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Option to get offensive, defensive and utility boons through a single player campaign: good idea?
pando83
Member Posts: 2,564 Arc User
SH boons give 8k stats and utility boosts. These boons boost a player's strenght significantly in both PvE and PvP. It creates, basically, a huge difference between guilded players and un-guilded players. I AM in a rank 20 guild currently, but it's clear to me that these boons basically divide NWO population in two groups.
Players should be given a campaign that, basically, allows them to get offensive, defensive, and utility boons outside of the SH environment. Players should be able to get the basic boon and then make it grow, same as SH boons, through the new campaign.
Example:
Un-guilded player goes through the campaign to get the power boon. He gets at first a basic 2k power boon. He can then make it grow to 4k, 6k and 8k through time (proportional to the personal effort it takes to get SH boons).
What happens to players who already have SH boons: they can still pick up single player boons, but they cannot activate them if they already have a SH boon of the same type already active. Example: i have the 8k defense SH boon active (defensive boon), and i get the 8k LS boon (defensive boon) through the campaign. To activate it, i must deactivate the 8k defense SH boon first. Aka: you can have only 1 boon of a given type active.
Same with offensive (power, ArP, exc...) boons, and utility boons.
Why it's good in my opinion:
un-guilded players and alts that are not in a guild, get to grow up and be on par with guilded toons
guilded toons, through this campaign, can pick up boons that their guild didn't pick up, and use them where they need them more (for example, my guild picked up the 8k LS boon but not the 8k defense. I can pick up the 8k defense boon through the campaign and swithc boons when needed).
All players win, and we do not have this huge gap between guilded players and un-guilded players.
Players should be given a campaign that, basically, allows them to get offensive, defensive, and utility boons outside of the SH environment. Players should be able to get the basic boon and then make it grow, same as SH boons, through the new campaign.
Example:
Un-guilded player goes through the campaign to get the power boon. He gets at first a basic 2k power boon. He can then make it grow to 4k, 6k and 8k through time (proportional to the personal effort it takes to get SH boons).
What happens to players who already have SH boons: they can still pick up single player boons, but they cannot activate them if they already have a SH boon of the same type already active. Example: i have the 8k defense SH boon active (defensive boon), and i get the 8k LS boon (defensive boon) through the campaign. To activate it, i must deactivate the 8k defense SH boon first. Aka: you can have only 1 boon of a given type active.
Same with offensive (power, ArP, exc...) boons, and utility boons.
Why it's good in my opinion:
un-guilded players and alts that are not in a guild, get to grow up and be on par with guilded toons
guilded toons, through this campaign, can pick up boons that their guild didn't pick up, and use them where they need them more (for example, my guild picked up the 8k LS boon but not the 8k defense. I can pick up the 8k defense boon through the campaign and swithc boons when needed).
All players win, and we do not have this huge gap between guilded players and un-guilded players.
Option to get offensive, defensive and utility boons through a single player campaign: good idea? 39 votes
Yes, it's a good idea
66%
26 votes
No, it's not a good idea (explain why)
33%
13 votes
6
Comments
Sadly, Defiant is probably right, wonderful idea, but unlikely. I feel what they did with SH boons was a deliberate change in direction to strong-arm people into guilds, because reasons. Unless they deliberately re-change those reasons, I don't have much hope. I haven't put a dime into the game since SHs, and it's their right to not want my money.
To be fair though, I don't begrudge guilds for what they have. They want to coordinate and invest that much time, energy, and resources, good for them, they should get something for it. I begrudge Cryptic for not allowing any alternate way to invest time, energy, and resources to remain relevant, thus saying "guild or gtfo".
I've been wanting something like this for a long time now. A few months ago, I wrote up a very similar idea connected to account-based personal housing (at the bottom of this page). I mean, I would be rather happy being able to grind out HALF of what a SH can get, just on my own. The gap is staggering, offense and defense boons alone amount to ~20 r12 dual enchants that cannot be made up in any other way. I'm honestly surprised I haven't been drummed out of the whole game yet, instead of just out of pvp.
