Ya, from what I can tell, most alliances will have rank 12 guilds as the lowest guilds. That helps small guilds in no way at all.
I think this is a mixed truth.
Some of the Alliances forming do consist only of guilds that are already fairly high-ranked, but for example, Tyrs wants to make a point of scooping up small, struggling guilds. Greycloaks appear to leaving the decision of who to accept as Gauntlets largely up to their Swords, and their Swords are open to very small guilds with compatible values (and playtimes). I've seen one post by someone who hoped there were enough French-language guilds to fill out an Alliance so they could all communicate comfortably in their native tongue (between France and Quebec, maybe there are).
I would say that the way things are shaping up is fairly predictable, with guilds founded with a competitive mindset seeking out others like them, thus all prospectives in those Alliances have already pushed themselves pretty far. Guilds formed based on more cooperative or social values are more open to throwing the "collective level" thing out the window and grouping up with people they just plain like.
I'm not judging those attitudes, incidentally. People play games for different reasons. And I'm not saying that competitive guilds don't cooperate, as the kind of advancement they've made absolutely demanded it. But they're not going to have the same degree of tolerance for all levels of skill and contribution as a casual guild.
silverkeltMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,235Arc User
What Ive been saying forever.. Ive been playing MMOs since EQ1 , grind is always there, I dont mind grind, I mind it when YOU reasonable cannot get a item based on poor RNG values.
There should be a hard cap on rng .. say 50 e demos = a legendary of your choice. That is quite fair # imo.
The issue is you could get the legendaries you want in 1 edemo run, or not get the one you want in 2000 edemo runs.
Its too rng based and because the chance of not only winning a legendary ring is so small, but to get the one you actually want to drop is also part of the equation, its really frustrating.
I said the same thing about the bracers awhile back.
I WILL once again say that this game is way to heavily focused on 1 toon or 1 character progression and not enough for players on a account wide status.
They went way to far in on the 1 character progression.
The Devs need to be clear on this single question.
Is the goal of Alliances to benefit all guilds regardless of size that take part or just the Mega guilds which will usually control the slot of Helm guild?
Because with all due respect SH prior to it's release sounded great until one took a hard look at the requirements to contruct pretty much everything forcing players to grind SH quests daily just to get the bare minimum of Influence if you even wanted to make a dent on needed coffer demands. Now granted the recent update to allow professions to assist in this endeavor has helped move SH upgrades from a snails pace to a slow walk but you omited anything with regards to an Influence daily cap which is overly prohibitive coupled with an Influence requirement on coffers which is excessively prohbitive.
I have read through the majority of responses on this thread and some replies by members seemed to be overly mean to say the least on the tiny/small guilds. First off, calling those guilds which have not leveled up fast enough in one players mind "Lazy" as was used in this feedback is quite frankly pathetic (psst....your elitism is showing). I also read suggestions wherein all members of the alliance with regards to their donations would be forced into the Helm guilds coffers first and foremost to level up before the sword/gauntlet guilds would...that in and of itself opens up to massive abuse and does not incentivise many to put any effort into alliances.
The best single idea I read would be whichever guild donates to their coffers (regardless of Helm/Gauntlet/Sword) gets the full amount with all other guilds in alliance regardless of their ranks getting say a 35% of the donated amount as well. It incentivises all guilds in the alliance to dontate instead of hording donations which will happen. As to donating to other guilds in the alliance, meh I'm not sure on a good idea for that yet.
Please for the love that is all Holy please review the coffer requirements for all level 1 structures especialy the production ones for a better reduction across the board, add in a weekly SH quest with say 2k influence, allow the less campaign currencies that occasionally drop in SH to also drop in their repective Campaign zones as well.
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alphastreamMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 209Arc User
There are some really complex economics at work here. I too worry that we could create too much of an incentive for super-guilds vs seeing guilds of all sizes come together. The easiest way to prevent that would be to give incentives to a guild that brings in smaller guilds to an alliance and helps develop those smaller guilds.
Random ideas:
What if adding a guild below a certain GH level gave the Helm certain benefits, while helping the small guild. Maybe the small guild has a stronger reduction of costs for low-tier structures, such as rank 1-3? And, maybe each time the guild builds something or upgrades something, the Helm (and perhaps the Swords as well) gain a one-time boost to not-maxed coffers? During these lower ranks, the Helms (and Swords?) might also gain a boost to Guild Marks earned for donating to those lower-rank guilds.
Something like this might really make it fun to bring in smaller guilds and elevate them.
A similar system could be in place for Swords, but here the benefit is to slightly higher rank structures. Benefits of donating could also apply to Gauntlet guilds, so that giving to a Sword has a benefit. It might then be cool to bring in small guilds as Gauntlets and then elevate them to Swords when they reach mid-tiers. If the Helm gets more incentives this way than through just adding other large guilds, that might then help prevent it just being a case of haves vs have-nots.
