Faction tiers
Faction tiers are an informal ranking used in Hardcore Factions to describe how strong a faction is relative to the rest of a map. Tier 1 is the top. The system is community convention rather than a server feature — no network assigns tiers, no plugin tracks them, and there is no agreed method for deciding them.
Despite that, tiering is how the scene talks about itself. Rosters are recruited around it, fights are framed by it, and factions dispute their placement constantly.
This page describes what tiers mean, not who belongs in them. Tier placement is contested by definition. For actual results — Citadel captures, map outcomes, EOTW standings — see Map archive, which records what happened rather than how it was ranked.
The tiers
Tier 1
Factions that win Citadels and decide map outcomes. Other factions plan around them: when and where to fight, who to avoid, who to ally with under a capped-ally ruleset. Usually no more than two or three per map, and often only one is genuinely uncontested.
Tier 2
Competitive factions that take fights with T1 and sometimes win them, but don't consistently take the map. Full rosters, organised events attendance, real KOTH and Conquest records. This is the largest tier and the most argued-over boundary — the T1/T2 line is where most tier disputes happen.
Tier 3
Organised and active factions that raid, hold territory and turn up to events, but rarely contest Citadel. Often smaller rosters or newer groups still building a record. Many T2 factions started here.
Tier 4
Competitive players and small rosters who take fights and attend events, but lack the numbers to contest Citadel. Often skilled individuals rather than organised factions — a T4 group can beat higher-tier players in open fights while having no route to a map result. Commonly a route into the higher tiers rather than a bottom rung.
Factions that are inactive, build-only or last a single map are generally not tiered at all rather than placed below T4.
What determines a tier
No formula exists, but the criteria people actually cite are consistent:
| Factor | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Citadel record | The strongest single signal, since Citadels decide maps |
| Roster size and quality | Numbers matter, but a small skilled roster can out-tier a large weak one |
| Event attendance | Turning up consistently distinguishes T2 from T3 |
| Fight record | Who a faction beats, and under what conditions |
| Territory | Holding map-relevant ground rather than a corner base |
| Reputation | Whether other factions change their plans because of you |
Disputes
Tiering is contested in several recurring ways, and a wiki should record the disagreement rather than pick a side.
Tiers describe factions, but the criteria are often about players. A faction can carry T1 players and still place T2 if it never converts that into map results. Whether a "tier" measures the organisation or the people in it is genuinely unsettled, and arguments frequently fail because the two sides mean different things by the word.
Tiers don't transfer between networks. A T1 faction on one network may be T2 or lower on another with a deeper playerbase. Cross-network tier claims are usually meaningless without saying which network.
Placement is retrospective in practice. A faction's tier for a map is only really settled once the map ends, but tiering is done live, which means most tier talk is prediction dressed as description.
Self-tiering is not evidence. Factions place themselves higher than others place them, consistently and in both directions — rivals are tiered down as often as allies are tiered up.
Historical tiering
Retrospective per-map tiering is more defensible than live ranking, because map results exist and can be sourced. If this wiki records tiers, it should do so per map, with Citadel counts, EOTW outcomes and raid records cited alongside.
This section is a stub. Per-map tier records belong in Map archive once results are documented.