Forums » General Pantheon Discussion

How do you make faction choices in the games you play?

    • 1785 posts
    August 18, 2021 8:25 AM PDT

    Hi everyone,

    I wanted to throw a topic out there for the community to discuss.  It's been a while since I've done one of these, so standard disclaimers apply:  This is really just something that I am curious about and I would like to see how you all feel about it.  It is *not* going to radically alter or influence any design decisions we are making.  So please just treat this as what it is - a community discussion :)

    When it comes to NPC faction choices in the games you have played, where you have to choose to side with one group of NPCs or another, how do you approach them?  What factors influence your decision?  Once you've chosen a faction to support or oppose, how likely are you to try to change that later and what motivates you to change (if you do)?

    There's no wrong answer here - I'm just interested in how everyone approaches these kinds of choices.  Looking forward to reading all of your responses!

    • 3 posts
    August 18, 2021 9:02 AM PDT

    I've always been a fan of the more viking/barbaric factions. For Warcraft it was always Horde. For Skyrim it was the Stormcloaks. I steer clear of the heavily political and "posh" factions. I think it stems from me being libertarian IRL :P

    • 1479 posts
    August 18, 2021 9:33 AM PDT

    Nephele said:

    Hi everyone,

    I wanted to throw a topic out there for the community to discuss.  It's been a while since I've done one of these, so standard disclaimers apply:  This is really just something that I am curious about and I would like to see how you all feel about it.  It is *not* going to radically alter or influence any design decisions we are making.  So please just treat this as what it is - a community discussion :)

    When it comes to NPC faction choices in the games you have played, where you have to choose to side with one group of NPCs or another, how do you approach them?  What factors influence your decision?  Once you've chosen a faction to support or oppose, how likely are you to try to change that later and what motivates you to change (if you do)?

    There's no wrong answer here - I'm just interested in how everyone approaches these kinds of choices.  Looking forward to reading all of your responses!

     

    First draft : Most of the time I choose what fits best the character I play either on the field of moral or visual.

     

    I then tend to choose the other choice if I can for the next character if it does match.

     

    Before DB heavy usage, guides and bis design, I can freely choose to experiment.

    • 209 posts
    August 18, 2021 10:32 AM PDT

    I usually choose the faction that I think my character would choose, depending on his class, race, and any other identifying traits he might possess. A Human Rogue would probably choose different factions than a Dwarf Cleric, for example. And if that Human Rogue happened to be known for his world-famous bean dip... Well, I guess that probably wouldn't make any difference. Unless there were a bean dip faction somewhere in Terminus.

    • 82 posts
    August 18, 2021 11:07 AM PDT

    I don't have a lot of time to play, so I'm very pragmatic when it comes to these type of choices.

    If there is sufficient information available at the time of choosing, I would consider the following: What unique and/or very powerful item(s) (things like crazy-high stats or clicky abilities) can my character acquire if I grind this specific faction?

    Let's say that I'm playing a Human/Warrior/Alchemist, and I know that there are two factions that really interest me.
    Faction A has a very high level quest (in terms of faction score) that, as reward, can give you a plate helmet that has a clicky spell that makes me immune to cold damage for x number of seconds, and that's super useful to tackle a specific raid encounter. But faction B has a very high level quest that can give you the tool required for an Alchemist to craft the best invisibility potions in the game, and having invis potions happens to fit my adventuring play style perfectly.

    I would have to choose between the two, or, if possible, grind one to get the respective item and grind the other one after.


    This post was edited by Kaynrath at August 18, 2021 11:10 AM PDT
    • 392 posts
    August 18, 2021 12:16 PM PDT

    Always the Blue team, suck it Reds!

    Kidding, for my main its usually the one that I would choose myself based on their design, ideas etc that resonate well with me.

    • 2752 posts
    August 18, 2021 12:16 PM PDT

    Potential rewards are ususally what influence my decision. What are the future offerings for helping X versus Y factions.

    • 1860 posts
    August 18, 2021 12:49 PM PDT

    Like most things in a game, it depends on the incentives.

