There really is no reason to be in a Sword or Gauntlet guild. If you are going to have to donate to a guild that is not yours, you might as well join a larger guild, or even the Helm guild. There need to be more rewards than XP and cost reductions for Swords and Gauntlets, and also a fixed split donation system that does not end up with Helms bullying others to rank them to 20 first.
Yes, joining a larger guild is an option. But with alliances, you can get the benefits of a larger guild (boons, market, vendor, large-scale stuff) without being forced to leave your small guild. If I were in a small PVP guild, this would be a great thing -- could finally get the boons etc without having to worry about dishing out HUGE sums of AD and PVE-time to get them, and without having to leave my friends and join a new large guild.
The problem for now that it doesn't benefit much the smaller guilds at the middle / bottom, so no much use for it, especially for guild above GH12 (have access to full market / masterworks) and those that can kill dragons by themselves.
That's not exactly how it works, at least to my understanding. Yes, the Gauntlet tier will get a lower benefit compared to the Helm, but the benefits for all are dependent on the overall rank of the Alliance. Basically each 10 ranks of the of the Alliance = 1% discount on SH upgrades and .25% experience bonus for the Helm guild, .5% SH upgrades and experience bonus for the Swords and .25% on SH upgrades and 1% experience bonus.
So let's say for instance you're a rank 10 GH and form an Alliance of 12 other rank 10 GH. Your collective would be 130. The breakdown would then go:
Helm: 13% and 3.25% Sword: 6.5% and 6.5% Gauntlet: 3.25% and 13%
The problem small guilds are going to run into is that if your GH is below rank 8, you're not going to be an attractive partner for an Alliance. Since all the benefits are based on the collective, you're not going to be seeing a rank 18 Helm with rank 4-5-6 Gauntlets because they'd bring down the collective rank of the Alliance.
So if you're a small guild and want to take advantage of what Alliance brings, you might want to be looking for slightly higher ranked guilds to merge with.
HR: Vretzen GWF: Vretzina OP: Vee DC: Evee CW: nezterV
I wish I could firewall donations to our guild coffer from outside, but i doubt such mechanics will be provided. Many resources are easy to get and without doubt these most likely to land in small guilds. Our guild is small, but even with few numbers we can fill 80% of our resources in reasonable time, it is campaign currencies are major headache. I doubt there is a lot of spare said currency in player pockets. Unless you need these currencies, you don't run all boring unprofitable content to get them.
I see another positive effect to come. Closer social contacts between players are inevitable and it will easier for members of smaller guilds to pick and move to better guilds. But with aggressive attempts to recruit active members from one guild to another within alliance I expect some little alliance drama
You can do that actually. You can set your guild's incoming and outgoing donations so that nothing is donated by mistake and nothing is accepted as an inventory dump you don't need or want.
HR: Vretzen GWF: Vretzina OP: Vee DC: Evee CW: nezterV
Imo it depends on the pride of the big guilds. If one is ruling the others, will they band together and dominate PvP and PvE for years to come or will each one of them go for the leading role 'allowing' other guilds to compete and play on the same level.
As far as I have seen, there are 2 or 3 guild with SH R 20, 10+ with SH R 17+ and a mutlitude working between 10-17.
If the first mentioned band together, their advantage would not be equalized in years.
What advantage is that exactly? That is to say - what actual, tangible advantage will this give those guilds that they don't already enjoy today?
Somewhere in their announcements they said, that the bonus of an alliance will depend on the Stronghold level of all the guilds in the alliance. Just looking at stronghold boons, I think it will be significant, but I dont know of the concrete numbers.
Now think about this. There might be 10-20 guilds with SH 17+ now. If the boni are similar to SH boons and depend on the combined SH level of all guilds, there will either be one BIG alliance between some PvP and PvE guilds (all SH 17+) and the rest or some more or less equal alliances with a 'head' of 2 or 3 big guilds and many middle or small sized guilds.
Where is that talk about the boon sharing coming from? That's not part of the current system and just a proposal, right?
Feedback
I think given the time frame, a change of the overall structure can't be expected with the release, so I'd like to focus on the alliance bonuses. The current system as I understand works in a way that Sword and especially Gauntlet guilds fully profit from the access to marketplace and a larger playerbase to work Dragonflights etc. In exchange, the Helm guild gets a considerable discount on their structures.
