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Dev Discussion #32 - Guilds

edited August 2021 in General Discussion
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Glorious Ashes community - it's time for another Dev Discussion! Dev Discussion topics are kind of like a "reverse Q&A" - rather than you asking us questions about Ashes of Creation, we want to ask YOU what your thoughts are.

Our design team has compiled a list of burning questions we'd love to get your feedback on regarding gameplay, your past MMO experiences, and more. Join in on the Dev Discussion and share what makes gaming special to you!


Dev Discussion #32 - Guilds
Guild members - what kinds of information do you look for before joining a guild? Guild leaders - what kinds of characteristics are you looking for in new guild members?

Keep an eye out for our next Dev Discussion topic regarding the new player experience!



Greetings again everyone! Now that we've had a chance to go through all of your feedback for our team, check out some of the top notes you shared with us below:
  • Players looking for guilds noted that they reviewed the following:
    • Guild goals
    • Culture fit
    • Member count
    • Volume and peak time of activity
    • Length of history
  • Guilds looking for members shared that they assessed the following:
    • Culture fit
  • Some agreed that coming across guilds or guild members naturally through grouping gameplay rather than using guild advertisement tools leads to stronger social interaction
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Comments

  • MaezrielMaezriel Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    How long's the guild been around?

    Are they a multigame guild?

    Size?

    Goals?

    How active are the chat channels?

    Might add more but this is about what I can think of right now
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    If I said something that you disagree w/ feel free to say so here.
  • BoncleBoncle Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    What I want to see out of Guilds is a tree based privilege system over hierarchal system. Instead of having privileges go from top down like Leader>Officer>Member>Recruit, I'd rather see a leader and then maybe specified roles that have specific privileges but do not have power over each other. For example maybe as leader I would make one role and only that role has control over the guild bank and maybe a different role watches over the guilds supplies and is the only one that has access to specific chests. Neither of these roles have more power over the other but they also have separate powers.
  • CaezCaez Member, Alpha One
    I usually ask for... type of players? casual, semihardcore,hardcore? Guild Focus? Pvp,Pve,Pvx?Others.. Goals...? (I love players with the biggest goals possible.. even if they have not that much time to play, why should they to be happy getting the bassics only, I love a guild with big goals... been at the top to me is not good enought) Size? and why? I mean they can have 1200 players ready but How will they handel it..? do you actually need that much? number is not always better than cuallity...it helps, of course but... try to explain your plans, it should make sence all you tell me. Pretty much what I am looking for is people focused in not just having fun but also in trying the best...
  • DavisBDavisB Member
    edited July 2021
    I’m pretty new to the MMO world but I’d say it depends on the game. In a game like FFXIV with a Duty Finder that makes it easy to find groups for all of the Dungeon/Raid content, I would want to find a more casual guild that’s fun to hang out with. In games like WoW, guilds would probably be more focused on having people that can form groups for dungeons and raids and would be less casual. It seems like Ashes will be somewhere in the middle but I would hope to find a guild with people that enjoy both casual and hardcore content.
  • KarthosKarthos Member, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
    edited July 2021
    Hello Guild Recruiters reading through this looking for recruits.


    The number one thing I look for in a guild is going to be a culture/personality fit. I've been in guild who were #1 on the server, but I hated the majority of people in it. Winning and being #1 is fun, but it's even more fun when you're doing it with people you actually like spending time with.

    Next thing I look at are the overall goal of the guild. Does it match up with mine? I'm not going to join a crafting guild if I want to PVP, or join a PVP guild if I want to craft.

    Then obviously, I look at what the guild has to offer me as a player. I'm very much a selfless player, giving to the guild what it needs, working towards bettering the guild as a whole. But I'm also not a sucker. If a guild is going to just use me as a number, or to do work for them and their cliché, no thanks.

    And lastly, the name.

    I don't want to run around with a guild tag that makes me look like a moron. If your guild has a funny or clever name, then that's extra points. But no weeb name guilds please.
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  • SoolchegSoolcheg Member
    edited July 2021
    As a GM I trying to gather up people with similar mindsets. Always talk to the newcomers to filter toxic and/or inadequate people. As a goal to rich, it usually decided on gatherings in form of throwing around some thoughts from me personally and after that listening up to the community. As for characteristics I looking for a friendly, responsible, chill and willing to learn person.

