Guild/Events Management is broken

I am an officer in a mid-tier guild. We don't require people to be on discord (although we do have it), but even if we did, it's a simple fact of games that people do not read. It was true in WoW, and it's especially extra-super-doubly true in mobile games.

This brings me to our problem. People do not follow instructions. But there are absolutely NO tools available to do anything about it.

1. There are no tools to make instructions clearer. Better chat options. Direct messages AT people. Color code missions. Or even something as trivial as an instruction box where the officers can write what has to happen in that phase. I accept that this requires some development, and pray it comes soon, because hAAT was hard, but doable without better ingame tools, but TB requires constant instructions on what should be done in platoons (people insist on dumping their ships in platoons with Milennium Falcon), and which territory to deploy in. Guild leaders need to have the ability to broadcast this.
2. There are no ways to "bench" people. Someone who consistently screws up (combat before platoons, deploy in wrong territory, etc.) can be punished in only one way. It is both draconian and shoots the guild in its own foot: by removing that person from the guild during TB we deprive him from 6 days worth of rewards, AND lose a full guild member's contribution to what remains of TB. Even if someone is screwing up, the mere fact that they are doing something is better than an empty spot. Contrast this with WoW raids (I played for years, and was an officer in a guild), where if someone stands in the fire once too often, they are simply booted from the raid for the night. We could then instantly bring in a replacement (from within the guild). The next night, the first person could simply be invited again, in the hope that he would now pay more attention to not stand in the fire. The raid did not have to continue with one person less. The replacing person could contribute *and* reap the rewards. And the person who got removed received the rewards for having contributed up to that point. Not being able to replace people in a fair manner exacerbates all the problems of the first point. Not only do people not read, but there is no satisfactory way of teaching them. Yes, you can call them out in chat, but if they didn't read in the first place, how is that going to do anything? And yes, you can replace them after TB is over, but that doesn't solve the problem of the ongoing TB.
3. Guild recruitment right now is a disaster: I have had 2 prospective recruits message me, and while I would love to be able to switch people who are standing in the fire (figuratively) and give the new recruits a shot, there is absolutely no point in changing guild members in an ongoing TB. This means everybody who doesn't have a guild when TB starts is screwed, and guilds get into a panic'd rush of musical chairs when TB ends and before the next one starts.

Quick fixes:
2. Allow officers to change the guild banner. It's a bad fix, but it's currently the only effective ingame communication tool. It gets thrown in your face when you enter and when it's changed. It's big and yellow. It's far more likely people read it than any other ingame message. And insofar as I know, it is the only message that minors can read. Yet the only person who can change it is the GM. The whole point of officers is to have people help out with the guild management, including the running of events. Officers can invite people, and kick people. Why not change the guild banner?
3. Allow new recruits to join an ongoing TB. While it won't solve the fact that kicking someone from an ongoing TB is a draconian punishment, at least guilds will be able to continue without missing a person, and the threat of being kicked from an ongoing TB *might* make people read the pathetically inadequate ingame chat instructions.

Long term:
1. Improve communication tools. Allow officers to color-code missions (red, yellow, green), throw up specific TB banners, maybe even per territory, allow direct messaging (even if it's only from officers to members and not vice versa) that shows up with a notification icon (so people click on it), etc.
2. Make TB rewards partial. You get the Guild Event token rewards for your completed stars as TB progresses. At the end, the reward box is based on your personal number of stars. If you complete a TB all with the same guild, and the TB got 35 stars, everybody gets the blue box. If you got kicked halfway through (lets say, in phase 3), you got the 9 stars from phases 1 and 2, got removed from phase 3, and joined another guild, and then got another 16 stars in phases 4, 5, and 6, you get a green box for having a total of 25 stars, even if both your previous and your new guild get blue boxes. But you get rewards for the parts of TB you participated in. People can freely leave guilds and join others without losing out on a huge reward, and guilds can take a chance replacing underperforming guild members.

Replies

  • crzydroid
    7254 posts Moderator
    +++
  • Liath
    5140 posts Member
    Acrofales wrote: »
    2. Allow officers to change the guild banner. It's a bad fix, but it's currently the only effective ingame communication tool. It gets thrown in your face when you enter and when it's changed. It's big and yellow. It's far more likely people read it than any other ingame message. And insofar as I know, it is the only message that minors can read. Yet the only person who can change it is the GM. The whole point of officers is to have people help out with the guild management, including the running of events. Officers can invite people, and kick people. Why not change the guild banner?

    Even independent of TB, I really, really, really want this.
  • +1000000

    It would be nice to allow my officers to be able to use the guild message to direct people in the early hours while i am asleep, although i'm an active guild leader its not possible to be online 24/7 and allowing officers to print instructions in the guild message would help everyone.
  • Lol. Relegated to the forum of doom. Hope at least the devs read it here, because nobody else will.
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