Guild Buffs 2.0

[nibel]

As said by Producer Rowan (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/431908-Holiday-Producer-s-Letter), U22 will give us new guild ships and stuff. So, I would like to take some time to propose some changes to the current way ship buffs works, with the following objectives:

Non-buff ammenities (tavern, bank, altars, etc) should be the standard and what is used to fill your ship. The buffs do no occupy a slot.
Guild buffs should be some kind of plat sink.
All guild buffs will stack with every other buff. It should be a reward, not a placeholder while you don't get good gear. For that effect, consider every buff listed as a "Guild Bonus type". No morale, no enhancement, no artifact, no insight, no competence.
Guild buffs should last a lot longer. I'll extend on that later, but the 1-hour buff should go.


Buffs

Buffs are no longer ammenities on the ship deck to be clicked on. The First Mate will be the one responsible to buff you upon talking. While he is your employee, and is well fed enough to not charge you for his services of buffing, he requires materials, and those are not cheap.

You will be charged 10,000 plat per buff (placeholder number), and it will last 2 hours per guild level (continuously, time off-line still counts). Some specific buffs might cost more (like the XP buff), but the time is the same for all. They stay beyond death as well.

Every buff have two requirements: Character level and guild level. The top level buffs should be reserved for level 28/30 characters only. This removes the current problem of level 1 characters walking the Harbor with immunity to all elemental damage. This will also allow the devs to make specific buffs that are good at level cap without it being overpowered at heroics.

The list of buffs I suggest as a starter point is as follow:

Ability Score:+1 to +4 stat. Bought separetelly per stat. Mental stats cost a bit more than physical ones.
Defensive Training: +2 to +10 AC, +1% to +3% Dodge, and +2 to +20 PRR (directly linking on armor: Double value for Medium, quadruple for Heavy. Cloth-wearers get zero)
Elemental Resistance: +5 to +30 elemental resistance, 5% to 25% elemental absorption. Bought separetelly per element. Also have Force, Light and Poison in addition to the usual five elements (those will cost more than the standard elements).
Experience Bonus: This category is the only one with no character level requirements, only guild level. +1% to +5% Heroic and Epic XP as today (Epic XP buff more expensive), 10%/12.5%/20% Slayer Bonus (1 extra explorer Slayer kill every 10/8/5 kills, stack with slayer potions)
Healing Amplification: +3% to 10% Healing amplification. Also affect Repair and Negative healing in the same ammount. Do not stack with itself, only the higher percentage apply.
Magical Empowerement: +10 to +30 specific Spellpower, +5 to +15 Universal Spellpower (same bonus type, don't stack), +1% to +3% specific spell critical chance, +1% universal spell critical chance (Universal requires higher guild level)
Skill Buffs: +1 to +5 bonus to a group of skills. Use the same groups as Human Skill Focus enhancements (http://ddowiki.com/page/Human_enhancements). Alternativelly, +1 to +3 to all skills (but much more expensive, and requiring high guild level)
Spell-like buffs: Removed. They should be rewarded with Phiarlan and Jorasco favor (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/401081-Revamping-Favor-tiers). Currently, the only one that give Protection from Evil is bugged anyway, so, will not be missed.
Weapon Training: +1 to +5 damage, +1 to +5 to-hit, +1 to +6 critical damage ("Seeker"). All have choices of Melee (including unarmed) OR Ranged: Bought separetelly


Guild level

All amenities and buffs should be rearranged to fit up to level 75. When your guild reach level 75, you have access to all buffs and amenities. Further guild improvement will only affect buffs durations and access to different ships.

Once your guild unlocks the new tier of a guild buff, the lower tiers will get a discount. So, if your guild unlocks "Resist Fire 10", then "Resist Fire 5" will be cheaper, which will help the low level players on your guild as well. It might also be an option that at levels 80, 85, 90, 95 and 100 your guild get further discounts on guild buffs.

Airships

Since the First Mate will be responsible for guild buffs, all that matters in the ship will be crew and altar spots. Crew requires payment from the entire guild to stay on ship, while altars must be crafted, but don't decay. As usual, the spots are limited by ship size and style. While the buffs can be controlled in an individual matter, crew and altars are a full-guild effort.

Ship Crew

Every airship will have a Maintenance Cost that can be checked in the Guild tab, in a specific sub-tab. The basic cost of the airship is Zero, for the First Mate and the Captain. Every other crew member you add to the guild will requires weekly payments (pre-paid, as today: Pay upfront, will stay there until the next payment).

Anyone in the guild can contribute to the Guild Treasure Vault that will be used to pay the crew. The vault is deposit only, and the Guild Leader and Officers can see the vault deposit log (everyone can see the Vault stock, but not the log). If the Vault have less platinum than it is required for the crew to stay aboard, they will vanish at payment day, and it will be the guild leader/officer's responsability to arrange a new crew, within the guild's finances.

I suggest the following crew member to be added to the ship:

Arcane Reagent vendor: Arcane scrolls and wands. Options for all range of levels. The larger the vendor cache, more it will cost. Cosmetic option for race and gender. Do repair equipment.
Auctioner: As usual. Access to Auction House and Shard Exchange. Cosmetic option of Auctioner's race and gender.
Barman: Turns the entire ship into a tavern zone (top and bottom), allowing recharge of action boosts and drinking/eating. Only sell drink/food. Do not repair equipment. Cosmetic option of barman's race and gender.
Courier Mail: Cosmetic option of Eberron or Forgotten Realms style mail.
Divine Reagent Vendor: Divine scrolls and wands. Options for all range of levels. The larger the vendor cache, more it will cost. Cosmetic option for race, gender and faith. Do repair equipment.
Forge Master: Sell weapons, armor and ammunition. The higher level the Forge Master, better are the weapons he sell (including up to weapons of a specific metal with red slots, craftable) and more variable are the kind of ammunition sold (all metal, element and alignment types). Repair equipment with zero chance of giving it permanent damage. Cosmetic option for race and gender.
Kundarak Banker: As usual. Cosmetic option of banker's race and gender.
Navigators: Three options as currently (Full explorers done, explorers started, no requirements). The best navigators cost more to maintain. Cosmetic options of navigator race and gender.
Potion Brewer: Sell all kinds of potions, from the humble Cure Light Wounds Potion to the mighty Superior Impulse Potion. The higher level versions also have some unique potions, like Resist Element 40/50, Panacea potions, and Heal potions. Those potions are, of course, very expensive. The larger the vendor cache, more it will cost. Cosmetic option for race and gender. Do repair equipment.


