Split: Clan Rivalry (Discussion about guilds)

anthriel
Posts: 223
Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:04 am

Split: Clan Rivalry (Discussion about guilds)

Postby anthriel » Wed Jun 27, 2018 8:56 am

TOPIC IS SPLIT FROM GD.


daedroth wrote:Competition is good for the game as long as it does not become toxic.
...
When it becomes toxic, we both lose.



The wheel of time turns… and yet the dejavu of a toxic atmosphere leading to good quality players quitting/leaving continues. We’ve heard before of staff abuse, excessive PKing harassment, verbal abuse etc… and having seen some of the other recent posts on this forum, it’s apparently even descended to the ridiculousness of trying to purposely abuse/taunt people into reacting in such a way that results in getting banned. And so more veteran players get sick such toxicity and leave. Cos who really wants to play a game that is really less about playing the game and more about being played by the other players?

For all RoK’s issues, it was still a game the generated a great amount of goodwill and positive nostalgia. So many newbies end up here saying something like “wow I had a great time on RoK and was sad it was shut down so I’m really happy I stumbled upon EO”. And yet for all EO’s coding improvements we still keep losing once-invested players and can’t grow the playerbase beyond max 30ish online (despite over 450 forum accounts showing interest at some stage).

Having gone through so many iterations of this cycle, the cause should be increasingly obvious by now (almost such that its getting really ridiculous to deny or distract from): The current guild system is broken and this brokenness incentivises (and ultimately leads to) bad player outcomes/experiences.

New players come into the game full of motivation and wonder. They are encouraged to join one of 2 super-guilds (and generally speaking they do). The existence of these super-guilds leads people to factionalism, whereby they can do everything they want within their faction and are generally encouraged to be jerks to the other faction. So newbies are hunted by the rival faction and are taught by their own faction to hate the other faction. The newbies eventually become 25ers and see new players joining the rival faction and don’t even care to get to know them beyond anything as PK targets. But then they find there are also ppl in their own faction they may not like and have to live with. All this gets complicated when some friends they have made may end up in disagreements resulting in some friends switching factions…. and they now have to deal with the nauseating drama of being caught in the middle when 2 parties of their friends are being jerks to each other. Then inevitably one party of friends get sick of it all this drama/hypocrisy/hatred and leave the game. And the newbie realises he’s now a jaded veteran playing a game which generates so much hate and feels more like ‘psychological warfare’ rather than fun/enjoyment.

Basically where the 2 super-guild system falls over is that factionalism does incentivise people to be jerks to whoever is not in their faction. If there are say 20 online players, under the current system the most incentivised way to organise is approximately 10vs10 (although each side will continue to strive for numerical supremacy so it may not be exactly 50/50 split)…. But what this means is that each half of the playerbase has enough numbers to be self-sufficient within their faction (eg run OADs/keys, get items etc) and therefore also have the luxury of being jerks to the other half of the playerbase (who they see as rivals). The only incentive to being nice to ppl (purely from a game standpoint) is to recruit them to your faction so you can beat the other faction numerically.

But say there were caps and/or incentives such that the 20 online players actually represented 5 guilds of 4ppl each. What happens under this scenario? MORE DIPLOMACY! (which is actually good for curtailing toxicity and dis-incentivizing jerk-like behaviour). Suddenly Guild A is no longer self-sufficient and doesn’t have the luxury of being jerks to everyone not in their guild. They need Guild B in order to get numbers to do stuff and therefore will be nice to them and build an alliance with them. Guild B may not even have enough ppl online at any one time and so they may need also to make some friends in Guild C or with some of the guildless etc etc. Sure they may still have a rivalry with Guild D and Guild E. But players who quit Guild A (for whatever reason) and hate Guild D will still have Guild’s B & C to join which may have ppl in them that they can stomach playing with (rather than seeing too many jerks on both sides of the super-guild equation and leaving EO altogether).