    • 2419 posts
    August 18, 2021 3:52 PM PDT

    Nephele said:

    When it comes to NPC faction choices in the games you have played, where you have to choose to side with one group of NPCs or another, how do you approach them? 
    What factors influence your decision? 
    Once you've chosen a faction to support or oppose, how likely are you to try to change that later and what motivates you to change (if you do)?

    Whatever faction provides the best benefit is the one I choose. Of those benefits, items are the top of the list, ease of access/pass-through of territory being about the lowest. And when that faction no longer has a benefit I have no qualms about turning around and XPing off that faction if the NPCs are high enough level.  Because few games, if any, ever force players to have permanent consequences to their actions, switching faction is always an option.  I would dare VR to make faction decisions to have long term, if not permanent consequences.

    • 326 posts
    August 18, 2021 5:56 PM PDT

     

    Power.

    As for reversing faction rep it wholly depends on whether ot not in the furture there is a shift in power...

    • 94 posts
    August 18, 2021 6:54 PM PDT

    Nephele said:

    When it comes to NPC faction choices in the games you have played, where you have to choose to side with one group of NPCs or another, how do you approach them?  What factors influence your decision?  Once you've chosen a faction to support or oppose, how likely are you to try to change that later and what motivates you to change (if you do)?

    Usually it's either results oriented and I want to complete a series of quests or get an item that's available with a specific faction. Other items like zone access or recipes would also impact this. The other major reason I've picked factions have been because of the guild I was in chose a faction and I followed. Lore/story is definitely fun, but usually I remember the faction choices if there are tangible outcomes to that choice.

    • 122 posts
    August 18, 2021 7:08 PM PDT

    For me, when playing EQ1 the first thing I would look at was what kind of quests they offered that I could do once I was at a high enough faction, and the items that came with it.  Also, since I played an iksar I was pretty much hated anywhere I went.  So I would look into factions that covered the most amount of area in the game so I could travel easier.  Trumping both of those though, it just depended which faction seemed cooler lol.

    • 178 posts
    August 18, 2021 9:02 PM PDT

    Surprisingly, the friends I play with most of the time in MMOs (been quite a few years since we last played together) are incredibly varied in the races and classes they want to play. Generally we sort of share our choices and wishes and make selections on our characters that will ultimately have us come together to adventure - probably in the level 10 - 15 range. Ultimately I'll pick a faction that will permit me to team up with a friend close to my timezone by the time I reach level 5. WoW thusly became Horde (I went undead), DAoC we started as Midgard but eventually played all three realms.

    EQ was our first MMO (and we hadn't even really met each other in game just knew each other in real life) and the decisions were based on gameplay at that time (and the easiest catch up mechanism - I needed to catch up). In Beta I had played a troll and was familiar with that area, but by the time the game was released I went the complete other way and other side of the world and the friends I was with went Wood elf, High elf, and Dwarf. Wood elf was my choice since I could do everything without having to zone (trainers, vendors, level up). Was on dial-up way back then so avoiding zoning was really important.

    I'm really attracted to the rarely played classes. But in my heart, ever since the days of pen and paper and sitting around a table playing D&D, I am a thief/rogue class - generally neutral not evil and not good. So Pantheon I'll probably start a rogue - not married to any race - none have really shone and risen to the top. But once into the game my first alt will be the class that seems to be very rare in the world - poorly represented.

    As for not changing factions - I like the idea of settling on some faction and not deviating from it. One friend who continued to play on the Rallos Zek server in EQ had an enchanter he had run to Guk and had never touched a froglok and never would. Kept his faction with the frogloks. Then proceeded to be a thorn to the players adventuring in Guk since he could run freely (on the live side) without aggro and cause all sorts of problems for the trolls, ogres, and dark elves adventuring in there. And because of the 8-level differential limit imposed he would particularly go after necromancers pets since they tended to be about 4 levels lower than their master and he could drag the pet into a bunch of frogs who would dash towards the pet's master once the pet was disposed of. He was too low a level to be attacked directly by the necromancer but not so the necromancer's pet. That wasn't a bannable offense, back in the day before we left EQ.

