Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
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.
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.
Mega Guilds
GoldenAbsolute
Member, Alpha Two
Hey guys, I was watching the Pirate Software Vlhadus video, and I had a thought. I think many people are worried about what’s going to happen when we get guilds that dominate a server. But hear me out—what if there were a few servers that allow a higher population and also permit larger guild sizes? This way, mega guilds would be forced to fight for power in a setting with real stakes, while smaller guilds wouldn’t get pushed aside.
If this is technically absurd or unreasonable, let me know. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
If this is technically absurd or unreasonable, let me know. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
4
Comments
How would you convince those mega guilds to play on those servers?
The answer is the first step to convince IS to create such servers.
Well they would be incentivized by the fact that they would be able to have this larger guild size and consolidate rather than do the {Guild Name} {Number of Branch of Guild}. I feel like most mega guilds like this want those large conflicts with other large guilds and don't necessarily want to just dominate the world so hard that it turns into a pve server
Requiring guild members to complete hards quests and sink gold to unlock more slots
Require owpvp raiding and questing at the low guild Lv to unlock the option for guild passives.
Further tasks to unlock each guild passive.
Further quests to allow the guild to participate in castle ownership and alliance decleration.
Less ingame tools to manage large number of people with no effort.
Wars should be between individual guilds vs other players, or true guild alliances with distinct leaders and flags vs rival alliances.
If somebody is dedicated enough to Lv up 10 or so guilds, to provide thousands of members (stranfers to each other as they will be..) with benefits, let them dominate.
Your conversation should aim at finding ways to protect servers from mega guilds. Not how to spend money and development to accomodate mega guilds, which may quit playing as soon as their streamer tells them to.
Unless you like mega guilds and you are here to lobby for them.
With that said I think that providing the resources to the larger servers that host the mega guilds is a worth while investment. I also think in the spirit of Ashes previous sentiments on wanting to bring content creators into the fold, they understand the amazing marketing value that popular streamers bring to the table. These servers would allow a buffer between those us who enjoy that close knit almost familial interaction with our guild members and people who want to essentially praise the king. (No disrespect intended to those who are interested in the mega guilds of your content creator)
I do also understand your point of well what happens when these huge ass guilds inevitably burn out and leave their communities in the dust for the next big thing. That I don't have as much of an answer to, but Intrepid has talked about the modularity of their servers so that might be an option. I do however see the issue with a server that has just been completely sundered by these huge communities dissolving.
It's the way of the land.
Personally, I just hope Steven decides to make node sieges instanced.
What I will do if an influencer settles on the server I am playing on is leave, I am there to play with people who also do this for recreational purposes, not to earn money from it. I don't want anything to do with such people, I don't want them to freely be allowed to use me as a prop in their videos or streams.
As for mega guilds, which can obviously form without influencers: They ARE allowed, but there is no need for the system to cater any more to them than it already does. You have a zerg army of 20'000 players you want to take to a server? Well, tough luck server limit is 10k. Just like its tough luck for me that I will most likely have to pay a fee to change servers away from those where big influencers commercialize the game and recreational players around them.
So: No to special accomodation for Zerg/Mega Guilds.
I never played Eve Online, but due to the lag issues in large battles they had to implement few tricks to make the game playable at all: https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Time_dilation
AoC isn't a turn based game
Blown past falling sands…
BTW thank you everyone for all the discourse so far has given me much to ponder
I’m not saying they should increase it, fragmenting the mega guilds into smaller guilds will make them harder to manage and provide more interesting gameplay, but ashes already have incentives for smaller guilds.
The skills vs size will likely see big guilds break into multiple due to max skill guilds only having 30-50 members. I don’t know if that’s for both combat & artisan or just one.
It will likely be a balancing issue whether it’s worth having a full size guild at all.
While I agree with needing ways to compete with mega guilds I have to disagree with some of the methods suggested, mega guilds will have more than enough players and resources to throw at sinks, pvp & quests.
Omitting guild management tools would make it harder and less fun especially for inexperienced leaders & guilds.
Mega guilds can just use a single discord to communicate and plan, but any guilds cooperating against them would likely be using in-game tools and communication.
