113738-guild-improvements

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Not sure where guild feedback goes, so trying here.  If I'm incorrect, please relocate!
 
I want to offer some feedback on the guild interface/guild management system.  It's - cludgy and primitive to be frank, and I think could be vastly improved with a few basic tweaks.  So - please see below, or offer your own.
 
- Rank Sorting.  This - doesn't exist.  Right now if I decide to add a second officer rank, for instance (officer-in-training versus officer, etc), I cannot do so. I need to create a new rank, which goes at the bottom of my existing ranks, and then change *every* rank accordingly to make the new one.  Why can we not create a new rank, then just bump it up or down via a "plus/minus" system like zooming in and out of the minimap?
 
- Guild Notes!  Right now, the only person who can add notes to the roster is the player themselves - which some do, and some do not.  Is there any way to get a note field that other guild members (aka officers) can add, or allow the guild note to be edited by others?  Utility:  Things like denoting "X's alt", or "Admitted 9-15-14".  These are VERY useful.
 
- Can you PLEASE consider fixing the guild log in a number of ways?
1.  For example - right now, it shows only two options - leaves the guild, joins the guild.  If I remove someone for being inactive, why does it tell the entire membership "X leaves the guild?"  The first time I did an inactive purge and people logged in to see all these names leaving, they thought there was some sort of drama/exodus.  Why not have it accurately say "X has been removed from the guild" or something like that?
2.  Why is the guild log front-and-center along with Guild news and announcements?  I don't inherently mind people seeing who comes and goes (we're pretty low turnover), but still...Can't that be a separate window or click-pane from the "Message of the Day" that's more important?  Again - especially given the game currently having some membership/activity challenges, shall we say, it's downright demoralizing for people to log in and see "X leaves the guild" every time they just want to check news (whether X is inactivity purge or voluntary.)
 
Guild Perqs:
- I have many things to say, but most of them can be summed up as, "These are CRIPPLING for smaller, family-style guilds".  
 
1.  Why must you need to be in groups to gain experience for the guild *AT ALL*?  Hey, I'm all for increasing the rate of gain in groups and multiplying that exponentially per person grouped.  But we are advertised as a guild for "busy people" - moms and dads, full time professionals, etc.  What that means in practice is most of our "grouping" is RP time, and after a long day of work or waiting to play until after the kiddos are in bed....running grouping content, not so much.  Why not allow *some* degree of guild influence gain if you're a member of a guild doing solo content?  We are an active guild with active people, just - rarely active on the same quests/levels/adventures.
 
- Fix - Give much more experience and guild influence to groups, but allow *some* degree of gain for solo guild players too.
 
(Note:  Yes I know guilds are social things, and "If you want to go solo play, go solo play".  Not what I'm saying here.  We're an active guild of adults who *LOVE* hanging out, talking to each other, roleplaying, doing stuff.  So we're *not* antisocial people who only want to social play, we're social people who just can't be running instances and adventures a lot.)
 
2.  Expiration on benefits.  Again, see previous.  So we're already punishing smaller guilds because of the grouping thing and making them barely gain influence.  Now we're forcing them to spend huge amounts of that Every Week to get any value for it!  My guild - again, a guild with regularly 10 folks on - has unlocked only two of these, banking and influence gain.  We stopped bothering after a week - it's just not worth it to spend valuable influence on temporary perqs every week for a guild that's not gaining lots.  At this point, all we're bothering with is the guild bank, as it's at least permanent.
 
Fix - If you change how guild influence is gained, may be less of an issue.
 
My hunch is that at launch, the idea is that guilds like ours should be circles, and guilds these huge raiding efforts. Except - not all of us want that.  For the casual players and the people who *know* what raiding demands and know better than to try and make it fit into our life schedule, we want somewhere too.  Further, circles have a 100 member limit - so even with just a handful of accounts and alts, circles rapidly become impossible.  Plus, management is even more primitive in a circle - so that doesn't work either.
 
