The problem with considering small guilds could lead to penalising large guilds.
You lower the requirements based on number of members, sounds reasonable, but for a guild that already has a full compliment of members, it's like saying 'downgrade members, its earier!'.
The point of strongholds i beleive is to encourage guilds to be stronger, rather than there be thousands of tiny guilds and a couple of bigger ones and whatever in between, it encourages small guilds to strand strong and recruit, large guilds to stick together. Unfortuantely, this also means that some guilds will find it harder unless they reach outside their comfort zones a bit and start recruiting, start encouraging active playing etc etc.
First, my idea is that the requirements for all the "basic" buildings are lowered by a lot, giving small guilds or even solo players a chance to get a "small" Stronghold up and running with "small" benefits attached to it.
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.
This idea of what could have been (maybe even still could be) done seems the most "balanced".
Of course my original reason for posting was to see if there was an actual answer to the question. Some insight into the process.
Oh well.
0
rickcase276Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,404Arc User
edited August 2015
But what would be the incentive for someone to join one of the smaller guilds right now. Well say my guild, I am still 700 adventurer's shards of power away from even thinking of building the farm. Do you honestly think anyone is going to want to join a guild that is not that far along?
Which is not too bad for 1 player to be up to 800 adventurer's shards of power, but still going to take forever to do anything. But I will keep on doing what I can.
0
theycallmetomuMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,861Arc User
I still say the long run strategy needs to be, let the uberguilds finish, and then once the devs have seen the uberguilds no longer have any reason to run Strongholds content, BAM! Make strongholds content sellable on AH (or, alternatviely, you can donate stronghold content to get vouchers + marks, since obviously guilds eventually needs a way of giving marks to new members, and THOSE are resellable).
Yeah, that sounds like a great strategy allright...
"Uberguilds" getting their Strongholds build faster through resources from the AH for AD, getting stronger with every structure they finish.
While the rest is allowed to sell those resources cheap and wait for their turn, to finish or build something from the leftovers.
I can clearly see the players lining up for that.
How about renaming Strongholds to Pyramids, and hand out some whips for the "Uberguilds" leaders?
But looks like Steam Charts are showing a 10% plus for the last month, have to wait and see if this continues and more players join then leave in the "long run"...
No offense, but the Devs should come up with some ideas, that include every kind of player in their Stronghold module, and not just the members of big guilds.
Lets focus on how the content are effected by this change.
Large guilds with full citys will have buffs like 8000 power, arpen, lifesteal, 30.000hp, 25+%more healing etc etc.
Now if they are to be challanged by the content those without will have no chanse to finish any dungeons and even dailys should be close to impossible to handle.
The buffs are to say the least extreme, we will see 50% life steal, 30+ power and 14000+ arpen with resist that will make those without buffs unable to hardly scratch those with city buffs.
The city buffs will make it mandatory to belong to a large guild or move on to another game.
The good thing is that if your new to the game and enter one of those guild with full city buffs you will fly throught the content until you reach lvl 70 but imagen that they adapt the content from 1-70 to those that have guild buffs.
It will make it impossible to lvl up from lvl 1-70 without those buffs and if it not it will not even be a challange.
The same goes for every other part of the game once you reach lvl 70.
In short the hole game will remove casual players and small guilds from the map.
That is in pve, the pvp part belong to the elite pvp guilds that will rule uncontested with buffs that makes them immortals among those that not have them.
It is also in the line of how pvp guilds act that they will crush more pve oriented guilds in guild vs guild fights resulting in a slaughter of other guilds citys.
Some might think this is a good thing myself as i seen this in other games are not one of those.
My prediction is that once this goes live in full, that is guild can attack other guilds, you will see over 50% of the playerbase leave within 3-4 month.
Buffs should be more player oriented and large guilds should be able to handle more difficult encounters then small guilds.
