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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Benefits of smaller Guilds
HiddenDaggerInn
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
I'm interested in how the guild buffs will work for large size guilds and smaller guilds alike. As I believe it is now guilds will have to use guild points to increase their size, and smaller guilds should be able to use them to perform better against larger numbers of people.
However these buffs would really have to be powerful, since you still have actual players you need to kill, which with manymore healers than you have could be very difficult. Say your group of 10 fighting a group of 25-30.
What would you suggest or like to see as possible benefits for smaller guilds to help fight the mighty zergs.
I really don't want to see this(already has by the looks of some guilds) turn into a zerg fest. And if that's the case the streamers will run rampage over everyone.
Let's hear your thoughts... I apoligize if this has been brought up recently, been awhile trying to get more involved again with Alpha 2 anticipation.
However these buffs would really have to be powerful, since you still have actual players you need to kill, which with manymore healers than you have could be very difficult. Say your group of 10 fighting a group of 25-30.
What would you suggest or like to see as possible benefits for smaller guilds to help fight the mighty zergs.
I really don't want to see this(already has by the looks of some guilds) turn into a zerg fest. And if that's the case the streamers will run rampage over everyone.
Let's hear your thoughts... I apoligize if this has been brought up recently, been awhile trying to get more involved again with Alpha 2 anticipation.
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Comments
I am opposed to anything that makes it ez for 1 guild leader to control thousands of strangers. This leads to more zerg sieges and wars as well as no real sense of belonging to a guild. People are just "roles" that fill instanced raids ("I need 1 healer and 2 dps for....." said the mighty leader to his guild of strangers).
Here is how to prevent this:
Lv2 guild cant attack a castle. Needs quest and gold to become lv3. Member capacity 20.
Lv3 guild can attack a castle, cant form an alliance Needs quest and a lot of gold to become lv3. Member capacity 30.
Lv4 guild can attack a castle, can form an alliance (becoming the leading guild). Needs tough quest and a lot of gold to become lv3. Member capacity 40.
Lv5 same as Lv4. Max capacity 70 members.
Then you will have real guilds, with members who know one another on a personal lv. They will know each others combat ability without the need of DPS meters or item inspection. They will help each other to become stronger and better.
Proud guild flags (guild emblems/icons), as well as known strong players will create each servers Lore.
These buffs won't make you be able to defeat zergs, they will just be an incentive to NOT zerg. I'm asumming a 5% increase in few stats should be enough.
Large guilds will always have a benefit when it comes to group combat. They will be able to cover more ground, and with communication, will have more zerg potential. I am convinced that's just how it's going to be. A larger guild will also be able to do more things in-house, compared to a smaller guild that will have to form friendships with other guilds to accomplish tasks (like dungeoneering or open-world pvp scenarios).
Smaller guilds, however, will have benefits that the larger guilds wont have. Since we don't know the guild talents yet, it is only my speculation, but you will be able to specialize more effectively with a smaller guild. If you want to have a more economic focused guild, maybe you can get increased security for caravans. Or be able to craft things using less materials (or higher quality or whatever) if you want to specialize into crafting. Or maybe you will have combat guild talents that make each player more effective in a small group scenario.
There will definitely be times where mega guilds just run servers, and it's up to the rest of the players not in that guild to fight back and get control. The best part about this game is that it is all player driven, and oftentimes players are unpredictable. If the status quo stays for too long, people will want to change it up, so there will inevitably by changes to each server's politics over time.
The point is not to have an anti-zerg mechanic inside the guild progression system. It's a trade-off - size or goodies. I highly doubt the buffs will be significant enough for a small guild to be able to fight off a guild that fully invested in size - that would be at the very least stupid and bad design.
When it comes to zergs... I would predict it will be a very rare occurrence. Organizing hundreds of people in a game with no fast travel or teleportation would be a feat in and of itself unless you just have a roaming horde running from one end of the map killing people left and right. But then it loses purpose really.
You will see guilds like:
megaguild crafting
megaguild PvP
megaguild raiding
Maybe not with such explicit names, but the idea will be the same. I think at first, guilds might go for the increased player size buffs, but they will eventually realize that partitioning is more effective for large established guilds.
