are linked and joined the same faction. Maybe even purge all faction members at the end of a quarter, that could create a frenzy of enlistment, to snag first town/kills and then near the end would be people trying to end on a high note.
