Who wants to discuss breath 4 guild bonuses?

[Mallich]

[Sihoiba]

[Lijitsu]

It could work on a diametric opposition chart. Baraas wouldn't be upset if you chose to worship Alonai for example, but Tlacolotl and Marquai might not be so forgiving. Although the neutral Elder Powers are kinda hard to pin against the others, maybe give good and evil guilds slightly stronger pros but with some cons to match, based on who they're diametrically opposed to? Obviously Namm, Tholaghru and Hashaa - at least, in their n-only guilds, - wouldn't care, and they'd have the same 'small pros only' effects that normal guilds would.

[Teksura]

My concern with a giant matrix of which power likes who is that it'd be a clusterfuck to balance. We run into mechanical necessities where we end up needing to find a fixed number of powers who hate each power. This is very constraining with regards to the powers themselves, and makes their relationships towards each other feel forced. then we have to balance their disadvantages with each other, which gets troublesome since we're still trying to work out what advantages are given.
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[saulres]

Then be vague about it. There's no real need to specify which power doesn't like the other enough to penalize you.

Examples:

Join up with Marquai to get a discount on your crafting AP. Opposing Elders penalize you by reducing your carrying capacity.

Join up with Alonia to give you bonuses when you heal. Opposing Elders take those bonuses from your own life force, so it costs more to respawn.

Stuff like that.

[Teksura]

Ok, I get what you're saying now. So, if we make every guild grant a boon and a penalty, we can broaden the scope of what sort of boons we can give.


That's certainly a possibility.
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[Niphy]

I know that this last breath orthodoxy was just there for winner of breath elder power,why not make it that the one with highest orthodoxy in the guild gains some bonus power, since he would then be champion of the elder power he follows.

Also we should make level 1 of guilds available if you have high orthodoxy in guild so that you an reach it if you are in faction and that it isnt auto lvl 1 since you are a feral.
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My way or the highway(--)yea right

[Buttercup]

[MerlintheTuna]

This is a total thread necro, but I started to type this up in the Orthodoxy Scoreboard thread before realizing that that was a thread necro, and it seems silly to scrap the whole post.

Is the dev team generally satisfied with factions and guilds being cross-purpose with each other? To be clear, the current system is fine. I just think it's odd that factions can't explicitly dedicate to a power (since that's sort of the crux of the setting) and that members of ones that soft-dedicate (like Crypt Lords) are held in lower standing than feral characters. Or in other words, why give the Legions of the Abyss - who take any random Defiler or Pariah - access to top-tier Tlacolotl benefits, but not a faction that specifically decides "We're all about that Tlacolotl guy"? The opposite seems more intuitive; non-denominational factions (including but not limited to the Legions and Host) potentially get access to a variety of abilities based on individual members' faiths, but factions willing to become truly monotheistic cults get the best version of a single one.

Likewise, faction-level dedication would add an extra layer to politics, since you have an additional basis to decide wars & alliances beyond "Are you the same alignment as me?" and "Are you a gigantic tool?" Obviously YMMV on the value of demons allying or angels fighting amongst themselves, but it would certainly push the lore-significance of the Elder Powers closer to the forefront of gameplay.

And while Tek describes not wanting to build a permanent Elder Power political matrix (which I totally agree would feel forced), giving factions reason to dedicate opens the door for short-term political tinkering. Mini-events like "Hashaa feuding with Alonai, double orthodoxy for opposed conflict" would offer immediate faction-level ramifications that reflect the petty bickering we associate with Greek/Norse/etc. pantheons while also ending after as little as a week or three. That kind of conspicuous-hand-of-the-designer maneuver isn't necessary, of course, but it does offer an avenue to shake things up if the world starts looking a little stagnant.

[Kandarin]

Aligning guild and faction behavior more closely is a long term goal for the dev team. Guild aligned factions aren't on the table in 3.5, but the new guild rank mechanics give you rank bonus for being in a faction of the same alignment as your Elder Power. For instance, Hashaa cultists have to be transcends and be in an Unaligned faction for top ranks, although one can always get them by forsaking faction ties entirely.

Guild - related events and quests are an intriguing concept and may be doable with little or no admin or coder support under the right circumstances. There's been some thought as to what that would look like but it'll probably be after 3.5 has been going for awhile and people are running into the endgame that these get brought up.