I wanted to touch on some of the things that clans should probably have in LE if/when they are added. Here a few idea’s.
Key Features
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Main Features (Invite, Kick, Promote)
- For obvious reasons
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A minimum of 10 unique ranks, defaulted at 3 ranks (leader, officer, member)
- *There are generally never enough ranks in many games to allow clan leaders to make complex systems. 3 default is a good start for initialization of clans but as they grow, they need more tanks. Recommended 10 cap is a good place. *
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Clan ranks should have customization. For example, allowing people to change the message of the day, promote people,
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A message of the day that can be used to display information.
- Generally speaking, these do not pop out enough. They are generally something that you have to open the clan GUI to see. Innovating a way to make this more noticeable (for example but making it a unique color in chat when logging in) would be great.
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Cosmetics (item shop and non-item shop)
- This feature is undoubtedly a lot of work but here is the larger scope of the idea. At some point when transmogs are more realistic for the game the creation of a clan based cosmetic system should be added to the game. The idea to give clan members a default clan skin that enables clan leaders to customize it in some way. An example would be that every clan gets this free xmog that they can then customize (color etc). In addition, clans should be able to buy clan-wide xmogs for a respective clan. These clan-wide xmogs should have a higher price tag, like $70-100. This would enable the clan to buy additional prebuilt xmog skins that are designed by the team and modified/customized by the leaders. This way the game can continue to make clan-wide additions to the game as a form of monetization for LE while benefiting the players with clan wide, clan specific skins. These skins should be a little more generic than individual skins. For example, armor with a cape as opposed to a skin that turns you into a turtle or butterfly with all the fabulous sparkles.
Reward Based Features
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All clan members should count as “friends” when generating gifting resources.
- I am unaware of the team’s feelings about how this would impact progression rates so i will make the suggestion and leave it for them to discuss. This being said, I strongly believe this would be an amazing feature even if it was at a reduced rate (say 50% slower generation). You could also opt for the idea of allowing the clan to pool that resource into a clan “currency bank” where the resource is accessed and used by any clan member. This way the entire clan contributes to the clan sharing loot.
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Group based Bonus’s for clan members per a clan member count in a group.
- For example, a clan group gets x % of bonus drop rate (of gold and/or items) per each member, or x % of bonus experience per each member. I’d advocate for both.
Amazing (Bonus) Features
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Voice
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- In game voice is a nice feature but more often that not people do not use it. I would recommend Against adding any such feature to the game. Discord serves this purpose. **
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API Access
- Api access for the creation of integration between the game and discord would be an amazing feature. Such an interaction exists in eve online. The api is able to pool user data in real time to check their clan, rank etc. Third party developers then make bots that control (add/remove/promote) access in discord according to their in-game ranks. This is also an area for the creation of other third-party tools. A soft reminder about security issues, in eve people use these permissions to abuse players by tacking their locations etc.
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Discord Intergration
- Being able to connect to discord from a click in the game). If there are specific challenges around this, like security or stability issues, the ability to copy/cut/paste should be added. In addition to this, if you could just click the discord link in chat.
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The ability to create class related builds that the clan can view.
- *Something in the clan-GUI that enables clans to make builds that players in the clan can see which includes their talent specs, all the gear affixes and so on. It should in effect be something like inspecting another player but designed internally in the game. This feature is an immense amount of work but would be a truly amazing thing. I would also add that allowing 4-5 builds for each class should be the default and then clans should be able to buy clan related expansions that enable more room. *
Extra-clan related discussion (mostly me rambling)
- Alliances ETC
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In many games (especially ones that do not support large populations) there are issues with clans finding enough people to do things with. Metrics tell us that about 28-32% of a clan’s population is generally active on a daily basis. This means that to generate a raid group of 20, the clan will need realistically around 70-80 members (60 with some extra breathing room for RL issues). In many games populations simply cannot support this. There are some solutions to this problem.
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One of those solutions, are entities that contain clans like clans contain members. This would require its own unique gui and its management tools (like the key features above (promote, kick, etc). These types of entities generally allow many smaller less populated groups to come together and progress while maintaining its unique identity.
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Its unclear now if the game will never need this but its a point worth mentioning
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Clan Governments.
- It would be interesting to see clans have features that are very rare in few games. For example, in eve online there is a “voting system”. Its hardly used now because it was originally tied to a share/dividend system that ultimately got converted into a scamming scheme; but this system was an amazing system in and of itself. I have postulated that entire new clan governments could be built upon this system. For example in traditional games a leader forms, promotes, and is the dictatorial power of a clan. Clans could be structured in a way where they in fact require clan-wide votes for things like war, taxes, policies etc. In eve, this voting system can even de-throne a clan leader.
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Clan ideologies/factions
- It may be possible to somehow create a system where clans can interact or utilize the faction system or some sort of ideological concept that impacts gameplay. Imagine of the clan system had a progression system like the factions in LE. What an interesting idea.
I would like to say that the factions, their design, presentation and over all concept is exceptional. The only thing I am (extremely) annoyed about with them is that “trading” is somehow worked into the system. I think presenting it like this is deceptive. When players join a game like LE They ask the question “is there an AH” and the answer is to point to this faction. This is fundamentally flawed in the sense that it excludes the rest of the population of the game from engaging in it, and that hurts both sides but most so the merchant side. I think this issue is mainly around the wording and not so much the idea. Finding a way to modify what its called or how its looked at may be a solution to this and ultimately will bring balance for the entire game and even beyond into clans.