Discussions on Preventing Guild Hopping

[eldaec]

As a former raiding guild leader in WoW, I'll also say that do not accept large mergers. (I believe Tale said this as well). That shit never ends well.

Espeicially not large mergers where the other guild doesn't speak the same language.

I mean shit, that looks so stupid when I type it that you don't even need to hear the story...

[Rasix]

Espeicially not large mergers where the other guild doesn't speak the same language.

I mean shit, that looks so stupid when I type it that you don't even need to hear the story...

Not so stupid from where I'm standing.  The guild we run Gruuls/Mags with is composed of Spanish speaking players.  When they're not around us, I don't ever see them type in English.  I could see someone having the hairbrained idea of merging.  Vent is always interesting though... "Uhh, could you repeat that?"

[Tale]

Hah, found a guild hopper on my server that left my current guild to raid higher content.. been in 5 guilds since then.  Funny enough, there's another rogue with a similar path out of our guild and around the staple mid tier guilds before attempting to reapply.

It's amazing how efficient tards can be at weeding themselves out. Server message boards can assist.

During a guild group in WoW, I was messaged by a guy asking to join us to complete a quest. We had room, so I got him an invite. Looting rules were loose because we were a guild group, and he immediately took advantage of it and ninja-looted some stupid green item.

So I got him kicked out, and he messaged me about how our guild sucked and would never amount to anything compared with the guild he had just joined. I said "you won't last there", he said "wanna bet?", and I said yes. So I found his guild message board and posted a screenshot of the conversation, asking "do you really want this guy?".

Turned out they were unaware he was leaving them for an uberguild, so they posted my screenshot on the server board, and both guilds kicked him out. Then others started saying "oh that's the guy we kicked out months ago". He spent a couple of months joining new guilds until they found the thread, and was ultimately hounded off the server.

[rk47]

Just look at all these cool contents that I never get to beat. I paid the same sub but I can never get there cause I apparently don't work hard enough in my games. Yes, maybe because I'm anti social, I only have 4-5 friends who want to play with me; so I should be locked out of the content I already paid for due to my lack of effort.

[Nebu]

Just look at all these cool contents that I never get to beat. I paid the same sub but I can never get there cause I apparently don't work hard enough in my games. Yes, maybe because I'm anti social, I only have 4-5 friends who want to play with me; so I should be locked out of the content I already paid for due to my lack of effort.

They don't want your money.  I'd say most MMOG makers save me $15 a month by maintaining this cockblock.  I play until I can't do anything new with 2-3 friends and then quit. 

They're doing both of us a favor.


Edit: Yes, I know it was green text, but I agree with the sentiment in your sarcasm and felt the need to comment.

[Fordel]

Maybe a better question is there a way to be a GOOD Guild Hopper?


Is there an acceptable way to petition to join a guild, with the clear intent that you'll work within their loot system to achieve your maximum possible gains and likely move on if/when the progression fails to achieve your personal goals?


Something like an office temp? Or a Contract worker? A Rent-A-Player?

[Venkman]

Why bother joining the guild then? The purpose of guilds is to have a common link based on trust: trust that you'll follow the rules while you help people achieve their ends while they help you achieve yours. Anything short of that is just a momentary group, entirely opportunistic.

Players created the need for trust to be part of the bigger group content. And it's those same players that shouldn't be designed around just because there's a few ninja-looting asshats out there. The problem only strikes an established guild a few times before they institute some regimented loot allocation scheme and some stricter policies for recruitment and banning.

I can understand the desire for a system designed to prevent the human factor, because it means people no longer hafta climb that all-important social ladder just to achieve at the late game. But I suspect that would end in such other shallow-wishes like permadeath (only for other players) and item stealing (only against other players). In other words, the actual result is likely to either suck, piss of players en masse, or be way so contrived as to be unfun.

I'd rather see either the game not requiring such dedicated single-minded large groups at that endgame, or just implement the afforementioned meta-goals that don't require a single large body to achieve (Guild Ranks, for example).

Eve-like employment history should be as much a staple of these games as the damned hotkey bar. Eve needs to break a million subs. Someone go make that happen!

[rk47]

I disagree on player made the guild important etcetera.

