Faction Feedback

[*Pellease]

I think the biggest thing right now is that they need to be reactive and at the same time find ways to not seem so fanatic.

Had the following convo between Frank and Rain yesterday.

Rain: "I've built fourteen iron golems for the godsmen, and they still haven't paid me."

Frank: "Why?"

Rain: "I'm a member and was hoping for promotion."

Frank: "Was thinking bout joining them, but that doesn't seem too good."

Rain: "You should, though I'm horrible at recreating."

Frank: "Probably cause recruiters tend ta be fanatics and tha' factions are filled with barmy beliefs. Yeah jus' not insane enough ta be a recruiter."

The convo went something like that.

I know factions aren't all so extreme and there's a lot of room in there for different beliefs in each faction. However, the common "chant" amongst players is normally the extreme dogma of each faction. So better faction PR that isn't simply self defensive or clicky "you don't even have the slightest idea about us," could help get players more involved.

Incentives would also do that. You would think the factions would be actively recruiting all these epic plane walkers like professional football players.

[*Hydra]

I think the biggest thing right now is that they need to be reactive and at the same time find ways to not seem so fanatic.

Had the following convo between Frank and Rain yesterday.

Rain: "I've built fourteen iron golems for the godsmen, and they still haven't paid me."

Frank: "Why?"

Rain: "I'm a member and was hoping for promotion."

Frank: "Was thinking bout joining them, but that doesn't seem too good."

Rain: "You should, though I'm horrible at recreating."

Frank: "Probably cause recruiters tend ta be fanatics and tha' factions are filled with barmy beliefs. Yeah jus' not insane enough ta be a recruiter."

The convo went something like that.

I know factions aren't all so extreme and there's a lot of room in there for different beliefs in each faction. However, the common "chant" amongst players is normally the extreme dogma of each faction. So better faction PR that isn't simply self defensive or clicky "you don't even have the slightest idea about us," could help get players more involved.

Incentives would also do that. You would think the factions would be actively recruiting all these epic plane walkers like professional football players.

That's an OCC problem really, there's not enough DMs/EMs, and not enough DMs to take care of what is happening in certain factions and people don't get promoted.

As for factions being extreme, well they seek to have the final answer of what is the purpose of the multiverse is and also because we're not in 2016, not everyone in Planescape is edgy and cynical and thinks believing in something faithfully is wrong.

[*Tomekk]

I know factions aren't all so extreme and there's a lot of room in there for different beliefs in each faction. However, the common "chant" amongst players is normally the extreme dogma of each faction. So better faction PR that isn't simply self defensive or clicky "you don't even have the slightest idea about us," could help get players more involved.

All factions have subgroups in them... but its kind of hard to prove they exist when there's barely anyone in said faction to begin with. :(

[*Sinlinara]

I do occasionally feel like Sensates exist only to throw a party once a year and provide free video recording of events on demand.


As far as factions as a whole go, I think they provide a good source of potential conflict between characters without the need for a DM or ambitious PC to step in to create that conflict. This has been very enjoyable for me.


What I find lacking is clear boundaries of what each faction controls, what resources they command, and how valuable those resources are. An example would be the Harmonium in the Bazaar thing, where for the longest time we had people, completely unaffiliated with the Harmonium, who would tell me that the Bazaar was under the control of the Harmonium because there were guards watching over it. Then someone else would speak up and tell me that it wasn't, that it was controlled by the Indeps and the Harmonium wasn't welcome. Things like this shouldn't be uncertain or up for debate, unless the ones debating it are Xaos, and in which case I expect us all to wake up the next cycle to find a Harmonium hanging from a streetlight by his underwear.
Another example of the above is the Sensory Stones, which are seemingly easier to obtain than pennies. Considering their magical nature this has always bugged me. I know magical items aren't especially hard to come by in Planescape, but it doesn't really feel 'real' unless there is a cost associated with either making Sensory Stones or in obtaining them.

[*Ariella]

That's an OCC problem really, there's not enough DMs/EMs, and not enough DMs to take care of what is happening in certain factions and people don't get promoted.

This is sadly true we don't have the staff. However if you feel you deserve a promotion and are missed by the staff you can poke the DM/Admins.

