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To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
well what you talk about seems quite appealing
about my experience, i am not talking about my own guild, since i was in small friendly but competitive guild, and have always been joining such guild in MMOs. I am talking about other guilds i played together with (as friends in some cases or foes in other) and since the community was not that great (like 10k players total) we knew eachother quite good (at least the strongest groups (big and small alike)).
my example is on the first page in the comments
You are trying to word it weirdly im going to make it clear if its 1200 people that played another game and were a guild together, that doesn't change for a new game. The people that go with them to the new game and join the guild are still together even split between whatever many guilds.
It doesn't matter how you try to word it that is the reality, if those 1200 people are following them to a new game that is an amazing feat. I don't think you understand how difficult that is, people are palying with them for a reason.
Your example only works if it was some community server made of random guilds and they didn't play together. You are trying to find a way to not call them a guild even though its a guild lmao.
You are wasting your time with the most pointless argument. The moment the light turns on in your head and you realize the root issue is you need to stop guilds from using zerg mechanics to win a server you actually will make some progress in convincing people. So in the meantime be ready to join a zerg or end up getting farmed ;o
Appreciate the explanation. Then to me it seems that your friends from big guilds were unlucky and had shitty leaders, who couldn't share the spoils brought by their players with everyone equally. So of course such guilds wouldn't survive all that long.
But the main counterargument to your OP comes from experience of guilds that have outlived years of games where they had to split into much smaller sections of the group, yet still shared the spoils all the same.
Well it wasnt the lack of leadership that split those guilds, it was the in game mechanics build afterwards that made 150/500 players winners, and 350 to lose the server, and this was not something you could work around
and ye the spoils from the win could not be shared with anyone (smth like soul Bound )
Because AoC's rewards won't be BoP and the game will have free trading. So there's no game-based difference between 2 guilds of any size being in an in-game alliance or being completely separate guilds but have people from the same discord in them. In both cases these guilds would be able to share loot with each other, transfer money to each other through said loot, and/or share content by farming it one after the other.
I'd assume you're not suggesting to disable free trade or implement BoP mechanics, so the only lost benefit for the sub-guild would be the "whatever intangible benefit a castle gives". But as I already said, that intangible benefit can be balanced out by giving non-castle members money that come from the castle.
Conceptually, this would be no different from a small guild hiring merc guilds to help them siege and defend a castle. Both sides have their benefits, that both sides deem worthy enough to keep doing what they're doing.
yes the rewards were bound, no trading at all (well there was no trading at all with anything, not just rewards)
And yes i am not suggesting to restrict trading, since the whole economy of AOC is based on trading for professions, mats, items, consumables, items that break and have to be repaired or remade.
But the rewards can be something per guild, like owning castle gives you this and this while the castle is yours.
Obviously this will have to be tested, but I do think it'll go down that way, mostly because I foresee mayors of nodes under castles to campaign on their relations for or against the castle guild.
In other words, imo, castle taxes lead to very interesting politics that would directly influence the change of the world.
And intangible rewards are nebulous at best and are most likely easily counterbalanced through other actions. Or can just be used to increase the benefit output of the castle guild, which can then be used to share said output with sub-guilds. Hell, the same could even be said about gear rewards, so even if that WAS implemented - a 100-member guild would simply use that gear to farm faster/better/stronger and then share the farm with the other sub-guilds, so there'd be no reason for those sub-guilds to rebel.
Have a whole gameplay loop around the funds meant to be used for tactical advantage and territory control. No reason for funs to be going in peoples pockets, mainly hardcore guilds so they get even more ahead in gearing. There is no no reason for that imo nor should it be a choice. Hence they race ahead to control it. And use that time where they are head to not worry about other things and fund their own pockets as long as possible.
This has been a issue in every recent game and makes hardcore guilds harder to take out do to that. Its just unnecessary and extra balancing (which most likely won't be perfect and will also be too late).
With a proper loop you will have that interesting politics except that it will always be the case since there isn't a chance to just pocket money.
By per guild reward i didnt really mean items.
I mean more like just example (i dont like this example also but didnt think of something as better example on the fly) - what if for example the guild owning the castle get some form of fast travel that is once per week for example to teleport somewhere. or what if they get augment that is unique (not better, just unique)
and ofc if they lose the castle they lose the ability instantly
it just needs to be something that everyone wants, but is not game changing
Also, that money would get spread to everyone who doesn't have the castle. It'll go to casuals who're selling random mats. It'll go to other guilds that managed to get a rare item and would prefer money instead. So as long as the overall gearing system is set up well enough, just having money shouldn't snowball those guilds too much, because it will indirectly support other players as well.
As I see it, that's money from taxes. Anything intangible wouldn't be desired enough by everyone while also having no real impact on the game's balance.
Castle isn't a node they would work much different, the castle would be a influence of power between the nodes in the area. That is the whole point of politics (if you idea of politics is about players being able to pocket money we have a big difference in understanding of politics then which i feel is the issue). Money isn't anything politics or interesting, that be like playing risk and removing all interesting card effects and than just saying people get money instead.
