Faction
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Defiance Faction System
The Faction System is a broad game system designed to promote organized player conflict within the society of Britannia. The fundamental goal of the conflict is to provide a foundation for player conflict based upon meaningful and contextual combat and conflict-related interactions. The system is designed to encourage the inclusion of a wide array of player types through the use of game mechanics that appeal to a broad set of play-styles.
DFI - We refuse to suck.
Contents |
[edit] Factions(Main concept)
Of course I've been working with an overall goal for these changes, and that is to increase the whole point of having a faction character and the point in controlling towns rather than letting the enemy control them. You'll notice crafting and abilities in general will depend on how successful your faction is at controlling towns. There are greater bonuses when controlling more towns, but if you fail to take many towns, there's as much reason in controlling 1 town, just less bonus. However, the reason, which is the important thing here, remains the same whether you are able to get 1 town or 8 towns. If you fail to take 8, but "only" get 2, you still destroy the greater bonus your enemy faction would achieve by having all 8 towns.
With that concept, I'm hoping to increase the OVERALL fighting spirit among factioneers, so its not like "Uhh, I'm in a crap faction and we will never get all cities. So I might as well not care about getting one to two cities".
[edit] The Factions
There are four factions:
- Minax
- Council of Mages
- True Britannians
- The Shadowlords
Each faction will have their own stronghold and ranking system. All factions are aggressive towards each other.
- Currently there are only 3 active, Minax, True Britannians and Shadowlords. All 3 factions have their bases in Britain.
- True Britannians base is still the same
- Shadowlords are located at Black Thorn's castle - north east of healers
- Minax base was moved to Britain directly south from the provisioners near the Britain control point / monolith
[edit] Strongholds of Factions
Each Faction will have its own stronghold, a place where their Faction stone resides and where the members of that faction are to take a sigil if they obtain one. The stronghold is the base of operations for each Faction. At this time, the Faction strongholds are located at the following locations:
[edit] Minax Faction
The stone fortress lies deep within the mountains that give access to dungeon Destard. The entrance to the fortress can be found on the north side of the mountains, almost opposite to the entrance to Destard. .
[edit] Council of Mages Faction
The Magincia Parliament Building in the southeast corner of Magincia.
[edit] Shadowlord Faction
Located in the unused crypts in the Yew forest, a fair distance in a direct line northeast from the east Yew Healer's Shop named "Deep Forest Healing". This is not the Yew Graveyard, but instead the haunted crypts far to the northeast of the city within the woods.
[edit] True Britannians Faction
Located within Castle Britannia's throne room, in the town of Britain.
[edit] Faction Towns
There are 8 cities that can fall under the control of a faction. Each of these cities has a townstone placed within the city limits. These townstones have a variety of uses (described later in this section) for the faction that controls the city. In addition, there are eight town pedestals upon which the "town sigil" (described later, used for capturing a city) for that particular city rests. The towns that contain the townstones, town pedestals, and the respective town sigil are listed below:
- Britain (located south of the mage shop on the east side of Britain)
- Skara Brae (located north of the provisioner's shop)
- Magincia (located southwest of the tavern)
- Minoc (located south of the tavern)
- Moonglow (located east of the provisioner's shop)
- Trinsic (located east of the meeting hall)
- Vesper (located west of the docks)
- Yew (located west of the healer)
[edit] Joining/Quitting a Faction
Players who join factions will be able to participate in the combat, politics, and trade within the Faction system. Players can join Factions by the following methods:
- Must be at least 5x GM to join a faction with skillcap 700.0 and have reached 225 statscap, and be more than 72 hours old char. (to prevent voting fraud)
[edit] Join stones
You will find the faction join stones outside of each faction stronghold(*See page 1.1.1):
[edit] Minax join stone
Outside the Minax stronghold.
[edit] Council of Mages join stone
Outside the Council of Mages stronghold.
[edit] True Britannians join stone
Outside the True Britannians stronghold.
[edit] Shadowlords join stone
Outside the Shadowlords stronghold.
[edit] Joining with non-guilded players:
Non-guilded players that wish to join a Faction will need to find the Faction join stone(*See page 1.2.1). Check for that particular Faction. The faction join stones are located outside the stronghold for that particular faction. The player can double click the Faction join stone, and select the "Join" option that will appear.
- The player cannot not be in any faction with any other character on the same account. The player's account cannot be a "young" account (have young account status.
[edit] Joining with guilded players:
Guilded players may join a Faction if the following conditions are met: Only the Guildmaster of a guild can use the "join" option on a Faction stone for that guild, none of the other members will be able to join the Faction alone unless they quit their respective guild. The guild to join must be of the "standard" type. Chaos and Order guilds cannot join a Faction.
When the Guildmaster for a guild joins the Faction, all players are added to the Faction whether online or offline.
