In Production: Battlegroups

Hey Everyone,
Just wanted to give you a heads up before you see these pop up. I will be adding a new feature in the coming weeks that will work in conjunction with the Dungeon Explorer system. Any member who obtains the rank "Saighdear" will be able to form a "Battlegroup" give it a name, and start recruiting players onto their roster. Players may join more than one battlegroup unless it is a Raid Battlegroup. These Raid Battlegroups will be locked down so you can only be in 1 at a time to prevent players from committing to 2 different battlegroups doing the same raid dungeon.

Eventually these battlegroups will be tied into the leadership system, the event system, and even track your battlegroups victories as a whole. I also have plans to have their own discussion area and also the ability to allow the battlegroup leader to send a message to all participating members.

Battlegroups will be able to recruit players into them by browsing the list of "Free Agents" aka players who have yet to join a particular battlegroup or have displayed interest in a certain dungeon / timeframe.

The Base information for a battlegroup will be as follows:

Title: Foghladha's Facerollers
Description: Foghladha's Weekly warfront premade. More text here.
Focus: PvP
Time Slot: Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 6-9PM
Requirements: Level 50, Tier 2
Experience Level: Advanced
Leader: Foghladha
Members: [Member List]

Now as time moves on the information you can provide will expand. This should help allow players to find raids to participate in depending on when and how they like to play. You will be able to form several battlegroups and quick links for each will be available.

Now I know some of you will voice concerns about that thing called "Cliques". Again I want to encourage you not to get hung up on what you believe to be a Clique and start thinking of them as "Sub Communities". What we are attempting to do is put players of similar interest and timeframes together to help players naturally climatize to those who share similar interests and playstyles. These are more "Units" or "Squadrons" than they are Cliques. What typically kills traditional guilds is forcing everyone into the same box. Everyone has different goals in this game and it's important to let people play they way they want with who they want. This should encourage smaller units to grow closer together and help strengthen us as a whole.

Just wanted to give you a heads up before you go "What the heck" and grow immensely confused. THIS IS A COMPLETELY 100% VOLUNTARY SYSTEM. You will not be required to use it.

Fog

» Edited on: 2011-10-19 15:32:42

Very cool!

Question - will the leaders have to accept people, or can anyone sign up? It's a cool idea.

I think this is a great idea! :D

Me and Pandae are interested in this.. We have tank and heals covered for a group but things tend to die pretty slowly. We also think it would be a good opportunity to get to know and bond with other family members.

Good idea, we are at the size where breaking into smaller organized units is a good idea. "Leading the many is the same as managing the few. It is just a matter of organization." -Sun Tzu

Just watch out for the "musical chairs" effect. When the song stops those of us still standing will wonder what there is for us to do. Not saying it's not a good idea, but be ready for those "outside" to feel left out. It already seems difficult for me to get any 5 man runs, since they tend to form up while I'm still at work and the groups continue on into the evening when I'd be available. I suppose a locked group would at least tell me not to waste my time looking.

Im at the opposite end of the spectrum. Im too shy to suggest starting anything up and a bit too insecure to jump into something already established. Im thinking I need something like this to learn something new about how to play my character in something other than PVE duo questing. Plus who's to say that the same 5 people are going to be available in all the set times it would be a way to bring other people into the group.. or even setting up groups based on the different time zones and not just 5 but maybe 10+ battle groups and forming the groups from within that set of people? If someone has to leave then theres a spot available for the person that just got on. I just think there are more options to this than people realize.

And that Swiftsure, is why we never stop looking for new members. There is 1 true leader in every 50 people. This system will allow plenty of Signing up to be an alternate in case of no-show. Really what I'm trying to do is build small group unity for the battles ahead. We want these units to know each other inside and out. Know their strengths and their weaknesses and work to help each other fill or get around those weaknesses. In the coming months / years we will need this level of unity to conquer a more intelligent adversary. Especially when RvR becomes involved. This is the evolution of what we used to call the Dagger Squads. As long as we keep bringing new faces in we'll be alright. Plus I'm building achievements for these units as well and one of the first ones they can earn is by taking someone who has never slain a boss into their group to slay the boss. Call it the Virgin Sacrifice if you will. Those groups who get people through their first time will reap greater prestige. Thus encouraging these groups to continuously bring new members in and show them the ropes. In the end this should be a fun little challenge that we can have a little intra-family competition and work on sharing the knowledge pool around. Thus making us stronger, more formidable and united.

