You just want to be dismissive, it is not such a simple hand wave issue. When I am playing a high gear character I get match after match after match stuck with low gear enemies and there is no challenge, it is very frustrating. When I am on a low gear character match after match after match I get stuck with high gear enemies and the match is not winnable. When you go in a match with 37k health, and your enemy 2s team has more than 120k total health, it is not PvP. Similalrly, when you go in a 2s match on a 53k health char and your enemy team only has 75k total health, it is also not PvP. Both situations sucks, I deal with both situations every single day, in at least 80% of matches. This is one of the biggest contributing factors into what WoW is today. It is not something you can just say, there’s no reason to improve it because if they improve it, something else might get complained about. That is just a ridiculous sentiment to have.
And it is just a small focused individual example that plays hugely into the bigger picture. All the development thinking that causes these issues are also causing all the other issues.
What they mean is cosmetic stuffs. Things like sets of gear from classic quest areas, things like that. Stuff that people might enjoy, but aren’t going to give guilds an edge. Stuff that even small guilds can earn, because currency would be tied to everything.
No, it isn’t. People twist it that way in some situations, but most certainly it isn’t designed that way.
I agree.
Agreed. And I’d like to see those tools made easier to find such guilds.
It is designed that way, and that is the problem. You can’t fix issues without looking at the problem. You can’t cure lung cancer with cough syrup. I explained in detail in many paragraphs what I meant by this to another detractor of the WoW is for bullying sentiment. You can wish it wasn’t all you want, but the current systems eject non-toxic people en masse and specifically attract toxic people. WoW is what it is because they very specifically and exclusively pander to the bullying mentality. There is no way to PvP without either constantly dunking on low gear people or constantly getting tunneled for being low gear, even at high rank. That just is the game, and this type of game attracts in a larger sense a very specific type of person.
Shuffling the guild systems around isn’t going to change the overall player to player sentiment in WoW. A well designed game doesn’t need guild systems at all to have healthy player communities. The important part is the game systems and what kind of people want to play that game.
Blizzard did not sit down and say, “let’s design a game that bullies people.” So no. If you’re being bullied, that’s a social issue by people, not the game. And one you can take yourself out of, whether it’s by using tools given, doing different content, finding a better group of people or a different server.
Nowhere have I ever found that the game is designed to bully you.
I’ve had the pleasure of being in a happy guild, and I miss it. But it wasn’t a perfect answer even back then, when the game was simpler and players were less fragmented over say 20+ mythic plus levels. Raid nights were reliably fun but the tradeoff is you had to build them into your schedule, often during hours that could compete with real world obligations or opportunities, which is not ideal for entertainment. Outside of raid nights you might or might not have fit into say a dungeon group of 5 with the required trinity comp.
Personally I think Blizzard needs to make their game super enjoyable 24x7, with or without real life friends playing, with or without great guildmasters and officers (which are in short supply.) Battle.net should essentially be one big guildmaster ensuring all players are lined up into fun, compatible groups and ready to go whenever they want. If there are roles missing AI NPCs should provide them after no more than a few minutes wait.
I suspect one of the reasons this doesn’t happen is that if you are a Blizzard employee in that decision conversation, chances are you already have 24x7 access to other gamers, so they just never experience the issues themselves.
I disagree, it is extremely apparent to me that Blizzard has set out to do exactly that. If it is not their motive, then they are incompetent, and I do not believe they are incompetent. It is not a personal issue, it is a systemic issue. I have described it in great detail in this thread several times already
The system chronically pairs groups of massive stat disparities against one another. This is a problem that is trivial to not have. There is only one reason to have it be this way, to pander to the people who need it to be that way. The people who need it to be that way are the typical toxic player. The game exclusively panders to that in the core systems design. That just is how it is, and feeling otherwise is a lack of experience or an ability to look the other way.
Literally no one in this entire world is going to sit down and say, “Let’s design a game that bullies people!”
Your inability to even comprehend what actual bullying is astounds me.
