It is no secret that the factions are a big part of life in the Tower and the in the City. For Guardians they are a constant, vying for influence and control within the Consensus but never truly achieving it. In Destiny 1 they were just there, as a vendor to get powerful weapons from (I miss my Hung Jury SR4) and the Faction Rallies was the first real time in the franchise where their influence was truly felt on the player experience. Now the concept of the Faction Rally was fine but its execution lacked finesse and was open to exploit by unscrupulous players looking to get that god roll weapon from a particular faction. Now Faction Rallies were removed at the end of season 3 which I feel is a loss because the Factions have a lot to offer the game but they need a bit of work and I think the best way around it is a combination of things from Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. [u]Changes[/u] The first thing is to return the faction as a permanent vendors within the tower. Give them the ability to sell faction weapons at all times like they did in Destiny 1. Secondly allow players to once more select their faction per character and not per account so that they have access to all the weapons the Faction vendors offer at all times. Just so you know this is not to say that there is not going to be an incentive to have all three characters choose the same faction, but I will get to that later. [u]Ranking Up[/u] Now how to get the rewards from the factions. The idea I have borrows from Crucible and Gambit. Instead of offering tokens to rank up you have a rank system based on something called Renown. Renown is a representation of a Guardians standing within the faction. Players rank up their Renown from the rank of Guardian all the way up to Legend just like in Crucible and Gambit and then they can reset their Renown rank for a powerful reward. Players earn Renown by completing Vanguard, Gambit or Crucible activities, the harder the activity the more Renown a player earns. Completing activities whilst wearing a full set of faction armour will grant increased Renown, up to 1.5 times the normal amount. Obviously the factions can offer daily and weekly bounties which grant Renown and help players to keep ranking up. [u]Faction Rewards[/u] The rewards will be the usual weapons, armour and cosmetic items. But there should also be powerful rewards in the form of a weekly bounty from that faction where the player can complete a number of activities to complete that weekly bounty. There should also be a number of rewards for resetting your rank with a particular faction in the form of curated weapons (The old god roll Hung Jury SR4 for example.), ghosts, ships and even an exotic quest that brings back the old exotic class items from Destiny 1. [u]Faction Rally[/u] Now the Faction Rallies themselves is where things get interesting. During the faction Rally players chose their factions like normal with the option to chose all three faction if a player so desires. The overall scoring system for the Faction Rally is based on the amount of Renown players earn whilst allied to a particular faction. If you run a double and triple Renown bonus during the faction rally things get even more interesting as it means the outcomes will be less certain. But how to players the incentive to commit to the Faction Rally? Well in the same way Iron Banner is a great thing for leveling up a character, make Faction Rally do the same thing. During the Faction Rally players can earn powerful rewards from completing 7 weekly Faction Rally bounties. In addition you can offer a powerful faction curated weapon that can only be obtained by earning a triumph based on completing 21 Faction Rally bounties during a single Faction Rally. At the end of the Faction Rally if a player is pledged to the winning faction then that player gets a powerfully rolled weapon and 15 enhancement cores as a reward from that faction. [u]Triumphs[/u] Bringing back the Factions allows for the introduction of Faction triumphs for players to earn. These can be grouped into Lore, General, New Monarchy, Dead Orbit and Future War Cult. The a lore section would provide details about the factions themselves and could include. - The philosophies of the factions. - The rise of the Factions. - The Faction War. - The fall of the Concordat. - What the factions were doing during the Red War. The General triumphs will be things like - Pledging to all three factions at the same time. - Obtaining Brave Renown rank. - Obtaining Heroic Renown rank. - Obtaining Fabled Renown rank. - Obtaining Mythic Renown rank. - Obtaining Legend Renown rank. - Resetting your Renown rank. The faction specific triumphs, which would be the same for each faction, can include - Pledging to a faction. - Pledging to a faction 5 times. - Pledging to the same factions on all three characters in a single Faction Rally. - Winning a Faction Rally whilst pledged to a faction. - Completing activities whilst wearing a full set of faction armour. - Completing 21 Faction Rally bounties in a single Faction Rally. - Completing 100 daily faction bounties. - Completing 10 weekly faction bounites. Getting certain Triumphs would reward emblems, unique shaders, lore and even a unique weapon. As I said, this is just an idea and I think it works but I am curious to know what you think. Is this something that you would like to see return.