I would love to see a bonus to encourage players to form and run content in guilds (or supergroup/justice league, etc.). Maybe just a small bonus to xp, or bonus damage/defense. Anything to encourage guilds, because there's usually no incentive in superhero mmos.
Wed, 01/24/2018 - 12:58
#1
guild bonus
For me the bonus is usually RP. But some form of team-up bonus would be neat. Perhaps one could be chosen from a small list, which coincides with some form of super team badges or some such. Gain X badge to be able to select X bonus when teaming with Super Team Mates.
This would incentivize guilds to go out and get achievements and team up more.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Those kinds of bonuses will be a very fine line to walk between since it's easy for them to be either too small to bother with or too large so most feel they are necessary to complete the content.
To me guilds have always been primarily about stable organised groups and friendships.
I've seen some games have actual gameplay benefits accorded to guilds. Such that the more guild points your guild has tallied, the greater the benefits are provided by your guild to its members. The guild leadership usually spends these points by buying certain perks or they could be automatically achieved at certain thresholds. They could also be permanent or temporarily purchased for special guild events like raids. Perks could include things like increased drop rate of loot, increased xp earned, cheaper teleports, quicker travel, or even combat bonuses or hit points. And these perks would be granted to all members of the guild.
Characters would generate guild points by doing daily guild quests or, in this case running missions together as a guild (2 or more guild members in a team would qualify). If we implement some sort of guild-uniform system where characters can self-identify somehow as a guild member either by wearing parts of a guild uniform, sporting a guild emblem, or whatever MWM thinks would qualify as advertising the guild, then even solo players should be able to earn points for their guild.
Another bonus I think would be nice to have is some sort of guild reputation system.
Since reputation is going to be a thing in this game, it would make things interesting if your guild has its own reputation it can earn with the various factions as if the guild was its own character. So when 2 or more people from the same guild run a mission together, or a solo player runs a mission while flying the guild flag, the guild also gets a fraction of the same reputation earned by those characters.
Them the guild's reputation would work as a modifier to your character's own reputation with each faction, either boosting it or bringing it down. Thus a relatively new character or one who is trying to change his spots could join a guild and reap the benefits of that guild's excellent reputation with a certain faction. Think of it as the NPCs giving your character the benefit of the doubt because you wear the logo. Or the flipside would be that if your guild has a poor rep with some faction, you would be guilty by association. Of course, you could always remedy this by increasing your personal reputation with that faction and thereby bring your guild's rep up with it. But maybe not everyone in your guild shares your desires in that regard.
I think this opens up more player interaction as guild decide as a group who they should align themselves with or not. I like how these interactions then actually result in players creating their own self-motivation for conducting missions and running content.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Yes, I think that points for doing SG content should accrue to the SG, rather than the Character. Then the SG provides services to the Character. My GW2 SG has private merchant, crafting/banking, armor repair, and long-term Buff services, for instance. I won't say these are all well designed/organized in GW2, but they could be, in CoT.
This is all aside from the fact that our SG Leader is a 'Mad Base-Builder', who likes to build ziggurats and hanging gardens, and Mazes and other things to captivate and capture the unsuspecting. I remember diving into the CoH base with my Teleporter, to rescue new members, lost in the back halls. Thankfully, the GW2 base has teleport points, so one can get back to the center/entrance if they get trapped in a closet.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I'd prefer to not see someone penalized for not wanting to join a supergroup or for making one of just their characters so they have control over their base and such.
(insert pithy comment here)
Anything you give directly to the min/max crowd will wind up getting exploited to the n[sup]th[/sup] degree. It's kind of like how if you penalize Fire damage when fighting in the rain, even if it's just a token of -1%, suddenly you'll have a conventional "wisdom" harden that you should never play Fire damage while it's raining. Yes, I'm obviously describing an overreaction, but that's the psychology that comes into play.
So any sort of "direct benefit" like you're talking about ought to be looked at with a healthy dose of skepticism because of the way that it UNlevels the playing field due to the automatic benefit nature of it.
