Future Clan Contests

[Asmodeus]

In response to your method of killing, I do very similar. Walk into rooms with a handful of easy mobs with aggro on that get killed in the same tic as me walking in, and if not, usually the next tic after that.  I kill very fast as well.  With the amount of time I spent doing this at a constant rate, and your desc of it being about luck (which it is, hence the random load), I must be the unluckiest son of a bitch in the game.  Except Candy said she spent 6 hours doing the same, and Horus did 3.  Its just suspicious, is all.

[horus]

As of 1 day and 13hrs of mud uptime, we have the following stats for clan deeds:-
Sicilians - 12 zones
Table Round - 5 zones
Dark Jedi - 1 zone
Saints - 1 zone
Dragons - 1 zone

And that is only based on less than 10 active players.

[virinis]

The mud that I stole these from had about 3 active players and about 100 deeds changed hands multiple times a day. But I'll pretty much submit to whatever Xeriuth and Asmodeus think is good here, they're doing the playtesting.

[horus]

So, you now think you will follow whatever opinions Asmo and Xeri provides? I dont think they need you to talk on their behalf, and if you want to state your opinions, then state it as an informed player - test it yourself before you criticise something.

2 days and 4hrs since inception:-
Sicilians - 13 deeds
Table Round - 5 deeds
Chaos - 4 deeds (I believe Loran found at least 2 of these)
Saints - 1 deed
Dragons - 1 deed
(Looks like someone reclaimed one of the deeds off Dark Jedi)

[Loran]

Chaos - 4 deeds (I believe Loran found at least 2 of these)

I found all 4, but will see how long they last

[horus]

2days and 22hrs uptime:-
Chaos - 21 deeds
Sicilians - 5 deeds
Table Round - 3 deeds
Dark Jedi - 2 deeds
Saints - 2 deeds
Dragons - 1 deed

It appears zone deeds have been reclaimed several times between clans.

[Jason Orsini]

yeah a few, but mostly you never bother regetting them. unless you actually need to level, and a particular place is good exp originally.
stupid idea from the getgo. 

[Xeriuth]

What I think needs to be implemented is mile marker, global bonuses for a clan..
At 10 deeds for the clan, they get some sort of buff, at 20 same thing, at 30 something else. This will give incentive to keep reclaiming deeds to get the bonuses for your clan. If the bonuses are worth it, this could make people want to go collect all the deeds... increasing competition. Right now there is little incentive to go out and get the deeds.. this would add incentive.

[Asmodeus]

I'm going to agree with Xeriuth on this one.  As I understood the original plan, thats how I thought the rewards were going to be implemented.  But even if its every 15 or 20 just so awards don't stack up too much, I think it should be done.

[Virisin]

They should also be worldwide effects, if Chaos owns 20 zones, Chaos should gain milestone*2 for every kill made in the zone, regardless of if it's a Chaos member or not.

A milestone could be every 10 deeds, hence 20 being milestone*2. And a milestone might provide 10% experience bonus for Chaos members hunting in a zone, and 10% of the gold from every mob killed goes to Chaos. This doesn't actually bring any new gold into the mud, rather Chaos simply takes a small 'tax' of gold from players hunting in the zone if they don't own the deed themselves.

I still think deeds should be easier to get, even if the chance was just 25%, it's still a lot more than 5% or whatever it is now, which has so far seen only about 30/100+ deeds come into existence.

[Molly]

Personally I think the percentage load looks just fine as it is, not to easy and not too hard either.
The reason why there are still only around 30 deeds in circulation is probably that people tend to stick to zones they know well, their favourite levelling places, or just zones with lots of mobs.
Or maybe they haven't yet realised that unlike the zoneflags all zones in the mud have deeds. (With the possible exception of the large grid zones, but I'll have to ask the coders about that to be sure).

As for an extra milestone bonus per every 10th zone in a Clan's posssion, I like that idea, provided that  the bonus only is for the 20th zone (whichever that is) and that the bonus goes away as soon as the total number drops below the milestone. That could make for some nice and irritating tactics game between the Clans.

One thing that I don't quite like about the feature is that the deedlist already is pretty spammy, and this will get worse as more deeds get claimed. I'd prefer it if there were two options, one to see just the deeds in your own Clanhall, and another to see all the deeds,  (like the present list).
Ideal of course would be to be able to call out a deeds list for any Clan in the game, the commands being something like 'show deed <Clan-name>' and 'show deed all'.