When the guildmaster attempts to join a Faction, each member of that guild is checked. If a particular member of the guild has another character elsewhere on that same account and same shard in a Faction, then that member will be removed from the guild attempting to join. This is to allow the guild to go ahead and join the Faction without overlapping the system of one character per account per shard within a Faction. The ejected guildmember can quit the Faction his or her other character is in and re-join the guild they were ejected from if desired. If a player has two or more characters within the same guild from the same account, and that guild then joins a faction, then one of their characters will be joined to the faction and remain in the guild. The other character or characters will be removed from the guild. If the guildmaster of the guild falls under this condition, then their guildmaster character will remain in the guild, while their other characters within that same guild, and on the same account, will be removed from the guild.
If a guildmember has "young" status, then they will be ejected from the guild upon the guild's joining of the Faction system. The Faction system itself has a load-balancing factor, for all members within the Faction (guilded or non-guilded). This load balancing is used if any Faction contains over 200 members. If any Faction contains 200 or more members, then the load balance system will perform a check every time someone tries to join any Faction. The system checks to see if the if the largest faction is as large or larger then three times the size of the smallest Faction. If the largest Faction is in fact three times as large as the smallest Faction, then the player attempting to join will need to choose another Faction to join. So for example:
If the Shadowlords Faction had 200 members and the other three Factions each had 1 member, then players trying to join the Shadowlords would be informed that they must join one of the other Factions. To continue this example, if the Shadowlords had 200 members and the other Factions had between 68 and 200 members each, then players could join any of the factions. This range can go up above 200 members, but the largest Faction must remain no larger then 3 times the size of the smallest Faction. If a large guild attempts to join a Faction, and that join would put that Faction out of the range (no larger then three times the size of the smallest Faction), then that guild would not be able to join that Faction. However they may try to join another Faction.
[edit] Quitting a Faction
The act of quitting a faction has several restrictions. The most noteworthy is that the process takes at least seven days to complete. This seven-day restriction is designed to prevent "faction hopping" and help develop some reasonable sense of permanence within the factions. The specific rules for quitting a faction are described below:
Individual players are able to resign from a Faction by resigning at the Faction stone(The stone inside the faction stronghold. *See page 1.1.1). The player will remain in the Faction for seven(7) days. After seven days, the player will be removed upon the next login. Players within a guild and part of a Faction cannot individually resign from a Faction unless they are the Guildmaster. The alternative for guilded players is to resign from the Guild itself, then undergo the standard individual Faction resignation process above (which will complete after seven days).
A Guildmaster may resign his or her entire guild from the Faction system. Upon doing this, all players in the guild will then remain within the Faction for seven more days. After seven days, these guildmembers will be removed from the Faction upon their next login. During this seven day resignation process, players resigning from the Faction will still be eligible to attacks from opposing Faction members. A player within the seven day resignation process cannot use a Faction stone to check Faction information or to participate in Faction votes.
[edit] Non Participants
Characters who are not in a faction will not be able to perform beneficial acts(Such as healing, curing, etc.) on characters in a faction if the target has received lawful damage from another player. If you try, you will receive this message;
The status of being lawfully damaged by someone(On someone that is attacked), is cleared when they reach full health.
For example: If "Player A" was in the Shadowlord faction and was attacked by "Player B" in the Council of Mages faction, this is considered lawful damage and "Player A" would have the "lawfully damaged by" status. Players outside of a faction will still be able to attack a character in a faction, but can receive a murder count if they do so(Unless other systems allow for this attack, such as guild wars, criminal/murderer status or order/chaos).
This system makes sure that there will be no outside "blue healers" to influence faction battles. Criminals and murderers that are in a faction *can* be healed by outsiders during battle, but that will flag the outsiders grey so that they can be freely attacked. Keep in mind that if a blue faction member is being attacked by non-faction members or monsters, the faction member can be healed by non-faction members since at that moment he has not received lawful damage from another player.
[edit] Combat Related Interactions
Players in the faction system are able to freely attack enemy faction members. However, faction mates are treated as "innocents" unless other circumstances override that status. As the faction system is designed to operate in conjunction with the other existing player-interaction rule sets that currently exist in Ultima Online, the Faction system will account for the integration of different player-interaction conditions. The conditions for Faction combat interaction are as follows:
- Players cannot be in a party with opposing Faction members
- The reputation status of a faction player (thief, criminal, murderer, etc) takes precedence over faction status. Example: Although a faction mate cannot ordinarily be freely attacked, a faction mate who is a criminal or murderer CAN be freely attacked.
- The guild war status of a faction player takes precedence over faction status. Example: Although a faction mate cannot ordinarily be freely attacked, a faction mate who is in an enemy guild (guild war) can be freely attacked
- Faction members can use all magic spells in combat when in a guarded area.
