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Guild System

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More on my own Stormbringer idea:

Guild System

The players can have four different statuses:

– Common peoples
– Guilds
– Houses
– Fallen Houses

Common Peoples
Each player falls in this category as he enters the game. This status already determines a precise position. Mobs and NPCs will attack or help (commerce, services and quests) the player depending on his faction/aligment value. But he will also starts with a precise position in the PvP. A common player will be always flagged for factional PvP. So a “Law” players can be attacked from a “Chaos” one right at the beginning (or by a fallen house, see below). In this case the rules about the factional PvP apply. Each player will be able to choose if accepting the fight (and the consequences) or flee. It’s not completely open PvP because you can always have the possibility to flee. What you cannot do is mind your own business and ignore the menace. Mercenaries are also considered common peoples.

Guilds
Guilds are easy to build. You just need five other players and the guild is done. The structure is similar to what you have in current games. There’s a communal chat and various ranks (ranks are shown graphically). There’s also a special rank for the active mercenaries. A guild will be able to hire mercenaries (other players). The system is easy. Each mercenary will be hired behind a contract. This contract is based on two elements: payment and time. Basically a mercenary is a temporary guild member paid by the guild. If you set the cost to zero you can use this rank to recruit new players and test them before really add them to the guild. Guilds don’t have a “built-in” tax system.

Houses
A guild automatically becomes an “house” when it owns a part of the land. So if the guild owns a castle, a village, an outpost or various cities, it becomes automatically an “house”. If these structures are lost, the “house” goes back to its “guild” status. Being a house let you manage the real core of the game. You really have the control of a part of the world, you have NPCs under your services, you can set taxes, commerce, manage guards, territory boundaries, upgrade the structures and so on. Then you also gain a special status in the PvP system. Once a guild becomes a house it is more exposed. Not only the factional PvP is always active but also other houses inside the same faction can declare a war to another one. The declaration of war is one-way. Once it’s set you have a warning and from then you can only fight. This system allow battles inside the same faction and it’s active by default as your guild control a piece of the land. To limitate the possible disasters, there are systems that prevent the players from exploiting this rule. Each time a player kills another player in the same faction (this is the case of House vs. House) the *whole guild* (each character inside the guild, logged or not) will suffer a penalty in the faction/aligment value. So, if the battle goes on for long, the houses involved could reach a status where their factional value is reduced to zero. In this case an “house” becomes a “fallen house”. (there should be mechanics that allow an house to become a fallen house even without directly warring against its own faction)

Fallen Houses
A “fallen house” is another new status. In this case the status is determined by a timer value. To pass from guild to house you need to own a piece of land but once you pass from a house to a fallen house the land isn’t anymore important (a fallen house can own or not a part of the land). A fallen house will be flagged this way for a period of time. During this period not only the opposite faction can attack it, but everyone can: the enemy faction, the rival house/fallen house and the whole, once-friendly faction. It’s a special status where you have the world against you. Attacking and killing a player that belongs to a fallen house in the same faction doesn’t have anymore a penalty on the factional value. This is the path if you want to stay out of the three factions (Law, Chaos, Balance). Once you are a fallen house you are against everyone else. This status “heals” with the time and just the time but can still be redeclared if a fallen house wants to stay so.

—

The whole system is built to give depth and strenght to the three faction system (Law, Chaos, Balance). At the same time it allows the players to play even inside the same faction by exploiting the politics. The “fallen house” status is another position that allows a guild to build its own presence in the world without being a force included in the three factions. At one point a “fallen house” could become an even stronger reality than what the game’s structure expect by default.

There are two exceptions to the system above. The first exception is about alliances. Alliances are just a communal chat between various guilds and houses. Fallen houses alliances can only exist between fallen houses. In the gameplay the alliances have no value. It’s only a way to communicate.

The other exception is about the “Balance” faction. This faction behaves differently from Chaos and Law. There aren’t guilds or houses here. The Balance is like a big guild and each player already begins inside this structure. The revolutionary idea is that this whole thing will be governed in democracy. There will be periodical elections and who will win the elections will lead the faction. The government will be built around 20-30 members that will decide together what the Balance will do. They will control the commerce and they will decide if the Balance allies with the Law or Chaos. Everything about Balance is being determined by the government. No other guilds or houses (or even solitary players) are contemplated in this strange faction.

