Augments aren't an alternative to guild caps. Guild caps are not really about keeping game the game in balance - it's more about keeping the game dynamic and nudging people towards player vs player conflict. More guilds means more chance for conflicting objectives between the various guilds.
This is one argument, sure. But guilds who are primarily in the game for social reasons will not want to break apart for combat or any other reasons. Guild membership in Ashes is optional. It's not like other games where guild friction is a primary moving force in the game dynamics. Sure, there will be friction, but smart systems design will allow this to happen between guilds who want it to happen without pissing off guilds who are mainly there to RP or goof around in chat. These are valid playstyles. I hope to RNG that Ashes permits as wide variety of playstyles in the game as there are personalities here on the forums.
@lexmax It's not an argument, it's a clarification. The Ashes, in-game guilds play a crucial role in dynamically changing the world. All of the mechanics, including guild mechanics, feed back into the devs' Four Pillars for the game design.
Guild membership is optional, but there are strong incentives to joining guilds. In-game guilds have a strong impact and influence on the game world. Guild friction drives Meaningful Conflict. Meaningful Conflict changes the world.
Meta-guilds who are here mainly to RP or goof around in chat rather than enjoy Meaningful Conflict may wish to choose a different game. RP chat is not one of the Four Pillars. There are lots of people who just want to PvE and not participate in PvP combat, too. People will have to adjust to the game design and decide whether the components of the Four Pillars create a virtual world where they truly wish to live or if it doesn't meet their requirements for a fun experience.
But even by your logic, If say guild of 500 people break off into 5 guilds of 100 people.. They will still most likely fight with eachother and find ways to pvp alongside eachother, if the alliance system works that way. so what is the difference if those 5 guilds were in one guild as opposed to 5? If those guilds are in one larger community. They would not conflict / pvp with eachother. So what is the difference if the guild is capped at 500 vs an alliance capped at 500?
@lexmax It's not an argument, it's a clarification. The Ashes, in-game guilds play a crucial role in dynamically changing the world. All of the mechanics, including guild mechanics, feed back into the devs' Four Pillars for the game design.
Guild membership is optional, but there are strong incentives to joining guilds. In-game guilds have a strong impact and influence on the game world. Guild friction drives Meaningful Conflict. Meaningful Conflict changes the world.
Meta-guilds who are here mainly to RP or goof around in chat rather than enjoy Meaningful Conflict may wish to choose a different game. RP chat is not one of the Four Pillars. There are lots of people who just want to PvE and not participate in PvP combat, too. People will have to adjust to the game design and decide whether the components of the Four Pillars create a virtual world where they truly wish to live or if it doesn't meet their requirements for a fun experience.
@Dygz I hear what you are saying. But I also know you are a self-confessed non-conformist player who relishes a playstyle that's mostly contrary to the four pillar principles. So I do understand that you're playing a little devil's advocate here, and I have no problem with that at all
I was simply trying to add another alternative into the mix. One that maintains the focus on the game principles, but also doesn't disenfranchise sections of the community.
The four pillars are good principles, but dynamism does not just come down to design and game mechanics, it is also driven in a very fundamental human way by individual choice and playstyles. Without people who want to make crafting their primary focus, or fill the streets and taverns with idle banter and community spirit, or range like a ghost through the trees ganking unwary wanderers *ahem*, this game would not seem as complete to me.
So far IS have demonstrated a willingness to accommodate many play styles in Ashes (apart from the ganking). I'm pretty keen to see how the game systems will be designed to make human diversity a part of the game experience.
Official game mechanics that allow for actual alliances between guilds may help the issue.
It's also possible a sort of diminishing returns logistic penalty is associated with huge guilds (assuming the cap is raised significantly higher) so that the hardcore would find difficulty in abusing it for world domination, but casuals might not even notice, as it may not be relevant to what they are doing.
@foghladha you can make 2 guilds instead of just one. You name them almost the same (one letter difference or something), you put same logo, you use same website, same discord, only in game it's two guilds instead of one.
If game allows for it you can (even in game) create a custom chat channel where people from both guilds can talk together (in addition to discord, etc).
Then in one guild you put members that are more often online, and in other guild you put more social members that log in more rarely.
U all play together (with custom chat channel you can also type no problem together) you do dungeons together and everything, and you have enough room for all your members.
Your problems are thus solved like that, regardless of what guild caps we will have.