Now, City of Heroes used a SG only "currency" of Prestige that got generated by playing the game in SG Mode (could be toggled on or off) which would cause a portion of your earnings to accrue as Prestige (SG currency), rather than as INF (cash currency). I could easily see having a slight bonus to earning SG currency when teamed up with other SG members (such that 2 SG members earn 1+1+0.02=2.02 instead of merely just 1+1=2) such that everyone earns "a little bit more" SG currency when teamed up with SG members than when they're not teamed up with SG members (so there's your teaming advantage) ... and then you can use that SG currency to craft/buy temporary performance enhancers like you were asking for from crafting tables within the SG Base. That way you "earn a little more" and have the OPTION of spending that additional gain on temporary performance enhancing boosters if you want to, but don't have to if you want to "save" your SG currency for another purpose (like decorating your SG Base, or whatever).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
If it's a private SG, then all of your actions can count towards SG advancement. It's not a penalty, as much as it is a lack of convenience. And one can belong to multiple SGs in GW2.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I've always been a proponent of global channels over supergroups in that channels provided greater potential reach/distribution to the playerbase. That being said, I suppose there's nothing stopping me from making a mule supergroup for the perks and going about my day.
What makes you think players won't form Super Teams to run content? If there is a bonus, why are you advocating to "punish" people who are not in a ST that run rogue?
Also, think about what happens a year or more down the line (especially if bonuses expand/stack). Any new STs that form are going to have to compete against established STs for people.
If you establish a theme/aesthetic for a Super Team and recruit like-minded people, no one is going to care about some miniscule bonus.
There is a baseline reason to form/join a Super Team already just based on mechanics. (refer to the [url=https://cityoftitans.com/forum/compilation-information-city-titans]Information Compilation[/url] thread)
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
Yes, my CoH SG also supported a global channel. Mostly because there was a Limit to how many characters could be in a SG - so we needed multiple SGs. And then there were players who had a character in the SG, but who were Not on that character at the time. Even more, there were multiple servers and branches of the SG. Everybody congregated and socialized on the global channel and we would happily swap servers or characters to help out friends.
So, I agree with you, that global SG channels will be important. In GW2, it's the Account that joins the SG, so all of your characters are in the same SG(s) and you can chat on the SG channels even when you're 'representing' a different SG, it's just a matter of /g1 /g2 /g3 etc. and /g sends to whichever SG you happen to be flagged in at the time.
Be Well!
Fireheart
I don't know. I never saw a problem with TOR's +XP and +REP bonus for guilds.
Mind you, I don't need such things either and in fact, I've run characters through TOR to max level way before I got an invite to my guild. Also, there's always those guilds that are created by a group to basically be a "Join this Guild that's all about being a chat room while we solo and get a XP bonus to boot"
They're small enough to really not be that big a deal but still there for just a little bit more yayness!
That's basically what I'm talking about. Not a world changing difference, just a slightly more practical reason for guild runs, etc.
They have a similar set up with FF14, guilds can provide XP and crafting bonuses to folks. And I think a handful of others.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
CoH had a precedent for this albeit never fully realized mostly due to the undocumented spaghetti code of bases. Also worth noting is how little we presently know about Super Teams and their support systems aside from some PvP bits.
First off we'll start with the Silver Mantis Strike Force which an SG gained access to with the purchase of a super computer for the base. That was content gated by being in a SG on redside. (Later they made it available to everyone.)
Then comes PvP base raids (Only partially implemented, but fun) for SG on SG combat. You HAD to be a member of an SG to participate, for at least a day as I recall. The ones we had implemented did no lasting base damage and really only granted bragging rights. But the promise of the FULLY implemented system included a SG raid to gain an Item Of Power (IOP) that WOULD grant a small SG wide bonus. BUT other SGs could then PvP raid you and steal the IOP. And any base damage done in an IOP raid would COST to repair or replace.
Joining an SG was always optional, but many seemed to enjoy it.
I like this idea. I like has WoW does it...or did it, I haven't played in a long, long time...but they have bonuses if you complete certain things with x number of guild mates. Who knows how CoT will be set up, but if you need currency to get more guild stuff, they could easily implement where the guild gets x% of all currency gained in a mission/story/whatever if there are x number of players from the same SG in the party.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
What happened to running content because you want to help a guildmate (or because it is fun)? If you are just grinding to grind, what is the point of playing a relatively unknown quantity that is City of Titans when you could just be playing WoW or some other well established game?