I get the intention, but the setup has a few important weaknesses that have to be addressed in my eyes:
a) The incentives to donate to alliance guild coffers is low to nonexistent.
b) The rich get richer, while small guilds that are overwhelmed and frustrated with the donations aren't getting enough help.
c) When maxed out, the alliance bonus for Helm guilds is no longer viable.
I think simply reverting the guild bonuses and change XP to something else could achieve a lot. As others said the math might just not work anyway. Helm guilds are better off investing their resources in their own structures instead of upgrading other guilds for a 0.1% discount per level. And long term the bonus even diminishes.
Of course Helms can't utilize the XP bonus, nobody can. Instead I'd give them additional salvage RADs and Guild Marks. Helping the alliance no longer has a clear turning point this way, because it's two different areas now. Gauntlets get Stronghold progression, Helm wealth.
It makes much more sense for Gauntlet guilds to help out each other since they have a longer road ahead and can profit from discounts on more structures and levels. This enables the sort of collaboration on the lowest level that the current system is completely lacking. I would additionally enhance alliance coffer donations by L * 0.05 as well.
I also like that this transfers alliances to a bottom-to-top system. The Helm guild needs to contribute and care for the alliance to keep their wealth bonuses. Swords and Gauntlets are a stronger part of the foundation.
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andorrabellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 437Arc User
That seems backwards (bugged). It doesn't make any sense for the helm guild to get a structure discount when the gauntlet guilds are expected to be smaller and thus struggling to gather resources.
I went back and forth on this one. The logic of the current version is: * small guilds can include feeder guilds which have pre-70 characters (alts especially), who can use the XP more * everything is % based, and having a % of a big cost is more valuable when your costs are big -- the costs are a lot smaller for the small guilds (and remember they should have some help from other guilds now; bringing up a smaller guild gives you just as many guild marks, and it's a quick and easy way to raiser your alliance level) * the number of guilds that are actually completely maxed out (and thus unable to use the cost discount) is fairly small
That said, if everyone thinks larger guilds will want the XP buff, and smaller guilds will want the cost discount, it's an easy thing for me to change. The thing I really do NOT want is weird inverted alliances where the rank 17 guild tries to arrange to be in the gauntlet position to get the structure discount -- and I was afraid that would happen with the big discounts going to the gauntlet position.
Another possibility is to just punt on the whole "custom benefits based on position" idea and give the exact same benefits to everyone -- so everyone gets the current sword benefits, say. In theory, I like the idea that the benefits in each position are ideal for the guilds that are likely to be in that position. But it seems hard to make it work in practice.
It does not make sense to have the guild that is furthest along/almost done get a structure discount- they don't need that kind of help. Structure discounts - if they are weighted at all (and I think the easiest solution is NOT to weight them) should go to the Gamma Guilds. Also- everyone expected these to be discounts off BUYING things (i.e. gear, masterwork maps, etc) rather than just structures.... Id make them equal buffs honestly and three way- structure//xp//discount for gear
Someone mentioned a larger amount of GM when you donate to OTHER guilds- that is interesting.
This is also interesting: 1. Have the donations trickle down. You donate to the coffer 100% goes to that guild and 25% bonus goes to the alliance guilds
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Because total Alliance rank is a sum of guild levels, I feel my rank 4 guild will be an undesirable partner and this update still won't be much help to us. We have the resources to build a ton of stuff, actually, except for being stuck on Influence, which our active membership completely burned out on to get to where we did (and one of them used vouchers to finish that off). We need Influence for 2 guild hall upgrades to be able to improve any other existing structures, and to create any boon building. And because I personally feel like turning off the computer - maybe permanently - most of the time when I think about going and grinding another 100k+ Influence from the same 5 HEs over and over again, I absolutely cannot bring myself to complain that others aren't doing it every day. In a really small guild, you look at the Influence figure and think of it in terms of how many days that's going to take you to do by yourself. It's depressing. One of my most active members hasn't even been able to play on the SH map since Underdark came out due to framerate issues we can't figure out, and my most consistent contributor right now is a newer person who missed the hellish push to rank 4 and only plays one character, which means they're not totally averse to it... yet. I'm really hoping some of these upcoming event tie-ins can get us over the hump, at least.