Altars

Altars are crafted by the whole guild, with higher cumulative costs, but that only need to be paid once, unless your guild change the altar to something else. In this case, if you want the old altar back, you have to restart the whole process.

In the places that currently hold Large ammenities, you can start the construction of an altar. To finish the altar, your guild should fill three conditions:

1) Your guild should be of a level high enough to hold the altar
2) Your guild leader or officer should set the altar to receive your guild renown
3) The guild as a whole should fill the renown bar of the altar

Using an example, let's suppose your guild wants to create a Stone of Change in your airship. You set it on the airship, and then an officer or the leader will go to the maintenance tab and "activate" the guild operation towards the Stone of Change. During this period, the guild will not receive any renown to raise its guild level, and the renown will be redirected to the altar. Once the altar gets enough renown to be contructed, it will appear in your airship, and the guild will resume the renown-gathering for their levels.

Alternativelly, the guild can pay for an instant altar construction with Astral Shards from the guild treasure vault.

I reccomend the following altars to start:

Crafting stations: Shroud altars, Risia Altar, Dreamforge, Cannith Binding/Melting/Reforging Station, Stone of Change, Trapmaking Workstation, and Cannith Deconstruction Station. Maybe the other less-used crafting stations as well, but the ones listed are the most used ones.
Guild Chests: General, Member only, and Officer/Leader only versions. 20, 40, 60 and 80 slots versions.
Ressurrection Shrine: Allow you to bind yourself to your airship. If your ressurrection shrine is removed from your crew for any reason, everyone bound to the Airship will instead be bound to the Marketplace (as Veteran characters). Cosmetic option for Eberron and Forgotten Realms version.
Training Dummy: Unlimited health (like the immortal kobold in the dojo), and in various skins to test DPS against all knids of mobs (At least an humanoid target, a construct target, an undead target, and an evil outsider target).


Epilogue

I can go on and on for some guild ideas, but I think this is a nice upgrade from current system, solves some issues that exist now with guild buffs not being good enough for epics and too good for heroics, and creates a reasonable plat sink because people that DO create a lot of money will not care about constant buffing, even if it is expensive.

Please, examine and critique honestly.

[Uska]

Sorry I hate just about all of this and would quit every guild I am in if they were like this

[sifubob]

I like some of these ideas. I like the part about buffs being level dependent, and also costing Plat. Though, i do think 10k may be bit excessive.

Not so keen on the Maintenance part, as it would hurt smaller guilds, with less active / casual players more. These are the sort of players you would want to be excited about their guild ship, to draw them into the game more. having this ongoing cost might make them feel the ship is too much of a drain, and less exited about having it around.... but, maybe not. i dunno.


In general, i hate ship buffs and what they have done to the game. i don't use them, and don't even have buffs on my guild ship. Having something that reduces the time i have to spend waiting for party members to grab buffs before turning up to a quest, or to rebuff mid-chain (especially if i'm in Estar...) would be warmly welcomed by me. And i suspect that having to pay for them, and an increased duration would go a long way towards achieving that.

[whereispowderedsilve]

Sorry I hate just about all of this and would quit every guild I am in if they were like this

*what* do you hate about? Be specific when you have the time & energy to comment on it. He asked to be constructive, just saying....!

[Ancient]

*what* do you hate about? Be specific when you have the time & energy to comment on it. He asked to be constructive, just saying....!

I'm not going to devote an equal sized wall of text to simply say... "No, I don't like it".

Lets start with the 10k plat per buff being a strong penalty to new players.

[fmalfeas]

Not just to new players. A large cost on the buffs is a deterrent to altaholics too. Not everyone is capped on plat. Some of us (myself included) burn it so fast that having over 100k for more than a day or two feels like an accomplishment. (Between AH prices, and buying large stacks of high level scrolls on multiple characters, plat can burn quickly.)

[EllisDee37]

His "10k per buff" is to BUY them, not use them. He explicitly says you "will not be charged to use them." Like how today you have to spend ~2k plat to buy a +2 stat shrine. Once bought they are free to use as many times as you like.


I continue to maintain that the ideal duration of ship buffs is permanent until death or logout timer expires. No timer at all. By logout timer, I mean the same mechanic as the phiarlan pendant of time and any number of things. You know how if you log out, then log right back in, you'll still have your buffs, including the pendant of time? But if you log out for more than around 15 minutes all your buffs and clickies (except ship buffs) get reset to full, as well as your hp and sp. Have ship buffs use that same 15 minute counter, or however long it is.

The idea is then log on, buff up, then keep your buffs for your entire gaming session. You only need to rebuff if you die.

[EllisDee37]

And other than disagreeing (pretty strongly) on the duration of guild buffs -- any timer is a fail, IMO -- I rather like the rest of the concepts in the OP.

Buffs that scale by character level, you get all buffs in one shot, and then all the hookpoints are used for various useful vendors and crafting stations. Pretty win all around.

One problem, though, is that I like to buff my pets and pets won't be able to get buffs from the first mate because pets can't talk. Make the buff station a shrine they can click, please.

[whereispowderedsilve]

And other than disagreeing (pretty strongly) on the duration of guild buffs -- any timer is a fail, IMO -- I rather like the rest of the concepts in the OP.