For promoting guilds to give to others... maybe if a guild gives enough to another guild, they gain another cost reduction to their next build? Or, gain extra guild marks? The benefit could be adjusted depending on the incentive you want. Maybe the benefit is greater for giving down (Helm to Sword or Gauntlet, Sword to Gauntlet). Or, maybe the Helm can choose the exact ratio from fixed options, which overall encourage a mix of levels but still make it okay once/if the guilds are all higher ranked?
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How about setting the max benefit increase to the situation where the guild below you are five levels lower then your's and then slightly decreasing every level it is moving avay from that level. It would make the top guild want to be 5 levels higher then the next. And the bottom guilds five levels lower then the middle guilds.
With dreams to be a king, first one should be a man.
Well, the big guilds were howling for a bigger guild roster for some time now... And alliances will be exactly that, with some extra bonus on top of it.
Besides, the only benefit from alliances should be the possibility to donate extra resources for guild marks to another guild in your alliance.
Let's just be realistic here, considering all possible benefits... even if the Devs force in some level limitations or restrictions between helm/sword/gauntlet... the big guild will just fill the slots with their alt. character guilds, and then go on selling spots in those guilds for access to the main guild stronghold.
Big guilds helping medium/small guilds is just wishfull thinking.
I continue to believe that the system as designed won't work as you envision. The issue is that you have very specific bottlenecks in the Stronghold progression while other coffers are basically a non-factor. There are little to no situations in which a Helm guild is capped on X while progressing and a child guild needs X, Influence being the prime example here of course.
Speaking of which: I think players would be fine with the costs if farming Influence wouldn't take place in its own microcosm. Running HEs every day, let alone on multiple chars, is no joke and you gain zero progression in other areas while doing so. I like the Malabog's Castle quest because it's a dungeon that grants 100 Influence on top of it. We need more of these combinations, let's gain Influence outside the Stronghold. Neverwinter is always about stuff you need to do vs. stuff you want to do. It shouldn't be contradictory.
Back to donations: The only situation in which superior guilds would want to spend resources in other guild coffers is if they are capped out. I think the system works well in that case, because they Helm guild is basically forced to donate to other guilds to earn guild marks, helping them progress in the process. But I'd rather have a system that naturally encourages working together at any time, and the current one fails in doing so. It's also a huge design misconception that the Helm guild loses it's alliance bonus (cheaper buildings) once maxed. It's one of the reasons other systems that propose wealth for Helm guilds and structure discounts for Gauntlets make more sense.
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
Tangential to the subject of Guild Alliances maybe, but considering the whole theme of "Alliances won't do squat for any guild's Influence woes", plus having a sympathetic ear... I'm just going to carry on....
I know that two of the guilds in my future Alliance are having big Inf drives right now, putting up major prizes in order to inspire their membership to go farm their heinies off. I am willing to venture... their players are sick to death of it. And since beating said players with sticks isn't very nice, all they can do is try offering a juicier carrot.
My guild has done (for us) a pretty massive push over the last couple of days to achieve the last few thousand Inf needed to build our Stable. Keep in mind, without the Siege, we'd still not be anywhere close, but I was able to use the Siege to generate many thousands of Inf donations from my account (I just had to give up sleeping for the two weeks the event ran... no big deal, right?), and with other active accounts putting in what they could, it was enough for to reach a GH upgrade and then fill the Inf coffer again to construct our first boon structure.
My guild now has access to a daily quest that can help us get Inf faster. Unfortunately, the actual amount of Inf you can get from this quest is like some kind of sick joke. 3/7/10... are you *%&!ing kidding me? I had forgotten (because it's been half a year, eh?) that the amount of Inf you can get from your boon structure quests was drastically nerfed in order to shunt most of the daily Inf gain into SH HEs so that it was available up front. Putting more Inf into the HEs was necessary, but I think the original amounts need to be restored to the boon structures, however much that was. People worked their tails off for these, and sure the boons themselves are the main reward, but you need more and more and more Inf to do anything with your SH, and it makes sense that a more advanced SH should be able to generate more of the resources need to keep things chugging along.
Multiply the rank 1 structure rewards tenfold (minimum) and maybe they're actually worth doing. As it stands, this isn't even worth the load times. By the way, small guild, few people online, means the SH map will frequently be rendering up just for you when you need to go there, which means that everything SH-related that you do will take longer than for someone whose SH map usually stays open because there are people there. Things like this may seem minor, but those minutes really add up. I try to get all my SH turn-ins ready so that I can load the map once and bring in my alts really quickly via sequential logging, so there's no time for it to close up again. But I'm not going to bother orchestrating a second round of SH loading for 10 Inf per character. Pathetic.
And now, we need to fill the Inf coffer again because we can't upgrade anything that doesn't require it, or build anything (except PvP structures for which we do not have the Glory anyway). Stable upgrade (70k) or GH upgrade (some amount painfully over 100k). Most of our coffers are bursting. I have many inventory spots taken up by vouchers because I try to let others deposit before me, since I can usually juggle things around enough to not have to toss anything. I can probably avoid capping any campaign currency again until Alliances is live and I can donate to an Ally rather than have them go into the ether. We've got the stuff on hand to upgrade all kinds of structures to rank 3, except we can't, because the GH is only rank 5. Can't build a warehouse because that particular convenience feature requires your GH be rank 7.
