Meaningful guild member relationships as opposed to zerg guilds

There are people that want to command 2000 players and dominate the games world map. Then there are others that take pride in their banner and guild members achievements and fame.
How many leaders do realistically play with and know on a personal basis their recruits, and how many leaders treat their guild members as dps, tank, heal, bard slots?

Games with large guilds of 100*-500 members:

1 leader, 0 personal contact with members.
15 or so core members, 0 interest in playing with randoms of the guild
500 randoms that don't know more than 2-3 other people in the guild, BEST CASE SCENARIO.
Mass battles become very zerg in nature, due to one leader commanding MANY groups.
Server ends up being 5 different guilds, BEST CASE SCENARIO, if not only 2 mega guilds that war each other only. Lack of banner variety, leading to lack of stories and social interest.
Recruitment is shallow. Somebody shouts "lf guild" somebody sends an invite, and chances are, these two people may never speak again.
Somebody leaves the guild. Nobody bats an eye. Nobody cares if JonWhite just quit the SkiesWatch.
*even tho 100 is small as compared to 500, it is very easy for a guild named Elite to become a mega guild of 1000 people. E1ite, El1te, 3lite, Elit3, Eli7e, Elite1, Elite2.

Greed and apathy

Games with small guilds of 100- members:

1 leader, probably invites the members. Knows them better
8 or less core members. WAY BETTER chances of them playing with the other members, simply because sometimes people are not online. Everybody gets to know each other better.
70-100 real guild members that know each other and talk to each other, rather than typing "lf 2dds 1 tank 1 healer", "lfg". Personal connections and true need to always assist their guild members, rather than turning off the guild chat when they themselves don't need anything. True friendships.
True alliances, with distinct banners/flags/icons or whatever you may call it. True guild names under an interesting alliances, with it's own leaders, famous players from each guild and hate-love relationships. A guild may be at war with one member of the alliance but friendly with some other. True people relations as opposed to the megaguild mentality "1 leader I don't know, 1 flag that has never done anything for me, nobody cares for my personal rivalries in this mass of randoms, nobody will care if leave".
Mass PvP is less zergy natured since many different leaders in an alliance command their own groups in real time, as opposed to one leader commanding all the members of a megazerg guild.

True guild pride and sense of achievement, while playing socially and having real interactions with other guild members/ally members.

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Comments

George_Black

I'd also like to add something about guild progression that can combat megaguilds from forming and making the landscape more boring, as opposed to having many competitive guilds in a server.

Guild progression effectively preventing megaguilds under 1 leader and many faceless members
In order for Guild Elite to be prevented from becoming a megaguild (El1te, El1te, Elit3....) for the glory of one leader that doesn't know the hundreds of players that belong to the guild:
1) A guild should advance through guild quests and appropriate effort. Guild:

lv 1 may accept 15 members,
lv 2 costs 100 gold and may accept 30 members,
lv 3 costs 200 gold, NEEDS 25 members and may accept 45 members,
lv 4 requires guild quest*, 500 gold, needs 35 members, can display guild emblem, may participate in siege but now own castle, can own guild hall, may accept 60 members, may join an alliance.
lv5 requires guild quest, 1000 gold, needs 50 members, may own castle, may lead an alliance.

*Those quests can be very interesting if they incorporate a variety of combat + crafting/gathering activities.

2) This way makes it more difficult for LordLeader to simply create guild El1te and invite people to follow Elite and bear the same emblem, while also lets this new guild to truly bond over the course of the guild progression, and create an identity of their own, as equals or loyal to Elite, but not their foot soldiers.

Wandering Mist

I really don't understand the problem with big guilds (what I call cesspool guilds). Sure I don't see the point in them as they typically just act like a second trade chat, but I don't see why the game should punish players for making and joining big guilds.

Noaani

This is one of the things I like most about PvE raid guilds - and I'm sure it applies to all smaller guilds.

In a game with a raid size of 24, a raid guild will have roughly 40 guild members at any point in time. Even if the game will allow the guild to have more members, most raid guilds don't want to carry more members than they need to be able to fill out their raids each night they raid.

Since there are organized events 3 or 4 times a week where almost all players are present, it means everyone spends a lot of im game time with everyone else. Everyone knows everyone in the guild, and for the most part, everyone in the guild would consider everyone else a friend (which is why I have always considered personality the most important thing to look at in a new recruit).