Buffs that scale by character level, you get all buffs in one shot, and then all the hookpoints are used for various useful vendors and crafting stations. Pretty win all around.

One problem, though, is that I like to buff my pets and pets won't be able to get buffs from the first mate because pets can't talk. Make the buff station a shrine they can click, please.

Ya. These were my thoughts as well. +1.

[rayworks]

/not signed.

Why make guilds and ships more complicated than they are? KISS

If you make it more complicated you'll make it more prone to failure, and you know Turbine's track record.

[nibel]

I like some of these ideas. I like the part about buffs being level dependent, and also costing Plat. Though, i do think 10k may be bit excessive.


Lets start with the 10k plat per buff being a strong penalty to new players.

Two points:

1) 10k per buff is a placeholder value. Turbine can set a more realistic value if they implement the idea. But it should not be something you buff for a whole week and fully recover in a single loot run.

2) As your guild unlocks more powerful versions of the same buff, the lower versions will start getting progressive discounts. So, working with the placeholder value of 10k:

At guild level 25, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 5" (ML 1). They cost 10k plat.
At guild level 32, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 10" (ML 7). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 8k plat.
At guild level 40, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 15" (ML 13). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 10 will now cost 8k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 6k plat.
At guild level 48, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 20" (ML 18). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 15 will now cost 8k plat.
Resist 10 will now cost 6k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 4k plat.
At guild level 55, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 25" (ML 23). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 20 will now cost 8k plat.
Resist 15 will now cost 6k plat.
Resist 10 will now cost 4k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 3k plat.
At guild level 62, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 30" (ML 28). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 25 will now cost 8k plat.
Resist 20 will now cost 6k plat.
Resist 15 will now cost 4k plat.
Resist 10 will now cost 3k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 1500 plat.


So, even if you have access to the resist 30 buffs, if you are low on plat, you can choose to instead buff yourself with only resist 10 or 15 and spend less.


His "10k per buff" is to BUY them, not use them. He explicitly says you "will not be charged to use them." Like how today you have to spend ~2k plat to buy a +2 stat shrine. Once bought they are free to use as many times as you like.

Actually, the proposition is to charge per buff, not per "shrine" as it is today. If you want the buff, pay for it. If not, no big deal. One of the goals I had in mind while writing the suggestion is for ship buffs to be a plat sink, like Heal scrolls.

If you don't have that much plat to be rebuffing every week, then don't use all the buffs. Just like people that can't afford hundreds of scrolls per quest just have a small stach of 10 ressurrection scrolls instead of "always 100". Or just prepare the spell instead of spending on scrolls.


I continue to maintain that the ideal duration of ship buffs is permanent until death or logout timer expires. No timer at all.

(...)

The idea is then log on, buff up, then keep your buffs for your entire gaming session. You only need to rebuff if you die.

The proposed timer is to take as base the "weekend warriors". The casual people that mostly can only take some time to play on weekends.

The lowest level ship requires guild level 25. This means the buffs will stay for 50 hours. A casual player can buff at friday night, and keep it all way to sunday night. That is the bare minimum timer. As their guild raise up on levels, it will only go up, with the additional benefit of NOT expiring on death, that is more casual-friendly than expire on death.

Also, if the buffs expire on death, the EE people will still not care about ship buffing because on EE it is normal to die on accident. So, they will not spend thousands of plat buffing before their game sessions. Thus, the plat sink aspect of the proposition will not be realized.


Not just to new players.

Nothing in this game is just to new players. Not even current ship buffs, because a TR vet using the current top ship buffs is miles ahead of anything a new player on a level 30 guild can achieve. And most of the time, they will actually be guildless and have zero access to ship buffs at all (unless invited).

What it does remove is part of the godhood of people in high level guilds running low level content while TRing. The new players will mostly be unaffected by this proposition.

If a small guild is entirelly composed of a few casual players that don't play that much, current ship buff maintenance is also expensive. Specially when you reach the high guild levels. But I don't think those people gathered together to grind ship buffs. They are just a guild of friends.

[PsychoBlonde]

In general, i hate ship buffs and what they have done to the game. i don't use them, and don't even have buffs on my guild ship. Having something that reduces the time i have to spend waiting for party members to grab buffs before turning up to a quest, or to rebuff mid-chain (especially if i'm in Estar...) would be warmly welcomed by me. And i suspect that having to pay for them, and an increased duration would go a long way towards achieving that.

If they add pay options to the game for buffs, it's going to be in astral shards. So be careful what you wish for.

Here's a thought though--if you think it's wise for people to pay for buffs on a case-by-case basis, do this:

Put all the "guild vendors" as ship slots. So you'd have vendors selling:

Reagents
Potions
Scrolls
Wands
Ammo
Hirelings
Guild Augments

Have their INVENTORY be based off the "buffs" you've earned. So, if you have Lesser Resistance, the potion vendor sells potions of Resist 10 with, say, a 10-minute duration. They're like yugo pots, they last through rest and don't get dispelled by antimagic. So if you want "guild buffs", you buy pots, which you can then carry around and use anywhere so you don't have to constantly go back to the ship to refresh your buffs.

Guild scrolls could come in varieties with higher caster levels (or lower UMD requirements). And, unlike pots, you could cast them *on other people*. Ditto for guild wands.

[Uska]

I'm not going to devote an equal sized wall of text to simply say... "No, I don't like it".

Lets start with the 10k plat per buff being a strong penalty to new players.

That is the main thing I am against I am not a new player but that would even hurt me I don't have much play time so I don't have plat.

[Uska]

Not just to new players. A large cost on the buffs is a deterrent to altaholics too. Not everyone is capped on plat. Some of us (myself included) burn it so fast that having over 100k for more than a day or two feels like an accomplishment. (Between AH prices, and buying large stacks of high level scrolls on multiple characters, plat can burn quickly.)

yup I seldom have much plat.