Whoever is reluctant to bend on Inf gain rates because they think the entire balance of Strongholds would fall apart if they tinkered with that timegate? I think they do not have any concept of how dispiriting their idea of "balance" is.
And please register yet another plea to just make the Jubilee trader a permanent feature. This would make such a huge difference in the lives of smaller guilds, sincerely.
I'm in a small guild myself and we just managed to get our stronghold to level 5 and finished the second level of the stable. So we farmed 63k influence, immediately afterwards 70k and now we try our best do get our hall to Level 6 which needs another 158k, while all other ressources were already capped when we were building stable 2. So the only thing we need to farm is influence, while i can´t even get rid of my vouchers of the last event. So the only thing I did the last days is farming HEs (which is really boring btw) with 7 chars, with no time left to do something else in neverwinter. And we will still need at least one month to get enough influence for the upgrade (and only because of the jubilee trader...)
And please register yet another plea to just make the Jubilee trader a permanent feature. This would make such a huge difference in the lives of smaller guilds, sincerely.
Would really love to see this implemented, it would help small guilds to catch up and isn´t such a big deal for bigger guilds.
Also, the Alliance bonuses are (as already mentioned) not very good. While no one needs experience small guild would like to have an boni (which big guilds would have too, if not already at Level 20). A bonus on Guild Marks or something for master professions would be much better for big guilds. So I would suggest, leave the expirience as it is, give helm guilds a bonus on guildmarks or master professions and give everyone the discount on SH-Buildings (every guild in the alliance gets the same discount, of course) based on the number of guilds in the alliance. (1% per guild would be good - 13% isn´t that much...)
This would help all guilds, while the current system lets gauntlets feel left behind (with like 3% discount in an average guild... oh and experience, of course....)
So has anyone explained exactly what the benefits are? I have no experience in STO, but through some research and comparison to neverwinter, it looks like the only benefit is: 1.5% + 1.5% per tier for astral diamond price reduction, .5% +.5% per tier xp bonus, for helm 1%+1% each for middle (gauntlet I think?) .5% +.5% for AD, 1.5%+1.5% xp for bottom (sword I think) In STO I've read a tier is 50, but I've also read a tier is 35. I've also read their max alliance level is like 768, whereas ours should be 260 (13 guilds, sh 20 each). If stone could break this down so a noob like me can understand, it'd be greatly appreciated.
And please register yet another plea to just make the Jubilee trader a permanent feature. This would make such a huge difference in the lives of smaller guilds, sincerely.
I vote for this possibility as well. But I think cryptic already knows how small guilds should make certain currencies if they refuse to deal with boring grind - with vouchers from zen boxes or genie gifts.
But I think cryptic already knows how small guilds should make certain currencies if they refuse to deal with boring grind - with vouchers from zen boxes or genie gifts.
If they really wanted to support this model, you'd be able to buy a standalone voucher pack for the price of around a dollar (100 Zen converted to USD) that we roughly mathed out upthread based on the price of other SH merchandise.
They didn't do that because the Inf timegating is considered foundational to SHs. Can't let those big guilds finish too fast. Well... the big guilds are finished or finishing now, waiting on their build times (which is timegating aplenty for the smaller fishes). All sticking to your Inf guns now accomplishes is leaving everyone else behind.
We are back to that fundamental question of what NW players would do if they had no neverending grind to keep them on a hamster wheel of hopelessness.
Revolutionary, I know, but... actually enjoy themselves?
Sooo... no on the neverwinter specifics of how this functions? If it's just ad/xp or guild might not even look for an alliance. Too much hassle too little reward. Why involve yourself with drama so that your level 70 toons only need 1.649 mil instead of 1.7 mil xp till they get their next hilariously disappointing level up (just had my fourth experience tome level up in a row. Leveled up 15 times, only resourced 3 power points) or we could take on a management position and manage lower guilds, making us only have to donate 194k ad instead of 200k.
Operating under the assumption it's ad, then the best thing you can do for this update is change one variable, instead of ad, influence. Changing xp for surplus would be nice as well, representing the hand me downs from the sugar daddy.
People fail to realize that there is a major difference between a low level guild and a guild of low levels. Out of 22 members we have 2 that aren't 70. Xp. Pfft.
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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
Sooo... no on the neverwinter specifics of how this functions? If it's just ad/xp or guild might not even look for an alliance. Too much hassle too little reward. Why involve yourself with drama so that your level 70 toons only need 1.649 mil instead of 1.7 mil xp till they get their next hilariously disappointing level up (just had my fourth experience tome level up in a row. Leveled up 15 times, only resourced 3 power points) or we could take on a management position and manage lower guilds, making us only have to donate 194k ad instead of 200k.
Operating under the assumption it's ad, then the best thing you can do for this update is change one variable, instead of ad, influence. Changing xp for surplus would be nice as well, representing the hand me downs from the sugar daddy.
