The new Guild UI and Permissions...yikes (Part 1)

Daily Bump of thread.

Still would appreciate a good response in reasons to why this change was made without any say on patch notes.
Checking in again to make sure my voice is heard. Everyone contributing to this discussion needs to keep doing so.

We concluded our Legion raiding last week and I held a guild meeting with 40+ people that night, and this was one of the things I had to talk about during the meeting. As of right now, I haven't assigned anyone in our guild with the checked box of "Is Officer" since there are certain permissions I will not assign to anyone in the guild, regardless of rank. As a result of this, nobody in the guild has the ability to edit public notes or officer notes. The ability to edit public notes is something almost everyone can do in our guild, and the ability to edit officer notes was a privilege that many long-standing members earned as well. Now it's all been taken away because of this clumsy, one-size-fits-all change.

The important thing here is that we as guild masters will determine how we want to run our guilds. Please give us the customization we had prior to patch 8.0. Honestly, guild master controls have always been lacking in WoW and we should have MORE, not LESS. I have contributed my own ideas earlier in this thread on how positive changes could actually help guild managers, not hurt them.

Please address sooner than later and revert the change at the very least. This thread began on July 17. We're now at August 4 and BfA is fast approaching. Get on it.
Okay no one click the arrow next to the X or you'll get this: https://imgur.com/kW8O2WZ
You can't look at the roster nor anything else when it's like that. Also I would like it if people in my other guild were allowed to edit their public notes without me making them an officer :/
I know every single one of us are frustrated beyond all belief and are feeling like after 48 pages, hundreds of comments, etc that they don't care. I feel like we need to grit our teeth and keep the communication in this thread as non-toxic as possible so that we are taken seriously and when they are able to give us answers won't refuse them just cause of our behavior.

I am choosing to believe they just have a million fires to put out, that the Guild UI permissions might be a more complex fix, and that they won't say anything until they know when/how/if the fix will happen. That while yes they have yet to respond to us they are disabling/shutting down/etc their social media sites cause people are just being down right nasty due to the hate of the storyline. Our voices may be getting drown out even more so now than before when the only issue was the 60-80 scaling, etc.

Let's try to remain professional even if you feel they aren't. We can rise above and show them the reason why we are who we are and do what we do. Lead by example even against those who should be doing it themselves and aren't.

Please, fix the tailored guild permissions or acknowledge that you have at least seen this. I feel that all everyone wants at this point is acknowledgment by even a Blue.
Blizzard is really dropping the ball here, you had a great system and ruined it by grouping permissions together.
I just posted on twitter @warcraftdevs asking for a blue response. Course, do they even work on weekends? :/
Okey Doke Bliz...you asked for it:

You know, I've seen the things that Blizzard has done to Guild Masters over the past few weeks, and let me tell you, it's just very terrible. We have so many guilds, and they're just fantastic, and everywhere they're saying the same thing to me. These new changes, just terrible. Such a perfect example of too much Blizzard control, and frankly, so very sad. I have seen the very best GM's, with some of the finest guilds who were just doing some really spectacular things. Just amazing things before. And now, total chaos. We have Officers, very deserving and hardworking people, who can't even invite anymore. New recruits changing messages of the day. Insanity. Blizzard wants to say this is better, but this is so wrong. They want to take away control from Guilds. They think more Blizzard control is the answer. Wrong. The answer is to put the controls back into GM hands.

Yesterday I had an opportunity to really listen to some fantastic GM's, who took very small guilds, and they have created the most beautiful things from very little. It's magnificent, and very successful. Before, things were good and they were able to make the deals and have the tools they needed to succeed. Now? Not so much. They're telling me every day now how this is such a bad deal. Letting me know just how terrible this thing is. For the past three expansions, all they get is less choice. Less incentives. Guildies quitting because of the bad deals. Guilds breaking up. They used to have perks before. Now? Again, not so much. So many things taken away. And Blizzard tells us this is better. Very wrong. These are really, just the worst deals in World of Warcraft guild history. They signed off on these deals, but now the GM's have to pay for it.