The fact is if there's no high end raid content with heavy emphasis on top dps, heal and tank party setup there will be less tension over loot since it's so hard to achieve with barely average players (casuals and those who only invest 1-2 hour)

I tried so hard after my friends quit to get into top end content but only made it to Karazhan before I got tired of it. I didn't want the loot, I only wanted to see what's it got, but I couldn't get a raid spot unless I have top-end loot. Before KZ, I farmed thousands of clefthoof to skill up LW for my Epic Elemental Shaman Set everytime I login. Then I farmed gold till I could max enchant, and did whatever 5 mans that could get me my Primal Nethers. I've done all the 5 man. A kind guild took me in and let me ride along Karazhan but by then I was burned out. There was little carrot to be had here after wading through the sticks. If you still think player made guild a necessity then you are wrong, it is the game content that forces guild to be filled with tensions.

[Lightstalker]

Why bother joining the guild then? The purpose of guilds is to have a common link based on trust: trust that you'll follow the rules while you help people achieve their ends while they help you achieve yours. Anything short of that is just a momentary group, entirely opportunistic.

Players created the need for trust to be part of the bigger group content. And it's those same players that shouldn't be designed around just because there's a few ninja-looting asshats out there. The problem only strikes an established guild a few times before they institute some regimented loot allocation scheme and some stricter policies for recruitment and banning.

I don't agree with these assumptions.  Players didn't decide it would be awesome to get 100 people in the same room to poke a dragon in the ankle.  Some crappy game design where challenge == bigger numbers did that.  Guilds don't form in games like WoW for the purpose of trust, they form out of the necessity to group with the evil you know week in and week out in order to tackle the next absurd challenge.  There is no necessity of trust in the WoW game model, or really any game model.  Even Eve's employment history doesn't let you know who has an alt account in a rival organization - it just weeds out the incompetent assholes and not the truly dangerous ones.  Blame the players for playing an unfun game if you like, it doesn't change the poor design and lack of tools under the hood.

Most game designs do not limit player vs. player interactions.  There is no division based classification system, no hard limit on how many guys you can bring (and even when there are, players can just form a 'new' team and circumvent them), the only win is a total steamroll where the other side loses the desire to continue playing.  Under these rules the correct guild size is "arbitrary," because the rules of fair play haven't been defined.  In WoW PvE the target point for guild size falls between "not enough guys, no one can participate" and "too many guys, only a few can participate."  That's a pretty crappy design since the number of participants is fixed and once a character has participated in this timespan that character cannot participate until the next timespan (forcibly leaving out those who didn't get in on the run, or the 'good' run).  Those who sit out have incentive to hop, those who are on the cusp of not having enough guys have incentive to accept the hoppers so their membership in good faith actually gets to raid today. 

A Mercenary - Reputation system would be great here, but that never worked in PvP as people take a mercenaries participation personally and PvE because there is no one willing to devote their day to standing around waiting for someone else to call them into the game - these raids just aren't that fun.  Pulling in across all servers would be cool, but again you never know what you are going to get... and how do you divide the loot?  Stupid loot.

My guild maintains kill to wipe ratios for characters to help players understand why certain people are preferred over others in progression content.  There are many limits to these data (the progression team wipes when we're learning new content, the second wave never have the learning issue) but that's the sort of data you can't have prior to inviting an outsider to your guild or raid before you've raided with them.  All you have is their gear and spec and no context as to how they came by them.  Since each progression raid needs incrementally more ridiculous gear it quickly gets to the point where the guild/progression level you want isn't available at your gear level and you are forced to hop your way to the top.

It comes from the design, or lack thereof.

[Venkman]

Couple of things:

• Most games DO limit player v player interactions. They need to. It's just that how each game does it is more dependent on genre than on any sort of industry-wide rule. RTS games limit player participant count, and actions through map layout. FPS is similar though more loose, until you get to the more dedicated circuits in which players created more rules. Sports games are even more controlling. In fact, I'm struggling to figure out what games don't limit interactions, unless I'm misreading your point. WoW just wears their contrivances on their metaphorical sleeves, pretty much telling players exactly how they designed their content by letting players figure out what classes, templates and gear to bring to it.
  
