Family Name: Nissa

Region: NA

Suggestions/Comments: Instead of 'War of the Roses' (which is instanced and rng based) come out with factions you can actually join regardless of gearscore or guild rank for open world (non-instanced) PvP. For those that don't like PvP; don't join a faction. You'd only be able to engage in PvP with players of the opposing faction. You'd be able to PvP anywhere outside of towns/cities. So naval PvP along with the surrounding islands. Have guilds work together in the faction to do dailies; kill a certain amount of enemy players in the opposing faction, gather certain items, capture keeps, ect. As you contribute to your faction, you get faction exp (your rank will gradually increase). So your own rank will increase along with the faction as a whole. You earn badges from doing dailies or killing enemy players which in turn you can spend on various items (boss gear, horse gear, dream/mythical materials, cron stones, various gold bars, cadry stones, ect.). The higher your rank the better rewards you get. Have a tier system. You start out by earning bronze badges (max would be gold or platinum). Max tier badges would let you purchase boss gear and a 100g bar. Have a limit to how many boss items you can purchase in a month (maybe 2 or 3). Have the 100g bar maybe be a weekly or monthly purchase. The higher your overall faction rank, the better buffs you can get (for players of that faction). Have a cooldown upon joining/leaving a faction as well as a fee for whenever you join or leave. Your rank would also reset, you'd start at the bottom. To prevent or discourage people from faction hopping. 

This would give players another way to earn gear rather than killing endless mobs for months on end. It would encourage cooperation among players by helping each other in their faction as well as providing an outlet for PvPers rather than just battlegrounds or arenas. The karma system would no longer be necessary. The GvG system would no longer be necessary. Maybe try it out on the Arsha server and make adjustments to it as needed. Then if they can get it to work well and if it becomes popular, add it to the rest of the servers (except for Olvia and Season). The only Season channel it'd be available to would be Season Arsha.

There are three ways you can go about this:

Let Players Choose: But by doing so you risk everyone joining one faction. Penaties for leaving your faction are applied.

Guild Based Random Selection: Have the GM of a guild sign up the guild as a whole to apply to join a faction. The faction would be assigned at random. Have three factions to spread out the playerbase among the factions. Penalties for leaving your faction are applied.

Player (Account) Based Random Selecion: The player would sign up individually (would affect your whole account, all of your characters would be in ONE faction) to join a faction. The faction would then be assigned at random. Have three factions to spread out the playerbase or population among the factions. It'd have a greater chance at being balanced as it would split up powerful guilds and divvy them up between the factions. Penalties for leaving your faction are applied.

Taxation and Penalties for Leaving Your Faction (Any Mode Guild/Player Based): There would be a cooldown period in place after you leave your faction. You have a week before you can reapply to join a faction. You lose your rank (faction) and have to start at the bottom. There'd also be a fee for leaving. The higher your rank, the higher the fee.

Would be amazing and a reason to make me start grinding hard again.

The biggest concern for me, however, is what if the server's strongest players all join one faction (you know how guild politics works in BDO)?  If all the server's strongest players join one faction, I'd imagine more people wanting to join that faction, causing massive imbalance between the two.  You could opt for randomly assigned factions, but how will this impact guilds if members of the same guild can attack one another?  And if you keep is guild-based, what if the server's top 5 strongest guilds get assigned to the same faction?  Massive imbalance, Id' imagine.  The goal of this is to have fun, and if the power imbalance is so overly skewed to one side, that won't be very fun, overall.  Maybe for those on the OP faction, but not for everyone else.

How would we achieve a reasonable semblance of balance among factions?  At least in terms of collective player strength (in terms of numbers and gear)?

Maybe have the faction chosen at random (guild-wise). The Gm of your guild (regardless of the amount of members or rank) would sign your guild up for factions (like a menu you can select an option to 'sign up' or 'apply') and your guild would then be assigned to a faction at random. There would definitely need to be a system in place that would make it so the most powerful guilds don't all get assigned to the same one. Have maybe up to 3 factions to try to spread them out more evenly. Maybe add more factions as needed.