The separate realm is an interesting idea but I doubt it would work as most zergs/streamer guilds are short lived, it would also be a matter of scalability. It could be fun as a streamer event or something.
By doing so they will then be able to completely dominate an entire section of the map and completely have a structure that insures they stay on top and protect the main guild node. Having alliances within each other will make it nearly impossible to have a successful raid against them. A complete buffer once setup if its done proper and well coordinated.
Yeah I am extremely interested on how Ashes is gonna make them both feel fulfilling. I personally don't have much interest in bigger guilds but that just most bc of the close knit nature of smaller guilds and the fact that having alliances with other small guild fills a really cool diplomacy fantasy.
The issue of how the community manages these guilds is one that I am having a hard time seeing an organized way of doing so. Other than maybe Ashes releases a discord for each server so that all of the guilds(Or possibly guild leaders) have somewhere to talk and plot with each other. Although I think it is an important topic to talk about, I am not dead set on my server idea was just a cool little brainstorm.
See I just am not sure how much omitting guild management tools is really going to effect that if each subsection of the guild has a trusted leader appointed to the top. Discord is an amazing tool for modern mmos that we just didn't have in the past. It would be the equivalent of a guild putting together an entire website and forum in the olden days of mmos but even more accessible.
This is a very true point especially for streamer guilds, they burn hot and bright but for a short period. But if I'm not mistaken there are some mega guilds out there that have been around for a long time (of which are not streamer guilds) and are built off of basically a god damn corporate ladder, which makes them incredibly organized. I also wonder in the spirit of scale ability how viable it would be to scale back a server with higher guild caps as demand either increases or decreases. (This is a part we really wont know until we get in the game and see the capabilities)
I guess what I'm asking in the end here is how do we avoid this? Is it as simple as just having the smaller guild leaders all band together in defiance of these guilds? Just literally playing the waiting game and waiting for these guilds to burn out? So what are some ideas for this that are either implemented via the community or via Ashes having an in game system for it?
I see this as a social Experiment.
No. No, honestly. Not trying to sound arrogant here. I see this as a "Ultimate-kind-of-Test" if People can band together against Someone.
Do they have the Willpower ?
The Willingness ?
The Motivation ?
The Strength of Character ?
How hard can it be to band together against Someone who might or might not - but "MIGHT" annoy the everliving crap out of You ?
Not all Megaguilds are nice.
Not all Megaguilds are friendly.
They might have quite a few Bullies in their Ranks. And MAYBE - intentionally.
✓ Occasional Roleplayer
✓ Guild is " Balderag's Garde " for now. (German)
I mean there is this game just doesn't do any of them.
And having certain servers with expanded guild rosters, would be a way to incentivize them to go there rather then more small guild friendly servers. So that that you try to have multiple mega guilds on the same servers, so they can fight each other rather then bully the smaller guilds.
I think actively managing mega guilds is more proactive and useful, then taking half measures that only make organizing them in game a bit more tedious.
How is it a minor annoyance when guild members have to perform tasks with the individual guilds leader, in order to increase slots and gain access to benefits?
If these things dont get undertaken the streamer overlord cant have members (to join sieges and wars).
And if these things are undertaken by the small leaders and their members, wouldnt they feel pride in themselves and possibly look after themselves, instead of being the pupets of some streamer?
It's not like as long you have a discord channel to bark orders, people will be able to benefit what guild systems offer. Unless they all do the work.
And as I said, if somebody has 10 generals, who level up and increase their guilds sizes and perks, let that overlord dominate.
It would be a very interesting social experiment and maybe there is a place in the alpha to see how that works out.
What are some examples of techniques used in the past to help this problem.
I agree I also am of the opinion that people who would want to be in this mega guild type of community would find it much more fun to battle with an enemy of their own size.