This totally makes sense to me. To go on a real world side of things, our church does this so we can better help each other not only with church, but with life. It helps us to get to know each other better and who can do what. All the things our church worked to build up in 20 years made us the go to center for anything needed during the flood caused by Irene. Despite the insanity of that first week in 24 hours we had the entire building stripped of carpet and all the mud washed out so on the 2nd day after the flood people could come in to get food, including hot meals. So having said that, on a game front this breaking down, as Fog already stated, helps us get to know each other and our characters better. We learn how to fit into a team whether it is one that winds up always together or one that has people revolving in and out based on their game time. Both help us to work better even as larger raid groups and for our community events shows we can organize several raid groups at once to achieve a stated goal. Yes, it takes time to figure everything out, but I've seen a lot of people pick things up and follow accordingly with friendly, helpful instruction. I've been learning by what I have managed to do and soon I'll finally have a L50 char I like who will be thrown into the end game.

I love this idea! Our main group was just talking about getting to know some more people so that we can start running 10 man groups. This will be a great way to organize so that when we log on we don't spend 30+ minutes looking for everyone else and figuring out what we are going to do!

I am agree with Swift on this topic. On the surface it looks like a good idea, but when you think about it this could mean big time clicks forming in the guild and many people left out, or feeling like they are left out. I do hope we are being negative and wrong, but I have a real bad gut feeling about this.

Guys, I know the who "Click" thing is a soar topics as almost all of you have seen it destroy guilds. However. What is the common factor in these destroyed guilds? They tried to Abolish them and prevent them from happening. Forcing everyone to play with each other all the time. There are some people, even in your own family, that clash. Personalities are like pieces of a puzzle. If you try to force 2 people together when they are both alpha personalities they will naturally push apart and be at war for who is top alpha. You can't put 2,500 people in a room and expect them all to get along 100% of the time. However if you give them all purpous, give them a network of like minded people, and watch they will accomplish feats you never dreamed of. I want you not to fear sub-communities from forming. It is natural. The thing that WILL cause friction is forcing 2 people who aren't of similar minds to play with each other. You stick a casual gamer and a hard core raider in a group together and theres going to be friction. This system will allow those who like to play a certain way to find others that like to play that certain way. Crafters can form crifting battlegroups. Raiders can form endgame battlegroups, pvpers can form PvP Battlegroups. This allows them to naturally find their place in this family rather than forcing people to play a certain way. Whether I have a system in place or not, these sub communities are already here. This just gives them a central meeting place and allows them to connect with others who would like to participate. Cliques don't break guilds, Forcing people to play a way they are not comfortable playing breaks guilds. As long as we Play how you want, when you want, as long as you want we will be just fine.

In my DAoC days (unfortunately I had not found Gaiscioch back then) I was a part of a guild that had this built into their base structure. You had to declare where your focus was and then progress through the ranks of that battlegroup. If your focus was Crafting, you were in their ranks only and progressed there only. If you were RvR, you were in their ranks and progressed in that battlegroup only. The beauty of the system Fog is putting in is that it lets me continue to enjoy ALL aspects of this game and others to come, without forcing me to choose. I can be a part of a Crifting battlegroup, a 10 man battle group, a 20 man battlegroup, a PvP battlegroup, a Friday Night T2 battlegroup, a Wednesday afternoon Master Dungeon battlegroup and be as active and diverse as -I- choose. I have always enjoyed all that a game has to offer and really do try to do everything I can in it, without being limited. Fog's battlegroup system will allow me to do even more of that in the future allowing me to find those battlegroups that make the time I spend so much more enjoyable.

» Edited on: 2011-10-22 20:53:43

deleted

» Edited on: 2011-10-22 22:12:50

Woot Fog gets a cookie for a great idea!