"Just, well, update your kickstarter email addresses, okay? Make sure they're current?" - warcabbit
GW2 has content that can only be run by guilds, as I understand it. As a somewhat lazy min/maxer and not a completionist, this doesn't bother me. I'm also not against the idea of having "SG Dailies" which would, in my mind, be missions you get to do like the tip missions from CoX, so like there are maybe 20 different ones, you can do them as much as you want, Doc Quantum shows up to cause trouble in some of them, etc.
I'm fine with having individual and/or SG rewards for that (you unlock base decor items by doing the missions, and/or yo get randomized swag item drops, IGC, etc like you would for doing other missions)
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Because I like grinding in my flashy costume XD.
Joking aside, I’m considering lookkng into content completion bonuses for when grouped with super team and even league members. Nothing huge, but a bonus none the less. Complete a plot, story, etc..earn an additional bonus.
At the very least it is worth consideration. As to Super Team specific content, I don’t think would make much sense. As anyone can go and start their own super team and we want to allow a super team of one person, gating content behind a super team of multiple people to unlock super team base stuff is unnecessarily prohibitive toward the concept of allowing a single player to make their own super team and build their own base.
We also have no plans for base pvp. It is way too large of a scope to design for. There are a lot of problems to deal with and it affects many aspects of the current design.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
My answer to this would be the same answer to "Why not just play any other MMO?"
OTHER MMO'S DON'T LET YOU CREATE AND PLAY A SUPERHERO!
WoW is fine if you want a fantasy romp but there are very few MMO's where a player can play something that shoots lasers from it's eyes and fly! Very few MMO's allow you the freedom to have your character fly under their own power. Very few let you run around a modern city stopping crimes.
Grinding just to Grind is a concept that baffles me, I don't get the allure. I've stopped playing games that were solely based around that. For me playing the actual game is secondary to making and playing a character. I'll take more incentives to do content, then I might actually play more than a tiny fraction of the game.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Which you could still do. Putting in little bonuses for stuff, doesn't stop it from being done. It either encourages or just gives people a nice little bonus that really isn't anything.
Also gives Min/Maxers something to feel they're min/maxing. Like in TERA were the bonuses mean nothing, but some people just think that +1 bonus to a stat is everything int he world. :p
Thank you for more Super Team tidbits Tannim222! [Quick! Someone alert Fireheart for the thread in FAQ!]
In particular I applaud allowing for a 1 person ST from the ground up. I have long felt the CoH devs intended for all of a players alts to be in one SG as a design decision. Which was about the only explanation for initial base rents being that high. (In fairness eventually rents were reduced and then again. Plus they got SO MUCH right it was a minor quibble overall.)
No base PvP frees up designers for much more decorative based decisions, which I do not have a great history with, but that's what friends are for. However one of the great laments about bases in CoH is how hard they were to display to other players not in your SG or coalition. Can you tell us if there is consideration for an opt in to display a ST base publicly?
Um, what? Do you mean Pyromantic?
Be Well!
Fireheart
OOPS! But YES!
Because I want to be my own goddamn superhero in a similar vein as City of Heroes/Villains.
I know Destiny 2 gives a bonus for teaming with guildmates (don't know the details sorry).
I like the idea of SG mates getting some kind of bonus for teaming but worry it could become a constant hassle of 'join my SG for this quest so we get a bonus' demands.
I think this could be overcome if the bonus was one of quicker progression towards non-combat goals. Just spit balling but what if the bonus was getting more credit towards certain costume items or noteriety.
Say you need to defeat 200 guys of a particular enemy group to get access to their special jacket costume part or base item. Teaming with SG mates could mean every defeat counts as 2 or something. Maybe teaming with SG mates can push a groups opinion of you further along the scales of noteriety than you can without that mate.
If it's non-combat rewards then it's less likely to give people a reason to exclude someone unless they join their guild.
I like the idea of bonuses for running content with guild/sg mates. As long as they are kept relatively small it should reduce any extra guild whoring/solicitation.
I agree that this could be a very real concern unless something is done.