Sure we can blame the individual jerks (as many often do). But lets face it: there’s jerks everywhere and on both sides. The game is full of adults who want to win so badly that they act like children to do so. And the problem is that the current system that encourages them to continue being bigger thuggish jerks rather than provide natural repercussions for not acting like civil/diplomatic adults.

Some veterans (eg Terron/Rodeo) have even previously suggested abolishing guilds altogether or establishing set guilds based on divinity…. These ideas are radical (and I would rather see many smaller guilds than guilds abolished altogether), but even these radical ideas would be better than the status quo because they would better accomplish the aims of incentivising more diplomacy/niceness/civility and basically achieving an overall nicer atmosphere for long-term gaming.

Why hasn’t it been fixed yet? Well previous discussions on this (see here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2056 ) show that NH seems aware of the issue but a certain portion of the playerbase actively rejects change likely because it means blowing up the established vehicles of power in the game, which people have understandably worked hard to build. But imho it really is getting to the stage where resisting needed change in order to hold onto established power is decimating the devoted playerbase of the game. I hope that the staff members (especially those with vested interests in leading powerful/established guilds) will consider these arguments on their merits and support change. These staff members deserve our thanks for working hard to build the game as is, but their desire to uphold the current guild system could indeed be breaking more than their appreciated hard work in development is building.

The guild system needs to change to one that ultimately promotes rivalry via more diplomacy rather than outright rivalry between 2 “us vs them” mega factions.

The awaited update will hopefully help. Things like world-chat are an obvious step in the right direction. But things like new OADs and Guild Housing may not be depending on how they are implemented (eg is the cost of guild housing a barrier to entry for new guilds? Are the new OADs promoting more factional self-sufficiency or diplomacy?). Hopefully the game will survive these new things and the issue will be fixed before all the RoK goodwill erodes. But unless the guild system is somehow fixed to promote more diplomacy and less factionalism, then I think most other fixes/improvements will be as ineffective in fixing the leakage of good veteran players as putting lipstick on a pig. That’s my 2 cents. Peace all


__________________________________________

PS – I hope this post does not offend or discourage anyone (especially NH or staff) as this is not my intention. I merely hope to promote open discussion on key issues affecting players and player enjoyment, with the hope that the game (and its old and new players) will ultimately benefit from it.

User avatar
Kruell
Posts: 254
Joined: Thu May 26, 2016 10:35 pm

Re: Clan Rivalry

Postby Kruell » Wed Jun 27, 2018 4:25 pm

You just described the United States Government in therms of guilds. :cry: I don't know if that's horribly sad or terrifyingly accurate.
If you look like prey you will be eaten

Lorelle
Posts: 9
Joined: Fri Jul 21, 2017 10:27 am

Re: Clan Rivalry

Postby Lorelle » Wed Jun 27, 2018 10:27 pm

I really loved this post, this game is a lot like the book wayward pines, where people simply never learn the error of their ways until it’s too late.
I was a part time player from oceanic region and I sadly lost all interest. Partly because of my Timezone offering zero opportunity for events. But mainly because of the clans.
I was always told to hate sil and I jumped on the bandwagon until I befriended one of their members and leveled with him often. The guild would always talk shit about him without really knowing these people it isn’t fair.
I love this game and I hope one day to play again but it’s too toxic and depressing as it stands

Deranged
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2018 5:49 pm

Re: Clan Rivalry

Postby Deranged » Wed Jun 27, 2018 10:37 pm

You're not going to fix a guild system by limiting the amount of members or putting caps on anything. The only thing that's going to fix that is a larger player base. The more people you have the easier it is for diversity. When there are more people more guilds will come up due to human natures ingrained need to want to control things making people want to have their own guild. People are always going to quit, being a person who's played WoW on and off for 8 years now and RoK for many I have seen people quit and come back dozens of times. Harassing new players or mass pking them can be easily fixed by adding kill timers to anything below level 25 IE a single player should only be allowed to kill a player under 25 so many times within an hour before they become unattackable. That would completely get rid of people camping/mass pking newbies or people trying to level. As far as the faction thing due to the "super guilds" you're not going to ever change that unless you just wipe all the people that played the game in the past and start from scratch, people are going to play with who they want to play with and even that would be a temporary solution due to once people make friends with enough people history will repeat itself. Don't think you're going to find a very good solution for that one without making the game not fun. Limiting guilds is just going to make multiple conjoined guilds that are just permanently allied. We used to do this in RoK also especially for events and OaDs.