How big will the battlegroups be? And how will these battlegroups communicate within the community?

Paja, think of them like "Event Groups". You can have as many or as little as you want but you'll have restrictions put in place by the game. A Greenscale Battlegroup wont be able to field 100 people. There will be a mini tavern inside their battlegroup where they can discuss and communicate. I don't plan on putting caps on them, but the game will restrict how many can participate at a time.

Nice Fog!! We had this in Retaliation back in Warhammer. Being an officer back then I had a 12 man group that I would split into 6 people. The cool thing was after a month or 2 of playing together you new how your squad would react to any giving situation. I also think this is a great way for new members(myself included) to get to now others in the family.

I see both sides of this issue. I look forward to seeing how this plays out. I imagine the folks who are on most of the time are going to be forming up quickly as they already do. I do disagree with you on one point Fog - cliques do destroy guilds. New folks come in and see all these "others" interacting with eachother in set groups and feel at a loss as to how to infiltrate. After a while they just quit logging in or leave guild. This will have to be monitored carefully -- or that "welcome embrace" that most folks feel when they first join this guild could be lost. Will these groups be incorporated into family events? Or will family events still be open to all? I hope the latter. Family events make everyone feel so welcome and cared for in this guild. It's one of the reasons I was so drawn to Gaiscioch.

When you say this is in preparation for RvR, do you mean in GW2? or something coming to Rift?

Holding out hopes that Rift will get some form of real RvR but in the long run GW2.

Our family events will never be closed events. The gaiscioch has and always will run Community Driven Events. I don't like closed groups, i don't like guild only groups. I like looking out for everyone not just our own. Therefor you don't need to worry about us closing off our events. To give you an idea of where this is going. In Warhammer Myself, Prissy, and Oldroar would harness the PuG's (Public Groups). We would form a giant mass of people that would keep the attention of our enemies. Our Dagger units were 6 - 12 man groups which would act independant of the main force and use us as bait to get optimal possitions. Flanking and hitting their ranks from the rear. The PuG was the shield while the Battlegroup was the dagger that went in for the kill. They worked in tight nit teams that knew how each other played, how they reacted, where each others weaknesses were, and how to turn them into strength. Vampiresbane & Corzak were two of our top Dagger squad leaders and brought with them a symphony of death. They would run premades with their squads, go hunting together, do just about everything together. But when it came time to helping the overall success of the realm they were there using what they've built to be the nail in the foes coffin. I have a plan to keep new blood in the battlegroups and I think it will be used quite frequently. There is no way we are going to make all 2,500 of you like each other enough to know who has a twitch finger and who doesn't. Who has a sister and who has a brother and who was an only child. While that would be great, people as humans, don't always get along. You can't shove that many people in a room and expect everyone to get along. What this is doing is helping build smaller communities within our community. I want you all to start getting to know each other more than you are now. This will help with that. And it will also help strengthen our family when it comes time to putting the axe to our foes. @Mira: Regardless of what we do, people will come and people will go. We are not a family for everyone. Those who have initiative will thrive here. Those that do not will leave. Thats the way were built. If a person takes initiative they will not have a problem finding a battlegroup. There will be incentive into getting new blood into your battlegroup and I imagine that there will be quite a rotation of people in the active rosters. The concept is to: Strengthen Unify Teach A dagger is only as good as the stone that sharpens it. Were just trying to prepare and get players involved.

Wow - now I regret not trying warhammer. Sounds like it was a strategist's dream. Sounds like fun - here is hoping Rift will try something like this.

If you join a battlegroup are you pretty much locking yourself into showing up regularly or would battlegroups have enough people in them to have a "bench" so to speak? My schedule rotates because of the baby, have to wait til Vinsklortho is home and can take over main baby duties. Plus as a woman, my wants and needs change drastically daily and some days I can't bring myself to log on :) If I lock myself into something like that I would be burnt out quickly, though I suppose I could rotate around as a pinch hitter.