Yes, I've made note of that several times in this post as a likely solution. My bigger question was from a game design standpoint how does breaking 1 large guild into multiple smaller guilds help the game rather than building game mechanics to increase difficulty as the guild grows. It seems having 5 guilds in an alliance would lend itself more to having a single guild overrun a server rather than having 1 large guild that can be contained.
Depending on game mechanics.
If game benefits from guilds are confined to a guild instead of an alliance (I.e castle benefits for a guild vs. Castle benefits for an alliance), having a large number of players benefit from the actions of a few.
In the case of a non gsch type guild, this could lead to a large number of players amassing a large benefit. Discouraging competition in the server.
You could say that the game mechanics could work a different way and big guilds could make no difference. Another player might point could another set of hypothetical mechanics or factors that supports the positive factors of the large guild.
But because no one knows the game mechanics, arguing for or against this is pointless since we have a near unlimited number of variables and factors people could use to support "for" or "against" arguments.
@Dygz I hear what you are saying. But I also know you are a self-confessed non-conformist player who relishes a playstyle that's mostly contrary to the four pillar principles. So I do understand that you're playing a little devil's advocate here, and I have no problem with that at all
I was simply trying to add another alternative into the mix. One that maintains the focus on the game principles, but also doesn't disenfranchise sections of the community.
The four pillars are good principles, but dynamism does not just come down to design and game mechanics, it is also driven in a very fundamental human way by individual choice and playstyles. Without people who want to make crafting their primary focus, or fill the streets and taverns with idle banter and community spirit, or range like a ghost through the trees ganking unwary wanderers *ahem*, this game would not seem as complete to me.
So far IS have demonstrated a willingness to accommodate many play styles in Ashes (apart from the ganking). I'm pretty keen to see how the game systems will be designed to make human diversity a part of the game experience.
haha That's actually a really complex observation, my friend. I am definitely a non-conformist. I love the Meaningful Conflict concept even though I'm not sure that I can deal with it 24/7. So, I may not end up actually playing Ashes for progression. I may only participate as a kind of reporter chronicling the evolving stories of a couple servers. It's likely I would actually prefer a PvE-server with PvP combat disabled. Backing the Four Pillars is actually more important to me than my zeal to play the game. If the PvP-combat is too much for me to enjoy playing, I won't play and that's fine. And I'm saying the same thing about Gaiscioch. It may be that the game design is not one that the community will enjoy. But, we won't know until we're able to play.
Currently my position is the same as those who would prefer a designated RP server - I'm going to see if we can create an unofficial PvE server with comparatively low instances of PvP combat. Which is similar to Gaiscioch creating sub-guilds and forming an Alliance.
IS is also accommodating ganking, they just aren't catering ganking and are striving to ensure it's not a gankbox. The devs are accommodating guilds and PvE and RP - just not in a way that is necessarily the most comfortable fit for any of those playstyles.
We won't really know whether we feel disenfranchised until we actually play the game as designed.
Just wanted to clarify that by "guild bonuses decided by alliance" I meant that if an alliance conquers a Castle, will that castle be held by the alliance and hence the benefits and bonuses enjoyed by entire alliance members?
Or will it be held by a single guild in the alliance, requiring alliances to determine who in the alliance controls that castle.
If it's the latter, they'll have to decide on either taking turns to take control of the castle, or help other guilds in their alliance conquer castles of their own.
STEVEN: Castles exert control, to a degree, over the economies of Nodes under its influence. There are, as it stands now, 5 castles in the game and those castles have a domain that they control, to a degree. Owning a castle, the guild may be able to allocate some of those taxes for increasing defense spending in Nodes separate from the Node's taxation policies and coffers, they may activate certain events and abilities that can progress citizens of certain Nodes, they may unlock certain types of buildings. Castles have dedicated nodes around the castle that exist outside of the Node system that's buildable to a certain stage (Stage 4?) by the guild that owns the castle and the guilds that are in an alliance with that castle. There are a lot of different mechanics that relate to our castle system.
I think I remember a fairly recent quote that indicates it's just the leader of one guild who controls the castle. I'll post that one if/when I find it.
Hopefully, the guilds in alliance helping to build those dedicated nodes receive some of those castle perks.
@Dygs since you necroed this thread and I had to read like 208 entries to get to this point I will add my two cents. @foghladha I hope that you can work out a method that your community will enjoy the game.