  • AsraielAsraiel Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    some have the charisma to lead some to support and many to follow. i never saw me as a lead nor a follower

    ranked basesed never was my thing i mostly joined guilds that aldo haveing a leader everyone was more or less equal. everyone has pros and cons and together we can be great.

    but time leaves its marks and so guilds loosen up and players regather in new guilds. haveing a guild often leads to players primarly focuse on doing stuff with other members of their guild and so theres not much interaction between members of diffrent guilds. and also beeing part of a guild kinda blocks you from getting into contact with other players of the community cause many activitis are made within the guild itself.

    i must add i never was part of a big guild the highest membercount i was in was around 30 members and aldo im a primarly pve player i was mostly in pvp focused guilds cause there i had kinda the most fun and the members were highly focused on haveing the best gear possible the fastes they could so beating new dungons was often easyer and faster. also had it more players in that spended a lot of time in the game even during the week. but then on the otherside those were the more instable guilds falling apart after around 1 year and reformed in other guilds.
  • I just want friends.
  • CROW3CROW3 Member
    As a guild member: are these folks I would actually enjoy spending hours with?

    As a guild leader: I've led a lot of guilds, and really have no interest in doing so again.
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  • MelofeignMelofeign Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    In general I am looking for a similar level of involvement. Most of my guilds have been in PvE experiences, so I look for people that will support each other and spend roughly the same amount of time in the PvE activities (prep work as well as progression). Because I have not played a game where the number of people in a guild had any tradeoff, having more folks in the guild that weren't doing progression but that you could be sociable with was an asset as well.

    As I tried to recruit for my guild and failing that look for a guild to join, I noticed that it is very hard to distinguish yourself in an ad. You could talk about your focus (which may well be very important here in Ashes), but mostly you talk in qualitative terms (not toxic, supportive, semi-hardcore) that are hard to translate.

    I found the groups I joined were either because of word of mouth, a cluster of IRL friends, or a common theme. For WoW I jumped from my original guild to the "Web Comic Wars" of Penny Arcade vs. PvP Online and really enjoyed the volume of people who had a common experience doing everything in WoW.

    I have found recently that watching streams of a guild doing content, or joining their community content in game really helps, because you get to know the shot caller and the primary members and how they act during the activities you want to do. However I don't think that translates very well to a search tool or an advertisement.

    Having an in game way to schedule community content I think would be the best way to match people with guilds. An ad board in a node or criers to talk about working a node for example. I also think that the node-centric aspect of Ashes will lend to getting to know a guild in an area before you join, or ease leaving a guild that you don't fit into (although it may be harder to leave if you are invested in a node and you want to get out)
  • AetiusAetius Member
    edited July 2021
    Undecided prospective guild member here. I've led large guilds in WoW years past, and now I'm only looking to participate as a member.

    I'm waiting to see which area of the world I would like to live in. Later on when we have more information, I'll be checking to see which guilds intend to focus on a particular region (fighting for a castle, having a city, engaging in regional PvP, etc.) For these reasons and others, choosing a guild in Ashes isn't so viable as it was in other MMOs before their launch.

    I hope to find a good and active guild that prefers defending or conquering a particular biome/area, and I will lend my support and use the guild to support my own regional goals. Regional focus also provides more assurance that help may be available to defend homes in the event that my freehold is at risk after a siege.

    Edit: Thulf's comment below reminded me of one other thing. I do hope there is a guild finder tool that shows activity, member count, and some leader-written information such as objectives, regions, focus, etc. Finder please!
  • ThulfThulf Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited July 2021
    Is this the place to answer those questions? Anyhow, here's my take on guilds...

    I'm more of a follower rather than a leader, I'm more of a member in other words. If I have enough game knowledge I tend to chime in on decision making by whispering (figure of speech) "suggestions" to the decision maker. A leader in a closet perhaps...

    Usually I don't join a guild until much later into the game when I feel pressured to join one in order to take part in certain activities that would otherwise be out of reach for me OR when I "click" with some of the members off the bat and just want to have fun together. By that time I usually have a fairly good grasp of the game, not just a newbie.

    Often times I join group activities without first even being in a guild. I like it when things happen naturally, so to speak. That's to say I don't browse through menus to find a guild if I can help it. A la we're having weirdly a lot of fun together in a group activity and then I get an offer or I offer myself to join one of the guilds involved. This way I'm already aligned with what the guild members are into as we're somewhat already doing similar activities together likely for the same reasons. Some games create such an environment for that to happen, in some other games browsing through a menu is the only way to join a guild because the game world is too instanced or whatever to allow for groups to form naturally the way I like it (immersion and natural feeling game flow).

