Cataclysm: Preparing For Patch 4.0.1

[Lakov_Sanite]

if you don't even have enough people to cover the charter signatures then you shouldn't be a guild. it's pretty much built right there into the game only they don't enforce breaking the guild up when membership drops below 8-9 people.

Yes, everyone wants everything, we all want lion/scorpion mounts and we all want unlimited bank space or a guild name that matches our character perfectly. However at some point you have to realize that in multiplayer games you have to do things like reward teamwork. We aren't even talking about catass raiding, we're talking about being social enough for a group of ten people

Do I think banks should be bigger? sure but just cause I want bigger banks doesn't make it a flaw of game design, that's how much space they give players and then you do inventory management, like almost every other damn single player rpg. Maybe it's early and I'm cranky but all this sounds pretty whiny to me.

[Paelos]

We aren't even talking about catass raiding, we're talking about being social enough for a group of ten people

I'm talking about an 80% number in 5/10/25 that is mathematically stupid if you are large or small. Here's why:

Here's an example. My fictional small guild has 7 average active max level characters that can be on at primetime and run together. They are friends with 2-3 of them as RL friends. This guild has about 25 people, but most of them aren't consistently online. In WoW, this could be a very standard, casual guild who enjoys 10 mans occasionally, but they fill in gaps with pug helpers to round things out.

They want to level up. They want to start in 5 mans, and obviously can form two groups. Except, wait how is that going to work? Only one group is going to ever get credit, while the other is going to get screwed on points. No combination of 5-2 or 3-4 is going to get them to two groups that are gaining ground. Oh and their usual 10 man with 7 and 3 pugs? That's just a futile waste of time. Also, who wants to pug with them now? It's a lose-lose for everyone involved.

Now lets up the standards. I have 12 on average online a night, all who enjoy tens. In the past, they split up with 6-6 and ran with some other guilds to make their runs happen since half are west coast and half are east coast. Now, they can't do that. They could try to make a group of 8, but they have 4 people left out in the cold, and the time commitments simply don't work for them.

It's not necessarily about numbers it's about availability and consistency. It's about smaller guilds being poached for larger guilds. It's about a stupid design decision built around the guise of forced socializing on a larger scale having largely unintended results because the math is too rigid. Hell, even 60% opens up a whole world of more options without the horrible remainder issues.

[Soulflame]

Aside from which, I have no desire to socialize with 99% of the playerbase.

[Morfiend]

Wow, I didnt realize the hate I would generate with that post. Look. I'm not talking about you guys guild of like 4 to 7 people or what have you. Those are guilds. I was talking more about the one man vanity titles. I'm not sure if I agree with the 80% rule ether. I think any time you run an instance you should get guild exp. Maybe they should give you a 20% bonus to guild exp if your guild contains 80% or more of the members in a run. Thats what I would do.

Blizzard wanted a guild to consist of 10 people or more. Thats why you need 10 to start it. Do I agree with that? Also, not really. I think you should be able to make a guild with one full group, 5 people.

Also, look at it this way, only small guilds really get much "personal storage" with the guild bank. So say that for those guilds of 1 or 2 people using it for the bank need it for the bank space, what about the people with 30 members? Those guys don't get the same amount of bank space as the 1 member guilds, so it's not really a case of "me too".

For you people getting bent out of shape at me for saying Blizzard should crackdown on small guilds, what I meant was the vanity guild names. Those are, and have always been a pet peeve of mine.

[Reg]

So what's the cure then?  Should Blizzard forcibly dissolve all small guilds?  Or should they create some kind nebulous standard of guild naming that can be haphazardly enforced by a large enough to be expensive but not large enough to be effective support team who will generate monthly scandals and drama and be pretty much universally despised?

I'd say the easiest thing would be for you to get over the pet peeve. 

[Morfiend]

I'd say the easiest thing would be for you to get over the pet peeve. 

Which is pretty much what I have done. There is really not much that I could see could be done about it, with out hurting people like Rasix with their legit small guilds.

Honestly, I just wish Blizzard would enforce their naming policy a tad tighter, but I can see why they don't. It would cost them a huge amount of time and effort, for no real gain.

So yeah, I'm not saying realistically that anything should or could be done. I was just voicing my opinion on the matter as it was the topic at hand.

