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Were small guilds considered during the Stronghold development?
elcymerian
Member Posts: 241 Arc User
As I look at the amounts required to creating various things through grinding for the guild Strongholds, I am beginning to wonder if there was any consideration given to guilds with small numbers? Just curious.
And yes, I sure there'll be lots of posts/replies about how you just have to work harder and be super active all the time or some such. I'm not saying smaller guild CAN'T do it, just if they were given consideration after looking at the guild roster numbers when deciding how to implement the grind system.
If there's no answer to it, that's fine. Just throwing it out there.
And yes, I sure there'll be lots of posts/replies about how you just have to work harder and be super active all the time or some such. I'm not saying smaller guild CAN'T do it, just if they were given consideration after looking at the guild roster numbers when deciding how to implement the grind system.
If there's no answer to it, that's fine. Just throwing it out there.
Post edited by zebular on
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You answered your own question.
My guild would be considered a "larger small" guild. We're doing just fine. Looks like GH L3 tonight.. but only because we've got some amazing and dedicated players.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
That's the sort of response that doesn't answer the question. I'm not talking about now after Strongholds have been implemented, I mean during the development process.
I WANT TO PLAY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS NOT "guild recruit and currency farm and beta test for xbox"
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Large guilds finish faster that way, but once they're finished, they have nothing to do with their resources other than sell them on the AH. They do, prices fall because ALL the large guilds are selling them on the AH, small guilds eventually can afford resources, and then small guilds catch up.
Remove the former part from the game (and trust me that is what is going to happen for several reason, guild buffs being the major of them) and how much income do you think is lost add to that the fill out these players make for the the game.
New players will fast see the enormous gap that has to be filled and move on to another game with more reasonable investment in time/money.
With that the transition from casual player to more active is lost due to the fact there will be no new players.
Now add to this that BIS pvp guild will be able to run in and crush other more pve oriented guilds citys and copy the recipe for alot of other games death doom.
Now take a slight glance at this 8000 power-lifesteal-arpen, 30 000 hp 50% More healing etc etc toward nill absolute zero...
Now build content for that so both groups have fun..good luck I wish you the best.....
I might be wrong but no game i ever seen that has been longlived has gone down this track, it might be for a reason........
A guild with 10 people (accounts) would start at population rank 1, and you have to do the least grinding to upgrade your Stronghold. Then for every 10 accounts that are added you get bumped up another rank. Adding 10 new people would bump you up to population rank 2, you would then have more stringent requirements.
To prevent abuse, you can't get back down to rank 1 just by kicking everyone out. Perhaps reducing your guild down in population rank requires removing accounts, AND emptying your coffers of everything accumulated so you have to start the current target over from scratch.
- small Strongholds with ~25% of all those guild benefits
- medium Strongholds with ~75% of all those guild benefits
- big Strongholds with 100% of all those guilds benefits
small Strongholds could take a few days to build for a handfull of players,
medium Strongholds could take a few weeks for 50+ players,
big Strongholds could take a few months for 100+ players.
But looks like the Devs are too bussy with blogging about snails and of course Underdark...
Example 1: I start with a guild with 50 accounts and 120 members. My guild gets sorted into the Big Stronghold category and I have to get a huge amount of resources. Now, 2 weeks into Strongholds there is some Problem. Players begin to leave because of fighting or are kicked because of inactivity. My guild shrinks and has 10 accounts with 40 members left.
Will I be left with enourmous requirements for my stronghold that I can not meet with the rest of my members? Or will the requirements be changed to acommodate?
The first will be unfair and the death of my guilds stronghold. The second would be fair but will lead to example 2.
Example 2: I start with a guild with 50 accounts and 120 members. I open a second guild and let all members except a handful Change into the other guild. The first guild will now be considered small and have low requirements. The members of the second guild will farm huge amounts of resources and join the first guild while others join the second. Now they donate all the resources for the first guild. I will have everything ready thanks to low requirements and the farmin effort of hundreds of members (from the fake guild)
What now?
Moving people from a large guild to a small guild just to donate would increase the small guild's rank and therefore the resources needed. Kicking people out of a large guild to get a lower resource requirement would result in either grinding to the current target with fewer people, or having to forfeit everything in the coffers and starting the current task over completely.
The way its designed now is just going kick the already dwindling playerbase out. You need big guilds to get those dragon seals or chuck alot of cash at the screen, I'm in a average sized guild, but I know ALOT of people prefer to have small elite/close community guilds, and they just get shafted. When PvP comes along, i may have to leave my guild so i can do the new pvp stuff. Is that good design choice?
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
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Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
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First... if you're no longer playing, why are you on the forums? I see this sort of thing quite often and it puzzles me. Shouldn't you be hanging out on the forum of whatever MMO you're now playing?
