Thoughts on Friendly Factions

[Eldaquen]

Conversely, It's now common practice for some players to defend "enemy" factions, sometimes even against their own faction, all to no detriment. Last week I watched a PM defend TC's relic against a group of GODS toons trying to get their relic back

Anyway it seems wrong to me that the accident is so crazily penalized while the practice of teaming with the enemy against your own faction has no negatives. I'm not quite sure how to make this more fair, but I'd think we could do better than the current way. At the very least I would like to see a better way to get faction back for your companion faction.

These are two separate issues. The detriment to the cross faction defender is the communities reaction to that person's choice. Not to meantion there is a risk of xp loss if a cross faction NPC defender slays the cross faction player.

The practice is not NOW common...as Alka stated its an age old practice, which brings me back to another of your comments: Suddenly deciding it's not OK after all this time would be a negative thing.

There is a difference of someone going to participate in a one time occurance to raid/defend for the sake of participating in PvP verses making a build specifically for cross faction defense. One is ok the other is not.

[Tru3Fals3]

from SL i killed 6 guards. AO i killed 3-4. NC only took 2 . MA took 3-4. RK...well..does anyone play that faction? TC killed me a couple there.

no. nobody plays rk.

[Bargeld]

You will find that most of us agree with Elda. Maintaining faction is not hard, its more of a matter of learning all the intricacies about how it works (and there really aren't that many).

Basic rules:
If there are NPC's in a large mixed battle, dont use any action that could potentially hit them (if you aren't sure what actions will do this, then own up to that and learn either through your own mistakes or ask someone about theirs).

If you DO hit a friendly faction NPC, leave the map. If that map is not respawned (ie, being held by players, friendly or not) then don't go back to that map till it respawns.

Learn which NPC groups belong to which factions (there are already mentions of the Monks in the north being aligned with the Ave mercenaries) there are other groups to learn as well.

Don't be greedy. Return your allies' relic to their cradle if you need to regain faction there.

As I read through the topic, all i could think of was one of the fella's signatures:

"Learn to play better"

It's not meant as an insult, it's a suggestion, because you are struggling much more than you should be with this subject.

[frogofpeace]

from SL i killed 6 guards. AO i killed 3-4. NC only took 2 . MA took 3-4. RK...well..does anyone play that faction? TC killed me a couple there.

no. nobody plays rk.

Not to go off topic, but again we see how NC gets the shaft. Rogues! For! N! C!

Actually, does anybody see a certain symmetry here - SL expects you to kill friendlies, no big deal. Some in AO think they're lawful, but they worship both Tiamat and Bahamut, for pete's sake; holy two faces of Eve! NC is unforgiving when you break the law. I didn't quite understand the TC comment, but who understands the hippies, really? MA isn't mentioned in the dread musings of the ancient journalist Amoenotep, but MA is dark and mysterious... And nobody plays RK.

All is right in Aetheria!

[Rainswept]

Don't be greedy. Return your allies' relic to their cradle if you need to regain faction there.

The problem isn't a willingness to do that, it's the fact that I can't just pull RKs relic out, if any RK person taps a cradle before me, they get the RK relic, if I tap the cradle and either AO or the cradle being raided's relic is in, I'll get that one instead. So if a raiding party goes to say, SL, I have to go 3rd, ask any RK players to wait till I go, and then hope the cradle randomly decides to give me RKs.

Elda: The issue is not limited to SD's you're right. It has much more to do with lag than SD's in truth. As for your very lengthy way of asking why supporting keeping dual logging isn't the same as being opposed to change, the simple fact is that there is no benifit to anyone by making the friendly factions so hard to fix. It's not broken at all for fixing your own faction, it's when a TC toon gets trouble with NC reputation that's such a pain.

[frogofpeace]

They can drop the RK relic, let you pick it up and run it back. I'm unclear whether this is allowed or not, but seems like a reasonable thing to do.

[diddy33]

the way i heard it is your toon has to be the one to take it out of the cradle and return it home. i may be wrong though, it happens

[Shadowalker]

I support Teps TC statement.. I have with my archer on a few occassion had to put down a renegade TC toon that was attacking lowbie TC toons trying to make a start in this world. As soon as I struck the renegade with an arrow, the npc defenders who saw this went hostile. And when the renegade ducked arround a corner to avoide my arrow, I auto attacked a defender NPC, I imediatly disengaged and moved to gain angle of attack on the renegade again. During this one encounter I struck atleast 2 npc's with 2 or more arrows, but I did not kill one. After the renegade was dead, I left the area and returned to find the NPC defenders very understanding and we all had a good laugh over it. The same leave area and let by-gones be by-gones works for when an animal empathy attept crit fails.. the critter gets mad, but if you run from it, instead of attacking, it quickly forgets and moves on about its buisness.

