Now that we’re into 2.1 and we know Guild Wars is coming up Soon it’s got me thinking about what I want to see in a Gems-tastic Guild Wars system.
I’ve only just started thinking about it and there isn’t a current game I’m familiar with, mobile or otherwise, that has the “ideal” system for Gems. I know there are some things I don’t want (i.e., a grindfest like current Ranked PvP) and some things I do want (e.g., tiers, exclusive rewards, coordination-required). Is there one that you think would be perfect? Or do others have strong thoughts on do’s/don’t’s? What do others think?
Make it so you can target a Guild but the player/team you face is random, like Explore. You get a set amount of attempts per day.
You then battle and that player/team is sent a notification that expires in 24 hours. They then revenge battle back. Winner is determined by win/loss in the head-to-head.
If the head-to-head results in both winning, the winner is who won in less turns.
If the attacker wins and the defender loses, the attacker automatically wins.
If the attacker loses and the defender wins, the defender automatically wins.
If both lose, then the attacker essentially wasted an attempt.
Rewards are based on an overall win/loss for the whole Guild. This is the result of the head-to-heads, not individual battles themselves.
Guilds that are heavily targeted may end up with a large amount of rewards if they win a lot, forcing attackers to choose wisely.
Leaderboards rank Guilds by the win/loss percentage with tiers. These tier rewards are perfect for exclusive rewards. Guild Keys come to mind for one.
They also rank players according to the same formula. You can probably offer Arcane Traitstone(s) that rotate every week here.
I haven’t played many games with a guild war system, but this looks like a concept that will work a lot better in the PC/Mobile ecosystem than on console. The one game I did play for a while worked because every account reset to zero every single week, meaning that success was based strictly on skill, effort and cooperation and no one was granted a head start based on their previous investment in the game.
On PS4, there is one dominant guild at the top of the leaderboard that attracts (i.e., actively recruits) most of the top players. There are a few other guilds that are quite vibrant and then a number of other hardcore players scattered in other top 50 guilds. Concentrating a large number of top players in one guild means that they will have a not-insignificant advantage over every other guild (due to more mythic and traited troops, more level 10 and 5-star kingdoms, guild task bonuses, etc.)
In the PS4 environment, I don’t really see a way to implement this idea that doesn’t turn into one gang of bullies stealing everybody else’s milk money, but I guess we’ll see in the next few months. On PC, it seems like there are enough comparable guilds that you can have reasonably equal tiers of guilds. On PS4, not so much. (I can’t speak to the XBox situation).
And for the record, I’m not worried about being personally victimized here. I’ve never lost a match to @TaliaParks, Santa Claus, Verdugo, Alice or any of the other SBG players that I know of. I just think this will be creating a systematic imbalance, at least at the top of the pyramid.
@TaliaParks, that’s a cool idea. I like it! One thing I kept struggling with is how you match two guilds and have them battle it out when, in theory, both sides will always win every match. The turn idea is a cool one, though it does lead to people loading up their defenses with super annoying teams, which I would prefer to avoid. Maybe a bans system? Or maybe the bans rotate weekly as decided by the devs?
@Stan, I think it’s probably unavoidable that the top guilds will get the best and most active players and thus will do the best. Just the nature of a PvP system, no?
One thing I definitely want to see is a systems I’ve seen in other mobile games where the tiers/leagues aren’t static and folks can move up and down tiers/leagues from week to week. I really dislike how static the current trophies system is. I don’t want a full weekly reset, as I think guilds should be rewarded over time for consistent, coordinated success. Could be something like you see in Clash of Clans/Boom Beach where there’s a 5% daily decline in total points, or a 20% weekly decline. Or, what might be even cooler, a weekly promotion/relegation system for the best/worst performing teams in each tier.
Sirrian stated that the Guild Guardians will play a role on the war, my simplest guess would be that the level of each guardian would add bonuses, similar to the ones we can unlock completing the tasks.
My more complex/inovative guess is a serie of six battles, each one at the domain of one Guardian where your guild would allocate five players, a party, to defend this domain. The invaders would also choose a party with a total of five players and have the blessing/guidance of one Guardian, each party would choose wich Guardian domain they would invade.