I personally think this is a great idea. Like was stated earlier, all of the grouping and organizing is already being done. I myself am a member of a couple of subgroups within the guild (some that I organized, some that others organized) that do raids and T2's together much of the time. We have been coordinating these groups through the existing functionality in game and here on the website. I see these battlegroups as more of a template for making this process much less frustrating than it is now. I can't wait for this feature and I'm grateful that it is being planned! @laylryth: I think you won't have any problem being flexible with this system. What a lot of folks seem to be confused about is that this is not really a change in any way. It is just adding leadership tools that will help those of us who are already organizing groups for certain content. I see nothing in this that is exclusionary in any way. It is just a way to help those folks who have similar goals in the game to find and communicate more easily. If anything I think it will help those folks who do not know how to start or join a raid group to find a group who fits their schedule and playstyle. I can't wait!!!

I'm very excited to see how this plays out!

I'm excited about this too.. now to get the points I need for my Saighdear promotion

Plus as a woman, my wants and needs change drastically daily and some days I can't bring myself to log on :) Totally off topic but this ^ fits me to a T =P

Still working on this. Will finish once JR Hildebrand's new site is complete and Empire Builders launches.

I'll definitely be using this to organize RvR events beyond what Ben schedules for our family in GW2. Should be lots of fun. I'll probably do a Friday afternoon one for instance. Mine will be open to all since with RvR fights, the more the merrier is the general rule. It's nice you can join multiple groups. And if you're feeling left out, you may have to start a new 5 man group for PvE, PvP, or w/e -or- join an existing one and show up. It shouldn't be much harder than that.

I will be forming an after midnight battle group that will double as a dagger group for community RvR events once GW2 hits. This suits a lot of us who currently miss guild events because we are not in the same timezone, and who like a fun environment with jokes while we pvp :) I will not be leading it as Elth and Chris are millions better at strats, but Ill be formulating and nurturing it in a semi-evil way. Mwahahahaha. Avoiding a million people talking over each other and speaker feedback (ftl) will be a primary aim, along with cake frenzies, and general chillout chatter. Bring your sense of humour (and the ability to laugh at Elth's fart jokes). Non PG-rated as it will be late, but with some class :) It will be based around when you play, and if you feel like joining in with us blahing on about random stuff, rather than who you play with! That is not by definition a clique :P Not everyone fits the same mould, so think of it as an affinity with likeminded souls. I read an organisational behaviour book once - apprently cliques are a normal part of social interaction formed by people with similar likes and dislikes. I think where they go wrong is the elitist jerk part. Damn, now I have to think of a name...lucky I have 6 months to do so....

» Edited on: 2012-02-08 02:39:18

Or the battlegroups could suit people with similar playtimes, interests in the game and playstyles. This would enhance playing when you want, how you want for as long as you want. I will use Prissy as an example here. Prissy forms Prissy's Pwners battlegroup. They play at eastern times and they love instanced pvp warfronts. I myself play GMT +12, hate pvp and love to raid. Much as I think Prissy is a lovely person and someone I know is not cliquey or mean or elitist, there is no way it would be practical or enjoyable for me to join her group. It just would be silly! I would be up in the middle of the night doing something I hated. Grumpy Mijj would ensue! Instead, I form Mijj's Midnight Crew, a group which suits players who like to raid, and want to complete specific objectives. This suits us, and we have a lot of fun. Being in the group is based on *when* we play, and *how* we play, not on who is more popular. People exclude themselves from my group based on their timezone, work schedule, gaming preference and whether or not they can stand my accent :P By definition, a clique is a group excluding others because they think they are the elite, and they have a closed door policy, meaning others cannot join. I can see how this would be damaging in a military environment because it is a career/job, not a social game. This does not mean I do not still hang out and say hi to Prissy in vent, or that I think she is mean or elitist, or a nasty cliquer chick. Quite the opposite! I respect what she is doing and wish her the best of luck :) My group is friends with her group, and there is not animosity. We both simply use the Battlegroup tool to find like minded team mates on a micro-guild level to enable us both to play and be happy in the game we are currently playing. Plus I get to know the 8 regulars in my group really well and we learn to work as a kickass cohesive unit. I only have 2 friends in the guild, but now I have 8! I keep 2 spots free and rotate in new people who join and want to play that time of night. Suddenly I have broadened my network within the guild to 50 people instead of just my 2 friends. I cannot see how this could be a negative thing, and in fact I did this with our GP raid group for 4 months in Rift and geared up extra tanks this way, at a time when we were really hurting for them. I thnk maybe we are over-analysing this. People are people, and in the end human behavioural principles / psychology will always dictate outcomes in a social setting. As someone who sets up groups outside of the community activities, this will be a great communication tool and will make life soooo much easier! For me with law school and a job, letting people know what is going on, without being at home to log into the game is invaluable. I spose we just need to be smart and careful about how we use it!

