Increased Clan Member Participation in Clan and Clan Warfare

[Tejan]

I was reading some of the other posts on ideas to change Clan Warfare and increasing Clan Member Participation in that area, and came up with some ideas of my own.

All of the ideas below are additions to the current clan system. I don't see any reason for changing what we have already.

More User Participation in Defense and Attack Strength of Clan

Currently only designated clan members can do anything about defense and attack strength of the clan. There is a simple way to get everyone involved.

Instead of simply contributing meat to the clan so a select few members can buy the necessary defenses, allow clan members to adventure for the necessary items and then allow them to contribute them to the clan. Clan members can still contribute meat, but can also adventure for items that would help in defense and offense of the clan and contribute them to the clan.

Example: Somewhere in the Kingdom, create a playable area called "The Grrlgoyle Factory" where players attack Grrlgoyles and Grrlgoyle Factory Shop Workers and perhaps the Head Grrlgoyle Boss. In each attack, the player collects Grrlgoyles to take back to the clan, meat, and/or Grrlgoyle Factory Shop Worker Uniforms. If the player is wearing a Grrlgoyle Factory Shop Worker Uniform, then instead of having to attack, they go to the Grrlgoyle Factory Worker's Employee Company Corporate Store and may buy Grrlgoyles at a employee discount. Either way they take the Grrlgoyles back to the clan, and give them to the clan in exchange for clan karma. The Grrlgoyles may also be sold in the Mall by individual players who chose to not give them to their clan, or who do not have a clan.

This idea could be expanded for each item, such as Grunts, Oatmeat, etc. perhaps using different scenarios for each item. (i.e. Stealing and attacking Grunts doesn't make much sense, but perhaps this could be a Moxie type battle where you win by Moxie, not by Muscle, since you need to convince them to join your cause. If you don't convince them by Moxie, they may instead attack you, in which you have to fight them. Moxie type players would probably be better at this type of adventure.)

Special Clan Items

Items that provide benefits to the clan and/or clan members via the clan, such as the Grrlgoyles, Grunts & Oatmeal mentioned above, would be considered Special Clan Items. Some items would be collected by players while adventuring (or purchased in the Mall) and then given to the Clan.

Clan Leaders may still purchase items for clan defense and offense how they do now, but clan members who are not leaders may now contribute as well.

Also, this also opens up the possibility for items that cannot be bought by clan leaders in the current way. For example, you could create items that can only be made by clan members, such as a Spicy Grrlgoyle that are made by combining a Grrlgoyle with Spices using Meat Paste. You could also make it so that only certain character types can create certain items. For example, Turtle Tamers and Seal Clubbers currently are the only ones who can make certain types of weapons and outfits. You could do the same here with certain select items, such as a Turtle Catpult, which could be made from a turtle factory and big rock and planks of wood or something like that (i.e. the turtles come from the turtle factory, get on one side of the plank, and like a teeter totter in the playground, you jump on the other side to launch the turtles... the picture should look like a teeter totter with a turtle getting on one side). You could have an item called the Watchtower that can only be made by clan members and given to the clan. A Watchtower, for example, might be made of a watch and a tower, and a tower might be made of a towel and a Japanese Accent. Each part would be found in various parts of the kindgom. These may either be given to the clan for clan karma or may be sold in the Mall. As you can see, the possibilities of creating unique items is endless.

Clan leaders could also make these items, if the proper ingredients are in the clan stash. Example: if the clan possesses a Grrlgoyle and there is some Spices in the clan stash, a clan leader may make a Spicey Grrlgoyle. Clan Leaders would have to have the necessary skills, however, to make certain special clan items such as a Turtle Catpult, which can only be made by Turtle Tamers, even if all the parts are available in the clan stash.

You could also make it so that certain outfit types (hats, pants, weapons, etc.) can be given to the Grunts to better prepare them for battle. Some of these items, like now, would only be able to be made by Seal Clubbers ot Turtle tamers or bought in the mall. Others may be aquired by adventuring, meatsmithing, meat pasting or in the Mall.

You could also make it so that Clan Leaders can use clan funds to buy Clan Weapons and Special Clan Items in the Mall. They would not be allowed to use clan funds to buy any other items in the Mall, however.

Items Collected By Clan Members Given to Clan Can Benefit All Clan Members

I got this idea from the tokens idea mentioned in another thread, but thought I'd go in a little different direction with it. Perhaps this could be used instead of or in addition to the tokens idea.

