Faction Warfare

General Information

Faction Warfare is a feature that was introduced with the Merlyn patch. The different factions of Albion are now at war with each other.

The different factions are named after the six cities of the Royal Continent: Thetford, Fort Sterling, Lymhurst, Martlock, Bridgewatch and Caerleon

The official video tutorials for the Call to Arms update can be found on the forum post here: https://forum.albiononline.com/index.php/Thread/147438-Video-Guide-series-on-Faction-Warfare/

Joining a Faction

• You can join a faction (aka "enlist", "flag" or "flag up") in any of the Royal Cities, and Caerleon.
  
• You can only enlist for the faction that is based in that city, and you will have to travel to that particular city each time you want to re-flag with that faction.
  
• Flagged players can be attacked anywhere on the Royal Continent (even blue and yellow zones) under zone type conditions by players flagged to enemy factions. Blue and yellow zones result in knockdown, in red zones result in player death. All the black zones will take flag away from the player, as there is no faction wars in black zones.
  
• Certain zones will automatically unflag the player upon entering, including Hellgates, Arena, Expeditions, and the Mists.
  
• Certain zones are not enterable while faction flagged: other faction cities, starter towns and Roads of Avalon
  
• Flagged players will have a modified logout time in blue and yellow zones.
  
• Flagged players have to unflag to be safe in blue and yellow zones.
  
• Flagged players have a new respawn option, "Faction City":
  • If selected: Player will keep their faction flagging and will be teleported into their faction city.
  • If another respawn option is selected (Home, Territory, etc.), the player will lose their faction flagging when respawning.

Un-flagging

Bar indicator when a player un-flags from a faction.

You can unflag from a Faction the same way you can for PvP mode, just click the shield icon next to your avatar on the top left of the screen.

Leaving a Faction

• To join another Faction just head to the Faction's main city you wish to join and talk with the Faction NPC and press the "Enlist" Button
• When switching Faction's a portion of your current standing will be transferred to your new Faction. The untransferred portion of your Standing will be lost.

Faction Points and Standing

• Flagged players receive faction points and faction standing for collecting fame via PvE, gathering, fishing, and outpost capturing (see below).
  • Faction Points: Currency that used to purchase faction items. When you buy something from the Faction Store, you spend Faction Points.
  • Faction Standing: A numerical value indicting your standing within a particular faction. This number determines your rank (title).
  • Faction Rank: A title given to the player based upon the numerical Faction Standing. Example titles are Recruit, Guard, Ranger, etc, although some titles are tailored to fit the theme of each city and faction.
• The amount of faction points earned depends on the amount of fame the player receives - however, the cluster bonus does not apply.
• The amount of standing earned, in turn, depends on the number of faction points the player receives.
• The player's rank with the faction they currently represent will give a bonus to the faction points they receive and in turn the amount of standing they receive.
• Points and standing remain with the player, and cannot be lost or dropped.

Faction NPCs

• Each faction has an NPC in its city who will:
  • allow you to flag for that city's faction
  • allow flagged players to start trade missions for their faction
  • offer rewards in exchange for faction points
• Next to this NPC is a stack of crates which offers Trade Missions to Smuggler Outposts (more details on Trade Missions can be found below).

(todo: insert example images of UI & crates on the right side)

Faction Rewards

• City Heart Fragments:
  • Each city offers a special resource unique to its faction's biome. These can be used for:
    • resource refinement
    • crafting faction-specific capes and mounts
• Faction Crests:
  • a token that allows you to craft powerful new faction capes
• Faction Standing:
  • High reputation is required for purchasing high tier rewards

Faction Capes

• Faction capes include the following spells (stats and effects are subject to change):
  • Sandstorm (Bridgewatch Cape)
    • Condition: Activates when you cast a spell.
    • Creates a 3.5m radius sandstorm at your position. Reduces move speed and attack speed by 40% for all enemies inside the area. (Sandstorm duration 5s)
    • Cooldown: Scales with IP (100 IP = 63s, 1300 IP = 45s).
  • Untouchable (Fort Sterling Cape)
    • Condition: Automatically activates when you get stunned or rooted
    • Effect: Removes any movement-impairing and debuff effects from you. (Doesn't remove damage-over-time spells)
    • Cooldown: scales with IP (100 IP = 136s, 1300 IP 100s)
  • Energy Reserve (Lymhurst Cape)
    • Condition: Activates when you cast a spell and your energy drops below 40%
    • Effect: Restores 4% energy per second for 10 seconds.
    • Cooldown: scales with IP (100 IP = 162s, 1300 IP = 120s)
  • Shield of Protection (Martlock Cape)
    • Condition: Activates when you take damage and your health is below 30%.
    • Effect: Increases your defense by 80% for 5s
    • Cooldown: scales with IP (100 IP = 188s, 1300 IP = 140s)
  • Chain Lightning (Thetford Cape)
    • Condition: Activates on normal attack
    • Effect: Releases Chain Lighting, dealing magic damage to up to 4 enemies. (The damage scales with Item Power)
    • Cooldown: 20
  • Opportunist (Caerleon Cape)
    • Condition: Activates when you use your weapon first-slot-ability.
    • Effect: Resets the cooldown of your first-slot-ability.
    • Cooldown: scales with IP (1000 IP = 34s, 1100 IP = 29s)

