Competition for Clan Bonuses

[glynn]

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

[Elysia]

This is not really feasible, to be honest. The way something like Blight Heat resistance works is that it's coded to the BG clans themselves. It's not a flag we can toggle on/off, like zone sense, master postures or no hunger/ thirst (pretty much see treasurer purchases and rank 8 bonuses for what is doable).

That means implementing good, useful bonuses would take coding. Which means that its execution would be unreliable and one more thing on Flash' plate when he can sign off on something that would benefit a greater populace and/or fix a bug and/or address a more widespread balance issue.

[glynn]

Thanks for the careful explanation of why this would be more challenging than I expected, and might not be worth the opportunity cost!

The rank 8 bonuses are fantastic, and I like how it gives more opportunity for players outside a small group to access bonuses.

I hope we can continue to keep the idea of clan advancement in mind, as far as it might contribute to goals for the mud, and continue to consider that along with player advancement, where appropriate!

[Eol]

Almost all clan bonuses should be removed and replaced with class bonuses.

1. Dramatically easier to balance (Imm laughter here)
2. Reduces back door dealing and "special people effect."
3. Reduces likelihood of people getting a bonus that negates their class malus
4. Reduces the need to invent new bonuses - everything you need is already in the game
5. Clans benefit because people join for the RP, not because they want a specific bonus.
6. Reduces incentive to have so many characters hopefully encouraging character development
7. Levels the playing field between clans.
8. Answers problematic issues through time like "trolloc clan bonuses"
9. Reduces balance issues across races - classes of both sides benefit.
10. Gives everyone something. Could allow other things to be taken away or maluses to be created.
11. Creates opportunity to really evaluate bonuses. Do trolls need a raven to tell them the exact number of humans in a group or could it simply says "There are some humans east of here".
12. There will obviously still be Warders and Fades and Aes Sedai.
13. I still think Blademaster and Wolfbrothers should be flags and I don't think Wolfbrothers should be dismounted.

I wrote most of this year ago. Absence makes the heart grow founder.

[Asandra]

Love the Eol idea. As always.