Feedback Poll - Which subguild do you hate?

[Adhira]

I'm seeking feedback from players on what existing regular subguild they would never choose for their characters.

I want to know which of the subguilds listed above is least used/liked. We are looking to do some renovating of subguilds and guilds, which may include additions. Before making any additions or alterations I want to streamline our offerings, so information on what isn't used would be most helpful.

This will be a systematic process. Subguilds are first on the agenda so keeping any comments focused on this area would be helpful.  As I move to other parts of the project I will post additional polls/feedback threads so commentary on those other areas would be best saved till then so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle.

[Jihelu]

I never pick archer for some odd reason because the classes I run usually get their abilities anyway so who cares.
Also caravan guide never gets picked.
No real reason.

[Patuk]

I'm kinda curious here, can't staff just conjure up a list of characters created the past year or two and watch manually? I kinda wonder if that's not a better metric.

[whitt]

Chose three, but linguist would be the single one I'd never take.  Languages can be picked up during play.  Other skills not so much.  If Linguist allowed someone to choose one or two uncommon languages known (bendune, cavilish, tatlum, literacy, or even heshrak) it would be more useful.  Elf and Dwarf Linguists gain even less.

I also chose clay worker because it's a brutal greb for what amounts to a hobby at sub-guild levels and physician because the level of bandaging and bandage-making skills is pretty insufficient to act as a true medic IMO.

[Seeker]

Suck it, Tinkerer.


Seeker

[Adhira]

I'm kinda curious here, can't staff just conjure up a list of characters created the past year or two and watch manually? I kinda wonder if that's not a better metric.

No.  At least, I could go through accounts one at a time and see what people chose. But that's not really a great method, there is no way to cull all this information into a nice spreadsheet. Plus I was hoping for player input here.

It's optional input though, so if you love all the subguilds, having nothing to say about any of the existing ones, or just don't want to comment, that works too.

[Patuk]

Oh. Unfortunate.

[Narf]

I'm kinda curious here, can't staff just conjure up a list of characters created the past year or two and watch manually? I kinda wonder if that's not a better metric.

This poll will allow people to explain their answers.

A lot of guilds are probably never chosen less because they have balance issues, and more because they don't suit most people's playstyles. If you're looking for ways to tweak the subguilds you want to hear about subguilds people would want to play, but don't because of their skill list.

For me, I'm not a fan of any of the crafter subguilds that lack haggle.

[Lizzie]

I'm kinda curious here, can't staff just conjure up a list of characters created the past year or two and watch manually? I kinda wonder if that's not a better metric.

That only tells the staff which subguilds haven't been picked yet by various players. Players who only have 3 or 4 characters in the past couple of years, only have had a chance to pick 3 or 4 options so obviously all the other options would've been "not chosen."

It doesn't tell anyone which ones they would intentionally cast aside, it only would indicate which ones they've favored.

There's a few I haven't tried yet simply because I haven't played a character who'd have use for them yet. But I haven't intentionally chosen against them for any reason. Clayworker, rebel, and I can't remember which else were the three I picked.

[Patuk]

I was just curious, sheesh. It's not worth having a gdb debate or whatever over.

[BadSkeelz]

I never pick archer for some odd reason because the classes I run usually get their abilities anyway so who cares.
Also caravan guide never gets picked.
No real reason.

Caravan Guide is useful for warriors, as it gives ride, direction sense and value (for that weight min/maxing). It also gives Bendune for fun.

But I suppose it is kind of weak compared to Nomad, which gives ride, direction sense, haggle, bendune+tribal accent and spear-making.





I would probably never ever take Tinker.

[Beethoven]

I picked tinker, acrobat, and con artist (I prefer thief)

[Case]

Probably Tinker. I like linguist though, even if it's currently the least useful one on its own, and wish only it and maybe bard could pick up languages through listening

[Jihelu]

Make Bard/merchant/linguist the only ones who can pick up languages through words and make it so you have to be taught everything else and they become gucci I guess?

[BadSkeelz]

You can't codedly teach languages. They can only be learned through listneing to others speak it. So that won't work, Jihelu.

[Jihelu]

You can't codedly teach languages. They can only be learned through listneing to others speak it. So that won't work, Jihelu.