But if that is really hard to code, I'd settle for two options; to see just the deeds of your own Clan when looking in the box and a another command to show all. Heck I'd settle for the present display if getting two separate lists is too much work to code. I'm just wondering how the list is going to look when all 150+ deeds get claimed.

[Once]

Hey guys,

Sorry to be late to the party as Asmo says. I've finally gotten a chance to dig into what we're doing here, and I've got to say I think it meets several shortcomings that I've always had with the way 4Dimension features tend to launch. There's no sense of real strategy behind why a feature should exist, what it should do, how you want users to interact with it, and no sense of testing as to whether or not it meets those goals.

I think you guys put a lot of work on it, which is great, but if we take a step back and look at what the actual solution achieves we'll find that:

1) It does create a competitive environment between clans, which is great for keeping some element of interest.
1.B) It does not, to my knowledge, actually publicly incite clans when someone just stole their deed. That might get a little public banter and competitiveness going. Stealing someone's deed could become a nice public rivalry.

2) The helpfile of the system is a lot better than the actual system itself. As you'll see here:


>help deeds
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CLAN DEEDS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Clan deeds are prestigious bragging rights. It
indicates that clan members have spent a large amount
of time getting to know the ins and outs of a
particular zone. This intimate knowledge of a zone is
then passed onto all members of the clan, bestowing
experience bonuses to the individuals and bonus gold
coins to the clan treasury.

The secrets to attain these deeds are a mystery but
at the very least, one needs to spend some time in the
zone.


-----

That sounds, in a word, badass. What we have instead is a grind fest. A complete and utter grind fest. Tell me, why would a MUD which is remarkable for the intelligence and wit of its zones, focus on one of its worst features. Grinding is basically the worst thing about 4d currently. This just emphasizes it further, and that's where I feel there's no sense of strategy here. All you're really doing is catering to people who like to see text shoot by everytime they type k mob. If that's the player you want to cater to, then I'm wrong and this is the perfect system. My guess though is that this is not the case.


3) It's really just one more way for high level oldbies to show off. There's not a whole lot that intelligent up and coming players can do to really collect a lot of deeds. You need the best gear, GM, and a whole lot of time to grind to really get anywhere with it.
3.b) There's also no real personal call outs as to who achieved a deed that I can see. Maybe this is in a clan that actually has achieved deeds? If so, forgive me, but I think there should be a way of recognizing the person in addition to the clan.


4) With the grindfest as it is, we'll eventually reach a point where there's little point in joining any clan other than X or Y because they get the biggest benefits and the amount of time to get new deeds for another clan is just painful. If this was intentional, great. I'm willing to bet it was actually completely unintentional and is a result of the system, its goals, and its affects failing to have been thought through.




Rather than just be negative though, I thought I'd also break down a few solutions for you all to think through.


1) On the topic of the grind fest, deeds should be tracked to something interesting in the zone itself. Maybe deeds are still grindish, but they're at a much lower rate % rate than they are now. However, in order to even load a deed in a zone you have to have captured the zone's Zone Flag. Then you don't have near as much grinding because it's maybe 1 in 20 kills, and you also have it be a reward for people who have explored and thoroughly understood an area. Then you can also have clan dynamics in going after a zone flag because if it's gonna take me 100+ kills to get a flag back I'm frankly not gonna be bothered.

2) Show the name of the person in the deed box. Let them get a little glory. Give all the benefits to the clan still, but why not allow a person to shine through this deed's system?

3) Reset deeds monthly/quarterly. When the period is over, suddenly all deeds are wiped. There's a mad rush to be the first to collect deeds which is both going to be thrilling and also very very fun. Especially if deeds are quicker to acquire. I envision a lot of bragging and taunting over gossip the first day after the reset. However, if the kill percentage is low enough because of the zone flags tweak mentioned above this is sort of made irrelevant.

4) Publicly announce similar to a mob "brag" when someone steals a deed from someone else. Let's make it truly competitive. Let's get people actually arguing about it and pushing eachother to new feats. If Jason just stole my clan's deed to Fenizia, and I didn't have the Fenizia zone flag, I'd probably bust ass to find it and then get the deed back if I were an active player.  This would probably do a lot to make it a fun and engaging system, rather than a relatively ignored system.