On a largely unrelated note, while I absolutely applaud the addition of non-random power points to Sharandar, this has correspondingly devalued XP bonuses as a meaningful reward. Levelling is manageable without looking for huge bonuses, and overflow rewards are not significant enough to chase when they're not the only means of gaining bonus power points. I don't wish to complain about that, as I think the game should move away from pressuring players to hit overflow rewards as often as possible, and instead have them return to a nice-but-not-necessary minor gift that happens when it happens (though I wouldn't say no to having way better refinement stuff in there, esp. as a compensation for taking RP out of nodes).
I really do like the idea of having bonus guild marks for donating to an ally's coffer.
This is also interesting: 1. Have the donations trickle down. You donate to the coffer 100% goes to that guild and 25% bonus goes to the alliance guilds
Yeah, this is an interesting idea for sure. You help everyone all at once.
Because total Alliance rank is a sum of guild levels, I feel my rank 4 guild will be an undesirable partner and this update still won't be much help to us. We have the resources to build a ton of stuff, actually, except for being stuck on Influence, which our active membership completely burned out on to get to where we did (and one of them used vouchers to finish that off). We need Influence for 2 guild hall upgrades to be able to improve any other existing structures, and to create any boon building. And because I personally feel like turning off the computer - maybe permanently - most of the time when I think about going and grinding another 100k+ Influence from the same 5 HEs over and over again, I absolutely cannot bring myself to complain that others aren't doing it every day. In a really small guild, you look at the Influence figure and think of it in terms of how many days that's going to take you to do by yourself. It's depressing. One of my most active members hasn't even been able to play on the SH map since Underdark came out due to framerate issues we can't figure out, and my most consistent contributor right now is a newer person who missed the hellish push to rank 4 and only plays one character, which means they're not totally averse to it... yet. I'm really hoping some of these upcoming event tie-ins can get us over the hump, at least.
That's why the alliances should have the option to share boons. Then, small guilds could literally stop caring about upgrading themselves. They get everything they could want from the alliance, no need to upgrade their stronghold. If they are kicked from an alliance, they can either (1) find a new alliance or in the worst case, (2) go back to pre-alliance days (like right now) and build by themselves.
Also, if a band of 13 rank 4 guilds team up, they can focus on upgrading 1 of the guilds and all get the benefit of the shared market/boons etc. Could that guild become evil and kick everyone? Yes. Key things: (1) choose your alliance wisely, (2) the system should have natural incentives to keep this from happening (guild marks, guild mark bonus %), and (3) there is an existing precedent set with strongholds (and STO) that shows that this worse-case scenario doesn't actually manifest.
I don't think boon sharing will ever happen. From the dev's point of view, it just takes too much grind progression out of the game. It's like making Mount and Companions BtA.
And because I personally feel like turning off the computer - maybe permanently - most of the time when I think about going and grinding another 100k+ Influence from the same 5 HEs over and over again, I absolutely cannot bring myself to complain that others aren't doing it every day.
There should absolutely be way more ways to obtain Influence.
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josiahiyonMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 396Arc User
I don't think boon sharing will ever happen. From the dev's point of view, it just takes too much grind progression out of the game. It's like making Mount and Companions BtA.
There should absolutely be way more ways to obtain Influence.
And because I personally feel like turning off the computer - maybe permanently - most of the time when I think about going and grinding another 100k+ Influence from the same 5 HEs over and over again, I absolutely cannot bring myself to complain that others aren't doing it every day.
Boon sharing was the OP (developer) example of feedback. It's clearly something they are considering, and I think it's critical that this be allowed as an option for alliances.
I understand your concern, in general. Players don't want grind, developers rely on it in so much as it provides revenue. The middle ground is something like alliances, where players still team up to rank up 1 guild to max rather than having tons of small guilds effectively stop / give up at a low rank.
Agreed with more ways to earn influence. Having to do stronghold heroic encounters every day on every toon is not fun, and isn't what people sign on this game to do.
Iyon the Dark
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Boon sharing was the OP (developer) example of feedback. It's clearly something they are considering, and I think it's critical that this be allowed as an option for alliances.
The big question is whether it's something they already considered but discarded, and just used as a feedback example, or if it really could be on the table. It could solve a lot of problems, but there is that question of whether boon-sharing would be viewed as letting most guilds off the hook too easily.
