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 five 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. 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) by players flagged to enemy factions.
• Certain zones will automatically unflag the player upon entering, including, Avalon roads, Hellgates, Arena, GvGs, and Expeditions.
• Certain zones are not enterable while faction flagged: other faction cities and starter towns, and the Outlands.
• 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.

Faction Points and Standing

• Flagged players receive faction points and faction standing for collecting fame via PvE, gathering, fishing, and outpost capturing (see below).
• 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 NPC.
• Missions cost City Heart resources, which can be obtained with Faction Points.
• To accept a quest, the player needs to meet the conditions - for example, 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
  • 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 the rival faction's City Heart resource
• There are 12 different missions in each Faction City:
  • 1 option for each rival faction city, with
  • 3 different levels of mission item weight (light, medium, heavy)
    • light and medium can be done on foot (when using equipment in a clever way)
    • heavy will require at least the carrying capacity of an ox
  • 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, 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: 19 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 Revision	Patch Name	Patch Notes
Version 1.16.393.162877	25 March 2020	162877	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	138841	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	124104	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	123575	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	123101	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	119971	Lancelot Patch #9	As a teaser for the upcoming content update, builder NPCs have begun constructing faction headquarters in each of the Royal cities