Post by SofaJockey on Feb 24, 2018 17:13:49 GMT
There was a really interesting Reddit post by @thelancermancer addressing the notion of Clans and Guilds in Anthem.
This appears to deliver learning from principally Destiny.
Does anyone want to share any Clan/Guild advice from other games contexts?
by TheLancerMancer
Hey all and the Bioware devs lurking around here especially, I'd like to make a case for several things regarding clans or guilds within Anthem. This kind of became a text wall, so key asks are in bold font below.
Now I realize that several of my examples and issues cited below involve Destiny's clan tools or lack thereof, and Bioware can't comment fully on things because we don't want to badmouth peers and other things are under development and that's all fine, I get it, just bear with me when the word "Destiny" appears every couple of sentences is all I ask.
If you don't read all of this, my core message is such: Make our lives easier, so that we can spend more time playing and evangelizing for your game. Clans or Guilds drive investment in your game and keep players coming back to it when they might otherwise put it down. To that end, the way in which you implement clan functionality should never hinder the ability of those organizations to manage and organize themselves.
- Architect your clan system to count only accounts against the clan size limit, don't count individual toons. Most games in this market at this point allow for multiple toons per account. E.g. in The Division I have multiple "agent" toons under one Uplay account, in Destiny I have three "guardians" under my Blizzard account, you get the idea. It is just a management hassle for bare little functional benefit to count individual characters/toons as unique roster entities in a clan or guild.
This also makes sense thematically moreso than in the Destiny or Division examples I provided. If you consider Javelins to be specialized pieces of hardware without agency in and of themselves, the player holding the account is the pilot/freelancer with access to multiple Javelins for different roles. It wouldn't make sense for a clan/guild in game to count individual javelin suits on its roster; that would be a logistical concern, not a manpower one.
- Allow a reasonable clan/guild size limit, somewhere in the 300-1000 accounts range. This is a pain point I've experienced with Destiny where Bungie elected to cap D2 clans at 100 accounts, meaning I have to stand up and use 3 alt accounts in order to manage my community's 3 clans. It's a management headache for no benefit from the players perspective. If clans/guilds are a means of keeping people involved and playing Anthem, then we need to be able to efficiently manage our clans within the software, that is the game, that you provide. Switching accounts constantly is a headache that no admin wants.
- Be very cautious about clan rewards and functionality. Don't provide powerful gear rewards just for being in a clan, make players work for it. Tying power to clanwide gear rewards foments players to just play that system: join a big/powerful clan just to get the power reward, then either leave or stick around but never actually participate in the clan. The really active clans won't be in a position to truly need a reward drop just for being in a clan, we'll be busy with other endgame content all the time anyway. And if you really do want to go that kind of route with gear drops for clans, make the individual players work for it: force players to contribute to the betterment points-wise of their clan over time towards that end goal of a drop, don't just hand it out for free because they have four letters in brackets next to their name.
On a related note, I would urge caution in any implementation of a rewards structure for clans. It is better to not provide rewards at all than to penalize small communities with a non-scaling grind (e.g.) just because they maintain higher standards for who they recruit or just for being comfortable with their existing group of friends.
- Drive interaction and friendly competition both within and between clans. I've got three points offhand that fall under this:
This should be nobrainer, but leaderboards especially clan leaderboards foster a wonderful sense of intra community competition where I have seen them implemented, it's another thing for people to chase and fosters some great theorycraft and discussion. Don't be afraid to just tie any activity you think of to a leaderboard or records system if it is technically feasible. Flight / racing courses? Leaderboard. Raid clear times? Leaderboard. Highest number of enemies killed in 3 seconds? Put it on a leaderboard. Highest total of kills in clan with explosives? L E A D E R B O A R D.
Custom PvP. I have no idea what your plans are for PvP and I'm not going to get into anything around style or balancing. But please please please provide the capability for custom, private matches either at launch or within the first quarter following release. Some of the most fun experiences I have ever had in video games have been clan events: friendly scrimmages with other communities, "pick em" nights of both the super serious and totally casual variety, silly equipment restrictions, tournaments, etc. Again, this is letting the community make their own fun and this drives continued play of your game.
World Events. Provide challenging world-scale events that will require clans to muster a significant number of players above the normal team size. Furthermore, design such features to encourage separate clans to coordinate or team up towards completion of a given goal. Such would ultimately be a strengthening effect on the Anthem community writ large if functions or events exist that encourage inter-clan coordination of some sort.
I thank you for wading through all of that, and to all please feel free to ask me for any clarifications.
