test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Since we can't upgrade the stronghold system right now, here's an idea
holikiir
Member Posts: 38 Arc User
I couldn't find any suggestion like this on the forums, but anyway sorry if that's been said already.
1. THE PROBLEM
- Right now, Stronghold system is outdated as a whole and as I understood it won't be easy to rework it.
- Newer or developing guild struggle a lot, cause we can only use resources from very old campaigns that give barely no personal benefits for players (and can even be bought straight from zen market or tradehouse). Some give rough ad, others give appearence items or outdated equips that would be used for appearance anyway).
- Though I understand we must work in order to build a guild (and I personally like it!) it's currently very unbalanced and most players will just prefer to join a full upgraded guild to unlock game content and make endgame more viable.
- Since making new guilds or helping a developing one is very discouraging, it has some negative impact on playerbase. Some of ud (I can't say how many) like the hard path and like to work for what we get. But as it is right now, it's really TOO MUCH work for low and slow compensation.
2. SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?
I've been thinking about this for weeks and I would like to hear from other players cause I might have missed something that make this idea not so good, but here it goes...
A. VOUCHER VENDOR
You could add a vendor at Protector's Enclave (or expand functions for any of the ones that already exist) where we could exchange currency from "new" (some of them have years) campaigns. We could get something like "stronghold coins" (can't think of a good name) and buy vouchers with that. They could even be bound, the idea is not breaking the market, it's just to turn them to something useful, covering a demand that cannot be handled on a traditional way right now. People would still be able to use that currency for whatever they want in the game (if you're already GH 20 for example), like keys and stuff. But that would add a helpful option for players wanting to help their guilds. Already setup guild lose nothing with that. The only counterpoint is that some vouchers can lose value at the tradehouse, but I don't think the games loses too much with that, since they're not worth to buy in general.
B. CRAFTING
This could be harder to implement but as it says it's plan B. But professions could have options at higher ranks where we could craft our own vouchers (that could, again, be bound). And maybe use materials or currency we obtain from newer campaigns, so that way we mantain the idea of having to complete weekly/daily quests in order to donate something.
3. FINAL THOUGHTS
The whole idea is to keep the process where we must grind to develop the guild, but also reducing the huge gap (that only grows with time) between guilds. This would give more options to new players and encourage veteran players that are working (or could wish) to develop an already existing guild that is not fully upgraded.
Ty for your attention, would love to hear some opinions on that.
1. THE PROBLEM
- Right now, Stronghold system is outdated as a whole and as I understood it won't be easy to rework it.
- Newer or developing guild struggle a lot, cause we can only use resources from very old campaigns that give barely no personal benefits for players (and can even be bought straight from zen market or tradehouse). Some give rough ad, others give appearence items or outdated equips that would be used for appearance anyway).
- Though I understand we must work in order to build a guild (and I personally like it!) it's currently very unbalanced and most players will just prefer to join a full upgraded guild to unlock game content and make endgame more viable.
- Since making new guilds or helping a developing one is very discouraging, it has some negative impact on playerbase. Some of ud (I can't say how many) like the hard path and like to work for what we get. But as it is right now, it's really TOO MUCH work for low and slow compensation.
2. SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?
I've been thinking about this for weeks and I would like to hear from other players cause I might have missed something that make this idea not so good, but here it goes...
A. VOUCHER VENDOR
You could add a vendor at Protector's Enclave (or expand functions for any of the ones that already exist) where we could exchange currency from "new" (some of them have years) campaigns. We could get something like "stronghold coins" (can't think of a good name) and buy vouchers with that. They could even be bound, the idea is not breaking the market, it's just to turn them to something useful, covering a demand that cannot be handled on a traditional way right now. People would still be able to use that currency for whatever they want in the game (if you're already GH 20 for example), like keys and stuff. But that would add a helpful option for players wanting to help their guilds. Already setup guild lose nothing with that. The only counterpoint is that some vouchers can lose value at the tradehouse, but I don't think the games loses too much with that, since they're not worth to buy in general.
B. CRAFTING
This could be harder to implement but as it says it's plan B. But professions could have options at higher ranks where we could craft our own vouchers (that could, again, be bound). And maybe use materials or currency we obtain from newer campaigns, so that way we mantain the idea of having to complete weekly/daily quests in order to donate something.
3. FINAL THOUGHTS
The whole idea is to keep the process where we must grind to develop the guild, but also reducing the huge gap (that only grows with time) between guilds. This would give more options to new players and encourage veteran players that are working (or could wish) to develop an already existing guild that is not fully upgraded.
Ty for your attention, would love to hear some opinions on that.