People fail to realize that there is a major difference between a low level guild and a guild of low levels. Out of 22 members we have 2 that aren't 70. Xp. Pfft.
You have the full explanation in this same thread, it's a multiplier discount on all donation, 0.1*L, 0.05*L, 0.025*L. Where is L is the sum of all SH ranks in the alliance. You also have it on preview, so you can test it.
Also no one here failed to realize the 'need' of the XP bonus, hence the lengthy thread of people saying that we dont need it.
If you want to give incentive for high level guilds to take low level guilds under their wing, the answer seems obvious. Be sure to read the whole thing:
When calculating 'L', utilize the helm guilds rank, all others are 1. In this way, 13 rank 20 guilds would have an L of 32 (20 helm +12 other guilds) however! This number is increased by one every time any member of the alliance upgrades their stronghold. In the above example, all strongholds are maxed, so they will never pass L = 32. The only way they will ever reach L=260 cap is if they are 20, and invite only level 1 guilds, all of whom then level to 20 (which will take a looong time).
This also discourages the 'dumping guild' suggested earlier in this thread. If you invite a small guild, vs inviting an alts fake guild, which one do you think is going to put more work into leveling?
If a guild leaves the alliance or is kicked, their upgrade ranks disappear. This prevents one rank 20 from repeatedly upgrading and kicking SH rank 1s.
*adjustment to the above to include guilds that aren't rank 1. I'm kind of Psuedo coding it because my English fails me.
Int GuildAid = 1/*initial value of non helm guilds*/
OnAllianceStrongholdUpgrade()/*when any alliance guildhall is updated*/
If (guildhallUpgraded=='Helm') L++; Else if (guildhallEndRank > GuildAid) GuildAid=GuildAid+2; Else GuildAid++;
Basically 1 upgrade adds 2 to 'L' so long as that particular guild's rank is more than the guilds aided level.
As I reread this, it doesn't seem very clear. Perhaps example.
Joes Guild is level 20 and is the helm. He has a level 6 guild and 11 level 1 guilds under him. His L is equal to 32 (20 + 12 guilds).
Each of the level 1 guilds upgrades their stronghold. Each one that does this adds one to L, because they started at level 1. Joes alliance now has L = 43 (32 + 11)
Each of the now level 2 guilds upgrade their stronghold, the same thing happens. Joes alliance now has L = 54 (43+11)
The guildhall 6 is now ready to upgrade, and does so. This guildhall's "help rank" makes it worth only 1 to the alliance, despite its higher guild level. Upon doing this upgrade, two points are added. Joes alliance now has L=56 (54+2) and our guildhall 7 is worth 3 points.
Guildhall 7 updates, repeat above. Joes alliance now has L=58 (56+2) and our GH 8 is worth 5 points.
Guildhall 8 updates, repeat above. Joes alliance now has L= 60 (58+2) and our GH 9 is worth 7 points.
Guildhall 9 updates, repeat above. Joes alliance now has L=62 (60+2) and our GH 10 is worth 9 points.
Guildhall 10 updates, repeat above. Joes alliance now has L=64 (62+2) and our GH 11 is worth all 11 of its points.
Guildhall 11 updates. Since it's guild aide number matches it's stronghold number, only one point is gained. Joes alliance now has L=65 (64+1)
That's because the worst outcome (in my mind) would be if the alliance system encouraged all the big guilds to group together and just left all the small guilds further behind. That's a risk (it mostly hasn't happened on Star Trek, though)
It's worth mentioning that STO uses the exact opposite logic on their fleet (alliance) bonuses. Gamma (Gauntlet) guilds are getting the biggest structure bonuses and Alpha (Helm) guilds more ADs and XP.
So applying your own logic big alliances in Neverwinter should actually team up. I do indeed think this is the most likely outcome over time, because the biggest advantage within the current system is a massive alliance channel and a large playerbase to run content and Dragonflights with. The only joker you have right now is the fact that such monster alliances could run into situation where members aren't able to generate enough guild marks any longer.
It's worth mentioning that STO uses the exact opposite logic on their fleet (alliance) bonuses. Gamma (Gauntlet) guilds are getting the biggest structure bonuses and Alpha (Helm) guilds more ADs and XP.
So applying your own logic big alliances in Neverwinter should actually team up. I do indeed think this is the most likely outcome over time, because the biggest advantage within the current system is a massive alliance channel and a large playerbase to run content and Dragonflights with. The only joker you have right now is the fact that such monster alliances could run into situation where members aren't able to generate enough guild marks any longer.
Realistically, to bring the largest value to the alliance, guilds that have already maxed out should be gauntlets and allow other guilds that are still upgrading have Helm and Sword slots. The higher the guilds level, the more benefit they get from the reduction, but once you don't need to build anymore, there's not a lot of value to being Helm and you'll really just be hampering your alliancemates (and forcing your members to get less of a bonus).
It's a good reason why Alliances should be given arbitrary names rather than always taking the name from the Helm guild. That way the Whatever Alliance is always the Whatever Alliance, regardless of what guild is at the helm. I realize that's not possible with the existing architecture, which is too bad - probably was something that should have been considered from the start.
