How to Get Into a Top Faction as a New Player

How to Get Into a Top Faction as a New Player (By Playing Well)

There’s no shortage of factions who will take a new player in. However, most of them suck. For an ambitious new player, getting into a good faction will make a world of difference: from tangible in-game benefits like much better perks, armouries and supplies to less quantifiable but even more important things like better guides, more knowledgeable people, better contacts for trading and money-making, and a better community experience overall.

Factions with more to offer can also afford to be more selective. Some will have a training sub-faction where they recruit new players, the best of whom will then be invited to move up to the main branches. Others run training programmes inside their main faction. Even if that’s not the case, you can often see something like this in faction descriptions:

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(from Natural Selection)

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(from Monarch HQ)

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(from Chain Reaction)

While most factions don’t ask for 5b minimum stats, many will still have stat requirements that can take from many months to multiple years to get to. Notice, however, that ‘exceptions can be discussed’ for ‘above average activity’ players. So how do you become an exceptional new player?

I can’t guarantee you will immediately land a place in a HoF faction (nor would I necessarily endorse all of them). I have, however, been recruiting in good Diamond factions for a while now and have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of thousands of applicants. I’ve also slid into factions I had little business being in by stats alone a couple of times myself on the ‘exceptional’ ticket. Since I have this conversation at least once a week with applicants to our own new player programme at ODB I though the easiest thing would be to actually put a guide together.

What I can do is give you an idea of what serious recruiters/factions will be looking at and how you can maximise your chances of getting into a good place, or the best possible place for your age and stats.

The Barebones - Level 15, PI, Donator Status

These three are absolute minimums for anyone who knows anything about Torn. Not having either shows that you don’t know much about the game or are a super casual player.

Level 15: The oft-referenced Baldr’s Basic Advice outlines how to do this. In a nutshell, you train your total battle stats to around 1500 and then you attack and leave people from this list until you hit level 15. Why 15? That’s where you can fly which is a major source of income for new players, as well as a necessity during Ranked Warring.

Private Island: Living in a Private Island will give you a massive boost to happiness, which in turn helps your stat growth a lot, especially early on. Most of your energy after reaching level 15 goes to training, so it’s worth doing it at maximum efficiency. Buying a Private Island will be out of your reach (and is generally not worth it unless you are very rich) but renting is very affordable once you start flying/selling losses. Renting one with an Airstrip will also give you faster flights and through that pay for itself.

Donator Status: This can be bought for a small monthly fee for IRL money. It can also be obtained using in-game money by buying and opening Donator Packs, and is reasonably affordable if you fly frequently and/or sell losses. It increases your maximum energy and your energy gain - both very important for training and warring.

Stats Recruiters Look At
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Torn tracks everyone’s gameplay very extensively and most of that data is publicly available via Personal Stats for anyone to check. Welcome to the Panopticon. Here’s a list of stats recruiters can check, in rough order of importance:

Time Played: Good factions are made up of people who play A LOT of Torn. There are a maximum of 100 slots per faction and recruiters will try to get other fellow addicts to fill them up. Torn can be played pretty efficiently in a few minutes per day in terms of things to actually do, but very active players will often spend time on the forums, reading news, chatting etc. Other active things that can be done in the game are trading (including flipping items), playing poker in the casino, obsessively checking their personal stats etc.

Drug Use: Taking three Xanax a day (for 250 energy each) is the hallmark of a highly active player. Affording that can be a challenge for very new players (especially if not selling losses) so drugs used captured the category more broadly. Ecstasy is not a bad choice for stat gain if Xanax is too expensive, and Cannabis can also be used for extra nerve and hunting for the rare OD merit. The main thing to show here is that you are using your drug cooldown as much as possible.

Consumables Used: Similar to the above logic, but for your booster cooldown. The cheapest options are drinking beer for nerve (crimes) or candy for happy (training). Taking these daily shows the minmaxing mindset that’s common to good Torn players.

Total Offenses: Doing crimes is a big part of Torn and becomes a very good moneymaker both for you and the faction down the line. It is one of the most basic indicators of activity in Torn.

Refills: It might take most players a bit of time to be able to afford daily energy refills but if you’re doing them early on, it’s a very good sign that you’re learning about the game. Energy refills are the last source of cheap energy available in the game and +150 extra per day is well worth going for. Nerve refills are a bit of a luxury but it’s also something that most players get into at some point to speed up their crime experience growth.

Contracts Completed: Missions are another daily thing that is well worth doing from the very start and show an understanding of the game. Mission credits unlock weapon mods which have a huge impact on your damage. They’re also used to buy books and special ammo. Just the good mods and the books alone can take many years to get so starting early is a good idea.

Attacks Won/ Attacks Assisted/ Ranked War Hits: If you are already in a faction, a combination of these shows that you are actually taking part in wars. Being a new player, you might struggle to land hits depending on what factions you are fighting, but you should still assist and/or do outside hits depending on the strategy of your faction - which will show up in these stats.

Total Networth: Being rich is not a requirement to join any faction but having a healthy, growing net worth is a sign that you learned how to make money (or buy DPs) and that you can sustain yourself. Flying and loss selling are the most obvious early moneymakers, with many other side hustles available that you have to get more creative/knowledgeable to come up with (and play more actively).

