Guilds and Beacons

Devlog
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I thought the current design was that beacons only cost the resources required to make them? Could you elaborate on levels? I may have missed this is a devlog. I have yet to see devs confirming that beacon amounts given to players are part of progression or skill lines. I’ve only seen this suggested by a few players.

Or do you mean if we did an achievement-based progression system that all guilds would equally have to work on the achievements and beacons would only be awarded for completing these achievements and they wouldn’t be made anymore?

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Yeah it was in a devlog. let me see if i can find it. Its a bit old because it was also the first confirmed mention of levels.

Ah. there we go

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96

Excellent, thank you.

So with this we get back into the argument where people can just stockpile beacons and then donate them to the tunnel guild (which I think many of us in this thread, myself included, are against).

Anyway, I’m not for circular arguments and as @Havok40k said, the tunnel guild is an edge case (albeit still one that should be thought of in design). I’ve only been pushing it because it keeps getting responses and I don’t like not replying to responses.

This (how beacons should work with guilds) is definitely a very tricky part of the game to think about and I wish the devs the best luck in getting it right haha :D.

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I think this is the biggest problem in this discussion.
People need to free their mind from the idea of guilds solely being a community of players that like to do all sorts of activities together. Guilds wont have the same “RPGish touch” as in other games (at least most of them), the ability to join several guilds has a purpose and is there (or proposed) for a reason.

This is probably how most of the guilds will be used (at least its how I´m gonna use them).
My gameplay in regards of guilds will probably look like this:
Join 2-3 guilds in the common sense of guilds (friends, people i like to frequently play with, skilled raider, etc)
And join/found 60 other guilds for every other minor build.
I don´t want to play with the members of those 60 guilds (besides of building ofc). I don´t want to grind dailies/experience with those people. I just want to collect some people for a build, build it and then leave it behind, ready to be explored by others.
And as such a player I’m absolutely fine with players taking their donated beacons with them when they leave (if the guild management is provided with a reasonable amount of time to react to the plot-fluctuation)

And I don´t say this as an assumption, this is exactly how I played in Minecraft (heavily modded to mimic what B< is going to be) and a LOT of people I played with played/felt in the same way.

I might be wrong, but I think this is the use of guilds @olliepurkiss intended with his system.

Honestly, this is the first dev-proposed system in a while that I can 100% support (besides of the part of not being able to leave a guild at any given time, which could (imo) easily be fixed by something like [this] (Beacons Survey Results - #37 by Vastar) )

But I also want to mention that I agree that guilds need to be restricted to not be able to instantly gain an unlimited amount of power solely because of the number of initially joining players. But there are other (better) solutions to this than restricting the creative space of people that just want to build pretty stuff together, it also doesn´t need overly complex “daily-quest like” systems.
With “Main-Guilds” hopefully being a thing a very simple solution might be possible: All your gained expereince also gets accounted for your main guild (with a possible bonus/multiplier if you play together with other players that have the same main guild), just like it´s handled with guild experience in most other games.
But the ‘guild-lvl’ rewards should definitely not be related to the (maximum) beacon count of the guild. Instead the guild-lvling could slow down the gain of power of a guild by tying the maximum amount of plinths allocated to guild beacon-space to the lvl of the guild. Or by giving central-guild tax advantages to high leveled guilds.

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98

They seem to be much like Diablo 3’s ‘communities’ - might be worth seeing where those succeed & fail at their job

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99

Wow… I didn’t know that it was possible to get this feeling from an idea… But i am thoroughly and completely disgusted by it. I don’t even know where to respond. I wouldn’t mind a “contract” system for builds. But this? This isn’t a guild. this is just… Vile.

@olliepurkiss @ben is this what you want to go for? “join 60 guilds for building”? I read it completely differently when looking at this and the QA guild thread but i can clearly see how you could get that idea. i need answers!

i want to explain the difference of what isee

Work together. not build together
Group projects. This might very well mean build together
The last sentence hints of some sort of guild progression system.

Considering that the game consists not exclusively of building. i dont believe this would be the phrase they would use.

It is mentioned that this is also covered here

First is building. Second is something else, seems like economic power.

Also considering they say “guilds will compete for world dominance” i think that goes against guilds being those small building contracts that you suggest you read it as. But its a matter of interpretation.

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I thought the exact same but wasn´t sure if I should mention it :joy:
I think the biggest problem is issued by the naming. If players hear guild they automatically have an idea of what to expect. If the system is rather different but uses the usual naming it becomes confusing.
Changing the name to ‘team’ , ‘organisation’ or ‘unit’ could give new players a better idea of whats going on (or at least won´t prompt any inadequate assumptions).

