Clan/Warehouse Management

[Gregory Rainsborough]

There is one thing in particular I've noticed in this game, or at least in GB and that is the propensity for players to opt to enter into small and medium sized clans. Now, their independence isn't the problem until you consider the long term and RvR implications of this trend and I believe it could be solved in a fairly simple way. 

So a bit of a history lesson from my experience and what it boils down to is a decision made early on in the game which is to either 'expand warehouse' or create a clan and get a clan warehouse.

When I first started the game I joined a clan and clan taxes were paid and we carebeared merrily at Belize. The problem of course was that they were a bunch of commies and wanted everyone to jointly build ships etc, and because of the system in place for warehouse management it meant that they were forced to deny my request to be promoted to officer so that I could use the clan warehouse. This of course led to a choice, stay in the clan and not use the warehouse and pay a ridiculous sum to expand the warehouse or create a clan and get the clan warehouse for a fraction of the cost. In addition to that it has all the search function etc...

Now the difference between myself and other new players to the game is this, I started playing from day one in a clan and they did not meaning that they just opt to create a one man clan and that's where many of them seem to stay.

This small problem creates several problems as far as I see it.

• Firstly, a skill deficit. Players who play in isolation of others are rarely good players; they cannot PvP competently meaning they cannot compete with players who can tap into the pool of experience you can find in larger clans. I would like to think that I'm somewhat competent in my favourite ship, the snow, whereas there are others in my clan who excel in 5th rates. We teach other and learn from each other which allows people to gain experience more quickly thus allowing them to create content (that dreaded word) for the whole community. 
• Secondly, a lack of co-ordination negatively impacting RvR. Players outside of large clans find it harder to get involved with RvR and particularly in GB where you can throw a stone and hey presto there's another different clan. This is due to the lack of communication methods built into the game. Clan chat, nation chat and global means that for port battles, the primary focus for discussion will be in clan chat as we're not idiots and know that alts and people with loose lips are on nation chat. If they're not able to talk to those who are organising it means that there is less chance of them attending port battles which obviously means less port battle players which means less content.
• Thirdly, the game incentivises disunity. The point of the game is to have fun, if someone wants to keep players long term in their clan, they expect to have access to the clan warehouse, on the other hand, those in charge don't want to micromanage their clan warehouse. Clan owners are here to have fun, not spend time micromanaging the contents of a clan warehouse. The problem is that everyone wants the benefit of a clan warehouse, but no-one can be arsed to take responsibility for managing it. It's easier to do that in a one man clan which then negatively

Potential solutions.

• Compartmentalised warehouse (similar to Star Trek Online) - Allow clans to create an 'extension' so that individual players may effectively create their own area in the warehouse that they can use, similar to the main function, the main compartment is then used for all interclan stuff. Hell, you could always let members "rent" slots in the clan warehouse.
• A log - Create a log so you can see who takes what out and who puts what in.
• A minimum in the clan bank - Allow the clan leader to set a minimum for the clan so that members can't take out money below that limit. Let's say I put 20 mill is the limit. No-one but I and taxman can make it go below that level.
• Allow clan leaders to give partial access to members to the warehouse without promoting them to officer.

 

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Gregory Rainsborough

[James Cornelius]

I support your suggestions. I've been in a leadership position in two clans that had some shady things happen with the warehouse, so it would be very beneficial to set more control over what can happen with it, and I have been offering suggestions since literally Day 1 to make the game more friendly to solo players or small clans.

 

Bravo on your well thought out analysis of this issue.

[Thonys]

i completely agree i couldn't have sad it better 

A big +

[Wojtek]

Logs should be available.
This will avoid situations when, for example, your former clan calls you a thief with no reason. 

[admin]

1. There will be a recruitment leaderboard for clans by mid april (based on 4 main activities, pvp, port battles, pve and crafting)
2. New players will be forced to join a fleet or organization to get post captain rank (hard requirement)
3. The list of clans to join or request to join will only be picked from the leaderboard
4. As long as a player passes a first leutenant exam (challenges) nation chat will be notified by @Clerk about it with player name 
5. as a result clans will be big and powerful

Regarding the log - there will be no log unfortunately for some time; IF they happen they will be very limited (for example show logs only for 1 day). Dont expect logs as new players who come into the game do not care about logs. Logs will not increase online.
 