Boon-sharing that allows an alliance to eventually rank up all potential structures in turn by using the plots available from a couple of Strongholds so that members of a stable alliance can switch between any possible boon available... that's a pretty incredible thought.
Boon sharing was the OP (developer) example of feedback. It's clearly something they are considering, and I think it's critical that this be allowed as an option for alliances.
I understand your concern, in general. Players don't want grind, developers rely on it in so much as it provides revenue. The middle ground is something like alliances, where players still team up to rank up 1 guild to max rather than having tons of small guilds effectively stop / give up at a low rank.
As much as this would make life easier for anyone, I don't like it for alliances at all. It's just too much power for the one Stronghold the alliance is developing. I agree there hasn't been much drama around guilds, selling, kicking and stuff, at least not a big bang, but it's not like this hasn't been an issue entirely.
Also zero incentive to help smaller guilds develop, neither from Helm to Gauntlet nor from Gauntlet to Gauntlet. Zero incentive to contribute to the alliance coffers outside the boons guilds. It's not a good solution. I would much rather prefer a bottom-to-top system where the Helm is more dependent on the Gauntlets.
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josiahiyonMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 396Arc User
Boon sharing was the OP (developer) example of feedback. It's clearly something they are considering, and I think it's critical that this be allowed as an option for alliances.
I understand your concern, in general. Players don't want grind, developers rely on it in so much as it provides revenue. The middle ground is something like alliances, where players still team up to rank up 1 guild to max rather than having tons of small guilds effectively stop / give up at a low rank.
As much as this would make life easier for anyone, I don't like it for alliances at all. It's just too much power for the one Stronghold the alliance is developing. I agree there hasn't been much drama around guilds, selling, kicking and stuff, at least not a big bang, but it's not like this hasn't been an issue entirely.
Also zero incentive to help smaller guilds develop, neither from Helm to Gauntlet nor from Gauntlet to Gauntlet. Zero incentive to contribute to the alliance coffers outside the boons guilds. It's not a good solution. I would much rather prefer a bottom-to-top system where the Helm is more dependent on the Gauntlets.
If the bottom up approach is to be taken, then there would need to be a very significant bonus for the helm guild. Otherwise, there is no incentive for them to be in an alliance. Some variation of a tax, and/or significant coffer discounts and/or significant guild mark gain. XP is useless to just about every guild, so I don't think that should be included at any tier. Small guilds are implicitly helped by alliances simply because they will gain access to vendors/markets/large-scale events/maybe-boons. If alliances are also going to be structured so as to incentivize building small guilds, then large guilds need some kind of massive disproportionate incentive. Otherwise, large guilds just wouldn't take part in alliances.
I'd actually support both types. Flexibility. Allow alliances to be top-down or bottom-up. The current incoming/outgoing contributions setting is a good start towards allowing both options.
Iyon the Dark
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darkstarcrashMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,382Arc User
Some interesting ideas here.
I think I agree with @loboguild that sharing boons will make it seem unnecessary to rank up the lower guilds, beyond adding to the total alliance guild levels -- which can be abused. Any Gauntlet guild that gets removed from its alliance will be in big trouble if they've been spending their resources to rank up the Helm guild's boon structures.
Good suggestions for attractive benefits include decreasing structure build time -- since a high-level guild takes much longer to build structures, it would make sense to skew this discount to the Helm Guild. Discount on market purchases would also be a sensible benefit for the Helm guild. Skew reduced structure cost to the Gauntlet guilds.
And please address the need for Influence when you roll out alliances. This bottleneck currency affects guilds at all levels.
I've talked to quite a few highly ranked guilds over the last few days. I haven't come across 1 that's suggested anything like being feeders to the higher guilds within the Alliance. Doing so does the Alliance as a whole no good.
HR: Vretzen GWF: Vretzina OP: Vee DC: Evee CW: nezterV
Funny how this alliance thing is supposed to help small/medium guilds... But here we see more and more demands for giving the big guilds even more benefits.
This just shows, that the Devs really have to come up with a better guild system then the current one, before they start building alliances right on top of it. Not to mention, what about upgrading the customer support, so that the "GMs" can actually help the players, when something goes wrong inside guilds and alliances?