Looking at the requirements I still see influence as an issue for our small guild (133 accounts but probably 5 people on at any given time, unfortunately many waned away during mod 6). The bump to 400/day was encouraging and much appreciated. Looking ahead though, sheesh! I would prefer they use a metered daily goal based on the instance population like the Tiamat Hoard Reclamation. That way players would have a target to aim towards as a group scaled to the guild size on any given day or time unit. This would ensure effort on each individuals part while still contributing to a common goal, and still maintaining equitable access to content accross every guild regardless of size.
Overall I think it is an enjoyable mod. I realize this is also on the heels of mod 6, but growing pains aside, the zone looks beautiful, the content in the stronghold is at a reasonable level and fun. I am enjoying it but I still lament the old dungeons being absent. The daily running out to repeat the areas I've already completed I could also do without.
I just hope that we see some players return, but if the grind is too discouraging as I fear it will become in a months time, then the opposite could come to pass. I absolutely would not want to be a new player in this game now. Those of us that remain are enthusiastic and keen, but the crushing amounts of resources required down the road look extremely daunting. I hope we see some similar proactive adjustments. Kudo's to the Commander for the first one.
It's too late to change things drastically i feel. so those players who are gone are likely gone so the damage is done.
If they wanted to make things right they should have these key gameplay structures unlocked through quests or make it easy to achieve (stronghold armors, artifact weapons, wards and 1st boon building).
Big guilds get the advantage of unlocking extra boons more quickly to accommodate the large amount of players/styles they have.
restricting new tier of gear to big guilds or by zen (getting tokens from lockboxes) was sure to gut the playerbase.
@sasageru
Where would there be a "penalty" for big guilds?
This is just about giving small and medium guilds a piece of the Stronghold cake.
Even big guilds would benefit from those changes, since they would get access to the small and medium Stronghold advantages even faster, and can play from there towards the big advantages.
Anyway, i'm really curious to see how the player numbers will develop over the next months on the way to Underdark...
@regenerde
My second line of text explained why: You lower the requirements based on number of members, sounds reasonable, but for a guild that already has a full compliment of members, it's like saying 'downgrade members, its easier!'.
Essentially, running a larger guild often takes more time and resources, you have that many more people to form into a unit that works together. If you essentially reduce the amount of work needed based on number of players in a guild, then whats the point in recruiting more members? If a guild of 150 players working day in day out takes the same time to level up a part of their stronghold as a guild with only 15 members, where is the incentive for the guild to grow or, in an already big guilds case, remain large?
I am in a small guild myself, and it does smart that a larger guild can out run us by miles when it comes to upgrading, but that means we have more reason to strive towards growth - to expand in number and dedicate our time to the guild. I don't see that as a bad thing.
Again... i'm not talking about decreasing the requirements based on player numbers, i'm talking about having roughly three different kinds (small, medium, big) of Strongholds available for the players.
And the players can choose by themself, which one they want to go for, and everyone would be getting something out of Strongholds, without being forced into big guilds.
Last but not least, forcing players to do something, will allway come around to bite the Devs in their behinds... and as mentioned allready, i doubt that there will be much more players coming to NWO and staying with the current path the game has taken with Strongholds.
Underdark won't matter, since you will probably need the benefits of a big guild for the new content...
For our tiny guild, the major limiting factor appears to be Surplus Equipment (with Adventurer's Shards of Power running 2nd). We might have 2-3 people on at night, give or take, but we're a guild that caters to casuals. Our players have lives and families, and grinding 5400 greens for a Farm structure is an interminable grind.
(and sometimes players *gasp* get sick -- two words: gall bladder )
Harper Chronicles: Cap Snatchers (RELEASED) - NW-DPUTABC6X 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
Again... i'm not talking about decreasing the requirements based on player numbers, i'm talking about having roughly three different kinds (small, medium, big) of Strongholds available for the players.
And the players can choose by themself, which one they want to go for, and everyone would be getting something out of Strongholds, without being forced into big guilds.
So you're saying that you'd want 3 different strongholds? Once that gives.. idk 1 boon, 1 giving 3 and the biggest one giving 4? Yet all have to produce a R4 marketplace for the new gear, or people will certainly downgrade their guilds to get the gear first and go for the boons on a bigger SH. I"m not sure that'll work out well.
...
