1,200 member Guild Alliances and Server Control

So as we know, you can have up to 300 people in one guild and they can create an alliance of 4 such guilds that have enough bonuses to effectively act as one single mega-guild.

So my question is - what's to prevent a 1,200 member mega-guild, or two, from completely taking over the server and ruining the game for the rest of us? No node competition because they can just take what they want so the rest of us are only left to control the scraps with nodes they don't want. No real ability to successfully siege a node or a castle because hey, they have 1200 people to defend it. No real ability to contest world/regional bosses, caravan trade routes, dungeons, anything.

Even if you don't want to contest those spots, but are more PvE oriented and merely want to go through a specific dungeon or kill a certain regional boss for their loot - if this guild decides it's theirs, they can camp it 24/7 with their tons of members and you'd never get a chance at the content.

If you're in one of those guilds - do you really expect to have any real competition? If you like PvP, you're not going to get it. You're just going to steamroll people which isn't fun for you or them.

Am I missing something key here or is this a massive game-killing flaw in the system?

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VmanGman

@Okeydoke The node sieges don’t currently have a 250vs250 limit. Only the guild castle sieges have that limit.

Of course that all of that is subject to change, but I’m just pointing out that node sieges are not currently capped.

Okeydoke

@VmanGman Damn I didn't know that. Then the OP's point is even more important. Because that would make it just a may the biggest zerg win type of game. But I'd have to bet that that's going to change. There's just no way Intrepid could think that that would be a good idea.

VmanGman

@Okeydoke Node sieges (metropolis sieges especially) are supposed to be huge server events. No single guild or alliance will be able to overwhelm that battle.

I have no idea how they will make it work with such big numbers, but we’ll have to wait and see what they’re cooking.

Okeydoke

Yeah I understand there's kind of a blurring of the lines between node citizens, guilds, alliances and just random people when it comes to node wars. No single guild is going to be responsible for defending or attacking a node. I knew it would be multiple guilds, multiple alliances involved, on both sides.

But so yeah then, at present node wars are sounding like a more freewheeling system of whatever happens happens. And you just better hope you build your freehold in a node that is the zerger instead of the zergee. I dunno, we'll see, hope they have a vision and it's a fun system.

BobzUrUncle

Noaani wrote: »

@Funeral director
When leveling up your guild, you are given a choice between passive boosts for your guild members or guild size increases.

This means that each player in a smaller guild will be stronger than an equally geared player in a larger guild.

This is done to assist smaller guilds in still being g relevant on the server as a whole.

Yup, just remember that smaller guilds will be more powerful. Numbers are great, but extra power or abilities might just be enough to win the fight!

sternzy

Interesting to note that there has been some notation of similarity between NW and AoC. NW's biggest problem right now is that there is still no answer in sight on how to balance sides. Many things have been tried and nothing has even come close to working.

An important thing to note is that you can't put a cap on anything at all. A guild can form as many smaller groups as they want and even pretend to not be associated with one another. In fact, this is exactly what is going to happen without question.

Aside from the simple raw numbers attributing one guild or another, lets look at at it from another real world example of how I have watched an organization of people steam role entire servers. lets look at resources. A common tactic is for the massive group to simply role through the server and collect all the rare resources needed for upkeep.

Contrary to popular belief, people are going to pay for multiple accounts. We know there will be no regulation around number of accounts in AoC at all. This also means that community accounts can be used. These alternate accounts can then be used to camp the most important areas. Worth noting, looking at you AoC, that if the nodes or creatures are set on a simple timer then these alternates will also know exactly when to log in and reap the benefits of paying for multiple/community accounts.

Now, you could make spawns very frequent and/or character specific as other games have. But, this destroys many aspects of the game. For reference, look at how repetitive and silly gathering is in ESO.

These mega guilds will first and foremost be looking to coordinate with each other and join separate servers. The most important thing for them is to insure they are dominant. Those castle sieges sound amazing and all but trust me it's not so amazing when you have thousands of players in your guild you are trying to keep happy and a loss could mean 6 more months to regain your loss.

I've heard about 50,000 person servers and that being the answer to mega guilds. It in no way shape or form addresses the issue at all. First and foremost I don't believe for a second there will be anywhere near 50,000 concurrent players. For perspective, comparable games shoot for around 5,000 players at the absolute max. For a game on release day 1-2000 concurrent players would be a very ambitious but probably feasible goal. So, I hope this puts into perspective what kind of impact a group of 1200 of the most dedicated players and all of there alts can possibly have when this game releases.

Alternate accounts are never a good idea for the health of a mmo from your average players perspective. I'm sure the increased revenue is very tempting but it is playing with fire in my experience. Magnified during the early release days when games are trying to make a footprint or name for themselves. However, that in and of itself isn't going to fix the issue. That I know of there really isn't any easy fix here. Once a permanent alpha/beta server is up you can start to get an idea of how this is going to unfold. Even then, if they are smart they won't play their cards until release. Because once the go button is pushed you can't really take it back.

I'm all for Ashes of Creation. As a whole I agree with the direction Steven has steered the game to what we are looking at now almost entirely. But, this topic is sort of the elephant in the room. No one ever really succeeds on this and AoC is going to become mighty boring if mega guilds move in and take over servers with sheer numbers and excessive money thrown at alternate accounts.

Voidwalkers

... Should we have a megaguild megathread?

Given the sheer size the Ashes world, and the traveling distance between nodes, and that high level contents will eventually be near highest level nodes, and those highest level nodes cannot cluster together by design, I'm not worried about one or two megaguilds taking over the whole server.