    • 9115 posts
    August 19, 2021 3:41 AM PDT

    This topic has been promoted for my CM content, please continue the discussion and have fun! :)

    "Developer Feedback - How do you make faction choices in the games you play? https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/13174/how-do-you-make-faction-choices-in-the-games-you-play#MMORPG#CommunityMatters"

    • 76 posts
    August 19, 2021 4:04 AM PDT

    Nephele said:

    Hi everyone,

    I wanted to throw a topic out there for the community to discuss.  It's been a while since I've done one of these, so standard disclaimers apply:  This is really just something that I am curious about and I would like to see how you all feel about it.  It is *not* going to radically alter or influence any design decisions we are making.  So please just treat this as what it is - a community discussion :)

    When it comes to NPC faction choices in the games you have played, where you have to choose to side with one group of NPCs or another, how do you approach them?  What factors influence your decision?  Once you've chosen a faction to support or oppose, how likely are you to try to change that later and what motivates you to change (if you do)?

    There's no wrong answer here - I'm just interested in how everyone approaches these kinds of choices.  Looking forward to reading all of your responses!

     

    My approach differs depending on the type of faction.

    In a generic multi faction (usually tri-faction) pvp model I will look at these points

    • are there faction race and/or class locks
    • which faction is popular and which faction is the underdog
    • what is the color scheme
    • what faction does my group of friends play in

    In this model, I am very faction loyal. This is usually because I find most of the decisions so arbritary and unconnected to my character that I would rather not have to go through the decision making tree again. I honestly don't care for the tri-faction pvp model. I do not feel drawn into the world after choosing the yellow eagles army instead of the blue lions army. It makes pvp feel generic, canned, quarantined.

     

    Now in a faction system like greyhawk, where a faction is simply an organization of entities bound by aligned interests, my decision making process is much different. I must define things completely through the lens of my character. Suddenly, the considerations are very different and much more engaging and personal.

    • How did I meet this group?
    • What does my character know about these people?
    • How does my character view the world fundamentally?

    I am also much more prone to change my stance on how I view or interact with a faction. This is a malleability that manifests organically when the faction model allows character behavior to be experientially motivated.

    As a side note, I was really excited to hear Joppa muse about linking pvp into the faction system somehow. It is much more exciting to have pvp agro be filtered through whether or not someone is in your party/guild and what faction they and you have connections to.

     


    This post was edited by Gottbeard at August 19, 2021 4:06 AM PDT
    • 128 posts
    August 19, 2021 4:28 AM PDT

    At the risk of being a Goody-Two-Shoes, my main character is going to be a human Monk, and as such my faction choices will usually be on the "right side" or good side of things.   I'll try to crush evil in the world of Terminus and help the good aligned forces, the poor, the downtrodden, the virtuous, the righteous.   In a way, I'll bring the same level of ethics that I suppose a Paladin would bring, but perhaps not as religiously rigid.

    Because I'm a Monk, the mystical chi side of things is also important to consider.   I'll consider Tranquility, Harmony, and Peace in my faction decisions as well.  I'll go as far as being a little Druid-like in respecting nature, plants and animals too.

    And of course these playstyle decisions may differ from my groupmates, or even my guild.   But I think my reputation in-game will benefit from them.   

    And of course, as my Sensei once famously said "If you don't like them, ... train them" :)

     

     


    This post was edited by Nagasakee at August 19, 2021 4:31 AM PDT
    • 134 posts
    August 19, 2021 5:59 AM PDT

    I like to choose based on the base of operations for the faction (if they have one.) For instance, I always went with the Dwarves in Velious because Thurgadin is one of the best cities in the game, outside of Plane of Knowledge, with all sorts of crafting stalls and venders right there next to each other. It's also super easy to navigate.

    If they don't have one, then I'll make a decision based on the items they reward me, and barring that I'll make an RP decision based on my character.