If you have an issue with PvP, then please, by all means, go make a thread to complain about PvP. But your comments have nothing to do with guilds and the community.
No, what you described is “I hate PvP and I need better gear.” That is NOT bullying. And you’re being horribly disrespectful to anyone who has ever been bullied in their life.
If you do not have anything to add to this discussion concerning guilds, then I’d suggest finding somewhere else to go push this extremely offensive agenda. I’m sorry, but trying to use “bullying” in reference to “I don’t like the gearing in PvP” is just disgusting to me and I won’t engage any longer.
I want real discussion in here on constructive ideas for guilds and how to help people find them. Not… whatever that is.
You’re not seeing what I am saying. This is a limited scope example, but very major contributing factor into the problems you are theorycrafting solutions for. You want to reduce it down to “I don’t like PVP and want free gear”, but that is nothing to do with the issue. The issue is the kind of community this game’s systems foster. Bullying to me is a desire to prey on the weak. The game systems in all regards are specifically designed to pander to people who wish to prey on the weak. The game systems are so well refined to pander to this mentality that they could not be more so if it were explicitly stated as the goal, so it is almost certainly explicitly stated as the goal. The reason this would be explicitly stated as the goal is because that is what their data analytics say retains the most engagement per customer. There is very good reasons to build systems that attract bullies, profit.
And in all of this, I am not talking about this one particular issue itself, but rather the systemic problems that make your OP pointless. We wont have healthy guilds without a healthy player base. If everything you asked for was tacked onto the game today in this state, no problems would change except to be compounded.
I’m not sure those specific items would be enough to do it, but you’re not wrong. I really liked the Cata system (especially Have Group Will Travel) and there wasn’t really any reason to get rid of it. I was in a small guild at the time and we still managed to get rank 25 without a lot of fuss.
The biggest problem I see with the guild-matching system right now is that it’s incredibly low-information. This character came into the game during TBC; he’s been in a total of 3 guilds. Two because I was ninja-invited (the first one of those lasted about 2 days), one because I met someone while running a pug M+.
The guild finder is a waste of time, as it currently exists. I was going to suggest that before anyone could invite other people to a guild, they should be required to fill out the pitch info for the guild finder and have it approved by a CM (as most are either completely vacant or are one sentence long and don’t really say anything), but I would get stomped upon by the legion of people who just want a bank guild/guild for their alts.
What we end up with is a system that leaves most guild recruiting to chance, or relies on an experience within the pug system, or like Grymes was referring to earlier – matching up people who probably shouldn’t have been matched up with in the first place due to personality differences or conflicts.
I do agree the spirit of the game probably functions best within the scope of a guild system, but the current guild system is fractured, Blizzard hasn’t done much to aid it, and the tools we do have aren’t doing the job as intended.
Agreed. I’d like to see some updates to the guild finder, a better forum for guilds here that gives people incentives to post about them, better guild permissions like we used to have and better ways for different types of people to find the types of guilds they need.
I also think a place for people to discuss what does and doesn’t work best for guilds, to give open conversation, would be helpful, but I know people probably won’t use it. lol
When you’re getting killed by 55k+ folks as a 25k+ player, I think it’s safe to say you died because you were outgeared. I’ve PvPed quite a bit throughout all the expansions when gear levels were more equallized, and I had absolutely no problem admitting defeat when the opponents just outplayed me.
It’s why I haven’t touched PvP at all in Shadowlands. Haven’t queued for a single BG or turned on warmode at all this expansion, because the kind of gear a player like me is allowed to have is pathetic compared to everyone elses. It’s a shame because I used to love PvP and participated in it regularly, but since a big part of the game is essentially locked out to me now it’s killing my interest in it more and more.