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101

With no word I denied guilds being powerhouses looking for world domination or guilds being solely about building, nor did I say that I´m against any form guild progression (in fact I always liked the implementation of guild progression in most other games).

Also everything you wrote in your post aligns with my interpretation of the shared information. It´s just that different players will use the proposed system very differently (as shown in my post you are replying to) thus the need to support each use of guilds as best as possible.

What else would justify the ability to join as many guilds as you want?

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102

Utterly and completely poor planning. I will wait to hear more about the proposed system. If it is like you suggest i will not let them live it down. If it isn’t like yours and is more focused on being actual guilds i will go make a suggestion called “Contracts” which would function as you desire guilds to function. Just as its own system.

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I think “join as many guilds as you want” and "players donating their own permanent beacons"

are completely 100% contradictory to

"guilds competing for world dominance"
and "building the most impressive structures and displaying the most wealth"

This discussion isn’t useful. People are debating the details of how guilds should work without any concrete information about what guilds are supposed to mean/be used for.

We need to know if guilds are:

  • used for small groups of people working on a single project or small area
    -this would encourage the idea of “joining multiple guilds”

  • used for large groups of diverse players, for the purpose of setting up towns, outposts, markets, and supply chains.
    -this would encourage the idea of “guilds = towns” and that a large guilds & alliances of guilds would be powerful enough to have a degree of control over a single world.

I feel that these two are completely separate, and both cannot be contained by a single system without said system being bloated and awkward to use. >B would benefit from having two different ways of players grouping up, not mutually exclusive.

One would be for people looking to set up a town. The claimed area would largely be static, maybe based around # of people in the town or have a tax per plot claimed. Towns would also have a decently large ‘no claim’ area around it to prevent cluttering from other towns. This would let people claim large enough areas to make towns and bring together large groups of people, while also preventing too much abuse as there would be an upkeep cost on the territory.

The other would be halfway between towns and individual claiming, and would be used for small groups of players. These beacons would have a higher up-front cost than town beacons, but no upkeep. These would primarily be used for making group houses, small villages, and guild halls (if not in a town).

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104

@alexanderyou hit the point like many others also already did and like devs mentioned somewhere.

There are 2 ideas, that are basically different.

I will call them now Guild (which create towns and other giant projects) and task force (which are created for a special minor tasks).

A guild should be able to get huge, so progress should be nearly endlessly (in beacons and other advances).
I think my suggested systems of post 80 with kind of currencies could work that out, with hardly being abused. And it requires teamwork.

that’s a point, but can be solved like: You could turn off the tax win for guild members, while buying / selling within the guild.

Now the question is, how should a taskforce work? They are designed for many minor projects. Beacons should be part of them, to be able to cover project. But there need to be limitations. They may not grow as big as guilds and they should also not be a beacon low cost production machine.

I don’t know if that’s the right restriction since people have to make a first big effort to be able to work out their project… I think they should be able to immediately start?

Any suggestions? @vastar strongly fights for multiple guilds for small, single projects. Maybe you got an idea?

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105

I thought they were planning on having a small global tax on buying/selling from stores.

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The current guild system allows for both your definitions of guild and taskforce. There aren’t many limits on the current system and I don’t think we should impose any. They allow for players who want to make/be in large guilds to do that. They allow for casual friends wanting to work on a small building like a tavern together to do that. [quote=“Smoothy, post:104, topic:4340”]
They may not grow as big as guilds and they should also not be a beacon low cost production machine.
[/quote]

Basically I don’t think we should impose restrictions such as the above.

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107

#^This

The originally proposed guild system allows both, huge guilds, small guilds and what you´d call ‘taskforce’. I don´t see any need to separate the social groups of B< into tedious subsystem, especially with the mentioned “main-guild” feature in mind.

You don´t like the idea of joining 20 “taskforces”? Just don´t join any.
You want to join “the one and only” guild and seek for world dominition? Great I´m sure there will be a guild for you that offers exactly that.

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108

Hmm.

it also didn’t allow you to leave the guild.

No. That is kinda the problem. They are not mutually exclusive but there are definitely some differences. What about all discussing the whole bridge project? shows that systems which could work in bigger / longterm guilds wouldnt work for the small projects.

Interestingly enough i don’t see any reason to hijack a system to do something YOU CAN ALREADY DO.

The main argument i have seen is “we want to build together!”

