Introducing New Airships & Amenities

[DrOctothorpe]

We’re very pleased to announce a significant revamp to our guild airship and amenity systems in Update 22. Let’s get right to the headlines:

• An entirely new and different set of Amenities
• (Don’t worry, the old ones you’ve got won’t be taken away!)
• New amenity buffs aren’t lost on death, will pause in public and on logout, and last much longer in general
• A “buff bar” on the top deck will grant buffs for all installed amenities
• Max Guild level goes to 200
• Six new airships, even bigger than the current six
• Current airships get their lower decks overhauled, to accommodate new amenities

Read on for details…

New Amenity Spaces
You won’t just drop the new amenities somewhere on the floor. When placed, each amenity will fill its space with deco. The ships are laid out with series of “Holds” designed to hold one amenity each. Airships will also feature “State Rooms” – extra-large spaces that could house more ambitious amenities, like a complete Cannith Crafting set, for instance, or all the elemental resist buffs in one place.

Even Holds are packed with value: on average, they’ll come with several benefits. For instance, one amenity holds a mailbox, a banker, and an auctioneer. Another, the Arcane Sanctum, offers Saves vs Enchantments, Max SP, and Spell Penetration bonuses.

And by and large, bonuses are simply better. The single caveat is that where appropriate, buffs now scale to level. In addition, some amenities, such as elemental resists, come in tiers. The very top tiers don’t just offer flat elemental resistances, but percentage resistances instead! Another aspect that’s being improved is duration. As stated above, these buffs won’t go away on death. They’ll start lasting for a couple of hours, and as your guild goes up, that duration will increase.

What about the old amenities? We’ve reserved a special cargo hold for them. Any contracts you’ve got can be placed there and used for as long as they last.


Placing an amenity…



Once placed, an amenity can change the look of a space!


And it’s showtime!

Airship Alterations
While the upper decks will look fairly familiar (a little larger, freshly swabbed), the lower decks will be entirely new. As mentioned, the layouts will feature “Holds”, extra-large “State Rooms”, and a cargo hold dedicated to legacy amenities. The smaller airships will have one lower deck (plus the cargo hold), while the largest ones will have a two or more lower decks worth of amenities. Naturally, this makes the one-stop buff source on the upper deck even more useful. Where we can, we’re working hard to do one better: for example, if you have the Farshifter amenity installed below, the Captain will automatically offer to take you to Farshifter locations. Other services, like vendors and crafting equipment, don’t really translate to any top deck presence. Our ships are laid out for convenience, though. You’ll be able to place an Orien Express (mail, auction, bank) Hold right next to your Cannith Crafting Stateroom.

And finally, browsing and buying new airships is getting a new face in the form of a UI panel.


Thar be amenity holds… over thar!


Our new engine room. This one runs on eight cylinders.


Obtaining Amenities
As mentioned above, the new amenities are permanent. Once you’ve got them, you keep them. Of the 40 new amenity types, you’ll be able to buy about 75% of them for Platinum, directly from your airship.

You’ll be able to obtain the remaining amenities as follows:

1. They will almost all appear in quest end reward lists. A few of these will be rare drops.
2. You will be able to buy them for Astral Shards from your airship

Now the amenities found on quest reward lists will go into your personal inventory, but most amenities will never touch player inventory space. We’ve created a new guild inventory concept, to hold our permanent amenities when they’re not placed. Using an amenity deed from your inventory, on your airship, will move it into that guild inventory space.

Guild Levels
The big news is that guild levels are extending to 200. Let’s break out how this will work:

• The Renown XP curve will pretty much flatten after 100*
• Any banked renown for level 100 guilds will apply
• Through a series of tricks, Airship and amenities now unlock, on average, earlier and easier than before
• New airships and other items will continue to unlock through Guild Level 150
• We are turning guild decay on for levels 150-200 ONLY: these are bragging rights levels
• For bragging level guilds, your guild title text will change different colors in recognition of your status
• You’ll be able to find out what the highest ranked guild on your server is

* Fun fact: if we didn’t flatten the Renown curve, you would need a cumulative 4 Billion Renown to reach 200.

In Closing
Any change as substantial as this comes with more details than we could reasonably fit in a post. Questions and concerns are welcome below. We’ll answer all that we can.

Cheers,
Dr#

[Kamode_Corebasher]

Thanks Devs and DDO team!

[patang01]

Any change as substantial as this comes with more details than we could reasonably fit in a post. Questions and concerns are welcome below. We’ll answer all that we can.

Cheers,
Dr#

I must say I'm impressed and I approve. This is an excellent way of pleasing everyone. But there is one thing I just can't stand about decay - first - I understand that this is a compromise. It allows people to reach a good level and yet for those who are into status chasing try to achieve it. But it's still a fairly dumb idea. That 'fame' somehow is so fickle. Now it is good that the 'buffs' are permanent. That removes the one problem with decay that 1 minute you have x level and after a Mabar you're down and can't buy or use some buffs.

However this system still falls on the one and perhaps single most terrible thing - you are essentially wasting your for real money guild potions unless you're also in a dedicated guild that play so much they can overcome the decay effect.