Second... This game, in no way, shape or form is "Dungeons and Dragons". At least, not the game system I'm familiar with, although I stopped buying books at 2nd Edition. WotC pretty much destroyed the original D&D when they bought out TSR.
Thirdly... this game is pretty much "be Sergeant Knox's errand <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>", and has been throughout. I figured that out the first day I played it, but it was free, I was bored, and the graphics are nicer than EQ.
Cheers!
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
OMG no!!! Our guild is two-years old, and we aren't far from the account cap. Early members were my friends from other games, and new friends met here in Neverwinter. In two years, we grew. However, most of those members aren't currently active. So, if we had a heavier load because of the account number, we would have no way to build anything! So, no. Just, no. And no, i will not kick my old friends from the guild. I'm one of those weird people that play a game for longevity, and over the years (across different games) i've seen people take breaks, even two-year-long breaks, and then come back. The stronghold might lure my old friends back, and when they get back, we'll be here with open arms. It's bad enough we have a cap which will force me to choose between keeping my old friends in the guild they helped to build or having room to recruit new members. See, unlike the majority of people who post on these forums, i don't see this game as a job, don't see other players as pawns or employees or nameless resources, don't see every single minute detail of the game as having some logical or monetary value. It is a GAME. I run my business on numbers and ROI and effectiveness of employees. Then i play a GAME to ENJOY and relax my mind a bit.
Besides, we're doing okay. We already have our Marketplace so we can buy things and look at the gear, and are working on upgrading the Guild Hall. What we have is good for us. It would be nice if we could get the Influence quicker, or if less Influence was required, but all in all we're doing okay.
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You totally missed the point of what I proposed. I wasn't proposing making it HARDER (compared to now) for large guilds - I was proposing making it EASIER compared to now for smaller guilds. If your guild is doing fine with fewer active people than the amount of accounts you have? You'd be unaffected.
A good metaphor would be "I should be able to buy this $20million mansion for less because I don't make enough money to buy it, and it's not fair that Brad Pitt has four of them." Well, if you want the mansion, you need to work harder to get it.
We have about 15 active players, which translates to maybe 50 active characters... and we're just 32 hours away from our GH L3. That came from hard work, determination and a lot of teamwork. We're actively attempting to recruit, but with all the other guilds recruiting out there, we're just a small voice in a whole chorus of other guild clamoring for more slave labor.. errrr.. members. But we're super happy with our core players and don't care if this takes us a long time to finish... we're having fun with it.
"...I grab my wiener and charge!" - ironzerg79
It been said before and as you seam to have a hard time grasping it it can be said again.
Those that like to be a part of a large populated guild with ample of playtime will not suffer much, rather they get an new goal to work toward making a bit more rewarding logging in.(that is until some hardcore pvp guilds decide they dont want to have other guild with as good buffs as they have and put your building to the torch).
It can be my imagination but if you put all casual players in small guild vs all the players in large guilds you will soon find out that the latter is not in majority.
Its easy to say well join one then being a smartmouth, however reality dont work that way.
Again i can be wrong but if you look at other games (age of conan as one example among many) that forced players into large guilds to even have a chanse to be competitative it was the start of a decline from where there was no return.
As mentioned above this implementation removes the reward for single players putting it into the hands of how well your guilds does.
The differance between having *raid encounters* that demands a large force and making the *reward* guild based makes it pointless for small guilds or individuals to even try because of the extremely powerful buffs the guild gives.
The point is can a game survive without these casual players that wants to logg in now and then and not belong to a larger guild and my answer to that according to my experiance is a big NO.
New players will have hard time getting into these larger guilds before they are good enough to be of any use and that gap is just to big to make players stay.
Sure some will but with those that will quit becouse of this change and the few newcommers that will take this long road the player base will suffer a dramatic loss without enough new to replace those that quit.
Time will tell ofc but I for one will not hold my breath............
It's hard to tell though, there are so many signs of this game oozing players, yet in some zones ( camp. zones) I see increased activity. Guessing its new or returning players, but worry not, the will leave agaib when they see the imense grind that is Strongholds.
Second, there is no point in any min./max. here, since the requirements overall stay the same, if you want a "medium" or "big" Stronghold, you'll still need a lot of resources and active players, but you will also receive "medium" or "big" sized benefits from that.
Third, and to make it more understandable... not everyone can afford a "mansion", but that doesn't have to mean, that he has to be "homeless"... he could still build his own "house".
Get it?
In the end, everyone would have a realistic chance to get some small benefits and access to everything from Strongholds, without the need of kissing the [consored] of some big guilds leaders.
It ain't that complicated... which makes you wonder, why the Devs didn't come up with something like this.