I've got more thoughts on guild management, but for now that's a start.	
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Chua just comment on why must be in guild groups to get perks.
Is to prevent solo-guilds getting all benefits on player.
Chua agree with other points though.	
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Chua just comment on why must be in guild groups to get perks.
Is to prevent solo-guilds getting all benefits on player.
Chua agree with other points though.
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Maybe just have a percentage of the renown people generate (that's what you get personally for grouping) translate into influence, which is the guild currency.
 
Mathematically I'm sure it would be doable.
 
For me, the biggest thing I want right now is guild mail.  People don't read the MOTD and no matter how hard we try a lot of times they don't check guild forums either.  It would be really helpful if an officer could send mail to the entire guild and say "Hey, don't forget about the RP event this weekend!.  Go to the forums and sign up if you're coming!"	
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Hmm, well is there a way to tie it so that >1 person is online in the guild then?  Surely there has to be a better way to balance it to prevent solo person/player guild abuse without locking everyone into guild grouping?  (Heck, even my *husband* and I rarely manage to group!  Maybe easier at 50, but trying to stay at the same level and quests, esp with all the instanced quests, is very challenging.)
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Maybe just have a percentage of the renown people generate (that's what you get personally for grouping) translate into influence, which is the guild currency.
 
Mathematically I'm sure it would be doable.
 
For me, the biggest thing I want right now is guild mail.  People don't read the MOTD and no matter how hard we try a lot of times they don't check guild forums either.  It would be really helpful if an officer could send mail to the entire guild and say "Hey, don't forget about the RP event this weekend!.  Go to the forums and sign up if you're coming!"
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Firstly I agree with a lot of what was said.  It's great feedback!
 
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1.  Why must you need to be in groups to gain experience for the guild *AT ALL*?
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As a new GM for a fairly large guild, I agree with ALL of these points raised.  Guild logistics is a very difficult proposition, and the more options we have, the better.  Make it worthwhile not just for all players to be in a guild, but for the guilds to find it worthwhile to always have active players on.  Make it easy to change ranks and organize players.  Give us a calendar.
 
There game becomes exponentially better in a great guild, so make sure everyone wants to find one and every guild finds it easy to get players.	
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Another frustration: guild influence apparently does not increase if you are in a guild group pvping. We had multiple guild groups running bgs and arenas this weekend, but we got no influence from it!! Very frustrating. 
 
I agree with and have asked for most of what the op is requesting. Easier ways to manage guild ranks would be amazing. Also, separating the log from news/ announcements makes total sense. I don't care if people see who joins or leaves the guild, but does it have to plaster the front page??
 
Oh, plus the list still moves dramatically when any logs in/out and with every rank adjustment of a player. Makes rank adjusting extra fun when your list is bouncing like a kid on a trampoline!	
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Firstly I agree with a lot of what was said. It's great feedback!
 
 
TO specifically expand on this point. There are a great number of ways you could earn influence as a guild. I'd suggest the following as good ways to increase the variety of ways a guild can earn influence:
 
Each Character that logs in ears 50 Influence for the guild once per day. Have it reset at the same time as the dailies.
Have a group of guild members earn influence based on how long they're grouped up (not necessarily doing the same thing). This will help smaller guilds and role playing guilds. So two people in a group earn 5 influence every 10 minutes, three people 10, four people 15, five people 20. If we're worried about people being grouped up and someone questing in Whitevale and someone in Southern Grimvault then put a "must be in the same zone" modifier on it but frankly I wouldn't care.
Use the same two, three, four and five modifiers as above for PvP Matches, Questing, Shiphands, Adventures and Dungeons. Giving bigger bonuses for the more guild members you are doing something with.
Those are my thoughts for now...
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Wouldn't this just result in AFK influence groups? The AMP/Ability points being added to prestige just proved that too many people would rather take the lazy way than actually play the game.
 
Also, getting influence for just logging in would only encourage people to fill their guilds with alts.
 