I think you're kind of under estimating the sheer amount of influence these creators have on their audience. To a degree I think I agree with you and understand what you're saying, the creator is gonna have to put in the hard work to make the guild work. Which therefor means they deserve ability to dominate and own everything. But this isn't just some player this is an influencer with a mind boggling amount of people ready to fight at their whim. Most guilds that have those numbers and didn't start in content have worked very hard to get to that place. (not saying the content creator didn't work hard to form the structure of the guild but I think we can all agree that it is much easier to form a guild if you have 60k viewers on twitch every night)
I also don't think Yoh was talking about working with the guild leader to do stuff in the game I think he was more so referencing the ease in which a fragmented guild would be able to break the communication barrier of having a bunch of branches of the guild. Which essentially makes it one big guild anyway. (Let me know if I'm wrong Yoh)
I do also agree with the fact that if you are able to accumulate 10 generals with 300 members each you have achieved a great feat. However, with a mega guild right off the bat it feels inorganic. I would much prefer we allow Vera to grow and shift with all the new guilds that enter, see alliances fall, see new ones develop as the need arises, and watch them crumble as the members squabble amongst themselves. I worry that if we find ourselves in a situation where the only real option is join in on one of these branches or to be just absolutely demolished at every turn, will kill of a good few of the things that have made Ashes so appealing to us.
Can small guilds join powerful Alliances to counter the mega guild? Are there critical resources that small guilds can control that large guilds will have trouble dominating due to the distance issues? I don't see why there couldn't be a small guild bonus if it became necessary. Like a favorable small business loan for the "poor" in real life there could be some advantage.
I just see the mega guild as having to be something bad as a forgone conclusion. There could be something implemented to break up a monopoly. I'm just an optimist, I guess.
smaller guilds will be having some (i hope major) differences in what perks they can have though and so special teams will be in smaller "sub guilds" or "wing guilds" ...
even if you dont like the concept ..for me personally that is HUGE plus..... to actually benefit from the guild system as it is people NEED to form alliances and meta guilds ... so this game is set up in a way that 20 people guilds CANT compete with bigger guilds who have like a 100 people wing for siege pvp and a 300 people main for gathering and crafting and another 100 wing for travel/trading ....
this game wont be cuddling disorganized small groups of players to play a big role in the shaping of the world/content ... you wont be able to feel important on a big scale with just 20 people... you might even feel weak, bc bigger guilds will target you if you dont have formed an alliance at least
but you dont HAVE to ... ... you can be annoyed that your favorite metropolitan node gets destroyed before you were able to expecrience ALL content ... .....
or you can appreciate the effort that went into destroying it and enjoy the new content that gets unlocked and try to be a part of it ... its a choice imo
this game will cater to those who want to engage in community efforts and who want to be a part of something bigger and greater ... it is not catering to a group of like 10 people who want to play by themself in an instanced dungeon farming gear unbothered .... this game is not for everyone ...
i play a strategy mmo at the moment where we have a guild of 100 people as our main ... we have an academy that has 100 people ... and for Server vs server events... bigger more active players like me join our meta alliance strike team that has the 100 best players of our server .... this is what ashes is also supporting and seems to make it even more benefitial ... and i love it ...
.... obviously its always the same that smaller guilds, with less people will be eaten by the bigger teams ... just for protection reasons ...
since in my strategy game i have similar to ashes partial loot pvp ... people will have an incentive to join stronger better guilds for protection... but you dont HAVE to ... we have some smaller guilds here too that stubbornly do their own thing ... you can do that too in ashes ... you can stubbornly NOT engage in siege wars ... you can do your own thing ... and have more risk to be targeted ... but its all a choice .... if you search for an experience that will be detached from other players ... this game wont be catering to you .... and that is great imo
... you can enjoy gathering and farming on your own .... but dont expect to be getting a castle for your guild if you have like 20 people who all just play on weekends for a few hours .... this game is not catering to you, and thats fine ... i really love to have an RPG style mmo that supports meta guilds/alliances by design .... really looking forward ....
Or how people behave in guilds.
One thing from looking at how Nodes work, it’s almost like this game is being built (incredibly suspiciously slowly) to actually create maga guilds.
Mega guilds, definitionally are organized, super organized. They will systemize whatever guild system you put in front of them. They will not be deterred.
With clear hierarchy and organization, any of their small alliance guilds if they were to step out of line, esp over something as flimsy as 'pride', the leader would get replaced, or the entire alliance will come down on them like a ton of bricks. But as a general rule, you wouldn't promote somebody to leadership that has that kind of petty motivation. Anybody who doesn't tow the party line, would get eliminated long before they see power.
