Competition for Clan Bonuses
Posted: Thu Jan 11, 2024 9:43 pm
A proposal for clan advancement:
Individual character advancement through xp, qps, and altqps has always been an important goal for players, but I really like the recent addition of opportunities for clan advancement (e.g., earning double daily awards for your clan or getting a unique for your clan). In that spirit, I'd like to propose, for your consideration, a competition for clan bonuses.
We have many clans without coded bonuses and a few with bonuses. I propose we tie one or a small group of bonuses to competitions between clans. These could be new bonuses, but for bonuses that impact balance, it might be preferable to use existing bonuses so there is less risk of altering balance. There are a variety of ways this could be set up, but here's an example that illustrates the basic idea.
Blight Heat Immunity:
Currently a Borderguard bonus (I think the Cavs still exist).
Competition: the Clan with the most tps, levels, or kills in zones with Blight heat wins the bonus. Again, there are a variety of ways to set this up, but suppose Civil Watch challenges the Lancers to a blight heat competition. There is a competition period over which each clan member's scores are tallied and each clan receives the sum of its members' scores. The clan with the highest score gets the bonus until challenged by another clan (or, if we want to be more conservative, for some predetermined period, after which it reverts to the original clan).
For score keeping, in this example I'd avoid using scalp turn ins at a separate mob because we don't want people fighting over scalps and when members of both clans are in on the kill, each member and each clan should get credit. Scoring could be as technologically simple as having clan members post or mail logs of kills they were in on, or as technologically advanced as pulling struggle data and sorting it by clan flag in addition to side flag.
Of course this is just one example, but I think it demonstrates the basic idea. I think it avoids upsetting game balance and has an in world justification (borderguard have blight heat immunity because they're up there fighting trollocs all the time, but if they have actually gotten soft and another clan is up there fighting trollocs more than them, perhaps they shouldn't have that bonus after all). One potential argument against this specific example (or the proposal in general) is that it has the potential to erode the WOT RP that defines each clan. A Civil Watch that is always in the blight and is focused more on hunting trollocs than on keeping the Panarch's peace might be out of place in the WOT universe. Personally, I think it can be good for gameplay to let clans build an identity themselves, but I can see how this might be a concern. Address it by providing some RP guardrails. Limit the clans that can challenge for a particular bonus to those that can make an RP justification for developing that bonus, and make that part of the challenge process.
I particularly like the idea of helping your clan in a way that has an impact beyond just putting something in the chest or even completing a self limited task together, and think clan competitions for bonuses could further develop clans as teams working together to accomplish a goal.
Thoughts? Is the general idea feasible? Does it help move the mud in the direction we want it to go? How about the specific example? Is there a better example, or additional examples of bonuses that should be available to challenge if challenges are implemented? How would you tweak the implementation?
Glynn
Individual character advancement through xp, qps, and altqps has always been an important goal for players, but I really like the recent addition of opportunities for clan advancement (e.g., earning double daily awards for your clan or getting a unique for your clan). In that spirit, I'd like to propose, for your consideration, a competition for clan bonuses.
We have many clans without coded bonuses and a few with bonuses. I propose we tie one or a small group of bonuses to competitions between clans. These could be new bonuses, but for bonuses that impact balance, it might be preferable to use existing bonuses so there is less risk of altering balance. There are a variety of ways this could be set up, but here's an example that illustrates the basic idea.
Blight Heat Immunity:
Currently a Borderguard bonus (I think the Cavs still exist).
Competition: the Clan with the most tps, levels, or kills in zones with Blight heat wins the bonus. Again, there are a variety of ways to set this up, but suppose Civil Watch challenges the Lancers to a blight heat competition. There is a competition period over which each clan member's scores are tallied and each clan receives the sum of its members' scores. The clan with the highest score gets the bonus until challenged by another clan (or, if we want to be more conservative, for some predetermined period, after which it reverts to the original clan).
For score keeping, in this example I'd avoid using scalp turn ins at a separate mob because we don't want people fighting over scalps and when members of both clans are in on the kill, each member and each clan should get credit. Scoring could be as technologically simple as having clan members post or mail logs of kills they were in on, or as technologically advanced as pulling struggle data and sorting it by clan flag in addition to side flag.
Of course this is just one example, but I think it demonstrates the basic idea. I think it avoids upsetting game balance and has an in world justification (borderguard have blight heat immunity because they're up there fighting trollocs all the time, but if they have actually gotten soft and another clan is up there fighting trollocs more than them, perhaps they shouldn't have that bonus after all). One potential argument against this specific example (or the proposal in general) is that it has the potential to erode the WOT RP that defines each clan. A Civil Watch that is always in the blight and is focused more on hunting trollocs than on keeping the Panarch's peace might be out of place in the WOT universe. Personally, I think it can be good for gameplay to let clans build an identity themselves, but I can see how this might be a concern. Address it by providing some RP guardrails. Limit the clans that can challenge for a particular bonus to those that can make an RP justification for developing that bonus, and make that part of the challenge process.
I particularly like the idea of helping your clan in a way that has an impact beyond just putting something in the chest or even completing a self limited task together, and think clan competitions for bonuses could further develop clans as teams working together to accomplish a goal.
Thoughts? Is the general idea feasible? Does it help move the mud in the direction we want it to go? How about the specific example? Is there a better example, or additional examples of bonuses that should be available to challenge if challenges are implemented? How would you tweak the implementation?
Glynn