Terron
Posts: 802
Joined: Sat Jan 14, 2017 11:36 pm

Re: Clan Rivalry

Postby Terron » Wed Jun 27, 2018 11:27 pm

in a way that still wont change anything. its a mud lol we might see 1000 players if the game was flawless. im guessing without hiring outside coders this is a decade off, maybe 2. so what we could possibly get is 1-2 more guilds similar to the current. although if there was 3 or 4 guilds nothing is stopping them from merging so they can win 20v10 either. this isnt saying limiting will help much either.

the biggest issue is the game mechanics. its not that they are horrible or anything. but it takes a whole team to kill 1 guy. takes a whole army to kill a team. the game calls for numbers, so numbers is what it drives people to amass.

couple things that would help is harder oads where parties wipe alot til one team wins. more classes with kill power(other than a 4/4 god round on a severely wounded player.

for me tho i think the guild system has to get removed. let people be themselves and get what they deserve through their own ingame actions. might be harsh to eliminate the system entirely so some ideas could be;

eliminate the current guild system and replace with a new system(below)

-game would consist of 6 guilds. these are the divinity guilds.(this will see people working with different people all the time, not just the same 4 or 5)
-houses would function as guilds do now. non premium houses get up to 3 people/premium get 4
-houses get an alliance system to branch out and form relationships with other houses. (a large guild collective may generally dislike another guild, but if the guild was split into 10 3 person branches, it is highly unlikely that every branch will hate the other guilds 10 branches. this brings diplomacy and since oads can rarely be taken with a single house, cooperation.)
-divinity based content added so each div works together for goals outside of houses/alliances. maybe winning div can get a xp bonus for a week or something.

anyway, players are just doing what it takes to win, and to do that currently it means u need more people than the other team, gear is almost irrelevant, aswell as how good a player is. all doesnt matter, just 10v6 woot we win
"Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box"

this game is like sim ant
zerg the red ants with more black ants

anthriel
Posts: 223
Joined: Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:04 am

Re: Clan Rivalry

Postby anthriel » Thu Jun 28, 2018 1:55 am

Deranged wrote:You're not going to fix a guild system by limiting the amount of members or putting caps on anything. The only thing that's going to fix that is a larger player base. The more people you have the easier it is for diversity. When there are more people more guilds will come up due to human natures ingrained need to want to control things making people want to have their own guild. People are always going to quit, being a person who's played WoW on and off for 8 years now and RoK for many I have seen people quit and come back dozens of times. Harassing new players or mass pking them can be easily fixed by adding kill timers to anything below level 25 IE a single player should only be allowed to kill a player under 25 so many times within an hour before they become unattackable. That would completely get rid of people camping/mass pking newbies or people trying to level. As far as the faction thing due to the "super guilds" you're not going to ever change that unless you just wipe all the people that played the game in the past and start from scratch, people are going to play with who they want to play with and even that would be a temporary solution due to once people make friends with enough people history will repeat itself. Don't think you're going to find a very good solution for that one without making the game not fun. Limiting guilds is just going to make multiple conjoined guilds that are just permanently allied. We used to do this in RoK also especially for events and OaDs.


I respectfully disagree that we need larger playerbase to have more guild diversity. This is a "chicken and egg" argument and it ultimately doesn't apply cos the playerbase ISNT growing BECAUSE the current guild system is causing just as many (or more) veteran players to quit/leave as there are newbies joining (and these newbies tend to eventually join the revolving door of players once they become jaded veterans later).