There isn't anything inherit to having smaller guild sizes that prevent them from organizing or working in tandem with each other. And there really isn't much I can see Intrepid can do to stop it.
Honestly, they'd probably be better off trying to get ahead of it by talking to the leadership of these mega guilds so that they either play nice with others, or at the very least take on others their own size.
And if that means separating them off into their own little play pen, so be it.
I'll for sure have to take a look at how mega guilds worked in EvE. I'll do some research on my own but if anyone happens to have a good article or reddit thread that pops into their mind let me know.
I think seeing how small guilds interact once were in the alpha will for sure give us some clarity on how powerful alliances will be. Hard to access resources is actually a really interesting idea to me. That sounds like a really cool concept giving the smaller guilds something that they could control.
I can see the appeal of large guilds having power it 100% appeals to an aspect of high fantasy that I think most of us are looking for. My main fear is just them being oppressive to the smaller guilds. However, I'm sure that if that becomes a problem in the alpha or the betas it'll be addressed.
I don't think anyone is trying to say they don't want to work with the community. I think 90% of the people who are interested in Ashes understand that this is a community based game. I think this is doubly true for anyone that is putting even a moderate amount of effort to interact on the forums. So predominantly I agree with you on most of this: The game should incentive working with other guilds, should 1000% not coddle disorganization, you very much so should expect the world of Verra to develop around you, and you 1000% should appreciate the efforts of the community members who put in the time to make the changes to Verra. Also what is the MMO that you are playing maybe I can get some info on how guild structures there are to better understand. But again I hope no one has thought that I was saying I want Ashes to allow small groups to just do their own thing. I want everyone to work together, I just also want to not have the game devolve into I have to go to either mega guild A. or mega guild B.
I do know what being in a mid to smaller mid sized guild is like. But this would be a perfect place to give us some information on your perspective of how mid to mega guilds are. If you do have experience in running or being part of it. Not trying to be rude here but just saying none of you know what it's like isn't very helpful.
My goal with this thread is not to say that I am right, but to work though my thought and have it evolve as the community gives input.
Me and you pretty much have seen eye to eye on most of the ideas here so I dont have much to say here. I would like to say those of you have come to reply on the opposing side of my thought have made me less worried about the idea of just getting absolutely romple stomped into the ground by a mega guild. I am however excited to see how guilds interact in the alpha, and how the guild system evolves with the kinks. If anyone has any evolutions to my idea, or more arguments to the contrary I'm excited to see them. Thanks all
Oh also sorry for letting the thread go for a few days got busy working a stupid amount of overtime
I have already seen this play out as a social experiment in several games. It usually doesnt end well, as I have seen guilds with good people be completely destoyed. Making people completely walk away from the game. All because they were organised and others became jealous of that.
The same can be said for the bad guilds that have terrible people in them with the sole purpose of just being mean to everyone because they can. These types usually drive people off the servers.
Banding together rarely produces a desired outcome, mainly if the guild they are targeting is to large to deal with. Although it produces PvP engaments the so called bad or terrible guild will still dominate and the others will eventually get tired of losing.
If the dominate guild is a decent guild and they are not blood thristy Pvp engaments tend to be better planned and for the most part they leave you alone if you leave them alone. Planned guild verses guild battles are much more organised and structured where everyone can enjoy the game.
Ever since the famous huge Eve online corperation take over occured where people inflitrated and schemed hostile take over. This has given a spot light on what people are capable of. This also effected people outside of the game mentally and physically.
They are devious
They can be conniving
They can become very toxic
They bring down everyone around them
Exteremly self destructive.
There is always a certain amount of infighting
In some other extreme cases, some of these people become the core person they really are, by letting their dark side take over they eventually bring it into their real life and act out. The line gets crossed , when this happens people in real life can get hurt.
Human nature is always interesting, some people want to nurture, be peacful and be productive while others want destroy, be evil and burn everything.
Well one is allowed to dream... I have seen this expectaion before. I will admit some might but for the well organised larger guilds this will not occur. I seen very successful larger guilds build out full factions within themselves that withstood any fracturing.