Clan Dojo - Why The Building Costs Killed My Clan

[GTG3000]

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?

 

Keys aren't expensive. Solution - ask three your high-level clanmembers to farm resources with you.

 

Also, as I suggested, the keys could permanntly lead to the whole dojo, but the number of keys would be the thing limited by all the baraks and clanmember count. Of course, no automatic system for giving out keys would do, and warlords would require to spread them manually. With ability to receiv keys back upon finding a leach and kicking him, of course.

Edited May 30, 2013 by GTG3000

[dukelego]

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?

Good point research rooms only then

If you were talking about my idea that is

Edited May 30, 2013 by dukelego

[InvdrZOB]

I was, indeed, refering to dukelego's suggestion ;)

[GTG3000]

Bump this thread. Bump it hard. 

[LxLawliet]

There is easy solution.

Once you have created a clan, you should select a maximum amount of members. Costs of the rooms will be adjusted accordingly to this limit.

And you can't change clan's member limit after that (without spending some Platinum, maybe?).

 

Soon-to-be big clans could simply create a clan, set the limit to the lowest two-digit number supported by your idea, invite some people, build what you need, let the other 1000+ members throw in 1 platinum each for an increase of the clan size and voilá, you have a 1000+ members clan which built the dojo in a fraction of the time. So I dare to say it would be best that you can only set the limit ONCE, and no platinum of this world (well, perhaps over 9000) will change that.

 

That's by far my biggest fear - in a thread posted by DE_Steve (https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/55421-update-8-related-work), he mentioned they will, most likely, introduce different models/limits for clans. It hasn't been mentioned yet if it's possible to later adjust the limit accordingly - something I hope they won't implement, unless it comes with severe restrictions.

Edited May 30, 2013 by InfinitexL

[GTG3000]

Well, I'm really glad to have DE response on this. And while I think that a more tangible system, relying on the dojo itself, would be the best, I can understand why the gradation is hard-set with the limits.

[zagibu]

Drastically lower dojo building costs, especially for no-utility buildings (no forma for a hallway, please), introduce barracks buildings that unlock dojo keys. A clan starts with 10 dojo keys, then he has to build a barracks to support another 10 active dojo keys. If you have no dojo key, you cannot enter the dojo, but you can still be a clan member.

 

In the barracks, there would be a named bunk for every member, and each member would be able to upload a small image to serve as a poster on the wall of this bunk. Maybe there could also be a weapon rack in front or beside the bunk in which you could display your favourite loadout. Maybe the revive system could be tied to the bunk, so that you could gain new revives faster (or more of them) if you parked your character in his bunk.

[Forevener]

Soon-to-be big clans could simply create a clan, set the limit to the lowest two-digit number supported by your idea, invite some people, build what you need, let the other 1000+ members throw in 1 platinum each for an increase of the clan size and voilá, you have a 1000+ members clan which built the dojo in a fraction of the time. So I dare to say it would be best that you can only set the limit ONCE, and no platinum of this world (well, perhaps over 9000) will change that.

"spending some platinum" was an option. And cost of it should be much higher than 1 platinum per player.

[Mazimer]

Pay to win is when you can pay for items or benefits that give you an advantage over other players that didn't pay. Every thing in this game can be found without paying. Also it's a beta, and in most beta ( Especially by somewhat smaller companies - like Path of Exile ) cash is more expensive, as they don't have much money as Blizzard, Perfect World and etc. The problem is when they make getting items without paying so painful that its almost necessary to pay, like the Forma item, which you can pay for, or find in alert missions or orokin missions ( people say drop rates are ridiculously small, like insanely rare), and that I do not approve :/

tell that to <insert PWE game here> devs. S#&amp;&#036;ton of money, still S#&amp;&#036;ton expensive xD

[Lakitel]

 If I could just put in my two cents here. There are a lot of great ideas here, but the main thing you have to consider is that any work put into this is going to take away work put in somewhere else, not to mention the time and resources it would take to release the update.

 

 For example, there have been several suggestions in here about adding extra rooms, whether they are barracks, utility or even upgradeable tier-based rooms. The main issue with this is that now the DE team have to sit down and come up with those rooms, design them, program them, balance them and then release them. This could potentially take months and all this time small and medium sized clans are suffering and sitting in frustration while bigger clans get all the nice stuff. In fact, by the time an update like this roles out, the concept of small and medium sized clans might die out, making the update itself pointless and a complete waste of time.

 

 So the best immediate solution is to play around with the stats. Again, there have been several suggestions here such as scaling the costs, putting a cap on number of members and decreasing construction costs. The problem I see with all of these is that they will also require several months of testing, they are incredibly exploitable or they are just plain unfair.

 

- People can just quit the clan, the few build the Dojo then everybody joins again.

- Putting a cap on number of members is an unnecessary restriction of the natural evolution and progress of the game. For all we know, medium or big clans will be a big part of the game in the future, which means new content is design around this concept. So why restrict the game for a much smaller reward that could be done in another way?