Each member of the invasion party would face a random member of the defending party, the battles could be normal Player vs A.I but the defender could have some extra mechanics/bonuses since they are battling at home… The special battlegrounds effects suggested a couple months ago by @Rasper could be in order for both teams, but to keep things interesting the defenders could have better bonuses if we take guilds with similar statuses (Guardian levels).
I agree that it is natural for the more hardcore players to group together to maximize rewards when the system incentivizes that. The old guild tasks OVER-rewarded that, and the new guild system looks like it will reward that up to a point. I’m fine with that. From where I sit, it seems like the PC environment has a number of guilds at the top end that would be competitive, but assuming that the system is optimized for the PC/Mobile crowd, porting the same system over to the two console environments, where the pond is much smaller, may result in an unbalanced system. I like the idea of being able to move up and down tiers, and I think that would work when there are enough comparable guilds at any one level.
By contrast, the effect may be the opposite with the new PVP system. I think a mid-game player that is somewhere between casual and hardcore (like myself) would never dream of getting any ranked PVP rewards in PC/Mobile, but with a smaller pool of players and the same thresholds for ranked rewards, I’ll have a better chance to climb that ladder and collect some extra rewards.
Overall, I don’t want to see guild wars become a central focus for this game. If they can make it a fun little add-on where I can participate to the extent that I want to (or where individual guilds can decide whether or how much to participate), it could be fine. If I’m forced into some ugly competition, it might push me out of the game.
Also while the challenge is high the rewards would be woundrous.
Each Domain having an unique drop (guaranteed maybe), as well as the expected extra resources, could be nice. It could work in many ways as something temporary just like the bonuses from completing the tasks or something for that party only. This way it would add some incetive for each party to aim being victorious on each domain from diferent guilds they challenge.
Whatever system, I really hope that devs will add a (weekly or daily) cap to the number of attacks to one guild else it will a grinding/bullying contest…
It will better if we have a gain system and not a steal system (ie no loss to the guild which was succesfully attacked). And please not a new kind of points…
I agree that guardians should be important. Maybe you will have to battle against 4 of them when you attack one guild. I just add that Sirrian clearly said that their mythification will be a long-term (6 months)…
It seems that guild reset won’t occur. Else I don’t see who is going to reach the 1,000,000-trophies tier.
It will great to have a better communication than a preview one week before the patch release…
Forge of Empires had added a guild vs environment thing a while back, and now they added guild competition to it, in the sense that every guild is in a pool of six with similar guilds (also across the worlds they have) and the top three get a bonus on the payout.
Tiny troopers alliance had a sort of power rating for each guild which could be manipulated by the players, to guide the assignment to pools. As a result the matches were pretty unbalanced, because higher lvl players who wanted bigger payouts intentionally dropped themselves to the level of the big guilds full of starting players. This is not an example to follow.
In Empires & Allies there’s a couple of good points to follow.
a) Every guild member could mark themselves available for guild war or not (useful in eg holiday circumstances).
b) A guild would only participate in the guild war if the guild leader would actively search for an opponent, starting a match.
c) Every match consisted of an equal number of players from both sides being attackable, but every member only had two or three attempts. The match was won by the guild that defeated the most opponents. Only members in the match could attack (and be attacked).
The last point means that the higher lvl members should find the higher lvl opponents so the lower lvl members would be able to contribute.
Obviously, I look at this from the opposite viewpoint: why the hell wouldn’t I get a head start based on my previous investment?
I’m guessing whatever happens, it will be using our own troops, so the gains for having more mythics, more maxed kingdoms etc, will apply through the stats.
I’m also pretty sure @sirrian hinted that Guild Guardians (those new common troops with OP spells that’ll take us 6 months to get to Mythic level) will feature heavily in Guild Wars…
I want it to be like Carnex, from adventure quest during the epic event where every player had to fight a monster in teams of three (even though it was a single player game). The opponent in GoW would not e fighting like this, but however they would be fighting one of the guild statues from a rival guild. Multiple people would have to fight this beast’s parts and there would be a thermostat of sorts telling how much hp canex has lost overall. The same thing could in GoW form be implimented for guild wars.