I think the best means I have seen to preclude this kind of guild jumping would be to have a delay between when one leaves a guild and when one can join another. 22 hours would probably be a good enough delay in my opinion. Why not 24 hours you ask? 22 hours because if the average person plays for 2 hours at a time, then they would be able to leave one guild one day and join another when they log in the next. This way minimizes the amount of time running around in-game without a guild's social net.
GW2 lets you join a number of guilds at the same time, with the ability to select your active guild from one moment to the next. I believe they did this so you could have your raiding guild, your PvP guild and your leveling guild all on the same character. But I don't know if that ever lived up to its potential.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
There are a few ways around this. As already mentioned in another context, you could require membership for a full day before bonuses apply. But perhaps more effectively there is our community history and culture. Stuff like this happened pretty rarely in CoH and not for terribly long. Those that tried it quickly gained a reputation as folks to avoid. It also tends to go away when plenty of groups DON'T do it and we will have a single server structure. I will say it plainly here: The League I am building would tend strongly to be against forcing anyone to join by nature of it's theme. So I can promise you there will be options free of these shenanigans.
Avel said (in the streamlive thread) that the SB content will be unblocked by playing. I wonder how we will unblock those contents and stuff for SB. Is in ending tips or paths ? Is it by having some news contacts ? How will it work ?
By exemple : i want to have a SB for my ST but i'm alone by now. Will i have a ST costume mode as CoH had a SG costume mode to earn influence for the SG ?
[hr]
Suivez l'avancement du jeu City of Titans en Français sur https://titanscity.com
http://forum.titanscity.com | www.facebook.com/titanscity | http://twitter.com/TitansCity
[color=red]PR - Europe[/color]
I'm curious how often you've seen anything like that.
I don't see people just joining PuGs in TOR and saying "Join my Guild so we get more XP"
The instating and removing of guild members would likely make things like that not worth the trouble, but an okay thing for just "Hey guild members, want to join me on some missions?"
Unless it's like TOR where you just have to be in the same Guild, but get the bonus for being in the guild.
I think it would be appropriate for any SG activity bonus to be something that applies only to SG-related stuff, like base items. The idea being that working with one's SG-mates helps to achieve stuff for the SG, not bonuses for the individual.
The idea of accelerating the count for any sort of 'defeat x enemies' seems counterintuitive to me. Working with others will already make such defeat tasks take much less time just through simple mechanics. I see no reason to accelerate it even further.
In general, I'm of the opinion that if the devs have to bribe* players to do something in the game, then there's a design flaw that makes that activity not be as much fun as it should be. But the idea of working for a common goal that all can share (like a base teleporter) rather than individual bonuses seems to me to work on both a game level and a story level.
*Using the term loosely
Spurn all ye kindle.
Seen one flame lover, seen ‘em all... :P
[i]Has anyone seen my mind? It was right here...[/i]
If I may ... perhaps the best implementation would be something that doesn't start immediately, but rather needs to be something that ramps up over time in which the longer you play together the better the bonus gets (up to a limit).
Basic idea is that for the FIRST mission you complete with SG members, there's no bonus above and beyond having been in a Team with other people (SG members or not).
For the SECOND mission you complete with SG members, there's a TINY bonus for each SG member in the Team for completing content together.
For the THIRD and subsequent missions you complete with SG members, there's a VERY SMALL (but bigger than TINY) bonus for each SG member in the Team for completing content together.
Implementation would basically involve two variables for each PC ... one boolean (Y/N) and one integer.
The boolean variable is simply used to determine if any SG members were on the team from beginning to end. Simplest programming logic that I can think of for this would be to check every award of XP/IGC awarded during the mission to determine if a PC got a share of it (thereby inferring participation). So at the beginning of the mission, a check is done to see if anyone on the Team are members of the same Supergroup. If YES, set the boolean variable value to 1 ... if NO, set the boolean variable value to 0. If Group (as opposed to individual) XP/IGC are awarded during the mission, but a member of the team does not receive that award (for whatever reason, like being too far away or just not participating), then reset the boolean variable to 0.
At the end of the mission, count how many Team members still have their boolean variable set at 1 and assign this quantity to an integer variable and then subtract 1 from it (so you have a value of zero when soloing). Use the integer variable value as a multiplier for a TINY bonus award at the end of the mission for that PC.