It appears everyone's general consensus so far is that an "XP Bonus" (no what tier) is pretty worthless. There are far better options that would appeal to everyone.
Currently, the proposed tiered Alliance system does not seem like an "Alliance", but more of feudalistic system. Do you really think a King (Helm) would go farm the fields (grind valuable resources) and just give it to the Nobles (Swords) or Peasants (Gauntlets) for a few copper (guild marks)? No, they are just going to save it until they need to use it. The same applies to Swords and Gauntlets. Will they give their valuable resources to help the King? No, they are going to stockpile for their own Stronghold.
There needs to be better incentives to help other alliance members. As suggested many times, the current bottleneck for almost all Strongholds is Influence. As an alternate reward to guild marks for donating to other guilds coffers, I would rather have the option of choosing a reward like an Influence voucher, AD voucher, campaign currency voucher, etc... This type of reward would also probably be more appealing for a high level guild and incentivize them to donate to their fellow alliance guilds more than just receiving guild marks.
Other suggestions: * Instead of it being a static bonus, give the guild the option to choose between bonuses, similar to a boon structures. Once a guild is level 20, the current bonuses are worthless. * Having just an Alliance leader and member guilds, with the same bonuses for everyone. No one wants to feel like they are at the bottom of a pyramid scheme...
Guild Leader- Fair Dinkum 2.0
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josiahiyonMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 396Arc User
Good points and general observation. A couple comments: If you put AD salvage bonus and Wondrous bazaar discount above guild marks, then I think you don't realize just how much revenue guild marks can generate. Those other 2 items are basically nothing in comparison.
Influence requirement reduction is nice. Pretty much anything that makes influence more fun / easier to get would be a welcome addition to probably every tier.
I think incentives should be natural and only forced when absolutely necessary. The easiest way to accomplish this is with the option of 'full sharing' (share boons). Then, all guilds in the alliance can unite behind upgrading 1 stronghold and share in the gains. All that's left is finding or 'forcing' an incentive to keep large guilds from kicking allies or leaving the alliance. One natural incentive is already present: when a large guild gets to max, it can't get guild marks. Guild marks are massive profit generators. Having smaller guilds allied and happy makes it easy for large guilds to continue getting guild marks. This also fills up the small guild coffers. This alone isn't enough, since a diligent big guild could accomplish this with alt guilds. Thus, the last and only 'forced' incentive should be one that ties Guild Alliance Level to a significant and meaningful bonus for helm guilds. Some things come to mind: (1) increased guild mark bonus % as L increase, (2) increased boon strength as L increase, and/or (3) wondrous bazaar % discount as L increases.
Iyon the Dark
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josiahiyonMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 396Arc User
I agree @defiantone99 . Small guilds should be able to share boons of their helm guild.
Boons, market, vendors, and large scale content seem like really nice benefits.
Question is then, what do large guilds get in return? Or perhaps large guilds should be punished for not aligning with and helping small guilds? This would encourage large guilds to align and wouldn't require giving them any reward.
For the AD Salvage and Wondrous Bazaar bonus, I was referring to replacing the XP Bonus the Tiers receive, not for donating to the mimic.
Also, I would agree to your point about giving a bonus to guild marks when contributing to your alliance members coffers.
Guild Leader- Fair Dinkum 2.0
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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
edited May 2016
About the discount/Bonuses:
The XP is not usefull, instead one global mark bonus for donating to other guilds.
Also a combination of a discount and trickle down for donations where the trickle is half the discount. For example if the Helm discount is 25% (in the original scheme with L*Const) 12% of the coffer donations will trickle automatically down, in this example 6% will go to sword and 2%, 2%, 2% to the gauntlets. Those trickle downs will not be influenced by the same formula again, but a direct addition to the coffer if allowed by donation settings and the coffer not maxed in those items.
By the same original formula Sword get 6% (example of a Result of L* Const_Sword) and half will trickle down to gauntlets, 1% x3
So for a real example: If the original target to build is 100k influance for the helm, after discount it will be 75k donating 1k influence in the helm will result the help coffer gaining 880 influence ( reduced 12% ). And the sword will gain 60 influence (half the trickle down) and the gauntlets will get third of the remaining half each 20 influence. The helm got 12% from all this (discount 25% - trickle 12%) so they gain and everyone else can see some auto-help.