    • 231 posts
    August 19, 2021 6:17 AM PDT

    I answered on twitter, but putting it here:

    So often factions don't really do anything except cool armor. I would love a faction choice that led me down a rabbit hole of lore and quests and character identity that has repercussions many levels later.

    Me and my other [faction sibling] nod when we pass. We know.

    Adding:

    That shared identity/communion between players who have made particular choices feeds the immersion/RP part of my soul


    This post was edited by Crowsinger at August 19, 2021 6:18 AM PDT
    • 1921 posts
    August 19, 2021 7:39 AM PDT

    Nephele said: ... When it comes to NPC faction choices in the games you have played, where you have to choose to side with one group of NPCs or another, how do you approach them? 
    What factors influence your decision? 
    Once you've chosen a faction to support or oppose, how likely are you to try to change that later and what motivates you to change (if you do)? ... 

    IMO:

    In the dwarfs/giants/dragons scenario, we min/maxed weekly/monthly, whatever fit peoples schedules.
    If each faction is equally complete, content-wise, then it comes down (as Vandraad mentioned) to the benefits to the guild as a whole.
    Are the items well suited to particular roles? Are there tangible in-game benefits for the choice?  If there is no downside and you get to keep the items, abilities, and benfits, then we would mix and match, get them all, etc.

    However, if faction was meaningful, and choices had consequences, and the players were completely informed of any and all consequences BEFORE the decisions were made?  That would be a precedent, in my experience, but very positive.  In some historic cases (like Venril Sathir in Kunark/Karnor's Castle) players weren't aware they were actually unable to recover that faction, and it had massive incredibly negative permanent (until the next expansion) consequences.  But.. they didn't actually know, they were just out XP'ing with their friends in a very popular zone.

    Now, you can argue they should have gone and checked the /con with every NPC in the game after they saw one faction change message, and while technically true, that's impractical for most players.
    So, if the intent is to make faction meaningful, and there aren't ways to recover, unless you want to repeat history and have a bunch of ticked off angry paying customers you punished for ignorance, you'll want to address that issue pre-launch. :)

    The other trope/stereotype is 'Good' content versus 'Evil' content, and evil consistently getting shafted in both content, rewards, travel, buffs, and similar, by the faction system.  If you're going to have good/neutral/evil in Pantheon, then either make them all equally fun, challenging, and viable, or don't do it.  Implement it completely & correctly, or don't do it.  Same goes for deities/worship and all the benefits, consequences, and rewards that go along with that.

    Lastly, if a faction can only go down, and starts at Kill-On-Sight to all PCs..  why have it?  I mean objectively, if the bandits of halnir caves are all KoS to everyone, and you cannot fix that faction, and no amount of charisma, illusions, potions, betrayals, or similar will ever allow you to get quests, items, objects, training, rewards and similar from those bandits, then what possible value does spewing negative faction messages have, to the players, after every fight?  Just seems like wasted resources, to me.  Save the log space and skip it.  At least that way, players know when they SEE a faction message, it's actually important, because it's meaningful (it can go down and up).

    • 30 posts
    August 20, 2021 6:09 AM PDT

    Well once I have chosen one I tend to stay loyal and not switch.

    Do not like it when faction perks affect your class too much so that there is a must have certain faction for a certain class, that is boring and undynamic.

    Also factions should not intefere too much when you just want to have fun and play/interact with certain people and they need to do stuff that would affect your faction status negativley. That is just a hassle.


    --------------
    Always like the old TEF (temporary enemy faction)/PvP system in original SWG though.

    If someone attacked someone in your group you could all help out, even if you where from the same faction as the attacker.

    • 724 posts
    August 20, 2021 7:05 AM PDT
    Aline with faction that is more altruistic and cooperative. As per the character I build, Halfling Ranger.
    Then I favor that whichever allows availability to resources and travel.
    My little fellow will fight evil and monsters and assist those that do as well.
    Factions that straddle the line and have a little of both good and evil get chosen based on perks.
    • 690 posts
    August 20, 2021 1:10 PM PDT

    If a faction gives better gear for whatever my character is, I pick that.