    But if it happens that I never get in touch with a potential guild in-game then when looking at the guild browser menu then I'd certainly like to see at least some of these:
    • amount of members
      (and maybe an activity indicator of some sort to differentiate ded* guilds from live and well ones)
    • leading type
      (do leaders actively involve their members in activities or has the guild been created just to serve some random guy's power drip sensation leaving every1 to exist in a sort of free-for-all guild involvements, etc)
    • type of hierarchy
      (is it a full-on militaristic organization or rather just herded by charismatic opinion leaders informing of and rallying up the members for fun get-alongs a.k.a group content)
    • Active hours
      (There's always a prime time... some might be night-shift workers and have a slightly different time of day free for themselves or maybe the organizers are all from certain different faraway timezone in a given server, etc)
    • Main language
      (I'm from EU. Germans and French tend to form their own language bubbles from the rest of us English speakers which might be our 1st, 2nd, 3rd... language).
    • Casual, semi-hardcore, roleplay, or hardcore?
      (some guilds tend to flair themselves as "hardcore" and once I've joined it turns out they're doing absolutely nothing together, the "free-for-all" type of guilds. That's to say the flair should, in my opinion, come with clear questionnaire for the guild creators to have information uniformity for the potential members browsing the guild list in a menu or an info wall in a tavern when it comes to this hardcore-or-casual thing in particular)
    • Region
      (I've heard the map will be HUGE, some level of cohesion I think is important for a guild to function as a guild)
    • I hope I can edit this post later on because I would have more to share...

    (Or maybe I've misunderstood the question or the purpose of this "dev discussion" entirely...)
  • SoggyBandaidSoggyBandaid Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Dev Discussion #32 - Guilds
    Guild members - what kinds of information do you look for before joining a guild? Guild leaders - what kinds of characteristics are you looking for in new guild members?
    When joining a guild I typically look for alignment on personality, active game time, and goals. For instance, I tend to be laid back so if the GM mandates contributions or gear checks, I'm out. I've also played with guilds in other time zones which can stretch some players thin, and whether a guild is pve/pvx/pvp makes a difference.

    When running a guild I typically look for the same thing in reverse. I tend to run casual super friendly guilds which can be off putting to hardcore players. If my officer work a 9-5 I try to be up front with new players so they know when they can get help, expect raids, etc. Finally, for AoC I'll be looking for a small group of bounty hunter style players to hold the fort and invest in a particular area/region. I think @Aerius has the right idea.

    From the devs, I think a guild post system in game to let players know what guilds are active in a particular area would be really cool. If not through the node system then perhaps a battle standard GMs could plant to advertise to people (GW2 had something like this).
  • George_BlackGeorge_Black Member, Intrepid Pack
    edited July 2021
    No information.

    The best way to join a guild is to randomly come across players from it, play a few hours together and be asked to join. You will get all the info directly from people.

    I find guild finders very faceless and antisocial. Are people so demanding to get a guild taylored to their needs they are willing to chip away social aspects of the game?
  • HighopeHighope Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited July 2021
    What kinds of information do you look for before joining a guild?

    How often is their leader active?
    if not active then gg

    are they English speaking?
    speak English or mixed what am I getting into (majority)?

    Their goals & plans?
    If no goals or plans this wont work well for no one.

    primary gaming is ashes of creation no other game?
    if so I wont be there too long.

    pvp or pve based or both ?
    either one is fine. I can still pvp if I want.

    Are they hardcore, semi-hardcore, general guild, casual?
    good to know because if hardcore you gotta have attendance for that.

    how far is the guild in progression?
    If not far and it's been months or weeks slacking or not as active...

    What time do they raid/play?
    working nights

    Are they organized?
    if not then its going no where and drama

    Website or Discord?
    of course must have else gquit

    How active are they?
    semi/hardcore and not active? gg

    Do they help members do quests & dungeons to progress how helpful are they?
    If not then not interested.

    What part or roll can I play for the guild any spots left or will I be just a filler and primary raid groups are already made up?
    usually primary teams are made up by good friends and family and gain all the good loots and stuff, their rules their terms, what benefits them meh. Prefer a more mixed fresh setting. It's good to know what they are seeking for which class and role so you are guaranteed a spot.

    how do they process item drops if the drops are not independent for each person ?
    fairly or?

    any point system? how do they determine who raids and cannot raid due to attendance etc?
    how does it work for them?