That's because the worst outcome (in my mind) would be if the alliance system encouraged all the big guilds to group together and just left all the small guilds further behind. That's a risk (it mostly hasn't happened on Star Trek, though)
It's worth mentioning that STO uses the exact opposite logic on their fleet (alliance) bonuses. Gamma (Gauntlet) guilds are getting the biggest structure bonuses and Alpha (Helm) guilds more ADs and XP.
So applying your own logic big alliances in Neverwinter should actually team up. I do indeed think this is the most likely outcome over time, because the biggest advantage within the current system is a massive alliance channel and a large playerbase to run content and Dragonflights with. The only joker you have right now is the fact that such monster alliances could run into situation where members aren't able to generate enough guild marks any longer.
Once you have Rank 10 Boon Buildings etc. You could destroy production and other structures and rebuild.
What is the Guild Alliance Tag for? It's limited to 5 characters and I don't see it listed anywhere once I have something. I'm guessing it can onlt be seen by other Alliacne members. Maybe when someone else shows up I'll see. :*
Now I see what it's for.....it's the chat designator!!!
What is the Guild Alliance Tag for? It's limited to 5 characters and I don't see it listed anywhere once I have something. I'm guessing it can onlt be seen by other Alliacne members. Maybe when someone else shows up I'll see. :*
Now I see what it's for.....it's the chat designator!!!
From the way the alliance tag works in the alliance chat it is a guild tag to help identify what guild you are from when you type in alliance chat \o/ This was a feature request made by myself and Micky1p00 to help reduce confusion in the alliance chat.
Thank you devs for doing this
edit- when i started this post you still didn't know what it was... oh well :P
Guild - The Imaginary Friends We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
What is the Guild Alliance Tag for? It's limited to 5 characters and I don't see it listed anywhere once I have something. I'm guessing it can onlt be seen by other Alliacne members. Maybe when someone else shows up I'll see. :*
Now I see what it's for.....it's the chat designator!!!
From the way the alliance tag works in the alliance chat it is a guild tag to help identify what guild you are from when you type in alliance chat \o/ This was a feature request made by myself and Micky1p00 to help reduce confusion in the alliance chat.
Thank you devs for doing this
edit- when i started this post you still didn't know what it was... oh well :P
An QoL request: Can we have a field in guild settings named "Tag" or something, so it will be some sort of a short version of the guild name set by us. For example for my guild "Imaginary Friends" we will set it as "IF" and it will be shown before the char name in alliance chat. Or we will have the option to enable it in chat channels.
I want to second this request. The alliances chat is going to be very large and have a lot of new accounts (and multiple characters per account). having a short identifying guild tag on chat messages within the Alliance chat would be wonderful. This can be should be an option to have disabled of course, but a guild tag would be awesome
1. Please Re-add Inspect character from the Guild Roster section.
2. Streamline the new Campaign section with a Tab button feature, separating the main Campaigns from Savras (Zone) quests. Now you have to scroll through a lot to check the main Campaigns.
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Some of the Alliances forming do consist only of guilds that are already fairly high-ranked, but for example, Tyrs wants to make a point of scooping up small, struggling guilds. Greycloaks appear to leaving the decision of who to accept as Gauntlets largely up to their Swords, and their Swords are open to very small guilds with compatible values (and playtimes). I've seen one post by someone who hoped there were enough French-language guilds to fill out an Alliance so they could all communicate comfortably in their native tongue (between France and Quebec, maybe there are).
I would say that the way things are shaping up is fairly predictable, with guilds founded with a competitive mindset seeking out others like them, thus all prospectives in those Alliances have already pushed themselves pretty far. Guilds formed based on more cooperative or social values are more open to throwing the "collective level" thing out the window and grouping up with people they just plain like.
I'm not judging those attitudes, incidentally. People play games for different reasons. And I'm not saying that competitive guilds don't cooperate, as the kind of advancement they've made absolutely demanded it. But they're not going to have the same degree of tolerance for all levels of skill and contribution as a casual guild.
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There should be a hard cap on rng .. say 50 e demos = a legendary of your choice. That is quite fair # imo.
The issue is you could get the legendaries you want in 1 edemo run, or not get the one you want in 2000 edemo runs.
Its too rng based and because the chance of not only winning a legendary ring is so small, but to get the one you actually want to drop is also part of the equation, its really frustrating.
I said the same thing about the bracers awhile back.
I WILL once again say that this game is way to heavily focused on 1 toon or 1 character progression and not enough for players on a account wide status.
They went way to far in on the 1 character progression.
Is the goal of Alliances to benefit all guilds regardless of size that take part or just the Mega guilds which will usually control the slot of Helm guild?
Because with all due respect SH prior to it's release sounded great until one took a hard look at the requirements to contruct pretty much everything forcing players to grind SH quests daily just to get the bare minimum of Influence if you even wanted to make a dent on needed coffer demands. Now granted the recent update to allow professions to assist in this endeavor has helped move SH upgrades from a snails pace to a slow walk but you omited anything with regards to an Influence daily cap which is overly prohibitive coupled with an Influence requirement on coffers which is excessively prohbitive.
