REGION: NA

Suggestion: Guild Tagging/Focus System

Details:

Once upon a time, we had been teased the concept of "Tagging" your guild to better align it with the content your community focused on. Since then, we haven't heard much about it. I wanted to pitch my idea on how this idea could move forward in a way that isn't too prohibitive and still encourages guilds to pursue whatever content they're interested in.

The Idea

Guild Skills were recently condensed down to take up less real estate and fewer points. While general Guild Skills should be accessible to all as a basic functionality of a [[Guild]], I think this would be a good chance to build upon the concept of "Tagging" your guild with an area of interest.

Add a series of Guild Skill Trees to the guild window, each specializing in and unlocking Guild scale content. The category of content will henceforth be referred to as Focus Content. Participating in Focus Content will generate points that can be used for special guild buffs, items, or even cosmetics (Titles, Guild Themed Costumes, etc.).

Guilds may take as many Focus Categories as they have points (and players) for. 

Each Focus Content category will also have a monthly ranking for the top guilds of each Size(Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large), which will award guilds with additional incentives for being the best performers of their Category for their Size. Rewards for ranking high enough could be personal rewards for every Guild Member, as well as Guild-Wide rewards such as funds and special buffs.

War (PvP)

Points are generated by the following activities:

Node/Conquest Wars - Remain As-is

Potentially require this skill to participate in Node/Conquest Wars. This will deal with "Snipe" Guilds, but may not be popular.

Participating in Node Wars gains points for your Focus Category. Winning gains more. Higher Tiers, more points.

Declarations of War - Updated

The War Dec system will remain as-is for all guilds: requiring mutual agreement of a declaration for it to go through. **However**, Guilds who have taken the first level of the War Focus Tree have this replaced:

- You may declare War on any Guild which shares your home channels, and also has taken the War Focus.
- Declaring War goes for a set amount of time (24 hours?).
- During this time, members of each guild may freely attack each other outside of safe-zones.
- Slaying enemy players awards points toward the "War Score".
   - You get diminishing points for killing players with a lower Account-Wide Gearscore than you, down to 0 points for a large enough gap.
- Falling to enemy players could also diminish your Guild's score, but this may put too much pressure on Guild Members and breed resentment - I don't recommend it.
- Higher score at the end of the War's progress wins.
   - Score at the end of the war is then "cashed out" for both Guilds to then spend on their Focus Category's rewards with a bonus to the winning Guild.
- Incentives for being at war could be a drop rate buff (10%-20%) which bypasses caps while your guild has any wars ongoing, so long as you remain on your home channels.

Arsha Channels (Potentially RBF, too) - Mostly Remains As-Is

Generate points for your Guild's Focus Category for each player slain on Arsha servers or in Red Battlefield. Similar diminished scoring rules related to Account Gear to discourage hunting weaker or newer players.

I generally believe that the War Focus should have the biggest "in-the-moment" payouts(points, silver, etc) as the time investment tends to be higher. Other categories would have more consistent payouts over time as they tend to be content that can more easily be done all the time or casually.

Hunting (PvE)

Points are generated by the following activities:

Monster Hunting (Grinding) - As-Is

Each unit of Trash Loot picked up generates a certain (small) number of Focus Category points (based on trash loot value?).

Bosses: Black Shrine Party+Solo / Edania / Guild Bosses - Small Update

Participating in Co-Op Black Shrine with Guild Members awards a flat number of points. For all other "Boss" content, points are awarded on Weekly Boss Completion with a Bonus paid out for higher ranked Completion Times.

This would mean adding time tracking to Edania bosses, Guild Bosses, or any other future Boss content.

Atoraxxion - As-Is

Similarly to Boss Content, point payout for completing Atoraxxion dungeons with Guild Members.
Add time tracking to total dungeon runs.
May need to adjust dungeon boss HP to be more challenging, but there isn't a ton of need to ruin the "flow" that dungeon runners have already established.
However - as opposed to Boss content - dungeons still award points on repeat completions.

The Hunting Category is likely the most consistent way to gain points. Point costs for this Category's should be higher than other categories, or the gains should be clamped down to limit this Category by and away being the most rewarding overall.

Life (Lifeskills)

Points are generated by the following activities:

All Lifeskills excluding Fishing and Bartering - As-Is

Two options:

- Every turn-in of a given Lifeskill's "byproduct" item could award points. Some measure should be in place to prevent players who have stockpiled these items ahead of time from having an edge.