The trickle down is always half of the discount, so all the guilds have net gain, there is benefit for everyone for the alliance and motivation to level because it's all bound to L.
Not perfect but I think not hard to implement and perhaps can be expanded upon.
edit:
To make it perception friendlier, instead of basing it as a discount of L*Const (for example 25% for helm) it should be a bonus to donation. So when donating 1k influence at the helm people will see "1k worth X marks + 125 Influance Alliance bonus". -- With the bonus not granting additional marks and the target price is as now, without any reductions, the other 125 - 12.5% split as described and trickled down).
This will be easier to understand and wont cause discontent.
Post edited by micky1p00 on
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blindfury11Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 52Arc User
Apart from GH rank 20 guilds, I'm not sure how many guilds will want to part with their much needed currency (Think Fey/Frozen/Tyranny/Influence) to help another guild.
Comments
Iyon the Dark
So let's say for instance you're a rank 10 GH and form an Alliance of 12 other rank 10 GH. Your collective would be 130. The breakdown would then go:
Helm: 13% and 3.25%
Sword: 6.5% and 6.5%
Gauntlet: 3.25% and 13%
The problem small guilds are going to run into is that if your GH is below rank 8, you're not going to be an attractive partner for an Alliance. Since all the benefits are based on the collective, you're not going to be seeing a rank 18 Helm with rank 4-5-6 Gauntlets because they'd bring down the collective rank of the Alliance.
So if you're a small guild and want to take advantage of what Alliance brings, you might want to be looking for slightly higher ranked guilds to merge with.
GWF: Vretzina
OP: Vee
DC: Evee
CW: nezterV
Leader - Valaraukari Ascension
I see another positive effect to come. Closer social contacts between players are inevitable and it will easier for members of smaller guilds to pick and move to better guilds. But with aggressive attempts to recruit active members from one guild to another within alliance I expect some little alliance drama
— (The unwritten rule)
You can do that actually. You can set your guild's incoming and outgoing donations so that nothing is donated by mistake and nothing is accepted as an inventory dump you don't need or want.
GWF: Vretzina
OP: Vee
DC: Evee
CW: nezterV
Leader - Valaraukari Ascension
Now think about this. There might be 10-20 guilds with SH 17+ now. If the boni are similar to SH boons and depend on the combined SH level of all guilds, there will either be one BIG alliance between some PvP and PvE guilds (all SH 17+) and the rest or some more or less equal alliances with a 'head' of 2 or 3 big guilds and many middle or small sized guilds.
Feedback
I think given the time frame, a change of the overall structure can't be expected with the release, so I'd like to focus on the alliance bonuses. The current system as I understand works in a way that Sword and especially Gauntlet guilds fully profit from the access to marketplace and a larger playerbase to work Dragonflights etc. In exchange, the Helm guild gets a considerable discount on their structures.
I get the intention, but the setup has a few important weaknesses that have to be addressed in my eyes:
a) The incentives to donate to alliance guild coffers is low to nonexistent.
b) The rich get richer, while small guilds that are overwhelmed and frustrated with the donations aren't getting enough help.
c) When maxed out, the alliance bonus for Helm guilds is no longer viable.
I think simply reverting the guild bonuses and change XP to something else could achieve a lot. As others said the math might just not work anyway. Helm guilds are better off investing their resources in their own structures instead of upgrading other guilds for a 0.1% discount per level. And long term the bonus even diminishes.
Of course Helms can't utilize the XP bonus, nobody can. Instead I'd give them additional salvage RADs and Guild Marks. Helping the alliance no longer has a clear turning point this way, because it's two different areas now. Gauntlets get Stronghold progression, Helm wealth.
It makes much more sense for Gauntlet guilds to help out each other since they have a longer road ahead and can profit from discounts on more structures and levels. This enables the sort of collaboration on the lowest level that the current system is completely lacking. I would additionally enhance alliance coffer donations by L * 0.05 as well.
I also like that this transfers alliances to a bottom-to-top system. The Helm guild needs to contribute and care for the alliance to keep their wealth bonuses. Swords and Gauntlets are a stronger part of the foundation.
Someone mentioned a larger amount of GM when you donate to OTHER guilds- that is interesting.