More like the value of the boons being tied to the rank of the Stronghold structures... starting with small benefits, giving medium benefits in the middle and the full benefits, when the structure is all ranked up.
For example that 8k power building, it would give ~2k power at the beginning, ~6k power in the middle and the full 8k power, when it's all ranked up.
And the market place would just offer the same supplies right from the start, but with ranking it up, you would get 1% discount per market rank on your purchases.
Again, downgrading your big guild would make no sense, you would get the small benefits for sure, but you would still have to play (=farm resources) for the bigger Strongholds benefits all the same.
This Boon increases your Power statistic: 1000 at Rank 3, and reaches 8000 when the structure achieves Rank 10. This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
This Boon increases your Defense statistic: 800 at Rank 1, and reaches 8000 when the structure achieves Rank 10. This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
This Boon increases your Armor Penetration statistic: 1000 at Rank 3, and reaches 8000 when the structure achieves Rank 10. This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
This Boon increases your Life Steal statistic: 800 at Rank 1, and reaches 8000 when the structure achieves rank 10.
This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
This Boon increases your hit points: 3200 at rank 1, and reaches 32,000 when the structure achieves Rank 10. This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
You get some boons at rank 1, but looking at what you get at rank 1 compared to what you get at rank 10, or in between... why even bother with Stronghold PvP as a small or medium size guild?
"NOTE: The numbers given for each of these Boons are subject to change."
Devs WANT to nudge people into the direction of large guilds.
4 - 6K players, devs want move them towards large guilds, make guild account cap 500 and lets look what happens...
...how much MEGA guilds take monthly fee that you can join them or will it be onetime payment per person...
Back to Topic,
, Small Guilds just stop doing campaign after they grinded it sometime, Stronghold became like IWD -deserter/Abandoned, do it just because you must, not for fun...sad but true.
Just saying, we might see not a change to those numbers, with a poll or without, with a feedback thread or without, from now until Underdark is released.
And as i said, the boons (exspecially the stat boons...) should be available for all structures right from rank 1 in a more reasonable amount.
Also, what will they base the difficulty of Underdark on?
A guild with all maxed out boons?
A guild with only the rank 1 boons?
Something in between?
Whatever they choose, Strongholds is really going to srew this game up in the long run...
I have my doubts, based on how long a lot of players are asking for a reasonable change in the overall difficulty, and what they then delivered based on that feedback.
And on topic, the answer to the question is simple: No.
I do believe in killing the messenger...
Want to know why?
Because it sends a message!
0
plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,416Arc User
edited August 2015
The guild is not supposed to be small forever in the early stage of the game. That was why the limit was 500. 150 was a "small" guild. For stronghold, it is not the small or big (in terms of account) matters. It is about how many active players in the guild that matters.
A mid size guild of 50 with all 50 active players is better than a "large" guild of 150 players but with only 20 active players. That is why certain 500 strong guilds were kicking out inactive. 500 strong but with 20 active is not better than a "small" guild.
If the 480 have not login for half a year (a good indication they left for good), they prefer to kick out 480 and get 130 new active players.
Small guild is expected to grow in size. I don't see the developers wanted a family guild with 5 family members. 5 is the starting point to set up the guild and not the end number. The current setup is to discourage to have a tiny guild.
So on topic, IMO, the answer to the question is yes. They wanted to discourage tiny guild and wanted the guild to grow.
Post edited by plasticbat on
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
why even bother with Stronghold PvP as a small or medium size guild?
LOL. I've been saying this since SH was announced (and before). There's really no hope of small/medium guilds even attempting SH PvP when it gets released; not even for fun. It's bad enough in GG right now since the elite PvP guilds are steamrolling the rest of us at will so I can only cringe at the thought of SH PvP with all of the buffs.
As to the OP, I would have to say that some thought was given but the execution was/is lacking.
Comments
You lower the requirements based on number of members, sounds reasonable, but for a guild that already has a full compliment of members, it's like saying 'downgrade members, its earier!'.
