Note: I posted this here when I meant to do it on @herons-unlimited. That's the context most of this is written in - a guild for those accounts specifically.
So we've seen a bit of a testnet preview of the new guild system, and as promised it's a significant DEC sink. However, there are some benefits to what we're seeing so far, and the implication that there might be more in the future.
Benefits of guilds
Right now there are two benefits: a bonus to DEC earnings and a discount on DEC purchases in the shop. Both of these are significant.
Aggroed confirmed yesterday that the DEC bonus is not newly-generated DEC, it just adds more weight to your share of the existing rewards pool. So we shouldn't expect to see a 20% DEC bump over what we're earning now, and if we choose not to form a guild we might see our earnings decrease as other players get their bonuses.
The shop discount is really only meaningful at high levels currently; once the Quest Lodge is at Level 9 buying potions would become profitable.
In addition there's the implication that there will be more guild buildings in the future, and investing in a guild now would put us in a good position whenever that's released.
Risks of guilds
They're expensive. A max level guild hall will cost 2.71 million DEC, which is a whole lot. Also with the guild member cap at 30, and 18 Heron accounts already running, we're inevitably going to need more than one. While they're probably profitable in the long term that could be a very long term.
While making potions profitable would be great, they'd also be a significant recurring expense that had to be covered somehow.
From looking at this I currently see four options, and while I won't commit to any of them until guilds are actually released, I'd like input from our members and prospective members, either here or on Discord.
Option 1: tax to build
I would implement a 10% tax on all DEC earned by our accounts, which would be used purely to upgrade the Herons guild(s), and eventually buy potions for the accounts. Once accounts are at their intended level I expect 30 accounts to bring in something like 20,000 DEC per week by this method, which would be a long time to get a guild to a high enough level to be meaningful.
Option 2: build to tax
Like Option 1, this features a 10% tax on all DEC earned, but in this case we would spend the capital up front and the tax would come to the investors in return. I'd put out a call for DEC and anyone who sent some in would get a pro-rated share of the tax in return. I'd expect to put in a significant amount, and probably Neal would put in a significant amount, but neither of us is in a position to cover 2.7 million ourselves right now, so we'd need some help. In this case I'd expect to be at least to level 7 immediately, and we should be able to build up the Quest Hall quickly, so within a month or so we'd see an increase in DEC that should be expected to cover most of the tax.
Once we got to a high enough level some chunk of the tax would have to be dedicated to buy potions as well, or else an additional one on top of the one that pays off the investment.
We could repeat this if and when a second guild becomes necessary.
Option 3: allow the players to join other guilds
In this option, Herons doesn't build a guild at all, but players can choose to join other people's guilds if they want to, and I build an automated system which allows them to send DEC to the accounts and have that DEC automatically contributed to the guild. Programming that wouldn't be particularly hard. This would allow the players and owners of individual accounts to get guild benefits without the whole system having to spend anything.
Option 4: just ignore guilds
Here we do nothing, spend no money, and get no benefits. This strikes me as seriously worth considering - the profits from having a non-max guild are currently pretty small, and if it's going to be a year or more to see return on investment I'm not convinced it's worthwhile. We'd see a slight reduction in DEC earned in play as other players built their guilds.
Please share your thoughts
Personally, I was leaning toward one of the first two options when I started this post, but as I've written it out I think the latter two might very well be better. I certainly would expect to make more out of my DEC through Ottermaker than through investing it in guilds, though of course others don't have that opportunity.
Maybe some of our owners would see Option 2 as a good investment, because they'd make both from the tax and from the increased earnings? If you're willing to sink some DEC into that I'd love to have a preliminary estimate of how much.
The project you’re running is really interesting @mattclarke explained how the Dark Energy Crystals are divided up and the ease of which people can opt in or out of the program.
What about user choice? If user wants the account to be part of a guild, they pay the 10% tax, if not they don't. It might be worth it if the 10% tax can be offset by guild bonus.
Option 1 & 2 both look to have some potential. I'm not sure I like the idea of doing a majority of borrowed funding, as it may negate the value in doing so needing to give decent ROI to attract the DEC.
What are your thoughts on combining Option 1 with an initial deposit from the owner of the delegated cards to have their deck in the guild? I think an amount around 15-20k DEC to reserve a spot in the guild and an agreement to give a percentage (5-10%?) of daily earned DEC, with a cap to make it fair for those who have higher level decks?
Either way I'm interested in being involved in a Heron guild 👍
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I suppose we could offer card owners the option to buy an account into the guild or not. That might give us longer before worrying about a second one, as the smaller accounts might not buy in.
I think the addition of Guilds can expand the experience and add more engagement in the long term so I think options 1 & 2 would be worth it for the hardcore players. While still short on the details, I wouldn’t mind investing some DEC in becoming a part of one.
Posted using Partiko iOS
I haven't added any accounts yet but have been considering it. From you explanation, if I did so, I would much prefer options 3 or 4.
it sounds like a long time before benefits would be seen and as things keep changing it might be that that DEC would be better spent elsewhere in the furture.
Oops, this was supposed to be on @herons-unlimited, lol. That's the audience I'm talking to here.
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I really don't know. It is an interesting idea. Herons unlimited is already free to use. High risk, high reward. I don't know
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I'm leaning towards Option 2. We know the benefits will be there to repay the initial investment and the quests will be knocked out pretty quickly.
I hope to be completely off hand in managing the accounts or the players, so it would make perfect sense for my herons accounts to stay in the same guild and herons-unlimited to manage them. So option 1 or 2 for me.