Pre-Faction AI Launch Guide

Hello, Illyrians! As the development team moves forward into the coding and testing of a new "Faction AI" ranking and action system for the game, we thought it would be helpful to give the community a few quick links and tips for preparing for the new features. Many players are unfamiliar with the player-created Faction Play gaming system that has grown over the past few years, while still others haven't done much research or exploring into the NPC Factions built into the game itself. We hope that this post will give everyone a few starting points for learning more about Factions as we work towards getting the new features launched.

NPC Faction List

Links to every Faction in the game are available on the Faction List page, which is denoted with the red fist sub-icon underneath the larger Alliance icon in the user interface. From here, you can jump to any of the Factions’ profile pages, as well as all of the Faction cities/trade hubs.

Faction Profile Features

If you’ve never taken time to read up on the Factions, now is the time to do your homework. Many of the stories and histories of each Faction directly influence two critically important aspects of their profile: the Default Racial Standing (DRS) and Inter-Faction Standings (IFS).

Default Racial Standings

The DRS shows the baseline ranking for players based on their race. Essentally, this is where players’ rankings start with the Factions, before any of their behaviors are factored in. Please note that we recently overhauled all of the DRS rankings to better reflect the profiles of the Factions. It is worth reviewing all of the Factions nearest you to see if your base standing with them has changed.

Inter-Faction Standings

The IFS indicates the rankings that Factions have with one another. Understanding the relationships between Factions is going to be critically important, since actions with or against one Faction will have reciprocal ranking effects with other Factions. 

We’ve also overhauled the IFS rankings for all Factions, and will be expanding them considerably – there will be nearly 200 new relationships! These additional IFS rankings have not gone live yet, but will in the near future.

Ranking Graph

Once Faction AI goes live, you’ll begin to see movement on the standings graphs at the top of each profile. Currently, your player and alliance rankings are mostly stationary – your ranking is largely based on your race and the Faction’s DRS, and your Alliance’s ranking is basically an average of your roster’s DRS rankings. After the launch of Faction AI, the ranking factors for players and alliances will be much more complex.

Also, many of the taxonomies associated with NPC Factions, such as the ones on the graph above (Neutral, Friendly, Hostile, etc.) will be updated as part of the new Faction launch. This is particularly true with the “Standing Meanings” at the bottom of each Faction profile, which we are more recently referring to as the “Action Scale:”

These are the actions that Factions may take on your behalf or against you based on your ranking. Look for these actions to substantially change and increase with the launch, offering all kinds of new benefits (and threats) to players and alliances. 

Faction “Action Radii”

Something you won’t see on current NPC Faction profiles yet are their “Action Radii.” However, these new radii are coming to the game with the Faction AI launch, and will play a key role in how players and alliances interact with Factions. Each Faction will have custom-sized radii around their hubs, based on their Faction characteristics. This means that the Fey-based Factions may have relatively small action radii, whereas the Council of Illyria and various Kingdoms in Elgea and the Broken Lands may have wide-ranging ones. Action radii between Factions will also overlap, meaning that players will have cities that exist in these overlaps and be exposed to their influence. 

At the outset of Faction AI, the average size of the radii will be relatively large, since it is our intention to ensure that there aren’t many “Faction dead zones” on the map. It is more likely that the average action radius will be closer to 200 squares than, say, 20 squares  – imagine a circle that fits into a block of four larger map blocks: 

(Not an actual action radius)

Just as geographical and political boundaries change over time in the real world, these radii are subject to small changes along the way and may shrink or expand according to changes in the lore and political landscape of the Factions, events/tournaments, and other factors. This means that if you are on the periphery of an action radius (either barely in one or barely out of it), you could see shifts.  

The action radii will be published on every Faction profile page so that players will be able to visualize them and act accordingly. And if/when they change, those changes will also be updated accordingly.

Early Faction Questions & Strategies

Some players are already wondering if they will need to move cities because of the launch of Faction AI. The answer to that will vary from player to player. If a player is within reach of a Faction that is hostile to them, they can either exodus out of the Faction’s action radius, or work toward improving relations with the Faction just enough so that they won’t be a target of any hostilities. 

Conversely, players and alliances might identify Factions that they want to be close to based on the unique benefits that come with a high ranking, and will aggressively seek to settle within their action radius. Not all Factions are created equal, and some will have gifts, items, and assistive military units that will be extremely desireable for players and alliances alike, making some real estate in Illyria extremely valuable!