Faction Baby Animals & Mounts

• New Baby Animals:
  • These new baby animals can be placed in a kennel to grow into tame animals. The grown animals can be crafted into faction mounts.
• Faction Mounts:
  • Saddled Moabird (Bridgewatch)
  • Saddled Winter Bear (Fort Sterling)
  • Saddled Wild Boar (Lymhurst)
  • Saddled Bighorn Ram (Martlock)
  • Saddled Swamp Salamander (Thetford)
  • Saddled Greywolf (Caerleon)
• Faction Elite Mounts:
  • Elite Terrorbird (Bridgewatch)
  • Elite Winterbear (Fort Sterling)
  • Elite Wildboar (Lymhurst)
  • Elite Bighorn Ram (Martlock)
  • Elite Swamp Salamander (Thetford)
  • Elite Greywolf (Caerleon)

Outposts

• Most of the zones on the Royal Continent have at least one faction warfare outpost.
• These outposts always belong to only one faction at a time and can be captured by any of the other four factions.
• To capture an outpost, players must:
  • Defeat the champion and the guards who defend it
  • Capture the outpost by remaining in the area for a set amount of time, uninterrupted by enemy faction players
• After an outpost is captured by a faction, it belongs to this new faction and goes into a cooldown of 20 minutes.
• During this cooldown, it cannot be captured by any faction.
• After the cooldown, any faction who doesn't own the outpost can recapture the outpost for themselves, and so on.
• Typically, outpost boss fights are successfully attempted with at least 3 players. More players in the group will be safer against other factions, but each player will receive a lesser reward.
• The faction boss will reward faction points, faction standing, fame, and Silver to the group doing the most damage.
• However, a big portion of the reward will come from capturing the outpost itself:
  • Capturing the outpost rewards points, standing, Fame, and Silver
  • Players must have an average item power of at least 700 equipped to receive a share of the reward
  • The higher a player's item power, the higher their share
  • This reward will be shared with all players of the capturing faction near the outpost's position
• During a Bandit Assault, the outposts in the Red zone around Caerleon are all reset to be owned by Caerleon.
  • Bandit Assault is a 1-hour event that happens several times a day at random times.
  • Faction points are increased if you participate in the bandit assault by taking or defending outposts. You must be faction flagged at the end to ensure you get the bonus if you did not get it before the time expires.

Trade Missions

• Trade Missions can be accepted from the Faction NPCs.
• Missions cost City Heart resources, which can be obtained with Faction Points or through the markets.
• To accept a quest, the player needs to meet the conditions: the player cannot be overburdened after accepting the quest (and the quest items are very heavy!).
• The player will fail the mission if:
  • the player is killed or knocked down.
  • the player removes the mission item from their inventory.
  • the player loses their faction affiliation.
• Mission flow:
  • The mission will send the player with a crate of their own faction's City Heart resources to a Smuggler Outpost close to a rival faction city.
  • The player will exchange the mission item at the Smuggler Outpost for another crate filled with the rival faction's City Heart resource.
    • There is a protective zone around the Smuggler Outpost that prevents players from being attacked.
    • Trading the mission items with the smuggler NPC will provide the player with a 30-second Invisibility buff.
  • The player will have to return the new items safely to their own faction city.
  • If the exchanged resources are safely returned, the player will be rewarded with rival faction's City Heart resources.
• There are 12 different missions in each Faction City:
  • 1 option for each rival faction city.
  • 3 different levels of mission item weight (light, medium, heavy).
  • The heavier the quest item, the higher the reward.
  • The further the destination, the higher the reward.
• If a player doing a trade mission is killed or knocked down (depending if he is in safe or lethal zone), they will lose the mission item. However, from a looting perspective, they will not drop the mission item but will instead drop a quantity of City Heart resources of the type they were currently carrying.