Another example of the above is the Sensory Stones, which are seemingly easier to obtain than pennies. Considering their magical nature this has always bugged me. I know magical items aren't especially hard to come by in Planescape, but it doesn't really feel 'real' unless there is a cost associated with either making Sensory Stones or in obtaining them.

This is due to a bit of a misunderstanding in the case of Sensory Stones. Sensory Stones do not leave the faction hall, Do not work outside of the faction hall, cannot be acquired outside the faction hall and cannot be replicated. The only exception to this is in the case of DM/EM events.

[*Sinlinara]

This is due to a bit of a misunderstanding in the case of Sensory Stones. Sensory Stones do not leave the faction hall, Do not work outside of the faction hall, cannot be acquired outside the faction hall and cannot be replicated. The only exception to this is in the case of DM/EM events.

While I do recognize that that misunderstanding exists, my specific complaint was that seemingly anyone, including people outside of the faction, can obtain them without incurring any real cost. For magical items that are nearly entirely unique within the Multiverse this feels a bit odd.

[*MimiFearthegn]

For example, faction questlines (at the end of which you unlock a repeateble daily quest. Like the normal quests we have in Sigil right now) that grant just fixed EXP and GOLD. for example 1000 exp and 1000 gold. So being in a faction could just make it a bit faster to level up and that's it (in addition to seeing a few cutscenes during the questline).

Quests attached to faction headquarters are an ongoing builder project. You are welcome to join. :D

[*Strawberry Jam]

It's not really kindly worded I just think it's more nuanced, especially when you're talking about motivating factors. I know you have certain preferences and that's fine but arguing about it is purely speculation over something that hasn't been tried. Sigil has 15 factions and you can't keep them all equally active unless about half of the players are a DM to tend to each.

So again, you make a choice about how you handle faction interaction and participation. Each design choice has merits and flaws. Like clerics taking specific domains, the choice is made to not limit domains to a deity's portfolio, also a design choice is made to have the domain or not, and Obsidian's design choice to give away free feats with domains. So the design in NWN2 doesn't mean the original d&d idea of domains is bad or that it has to work the way it does in NWN2.

So just as well the game doesn't turn into Everquest if you add quests, it only does if you made it to be like an MMO.

[*Embersworn]

I know you have certain preferences and that's fine but arguing about it is purely speculation over something that hasn't been tried.

I gave you examples where mechanical setup influenced the playerbase to gravitate towards a certain behavior. This is how playerbases work, it happened and it will happen again.

Which means I have more factual basis for my "speculation" than there's for your theory.

Any numeric gain will always gravitate players towards it. This is obvious in game design. The behavior rewarded with mechanics is always pursued. This is not just theory. Games are made with this in mind.

And adding things like factional quests is actually very MMO. Especially in a game when they're very likely to be daily quests.

Factions won't be any more balanced if you start handing mechancial benefits for being in one.
On top of this, you'll have to ensure that factional benefits are more or less equal to each other, which is not possible given how factions have different interests.

The common sense.

More than that, not being in a faction also should not be mechanically penalised, because the Planescape setting is bigger than only Sigil and factions are pretty much the Sigil-specific thing.

The flaws of mechanical benefit in this case outweigh its merits.

It's a lot of scripting and building to implement something with a fair chance of not just not improving, but plainly to cause new problems.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

My general opinion about factions hasn't changed for a few years. They add to the feel of the setting, but they're just an unrealistic system to make that active. 15 factions makes it numerically impossible to have any kind of equality between factions, and even if every faction had active members, the numbers of those members would be low single digits at best. Likely level split too making them impractical for some types of united events in each faction, then also adding that not every player will ever be part of a faction. I'd guesstimate at least half of the server doesn't really identify well to Factions or believes them to be far more radicalized than what they'd be.

Generally tolerance to be in any way related to entities which are of disliked nature also is fairly low, a few bad apples in a faction easily makes sure a generation of players will assume huge portion of the faction is like that. Which is funny since usually it's not even a huge portion of a faction, you'll never see the majority of faction, only the players, ambiance and the extremes for events.

But if you're really hellbent to keep factions as a major focus rather than just another feature, then I'd say you need to work on making factions revolve more around aspiration, get players interested in the good things factions do, not the constant negativity bias that tends to be going on. Which is pretty difficult in a gritty setting like planescape, but I'd say that's the only way to fix some of the most glaring flaws of factions.