[Minvaren]

My main has never been guilded, which means I get a ton of invites and requests to sign charters when I hit towns.  I've found that if often shocks people when I tell them I'm perfectly happy soloing, and some people get really pissed when you won't sign a guild charter for gold.  But I would appreciate more bank space, as it would make crafting easier and allow me to actually hang on to some neat novelty items.

That said, I enjoy some of the smaller guilds with joke names from time to time - one of my favorites was "I just crit my pants."   

[Rasix]

A big impetus for us starting the guild was so that we wouldn't be bothered for invites.  We were some of the first 60s on our server and the amount of invites we got were staggering.  Some of them were really persistent as well.

I'll have to read up on this entire guild system to see just how much I'm going to get blocked out of and what I'll miss.  COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS, GO!

[Rendakor]

A big impetus for us starting the guild was so that we wouldn't be bothered for invites.  We were some of the first 60s on our server and the amount of invites we got were staggering.  Some of them were really persistent as well.

I'll have to read up on this entire guild system to see just how much I'm going to get blocked out of and what I'll miss.  COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS, GO!

I had this problem on my vanilla server; I eventually shelled out the gold for signatures and bought myself a tag that Morfiend would've hated: <NoIDontWantToJoinAGuild>.

[Paelos]

I just can't see how this doesn't get changed once it goes into effect, small guild membership goes into the toilet, and Blizzard realizes it's servers are innundated with only 15 huge 600 man guilds called "Me So Hordey," "Me So Hordey Too," and "Me So Hordey Again"

[Rasix]

Seems like a calculated attempt at subscription retention.  You've got a set of conditions for a guild to advance and you have to advance personally within the guild.  They'll make it so it's deterimental to leave the guild and in turn detrimental to leave the game.

It's just another thing for someone like myself to look at, sigh, and then hit the cancel sub button that much quicker.  They've been removing those potential "this game isn't exactly for me" moments steadily as game has progressed.  This seems regressive for me.  Exciting for others, but regressive for me.

[Dren]

Aside from which, I have no desire to socialize with 99% of the playerbase.

That means you DO have a desire to socialize with 120,000 of the playerbase?  (I think you are missing some decimals there.  99.9999% is more like it I think.)

[Lakov_Sanite]

You don't have any cookies now.

Blizzard is offering cookies for people who like to get together in large groups.

If you are happy now, be happy in the future.

[Rendakor]

You don't have any cookies now.

Blizzard is offering cookies for people who like to get together in large groups.

If you are happy now, be happy in the future.

Bad analogy. You can currently raid all content in PUGs, guild alliances, etc. without sharing a guild tag, but you'll be unable to advance your guild in such situations.

[Paelos]

Yall don't get it. It means fuckall about the actual advancing of the guild.

You simply won't be able to pull in people for anything unless a large majority of people are willing to give the middle to finger to the guild system. They will try to get the rewards in the simplest way possible, and in turn reduce the number of overall dungeons and raids being done because everyone will selfishly only want to get shit for their guild.

Even if YOU don't buy in, or are in a big guild where you don't care, what happens when you need fill-ins? Where will they come from? The answer is the lowest of the low dregs of WoW society that can't even function in a remotely sup-par guild that's trying to advance itself.

EDIT: This is a horrible idea that will set raiding back in the dark ages of "fuck-you-we're-uber" guilds and mass invite guilds having all the power.

[caladein]

From what I can see from Beta the daily experience caps (both guild-wide and personal contribution) aren't terribly high so as long as you have 10-15 characters questing (normal or daily) actively you should be able to level at a similar clip to guilds getting experience from guild dungeons/raids/rated BGs.

A very small guild (sub-charter size) is going to level more slowly, yes, but if you're really focused on leveling up such a guild there's alts and guild achievements (which ignore the cap).

I do wish the guild-wide cap was lower so it functioned more like kinship age in LotRO but it is definitely low enough to make it so giant guilds have no advantage over an active 15-25 character guild.

[Simond]

Funny how the player cap for large guilds was handwaved away here with a "Not my playstyle therefore it's not an issue" but now that people in their glorified-group "guilds" realise that they're fucked, guild advancement is suddenly a huge problem that needs to be discussed and fixed.

[Chimpy]

Because the mega guild issue probably effects considerably less people?