Times Travelled/Times Spent Travelling: Flying a lot is not necessarily a requirement to join any faction or to be successful in Torn. If you’re a good trader, mercenary or poker player, you might not fly for money at all. However, if you’re both broke and not flying, you’re probably going to struggle to grow your net worth and supply yourself with drugs/refills/PI rentals.

Being Headhunted

If you stand out, you might be contacted by a good faction to join them. Here are a few ways to do that:

Competitions/Events/Ranked Wars: Doing well in ranked wars requires quite a bit of commitment and understanding of the game. This is even more true for competitions/events, which sometimes require insane levels of engagement to win or be among the top performers - something recruiters look for. Doing consistently well in wars might get you contacted by recruiters and/or will show up in your personal stats. Doing very well during Halloween, Elimination or Torn Tenacity Trials will almost definitely get you contacted by at least one good faction or is something you can highlight when reaching out to them.

High Xanax Use: Some factions also keep track of very high xanax users on an ongoing basis and this can be a way to get headhunted.

Networking: If you show a good attitude and interest in learning on the forums and in various chats/Discords, you might eventually get the interest of a recruiter. If you have a trader, they might also be in the leadership of a good faction or know people there. Not all of them like to chat, but befriending some could score you an invitation.

Attitude and In-Game Persona

Most faction leadership will want people who are team players, like to help others, are curious about the game and don’t cause much drama. Having lots of enemies and few friends (shown on your profile), being bountied all the time, having negative forum karma are indicators that you’ll be a headache for faction leadership. Some factions will also not that people with offensive names/profile pictures/forum posts.

That being said, if you’re an unrepentant troll, bully, shitposter or have a highly cantankerous personality but in an intelligent or at least entertaining way, you might have a home in certain HOF factions. It all comes down to finding a place where you fit on.

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(random screenshot showing torn.com gameplay)

If you are thinking of applying at a high respect faction where you don’t meet the stat requirements, you might want to look up who their recruiter/leader/co-leader is and have a chat with them first before applying. Lots of people in faction leadership can reject applications and might do so without checking your profile much or at all if you are relatively low level. Make sure to talk to someone first and only apply if you get a go ahead, which you can then mention in your application.

Happy faction hunting!

Or just spent a lot of money, buy donator packs and get a blue name.

Spending 1000 bucks this early on shows that you mean serious business.

Usually don't normally quote players but I felt the need to provide this perspective as someone who's a top player in various genre of games ranging from FPS, MMORPGS, etc and easily transitioned that into torn despite initital doubts about my ability to do so.

For instance, I have had doubts about my warring ability because I spent a lot of time training my energy in the gym and not attacking unless absolutely necessary.

Well guess what? Proved all those doubts wrong specifically by consistently being one of the top performers in REAL Ranked Wars.

I warred from bronze all the way to plat whilst in 39th Street Killers, diamond in Monarch Mutation.

Consistently being one of the top warriors despite being not the highest stats.

Anyways, enough about myself.

The point I'm trying to drive across is that while it may be true that both the 50B networth and 50m player may have the opportunities to read guides and learn about the game, only the 50B networth player will have the  resources to capitalize and take advantage of the knowledge.

For example, take for instance happy jumps.

The 50B networth player will already surpass the 50m networth player in stats alone assuming both start happy jumping.

I don't even need to talk about cans usage or even stat enhancers . . . it's obvious who can afford to use cans and who can't, thus widening the stat gap between them.

Sure, you may argue that all those are a luxury and not a necessity. Fine. Let’s use donator packs then, it is a staple requirement.

Donator packs cost 24-25m on average. The player who has to fly and waste potential stat gains via lesser time to expend their energy to the fullest maximum potential will lose out to someone who doesn't even need to travel and just purely trains their energy in the gym.

We are assuming both players have the same level of activity.

Let's discuss about the most insane way to make money previously.

Stocks 2.0; we all knew about stocks printing money but it was only those who had the resources and funds available to do so who could take advantage and abuse the stocks to gain billions and exponential monetary growth while it lasted.

Would like to clarify that this is not a personal attack on anyone, just offering a top player's perspective and insight.

Some may argue that I'm not top 100 battlestats in Torn but I have already proven how my top player experience carries over whilst being in HOF factions like 39th Street Killers, Monarch Engineering/Mutation etc.

In my current faction, I was personally approached by the leader to join them.

This was during my very first day back from quitting torn as well.

So yeah, happy to have my points debated, trolling will not be entertained obviously~ 

TLDR: You need money to make money, hence the saying: "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer"

I think what you're saying is that IRL purchases will speed up one's account growth, which can not be argued against.

To Qfiffle's point above, Torn is very much a knowledge-based game and NW/stats alone don't necessarily reflect that. I'd rather have a scrappy, lower-statted and lower net worth player fighting on my side who knows what they are doing than an SEd whale who is either not that active or doesn't really know what to do in wars. The high stats become a liability that needs to be worked around rather than an asset if not used or not used intelligently. Same goes for other aspects of faction life like OCs and communal activities.

As a recruiter, there's a long list of more important stats that show an understanding and engagement with the game, and that's why net worth is so low on the list above.

chain reaction avg activity what is the avg an hour or two?

I'd guess it's 1-2 for ODB

you have some genuinely incredible guides man, wish we could get them featured more prominently instead of having to search for your profile to find them lol