The precedence order for lawful aggression is by reputation, then by guild, then by faction. Lawful aggression is any aggression that will not flag the attacker as a criminal. Aggressive party actions are not listed because they themselves never allow free lawful aggression between players.
[edit] Faction Scoring and Rank
Faction players are able to gain "kill points" by defeating their faction enemies in battle. In addition, these kill points are used to determine a player's rank in the faction. There are two terms that players need to understand with the Faction point system. The two terms are "kill points" and "deficit".
View top scores by checking out the scoreboard;
There is only one scoreboard in Britannia, placed at the West Britain Bank.
[edit] Kill points
Kill points are earned when opposing Faction members successfully kill someone in an opposing Faction. The amount of kill points taken from the victim is 10% of the total kill points on the victim. The examples below illustrate the results from a battle, where the name "Winner" was victorious in the battle and "victim" was killed by "winner".
For an example: Assume the victim had 100 kill points and the winner of the fight had zero kill points. 10% of this goes to the victor, from the victim. Therefore the victim moves to 90 kill points and the winner of the fight now has 10 kill points. A minimum of 1 kill point is awarded each time a faction player dies, if the victim's kill point total is 19 or lower. For non-whole number totals resulting from percentages, the end results are rounded downward if the result is not a whole number.
Example 1: Winner: 85 kill points, Victim: 18 kill points. Result from death of the victim, Winner gets 1 kill point from the victim, moving the winner to 86 kill points. The victim's kill points reduce to 17.
Example 2: Winner has 50 kill points, victim has 21. Result from the death of the victim, winner gets 10% of the victim's kill points, rounded down to the nearest whole number. 10% of 21, or 2 kill points. The victim then has 19 kill points, and the winner of the fight has 52 kill points. When a Faction player reaches zero kill points and is then killed again, they move into a range called "deficit", where they do not have kill points at that time. Instead they have deficit points.
To display your kill points, simply say "Punkte". Like so;
Poor Shadow, he isn't a very good factioneer(Good thing he's a great staffer though).
[edit] Deficit
Deficit is the total on a faction player that reflects whether they are below zero kill points or not. The most deficit points any faction member can have are 6 (score -6). When a Faction member is at 6 deficit points, killing them will not increase their deficit and will result in no kill point gain for the winner. Each time a Faction member dies and they are within deficit, the winner that killed them will get 1 kill point for the kill unless the victim is at 6 deficit.
Example 1: A Faction member with 60 kill points kills another faction member with a deficit of 2. The winner of the battle will get 1 kill point, moving them to 61 kill points. The victim increases their deficit moving to a total 3 deficit.
Example 2: A faction member with a deficit of 3 kills a Faction member with 80 kill points. The victim (with 80 kill points) will lose 10% of their kill points to the winner, or 8 kill points. The winner of the battle moves from a deficit of 3 to having 5 kill points. 3 of the 8 kill points they won were used to get them out of deficit. The remaining 5 kill points the winner earns are added to the kill point total (since this player no longer is within deficit). Now they have zero deficit and 5 kill points. The winner can now be killed 5 times before reaching zero kill points again.
Example 3: A Faction member with 10 kill points kills another faction member with a deficit of 6. No points are exchanged in this example, since the victim is already at 6 deficit (which is the deficit cap). The victim will not gain any more deficit points, and the winner will not gain any kill points. Had the victim been at 5 deficit, the winner would have gained 1 kill point and the victim would have then been moved to 6 deficit.
[edit] Titles
Every Wednesday, all faction player scores are recalculated in order to assign faction rank. Titles vary within each faction as described below;
| Rank | Score | Minax | Council of Mages | Lord British | Shadowlords | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Below 20% | Defiler | Mystic | Defender | Servant | |
| 2 | 20% - 39% | Defiler | Mystic | Defender | Servant | |
| 3 | 40% - 49% | Defiler | Mystic | Defender | Servant | |
| 4 | 50% - 59% | Executioner | Diviner | Sentinel | Keeper of Lies | |
| 5 | 60% - 69% | Executioner | Diviner | Sentinel | Keeper of Lies | |
| 6 | 70% - 79% | Executioner | Diviner | Sentinel | Keeper of Lies | |
| 7 | 80% - 89% | Warlord | Luminary | Crusader | Bringer of Sorrow | |
| 8 | 90% - 94% | Warlord | Luminary | Crusader | Bringer of Sorrow | |
| 9 | 95% - 99% | Dread Knight | Archon of Principle | Knight of Virtue | Agent of Evil | |
| 10 | 99.1% - 100% | Avenger of Mondain | Inquisitor of the Council | Knight of the Codex | Purveyor of Darkness |
Faction titles will ALWAYS be displayed and above your character name. Draconis isn't ranked very high now, is he?