It might be possible for multiple "mega"guilds to each carve up a portion of a server though

Maezriel

I can see that a lot of y'all haven't played Eve

There can, and very likely will be, some mega alliances. In-game restrictions can't stop people from running multiple orgs through a single Discord and there is very little downside to gathering a large number of players.

That said it doesn't mean they'll inherently dominate an entire server. Verra is supposed to be massive which means travel will be a huge deterrent to those large groups trying to do anything outside of their territory.

On top of that, the lack of any kind of server transfer means high level players will need to rely on their in-game reputation. If you and your guild make it known that you're just a bunch of trolls people will rally just to ruin your day...it's a tale as old as old as gaming.

Leiloni

Maezriel wrote: »

there is very little downside to gathering a large number of players.

Then maybe there needs to be.

bloodprophet

Why limit player agency?
How can a company control what you do outside their game? If your not breaking TOS through using programs to alter the intended use of their product then it is none of their business. What is the cost of maintaining a group to monitor everyones use of discord , TS3 or any of the others out there?

Warth

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why limit player agency?
How can a company control what you do outside their game? If your not breaking TOS through using programs to alter the intended use of their product then it is none of their business. What is the cost of maintaining a group to monitor everyones use of discord , TS3 or any of the others out there?

i think he was talking about the downsides to gathering a large number of players, not the ability to use discord lol

Warth

Also, there is quite a major cost to maintaining a large group of players.

Killing a world boss with 40 people nets you significantly more per playtime spent than having to bring 250 people to a single world boss kill as the amount of reward doesn't scale with the amount of players you bring.
Making 250 log in, travel there and protect their world boss kill is stupid at best. Neither will anybody participate for long, if it means sharing the loot designed for 40 people with 249 others. At this point, you might as well just grind some mobs or gather some ore because the money equivalent you get from that will be significantly higher than sitting around a world boss.

bloodprophet

Even then the only limitations on player gathering is how many people can be in an area before the server can't keep up and fps drop to 0.

McShave

Biccus wrote: »

I am concerned about large guilds/alliances being able to have monopoly on whatever they want. Why not either lower the maximum member count, limit number of alliances or make any guild in control of a castle not able to form an alliance with another guild in control of a castle?

@Biccus The problem with guilds controlling areas of the map is that mobility will be an issue. The big alliance can control a section of the map, but only that section. Being able to move to an area away from their influence is an option.

Tyranthraxus

Why would this pose any kind of a problem? If someone/a group of people can organize something this big, why shouldn't they be able to be this big?

With 103 nodes, there won't be monopolies on entire servers. Some servers will - without a doubt - have some server-giant guilds. However, the bigger the guild, the more fractures it will be destined to have. It's more or less a part of that server's character.

I think I know what the OP's base concern is, and really, it comes down to this: Even if it *were* possible for a single player-organization to control and monopolize an entire server (again, that's 103 nodes), how boring would it be, to only have one collection of guilds doing things? Wouldn't sieges have to be entirely staged?

Vhaeyne

bloodprophet wrote: »

Why limit player agency?
How can a company control what you do outside their game? If your not breaking TOS through using programs to alter the intended use of their product then it is none of their business. What is the cost of maintaining a group to monitor everyones use of discord , TS3 or any of the others out there?

You bring up a good point. Even if there is no official support of massive guilds. Nothing is ever going to stop massive amounts of people from working together if they choose to.

No point in trying to fight player agency on this one.

bloodprophet

Was thinking after posting earlier during lunch. If a mega cross game guild like Goon Squad or one of the others decides to bring 5000 players into the game and make 100 50 person guilds how would any company combat that as long as they aren't breaking rules.
I think in this situation you make the best of it or jump servers. I see no reason any company would send 5000 subs away (which would lead to more) just because players got together and through shear force of numbers altered the natural flow of a server.

Rhuell

bloodprophet wrote: »

players got together and through shear force of numbers altered the natural flow of a server.

The primary focus of this game, if I'm not mistaken.

PoliceGirl

If it is bad on my server...I'll just go surfing.

Ha- [edit] That's in the ocean by the way.

sternzy

Tyranthraxus wrote: »

Why would this pose any kind of a problem? If someone/a group of people can organize something this big, why shouldn't they be able to be this big?

With 103 nodes, there won't be monopolies on entire servers. Some servers will - without a doubt - have some server-giant guilds. However, the bigger the guild, the more fractures it will be destined to have. It's more or less a part of that server's character.

I think I know what the OP's base concern is, and really, it comes down to this: Even if it *were* possible for a single player-organization to control and monopolize an entire server (again, that's 103 nodes), how boring would it be, to only have one collection of guilds doing things? Wouldn't sieges have to be entirely staged?

That works out to less than 5km/sq per node. tiny. Now factor in concurrent players.what does it matter if you have 103 nodes, a 50k population and maybe 3k concurrent players if you have thousands of people from a mega guild each with a alt account hammering the login servers?

Some streamer shows up with 20k followers to decimate your server for the luls. Is this reasonable gameplay that should be accommodated?

It's a very complicated subject and i don't have the answers. But, I am taking part in most of the similar mmos in alpha or nearing in/beta and this is the problem plaguing all of them. If you simply let the biggest group take over the game is going to die. I am watching this exact issue unfold in other games. There needs to be a path for the little guy to rise to the top. If that isn't feasible the little guy is going to stop trying and move on. Game is then DOA.

Very interested to see how Steven deals with this through to release. Jeff too, seems like a humble brilliant mind to me. I don't think anarchy is the answer here. it might be successful short term but after everything is secured it's basically dead. Looking at a wipe every few months.

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