Well with the whole "make' thing I assumed we would add that good jesus code and make that a thing.

[LauraMars]

I picked tinker, acrobat, and con artist (I prefer thief)

we picked the exact sames ones 

[Norcal]

Acrobat, con artist and general crafter. 

General crafter gives you basket weaving and stone working, not sure why those choices. If You put woodworking and tool making in there, and made all to masters (with no branching) then it would be worth it. I would play that for sure.

Tinker gives tool making, and I think that skill is fun. I wish it came in some other ext-subguild packages.

Cheers

[Dresan]

I had more than three choices. Its not a simple question, because different characters lifestyles have different needs, but despite that there are still sub-guilds I would almost never choose, because there are better options out there.

I feel like this question can be better answered if we split it into sub-guild that offer similar sets of skills.

Riding:
Nomad (being regarded the top sub-guild. Due to the fact it offers a mix of utility(riding, direction sense), crafting (haggle, spear-making) and as icing in the cake, language skills.

Caravan Guide- Caravan guide doesn't offer as robust language skills or crafting skills. It lacks a lot compared to nomad, in exchange though it gets value and pilot. Value was okay but the sub-guild can't haggle, and you don't need value skill to get a general weight of things. The problem here is pilot though. Pilot is a skill which should really be something hidden anyone can learn. I mean, how many people have access and trust to use a wagon? How many people routinely risk their life on silt skimmers? If you are willing to risk or take the time to earn the right to do these activity you should learn the skill automatically, instead of having to pick a sub-guild on the off chance you'll someday get to do these things.

Mercenary: This is great. Knife making is better than spear making since poles are hard to get. Still, never felt as great as Nomad. I would trade the repair skill for just about anything else, sure it fits, but it isn't as cool as language skills or any other skill I would much rather be using. Wish they had shield_use so that my rogues had a bit more could live a bit longer on a mount.

Wilderness:
Hunter- Amazing. Skin to make money with, ability to find and then sneak to catch your prey, archery, and arrow making and direction sense. To balance it off though, no riding...ouch

Scavenger- Not bad. You don't get sneak but you do get climb, better forage and the ability to find food, and search for other stuff. Being able to find food and water is sometimes tempting enough to go without ride and more important direction sense, which you should probably have if you are venturing outside. Still I've only taken this once before, and after I found out it had no direction sense, I never took it again. Hunter can skin animals for food, and with direction sense get to places where they might find water after all. Climb skill is better now with rooftops I suppose.

Forester- Kinda neat in the north, makes stuff that spear-makers should be able to do as well. Even in the north though I wouldn't take this over hunter but that is mostly due to preference.  

Rebel- An terrible sub-guild with an outdated name. It has sneak and direction sense but so does hunter. Despite having some crafting skills and armor repair, I would never pick this it.  The crafting skills are okay but other sub-guilds get one or the other with better utility skills like Ride. As mentioned before despite the changes to repair, there is an NPC that can do this with less hassle on my part, so its nice to have but not overly necessary. It really needs another skill like ride, or heck even hide, or maybe just allow it to get advanced sneak in the city and wilderness. Its really lacking in comparison to hunter.

Crafting sub-guilds:

   Armormaker
   Clayworker
   General Crafter
   Jeweler
   Stonecrafter
   Subguild Tailor
   Weaponscrafter
   tinker


All crafting guilds are amazing...with ranger. For classes who aren't ranger like any of the three rogue classes we have in the game, it becomes more of a question of how easily they can get items to use in their craft. Or how much money the items they make cost vs the cost of getting it themselves or buying things themselves. There is also the question that some things sell better and in more places then others.  Not to mention there are other sub-guilds that give a bit more utility along with a crafter skill to make a bit of coins. Crafter guides need to be looked at individually but I feel some could benefit for a tiny bit more utility. Either direction sense to allow them to go and forage the items themselves, and/or haggle, so that they can buy and sell items for a little more coin. Then again haggle doesn't seem to be helping tinker out in the popularity department.  

Linguist and Bard: My only problem with Linguist is that I rather take bard and get a better chance of learning those languages instead. I can't help but feel these two decent sub-guilds should be combined to make one awesome sub-guild.