[Uska]

Two points:

1) 10k per buff is a placeholder value. Turbine can set a more realistic value if they implement the idea. But it should not be something you buff for a whole week and fully recover in a single loot run.

2) As your guild unlocks more powerful versions of the same buff, the lower versions will start getting progressive discounts. So, working with the placeholder value of 10k:

At guild level 25, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 5" (ML 1). They cost 10k plat.
At guild level 32, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 10" (ML 7). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 8k plat.
At guild level 40, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 15" (ML 13). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 10 will now cost 8k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 6k plat.
At guild level 48, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 20" (ML 18). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 15 will now cost 8k plat.
Resist 10 will now cost 6k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 4k plat.
At guild level 55, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 25" (ML 23). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 20 will now cost 8k plat.
Resist 15 will now cost 6k plat.
Resist 10 will now cost 4k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 3k plat.
At guild level 62, you unlock "Elemental Resistance 30" (ML 28). They cost 10k plat.
Resist 25 will now cost 8k plat.
Resist 20 will now cost 6k plat.
Resist 15 will now cost 4k plat.
Resist 10 will now cost 3k plat.
Resist 5 will now cost 1500 plat.


So, even if you have access to the resist 30 buffs, if you are low on plat, you can choose to instead buff yourself with only resist 10 or 15 and spend less.



Actually, the proposition is to charge per buff, not per "shrine" as it is today. If you want the buff, pay for it. If not, no big deal. One of the goals I had in mind while writing the suggestion is for ship buffs to be a plat sink, like Heal scrolls.

If you don't have that much plat to be rebuffing every week, then don't use all the buffs. Just like people that can't afford hundreds of scrolls per quest just have a small stach of 10 ressurrection scrolls instead of "always 100". Or just prepare the spell instead of spending on scrolls.



The proposed timer is to take as base the "weekend warriors". The casual people that mostly can only take some time to play on weekends.

The lowest level ship requires guild level 25. This means the buffs will stay for 50 hours. A casual player can buff at friday night, and keep it all way to sunday night. That is the bare minimum timer. As their guild raise up on levels, it will only go up, with the additional benefit of NOT expiring on death, that is more casual-friendly than expire on death.

Also, if the buffs expire on death, the EE people will still not care about ship buffing because on EE it is normal to die on accident. So, they will not spend thousands of plat buffing before their game sessions. Thus, the plat sink aspect of the proposition will not be realized.



Nothing in this game is just to new players. Not even current ship buffs, because a TR vet using the current top ship buffs is miles ahead of anything a new player on a level 30 guild can achieve. And most of the time, they will actually be guildless and have zero access to ship buffs at all (unless invited).

What it does remove is part of the godhood of people in high level guilds running low level content while TRing. The new players will mostly be unaffected by this proposition.

If a small guild is entirelly composed of a few casual players that don't play that much, current ship buff maintenance is also expensive. Specially when you reach the high guild levels. But I don't think those people gathered together to grind ship buffs. They are just a guild of friends.

Even 10% of that cost is way to much I think your ideas would kill all but the super guilds and only the rich players who don't need the benefits of guilds would be able to use them.

[EllisDee37]

Actually, the proposition is to charge per buff, not per "shrine" as it is today. If you want the buff, pay for it. If not, no big deal. One of the goals I had in mind while writing the suggestion is for ship buffs to be a plat sink, like Heal scrolls.

If you don't have that much plat to be rebuffing every week, then don't use all the buffs. Just like people that can't afford hundreds of scrolls per quest just have a small stach of 10 ressurrection scrolls instead of "always 100". Or just prepare the spell instead of spending on scrolls. In that case, I think your idea is terrible.


The lowest level ship requires guild level 25. This means the buffs will stay for 50 hours.This is also terrible. Super long timers are bad. Just have no timers at all, please.

And let me ship buff my pet, too.

[nibel]

In that case, I think your idea is terrible.

That specific idea not achieving the desirable plat sink I want it to be, or that guild maintenance should be a plat sink at all?

[Uska]

That specific idea not achieving the desirable plat sink I want it to be, or that guild maintenance should be a plat sink at all?

It may be what you want but I don't want a guild system anything like that and I think the ship has sailed on putting in plat sinks some people have more plat on one character than I do on all of my dozens of characters put together so while a plat sink like you see wont hurt them it will really hurt people like me and your flippant comment that if you cant afford it do without is infuriating. While the current buff timers are to slow yours are to long and with ones that long we should just do without the timers ship buff timers should last until death. I don't think there is much they can do to guilds to make them any better than they are.

[EllisDee37]

That specific idea not achieving the desirable plat sink I want it to be, or that guild maintenance should be a plat sink at all?I think the idea that guild BUFFING should be a plat sink is a terrible idea. Guild maintenance is and should remain a plat sink, of course. (ie: Placing the buffs on your ship.) But actually getting the buffs? Terrible.

And ultra-long timers is also a terrible idea. So I buff today and then don't need to rebuff for like 4 days? Bad in principle. I should have to buff every time I log on for a new session. The improvement would be to only have to buff once per session instead of every x minutes. More if you die, of course.

[nibel]

It may be what you want but I don't want a guild system anything like that and I think the ship has sailed on putting in plat sinks some people have more plat on one character than I do on all of my dozens of characters put together so while a plat sink like you see wont hurt them it will really hurt people like me and your flippant comment that if you cant afford it do without is infuriating. While the current buff timers are to slow yours are to long and with ones that long we should just do without the timers ship buff timers should last until death. I don't think there is much they can do to guilds to make them any better than they are.

The ship had sailed on U5. Since they are reworking the system, and it is not yet on Lamannia, it has not sailed yet.

