User blog:An Adventurer/Society Improvements

The Societies of Dereth have been in the game for over a year now and have seen very few improvements. We've got a few updates to the PK forts, a mini-game for masters, and a few other minor changes, but overall the society content is the same as it was in August 2008. Here are a few changes and additions I'd like to see.

Tasks & Gaining Rank
One of the big issues with societies is that it takes a long time to gain rank. Which wouldn't be a terrible thing - it is elder content after all - except for the fact that you are running the same handful of simple tasks every week.

One thing that I think would help is the option to complete other tasks. Even if they are just more simple tasks, the option to mix it up every week would make the grind a little less boring. Ideally, the alternative tasks would be of about the same difficulty. As an alternative to killing Vaeshok, there could be a special boss undead in the graveyard. Instead of giving a poisoned fin to The Deep, you could give some kind of magical tracking device to the Jester. It would be a simple either or thing, like the two starting NPCs for the Disturbance in the Ley Lines quest. One you have interacted with the NPC for the Vaeshok quest, you could not interact with the NPC for the GY undead boss quest.

another issue is that all quests of the same rank are worth the same ribbons and coins. This leads to people only running the fastest and easiest quests to gain rank. But perhaps people would run the more difficult and/or time consuming tasks if they had better rewards. What if Defeating Bandit Mana Hunter Boss earned you 40 ribbons instead of the standar 20 for Knight tasks, or earned you 6 coins instead of 4? This variety in rewards could make the less run tasks more appealing.

Another possibility is one I first proposed on this thread. I wrote:

What I would like to see are new quests that can be run instead of the current tasks. For example, there could be a quest for initiates that is as rewarding as all 5 initiate level quests combined (20 tokens, 50 ribbons), that has the same timer (6 days) but once you are flagged for it you cannot complete the standard quests until the timers have expired. This single quest could be more difficult, and maybe require a group, but it would mean less time grinding boring tasks alone. Initiate quest could be in GY. Adept quest on DI. Knight on FB. Lord on MC. Example Adept Quest Celestial Hand quest starts in Stronghold with the NPC Oniji Ryu. Speaking with Oniji Ryu if you are currently flagged as being on or completed any of the adept tasks: Oniji Ryu tells you, "Sorry, looks like you've already done one of the tasks for our adepts. Come back to me in a week's time from when you have completed it and we'll discuss my mission." Speaking with any of the adept level NPCs if you are currently flagged as being on or completed the Adept Quest: Hidoshi Kawara tells you, "I see you have already spoken with Oniji Ryu. Come back to me in a week's time from when you have completed his mission." Speaking with Oniji Ryu if you are eligible for his quest: Oniji Ryu tells you, "Greetings, I'm glad you've decided to help me. There is an urgent matter on the Dark Isle I need you to attend to." Oniji Ryu tells you, "T'thuun's servants are still attempting to find a way to summon their master. I have learned that there is a new complex below the magma tunnels where the Sclavi are gathering their Radiant Mana Infusion." Oniji Ryu tells you, "It seems they are trying to disrupt the very flow of the ley line beneath the Dark Isle in an effort to free T'thuun. They must not be allowed to do this. The ramifications of tampering with the ley lines..." Oniji Ryu tells you, "... But we must be hopeful. Go now and find a way to stop them!" You will then head out to the Sclavus Tunnels from the Radiant Mana Infusion Quest. At the very bottom will be a new dungeon. Inside you will be required to find keys, pull levers, complete jumping tasks, or any other sort of dungeon puzzle to reach the end. You must defeat the Sclavus leader and bring his head back to Oniji Ryu. Returning the sclavus head to Oniji Ryu: You give Oniji Ryu Severed Head of the Dark Isle Sclavus Priest. Oniji Ryu tells you, "Well done. You have done a great service to the Celestial Hand, and to all of Dereth. Allow me to reward you." Oniji Ryu gives you 75 Celestial Hand Commendation Ribbons. Oniji Ryu gives you 20 Celestial Hand Trade Tokens. Oniji Ryu tells you, "Without their leader, the Sclavi will be thrown into confusion. But their Falatacot masters will appoint a new leader soon." Oniji Ryu tells you, "Return to me in one week if you wish to help me again."

There is good news on this front, as NoWorries hinted here that it may soon take less time to reach the top ranks.

Locking Society Loyalty
This may be controversial, but I think it is necessary, especially for Darktide. Let me elaborate.

From what I have read on the official forums, most of DT has switched to a single society, causing fort battles to be less competitive and less interesting. The problem arose because one group of people were always winning the battles, and rather than muster their forces and plan better, the opposition jumped sides.

The first thing I suggest is to lock in society loyalty after a certain rank. I think Knight (rank 3) would be best, because at that rank you gain access to the first Society-only island, and the 2nd fort to battle over. Turbine would give ample warning, in patch notes, the forums, the launcher, and an in-game message, that ranks 3+ would lock your loyalty and if you wished to change sides you should do so before the next patch.

