Christmas Update - Discussion Thread

[david4244]

Alright, will send it later today.

But no they surely did not donate anything, one of them is my real life friend, it's an old server, they are just playing for the lul factor that's why playing in a duo guild. The guild was on 156 or 158% bonus like 4-5 hours ago too, right before the update.

[Rivale]

Originally Posted by Kanako

First - you do not have to be at the risk of having to lose the status of being "fully upgraded" when someone leaves the guild. It would be enough for every member to have 10 Skillpoints each. If you were in a fully upgraded guild already with 50 members all of them should have 20 or 21 Skillpoints now - so even if 25 members left the guild, you are still fully upgraded.

As of writing this I have 2-3 potential players that I might have to kick for inactivity. That's 130 mushrooms each (21 skill points per member, we're not a fully maxed out guild. In fact I've been having issues finding new members and we're growing very slowly with me regularly having to kick inactive users) and accumalatively 390 mushrooms (going off the price chart that was posted on page 4) or 13 - 39€.

But that's just as of now! Guild members come and go. You can never rely on normal members to have similar dedication as chosen officers.

Originally Posted by Kanako

Also every player is theoretically able to have 500 Skillpoints in each skill and therefore have a fully upgraded guild with only themselves as a member.
So the people who use mushrooms and are willing to use them for the guild, can do so by upgrading their skills and they would still be valued a lot because of doing so.

Exactly! It doesn't really make much of a difference whether or not the skill points go to those that contributed or distributing evenly in terms of reaching a fully upgraded guild, so why should people even be confronted with the risk of potentially having to repay for a service they've technically already bought?
I can't be expected to have to completely rebuy skill points should I eventually lose too many members or temporarily quit the game.

Originally Posted by Kanako

Who would kick a member who has over 100 or even more skillpoints, contributing to the guild?

Also a good point against this distribution.
Instead of having mushrooms and gold clog up in your guild you'll now have tons of inactive players in your guild as it's just not worth it to kick them anymore, since you'll not only lose the hall of knight points, but also the skill points that you effectively purchased yourself.
If you kick them and they try to return after unexpected and unannounced inactivity there'll be drama.
Also what do you think would happen, if an officer willingly (or accidently, might as well happen) were to kick a member?
A single officer would now have the power to crush an entire guild.
Remember: Not every guild is a high-tier 50 member power house.

Originally Posted by Kanako

I think players who might only have the 10 skillpoints that the average member needs, should not be in a big disadvantge. I think in the late game most guilds will have core members with a higher amount of skillpoints to secure the "fully upgraded" status. So while I agree, that at the start players with high skill points will probably have it easier to join the top guilds, it is (in the long run) way more important that new members are active, use potions, have well skilled attributes and are high level instead of having many skillpoints.
And although it is long ago that I started to play, I do remember that the players that buy mushrooms also had the advantage to be more easily accepted by the top guilds from the start on. There were guilds you couldnt even join if you didnt do 320 daily. So basically its just like before. But now you can also use mushrooms to contribute by upgrading your skillpoints, that you have not bought but gotten via the wheel of luck for example.

You're saying, that long-term it would not make a difference, as it's easier to fully upgrade a guild now.
So why the hell did we donate those 5000 mushrooms then?
Where was the purpose in paying so much money?
Please note, that I only recently (near August) started playing this game and even more recently (near halloween) did those purchases.

Originally Posted by Kanako

I think an evenly distribution was their best choice. Maybe not the fairest one. But I really can not think of a better solution.

And although it is not fair towards the players that spent all the mushrooms for upgrades, not being able to deliver a better solution, should not be a reason to not make an upgrade that has many advantages for players in the future. Especially on new servers where the old system never was in place, so there the mushroom-refunding is no issue.

Up until yesterday donations towards the current guild were recorded.
At least those recorded donations could have been distributed less evenly and more fairly.

Originally Posted by Kanako

This update has many advantages. People take points with them, when they change their guild. So their investment now stays with them whereever they go. If this already had been the case there would not have been this problem of how to do a fair refund of the mushrooms that were spent for upgrades. Also this mechanic is good when guilds loose to many active members and you have to go to a new one. Also it prevents a lot of cheating. For example making multiaccounts at serverstart to have them all donate gold and leave the guild afterwards. Now these multis would have to stay in the guild to be of use for the upgrades.

So this is quite a long post I guess... props to everyone who read until here.

They didn't invest anything. Why should they stay?
They could just up and open their own guild and easily fully upgrade it.
Getting the raid bonuses would take a while, but wouldn't really be an issue.

[Arturu]

Originally Posted by BMWGuinness

Then, you release a Christmas Update that opens up to Gold Pit to 200+

What was the point of utilizing the level of the Keeper? Putting emphasis on the Gold Pit takes away focus on the Hall of Fame.

That's gonna be a fun one. It's... 8 years worth of upgrades?
Something like that.
Finding the right point to stop might be tricky.

[Rivale]

Originally Posted by Leander

How many mushrooms did you have in your guild bank? Do you mean that you donated so many although the guild had been already maxed out or that you upgraded the guild with a friend and now the fully upgraded status depends on the loyality of others as players leaving your guild could possibly destroy your guild?

That's why we added 21 skill points instead of 10. If 25 players of 50 leave your guild will still be maxed out.

As I already answered in a previous post the amount of mushrooms we had left in our bank was very low.