[Rendakor]

Blizzard also retreated considerably on the mega guild issue, going from 500 to 1000 as their cap. Honestly though, I doubt anyone here is in a mega guild, while a good portion of us are in smaller, casual guilds.

[Simond]

Seven people isn't a guild, it's a group with two spares.

[Lantyssa]

I'm glad you feel that my group of six to seven real life friends wanting to play together do not constitute a guild.

It's also an example of the (lack of) thinking from their designers on why several of us have quit.

[Paelos]

I'm glad you feel that my group of six to seven real life friends wanting to play together do not constitute a guild.

It's also an example of the (lack of) thinking from their designers on why several of us have quit.

It's not just going to be you. This design decision, if not reversed to include or incentivize guilds grouping together or any kind of non-guild cooperation, will cause lots of small guild people just to give up on the raiding game and possibly unsub.

[Simond]

Most guilds will just recruit and/or merge with other guilds.

[Lakov_Sanite]

DOOOOOOOOOOOOM 

[Paelos]

Most guilds will just recruit and/or merge with other guilds.

Recruit from what? And better yet, why the fuck should they have to change the habits of 5 years in their social construct because of a patch if they want to be effective in the game? I don't see how this move provides more retention because guilds suddenly have levels, but you don't get points unless you absolutely have everyone in your group guilded. Guilds that are above the cap won't care, guilds below the cap are in for a real Cataclysm.

[Nightblade]

Most guilds will just recruit and/or merge with other guilds.

Recruit from what? And better yet, why the fuck should they have to change the habits of 5 years in their social construct because of a patch if they want to be effective in the game? I don't see how this move provides more retention because guilds suddenly have levels, but you don't get points unless you absolutely have everyone in your group guilded. Guilds that are above the cap won't care, guilds below the cap are in for a real Cataclysm.

As stupid as I think this feature is, are any of these guild upgrades really mandatory / meaningful?

[Morfiend]

As stupid as I think this feature is, are any of these guild upgrades really mandatory / meaningful?

No.

[Paelos]

As stupid as I think this feature is, are any of these guild upgrades really mandatory / meaningful?

Unfortunately yes. High level guilds will have 10% boosts to xp, rep gains, honor points, mount speed, gold looting, and they will also have better flasks, the ability to summon access to the guild bank, vanity items, standards, access to guild crafting patterns, rare reagents, mounts, and heirloom gear.

[Lakov_Sanite]

and you know what, guilds that can raid high end content have better gear than you too! shocking!

and dont give me this guild alliances bullshit, cross guild pugs barely ever raid current content and even then they dont do things like hardmodes effectively. big guilds have an advantage in social game, news at 11.

[Lantyssa]

As stupid as I think this feature is, are any of these guild upgrades really mandatory / meaningful?

No.

Neither are raids, or heroics, or set gear, or really anything that everyone plays the game for.  With things that used to be out of reach of anyone but the top 2% becoming doable by anyone, their popularity skyrocketed.  Why would anyone want to return to a WoW that makes the bullet-point buy-me features unobtainable for a reasonable number of their players?

I won't predict doom, but I will call it a stupid system design added to other recent missteps they have made.

[Nightblade]

Unfortunately yes.

No.

 

I guess they never broke out of the habit of "If nobody is doing it, it's not that it's boring or tedious; it's just that we need to attach a reward to it!"

[Paelos]

This isn't like battling bosses effectively as a gate to better equipment. I can't think of a single reason why it wouldn't make more sense to split all the "xp gains" towards your guild level equally across all members, thereby giving more to the guild with more people participating. The All or Nothing aspect of it is completely absurd from a design standpoint.

[Chimpy]

It seems like you are crying (again, as you have been for years on this board) about how your "raid alliance" is getting screwed by Blizzard design decisions. You choose to run raids with the same people every week but allow them to be in different guilds for whatever reason (too many people wanting to be 'guild leader'?) which is counter to the way that the entire raid concept was designed. Why not have your three guilds with 15 people each just merge and go on about your business as one guild?

[Soulflame]

I imagine it's a matter of three guilds, each with friends and family, who get along well enough to play a few hours a week accomplishing something they can't do by themselves, but don't want to have them all in a single guild channel.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Or you know, just listen to what people are actually saying about how even smaller guilds will level but it will take more time.