As for a resonable semblance of balance among factions, hmm I'm not too sure. Maybe a max limit of the amount of players per faction. If there would be a 'gear score limit' then maybe a collective gear score (every member that's in the faction would add to that number depending on gear). But I'm not sure how that would work. That could be tricky to implement. Overall though It would be more of a 'strength in numbers' kind of deal (that way anyone can join, provided they're in a guild) rather it being gear dependant. Higher gear and number of people obviously gives you an edge. But it'd be more about adapting and strategizing. Whether you travel alone, with guild members, or raids is up to you. Guilds can organize raids for certain things (bosses, hunting*, questing, fishing, gathering, ect.) via 'Alliance/Faction Chat' to get more faction members on board. That would enable it to where smaller guilds would be able to participate by joining whoever is hosting a raid. They'd still have to contribute in some way by doing whatever content the raid is hosting. Example: for gathering, maybe the raid could have them gather while better geared players defend them. It'd be up to the raid leader to organize it a certain way. Strategize. Communication would be paramount. Adapt to the situation. If you join a raid but don't contribute, then you get nothing. It's all about contribution and there would be different ways to do that regardless of gear score or the amount of guild members. Like I said, you would just have to adapt. Guilds don't have to participate in raids, raids would just make it easier.

*Hunting: both monsters and enemy faction players.

A system similar to what ESO has w/ its 3 way faction wars for Cyrodil would probably be really cool, so long as it was hosted on a separate server.

I think it'd be pretty cool if we had some sort of 3 way territory war in the Valencia Desert between Shakatu, Arehaza & Muiquun, or in Calpheon between Port Epheria, Trent & Keplan, with some gear caps for more accessability. Just, it would have to be on a different server.

Open World faction PVP is actually fun, instead of the PK nonsense the PVP in this game has become. It gives you a purpose and a meaning when engaging in PVP. There coulds also be designated areas and hours every week where large numbers of players could fight each other, without having to make it into a list like it happens in War of the Roses. SOLO had it and it was one of the fun parts of the game (I know it's kind of wildly dislike now, but SOLO had so many good things).

i disagree with specific regions and times though. it should be all out war at any given time. theres already enought stuff limmited to specific times.

That's what Arsha is for.

Yeah, good meaningful open world PvP. That's one thing that's missing in this game. There's PvP sure, but open world is just mainly Pking out of boredom (which, is fine lol). But it'd be nice if there was an actual reason for it. Incentive. Which is lacking. Most people's reasons are either defending grindspots (which they are then punished for via Karma system if not on Arsha), boredom killing, and gvg (which is honestly rather pointless in my opinion). Then you have instanced PvP. Which was just never very fun for me, it's fine that there's a lot of people that probably do (that's why they're there) it's just never been my thing. I've always like the spontaneity of fights breaking out with high stakes (other than negative consequences via karma) and high rewards for winning. I mean is Arsha spontaneous? Yes. But there's no real reason for it, you get nothing out of it. Other than bragging rights, I guess? Or winning a spot, maybe...

 Yes and no. I feel Arsha isn't a real solution at the end of the day. It's more like, "you guys want PvP? Here's the only server where you wont get punished/penalized for it." That's it. No punishment for killing other players, but no benefit either. You win nothing other than the fight itself or maybe if you were fighting for a spot. It'd just be nice to add a competitive layer to it. More than just, "I want your spot." Boring. I would like a system similar to 'War of the Roses' but open world. No instances. No battleground version or arena. People can still pk or fight for grindspots (if that's their thing). But add another layer to it. While leaving life-skillers or PvE players alone by opting to stay out of a faction. If players don't join a faction, they're not able to be PvP'd. Only be able to PvP players of the opposing faction(s). If they did a system like this, they could try it on the Arsha channel(s) first. If it takes off, move it to the rest of the servers (except Season and Olvia). By doing so they could eliminate the obsolete karma system as it would no longer serve a purpose or be needed.

Yes, you would be able to fight people of the other two factions at any times, that's not what I meant. Besides being able to fight anyone on the open world, and for that to get you some kind of relevant points for your faction (of course there should be limits. Killing people of other factions with too low of a gear compared to yours shouldn't give you any points, because then coward-pk-idiots would go around killing undergeared newbies outside of velia, there could be weekly wars were two or three factions reunite in one place and collide with all their forces. That was pretty fun in SOLO.

It's of course trickier here because classes are imbalanced and there's too much difference in gear from one player to another. I didn't mind people bothering me with random pvp in SOLO because everybody mostly had the same gear, so I always had time to respond. Wherther I won against in those sudden attacks came down more to skill and how well I know my class than how many hours of grinding or real money I had put in the game. If they were to implement such a faction system in BDO it would have to be carefully studied first, since class imbalance and gear difference can play a big part in making it a hell for a lot of players.

Cerain areas in certain time.
Open world where, fun where, salt where