Overall, NPC Factions are going to be highly active and will factor into virtually every aspect of gameplay. Since the DRS rankings for non-monstrous Factions rarely exceed -35, no player will begin with a Faction ranking that puts them in jeopardy of being attacked by them. However, players and alliances will need to be mindful of their relationships with neighboring Factions. If you’re not looking for to have major conflict with them, then you will need to ensure that you keep your rankings in a safe range. Fortunately, there will be lots of fun and interesting ways to do this that will very much align with the things that players already do in the game – trading, crafting, hunting, city building/positioning, etc.

Illyriad Slack Server for Faction Play 

The long-used, player-managed Slack Server for Faction Play is now an official platform for Illyriad, and will serve as a complementary feature to the game’s upcoming Faction-related features. Having an account on the Illy Slack Server for Faction Play is not a requirement to play with and enjoy Faction AI. It is simply a new and alternative platform for global chat and the forums for the player base to use for all things related to Factions, whether that be role playing, sharing insights into the system, or just social chatting.

You can join and enter the Slack server here.

Slack will run in your browser of choice, but there are fantastic desktop and mobile apps that make it very easy to interact with on the go.

Are you a Discord user? Other social media user? Don’t worry: we’ll be exploring additional social media platforms in the future.

Faction Content in Search Bar

In case you didn’t know, you can search for Faction profile pages, hub locations, special places on the map, and the link to the Slack server in the game’s search bar:

This will give you quick access to key links for everything related to in-game Faction features. 

“Faction Play” Versus “Faction AI”

With the new excitement surrounding upcoming in-game “Faction AI” features, many are wondering how bringing the NPC Factions to life will relate to “Faction Play.” It’s important to remember that Faction Play was not created by Illyriad Games Ltd. and is not an official set of rules for the game. Faction Play is a set of rules and an algorithmic ranking system that was created by Illyriad players to mimic a Faction AI system. Faction Play is a voluntary, opt-in gaming style for Illyriad, and players will not be required to opt into Faction Play in order to enjoy and interact with Faction AI and the game’s own features.

You also won’t need to change alliances or join an alliance to enjoy the new Faction AI features. (However, in the future, alliances will have additional, cool Faction-related features that you might not want to miss out on.)

It is up to Faction Play stakeholders to decide if and how the Faction Play rules can interface with Faction AI. The game developers do not officially endorse or control Faction Play content (I had a major role in Faction Play's development but am no longer managing it). That being said, we certainly celebrate whenever Illy players look to enhance the game with their own content, and we are comfortable with intertwining the term “Faction Play” with our own development efforts, since we feel that it is a term that can safely encompass the entire Faction experience in Illyriad.

Players are welcome to use the Illyriad Factions & Lore forum and Slack server as platforms for their own Faction-related, player-led initiatives.

Faction AI Roadmap

As stated previously, we have an exciting roadmap planned out for rolling out new in-game Faction features. While we’re not able to post specific dates for when the features will go live, we can give you a preview into what to expect. At the time of this posting, this is the current order of what we’ll be working on and releasing:

• Faction AI for Players: This will be the “1.0” system for Faction AI that will allow players to interact with the Factions and affect their rankings. Doing so will dictate the types of actions that Factions will take with or against players. System design and most of the content is already completed, and coding and testing is underway.

• Faction AI for Alliances: This iteration will introduce additional ranking factors and ranking actions for how NPC Factions interact with Alliances. The system will look at Alliance members’ own player rankings, but also additional, Alliance-specific factors. A good portion of the design is done for this, and additional design is in process.

• Second-generation Features: Once we have both the player and alliance features running, we’ll be doubling back to both to add even more sophisticated ranking factors and new actions and behaviors for the Factions.

Rather than spending eons to design, code and test everything we have planned, we thought it best to release Faction AI in stages and get the entire gaming community into the fun and action as soon as possible. Stay tuned – we’ll be sure to keep you posted along the way!

Final note: All of the details discussed in this post related to Faction AI features are subject to change in the future. While we are giving you insights into what we are planning for the system, coding and testing may bear out new findings that will alter some of these design plans. We will be sure to communicate any of these changes to the player community as needed.