And that's a terrible system; selling guild potions where the progress is often times wasted simply because you have events like Mabar and such. I get what you're trying to do here, but it still falls foul on the principle of creating events that will have guilds lose guild levels just because the very events do not provide renown.

I don't know if you thought about it; if you were willing to overlook this for a system that would satisfy status chasers but still be attainable for a majority of average guilds with the few elitist ones hitting 200.

Personally I don't know what the big deal is about by allowing anyone to hit whatever guild level eventually. Anyways, my 2 cents.

[Khorae]

This looks great. Well done.

What exactly are the series of tricks that will unlock amenities and ships?

[Mercureal]

But what about the Black Abbot, and why is he on our airship?

[UurlockYgmeov]

I like overall ... but what about the bacon content? Does it still scale to the level of the guild?

[Claver]

Exciting Changes Turbine….


Any way to name our ships? Even something as simple as a message when we zone in via the airship tower door would suffice.

I know I and a few of my guild mates would pay good money for a ship naming feature

[BOgre]

Looks really cool. Not sure i understand how getting/applying amenities works, and guild inv space too. I'll hafta take a look on Lamma. Still, sounds awesome.

[Ivan_Milic]

Will those new amenities that drop be bound?

[Postumus]

Hold right next to your Cannith Crafting Stateroom.

What what what?

That sounds cool.

[Mercureal]

Oh, and since I forgot to mention it, I definitely like the changes, convenience and quality of life updates are always appreciated.

[UurlockYgmeov]

SO what about guild slotted items? Will U22 stop the sale of the augments? or change them in any way?

Finally - what about guild management upgrades?

[Roland_D'Arabel]

Dr. O, could you please give a few examples of new amenities and costs of those amenities. I know that these costs are not set in stone yet, but I would like to see a few examples so we know what we are going to be paying. It goes a long way to getting excited about things if the costs are not astronomical. Please, give a few examples of plat amenities and shard amenities.

[Ivan_Milic]

[*]The Renown XP curve will pretty much flatten after 100*


* Fun fact: if we didn’t flatten the Renown curve, you would need a cumulative 4 Billion Renown to reach 200.

How much xp you gonna need for 1 lvl after 100, 1 million each lvl?

[enochiancub]

Well this little nerd is certainly excited. Looking forward to checking it all out.

[Krelar]

And by and large, bonuses are simply better. The single caveat is that where appropriate, buffs now scale to level. In addition, some amenities, such as elemental resists, come in tiers. The very top tiers don’t just offer flat elemental resistances, but percentage resistances instead! Another aspect that’s being improved is duration. As stated above, these buffs won’t go away on death. They’ll start lasting for a couple of hours, and as your guild goes up, that duration will increase.

Now that you are adding even more percent bonuses, have you considered adding some of these percentages to the character sheet so we can see exactly what our totals are? There are quite a few now that it would be nice to know. Fort bypass, threat, healing amp, spell critical, and now with new buffs the soon to be very common elemental absorption.

Airship Alterations
While the upper decks will look fairly familiar (a little larger, freshly swabbed), the lower decks will be entirely new. As mentioned, the layouts will feature “Holds”, extra-large “State Rooms”, and a cargo hold dedicated to legacy amenities. The smaller airships will have one lower deck (plus the cargo hold), while the largest ones will have a two or more lower decks worth of amenities. Naturally, this makes the one-stop buff source on the upper deck even more useful. Where we can, we’re working hard to do one better: for example, if you have the Farshifter amenity installed below, the Captain will automatically offer to take you to Farshifter locations. Other services, like vendors and crafting equipment, don’t really translate to any top deck presence. Our ships are laid out for convenience, though. You’ll be able to place an Orien Express (mail, auction, bank) Hold right next to your Cannith Crafting Stateroom.

Will the "buff bar" be druid wolf and artificer dog friendly? (aka a usable object rather than dialog based) Having to rebuff my pet every single time I log in is one of the more annoying issues I have with the current set up.

[Madja]

*snip*

Only the 150-200 levels have decay and the way I read it these levels grant no buffs, but instead they give you prestige, i.e. colored guild titles.
If that is indeed the way it works then I see no problem with renown decay.

[Madja]

What about the old amenities? We’ve reserved a special cargo hold for them. Any contracts you’ve got can be placed there and used for as long as they last.

Does this mean that once they've run out, we're no longer able to obtain them? I'm a bit worried about losing the flat elemental resist buffs. They're very useful for dots like Burning Blood and Melf's Acid Arrow while a % reduction isn't as useful.

[Garix]

How much xp you gonna need for 1 lvl after 100, 1 million each lvl?

Not 100% sure but my new level 200 guild is showing as having 283,125,000 xp

[Garix]

Does this mean that once they've run out, we're no longer able to obtain them? I'm a bit worried about losing the flat elemental resist buffs. They're very useful for dots like Burning Blood and Melf's Acid Arrow while a % reduction isn't as useful.

At the moment at least you can still buy them on Lam