» Edited on: 2012-02-08 23:15:29

I've seen both sides (meaning, been a part in/of) of this coin before and there are truths to both sides, but I have to say that I wholeheartedly agree with Mijj on this. This idea is nothing but win/win for the family (especially of this size and magnitude). There are folks from all time zones in the family and although they would love to be a part of everyone's group (me especially) they can't due to time restrictions. And with the upcoming release of Guild Wars 2, the family will be stepping back out onto the field of valour in all of its glory to take part in World vs. World vs. World. These battlegroups will serve a greater purpose (if they choose to do so) ie.. dagger squads, flankers, main force. It's all a matter of perspective, and to paraphrase an Army saying, the Gaiscioch Family is "An Army of One". HOOAH

I agree with Mijj and Paja on this one. Being the crazy lady on disability who goes with the flow of her physical needs and doing things she likes with her hubby, family and church, I'm finding I'm not as regular at getting on as I thought I would be. So.... You might see me on early (for me) but fitting right in with Mijj's time and might run with them as one of those fill in people. Or maybe it's my usual evening time and I get in with all you other east coasters for something. Somedays I might be on a lot and others not at all. (gasp) Yesterday was actually one of those where I was only on the website, not in the game. Think I even dumbfounded my hubby a little, but then again I had a REALLY good book in my hands. HA HA! Books are a dangerous distraction and expensive since I've down two with 450 and 500 pages a piece this past week besides the gaming and other things I did. Anyway, I feel I'm more of the floater in this crew. I like to be the fun goofball and the encourager. I like to help people figure out new things and have them gain courage to do it. You really can't say you like or dislike something until you really tried it. Once you figure that out you will know if the new thing should be a part of your play as you want when you want schedule. =) BTW, this small group idea is also used in my church allowing for people to come together in smaller groups on a weekly basis for closer fellowship and deeper understanding of the Bible. These aren't seen as cliques and they do evolve and change of time based on who can lead, who can get to which location the best for a Monday evening since we are spread up to around a 30 mile radius from the church with the average being close to 15. It has been a great way to stay more focused on what the church is about and get deeper than you can just listening to a sermon on Sunday's and studying on your own. I can say it is working well in mega churches I know of using it as well around the world. (This is just another way to look it from a non-military pov though I could point out the church is in a spiritual war. =D ) Another PoV - Project Management - in large projects there are many subprojects and teams for each of those out of the full project team. It's a good way to delegate needs of the group. In the case of the game this would be needs to have a group to slam enemies in a PvP environment to the casual player who wants to roam the PvE world with friends rather than alone, toe the raiding dungeon crawlers, etc. Anyway, as usual I've presented my wall of text. =D No wonder I never can do short, short stories well. Gift of gab is dangerous even in written format.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, we have set groups for doing things, which could be a good thing- it'd almost certainly be easier to schedule things. On the flip side, I- and I'm sure several others, as well- have multiple toons to get into and through raids, and this would either leave them out of the loop or pugging.

The idea behind this system is to create a list of people wanting to do each dungeon. the leader will be able to say "Joe wants to DPS greenscale" and "Patty wants to heal greenscale" and by clicking invite he can send an automated message requesting their skills in greenscale. If they accept they become part of that regular raid group. This allows new leaders to pull together a team and allows us to see who's available for various raids. It's more designed on helping NOT let people fall through the cracks. I want to try to help players like bloodburner who have been hitting the streets looking for people to have a nice orderly list of people who want to raid listed by what roles they can fill.