So the way it works is that SG members who team up together [i]and who stick together and play together[/i] will end their missions with a slight bonus for having been members of the same SG. The boolean variable tracking participation is intended to prevent "free rider" exploitation (do a mission solo, then add in 7 SG mates at the very end to finish it and then everyone gets a bonus for merely "showing up" rather than for participating the whole way through where everyone "wins" way more than they've ostensibly "earned" through play).
Such a basic structure could then be duplicated to account for broader Coalitions beyond the confines of a single Supergroup's membership. You'd probably want to use a smaller multiplier for the bonus, but the overall "shape" of the implementation would be the same.
If you REALLY wanted to go the extra mile with such a system, you'd also vary the size of the multiplier based on how many missions a PC has (previous to the current one) completed with other SG and Coalition members. That way, the multiplier for the first mission could be zero, so you get "nothing" at first ... but then the multiplier goes above zero for the second mission ... and rises (slightly) again in the third and subsequent missions, topping out at 3+ missions. That way, the incentive is to join groups [i]and keep them together for 2+ missions[/i] rather than just dropping every group after completing a single mission. It orients the game mechanics around favoring people who play together LONGER than just doing a single mission, which then serves to advantage socialization among Players which can form the foundational basis for being and becoming in-game friends and getting to know people, and so on. Basically you create a reward system that rewards playing TOGETHER rather than one that rewards being as fickle as possible, constantly hopping from group to group to group, never forming any ties of socialization beyond the most immediate (and temporary).
So essentially a "tracking system" that pays attention to how LONG you've been playing together (this current game session) to generate the reward bonus, rather than just merely caring about only the current mission.
Hmmm ... now that I think about it, having even a "token" reward system like that, which Players "know" about, would actually go a long way towards encouraging civility in the game's social dynamics, even if the reward itself is barely noticeable overall. The mere fact that it's THERE and that it would show up in the reporting of rewards would have a "steering effect" on encouraging people to be more civil/sociable than they might otherwise have been inclined to be in the first place (this IS the internet, the cesspit of humanity, after all). It's something that would help buttress and support the notion that behaving in an anti-social way will have a quantifiable, game mechanical "cost" to it, even if it barely rises to the level of "pat on the wrist" as far as losses go. Why? Because you don't HAVE TO play friendly ... but the game will reward you more if you do. Sometimes, that's all the incentive people need to "do the right thing" and keep the game a happy place, rather than turning into something far less pleasant in a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons]tragedy of the commons[/url] sort of way.
Yes, that would mean (knowingly) adding a Social Engineering aspect to the game's mechanics ... but then, isn't that exactly what is being asked for here? And isn't it true that we value more what it takes us "effort" to accomplish? This is why I'm thinking that a "Social Bonus" that ramps up over successive missions and starting from zero (for the first mission) adds the necessary social incentive structure in such a way that it's harder to exploit and adds more for the "stick with it" behavior patterns that rewards people working together [i]over time[/i] (and more than just one mission), rather than being merely an attendance award for showing up (once).
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
Red, we already have a system for providing reward bonuses which increase over time at given thresholds; our Challenge and Achievements system.
I was considering adding a challenge for content completed with grouped super team members and another for league members. It is a matter of which best fits as an incentive and also doesn’t cause issues with other intended designs. The C&A system might just be a better fit for this rather than adding a linear bonus based on group members by ST or League or having to make yet another reward curve system layer above standsrd rewards.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
If you aren't going to do both SG and Coalition members, but can do one of the two, go with the Coalition option rather than the SG option, simply because the Coalition is a broader category and you can get away with adding a smaller (relative to SG option) bonus.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
You could give SG bases an option of having an NPC of some kind who might sell or otherwise trade items like temp powers, short-term buffs, etc in exchange for some SG-based content being done.
If there's SG-specific content, then you'd get SG-IGC for doing it,then use that to buy stuff from the SG NPC who vends stuff, likethe Vanguard Merits and vendors from CoX.
If there's a way to do regular content in "SG mode" so as to get SG lootz, you could let people accumulate SG-IGC that way.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
We aren’t making additional currencies for bases. Everything you end up doing to expand base functionality will act as a currency sink.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
Good choice Tannim
Indeed - I'm not against multiple currencies in the game, but it's best to keep them to a minimum if possible. At least don't let it get as crazy as some other games have gotten, such as STO (which incidentally has just added yet [I]another[/I] kind of in-game currency).