The game need a plat sink. One of the reasons some people have more plat than they can waste is exactly because there is nothing to buy with plat in quantitites that rival how much plat they make selling trash loot. Back in time, a stack of Heal scrolls was expensive enough to people actually create a hagglebard just to save plat on scroll piles. We need something expensive AND useful, so those people with capped plat can start using it for something, helping the whole game economy.

Anyway, the proposition is based on the idea that we need a plat sink. If you inherently disagree that we need a plat sink on guild buffs, it is no surprise you didn't like the proposition.

On a side note, you say my timers are too long. "Buffed until death" can mean anything from 5 minutes into an EE quest, to leveling all the way from 1 to 28 while playing "safe". I think this is just too variable to actually predict an average to set costs and stuff. And "One ame session" is too short if you only have time to log for 1-2 hours per night.

[nibel]

I think the idea that guild BUFFING should be a plat sink is a terrible idea.

It is inspired on Housed J/P favor reward. These spells have a negligible cost right now, but the principle is there: Pay for someone to cast a buff on you.

And no, currently, guild maintenance is not a plat sink. You spend around 20-60k (depending on ship size) and the ship is set for a month. You can recover this plat in a single EN Tor dragon run

[EllisDee37]

You spend around 20-60k (depending on ship size) and the ship is set for a month.It is unclear whether or not this is WAI. I tend to think it isn't, but I suspect they don't much care since they're redoing guild ships anyway.

Anyway, I am not a fan of your proposal and do not find your arguments for it compelling. If you really want a plat sink, how about an astral shard vendor that sells 1 astral shard for 100,000 plat.

[Uska]

His "10k per buff" is to BUY them, not use them. He explicitly says you "will not be charged to use them." Like how today you have to spend ~2k plat to buy a +2 stat shrine. Once bought they are free to use as many times as you like.


I continue to maintain that the ideal duration of ship buffs is permanent until death or logout timer expires. No timer at all. By logout timer, I mean the same mechanic as the phiarlan pendant of time and any number of things. You know how if you log out, then log right back in, you'll still have your buffs, including the pendant of time? But if you log out for more than around 15 minutes all your buffs and clickies (except ship buffs) get reset to full, as well as your hp and sp. Have ship buffs use that same 15 minute counter, or however long it is.

The idea is then log on, buff up, then keep your buffs for your entire gaming session. You only need to rebuff if you die.

Wrong that's per time per buff

[Uska]

The ship had sailed on U5. Since they are reworking the system, and it is not yet on Lamannia, it has not sailed yet.

The game need a plat sink. One of the reasons some people have more plat than they can waste is exactly because there is nothing to buy with plat in quantitites that rival how much plat they make selling trash loot. Back in time, a stack of Heal scrolls was expensive enough to people actually create a hagglebard just to save plat on scroll piles. We need something expensive AND useful, so those people with capped plat can start using it for something, helping the whole game economy.

Anyway, the proposition is based on the idea that we need a plat sink. If you inherently disagree that we need a plat sink on guild buffs, it is no surprise you didn't like the proposition.

On a side note, you say my timers are too long. "Buffed until death" can mean anything from 5 minutes into an EE quest, to leveling all the way from 1 to 28 while playing "safe". I think this is just too variable to actually predict an average to set costs and stuff. And "One ame session" is too short if you only have time to log for 1-2 hours per night.

Completely wrong that game doesn't need a plat sink not all players have plat coming out their ears I have been around longer than most and almost never have more than a couple hundred K plat between all of my characters and usually much less the absolutely last thing we need is a plat sink!

[nibel]

Completely wrong that game doesn't need a plat sink not all players have plat coming out their ears I have been around longer than most and almost never have more than a couple hundred K plat between all of my characters and usually much less the absolutely last thing we need is a plat sink!

You know that plat sinks make the AH prices drop, right? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_sink)

[Uska]

You know that plat sinks make the AH prices drop, right? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_sink)

I don't care about the AH and you have no proof your idea will do that all it will do is put guild stuff out the range of new players and others who don't have tons of plat I don't have enough time to play to generate the plat your idea would cost me and even if I did I would hate your ideas.

With increased costs people will want to make more money so AH prices will go up (I cant prove that any more than you can prove your statement which I patently believe to be false)

[Stoner81]

Non-buff ammenities (tavern, bank, altars, etc) should be the standard and what is used to fill your ship. The buffs do no occupy a slot.
Guild buffs should be some kind of plat sink.
All guild buffs will stack with every other buff. It should be a reward, not a placeholder while you don't get good gear. For that effect, consider every buff listed as a "Guild Bonus type". No morale, no enhancement, no artifact, no insight, no competence.
Guild buffs should last a lot longer. I'll extend on that later, but the 1-hour buff should go.

I agree with all of these for the most part except for point 2, imho plat sinks create a void in the player base simply because not everybody can play the same amount all of us have different circumstances and as such might not have as much plat as others. There are people in the game who are sat on what 20, 30, 40, 50 million plat (or more) because they can play more than others or got lucky with loot pulls so could sell stuff on etc etc.

This is a game and is made to be played for fun and entertainment and not to be played like a second full time job.

As for the rest of your idea I think it's all bad (for the most part) and here is why...

What you suggest would be a coders nightmare (I assume since I'm not a coder) it would take a lot of time and resources to do this massive overhaul that you suggest and probably wouldn't even work knowing Turbines track record on such things, heck if I didn't know any better I would suggest that you are actually a Turbine employee because how many times have we seen it that they come up with something that is so long and convoluted it's beyond a joke? (Epic TR in the first incarnation for example).