----

That's the start of how I think deeds should be structured, how I think they should be changed, and where I think the problem with the current system is. Let me know if I missed anything, or if I'm wrong in any way.


-Once

[Asmodeus]

Many interesting ideas in that post Once.

Some things I want to comment on from the past few posts.

1: Deed List.  This sort of goes along with what Molly was saying, and with what I was saying on Viri's original post of deeds.  First, I like having a master deed list, as well as a clan deed list.  What I said I wanted to see (and it seems others agree) is who in each clan got the deed. I know Loran and I have been sort of competing against each other within the clan... friendly competition is great!  I suggest the following:

Show Deed <clan name>

Deeds Collected by <Clan Name>: <number of deeds>
- <Deed Name>    <Who Collected it>
- <Deed Name>    <Who Collected it>
.
.
.

This shows a number without having to go through and count them all, as well as who in the clan put that deed in the box last.


Show Deed All would show something similar to what there is now.  You probably don't necessarily need the actual person who collected the deed in this list.  The number would be nice, but again, not necessary if you can see it in 'show deed <clan>'



2: I think deeds should not reset every so often.  It should be a constantly ongoing thing.  You should either reclaim the deed through the zone, or through a clan raid (when those become an option).  The zone flag idea once posed is an interesting one.  But I think that excludes a large portion of the pbase (which isnt that big to begin with).  Perhaps something else that would accomplish the same effect?  Also, not all zones with deeds have zone flags, so it wouldn't always work.


3: Whats wrong with adding some perks to the grindfest?  Grinding sucks, that much is certain.  At least NOW there is a little bit of incentive to grinding.  I think its sometimes a good thing to add a feature that try to help boost our weaknesses (grinding).  We just need to make sure there is enough of a bonus to make the deeds through grinding worth it.  

Newbies and non-newbies who still want to level automatically participate in deed collection through leveling.  The extra xp that we get now for owning a deed is tailored for these players.  Although oldbie have the current advantage of earning more deeds, at this time, oldbie participation has to come out of the goodness of their heart to help their fellow clannies as the xp perk isnt really helpful to them.  This is where the milestone idea should come in.  The milestones that will provide some buffs and extra stuff is the incentive for the oldbies as well as noobs.  Bonus damage, spells (innates?), stat boosts, etc.  Different things at different levels.  The higher the number, the better the milestone boost.  My question... should they stack?  So if a clan gets to 40 and you get a milestone every 20, do you get both milestone from 20 and 40, or does the 40 replace the 20?  I seem to think the stacking is preferable, but thats my opinion.

The extra gold bonus is a little pointless now too just b/c there is no use for gold.  Hopefully that will change with raids.


4:  I dont find there to be any need for global announcements for deed shifts.  I guess i don't mind it, but if you go that route, at least add a toggle to turn it on/off.


I'm sure some of this post is a little nonsensical as I am currently very distracted, so for that I apologize.  However, the points should be clear enough to understand.

[Virisin]

Once makes some good points, and some good solutions though I think some are also a bit silly.

I agree that currently the deeds are a huge grindfest, it's not like you just have to grind a zone once and if you manage to uncover every mob you will either get the deed or be foiled by someone having stolen the deed before you so it doesn't reset. You literally might grind a huge zone, down to the last mob 10+ times and still be unlucky.

This is a BIG point too, I want to make a few things clear: the way the system works currently, it is based heavily on how many mobs you kill. I'm unsure how big of a factor diversity is, if it is even taken into account at all. But if I go to a zone, and wander around the heavily populated 'good levelling' areas with aggro on and keep doing it every time those mobs repop, I will eventually get the deed. This doesn't even force me to know a zone well, as soon as I find an area in a zone that is packed full of mobs, I just camp there killing until I get the deed.

I think there is a better alternative to this that doesn't even have to make it 'easier' to get deeds. All that needs to be done is this: instead of deeds having a low chance to load on the death of a mob in the zone, a deed should have a chance (low or high, meh (though it would need to be at least slightly higher with this structure)) to load on any mob in the zone upon the reboot of that zone. Let me give a more clear example:

Midlands repops, there is a 30% chance the deed will load upon repop and if it does it randomly repops on any mob in the zone. The deed is now IN THE GAME, in the inventory of whichever mob it happened to load on. If it happens to load on a mob faraway in the zone, I can't simply keep killing all the gars until I hit that 0.1% chance to make it load, I have to start killing all the Gars being very hopeful, and I could easily get lucky. But if I don't get it from the Gar's, I know there is a reasonable chance it will be somewhere else in the zone - I have to actually search the zone and kill every mob I can find hoping it has the deed.