Thug and thief: Both these sub-guilds are great. Though I'd love to see another roguish sub-guild with city sneak. Always wish thug had sneak, but might be a little insane then.  

Con artist: I wouldn't pick this over thief.

Acrobat: I wouldn't pick this over scavenger.

House servant-  I already said my peace on pilot skill. Listen is alright but its lacking.

Physician- Utility and crafting skills, nice.

Archer- A mix of utility and crafting, but in this case I wish it would pick one or the other in this particular case. Archery is more useful for hunter who has the other skills needed to find, and bring down prey. Bow making is a neat crafting skill I suppose.

Guard- My top pick for most useless sub-guild. Shield_use would be excellent, combined with utility skills that allowed you to actually use it. Most people have NPC guards in the city. Guard is great in the wilderness but so is fast reflexes and rescue (which rangers get). On top of that by picking this sub-guild, you miss out on other utility skills like ride or direction sense skill which you need in the wilderness where your shield and guard skills are most useful. Subdue used to be powerful and deadly but now its really niche too, as in nice to have but not really necessary for any real job function  (in my opinion). Even as a soldier, its usually better to fail subdue and let the NPC's handle it, or just have the person not resist.  Shield_use/Guard with Mercenary would make a legendary sub-guild to rival that of even nomad.

tl;dr

1. Guard.
2. Rebel.
3.Con artist
4. House servant
5. Caravan Guide

[LauraMars]

The problem here is pilot though. Pilot is a skill which should really be something hidden anyone can learn. I mean, how many people have access and trust to use a wagon? How many people routinely risk their life on silt skimmers? If you are willing to risk or take the time to earn the right to do these activity you should learn the skill automatically, instead of having to pick a sub-guild on the off chance you'll someday get to do these things.

You can already learn pilot, it's one of those hidden skills anyone can learn just by typing "pilot w" a bunch of times.  And you can raise it high enough to be competent at it, even if you don't have a guild or a subguild that includes it in their list of skills.

So its inclusion in subguilds has always puzzled me a bit.  I assumed there was some hidden reason, or maybe piloting in the desert or on the sea needs a higher skill level than piloting a wagon around Allanak.  That would make sense.

[Dresan]

Wow. If that is the case, I might need to bump up caravan guide up to four or three on my list of worse sub-guilds, instead of five. Since it would almost make it completely useless in comparison to taking nomad or mercenary with their much more useful set of skills, on top of ride and direction sense.

[Majikal]

Tinker, there's nothing they can offer that a tool-selling npc can't.
I can think of a single non-tool related craft that requires something made by a tinker.

General crafter, crafts generally worthless shit.

Bard, I've played bards. I've never played a bard that needed anything off the bard subguild.

[RogueGunslinger]

Rebel - Useless with Nomad and Hunter, or Mercenary, for that matter.

Archer - Useless with Hunter around, all the same stuff but less. Non Journeyman+ archery in general is pretty useless, and I doubt Archer goes to advanced. Who knows, never used it.

Con Artist - Useless, doesn't really have enough, and what it has can be found in better subs, much like Rebel and Archer.

Of course this is all biased by my general choice of characters.

[Dresan]

This is a little bit of a derail:

However, I really think direction sense should be a hidden skill too. This is mostly because with Redstorm, luirs and morins are now the alternatives to Allanak, and I don't think people should get forced into a select few guilds/subguilds to be able to play effectively in these places.  If people find themselves in the right situations they should eventually learn the skill but in exchange it should be capped right at journeyman. This is not to say sub-guilds like nomad shouldn't still get it, at the much higher level that they do, it is just that once upon a time these sub-guild didn't even get direction sense to begin with.  


Anyways sorry for the derail.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Con artist (no interest in the skills) forester (rarely ever play close enough to the trees) and physician (no interest in making medicine.)

I've tried almost every non-extended subguild if not all of them, and honestly I just pick scavenger now, screw everything else.

I like tinker (I like any crafting subguild) but I understand why its losing. Tools don't make much money, and they're only codedly useful right now for crafters--- most of whom are combat guilds with a crafting subguild. Shovels exist and everything, but they don't appear to be tools, and the only grebbing tool I've ever seen is a limited number object that is occasionally made by Kadius for its own employees.