Oblivion:Factions
Factions are able to be joined by player during various quests, either permanently or temporarily. There are 10 permanent factions that the player needs to be the highest rank of at the end of the run, which can be viewed in the second farthest right tab of the Health Bar Menu.
Overview
The player earns faction ranks during various quests. In most cases, factions have several ranks the player can progressively earn through certain questlines, but a few factions only have a single rank. Several faction ranks can become impossible to obtain by getting the "bad" ending of quests or being expelled from a guild. The main function of this requirement is that it prevents the player from failing the final quest of each questline or getting expelled from a guild instead of completing it properly.
For the sake of the 100% requirements, the other ranks leading up to the highest rank in each faction are irrelevant. Here is a list of each faction and how to get the highest possible rank, note that a few rank titles vary depending on your character's gender:
| Faction | Rank | Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Arena | Grand Champion | Receive the Raiment of Valor at the end of The Arena. |
| Blades | Knight Sister/Brother | Talk to Jauffre after finishing Weynon Priory to join before he potentially dies later. |
| Dark Brotherhood | Listener | Complete Honor Thy Mother. |
| Fighters Guild | Master | Complete The Hist. |
| Knights of the Thorn | Honorary Knight | Complete Wayward Knight without Farwil dying. |
| Knights of the White Stallion | Knight-Errant | Complete Knights of the White Stallion without Mazoga dying. |
| Mages Guild | Arch-Mage | Complete Confront the King. |
| Order of the Dragon | Champion of Cyrodiil | Complete Light the Dragonfires. |
| The Order of the Virtuous Blood | Sister/Brother | Complete The Order of the Virtuous Blood by killing Seridur. |
| Thieves Guild | Gray Fox | Complete The Ultimate Heist by getting the Elder Scroll before you get caught. |
There a handful of factions that the player temporarily joins and then gets removed from after finishing the related quest. These are not required since they cannot be kept. Company Member of the Blackwood Company during Infiltration and Initiate of the Mythic Dawn during Dagon Shrine are the two factions that fall under this category.
Previous Methods
Version 1 and 2
The Max Faction Ranks requirement was not implemented initially. It was inadvertently achieved anyway however due to requiring the player to not "fail" quests.
Version 3
Version 3 officially implemented this requirement as it currently appears.
Current Method
Faction ranks are obtained naturally as quests are done. Factions add almost no time to the run under the assumption that there is no way to fail a quest a still obtain the faction rank.
Potential Improvements
Faction ranks do not add hardly any time to the run since the quests they are tied to need to be completed anyway. There currently does not appear to be any theoretical ways to save time aside from possibly discovering glitches to get a faction rank after already failing a quest, or get a faction rank just before failing a quest.