A Key To Dojo Problems

[Nehmetawy]

So after reading around the forums and observing what was said during the livestream it appears the average number of a "small" Clan is from 10-20. The biggest thing people want is a way to make people participate in the clan and not simply jump ship once the weapons are done. Scaling is extremely hard and would not work easily, so here's a different take on how to adjust material costs:

 

One of the major parts of entering the clan is the Clan Key. Every member of the Clan needs to make this to gain use of entering the Clan. Since it is required by every member we're going to change the cost to make this key so it requires a bit more work to get. The key is going to require the following materials:

 

* 1 Forma

* 1 Morphics

* 500 Polymer Bundle

* 500 Ferrite

 

Now we have spent at least 10-20 Forma for our members to use our clan functions. Sure they could just walk in, but with the requirement to use the features it makes the player invest a bit more in the clan Where do we go from here?

 

Currently to do the bare minimum for Clan Research you need 75 Forma. We're going to change this up again. We're going to reduce Forma Costs to 1 per room. Sounds great right? Well I hate to bring a downer on you, but we're going to make you upgrade your clan key. To upgrade your key again we're going to require another 5 Forma. This 5 Forma will allow you to buy the blueprints from the Oracle room. So where does this leave us for Forma use?

 

In a Clan of 10: 60 from members to use clan functions and upgrade to buy blueprints. Another 7 to build the basic research rooms.

 

In a Clan of 1000: 6000 from members to use clan functions and upgrade to buy blueprints. Another 7 to build the basic research rooms.

 

==What happened?==

 

We have created scaling for Clans using Forma, but not resources. With this measure, we can lower the costs of rooms by a substantial amount to allow greater customization for large clans with a lot of resources, but not penalizing small clans that can't gather as much. 

 

==Why?==

Because by charging the member for the Forma, you scale the Clan on a personal level rather than a Clan level. With the Forma Cost of 1 per room, you allow a Clan to slowly build themselves up over time, but even a single member clan would be able support themselves.

 

==Room Costs==

Since we're reducing it to 1 Forma per room, I'm not going to list this as the suggested materials. Also let's change hallways and elevators to 12 hours, and the rest of the rooms to 24 hours for construction:

 

===Small Hallway:===

* 10,000 Credits

* 10,000 Salvage

* 10,000 Nano Spores

* 5,000 Ferrite

 

===Elbow Connector:===

* 15,000 Credits

* 15,000 Salvage

* 15,000 Nano Spores

* 10,000 Ferrite

 

===T-Shaped Connector:===

* 20,000 Credits

* 20,000 Salvage

* 20,000 Nano Spores

* 15,000 Ferrite

 

===Cross Connector:===

* 25,000 Credits

* 25,000 Salvage

* 25,000 Nano Spores

* 20,000 Ferrite

 

===Clan Hall:===

* 100,000 Credits

* 25,000 Ferrite

* 25,000 Salvage

* 10,000 Alloy Plate

* 15,000 Rubedo

 

===Great Hall:===

* 1,000,000 Credits

* 50,000 Ferrite

* 50,000 Salvage

* 20,000 Alloy Plate

* 30,000 Rubedo

 

===Dueling Room:===

* 100,000 Credits

* 30,000 Ferrite

* 30,000 Salvage

* 15,000 Polymer Bundle

* 15,000 Rubedo

 

===Reactor:===

* 20,000 Credits

* 20,000 Circuits

* 15,000 Salvage

* 5,000 Plastids

 

===Elevator:===

* 20,000 Credits

* 20,000 Circuits

* 15,000 Salvage

* 5,000 Polymer Bundle

 

===Oracle Room:===

* 500,000 Credits

* 5,000 Fieldron Sample

* 5,000 Mutagen Sample

* 5,000 Detanite Ampule

 

===Bio Lab:===

* 200,000 Credits

* 5,000 Mutagen Sample

* 30,000 Nano Spores

* 10,000 Plastids

 

===Chem Lab:===

* 200,000 Credits

* 5,000 Detonite Ampule

* 30,000 Polymer Bundle

* 10,000 Alloy plate

 

===Energy Lab:===

* 200,000 Credits

* 5,000 Fieldron Sample

* 30,000 Circuits

* 10,000 Rubedo

 

==What do we do about Clans right now?==

The honest truth would be to offer a complete reset. Refund all the Clan Members all their materials, Forma, and Platinum. This may result in refunding Forma for platinum as well. Let Clan Members keep the recipes they have made in the Research rooms for more testing and possibly give all members the blueprints from the R&D. 

[Dantal]

https://forums.warframe.com/index.php?/topic/55421-update-8-related-work/

 

You should take a look at that.

