Guild Warfare Feedback

Same for me @Pk u

 

And this is why this game will be successful. We can each play this game in way that we find fun..

 

There is a game coming out called Albion Online which handles guild warfare very well I believe. One guild challenges another guild over a patch of land, and they engage in a 5v5 battle. Once the battle is over, the war is over, and the winner gets the land. This prevents a massive guild from dominating with sheer numbers, and encourages guilds of all sizes to participate in the territory conquering aspect of the game. Since a guild war in Shroud requires the leaders to meet and deliver the declaration of war in person, guild wars sound like they will be a very coordinated event. So with that in mind, that a guild war is a coordinated event between two guilds, I'd suggest the following:

1) A guild war is a one-time event, which starts soon after the declaration of war is given, and accepted, by the other guild leader.
2) Per the terms of the declaration, a number of players from each guild enter into a separate scene to carry out the war. Everyone in this scene is flagged for open PvP, and the only players in this scene would be the two warring guilds.
3) There can be a number of scenes with different terrain, different objectives (king of the hill, kill X enemies, capture the flag, etc)
4) The winner of the guild war receives compensation per the terms of the declaration plus a memorial plaque.

The declaration of war can contain the following variables

1) Number of participants on each side:
A) 5 v 5 skirmish scene
B) 10 v 10 battle scene
C) 15 v 15 battle scene
D) Unlimited vs Unlimited (scene maximum capacity divided in half per guild....so if the most a scene can handle is 60 players, its a 30 v 30 battle)
2) Prize
A) Gold. Each guild contributes X gold, the winner receives the pool of money minus a few % fee for holding the money.
B) Guild Flags. Guilds can create their own flag to fly on their properties. The winning guild gets a decorative item of their enemy's guild flag on fire which they can proudly display at their guild hall. Guild flags are expensive to create, and burning an enemy's flag would be the symbol of ultimate domination of one guild over another.
3) Type of war (Kill X, king of the hill, capture the flag, etc)

Additional types of battle scenes can be created and more prize variations added over time to add on to this system. This system would allow guilds to compete with each other on a number of different playing fields, and give smaller guilds a reason to fight larger guilds without it turning into a gankfest. By limiting the PvP to a specific scene of only the warring guilds, this eliminates all of the edge cases Chris mentioned. Also...and this is incredibly important I feel....it would allow for guilds to engage in guild warfare without putting their non-PVP members at risk. In a traditional flagging type system, I can see a lot of guilds actually creating two separate guilds - one guild to engage in the war, and a sister guild for all of the merchants and crafting members which does not engage in war.

Thoughts?

 

This is excellent. I agree with all of it. The only part I think needs tweaked is that part where everyone moves to a special scene. I think the more we put pvp in a bubble the less people will think it's being performed and that's already a problem we have now. I feel like we need everything you mentioned but it needs to be out in the open and we need to remove the blue healer mechanics that allow players to opportunistically attack and heal people that are flagged for pvp.

To avoid all the use case scenarios that Chris is worried about, I would suggest the GvG mechanics flag only those involved as being able to attack one another for the length of time agreed to in the war declaration. I don't care if people use this mechanic to "hide" from other people flagged from pvp because pvp is 100% consequential anyway so it would just be like they turned off their flag.

 

Small slice of life:

I playing Albion atm and I have very some fun, I just spent the last hours hide roadside to kill the adventurers. After several murders and some good loots, I try to hide myself because many anti-pk chases me relentlessly.

Life is difficult but very fun !

 

I want that to happen in SOTA too. But I don't see it being a reality yet due to low pvp population, grinding requirements, and odd mechanics that encourage people to only pvp when they have the advantage.

 

I'm 100% against people healing or attacking people if they're not first openly pvp. That means none of this "oh look there's someone I can walk right next to and attack first" stuff. They should have to go to the Oracle and remove their flag and walk around openly flagged for PVP so everyone is playing by the same rules. This is very important to encouraging good pvp behavior that will create more pvp population instead of people using pvp only as an opportunistic crime.