[OneEyedSnake]

13 minutes ago, admin said:

Regarding the log - there will be no log unfortunately for some time; IF they happen they will be very limited (for example show logs only for 1 day). Dont expect logs as new players who come into the game do not care about logs. Logs will not increase online.
 

but logs allow us to monitor the warehouse and appropriately take actions. Our clan used to operate with all members as officers so they can use the warehouse. But when some shady stuff happened we had to restrict it to only the members we have known for 2 years or on a personal level. Which isnt fun for new players that have to wait for an officer to help them out. 

If we had the log then we could just take the position of the individual, not to mention that everyone would know their shady actions were being traced, so they probably wouldnt do it anyway. Thus easier use and beginning game for players in any clan, and thus more team play, thus more fun! 

A clan log is right now the most requested feature among clan leadership. 

I understand that the data adds up on your servers and slows things down, I am aware, I do program engineering programs that deal with massive, and i mean massive databases, that literally require a super computer to go through, where certain aero-stresses are constantly changing and we cant limit the number of data points because its literally life and death precision. But there is no reason to not limit the log to a certain number of transactions with a clan. You can make it show 100 transactions per clan AND wipe ever 3 days or so. That way the inactive clans wouldn't be a burden, and us clan leaders, diplomats, and officers, could properly LEAD and MANAGE the clan. 

[Thonys]

28 minutes ago, admin said:

1. There will be a recruitment leaderboard for clans by mid april (based on 4 main activities, pvp, port battles, pve and crafting)
2. New players will be forced to join a fleet or organization to get post captain rank (hard requirement)
3. The list of clans to join or request to join will only be picked from the leaderboard
4. As long as a player passes a first leutenant exam (challenges) nation chat will be notified by @Clerk about it with player name 
5. as a result clans will be big and powerful

Regarding the log - there will be no log unfortunately for some time; IF they happen they will be very limited (for example show logs only for 1 day). Dont expect logs as new players who come into the game do not care about logs. Logs will not increase online.
 

logs for one day is just perfect ,after maintenance it's a new log day 

well that's would work just fine for most of the clans for sure..

the awareness for young player to have a log file  is indeed not important , but,  it will after the clanwarehouse comes in the picture and they have more members.

i hope you will reconsider the build before beta  kicks in

that would be much appreciated ..

 

the point 1.2.3.4.5  are marbles to,   and much appreciated 

Edited March 19, 2018 by Thonys

[Christendom]

24 minutes ago, admin said:

1. There will be a recruitment leaderboard for clans by mid april (based on 4 main activities, pvp, port battles, pve and crafting)
2. New players will be forced to join a fleet or organization to get post captain rank (hard requirement)
3. The list of clans to join or request to join will only be picked from the leaderboard
4. As long as a player passes a first leutenant exam (challenges) nation chat will be notified by @Clerk about it with player name 
5. as a result clans will be big and powerful

Regarding the log - there will be no log unfortunately for some time; IF they happen they will be very limited (for example show logs only for 1 day). Dont expect logs as new players who come into the game do not care about logs. Logs will not increase online.
 

Correct me if wrong, but I don't think I've seen this elsewhere on the boards.  Maybe a change like this deserves it's own post/discussion?

Edited March 19, 2018 by ChristenTrash

[Capt Jubal Early]

8 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

1. Seems not needed. By a definition, you need to be a member of the clan to participate in RvR. No need for other fake forcing people into clans. I make always make a one person clan or join a clan, become RA and then leave a clan. Seems like an unneeded obstacle.

2. Big clans have hard time functioning. One thing is getting robbed by officer, other thing is trying to figure out if any of officers stole something from warehouse (e.g. you have 10-20 officers in 100-200 members clan) and you start to question all of them or demote and lose your trust. Other thing is when you run some sorts of forum, discords etc. you have 50-200 members clan and someone leaves clan without notice. Without logs, you have to run through entire list of members to figure out who left and revoke his permissions. Third thing, clan economy is a third leg in NA. You can't tell which members contribute to the clan warehouse and which don't, trying to just request free stuff. This really makes it so only small clans with people you know personally very well work. This totally ruins the purpose of having a big clan. Big clans are always a great chance for new players to have a good start, too bad it's rotten.

Look into discord bots  You can create a log reporting text channel only mods can see. That way if some hello kittyer robs you and disappears you'll know. But seriously tho agree with everything about this.

