I would be inclined to agree with it at this stage-
It's clear that many players and factions have been more distant from the server recently- however that could be due to school also, but I do believe that withering has made the server overall boring for factions, whilst it's the only "faction mechanic" left maybe because it's the only way to raid, is it really any good if most nearly anyone has a base, idk.
I was thinking maybe the removal of withers but to supplement for the then lack of a faction side to the server for there to be weekly faction events, such as 3v3s 4v4s 5v5s and if each of these gain enough traction it could be considered to do larger ones that are huge such as 10v10s or even lower, it also wouldn't hurt to try set up something relatively easy and start hosting them considering we have just gained a large number of French players to the server who will most likely be more than happy to enter an event at an opportunity at some cash items etc, especially since the gear would be supplied and there is no loss of entering.
Although the only idea for actual "faction" based events I have thought of I still think there's more and it's worth considering, many peoples fun on the server right now is withering so instead make it events, even that wipeout event was a fun thing for my faction to do atleast, so this is both a response and a suggestion
Even if withers aren't removed still should do some "faction wars" or faction events, or just 3v3s 4v4s 5v5s etc if you don't want to directly associate that with factions.