[Question/Suggestion] Alliances: Do they cost too much?

[Kaden]

1) What does staff think about the current state of Zeni? Are you comfortable with the rate of earnings?

The tricky thing about this question is that, to me, it's very much related to the second. In order to really judge rate-of-gain, we need to have people actively trying to get it. More than a couple people have come out saying "I don't even bother trying to turn in a Job because I don't think it's worth it" and then turn around and say it's too hard to get zeni. Hopefully mine aren't the only eyebrows raised by that.

I think part of the above problem actually stems from the previous set-up we had. It's been a while since someone has actually needed to do something OOC to gain, say, zeni.

Theoretically, I have no problems with the rate-of-gain. Obviously there's not a lot of data to mine, so it's difficult to say whether or not that theory proves true or not. (Some might say the lack of data should be telling, but I, again, maintain that it's not actually a problem with the system.)

2) How often, in Staff's assumptions, are players supposed to be doing job quests? Every one in a while, or are players expected to justify a "job" in as many threads as they can?

As often as possible. The system is specifically set up to allow anything to be turned into a job quest. We've even made recent changes to make doing so more desirable.

3) Are Alliances meant to be this hard to form? If so, when would you like to see the first? In the current iteration of Chubbs, how important do you think Alliances are to the game?

"Hard" is a relative term in this case. As you explained above, it only takes four quests from a group of people in order to be able to buy an alliance. I don't think there is anything hard about that at all. I, myself, have completed four quests and, really, could turn in at least one more from the thread the two of us are currently in. That's more than my share of an alliance.

Not too long ago, Trafford went and turned in a bunch of quests an got a decent chunk of zeni that would put him pretty close to his chunk of an HQ, I bet (don't remember the actual numbers).

How important alliances should be is a difficult thing to answer. Mechanically, I think they're more of a late-game tool. HQs and Item swaping isn't something people are supposed to be able to do right out of the gate.

Obviously, though, alliance mean more than just game mechanics to other people. The importance to some is entirely emotional/sentimental. No real way to account for that, though, so... I'll just stop there.

Hopefully I answered those satisfactorily. If you have any other questions, feel free.