The new Guild UI and Permissions...yikes (Part 2)

system · May 22, 2024, 1:42am

Continuing the discussion from The new Guild UI and Permissions...yikes (Part 1) - #5626 by Brahmina-khadgar.

Previous discussions:

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

Fumel-arathor · May 22, 2024, 1:44am

Whose bright idea was to lump all these permissions under a single check box?

> New Permissions UI: https://i.imgur.com/v7WlrcH.png
> Old Permissions UI: https://i.imgur.com/Fi55wGh.png

Now to give someone access to officer chat, or give them the ability to set their own public note, I have to give them the ability to delete people’s messages, calendar events, notes, gmotd, kick people from voice chat, etc.

Thanks for taking more control away from the players…in favor for watered down solutions.

Edit: Copy of the OP from the original thread.

Walkerbo-saurfang · May 22, 2024, 1:47am

Well, we finally reached the max post limit of 5549, we are here still wanting Ion to follow up and fix something that was broken with the launch of communities.

Brahmina-khadgar · May 22, 2024, 1:48am

Heh.

Just when I made a post about being optimistic, they closed the original thread. Figures. Now Fumel is going to have to go through and do his quoting thing again.

Fumel-arathor · May 22, 2024, 1:55am

Testing how to copy from one thread to another (because I wasn’t happy with my first try).
This at least seems to have the original poster’s name in it.

Walkerbo-saurfang · May 22, 2024, 1:58am

Please return granular control to guild rank permissions

In July 2018 Bliz introduced communities; an unintended result of this launch guild granular permissions controls were consolidated to just two ranks, essentially guild officer or not guild officer.

There were many threads that requested a return to the previous guild permissions functionality, which were close with a master thread started.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/the-new-guild-ui-and-permissionsyikes/18758

On July 25th 2018 a blue, Ythisens, extended the cap, and once again August 7th 2018; unfortunately Ythisens was one of the 800 Bliz employees that were culled and it seems they were the only one that was monitoring this thread.

In the WoW Live Developer Q&A w/ Ion Hazzikostas - August 23rd 2018 Ion said that they were looking for further feedback, he even stated “let us know what problems you are having and we do what we can to solve those problems”.
https://youtu.be/-npITwtxuN0?t=1891

Well here we are; more than 3 years after the statement from Ion requesting further feedback, the thread has 4620 posts full of feedback without any further acknowledgement or a fix.

Here is one of my posts within the master thread that details my feedback and reasoning.

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

The changes to guild management were rebuilt with the new community features and that is the reason why the current guild permissions are not as flexible as they once were.

Here is a comparison of what we have now and what we had before communities were introduced.
https://i.imgur.com/JYNV0S7.png

For me the changes have clumped together in such a way that ranks are either an “officer” or “not an officer”.
In the past I was able to finely tweak each of the ranks based on what sort of guildy they were.
Assistant Guild Master - full control of everything as I trusted them totally
Guild Officer - could not modifyg guild info and change bank permissions
Guild Seargent - could not see officer chat, see officer notes, demote and remove guild members
Guild Corporal - could not promote guild members and reduced access to remove items on certain bank tabs
Guild Private - could not create/edit guild events and edit public notes
New Recruit - could not invite members, deposit only access to the guild bank no guild repairs
Guild Stockade - (sin bin) could not speak in chat and no bank access

Also I note that in communities we have the ability to not only ban players it is an account wide ban, something that has long been desired by guilds and players.

If this functionality is now possible can we please have the ability to not only ignore a character but also the option to ignore the whole account.

I just wonder now that Bliz seem to be “listening” to players once again that we can refocus them to finally resolve this issue.

Just a repost of a detailed post.

Brahmina-khadgar · May 22, 2024, 1:59am

I just realized that by making this thread into a part 2, Blizzard effectively has hidden the fact that the problem dates from 2018.

Snefnug-azuresong · May 22, 2024, 9:48am

Except they include a link to the original thread right there in the OP.