This is far from the opinion many players have of PvE raid guilds - but in my experience this is how almost all of them are. I'm sure smaller PvP guilds are exactly the same.

---

With what I know about it, I am somewhat a fan of the system Ashes is going to implement for guilds.

Guild size is initially capped at somewhere arounf 50 (not finalized as far as I am aware). With those members, the guild then gains guild experience and progresses. This progress can be spent to increase the size of the guild - up to the ultimate cap of 300 - or it can be used to grant passive skills and ability augments (and hopefully a combat tracker...).

Basically, you can have a large guild, or you can have a buffed up guild.

I can see this making it harder for very large guilds to exist in Ashes - members of such guilds are making themselves personally weaker by being in such a large guild.

On top of that, since a guild needs to progress in order to increase it's player cap, guilds won't be able to start out at 300 players, but instead needs to work up towards it.

George_Black

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I really don't understand the problem with big guilds (what I call cesspool guilds). Sure I don't see the point in them as they typically just act like a second trade chat, but I don't see why the game should punish players for making and joining big guilds.

Let's use hypotherical castle amounts to paint a picture.

Let's say there are 10 castles that are connected to 10 zones.

Would you like to see Elite megaguild vs Imperium megaguild fighting to control those 10 castles

or

4 Alliances made up of 20 or so guilds woth distincted names and leaders do battling it out?

Wouldnt you prefer to know your leader and your leader to know the members

or

Are you happy with without being amongst strangers?

Why is a set of rules or resteictions named "punishing"?
Why isnt it seen as a building method to achieve better guildplay experiences?

Wandering Mist

George Black wrote: »

Wandering Mist wrote: »

I really don't understand the problem with big guilds (what I call cesspool guilds). Sure I don't see the point in them as they typically just act like a second trade chat, but I don't see why the game should punish players for making and joining big guilds.

Let's use hypotherical castle amounts to paint a picture.

Let's say there are 10 castles that are connected to 10 zones.

Would you like to see Elite megaguild vs Imperium megaguild fighting to control those 10 castles

or

4 Alliances made up of 20 or so guilds woth distincted names and leaders do battling it out?

Wouldnt you prefer to know your leader and your leader to know the members

or

Are you happy with without being amongst strangers?

Why is a set of rules or resteictions named "punishing"?
Why isnt it seen as a building method to achieve better guildplay experiences?

For that first hypothetical, I honestly don't care nor see the difference if it's one megaguild or an alliance of smaller guilds.

For the second hypothetical, I personally prefer to be in a smaller guild where I know everyone and can build proper relationships with them. However, just because I prefer that doesn't mean we should stop other people from making and joining big guilds that act as a second trade chat.

Noaani

Wandering Mist wrote: »

However, just because I prefer that doesn't mean we should stop other people from making and joining big guilds that act as a second trade chat.

I agree people shouldn't be prevented from doing this, if that is what they want to do.

But like anything in life, I also see no reason to not encourage a desired behavior.

If the developers want the game to be full of smaller guilds, they can encourage that. They shouldn't prevent large guilds, and even alliances - but encouraging what they feel is better is fine.

To me, punishing large guilds or rewarding small guilds is effectively the same - and I see no reason with it if the desire is for smaller guilds to be the de facto.

Plateau

Noaani

leonerdo wrote: »

I could be wrong, but mega-guilds don't necessarily have to spend their guild perks on higher member caps. They can just make a ton of 50-man guilds (with personal power perks instead), and connect them all in an alliance. Or just connect them all via Discord or a website or whatever. So I'm not sure member-count caps really matter at all.

This is, from what I can tell, the intention.

The fact that Ashes has a dedicated alliance mechanic and that smaller guilds have an actual benefit over larger ones means large guilds will look at this alliance mechanic as their solution.

But from a developer perspective, this is good. This means individual players are more intergrated in to their guild, because the guild is smaller. The more intergrated in to a guild you are, the longer you are likely to stay in an MMO.

I see two types of alliances - those that already exist, and those that form in game.