Trade Mission Rewards by Size and Length:

	Short Distance	Moderate Low Distance	Moderate High Distance	Long Distance
Small Package (125 kg)	Cost: 3 hearts Reward: 4 hearts	Cost: 3 hearts Reward: 5 hearts	Cost: 3 hearts Reward: 6 hearts	Cost: 3 hearts Reward: 7 hearts
Medium Package (688kg)	Cost: 7 hearts Reward: 9 hearts	Cost: 7 hearts Reward: 10 hearts	Cost: 7 hearts Reward: 11 hearts	Cost: 7 hearts Reward: 13 hearts
Large Package (1623 kg)	Cost: 15 hearts Reward: 18 hearts	Cost: 15 hearts Reward: 21 hearts	Cost: 15 hearts Reward: 23 hearts	Cost: 15 hearts Reward: 26 hearts

Images of Faction Generals

(unhappy with the sizing so far, needs better pictures)

Image	Faction	Name
	Martlock	Warmaster Angus McCraig
	Lymhurst	Captain Flynn Swift
	Fort Sterling	General Thora Ironheart
	Bridgewatch	Commander Yara Sunblaze
	Thetford	Archmage Lymond Ashmoor

Related Patch Notes

Patch Link	Date	Patch Name	Patch Notes
Version 20.000.1	8 June 2022	Into the Fray Update	Adjusted respawning of Faction Outposts so intentionally blocking respawns is much less effective if the area is then abandoned
Version 18.110.1	13 October 2021	Call to Arms Patch 11	Faction Warfare Player Rankings now only list players who were active within the prior week Resolved a rare issue that caused Faction Warfare Player Rankings to display incorrectly
Version 18.100.1	21 September 2021	Call to Arms Patch 10	Enlisting with a Faction with low recruitment rates now has less of a penalty for players of lower rank Faction Warfare kills in red zones are now worth up to three times as many Faction Points than knockouts in yellow zones Areas previously owned by a Faction other than Caerleon are now worth more Faction Points after a Bandit Assault begins
Version 18.090.1	28 July 2021	Call to Arms Patch 9	The behavior of the Bandit Ringleader (Caerleon Faction boss) has been updated: The boss now spawns a wave of support mobs four times per fight, once for every 20% reduction in his health The number of spawned mobs is now more precisely based on the number of attackers, and maxes out at 6 spawned mobs when attacked by 15 or more players (where "attacking" means being on the boss's aggro list): 1-4 attackers: 1 mob 5-7 attackers: 2 mobs 8-9 attackers: 3 mobs 10-12 attackers: 4 mobs 13-14 attackers: 5 mobs 15+ attackers: 6 mobs
Version 18.040.1	6 May 2021	Call to Arms Patch 4 (Balance Patch)	Faction Warfare respawns now occur in batches to help rally respawning forces As respawning now waits for the next available timeslot, base respawn times have been reduced from 24s to 16s, leaving average base times relatively unchanged The Bandit Assault in the red zones now occurs more frequently, as well as more unpredictably, and no longer starts between 08:30 and 09:00 UTC Added new Hotkey to open Faction Warfare UI (Default: Shift + F) Faction Standing Upkeep is now shown in the Weekly Report
Version 18.030.1	19 April 2021	Call to Arms Patch 3	Added popup notifications for when new milestones are reached during Faction Campaigns The alert status of an Outpost now escalates after its boss has taken a significant amount of damage Faction Warfare Boss Changes: Champion of Lymhurst: Cooldown of Barbed Arrow: 7s → 6s Cooldown of Multishot: 9s → 8s Champion of Thetford: Cooldown of Meteor: 7s → 9s In order to give Faction Ranks a more meaningful progression and increase the rewards for loyalty to a Faction, bonuses now begin increasing earlier, and increase more steadily throughout all ranks. This will provide an increase to most players, with only ranks 18-21 receiving a slight reduction: Rank 1: 0% (unchanged) Rank 2: 0% (unchanged) Rank 3: 0% (unchanged) Rank 4: 0% → 5% Rank 5: 0% → 5% Rank 6: 0% → 5% Rank 7: 0% → 10% Rank 8: 0% → 10% Rank 9: 0% → 10% Rank 10: 0% → 15% Rank 11: 0% → 15% Rank 12: 0% → 15% Rank 13: 5% → 20% Rank 14: 10% → 20% Rank 15: 15% → 20% Rank 16: 20% → 20% Rank 17: 25% → 25% Rank 18: 30% → 25% Rank 19: 35% → 25% Rank 20: 40% → 25% Rank 21: 50% → 30%
Version 18.020.1	31 March 2021	Call to Arms Patch 2 and Hotfix 2.1	Significantly improved the feedback when receiving Faction Points for both the combat log and overhead messages
Version 18.020.1	31 March 2021	Call to Arms Patch 2 and Hotfix 2.1	Respawn time for Faction Outpost bosses: 90s → 30s (NPC respawns are still temporarily blocked if the outpost has recently been contested)
Version 18.020.1	31 March 2021	Call to Arms Patch 2 and Hotfix 2.1	Significantly increased Faction Points awarded for PvP knockouts and kills