[Cleesus]

1 forma would kill clan recruitment

[Drakontis]

I see a few problems about this. Number one, Forma. It's relatively difficult to obtain for free. You either have to have an invite and get lucky in the void or get a lucky alert. It would stifle development of clan dojos by a lot because of the forma as well. Even if you DID want to get into the Dojo, you'd be hard pressed to spend a hard earned forma on a clan key instead of a warframe or weapon, especially if it may be for people you DON'T already know. 

 

Secondly, having to upgrade again to obtain blueprints feels like paylocking for the same reasons as stated above. 

[TheMalachai]

1 forma would kill clan recruitment

 

Yep. I'm finding it a pain to scrape up the Polymer Bundles for the dang key (I have terrible luck). Forma is high level stuff. That would make damn near impossible for beginners to join a clan. And, since the forma gets used up in the manufacturing process, it's essentially wasted. That forma could be used for the dojo, but instead it's getting used to get ACCESS to the dojo, which may or may not require the forma you just used for the key.

[Enot83]

Change from forma to materials, could even be the materials associated currently with some of these, just have high amounts for personal key expansion, while making rooms less expensive to build.

 

The idea isn't flawed, but I think your choice of using forma might cause more problems.

 

That said, there could be other changes to forma and drop rates in the void etc to counteract this, an initial 1 forma to join a clan is not that bad but again, people shouldn't be afraid to join a clan.  Building the initial key so you could at the very least run around and see whats in the dojo of the clan you've just joined should be easy to do, moving forward though now that you're in the clan if the void had better forma drop rates running clan void missions becomes more important and meaningful.

[Nehmetawy]

@Dantal

 

I did. This is merely my suggestion on the topic.

 

@theclinton

 

1 per member to use the basic functions. 6 per member to use all the functions. 7 to build all the rooms. Would you rather spend it in large lumps as it currently is? Or in smaller chunks like this? The idea is that roughly the same amount of Forma is spent by the players, but not restricting the Clan Building as much.

 

@Drakontis

Forma is another issue. Forma itself needs to be changed to another separate currency type or changed that can be earned through work and not only luck. Players should be able to earn at least 1 Forma a week with how many uses it has.

 

Edit:

 

@Enot83

Correct. Forma needs to be slightly easier to obtain. Players should at the minimum be able to obtain 1 Forma a Week. I will be making a passing review later on how to adjust Forma.

Edited May 31, 2013 by Nehmetawy

[Enot83]

@Enot83

Correct. Forma needs to be slightly easier to obtain. Players should at the minimum be able to obtain 1 Forma a Week. I will be making a passing review later on how to adjust Forma.

 

I'd likely mostly agree with this for those in an active clan, or with a relatively active friends list of people doing void missions.  Thus far, I have found to be the case for myself.

 

I think the acquisition and cost of forma for its value should be examined, while I don't disagree that it's clearly part of a business model for making money, there is some fine tuning that could be done, though I'd rather especially with what you're recommending rather stay on the topic which seems to be:

 

Focusing on players upgrading their keys for access within a clan, so that size is less of a determining factor, and it is more what the individual player and his/her desire.

 

I think this solves a great deal of problems with how I see clans personally.  Most large clans, are not only impersonal, but intentionally so, and simply a means to an end to circumvent the difficulty of building a dojo and acquiring what comes with it.  I suppose as "communal" as these large clans are, they are also entirely impersonal and thus are an example of teamwork for exploitive purposes rather than for the purpose of creating a real community.  If 100 people left one of these clans and 100 new people joined, so many wouldn't even notice or care.  In small/medium and even large (not massive) clans even when a few people leave sometimes many members know and its "felt".

 

Though, it is again the intent of what DE sees as being the purpose for clans so that needs to be considered too.

Edited June 1, 2013 by Enot83

[Nehmetawy]

What they appear to be leaning on has been brought up in several other threads which is a gating process via tiers. By scaling the costs per tier, they have an easier time adjusting the resources for how large they feel the clan should be. They want to tie the growth of the Clan directly to the Dojo. This would mean that all Clans will start small, and then become larger as they progress and cost more resources as they grow. They are still looking into the solving possible exploits with such a clan structure.

 

Limiting what the player can build via different tiers is a step in the right direction, but that limitation could also be a detriment. In this structure, there is no form of tiering limit. Clans of all sizes will be able to craft all rooms over time. You could be a single person with an immense over the top Dojo with the right amount of resources. The advantage the larger Clan has over the smaller in this case is the availability of resources to use in building. Thus it levels the playing field per say as there is no large benefit, or detriment, of having a large or small Clan because they are functionally equal.