As clan members are adventuring through the kingdom, they collect items that, when given to their clan, would provide benefits to all members of the clan. For the purpose of this discussion, I will call these items Special Clan Items.

For example, one Special Clan Item might be a Plain Medalian that increases meat drops in the Plains by 10%. If they have two of the Plain Medalians, then it increases it by 50%. If they have three Plain Medalians then meat drops in are doubled (i.e. increased by 100%). A clan may only possess 3 Plain Medalians at a time to prevent hording.

There would be a limited amount of these items in the Kingdom, but enough for each clan to have at least 2 or 3 of each. This limit would prevent saturation and also encourage clan warfare and adventuring for these items.

Note that you can create many items that do different things. For example, you can create items that increase the HP and/or MP of all clan members, increases meat or item drops, increase clan members Muscle, Mysticality and/or Moxie, or conjures a special effect such as Mariachi Mood or a Sauceshere or Temporary Gr8tness, etc. You can also make certain Special Clan Items a requirement for certain clan buffs. Also, certain Special Clan Items may contribute to the defense or attack strength of the clan during clan warfare, as mentioned in a couple examples above. These various items can be more abundant or rare depending on their strength.

Note: some items may be multi-purpose. For example, you could install a Grrlgoyle in your campground for defense or you could give it to your clan for defense. Or equiping a towel (a la Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) as a player would provide some effect for the player, or the towel could be combined with other items to make a tower and then combined with a watch to make a watchtower, which could be used for clan or campground defense. You could have a lot of fun with this, actually.

Redistribution of Special Clan Items

Special Clan Items may be stolen or destroyed during clan warfare and ones not in possession of a clan (i.e. still in possession of an individual player) may be traded or sold in the Mall.

When a clan is attacked, special items, such as those that give clan benefits, could be destroyed or stolen. Since war is a very destructive endeaver, I would suggest that if an attacker successfully win, they have less than a 50% chance of stealing these special clan items, and that at least 50% of the time they are destroyed (and recirculated as explained later).

(I will let you calculate the numbers, but basically I mean that first you calculate whether a clan wins the attack, then calculate whether a clan can steal any items, and then calculate what items are to be stolen, and then for Special Clan Items, there is a 50% chance the items is destoyed instead of stolen. You can play with the numbers and how you calculate how items are stolen or destroyed, but the intent is to make it so that these Special Clan Items recirculate in addition to being stolen, which leads to the next paragraph.)

Destroyed items get recirculated into the Kingdom by once again becoming drop items in the Kingdom. This allows clans that are not meat and army rich to aquire these Special Clan Items by adventuring. This prevents hording and allows new clans to aquire items they would not normally be able to get. (Remember, we limited the number of certain Special Clan Items in existence, so redistributing them to prevent hording becomes necessary to balance the game. Other Special Clan Items that are low strength and can be used by individual players as well might not need a limit since players may use these items themselves instead of giving to their clan.)

Also, the Mall would be a great place for these items as well. If a clan already has their limit of the Special Clan Items (e.g. 3 for the Plains Medalian), then excess ones may be sold by clan members in the Mall, which would also provide for redistribution of these items. Also, players may be more than willing to sell instead of give to their clan if the mall prices are high enough, which could lead to an interesting marketplace.

Also, these Special Clan Items, when in possession of an individual player instead of a clan may be stolen during PvP like any other item. This should deter people from hording items as individuals, although it doesn't address players who have an unbroken hippy stone. One possible solution to this is that clan attacks effect clan members. After all, there is a possibility that a clan member would be in the clan hall when a clan attack occurs, and any Special Clan Items in possession of clan members would be subject to being stolen or destroyed as well. This could be explained by a message stating something to the effect that "The Clan Army of ____ Clan finds you wandering in the Kingdom and steals your Plain Medalian (or whatever special clan item the individual player has)." So, in essense, certain special clan items may be subject to stealing or being destroyed in a clan attack, even when not in possession of the clan and still in possession of a clan member. I would not allow clan armies to steal anything other than Special Clan Items in a members inventory, however. This would also encourage clan members to contribute to their clan defense, if they could lose a Special Clan Item that they could have possibly sold for a lot of meat or given to the clan for clan karma.