Version 18.010.1	25 March 2021	Call to Arms Patch 1	Reduced the amount of points awarded by killing or knocking out players in Faction Warfare to support points being sourced from other places. We will also be reducing the amount of points coming from PvE activities, but that will come in a later patch. As Faction Warfare is primarily a resource-based system with limited quantities of points for players to fight over, the unexpectedly large number of players participating led to marginal gains for individual players. As such, we've significantly increased the points available in the system to better support the number of players participating, and will continue to keep an eye on point balancing in the coming weeks. Reduced point requirements for Faction Warfare daily bonuses by 75% (effective immediately). Reduced point requirements for Faction Warfare Campaign milestones by 50% (effective at the start of the next Faction Campaign on April 1). Made changes to the rates at which bonus points are gained and lost, which should significantly increase the amount of bonus points received in the Weekly Report in some cases.
Version 18.000.1	17 March 2021	Call to Arms Update	The layout of Caerleon has been completely revamped and the Royal Continent has gained 37 new regions. These regions have been balanced with Faction Warfare in mind, including Trade Missions and the new Bandit Assault event: Caerleon has been expanded and received a huge visual upgrade – while most major zone connections (including the Underway) remain, some have been moved, and Caerleon's Conquerors' Hall has been removed 37 new regions have been added to the Royal Continent, and existing zones and connections have been reworked to keep each biome balanced between blue, yellow, and red zones At irregular times each day, a Bandit Assault will occur in the red zones around Caerleon, with all Outposts taken over by Caerleon bandit NPCs Factions that take and defend the greatest number of zones during the Bandit Assault will receive huge points bonuses NOTE: All players outside cities on the Royal Continent when the update is deployed will be migrated to the nearest Royal City, and all furniture placed in the open world on the Royal Continent, or in Caerleon, will be destroyed.
Version 18.000.1	17 March 2021	Call to Arms Update	Faction Warfare has been completely reworked and updated: In addition to claiming Outposts, Factions can now control entire zones, which grant Defense Bonuses in the form of Faction Points Zone control happens via a continent-wide Frontline Battle System where regions bordering a Faction's current territory can be contested and zones cut off from the Faction's city cannot attack Faction Warfare view has been added to the world map, showing current Faction holdings, zone values, contested regions and Outposts Factions now offer 21 total Faction Ranks, including 9 unique Prestige Ranks for each Faction Personal progress can be viewed on a greatly expanded Faction Screen Month-long Faction Campaigns offer rewards for certain milestones Weekly Reports give additional Faction Points based on personal performance during the previous week Enlisting and flagging are now two different steps, and players can remain enlisted without being flagged Both enlisting and flagging happen via the Faction NPC Players who are enlisted but not flagged can travel to any location, including rival cities, and remain enlisted Factions with lower recruitment rates will offer Faction Point bonuses for enlisting Changing Factions will always result in some loss of Standing, and players can only have Standing for a single Faction Faction-flagged players receive a Fame / Silver / mob loot buff, which scales with distance from home city and is only active in regions your Faction owns or enemy regions on your frontline (one cluster away = 5%, two = 10%, three (max) = 15%) Battle Mounts cannot be used while flagged for a Faction When a Faction loses control of too many blue or yellow regions, players of that Faction receive a Defensive Bonus that reduces damage received from other Faction players: 8 blue/yellow zones lost: 5% Defensive Bonus 9 blue/yellow zones lost: 10% Defensive Bonus 10 blue/yellow zones lost: 20% Defensive Bonus 11 blue/yellow zones lost: 30% Defensive Bonus 12 blue/yellow zones lost: 40% Defensive Bonus 13+ blue/yellow zones lost: 50% Defensive Bonus