• Designers designed the content but it's players that decided to partake. That they have over the years has resulted in changes. 75 players in an EQ1 raid vs 24 in a modern WoW one, that sorta thing.
• Guilds don't form because of trust. My point was that they form on the basis of trust. You trust your members to follow the rules, which are usually intended to spread the joy and achievement. I don't equate "trust" with "enjoy being with" or "like" though. This is just about the mutual trust of co-action for a common achievement.
  
• No ingame tool is going to automagically prevent players from being themselves. That's basically been my point. Players cannot be designed around. Even Eve's had it's share of scandals, both the subversive player-emptying-Corp-bank and the involves-CCP type.

The fact is if there's no high end raid content with heavy emphasis on top dps, heal and tank party setup there will be less tension over loot since it's so hard to achieve with barely average players (casuals and those who only invest 1-2 hour)

Then what are you striving for? Even if most players don't Raid, the loot from this endgame activity has long since been proven to be a powerful draw, at least to the level cap.

[rk47]

I guess I must be stupid to want to explore and see things without wanting the shiny loot

[Musashi]

I always thought you could solve the problems with the op by making loot bound to a guild.  If a dude leaves for another guild then his PvE loot goes to a guild bank somehow - or the guild gets issuable tokens redeemable for equal loot.  He, of course, is leaving for a better guild who has offered him some stuff from their guild bank, and thus doesn't care about losing the stuff he earned with his former guild.  But the guild he's leaving doesn't get fucked out of the investment they made in him.  Simple.  Of course you'd have to fine tune it.  Like guilds shouldn't have the ability to take loot away once it's been granted.  But if a player leaves, why shouldn't the guild be able to recover?

[Margalis]

I don't understand. If I'm in a guild and I've gotten all the loot I can from that guild, and a new guild can give me better loot, why the hell wouldn't I leave?

People are confusing two entirely separate concepts:

Guilds as a bunch of friends who socialize.
Guilds as a bunch of people who team up because the game design forces them to.

Most people join guilds in order to accomplish things. So why be surprised when they leave and join a new guild for the same reason?

[rk47]

yes i'm sure they said that on their pre-invite interview.

[Hakeldaima]

I find a "Employment History" like Eve has at least deters it a little. You are taking responsibility the minute you join.

This.

A mile long employment history is a big warning sign for would-be recruiters. No other server to hop off to also helps.

[Venkman]

I don't understand. If I'm in a guild and I've gotten all the loot I can from that guild, and a new guild can give me better loot, why the hell wouldn't I leave?

The argument is that you could have only gotten all that loot by getting help from the very folks who are hoping you'll help them in return. This is important because for everyone who got loot during a session, someone else was not.

This isn't about joining a guild at the end of all content so they can run you through the lowbie raid zones on easymodee (ie, Karazhan in post-BC WoW). It's about expected reciprocity in an organization that wants homogeny. And it wants that homogeny because that's the most efficient way to play the raid game. We could blame the designers for that, but there it is.

That does lead to the next problem which will eventually come up in this thread anyway, so I'll bring it up now:

For how long does a guild hold themselves back from evolving to later content by continually bringing newer guild members through the lowbie raid zones?

As we all know, endgame zones are progressive such that you're using the early tiers to gear up for the later tiers. But as I'm sure we've all also experienced, guilds can get stuck on those early tiers by continually having to bring newbies through them (or get kicked back down to those tiers by the departure of critical people).

Nobody wants to be the farm league. But then nobody wants to be stuck perpetually in the minors either.

[shiznitz]

How about a system that offers everyone a quest before entering a raid zone? The quest dialog gives the raider hints about what can drop in the zone that is relevant to his/her class.  The raider then picks the item they are hoping to get and then that item is guaranteed to drop from some mob in the zone.

Example:

NPC outside the raid zone: "So, gonna try and defeat Xuta Vux? Good luck to you! I have heard stories of a magnificent dagger and splendid pieces of armor that a [fighter] like you could use. What are you hoping to find?

a: new weapon
b: new leggings
c: new BP
d: new gauntlets"?

PC then picks one.

Now, I cannot deny there is excitement when a raid mob drops and people wait for the chest to open, but more often than not at least 7/8ths of the raid goes home empty-handed and some item goes unwanted.

Or have raid mobs drop tokens that can be handed in for one of a list of items. Skinner box seems to be the rule of the day, though.

