Clan Dojo - Why The Building Costs Killed My Clan

[GTG3000]

Well, I'm pretty sure that making a straightforward scaling would be just as wrong. 

[InvdrZOB]

I actually like the idea of vieuxchat very much. Scaling the whole dojo construction by increasing build time, which can then be lowered by "overcontributing" ressources. I can't see anything unfair or imbalanced about that approach.

[ReMix-]

The cost to build rooms should match with the amount of players in the clan. I'd rather be in a small clan where my opinons would be heard instead of a huge clan clan where I'm just another number.

[Sethane_]

Actually I hate to say this but I'm with the designers for the prices. For a small clan its hard to get all the equipment and crap you need too build a single cross connector (I'm in a small clan of only 12 people and we are 82% into our first one) but really how boring would this game be if you unlocked everything, built everything, researched everything in a few weeks? Then what? Maybe they are a little high but its not outragestly high.

I know by writing this I'm pretty much signing my death warrent but I want too feel good when I finally finish this building! Sure it maybe months away before we get a simple dueling arena but its worth it! And because of that I'll stay interested. If we got that and research all built in a month or two then we would all grow bored really quickly.

I know the Dojo is new and everyone wants the coolest one but its worth waiting for. And really this whole Dojo is part of a game that has crafting, blueprint hunting, Void raids and much much more!! If you got this whole bundle all at once the Dojo would suddenly be not as important. It would then become a side project. Just add when you can and it would slowly be built.

Again I know I'll get alot of hate mail for this but I do truely believe that the Game designers did a good job with the pricing. All except the forma stuff. That sould stay but be changed. Maybe too 10% of the clan size or something? I'm not sure but I worked out that to build one of every building you would need to buy the largest plat buy ($250) and spend it all on forma.

Anyway, good game guys XD Keep up the great work!!! XD

 

 

Side note: Farming isn't that hard when you really try. I got 40k nano spores in 10 hours without any clan members. 

[GTG3000]

Actually I hate to say this but I'm with the designers for the prices. For a small clan its hard to get all the equipment and crap you need too build a single cross connector (I'm in a small clan of only 12 people and we are 82% into our first one) but really how boring would this game be if you unlocked everything, built everything, researched everything in a few weeks? Then what? Maybe they are a little high but its not outragestly high.

I know by writing this I'm pretty much signing my death warrent but I want too feel good when I finally finish this building! Sure it maybe months away before we get a simple dueling arena but its worth it! And because of that I'll stay interested. If we got that and research all built in a month or two then we would all grow bored really quickly.

I know the Dojo is new and everyone wants the coolest one but its worth waiting for. And really this whole Dojo is part of a game that has crafting, blueprint hunting, Void raids and much much more!! If you got this whole bundle all at once the Dojo would suddenly be not as important. It would then become a side project. Just add when you can and it would slowly be built.

Again I know I'll get alot of hate mail for this but I do truely believe that the Game designers did a good job with the pricing. All except the forma stuff. That sould stay but be changed. Maybe too 10% of the clan size or something? I'm not sure but I worked out that to build one of every building you would need to buy the largest plat buy ($250) and spend it all on forma.

Anyway, good game guys XD Keep up the great work!!! XD

 

 

Side note: Farming isn't that hard when you really try. I got 40k nano spores in 10 hours without any clan members. 

 

You, sir, are white knighting too hard. 

As you seen in "welcome to warfarmers" thread, and, well, practically anywhere, this update is bad, because THERE IS NOTHING BUT FARMING in this game yet. And how does it make it more "interesting" to play the game? By making you grind like a mule, as opposed to "boring" act of playing with new weapons and receiving some new content. 

 

Sure the Void would be much more fun if it had any challenge to it (and less lags, dear god!), provided they would finally add some reward scaling to it, so that you wouldn't waste a t3 key only to get a latron prime blueprint. 

 

I am all for making the game appeal last longer, don't get me wrong. But right now there is no appeal in it, once everything is down to grinding.