This is also interesting: 1. Have the donations trickle down. You donate to the coffer 100% goes to that guild and 25% bonus goes to the alliance guilds
https://www.theholycrusaders.com/
On a largely unrelated note, while I absolutely applaud the addition of non-random power points to Sharandar, this has correspondingly devalued XP bonuses as a meaningful reward. Levelling is manageable without looking for huge bonuses, and overflow rewards are not significant enough to chase when they're not the only means of gaining bonus power points. I don't wish to complain about that, as I think the game should move away from pressuring players to hit overflow rewards as often as possible, and instead have them return to a nice-but-not-necessary minor gift that happens when it happens (though I wouldn't say no to having way better refinement stuff in there, esp. as a compensation for taking RP out of nodes).
I really do like the idea of having bonus guild marks for donating to an ally's coffer.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Also, if a band of 13 rank 4 guilds team up, they can focus on upgrading 1 of the guilds and all get the benefit of the shared market/boons etc. Could that guild become evil and kick everyone? Yes. Key things: (1) choose your alliance wisely, (2) the system should have natural incentives to keep this from happening (guild marks, guild mark bonus %), and (3) there is an existing precedent set with strongholds (and STO) that shows that this worse-case scenario doesn't actually manifest.
Iyon the Dark
There should absolutely be way more ways to obtain Influence.
Boon sharing was the OP (developer) example of feedback. It's clearly something they are considering, and I think it's critical that this be allowed as an option for alliances.
I understand your concern, in general. Players don't want grind, developers rely on it in so much as it provides revenue. The middle ground is something like alliances, where players still team up to rank up 1 guild to max rather than having tons of small guilds effectively stop / give up at a low rank.
Agreed with more ways to earn influence. Having to do stronghold heroic encounters every day on every toon is not fun, and isn't what people sign on this game to do.
Iyon the Dark
Boon-sharing that allows an alliance to eventually rank up all potential structures in turn by using the plots available from a couple of Strongholds so that members of a stable alliance can switch between any possible boon available... that's a pretty incredible thought.
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia
Those safeguards exist - guilds can just leave the alliance if they don't agree to the terms.
Iyon the Dark
Anything else is just wishfull thinking.
As much as this would make life easier for anyone, I don't like it for alliances at all. It's just too much power for the one Stronghold the alliance is developing. I agree there hasn't been much drama around guilds, selling, kicking and stuff, at least not a big bang, but it's not like this hasn't been an issue entirely.
Also zero incentive to help smaller guilds develop, neither from Helm to Gauntlet nor from Gauntlet to Gauntlet. Zero incentive to contribute to the alliance coffers outside the boons guilds. It's not a good solution. I would much rather prefer a bottom-to-top system where the Helm is more dependent on the Gauntlets.
I'd actually support both types. Flexibility. Allow alliances to be top-down or bottom-up. The current incoming/outgoing contributions setting is a good start towards allowing both options.
Iyon the Dark
I think I agree with @loboguild that sharing boons will make it seem unnecessary to rank up the lower guilds, beyond adding to the total alliance guild levels -- which can be abused. Any Gauntlet guild that gets removed from its alliance will be in big trouble if they've been spending their resources to rank up the Helm guild's boon structures.
Good suggestions for attractive benefits include decreasing structure build time -- since a high-level guild takes much longer to build structures, it would make sense to skew this discount to the Helm Guild. Discount on market purchases would also be a sensible benefit for the Helm guild. Skew reduced structure cost to the Gauntlet guilds.
And please address the need for Influence when you roll out alliances. This bottleneck currency affects guilds at all levels.
GWF: Vretzina
OP: Vee
DC: Evee
CW: nezterV
Leader - Valaraukari Ascension
But here we see more and more demands for giving the big guilds even more benefits.
This just shows, that the Devs really have to come up with a better guild system then the current one, before they start building alliances right on top of it.
Not to mention, what about upgrading the customer support, so that the "GMs" can actually help the players, when something goes wrong inside guilds and alliances?
1. Influence Reduction
2. AD Salvage bonus
3. Wondrous Bazaar discount
Currently, the proposed tiered Alliance system does not seem like an "Alliance", but more of feudalistic system. Do you really think a King (Helm) would go farm the fields (grind valuable resources) and just give it to the Nobles (Swords) or Peasants (Gauntlets) for a few copper (guild marks)? No, they are just going to save it until they need to use it. The same applies to Swords and Gauntlets. Will they give their valuable resources to help the King? No, they are going to stockpile for their own Stronghold.