[edit] Death at the hands of a Faction Enemy
In order to add more permanence to the results of faction battles, and add meaning to death in combat without inflicting further economic damage upon the deceased, faction players are subject to a temporary skill loss penalty of 33% when slain by a faction opponent. As described in the time-based operations chart, this penalty lasts 20 minutes. This penalty is also applied if a faction character commits "suicide".
- Note: This penalty is not applied when a faction player is killed by a non-faction player, faction mate, or non-enemy faction monster. Also depending on the amount of towns owned by the faction, the time can be reduced. Town bonuses, factionstatloss is decreased by 1 minute, for each town a faction controls, that means if SL controlled 8 towns, they go from 20 minutes stattloss to 12 minutes stattloss.
[edit] Looting Interactions
As a result of the combat-oriented nature of the faction system, many cases will arise in which players have the opportunity to loot the corpses of the fallen. As these rules must also be integrated with the currently existing player interaction rules, the rule set described below defines the complete listing of possible looting interactions. Looting Rules:
- Players will not be able to loot each other through the same faction.
- Players from opposite factions can be in the same party, but by party default the party setting will be "No looting".
- The reputation status of a faction player (thief, criminal, murderer, etc) takes precedence over faction status.
Example: Although a fellow faction member cannot ordinarily be freely looted, a fellow faction member who is a criminal or murderer CAN be freely looted. The guild war status of a faction player takes precedence over faction status.
Example:A faction member in an opposing guild can be freely looted as per the standard guild war looting rules.
A dead person
[edit] Faction Friendly Kills
As described in the combat interactions section, friendly faction members are treated as innocent in every way (barring other circumstances). As a result, killing an innocent friendly faction member is treated as a murder under the reputation system.
[edit] Faction-Allied Monsters
In order to provide more interaction with the Faction system and the surrounding environments within Britannia, a variety of monsters in the Felucca lands will gain factional properties. These factional properties will cause the monsters to be non-aggressive towards players of the same faction, and have a faction credit value to players of opposing factions.
- Faction monsters only spawn on the Felucca facet. Daemons, wisps, ogre lords and silver serpents will spawn as normal on both facets. They will appear normal and function as they have before to those players not in Factions. However on the Felucca facet, the monsters associated with Factions will appear and behave somewhat different only to Faction members. Faction associated monsters will highlight orange (using the cursor) to opposing Faction members and be aggressive. They will highlight blue and be non-aggressive to members within their associated Faction. Example: Ogre Lords will highlight orange and be aggressive to the Shadowlords faction, while appearing as blue and be non-aggressive to the Minax Faction.
- Faction players may attack friendly (associated faction) monsters with criminal consequences.
- Aggression toward a friendly monster will cause the monster to attack the aggressor.
- Faction monsters will be attacked on sight by guards.
- Faction monsters are not tamable.
| Faction | Monsters | Picture | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minax | Ogre Lords |  | |
| Council of Mages | Wisps | 
| |
| True Britannians | Silver Serpents | 
| |
| Shadowlords | Deamons |  |
[edit] The following rules also apply to Faction system killing:
- Points are not given to players who kill friendly faction members.
- It is impossible for the kill deficit value to exceed 6 points.
- It is impossible to have non-zero values for both kill points and kill deficit.
- Points can be deducted due to inactivity from fighting.
[edit] Faction Currency
Factions and faction players can receive "currency" in the form of silver ("silver"-looking coins) that are use able for various faction-specific needs and luxuries. Silver can be earned by both players and factions themselves through a variety of means, and may be spent in a variety of different ways (described below). The lists below demonstrate the sources of silver income and targets of possible expenditure.
[edit] Faction Credit Interface
- Silver is represented as silver coins.
- Silver coins are not "blessed" nor "newbied".
- When a player earns silver, they are placed in the player's pack.
- When a faction earns silver, the amount is "credited" to the faction's factionstone.
[edit] Credit Income
All different methods to gain silver(s) is written thoroughly below.
[edit] Faction Player Income:
Slain faction enemies: 40 silver pieces for every 1 kill point received (note: slain enemies who have a kill deficit greater then 0 award NO credits). Players will not be able to get silver from the same opponent multiple times over a short period of time. It will take a while before players can get silver from the same person again.
Slain monsters with faction affiliation:
- Minax: Ogre Lords - 30 silver
- Council of Mages: Wisps - 20 silver
- True Britannians: Silver Serpents - 30 silver
- Shadowlords: Daemons (not summoned daemons) - 30 silver
Player Tithes are 0 - 100% of all faction player silver income. This is set by Faction Commander in increments of 10%. Points taken from this tithe are placed into a Faction Treasury stored at the factionstone. The currency can thereafter only be distributed by the faction commander to the individual town treasuries under the faction's control. Once the faction credits are allocated to a particular faction controlled town, the finance minister and Sheriff for that town can use these credits for various expenditures, such as Faction vendors or guards.
