Factions

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Calix
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Factions

Post by Calix »

Any thoughts on design? As far as I'm aware, Legacy only differed from OSI in two ways:

1. Each town controlled offered players in that faction a 10% bonus vs Champion Spawn Bosses(Barracoon, etc) up to 80%.
2. A necromancer reagent vendor was added.

I didn't play much factions ever, but I know it was a pretty flawed system.

Were guards a good addition at all? I mean I just remember them being exploited, placed surrounded by vendors so they couldn't be lured - making town sigil stealing near impossible, and if not 'turreted' like that, just being lured and killed outside of town. All but the highest level were pretty worthless, I think? Even if they were used correctly, are they worthwhile? Zole?

Traps. Any problems? You needed a crafter to create the traps, right? What skills?

Finances. System could be expanded to give greater control over towns. Any ideas?

Voting. Should faction commanders be able to instigate votes to remove players/guilds from a faction?

Sigil and vote timers - Any suggestions? Leadership should be a long-time thing IMO, at least 2 weeks.

Alliances and wars. Factions should be able to ally each other, IMO. Obviously a decision taken by the commanders and coded so that members would then appear green to allied faction members rather than orange. Same-faction guilds should also be able to declare war on each other and have the 'war' hue override the faction hue. So two warred guilds in the same faction would appear orange to each other rather than green.

Towns/bases. Reds should be able to fully function within the faction system. Making players have separate faction characters because their mains are unusable in the system is completely counterproductive. What's the best way to do this? Make faction towns completely unpoliced by regular town guards and give the responsibility entirely to the controlling faction? Make normal-town guards ignore faction characters regardless of hue/crim?

Bonuses - should the dmg % bonus be applied to other high end monsters than just champs, like Dark Fathers, etc?

Any other ideas?

zole
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Re: Factions

Post by zole »

Guards were hit and miss. You needed to run around constantly spamming commands to have them be useful in a real fight. And even then, they weren't THAT hot really.

I think the idea of guards is good, but it just didn't work that well.

A much BETTER idea would be an ability to summon some faction monsters to help protect your base or town. Attackable by all, but only aggressive towards enemy factioners. So you could summon your Ogre Lords/Silver Serpents/Wisps/Demons to help defend your base (only for faction commander) or when fighting in towns (for the sheriff). It's not the kind of stuff which is gonna really change everything, but I think it could be fun, and it's a lot better than fucking guards.

Need a high level crafter to make the traps and silver, which can be placed by anyone (as a deed). These were also hit and miss. Back in the day, you would just start a fight, then run away through a narrow area where your trap was, easy silver/kills. But it was pretty fun. You need a crafter to remove the traps, so it's giving mules more use. If the damaged is controlled, they're a pretty good idea still.


Re. griefers: This is a difficult one. When there's griefers its good to just kill them, but if it's never ending then it just becomes a pain. Ability to instigate a vote against a player/guild, stating the reasons they feel they should be kicked. maybe something which the other faction commanders can be involved in. But dunno.

Long termish is good. But having said that, CL should be active. It sucks when the CL goes away for 3 days and shit is happening.

Don't have a strong opinion on the warring/allying thing. But rather than a green hue, a different one would be better. Something which lets you distinguish your temporary ally from the common enemy, but not give you the full benefits of being on the same side. So field spells still affect both people, and you can't xheal, but you can easily tell that this guy is fighting with me, or something like that. Limit alliances to 2 hours, for big epic fights.

Re. reds: allow reds in faction controlled towns (not every town). Healing them causes you to go grey, but not whackable. That sounds like a pretty good trade off to me.

Re. dmg bonus to monsters, i think gotta wait and see how it pans out. That could be overly powerful. Maybe something to switch on and watch carefully, but yeah I dunno, that's more of an balance issue than factions.

Something which was really nice until AOS was faction weapons. It's a big reason people joined (Hi villa mr agapite axe). Obviously AOS changed that, but if something could be done, I could see a good gold sink develop there. Maybe something SIMILAR to what OSI has now, but not the same. For example, I would use a valorite spear (HIGH DAMAGE LOL) for a month on my dexxer, when it was no longer blessed, I would sell it and make a new one (BECAUSE I HAD A VAL HAMMER, 39 CHARGES, LOL). If a faction crafter had the ability to make a really nice weapon/piece of ar which would be blessed, but only last a week, I think people would use it. So something like the ability to limit the potential properties an item might have. So you can remove SOME of the stats you definitely don't want. Again, there's some balance issues here, and making them permanent things isn't a good idea, but I think there's potential.
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Calix
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Re: Factions

Post by Calix »

zole wrote:
A much BETTER idea would be an ability to summon some faction monsters to help protect your base or town. Attackable by all, but only aggressive towards enemy factioners. So you could summon your Ogre Lords/Silver Serpents/Wisps/Demons to help defend your base (only for faction commander) or when fighting in towns (for the sheriff). It's not the kind of stuff which is gonna really change everything, but I think it could be fun, and it's a lot better than fucking guards.
Pretty beste idea IMO.

zole wrote: Long termish is good. But having said that, CL should be active. It sucks when the CL goes away for 3 days and shit is happening.
How about if 1-2 backup commanders "General's" (or something) could be appointed that could do some CL functions? So a level above Sheriff/Finance Minister, I guess.
zole wrote: Don't have a strong opinion on the warring/allying thing. But rather than a green hue, a different one would be better. Something which lets you distinguish your temporary ally from the common enemy, but not give you the full benefits of being on the same side. So field spells still affect both people, and you can't xheal, but you can easily tell that this guy is fighting with me, or something like that. Limit alliances to 2 hours, for big epic fights.

