Guilds and Beacons

Devlog
82

I don’t disagree. The whole idea is a bit baffling to me but they’re trying something different. Which is fine, we’ll see how it goes. I just don’t plan on joining more than 1, maybe 2 guilds. And I expect both of those to be large and community-driven rather than project-driven.

It was an example provided by @Vastar, not me. Like you, I’m not really a builder either so I’d never do this or really care about it.

I may be wrong, but this is how I interpreted his example:

There are two guilds. Guild A and Guild B. They are fairly sized and have both benefited from their traders trading with traders from the other guild. However, there’s a problem. A large and tall mountain range blocks the two guilds. It’s dangerous to try to grapple up the mountain as one mis-click means instant death and a loss of goods. And it’s far too long to go around in any reasonable amount of time. So the traders have asked the leaders of the two guilds to create a tunnel through the mountain to reduce the time/risk associated with trading.

The leaders agree and believe this will be beneficial to all. With beacon taxes part of the game though, they decide to use the proposed guild system to create a Guild C, which has miners and builders from both guilds. Vastar thinks that having beacons tied to progress would prevent Guild C from building and maintaining this tunnel because a group of builders doesn’t want to have to feel forced to go fight Titans or pick flowers in order to make this tunnel. They should be able to jump right into this project without being forced to work on other projects before addressing the very simple project for which they were formed.

@Smoothy, your proposal sounds very much like the achievement sort of system proposed by @Zouls, @Havok40k, and perhaps a few others. It’s sound and enables slow guild progression with the exponential limit on growth. But it also fails to account for the above (and other guilds formed to tackle short-term or collaborative projects rather than community-building).

Edit: If it’s not clear enough, I’m not really for the “make a guild to do a project and then move on” approach either. And I’m not saying it’s something we should just accept and move on with. I’m just saying it’s part of the CURRENT design, which CAN BE CHANGED, AS WITH ALL DESIGNS FOR ALL FEATURES IN ANY EARLY ACCESS GAME (all caps not because I feel emotional or because I’m trying to shout, but to make this point more salient as I’ve been told by an individual in the past that my threads do not explicitly say this and as such it seems to them like I’m arguing that designs are set in stone. So I told the individual I would try to provide disclaimers on every thread in which I try to work with a current design to make it better since they seem to not understand that designs are not set in stone until implementation and even then a new design can be created to implement something different).

My post is only working with @Vastar’s example, which I’m neither for or against on a personal level but which I think needs to be kept in mind as a totally legitimate possibility with the current design. I welcome subsequent posts to challenge the currently proposed guild system or to try to work with what we have to come up with creative solutions for the devs to ponder.

83

I don’t think so. If you create a guild, experience costs to set free the first beacons are low. For short-term projects as well as buildings, you’ll never use as much beacons as for entire city. Else it’s neither “normal” building nor something short term.

And yes, i did not try to combine every proposal / idea. That’s impossible since their philosophis often contradict. Though I think people who like to pledge any sort of beacon are the minority. The majority is as I read it for spending currencies / money / help in progression by playing.

84

It doesn’t matter for @Vastar’s example if the experience costs are free to low. It doesn’t seem right that a group of people trying to tackle a specific project should be forced to do other projects in order to gain the space to tackle the one they want to tackle.

If beacons remain at 8x8x8 it will take a considerable number to build a tunnel through certain mountain ranges (depending on the mountain range, of course).

This is true. There are two problems I’m seeing here. The first is what I mentioned above. Progression through activities actively hinders project-specific guilds. Progression through numbers/currencies/resources does not. The second problem is that @Vastar’s example works off of the currently proposed guild system which I think the more vocal posters on this thread are against. It’s difficult to have a conversation where one person is using assumptions based on the current, dev proposed design and the second person is using assumptions based on a different, player-proposed design.

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85

So, guild A and B split the work load in half, meeting in the middle. Problem solved. NEXT!

Joking aside, unless I’m mistaken, the whole sub-guild thing does not work as @Vastar seems to be implying. A sub-guild should share the beacon plots allocated by its parent guild, not operate as an autonomous 3rd guild. I don’t understand why 2 guilds would form a 3rd full guild for a single mutual project.

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86

I don’t think Vastar was proposing a faction be created. He was proposing an entirely new guild. So sub-guilds are not involved.

The only reason I could think of for using a new guild was taxes. If one side takes on the project for a tunnel and taxes their “friends”, it could cause inter-guild issues. Of course this isn’t a problem with design, it’s a problem with the behavior of the guild with the tax.

Vastar could have other reasons for using a third Guild. I’m not trying to change his example or put words in his mouth, just playing devil’s advocate by using his example.

In any case, the problem of experience/achievement progression still persists even for random people who join together for any project-based guild. It’s not bound solely to @Vastar’s example.

87

It may still be an issue, but it’s a considerably smaller issue than what to do if somebody leaves, and is a far less complex solution.