Another ST tidbit! LOVE em!
I like how WoW does this. There are basically two forms of advancement; stuff that the guild does, which gives the guild special perks for its members as it advances. And then a “reputation” system for each individual member that you earn as a guild member that gives you access to those perks.
Basically you don’t join a guild to just instantly get some perks. You join for the chance to earn perks from the guild. And in the process you’re probably contributing to the guild, improving its rank and increasing the available perks for everyone.
It’s a lovely system that rewards people who contribute and penalizes someone who joins the guild to “leech” off of everyone. I think CoT could implement something similar to make Supergroups something more than just an RP opportunity.
For those who ask, “Why do you need these incentives, why can’t you just socialize and help people?” This is an MMORPG. Advancement and rewards for your actions are an essential part of the game. It’s what separates it from a free-form “do anything you want and RP” system like Second Life. It will make SGs mean more and make them better.
Basically boils down to the age old question ... [i]"What's my motivation?"[/i]
If you want people to do something, you need them to be motivated to do it. Rewards are one form of motivation.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
This is an excellent post. And I would definitely support such a scheme in CoT.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
For me, it would depend what a character would need to do to improve his/her reputation in a SG. If it's something like the old game had, where you could do any activity in SG Mode and sacrifice some personal IGC gain for some sort of benefit to the SG, that seems ok to me. If it would be only for doing things while grouped, raids, etc. then no thanks.
Question: is reputation per character or per player? If I have contributed lots to the SG with my main, I shouldn't have to re-earn that reputation with every new alt I create in order for those alts to gain whatever the SG benefits are, especially if it's access to convenience items in the base like storage or teleporters.
Spurn all ye kindle.
While I don't mind either system, character/player...I do find it funny that people think "Because I did it on this character, I should have it on all characters" it's a nice perk, but shouldn't be required.
Though, could be a nice Store Item for a F2P game. "But this for $15 and all the perks a choosen character gains, becomes account wide!"
:p
In TOR, I used to go after all the datacrons. It was a nice feature when they made it account wide, but it wasn't needed.
As for the reason to add such things, not every player plays to be immersed in the setting, they just want to get in and beat things up. Perks help some get a bit social or possibly social :p "I want that little extra XP gain, guess I'll join a guild." Oh look, they end up starting to talk to some and become social :p
You know, that’s how I got into a few guilds over the years where I made some good friendships. In most cases I initially joined for some sort of personal gain (if not perks then people to run content with) but stuck around for the social aspects. It’s true that you can join for some perk but that doesn’t mean that’s the only reason you stay in it.
Peculiar Answer:
Let's suppose, simply for the sake of argument and illustration purposes, that the rewards accrue on a per character basis. Characters that get played a lot accrue more reward "points" than those who get played hardly at all. As Cinnder points out, that might wind up being a tedious hurdle to have to jump over for some people, even though it's an "Earn What YOU Earn" model (where "you" is singular, rather than plural). That very {insert whiny nasal voice} "Do I HAVE to?" complaint then creates an [b][i]opportunity[/i][/b] for a Service Option/Feature, which MWM can then provide [i]at a cost of Stars[/i].
Basically what the service would be is that it would "pool" all of the [b]banked[/b] (and therefore not yet used to purchase things) "points" that you've earned on all of the characters on your account and then let you "redistribute" those points (freely) among your alts. So if Alt 1 has 10 points and Alt 2 has 20 points and Alt 3 has 30 points and Alt 4 has 40 points, but you need 50 points to buy something for Alt 1 and 2 ... you can just spend Stars to "pool" those unused points earned by all of your alts and then redistribute them as a one time deal ... so that Alt 1 has 50 points and Alt 2 has 50 points and Alt 3 has 0 points and Alt 4 has 0 points.
If you think of it in terms of doing a "respec" (of sorts) of earnings towards rewards that haven't been spent yet, except it's being done at the Account level, rather than on the individual character level, it'll start to make more sense. You essentially get to "slush fund" your alts on one account, but the service costs Stars to use. Spend Stars, get 1 token for your account to make use of this service, which will consume the token. Unspent reward points would not be transferred between accounts though.