Re. reds: allow reds in faction controlled towns (not every town). Healing them causes you to go grey, but not whackable. That sounds like a pretty good trade off to me.
Agree with all of that.
zole wrote: Something which was really nice until AOS was faction weapons. It's a big reason people joined (Hi villa mr agapite axe). Obviously AOS changed that, but if something could be done, I could see a good gold sink develop there. Maybe something SIMILAR to what OSI has now, but not the same. For example, I would use a valorite spear (HIGH DAMAGE LOL) for a month on my dexxer, when it was no longer blessed, I would sell it and make a new one (BECAUSE I HAD A VAL HAMMER, 39 CHARGES, LOL). If a faction crafter had the ability to make a really nice weapon/piece of ar which would be blessed, but only last a week, I think people would use it. So something like the ability to limit the potential properties an item might have. So you can remove SOME of the stats you definitely don't want. Again, there's some balance issues here, and making them permanent things isn't a good idea, but I think there's potential.
Def something worth considering.

Calix
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Re: Factions

Post by Calix »

KoKane wrote:I never liked how factions were something that, if you werent involved, it didnt matter. More incentives to make everyone attackable is good, promoting pvp and action... but its definitely gotta be worth it.
This is a really important point(quoted from a different thread). If you make it so champ spawns and other things are very hard to do without being in factions, you force the majority of your shard into them, which is only a good thing if you've actually got the system right. But if it is right, you've got nearly everyone involved in a huge shard-wide conflict with real meaning and purpose, linked into all parts of the shard, involving all character types. Especially when it's 2 characters per player.

Would a 'non-combatant' system work so that faction characters could be unattackable in non-faction towns? This would just be for say characters with 400 or more points in 'non-combat' skills, and just so they could bank, trade etc without being freely attackable by enemy faction PvP chars? Not everyone wants to be attackable in town on their crafter or thief or whatever at all times.

zole
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Re: Factions

Post by zole »

A type of neutral zone?

Not a bad idea. For those who aren't pvp'rs. Still run the risks of being in town, but you don't have to worry about every orange attacking you.

Speaking of which, I think runics should be uninsurable (if they aren't already, i forgot).

It was always fucking scary to carry an item worth 80 million gold (when that was a lot of money) into town to make a wep. And it could give people something to steal.

That way, crafters making faction stuff (if it goes ahead) will need an escort of people etc to get things done. It makes it a little bit harder, but i think that would be a nice touch.
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Calix
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Re: Factions

Post by Calix »

Remind me how faction items worked? Originally crafters could just make normal pre-AOS items, but with a faction hue, right? Then they added the ability to make runic weps? How did that work? I know now in post ML UO you can 'faction craft' most of the Doom artifacts as well?

Also, timers:

Sigil Corruption = 24 hours, right? That's way too long. Shouldn't it be more like 6-8?
Election timers = a week, ish? 2 weeks+ would be better.
Once corrupted sigils are placed back on town pedestals they are secured for how long? 3 days until they became restealable?

Nixon
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Re: Factions

Post by Nixon »

The faction weps were blessed (as this was pre insurence) for a short period, which is why so many people also joined factions if I remember rightly?

Not that it would make a massive difference with insurence etc now.
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Calix
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Re: Factions

Post by Calix »

From a different thread:
Noxin wrote:I think what's more important than factions itself is what made factions appealing.
The biggest two benefits in my opinion are instant friendlies to PvP with for those who don't have any and dominance/control.

I think if you focus on those 2 objectives it's far easier to focus on what you need to provide rather than simply adding factions.
The instant friendlies part should be offered somehow from day 1 in order to retain loners who come to the game without a guild/friends and should be as easy to find as possible.
That's actually quite insightful. One of the main ways you can make factions an important part of the shard is by making it 'newb/loner' friendly. UO is a pretty hard game to play without friends even when you're established, it's even harder to motivate yourself to play when you're having to start afresh on a new shard, alone.

So how do you tie factions into this? Faction bonuses against more monsters? Perhaps base dmg bonuses against monsters less on town control and more on people actually being IN factions in the first place - it gives people a reason to band together even for basic PvM that way, people meet and make friends easier.

Make it so faction commanders are actively encouraged to try to bring more players to their faction - and help them, because it will be to the benefit of their faction as a whole.

