Promoting players is absolutely useless, we all know that and have been carrying this dilemma around with us for what feels like forever now. Sure, it’s nice that we can now name the ranks ourselves, but the functions are very limited.
What I would like to see in my community responsibility are function assignments / check boxes:
May invite
May dismiss
May promote
May demote
May change kingdom announcement
May change kingdom settings
May spend ingots
[May send kingdom messages]
…
Now, for each rank, you could check boxes as desired to be assigned as functions to the desired rank.
This would result in a wide variety of rank function patterns depending on the community structure, which would be quite handy depending on your needs (especially if you have fellow players from all over the world).
Just to help me understand this feedback a little further, is there a reason you wouldn’t just promote those players to higher ranks, instead of changing a low rank to have what is (normally) only available for higher ranks?
For example, in what cases would you want to give a Lord or Baron the ability to change Kingdom settings or spend ingots?
A lot of these permissions are set to high ranks only as it implies more responsibility within the Kingdom as well as some trust that a player at a higher rank is less likely to kick everyone and spend on the ingots compared to a new Kingdom member who is the lowest rank.
Hope this reads as me just trying to get a better understanding! Always happy to share feedback with the team but want to make sure I am expressing an accurate player experience!
I believe the point is giving more flexibility to each kingdom in terms of customizing and selecting which abilities they want to give to each rank. For example, a kingdom leader may prefer to be the only one to change kingdom settings, but still have a rank that can spend ingots. Or giving certain members the ability to kick and demote others, but not spending ingots. As it is right now, we can only choose members to have the whole pack of abilities predetermined for each rank. The idea is giving the kingdom leader the ability to customize what abilities each rank will have, so that the rank system better helps leaders needs (which may be different from kingdom to kingdom).
I’ll say it straight out: if you promote a game as multiplayer capable and offer players the possibility to play together in a group (guilds, co-op, e.g.), you always have to be aware that not all community structures are the same and you can’t just put a “mold stamp” on them. “Sink or Swim” with what you have is no longer appropriate, certainly not for a game whose pillars consist of the most diverse communities.
Higure got to the point: it’s about more flexibility and individuality within the communities, and more appreciation of the individual. Personally, I feel it is simply unfair to always “demand” without being able to give something back. Players who don’t see their achievements as valued within a community will sooner or later either change guilds or disappear from the game altogether; and that shouldn’t be in your interest either.
Puzzle Quest 3 really doesn’t have much in the way of a community, so I have to lean on what might be able to be changed without too much effort while providing a huge push in terms of individuality.
Of course, the concerns of founders and leaders of a kingdom are absolutely different in nature, some prefer not to give anything out of hand while others have so much trust in their community that they are happy to hand over responsibility and thus also reward and appreciate achievements made (like me). In addition, it is always helpful, especially for kingdoms whose players find each other worldwide, to have a back-up and to be able to rely on the trust placed in them (be it due to time zones drifting far apart, real life sinus curves (as in my personal case), etc.).
Please let the communities themselves decide about their structural possibilities and give them the freedom they need.
P.S.: And to protect against general abuse, you could set the rules so that certain ranks can’t be promoted higher than they are in the hierarchy, a founder can’t be demoted in general (unless he hasn’t been logged in for XY days in a row) - and those are just two examples of what could be done.
It’s a shame that this topic ended here. When I started I entered a kingdom and it seemed to me that there was little dynamics and I ended up leaving and starting my own from scratch. I realize now that most players don’t interact much beyond parties. Valuing individual performance is important and several things can be done in this regard without requiring major technical interventions. Let the Kingdoms be called for a conference and see what comes out of it. This simple act would be good for the game.