Keeping things short and simple (K.I.S.S) is in everyone's best interest since it makes for easier coding and makes it easier for players to understand what they hell is going on for example:

Increase the cost of buying the amenity (as in when you place it for the first time), this would be a 1 (one) time cost unless you change the amenity.
Add options to the First Mate's dialogue to do other things besides what he does already (which is not a lot atm to be honest), he could be used to store plat for airship maintenance and other things (this is one of the only things from the OP I actually like) this would create a small plat sink but it also wouldn't take all of the plat people have.
Give the option to the First Mate so you can just take all buffs at once even for people who visit your airship (for Arti's, Druids etc if you have your pet called then they are auto applied to your pet too), they would only have the option of taking all buffs and could even have to pay some small amount of plat (say 2,000 plat) to use this feature which could be added to the guild treasure vault (see the OP's idea on ship maintenance). They can also of course just run round and grab them all individually it will just take longer.
All buffs have no timers and last until death.
All buffs stack with everything else and are changed to Guild Bonus for the purposes of stacking (basically agreeing the with OP).
Purchasing a new airship should not be in Astral Shards it should be PLAT! (the guild I am in is waiting to reach level 80 because we refuse/can't afford to spend the insane amount of money needed to buy the level 55 ship with Astral Shards!), this could be another semi plat sink and would give players a reason to save up their plat.

I can't think of anything else right now (**** headache).

One main thing that I do agree on with the OP is that guild ship stuff does need a lot of love and TLC putting in to it but it should also be Astral Shard free.

Stoner81.

[danotmano1998]

After reading the OP, I have some thoughts of my own about ship buffs..

1. Remove the timer from ship buffs. These should last until death or until logout.

2. Add in a new large buff which will allow you to "one-click" for all the buffs available on your ship, make it cost a fair amount of platinum to purchase and renew. (So yes, you'd have to pay for the one-click as well as keep all the current shrines on the ship up to date. This doesn't replace any buffs, it just consolidates the ones already on your ship.)

3. Consider upping stat shrines to +4, now that we have 30 levels to play with. Also consider making the elemental buffs scale based on character level. Having 30 resists is a convenience on a level 20 guy. On a level 1-5 guy it's ridiculously OP.

4. Add an option to teleport to Eveningstar from the top Guild ship navigator.

5. Leave everything else about the system the same, except revise the airship designs slightly to allow a more open, linear buffing process. No hidden ledges, back rooms, etc.

6. Leave everything else about the system the same, except revise the airship designs slightly to allow a more open, linear buffing process. No hidden ledges, back rooms, etc. These are an unneeded annoyance.

[TrinityTurtle]

Completely wrong that game doesn't need a plat sink not all players have plat coming out their ears I have been around longer than most and almost never have more than a couple hundred K plat between all of my characters and usually much less the absolutely last thing we need is a plat sink!

I can't disagree with you more. Just as the richest of players should not be the only ones taken into account for an idea like this, neither should the poorest of players. The median, average players plat piles should be what drives this. Good plat sinks appropriate for the level of toons facing them ARE healthy for a game. People demand insane amounts in trade and in the ah's because they know buyers have the plat available to them. Not juts a few clever or hardcore players, but the average masses. What this does is keeps the good gear to the players who have been around a long time and aren't wasteful with their plat.

If you have been around longer than most, and truly have only a couple of hundred plat between all your characters (no idea how many that is) you need to realize that your plat management skills aren't the average at all. You can make half your total plat amount in a run through of inspired quarter and dreaming dark purely with vender trashing things. My average there is about 125k platinum. That is just one example, there are a lot of ways to earn plat. My average auction house income is 40k on my lowbie toons, 100k on midranges, and 200+k on high level toons. And I'm not talking hard to farm stuff, just decent items that drop outta my chests and end rewards. I'm not in any way unusual here, I just take the time to throw everything I Don't want on the ah for double it's base price buyout and forget about it til the plat shows up in my mailbox. And very little goes back out other than on spell mats, heal & res scrolls, and some other miscellaneous pots and scrolls as needed to rely less on overworked healers and more on myself.

This game is desperate for plat sinks. But good ones, that give an actual benefit that the players actually want to buy and not just the kind like the ah where the money goes poof to go poof. Potions of healing that work realistic healing against the actual damage people take without steep penalties to help barbarians and fighters join the byoh groups off the top of my head as an example. Potions of healing amplification would be lovely too.

The problem with the op here is that it would really be dependent on the pricing being altered by toon level to be in any way equitable for lower level toons that don't have big brother and sister toons to supplement them while they grow. Also, given that we have had them in the current status, it would feel very much like a taking away of plat vs. something that players actually want to buy. Better to come up with someone new to use in order to get the plat out of the game without creating bad player feeling.

[nibel]

What you suggest would be a coders nightmare (I assume since I'm not a coder)

About the First Mate giving buffs, I was thinking something like the barter interface. You select the buff you want, pay for it on plat, and it is auto-applied to you (as if you had "traded" for guild renown). How hard would it be to code "platinum", "character level" and "guild level" as the "ingredients", I have no idea.


Economics 101

Thank you.

[Stoner81]

About the First Mate giving buffs, I was thinking something like the barter interface. You select the buff you want, pay for it on plat, and it is auto-applied to you (as if you had "traded" for guild renown). How hard would it be to code "platinum", "character level" and "guild level" as the "ingredients", I have no idea.

That would be a whole new system which wouldn't be that hard I would think since the new barter interface is all over the place now but, it would mean having to add an extra interface to the system which is more time and resources than just tweaking existing systems which already work. The way I read your OP was that it seemed to be a whole new system from the ground up which is why I said what I said but I see your point here though I still think it would be time wasted for reasons already stated/suggested.

Stoner81.

[Seikojin]

I like the idea of having someone buff you instead of hitting a bunch of nodes.

However I think the buffs provided here are a bit extreme. A first lifer could get money from a friend and cap buff beyond any gear; making the pursuit of gear totally worthless. TR characters will just grab whatever junk since their ship buffs can outlast and outperform drops.

I like the idea of timers based on guild level. I think buffs should drop when dead, but the timer should be a little less extreme. I would recommend 2-3 minutes per guild level. Offering the average guild level the same amount of time that currently exists (saying a lvl 25-26 guild will get 50-78 minutes).