Edited May 28, 2013 by GTG3000

[Sethane_]

Granteed half the game is grinding but that is like most MMO's with crafting. It does get annoying and boring but its better to have a goal then get everything in no time flat and then wonder what to do next. This will make people restart warframe completely too do it all over again or, more likely, find another free too play game.

[GTG3000]

Other mmos have stuff to distract you from grinding. Other mmos have endgame content. Other mmos have challenge.

As much as I love this amasing game, it barely has any of that, and the rigged lottery of Forma is only making it worse. I would really like to know, how all those awesome people, who work on this game, came to thinking that this dojo/forma system was good enough to let players spend their platinum on it. Especially since they knew that people are going to start building the dojos and waste money on it, so they kind of worked themself into a corner here. 

Having "open new content" the only thing that twirls in your head as you mindlessly grind is a bad, bad idea. Giving such a tremendous advantage to huge clans is just broken. I mean, okay, I can see how they wanted to delay moment the players burn through the new content, but that only worked on small clans? With the big ones ALREADY researching stuff? So it's pretty likely that we'll start to meet players with cool new guns soon, which will be quite literally a sigh, saying "go into big clan or grind til the kingdom comes" in our face.

Edited May 28, 2013 by GTG3000

[TheLastBondsman]

Granteed half the game is grinding but that is like most MMO's with crafting. It does get annoying and boring but its better to have a goal then get everything in no time flat and then wonder what to do next. This will make people restart warframe completely too do it all over again or, more likely, find another free too play game.

 

 

 

 

I disagree:

There can still be high resource requirements, they just needn't be so high as to prevent small clans getting any real traction (hence the argument for scaling).

There can still be an amount of time and effort spent getting things done, they just needn't be so huge that it feels debilitatingly slow to anyone who hasn't got at least 100 people in their clan.

 

Your argument has a blatant counter-point in the big clans posting in the 'Find a Clan' forum - they advertise already-built features, one even claims to have a complete Dojo already. So a system that in your eyes keeps you playing has already been undermined. All the high resource requirement really does is incentivise the rise of these mega-clans and handicap smaller ones with the relative impact of the contributions each member can make.

 

Bottom line: when I went looking for a clan, to experience all these new things, I was looking for 2 things.

1) Small and friendly; a clan with a feeling of community.

2) New, or at least Dojo-less, so I could witness and contribute to the building of the Dojo.

Number 2 felt kind of important, but the idea that it'll take us a month or two to get a handful of functional rooms (if that) just because I won't compromise on number 1 is just too much. I'll settle for no Dojo and a sense of irritation rather than be stuck in a bloated clan that every prepubescent Tom, $&*^ and Harry has flocked to; and that seems to defeat the point of most of U8.

Edited May 28, 2013 by TheLastBondsman

[topoftheyear]

Well, I'm pretty sure that making a straightforward scaling would be just as wrong. 

Myself and 5 others came up with all the positive and negative facts on having each of the 5 plans that have been listed here, cancelled stuff out, and got left with the following list:

 

1.We can't scale directly because people would just make clans of one, build all the rooms, and then invite people in to completed dojos. Benefits the hoarders too much.

2.Having it be time based would give the small clans a chance to build rooms, but still gives a monstrous advantage to larger clans.

3.Having each member have to pay a small amount of resources in order for the room to be built benefits clans with treasuries, because they just give to those who won't get the resources.

4.Having keys to each room would limit new players who want to participate in clan activites, because they can't afford to build the keys.

5.Have crappy rooms and being able to upgrade them would be able to gauge members' activeness, but then large clans would advertise the nicest looking rooms.

 

Out of those, the results depend on what people can live with: clan exploits or hoarders/ non-active members get away without giving resources.

[GTG3000]

Myself and 5 others came up with all the positive and negative facts on having each of the 5 plans that have been listed here, cancelled stuff out, and got left with the following list:

 

1.We can't scale directly because people would just make clans of one, build all the rooms, and then invite people in to completed dojos. Benefits the hoarders too much.

2.Having it be time based would give the small clans a chance to build rooms, but still gives a monstrous advantage to larger clans.