Players may move and transfer silver in the same way that they manipulate standard coinage. The faction commander may disburse silver to a particular city by using the faction stone, selecting "commander menu", then selecting "transfer credits". The commander will be given a listing of cities under the faction's control, and after selecting a city, may enter an amount of credits to transfer.
[edit] Silver Use
Silver can be used by Faction craftspeople and/or to obtain the following items (crafting the listed items requires the crafting player to have the requisite credits). Faction craftable items can only be crafted in a town being controlled by that faction. Faction Scrolls: These are Faction Imbued scrolls of heal, greater heal, harm, fireball, and lightning. These scrolls may be used by a player of at least 90 inscribing skill upon a faction-crafted gnarled staff, in order to charge the staff with a number of charges of that spell. The number of charges is equal to 40 divided by the circle of that spell (rounded down).
Example: A lightning scroll would provide the staff with 10 charges of lightning, a fireball scroll would provide 13 charges of fireball, and so forth. Staffs (staves) cannot be recharged. A new staff must be created in order to accept a new enchantment.
[edit] Faction Merchandise
The different faction merchandise can be read about and seen below.
[edit] Faction Craftable Items
As described above, players who craft items and are in the faction system may use silver to imbue an item upon creation with "faction" properties.
- After crafting an item, a faction player with available silver will receive a window asking if they wish to imbue the item with factional properties.
- A faction item is named as such (ie: a faction plate helm).
- Faction items are "temporarily enchanted". Which means: The items you are crafting will be blessed for the amount of towns your faction owns. In other words: if your faction owns 1 town at the time your crafting an item, the item will be blessed for 1 day.
2 Towns = 2 Days, 3 Towns = 3 Days, 4 Towns = 4 Days, 5 Towns = 5 Days, 6 Towns = 6 Days, 7 Towns = 7 Days, 8 Towns = 8 Days. When this time period is over, the item will become a regular crafted item with no special faction properties.
- FactionCrafting, if you have the town of Britain, Magincia & Yew, you have access to craft a special item, if you have an "ancient sigil" + silver. (This item will be changed every few months, to keep it semi rare and exclusive)
- FactionCrafting, you need to be in a BlackSmith shop (sign of a hammer with an anvil). The town where you are, need to be controlled by your faction.
- FactionCrafting, you can now craft bolaballs in factions, they cost 60silver and 500gold.
Faction items gain a hue appropriate to the faction of the maker. The crafting player will be asked whether to hue the item with the faction's primary or secondary color.
| Faction | Primary Color | Secondary Color | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Minax | Blood Red | Black | |
| Council of Mages | Blue-White | Blue | |
| Lord British | Purple | Gold | |
| Shadowlords | Black | Green |
Faction items can be worn only by players in the faction, and only if they have sufficient rank to equip the item (See the chart above in regards to
the rank system).
| Rank | Number of items | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | |
| 2 | 4 | |
| 3 | 4 | |
| 4 | 5 | |
| 5 | 5 | |
| 6 | 5 | |
| 7 | 6 | |
| 8 | 6 | |
| 9 | 7 | |
| 10 | 8 | |
| Commander | 9 |
Here is a list on the craftable items and their prices;
| Craftable Items | Price(Silver)(prizes will be updated) | |
|---|---|---|
| Armor (Metal types) | ### | |
| Armor (Leather types) | ### | |
| Weapons (Melee) | ### | |
| Weapons (Ranged) | ### | |
| Clothes | ### | |
| Scrolls | ### | |
| Horse(Buy components) | ### |
[edit] Town Improvements
You can use silvers to improve your towns. Below I've listed the various of town improvements you can employ.
| Town Improvements | Price
| |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 Guard | 5000 | |
| Level 2 Guard | 6000 | |
| Level 3 Guard | 7000 | |
| Level 4 Guard | 8000 | |
| Reagent Vendor | 5000 | |
| Ore Vendor | 3000 | |
| Wood Vendor | 3000 | |
| Stablemaster | 5000 | |
| Floor Traps(Made by player tinkers) | 1000 | |
| Town Control Extension | 20000/day |
- Town control extension allows for the Faction to continue to hold control of a particular town, for the maximum of seven days, as long as they already have control of it.
- Read more about Vendors and Guards in their respectable category, check content tablet.
[edit] Faction War Horses
A "Horse breeder" sells war horses for the particular faction that purchased it. War horses have the following properties:
- War horses are hued with their faction’s color.
- War horses cannot be ridden by players in opposing factions.
- War horses cannot be transferred or friended to anyone in an opposing faction.
- War horses can only be retamed by someone in the same faction.
- War horses have a high strength, dexterity, and natural higher fighting ability.