[Venkman]

I think the WoW Badge of Justices and other such turn-in based reward systems are the best bet. Everyone wins something by contributing. But I don't see that the other system of also winning stuff that drops needs to be removed altogether. Just strike a better balance, ala the later content in WoW.

[Sjofn]

Maybe a better question is there a way to be a GOOD Guild Hopper?


Is there an acceptable way to petition to join a guild, with the clear intent that you'll work within their loot system to achieve your maximum possible gains and likely move on if/when the progression fails to achieve your personal goals?


Something like an office temp? Or a Contract worker? A Rent-A-Player?

You're stuck with us, sorry.

[WindupAtheist]

I'll just pop in and point out that I never really see this problem in UO, because there is no raiding.  Guilds are basically just groups of players who feel like hanging out together.  And since guildmates in UO can attack/loot/pickpocket each other even in Trammel, recruiting has to be at least somewhat selective.  Hell, members can even vote out the guild leader, so you really can't afford to just randomly recruit every retard in sight.

So yeah, diku raiding sucks, film at 11.

[stray]

In addition to raiding though, I've seen the problem in shadowbane. In a pvp game like that, people are bound to hop around either for "political" or just general fuckhead reasons.

[Fordel]

You're stuck with us, sorry.

Pfft, everyone knows Moonkins are in HUGE demand these days! 

[Fordel]

I don't understand. If I'm in a guild and I've gotten all the loot I can from that guild, and a new guild can give me better loot, why the hell wouldn't I leave?

The argument is that you could have only gotten all that loot by getting help from the very folks who are hoping you'll help them in return. This is important because for everyone who got loot during a session, someone else was not.

Isn't the entire basis of all those DKP system to prevent/ensure everyone pulls their respective weight?

[Venkman]

Yes. But not everyone uses a distributed loot system. And that was conceived in the first place as basically a trust metric anyway (that wasn't the reason given for DKP, but it's the root).

[amiable]

Example could be the latest LotRO update. Took them well over a month to deliver, took the players about week-two to get bored off. And that's probably one of the most casual friendly games (and casual player base) with one of fastest update rates on the block.

No.  I'm a LOTRO player and most of us are still happily working through the content.  It took the leet hardcore players two weeks to be bored.  But they are always whining on the forums in every game I play and I generally ignore them.

I actually am enjoying LOTRO immensely, because I get to play with about half a dozen RL friends (God I wish I could convince them to play EvE).  We have our own guild and we can accomplish almost anything in the game  together (except for raids, where we could team up or join pugs if interested).

LOTRO has found a nice little niche market and they are riding that pony.  I came back after I spent a month or so in launch and was shocked about the level of improvements/customization.   In my opiion, as DIKUs go, it is about an order of magnitude more fun from both a community and play standpoint than WoW.  It is great example because it is a DIU that really doesn't have a guild-hopping problem.

[Mrbloodworth]

Example could be the latest LotRO update. Took them well over a month to deliver, took the players about week-two to get bored off. And that's probably one of the most casual friendly games (and casual player base) with one of fastest update rates on the block.

No.  I'm a LOTRO player and most of us are still happily working through the content.  It took the leet hardcore players two weeks to be bored.  But they are always whining on the forums in every game I play and I generally ignore them.

I actually am enjoying LOTRO immensely, because I get to play with about half a dozen RL friends (God I wish I could convince them to play EvE).  We have our own guild and we can accomplish almost anything in the game  together (except for raids, where we could team up or join pugs if interested).

LOTRO has found a nice little niche market and they are riding that pony.  I came back after I spent a month or so in launch and was shocked about the level of improvements/customization.   In my opiion, as DIKUs go, it is about an order of magnitude more fun from both a community and play standpoint than WoW.  It is great example because it is a DIU that really doesn't have a guild-hopping problem.

Agree.

[ajax34i]

People are confusing two entirely separate concepts:

Guilds as a bunch of friends who socialize.
Guilds as a bunch of people who team up because the game design forces them to.

Most people join guilds in order to accomplish things. So why be surprised when they leave and join a new guild for the same reason?

People are not confusing these; they are related to each other in the guild leadership/administration.  I noticed throughout this discussion so far that we're saying "guilds do this" and "guilds should do that", but the people who put in most of the work to keep the guild together and "attractive and fun" are a lot into the socializing part of the equation, and get rewards for all the hard work from praise and socialization.  So you may join and leave because game design forces you to, but they are the ones who feel used, not "the guild". 