I agree with most of the ithe guild suggestions, though. Organization/Notes/Mail... great ideas.
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It very well may, but I ask the question "So what?" How does that negatively impact anyone's play time or experience? I think it helps more people than it hurts, at least that's my opinion. For AFKer's who cares. If you want to stay logged in and afk all day to earn some influence than have at'er. Same with the guild of alts. If you want to put all 6 characters you have in the same guild to earn influence by logging into them once a day who cares?
 
I just fail to see how that negatively impacts anyone.
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Chua just comment on why must be in guild groups to get perks.
Is to prevent solo-guilds getting all benefits on player.
Chua agree with other points though.
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I'm not sure that there should be influence gain just for standing around or logging in (these mechanics are too easily gamed), but I think:
 
- Players should gain influence for their guild when grouped with other players out in the world, either for PvE or PvP (probably a percentage of renown or prestige earned, as I mentioned above)
- The more guild members in the group, the higher the influence gain should be.  (add a percentage modifier for grouped_with_X_guildies)
- Players should earn influence for their guild by actively completing achievements.
- Guild achievements should earn bonus influence.
 
The goal should be to reward guilds for "getting the guild name out there" in the world by having their members grouping up and doing things.  A guild whose members just solo should still earn influence, but at a much slower rate than a guild whose members are out there joining groups and taking on bigger challenges.	
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			How about guild e-mail.  It is a pain to get word out to my guild about guild runs or upcoming events.   It would be nice to be able to mass e-mail my guild.  	
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Guild Calendar!!!
 
Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes YES!  A thousand times yes!  (Ok, probably sounded a little too excited there, but....well, I'll have what she's having.  Anyhoo!)
 
Seriously....I would *LOVE* the ability, in game, to let people see what we have planned for the week.  I generally schedule for our guild:
 
1.  A weekly IC meeting and meet-n-greet in person
2.  A monthly major Lore/RP based event, open to others
3.  A weekly dungeon/instance/adventure run
 
Even putting them on MotD, it's a constant struggle to keep up and there's little advanced warning for players.  It would be great to let folks see a week/month in advance to figure out what's on the docket, or more importantly post things they would like too.
 
I've tried using Event Manager, the add on, but to say it doesn't work is....well, very accurate.
 
Plus other members like hosting things to show off their housing, IC "lab experiments", etc.  So a calendar they can invite other people to would be super-duper-snazzy.  Thanks!	
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I'm not sure that there should be influence gain just for standing around or logging in (these mechanics are too easily gamed), but I think:
 
- Players should gain influence for their guild when grouped with other players out in the world, either for PvE or PvP (probably a percentage of renown or prestige earned, as I mentioned above)
- The more guild members in the group, the higher the influence gain should be.  (add a percentage modifier for grouped_with_X_guildies)
- Players should earn influence for their guild by actively completing achievements.
- Guild achievements should earn bonus influence.
 
The goal should be to reward guilds for "getting the guild name out there" in the world by having their members grouping up and doing things.  A guild whose members just solo should still earn influence, but at a much slower rate than a guild whose members are out there joining groups and taking on bigger challenges.
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It's very hard starting a new guild, simply because you have nothing to offer the people that join until everyone works their butts off just to get enough influence to open a Bank tab.  I worked and spent a lot of gold to get the guild set up only to find out that I wouldn't be able to DO anything with it until I manage to recruit a ton of people.  It's a catch-22 if you ask me.  I can't get the people because  I have nothing to offer perk-wise because I don't have the people...
 
Not trying to whine about things, but I agree the system could be better.
 
Anyone wanna join Angry Chuas? :)	
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			I wouldn't want influence to be earned without any kind of grouping as in that case everything could be won by numbers "we found 500 people that do absolutely nothing together, but hey, they give me influence by just logging in!"However I do agree with pretty much all your points. And I do understand the influence problem. Perhaps when you unlock a perk, it should simply stay active? Because even being the leader of a big guild, at most we can have 2 perks running a week and if we want to save up, we need to run none for quite a while.	
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