In order to ride a war horse, a faction member must have reached Rank 2.
| Faction | Horse | |
|---|---|---|
| Minax |  | |
| Council of Mages |  | |
| True Britannians |  | |
| Shadowlords |  |
[edit] Faction Floor Traps
Properties:
- The tinker must have at least 90 skill to attempt to create a floor trap.
- A faction may have a maximum of 15 traps placed at any given time (total).
- Traps can only be placed in cities and/or faction strongholds.
- Traps will only affect opposing faction members.
- Traps can only be removed by opposing Faction members through the use of the "Remove Trap" skill. If the trap is not removed via this skill, it will reset itself infinitely until removed.
Floor traps are created by players in the faction system with the tinkering skill. There are 4 types of floor traps available to Factions:
| Trap Type | Usable In | Picture | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gas Trap | Faction stronghold only |  | |
| Explosion Trap | Any faction town |  | |
| Saw Trap | Faction town under control of your faction |  | |
| Spike Trap | Faction town under control of your faction |  |
Traps will be visible for one full minute if someone in a faction uses the "detect hidden" skill on the trap. This will reveal the trap for one full minute globally, so that anyone within range can see the trap during that minute. This allows for faction members using a trap they own to have the opportunity to show their fellow faction mates the location of the trap.
All Faction members that are in the general vicinity a trap created by the other factions will get a display alerting them to a trap in the area. The Faction members opposed to the trap's creator can then attempt to reveal the trap that may be in the area by using their detect hidden skill.
Traps can only be removed by opposing Faction members through the use of the "remove trap" skill. If the trap is not removed via this skill, it will reset itself infinitely until removed.
[edit] Town conquest
One of the most important sources of context within the faction conflict lies within the ability of factions to conquer cities. There are eight cities that can be conquered and subjected to the control of a faction. The conquest of a city serves as the foundation for many of the other features of the faction system and can be done as described below.
- Each of the above towns has a town pedestal
- Each town has an associated town sigil with it's own color (created on town pedestal).
- A faction member with a stealing skill of at least 80 may steal the town sigil. The sigil must be transported to a stronghold tile within one
our (otherwise it returns to it's home pedestal location).
The sigil may be corrupted at a Faction stronghold by placing it on that Faction's stronghold tile. The sigil must remain on that stronghold tile for 10 hours. There is a grace period of 15 minutes during which if the sigil is moved from the tile, it may be restored to the stronghold tile without restarting its corruption time.
After being corrupted, the sigil must be returned to its town pedestal in order to capture the town. The faction has one hour to return the sigil to a town, or it returns to it's last stronghold tile location (still corrupted). The sigil will remain on the last stronghold tile or town pedestal until the steal/move process is performed on it again, at which time the player or players moving the sigil have the required times to achieve their objectives or the sigil will return automatically to the stronghold tile or pedestal where it was last located.
Sigils, to steal a sigil from a town, you must stand 2 minutes on a control point... if you survive standing there, the sigil becomes stealable, You must control all the control points in any given city, to steal the sigil or return the sigil. The controlpoint will send out a warning to opposing factions that you are in process of capturing it at XXX location.
A control point in the city of Britain.
- Sigils, when delivering a stolen sigil to a monolith, you gain 1 Sigil stolen point on the faction board.
- Controlpoints in any given city, to steal the sigil or return the sigil. The controlpoint will send out a warning to opposing factions that you are in process of capturing it at XXX location.
- Sigils, Towns now stay controlled for 5 days, and a commander now have 14 full days of control until next voting starts.
- After a town becomes subject to re-conquest, other factions may steal the sigil and attempt to corrupt it.
- Once a town has been conquered it will never return to it's "neutral" state. A faction is in control of a town until another faction steals and corrupts the sigil and thus takes over control.
If a sigil is corrupted and stolen from the stronghold by an opposing faction they can take it to their base to restart the corruption process. If they fail to deliver it within one hour it will teleport back to the stronghold from which it was stolen. A sigil's home location is always defined as the last stronghold or town tile it was placed on.
A player with a town sigil cannot:
- Teleport
- Gate
- Recall
- Cast Polymorph
- Cast Incognito
- Use a disguise kit
- Use moonstone
- Place sigil in a container on the ground
- "Give" the sigil to an enemy faction player
- "Give" the sigil to someone not in their own faction
A player with a town sigil can:
- Hide
- Use Stealth to walk while hidden
If a player with a town sigil logs out or their character for any reason leaves Ultima Online, the sigil returns to its home location. Players under the effects of a disguise kit, polymorph spell, or incognito spell cannot steal the Sigil until those effects wear off.
A sigil stone in the city of Britain.
[edit] Taking Control of a Town
Once a Faction has successfully placed a corrupted sigil onto the town pedestal, then that Faction will control that town for a specified but variable amount of time (described further below). Faction members can operate within special designations, through an internal election process within their Faction.