Is Blizzard willing to fix this? Who knows. But we all know what needs to happen. We need to give power back to the Guild Masters. Give them the tools to succeed. No more Blizzard control. We need to open up the Guild markets for better recruiting. Better retention. REAL incentives. Let us get the very best players. If you look at the polls, they'll tell you that the people agree with us. You look at the crowd that has gathered for this post. HUGE. The most ever. Never before have we seen so much agreement. Spectacular. There are so many great players, just the best really, and they deserve better.

Blizzard:
Make Guilds Great Again!
Please revert the guild changes... The new permissions and chat history make guilds worse in every way.
...

Let's try to remain professional even if you feel they aren't. We can rise above and show them the reason why we are who we are and do what we do. Lead by example even against those who should be doing it themselves and aren't.

Please, fix the tailored guild permissions or acknowledge that you have at least seen this. I feel that all everyone wants at this point is acknowledgment by even a Blue.


Ontop of this, encourage your affected guild members and other leadership to chime in here.

Bring back granular rank controls.
So I just found this out today, and it sucks that I can't tailor a guild how I want it to be anymore?
Instead we are forced to have a guild in what blizzard feels like a guild is...
This made me sad to read. :( Don't let something like this stop you from starting a guild with your friends. There are some work arounds to it and hopefully it won't be in this state forever.
08/04/2018 08:42 PMPosted by Nysalla
08/04/2018 07:57 PMPosted by Suéter
So I just found this out today, and it sucks that I can't tailor a guild how I want it to be anymore?
Instead we are forced to have a guild in what blizzard feels like a guild is...


Yeah, my vision for my guild involved a lot of custom ranks. A combination of rp and non rp things. I'd given up in Legion trying to run it because no one I knew really played, so I kept it all to myself. But now I have a bunch of friends coming back to the game and I liked the idea of making a guild or community for all of us.

But it's so limited, and the chat hanging around forever is off putting to all of them. We're better off just keeping all our communication outside of the game. I would have loved to spend this prepatch recruiting and organizing events but it looks like that won't be happening.

I'm content playing solo, because that's what I've basically done for the last 2-3 years, but I really wanted to aspire to more.
I don't like getting on a soapbox, but this really is disrupting a lot of people. Thank you to those that read these long winded posts from me. Anyway to carry on....

You wouldn't tell a business owner how to run their business, and how to promote or what incentives they can and cannot offer to their employees.

Even then as a business owner you allow your managers to give incentives to employees as well to increase performance, and allow people to work up the ladder and grow.

Same goes the other way around, not everyone wants to be a manager, or anything resembling that because they don't want the responsibility. Honestly, that's okay too.

I know some people might wonder why bring this up, but the same goes for guilds. We incentivize players, we try to help them become better players or give them opportunities.

Now we still have controls over the guild vault but even then that is only a small drop in the bucket.

I really don't think this was the intent with the guild controls, and I sure hope it isn't, because if it was then why bother with ranks. It's just a title otherwise, and a mechanism to separate people and nothing else. It holds no other value, other than potentially having access to another bank tab or they can withdraw one extra item... YAY! (not)

Again, I don't mind the communities as there is a place for them you could say. At the same time though, you've given us a very watered down version of Discord. I as a player will not stop using Discord. Case in point when Voice to the game was originally introduced to the game back in TBC. I still used Ventrillo, TeamSpeak, Mumble (ect.).

There is a reason for this, and to be fair Discord is a GREAT application. Not just because it's easy to use, but it does offer the chat logs, different channels within the SAME server, AND the ability to tailor your ranks/roles within it. All while not segregating your member base if you so choose.

You could argue making separate communities for your guild for certain aspects, but that does segregate your guild, and then what is the point? You may as well have separate guilds, and that would only serve to hurt the guild community.

You could also argue from this point, that players shouldn't have to download separate applications outside of the game to play or communicate affectively with other players. I can completely understand this viewpoint, as I've in the past seen a guild literately fall apart over in-voice over using an outside program. (Don't ask but it's true)

I'm using an addon to revert some of the changes made to the guild lead controls. And on the above statement I shouldn't have to go to outside sources to play affectively, or do what I've always been able to do affectively.

