Time for changes to guilds, strongholds and alliances

damnacious

Now that we've seen some significant changes to the game as it's grown and evolved over the years, I believe it's time for some changes to improve guilds, strongholds and alliances.

I propose these changes:

• All zone currencies (not just campaign) should be able to be contributed to guild coffers to enable greater participation, involvement and contribution from players who are not level 70.
  
• All resources contributed/generated by a guild should be converted to "Guild Points" (GP), with GP being essentially a pool of points, similar to Refinement Points, which could be spent to build/upgrade a structure, with each structure at different levels / ranks requiring different and increasing amounts of GP. This would facilitate guild growth, and enable developers to easily and quickly modify conversion values, add in new currencies, and add in new structures/ranks.
  
• Current vouchers and chests containing shards could be minimised and converted to provide various amounts of GP instead.
  
• The "Alliance Settings" could be modified to include a checkbox to restrict or permit donations to specific guilds in an alliance.
  
• The alliance system could include the option for a Helm guild to remove and directly invite Gauntlet guilds.
  
• An 'Alliance Officer' chat channel could be created for officers within the alliance to coordinate and manage the alliance.
  
• The Guild Settings could be modified to include a checkbox to restrict or permit a particular rank from being designated as a guild officer within the alliance and access the Alliance Officer chat and features.
  
• Alliance Officers could be provided with their own option for chat colour within alliance chat to help easily designate players as officers.
  
• Guild Information settings could be modified to include the facility to add additional guilds to an "Affiliated Guild List" which could be viewed in guild search results. This may benefit guilds which operate multiple guilds.
  
• Create the option for private rooms for each character/account in the Stronghold based upon Rank and the 'rent' of the room and which the player could customise. For example, a Rank 5 might have the option to obtain a larger/more opulent room in the Stronghold than a Rank 1, but would need to pay more AD/Zen to obtain and maintain it. Fittings and features in this room could be crafted and purchased from the Zen Store or other NPC vendors such as Tarmalune Trade Bar/Wondrous Bazaar, with additional fittings/feature slots also able to be 'unlocked' via AD/Zen.
  
• The Guild page could include an "Alliances Info" tab or similar which may include the option to add in links and details to voice chat servers, websites, and rules etc.
  
• A "Guild Officer" mail option could be included to the current mail system with a checkbox in the Guild Settings to permit or restrict access to Guild Officer mail.
  
• An "Alliance Mail" option could be included to the current mail system with a a checkbox in the Guild Settings to permit access to send Alliance Mail to be sent to all members in their alliance.
  
• An "Alliance Guild Leader Mail" option could be included to the current mail system to permit all guild leaders within a guild in an alliance to send a mail message to all other guild leaders in their alliance.
  
• An option for Alliance Officers to Mute Alliance chat via a checkbox which can be simultaneously interacted with by other Alliance Officers to unmute etc.
  
• The option for the Helm guild in an alliance to turn on and off features such as "Alliance Mail", "Alliance Guild Leader Mail", "Alliance Officer Chat Channel" and "Alliance Officer Chat Designation".
  
• The facility to purchase campaign currency from a vendor such as the Outfitter by spending Guild Marks (GM).
  
• The facility to purchase temporary buffs from a vendor / feature with Guild Marks such as: damage buff, xp buff, gold gain buff, movement buff, defense buff etc. which only provides a benefit while in the Stronghold map. The amount of the buff and what buffs are accessible may be linked to Guild Hall level or similar.
  
• Remove Probationary Periods for guilds joining an alliance.
  
• Remove timer for guilds looking to leave an alliance.
  

These are some of the ideas i've managed to come up with, but i'd like to hear what you think! Do you have any ideas / suggestions on what changes could be made, or an opinion on those proposed by me above?

earlgreybeard

There has been several mentions about strongholds and alliances getting a upgrade boost and a raise of level cap as well.. you wouldn't be alone in wanting see this system get a big improvement ... the whole chat set up needs looking at imho, I like your ideas for more settings for guilds and alliance chats .When you think about it, the text communication is everything in this game and it's been glitched and buggy forever... especially being booted out of a channel and loosing the channels on several tabs being reverted back to say. Then the whole selecting the channel again thing, is cumbersome and glitched ..

I really hope they can do a bit rework of the guilds and alliances interface and mix a decent upgrade to the chat system.. once all this down scaling and powers and new level ,balancing .etc is sorted out
of course

thanks for the thread.

damnacious

Thank you for your feedback Wargraves. Would i be correct in summarising your opinions in this manner?

• New players need greater incentives and opportunities to encourage them to participate and contribute to their guild.
  
• The scaling for characters above level 70 needs to be adjusted to make the SH more balanced, as currently, for characters above level 70, it is increasingly too difficult.
  
• Guild boons need to be improved in order to continue to provide benefit to members.
  

Many thanks for your constructive feedback too Earlgreybeard!

cambo1682

I agree with adding a lot more versatility in how to donate and improving the communication options Dorgan. I think this would ease the choke points for difficult currency. Frozen treasures comes to mind. I don't think I'd want to see a level cap for the guild hall. There are still many guilds that have not reached that and I don't think the game can handle another kick in the yarbles at this point or in the near future for that matter. I'd be fine seeing some additions that give more versatility to boons, say split stat boons.

They need to wrap their head around how they will stop outdating stronghold content with every mod. Dragonflight and marauders, HE's and the weapons vendor should have some way of being partially meaningful for every mod. Not exclusionary to solo players, but if I want to farm some aspect of the latest mod, there should be a small contributor each release, or tie it in so you're not necessarily forced to choose between your own progress and guild progress. The salty side of me feels they've killed professions so maybe make guild marks valuable in other ways.

pitshade

It would really be nice if there were a setting to make guild rank account wide for all characters in the guild. At double guild marks and other times, people will temporarily join another guild to donate resources that they need. When they return to their normal guild, they are rank 1 necessitating the officers/leader fix all the guild ranks.

damnacious

Hi Porter! I've missed seeing you around of late buddy! Many thanks for your feedback!

I appreciate you chiming in too Pitshade. Your opinions are always constructive and well received.

Would i be correct in summarising your collective opinions in this manner?

• Guild Hall maximum levels do not need to be increased.
  
• Increasing versatility of boons such as by providing more boons with multiple different simultaneous stats.
  
• Establish methods of maintaining currency with the state of the game amongst guild events and vendor / items to ensure they are not outdated and force players to choose between individual progression against guild progression.
  
• Provide other means for spending Guild Marks.
  
• Create the option for guild ranks to be automatically updated across an account to the highest possible guild rank.
  

buskin

Thank you for starting this discussion, particularly with the hope that SH content is slated for an update in the near future.

Your ideas are worthy of discussion and thought and I would like to add my thoughts on those that I perceive to be a priority, or at the least, more important than the rest.

1. Allow campaign currency donations to be converted to a universal currency that enables SH structure construction. i.e. "Guild Points'
2. Enable the purchase of vouchers, or ideally, Guild Points, using Guild Marks.
3. Add an Alliance wide mail option and Officer chat channel.
4. Allow the use of hyperlinks within the Guild Interface (links that actually open a browser window when clicked).

I also agree with the comment posted by cambo, SH's will be better off with new content and boon 'balancing' as opposed to a new SH cap increase.