3.Having each member have to pay a small amount of resources in order for the room to be built benefits clans with treasuries, because they just give to those who won't get the resources.

4.Having keys to each room would limit new players who want to participate in clan activites, because they can't afford to build the keys.

5.Have crappy rooms and being able to upgrade them would be able to gauge members' activeness, but then large clans would advertise the nicest looking rooms.

 

Out of those, the results depend on what people can live with: clan exploits or hoarders/ non-active members get away without giving resources.

 

Well, big clans will always be there to lure players in with nicest dojos. And having dojo keys count rely on the rooms built (not a key to each room, just the requirement to receive a key from your warlord instead of just getting one) along with cheap and limited and/or upgradeable rooms would at least make the big clans work more, while leaving small clans ability to build the dojo. And then have all the time in the world to pretty it up.

 

Personally I don't really care about the big clans. What I care about are small clans and having ability to access new content in dojos on par with bigger clans, and a fair way that wouldn't get too many exploits and rants on it, now that the biggest clans are already researching stuff.

[Guiavena]

 

2) New, or at least Dojo-less, so I could witness and contribute to the building of the Dojo.

Number 2 felt kind of important, but the idea that it'll take us a month or two to get a handful of functional rooms (if that) just because I won't compromise on number 1 is just too much. I'll settle for no Dojo and a sense of irritation rather than be stuck in a bloated clan that every prepubescent Tom, $&*^ and Harry has flocked to; and that seems to defeat the point of most of U8.

The way it is 

U8 defeats the point of U8. What was supposed to bring the community together actually created mass flocks of unknown people (that you will never even talk to), and making you suffer for wanting to be with your friends. It is VERY annoying to know you will take 10 years to build a research lab with your small 15 people clan, which kinda creates an bad feeling against big clans, where (supposedly) people only join them to make researches on the dojo, not interact between them. So in the short term, it is easy to handle not being able to accomplish big things with your little clan (you're having fun right!?!?), but once you start seeing tons of people using Dojo Researched weapons, you will change your mind. You will want those weapons. How will you get it? Because you're not getting it with your clan. So why not abandon it? Its already doomed, right?

 

I understand how you say "Fun always comes first"! But you cant have fun for long when every single incoming update will be out of you (and your clan)'s boundaries. 

 

The prices are not ok, and its neither a matter of perspective, neither of opinion (nowadays people always say: "Everyone has their own opinion, respect it!"). Well, 1+1 isn't 3 and its hard to accept when someone say that. I don't understand how some people can say the prices are OK/FAIR, because either they're in a huge clan, or they're not even interested in clans...

 

But many times DE has listened to their fanbase, so I hope for the best! 

 

Sorry if I sounded aggressive, I'm from Brazil and my English lack where vocabulary is concerned, so I might have used some words where I should have used others. We're all together in this, and its good to have people like you, who is interested in having the best possible gaming experience by helping make the game better.

[Guiavena]

Myself and 5 others came up with all the positive and negative facts on having each of the 5 plans that have been listed here, cancelled stuff out, and got left with the following list:

 

1.We can't scale directly because people would just make clans of one, build all the rooms, and then invite people in to completed dojos. Benefits the hoarders too much.

2.Having it be time based would give the small clans a chance to build rooms, but still gives a monstrous advantage to larger clans.

3.Having each member have to pay a small amount of resources in order for the room to be built benefits clans with treasuries, because they just give to those who won't get the resources.

4.Having keys to each room would limit new players who want to participate in clan activites, because they can't afford to build the keys.

5.Have crappy rooms and being able to upgrade them would be able to gauge members' activeness, but then large clans would advertise the nicest looking rooms.

 

Out of those, the results depend on what people can live with: clan exploits or hoarders/ non-active members get away without giving resources.

1. You can scale directly, just add a minimum value Scaling in this case would be : A clan of 100 people have to build a 100K Building, thus each member pays 1K. On the other side, a clan of 10 people, will pay for the minimum value of same building ( which will be 50K in this case ), thus each member pays 5K. Its not horrible broken, its fair. People are paying more by having what they want (smaller clans) without breaking the mechanics. (THIS IS AN EXAMPLE, do not take numbers seriously, as they were created randomly).