Tagged:
8
Comments
Also, guild boons became even more relevant, making the gap between guilds bigger. It's about time to give some attention to this issues, after the new mod release wich I believe is taking a lot of work (and I'm happy about it!).
It would be good to hear from other players what they think too. Maybe there are other possible solutions that no one thought about.
Some of us farm with many alts just to be able to get those enormous amounts of (very old and barely useless) campaign resources. With combat changes, the struggle is real. Everything else is taking longer, so even less time for casual players to help with that. Please consider an update
Obviously they would be donated for frozen, fey, dread or tyranny currency
At first, I thought of a vendor/trader cause that seems to be a quicker way to deal with the problem without having to change anything in the stronghold system. Though I believe it needs a lot of changes, there's a chance it's not a priority right now, and it could take a lot of work. They would probably do a big rework, like they've been doing with other parts of the game.
So if we can have a quicker temporary solution, people can have a way of progressing and investing in guilds without having to wait that long.
I know most players will just jump to an upgraded guild, and there are many of them out there on PC. But there are players who like the hard path, building things from zero, etc. I think it's an important part of the process that bring new players to the game and make them stay. Guilds create bonds between players and with the game itself.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
2. Make Dragon Empire Treasures a coffer donation. There is no option to make Treasures of Tyranny Vouchers. And we all know (I hope) that Vouchers have more value than the components required to make them in other Campaigns.
A number of issues about guilds were raised in the "QoL Improvement" thread that was posted last year. Maybe a new one could be started, specific to Guilds?
Most if not all other categories are easily manageable:
- Profession Supplies: Lol, this is always capped.
- Shards: All obtainable through Daily quests and have the much lower costs per structure. Plus you can buy the Chest of Power.
- Gems/Equipment/Gold: Never in short supply.
- Astral Diamonds: It's an AD sink and a good one.
- Food/Metal/Stone/Wood: All self producing. You will never run out, plus it helps with the next resource.
- Influence: It takes 1 person less than 30 mins to generate 400 a day, a little extra strength or help and you can do T3s and get more Heroic Shards too. But more importantly, all that Food/Metal etc. you have laying around can be used to summon the Recruiter for ~1600 extra Influence a day. 1 person alone can generate 2k per day from this.
I'm also just gonna say this here:
Conqueror's Shards/Glory...
No one actually cares. It's pointless filler for construction that doesn't happen. No, that's not a prompt to make it worthwhile, it's an outright statement that the people who care about PvP are the weird minority and the stronghold PvP crowd, even more so.
1. We already have the option to convert AD into resources by buying vouchers, which already works as an AD sink since the tradehouse keeps that 10%. The main issue here is that farming those resources, right now, is not appealing or interesting even for new players.
2. Big AD keepers are already in fully developped guilds, so they won't spend on it. On the other hand, new players and developing players have already a lot to spend AD on, specially now that we must have a lot of companions and mounts, and upgrade them.
The whole point here is to make the guild farm interesting and relevant again, by using content we already have for that (and that players already do on a regular basis, like the newer campaigns).
Though I think AD sink is important right now, we could think of ways to provide interesting/convenient options for those players who have a lot od AD to sink. Maybe those are 2 separate issues.
That way, when a member finishes a campaign they can donate the leftovers. It also means they can donate 'spare' currency earned from the Legacy tasks - which people often just do for the store rewards.
Xael De Armadeon: DC
Xane De Armadeon: CW
Zen De Armadeon: OP
Zohar De Armadeon: TR
Chrion De Armadeon: SW
Gosti Big Belly: GWF
Barney McRustbucket: GF
Lt. Thackeray: HR
Lucius De Armadeon: BD
Member of Casual Dailies - XBox
It's truly more a gold sink in fact : you should pay in your workshop some adventurers to gather (at level 70) "Crates of Astral Diamonds" and donate to the mimic.
I spent (and helped) 41 months in it before enjoying a maxed out guild : 1 year from rank 4 to 14, 1 year from rank 14 to 18, 1 year from rank18 to 20 (+some months to finish the boons)
I don't think it's really difficult to get a guild up to the first ranks (i did it alone on my guild of mules in less than a year)
For 5 motivated players, it shouldn't be an issue at all if
- you coordinate efforts : influence are usually done faster with a party of guildmates (unless you have an endgame toon), guildquests for shards are always faster in a party as you can for exemple be one killing the bulette, one killing the owlbears, one killing the forgemaster, one killing the cyclop, and every one in the party will get all these quests validated shaving a lot of mount riding between all the target of quests named "challenge:", and also works with one more constraint for most of the "finish 3 campaign quests" [for exemple if 3 players in a party in dread ring and if none are further than ~300 foot from the others, each would only need to kill 1 red wizard to get the "kill 3 red wizards" quest done] + it's probably more fun than alone
- you do a bigger push and focus to put more efforts when x2 influence/shards/legacy campaigns are up.
