by Dalmarus on Dec 04, 2007
Contributed by Cystiana
Over the past couple of months, I have heard mixed feedback on
brotherhoods. I have watched people join and leave brotherhoods for
various reasons. I have also been in a brotherhood for an extended
period of time and it has worked for me quite well. Here is a brief
overview of conclusions I have come to about brotherhoods.
Brotherhoods are designed to benefit a group of people not individuals.
If you have specific friendships and group-mates you group with
regularly a brotherhood can help insure that regardless of RL
responsibilities you and your friends can remain in grouping level
range even if some members cannot play as much. They can also be
tailored to help younger friends "catch up" to you level wise or for
you to "catch up" to your friends. When starting a brotherhood it is
probably in everyone's best interest that expectations be addressed
before you or any other member invests their time.
A brotherhood works exactly like a group. Any experience brought into
the brotherhood will be divided among all members. Knowing this any
member who joins one must accept the fact that you may not receive what
you put in. In order for every member to get exactly what they put in
all members must maintain the same brotherhood experience contribution.
Members that tend to fit well in "friendly" brotherhoods usually play
about the same amount of time during a week whether or not that time is
spent together. If you are an experience minded individual who is
trying to reach specific level goals most brotherhoods will slow you
down and you would want to choose one with a power-leveling base. If
you are a person who enjoys being with friends more than gaining
specific milestones, then a brotherhood for friendship is exactly what
you want.
This type of brotherhood is great for people who enjoy following
quest-lines and achieving goals with friends. No matter how much each
member plays no one will be left behind and all backtracking and
"redoing" of quests benefits the entire brotherhood. It is a great way
to establish long lasting friendships and get to know people better
than you normally would in a regular group. Be warned! Experience may
not always be what you want it to be. During specific periods members
may change play schedules or work on another sphere while you may be
grinding out the experience for the entire group. This could prove to
be most discouraging depending on what is important to you. This type
of brotherhood is a selfless brotherhood one where individual gain is
far less important than the group and fellowship and friendship are
regarded as top priority.
Power-leveling is the main goal of this type of brotherhood. You join
this brotherhood with one of two goals in mind: to gain levels quickly,
or to help a friend gain levels quickly. It usually consists of one or
2 players of higher level and one or 2 players about 5 levels behind.
This type of brotherhood is hard to make successful because all
experience is divided. One must remember that yes the higher levels
will bring in more experience per kill but if the lower members play
more and complete more quests their experience loss will quickly
over-power the experience gain. The fasted way to test if this type of
brotherhood is actually working for you all you need to do is add up
everyone’s brotherhood contributions and divide it by the
number of members in the brotherhood. If that number is less than the
number the lower members are contributing this brotherhood is not
working as intended and should be disbanded. This is a great tool if
used properly. This is how guilds can strengthen numbers and help
members become sufficient level to obtain goals.
Since September I have been in a Brotherhood for Friendship. I have had
one other member in the brotherhood. I have gained 21 levels. My
partner has gained 16. Notice I have gained more levels than he has.
This is because I was lower in level when we started I was 5 levels
behind him. We are now the same level. Therefore the same "number" of
experience points has always benefited me more than him even though it
was the same number. Our brotherhood has gone without a glitch this
entire time. I have taken time off from experience for RL reasons and
he has worked other spheres during our time together, yet out
contributions have evened out with time. Because our contributions
fluctuate from week to week but overall remain relatively the same
neither of us have taken any setbacks or losses by being in the
brotherhood. On the other hand neither of us have really gained any
bonus experience either.
So you may ask why? We started this brotherhood because we were curious
about how it worked. We were also 2 people in separate guilds that
happened to be "in-between" levels of the other members in both our
guilds. We did not have many to choose from to group with. I was faced
with members who were working on other spheres or just didn’t
play as often as I did. And he had members mostly way out of level and
playtime for him. We decided to use the brotherhood as a way of
"keeping in touch". Since we all know what happens to those we meet
along the way a week or so later. They become that guy i met once and
he was nice. We didn’t want that to happen since we duo'd
well together even though my greatest skill at the time was saying "oh
wow I didn’t know i could that" and his was "oops I healed
myself instead of you". Over the past couple of months we have created
a bond that stretches past your everyday experience. We share almost
everything including cash, possessions and knowledge. We work on all
quest-lines together and our individual skills are strengthening
everyday.
As of yesterday we expanded our little brotherhood to include 2 members
of Hesde's guild that are getting "antsy" waiting for him to hit 50 for
guild purposes. They are going to try to PL us. Once I see how this
works out I will add my feedback on it. But I must admit if they are
trying to PL us they have their work cut out for them because we do
play a lot.
I suggest anyone wanting to join a brotherhood please weigh all the
options. If you are looking for a brotherhood for friendship make sure
the other members are heading in the same direction as you are and
share common goals. There is no point in helping to stay in the same
levels if you are going to be grouping in different continents. And it
would be a shame if you spend all your efforts staying in level range
with someone who retires or quits the game a month later. If you are
looking to PL or be PL'd be sure the one doing the PLing plays ALOT.
Remember the lower members benefit from experience more than the higher
so if they are contributing more than what they gain they are
experiencing incredible loss and the higher level will not get any
noticeable gain.