2. I don't agree with this "Time based", it just doesn't make sense to be honest. What does time have to do with cost? Otherwise a small clan would just start the building then go AFK for the next 2 weeks (well they paid a lot less money for it, so It will take much more time, right?). Wouldn't work I think.

3. Kinda agree here. Leeching will be a problem if something like this doesn't occur. Someone who didn't donate 1 cent ( if he was there while the building was being built ) shouldn't get benefits.

4. Keys are probably the easiest items to craft. This won't be a problem.

5. If you want a small clan, get used to not being rich. Its like the real world. For example, DE won't be able to afford a huge facility like Ubisoft, but that doesn't make Ubisoft wrong for using their money for their own good. You get things done YOUR way, but there will be penalties.

 

Nice post! Keep em coming lets make DE help us help them :P

[Maxdoney]

For variable room prices look here: https://forums.warfr...-write-comment/

[topoftheyear]

Just came up with something, here. Please tell me if you like it and the issues with it.

 

Instead of making the time even for small clans and large clans, you split up clan size into Small Clans (1 - 25?), Medium Clans (26 - 75?), and Large Clans (76+?), and you keep the room prices the same, maybe decrease them, and you have certain weapon blueprints available for each clan size. People in Large clans can only get the large clan weapons from the research, medium clans get medium clan weapons, etc. Since making the small clan rooms are more expensive and take more time, the Small clan weapons will be better than the Large clan weapons are. If you own a Large Clan weapon, you can't own a medium clan or small clan weapon, and same for all.

OR

Have the room prices even out between all size clans so it takes the same amount of time, and have different weapons, but each with their own perks, each are good and bad in some way so that it benefits being in a small clan so you can have the blah weapon and being in a large clan cause you can have the yadda weapon. Same everything else applies about the clan size and weapon limiting between clans.

 

So?

[Guiavena]

Just came up with something, here. Please tell me if you like it and the issues with it.

 

Instead of making the time even for small clans and large clans, you split up clan size into Small Clans (1 - 25?), Medium Clans (26 - 75?), and Large Clans (76+?), and you keep the room prices the same, maybe decrease them, and you have certain weapon blueprints available for each clan size. People in Large clans can only get the large clan weapons from the research, medium clans get medium clan weapons, etc. Since making the small clan rooms are more expensive and take more time, the Small clan weapons will be better than the Large clan weapons are. If you own a Large Clan weapon, you can't own a medium clan or small clan weapon, and same for all.

OR

Have the room prices even out between all size clans so it takes the same amount of time, and have different weapons, but each with their own perks, each are good and bad in some way so that it benefits being in a small clan so you can have the blah weapon and being in a large clan cause you can have the yadda weapon. Same everything else applies about the clan size and weapon limiting between clans.

 

So?

We cant have different functionality/utilities between DOJO's sizes. That would just aggravate the problem, where people would just keep bouncing between clans to get what they want. Everything is perfect, unless the prices. So to be honest, there is no reason to change anything, but the costs and how they affect the clans/players.

[topoftheyear]

We cant have different functionality/utilities between DOJO's sizes. That would just aggravate the problem, where people would just keep bouncing between clans to get what they want. Everything is perfect, unless the prices. So to be honest, there is no reason to change anything, but the costs and how they affect the clans/players.

I think you missed the spot in which "If you own a Large Clan weapon, you can't own another other size clan weapon at the same time." part. I may of worded it badly, so I'll take the fault for that. And the reason small clans are small is because the are only made up of friends, or people who know each other outside of Warframe, so I believe that there will be a small clan here or there that will build everything, and allow a few people in to get the stuff, but unless I'm mistaken, small clans stay small because they are a group of friends and not really advertising for any more people. I believe that if people want to have a weapon from a small clan, they will have to create their own, and build everything themselves or with a group of similar minded folks.