One thought I had was to name the Alliance Gaiscioch , assuming alliances have names, and then use other names for your guilds. That should make all of your members feel a part of the whole for the most part. I trust that if you can manage the community you have created then the difficulties that the guild/alliance system present can be overcome, probably using tools that you already have to manage your community. I hope that the in game tools for alliances/guilds compliment this and provide the environment that your community needs. We will just have to wait and listen for dev updates for guild/alliance tools. Tools such as Alliance chat, Alliance rosters to see who is online, etc. would go a long way to enabling your community. The ability for other alliances to toggle these tools may be useful as well.
Now for the dangers of megaguilds and server domination. This is something that actually caused me some concern until I remembered that leading people is like herding cats. This game will lead to servers that are being dominated being boring which will either lead to the break up of the megaguild, through in fighting. Or the migration of the rest of the population to different servers. Good luck moving a megaguild to a new server if the original server depopulates. That would be terrible for everyone that had to move but hopefully manageable. The other solution is to just wait it out. Group dynamics shows that the larger a group that a single person leads the more autocratic the leadership style. This leads to group friction or disassembling the leadership by hierarchy. Both choices would provide the dynamic world that the dev's talk about over time. The autocratic leadership style stifles creativity and disallows change which leads to stagnation within the group. Given that this is a game that people play for fun and have to pay for that any group adopting an autocratic leadership style will splinter or simply dissolve. Disassembling the leadership through hierarchy will usually have the same result as egos clash and the difficulty of maintaining focus for all the small groups becomes overbearing.
The balance between the advantages of being in a large guild and the difficulty in managing it may be the game mechanic that allows communities like Gaiscioch to thrive and a megaguild bent on server domination to fail. @foghladha has mad respect from me for creating and maintaining a community that has overcome these issues. Part of that is the benefit of Gaiscioch is the community. A megaguild bent on server domination has to manage reward distribution, player egos and many other things to remain cohesive.
TL:DR (in a style akin to @Umji ) Big groups not last people = drama more people = more drama Big groups splinter like broken spear.
+Guilds have a complex leveling mechanic, with passive abilities and skills as they level. They also increase their max size as they level. Currently I am thinking that max member count will fall around 250-300
I want to implore you to expand this to at minimum 500. I wrote a great article about this in Gaiscioch Magazine titled "The Anti-Social Epidemic: MMOs Make Unconscious Move To Punish Casual Gamers" I understand a hard core PVP guild at 500 players all of them online at the same time would be detrimental to the game, however a casual / social community with 500 people would be lucky to have 40 online at the same time. With 300 you simply have 20-25 people. Spread across the different levels and playstyles this leaves next to nobody to play with.
Please read my article before you make the same mistake so many others have. I personally just rallied over 500 members to help crowdfund Ashes of Creation and now reading this news, Ashes of Creation might be taken off the table. We have never been able to keep members playing when their is a Guild Limit that cuts us in half or fourths.
Small Guild Ceilings hurt the Social Gamer so much more than the hard core gamer as the Social Gamers are Discarded like trash when Guild Limits require guild leaders only keep the most active players. Small guild sizes make it impossible for a casual player to find a home in a larger community.
Please reconsider this stance. It's hurtful to your community and the ones who will suffer the most are those that can't play everyday.
Some data to think about.
In 2001 the average mmo gamer:
Was between 16-25 years of age
Paid $15 per month to play
Average Playtime: more than 40 hours a week
In 2016 the average mmo gamer (Per SuperData Research)
Average Age: 33 Years of Age
Average Playtime: 10 Hours a week
Over the past 15 years the demographic has shifted. Younger gamers are used to playing Free-2-Play or Buy-2-Play games and typically shy away from Subscription Games. However the people who played back in the hayday of the MMO world are used to paying a subscription, however they are no longer 16-25 years old. They are now 30-50 years old, most of which are in the middle stages of their career, have families, and have commitments. They don't play 40 hours a week anymore.
So your target demographic is a more mature demographic that doesn't mind paying a subscription but doesn't have time to play like they used to. Thus your Guild Limit targets these players and alienates them. The communities that have been around for 10+ years are now faced with picking and choosing which of their legacy members can come along and play with them. They're forced to choose which child they love more. This burns people, and breaks communities.
Please think about this, look at the data, research the data, and forecast the long term effect of this choice. Ashes of Creation stands above every other MMO on the horizon right now but this one fact will kill it's potential to bring large pre-existing guilds into the game which is what the original pitch was aimed at.