To supply a "quick fix" solution to this problem is to take away accountablity of ones actions.

Rainswept, your posts almost always appeal to me as sensiable and valid, I have a great respect for your thoughts. In this case though, I must disagree. With the Dominace AORK has on the server at this time, the currently provided masures to fix faction are easier for toons of AORK than any other faction.

Enjoy the moment, but live and fight for tomorrow.

diddy33 says, "the way i heard it is your toon has to be the one to take it out of the cradle and return it home. i may be wrong though, it happens " Then have offending toon grab each relic and drop til they get the one they need, shouldnt be hard as I have never witnessed a AORK toon make a solo raid.

[Exiled]

I've successfully raided TC solo, and gave SL a run for thier money the other day, but thanks to the assassin's poison glitch it didn't last long

[Eldaquen]

Elda: The issue is not limited to SD's you're right. It has much more to do with lag than SD's in truth. As for your very lengthy way of asking why supporting keeping dual logging isn't the same as being opposed to change, the simple fact is that there is no benifit to anyone by making the friendly factions so hard to fix. It's not broken at all for fixing your own faction, it's when a TC toon gets trouble with NC reputation that's such a pain.

Regarding dual logging: I included not to discuss specifically dual logging here, but to point out that in one subject you request no change with the reasoning: "its always been this way". However, in regards to maintaining faction your suggesting a change even though its always been that way. Applying the "its always been rational" to one and not another is perplexing. Really can't have it both ways; if works for one, then works for all. Those words may haunt every suggestion made thereafter.

the simple fact is that there is no benifit to anyone by making the friendly factions so hard to fix.

I disagree there is a benefit to raiders. As a raider, I hope the defenders value their faction more than winning the day and retaining a relic. Thereby refraining from using stunning fist, KD, disarm or unfriendly spells when the defenders' NPCs are present. Defending a relic cradle is in my opinion already in favor of the defenders, with closer respawn points, gain of xp and gold when slay a raider, and the chance of xp loss to raiders when those pesky epic NPC defenders slay said raider. Maintaining faction is one of the few things raiders have going for them and count on to assist in their relic attempt. To make regaining easy would tip the scales even farther in favor of the defenders.

By making regaining faction easy there would be less incentive for defenders to engage in more aggressive actions while defending.

This suggested change would also erode the value of a pure caster with party friendly hellball, as why go pure when throwing the unfriendly version has little consequence to faction status in the relic war. Right now a druid/shifter with hellball would (should) think twice about throwing a unfriendly hellball when NPC's are around, if was easy to regain faction shifters would have less incentive not to use this tactic.

I am fully aware that by playing in TC, with the present situation where relics are difficult to procur from AO or RK, regaining faction is extreamly hard. Yet I am not favor making it easier. As I do not find it all that hard to attempt to RP repentance when a god is around to obtain a fix. Time consuming yes, as they are not always around and the first few times does not always obtain a response.

[Bargeld]

I've successfully raided TC solo, and gave SL a run for thier money the other day, but thanks to the assassin's poison glitch it didn't last long

4 + 32 vs DC 48 isn't a glitch

[Exiled]

the glitch is it isn't supposed to work if i'm in combat, which i already was. i'm not complaining about it, i just brought it up, didn't even mention you were the one that did it. so lets just keep it out of this thread.

[Rainswept]

With the Dominace AORK has on the server at this time, the currently provided masures to fix faction are easier for toons of AORK than any other faction.

shouldnt be hard as I have never witnessed a AORK toon make a solo raid.

relics are difficult to procur from AO or RK, regaining faction is extreamly hard.

You know, I was fairly certain this type of attitude was out there, but it's still sad to see it in print. It shouldn't matter who was posting, either the situation exists and we'd all benefit from a change, or it doesn't. It seems that my suggestions are weighed against the pvp success of my factions.

have the offending toon grab each relic and drop til they get the one they need

That's true, if I ask every member of every raiding party to sacrifice any reputation boosts of their own for my benefit, over and over until my reputation is fixed.

[frogofpeace]

Hmm, I don't see a problem there - that's what friends are for. Do 'reputation points' actually do anything, other than return you to friendly status with your faction/ally?

[Rainswept]

If your reputation with your ally drops too low, players of that faction are hostile to you, all the NPCs of that area will attack you on sight (usually lowering your reputation further), and you can no longer bind in areas controlled by that faction.

So no, it's not all that big a deal, just something I believed was a little off in the way it was scripted, owing to the fact that accidental misclicks earn penalties while actively working against your faction does not.