Spiral Knights - Guild Hall Furniture: Expand Birdsong with existing furniture!!! [No dev time; Removes Cr from economy; newbie players]

Guild Hall Furniture: Expand Birdsong with existing furniture!!! [No dev time; Removes Cr from economy; newbie players]

11 replies [Last post]

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 14:51

Cheshireccat

The biggest use of Cr for a post-endgame-player are accessories/costumes, Punch, and sometimes playing with a guild hall. Many players tend to ignore it.
But what if we made investment in Guild Halls a more attractive option?

Step 1: Expand the selection in Birdsong Emporium
Birdsong's got the same boring stuff it always had. Just add the Moorcroft, Almirian, Winterfest, and Obsidian furniture to it. Add in some lazy birds. Add anything except the super-rares like Nature Sprites and Zombies and Wandering Sprites that you sell in Flash sales.

People already pay 1mil Cr to craft a Roarmulus statue. They will pay 500kCr for a Almirian banner. They will pay 200kCr for a Moorcroft Bookcase. They will pay 150kCr for a rug and 75kCr for a restored bench and 75kCr for a pile of bones.
(Note: these suggestions are based on prices I've seen. Suggested prices are slightly cheaper than AH because they won't be rare any more AND you want people to spend their Cr, remember?)
Dev time: none

Step 2: Reduce Spiral Furniture prices
Guild Halls are an exercise for rich players with nothing else to do. MOST Guild Halls look like empty warehouses. This is bad.
When my guild lets new players have rooms... they stay empty, because buying a bed means two trips to beat up Vana for his lunch money.
A potted plant should not cost 1 FSC trip, a set of shelves should not cost 2 FSC's, a chair should not cost 1 FSC, and a lightbulb should not cost 5 FSC's.
Ugly yellow furniture should not cost more than the other colors.

Reduce core furniture prices by 1/2. This will engage newer players, will prompt smaller guilds to invest in their Halls, and get more players playing with an oft-ignored piece of your game.
Engaging newer players will also engage older players. The more people you include, the more people you will include. It's a social thing.
When players don't think of their GH as a place where tables go to die, they're more likely to spend 200kCr for something nice (see Step 1)
Dev time: none

Step 3 (optional): Add some reskined Spiral furniture
We have Spiral furniture in red, blue, white, and ugly-yellow-ish.
Give us purple! Give us green! Give us dark blue!
Dev time: minor and this is optional

TL;DR: This is a no-dev way to get players to use their Guild Halls more, by making it more accessible at a low level and more interesting/desirable at a high level.
>> Players invest more time/interest in the game.
>> Players use something OOO spent a lot of time developing.
>> Players spend more Cr. Takes it out of the economy and reduces CE market hoarding.
>> Players expand their Guild Halls.
>> Guilds work together and become closer.
>> The more people use their Guild Halls, the better SK is!

Please consider this suggestion! :)
--Cheshireccat

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 15:21

Fangel

Hmm.

Making event items available year-round is eh. I'd much rather we have more varieties of boxes during promos. Get the art team involved! Basically, have there be a costume box and a furniture box, one is with CE one is standalone, every few promos or so.

As for more colors, yes! I'd love to see some of the special items from promo boxes be introduced, such as a Spiral Banner (instead of almirian), a Crimson Order banner, and maybe even status banners.
Furniture itself should stay kinda expensive - it's a guild-wide event to customize your guildhall! Giving a single room to a player to design and keep track of is a fault of guilds themselves, not the system. If you have 4 guild members fighting vanaduke, that's two beds you can snag. Have the entire guild running through the arcade and you're sure to find some nice things!

... Speaking of which, perhaps we could just add furniture to prize box drops? Rare like item drops for sure, but they'd definitely be able to take from many different areas. Almirian furniture, moorcroft furniture, even introduce slime furniture! In general new things can happen, and added in stealth patches and at Three Rings' leisure.

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 17:59

Cheshireccat

@Fangel

I love what you're suggesting, but those all require dev time.
The key to my suggestion is that it requires NO dev time. :)

RE: expensive furniture and teamwork:
Your logic is logical but it fails in practice.
In any guild there are 3-4 post-end-game players who do 95% of the investment for all GH furniture. New players don't even bother considering furniture because they're too focused on buying orbs.
You want Guild Halls to be communal? Make it so everyone in the community can contribute in a meaningful way.

Making the core furniture cheap is especially important for new and small guilds who don't have a lot of money to spare.
For many players 100kCr seems like a life-changing amount of money.
Go into some of the open Guild Halls. Most of them feel empty. You will see the classic room-with-a-single-chair-in-the-middle. It's an epidemic.
If 100kCr could buy a bed, two tables, two chairs, three shelves, two crates, a weathervane, and nine potted plants then BAM: that's a room filled. Another 100kCr could put nice things in two hallways so they don't seem empty and depressing.