I do agree that castle owning guilds should be the only guilds to receive full castle perks.
However I also agree that part of the perks should go to guilds that helped somehow, based on level of contribution.
I am not saying I have a perfect idea how to implement it, just that it would be nice if it would be possible to reward contribution depending on contribution level.
I haven't read the whole thread just skimmed it, so sorry if this has been brought up.
There will be incentives to stay small (as a guild) in form of power boosting abilities that you take over additional membership slots. They will also have mechanics geared toward small guilds. Now how this will all play out will be seen in testing. They might add a cap to alliances so guilds don't just create smaller guilds to game the system for the power perks. They could also tweak how ownership of castles work. We'll probably see multiple tweaks and iterations until IS gets it right, it's up to us as testers to make sure we give them feedback and try and game the system.
+Guilds have a complex leveling mechanic, with passive abilities and skills as they level. They also increase their max size as they level. Currently I am thinking that max member count will fall around 250-300
I want to implore you to expand this to at minimum 500. I wrote a great article about this in Gaiscioch Magazine titled "The Anti-Social Epidemic: MMOs Make Unconscious Move To Punish Casual Gamers" I understand a hard core PVP guild at 500 players all of them online at the same time would be detrimental to the game, however a casual / social community with 500 people would be lucky to have 40 online at the same time. With 300 you simply have 20-25 people. Spread across the different levels and playstyles this leaves next to nobody to play with.
Please read my article before you make the same mistake so many others have. I personally just rallied over 500 members to help crowdfund Ashes of Creation and now reading this news, Ashes of Creation might be taken off the table. We have never been able to keep members playing when their is a Guild Limit that cuts us in half or fourths.
Small Guild Ceilings hurt the Social Gamer so much more than the hard core gamer as the Social Gamers are Discarded like trash when Guild Limits require guild leaders only keep the most active players. Small guild sizes make it impossible for a casual player to find a home in a larger community.
Please reconsider this stance. It's hurtful to your community and the ones who will suffer the most are those that can't play everyday.
Some data to think about.
In 2001 the average mmo gamer:
Was between 16-25 years of age
Paid $15 per month to play
Average Playtime: more than 40 hours a week
In 2016 the average mmo gamer (Per SuperData Research)
Average Age: 33 Years of Age
Average Playtime: 10 Hours a week
Over the past 15 years the demographic has shifted. Younger gamers are used to playing Free-2-Play or Buy-2-Play games and typically shy away from Subscription Games. However the people who played back in the hayday of the MMO world are used to paying a subscription, however they are no longer 16-25 years old. They are now 30-50 years old, most of which are in the middle stages of their career, have families, and have commitments. They don't play 40 hours a week anymore.
So your target demographic is a more mature demographic that doesn't mind paying a subscription but doesn't have time to play like they used to. Thus your Guild Limit targets these players and alienates them. The communities that have been around for 10+ years are now faced with picking and choosing which of their legacy members can come along and play with them. They're forced to choose which child they love more. This burns people, and breaks communities.
Please think about this, look at the data, research the data, and forecast the long term effect of this choice. Ashes of Creation stands above every other MMO on the horizon right now but this one fact will kill it's potential to bring large pre-existing guilds into the game which is what the original pitch was aimed at.
Skyforge begins with a 30 person limit and requires grinding to raise that up to 250
Games without Small Guild Limits at Launch
Final Fantasy XIV limits to 512 accounts
EVE limits 12,600 Accounts
Everquest 1 & 2 do not limit
RIFT does not limit
Ultima Online does not limit
World of Warcraft limits to 1000 characters
Which set of games has thrived in their first year? Which set of games did not thrive in their first year?
SWTOR had guilds at 500, and now 1000, because demand warranted it. However, the most I've ever seen online in a single guild since launch is 30-50. Granted my experience may not be average, but I think part of the problem is alt characters. When someone tags up, we should be allowed to add all the alt characters of that tagging member without it going towards the guild total. That way the guild numbers are more realistic.
Right. But, you asked "If the game allows you to bypass the guild cap by having multiple guild alliances then what is the point of the guild cap?" Which is different than solutions. I just was answering your question.
Augments aren't an alternative to guild caps. Guild caps are not really about keeping the game in balance - it's more about keeping the game dynamic and nudging people towards player vs player conflict. More guilds means more chance for conflicting objectives between the various guilds.
YES!