Somewhere between rank 6th-10th, it will become more tedious if you don't grow in population to get more "arms". At this point, it starts to be a matter of leadership, a matter of ability to "sell" your guild to the available pool of unguilded players, a matter of retention of your guildies.
A couple of friends of mine (and ex-guildmates) have recently started a new guild (the foundation is for "event" purposes within the french community).
Ok, they aren't new players at all and have the advantage to be able to "heat up their adressbook".
After 4 weeks, their guild is already level 6, with 30 active players (though half are just on rerolls to answer the call of arms).
Creating and building a guild is a collective effort, hence, quite depend on your ability to gather and stimulate people around you.
With a bit of obstination, with a bit of skill in leadership, and/or with the ability to recruit "officers" who, as the core of your guild, are showcasing together or growing up to develop a good set of skills (see the "10 Amazing Types Of Neverwinter Players"
Being a level 20 guild or not doesn't matter a lot in my opinion. Maxed out boons are nice, but overall the most important are people you play with, not really your own stats.
I still do think low and mid level guilds are a better spot to join interesting players = those who are willing to invest time for collective projects, build something together and who remains fidel against odds. Not saying level 20 guilds can't be that, but you are more at the risk to meet people who are there for their own personnal benefit, "best boons without having to invest any time", "easier to do endgame stuff", and more prone to drop you like a paper handkerchief after blowing their nose in if anything goes wrong in their opinion.
It seems Vallenhas' crrency is going to replace old sharandar next mod. That is good news already, a step in the right direction.
Let say 5k of one time a week 5k is a lot of shards but very little for lumber, metal, stone, 5k might be a lot of gold and AD but not surplus supplies, spare equipment, gems, and 5k would be not much with any of the treasures, or Influence.
We are an Alliance and the lower guild provide a benefit to the higher guild (Helmet and sword) with a higher discount
(our tribute per say) I think that it is not out of line to ask for a little help from our "liege" in our time of need
Problem is, if none of the guilds in your ally is level 20, each guild is likely to be fully focused on their own mimic. If there are level 20 guilds, beside the few crafters/businessmen in it (who may want to grab raw ressources for mastercraft to use them or sell them) no one really needs to crawl in guildmarks as, apart from the few meals that can be interesting and situationnal overload enchants, you barely need any guildmarks at all.
Other than that, no "individual incentives" to farm the quests/influence/campaing currencies/etc for another stronghold as soon as you got the maxed out boons : you don't really need much guildmarks and won't probably help another guild in the alliance (if one is not level20 yet) in climbing their ranks.
Again, it's a matter of leadership (or a matter of organizing a special "player-event" with rewards) to make it so plenty of players in the ally start giving and funeling to one low level guild's mimic to help it over a certain period of time.
Growing your guild is a social game ^^, as it should in a MMORPG, or an extremely tedious and long task if you try all alone
My guild has a lot of resources within its coffer that it will likely never use, some of those resources would be useful to some of the lower level guilds within the alliance, and we would happily share them, if we could.
Co-Guild Leader
Ghost Templars L20
Alliance: Tyrs Paladium
Main: Cleric (Heals|DPS)
Alt: Warlock
If you want add more vouches availability, then why simply not add voucher pack as reward for all stronghold quests?
That would give lot of vouchers to all guilds, but that would not solve problems.
The problems are more deep than just stronghold upgrading progression.
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
==================================================
So to sum up i think devs really need work the SH system as imo it help keep ppl play even when we hate you ( devs ) lol
thank you & happy day to all
1) Introuduce multi instances in stronghold.. Thats mean, when comes Dragon Flight, Marauders and any other guild events would be hold in seprated instance with own event purpose areas. No other structures, no other npcs, just event stuffs..
2) Scale up Heroic encounters same as Demonic heroic encounters, thats mean, more players are in encounters area = increase enemies/monsters quality and quantity.
3) Disable Small and medium Heroic encounters starting when are no players arround ( same as avernus heroic encounters).
4) Disable Big heroic encounters to start on it's own,. It should be started manually by players, either talking with npc or interactting with altar or any other object( here is where staffs imagination have time to shine).
4.1) Add feature to scale Big heroic by master expedition runes scaling mechanic. And by increasing dificulity increase rewards(vauchers, guild points, masterwork stuffs( maybe)).