Having the buffs centralized would allow more waypoint type npc's. So you can use your guildship to get to quests. Like you would really do in the game.

[PsychoBlonde]

That is the main thing I am against I am not a new player but that would even hurt me I don't have much play time so I don't have plat.

You are aware that there's no law saying you MUST buy guild buffs? They're a convenience, not a friggin' requirement to play the game. Heck, I do eE content without ship buffs all the time just because I'm too lazy to go pick them up. I wouldn't be upset if they went away entirely. It's a BONUS--and a minor one at that.

Heck, I'd say this precise attitude--that quality guild ship buffs are an ENTITLEMENT even for people who JUST STARTED playing--is an indication that they DO need to ramp up the plat sink on the buffs. You might as well declare "I'm a new player but I deserve all the benefits of playing a completionist toon". No. You can learn where the vendors with resistance potions are just like everybody else who started playing before ship buffs even existed. You can pay for house P and house J buffs or turn in collectibles for resist pots. There are *plenty* of options out there to get buffs on your own without getting them free off a guild ship you haven't even contributed to leveling in the first place.

Then maybe when you join my Zerg TR group thinking you can bum an elite streak off someone who can actually handle one, you won't die in the first 30 seconds because you'll have *some* notion of how to play the game and what's actually required to complete quests successfully.

[FestusHood]

It is inspired on Housed J/P favor reward. These spells have a negligible cost right now, but the principle is there: Pay for someone to cast a buff on you.

And no, currently, guild maintenance is not a plat sink. You spend around 20-60k (depending on ship size) and the ship is set for a month. You can recover this plat in a single EN Tor dragon run

It costs about 100k to redo the buffs on our guild ship. That's waiting till they run down to less that a week, and buying 4 of each.

You are trying to solve the problem of the relatively small number of people who have more plat than they can figure out how to spend, but that isn't most people. Any amount of cost which is enough to serve as a plat sink for the Scrooge Mcducks would be incredibly punitive to the large majority of players.

Quantum physics cannot account for the tininess of the violin i would assign to those people with the 'problem' of having too much plat.

[nibel]

However I think the buffs provided here are a bit extreme. A first lifer could get money from a friend and cap buff beyond any gear; making the pursuit of gear totally worthless. TR characters will just grab whatever junk since their ship buffs can outlast and outperform drops.

Did you missed the line where I say the buffs will be level gated as well? So, even if you are at a level 100 guild, if you just TRed, you can't get access to the most powerful buffs yet.

So, while a level 1 chracter with money to expend might get a bunch of +1s in different areas, that is not enough to overpower content as Resist 30 stuff is today.


I like the idea of timers based on guild level. I think buffs should drop when dead, but the timer should be a little less extreme. I would recommend 2-3 minutes per guild level. Offering the average guild level the same amount of time that currently exists (saying a lvl 25-26 guild will get 50-78 minutes).

That might work too, set the level 25 to the current 1 hour, and scaling up from there. Buff costs should be lowered, maybe killing the progressive discount, so low level buffs always will be cheap, while the bunch of +5s can be expensive for difficulty content and rich people. Let me do some math before changing the OP.

Being short-duration also may put it back on the "expire on death" stage. I personally don't like it that much because on the really challenging content, people will skip the buffing because they can't guarantee they will stay alive during the whole quest. Right now, the buffing is basically free, so you lose nothing. But if you invest plat on it, people might think twice before spending it on something that might be gone after 5 minutes into the quest. There are buffs that currently survive through death (mostly, store potions), so it is not even that it doesn't have a precedent.

Maybe dying cut off 30 minutes of the buff timer? I don't know if is possible to code something like that.

[EllisDee37]

It costs about 100k to redo the buffs on our guild ship.Not anymore; nowadays they are much cheaper. Nibel's estimates are correct, and I alluded earlier that I don't think it's WAI but since they're redoing guild ships anyway I don't think the devs care.

A brand new buff now lasts 5 weeks instead of 3 days, and replacing a buff with a different one makes it brand new. So, just for an example, on the 1st of every month replace the +2 strength shrine with a mailbox then replace that mailbox with a +2 strength shrine and you now have a 5-week +2 strength shrine for 2500 plat. For crewmen use the silver flame dude as your placeholder. For larges, the cheapest xp shrine. (I think; possibly the stone of change.)

Doing this costs around 40k for the level 55 astral ship and around 75-80k for the level 85 astral ship. (I'm in two guilds, one with a 55 ship and one with an 85, and I extend the buffs on both every month.)

[Uska]

I can't disagree with you more. Just as the richest of players should not be the only ones taken into account for an idea like this, neither should the poorest of players. The median, average players plat piles should be what drives this. Good plat sinks appropriate for the level of toons facing them ARE healthy for a game. People demand insane amounts in trade and in the ah's because they know buyers have the plat available to them. Not juts a few clever or hardcore players, but the average masses. What this does is keeps the good gear to the players who have been around a long time and aren't wasteful with their plat.

If you have been around longer than most, and truly have only a couple of hundred plat between all your characters (no idea how many that is) you need to realize that your plat management skills aren't the average at all. You can make half your total plat amount in a run through of inspired quarter and dreaming dark purely with vender trashing things. My average there is about 125k platinum. That is just one example, there are a lot of ways to earn plat. My average auction house income is 40k on my lowbie toons, 100k on midranges, and 200+k on high level toons. And I'm not talking hard to farm stuff, just decent items that drop outta my chests and end rewards. I'm not in any way unusual here, I just take the time to throw everything I Don't want on the ah for double it's base price buyout and forget about it til the plat shows up in my mailbox. And very little goes back out other than on spell mats, heal & res scrolls, and some other miscellaneous pots and scrolls as needed to rely less on overworked healers and more on myself.

