As it always has been this really is a matter of the game designers deciding what they want klan raiding to be. Is klan raiding meant to be the premium method for scoop earning or is it simply an alternate means of gaining scoops like gambling, participating in Forumbuildr, pistachio looping?

If it is intended to be a bonus method of earning scoops it is very reasonable to expect there to be a cap on what can be earned. Many players don’t bother gambling for scoops because they feel that the number of scoops earned is not worth the time/flezz investment. The same can be said for looping pistachio or playing Forumbuildr or INCIT. Perhaps raiding should have a similar feel provoking the “I’m only going to get x scoops for this? Well then I’m not interested.” that every other scoop earning method brings out in some players.

Honestly, I dislike the current situation as it makes raiding a pointless activity for a good player. I know some solo players are gleeful about that, and god knows they deserve a little glee, but I think raiding should be a cool option that players can choose should they wish to. It should offer a decent benefit, but should not offer a benefit so overwhelming that every other scoop earning method is pointless.

Log in to see images!

What I would recommend.

– Keep the 13 per raid cap with only those joined having an impact on the forums held count. There simply needs to be a hard cap on the number of raid scoops that can be earned. If there isn’t it creates the situation where no other scoop earning method matters.

– Keep it so that disabled characters cannot impact the forums. People shouldn’t be able to get around the limits by flinging on visits from characters not joined to a raid. On the flip side, characters that aren’t participating in Dom shouldn’t be able to interrupt raiding either. The limit forces choices and sacrifice and strategy. Those are all awesome things from a gaming perspective.

– Get rid of the 15 minute join window. I’ve raided in pretty much every klan that has raided. The main reason people who are interested don’t raid is because of schedule conflicts. After work traffic or whatever should not mean the player can’t join. That whole idea is just silly and I don’t see the point in it.

– Allow alts to join without earning raid scoops. First alt to join earns klan vanilla scoops, any others do not. Yes, this means that people can feed a main, but when those characters sacrifice vanilla and most times pistachio, they are making a choice that those characters, one of their chosen 5, aren’t going to be medaling. If they don’t medal competitively they will not be in the upper brackets to help support klannies with crowd control – it is a fair trade off.

– Allow klan raiders to earn full value solo vanilla within a raid. This would help eliminate the idea that only those with alts can contribute effectively. It could mean that as few as 4 players without alts working together could benefit from a raid, while a full 13 would see a very decent return on their time investment. It would also bring some skill and decision making to the whole situation rather than having a “feed Denture chat” mentality that makes raiding monotonous.

– Change the join raid to 2 times per week with no time restriction on when a character can join. Have the counter set during the Domination downtime each Wednesday, so people can’t work the system and sneak an extra raid in.

What this would break down to scoop potential wise per week:

Log in to see images! Antifreeze – 80 scoops (max if one doesn’t gamble for scoops on the first Wednesday before the new round starts)

Log in to see images! Lemon – 120 (max if week is started with 12 visits saved and perfect speed times are achieved)

Log in to see images! Pistachio – 290 (max if week is started with 12 visits and week ends on the 80th forum – this is for the majority of players right now. A very few permanoobs, re-res and Emos could potentially have 2 additional scoops, but it’s not really worth worrying about.)

Log in to see images! Chocolate – basically unlimited, but realistically limited to less than 100 for all but the most serious Forumbuildr players.

Log in to see images! Solo vanilla – 224 (I’m not going to count what can happen if you do the at rollover thing, it just doesn’t happen often enough to be considered)

Log in to see images! Klan vanilla – 290 (13 raiders with 12 visits, less the 11 needed before earning a scoop – 145 per raid.)

Log in to see images!

Yes, the above implies perfect earning which seldom happens. So? That less than perfect cirgreat timesstance impacts everyone, not just raiders and not just solo players. The only 100% scoop guarantees at this point are antifreeze and pistachio. I don’t think the game would be very interesting if there wasn’t an element of “**** happens” within some of the scoop earning options.

A couple things to consider.

First – bumping allowable antifreeze to 15 or 20 per day. This would put those scoops at a max of 120 or 160 per week. BINGEBOT’s scaling antifreeze is a cool thought, but uncapping antifreeze is a bad idea. Flezz is a big enough problem as it is with the auction house opening the door to backhanded transfers. I don’t want to see Domination become a game of who got lucky with their .moar file drops or who got away with subtle flezz transfers.

Second – stopping pistachio growth at 100 forums. I bumume Forumbuildr isn’t going to just shut down when we hit 100 forums, but continuing to add pistachio beyond 100 will shift Dom to being a pistachio is all that matters thing and that is as bad as having vanilla positioned as the only thing that matters.