The alternative, of course, would be to simply PLAY THE GAME on your alts to accrue the necessary reward points to purchase whatever it is you were wanting to get.
Note that only by allowing/imposing an inconvenience like that do you open up the necessary space to provide a service (for a price) that will then mitigate that inconvenience.
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
I’d personally not want to create a complex system of perks such as guild rep etc...
If only because there are implications related to the psychological effects such systems have, or rather how it plays with certain aspects of the psyche and can adversely affect people.
I’m not saying it is outright bad, only that it warrants serious consideration.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]
I prefer the idea that points earned for the guild belong to the guild and every member can contribute to the pool. Then, guild perks are available to all members of the guild.
Be Well!
Fireheart
Yeah, I think I'm with Tannim and Fireheart on this one. And I still think anything earned should be only shared resources like storage and teleporters, not any kind of personal buff.
Spurn all ye kindle.
FF14 has a similar kind of thing. You get some sort of guild rep or currency or something which then the leader's or those with high enough clearance can spend those to give the guild members some bonuses for a period of time.
I enjoy these kind of systems, much like the SG stuff in CoX it made me feel like I was contributing to the group rather than working towards my own ends.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Since this is a personal opinion statement by the person also known as Tannim222, I'd like to hear more about how you feel.
For example, you state that guild rep is a complex system. So you have something in mind when you say that. Something in mind that is unclear to the rest of us. When I hear the word guild rep, it is either two different things:
1. It is the overall rep score of the guild. And per this discussion, that translates into a measure of the amount of guild perks available to all members.
[indent]or it could mean[/indent]
2. It is the individual rep score of the member within the guild. Which could translate into a measure of the amount of guild perks available to the member
[indent]or it could be both[/indent]
Which is too complex? and to what sort of psychological issues are you referring?
You've entered the fray as an individual, we can't let you get away with such a nebulous post now, can we?
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I too like the way WoW handles the guild rep. I have recently returned to WoW so it is still pretty fresh in my mind. When you join a guild you can buy a guild tabard and as long as your wearing it you gain guild rep from just doing stuff, such as questing or killing. The rate at which you acquire rep is such that by level 50, possibly before that, I had maxed out my guild rep. Since WoW currently has 110 levels, just running around leveling my character was enough to max out the rep by the time I hit about mid level. In CoT, I'm not sure I like suggesting this because I don't like having to wear the SG costume since it doesn't always make sense to have a character change their costume, but it could be setup that as long as you were in your SG costume you would build rep. I do like the idea of getting a boost in rep generation if your running around with your SG mates.
Both ways add complexity on both design and for players compared to the ease which we intend. They aren’t insurmountable complexities, just required more time to design and code. The complexity is more related to psychological factors.
It, as a designer, you aren’t asking the questions of how systems can be used to leverage how people think for effectiveness while also asking how it can affect how people think and impact them both negatively and positvely, you aren’t doing a good job as a designer.
Now guild-rep systems on the surface and for a decent amount of people seem positive. It makes you feel like a contributor to your guild. It plays with the parts of our brain that like achievements and can also make us feel more included with our on-line social circle (guild).
However, it can also do something else. For those that suffer from anxiety, depression, and have issues of social acceptance. Which, sadly, tend to be a large number of people in one or more of these areas, also which tend to play on line games.
For these people, guild rep systems can end up negatively impacting them if for what ever reason, they are not able to achieve what others have. These systems feed into anxiety and depression and feelings of isolation when players are part of a group but not really part, where they can’t do all the cool stuff because they haven’t been around long enoug, or contributed long enough.
For these issues, there are no simple work arounds. It places pressure on people within the community to recognize when this is occurring to people within their social circle and make efforts to have them feel more included. But it doesn’t resolve the issues of performance anxiety for systems where it is up to the individual player to perform better or more often to unlock things for the guild.
There is a whole bunch more to unpack here. But I can say wit certainty that these systems have had negative effects on gamers. And if course, there are varying degrees to all this and a whole bunch of stuff to unpack.
Suffice it to say that while no system is perfect, I would prefer one which alleviated and avoids as many of these
Issues as possible.
[hr]I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic -
[color=#ff0000]Tech Team. [/color]