Anyone ever been on a server dominated by a mega guild? One whose just so bloated they win my just showing up?
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Give me a bunch of smaller guilds duking it out any day.
i dont know why anyone would want it any other way
How about they limit guild numbers based on the level of the guild? Allow only 40 for a level 1 guild. I really really don't want a guild to be capped off accounts. I'd prefer character. If someone wants to have alts on another guild they should be allowed, this won't cause and issue since only one can be logged at a time
How about they limit guild numbers based on the level of the guild? Allow only 40 for a level 1 guild. I
I don't like this.
This punishes gaming communities that come into the game together, and want to start playing in a guild together from the get go.
Then annoyance of creating multiple guilds, common chat channels, than as one guild grows, move people to it, close down clone guilds... it's just bad.
I think guilds should have larger caps from the get go, and then as they level up, other perks should grow in power. Guild member cap should be larger right away.
I still play WoW, in fact I am a guildleader in 1 of the realms. In my Guild we have between 140 and 160 toons, but a lot people have alts. The actual member count is about 45. Since we are a pretty tight guild, but do a lot things together, we have a very active playerbase, where we have at least 25 people online at the same time. We have members who are older than 60, most of our members are between 18 and 45 years old and we have very few members younger than 18.
What I want to say is... that guild caps should not too big. A lot guilds have a high "membercount" including alts. But nobody talks at all. Nor even help eachother or have fun together.
The other downside to having high guildmember cap is that in some scenario's, people will all join the 'biggest' guild, because the sheer amount of numbers overpowers the rest. Of course I think that guilds should feel stronger if there are more members, but not to the point, they are "best" and only win by sheer numbers, instead of tactics or teamwork. Which is mostly not fun at all.
I think a member cap of 200 accounts per guild, should be good enough, if not even already a bit too big. Of course guilds should be able to have more "alts". But... I want to advise to look towards an account cap. Max. 150 or 200 accounts per guild. Unlimited alts per account in a guild.
How about they limit guild numbers based on the level of the guild? Allow only 40 for a level 1 guild. I
I don't like this.
This punishes gaming communities that come into the game together, and want to start playing in a guild together from the get go.
Then annoyance of creating multiple guilds, common chat channels, than as one guild grows, move people to it, close down clone guilds... it's just bad.
I think guilds should have larger caps from the get go, and then as they level up, other perks should grow in power. Guild member cap should be larger right away.
I would have to agree with Winter on this. There would be no goals nor objectives if every perk / benefit was handed out at start up.
Why not have goals to work towards, and if the group are a group, then they can goal it and achieve it!
L2 worked this way and it was a great way to differentiate the guilds that worked together and had substance versus the guilds that filled their ranks with randoms for the sake of numbers and little else.
Rush to have all at the beginning and the game quickly fades to monotony. Have it also have the capacity to be taken away then it means even more to achieve and retain it!
No limits also promotes mass zerging, instead of smaller more skilled guilds.
For the record, you will find MANY more zergs with PuGs than you ever will find them under a single guild tag. Go play an MMO and look at the zerg. It's very rare that that entire blob is a single guild. When people are playing a siege warfare game solo they flock to other people because numbers = protection. When your alone you die quickly, with a zerg you have a chance to fight and learn to play. This is a natural player behavior that happens in EVERY game and even in real life. You can make Guilds 10 people only and there will STILL be zergs. Guild Size has nothing to do with it. Hell in Warhammer Online I personally lead a massive force that was made up with about 5% Gaiscioch and 95% public groups that exceeded 200 players. Look at this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6PVplj5H04&list=PLEBF943EEF8172F27&index=6
PUGS flock to Leadership. It doesn't matter what guild their in, they will come if the leader can herd them well.
Doesn't need to be a fight, it could be a constructive debate. This used to be a thing people did and not get offended about. It is also known as brainstorming in some circles. Every opinion that is not your opinion is not an insult. It's another perspective that can be learned from and utilized.
Doesn't need to be a fight, it could be a constructive debate. This used to be a thing people did and not get offended about. It is also known as brainstorming in some circles. Every opinion that is not your opinion is not an insult. It's another perspective that can be learned from and utilized.
When you first posted this, I was really impressed with the stats. A few of us VCed about it then. Thought I'd share, kudos!
Comments
It's not an argument, it's a clarification.
The Ashes, in-game guilds play a crucial role in dynamically changing the world.