And there's few enough competent guild leaders that more tools to make their job easier are definitely warranted, and "easier job" includes preventing guild hops if possible.

[tmp]

No.  I'm a LOTRO player and most of us are still happily working through the content.  It took the leet hardcore players two weeks to be bored.  But they are always whining on the forums in every game I play and I generally ignore them.

Well, i'm looking at it from the perspective of Ettenmoors population -- pre-book 13 it's full of the "easy mode epics" crowd day in and day out. Come book 13, it's tumbleweeds and everyone out in new zone. Less than a week since the update and it's back to the old numbers. The people in question aren't actually some hardcore PvP crowd, but exactly this kind of casual player that can't be bothered to get group for "raiding" so they'd rather come to place where they can /follow someone in zerg ball for few days and then barter teal gear from the vendor for few stones. Not unlike the WoW battlegrounds population, i gather.

[amiable]

No.  I'm a LOTRO player and most of us are still happily working through the content.  It took the leet hardcore players two weeks to be bored.  But they are always whining on the forums in every game I play and I generally ignore them.

Well, i'm looking at it from the perspective of Ettenmoors population -- pre-book 13 it's full of the "easy mode epics" crowd day in and day out. Come book 13, it's tumbleweeds and everyone out in new zone. Less than a week since the update and it's back to the old numbers. The people in question aren't actually some hardcore PvP crowd, but exactly this kind of casual player that can't be bothered to get group for "raiding" so they'd rather come to place where they can /follow someone in zerg ball for few days and then barter teal gear from the vendor for few stones. Not unlike the WoW battlegrounds population, i gather.

...or they are just the PvP oriented population who are going back to what they enjoy, PvP.  Especially since they made PvP upgrades this patch (the Defiler) and lot of folk are eager to try them out.  I spend a decent amount of time in the Moors even though I have other PvE content waiting for me.  Have you worked through all of the content in the new patch already?  I play pretty often for a casual (a few hours online every night) and I still have quite a bit of content to work through.

The issue as I stated in my original response is not the guild hopping.  It's the suck-ass mechanic that demands a virtual work schedule to acquire in-game loot.  Folks always want to maximize their fun time playing a game because it is supposed to be a leisure time activity, not a quest for virtual self-actualization.  Add to that that anonymity of the intertubes and the fact that large raiding guilds require a roster of folk so large that it is difficult to develop a meaningful e-relationship with any of them, it is not suprising you get guild hopping. 

You are trying to put in safeguards to prevent human nature.  Good luck with that.

[tmp]

...or they are just the PvP oriented population who are going back to what they enjoy, PvP.

Nah, people who like the PvP stand out in that crowd because you see them there fighting for longer than few days... weeks and months often. The crowd i'm talking about is these who show up, run around for couple days until they soak in enough 'renown' to gain rank to equip their gear and disappear never to be seen again. The bulk of population that appeared after the 'PvP gear' was put in.

I wouldn't say these people "worked through all of the new content" already, they simply went through the bits of it they found interesting and that was it. Expecting the players to go slavishly through everything you add in patch can be rather silly, especially when say, the new content is aimed at people below max level while large part of the player base is levelled all way up

[Typhon]

Preventing of Guild Hopping is an odd way to put it.  If I happen to be in a guild that dies due to it's leadership flaking out and disappearing for... well, forever, and eventually I leave (this happened in DAOC).  I'd rather there not be mechanics in place that could be misused in a situation like that - there were 4 people left in the guild when I left, it was dead, but they didn't like the alternative guild and were a bit peevish with me for leaving.

I know it's just semantics, but I'd much rather that the subject had been: "encouraging guild loyalty" or "rewarding guild membership".  If you are in a guild, and the leadership turns out to be asshats on an ego trip, that type of personality has no problem using a negative mechanism to punish those that don't feed the ego.  I'd rather game systems stayed away from exploitable systems.

Better to have guilds generate cash flow (or renown, or some metric that can be used for benefit) based upon numbers of guild members.  Better to have raid drops that went right to the guild, and were bound to the guild, in addition to the normal loot that dropped that would remain in the hands of the players.  And allow options for how that raid loot dropped either per raid, or as part of the published guild configuration - e.g. a guild could take an "all for one, one for all" approach, and have most of the loot drop as guild loot.  The more mercenary players would see this configuration and know to go elsewhere (course, you'd probably get fewer players joining because it also is a configuration that is abuseable by the guild).