Sadly Defiant is probably correct, wonderful idea, but unlikely. When they introduced SH boons, they had deliberately chosen to change the game to require guilds, for reasons. Unless those reasons change, I don't expect any relief on that front. I haven't spent a dime on this game since SHs, I guess it's their right to not want my money.
In all fairness, I don't begrudge guilds what they have. If a bunch of people can coordinate and invest HAMSTER-tons of time, energy, and resources into a common goal, they deserve something for that. I begrudge Cryptic for not allowing any alternate way to invest my own time, energy, and resources into not being made irrelevant, thus saying "guild or gtfo".
I don't really see a valid reason to keep this huge division between players with a guild and players without a guild.
I expected to be edged out by all of these SH boons, but I think I've realized why that hasn't happened, and it really strengthens the case for what we're talking about here. It's not just about "guild players vs. non-guild players", it's really about "high level guilds vs. everyone else". I obviously don't have the numbers, but I would wager that most guild players are in guilds so small that they don't meaningfully benefit from SH boons either. Having an alternate way to make up some of that ground would give more dedicated guild players a path to better themselves without having to abandon their smaller, beloved casual/friend-based guild just for better boons.
A couple things that I do think is important is firstly, the boons should be "pick one from the combined pool" like you were talking about, otherwise the whole point is defeated. Secondly, if it did take the form of something you had to invest resources into like my idea, it should have as little overlap with SH resources as possible. It shouldn't take away from building a stronghold, it should augment it and broaden the options.
Also, if you were to add something like this, you would have to make it and the stronghold boons modular or you'd effectively kill a lot of the interest in creating new guilds rather than joining established ones. If you have a solo player who has the solo exclusive tree filled out and they start a new guild/join a new guild, if doing so disables the benefits of their solo tree, they actually lose significant stats to join a guild. This is kind of going in the opposite direction from what is wanted. On the other hand, if you have each and every single guild boon/solo boon be either/or, then one can join a new guild and slowly replace their solo boons with guild boons as the guild boons become available - whereas, if joining a guild immediately shut down the solo tree, you get punished for trying to start a new guild.
Just some thoughts. I really don't see this happening and, if it does, not any time soon.
The effort to Level stronghold building is immense, as it is a huge team effort (which also includes that some do more work, and others less). To move that onto a single Person is nearly impossible, because either it get's "too easy" for the Player which makes it unfair for the guild, or it becomes "too hard", resulting in you probably never getting the boons to a significant strength.
Another problem is, that once a guild has reached a maximum stronghold, there is no more effort needed by guild members. Especially new members are at an advantage.
Then there is the problem, that some players have invested much time and work and resources into their guilds stronghold, though hey didn't want to be in a guild, but had no other choice. With a new option, like that one, the Player still is bound to a guild, which gives him a feel, that he is at a disadvantage.
And then there is the Problem with lesser incentives for new guilds to use a stronghold. (I don't know, how that would evolve, but it sure is something that needs to be adressed)
You suggest giving these boons from campaign, fine, but how's that gonna work if I get into guild after campaign and activate boons? Should they become unavailable or something? Will you be able to get boons from campaign if you're in the guild? It's hard to get this idea straight to benefit everyone IMO.
Besides, even if we forget boons, guilds have WAY too much other advantages to ignore it...
Building a Stronghold is a massive undertaking, certainly. In creating an alternate way to get some boons, balancing what you get for what you put in would be important. Obviously cost is the primary factor, but that would also be balanced against how good the boons are (at max, are they equal, half, 3/4ths?), how much non-money work is involved (including time-gating, running content, professions use, etc.), and whether they are account-based or character-based. Balancing it would need to be thought out, but is doable.
For a maxed out guild, I think this would be good too, because it would give members something else to do to broaden their boon options. They could finally pick up a Life Steal boon when their guild never bothered with a Temple or get some boons on their alts that didn't manage to get a spot in the guild.
I'm not sure what to do about buyer's remorse for reluctant folks that got strong-armed into the guild thing. I guess just focus on the other benefits and the new additional options?
I suppose it would reduce the need for a small guild struggling in vain to level-up a stronghold, but that's kinda the point isn't it? The problem sounds more like a solution than a problem. Besides, people in guilds should be there because they want to be, not because they were blackmailed into it.