All of the mechanics, including guild mechanics, feed back into the devs' Four Pillars for the game design.
Guild membership is optional, but there are strong incentives to joining guilds. In-game guilds have a strong impact and influence on the game world. Guild friction drives Meaningful Conflict. Meaningful Conflict changes the world.
Meta-guilds who are here mainly to RP or goof around in chat rather than enjoy Meaningful Conflict may wish to choose a different game.
RP chat is not one of the Four Pillars.
There are lots of people who just want to PvE and not participate in PvP combat, too.
People will have to adjust to the game design and decide whether the components of the Four Pillars create a virtual world where they truly wish to live or if it doesn't meet their requirements for a fun experience.
I was simply trying to add another alternative into the mix. One that maintains the focus on the game principles, but also doesn't disenfranchise sections of the community.
The four pillars are good principles, but dynamism does not just come down to design and game mechanics, it is also driven in a very fundamental human way by individual choice and playstyles. Without people who want to make crafting their primary focus, or fill the streets and taverns with idle banter and community spirit, or range like a ghost through the trees ganking unwary wanderers *ahem*, this game would not seem as complete to me.
So far IS have demonstrated a willingness to accommodate many play styles in Ashes (apart from the ganking). I'm pretty keen to see how the game systems will be designed to make human diversity a part of the game experience.
It's also possible a sort of diminishing returns logistic penalty is associated with huge guilds (assuming the cap is raised significantly higher) so that the hardcore would find difficulty in abusing it for world domination, but casuals might not even notice, as it may not be relevant to what they are doing.
Depending on game mechanics.
If game benefits from guilds are confined to a guild instead of an alliance (I.e castle benefits for a guild vs. Castle benefits for an alliance), having a large number of players benefit from the actions of a few.
In the case of a non gsch type guild, this could lead to a large number of players amassing a large benefit. Discouraging competition in the server.
You could say that the game mechanics could work a different way and big guilds could make no difference. Another player might point could another set of hypothetical mechanics or factors that supports the positive factors of the large guild.
But because no one knows the game mechanics, arguing for or against this is pointless since we have a near unlimited number of variables and factors people could use to support "for" or "against" arguments.
I am definitely a non-conformist.
I love the Meaningful Conflict concept even though I'm not sure that I can deal with it 24/7.
So, I may not end up actually playing Ashes for progression. I may only participate as a kind of reporter chronicling the evolving stories of a couple servers.
It's likely I would actually prefer a PvE-server with PvP combat disabled.
Backing the Four Pillars is actually more important to me than my zeal to play the game.
If the PvP-combat is too much for me to enjoy playing, I won't play and that's fine.
And I'm saying the same thing about Gaiscioch. It may be that the game design is not one that the community will enjoy.
But, we won't know until we're able to play.
Currently my position is the same as those who would prefer a designated RP server - I'm going to see if we can create an unofficial PvE server with comparatively low instances of PvP combat.
Which is similar to Gaiscioch creating sub-guilds and forming an Alliance.
IS is also accommodating ganking, they just aren't catering ganking and are striving to ensure it's not a gankbox.
The devs are accommodating guilds and PvE and RP - just not in a way that is necessarily the most comfortable fit for any of those playstyles.
We won't really know whether we feel disenfranchised until we actually play the game as designed.
STEVEN: Castles exert control, to a degree, over the economies of Nodes under its influence. There are, as it stands now, 5 castles in the game and those castles have a domain that they control, to a degree.
Owning a castle, the guild may be able to allocate some of those taxes for increasing defense spending in Nodes separate from the Node's taxation policies and coffers, they may activate certain events and abilities that can progress citizens of certain Nodes, they may unlock certain types of buildings.
Castles have dedicated nodes around the castle that exist outside of the Node system that's buildable to a certain stage (Stage 4?) by the guild that owns the castle and the guilds that are in an alliance with that castle.
There are a lot of different mechanics that relate to our castle system.
I'll post that one if/when I find it.
Hopefully, the guilds in alliance helping to build those dedicated nodes receive some of those castle perks.
One thought I had was to name the Alliance Gaiscioch , assuming alliances have names, and then use other names for your guilds. That should make all of your members feel a part of the whole for the most part. I trust that if you can manage the community you have created then the difficulties that the guild/alliance system present can be overcome, probably using tools that you already have to manage your community. I hope that the in game tools for alliances/guilds compliment this and provide the environment that your community needs. We will just have to wait and listen for dev updates for guild/alliance tools. Tools such as Alliance chat, Alliance rosters to see who is online, etc. would go a long way to enabling your community. The ability for other alliances to toggle these tools may be useful as well.
