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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.
WIP / Food for Thoughts - Gold sink or resource sink vs mega guilds / alliance
novercalis
Member, Founder, Kickstarter, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
Literally thought of this a min ago, not fleshed out as I type this.
An idea of a way to create a pro vs con situation for mega guilds and alliances.
We could use passive Gold Sinks.
First of all, gold sinks is very important to an economy in all mmorpg. Having a lack of goldsink creates a long term inflation.
With that said - no matter what, there should be all types of small, common sense gold sinks every player experience but one that the dev can make and adjust is some type of tax for guilds.
All guilds will experience a type of gold sink aka tax. This type of tax doesn't have to be monetary. It can be resources items.
Let's say a guild of 10 people tax is gonna be small compared to a guild of 50, 100, 250, 500.
an example can look like this:
10 person guild = 100g weekly tax (10g per person)
50 person guild = 750g weekly tax (15g per person)
100 person guild = 1000g weekly tax (20g per person)
200 person guild = 20,000g weekly tax (100g per person)
Obviously, find a better math formula but basically, it becomes exponentially larger. If they can sustain it, fair play.
Now, let's pretend this is factual
200 person guild = 20,000g weekly tax.
and let's pretend a 200 person guild is considered a mega guild in a server population of 500 for the sake of this argument.
Now they might think, hey, let's break our mega guild into 4 guilds of 50 people each.
In a single guild - the math formula should be a bracket based additive. For every alliance, it becomes multiplicative.
50 person guild is paying 750g weekly, for every alliance you have it is
X + (X-1) = Y * 750g
X = amount of alliance, which is 4
4+(4-1)=7*750=5,250g for that 1 guild. with 4 guilds = 5.250x4= 21,000g
If they can manage sustain it, well played. But atleast they are feeling the economic pressure of it.
Now, obviously this is all work in progress, the formula can be changed, I am just giving out an idea w/ some example.
The gold sink doesnt have to be weekly, it can be monthly. But this prevents any loophole for mega guild or multiple alliance
from the same mega guild and even alliances with top guilds from forming to lock a server down.
Do players want to log in and grind gold for their guild only as their daily chore to maintain it? when they aren't getting top loot either.
=============
But how do you deal with UNOFFICIAL Guilds / Alliances???????
I do not know. Ashes has to come up with an incentive to be a guild and have some hard rails that makes those outside of the guild ask themselves, how is this good for me? There needs to be benefits that are really good to want to be in a guild. If not, this entire thing is only half effective at culling mega guilds officially but not a solution for dealing with mega guilds going unofficial alliance and working together. Those mechanics has to be AoC dev to figure out.
I hope this theory has potential leg as a solution. Obviously not those exact numbers but the concept is there.
An idea of a way to create a pro vs con situation for mega guilds and alliances.
We could use passive Gold Sinks.
First of all, gold sinks is very important to an economy in all mmorpg. Having a lack of goldsink creates a long term inflation.
With that said - no matter what, there should be all types of small, common sense gold sinks every player experience but one that the dev can make and adjust is some type of tax for guilds.
All guilds will experience a type of gold sink aka tax. This type of tax doesn't have to be monetary. It can be resources items.
Let's say a guild of 10 people tax is gonna be small compared to a guild of 50, 100, 250, 500.
an example can look like this:
10 person guild = 100g weekly tax (10g per person)
50 person guild = 750g weekly tax (15g per person)
100 person guild = 1000g weekly tax (20g per person)
200 person guild = 20,000g weekly tax (100g per person)
Obviously, find a better math formula but basically, it becomes exponentially larger. If they can sustain it, fair play.
Now, let's pretend this is factual
200 person guild = 20,000g weekly tax.
and let's pretend a 200 person guild is considered a mega guild in a server population of 500 for the sake of this argument.
Now they might think, hey, let's break our mega guild into 4 guilds of 50 people each.