Next, I would suggest having different rewards at the Freebooter Black Market. Perhaps only have the MFK reward available there. Something to make the FB fort battle more appealing than Northwatch. This way, if people on DT wanted to constantly switch sides to whoever is winning, they can only gain access to Northwatch, and not the superior rewards of FB.

Last, I'd suggest more improvements to the ranks of Knight, Lord, and Master outside of fort battles, to make gaining rank and thus locking in your loyalty more desirable.

Improving Society Armor
One reason to gain rank is so you can wear a full suit of Society armor. The problem, however, is that the society armor set bonus sucks. If you have a full 9 piece suit on, you get +10 to all your attributes. It sounds alright, but all the other sets give you bonuses in specific areas (you attack skills, your primary attributes, etc), so this tiny attribute bonus is pretty useless. Combine this with the fact that you can constantly hunt DI and other location for chances at set pieces, where with society armor you only get 1 pull per day, and add to that the fact that society armor can only be wielded by members of a certain society and rank. It means society armor is not only harder to acquire, but harder to trade, since only a fraction of the 180+ population can even wield it.

First lets look at the society armor set bonus. Here are some suggestions to improve it:

• Increase the attribute bonus. At 9 pieces you get +10. It could be a lot higher, possibly +20 or +30, and still be balanced with other sets.
• Add new bonuses. Given that the set is called Dedication, and it is tied to your rank in a society, Loyalty and Leadership bonuses would be appropriate.
• Another possibility for a bonus is a bonus to experience. With the 10th anniversary, we gained bonus to exp spells, so it would not be hard to grant this bonus to society armor. That way, the bonus to your skills may be worse than standard loot sets, but you'll be able to level faster.

Another improvement to society armor I have been requesting is the ability for more pieces to appear in the chest, while only allowing us to choose one. Currently, the chest will always only contain 1 piece of armor of the given type. If its pure crap, all you can do is loot it and turn it in for the 5 coins - basically, a loss of 20 coins. What I would like to see is for the chests to spawn 2 or 3 pieces of armor of the given type, but only allow us to pick up one - similar to the Sawato Bandit Quest where there are 3 reward breastplates, but only one can be picked up per run. Since it is much harder to trade for society armor than it is for regular loot sets, increasing our odds of finding a useful piece seems pretty reasonable.

Lastly, as a personal request, I'd like to see a covenant armor version of society armor. It can have different art, maybe just be cov that always comes in 1 color. As someone with a no-magic character, the only option at high ends of play is to find decent pieces of cov and olthoi armor. Society armor is completely useless to me, since its just like all other standard armor types.

Improving Society Strongholds
Since the 100th update, the only additions to the strongholds have been the tower defense mini-game, the master only transport statues, and 1 or 2 misc quest NPCs. And these have all been universal improvements that all societies on all servers gained. I would love to see customization of the strongholds, that is the result of members of each society striving to improve their headquarters.

Something like this is certainly possible. As we have seen before, servers can have slight divergence based on what they or turbine chooses to activate. The memorial statue at Ithaenc is on all servers, but it is only activated on TD. The crystals of life protection have spawn generators in both the WB and RM strongholds at every server, but the developers only activated them at one stronghold based on who won the live event. And the servers certainly progressed differently on the various collection/construction quests - building Asheron's Tower Golem, opening up Aerbax's Citadel, and activating the Ley Line Nodes.

Given all this, it's certainly possible for turbine to add in ways for societies to choose to improve their strongholds. Here are just a few ideas:

• Portal Hub. Allow society members to open up new wings of the stronghold and activate various portals within.
  • Dark Isle Portal - Drops you at the standard drop point (platform right by the LS). To activate, 1000 dark isle trophies must be turned in to a specific NPC.
  • Vissidal Portal - Drops you at the location of the viss portal gem. To Activate, 500 vissidal Gold trophies must be turned in to a specific NPC.
  • Town portals - a select number of town portals can be activated. If possible, allow for something like a choice of 20 towns, but only 10 portals can be active at once - the numbers could be lower or higher, but the idea is that each society and each server could vary. Town portals are activated by turning in a certain amount of MMDs to specific NPCs.

• Buffing Crystals. We have similar crystals in the WB/RM strongholds and at the PK forts after they have been captured. I'm not suggesting that they have to add a crstyal that casts all the level 8 life spells, but they could do specific buffs. Say, 1 crystal for each main combat skill that will cast the level 8 mastery (or possibly level 9). Crystals are activated by turning in a certain amount of salvage. Crystal cost could be based on the credit cost of the skill, so that less used skills like spear could be activated more easily.

• New NPCs. Players could hire better shopkeepers with more selection or better prices, or new NPCs that give out whole new quests. These NPCs could be restricted to only members of certain rank, giving another reason to gain more rank in your society.