[Fordel]

People are not confusing these; they are related to each other in the guild leadership/administration.  I noticed throughout this discussion so far that we're saying "guilds do this" and "guilds should do that", but the people who put in most of the work to keep the guild together and "attractive and fun" are a lot into the socializing part of the equation, and get rewards for all the hard work from praise and socialization.  So you may join and leave because game design forces you to, but they are the ones who feel used, not "the guild". 

And there's few enough competent guild leaders that more tools to make their job easier are definitely warranted, and "easier job" includes preventing guild hops if possible.

At the same time, those people who are the 'center' of the guild, often also become the 'elite' of the guild. It's nearly as often that a player feels like the guild is using him, as much as the 'guild' feels like the player is using it.

Wasn't too long ago I read a recruitment post by a guild asking for a Paladin tank. The Job description in a nut shell (what an odd saying) was "You can tank Hyjal trash for us, but we'll swap you out for someone else during the boss fights, for "raid efficiency" or some shit". The only saving grace was the fact they said so upfront, even if in a subtle and bullshit type way. But that type of situation is very much a similar problem to guild hopping. Someone feels 'betrayed'. If you sign up with a guild in good faith, with the understanding of your role in the guild, then get the run around... /shrug?

A good portion of the posts in raid forums are players asking "Am I being screwed?"


An artificial system of ensuring 'guild loyalty' would cause just as much harm, as it would intend to fix.

Even saying guild loyalty makes me cringe. What is this, the freaking mob? Or worse, the party? 

[Venkman]

Even saying guild loyalty makes me cringe. What is this, the freaking mob?

If you're playing at the level where you're reading jobs postings, which is an apt description, then it's very much not a mob. I mean really, people already schedule their lives around raids, know when to show up, know their role (responsibility), know what their accountable for (if in addition to their actual role as a character), know their recompense, and know the cycle for repeating it. It's not a huge cognitive leap from their to an actual job.

And heck, there's no leap at all if there's any real money transaction in there (like paying for a slot, for example). But that's the way-low percentage of activity I'm sure.

[Tale]

At the same time, those people who are the 'center' of the guild, often also become the 'elite' of the guild. It's nearly as often that a player feels like the guild is using him, as much as the 'guild' feels like the player is using it.

That has been fixed in my guild. We were originally officers and raid leaders of an open membership guild in EverQuest. Some of our number had a regular successful group going which ploughed through content, and some other members started calling that group "the clique".

There was never elitism involved - it was entirely about friendships that formed, and game mechanics (groups limited to six members). But others had more trouble getting a group, so they became jealous. Meanwhile, the people in the "clique" were also organising raids and making loot decisions. They all had the guild's interests at heart and made very fair decisions, but at the same time they were also better equipped from their high-performance nightly group.

The bickering got too much and most of our high level members split off to form a pure raiding guild - the one that still exists today, several games later. Nowadays, in games like WoW where you can assign titles to different ranks within the guild, our title for senior members is "Clique" :)

[Arnold]

I nerver saw this as much of a problem in PvP based games/servers.  You always have your zerg guilds.  These guys can't do anyting without 12903812 guys and most will take any hopper who wants on the band wagon, and who cares?  They all suck.

Then you've got the more serious PvP guilds, and I've noticed a common cycle in them.

1. Guild starts with a very tight knit core group that is or builds up to becoming elite
2. Various brothers, cousins, friends, etc of guildmembers are allowed in
3. Guild quality drops and the guild essentially becomes a new zerg
4. Some original core members and the newcomers they happen to like splinter off to form another small, elite guild
5. Rinse, repeat

I remember a time when I had been playing AC1 a bit when it came out and then returned to UO.  I looked in irc and didn't recognize 3/4 the names.  I was like, wtf???  When I started acting like the authority figure I was, these guys I didn't know were like, "WTF, who are you?"  I knew it was time to break things up then.

In the short time I played DAOC I was in a guild, and would look in guild chat with about 150 people, and I knew 2 or 3 of them.  How lame is that?