We either need stat templates again, ilvl caps on random BGs, or better accessible gear for lower end players.
add more exclusives to the guild vendor but divide it into categories:
Guild Achievement Rewards
Reputation Rewards
Temporary Buffs (Faster Exp, Faster Gold, Faster Travel Time)
Contribution Rewards (Like Ahn’Quiraj, contribute materials or gold to guild bank and receive reward which is common to everyone. One person contributing 10m gold and completing the contribution doesn’t mean only they get the reward, no matter how the contribution is the reward is shared among every contributor as long as it meets a minimum requirement set by GM)
Sign up for Guild vs Guild Battlegrounds
Feeling ‘forced’ to join a guild to complete content is wildly unpopular for a majority of players due to varying levels of toxicity and friction players deal with in the guilds that actually accomplish those types of content
This is merely an entertainment source and you quickly learn that the vast majority of relationships in wow are transitory and of little long term value. They might be there for you in a few wow activities but are literally nonexistent in your non-wow life.
Obviously some exceptions exist but most players derive no lasting relationships from wow unless they brought them with them to the game.
I have a problem with this claim. So you want to not put in the work that the other members have and get carried? I mean there needs to be a minimal level of ownership on your part. Especially for progression raiding.
i think the biggest problem wow and blizzard faces is that their loyal customers are people that have 15 years+ invested into this game. and 10-15 years ago the vast majority either lived at home or was single or didnt have any kids etc… etc… and was able to play 24/7 basically and have that time to dedicate. however now 15+ years later these same people have their own lives, kids, bf/gf/wife/husband and jobs and so on but we still play alot. but we can only play are various times. we can almost play as much as before but not as consistent making being a guild nearly impossible.
the “other” “newer” type players the ones that dont have any time or work invested into their characters or accounts are part timers and short timers. they rarely ever stay and are not dedicated to the game.
the times have seriously changed and the game needs to keep up. the solo player is king now and the game needs to accommodate this very need otherwise the will inevitably slowly die off as it has been doing in the past few years.
outside of hardcore mythic raiding a guild is needed for nothing. solo play it basically 95% of this game. all it needs are better and higher gear rewards for the harder content outside of actual raiding.
Well I do agree that they need to promoted organized team play, that doesn’t really need to be in the form of guilds. People just need to understand that there are certain levels of content, that even thou you can pug it, were never really intended be done as a pug. Now for raiding that probably will mean a guild, but for mythic+ it just means you need to start building a network of people who you felt played well and try to keep working together with those players.
I agree that the guild finder isn’t going to help much. The guild finder message for this gulid, in fact, is that it is inactive.
Asking for the guild “pitch” is one of your first questions. Along with several others. Grab the GM or ask for an officer and start gathering info.
What is the main purpose of this guild? (Raid, PvP, M+, Have fun, I dunno just made it…)
Do you have a group of officers to help run the guild? (Yes, No, What are those?)
How many active members do you have? (My and my brother, 800, About two dozen…)
What are your active times? (Week nights, Weekends, Don’t Know)
Do you have a Raid Team? (What level are you running? What is/are the minimum requirement(s) to join?)
How long has the guild been active? (Since BC, About 2 weeks, 2009…)
What are your short term and long term goals? (What?)
What are the guild policies I should be aware of?
What are your rules about how PUGs are treated if you invite them to guild groups?
You have agency. Use it. You are interviewing them, and they should be at least minimally engaging with you to see if you are a good fit.
If you get push back, or evasive answers, or if the answers don’t align with where you want to go, then move on. You’ve probably established that it would be better to keep looking.
I don’t think they need to offer anything for non guilded people. There are pros and cons to being non guilded and guilds would be part of the cons. Now I will add that I would like to see player housing as well but that would not offer anything like increased benefits. Housing should be 100% optional with no type of game play benefit.
The idea is not to set guilds apart from each other, that is something that guilds have to on their own. The idea is offer incentives that are not game breaking to people not in a guild but encourage them try out a guild for the incentive. It is designed to be pretty low stakes and it is up the guilds themselves to be welcoming, active, and most important inclusive if they want to keep members.
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Along with several others. Grab the GM or ask for an officer and start gathering info.