A guild of 30 not-quite-Vanguards aren't going to all devote 120 FSC runs to make a Vanaduke statue. But seven or eight might devote 10 FSC runs to make the entry to their one-floor Guild Hall feel homey. They would take pride in that accomplishment. And they would want to add more later and would involve their friends--because they feel they can achieve.

I'm not proposing to cheapen boss statues or add gaslamps to the store for 100cr. Just reduce the cost of the core, basic stuff. This will help people get started and see the value and reward of decorating a Guild Hall.
Once players can fill these big empty spaces in their GH's with *something* they will be more likely to invest in expensive stuff too.
--Chesh

Thu, 05/14/2015 - 00:12

Hexzyle

MOST Guild Halls look like empty warehouses.

This is just because people have no clue how to correctly invest money and would rather spend 30,000 crowns each week paying upkeep instead of spending that same money buying furniture.

Also because guild masters think they can just invite random people, enforce a 1,000 crowns per week tax on all their guildmembers, and not expect to need to put any effort in themselves on adding to their guild's community and making it feel like an actual guild.

Mon, 05/18/2015 - 12:08

Cheshireccat

@Hex @Fan

I think I didn't illustrate a point of mine clearly.
Both of you touch on the spending of money. Fangel with the "Giving a single room to a player... [is not] the system" and Hex with "people have no clue how to correctly invest money."
The point I tried to make is NOBODY buys furniture for a Guild Hall UNLESS they are a post-end-game player with money to burn.
99% of the players in this game never purchase a piece of furniture. Guild Halls are a HUGE function of this game (representing a large amount of developer time) sitting unused by the player base.

If you decrease upkeep it will not increase GH spending.
BUT if you decrease base furniture costs and make more furniture available you will increase the number of players who invest in furniture--and use this part of the game.

Furniture are like Legos. The more you have, the more fun they are to play with.
--Chesh

Tue, 05/19/2015 - 10:11

Blandaxt

i agree...

I agree with you cheshirecat. The way the guild hall system is design currently is to make it a good long effort to buy almost any item. I would be all for ot if this system didn't dig right into each knights own pocket for this system to qork. If every knight was to be able to support their guild with a back up guild system where they would be running missions to help their guild While at the same time make money for themselves, then that would be a much player friendly Mission where the player feels like they are part of the group, supporting the group while not slowing down or stopping any progression on their own character. The missions would award the guild money, mats, minerals, items ect. And the player would make money while killing the monsters and getting loot during the run for themselves.

Right now their should also be a system where guilds can recruit mercenaries (players who are not part of the guild, but volunteer for a week a day or an hour to help the guild) that would run missions for the guild, and the guild would award them a couple point of prestige or award them with an accessory or other tradeable things. This way small guilds can also grow without feeling like they have to dig in their own gameplay time and pockets to be able to grow. Both sides would win, where the player gets an award and the guild gets to grow whether in treasury or in any other form.

If these systems were created, players would feel more inclined to give a helping hand while staying neutral and not joining a guild. Or guild members would more inclined to donate whitout feeling the burden of carrying the guild or losing something.

Now one last things guilds need in my opinion is guild exclusive activities. Now most players would automatically point out guild pvp. And well i agree that is an exclusive activity that guilds can do, but it's too limited for all players who want to have options and variety to participate in. So why not create guild exclusive events such as hunting a rare materials. These mats would be able to be used in creating guild statues. The winning guild who collected the most rarest mat would be the scanvenger hunt winner and be given a special insignia they can place on one of their guilds floor that would glow bright when a player steps on it. They would also be given the same insignia/tatto which they can place either on their knights armor or on their pet like an accessory. The insignia given to each knight that is a member of that guild would last a week, while the one given to thw guild would last forever.

Another guild excusive event could be painting. Now were not all artist, but everyone should have a paint tool aplicaion on thwir pc which the OOO could intergrate into sk. The paint tool is a bit hard to use, but those who want to put their innovative painting skills to the test can submit a painting to the board of directors which could be made out of the community managers. Now, the paintung tool could also be an ingame aplication that ak could get permision from windows or create their own super simplified painting application into the game that guilds could use for either this event or any other uses such as creating guild flags/signs. The top 3 winnesr of the guild painting compitition would be given painting costumes and the guild names would be highlighted on a huge poster board near the market, bazar and the guild hall entrance. There paintings would also be displayed on the floor of haven near the guild entrance. They would last a week before being removed. ( i was thinking we players in the game could also view each painting and give it a vote and the ones with the most votes could win the contest. Members from the guild that submited the painting would not be able to vote for their own painting. )