[Spearminty]

Dev please read this thread!! Spare us users the disappointment of investing our entire career worth of resources into a dojo to only have the costs drop. Please address this issue with your user base and either let us know to hold course (and keep grinding) or wait it out until a fix is in. This is one of those grief-bearing changes that encourages users to quit and stop playing.

[GTG3000]

Rebecca has been PMed with this thread at least twice. I sure hope they will state something on this.

[MajorLeakage]

Lock in a total caln count, scale the cost. If the clan wants to grow past the count, start over. SIMPLE.

[Stonesoup]

    I think a simple tweak to how they handle the resources would fix a lot of the issue.  Eliminate forma as a building requirement for rooms in general.  make the Halls and generator rooms tiered.  You can only build one of each of these rooms and they each have a fixed amount of energy and space they supply.  Higher tier rooms would provide more of these resources.  To get to the higher tiered rooms you have to research the technology to build them.  Have the research tasks have increasingly higher requirements. for instance a decent chunk of resources and say 5 forma to accomplish.  the next one a higher chunk of resources and 10 forma and so on. 
    It allows smaller clans to get a decent functional dojo with a fair amount of work without facing steep penaltys to build even the simplest of hallways.  Larger clans can cross over a few of hurdles easily, allowing them to build a larger dojo to accommodate their larger size.  The end result is each one will eventually hit a hurdle they will have to save up for to cross but each will be able to get the things they want for a clan their size.
    Being able to save up to cross each hurdle will give clans of any size something to save up towards without feeling like you either have to be a huge clan to get the resources easy or focus all your time and energy to have anything at all.

[beldhan]

personally, i'm more bothered by the Forma cost, i means, we need forma for everything related to the clan. build a tile, do research and even build weapon obtain via the research... but we only get a forma from:

- the market for 20 platinum

- the login reward

- Alert mission reward

- Void mission reward.

 

we need a tons of Forma and we can't really farm it since it's mostly reward extremely rare. my friend and myself thinking it's like this for make us buy it with platinum.

i think the forma have it's utility already... add it to all the clan stuff it's maybe too much actually!

[GTG3000]

Well, yeah. Forma is quite an expensive thing to have. And it's very disturbing psychologically to put in such a rare thing, because you feel that you might not get another. 

 

I hope the costs get scaled somehow.

[InvdrZOB]

Okay now… since topoftheyear already started with something like this, I’ll try to collect all the ideas and arguments which have been mentioned and discussed here (and in some other threads). This way, we (and hopefully DE, should they stop by) don’t always have to search the whole thread for some argument or proposition.

 

I’ll first simply list the things and, after that, take the freedom of mentioning the different arguments that came to mind while reading or which I found most convincing.

Trying to keep everything clear and simple structured, I’ll sort the different ideas into categories.

 

Since this might just (or will certainly just) reflect my opinion on this topic (and that of my clan buddys and some other guys I talked with), please don’t swear to kill me. I hope I’m somehow entitled to an own opinion… still, feel free to discuss it further, though ;)

 

Well… this is going to be a looong post…

 

THE IDEA LIST

 

# 1 – Costs relative to clan size

1.A – Scaling via number of clan members

1.B – Maximum dojo capacity

1.C – Maximum clan capacity

1.D – Room keys

 

# 2 – Lowering the costs

2.A – Lowering forma requirements

2.B – Scaling via build time

2.C – Upgradable utility rooms

2.D – Upgradable levels of decoration

2.E – Increasing room costs

 

# 3 – Enhancing dojo utility

3.A – More utility rooms

3.B – Adjusting capacity costs

 

# 4 – Enhance farming possibilities

4.A – Clan buffs

4.B – Special missions

 

THE ARGUMENTS

Disclaimer: All numbers used in examples are randomly thought up for explaining purposes only ^^

 

# 1 – Costs relative to clan size

The basic idea in this category is to scale the room costs in a way that every player has to somewhat pay the same amount of resources, whether he is in a small or big clan.