- Balancing costs is difficult, if you make it too cheap, then the big clans will win. If you make it expensive, the big clans will win. The only way to fix that is to scale costs, in which case we go back to the first dashed point.

 

 Quite honestly, I only see one immediate, effective solution that has already been suggested, and that is simply to make every iteration of the room built progressively more expensive. Realistically, most clans build dojos according to their size. Small and medium clans between 5 and 30 members probably aren't interested in building 2 clan halls or 2 great halls, or several floors or what have you, they will just want to get the basic stuff they need to access all the content in the game. Big clans will naturally want to expand, which is a natural symptom of anything that is large, and this is mirrored in how big and "Impressive" the Dojo is, to reflect their status.

 

 This solution is simple and elegant. It transforms the whole issue from a technical argument to an aesthetic argument. It is no longer about "How are small and medium clans supposed to expand and access new content" and instead will be about "How decadent can or should a large clan become?". It turns into a more thematic argument: does larger numbers mean more power? And how much of that power is real and how much is an illusion? Is this massive Dojo a testament to collaborative effort or is it merely a tribute to egotistical fantasy?

 

 As for implementation, its simple. Instead of having to make several rooms and balancing them endlessly or changing prices so they become unaffordable or exploitable, we simply adjust the price of the Dojo relative to itself, rather than to the game. All we have to do is consider the following:

 

- How affordable should a unique, non-reiterated room be to an average player playing by themselves? We set the basic cost of rooms based on the answer to this question.

 

- How expensive should the rooms become? We set the algorithm by which each re-iterating room is priced based on the answer to this question.

 

I think these are two simple questions that can probably be answered in the space of a week using a poll and attached forum thread. Then maybe another week of programing and implementation. Thats two weeks from the moment the Dev actually decides to issue these questions to us. And that it, we have a quick simple solution to a major problem. Its not perfect, but for the amount of effort required to implement it as opposed to making new rooms and what not, its much more efficient. And once we have this set out, then we can start thinking about adding new rooms, content and tweaking.

 

I also suggested on another thread that it would be nice to have a proper set-up recruitment channel in-game that gives all the stats and info about the clan as well as their clan goal, philosophy, message, what times they are online and contact info for a recruiter. Maybe another simpl-"ish" solution to this problem is to make recruitment easier, that way smaller clans can expand slightly into a comfortable number of members without having to do massive recruiting campaigns or spend lots of time trying to get new players.

[topoftheyear]

Meanwhile, in a big clan near you, people already have access to half the weapons. I'd hate to rush, but we need a solution quick, or being perfectly honest, rolling back the dojos completely and all the weapons with them doesn't sound like a very bad idea right now.

[shirner.izuna]

Day 11 

Dear Diary
Together with my 3 clan friends we still farm ferrite. When all goes good in the next week we will think about salvage. Till Xmas 2013 we hope to have our first Cross Connector. I end for today, so i may back to farming.
Yours Shirner

[GhostWOlf995]

They said that there wil be fix for small clans, but i dodntknow when.. Me too wait just for that..

[GTG3000]

Well, all in all, the prices are okay with me (I mean, it's supposed to be a longterm project).

What's not okay with me is trying to build an oracle, and seeing people complain about clan weapons in the chat. 

[ZWarhammer]

Agreed. This is already getting addressed as mentioned in previous 2 live streams.

One thing i don't get that some people who spend money on this game have a strange way of shoving it in your face. Mostly on forums.

Saying that you payed X amount won't get your point across in a better way unless you're posting in council forums of which there is no reason to post stuff like that there since you can't start your own topics!

Obviously most of us who like this game and are intending to keep playing over long periods of time are willing to spend money on it but we do so for our own convenience.

Please keep this in mind.

I see so many forum posts pointing out that they have spent X amount of money or that they have founder packs as if it has anything to do with the post. DE will address your post and take it into consideration if it has a valid point not matter if you spent 500$ or zero.

Edited June 5, 2013 by ZWarhammer

[MusicGamer]

While I agree that dojo costs are obscene, I believe that Rebecca said that they have heard the complaints and that they are working on a solution for scaling the costs according to clan size.  I think that the best thing to do for now is to wait and see what they do.  Because I think they'll definitely do something.  They wouldn't just leave smaller clans behind.

[Psyclosarin]

Agree with the OP completely. 

For a game that is limited to 4 players in a match, it seems strange that dojos cost such an absurd amount of resources. 

I run a 40 man clan and only about 10 of them actually play Warframe. So the fact that creating a bloody extortionate T-Junction before I even even build a reactor to even think of building anything worthwhile is just so far out of reach for us. 

We'd all need to be grinding constantly for mats and well, that's just not fun at all. 

1: Connectors need to be HUGELY cheaper, as in, next to nothing (still limited by space, power and construction slots remember)

2: Costs should scale based on the amount of members in the clan (min 5), larger clans would still have a net discount overall in terms of the amount each person would need to contribute while maintaining a fair balance between large and small clans.

 

 

Can't think of more to add that hasn't already been said. 