One last guild event would be build your own statue. This event would come right after the scavenger hunt event. The guilds would use the materials they got from the last event to build these lego block pieces. Each block piece take a certain number of mata and crown to make. After building these lego blocks, the guild members can turn these blocks into any one piece of armor or costume and accessory that is in the game. Each block piece would become either a head, arm, torso, leg, wings, tail or horn. Each of these pieces can be mix and match and stuck together to create a knight statue. These statues can also be placed in any predetermined pose the player can chose from to further define that creation. The more creative the statue is at the end of the contest, the more votes it will get which will determine the top 3 winners. The winning guilds would get their statues put in haven forball to see and gander. The creator can also put a small message for the statue and also the every statue qould have the creators name and guild rank Plus guild name. Each guild who participate in any event would get a participation prize. The winning guild for this event wouls get a temporary title fashion king or aomething and also be given a glamor or glitter aura (other players can also get any guild prize after 2 weeks after the event is over. They can buy it through the chance boxes. This way OOO can get maximum profit from their work.)

These guild events and different variety of activities i feel would really pull in players from all areas into the guild system and also my old post where guilds and normal players alike can pull in together to cause changes in haven in my opinion is the types of community activities we need. Well i feel i rambled long enough.

Wed, 05/20/2015 - 12:10

Fangel

Hmm.

Love the idea of hiring "mercenaries". Potentially your guild's treasury would pay the mercenary an up-front amount, and then loot picked up by that player has a certain percentage sent to the treasury until a certain amount is put back in the treasury. This includes materials, but not rarities. You could even create a "heat tank" that players could send to the guild that acts like the old "mist wells" but instead store heat from mercenary jobs. You could basically pay a player to heat your gear (other than fire crystals) if you really don't want to do it yourself.

That's another suggestion entirely however. For this game I agree that more furniture = more fun... However guild halls are an end-game crown sink and an early-game community builder. You don't invest in the guild hall until you have crowns to spare, which is in the end-game. Similarly, earlier in the game, players shouldn't have an arsenal of costumes. Furniture is like the costumes for guilds, and if costumes are expensive, furniture is bound to be much more expensive...

However, like I suggested, if furniture was added to the drop table in the clockworks, you would have many more lower-star players finding furniture! They are playing the game because they need crowns, plus if they find furniture it's a great bonus for their guild. If you wanted to, you could make finding furniture sort of like finding a lockbox on the prize wheel where it's weighed on a value, such as lower ranks are more likely to find furniture in tier 1 until they find a piece, then that weight is halved... or running with higher rank guildmates makes you more likely to find furniture in your rank's strata. After finding a second piece, the weight is removed. Every rank would have specific depths where this is likely to happen, but perhaps limit this furniture finding to arcade only. This will make lower-stared players who are in guilds be encouraged to run the arcade by guildmates so they can get free furniture, plus encourage guilds to recruit lower-stared knights. It's a win-win.
Getting furniture would thus be a guild effort. It's not worth it to make a new knight to trudge through the entire game to take advantage of the furniture, except for maybe the first few ranks (but at the 3* and 4* hall of heroes, you'd get the drop-off... Just make the more desirable furniture be located at defender rank and up areas). However the guild effort isn't necessarily only through giving crowns in to the guild - it's through playing the game!

Now I know you're gonna pull the "no developer time" card 'ere, so let me mention how changing any value in the game is technically developer time. Depending on how they've built the infrastructure, it may be easy (but sorta time consuming) to add furniture to the item drops. At the same time, it should be really quick to make more recolors of furniture seeing how the art team is able to put out new promotional items every 2 weeks or so (that plus last I checked art team had more people in it than developers do).
It might also be nice to, when stuff isn't working, simply punch numbers into the system until things are stringed together. Alternatively, art team could probably do a little something to help if it is a simple entry or value.

Thu, 05/21/2015 - 11:41

Cheshireccat

Card predicted: Card played.

Yep, any change = dev. As always my suggestions are trying to make the most effective change with the least work.

Mercenary stuff: sounds too complicated to even explain without adding tutorials, and it's a big dev project. I veto.
Furniture via Drop/Prize Wheel: I have to say I LOVE this idea. Editing drop tables sounds like work. Editing the prize wheel sounds easier. Both would get more furniture into guilds.
A variation on the drop idea: specific furniture via specific monster drop/level boxes. Candlestick keep is FULL of furniture. I can't tell you how many times I've said, "that chair looks pretty light. If he can carry a giant stone statue, he can carry a chair. I'll just bring it to the elevator." If we could get Moorcroft furniture from Candlestick Keep prize boxes, or Almire furniture in Shadowplay/FSC, winterfest snow blocks in freeze-themed levels, Moorcroft furniture from Spookats (anywhere), Almire furniture from Almire Crusaders/Dreadnaughts... THAT WOULD BE AMAZING. It would need to be reasonably common though, like on par with orb drops.
More reskins of base furniture: You're right, that's light dev. I proposed a fun variation on that idea here, with very light dev. It would just require reskins and a new prize box (which they do all the time). This idea would also add more interest/things to do to some recycled events.