1.A – Scaling via number of clan members

This is, I think, the most often suggested idea in this thread, probably due to its simplicity. The costs should just be scaled upwards according to the number of members a clan has.

EXAMPLE: A small 10-people-clan will have to pay an amount of X resources to begin construction of a room. A big 100-people-clan would have to pay X*10 resources to construct the same room.

Unfortunately this will most certainly not work since it is EASY TO EXPLOIT. A big clan could dismiss its members until they reach a minimum of members needed to build all their rooms at a minimum cost. After that, they might dismiss the now broke members and invite a minimum of new ones to start research. Then they’ll simply reinvite all their former members and have fully equipped dojo, research up and running and still a whole lot of resources to spend.

1.B – Maximum dojo capacity

According to this, a dojo should only be able to support a set number of members at any given time. If you want to have more of your members visit the dojo simultaneously, you will have to build more housing to support them there.

EXAMPLE: The entrance hall allows 5 people to visit the dojo. A barracks room will support another 10. Therefore a dojo with two barracks build can be visited by 25 clan members at the same time.

I see a problem there for medium sized clans with some members in the group that have a lot of free time and are almost constantly online, staying in the dojo and blocking access for others as long as there aren’t enough housing rooms active. If a small clan tries to expand and adds a few new members (on chance) could even lead to some grievers/trolls simply blocking progress for them until the warlord kicks them out again. Big clans, on the other hand, would simply build a lot of housing in the first place and won’t encounter such problems.

1.C – Maximum clan capacity

Housing, as mentioned before in 1.B, could also be a means to limit the maximum number of members allowed in the clan in total.

EXAMPLE: A clan is allowed to have 10 members. If they want to have more, they’ll have to start construction on their dojo and build housing, for each barracks build allows them to add another 10 members.

The costs should really be thought through carefully with that, because bigger clans might think of this as some sort of punishment for them having many members. And of course they must be given some time to construct such rooms before such change to the game mechanics should take effect.

It could work and I really like the idea of housing rooms (see 3.A for more on that) but there might be better ideas to implement.

1.D – Room keys

Another approach would be to have the members of a clan having to build more keys, upgrade their keys or to get special keys (or blueprints for such) handed to them by the warlord. The costs that have to be paid for the room on the other hand, would be set to a basic amount and the rest would be redistributed to the forging of single keys, propably set by the number of clan members or to a fixed amount. Having to upgrade our clan key seems most appealing to me, since you don’t end up with some dozen keys in the end. As far as I understood it, you would have to upgrade your key for every new room you want to enter, for every hallway, corridor and elevator. That way you would have to reforge the key some dozen times before you could even start upgrading the key to enter the first utility room. If there is a construction time include, as is to everything build in the forge, there will be a lot of additional waiting going on. Another idea might be to have the key only to be upgraded for entering utility rooms, but then you would perhaps want to add the costs of the hallways connecting those rooms, which then would certainly lead to clans only building in a few “efficient” patterns to keep the costs low for their members per key-upgrade. That would certainly lead to the end of the construction of massive decadent dojos…

This key idea seems very complicated to implement in a fair way from my point of view. And, if clan vaults should get implemented, the smaller clans would perhaps be more slowed down again since they won’t have so much resources to share, keeping members with just a little free time practically out of the dojo.

 

# 2 – Lowering the costs

Of course the whole problem we have here are the costs. But I think we all agree that simply lowering them until everybody’s happy can’t be the right approach for it might lead to all clans having their dojos constructed in no time, making this whole exciting new feature just some little side note. But there are several different ideas to that.

2.A – Lowering forma requirements

We might discuss the cost of basic resources till kingdom come. A lot of people think of them as to high, some others actually think of them as legit prices which are somewhat farmable. But the real limiting factor is the forma. Aquiring them is ultra hard since they are ultra rare. But since they are not only building materials but also powerful tools to further upgrade your weapons and frames, it might be a bad idea to simply make getting them easier (since you might still buy them for platinum, if you want them that badly). So the only solution would be to lower the forma costs.