I think this would be a better way to structure the deeds, as it would also allow thieves to peek at mobs, and steal the deed from them. Without that mob dying, the deed wouldn't even have a chance to repop next time Midlands repops, until the game sees that the mob it thinks has the deed has died, and then the deed has a chance to load again. It also gives incentive to grind, without making the whole thing depend totally on grinding, and it gives a bigger incentive to have to know the zone. I would recommend a 50% load chance for deeds this way, because it would be very demotivating to kill every mob in the zone 10+ times and get unlucky that the deed just didn't happen to have loaded at all.

The names of the deeds currently seem to honour the builder of the zone more than the player who grabbed the deed. This seems really odd, even zoneflags don't honour the builder of the zone. I would remove the name of the builder from the deed-name, and add a variable attached to deeds to keep track of which player captured it. Then when a player looks in the clan box, they see all the deeds only their own clan has, as well as which player in the clan collected the deed. If a player types 'show deeds' it will show all the deeds in the game, and which clan they're owned by, potentially also showing which player. I also agree that deeds should be gossiped about when found. When someone claims a deed, the town gossip should make a statement to that affect:

"Asmodeus just claimed the deed for Midlands!"
"Loran claims the deed for Mother Goose, Sicilians won't be happy!"

Or something to that affect, showing either someone claiming an unclaimed deed, or someone claiming a deed that another clan owns.

I like Once's idea that every month the deeds repop, this would re-invigorate the race every so often and at least prevent it going stale too soon.

***

Another idea, to do with the benefits of deeds. Extra gold is pretty pointless, as has been pointed out. Because gold is worthless. Even tokens are relatively worthless. Experience is the only real benefit, and even that is pointless to someone with GM who are the main hunters of deeds at the moment. What I think needs to be discussed are some more interesting benefits that are possible, here are some ideas:

Once a clan owns the deed to a zone, mobs in that zone might:

-Slur at players from other clans that are under a certain level.
-Aggro players from other clans that are level 50.
-Pick up items they find on the ground, and donate them to the clan HQ.
     -This would be especially effective if there were actually random-load objects that it was actually really handy to find. Tokens are boring, but imagine if tokens randomly loaded on the ground very occasionally, it'd be nice if zones you owned effectively searched for you by having the mobs in the zone donate things they pick up.

Here's an interesting one:

-Clans that own a zone can bribe mobs from the zone to collect things from death-traps. If it cost a member of a clan that owned Odessin 1 silver token to have the contents of a DT in the zone donated to the Clan HQ, it would allow for players that hit DTs to interact with other clans if their own clan didn't happen to own the zone. They might have to pay a clan 2 silvers, or even 1 gold if it was a really worthy set of equipment, for that clan to get their equipment back for them. It would also be an incentive to control zones that have DTs in them.

Those are just some ideas, the benefits to owning a deed certainly need to be more thoroughly discussed at the very least. There are a lot of options.

-Mobs casting beneficial spells on members of a clan that own the zone or casting debilitating spells on members of clans that don't own a zone...

[Asmodeus]

If you have it set up that way viri, wouldn't someone have to go through every zone and make a list of the mobs that shouldn't have a chance to load it, and then actually set up some parameters to prevent that from happening for each?  And if thats true, wouldn't that be a huge PITA?  Is there an easy way to do that?

I don't see deeds resetting every so often as keeping it from going stale any more than the way it is set up now.  In fact, as one of the people participating heavily in capturing deeds, I would be fairly upset if that happened.  All the work I put in to help chaos get something like 30+ deeds so far goes down the drain?  Its like having a mini p-wipe every so often, but with deeds... why?!?  I think its better to keep it to stealing deeds in raids when they're in, or from the zone itself once again.  

I still think at least have a toggle for the gossips.  I don't really care that much about seeing those messages, its just more junk on the screen.

As for an off the wall milestone option...  What if one of the highest benefits if you own a lot of milestones makes anyone in that clan's zone pk'able (only by members of the clan, of course)?  maybe thats a little harsh... just trying to think of other appealing options.