Version 18.000.1	17 March 2021	Call to Arms Update	Caerleon is now a playable sixth city in Faction Warfare. To match its identity as a hub of bandits and thieves, Caerleon Faction gameplay differs in several important ways: In addition to engaging other Faction players, Caerleon-flagged players can also engage and be engaged by other Caerleon players Caerleon offers 21 entirely unique Faction Ranks, and shares no ranks with the other cities Caerleon players receive no defensive bonus for holding land Caerleon players do not compete directly in the Bandit Assault (see next section), but can use the event as an opportunity to fight other Factions and retake Outposts for points Caerleon has its own Faction Mounts, the Caerleon Greywolf and Caerleon Elite Greywolf (see Mounts section below) Trade missions to and from Caerleon added Rewards for trade missions that do not require going into fully lethal zones have been reduced accordingly Trade mission boxes for all Factions will now always drop in PvP even if the defeated player was only knocked out Caerleon has its own City Heart, Shadowheart, which can be used to craft a new Caerleon cape and the two Caerleon mounts, or converted into any other Faction’s Hearts at that Faction’s store Caerleon Cape Ability: Instantly resets your Q-slot ability approximately every 30s (actual cooldown scales with IP)
Version 1.16.393.162877	25 March 2020	Queen Patch 8	With Queen Patch 8, players who are flagged hostile and players who are flagged for Faction Warfare can no longer attack each other in yellow zones. This is to prevent cases where a hostile player knocks down a faction-flagged player who is then executed by other faction-flagged players. Details: More specifically, hostile and faction-flagged players in yellow zones are neutral to each other. This means they cannot cast any spells on each other, whether harmful or beneficial. Faction-flagged players can still kill and be killed by other faction-flagged players in all zones, including blue and yellow. Hostile players in yellow zones can still attack (and be attacked by) other non-faction-flagged players, whether they are flagged or not. Knockdown rules remain in effect for all combat in yellow zones. Exception: Hostile and faction-flagged players can attack each other with knockdown rules in unrestricted PvP areas in yellow zones (such as the circled areas around treasure chests). These areas effectively remove the "neutral" status from all players, allowing combat between all players. As with all areas in the game, faction-flagged players can execute players flagged to other factions in these zones.
Version 1.14.379.138841	20 March 2019	Oberon Update - Oberon Update Hotfix #1, #2, and #3	Faction Bosses Faction Bosses have been rebalanced to make them more viable for smaller groups, while staying more or less the same for bigger groups.
Version 1.12.365.124104	15 August 2018	Merlyn Patch #2	Trade Missions To reconcile the risk of Faction Trade Missions with their rewards, the weight of the Medium Trade Mission quest item "Unsuspicious Boxes" was increased from 288.5kg to 688kg. Transporting this item will now generally require mounts with higher load capacity (such as regular horses, stags, and oxen) and exclude many mounts with higher survivability. This increases the risk of these lucrative missions, and brings them more in line with the current rewards. Faction Bosses Lymhurst Champion: Boaris (his boar) will now reset/disappear when the champion disengages (i.e. when all attacking players are dead or have retreated) Boaris' enraged state now has an additional stacking move speed bonus effect Thetford Champion: The effects of his Firebolt spell are now increased when a target is struck by 6 or more Firebolts
Version 1.12.365.123575	8 August 2018	Merlyn Patch #1	Thetford-flagged players will no longer take damage from the Thetford Commander's Meteor spell
Version 1.12.365.123101	31 July 2018	Merlyn Update	Enlist with one of the five Royal cities to earn faction points and standing. In addition to engaging in full-loot, open-world PvP with enemy factions in all zones, faction-flagged players can: Capture faction outposts throughout the Royal Continent. Taking them down means defeating unique bosses, which have their own special powers and strengths - as well as their own individual personalities. Run trade caravans through the open world to gain faction resources. Trade routes lead deep into enemy territory, meaning the risks are high, and stealth and creativity are essential. Earn faction points to spend on exclusive rewards: City resources (which can be used as crafting ingredients or used to create faction capes) Faction capes (five different capes, each with its own unique passive spell to round out and enhance existing combat builds) Faction mounts (five new mounts, each with its own unique skills and strengths)
Version 1.11.362.119971	20 June 2018	Lancelot Patch #9	As a teaser for the upcoming content update, builder NPCs have begun constructing faction headquarters in each of the Royal cities