    What level or gear do they require me to have?
    hopefully nothing crazy or demanding by certain date to be a certain way and they not a hardcore guild. gg

    Things like that...
  • VoidwalkersVoidwalkers Member
    edited July 2021
    As member, basic stuff I'd like to know:

    - Active/peak time?
    - Focus/Interest? (pvp/pve/industry/social)
    - Hardcore / semi-hardcore / casual
    - Size
    - Language(s)
    - Loot distribution policy
    - Expectation of members (approximate hours / week, raid attendance, gear requirement etc.)
  • WinnieV12 wrote: »
    I just want friends.

    Les't go 2024 will be us
  • FrissFriss Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Does their GM and their team understand/have experience with PEOPLE.
    At the end of the day, You have to work with people.

    1. Cannot please everyone, does leadership know how to put their foot down.
    2. People may not want to talk about it, but Loot rules are HUGE for a guild's success. Feeding officers, no thanks cya later.
    3. Have they had a guild before?
    4. are they pvp/pve/casual focused
    5. Seriousness/activeness is important for YOU to know and for them to tell you. how much are you online, and does it match with them....this includes time zones and all that.

    Lastly, at the end of the day, serious is good. casual is good. Anything is fine.....but I would HIGHLY suggest, finding a guild YOU ENJOY. Enjoy the people, enjoy every minute. Because the last thing you want is in your free time to feel like you have another job, or you aren't playing a game for FUN.
    -This coming from a "serious"/semi-hardcore PVP person who wants to get stuff done. You can get stuff done, and still have fun.

    IN CONCLUSION: The PEOPLE matter. who you talk to every day, what you enjoy doing with them, and if they have similar interests. You literally don't have enough time in the day to deal with toxic people, stay away from that. Good people = good guild.
  • NeurotoxinNeurotoxin Member, Alpha One
    Either I come in with people I already know, or it happens through luck and just being around.
  • FollyStormbornFollyStormborn Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I've been playing MMOs for 20 years now, and I think the most important factor is the people you're with. Low drama, motivated to help the guild succeed, and even the casuals have good reasons to help out or at least continue to log in and interact / chat.

    When I am new, it's the mentors that are willing to explain how to improve and become a solid player. When I've been around a while, it's the self-improvement and fun environment with peers - as well as a feeling of worth in contribution. Can this be rewarded in a fair way to other people - I don't know, but encouraging it would be valuable to the community.

    Expanding on the contribution - there needs to be goal oriented tasks that each ranking member of the guild can easily distribute to other clan members to help them help the guild. Ranking members of the guild need to have a reason for their position, show initiative, participate, and welcome new people - guilds without people in power having these qualifications fall apart or shrink membership quickly.

    I've played hardcore, semi-hardcore, and casual - and found it was more difficult to find a place in most games as a casual. I don't know if AOC has a way to improve this, but interaction between people to the point that you become friends or you feel like there is a reciprocal improvement doesn't happen at the more casual levels. Either you know they're boosting you entirely, or they're using you to farm junk because they don't want to.

    Member retention is one of the few ways that I've succeeded in having fun as a casual. Knowing the hard core players over a long period of time, I still was able to have multiple interactions and get to know them better. They treated me with more respect than a normal player, and it felt good to have them willing to share their knowledge and know me. If you have a way to encourage long term membership in a guild, I think this may go a long way to improving the experience of casual players.

    In hardcore and semi-hardcore settings, the thing that brings players together and creates communities are the long term parties. Schedules for raiding and ease of access to things going on within the guild are very important things that must be communicated and viewed easily. The best guilds did this on calendars outside the game, but disseminating information outside the game becomes difficult as players often play more than one game and cannot follow everything said in a bunch of Discord channels or a separate website they have to remember to check in with. Repeatable events help with this, but being able to log in and immediately know what is coming up would be massively beneficial for event planners and people with more limited time for playing.