The point of strongholds i beleive is to encourage guilds to be stronger, rather than there be thousands of tiny guilds and a couple of bigger ones and whatever in between, it encourages small guilds to strand strong and recruit, large guilds to stick together. Unfortuantely, this also means that some guilds will find it harder unless they reach outside their comfort zones a bit and start recruiting, start encouraging active playing etc etc.
This idea of what could have been (maybe even still could be) done seems the most "balanced".
Of course my original reason for posting was to see if there was an actual answer to the question. Some insight into the process.
Oh well.
Which is not too bad for 1 player to be up to 800 adventurer's shards of power, but still going to take forever to do anything. But I will keep on doing what I can.
"Uberguilds" getting their Strongholds build faster through resources from the AH for AD, getting stronger with every structure they finish.
While the rest is allowed to sell those resources cheap and wait for their turn, to finish or build something from the leftovers.
I can clearly see the players lining up for that.
How about renaming Strongholds to Pyramids, and hand out some whips for the "Uberguilds" leaders?
But looks like Steam Charts are showing a 10% plus for the last month, have to wait and see if this continues and more players join then leave in the "long run"...
No offense, but the Devs should come up with some ideas, that include every kind of player in their Stronghold module, and not just the members of big guilds.
Large guilds with full citys will have buffs like 8000 power, arpen, lifesteal, 30.000hp, 25+%more healing etc etc.
Now if they are to be challanged by the content those without will have no chanse to finish any dungeons and even dailys should be close to impossible to handle.
The buffs are to say the least extreme, we will see 50% life steal, 30+ power and 14000+ arpen with resist that will make those without buffs unable to hardly scratch those with city buffs.
The city buffs will make it mandatory to belong to a large guild or move on to another game.
The good thing is that if your new to the game and enter one of those guild with full city buffs you will fly throught the content until you reach lvl 70 but imagen that they adapt the content from 1-70 to those that have guild buffs.
It will make it impossible to lvl up from lvl 1-70 without those buffs and if it not it will not even be a challange.
The same goes for every other part of the game once you reach lvl 70.
In short the hole game will remove casual players and small guilds from the map.
That is in pve, the pvp part belong to the elite pvp guilds that will rule uncontested with buffs that makes them immortals among those that not have them.
It is also in the line of how pvp guilds act that they will crush more pve oriented guilds in guild vs guild fights resulting in a slaughter of other guilds citys.
Some might think this is a good thing myself as i seen this in other games are not one of those.
My prediction is that once this goes live in full, that is guild can attack other guilds, you will see over 50% of the playerbase leave within 3-4 month.
Buffs should be more player oriented and large guilds should be able to handle more difficult encounters then small guilds.
Overall I think it is an enjoyable mod. I realize this is also on the heels of mod 6, but growing pains aside, the zone looks beautiful, the content in the stronghold is at a reasonable level and fun. I am enjoying it but I still lament the old dungeons being absent. The daily running out to repeat the areas I've already completed I could also do without.
I just hope that we see some players return, but if the grind is too discouraging as I fear it will become in a months time, then the opposite could come to pass. I absolutely would not want to be a new player in this game now. Those of us that remain are enthusiastic and keen, but the crushing amounts of resources required down the road look extremely daunting. I hope we see some similar proactive adjustments. Kudo's to the Commander for the first one.
If they wanted to make things right they should have these key gameplay structures unlocked through quests or make it easy to achieve (stronghold armors, artifact weapons, wards and 1st boon building).
Big guilds get the advantage of unlocking extra boons more quickly to accommodate the large amount of players/styles they have.
restricting new tier of gear to big guilds or by zen (getting tokens from lockboxes) was sure to gut the playerbase.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Where would there be a "penalty" for big guilds?
This is just about giving small and medium guilds a piece of the Stronghold cake.
Even big guilds would benefit from those changes, since they would get access to the small and medium Stronghold advantages even faster, and can play from there towards the big advantages.
Anyway, i'm really curious to see how the player numbers will develop over the next months on the way to Underdark...
My second line of text explained why: You lower the requirements based on number of members, sounds reasonable, but for a guild that already has a full compliment of members, it's like saying 'downgrade members, its easier!'.