In a single guild - the math formula should be a bracket based additive. For every alliance, it becomes multiplicative.
50 person guild is paying 750g weekly, for every alliance you have it is
X + (X-1) = Y * 750g
X = amount of alliance, which is 4
4+(4-1)=7*750=5,250g for that 1 guild. with 4 guilds = 5.250x4= 21,000g
If they can manage sustain it, well played. But atleast they are feeling the economic pressure of it.
Now, obviously this is all work in progress, the formula can be changed, I am just giving out an idea w/ some example.
The gold sink doesnt have to be weekly, it can be monthly. But this prevents any loophole for mega guild or multiple alliance
from the same mega guild and even alliances with top guilds from forming to lock a server down.
Do players want to log in and grind gold for their guild only as their daily chore to maintain it? when they aren't getting top loot either.
=============
But how do you deal with UNOFFICIAL Guilds / Alliances???????
I do not know. Ashes has to come up with an incentive to be a guild and have some hard rails that makes those outside of the guild ask themselves, how is this good for me? There needs to be benefits that are really good to want to be in a guild. If not, this entire thing is only half effective at culling mega guilds officially but not a solution for dealing with mega guilds going unofficial alliance and working together. Those mechanics has to be AoC dev to figure out.
I hope this theory has potential leg as a solution. Obviously not those exact numbers but the concept is there.
{UPK} United Player Killer - All your loot belongs to us.
0
Comments
I could get behind a tax for a guild to maintain an alliance, with the cost scaling on one or both of the guilds levels (not its member counts as that would penalize the membership expansion option unfairly).
But the BEST way to tax guilds is for the owernship/maintence of Guild Halls (which come in wave 3). That's a tangible privlage/asset which like a Freehold folks will be willing to pay for.
If something like this were implemented, there would need to be an in game reason to need a larger guild as opposed to many smaller guilds.
Gold and item sinks are a key aspect of MMORPG's, but they need to be more stringent than the above. I personally prefer sinks to be placed on activities, rather than on existing.
but let's just go with the math
20+(20-1)=39
guild 1 will be paying 100g+3900g for a total of 4,000g now times that for 19 more guilds
19x4,000=76,000, more than the 20,000g
I’d rather find more creative ways for smaller guilds to destabilize and destroy larger guilds, than use the rustiest tool in the shed.
For instance, once a guild reaches it’s maximum size, they are given a minor artifact that resides around their guild hall. If stolen/destroyed the guild will be debilitated - maybe they lose their ability to link with other guilds. Maybe they are severely debuffed for x period. But it creates a potential softspot for asymmetric warfare to shake up a node.
not sure how castle mechanics work but this "tax" / goldsink pulls from the guild coffer (assuming there is one).
OR - WIP idea I just thought of - this "tax system" will have the math figured out and pull the gold from each guild member automatically. Those without funds are removed from the guild and goes into a Cooldown period to rejoining that same guild and it's current alliance(s). Cooldown period 30 days. They may join other guilds not in the alliance tho.
Or - Guild Coffer can only be funded by guild members. There is a Cap how much a guild member can contribute and that is 200%. For example a guild of 10 needs to come up with 100g. That is 10g per person, so 1 person can do 20g, covering for 1 person. This is setup in a UI overlay that shows how much you want to donate and it will automatically pull it when the day comes from the player bank or assigned "coffer donation box" inside their bank UI.
This also coincide with Castle Income being vested and released an hour later, so they are unable to use castle funds immediately. All castle income needs to go on Vested cooldown, unable to be used for anything. Mayors should be fiscally responsible running their towns anyways, so plan accordingly.
In this particular version of an idea - if the guild fails to meet the tax requirement - unlike before, where 1 player missed is kicked out, this one is RNG. so in a 200 member guild, they failed to reach 20,000g and only had 18,000, that might be 20 people kicked out, randomly and have a cooldown to rejoin.
Pros/Cons, Risk/Rewards