    I'm sure there's more, but that covers the ones that immediately come to mind.
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  • BotBot Member
    As someone looking to join a guild I always try to look for the smaller, hardcore PvP group in any game I play. Usually requires getting good at the game myself, identifying what guilds are zergs or more exclusive, and getting an idea of which guilds clash the most with other guilds/groups. Then from there I try to get an idea of the type of culture the guild has then I contact their leader to get an idea of what type of requirements they have. I've been in the best or one of the best guilds/clans in pretty much every game I've played in. Although I don't just try to join whatever guild is the biggest and therefore strongest. I prefer quality over quantity for each member.
    As a guild leader I carry the same mindset. I try to recruit only high quality players that would fall in that top 15% or so percentile of the game. Also have to be people that I know are mature enough to not do anything stupid and reasonable enough to not do shady things like scamming, cheating, and etc. Trolling and picking fights with people is one thing, but it's another when you start trying to scam people out of stuff and harass people with bigotry.
  • SarugoSarugo Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    Let me preface by saying, ive played Eve online for about 10 years. I would say that its the community aspect you get from seeing other people online playing together that keeps me around for so long. our group would focus heavily on the industry/crafting side of the game to provide supplies to fuel the wars needed to bring content to our pvpers.

    Friends would hang out in the voice channels we set up for the corp (guild) even if they weren't playing that particular game. my peak number of people was around 50. When i would recruit, my favorite characteristic was for anyone online to be in voice channel and conversing/having a good time. Industry was often a dangerous activity because you would be hunted periodically by other people. communication was key, as we all worked together. I hope to be able to test the economy with whatever titans of industry friends I find.
  • Im looking for family friendly guildies, people who are easy to get along with not cussing every other word, and genuinely want to help out there guildies.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    This feels a little like Intrepid have run out of things they want to pretend we are having input in to.

    What do I want in people in the same guild as me (whether I am joining or recruiting)? I want people with the same mindset and playstyle as myself.

    What can a developer do to assist that? Absolutely nothing. So why are we asking this question?
  • NerrorNerror Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    edited July 2021
    Aside from language and amount of active players and geographical location and all those basic things, I would look for how much the guild members actually play together in groups and actively help each other. I would also look at how toxic they are to people not in their guild.
    Noaani wrote: »
    This feels a little like Intrepid have run out of things they want to pretend we are having input in to.

    What do I want in people in the same guild as me (whether I am joining or recruiting)? I want people with the same mindset and playstyle as myself.

    What can a developer do to assist that? Absolutely nothing. So why are we asking this question?

    They could be looking for specific categories and keywords people can search for if they are making a comprehensive guild-finder search engine.
  • NoaaniNoaani Member, Intrepid Pack
    Nerror wrote: »
    They could be looking for specific categories and keywords people can search for if they are making a comprehensive guild-finder search engine.

    They could, but then why would they need us to "help"?

    Do you honestly think any of us will come up with something they couldn't think of?

    If they want to make a guild finder tool that is actually useful, all they need to do is list what the guild has actually done in the last 30 days.
  • Memorium64Memorium64 Member, Alpha One, Adventurer
    I"m just looking for dedicated people to play with for most of the time I'm online. Skill doesn't matter.
  • edited July 2021
    The Useful People
    Apart from the occasional specialized goon, What you (in this I) look for inside of every candidate is your own interest at heart. That is your goal, your dream or your desire that somehow this candidate shows he too can help accomplish and with that you obligate yourself to help them; after all an organization is founded on a goal to partake missions towards.
    What we need is a clear system to classify guilds, statements on the motive/ goal of these initiations and a small question sheet for applying members. Because without, how would I as a member, to find the right guild for myself or as a guild leader, members for my cause.

  • When Looking for an guild:
    *1st it's nessasary that it's a still active one - many guilds exist but there is noone playing or only online for login rewards but didn't play anymore.
    * focus of that guild - is as an PVP only guild, do they Raids and stuff like that
    * use they TS / DC or nothing (last one tells a lot)
    * is there a guildleadership (more than one person)
    * is there guildreputation ok (how others see those members scammer as example )
    * are they intrested in growing till a certaint point


    as an guildleader staf:
    * age
    * use they ts/DC or nothing
    * how do they behave
    * what do they expect from a guild
    * how long they play this game
    * what activitys did they want to do (PVP/Raids/....)
    * (some games) did they crafting something and lvl
    * period of time in which they are active
    * did i know his name and did he have bad reputation
    * are they ok with the guildrules
  • Memorium64 wrote: »
    I"m just looking for dedicated people to play with for most of the time I'm online. Skill doesn't matter.

    Я тоже. Но хотелось бы чтобы их стремления к саморазвитию в игре были не меньшими, чем мои. А лучше, чтобы они хотели большего и достигать это общими усилиями.
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