EXAMPLE: 1 forma for corridors (perhaps 2 for cross and t-connectors), 3 to 5 for utility rooms, 10 for the great hall.

That would be nice. The other materials we can farm somehow, even though some 15% to 25% of would be really nice. In addition you propably don’t have to fear for people just rushing through construction then, since a lot of the players will still use a lot of their forma on their own equipment.

2.B – Scaling via build time

This idea is very simple. The overall costs are reduced to a minimum for each room. On the other hand, the time needed to construct the room is upped massively. Then, big clans with materials to spare can pay the costs again and again, each time lowering the construction time by 12 to 24 hours, down to a minimum construction time.

EXAMPLE: Building a corridor costs X resources and takes 5 days to finish. If the clan pays contributes X resources again, the build time is lowered from 5 days to 4d12h. If they contribute yet another amount of X resources to the project, they only need to wait 4 days and so on.

This way, big clans with the resources to build their stuff, would still be able to kinda rush through their dojo construction. Small clans would still be able to start building though, just having to wait longer for construction to finish. Still they would be better of since they can actually have some progress and the only they will definitely only have to wait so much days instead of having to farm for months without feeling any progress at all (which can be very demoralizing). I can’t see anything bad about this approach. In my opinion, it’s brilliant!

2.C – Upgradable utility rooms

Pay the minimum costs, get the minimum utility. Put more resources into it, get more out of it.

EXAMPLE: When you build the standart reactor, you get 10 energy out of it for powering your base. Then, you can upgrade the reactor, each time increasing the energy output by another 10 while the capacity costs only grew by a few points or not at all.

While big clans might just build one or two high level reactors and be done with it, small clans might build more level 1 or 2 generators but would have to support them by increasing capacity, letting their base grow slowly. Of course, capacity costs and energy costs would have to be worked over for that. The same could be done with the laps (decreasing research time due to better equipment) or even the dueling arena (adding some features or even allowing bigger battles or mini games). It’s simple and I can’t see why this should not work.

2.D – Upgradable levels of decoration

For the base cost you get the base corridor, which is more or less a metal tube with some wireing hanging in space. The walls are unrefined, propably with some cables still hanging loose and the ground being some metal planks. Putting more resources into it helps making the base pretty, step by step. Small clans would have to work with their raw hunk’o’space junk for a while, I guess but hey, they still could use the stuff and access the game content somehow. And in given time, they will have their shiny space fortress, too. There could even be added a choice in furniture and decorations or different sets to acquire from (clan) alert missions or bought in the market with platinum or researched and constructed from blueprints. This would give DE endless possibilities to extend the content on dojos and it’s rather simple without any negative effects beside some aesthetic  difficulties in the beginning…

2.E – Increasing room costs

Decreasing the costs by increasing the costs? Well, let me explain. Of course, at first, all costs for rooms and research would be drastically lowered to some 5% or 10% of what they are now. Then, for every room of the same kind/category you build, the costs are risen a bit.

EXAMPLE: The first corridor costs X*0,05 resources to start construction. The next corridor will cost you X*0,1building materials and the one after that will need to be paid for with X*0,15 mats until all the corridors you build will cost you X resources.

Of course, for the utility rooms, of which you only need to build a few, the costs would have to increase a bit differently, I guess. The same could be applied with research, keeping the costs of things the clan wants to have real badly, stay low, while some other things are still expansive later on.  In the beginning, this would surely work, giving small clans the opportunity to build at least the bare necessities and at least get some research done. But later on, they would have the same problems, not being able to expand the dojo any further and not being able to afford all the research there is, blocking them from exploring all the content. Therefore, I don’t like this idea that much.

 

# 3 – Enhancing dojo utility

To be honest, this is only to some degree a solution to the problem, giving opportunities to help compensate problems that may result from ideas mentioned in # 2 and paving the way for solutions mentioned in # 4.