The game relies on a community and currently there are key players in every nation that are basically doing a second job to maintain the logistics of a clan when it could all be automated by logging, something which if you do in your day job every day you know doesn't take much time to automate.

[blademage]

Thanks for the update @admin

In addition to pressing players into clans, they may not like, I'd suggest a "simple" rework on the warehouse mechanics.

1.) Either allow more warehouses in different harbours (e.g. a crafting Warehouse, a Gun-Depot, an Academy for Books, and a Trade-Depot) or

2.) implement different ranks within the clan and set vault permissions (e.g. crafters, traders, cannoneers, suppliers,... that may or may not put/take things into/from different tabs)

Ranks could be: Seaman, Flag Officer, Diplomat, Supply Officer (f. crafting, for trading, for guns, for supplies like reps and rum), Admiral

3.) and increase storage "capacity" (available slots).

[Capt Jubal Early]

1 hour ago, Banished Privateer said:

We have discord bots, but that doesn't affect in-game actions. How do you know who left clan if he is still on discord? etc.

Well every time someone's left KOTO they leave the discord. That's normally when I notice someone's gone because the log tells me they left the server.
Pretty simple to deduce who's taken what if they suddenly upped sticks and left discord  But yeah game needs logs badly. Communities die because key players get burnt out from logistics and handing out clan resources every 20mins.  

[GrubbyZebra]

20 hours ago, admin said:

1. There will be a recruitment leaderboard for clans by mid april (based on 4 main activities, pvp, port battles, pve and crafting)

Yay!

20 hours ago, admin said:

1. New players will be forced to join a fleet or organization to get post captain rank (hard requirement)

Explain "fleet or organization". Do you mean clan? Or do you mean just participate in battle groups?

20 hours ago, admin said:

1. The list of clans to join or request to join will only be picked from the leaderboard

Not good for smaller clans. (Unless I am missing something that is not explained here)

20 hours ago, admin said:

1. As long as a player passes a first leutenant exam (challenges) nation chat will be notified by @Clerk about it with player name 

Yay!

20 hours ago, admin said:

1. as a result clans will be big and powerful

Not all clans want to be big and powerful, some just want to excel at a niche they carve out for themselves, and want to recruit like-minded players.

20 hours ago, admin said:

Regarding the log - there will be no log unfortunately for some time; IF they happen they will be very limited (for example show logs only for 1 day). Dont expect logs as new players who come into the game do not care about logs. Logs will not increase online.
 

Logs are so easy to implement on the backend though, and a static, daily log would also be fairly easy to implement in the UI as well. What do you use for your db language? I'm sure there is a player (I know I am one), who would be happy to contribute this function to your code base. All one would need is knowledge of the database structure (wouldn't even need to access to the data itself) and, of course, how it is connected to the game code. This is a really cheap feature that would give a rather large ROI.

[Capt Jubal Early]

6 hours ago, Banished Privateer said:

OK, what happens when they don't leave discord? 

SPIES EVERYWHERE.

 

[Capt Jubal Early]

Just now, Banished Privateer said:

Spies usually do not leave clans they plan to spy on

Shame RVR isn't on the scale it used to be because spies were great fun back then.

[Capt Jubal Early]

Exactly there useless now  

[Capt Jubal Early]

Just now, Banished Privateer said:

and it's good. Spies just ruin the game, I never liked the spy aspects of the game.

Ah come on it was fun trying to root out the spies  

[Farrago]

On 3/19/2018 at 4:07 PM, admin said:

1. There will be a recruitment leaderboard for clans by mid april (based on 4 main activities, pvp, port battles, pve and crafting)
2. New players will be forced to join a fleet or organization to get post captain rank (hard requirement)
3. The list of clans to join or request to join will only be picked from the leaderboard
4. As long as a player passes a first leutenant exam (challenges) nation chat will be notified by @Clerk about it with player name 
5. as a result clans will be big and powerful

Regarding the log - there will be no log unfortunately for some time; IF they happen they will be very limited (for example show logs only for 1 day). Dont expect logs as new players who come into the game do not care about logs. Logs will not increase online.
 

Seems like an awful lot of effort to develop an area that is not a problem. Currently it is not a big issue for a new player to find clans or for clans to discover new players.

What is a problem is the lack of clan management tools. I would suggest that warehouse logging should be given very high priority even if some other server task had to take a backseat. Without some warehouse security while still maintaining its accessibility it doesn’t matter how clans meet their new players nor what tests the new players have passed.