I have read through the majority of responses on this thread and some replies by members seemed to be overly mean to say the least on the tiny/small guilds. First off, calling those guilds which have not leveled up fast enough in one players mind "Lazy" as was used in this feedback is quite frankly pathetic (psst....your elitism is showing). I also read suggestions wherein all members of the alliance with regards to their donations would be forced into the Helm guilds coffers first and foremost to level up before the sword/gauntlet guilds would...that in and of itself opens up to massive abuse and does not incentivise many to put any effort into alliances.
The best single idea I read would be whichever guild donates to their coffers (regardless of Helm/Gauntlet/Sword) gets the full amount with all other guilds in alliance regardless of their ranks getting say a 35% of the donated amount as well. It incentivises all guilds in the alliance to dontate instead of hording donations which will happen. As to donating to other guilds in the alliance, meh I'm not sure on a good idea for that yet.
Please for the love that is all Holy please review the coffer requirements for all level 1 structures especialy the production ones for a better reduction across the board, add in a weekly SH quest with say 2k influence, allow the less campaign currencies that occasionally drop in SH to also drop in their repective Campaign zones as well.
Random ideas:
What if adding a guild below a certain GH level gave the Helm certain benefits, while helping the small guild. Maybe the small guild has a stronger reduction of costs for low-tier structures, such as rank 1-3? And, maybe each time the guild builds something or upgrades something, the Helm (and perhaps the Swords as well) gain a one-time boost to not-maxed coffers? During these lower ranks, the Helms (and Swords?) might also gain a boost to Guild Marks earned for donating to those lower-rank guilds.
Something like this might really make it fun to bring in smaller guilds and elevate them.
A similar system could be in place for Swords, but here the benefit is to slightly higher rank structures. Benefits of donating could also apply to Gauntlet guilds, so that giving to a Sword has a benefit. It might then be cool to bring in small guilds as Gauntlets and then elevate them to Swords when they reach mid-tiers. If the Helm gets more incentives this way than through just adding other large guilds, that might then help prevent it just being a case of haves vs have-nots.
For promoting guilds to give to others... maybe if a guild gives enough to another guild, they gain another cost reduction to their next build? Or, gain extra guild marks? The benefit could be adjusted depending on the incentive you want. Maybe the benefit is greater for giving down (Helm to Sword or Gauntlet, Sword to Gauntlet). Or, maybe the Helm can choose the exact ratio from fixed options, which overall encourage a mix of levels but still make it okay once/if the guilds are all higher ranked?
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The Exterminator - (NW-DLNXF3BGG)
And alliances will be exactly that, with some extra bonus on top of it.
Besides, the only benefit from alliances should be the possibility to donate extra resources for guild marks to another guild in your alliance.
Let's just be realistic here, considering all possible benefits... even if the Devs force in some level limitations or restrictions between helm/sword/gauntlet... the big guild will just fill the slots with their alt. character guilds, and then go on selling spots in those guilds for access to the main guild stronghold.
Big guilds helping medium/small guilds is just wishfull thinking.
Eleonore - CW Mof Renegade 17.5k
Harlgard le Vieux - OP Prot 18.3k
Valrik - DC AC 18.2k
Furiela - SW Temp 18.1k
Thanks for the detailed reply.
I continue to believe that the system as designed won't work as you envision. The issue is that you have very specific bottlenecks in the Stronghold progression while other coffers are basically a non-factor. There are little to no situations in which a Helm guild is capped on X while progressing and a child guild needs X, Influence being the prime example here of course.
Speaking of which: I think players would be fine with the costs if farming Influence wouldn't take place in its own microcosm. Running HEs every day, let alone on multiple chars, is no joke and you gain zero progression in other areas while doing so. I like the Malabog's Castle quest because it's a dungeon that grants 100 Influence on top of it. We need more of these combinations, let's gain Influence outside the Stronghold. Neverwinter is always about stuff you need to do vs. stuff you want to do. It shouldn't be contradictory.
Back to donations: The only situation in which superior guilds would want to spend resources in other guild coffers is if they are capped out. I think the system works well in that case, because they Helm guild is basically forced to donate to other guilds to earn guild marks, helping them progress in the process. But I'd rather have a system that naturally encourages working together at any time, and the current one fails in doing so. It's also a huge design misconception that the Helm guild loses it's alliance bonus (cheaper buildings) once maxed. It's one of the reasons other systems that propose wealth for Helm guilds and structure discounts for Gauntlets make more sense.
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I know that two of the guilds in my future Alliance are having big Inf drives right now, putting up major prizes in order to inspire their membership to go farm their heinies off. I am willing to venture... their players are sick to death of it. And since beating said players with sticks isn't very nice, all they can do is try offering a juicier carrot.