By default the Balance can only attack a fallen house but not another faction. If the balance wants to attack Law or Chaos they need to build an alliance with one side. These alliances can be public or secret but they cannot be broken every few minutes. Each decision will last for a limited and fixed period of time.

P.S.
As a side note: To hold a piece of land not only you need to defend it but you need also to pay an upkeep. The system is built so that this payment is easier if you are inside a faction. For a fallen house it’s a lot harder to mantain the control over the land and this because of the complex commerce/resources system that isn’t explained here. Since a fallen house has no contact with the other three factions (all enemies), it’s obvious that it will be hard for them to find the resources for the upkeep.

Latest design f00leries

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Lately I’m re-reading Elric/Stormbringer saga and it’s something extremely stimulating. As I read, I imagine to transpose all that in a mmorpg that could be at the same time extremely innovative and fun. Joining together what could be a very strange and niche product with an experience that surpasses everything already on the market. Even on the popularity level.

Obviously I don’t hold my ideas to stay into the limits of the tech, because this is only a useless work of mind and I’m the only limit to what I imagine. For now I focused two elements that will be really hard to realize technically. The first element is the player collision. FFXI has it and my form of collision is not so different. You’ll be able to move through another model (monster or player) only if you keep pressing very hard on the limit. It’s what happens already in FFXI but with a stronger effect. The second element is about the fly. I want to have in the game a strong presence of flight. In particular about dragons. A bigger part of the PvP I have in mind is about fighting with war machines and other tools that will need more than one player working on them. The idea is to move from a player-centered gameplay to a wider range where you are really part of an army. With complex strategies, a concrete role of the land and the structures, and the use of complex war machines. So the exact opposite of an open-field arena where all that matters are the skills of a group of players. I want the warfare. I want complex tactics based on emergent elements than just a flat arena. A warfare that pivots around concrete combat and concrete consequences. And I have strong ideas to accomplish this.

The other part I’m developing is the PvE experience. In this case completely integrated with the aligment/karma system and in the basic world where the factional PvP happens. So PvE inside the PvP and as a concrete part of it. Then, aside that, there will be the instanced zones. These zones correspond to the various (infinite) planes of Chaos. Here you can invent everything and the limit is simply your fantasy. Each plane will be like an inner world, with its soul and purpose. Each of these planes will be used for a precise adventure that will show a new form of “storytelling”. The direction where I want to aim is what “ID” is trying to achieve with Doom 3. I want to push the cooperative gameplay of a tight group of players till the limit. The limit is about involving a party in a frightening experience. These instances won’t be always open. It will be an event to go inside them (the idea is to tie the planar levels to a system like Darkness Falls in DAoC, so they open if you achieve and perform various actions in the real world). If you fail an attempt you’ll suffer a loss and the access to the planar dimension will be forbidden for a period of time. Many gameplay elements I have in mind to transform and push the PvE expereince to a complete new level. Just as an example: a new concrete use of the light system. If you enter a cave you need a light. These light will be magical forms of a torch that will produce various types of effects (like “cones” of light). You will *hear* the monsters moving and lurking around you but you’ll have to point these torches toward them to see them. They’ll dodge the lights and will try to fight unseen. The animations of the players during the combat will make a full use of these light sources to create a realistic effect. You’ll have the fear of fighting against something that you can barely see and with a solid menace because these attempts are tied to a “one time only idea”. You could be able to access the planar level again only the following week, or the following month.

To this I want to add a depth to each monster. Each will have a complex data. Each will have a story, a behaviour and a purpose. The AI will make use of different types of attack and each monster will have various tools to use realistically in a fight. I want a soul here, not just meat you throw to the players to make them loose time. Each monster will have a schedule, they won’t just stay on the place. They could be friendly or enemies depending on your alignment and each entity of the world won’t be just something you need to aim and attack. You will be able to find your own way by killing them, or by making them your friends and allies. These monsters have their own life and objectives. They have a role in the gameplay and a part in the ‘politics’ and the story of the world. Sometimes the players will start to believe that they are just tools, in the hands of these alien entities coming from the planes of Chaos.