This would prevent hording without putting time limits on how long someone could have an item (as suggested in the token system). I think that as long as there are multiple means to redistribute special clan items, they would get redistributed frequently enough so that all clans have a chance at having these items.

Allow Members To Purchase Clan Buffs for Themselves with Clan Karma

Right now clan karma is used primarily for the clan stash, but it could also be used for buying clan buffs for oneself. One reason why this should be added is to allow clan members to use clan karma without having to raid the clan stash. It also gives them more incentive to give to the clan, especially for item or meat rich players who don't really need anything out of the clan stash.

Also, you could tie this into the Special Clan Items. A clan must possess certain Special Clan Items to give certain types of buffs. If these Special Clan Items are stolen or destoyed in clan warfare, clan members have an incentive to go adventure to find these Special Clan Items that may have been redistributed in the Kingdom after being destroyed.

Other Ideas

I have many other ideas along these lines, but if Jick wants to persue some of these ideas, I would rather contribute the rest of my ideas in private so that there would be no spoilers. For example, I have ideas for other areas that could be created and other Special Clan Items, but would rather they be a surprise, if implemented.

P.S. My keyboard is ticking and sometimes misses characters. I think I proofread everything successfully, but there still may be some words with missing characters, like the word sticking at the beginning of this sentance.

[Tejan]

Another thought: Special Clan Items and related areas should only be available to players who have reached a certain level. The reason for this is because newbies won't know what to do with Special Clan Items and are less likely to be in a clan.

[Tejan]

You could also add an area in the Clan hall where clan members can see what special clan items (or tokens if the token system is implemented) the clan has, and what items or tokens are needed or requested by clan leaders.

[Tejan]

After reading through the above, I realized there was still one hole left for hording of Special Clan Items: Players with an unbroken hippy stone and who are not members of a clan. It would be possible to create a character that's whole purpose it to horde Special Clan Items. This could be remedied by making it so that a small percentage of the time, an attacking clan army may mistake clanless players as being members of a clan they are attacking. They would receive a message similar to this:

"The attacking army of _______ clan finds you in the kingdom and mistakes you for a member of a clan they are attacking. They push you onto the ground and take your ___________ (special clan item)."

This would effectively close this loophole. If hording by clanless members becomes a problem, the percentage of time clanless members are mistaken for being in an attacked clan could easily be increased.

Also, to prevent hording in closets, the attacking clan army might raid a clan members or clanless members campsite a small precantage of the time as well.

[Tejan]

BTW, this was meant for the Disembodied Think Tank section, but I can't post there. I would appreciate if a moderator or administrator would move this post to the Disembodied Think Tank. Thank you.

[Nikademus]

Moved to Seaside Town for discussion. If it recieves a positive response, I'll move it to the think tank.

[Tejan]

Thanks.

[silverwylt]

I agree with most points, and think that it would be great if this was moved to the think tank.

[yogibear990]

I'd enjoy being able to get involved in the wars, it'd give me something else to do, at the moment, I'm just farming random items, and trying to get rares

[Tejan]

Thanks. I'm glad you like it.

I just had another idea on how to satisfy Collectors in the game as well. Special Clan Items placed in a display case don't count towards the total number cap (if there is one) for a Special Clan Item. It is, in essense, taken out of circulation and can't be stolen or destroyed in any way while on display.

You could calculate how many items are available for drops by:

Item Cap = n * Number of Clans
(Items in Existence - Items in Display Cases) - Item Cap = Items Available for Drop
If Items Available for Drop < 0 then Items Available for Drop = 0

Because items in display cases may be placed back in circulation, and the number of clans is constantly changing, it may be possible to periodically have more items in existance than what is allowed under the cap. This is fine, because it just means that no more items are dropped, and the excess ones will be eaten up by being "destroyed" during clan attacks, bringing the total number in existense back down to the cap naturally without intervention.

If it does become a problem where people are collecting thousands of these Special Clan Items in their display case, and then dumping them all on the market at once, a limit of how many you can take out of the display case per day or per week could be instituted to prevent abuse. This may not be necessary, however, because they probably would be quickly "destroyed" in clan warfare, quickly balancing the game, giving people less incentive to dump them on the market only to have them be destroyed and not recirculated.

The value of n in the above equation can be adjusted depending on how valuable or powerful a certain Special Clan Item is determined to be. Powerful and valuable items are harder to get, while weaker items are more abundant, and some weaker multi-purpose items may have no cap at all.