Brahmina-khadgar · May 23, 2024, 1:23am

Yes, yes they do. But this thread looks like a brand new one in GD. Doesn’t have all the posts and views of the original, so it doesn’t stand out at all.

But all that really matters is if they fix the permissions. After that, both these threads can retire to oblivion.

Finraziell-wyrmrest-accord · May 23, 2024, 3:47pm

Just have to fill this one up telling them to keep their promise and stop dragging it out for half a decade.

Fumel-arathor · May 23, 2024, 9:49pm

Pretty much. I still think there was a lot of good advice and ideas in the old thread. I’m on the fence about dredging them up and reposting here. As Snefnug said, the link to the original thread is right there at the top of this one.

And maybe we don’t need to repost them because Blizz has already taken note and implemented those ideas in the new guild updates.

(Yeah, okay. That’s a tough one to swallow, I admit.)

Fumel-arathor · May 23, 2024, 9:54pm

Here’s a nice post from early in the original thread:

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

08/04/2018 10:54 PMPosted by Kiwì

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.

I have to echo these sentiments verbatim. The only reason to have more than 2 or three ranks right now is to regulate guild bank access and even that’s pretty weak. Right now my guild has 7 ranks that are redundant in function and appearance.

It’s nice to know that Blizzard is “listening” and I hope they are able to amend these changes soon to suit the needs of the communities themselves.

For my guild, the most important features that have been disabled are:
1 - The ability for the individual members to mark or notate each of their own characters with Public Notes. The officers can modify them to appeal to the standard officer notes later which reflect when a person joined the guild or whose alt they belong to. Ideally it would be nice to have the option back so that our officers notes can be transparent to the members even though they are restricted from writing or changing them.
HOWEVER I would be eternally grateful if there way as the GM or officer of a guild to connect alts to a main or characters to a player automatically, rather than counting on a player to divulge this info and keeping track with it manually. It would benefit many guilds who likely offer up guild benefit or responsibility to a single character. (i.e. farming of materials to create a powerful item) Once a character has reached the pinnacle of such an accomplishment the guild can then assist a different player rather than the same player on a different character. Also on that same issue, if a person is misbehaving and the guild has decided to dismiss a player from the guild, the hardest part is dismissing ALL of their characters, especially if they have a sleeper in the guild. (Some character that joined much later than their other characters and did not tell the leadership that they were an alt, either inherently or intentionally.)
2 - The ability to create events that involves the guild as a whole. Previously I know there were issues in the calendar where strangers could communicate (mostly their solicitation of illegal services) through calendar invites. But while my community of active gamers is large enough to be an active and progressive group, I also do not think I have to worry about them soliciting anything illegal in this manner via guild calendar events. If that were the case, I would expect they would push it in gchat instead.
3 - The ever rare need to silence a person from guild chat without completely dismissing them from the guild. Thankfully I have not needed this function since Cataclysm but it was there in the case it was needed.
HOWEVER it would be great to give officers and moderators alike the ability to mute or ban members from chatting in their respective channels with a time limit or a toggle.
4 - If there was one method I saw other guilds use that I would adopt immediately is to allow a specific rank of members to post blindly to Officer chat so that Officers can be alerted to any issue without going to guild chat or whispering them privately.

Just my $0.02 and I hope it’s worth mentioning that I appreciate all the help the devs have given their community leaders prior to this point. I am counting on the devs to come through for us again real soon.

Brahmina-khadgar · May 25, 2024, 3:37am

I guess it’s nice they continued this thread instead of just closing it, but now I wonder why the system said it was continued after 5000 replies when it clearly had more. My last post in it says it’s #5549. Even weirder, the system’s OP here says my post is #5626. What’s up with that? Is it just the general wonkiness of the forums?

Regardless, we still need the permissions broken up again. Yes, we’ve gotten by without them for six years now, but is “getting by” really what Blizzard wants in their games? There have been some good things happening in these last few patches, so I’m hopeful that things are looking up for our concerns with guilds.