This game is desperate for plat sinks. But good ones, that give an actual benefit that the players actually want to buy and not just the kind like the ah where the money goes poof to go poof. Potions of healing that work realistic healing against the actual damage people take without steep penalties to help barbarians and fighters join the byoh groups off the top of my head as an example. Potions of healing amplification would be lovely too.

The problem with the op here is that it would really be dependent on the pricing being altered by toon level to be in any way equitable for lower level toons that don't have big brother and sister toons to supplement them while they grow. Also, given that we have had them in the current status, it would feel very much like a taking away of plat vs. something that players actually want to buy. Better to come up with someone new to use in order to get the plat out of the game without creating bad player feeling.

I have zero interest in the AH and I never really pull anything worth selling there and don't desire to waste my limited time on it. We don't need a plat sink just because some players have tons of plat

[nibel]

We don't need a plat sink just because some players have tons of plat

That is not the reason why we need a plat sink.

So many people having tons of plat is the consequence of a lack of plat sink. Back when Amrath was endgame (to use an example), less people had capped plat all the time because those same people were constantly wasting it on Yugo pots, Heal scrolls, and GS mats. Now they just let the plat pile up because they don't have anything to buy that is not using Astral Shards.

[Aliss7]

A brand new buff now lasts 5 weeks instead of 3 days, and replacing a buff with a different one makes it brand new.

I didn't know this until recently. Kind of annoyed I didn't know about it earlier. It doesn't make any sense either... extending an existing buff should be cheaper, but oh well. That's turbine.



All guild buffs will stack with every other buff.


Doing that across the board without balancing all other sources would make guild buffs too powerful, and if you did try to balance it, that would then make guild buffs a requirement. Bad. They should generally be kept as an added convenience, not a flat-across-the-board unique source of buffs.

I'm interested to see what turbine has planned for ships myself. Maybe we'll be able to invite others to the ship if no one's aboard?

[Chaimberland]

The game need a plat sink. .

The game may need a plat sink but individuals paying every time they buff is not the way to do it. It is a guild ship and therefore it should be a guild investment. The cost of buying and maintaining the buffs could be high but once purchased they should be free to use by the guild members. It would be nice if there was a way to implement a guild bank account where guild members could donate plat towards ship buffs. Only guild leaders and officers would be able to withdraw from that account and they would only be able to purchase guild ship amenities from that account.

Non-guild members using a guild's ship buffs could be charged a small amount to use them and the plat from that would go directly into the guild's bank account.

[jalont]

I'd just be happy if the largest ship had enough space to place everything....

[EllisDee37]

It would be nice if there was a way to implement a guild bank account where guild members could donate plat towards ship buffs. Only guild leaders and officers would be able to withdraw from that account and they would only be able to purchase guild ship amenities from that account.I'd take it a step further: You can't withdraw plat from the guild bank account, but instead buying the amenities withdraws from the account directly.

[Chaimberland]

I'd take it a step further: You can't withdraw plat from the guild bank account, but instead buying the amenities withdraws from the account directly.

Good point, this would prevent theft.

[TrinityTurtle]

I have zero interest in the AH and I never really pull anything worth selling there and don't desire to waste my limited time on it. We don't need a plat sink just because some players have tons of plat

You never know what is worth selling until you post it. I'm often surprised we need things.

And we absolutely do need plat sinks in this game because the vast majority of players have tons of plat, not just 'some', and despite your personal and rather unusual inability to earn plat.

[TrinityTurtle]

I'd take it a step further: You can't withdraw plat from the guild bank account, but instead buying the amenities withdraws from the account directly.

I rather like the whole idea honestly, especially if it withdraws directly from the bank for the buffs and closes opportunities for needless drama and misunderstandings.

[FestusHood]

Not anymore; nowadays they are much cheaper. Nibel's estimates are correct, and I alluded earlier that I don't think it's WAI but since they're redoing guild ships anyway I don't think the devs care.

A brand new buff now lasts 5 weeks instead of 3 days, and replacing a buff with a different one makes it brand new. So, just for an example, on the 1st of every month replace the +2 strength shrine with a mailbox then replace that mailbox with a +2 strength shrine and you now have a 5-week +2 strength shrine for 2500 plat. For crewmen use the silver flame dude as your placeholder. For larges, the cheapest xp shrine. (I think; possibly the stone of change.)

Doing this costs around 40k for the level 55 astral ship and around 75-80k for the level 85 astral ship. (I'm in two guilds, one with a 55 ship and one with an 85, and I extend the buffs on both every month.)

I didn't know about this trick. I suspect most people don't.

[jalont]

I rather like the whole idea honestly, especially if it withdraws directly from the bank for the buffs and closes opportunities for needless drama and misunderstandings.

You all are aware that any guild member can refresh buffs, right? You only have to be an officer to place new buffs. Any member can add time to them. This whole bank thing just seems like a convoluted way to do exactly what we have now. :P

[Uska]

You never know what is worth selling until you post it. I'm often surprised we need things.

And we absolutely do need plat sinks in this game because the vast majority of players have tons of plat, not just 'some', and despite your personal and rather unusual inability to earn plat.

Wrong

[EllisDee37]

You all are aware that any guild member can refresh buffs, right? You only have to be an officer to place new buffs. Any member can add time to them. This whole bank thing just seems like a convoluted way to do exactly what we have now. :PWell, as mentioned, nobody should be extending buffs in the current game, only replacing them.

[nibel]

I didn't know about this trick. I suspect most people don't.

I didn't either, but I was counting only the buff prices (crew, resists, stats), not including the shroud altars and stuff.

I don't like the idea of guild buffs being a "slot" in the ship for the simple reason it competes with convenience items. Why put a banker on my ship, if instead I can get 30 acid resist or +2 strength? Buffs should be in one place, convenience in another. And we should have enough buffs/crew options that even the largest ship can't hold all of them at the same time, thus leading the guild to choose what they prefer on their ship.