3.A – More utility rooms

Adding a bunch of new utility rooms might be a good way to compensate for somehow lowered construction costs. Since, due to those lower costs, clans will have access to all dojo functions, why not add some more (in given time) to make the dojo a more central part of playing as a clan

EXAMPLE: Here are some ideas as to which a dojo might be extended

Armory – Design clan logos and add them to frames and decorations or craft cosmetic items

Library – Collect books to write something down in or to read and learn about game lore

Observatory/Sensor array – Find and access secret clan missions

Communications array – Contact other clans to engage in clan battles/duels or competitive missions

Vault/Cargo bay – Store resources and items or trade them with other clan members

Housing – Allows some members to “rest”, gaining buffs for affinity or farming resources

Officers Quarters – Rooms for high ranking members to decorate and utilize

Hall of the warlord – Like officers quarters… just bigger XD

Command center – unlocking (mobile) defense and retake (exterminate) missions inside the dojo

Storages – Smaller rooms to add smaller amounts of capacity (like “capacity reactors”)

Some of those functions could also be added to the entrance hall and then be upgraded, when the actual room is build. And while we are talking about the entrance hall, how about a messaging board there, where the warlord may post rules and decrees and such for everyone to see?

3.B – Adjusting capacity costs

The capacity given add the start and the ways to get it should perhaps be thought over since it forces your layout to build a giant hall every few meters to make room for labs and such… which is weird in some way. How does using my limited space to build a massive hall give me more space? O.o

Or is it just me…?

 

# 4 – Enhance farming possibilities

Instead of (or in addition to) lowering the costs, it could just become easier to get the amounts of resources need for construction. Of course, that has to be done in a way that limits exploitation

4.A – Clan buffs

As mentioned in 3.A there could be rooms added, which allow a set amount of players to gain a buff, allowing them to farm resources more quickly.

EXAMPLE: For each housing room in the dojo, 4 people can gain ONE 6-hour-buff in 24 hours. This buff doubles the amount of resources the collect, when they pick up an item, allowing them to gather more without random players profiting from their buff. However, the materials collected are added to a clan vault or an account only usable for construction and research.

4.B – Special missions

There could be special missions to be attained for clan members, where only those in the same clan can participate in groups from 1 to 4. For such missions there are no XP rewarded. Instead, resources are added to the clan vault/account on completion. There could be some special challenges to it, such as, when raiding an enemy storage depot, the faster and stealthier you finish your mission, the more resources are still there for you and your team to plunder.

Such missions could also unlock new construction possibilities or researches and a whole lot more.

 

My conclusion:

I don’t see a way to make small clans and big clans totally equal (at least none that would make sense). Since this game is totally cooperative instead of competitive, I don’t have problem with that and I can’t bring myself to see it as unfair if anyone who has a giant amount of resources at his disposal should not reap the benefits from that, however he (or they) acquired it.

But equality can and has to be achieved in terms of accessing the game contents. Whether I decide to make my own “clan” with just me, create a clan with my 3-15 buddies or aim for being warlord of a 10 000 member clan someday, all of this ways of playing should be legit and offer fair possibilities for everyone to experience everything the game has to offer.

 

This is about it so far, I guess. Some ideas are from me, most are from others. I can’t possibly credit everyone for it but the things that most appealed to me or simply “stuck” in a way came from

GTG3000, vieuxchat, Maxdoney, Viziroth, FrozenPrimarch and SergeSlate

But I’m sure there are much more who have contributed to this here or in other threads. I guess it’s a community effort anyway ^^

[dukelego]

Maybe the costs of the rooms scale for the current amount of people in the clan at the time of building. Then to prevent people just joining right after maybe the cost of the key changes according to the number of rooms built

I do however think if price scaling is done correctly a group of friends won't be trying to do an exploit like that. Not to mention that with scaling and a lower cost per person in larger groups of people even though it will be a higher end cost people will more likely want to have more people in their clan.

[InvdrZOB]

Imagine you are completely new to the game and want to join a clan with 1000 members and a dojo with about 50 rooms. How long would it be until you manage to raise the costs for the key all by your self, considering the only method to share resources in a clan (if there is any until then) would be a vault that is only accessable if you already have the key to the dojo?