[Duppe]

I totally agree with the cost's for the dojo. They're just to HIGH!!!

I like the idea of letting the cost depend of the size of the clan.

But, the way to circumvent this (for the really big clans) they reduce they're members to build cheap.

This can also be countered by adding a clan-member counter that goes only up and can't be reset ed.

Witch means, that a clan who exists out 1200 members or more has to pay X times more than a clan who exists out 20 members or less.

Even if they lose X members.

This is how i think about it and to keep everyone playing the game.

[topoftheyear]

I totally agree with the cost's for the dojo. They're just to HIGH!!!

I like the idea of letting the cost depend of the size of the clan.

But, the way to circumvent this (for the really big clans) they reduce they're members to build cheap.

This can also be countered by adding a clan-member counter that goes only up and can't be reset ed.

Witch means, that a clan who exists out 1200 members or more has to pay X times more than a clan who exists out 20 members or less.

Even if they lose X members.

This is how i think about it and to keep everyone playing the game.

I only see an exploit with groups of people with that one. Someone gets into a clan, maybe gets up to a level where they can recruit others, then recruit as many people as possible then they all leave, making the costs expensive for the remaining members until they advertise enough to get back to the High number. (Which is near impossible at the moment, small clans' advertisements are easily overshadowed by large clan ads, which people are jumping out of their pants to get into currently.)

[Yawyna124]

Dojo in general is still in Alpha, hopefully these sky-high costs are the Extremes that DE is well known for. ;p

 

My 4-man clan can't make anything at all for now. :/

Haha, I'm in a 4 man clan and I'm the only one who is working on the buildings in our Dojo :P

I've got the first hallway to 8% and the first generator to a whopping 1%

At least at this pace I will get the forma I need :P

[Silver_Villian]

I definitely agree with the OP on all points made in that post.

 

The dojo is a cool idea but I think that DE is really alienating players that are not in a large guild.  The building cost are just too high for a small guild, add in the cost of forma for building is even more ridiculous.  This has also been expressed in other posts.  I know there have been many solutions suggested but I do think that a scaling resource cost to clan members is appropriate in addition with the elimination of forma as a building requirement.

 

Forma as mechanic to improve warframes and weapons is awesome and a great idea to improve the equipment I already love.

 

However, as a building requirement it is IMO a bit of a &#036;&amp;*^ move on DE part.  I understand that they need money for development but it could have been done better than squeezing players for money.

[Guest Victris_Ares]

Northern Ninjitsu has some solutions for some problems we have with the Dojo.

 

Solution(problem)

 

Requirement scaling (one guy builds a dojo, invites 200 members)

Increased Drops for small clans (see above, + crafting issues)

Little no no build time on rooms (unfair to larger clans, who have to wait/plat for new rooms)

Lower requirements, with forced smaller (20-100 member) clans. (breaks up larger mega-clans, limits new clans)

 

The Dojo is a brilliant idea, we have no problems other than the above mentioned.

[Mak_Gohae]

Here's a thread where i am documenting building a dojo alone.

 

Materials are not hard to obtain at all if you are actually farming for them.

The one real road block is the Forma.

[GTG3000]

I definitely agree with the OP on all points made in that post.

 

The dojo is a cool idea but I think that DE is really alienating players that are not in a large guild.  The building cost are just too high for a small guild, add in the cost of forma for building is even more ridiculous.  This has also been expressed in other posts.  I know there have been many solutions suggested but I do think that a scaling resource cost to clan members is appropriate in addition with the elimination of forma as a building requirement.

 

Forma as mechanic to improve warframes and weapons is awesome and a great idea to improve the equipment I already love.

 

However, as a building requirement it is IMO a bit of a &#036;&amp;*^ move on DE part.  I understand that they need money for development but it could have been done better than squeezing players for money.

 

Actually, the prices aren't too high if you have at least four people, farming. The dojo is ment to be a long term project for the clan, something that would make you think ahead and bring great payoff after all the time you inevitably spend, building and farming.

 

However, that whole perspective has been completely overshadowed for us by the huge clans, that could afford to build a dojo in a week or less, and now making us small clans feel inadequate about our hard farming by showing off duelling and complaining about clan weapon balance.

 

You should come to understanding that this is not a &#036;&amp;*^ move from DE, but rather something they haven't thought through, or have thought through, but were forced to choose this solution due to some limitations or plans ahead. I know there are at least a few ways to scale costs for big clans by simply making them build a bigger dojo, but DE doesn't seem to have unlimited server capacity, seeing how the dojo is limited to 64 rooms, as well as players that don't always come with a whopping server to host that on. The only problem I see right now is that DE, having had listened to us cry out in woe like they always do, decided that the costs should be scaled down as the clans get smaller and smaller, not up as the clan exceeds some limit.

[shout3236]

i just made my on clan, had it for about a week, and am 33% done the T connector, so much resources are required. i find that having forma is one of the hardest, and that the only clans that will be going anywhere are the ones that have people that have the money to contribute :(

really like the dojo's though :D