Small vs. Large SG's

I was just thinking of the amount of prestige required to make a fully equiped base, and ultimately the larger the SG, the quicker the base can be built. It creates an unfair disadvantage to those who have a "personal" base.

An idea to help make it easier on those who wish to build their dream "batcave," is to have an option when setting up a SG to specify whether it is intended to have many or few members. There could be a limit set in the beginning, a "small" group could consist of up to 5 members, while a "large" group could be more than 5. I chose 5 as the limit just in case the player wishes to invite a few alts to the group.

The small groups would have base items and rooms available at a discounted cost, while the large groups are paying at standard prices. The first 15 members still give a prestige bonus, so a smaller group would start off slower, but will ultimately be able to catch up in the long run to a large group in terms of base building.

Implementation to current SG's could perhaps be solved by looking at current membership numbers in each group. The SG leader can select the option (when they are ready to decide), but their decision will be final and cannot be reversed. Large groups would have to remain that way, unless they kick members until they reach the limit of 5 for small groups. Groups that already have 5 members or less can choose either option, just in case they wish to expand membership.

I cannot foresee any exploits to this, except for corrupt SG leaders who intentionally kick members from the group simply to get discounted items. But that will just destroy that group's reputation in the end.

Forgive me if this has been suggested before, the idea just occurred to me and I felt it was too good to keep to myself. *grinning face* (first post on new forum, don't know how to throw in smiley faces)

I like the idea in theory but not entirely sure how this would work in practice with the number of alt toons people could have available.

Lets say you've got 3 friends who each want to bring in 5 characters into the SG, thats 15 toons in the SG but in my mind I would still consider that small because in actual fact there are only 3 active players.

Just my thoughts though

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger Quote: 16. Has Paragon Studios redefined "player" to require your mouse to subscribe separately from your keyboard? If your mouse has greater processing power than your gfx card, the answer is yes.

The limit could be subject to change at the discretion of the devs, but players would have to plan the SG accordingly. It would certainly be nice to invite all of my 20+ alts to the same group, but honestly I'd be more willing to create another or even a few more SG's to compensate. They could even be in coalition with each other.

Really? No other comments? I was kind of excited to hear the feedback.

I'll add something I forgot to say before which was about using global names.

Ive always thought that using global names in terms of SG membership would be far more efficient in terms of monitoring membership (espcially with the amount of alts people can roll now).

I think your idea would work really well if it limited the number of global names joining an SG instead of number of toons. As with my example, even if the 3 friends filled every single character slot on a server they could still get them in the SG (something like 96 toons) but would still be considered small as there are only 3 active players.

I think this would work with the larger SGs as, from my experience, the limit on the number of players in a SG is very difficult to manage in terms of juggling allowing new members in, allowing members alts in and kicking inactive members.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger Quote: 16. Has Paragon Studios redefined "player" to require your mouse to subscribe separately from your keyboard? If your mouse has greater processing power than your gfx card, the answer is yes.

Well, this would be nice to a point. However, i must add that once your base is running and you've banked a lot of prestige, you wouldn't need the discounts anymore and it'd be a little unfair, getting everything for half off.

Additionally, as someone who has a solo SG, i can tell you right now that having all that extra salvage and enhancement storage space all to myself is really kinda unbalanced. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad it's there, but I'm hoarding so much crap right now it's not even funny. If it had been cheaper, well, gee, i would never need to keep my lowbies in SG mode. The way I see it, having to pay for the entire base myself is a trade-off for getting to have 300 extra salvage slots and 200 extra enhancements at my disposal, as well as being able to trade those things between my alts, without worrying about someone else stealing my stuff.

Also, the fact that you get bonus prestge when a new member joins (up to 15) can already be seen as a "discount" for a low-membership SG.

Now if you really wanted to limit this to one CHARACTER, no alts no nothing... mmmaybe you should get a discount of some sort, but I think there'd need to be more storage restrictions or something. Just my 2 inf.

Related to the idea of the personal SG, it would definitely be nice if you could send a sginvite to a character that was not online and it could be accepted when they log in. This would not only make it much easier to add your alts to the SG but I would think it would be handy for regular super groups. Sometimes the agreement to add a character to the group is made on the group's web site, or in a chat channel when one or both of the people involved are not playing the appropriate characters at the moment.

i honestly see it as a coding nightmare. it really doesn't take that long to build up prestige. all you have to do to get started is have a couple people put alts in to get the bonus for 15 people and go for it. playing earns prestige and you don't have to shut off sg mode because you still earn infl/inf while in sg mode all the way to and including lv 50. if you are worried about the infl/inf part of sg mode, sell what you drop at the market instead of vendors.

Small vs. Large SG's?
First, we would have to set a limit of what constitutes each size.
Personally, I'd go with more than two sizes.
Small: 3-5 Accounts maximum. Total of 15 characters maximum.
Medium: 5-10 Accounts maximum. Total of 25 characters maximum.
Large: No limit.

Small SG's would recieve a 50% reduction in the cost of the first six rooms, 3 TP pads, and 4 storage items. No limit on how big the base can be, but full price is paid for all additional items.
Medium SG's would recieve a 25% reduction (instead of the 50%) in the items above.
Large SG's would recieve no Prestige cost benefit.

In order to upgrade from Small->Medium->Large, you would have to pay back the price difference you recieved earlier, thus paying the same Prestige, but defering the payments until the group is larger.

Honestly, it would just be simpler to bump up the Starting Prestige for the founding of the SG and the bonus for the first few members.

Edit: I think I'm being generous as to what constitutes the first few things to get a SG started. Redside, (yes, fewer zones), my VG feels completed outfitted at:
1 entrance room (free)
1 Power Room
2 Control rooms (1 just for an Ouro pad and maybe a storage rack)
1 workshop (6 storage tables, 1 Vault, 1 Salvage rack, 2 crafting tables)
2 TP rooms (4 porters for 8 zones, Mercy->GV, +Pocket D)
1 Medical room.
Everything else is just fluff, by our standards.