But we can elaborate now.
The issue of new members joining a rank 20 guild is related to guilds only. One way to adress that is to make it so you get a rank based on donations to coffer (not the guild rank, it's a "player rank" given by the game based on donations). You give 4 ranks which are also related to boons levels (rank1=2k stat, rank2=4k,rank3=6k,rank8=8k). So when you donate, you grow up in rank, and your boons grow accordingly.
About the amount of effort required in the campaign, it's a simple calculation: you divide the overall guild effort for the max number of players in a guild. Now, it's a personal choice and, again, a guild issue if some players decide to put more efforts and some decide to put less effort into SH building, or if players decide to form a small guild (also, small guilds now have alliances, which make it easier for them to progress). So we keep into account alliances and a guild with full number of players.
What these "solo" campaign boons must do is simply to give the same boons through solo play, proportional to the effort that ideally a single player should put into donating to his guild coffer.
Same as with SH, players can progress in the campaign doing what they would already do in game (PvP, dungeons, exc...) PLUS some daily tasks that would be the same as SH influence farming.
Now, about the time required: it can take up to 1 year to get a 8k boon in this solo campaign, but the point is that in the meanwhile you can reasonably start to get 2k-4k boon levels, decreasing the gap that there is now between guilded and unguilded toons.
Because if after 1 month i get a 2k worth boon, then after 2 more months i get to 4k, it means that instead of 8k less stats (compared to a guilded toon), now the gap is already halved. Then, in the following 9 months, you can get to 8k. And the good thing is that you don't need to do many dailies, but same as in SH, you do dungeons, PvP, exc...and only one type of "daily" quest (similar to SH influence).
Players would still go to guilds because there you can share the burden and form alliances. Plus, you get the SH map, SH gear (which will be Bis), future SH siege event exc...
But solo players would have a chance to get 4k worth of stats in a reasonable time, and then aim for full boons, simply playing the game and doing 1 daily mission. Even if players simply aim for 4-6k worth boons, it's still an improvement compared to the current situation, where guilded players get this massive advantage and the population is divided between players with a guild, and players without a guild.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I do believe that individual boons could be a viable thing. I 100% disagree that they should match what a SH boon gives you. No offense to people not in a guild but that's a choice you make so you shouldn't be allowed to have SH perks.
I have many alts and some are in guilds and others aren't. That's a choice I made.
Now, I can agree on a "personal boon" that maybe nets a player 1k power. But 8k. Nope. The resources, time, AD AD AD, shards, that went into getting 8k boons in a guild are ridiculous. Unless the "personal boon" costs are comparable, in a scaled fashion since this would be only one person contributing towards the goal, than I can never back this idea.
Also, I find it laughable that every time this gets brought up it's always one boon that gets mentioned the most. Power. I don't see people asking for personal XP % boons, mount speed boons, lifesteal, incoming heal bonus, etc. It's all about the paingiver chart.
It's never about making a personal boon system that would help non-guild players contribute to dungeon runs better. It's always "I want to be able to compete with guys that busted their humps grinding for months but I'm just not coming in 1st on the charts".
Also, before SHs there was little to no reason to be in a guild, and that was obvious. Sure, you had a guild channel and you had a nametag in common with friends, but it was actually BETTER for a person to create their own guild (guildbank). With SHs, there is a reason to be in a guild, and the game is better for it in some ways.
I don't think solo players should be totally out and I agree with the sentiment that there should be something for solo players. However, the benefits of coordinating a group of people to accomplish a goal should ALWAYS, and likely will ALWAYS, outweight the ability for a solo player to accomplish the same.
Wrapping a lot of the good things in the game around SH's is a bad idea and bad policy going forward. MW gear and the SH weapons are tied to guilds, and thats not good unless there is equal stuff outside of it.
I think most are in agreement at this point that the relic armor/weapons are BiS for most classes. Those are only obtainable through farming for restoration supplies or the actual gear in a group. Using your argument, the new mod 11 weapons should be equal to them since they are the weapons obtainable by soloing.
To me, you have a set of weapons that are obtainable through solo play, a set through farming in groups and a set by taking part in the largest group scale (guilds). None of these sets should be equal IMO.