Fairlight-emerald-dream · May 25, 2024, 3:39am

(Just posting visuals vs. links)

New Permissions UI:

Old Permissions UI:

Brahmina-khadgar · May 25, 2024, 3:46am

Awesome! Thanks. (I lost my ability to post those a while ago.)

Fairlight-emerald-dream · May 25, 2024, 4:11pm

You bet. Now that I’ve been actually looking at that which I posted, I’m a bit confused: why did blizzard change the permissions from a more a la carte style to a pre-packaged one?

Walkerbo-saurfang · May 25, 2024, 11:13pm

In July 2018 Bliz introduced communities; an unintended result of this launch guild granular permissions controls were consolidated to just two ranks, essentially guild officer or not guild officer.

Fairlight-emerald-dream · May 25, 2024, 11:15pm

Interesting. I was going to ask if communities played a part.

Brahmina-khadgar · May 26, 2024, 8:04pm

Looking at the old guild permissions UI really makes me wonder what’s so hard about putting all that in an advanced settings tab? Of course, I don’t know why the communities broke guild permissions in the first place, and I’m not a programmer. But it still seems like making an advanced settings tab is the best solution. That would let people who like things as they are have their simple all-in-one permissions, while anyone who wants granular permissions can parcel them out as they see fit. Win-win.

Fumel-arathor · May 29, 2024, 2:36am

Here’s another good post from the old thread that’s worth repeating:

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

The opinions and needs of guilds and guildmasters should have value in this game since its main goal is to be mmo, not a solo player game. Even with communities you will need players that are willing to sacrifice game time to create and administer events. You can not do this with a simplistic interface and no permanent foundation.

Communities should be another in set of tools for guilds and guildmasters not something that will supplant them.

As my own experience has shown me when you pick up pugs and give them a community link you do not always get the best of the crop. Point in fact with how toxic lfr has made pugging you have to deal with people who won’t go to voice, won’t eat or buff themselves,who never even think about actually sticking around for more the two wipes. So yeah unless they plan on giving a reward for not doing bad behaviors in groups, communities will be something that will constantly cause issues for those that plan events.

Without strong GMs and officers, players who have experience building groups and dealing with the misfits in them communities will fail.

The community system seems to want to mimic Discord, however Discord has a guild structure to it, you can assign roles or ranks with different abilities like a guild and give specific people channel permissions, you can mute both voice and channel chat on multiple levels. If anything the implementation of communities barely scratches the surface of what controls you would need to mimic it. Not to mention the fact that you are basically copying another companies intellectual property.

In any case the permissions changes made to the interface should be reverted.

Guildmasters shouldn’t have to work with an incomplete interface when we had a very effective and well implemented one in the original guild control panel.

Previously I have pointed out errors/bugs in the implementation of the community ui and the permission changes in this thread, I have also pointed out how ranks are harmed in previous posts, I even explained how communities are created and channels that previously existed do not merge into them. I explained how the community ui differs greatly from the original controls, I also explained how communities could be used for illegal or detrimental actions on the part of the users since they are not an organized system connected to a group but rather one own by individuals like a channel, and now I have explained how the community ui itself harms the game and actually could be a point of contention between Blizzard and Discord.

Blizzard you have all this information in your hands now, I understand you want to improve your product and do things in your way, but as consumers of your product we do not want to see any harm come to it so please try to consider this thread and the advice given.

Please revert the permission changes and consider the Community UI panel and how its being implemented why the need for it and would making stronger links to guild be a smarter route or should you be completely separating the two.

Also as some have said the fact that Loot Master, and Guild Rewards, and Perks that we had earned as guilds have now gone it seems that more and more guild associated features and benefits are going away. Is there truly no more place for guilds in the World of Warcraft are you truly trying to remove them and remove the benefits that they bring to the game?

Edit: It’s sad that this player clearly no longer plays WoW. One has to wonder which straw was one too many.