My issue is, that the large purchases ( I don't usually spend 100s of € on a single game) I made just recently seem to have been for nothing, since essentially the control over my purchase has been taken from me.
Instead the mushrooms I (and an officer, but I am currently only speaking for myself) have been given to members that could just up and leave any moment.

Going off the chart you posted every single member leaving with the distributed mushrooms would take 130 mushrooms that were suppossed to enrichen the guild (and not a single player) with him.
Additionally I'd like to continue kicking off inactive users, which has already been an issue due to the loss of hall of knight upgrades contradicting directly with the morale and standart of my guild.

I currently feel as if my mushrooms have effectively been stolen and I am disappointed that the distribution was "even" and not as in "refund what's recorded to those that contributed and distribute the rest evenly".

[BackStab]

Hello Leander,

I totally support Rivale and Bilbo - it sounds and looks like a robbery for a case when guild leader was the only one to donate mushrooms - say, donated 95% of all mushrooms used for guild upgrade.

I, personally, bought and donated over 4800 mushrooms ($200) to the guild I created and solely maxed guild out, while others donated just a few shrooms (less than 50, iirc). After this update, _my_ $200 are distributed between current guild members, who will eventually and unevitably quit game or leave for greener pastures and leave me with 1/50 of the initial investment. How's that even possible?

Not to mention that a single officer who had a bad day may ruin it all by kicking out every regular member thus nullifying the investment? I'm sorry, but that *totally* ruins the game for me. Now, I *don't* have a controlled guild, and I *don't* have a fully maxed out toon either while I've spent quite a few $$ on the guild development!?

So, I guess I need to file a support ticket and ask for the reimbursement of $200 worth of shrooms minus the personal upgrade cost to "21 skill 21 exp", right?

[BackStab]

Whoa! Now, I really hope that you guys have backups of pre-update server state, as I gonna tell you something. You just created HUGE mess.

Here is the story: I have a low-level test toon on the same server as my primary high-level toon, just for testing a class I never played with. So, this new toon (~30 lvl) formed a guild with just one member, and my high-level toon donated millions to that guild so I can play solo and test new class. Of course, this guild was upped to +50% / +50%, and still had a few million for future raids. SOLO raids, which is only possible with pre-donated gold. No cheating, no competition with other guilds or players.

Now, listen carefully: after the update, this 30 lvl toon acquired "500 skill 500 exp" - which is massive, compared to "21 skill 21 exp" of the high-level toon playing in the fully maxed-out normal guild. Also, MILLIONS of guild gold has been transfered to the PERSONAL purse of the single low-level toon, which means... YES, you guessed it right: gigantic stat upgrade is now possible, and this low-level toon may instantly become a monster, beating the hell out of every toon on arena in the same level range!

Now, question is: how many of such overpowered toons would roam w26,w27,w28? I guess, thousands. Absolute imbalance created in a second by the company itself. If you fight cheaters long enough, you may actually become making cheaters yourself. That's on top of the guild leader robberies, which adds even more problems..

Well, ideally, only new server should use this new guild mechanic, while all existing servers should be restored from the backup to the old state. Yes, this means major roll-back, but you can always deploy S&F vN+1 and create clear boundary between old and new servers.

[LapisUlami]

@BackStab:

A single officer CAN'T destroy the guilds investment anymore. That's the great thing
about the update! If your officer kicks everyone except you and himself, you got 42 skills.
But as soon as you reinvite your members, their skills are counted to the guild skills. Also
you only need 24 members with 21 skills to get full bonus. So he could kick 26 members
without losing any bonus from the guild.

About the 200$ ... your guild must have had 1.000 or more shrooms in your inventory.
These shrooms could only be used for the catapult, which isn't worth it. I'd rather get
back 1/50 of these shrooms, than looking at them without any use for them. It's better
for you and your active players to get them back equally, than to have them in your guild.

[Sersemina]

@BackStab, The personal points aren't really calculated correct, based on the donations, but they had to split them this way so that we don't lose any bonuses (for example the people, who donated gold and mushrooms are now inactive and kicked from the guild and we wake up with 30% less bonuses - that would be a lot worse). Also, I wouldn't fear these overpowered level 30s. That's a nice one time bonus for them, but that's all.

[Rivale]

Originally Posted by LapisUlami

@BackStab:

A single officer CAN'T destroy the guilds investment anymore. That's the great thing
about the update! If your officer kicks everyone except you and himself, you got 42 skills.
But as soon as you reinvite your members, their skills are counted to the guild skills. Also
you only need 24 members with 21 skills to get full bonus. So he could kick 26 members
without losing any bonus from the guild.

Any normal player that had a skill lvl above 20 will have it reset to 20 should he leave the guild eg by being kicked off.

That is your personal experience. You yourself might currently be in a full 50 members guild of shroomers, where you'd only need 25ish members. Here's the deal: Those skill points will cost mushrooms very early, so no f2p member would ever upgrade it beyond lvl 7-10.
When you're in a guild with say 20 members that was fully upgraded and one officer decides to kick members, then the purchased progress above lvl 20 would inevitably be lost.
Officers should have the power to manage the guild, not delete it.

[Kanako]

Originally Posted by Rivale

Any normal player that had a skill lvl above 20 will have it reset to 20 should he leave the guild eg by being kicked off.

Where is that stated?

Leander wrote:

Originally Posted by Leander

If you are the only player in a maxed out guild and leave the guild, then found a new one, you automatically have a maxed out guild again. Just check the guild screen how many points you have.