Now for the dangers of megaguilds and server domination. This is something that actually caused me some concern until I remembered that leading people is like herding cats. This game will lead to servers that are being dominated being boring which will either lead to the break up of the megaguild, through in fighting. Or the migration of the rest of the population to different servers. Good luck moving a megaguild to a new server if the original server depopulates. That would be terrible for everyone that had to move but hopefully manageable. The other solution is to just wait it out. Group dynamics shows that the larger a group that a single person leads the more autocratic the leadership style. This leads to group friction or disassembling the leadership by hierarchy. Both choices would provide the dynamic world that the dev's talk about over time. The autocratic leadership style stifles creativity and disallows change which leads to stagnation within the group. Given that this is a game that people play for fun and have to pay for that any group adopting an autocratic leadership style will splinter or simply dissolve. Disassembling the leadership through hierarchy will usually have the same result as egos clash and the difficulty of maintaining focus for all the small groups becomes overbearing.
The balance between the advantages of being in a large guild and the difficulty in managing it may be the game mechanic that allows communities like Gaiscioch to thrive and a megaguild bent on server domination to fail. @foghladha has mad respect from me for creating and maintaining a community that has overcome these issues. Part of that is the benefit of Gaiscioch is the community. A megaguild bent on server domination has to manage reward distribution, player egos and many other things to remain cohesive.
TL:DR (in a style akin to @Umji )
Big groups not last
people = drama
more people = more drama
Big groups splinter like broken spear.
However I also agree that part of the perks should go to guilds that helped somehow, based on level of contribution.
I am not saying I have a perfect idea how to implement it, just that it would be nice if it would be possible to reward contribution depending on contribution level.
There will be incentives to stay small (as a guild) in form of power boosting abilities that you take over additional membership slots. They will also have mechanics geared toward small guilds. Now how this will all play out will be seen in testing. They might add a cap to alliances so guilds don't just create smaller guilds to game the system for the power perks. They could also tweak how ownership of castles work. We'll probably see multiple tweaks and iterations until IS gets it right, it's up to us as testers to make sure we give them feedback and try and game the system.
Some games require a fair amount of people. Either recruit more or learn to be happy with playing the game with some content out of reach.
I would just love to add something to think about as well:
Ashes of Creation will be (and I am very happy about that) very different than any other game so far.
Thus, whatever numbers other games had, means nothing to me, and should mean nothing for Ashes of Creation.
That being said, should anything greater be implemented I believe it must be in proportion to the server capacity to avoid a mono-culture
This punishes gaming communities that come into the game together, and want to start playing in a guild together from the get go.
Then annoyance of creating multiple guilds, common chat channels, than as one guild grows, move people to it, close down clone guilds... it's just bad.
I think guilds should have larger caps from the get go, and then as they level up, other perks should grow in power. Guild member cap should be larger right away.
What I want to say is... that guild caps should not too big. A lot guilds have a high "membercount" including alts. But nobody talks at all. Nor even help eachother or have fun together.
The other downside to having high guildmember cap is that in some scenario's, people will all join the 'biggest' guild, because the sheer amount of numbers overpowers the rest. Of course I think that guilds should feel stronger if there are more members, but not to the point, they are "best" and only win by sheer numbers, instead of tactics or teamwork. Which is mostly not fun at all.
I think a member cap of 200 accounts per guild, should be good enough, if not even already a bit too big. Of course guilds should be able to have more "alts". But... I want to advise to look towards an account cap. Max. 150 or 200 accounts per guild. Unlimited alts per account in a guild.
Why not have goals to work towards, and if the group are a group, then they can goal it and achieve it!
L2 worked this way and it was a great way to differentiate the guilds that worked together and had substance versus the guilds that filled their ranks with randoms for the sake of numbers and little else.
Rush to have all at the beginning and the game quickly fades to monotony. Have it also have the capacity to be taken away then it means even more to achieve and retain it!
There are pitfalls to either situation, and the limitation on guild sizes is generally because you want to avoid the zerg mentality.
It also depends on how the alliance system works, and how the guild system overall plays into the game.
PUGS flock to Leadership. It doesn't matter what guild their in, they will come if the leader can herd them well.
Guess we are going to just fight today huh?