[edit] Town bonuses:
- Each controlled town gives the faction players a +100 mage vendor resource bonus, that means if SL controls 1 town, their vendors spawns with 100 each reagent, if they control 8, they spawn with 800 each, and restock the same amount (also faction vendors must only work for the people in that faction).
- Each town you control, gives you a 3% damage bonus against untame creatures & monsters. This works for melee and spell based attacks, NOT for pets.
- Each town you control gives your CL an additional 3 messages per 24hours. (the messages will appear for any character that has a player in that faction on the account).
- If you control at least 1 town, the CL is able to appoint a deputy commander. A deputy commander has the same powers as the CL, except the CL can demote the deputy.
- Each town you have, grants the players in that faction a 0.5% bonus of receiving "an ancient sigil", upon successfully killing an opponent whom yields at least 1 score.
- Each town you have, decreases the cost of faction craftable items by 5%.
[edit] Faction Office
Faction players are eligible for public office within their faction. The three eligible offices are: the office of Faction Commander, Town Sheriff, and Town Finance Minister. As implied, a Town Sheriff and Town Finance Minister can exist for each town under a faction's control. While the office of Faction Commander is attained through an election process (described below), the offices of Town Sheriff and Finance Minister are attained through appointment from the Faction Commander. There is only one Faction Commander per Faction, and only one Town Sheriff and one Finance Minister per Faction occupied town.
[edit] Faction Commander
Faction Commanders are elected to their position by the members of the Faction itself. Only Faction members with a rank of 6 through 10 may become a Faction Commander (please refer to the section "Faction Scoring and Points" for more information about ranks). The information below describes voting for Faction Commander:
- During campaigning, up to 10 players with a rank of 6 through 10 are able to run for public office if they so choose. The first 10 eligible Faction members that choose to participate in running for the Faction Commander position are allowed to do so. Any subsequent Faction members are denied candidacy during that election cycle, even if they are eligible.
- After 24 hours of campaigning, the voting process begins. Faction members that wish to vote must use the faction stone, select the "vote" option, and select their candidate choice.
- If you've been in same faction for more than 60 days, you'll get 2 votes. If you've been in it for more than 90 days, you'll get 3 votes.Three is the cap. (this is to make it easier for the CORE faction ppl to decide the leaders, which is fair we believe
- Players can only vote once and cannot change their vote after submission.
- The player with the largest vote total after the voting process is over becomes the new Faction Commander.
[edit] Faction Commander abilities:
- The Faction Commander is able to appoint or remove the sheriff and finance minister for each town that a faction controls. The commander accesses these functions by using the appropriate townstone within the controlled town.
- The Faction Commander has the option to appoint a "deputy" commander. The deputy commander has the same abilities as the commander, so choose wisely. This can be done by speaking "i wish to appoint a deputy commander" and clicking a player.
- The Faction Commander determines the degree of faction "tithes". The tithing rate can be set anywhere from 0 to 100% in increments of 10%. The commander accesses this function by using the Faction stone. The purpose of this tithing is described in the section titled "Faction Scoring and Points".
- The Faction Commander determines the disbursement of the faction's treasury to cities under the control of the faction. The disbursement of these credits is further described in the section titled "Faction Scoring and Points".
- With a limit of once every hour, a Faction Commander may send a speech message to all online players within a faction.
- Once every hour the commander may send a global message to all online faction members in his faction. This is done by saying "message faction" - a prompt will appear asking them what they want to send as a message. The commander types in the text and hits enter - it is sent to all online faction mates.
- The Commander can speak "i wish to ban a faction member" and point out a player from his own faction if he is located inside the stronghold and has less than 4 scores. When this happens, the affected player is unable to join any factions for 24hours.
The commander can do this 10 times every 24hours.
[edit] Faction Sheriff
Each town under the control of a faction may have one sheriff appointed to it. The conditions of Sheriff appointment and function are:
- The faction Commander may access the townstone of a captured city in order to hire the sheriff (described above).
- The commander may not select him/herself to be a Sheriff.
- The commander must select a player from within the same faction to be a Sheriff.
The town sheriff is able to perform their official duties by speaking out loud "I am sheriff". Like so;
The Sheriff abilities are as follows: Sheriffs may hire "Faction Guards". The Sheriff may control the amount of Faction Guards in operation, their cost, the maximum allowed, and how they function. Note that a faction guard does not have the same strengths and abilities as a regular town guard. They are able to be overcome by players, and their strengths will be comparable to some of the monsters that roam the lands.
Each faction may purchase 4 different guard types:
- 2 generic types (Henchman, Mercenary)
- 2 specific types (described below):
- A maximum of 10 of each guard type may be in service at a time in one city.
- A faction guard will stay within the city borders.