Thu, 05/21/2015 - 12:35

Fangel

Something like that

Mercenary stuff is, again, another suggestion entirely. Sounds complex, and doesn't need to be in this thread too much.

I didn't even think of the prize wheel. That would be a good way to have furniture given out!
However, I would say for drops, don't have them based on levels. You shouldn't have to farm FSC to get an almirian banner, and you shouldn't have to farm candlesticks for moorcroft items. In general, these items would drop like items (that is, rarely and from any prize box), but you know, the bigger the guild the more boxes are being opened!
You could also have some bound furniture (i.e., only giftable to your own guild's guildhall), given in missions. I would say have one item (be it special or not) for completing every hall of heroes.

I wouldn't say make them as common as orbs. I would say make them about as rare as it would be to find 3 orbs (i.e., 3 times rarer than an orb). This makes running clockworks be reasonable for finding furniture (but you don't have a choice on what it is), however it means that it will be much quicker to band together as a guild and pay the crown price for it. Guilds are meant for bonding, and secluding each guild member to their own runs makes the whole purpose of a guild crumble.

As I proposed before, having furniture become more common when you are in parties with guild members (increase chances for furniture by 0.033% per party member that is a guildmate) would encourage much more bonding as guildmates. I would say for every rank higher your guildmate is, you get an additional 0.001% chance at finding furniture. This encourages higher level guildmates to run with lower level ones, unfortunately at the risk of a player creating 3 alts and adding them to the guild to farm furniture... But that would give them at most a droprate that is 1.014% higher (three vanguards, one 2-1 knight... Can get up to 1.017% if a guild wants to run rescue camp missions over and over), so it shouldn't really be too big of an alt problem if the numbers are low.
The types of furniture you can find should be a mixture of released and new things. I would say make a few recolors and plop them into the clockworks (you can also make the "darkfang shield" of furniture be down there). The standard colors in the emporium can also be there. Certain promo items can also be found, such as snow blocks, almirian banners, moorcroft chairs and loveseats, etc. Don't have every promo's items be sitting out in the clockworks however, that's bad business practice.

One thing I want to get across is that a guild is a community. If guilds are not created for a specific reason, then it's not really a well-designed guild. Examples of well known guilds off the top of my heart with agendas include:

Lionheart (helping new players)
Jempire/Twenty One (Lockdown)
Echo of Silence (i.e., shenanigan simulator)
Shard Squad (community based around shard bombs, evolved into science)

What I'm getting at is that guilds need reason to do things. The boss statues are great as it shows what the guild has done... But it doesn't really make the guild continue to do things. Having furniture drop in the clockworks is a good path to take, especially if you have a rare and unseen item just waiting to be uncovered!

Fri, 05/22/2015 - 20:32

Moonlight-Traveler

Speaking of guild community....

I beleive we could also implement a sort of "banner" system to normal guilds and lockdown, with 2 or so banners that the guildmasters can customize at the gates into each guild's lockers. As with bombhead prizes, Taking a losing team's guild banner as a trophy would be nice for lockdown guilds to display their accomplishments. Of course, this would take a bit of dev time to create, but simply making a larger, retextured version of the guardian class banner alongside a menu to customize it could work.

Thu, 05/28/2015 - 08:43

#10

Cheshireccat

@Fangel - OH! Idea!

Just thought of a followup to the Prize Wheel idea.
NOTE: I still prefer expanded furniture via Birdsong OR specific furniture drops via specific levels OR as random box drops.

What if the prize wheel dropped a furniture box that has EVERY non-Birdsong piece of furniture ever produced? And.... it opens with a SILVER KEY.
I would rather have something that uses Cr; SK needs more infinite Cr sinks to reduce market hoarding. But OOO likes selling Silver Keys, right? :D

Thu, 05/28/2015 - 09:48

#11

Fangel

That's an idea

Again, it's sorta a bad idea to make promo items just kinda... Well, be available outside of a promo. However, it would be super cool if we had a monthly furniture lockbox as well, with old furnitures and new ones as well. Is that more dev time? Sure, but it'd be more available.

Certain things, such as snipes and bellhops, would be in the 1% for these boxes, opened with a silver key.
This also means that opening a box will increase lockbox chances for that month, so Three Rings is potentially gaining $5 from people who want to make a furniture box drop and open it.

I like the idea, but would prefer is the promos stay in the promos, and new furniture be released like the new accessories were released. You could even pull something like our current promo, and throw desirable rare/new items from the other monthly boxes into a paid one later on!

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Guild Hall Furniture: Expand Birdsong with existing furniture!!! [No dev time; Removes Cr from economy; newbie players]