    Otherwise, I go for the funny or meme faction (Warriors of Sunlight)

    or if no funny faction, I go for the "cool" one, typically not quite human.

     

     

    • 2138 posts
    August 23, 2021 7:14 AM PDT

    How would I approach one side or another?:

    - 2 influences. As others mentioned 1 is incentives and sadly this causes me to go to third party sites to see what info others have gleaned to see which side has the best stuff. 2 is if it fits with how I was "raised" so to speak. Depending on how uber the rewards are I may choose a contrary faction to my upbringing and use that as an opportunity to add flavor to my character from a RP perspective.

    What factors influence my decision?:

    - on character creation, I will look at it from a theme park perspective. I will want the game to teach me how to be a good (race) and (class) and in so living in the world in my home city, I learn how to act                 accordingly. That way when I meet strangers (other player characters) I can easily slip into character because I know how "we" do things like fight, eat, greet, social mores like "whenever you receive                     knowledge, you must offer knowledge in return", or assuming if one is grouped on an adventure all the spoils are shared, including what is in each others pockets and its expected that we all pickpocket                   each other to start off in balance.

    - If one side is cooler than the other. I will forgo better incentives on one side to get and keep faction with a cooler faction, especially if it lines up with my core character faction. Also, I like suffering the                  through the envy of NOT having the other stuff because I stuck with my convictions. For instance, Dragons in western wastes dropped good stuff, but I wanted dragon faction which took forever because                  they were cool. Dragons had armor but dwarf armor was not as good but doable while I got dragon faction. I envied Wenglehawks manly purse and I knew I would never be able to get it because that                    was giant faction and I would have to sacrifice dwarf and dragon faction to try to get that, and I was ok with that.

    - As others have said, if there is a faction that goes nowhere, please dont have it spam lowering faction messages, just dont have it.

    - IF there is an obscure faction? Like- suddenly Sphinx faction is improved?? those sphinx's I ran into once long ago in a place they should not be and were out of place and spoke in a language that                          could not be translated or known??? please make it worth something have it lead somewhere, dont have it come around 7 years later and be useless.   

    once I am "in" why would I later change?:

    - Growing up. cathartic quest line, Discovery of underlying corruption or best intentions having a crippling effect. 4th wall player shortcuts: If I can improve one faction to get me through an area unmolested to get to another- I will (as one mentioned upper guk earlier) Likewise, if I can help others save time because I can waltz in and open a door or summon a group down? absolutely. especially if I can get a nice little clicky in doing so, took alot of goblin skins and salts to get chardok faction high enough to be able to walk allllll the way downnnn to royals to coth clerics and their group with a rogue for cleric epic pieces.

    - however, if you have such an alternate faction, make it worth something outside the one faction. If I get an orc totem that shows I am cool with the orcs so long as I am holding it except to the undead, then let that totem also work for orcs I saw in the old days - and If I learned orcish- suprise me by getting a response when I talk to them when I am holding the totem and have it lead somewhere else. Or if I discover a new sect of Gnolls that are friendly to a god and I get a faction stick, make it mean something to the gnolls I spent years butchering elsewhere. If the elves hate me, have one elvish sect or group's eyes bulge when they see I have a fairy glitter club-stamp on my wrist.

    • 1273 posts
    August 23, 2021 7:45 AM PDT

    I normaly choose something nature related (ranger/druid) because I grew up in the woods and just really enjoy that setting.  If I don't have that choice I typically choose a "good" faction, protector of the people, lawful, that sort.  

    I almost never change my mind after the character has been created, I stick with the role...I also almost never create alts.  

    In the past I've never really read much lore in games, it's all surface level stuff that I go off.  But, since I've been following Pantheon so long, and because I'll have plenty of time to prepare for this game, I plan to re-read the lore a few times and see if that influnces my decisions for this game.  

    • 10 posts
    September 9, 2021 4:42 AM PDT

    I will solo and group until my faction level is enough for what is best for my character.