My guild has done (for us) a pretty massive push over the last couple of days to achieve the last few thousand Inf needed to build our Stable. Keep in mind, without the Siege, we'd still not be anywhere close, but I was able to use the Siege to generate many thousands of Inf donations from my account (I just had to give up sleeping for the two weeks the event ran... no big deal, right?), and with other active accounts putting in what they could, it was enough for to reach a GH upgrade and then fill the Inf coffer again to construct our first boon structure.
My guild now has access to a daily quest that can help us get Inf faster. Unfortunately, the actual amount of Inf you can get from this quest is like some kind of sick joke. 3/7/10... are you *%&!ing kidding me? I had forgotten (because it's been half a year, eh?) that the amount of Inf you can get from your boon structure quests was drastically nerfed in order to shunt most of the daily Inf gain into SH HEs so that it was available up front. Putting more Inf into the HEs was necessary, but I think the original amounts need to be restored to the boon structures, however much that was. People worked their tails off for these, and sure the boons themselves are the main reward, but you need more and more and more Inf to do anything with your SH, and it makes sense that a more advanced SH should be able to generate more of the resources need to keep things chugging along.
Multiply the rank 1 structure rewards tenfold (minimum) and maybe they're actually worth doing. As it stands, this isn't even worth the load times. By the way, small guild, few people online, means the SH map will frequently be rendering up just for you when you need to go there, which means that everything SH-related that you do will take longer than for someone whose SH map usually stays open because there are people there. Things like this may seem minor, but those minutes really add up. I try to get all my SH turn-ins ready so that I can load the map once and bring in my alts really quickly via sequential logging, so there's no time for it to close up again. But I'm not going to bother orchestrating a second round of SH loading for 10 Inf per character. Pathetic.
And now, we need to fill the Inf coffer again because we can't upgrade anything that doesn't require it, or build anything (except PvP structures for which we do not have the Glory anyway). Stable upgrade (70k) or GH upgrade (some amount painfully over 100k). Most of our coffers are bursting. I have many inventory spots taken up by vouchers because I try to let others deposit before me, since I can usually juggle things around enough to not have to toss anything. I can probably avoid capping any campaign currency again until Alliances is live and I can donate to an Ally rather than have them go into the ether. We've got the stuff on hand to upgrade all kinds of structures to rank 3, except we can't, because the GH is only rank 5. Can't build a warehouse because that particular convenience feature requires your GH be rank 7.
Whoever is reluctant to bend on Inf gain rates because they think the entire balance of Strongholds would fall apart if they tinkered with that timegate? I think they do not have any concept of how dispiriting their idea of "balance" is.
And please register yet another plea to just make the Jubilee trader a permanent feature. This would make such a huge difference in the lives of smaller guilds, sincerely.
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I'm in a small guild myself and we just managed to get our stronghold to level 5 and finished the second level of the stable. So we farmed 63k influence, immediately afterwards 70k and now we try our best do get our hall to Level 6 which needs another 158k, while all other ressources were already capped when we were building stable 2. So the only thing we need to farm is influence, while i can´t even get rid of my vouchers of the last event.
So the only thing I did the last days is farming HEs (which is really boring btw) with 7 chars, with no time left to do something else in neverwinter. And we will still need at least one month to get enough influence for the upgrade (and only because of the jubilee trader...) Would really love to see this implemented, it would help small guilds to catch up and isn´t such a big deal for bigger guilds.
Also, the Alliance bonuses are (as already mentioned) not very good. While no one needs experience small guild would like to have an boni (which big guilds would have too, if not already at Level 20). A bonus on Guild Marks or something for master professions would be much better for big guilds. So I would suggest, leave the expirience as it is, give helm guilds a bonus on guildmarks or master professions and give everyone the discount on SH-Buildings (every guild in the alliance gets the same discount, of course) based on the number of guilds in the alliance. (1% per guild would be good - 13% isn´t that much...)
This would help all guilds, while the current system lets gauntlets feel left behind (with like 3% discount in an average guild... oh and experience, of course....)
RIP Foundry
1.5% + 1.5% per tier for astral diamond price reduction, .5% +.5% per tier xp bonus, for helm
1%+1% each for middle (gauntlet I think?)
.5% +.5% for AD, 1.5%+1.5% xp for bottom (sword I think)
In STO I've read a tier is 50, but I've also read a tier is 35. I've also read their max alliance level is like 768, whereas ours should be 260 (13 guilds, sh 20 each). If stone could break this down so a noob like me can understand, it'd be greatly appreciated.
PS. The post once i made, lack of any interest.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1215727/campaign-currency-vendor-for-stronghold
— (The unwritten rule)
They didn't do that because the Inf timegating is considered foundational to SHs. Can't let those big guilds finish too fast. Well... the big guilds are finished or finishing now, waiting on their build times (which is timegating aplenty for the smaller fishes). All sticking to your Inf guns now accomplishes is leaving everyone else behind.
We are back to that fundamental question of what NW players would do if they had no neverending grind to keep them on a hamster wheel of hopelessness.
Revolutionary, I know, but... actually enjoy themselves?
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RIP Foundry
Operating under the assumption it's ad, then the best thing you can do for this update is change one variable, instead of ad, influence. Changing xp for surplus would be nice as well, representing the hand me downs from the sugar daddy.