The benefit with smaller crafting guilds is that they might be able to network with large guilds to get things done. Like when small companies work together to increase each other's profit. At least, I would hope.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
I'll be interested to see exactly what the guild perks are. If there's a Crafting perk, then yeah, I absolutely expect to see all a guild's crafter's sectioned off into a "megaguild crafting" guild.
The thing with this is, a guild structured like this is much harder to run. If the guild has the leadership in place to manage to hold all of that together, more power to them, imo.
Edit to add; I actually think this is kind of the intent. The best way to deal with zerg guilds is to make them want to break themselves up. Even if it is held together for a while, it won't take all that long before various guilds start to splinter off.
Discord. Makes it super easy to manage stuff like this.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Managing a top end guild is work. Managing three top end guilds is work³.
As an example, if your raiding guild is top end, but your crafting guild isn't, your raiders are going to go looking for other crafters, and your crafting guild becomes worthless. On the other hand, if your crafting guild is top end and your raiding guild isn't, your crafters are going to want to make better gear than you are able to supply materials for. Since there is likely to be some sort of restriction to how much economic activity a player can have, your top end crafters aren't going to want to waste that on your low-end raiders.
In order for both guilds to be viable to keep around, both need to be roughly as advanced as the other.
As soon as a contingent of players in any one guild start to wonder why they are associated with any of the other guilds, the whole alliance is doomed. Discord doesn't help much with this - all it does is assist in communication between players.
When I played PS2, we had hundreds of players easily organised from players communicating with other guilds like a war room, relaying messages to raid leaders which squad leaders were part of to instruct their squads with new objectives. We used several communication platforms with different key binds for the different chats. We even had an RnD division for testing out strategies to implement. I sound like a nerd... lol
I don't think it will be an issue for leaders who understand the value of community. If sub-guild leaders can promote to their members using discord as their first line of communication over their sub-guilds in game chat and make sure that members cross potentate and work with other guilds, then bonds can form.
When people start to form their own little groups and ignore discord, then the problems you warn about will happen for sure.
It is a challenge, but discord makes it easier.
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Theorycrafting. What the guild bonuses could be other than just size increases?:
Combat orientated bonuses are obvious; +atk% +dam% +dam mitigation% etc.
Movement orientated bonuses. +movespeed% +mountspeed%
Stealth and Observation bonuses. +Mob/player identification range% stealthed characters more visible
Gathering bonuses. Use less tool durability, gather quicker, higher yield, cheaper tools
Processing bonuses. Use less tool durability, process quicker, higher yield, higher quality, cheaper tools
Crafting bonuses. Use less mats, craft quicker, craft more quantity, craft higher quality, cheaper tools
Reduced expenses in a node if Guildhall built in that node. Specific reduction for each expense or tax type, sales tax, accommodation rent, market stall fees, NPC service fees.
Reduced gear durability losses from combat (effectively a gear maintenance frequency reduction)
I can imagine some of the above being more popular than size increases, depending on how much bonus is awarded. For PvP, choosing between a buffs guild or zerg guild should be made a difficult choice, with no clear META. Ideally the META should partially be a rock-paper-scissors type decision, where the situation and opponents choices affect the viability of some options. Visibility of the META is further blurred by the individual and group capabilities. i.e. an amazing group of players can make a sub-optimal tactic work against less skilled players.
I would like to see some kind of restrictions on changing guilds rapidly, maybe a few days cooldown? I don't want to see a load of players jump into a guild for a single event then leave and immediately join another guild.
To encourage more stable guild membership, perhaps you only gain the guild bonuses when you have been a member for a full month and some higher level bonuses take 2 or 3 months of continuous membership to kick in?
I can't remember the full details on the system, but I remember being told there was a timer when you left a guild before you could join a new one, in Lineage 2.
I could see a timer before you get the buffs making sense, for Ashes. Otherwise people in meta guilds would be like... "I am doing a lot of travel today, can I get an invitation to the movement speed guild?"
This is my personal feedback, shared to help the game thrive in its niche.
Im gonna nitpick a very specific thing here not relevant to the discussion, but any sort of group persistent movement speed buff is bad. I've seen it in many many games, and especially in a game like Ashes with very limited fast travel, it won't play out well. Either you have to take it to be relevant, to chase a player/group or to run away, or it's so bad that no one takes it. In both cases it's bad.
Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.