Dying guilds

[CimmerianHoX]

Well, what is left to keep players interested in AoC that would keep guilds alive and well? I see three things: Raids, PvP, and RP. RP community is dealing with its own share of the pie right now. PvP is getting some attention, but I don't care enough for PvP to pay attention to it. I hear new minigame maps would be nice, but I don't know that it would add any much more lasting appeal than the current maps do You're basically killing people against a pretty backdrop, and if the backdrop changes, the killing people generally doesn't change, except to make it easier for ranged in some cases. And as for Raids, they are getting T5. Of these things that people would join a guild for, raiding requires most resources from Funcom in order to churn out. But there are guilds that exist solely for the purpose of raiding, and maybe some 6-mans. Because these things are time-consuming, and keep people in the game. I did the solo main story for the Dragon's Spine in a day. One day, spent in a beautiful map that ultimately didn't have much to hold me there except a few nice set pieces for RP. That's not a very promising outlook for content creators. Haven't touched the 6-mans yet, but they're spent outside of the big map.

So what can Funcom do for AoC? With guilds as a small part of the bigger issue? Class balancing is upcoming and welcome. Beyond that, maybe the crafting revamp, which will probably never see the light of day. And then, most crucial for the Raiding guilds, is progression and more raids and 6-mans. For guilds to survive, the content they rely on needs to survive. There's really not much that's going to happen right now for players unless they make T2 free to play to give potential T3-T4 raiders a chance to see what lies beyond the two T1 instances we see right now.

So while RP guilds can sort themselves out in-game or by website-to-website dealings, and PvP can do their thing, Raid guilds are AoC's lifeline and what keeps the money flowing. Since that's what people actually NEED to subscribe in order to access. Making things as comfortable for them as possible so they don't break up and cause subscribers to leave is in the interests of Funcom. Raid signups sounds like a good idea that may eventually lead to more raid guilds actually forming. At least in theory. I'm thinking this won't work without a lot of help from existing successful T3 and T4 raiders to get first-time T3 and T4 raiders into the loop.

[MagnusLL]

While he didn't mean to screw up everything, this raid focus that's caused no end of trouble is the previous head guy's fault. AoC as it launched was clearly not working (or it wouldn't have changed so dramatically), so he tried to wowify AoC. It's not a coincidence T1, T2 and the original T3 are so sucky: raiding was originally meant to be this relaxed social guild activity done for the bragging rights having the pointless pink pixels would give you. Then FC tried to change lanes midway and made gear matter, remade T3 from scratch to be more fitting for the new "hardcore pve mmo" direction, and continued adding more raiding ever since. That's the real reason with the cripplingly massive disconnect between T2 and T3 (this jarring change ****ed over so many players and guilds it's not even funny).

I partially disagree with this assessment. Raiding in AoC was never meant to be very casual friendly. I was raiding back when there was only one group who could regularly kill T1 bosses on the Hyrkania server and I remember after that group disbanded and left the game in October 2008 it took months to retrain another one to go back to the previous efficiency. The current disconnect between T2 and T3 is that T3 has been designed with the knowledge of incoming AA abilities and the general power level increase they'd have caused; meaning T1 and T2 can now be done with just 3-4 competent, max-power-level toons while a few aspects of T3 still require at least half the raid to be decent. The only really significant difference is the introduction of the infamous "weak link search: I'll target one guy at random and if he's asleep it's an auto-wipe" design element (e.g.: Hathor Ka's miasma, Arbanus' blood draw) which I agree is extremely undesirable; but even so, you could say Kylikki and Vistrix had something with similar effects back in the day, even though those parts have always been controllable and not random.

[-Shink-]

Game is like 5 years old...content comes slow and people get bored and when content addition was massive (khitai) many mistakes were made like the initial grindfest and the pvp **** ups that led people away.Not to mention the massive exodus 3-6 months after launch of the game because it was kind of unfinished and not polished and there were game breaking bugs like gem stacking charge one shots etc.The fact is the population is not enough to cater for the way everyone wants to play."Raiding guilds" that can't raid due to low numbers will fold,"Casual guilds" that have low activity might be around but it ll still be as though they are dead when you are online as people get bored and prefer to do other stuff.Keeping guilds alive is about having a strong dedicated core that will keep trying to build around it and adapt as game goes and until its not possible anymore.Unless by some magic 12man dungeon,new pvp content,new raids and crafting system bring back A LOT of players.I disagree with cins on the raid hate but it's true the pure/classicMMO genre isn't doing very well.

[konungr]

I just did a t3 upper last night and we wiped on keeper over and over again. At the beginning of the raid the raid leader asked if people understood the tactic. How do you not know how to kite or cc the adds? It is frustrating. We didn't get the kill. We played a raid for 3 hrs and only killed one boss. Why did I waste my Sat doing that? I told everyone in raid channel that if they can't understand simple things they should go back and raid t2.

But honestly, Suger is right. I wish the guild I was in made people do 6 mans. It is better than t3 gear firstly, and people have individual roles. If you are going into a raid to be carried please stop.

A part of me likes it when you kill that boss, open up the box and get some gear. But after the raid I just put my pvp gear on and go have "fun" the "work" of raiding is over. I wish some of these raiders cared more about pvp at least when the pvp event happened. Bring out tons of people and revive pvp on crom. I had to leave fury when my guild merged with mega guilds, so now I basically just stand around and do nothing...or play other games.