5) In stronghold daily quest add bounty hunting feature: Every day players can claim box with x1 random bounty poster.
Which request either clear dungeon, or kill specific quanitity or specific enemy in dungeon.
And reward for it.
Note: in hardcore mode reward should be double.
6) Add quest to complete dungeons with guild/alliance members only.
7) Reuse adjusted Avernus T3 ( nightspine) as boss which can be challanged twice per week. ( defeating lead 10% stronghold incomes with each donation), Failure to defeat lead -10% incomes. ( if you chalange then be sure you can do it).
8) Add extra bank slots which players could use sperated( private stronghold bank) which could be rented for certain sums of AD.
9) Add teleport stone in Stronghold.
10) Instead all guild have own stronghold, make alliance head guilds stronghold as main base( default). reason is that, low lv guilds will still do visit highest or max out guild in alliance due their vendors.
11) add feature: message board, ( as example poster wall which is near Strongholds Master of Coin.)
For now it's enough.. Latter will be more.
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
==================================================
Heroic Encounters are there to earn nothing more then Influence.. it should NOT take a 45k - 50k IL more then a few mins to complete SOLO..Period.
I run my Lower IL and lower level guild mates through there to help earn the NEEDED Influence, if they increase the difficultly it will make it just more hard work and seriously, this game is already to to much like work. It is already hard enough to get some of them into the stronghold...if you increase the difficultly they will just not do it.... meaning I will LOSE all that extra Influence.
Keep "MY" stronghold untouched.
BUT... they seriously need to FIX Marauders... they have WAY to many HP's. I am a 51k IL and can barely hold off the mobs with 10-15 other players. WHO THE HAMSTER cares if "I", in MY OWN Stronghold can one shot groups of mobs or not?? It is not YOUR Stronghold, it is MINE.
From what I see you did not.. I will not go in details, but only suggest try them. Then you will understand it's scaling system.
Other thing, the reason why lot of guilds disband before reaching guild hall lv 15 is that, game become too much solo play.
You pick quests in stronghold which require complete dungeons. Then jump in pug q, and thats it. You no need even do content with your own guild.
I have met players who where part of guild for year, yet haven't been in group with guild for years, not mentioned he haven't step in stronghold for last 5 modules.. He don't even say hi in guild/alliance chat.
He was in just for boons.
And thats what guilds become. Boons providers.
If you want progress your guild fast, you need players to do them as guild, not few random members try upgrade it to max. If you try press/force them participate, they leave.
A lot of players simply do not do any stronghold content, cuz there is nothing interesting for them. Neither anything rewarding. Oh look, after combat and scaling system change, you are no longer OWNING everything with few hits..
And thats how it should be.. Marauder from very start was guild content, not solo play. So I wonder what they should fix? Fix to match you?
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
==================================================
That regardless of how much armor plating I put on a tank ( Military Tank) a 22. cal should still be able to take it out, or that my guns should not be able to destroy a wood frame house with one shot? Seriously??
I mean , do you not believe that as you get more a powerful as a LvL 80, you should still hit like a LvL 70, regardless of how many Rank 15's, Mythic Companions and Mounts you have?? At this point, I SHOULD OWN everything I hit!!
Have you been is guild where so many are playing at different times and getting a group a group together is damn near impossible? Apparently not. "MY" Guild comes in at all different times, and frankly I, as most of them, just cannot and will not sit here waiting for hours and hours for others to show up just to run a few HE's.
All I am saying is.... just because you like x-tra cheese Anchovies on your pizza, does not mean that every pizza should now come with x-tra cheese and Anchovies.
and a BIG yes to... they need to reduce the HP of the mobs in MARA, not everyone has rank 15's, some mythic mounts and companions. It is NOT for me, but for those in my guild that are very low geared or of a lower LvL that I need to do mara so we CAN get the needed Influence.
I could only imagine that if Mara's and HE's were easier, that more guilds would progress faster. (You can run Mara 7 days a week BTW)
> @highlyunstable have you ever done demonic heroic encounter before??
> From what I see you did not.. I will not go in details, but only suggest try them. Then you will understand it's scaling system.
>
>
> Other thing, the reason why lot of guilds disband before reaching guild hall lv 15 is that, game become too much solo play.
> You pick quests in stronghold which require complete dungeons. Then jump in pug q, and thats it. You no need even do content with your own guild.
>
> I have met players who where part of guild for year, yet haven't been in group with guild for years, not mentioned he haven't step in stronghold for last 5 modules.. He don't even say hi in guild/alliance chat.
> He was in just for boons.