People fail to realize that there is a major difference between a low level guild and a guild of low levels. Out of 22 members we have 2 that aren't 70. Xp. Pfft.
You also have it on preview, so you can test it.
Also no one here failed to realize the 'need' of the XP bonus, hence the lengthy thread of people saying that we dont need it.
When calculating 'L', utilize the helm guilds rank, all others are 1. In this way, 13 rank 20 guilds would have an L of 32 (20 helm +12 other guilds) however! This number is increased by one every time any member of the alliance upgrades their stronghold. In the above example, all strongholds are maxed, so they will never pass L = 32. The only way they will ever reach L=260 cap is if they are 20, and invite only level 1 guilds, all of whom then level to 20 (which will take a looong time).
This also discourages the 'dumping guild' suggested earlier in this thread. If you invite a small guild, vs inviting an alts fake guild, which one do you think is going to put more work into leveling?
If a guild leaves the alliance or is kicked, their upgrade ranks disappear. This prevents one rank 20 from repeatedly upgrading and kicking SH rank 1s.
Int GuildAid = 1/*initial value of non helm guilds*/
OnAllianceStrongholdUpgrade()/*when any alliance guildhall is updated*/
If (guildhallUpgraded=='Helm')
L++;
Else if (guildhallEndRank > GuildAid)
GuildAid=GuildAid+2;
Else
GuildAid++;
Basically 1 upgrade adds 2 to 'L' so long as that particular guild's rank is more than the guilds aided level.
As I reread this, it doesn't seem very clear. Perhaps example.
Joes Guild is level 20 and is the helm. He has a level 6 guild and 11 level 1 guilds under him. His L is equal to 32 (20 + 12 guilds).
Each of the level 1 guilds upgrades their stronghold. Each one that does this adds one to L, because they started at level 1. Joes alliance now has L = 43 (32 + 11)
Each of the now level 2 guilds upgrade their stronghold, the same thing happens. Joes alliance now has L = 54 (43+11)
The guildhall 6 is now ready to upgrade, and does so. This guildhall's "help rank" makes it worth only 1 to the alliance, despite its higher guild level. Upon doing this upgrade, two points are added. Joes alliance now has L=56 (54+2) and our guildhall 7 is worth 3 points.
Guildhall 7 updates, repeat above. Joes alliance now has L=58 (56+2) and our GH 8 is worth 5 points.
Guildhall 8 updates, repeat above. Joes alliance now has L= 60 (58+2) and our GH 9 is worth 7 points.
Guildhall 9 updates, repeat above. Joes alliance now has L=62 (60+2) and our GH 10 is worth 9 points.
Guildhall 10 updates, repeat above. Joes alliance now has L=64 (62+2) and our GH 11 is worth all 11 of its points.
Guildhall 11 updates. Since it's guild aide number matches it's stronghold number, only one point is gained. Joes alliance now has L=65 (64+1)
I hope this is clear.
It's worth mentioning that STO uses the exact opposite logic on their fleet (alliance) bonuses. Gamma (Gauntlet) guilds are getting the biggest structure bonuses and Alpha (Helm) guilds more ADs and XP.
So applying your own logic big alliances in Neverwinter should actually team up. I do indeed think this is the most likely outcome over time, because the biggest advantage within the current system is a massive alliance channel and a large playerbase to run content and Dragonflights with. The only joker you have right now is the fact that such monster alliances could run into situation where members aren't able to generate enough guild marks any longer.
It's a good reason why Alliances should be given arbitrary names rather than always taking the name from the Helm guild. That way the Whatever Alliance is always the Whatever Alliance, regardless of what guild is at the helm. I realize that's not possible with the existing architecture, which is too bad - probably was something that should have been considered from the start.
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
Once you have Rank 10 Boon Buildings etc. You could destroy production and other structures and rebuild.
What is the Guild Alliance Tag for? It's limited to 5 characters and I don't see it listed anywhere once I have something. I'm guessing it can onlt be seen by other Alliacne members. Maybe when someone else shows up I'll see. :*
Now I see what it's for.....it's the chat designator!!!
Neverwinter Wonderland
Neverwinter Wet & Wild
Neverwinter 2nd Anniversary Montage
Neverwinter Anniversary Montage
Protector's Jubilee Speech
Oh the Carnage
Thank you devs for doing this
edit- when i started this post you still didn't know what it was... oh well :P
We are searching for slave labor, will pay with food from our farm!
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***Guild Recruitment Information***
Blood Magic (RELEASED) - NW-DUU2P7HCO
Children of the Fey (RELEASED) - NW-DKSSAPFPF
Buried Under Blacklake (WIP) - NW-DEDV2PAEP
The Redcap Rebels (WIP) - NW-DO23AFHFH
My Foundry playthrough channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/Ruskaga/featured
2. Streamline the new Campaign section with a Tab button feature, separating the main Campaigns from Savras (Zone) quests. Now you have to scroll through a lot to check the main Campaigns.