Then I want demi-gods. Here I want to really introduce revolutionary ideas. I want that the players will be able to become demi-gods. The loot will have a new purpose. Legendary swords like Stormbringer and Mournblade will be in the game and *unique*. These tools will really have their full powers along as many other tools. Each of these high level tools will have a complex story and a complex path to follow if someone wants to hold them. As in the books they will be both an amazing, unmatched power and a burden. A curse. A demi-god player using these tools will be able to fight against tenths of other players. There’s NO balance. But they will also be the objectives of “raids”. Instead building groups to fight a big NPC, the players will gather to defeat other players that have reached this “uber” status. Their power will be sensed and localized with the use of magic and till they hold these powerful tools everyone will be able to see them and attack them in an attempt to steal their power. The “loot” will be a side of the center of the action and enemies and alliances will be formed to defend and attack these poweful tools in the hands of the players.

Obviously the PvP here is “full loot” (when tricky magic won’t be involved). Each of the magic, powerful tools will be completely unique in a single server. There will be timers attached so that you’ll be able to hold one of these tools only if you can mantain a minimum presence in the world (reasonable, not many hours a day). If not, they’ll return to their planar homes, ready to be found by a new group of adventurers.

(to explain, these tools reside on the planar levels. So to get them you need to follow long and complex quests that revolve both on PvE and PvP elements. When these unique tools are brought in the “real” world everyone will be able to percept their presence with the use of a specific magic. So everyone will see if a relic is present and active, who holds it and where he is. The demi-gods cannot hide. They will have to play pand participate to the PvP if they want to hold these tools or the tools will reset to their old position, after being “available” in the world for a limited period of time. Yes, these tools give you an absurd power, you are a demi god with the possibility of invoke demons and big scale catastrophes but till you have the power, you are a clear target. Both your enemies and your friends will try to steal the tool from you and you cannot hide for long since each of these tools requires an “upkeep”)

Aside these major tools every single other element of the game will have depth. Even the lower magic swords will have their own soul and exclusive “meaning” in the gameplay. Each magic tool will have its own name, story and data. They are like characters. They’ll grow with your character and even the weakest stupid magic dagger, one day, could become a powerful tool. This will follow an advancement system that I’m developing that works on various paths. Each tool will follow its nature and have an easier path to follow, growing quickly on a side and slowly on another. In this case, these tools will produce a bond with the player. You won’t loose them. There’s magic involved and you’ll be able to create your unique legend around these tools. Each single element of the world has an evolution path. A treadmill in a way or anther. Dragons used in a battle will have their own story and will develop abilities based on their own expereince.

I want each player to micro-manage all these elements like sub-characters. The balance will be hold so that everyone will be able to achieve all this, following its own path. The “personal” legend is an advancement path that *everyone* can achieve slowly. A different thing are the limited tools (and unique) like the two swords that will turn a player into a demi-god.

And all this is to be applied to the structure I’ve explained here.

F00lish feedback

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A letter to Mythic:

I don’t like any of the changes coming with 1.70s patch, in particular I completely disagree with the design strategy behind it.

I imagine you want feedback just to tweak the timers in the best way possible and I’m voicing my opinions because, instead, I disagree about the way you are solving an issue, and it’s not about those timers, but about the whole plan you are proposing.

The reasons behind this patch are: “The existing system often results in gameplay with very little strategy, where people mindlessly fling themselves at a target over and over.” These reasons are obviously a gameplay problem. The results (and the issues to fix) are that the strategy is reduced at a minimum, the gameplay is dumbed down and even the realm points are reduced because of this continuous zerging. The perfect and common way to consider all this is very simple: it isn’t fun, because of those issues.

Now, your ideas are about working on timers and immunities so that you give more importance to a death. From a side you boost the realm points that you receive because recently killed characters are worth more, from the other side you cut the realm points that you can receive if you have been just ressed. Your hopes about this system are that “who is winning” still enjoys the action because the enemies are worth something even if recently killed, and, from the other side, you prevent the players from “exploiting” the death as something trivial, getting ressed and thrown again in the battle. From a side you encourage to kill enemies even if they have the res sickness, from the other you penalize who dies, giving more weight and importance to the death, and this by affecting the realm points.