Because it has the potential to deter future investment from other players, leading to the pool of active players shrinking, and eventually, the game dying.
There are two factors to consider: is that benefit insurmountable, and is it accelerating?
If the benefit is so large that players without it feel they have no chance of competing against players with it, then the rational choice for them is to not engage in the system. If there are other activities they can engage in that will allow them to catch up, then it’s simply a matter of time or effort, and one activity is early-game, while the other is end-game. An upper limit or “end” to the system where players cluster and can compete on a level playing field can work, but kind of nullifies any benefit for previous investment. That’s kind of the current state of guilds and high-end PvP.
If the benefit allows the player to accelerate their progress beyond what a newer player can achieve, even by putting in more time or being more skillful, then the only way a newer player can catch up is if the older player plays far less, or again, if there’s an upper bound to progression.
No game has a 100% retention rate. For a game to survive, long-term, it has to replace players who leave, and encourage those new players to stick around. They have to either be able to compete with top players, or be able to catch up to them. Otherwise, it’s more rational for them to find another game and get in on the ground floor.
It would be motivating if it were possible to climb the ladder through hard work. Spherix is saying that if the players in legacy guilds are able to pull further away from the next tier of players (no matter how hard those players work), then it would be demotivating.
I think a tier-based system would be fine for something like this, so older established guilds can compete against similar guilds and smaller or newer guilds can do likewise. An organized and hard-working guild should be able to gradually work up through the tiers. My initial point was that at the upper end of the console pool, there are pretty wide disparities. SBG, in particular, doesn’t really have any peers. Misguided Misfits and Moshi Monsters are probably a pretty good match, but beyond that?
I think I’m going to step back from this now since I don’t have anything positive to contribute.
The money of the unfinished guild task won’t be shared among guild members, this money will go to a chest guild, and the master will be able to waste it
Leveling is quite useless, so, I propouse to get a new reward: there will be shown 3 troops (like before in the game) and you’ll choose one of them, with a 10% chance to get a legendary or higher troop. This way the people will play much more.
Arena: now it’s a boring gamemode and the rewards doesn’t worth playing 8 hard and unfair battles. Change it all, better rewards, more special rules (or troops)… I don’t know, but something mut be done here.
Less weekly troops and more new gamemodes and minigames:
Dungeon mode: successive battles with your team, your team is only partialy healed after every battle. At the end of a battle you’ll have various options, going deeper in the dungeon, some options will be more battles, other campments to heal the team, other the treasure chamber… at the end you fight aginst the dungeon master, with a great rewards if yuo win. You can withdraw at any moment with your loot before this
Championship mode: your team fight battle after battle, the reward double every time, the final stage is a super mega team made with special troops like mega Gorgotha The rewards will be over all traitstones, a lot of the if you win…
Puzzle mode: in all the puzzle quest there was various puzzle mode, why not here?¿? maybe puzzle aleatory generated by the game engine (it’s possible?)
The Soul/glory Merchant: a shop that brigns you powerful staff like mithic troops, celestial traitstones… etc with these resources, the more you pay, better things will give you.
Market between players, to change excess troops or traitstones (I know you’ll never do that but just in case…)
Some good ideas in there, but not really anything related to the topic at hand: Guild Wars
It was mentioned that the Guardians would play an important role. It very well could be a sort of boss battle where you’re attacking the enemy’s statues, each person gets two attacks, and it’s who can do the most damage. However, I’d worry that they would get repetitive if the Guardians have the same mechanic every time. My assumption has been that you get some kind of bonus for using a Guardian in your team (or maybe even must use one).
I really like the idea of forcing the guild to break up into smaller teams in order to tackle different fronts of the War. That’s something Marvel Contest of Champions does and it adds in a cool extra layer of strategy.
it’s got me thinking about what I want to see in a Gems-tastic Guild Wars system.
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The rewards will be over all traitstones, a lot of the if you win…