Even permanently allied groups of guilds is better than 2 super-guilds. It provides more of a continuum of choice .... More shades of grey rather than just choice between either black or white. A player may only like half his/her own faction and half of the opposing faction and dislike the players on either extreme. In a 2-guild world this means his player is forced to play with half the ppl he/she doesn't like and avoid/hate half the people he/she would otherwise like. With more guilds (even if they are permanently allied versions of the bigger super-guild, this presents more choices for the player to join a group that meets his/her ideology as the multiple allied guilds may be allies but their ideologies and composition of player personalities will inevitably not exactly be the same.

Anyway I'm glad that Lorelle and Terron have expressed similar opinions to mine with respect to need for change. I especially agree with Terron's suggestion that (as much as possible) people should be empowered "to be themselves and get what they deserve" from their play style rather than being forced into ugly guild factionalism. Incentivising/forcing smaller guilds or even forcing everyone to play as individuals would achieve this more and be better than the current toxic system we have cultured now. Hoping for a larger playerbase to magically lead to guild diversity rather than 2 groups of 50 (or more likely remaining at 10v10 because the rest have come and gone before you even reach 50v50) does not seem like a valid option given the many iterations of attracting and then losing players we have already witnessed under he current guild system. IMHO it would be foolish to ignore these previous iterations/experiences yet again (i.e. It must surely be obvious by now that "Remain calm, all is well!" has failed!) Peace all.

Rafael
Posts: 41
Joined: Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:10 pm

Re: Clan Rivalry

Postby Rafael » Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:14 am

I believe that the guild system is perfect as it is. We have 3 guilds in game and it's no one elses fault, it's just because we have a small player basis.

Want to see ppl working together? Make a oads thats stay on a middle term between a reg blue and a purple after the update.

This oad should be hard with keys that enforce the guilds to unite to do it, make it impossible to be done by one guild. Make a guild lock and a key that expires in one day, forcing guilds to unite for something they can't get alone. Make two or three guild lock keys. People will work together at one area and will start to know each other better or tolerate each other more.

You can't go to sil or empire and say: heya dudes, you're playing together for years and now we are going to slipt your guilds. is it cool? I don't think so. At least I think it's not nice. We don't need lots of smallers guilds, we need the community talking and going more things together.

I think that we should make people unite and not divide. When the player basis grow we will have new people and eventually new guilds.

User avatar
NiteHawk
Site Admin
Posts: 3120
Joined: Wed Apr 20, 2016 7:33 am

Re: Clan Rivalry

Postby NiteHawk » Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:22 am

I'm not trying to be mean here but you guys hijacked this thread that was fairly positive (aka he was praising people for doing good) I do know there are guild issues. Changes to the guild system aren't something I plan to just smash in everyones face either.

While I agree about guilds, you can't just rip things from players. I know you guys may think you can and it can be a quick fix, but I almost guarantee you will kill the game that way from the players being upset about it. So obviously things need to happen at a slower pace, I.E. Bringing in global chat first, seeing how it fairs etc.

I'm not apposed to changes to guild systems to lets say a set system (as Terron talked about) or making it so guilds don't exist, smaller guilds, etc. (Obviously if we did that and guild houses which are coming in, they would be changed/reimbursement/etc) But I feel like theres problems too. For example Discord can be overlayed in any game and you can have a voice group or chat group attached to the game via overlays. Stuff like this didn't exist in the past too, it makes groups far easier to run even without the need of having a proper group in game. I do think it would help to a degree but I think you underestimate people in that regard. I also think that perhaps intensives to smaller guilds (i.e. more players = alot less impacting global ember bonuses to a good degree) and other things we talked about is a good step too if we intend on making smaller guilds a thing. P.S. TO EVERYONE BEFORE THE FREAK OUT: This doesn't mean we're changing stuff, it's open for discussion though. I do see large guilds needing some reason to split off though, even if its voluntary because of bonuses/etc (which would be the best result but I doubt that would be the case).