I am. The PK in me loves it. But I'm conscious of the fact that I'm not the only playing style in this game. I don't believe it serves the pvp cause to ignore the elephant in the room. Some people don't like pvp and will never like pvp and if you force them to make a choice between pvp and their friends and family and guildmates, they will choose whatever gets them out of pvp.

Why do we want to break up that social structure? Why do we want them to consider "not playing the game" as a way out of pvp? I know that's not your intention, but I also know that's the result. UO tells us that history lesson and we should listen.

I believe that if you take out the blue healer mechanics, it becomes much easier to perform guild warfare that is selective of only those wanting to participate. As one of the forum posters elegantly details here:

There are options that open up once we remove the blue healer mechanics. One of the reasons I like this idea (and others like it) is that it removes the need to have a MEGA guild that can just dominate everyone through numbers alone. I think that's a very poor pvp environment and I'm reminded of Asheron's Call and the KAAOS Guild "join us or die" nonsense. We don't want that here. Ideas like this would help prevent that.

I agree. And I know I'm a loud voice and I'm just one person. But in all fairness, this blue healer stuff was from a single person (and maybe supported by a siloed group) that obviously were not thinking about solo players with their request to heal and attack players flagged for pvp (when they themselves were not flagged).

This is a devastatingly poor mechanic for solo pvp. It all but demands that you don't flag for pvp and instead sit back and become a part of the problem, waiting to jump someone that dares to flag themselves.

That's an option that makes sense and would likely be well received by a lot of people. But it doesn't address my solo player concerns (see above).

 

That sounds like a great compromise. Guilds can organize themselves into separate warfare and logistics groups.

But, on that same note, why couldn't that just be done within the same guild?

 

Mabey a clan type concept with different charters, but here's the other side. Let's say my clan, clan A says yes let's war clan B. Clan B happens to have the same number of clan mates but only 2 out of 30 opt to pvp. That's no fun for my clan though we would be at war there would be no targets.

The blue healer issue is a complicated situation it's a pvp not just a guild warfare issue. Best solution is they lose thier blue status. As far as solo pvp you need to pick your targets carfully as in all pvp games. You should assume that blue will protect thier bud. Look for a solo target or find a way to defeat both if it comes to it.

 

I think it would need to be BellumLair and PaxLair. Paxwar would mean peacewar. I'm just teasing but I do love this part of your post. A guild alliance system would solve it. Not only would it let any one guild have two facets so the members don't need to split but it would let two unique guilds align for any combination of PvE, RP and PvP goals.

 

Yeah, here's my thinking on that though. If your clan can't get a good 30 vs 30 game going, maybe it's too big and needs to split up? This keeps the need for large guilds down. What good has a 100 person guild ever done anyone in pvp really? Usually what happens is that guilds get run out of town and the surviving members go join other guilds making them larger and larger until only a few guilds of importance exist. Making a system where you can fight pick up games of any size and it's a "fair" fight numerically, that helps promote long term stability of pvp.

What I'm saying is that if you want to be a bud that helps, you need to be flagged pvp. It's like if you play a basketball game, you don't sit on the sideline and wait for your buddy to drive to the basket and then run out on the court and set a phantom pick on the guy trying to play defense on him. That's what "blue healer" mechanics are. It's really not complicated at all.

 

But if I'm adventuring with my friend and we are engaged in killing and elite what ever. When u run in and attack my tank you have made it personal and to survive my encounter I have to keep my tank up. By healing him I don't die and possibly lose loot or time but I have to weigh can we beat u and is the flag worth it.

This is where is gets complicated see. One could make many such examples. Unless ur going to try and tell me solo pvp isn't about somone trying to get the gank on someone else.

 

No, I don't see.

If I come in and see you and your friend, I think I go find someone else to attack. I don't know a lot of PK's out there that work on a strategy of fighting outnumbered.

What I think actually happens is that you and your friend go into town unflagged, see me (flagged) trying to get training and you both jump me. The decision is easy, there's little risk, it's two on one and I'm at a trainer. Not only that but you guys get the first few hits.

That's not cool.