So you could be ok with it if the cost and grind was brutal? As a solo player, a brutal cost and grind for the opportunity is all I'm asking for, personally. As it stands, there is NO OTHER WAY to make up ANY of it. Even if it was so brutal I could only stand to progress halfway up to 1 maxed boon, I'd be fairly content that at least there was a way I could slowly work towards. Masterworks being arbitrarily locked behind guilds is... bewildering (infuriating?), but that's another conversation. It's killed my hamster for professions so much though that I don't hardly even care anymore.
You have a point.
By enabling just more options, where even a guild player can get something out of it (Power boons for example are a problem in non-PvP guilds), and this way does not feel at a disadvantage. (On the contrary I would love to see something to do for non-guildplayers during stronghold related mods)
There will still the problem, that this could harm guilds, especially small ones, by slowing their progress. When there is new content, players often will invest their time mostly in this new content. Each time, there is a new mod, for example, I see that the stronghold resources become scarce. It would be a good idea, to lessen the burden of that.
Perhaps it would be a good idea, to create flexibility in the use of your own progress, like being able to use a part of that not for your own boons, but for the stronghold. This way you can concentrate on the new campaign and further your own goals, without the feeling, that you let down your guild. Or you can use the new content, to help your guild further.
I think, it would be fair, to not implement many new campaign resources, but let non-guild players use resources, which also can be put into coffers. That also would make it more fair, as non-guild players sometimes have huge amounts of campaign currencies, unused equipment (for example bags from the siege enchantment) and vouchers. They just need to enable new ways, to collect stronghold-specific resources like shards and influence.
@pando83
See, what I wrote to pterias
For the ranks I would prefer more ranks with smaller numbers, like 1k, 2k, 3k, and so on. Guild boon structures also work this way, and you have some short-time goals, which motivates you more.
I’m not sure, if your numbers are optimal, because of the differences in the shared effort. There are guilds, that got all their structures in record time, thanks to a small number of very dedicated players with 10-20 characters each, that can farm character-capped resources in a short time, and there are guild who since beginning of strongholds still have only rank 4-5 boon structures, because their players have not many different chars (even if they have more accounts in the guild and also very active players). This needs to be taken into account, and I think, it’s very difficult to find middle ground, so that it is not too easy for a single player (after all it should not be more easy when you do it alone), and also not too time consuming (if it takes too long, even with regular play, then no one would even try).
In my opinion, this is the hardest part and the main reason for not getting this (even if it would be a nice idea), as the fiddling with the numbers will be hell (and even if you find a really fair solution, you still will have to bear with many guild-players, who feel cheated somehow and deny non-guild players everything just out of spite and can be bad for sales). Also you should keep in mind, that even many of the bigger guilds think, that the required grind is horrible, which means, the grind for a solo-player will be absolutely insane. And even if there are some Players like you, that would be fine with that, the question is: Are there enough players, who will make it worth the time and work, Devs have to put in?
But there is absolutely no reason, to not ask for this and offer some ideas and constructive feedback. You never know, if there isn’t someone in Development, who sees it, thinks it’s a great (and profitable) idea, and feels up to the task.
1.) Saying solo players would never, ever put forth the effort that 1 average person in a guild put forward is a mind-blowing, spectacularly wrong assumption.
2.) Guild players have access to all those same campaign boons too. Adding campaign boons that only work if you are NOT in a guild is the only way your statement would make sense. We're not even talking about going that far. Actually, I think that would be counterproductive.
I have farmed long hours few toons per months, donated lots of campaign currencies. If you want 1 year long campaign with hours per day grind. And it wasnt even 10% work needed to max guild boons because many people worked to get 8k boon, whole year. And you want put 8k or even 1k in stupid solo campaign? You have solo campaigns in game and there are numbers like 500 not few k.
2)
People already crying about power creep and campaign grinding. You just want put effort like it would be 2nd shar and get high reward from nothing.
3)
Everyone can join guild, wanna solo play? Handle no GUILD BOONS.
4)
Perfect solution for you all is makin your own one-man solo guild and upgrade structures, then you can put exactly same effort. Good luck.