To me this is bad design when you are banking on them losing and people getting money as a reason for that kind of content and saying the money is spread like that.
I'm unsure what you are talking about with rare items.
Pretty much again you are banking on them not to be able to defend it (im assuming you are talking about people just zerg it, honestly that is bad content imo). Casuals aren't getting money the hardcore guilds will be getting the money that plan and attack it.
Im getting tired of people trying to say this is going to help he casuals with hardcore pvp content , it is one of the most dog crap arguments ever. No it is not going to benefit casuals, hardcore guilds or atleast good guilds with good communication are going to be the one to benefit. Casuals with be rag tag and most likely not bother or leave after getting killed in seconds.
This is not politics nor a a satisfactory reason to try and stop snowballing. Again you are looking at L2 as example and not trying to think about AoC doing its own thing. We already have this example from T&L and the result of it of what happens. No casual is getting anything, nor no casual is raising up against top guilds. It didn't happen in T&L its not happening now.
If we are talking about politics the same way that nodes have politic cards, castles should have something akin to it but more in defense and attacking of node benefits in the area for the guild that controls it. That way people can talk between nodes, and between castle owners or fight over them for the benefits they give and prepare to siege different nodes or defend them more successfully. Actually introduce more levels of politics in the game, and a reason to control certain areas.
Them losing and people getting money were 2 different points, which seem to have confused you, judging by your further reply here.
When I said "casuals would be getting that money", I meant that casuals would be farming their random mats and would then sell them on the market. The castle guild would need those mats for crafting, so they'd buy them off the market with the money they made from the castle taxes. That's part of the distribution of castle taxes that worked on a free market in L2.
This was the second part of the money distribution. Guilds can't be in all places at all times, so other guilds might farm a boss that drops some valuable mats that the castle guild wants, while this other guild wants some money instead, because this money could be used to craft more gear for its members.
It's not even about zerging. It's simply about a guild that's just got a castle not always being able to defend their taxes, because they now have huge targets on their backs.
If you dislike the concept of potential zerging on caravans, then I assume you dislike the entire premise of caravan pvp, cause that's what's gonna happen with them in most cases.
I'm relating it to L2 here because the mechanics, as currently explained, are near exactly the same. Castles gather taxes. Guilds can use those taxes for their own means (in AoC's case a part of taxes and not all of them). Both games have free market and a crafting system that uses materials of all levels when crafting something at the top lvl. So the money from taxes can, and most definitely will, be used to purchase things on the market.
Some of those things will come from casual players who just want to sell their daily farm and some will come from hardcore guilds that need money more than the rare item they looted recently.
Any elements about a castle buying mats to help themselves or needing rare materials are not what I'm talking about or concerned about. This can be a factor without them being able to take money for themselves and using the funds they have to buy it off the market.
So anything about this isn't taken away they just can't pull money themselves (if they wanted it so they need to buy tons of mats for defenders and/or attackers which makes sense for equipment).
So generally i don't have a issue with those kinds of things so long as it is not being pocketed which leads to my actual issue.
But i don't look at that as politics, obviously you can say it can have some tensions if guilds are attacking them and such. But politics should have a stronger more far reaching effect. And why i feel like the cards nodes can do int he example to be akin to castles (since there is only 5 of them). And having the element of board game like cards in a sense that are limited. So it can be a way a guild can influence a area for attacking / defending nodes.
Which technically you could take that pretty far with different guilds owning each castle to make things interesting.
Obviously no clue what they will do with it, but if we are talking politics that would actually have some politics going on and people reaching out to talk and work together, or fight each.
I think you don't understand how Castles work. Castles are not the same thing as a Guild Hall.
If Guild 1 is so selfish that they don't benefit and support the Nodes and Metro(s) in their Zone of Influence, they will very likely be kicked out during the next Castle Siege.
Groups of 1000+ exist. They dominate but cannot dominate everything.
The combination of travel time and true logistics involved in playing and managing them all, causes the groups to hit an upper effective limit relative to the game mechanics, and Elite Dangerous' mechanics are less complex in total than Ashes' proposed form.
The reason this happens seems to be based around placing a 'hard' upper limit on progression that can be achieved in a specific area by people using the same methodology. This creates specialization within the group and increases the coordination requirement, while forcing them to have more potential conflicts with others and a more cohesive policy.
It appears to me from observing the movements and discussions of players in that game, and slightly from some studying of EVE, that when 'casuals' realize that their 'dominance' is mostly a show, i.e. when they can more easily see the 'mess' that is 'upper management', they are less likely to throw their ingame energy at things where they might not only 'have no effect', but be explicitly 'held responsible' for 'wasting time' there.
This is not harder to achieve in Fantasy MMOs innately, so I hope to see a similar thing happen in Ashes of Creation.
As for my personal belief, if there were a system for this, I would want there to be a limit on number of benefit-Guilds per Node, and I would also want those guilds to be 30-50 members in size, with an ingame monetary cost for making certain size/alliance things happen. Note, this is 'on top of the thing I talked about above'. I'm aware it doesn't work without that.