- The Faction Sheriff may give the Faction Guards orders. The orders are "Ignore", "Warn", and "Attack". A Faction Sheriff can give these orders selectively for the other three Factions, or for citizens (players). However, Faction Guards cannot be set to attack citizens (players) that are not within the faction system. Citizens can be ignored by or warned by Faction Guards, with a warning being a verbal display from the Faction Guard stating the current nature of the occupied town. The Sheriff can set the Faction Guards to selectively ignore, warn, or attack members of other factions. For example, Faction Guards under the control of the True Britannian Faction may be set to ignore the Council of Mages Faction, and attack the Shadowlords Faction, and warn the Minax Faction.
- The sheriff may only control the guards when the sigil is placed on the town stone not when it is in a base.
The chart below shows the different types of Faction guards and their cost in credits (also known as "silver"). Credits are described earlier in the section "Faction scoring and points".
[edit] Faction Guards
True Britannia paladins at the Moonglow healers.
| Minax | Council of Mages | True Britannians | Shadowlords | Cost(Credits/Silver) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Henchman | Henchman | Henchman | Henchman | 5000 | |
| Mercenary | Mercenary | Mercenary | Mercenary | 6000 | |
| Berserker | Sorcerer | Knight | Death Knight | 7000 | |
| Dragoon | Wizard | Paladin | Necromancer | 8000 |
A Faction Sheriff may also view the finances in the town treasury. This allows for them to plan for the distribution and expenditure of the credits available. The Faction Sheriff and Faction finance Minister both are able to allocate this town treasury for the various Faction activities.
[edit] Faction Finance Minister
Each town under the control of a faction may have one finance minister appointed to it. The Faction finance Minister is appointed by the Faction Commander. The Finance Minister appointment process works as follows:
- The Faction Commander may access the townstone of a captured city in order to hire the finance minister.
- The commander may not select him/herself to be a Finance Minister.
- The Commander must select a player from within the same faction to be a Finance Minister.
The Finance Minister is able to access the town finance options by speaking out loud "I wish to access the city treasury". Like so;
The Finance Minister's functions and abilities are as follows:
- The Finance Minister may view the city treasury, purchase faction shopkeepers, or set the town's taxation rate. The taxation rate can be set from 1/3 normal price to 3x normal price in increments of thirds.
- In a town that has a taxation rate other then 0 (normal price), the NPC vendor prices will reflect the increased or decreased prices.
- Increased or decreased prices affect all players, whether they are in a faction or not.
- In addition to setting the taxation rate of the NPC vendors, the Finance Minister is able to purchase additional NPC vendors for the town. These vendors include Horse Breeders (who sell "war horses"), reagent vendors, ore vendors, and lumber vendors. The NPC vendors will appear at the location where the vendor is purchased.
[edit] NPC Shopkeepers
The following NPC Shopkeepers are available for purchase for use in the Faction controlled town:
| Shopkeeper Type | Cost(Credits/Silver) | Maximum Available | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reagent Vendor | 5000 | 10 | |
| Ore Vendor | 3000 | 10 | |
| Wood Vendor | 3000 | 10 | |
| Stablemaster | 5000 | 1 |
A bunch of vendors strategically placed to block an exit.
[edit] Good-to-know facts
- Point transfer has been disabled.
- 5 new faction titles have been added.
- Factions now automatically clear inactive players and anti muling code has been added to an extent as well.(this is instead of giving the commander the choice of who to kick of inactive players)
- If you are online and your faction places a corrupted sigil on a town monolith and thus gains control of a town, you gain 10 faction points.
- FactionScoreboard will now also display who has stolen most sigils.
- In effort to balance faction sizes along with the automatic cleanup of inactive players, you can no longer join a faction if it is 15% bigger than the smallest faction at the time.
- Faction CL messages, must be received by any character online if it has a character in that faction on the account.
- Proper old text for commander & deputy titles.
- "I Honor your leadership" has been disabled to prevent point fraud.
- Factionplayers who are attacked by other players in a faction can not recall until the combat timer has worn off.
- Allowing factions to turn Order & Chaos in order to combine the two play styles and allow for a more broad pvp community.
- To give it more meaning to have scores, by saying “Renew my spirit.” It knocks of statloss earned by dying.
- Faction scores decay at a rate of 1 score per day, unless you made 1 score within the last 24hours.
to remove score huggers from the toplists and encourage active playing.
- You may only hold a Sigil for 20 minutes instead of 1 hour.
[edit] Author(s)
Written & first drafted by: Lead CNS Hermes
Co-written and edited by:
Edited by: Tribal
Pictures taken by:
Also Props to:
Lead Seer Draconis
Seer Shadow
Despised
Boogieman
Counselor Loki
Dazn- (the deputy commander command and info)
The good people at stratics. The bad people at osi.