>
> And thats what guilds become. Boons providers.
>
> If you want progress your guild fast, you need players to do them as guild, not few random members try upgrade it to max. If you try press/force them participate, they leave.
>
> A lot of players simply do not do any stronghold content, cuz there is nothing interesting for them. Neither anything rewarding.
> Oh look, after combat and scaling system change, you are no longer OWNING everything with few hits..
>
> And thats how it should be.. Marauder from very start was guild content, not solo play. So I wonder what they should fix? Fix to match you?
I have 4guikds ranging from level 1-20.
I have a VERY active alliance and we USED to run Marauders (all 3 gates till it was stupidly hard)and Dragon flight and host Influence runs.
It takes coordination, like herding cats to achieve that but we do. Or we did. Members have left over the new system for various reasons.
Leveling has stopped and donations have dwindled. We won’t be raising anything soon.
No one was onshotting, we HAD 20 peeps working together, if All levels. We encouraged low levels to come just to participate knowing they would die lots, we have prizes.
That’s no longer going on. It’s hard enough to get influence runs together and folks are pissed they can’t solo the level 1 heroics like they used to when they didn’t have time to do level 2-3 with the groups.
So quit making it HARDER because that’s the way you think it should be. A stronghold has a mix of players and the littles are suffering and it sucks because we can’t help.
Marauders was a complete fail and didn’t pass wave 2.
DO NOT SCALE. WORST IDEA EVER.
Give us a vendor we can get voucher from, like the Jubilee vendors, since we won’t be getting them from players or events.
I asked have you done demonic heroic encounters. yet instead answering yes or no, or even I have done it loong time ago.
You simply put wall of text with tale about your guild past.
For most forum members it's become hard to talk without putting lines like:
I play this game since it's start or since x module.
I have founded and max out x quantity of guilds.
Like that would be a matter. What was done in past, it's remain in past. The matter is what it is now.
There are x3 main reasons why guilds are founded and why players join.
1) social active guild - such guilds predate Stronghold expansion(mod 7), its not matter if there is stronghold or not, they do content together. Cuz for them guild is place where gather same minded players.
2) boons, items and etc - in such type guilds, social activity is nearly dead stuff. Players join guild for boons, but never do content with their own guild or alliance.. They do them with other alliances or with pugs in general.
3) Storage purpose - name explain,, guild founded just for guild bank. No one bother to upgrade such guild.
The type two become more common, cuz you no longer need be part of x guild or alliance to have chat with them or do content. The custom chat like > NW_Legit_community or ToMM/Zarial_completed. There you look for players to form parties.
Some guilds still hold on type one, but for how long it will last?
As long there is no decent guild/alliance content in stronghold, then guilds become less relevant.
The current quests in stronghold mostly done solo.
Dungeons? join in random q with pugs.
Heroics? Average player walk over any minor heroics without any problems.
Big heroics ? Giants, Twin devils( No Sypahy), and even beholders all is require some foot work, but even they bring no challenge.
Kill 100 enemies in sttronghold?
Fights which bring no challenge, gameplay which is mostly done solo. How many times you do till it's become boring?
My first 5 mmorpg games where eastern ones, so for me heavy grind in not new, not mentioned repeatable grinding.
But at least in there it was more fun and more content done as guild, not solo.
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
==================================================
My idea is just that we can make resources from current or more relevant campaigns useful with a simpe trade system while we can't completely rework the stronghold.
The problems are, for sure, more deep. But it's been said by devs that this rework will take a lot of work and could take some time to go live. I just thought of some practical solutions for the meantime, so we don't have to wait. Cause the gap keeps getting bigger. More content being released, older content becoming less relevant, people seeing no point in doing them.
Few years ago, we used to farm for those treasures in maps that had interesting items for player development. It's about bringing that feeling back. We don't need "more" resources (in my opinion, at least), but we need them to stay relevant as the game itself progresses.
Scaling up heroics is something that could be really fun. It won't affect people that farm with 1-2 players, but will bring interesting options for the ones that manage to have big groups. I kinda like the way it is right now, but most people I talk to don't like it. And it's very boring after some weeks. Whem most of us do a complete cycle of encounters in less than 15 min, why grouping at all? It's much more practical to do it alone in your free time. Scaling content might make it interesting again, giving better rewards.
Bounty hunting is also an amazing idea and I've seen it work great in other games. It might also make the wholoe stronghold lore more interesting. Right now it feels a thing or two only happen there when we upgrade guildhall. A bounty system or something like it makes the place more alive and dynamic.
Again, tks everyone for the ideas! I really hope some of them get implemented soon