If that is really the mentality, then why not add WeakAuras to the game so that you can customize warnings, or DBM for pull timers... need an addon even for just that. What about DPS meters, or GTFO, Omen, Quartz, or Elvui since so many people don't use the base UI. Or for those that play the auction house, TSM, Auctioneer, Auctionator, ect. I could go on and on here... but that's not done because you allow players to build addons to adjust the game to their playstyle.

It's great that the option is there, but it's not needed. Let the people who do VOIP do VOIP and focus of building great games.

WoW in my opinion still is a great game, but we've had so many silly problems with this patch that it's really just painful to see. The pre-patch content was slim, compared to other launches that I've been a part of. Some classes didn't even have their changes put in to place because "there wasn't enough time." I for one would have rather waited an extra month or two and have everything working properly and everything available than this. I know I'm one of the few in this regard considering the "we want it and we want it now" group mentality. We got a new system that we didn't really even ask for that broke the game, (It had to be disabled to get ppl back on line, so yes broke the game), and converted a system that didn't need to be converted. Unless that's why it broke.

I've suggested doing an advanced option, which I think would be a great addition to this. Your guild leaders and now Community Leaders need these granular controls to be able to build successful functioning environments. Not because we are control freaks, but because it's human nature to work towards something. Hence why games like WoW are as successful as they are.
08/04/2018 09:31 PMPosted by Keiralynn
This made me sad to read. :( Don't let something like this stop you from starting a guild with your friends. There are some work arounds to it and hopefully it won't be in this state forever.


Sadly the permission changes completely obliterates the entire premise behind the guild with all its custom ranks and permissions :(. Thankfully I just kind of sat on the idea throughout legion because if I'd poured myself into it only to have this change go through I'd be livid.

We're still going to play together, but I just can't stomach the permission changes on top of the chat history so I'm going to stay away from all guilds and communites until at least that is revoked or changed to an option. It would have been nice to have a centralized hub for all of our activities in game, and I -hope- they'll keep playing through BfA. But we'll see.
With all that they have to do for a new xpac, who even had the idea to change a guild interface that pretty much nobody complained about?

Was it just that someone wants to show there job is relevant and that they contribute and have something to do? That was afraid if they didn't push for this they'd have nothing to do?

I mean, seriously, what was the basis for the change? And I don't think communities, because that could have easily been separate.
08/04/2018 10:00 PMPosted by Irannia
The pre-patch content was slim, compared to other launches that I've been a part of. Some classes didn't even have their changes put in to place because "there wasn't enough time."


The pre-patch being slim was understandable because those devs were pulled off to code in the guild changes that everyone was clamoring for. /sarcasm

After all, they only had so much time and had to prioritize where to spend it...sigh...
how about if you put the guild interface back the way it was until you can find something that works for the players. Just trying to manage the roster has turned into a nightmare. We had set up our permissions exactly the way we wanted them and now we don't have the flexibility to do that any more. Our options are either demote people or let them have permissions we really don't want them to have.
Please revert the permissions changes, I care not about the UI, but the "is officer" bundle is just plain silly.
I think this is gone on long enough, and with no reply from Blizzard it seems they are giving guilds the middle finger yet again..

gg bliz.

Please revert the changes or make them better
I do find it interesting how may are concerned about persistent chat. For our guild, one of the attraction of Discord was the persistent chat. Now, entire convos could be asynchronous; members that couldn't access Discord when not at their computer could catch up to the discussion. Persistent chat is very inclusive and helps to build ties between members.

At least this is what we have found to be true for our guild. We've been using it for a year, I think. The only time I've found it inferior to forum threads is when creating a flash channel for a volatile subject. We felt that a forum post gives the author more time to pick their words.

Anyway, I just thought I'd contribute a different way to view persistent chat. It's preference in the end.
The way things are run around here kinda reminds me of when higher-ups push a decision, despite protests from their employees, and end up in the product "because they said so", which leaves those who interact with their customers left out to dry. Very rarely are all members of an organization are on the same page, and even less have a say on what goes on. I see demands for Blues to respond to this seemingly misguided decision, but it could very well be that they themselves don't even know why the decision was made.