- Every "completion" of a Lifeskill's activity could award points. Every completed gather, finished cooking/alchemy cycle, etc.

Imperial Deliveries - As-Is

Points awarded on Delivery.

Guild Work Contracts - New

After taking the Life Focus Category, your Guild will be offered a selection of multi-stage Contracts by a given Region. Each stage will involve multiple Lifeskills to craft a set of goods, materials, or components. The culmination of the Contract will land on completing an ultimate task:

Resource Extraction:
- Your guild is producing a machine to extract Black Stones from a rich vein located in the contracting Region. You must build the mechanical components, produce the fuel, locate the vein, and ensure the extraction goes smoothly. (Guild Drills revived and expanded).
   - Make use of the Guild Crafting system to craft components and fuel, as before.
   - Once the drill is ready, you must find the location using hints provided by the Contract.
   - Do a number of small mini-games similar to the Green Thumb or Guild Galley to keep the Drill operating smoothly.
   - Points awarded on completion, bonus for "Operational Reliability": Number of mini-games completed successfully.

Trade Convoy:
- Your guild has been contracted for the procurement and transport of a particularly large charter of trade goods to be delivered from one location to another (Town to Town, or Region to Region). Some goods can be crafted using workshops, others may be bartered for from Trade Managers.
   - Make use of Workshop Crafting and Trade managers to procure the listed goods.
   - Once all goods have been procured, the Contracting Region will provide a set of wagons to transport the goods to their destination.
   - Along the way you may be attacked by Bandits(NPCs) - fend them off to prevent the goods from being damaged.
   - Points awarded on delivery, bonus for "Quality of Goods": Accumulated damage from environmental hazards and bandit attacks.
Royal Gala:
- Your guild has been contracted to provide the feast for a National Celebration. Use cooking and alchemy to provide the requested menu items (unique crafts). The goods in question will be produced as higher quality with the use of better (high-quality, special) ingredients.
   - Make use of Cooking and Alchemy to produce a series of unique, signature dishes and concoctions at the request of a high ranking Official.
   - Attend the event and make sure the items get to where they need to go: Once in town, the event will start. As it proceeds, different areas will request a resupply of the items -- work with your guild to deliver goods to different parts of town.
   - Points awarded on event completion, bonus for "Speedy Delivery": Amount of time patrons are kept waiting for a restock.

Great Hunt:
- Your guild has been contracted for the hunt of a legendary beast. It terrorizes the Region, and is host to many rare materials: rid the region of it to secure the safety of their citizens, and they may be willing to pay a hefty sum for any spare materials you'd part with.
   - Use the contract to determine what bait would work best to lure the Beast out and gather enough of it for your purposes.
   - Track down the Beast's territory and goad it into the open.
   - Make use of hunting matchlocks and horses to slay it or repel it.
   - Slaying it will allow all guild members to gather from it, providing a number of high quality materials which can be sold to the Contracting Region for additional points alongside typical Hunting rewards.
   - Points awarded on Repel or Slay, bonus for "Special Materials": Sell the unique materials back to the kingdom for additional rewards.

Lifeskilling is one of the categories of content that lacks aspirational or group activities. In this, it can be difficult to feel as if you're contributing to a community if lifeskilling is your favorite thing to do.

Sea (Ocean Content)

Points are generated by the following activities:

Bartering - As-Is

Every successful barter awards points. Higher value barters award more points. Special Barters not included.

Blue Battlefield - As-Is

Very similar criteria as node wars: Participation awards points. Winning awards more. Higher tier, more points.

Sea Monster Hunting - As-Is

Points awarded for every monster slain. Bonus points awarded for the value of looted items: Yellow-Grade items are now jackpot items?

Fishing - Small Update

Points awarded for every fish caught. Bonus points awarded for the grade of fish.
Daily Fishing Contests run alongside the normal Fishing Contests:
- Find the special fishing hotspot and compete with other guilds to catch as many fish as you can before the time runs out. Points awarded for every fish caught, bonuses for having the highest average fish caught of other guilds.

Sea content is the category of content I have the least personal experience with. I unfortunately do not have a ton of input on how to improve or encourage it otherwise. Please share if you think there's something along the lines of this post that would help.

Thanks for reading! Please expand on the idea, give feedback, or otherwise poke holes in it - I tried to actively not worry about how to balance things as I was mostly just concerned about coming up with more ways to let guilds do guild things.