Brenon Holmes
Great post, I'll forward it along to the Systems team. 😊
This appears to deliver learning from principally Destiny.
Does anyone want to share any Clan/Guild advice from other games contexts?
Clans/Guilds in Anthem - Multiple points to allow for more robust communities, and lessons to be learned from the competition.
by TheLancerMancer
Hey all and the Bioware devs lurking around here especially, I'd like to make a case for several things regarding clans or guilds within Anthem. This kind of became a text wall, so key asks are in bold font below.
Now I realize that several of my examples and issues cited below involve Destiny's clan tools or lack thereof, and Bioware can't comment fully on things because we don't want to badmouth peers and other things are under development and that's all fine, I get it, just bear with me when the word "Destiny" appears every couple of sentences is all I ask.
If you don't read all of this, my core message is such: Make our lives easier, so that we can spend more time playing and evangelizing for your game. Clans or Guilds drive investment in your game and keep players coming back to it when they might otherwise put it down. To that end, the way in which you implement clan functionality should never hinder the ability of those organizations to manage and organize themselves.
- Architect your clan system to count only accounts against the clan size limit, don't count individual toons. Most games in this market at this point allow for multiple toons per account. E.g. in The Division I have multiple "agent" toons under one Uplay account, in Destiny I have three "guardians" under my Blizzard account, you get the idea. It is just a management hassle for bare little functional benefit to count individual characters/toons as unique roster entities in a clan or guild.
This also makes sense thematically moreso than in the Destiny or Division examples I provided. If you consider Javelins to be specialized pieces of hardware without agency in and of themselves, the player holding the account is the pilot/freelancer with access to multiple Javelins for different roles. It wouldn't make sense for a clan/guild in game to count individual javelin suits on its roster; that would be a logistical concern, not a manpower one.
- Allow a reasonable clan/guild size limit, somewhere in the 300-1000 accounts range. This is a pain point I've experienced with Destiny where Bungie elected to cap D2 clans at 100 accounts, meaning I have to stand up and use 3 alt accounts in order to manage my community's 3 clans. It's a management headache for no benefit from the players perspective. If clans/guilds are a means of keeping people involved and playing Anthem, then we need to be able to efficiently manage our clans within the software, that is the game, that you provide. Switching accounts constantly is a headache that no admin wants.
- Be very cautious about clan rewards and functionality. Don't provide powerful gear rewards just for being in a clan, make players work for it. Tying power to clanwide gear rewards foments players to just play that system: join a big/powerful clan just to get the power reward, then either leave or stick around but never actually participate in the clan. The really active clans won't be in a position to truly need a reward drop just for being in a clan, we'll be busy with other endgame content all the time anyway. And if you really do want to go that kind of route with gear drops for clans, make the individual players work for it: force players to contribute to the betterment points-wise of their clan over time towards that end goal of a drop, don't just hand it out for free because they have four letters in brackets next to their name.
On a related note, I would urge caution in any implementation of a rewards structure for clans. It is better to not provide rewards at all than to penalize small communities with a non-scaling grind (e.g.) just because they maintain higher standards for who they recruit or just for being comfortable with their existing group of friends.
- Drive interaction and friendly competition both within and between clans. I've got three points offhand that fall under this:
This should be nobrainer, but leaderboards especially clan leaderboards foster a wonderful sense of intra community competition where I have seen them implemented, it's another thing for people to chase and fosters some great theorycraft and discussion. Don't be afraid to just tie any activity you think of to a leaderboard or records system if it is technically feasible. Flight / racing courses? Leaderboard. Raid clear times? Leaderboard. Highest number of enemies killed in 3 seconds? Put it on a leaderboard. Highest total of kills in clan with explosives? L E A D E R B O A R D.
Custom PvP. I have no idea what your plans are for PvP and I'm not going to get into anything around style or balancing. But please please please provide the capability for custom, private matches either at launch or within the first quarter following release. Some of the most fun experiences I have ever had in video games have been clan events: friendly scrimmages with other communities, "pick em" nights of both the super serious and totally casual variety, silly equipment restrictions, tournaments, etc. Again, this is letting the community make their own fun and this drives continued play of your game.
World Events. Provide challenging world-scale events that will require clans to muster a significant number of players above the normal team size. Furthermore, design such features to encourage separate clans to coordinate or team up towards completion of a given goal. Such would ultimately be a strengthening effect on the Anthem community writ large if functions or events exist that encourage inter-clan coordination of some sort.
I thank you for wading through all of that, and to all please feel free to ask me for any clarifications.
Brenon Holmes
Great post, I'll forward it along to the Systems team. 😊