Allow faction officers multiple msgs per day - so that solo/new players can be summoned to the location of say a champ spawn or a dark father being worked, or a fight going on.

Grant the kind of 2/4 casting sets that Legacy gave all new players - but only upon a player joining factions. Encourages people to socialise and get involved in the shard and shard politics right away, as opposed to being on their own macroing and getting bored in a week.

Grant rewards to factions for each champ or dark father or whatever killed - encourages active participation with other faction members to achieve goals.

Just a few ideas again, typing as I think.

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Re: Factions

Post by Nixon »

Calix wrote:From a different thread:
Noxin wrote:I think what's more important than factions itself is what made factions appealing.
The biggest two benefits in my opinion are instant friendlies to PvP with for those who don't have any and dominance/control.

I think if you focus on those 2 objectives it's far easier to focus on what you need to provide rather than simply adding factions.
The instant friendlies part should be offered somehow from day 1 in order to retain loners who come to the game without a guild/friends and should be as easy to find as possible.
That's actually quite insightful. One of the main ways you can make factions an important part of the shard is by making it 'newb/loner' friendly. UO is a pretty hard game to play without friends even when you're established, it's even harder to motivate yourself to play when you're having to start afresh on a new shard, alone.

So how do you tie factions into this? Faction bonuses against more monsters? Perhaps base dmg bonuses against monsters less on town control and more on people actually being IN factions in the first place - it gives people a reason to band together even for basic PvM that way, people meet and make friends easier.

Make it so faction commanders are actively encouraged to try to bring more players to their faction - and help them, because it will be to the benefit of their faction as a whole.

Allow faction officers multiple msgs per day - so that solo/new players can be summoned to the location of say a champ spawn or a dark father being worked, or a fight going on.

Grant the kind of 2/4 casting sets that Legacy gave all new players - but only upon a player joining factions. Encourages people to socialise and get involved in the shard and shard politics right away, as opposed to being on their own macroing and getting bored in a week.

Grant rewards to factions for each champ or dark father or whatever killed - encourages active participation with other faction members to achieve goals.

Just a few ideas again, typing as I think.
Interesting points - will respond to this when I'm at home, I have a few ideas based on your comments.
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Calix
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Re: Factions

Post by Calix »

Just talking to Attard in IRC a bit - talking about giving more of a role to non-PvPers in factions, and making them feel their contributions were valued - there could be a system that gives the faction money or items in proportion to the amount of champs(or whatever) killed by members of that faction. Special titles for members that do a great deal of PvM, etc..

Fatalist
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Re: Factions

Post by Fatalist »

Right, in my head I've got a fairly good template for a completely overhauled faction system. I will post it shortly, however there is one major headache I'm having, and of all things it's with crafters.

I want there to be benefits to crafters being in factions, I want guilds to fight over luring the most famous/skilled crafters to join their faction, and I want crafters to be of geniune value to the pvpers and pvmers alike. However, I want to keep them in faction towns.

How can we address their vulnerability, without removing them from the pvp system? Adding safe zones for (if total crafting skills>300?) or equivalent? Have to factor in the possibility of invulnerable crafters running around healing their pvp-ing team mates, or laying traps without being attackable.

Ideas welcome.
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Nixon
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Re: Factions

Post by Nixon »

If you want safe zones, why not create a 5 tile radius around say a forge, a loom etc. Not sure how feasible that is, but at least then it's possible for the crafter to come into town with some element of risk, so they can't be blue healers? How easy that is to implement I don't know.

Or if they cast a beneficial spell on a target they are flagged, in the same way a blue is healing a red?
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Re: Factions

Post by KoKane »

Fatalist wrote:Right, in my head I've got a fairly good template for a completely overhauled faction system. I will post it shortly, however there is one major headache I'm having, and of all things it's with crafters.

I want there to be benefits to crafters being in factions, I want guilds to fight over luring the most famous/skilled crafters to join their faction, and I want crafters to be of geniune value to the pvpers and pvmers alike. However, I want to keep them in faction towns.

How can we address their vulnerability, without removing them from the pvp system? Adding safe zones for (if total crafting skills>300?) or equivalent? Have to factor in the possibility of invulnerable crafters running around healing their pvp-ing team mates, or laying traps without being attackable.

Ideas welcome.
Allow them to take part in the combat some how, to do their part.
Alchemists could throw potions (develop more types?) for various effects.
Blacksmiths could craft barricades or something?

I'm thinking along the lines of Team Fortress here. I dont think crafters in factions should be invulnerable from pvp for any reasons.
I think the risk should be there for them, but the reward should be so good that it entices them to join and take part.

If they could do something like craft and build things that pvprs will use in a fight that isnt something insured on their body, then they will be in such high demand and like something like team fortress, will make a team stronger if they have one.
Like carpenters dropping down some wooden barricades that can be targeted with fire spells etc. I dunno.

I just dont think you should segregate them. Push them in with everyone else, the risk will be there but let them understand the risk and give them a reward that far outweighs it if they work hard and get what they want (fun stuff)
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