In terms of the balance, its a tough estimate on how dodging should work. It is more based on a party fights though. If you base it on solo (1vs1 etc) then parties will slaughter everyone in one go. A fair middle point might be a thing but this coming update doesn't really do anything involving that, though some little things will help. I'm not sure how many games deal with 1vs1 up to 10vs10 properly without saying that the logistic users (i.E. high healers) can't defend against those 10 guys. I.E. It's balanced for more solo vs solo, but then when healers come into the fry the healers have a huge impact on tank in terms of being able to heal huge chunks of HP. Then you end up with super healers who can't die. On a random note: We were discussing things like 'the more you heal someone the less impact it has each time' to a small % lost each time at some point in balance discussions but something like that probably wouldn't be added yet until we see how the current changes to healing work out first. Baby steps.There are obviously some things coming (like some reduced heals) and a couple interesting skills but this should be a separate discussion from guilds. They are both big topics on their own.

And it's not that I'm not listening/etc, it's just that things take time to implement and some things can't be implemented as I said above to 'stick it to the community', otherwise people will quit even more than they are now. I do promise though once this big updates done I can focus on smaller/quicker things again. Alot was changed in terms of the back end for rooms/etc so we haven't been able to just update the server because of it, otherwise I would of done so a long time ago. So after this update I would expect to see updates more usual again and we can focus on other things like guilds/balance/etc again.

User avatar
JadeFalcon
Posts: 383
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2016 8:29 am

Re: Split: Clan Rivalry (Discussion about guilds)

Postby JadeFalcon » Thu Jun 28, 2018 9:38 am

Jerks are going to be jerks.

Anything you do about splitting guilds/outright stop PVP/whatever wont stop that.
Only good /ignore (as in, ability to ignore entire accounts and all that is written by that account) will fix this. That, and the allmight Ban hammer.

Sorry, you cant engineer the game as a way to engineer good behavior. Thats what your grandma should have taught you, not what Nitehawk can do.
Don't take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

Proud member, Halfling Appreciation Club

HAC Tip of the Week:
Roast Halfling leg with rosemary, garlic and white wine. Ideal for that family dinner!

User avatar
Kruell
Posts: 254
Joined: Thu May 26, 2016 10:35 pm

Re: Clan Rivalry

Postby Kruell » Thu Jun 28, 2018 12:58 pm

NiteHawk wrote:Bringing in global chat first, seeing how it fairs etc.


Have you thought about "Zone Chat"? Coding in channels that broadcast/read only within the zone the player happens to be in. This might help if someone were in an area trying to level/quest (say Canopia Logging Camp) and just asked when they came in if anyone wanted to group up. This is also useful for commonly sought after MiniBosses where someone finds the Queen Scorpion and then can broadcast for help from those in the area. This might lead to more cooperation apart from guilds. Yes... I know certain people will use this to try to PK but it might help encourage non-guild associations.

Maybe builders can create OaDs that restrict the number of people going in and are designed to nullify parties. I've got a few ideas but it would be tricky to implement. There are literally dozens of ways I can think to make the game easier for solo players or to nullify guilds in certain situations but it will require some delicate balancing. The game needs more things that can be done by solo players where parties can't just swarm in and dominate.

I've been staying away from guilds since I came back just to see what playing solo is like. It's not easy to play this game without a guild and it seems like the game has developed to require someone to be in a guild in order to enjoy the game (beyond lvl 20 it gets REALLY hard to solo level). I'm sure this isn't intentional but probably a side effect of all the people working on content only having the perspective of being within a guild. In order for the game to be more successful, all types of players need to be considered and the game must be playable by people who forgo guilds or prefer to step away from the drama. There needs to be a diversity of game-play that is currently lacking.
If you look like prey you will be eaten


Return to “Archive Chat”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 19 guests

cron