Lets see what you asked for

-You have a limited amount of beacons
-You can work on projects with people
-You can freely choose when to get your own beacons back
-You should able to do it with a limiting amount of people
-You should be able to do it instantly

Now lets see what the beacon system already have planned.

-You have a limited amount
-You can put player tokens into beacons to allow them to build in them
-You can remove your own beacons again when you desire (Prob for some cost)
-You can decide how many tokens you want to put into the beacon
-You can place the beacons instantly.

what you want guilds to be are literally already things you can do with your own beacons.

You don’t like the idea of joining guilds that requires time/dedication? Just dont join any. You want to just build with a few other people? Great you can already do that with the current beacon system!

Like the planned system already does.

They remove certain aspects which could be part of guilds to cater to people who wants to work in smaller task forces. aka the whole “Its unfair i have to work to gain beacon space when i just want to build something!”

Do you guys not see? The thing you ask for IS ALREADY COMING! What is the point of Hijacking another system to do PRECISELY the same while limiting it to cater to the needs of small players which are already catered to in the main system?

But alright. You use the argument “You can be in many guilds” then i will use the counter argument "Why have they stated that they want guilds to be so big that you can get subgroups of guilds WITHIN the guilds? That really doesnt seem like a system made for “3 man builder teams”. Where does world domination come in? where does economy gain come in? What are the differences between the taskforce system you want and the beacon system already in place?

EDIT: You might be right. Maybe they are doing guilds as nothing but a hollow shell focused entirely around catering builders. But if that is the case. then its the second worst decision they have ever made (after the exclusive gameplaychanging race) and they WILL Alienate a part of Maybe the majority, maybe not. But it would be just another system catering to builders. and honestly? i think there are already waay too damn many of those in the game. And i will fight with my very soul against it. But we need official confirmation first. @olliepurkiss if you read this. Think about the question “If the system is nothing more than what vastar suggest, a puny builder contract. What difference would it make? After all it is still all achievable with what is already planned?” I dont believe it is just that. the devs are not stupid, nor are they new at making games. So i simply do not believe that they are proposing a system that is simply identical to an already planned one.

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109

…I’m pretty sure this was my point. Which means I probably missed the point of your post.

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To clarify

You: The guild system suggested by the devs is already fitting both sides

Me: The BEACON system which is entirely seperate from any potential guild system can already do the same.

Am i misunderstanding? In case im not. i’m not saying that “the guild system suggested is good enough”. I’m saying that if we WERE to scrap the entire guild system. poof. gone. never going to be ingame. Even with that you could still achieve the whole “build together” with the current beacon/token system. Which is why i find it redundant and more than anything rude to suggest that a potentially good guild system should cater entirely to the builders. even though the system is already in place (outside of guild systems)

Is that a bit clearer? Or am i misphrasing something? (i might be)

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If guilds were only going to be used for building projects, I’d say you’re right and that beacons would serve all purposes.

I’m doubting that’s the case though.

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112

So, let’s say we remove beacons from guilds. Now beacons and guilds are stand alone separate things. How would a guild leader manage the beacons under his guilds control? I’m assuming that the placer of a beacon has irrevocable rights to that beacon, thought they can share permissions within the area.

So, how does a guild leader manage projects inside of beacons they did not directly place? Does that not leave them entirely at the mercy of the owner? Is that really that great of a concern, or just a natural check and balance?

I get the feeling that this question may be similar to what lead to the original beacon/guild plan.

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113

Precisely. I am saying that is what @Vastar is arguing for with his “join 60 guilds” and the whole idea of guilds working like “a taskforce” thats why i say its utterly redundant to want guilds to work just like that. He did say he would have “3 main guilds” which i think should be the focus. the “main” guilds that you want. the guilds you join for the social activities or to have shared objectives/resources with. And the problem is that you can say it covers both. but if we use a diagram

Red is the “proper” guild which is the classic “We make a guild to play together and bond!” and the blue is the “Taskforce”. The green area is the overlap. That is where you said “Look at the overlap!” and i say “Yeah… But look at how much DOESNT overlap”. As greatly discussed above. Forexample a guild progression system requiring achies, guild currency whatever lies in the red circle. But that would be against the blue circle which focuses entirely on “instant create guilds for small projects”. At the same time if we talk about “Allow people to take their beacons with them” due to the sort of “quick demand” nature of the blue circle then the red circle is more focused on “As a guild we should expand together and we need the other”. And since there is another overlap that looks like this

Which has an overlap that makes them nearly identical. i say scrap the blue part of the original diagram because then we can focus purely on the sort of “main guild” which potentially removes quite a few barriers which had to be there so the blue circle could still exist before.

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