Guild War

OK here is my great idea. Maybe its not but it's mine and I told it it's very special.

Here goes

GUILD WAR

Why would a guild go to war? What is the motivation? No mo, no go. (see how I did that?)

A guild offers -puts it out there- to go to war by having the Guild Leader go to the Post that signifies the Instance and claims the territory. Then when members of that guild go to that Instance -in OPEN- they get 10% ...15%? more XP for whatever they kill there. They get a 10% faster harvest time and they get a 10% increased chance to get a bonus harvest. Throw in a 10% increased chance of an arti? Maybe their armour and weapons degrade 10% slower? The post names the guilds that have laid claim to the Instance. Those guilds are at war with one another until such time as one of the Guild Leaders takes the name off the post.

Now ....when one Instance is claimed by a Guild, it starts out with 15% bonus damage-in Open only. For every Instance it claims it loses 3%. So, if a Guild claimed 5 Instances it would have zero advantage against all comers in all Instances. But ....maybe they have so many members they don't care. Maybe the members they have are so badass they don't need it. Maybe both. No Guild can lay claim to more than 5 Instances.

Want to claim a sought after Instance?-then walk the walk. Smaller weaker Guilds-smaller weaker Instances.

Guild War need not be in effect ever in any Instance that is not contested? Maybe if a member has a home in a town then that town is a WAR town?

Only game created Instances with Mobs can be claimed.

Most of the engineering is already in place? *hopeful glance* (Ignorance is Bliss)


........my best foot forward. I welcome criticism.

 

I agree with your concept and had made a similar suggestion along with Factions to get it on a larger scale. Only suggestion is to add a no loot option to entice more guilds to participate. This could get the non PVP guilds to try this out. We did this in UO all the time as a Friday night fight and when you have 20 vs 20 it can get interesting. R/Boris/El Pirata.

 

I'm generally against PvE benefits for PvP in general, and this seems to also encourage people to join a particular guild for the the sheer purpose of buff or benefit. We don't need the best scenes in game being 'owned' by guilds so they come even more lucrative for a select few because they choose to pvp. You already get an exp bonus for being flagged on multi, are you suggesting that this bonus gets even further boosted during 'war' status? I'm against the additional yield/drop rate changes, although I could probably stomach 10% harvest speed in open since realistically, harvesting in open is far less lucrative than doing so in private anyway.

I'm fine with claiming 'war zones' and the bonuses for the claims affecting the player vs. player activity component, which allows guild wars to occur in a battleground that has something for people to do while they wait for victims (ie, kill mobs, harvest, whatever). I appreciate that there's not as much PvP going on as people would like, because the PvP scenes don't really have much for you to do while you're sat around waiting for someone to wander in to do their quest and sitting around stealthed waiting for a victim is probably boring. Bringing this to other more interesting scenes is an interesting spin on it.

 

Without a skill cap I fear it would be very unbalanced otherwise I like the idea.

 

Humbert....what does a skill cap have to do with it?

 

PVP or PVE zones. I never thought about that. It would make things very interesting if a Guild Battle happened in the middle of a UT fight.

For that matter ....with the way I have described it .... a single person could start a guild that they are the sole member of .... claim a zone ....collect extra and take the guild off the post when they are done.

Just the same. There has to be more to Guild War than some trophy nobody cares about.

I don't believe the problem you are talking about re pvp / pve rewards has to be a problem.... nothing ever has to provide more than pvp already gives. It may be the case that you cannot be in a Guild War and be PVP. Maybe you can only do one or the other.

For that matter. What if it is a PUG and two members of it are at war?

 

There used to be some MUDs where there would be like a "Blood Moon" night or something like that (maybe once a week/month) and it was no holds barred, you kill, steal, loot, plunder, destroy anything, and then in the morning the server would reset the world state/player files to the day before like nothing had happened.

 

//Edited

Territories for guilds to battle over would be awesome, maybe a control point in every town? maybe some kind of Mafia setup where there is a kind of shadow outfit with some kind of control over "owned/controlled" territories?