My opinion is that this isn’t a good way to solve a gameplay issue. You are solving a problem in the gameplay not by addressing the gameplay itself, but just by adding mini-timesinks (“you cannot right now, but in a few”). Since you aren’t addressing the cause of the problem, the system is going to break many other parts of the game. If you read the comments of the smartest players you already have all of them pointed. There are classes like casters that will be even less playable and *fun* than now. You are the first to die, and it’s not something that helps you to enjoy the game. To this frustration you add another problem, even if you get ressed you are still heavily penalized. This is another layer of frustration that you are adding over the first.

The initial problem was that the system wasn’t fun because of the impulse to “rush”, ok? After these solutions what you obtain? You obtain that the frustration is multiplied for 2. Side-effects. The design you proposed finishes to simply break things even more and producing a resulting experience that is less fun and more unbalanced due to the difference of the classes and roles (so you break the core of the game).

The initial issue is the “illness” you need to heal. Instead of finding the cause and solve it, you study the “results” (symptom) and address them. It’s consequent that this doesn’t heal anything and just produces side-effects (and more imprecise symptoms). The result is that you produce even more problems and you finish to obtain a situation that has just grown in complexity. Re-iterate this process over and over and you have exactly what breaks every single online game today. A patchwork. The system become so full of wounds that are never properly addressed and the situation becomes unmanageable. A point of no return.

Try to make a step backward and see the problem from its true side (the fun) and with a more creative approach. Now, you know that I strongly envy you because I’d love to design games and I know I won’t have the possibility, so, in general, I finish just to strongly criticize everything because it’s all I can do among the frustration of someone who is able to just speak and cannot have the possibility to really demonstate his value. For once I’ll put aside the frustration and write how I would manage this problem, and perhaps you could find it valuable, or perhaps I’ll just lose more time.

Firstly I’d split the issue in two parts. The first part is about the problem of players dying, releasing and running back into the zerg. The second part is about the frustration/importance of a death during a tight battle. I don’t know exactly how you determine how many RPs a player is worth. I just logged to ask in one of the biggest guild of Merlin (Mystic Council of Camelot) to ask them how the value in RPs of a player is determined and I wasn’t able to receive a precise answer (and this tells a lot about your rules). Anyway. It seems that the value of a player is determined by your level and your Realm Rank. Plus a modifier if you have res sickness or not. And here is the *center* of the problem, I’ll come on this later.

You should try, for once, to not design the game about frustration elements like timesinks, but around the fun and the concrete gameplay. Those timesinks and penalities you added surely don’t make the game more deep or interesting or playable. They are just workarounds to exploits. Exploits that are side-effects of broken rules. Let’s focus on the second part, about the value of a death in a battle and about the gameplay involved. It’s obvious that playing a caster class is frustrating, you are the first to die and you just expect that. Most of the battles are about you *waiting* on the ground. With your solution you will wait on the ground and wait when ressed again (and with cumulative effects). Why don’t you transform the situation and really shake the system into a more proper and valuable idea?

Stop considering the death as something that needs to frustrate the player to be valuable. It’s not useful, nor for the game nor for the player’s fun. The death has a value in DAoC because after you die the enemies will face “one less enemy”. So you die and you bring with you a part of the group potential. Working on ways to encourage to survive are silly because noone searches a death. Never. My heretical solution is exactly the opposite: let the players earn normal RPs even if dead on the ground. Always. The gameplay and the reward must pivot around the group, ok? If you die you put your group at a disadvantage. But what MATTERS is the overall result. It’s this way that you encourage the cooperation and build a depth into the system. Every single player must be interested in HOW he can help his group, in which way he is more valuable. If the group dies you lose, but if just one or two players in the group die, *the group* can still WIN. In the current system the design is planned around completely egoistical purposes. If you die you are out. Instead, if you let the RPs independent from the single death and dependent on the group as an EMERGENT identity, you produce a gameplay that STIMULATES the teamwork. Every combat situation is a situation where the skill of a group is tested as a whole, it’s about the cooperation and if you die you are still there with maximized attention hoping that you still did your part at best and your friends are still able to prevail. Here is how to fix problems. Instead of solving the damn frustration with more frustration you solve the gameplay INTO the gameplay.