88

Yeah its a pretty good idea, except this. Again its a “player to player” interaction which would be abuseable (have guild members place stuff for sale, get friends to buy it. pay friends back and get item back. repeat)

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89

I 100% agree.

And achievement progression with permanent gains in beacon space is a great way to tackle people leaving, especially for larger/less specialized guilds. It just puts the specialized people at a severe disadvantage. If we can solve that disadvantage using the achievement progression system somehow, then I know which proposal has all of my backing.

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90

Yeah pretty much this

@Clexarews to me @Vastar example is pretty much the same as saying “How can i use a fork to eat soup!”. and when we say “you are not supposed to eat soup with a fork. but with a spoon.” the answer is “BUT THEN ITS NOT A FORK!!”. Again that suggestion, in my eyes. should NOT be a point of the guild discussion.

THEY SHOULDNT!. Again its a fundamental part of the guild system to use it like that. As a sort of “Pfft create new guilds to make new projects” why in the world would it work like that? Guilds should be an investment not a sort of “free beacon build project”. Again i would be fine with a secondary system for this. call it alliances. call it contracts. whatever. something that binds either all people involved or all guilds involved. OR they could call for a third guild which specializes in building cause then they are both getting screwed over if anything happens.

I simply do not believe that should ever. EVER. be the point of guild systems.

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91

Well every problem can be solved with enough time and enough money. which is kinda the problem. The work it would take.

The most interesting and best way to include diversity, but also the most expensive one most likely is as i mentioned above, achievements and challenges. If a guild could pick challenges which requires a certain skilltree at a certain level (building, trading, hunting) with various sizes (Small, Medium, Big) then it could be made to even out. For example doing a 5 man trader mission, 5 man builder mission, 5 man defender mission and 5 man hunter mission would give the same progression as a 20 man builder mission. That way guilds which are widely spread could benefit from it while specialized guilds could take the bigger and harder tasks since they focus exclusively on it.

The easier and cheaper one would again just be to gain a small% of exp from the exp players gets. That way they could just tie it directly into the playstyles which are already planned and which would already give gold and use that as progression. the problem with that is just that it removes some of the more interesting achievements and removes potential guild events. But that would be the very minimum

And then they could also just make a system somewhere inbetween those two. But those are the max and the min i think.

92

That’s fair. And I’ve said a few times that I agree with you. But I’ve also mentioned that I’m playing devil’s advocate for the currently proposed design. And the currently proposed design allows guilds to be created for project-based guilds.

That real-world example doesn’t really compare to Vastar’s example.

Let’s use general predicates, using ones that correspond to real objects is REALLY detrimental to logic.

What he’s really saying is this:

We have a tool. Guilds. Guilds can be created to tackle different things.

Guild(A) might be a mercantile guild that wants to create a shopping district and hires people to supply crafters who then use traders to sell their goods.

Guild(B) might be a mercenary guild that helps protect gatherers and miners on dangerous worlds.

Guild(C) might be a titan-hunting guild that has portals to many different worlds seeking out titans.

and so on. Guild(X) could be Vastar’s example of a collaboration between two guilds to build a tunnel.

The devs shouldn’t be saying “this is an inefficient use of this tool”. That fact that the tool can be used at all for Guild(X) means that either the rules behind the tool need to account for Guild(X) or the tool needs to be redesigned such that Guild(X) is not a possibility. This is pretty much the fundamentals and the challenge of usability and design in software.

Even if it’s not intended to use something for a certain reason or even if it’s not efficient to use something for a certain reason, people will use the tool for the reason if they are able to. Good design isn’t retroactively saying “stop that”. It’s proactively saying “how can we make this easier or better when it’s used this way?” or “how can we prevent this from causing user-harm when used this way?”.[quote=“Zouls, post:91, topic:4340”]
For example doing a 5 man trader mission, 5 man builder mission, 5 man defender mission and 5 man hunter mission would give the same progression as a 20 man builder mission. That way guilds which are widely spread could benefit from it while specialized guilds could take the bigger and harder tasks since they focus exclusively on it.
[/quote]

Seems cool, but you’ve already pointed out that certain professions can be abused in different ways. It’d be quite difficult and time-consuming to account for all of these in a design.

Besides, this still forces players to focus on different projects outside of their own. Like builders would have to make a building (from the blueprints like you said, or something else) just to earn the space to make the building they want. Miners would have to hunt down minerals just to get the space to clear a tunnel. And so on.

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93

They would need to do so anyways. No matter what system there would always be a cost. its not like guilds are just “free beacons”. Even if we were to use the originally suggested systems you would still be limited by levels, you would still need to do something to gain beacons

I honestly don’t see the problem Do work to get paid? Seems pretty standard. If a guild wants to expand they should use beacons on it. But beacons shouldnt be given freely. Again nor do i believe that it should ever be the case that “you just make a guild” for one project.

94

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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95

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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97

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.

100

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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