Of these, those that already exist will likely get a good start, but most won't last 12 months. As soon as the member guilds of these alliances start to recruit players from in game (which is inevitable), the bonds of allegance they have to each other will start to weaken. The only thing that will hold them together eventually is if the alliance as a whole is serving the desires of the individual guilds properly (and my experience of guilds that move from game to game like this actually only serve the desires of the leader).

Alliances that form in game will only form with the best interests of member guilds in mind - guilds won't likely join an alliance if that alliance doesn't serve their interests.

Ventharien

noaani wrote: »

This is, from what I can tell, the intention.

The fact that Ashes has a dedicated alliance mechanic and that smaller guilds have an actual benefit over larger ones means large guilds will look at this alliance mechanic as their solution.

But from a developer perspective, this is good. This means individual players are more intergrated in to their guild, because the guild is smaller. The more intergrated in to a guild you are, the longer you are likely to stay in an MMO.

I see two types of alliances - those that already exist, and those that form in game.

Of these, those that already exist will likely get a good start, but most won't last 12 months. As soon as the member guilds of these alliances start to recruit players from in game (which is inevitable), the bonds of allegance they have to each other will start to weaken. The only thing that will hold them together eventually is if the alliance as a whole is serving the desires of the individual guilds properly (and my experience of guilds that move from game to game like this actually only serve the desires of the leader).

Alliances that form in game will only form with the best interests of member guilds in mind - guilds won't likely join an alliance if that alliance doesn't serve their interests.

Coming from survival games where 3-5 mega guilds duke it out, I'm going to agree with this assessment. Mostly they are migrations of a core group from another game, that gets tag ons of smaller guilds either trying to join in the big fights, or looking for some security, Or they end up being a response of smaller guilds joining up to stand a chance against the bigger group.

With Ashes not being the free for all those games were, and having better precautions in place, i see these groups being much more fluid, even to the point of shattering and forming completely different alliances.

bloodprophet

Humans being humans will find away around restrictions in ways the devs and the rest of us here might not even consider.

leonerdo wrote: »
I could be wrong, but mega-guilds don't necessarily have to spend their guild perks on higher member caps. They can just make a ton of 50-man guilds (with personal power perks instead), and connect them all in an alliance. Or just connect them all via Discord or a website or whatever. So I'm not sure member-count caps really matter at all.

Goon Squad is a good example. Cross game guild with 1000's of peeps in each. If they all pay a sub why would IS stop them? If they all go to a node in 50 member guilds in alliances and don't break the TOS I fail to see how or why they would stop them.
Other side of that is they own a server through sheer numbers and nothing changes(sieges) seems boring to me.

darthaden

Not all large guilds are cesspools. I'm in a guild that will most likely have over 100 members and roughly 25 of us have bought into the alpha 1 access. In order to join the leadership requires prospective members to be at least 25 years old with many members being 50+ years old. Theres nothing like gear score, pvp rank, or specific time requirements. The only real requirements are to treat other members with respect and conduct yourself in a respectful manner in chat so you dont ruin the reputation of the rest of the members. IRS a adult guild that expects members to act like adults and understands adults have real world responsibilities outside of gaming.

Timeraider

God.. cant even imagine commanding a guild of 200 or more without a very well-laid out rank system (which basically ends up making groups (almost subguilds) within the guild itself anyway.

While I have never been a full-fledged guildleader for a big guild in any game and I dont intend to ever become even an Officer anywhere anymore (I prefer to be a Counsilor or guild-shaman ;D), I was a recruitment officer for a guild of about 250 players in Guild Wars 2 (split up in 2 or 3 parts due to guild limits) and part of a subgroup of pvp-specialised players within an Elder Scrolls Online guild.

What struck me at both these games is that.. even when technically everyone is part of the same guild, when you split it up in either multiple guilds in an alliance or groups within a guild... you receive both more independence in actions and reliance of the players on their own group, but also independence in what that group or guild chooses to do.

I have seen a lot of guilds within an alliance/under the same command or groups within a guild that managed to maintain the main guilds ideas and way of working, but aside from those maintained fully different guild affiliations/contact with other alliances/guilds etc. etc.
Which in my eyes is a very good thing because it allows for the big alliance to "in general" get what they desire, while when looking closer, parts of the alliance/guild are both supporting their general cause as well as allying with outside parties/guilds even when its conflicting with other parts within the same alliance/guild due to the choices being made within that part of the alliance/guild.

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