Ok, here's another approach. Does your guild offer every single boon you would like to be able to pick from for each of your characters? Do all of your characters belong to your guild? Do you wish there was a boon option available that no structure offers, like Deflect, Recovery, or Crit? Do you think it's good for players to pick their guild based on what boons are available instead of where they'd like to call home?
Adding earnable, SH-like boons options for individual players could address any of those issues. At the cost of allowing solo players access to those same options (again, through EARNING them), is it really such an unfair deal?
All old currencies, AD, shards, influence. It took at least few months even for high end guilds with rich people. Even more, it cost real money in some cases. And you want put boons like that in campaign. Lmao.
- Shards of Power: 750,000
- Construction Mats: 13,000,000
- Labor: 3,000,000
- Gold: 60,000
- AD: 250,000,000
- Gems: 5,000,000
- Surplus: 10,000,000
- Influence: 10,000,000
- Campaign Currency: 55,000,000
Now consider someone grinding an independent boon, in a guild or not, it doesn't matter. Each Boon would have tiers 1-10 and there could be a minimum tier to get any benefit at all, just with like a Boon Structure. This is also assuming it is account based, meaning all of their characters could contribute and all would benefit.
Replace Construction Mats with Profession resources. Replace Shards of Power with Seals, not sure on the exchange rate, I'll use 10 Seals per 1 Shard. Influence would need to be replaced with a new currency to act as a time-gate and effort-gate, it would be acquired at about the same rate as Influence. The task timer would be next tier x 1 week, so to get to rank 10 of a boon would take just over a year in task timing alone (although let's say you can work on more than one at a time).
Now for total costs of 1 max boon, let's divide the above totals by 500 and assume a normal donation conversion rate like what is used for Strongholds:
- "Seals" of Power: 15,000 Seals
- Construction Mats: 26,000 lvl 25 Prof mats
- Labor: 6,000 Prof assets/vouchers (could be higher, purple workers are cheap and offer a lot of points)
- Gold: 1200
- AD: 500,000
- Gems: 10,000
- Surplus: 20,000
- "not Influence": 20,000
- Campaign Currency: 110,000
- (certain boons could also have a Glory cost)
The end result of this setup would be that if someone farmed 5 of these boons to max, they would have put in roughly the same amount of work and resources as 1 average person in a maxed out guild of 100 members did for the ENTIRE Stronghold. In exchange for that, they would only have access to 5 boons instead of 12, and would have no Stronghold equipment available, no Masterworks, no overloads, no SH foods, no other benefits a guild can provide. Would that still be unfair? Childish and greedy? What if it was capped at tier 8 instead of 10? What if all the costs were doubled?
And don't say no one would go through with it.
First of all, to acheive boons you need boon structures and to build structures you have to upgrade GH and production plots. So its not just boon structures. When you gathered (and it already took long) all stuff and started upgrade of GH it took weeks for high ranks.
Shards are gated by daily limit 10 per toon or you can invest AD/real cash to buy it from market. Seals are not gated, specially when you are farming ship.
10k gems is nothing. I have put solo over 100k during that year. Yet, its still work of whole bunch of people, not single guy.
Surplus: Before quartermaster and sieges people were donating drops and buying offhands with trade bars.
Influence was worst, it took forever, and most people in guild thinks one toon is enough. Imagine biggest boost of influ was coming from people who ran 5-10 toons per day for months. Single toon influ means years to upgrade SH.
Campaigns... 110k, are you serious? Really? Ahahahah. Months of shar, tod, dr, iwd... or tons of genies, which costed 20k per one before current lockboxes.
You want boons for effort of single man, sure: divide 8k by 50 (or 500
There are lots of organizations in the real world, they are giving some profits to their members. Why non-member should get same profits without being part of them? Because of what, corectness? Gap between members and non members? Everyone are free to join and enjoy guild benefits. Its your own choice to not be part of guild, then dont demand things that only guild can get AFTER big WORK done by MANY people. No single campaign would reflect this effort.
For one boon.
In case you were confused, the numbers I posted previously were the costs for an entire maxed Stronghold, not just one boon structure.