Guild Buffs 2.0

[nibel]

As said by Producer Rowan, 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. 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. 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.