Here is my example, btw:
https://inara.cz/elite/minorfaction/1786/
I use the Brazilian League because of the tendency of Brazilian players in MMOs to stick to one BR guild with reasonably strong loyalty due to various political factors, so I hope it makes the point of 'these aren't all just casuals who would jump off to another guild if they weren't satisfied' (because it seems to require more impetus to cause members of BR guilds to do so).
that has been your experience, but it hasn't been everyone experience. you can say that people who join large guilds want to join. wll, do you play any game (irl included too) to lose? is your goal to lose? sure you can have fun even if you lose, but I don't know anyone who says "hey I'm gonna try my best to lose" (maybe only toxic bronze noobs in lol who blame their teammates).
you can make friends in a large guild..plus the advantage of always having people to play with. i personally don't join small guilds anymore, I've had so many bad experiences. on top of that, people are never on, and those who are, already have their groups. so I'm basically just pugging anyways and playing with people who arent in the guild. so whats the point? and on top of that, the leaders always want everything for themselves and treat the ew members they have as slaves. I've always had better experiences with bigger guilds.
and because you have 10 players online, you cant even compete with anything.
All of them are still using the same discord and sharing the same benefits and territory so it really doesn't matter.
It doesn't change anything, it just forces them to hassel with the logistics of a sister guild. Large guilds will then endlessly complain about the cap, and it will likely be raised.
The only possible thing that could happen is that one of the sub-guilds breaks away in some sort of political dispute. However, even that is not at all likely given that the overwhelming majority of the people in that guild wouldn't support the move.
Aaaaand, another goon for the Ignore List. All yours, NiKr.
ALSO Guilds -> * People with more than the maximum Number just create two Sister/Brother-Guilds *
-> * which are basically to literally the same Guild but with above the maximum of one Guild *
I know only "One" Guild can hold a Castle, right ? And since Castle Sieges are supposed/told/stated to be instanced, they can not use the Strength of "ABOVE Maximum of a single Guild"-as many Players.
But otherwise,
what is supposed to stop People from having their gigantic, numerous-in-Members Overguilds ? ^.^
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Kinda starting to look for a Guild right now. (German)
Thats the problem being discussed here. Since in open world pvp a zerg guild will have overwhelming advantage.
And my idea was to somehow put the 2 sister/brother guilds against each other by in game mechanics that will make only 1 of those guilds get the rewards, while the other need to either accept that they get nothing in being together by the other guild, or can declare war vs them to take "the precious" for themselves.
Even tho in theory this is clear, in practice its hard to find the perfect balance what you need to give 1 of the guilds so its enough for the other sister guild to want to take it for themselves, and in the same time this exact thing to not be game breaking
If - and this is a fairly large *if* - a developer manages to find something that players may want to break an alliance over, there is still the notion that this large group of players can simply share the rewards that are only available to one guild at a time.
If there is some castle reward that is only applicable to those in the guild that owns the castle, and can not be transferred, then an organised guild will simply see to it that guild ownership shifts every month so that everyone gets that reward.
Additionally, if it is a guild of 1200 players, there is the probability that they can take two castles.
It is worth pointing out though, any reward that is worth either going to this extent with, or worth leaving a large guild/alliance for, is probably something that makes those with it significantly overpowered.
There are counter measures about this,
The castle rewards as pointed in the official AOC wiki become better the longer the guild holds the ownership of the castle. So for example the moment you take the castle the rewards are bad, but if you hold it 2 months then the rewards become worth it. So now if you transfer ownership the new guild has to wait 2 months until the good reward.
And about 2 castles, this seems good enough for me, since this will put them in war with opposite 1200 player guild that is in the other ZOI
and also if guild cap is 100 players per guild, those 1200 players will be in 12 guilds,
They need 12 castles?
What if joining a server is not by choice, but is random. Like you can join as guild of 100 and it will put all 100 of you in random server, but those 1200 players will end up in 6-7 different servers at least. This should make it like 200 - 300 max players in same server.
Ofc this still leaves players to form zerg guilds within the server they joined after the launch of AOC. But the bonds between the players in this newly formed super guild should be weak, and it should be able to break or have spies or backstabbing is high.
If a compounding reward isn't going to make the guild overpowered, then switching castle ownership between guilds won't be an issue. There won't be multiple 1200 player guilds on any given server - or at least there is a very, very small chance of that happening. The game is designed in a way where up to 1500 players at a time can be in guilds that own castles.
Lowering the number of people in a guild doesn't lower this, it means they need more castles to meet that goal.
1200 players wont dominate a server, because the total players in the server will be like 15k. 1200 is under 10% of the total players. So you can expect 1200 players to dominate 2/5 of the whole map
and yes, i am aware that the reward that can accomplish this will have to be something with really deep thoughts behind it
Intrepid have said 300 is the current cap, but if they make changes to the guild cap, it will go up, not down. They absolutely could.