 

Lol , pvp is never fair ..... all I'm saying is I'm adventuring with a friend and you attack him while we are in deep what ever I still have a job to do and losing the ability to heal him ruins the experience for me. Give me the choice to let him die or throw in since you iniated the encounter.

Ofcource this is all hypothetical, but not allowing people to lose thier protection and get involved is boring imop.

 

The only way to be sure that isn't happening, is if you ARE the guild leader, or have known them a long time. You have to trust your guild leader is doing what is in your best interest, and not acting out of passion, ignorance, boredom, or sleep deprivation. So letting one person control the keys is... unwise.

And we have no illusions that guild wars are not PvP. The difference is that a formal set of rules, only engaging two (or possibly more) guilds, is NOT the same as just flagging yourself and letting everyone who might like to take a shot go for it. Sure, the "reward" is only for the guilds, but it is so muddied by the open PvP that the distinction is lost. I don't want to be open PvP; it's like having to walk on eggshells everywhere. I'd help fight a specific foe (guild), but I'm not willing to just blindly accept anyone attacking for no reason other than the game shows that I'm flagged for it. Guild wars ARE more like a duel, with specific rules and specific consequences, otherwise it's mindless.

I've been in huge raiding guilds. I've been in PvP guilds. I've been in casual guilds. I've been in crafting guilds. Guilds are one of the best ways to form families in a game, and I've met some of my best friends in them. They are more than a mechanism for wars, and encompass all types of players.

This is a good step, and will likely be needed for larger guilds or guilds that need to straddle multiple roles, but doesn't address the point of this thread. Players in either if those guilds can be forced into PvP if the guild leader says so, and that leaves them available to be attacked and looted by every PvP player they encounter, or they have to leave the guild, despite the time, energy, and gold they have invested in it.

All we want is to limit that power, to only expose players to limited PvP by only allowing the opposing guild members to attack, and making sure players cannot heal from outside the group (just like is prevented for normal PvP). Without that level of protection, guild warfare is extremely harmful to many players, and guilds themselves will be avoided by some (if not many) who do not want to participate in open PvP.

 

You have a choice, flag as pvp. If you can't flag for pvp so you can help protect your buddy then you're not much of a buddy.

 

If the winner of the proposed system is the guild that has the best kill to death ratio, how is the system going to handle the edge cases where guild deaths are influenced by unrelated parties? Myself and four of my guild mates go into an open PvP scene. We find 3 enemy guild members plus 5 other open PvPers with them. They kill us and we manage to kill 1 guild enemy and four of the non-guild enemies. How does the system calculate the kill to death ratio? My guild lost 5, only killed 1 enemy so we're losing the war but ONLY because of outside interference from those other 5 unrelated PvPers. I can envision a system where the winner of the guild war is determined by how many unrelated open PvPers you have helping you. While that creates an interesting option for mercenaries, it removes all aspects of a guild war being a grudge match between two groups. It becomes all about "gaming the system" in order to maximize your kill to death ratio.

The guild alliance option is interesting, but doesn't really address the issue here. Our war guild will consist of just 5 of our toughest fighters. We will have a secondary guild of open PvPers whose job it is to protect the five in the war guild at all costs, because their deaths won't impact the kill:death ratio of the war guild.

I don't see any way to have a meaningful guild vs guild PvP experience without isolating those involved into a scene or creating a web of unnecessary complex rules to handle all of the edge cases.

I also don't get excited over the current system where a guild war is essentially a button which flags your whole guild open PvP. That's just isn't very interesting to me.

 

Are you saying in this senerio you will pause and allow me to go flag for pvp since your intent was to gank my tank? Will the encounter pause as well no I don't think so.

Or mabey ur suggestion I should never adventure with friends who pvp?

It's sounds to me like a grief senerio 5 of my buds 1 flagged in guild warfare were in a boss fight and u run in with the intent to wreck the day.

 

No, I'm saying that you should adventure with whoever you want to. But you shouldn't expect someone that is not taking the risk of pvp to be able to participate in pvp ala carte whenever the moment suits them. This is too exploitable and encourages people not to engage in pvp unless they have an advantage. (and we already have a large enough problem with that because of the level gaps and high level players thumping everything that moves without risk to themselves)