Essentially, running a larger guild often takes more time and resources, you have that many more people to form into a unit that works together. If you essentially reduce the amount of work needed based on number of players in a guild, then whats the point in recruiting more members? If a guild of 150 players working day in day out takes the same time to level up a part of their stronghold as a guild with only 15 members, where is the incentive for the guild to grow or, in an already big guilds case, remain large?
I am in a small guild myself, and it does smart that a larger guild can out run us by miles when it comes to upgrading, but that means we have more reason to strive towards growth - to expand in number and dedicate our time to the guild. I don't see that as a bad thing.
And the players can choose by themself, which one they want to go for, and everyone would be getting something out of Strongholds, without being forced into big guilds.
Last but not least, forcing players to do something, will allway come around to bite the Devs in their behinds... and as mentioned allready, i doubt that there will be much more players coming to NWO and staying with the current path the game has taken with Strongholds.
Underdark won't matter, since you will probably need the benefits of a big guild for the new content...
(and sometimes players *gasp* get sick -- two words: gall bladder
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
For example that 8k power building, it would give ~2k power at the beginning, ~6k power in the middle and the full 8k power, when it's all ranked up.
And the market place would just offer the same supplies right from the start, but with ranking it up, you would get 1% discount per market rank on your purchases.
Again, downgrading your big guild would make no sense, you would get the small benefits for sure, but you would still have to play (=farm resources) for the bigger Strongholds benefits all the same.
This Boon increases your Power statistic: 1000 at Rank 3, and reaches 8000 when the structure achieves Rank 10. This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
This Boon increases your Defense statistic: 800 at Rank 1, and reaches 8000 when the structure achieves Rank 10. This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
This Boon increases your Armor Penetration statistic: 1000 at Rank 3, and reaches 8000 when the structure achieves Rank 10. This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
This Boon increases your Life Steal statistic: 800 at Rank 1, and reaches 8000 when the structure achieves rank 10.
This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
This Boon increases your hit points: 3200 at rank 1, and reaches 32,000 when the structure achieves Rank 10. This Boon has lessened effectiveness if you are not level 70.
You get some boons at rank 1, but looking at what you get at rank 1 compared to what you get at rank 10, or in between... why even bother with Stronghold PvP as a small or medium size guild?
"NOTE: The numbers given for each of these Boons are subject to change."
When Underdark is done and released?
4 - 6K players, devs want move them towards large guilds, make guild account cap 500 and lets look what happens...
...how much MEGA guilds take monthly fee that you can join them or will it be onetime payment per person...
Back to Topic,
, Small Guilds just stop doing campaign after they grinded it sometime, Stronghold became like IWD -deserter/Abandoned, do it just because you must, not for fun...sad but true.
And as i said, the boons (exspecially the stat boons...) should be available for all structures right from rank 1 in a more reasonable amount.
Also, what will they base the difficulty of Underdark on?
A guild with all maxed out boons?
A guild with only the rank 1 boons?
Something in between?
Whatever they choose, Strongholds is really going to srew this game up in the long run...
And on topic, the answer to the question is simple:
No.
A mid size guild of 50 with all 50 active players is better than a "large" guild of 150 players but with only 20 active players. That is why certain 500 strong guilds were kicking out inactive. 500 strong but with 20 active is not better than a "small" guild.
If the 480 have not login for half a year (a good indication they left for good), they prefer to kick out 480 and get 130 new active players.
Small guild is expected to grow in size. I don't see the developers wanted a family guild with 5 family members. 5 is the starting point to set up the guild and not the end number. The current setup is to discourage to have a tiny guild.
So on topic, IMO, the answer to the question is yes. They wanted to discourage tiny guild and wanted the guild to grow.
LOL. I've been saying this since SH was announced (and before). There's really no hope of small/medium guilds even attempting SH PvP when it gets released; not even for fun. It's bad enough in GG right now since the elite PvP guilds are steamrolling the rest of us at will so I can only cringe at the thought of SH PvP with all of the buffs.
As to the OP, I would have to say that some thought was given but the execution was/is lacking.