In this case the relevance of a death is boosted at a full level. Impossible? No. It’s simple and true. Because the death has its real, strong value: You lose your ability to help your group and enjoy the combat. You must wait the combat itself to finish or someone to res you. Not because you are eager of RPs, but because you want to play the damn game and because your group needs help!

The death becomes a -gameplay- element. Not a timesink with added frustration. The result will produce not only the “fixes” of the issue of the beginning, but it will also have an “healing” value on many other issues that are tied to this part (like boosting the fun of who always finish with the face on the ground, like casters). What you have to adjust, here, is the RPs flow. You can even tweak the overall RPs so that you don’t speed up the treadmill too much. HERE the process needs to be tweaked and balanced.

Now the other part of the issue, with even more creativity. Here I’ll try to reach two results: 1- Reward who is able to survive many encounters 2- Stimulate the players to not just “rinse and repeat”, turning a death just in an annoyance. So exactly the issues you tried to address with the whole patch.

How? Simple. Transforming the combat to revolve around the ability and strength of a group. The idea is quite simple, instead of attaching a “fixed” RPs value to every player (based on the level and Realm Rank) you transform this fixed value into a modifier. For every “x” RPs that the player earns (in a session and without *dying or porting*) you build up a multiplier. So the more you kill AND SURVIVE, the more you gain a “bonus” on the RPs. The more players you kill the more this bonus raises, rewarding your ability by increasing the RPs you earn from killing others (This needs to be test and tweaked, the idea is to never exceed 2.5x of standard RPs and grow progressively till that cap, without ever touching it). From the other side you’ll start to build a legend. An unkilled character (and group) not only gains RPs quickly (so you satisfy my 1st point: reward the ability), but becomes valuable as a new gameplay element. The more he gains the modifier on the RPs the more its *own* value of RPs increases. A group of players killing one of these super-groups will be rewarded because those players will be worth more RPs. To explain: a group can gain a bonus on the RPs that climbs nearer and nearer to a cap: 2.5x. At the same time the RPs they bring with themselves also increase (probably to a max of 3.5x. The bonus of what they are worth should be bigger than the bonus on the points they earn).

What’s the effect of this “complex on paper but easy in practice” system? Simple. The “death rush” becomes unappealing, you get killed and you lose your bonuses, not only you are worth less but you are also going to get less. Instead, who has managed to build a strong group with a strong strategy, is rewarded because he is worth more but he also gains more. This system rewards you for being alive and win the battles. It’s a solid stimulation and it doesn’t pivot on frustrating elements. You HAVE FUN in this system. You have fun because you are involved in the gameplay and not punished. Please note that all this is based on your *group*, not on a single death of a player inside that group. *Only* if your entire group die (or you use /release) the bonus goes back to zero. A single death doesn’t affect this. What you want to reward is again the group experience, not the egoistical play.

All these things need tests to be tweaked appropriately. I’m not suggesting that you need to boost the RPs that are being earned in a standard session. I’m suggesting that you need to tie those RPs to a more valuable and fun system which rewards your ability to play without frustrating you with even more timers(-sinks) and penalities. We are here to take the BEST from the game, not for being punished over and over on something that you have nearly zero control about.

I really hope that you start to design the game so it’s based on more solid gameplay elements, and not just patches over bleeding issues that are slowly killing the potential of this game. At the end it’s always the same: it frustrates me because you can and you don’t do anything, instead I’d like and I can only rant and write insanely long letters that noone will ever read.

Good night, and good luck.

HRose / Abalieno
cesspit.net

EDIT: I’ve then slightly modified the system since then. In particular when the bonus to the RPs resets. The details are in the “Battle System” I suggested for WoW:

The idea is to reward group survival. If a group survives an encounter (51% alive) it will gain a bonus multiplier (with a diminished return softcapped at 2.5). The more a group survives the more the bonus builds up (and the same group will be worth more if killed). If the group flees from a PvP battlefield OR is defeated (only if 50% or more of it dies) the bonus is lost and resets to zero.