Perhaps now and then specific (3 or so?) territories could become vulnerable (ante) that might help draw the player base to a few particular towns?

Other games have factional systems, Mech warrior online and Eve with their Corporations etc are interesting examples.

Really a missing part of the game that will expand the sense of a dramatic ever changing world.

Maybe towns should be "defended". If your guild can provide help, strength in some way, there could be some kind territorial kickback.


How cool would that be?

 

@Chris
I have suggested this before but here goes again:
Why not setup something in game like the game Ingress.
Ingress is many of the places you are everyday and you don't even realize it.
It does not interrupt anyone except the participants and if you don't play, you never realize you are in a combat zone so PVE players are not affected but PVP players can 'see' the portals and the zones.
Here is a short video:


Many of the things in Ingress could easily be added to SOTA.

Also, I have mentioned this in a previous post.
Most non-pvpers don't understand the looting process and are fearful of even trying it. (btw I don't pvp).
As a PVE player when I die I loose XP. That is part of the game. I know if I go against a monster that can kill me I am at RISK to loose XP. I also know approximately how much I am risking. Part of the 'unknown' in PVP is what is at risk? I never know if the attacker that kills me will take my skull or my armor or ???.

The argument is always, I can buy it back. But I already paid for it and I don't want to buy it back.
If I loose XP all I need to do is fight more to get it back. No 'price of the Oracle' to worry about.
Why not have a PVP loot table that is ONLY XP.
If I die, you get the XP I will loose by dying against any monster.
If I kill you, I get your XP.
Ganging up on high level players will be beneficial to everyone.

In a full guild war, millions of XP could be at risk and also be the reward for winning.
Each guild could defend their areas and portals. Just like in Ingress, the areas could be 'auto protected' when members are not present or alerts sent out that the portal was being attacked so troops could rally.

Maybe I have missed some major issue here but it seems that the PVP as it currently is in SOTA is not working. If I'm blowing smoke, then just move on, 'these are not the droids you are looking for'

 

Yikes. I avoid pvp -now- because I don't like the inconvenience of being "messed with" while I'm trying to grind, harvest, whatever. The amount of money I "lose" isn't really the deterrent its the annoyance of not being able to step afk, or having to deal with a griefer while I'm trying to do something else. If high lvl players started taking massive XP losses for being in PvP, I think the dying horse of PvP would finally die completely.

The problem with heavy pvp incentivization such as this is that you make the cost of entry too high, nobody bothers except the hard core pvpers. And if the hard core PvPers were satisfied just killing each other all day, we wouldn't keep having these discussions. No, they want victims.

If you want to bring more people into the fray you need to go the other way with it. Pvpers enjoy pvping already -- they get NOTHING of value for ganking a low lvl player just trying to do their quest, and they do it simply for the gratification of ruining someone else's gameplay. You can't tell me that someone likes the "thrill" and "challenge" of PvP and then show me this behavior, its a joke.

You can yell "get good" all day, but nobody's going to put themselves out there if its a complete loss situation for them. Its a waste of time. And short of a few exceptions, most guilds aren't built entirely of PvPers - we can talk about guild war until we're blue in the face but I don't think any guild leader is going to inflict unwanted pvp on their membership - its a good way to lose members. The "war" should be something that is FUN and worthwhile for EVERYONE in it - where everyone can meaningfully contribute and not just be fodder for the high lvl troll train. Any system that isn't implemented with this in mind will not be utilized - and we'll be back here complaining that "nobody wants to go to war".

 

That is why I suggested a system like Ingress.
You never realize you are in an Ingress battle if you are not a willing participant. If you choose to play you see the war, if not, you are clueless as in the Matrix

 

Here is a problem. People with multiple accounts will just kill their own avatar...over and over to get xp.

 

If they are willing to loose XP on one avatar and load it on another, how is that a problem?
Net gain?
If they are that desperate for XP they can take their alts to UT and get more XP in 15 minutes.