There needs to be better incentives to help other alliance members. As suggested many times, the current bottleneck for almost all Strongholds is Influence. As an alternate reward to guild marks for donating to other guilds coffers, I would rather have the option of choosing a reward like an Influence voucher, AD voucher, campaign currency voucher, etc... This type of reward would also probably be more appealing for a high level guild and incentivize them to donate to their fellow alliance guilds more than just receiving guild marks.
Other suggestions:
* Instead of it being a static bonus, give the guild the option to choose between bonuses, similar to a boon structures. Once a guild is level 20, the current bonuses are worthless.
* Having just an Alliance leader and member guilds, with the same bonuses for everyone. No one wants to feel like they are at the bottom of a pyramid scheme...
Good points and general observation. A couple comments: If you put AD salvage bonus and Wondrous bazaar discount above guild marks, then I think you don't realize just how much revenue guild marks can generate. Those other 2 items are basically nothing in comparison.
Influence requirement reduction is nice. Pretty much anything that makes influence more fun / easier to get would be a welcome addition to probably every tier.
I think incentives should be natural and only forced when absolutely necessary. The easiest way to accomplish this is with the option of 'full sharing' (share boons). Then, all guilds in the alliance can unite behind upgrading 1 stronghold and share in the gains. All that's left is finding or 'forcing' an incentive to keep large guilds from kicking allies or leaving the alliance. One natural incentive is already present: when a large guild gets to max, it can't get guild marks. Guild marks are massive profit generators. Having smaller guilds allied and happy makes it easy for large guilds to continue getting guild marks. This also fills up the small guild coffers. This alone isn't enough, since a diligent big guild could accomplish this with alt guilds. Thus, the last and only 'forced' incentive should be one that ties Guild Alliance Level to a significant and meaningful bonus for helm guilds. Some things come to mind: (1) increased guild mark bonus % as L increase, (2) increased boon strength as L increase, and/or (3) wondrous bazaar % discount as L increases.
Iyon the Dark
Boons, market, vendors, and large scale content seem like really nice benefits.
Question is then, what do large guilds get in return? Or perhaps large guilds should be punished for not aligning with and helping small guilds? This would encourage large guilds to align and wouldn't require giving them any reward.
Iyon the Dark
For the AD Salvage and Wondrous Bazaar bonus, I was referring to replacing the XP Bonus the Tiers receive, not for donating to the mimic.
Also, I would agree to your point about giving a bonus to guild marks when contributing to your alliance members coffers.
About the discount/Bonuses:
The XP is not usefull, instead one global mark bonus for donating to other guilds.
Also a combination of a discount and trickle down for donations where the trickle is half the discount.
For example if the Helm discount is 25% (in the original scheme with L*Const) 12% of the coffer donations will trickle automatically down, in this example 6% will go to sword and 2%, 2%, 2% to the gauntlets.
Those trickle downs will not be influenced by the same formula again, but a direct addition to the coffer if allowed by donation settings and the coffer not maxed in those items.
By the same original formula Sword get 6% (example of a Result of L* Const_Sword) and half will trickle down to gauntlets, 1% x3
So for a real example: If the original target to build is 100k influance for the helm, after discount it will be 75k
donating 1k influence in the helm will result the help coffer gaining 880 influence ( reduced 12% ).
And the sword will gain 60 influence (half the trickle down) and the gauntlets will get third of the remaining half each 20 influence.
The helm got 12% from all this (discount 25% - trickle 12%) so they gain and everyone else can see some auto-help.
The trickle down is always half of the discount, so all the guilds have net gain, there is benefit for everyone for the alliance and motivation to level because it's all bound to L.
Not perfect but I think not hard to implement and perhaps can be expanded upon.
edit:
To make it perception friendlier, instead of basing it as a discount of L*Const (for example 25% for helm) it should be a bonus to donation. So when donating 1k influence at the helm people will see "1k worth X marks + 125 Influance Alliance bonus". -- With the bonus not granting additional marks and the target price is as now, without any reductions, the other 125 - 12.5% split as described and trickled down).
This will be easier to understand and wont cause discontent.