[Reinauer]

I just did a t3 upper last night and we wiped on keeper over and over again. At the beginning of the raid the raid leader asked if people understood the tactic. How do you not know how to kite or cc the adds? It is frustrating. We didn't get the kill. We played a raid for 3 hrs and only killed one boss. Why did I waste my Sat doing that? I told everyone in raid channel that if they can't understand simple things they should go back and raid t2.

I know the Raid of which you speak. I would say your comment probably did more harm than good; causing some folks to not return. In turn, making it harder to fill the raid next time. Instead, you could have taken a leadership role and offered assist to classes you understand well. And ... perhaps lead some lower Tiered raids later in the week to observe and train up those weak players (whether it's gear or class knowledge). Arm-chair QB never helps.

But honestly, Suger is right. I wish the guild I was in made people do 6 mans. It is better than t3 gear firstly, and people have individual roles. If you are going into a raid to be carried please stop.

The Guild that ran that Raid last night had people in Guild-Chat asking for 6-mans for hours prior. Part of the issues is not forcing people to do 6-mans or otherwise. The problem lies in the players that only log-on for the Raid and then leave. When they do that; it highlights what you're saying about lack of player knowledge. But we can't dictate how someone enjoys a video game. This thread has become about how much work a video game is. Blah ~

A part of me likes it when you kill that boss, open up the box and get some gear. But after the raid I just put my pvp gear on and go have "fun" the "work" of raiding is over. I wish some of these raiders cared more about pvp at least when the pvp event happened. Bring out tons of people and revive pvp on crom. I had to leave fury when my guild merged with mega guilds, so now I basically just stand around and do nothing...or play other games.

You're last comment ~ nails it. If anyone isn't getting what they want from AoC, you should play something else. Maybe not leave entirely. But if you're not satisfied with the lack of player knowledge, game content, and you're not willing to train other people in how to play their toons ... then pop-in on "Raid Night" and hope for the best. You could move on to a guild that has progressed farther and further gimp your Guild.

[sugarspice]

Actually, Valicard is spot on...sorry. Many times we would have our crappy 2nd string of raiders go in to T4 with a melting pot of characters wearing blues/purples/whatever and still kill up to the zodiac just fine. Hell, with my sh1tfaced 2nd DT in blues/purples i was in the tanking rotation on general. Obviously, there is a gear limit; but its more about knowing who you are playing with and how they play.
And what's this BS about training guild leaders but only if its T4. If someone wants to learn how to lead, teach them how to lead .... that is all. Just be fearless ppl, its just a game. For the specific tiers, look up the strats if they are posted; get a few others with you that are not chickensh1t as well to fail with you to get the experience you need. If its a new tier with no posted strat ... just remember the basic mechanics/try to apply them/observe sh1t around you/ and be prepared to fail. No harm in that

why so serious!&%?? 8)

I agree that any guild that has t4 on farm could, but that is not the context here. Go pick up 24 random folks who have never done t4, put em in crappy gear and let me know how it turns out for you.

[sugarspice]

To get back on track the question that needs to be answered is..what can I and Prophets do for you to help the game and to help small guilds succeed. We offer our service if the idea to help can work.

[netsike]

I'm happy, that this thread became so active, but you forgot the original topic. It's about dying guilds in general - I know, that raiding can be an important part of the activity, but it's not everything. There are several other stuff, what you can do in a guild and it depends on the people what they want.

My main problem is the people around... let's see a few examples what I mean:

Case 1.: I post the guild recruitment message -> I get a tell, which contains an "X". Obviously this is how you apply for a guild, which is looking for active, helpful and social players.

Case 2.: I post the guild recruitment message -> I get a tell: "T4?" -> I answer no, not yet, but we do T3 -> person doesn't answer me anymore.

Case 3. : I post the guild recruitment message -> I get a tell like "I would like to join" -> I'm already happy, cause finally someone wrote me a whole sentence -> I ask a few questions, I get 2-3 word answers, but who cares, I invite the person -> when he/she notices, that there is just 5 up to 10 players online, leaves the guild. If I'm lucky, he/she doesn't even answer to the "welcome" messages in chat, so the guild bot doesn't register, so I don't have to remove it manually...

Case 4.: I post the guild recruitment message -> I get a tell, finally I can chat with someone normally, so I'm happy as f**k -> Guild invite, person joins -> I ask around for 6mans/raids for a few days, new member doesn't answer, doesn't join (even he/she told me before that's what he/she is looking for) -> New member leaves the guild.


In the last case I'm sad, that we didn't fit the expectations... but I'm afraid these expectations of the players are high and whatever I do, it's not enough. For me a guild means more than just a chat, what you can watch... for me it's a community, what helps each other to progress in the game. And obviously it has some social aspects too. That doesn't mean of course, that ppl have to be super active in the chat, but at least they could just join us in groups/raids and give us a chance. I was also in a few guilds before and I always told the leader the reason why I left, mostly it was because my friends chose another one. Noone took the effort to just even send me a single tell, I was the one who asked why.

The current state of the guild is much better now, cause the core stayed and I love playing with them! I just wish we would have more members like them... probably slowly, really slowly it will work. But I'm still wondering, what's wrong with the ppl nowadays? I heard "tales" that years ago in the first MMOs the communities were much better... I dunno, cause I started to play online games around 3 years ago. If it's true, I wish I'd have played a bit earlier...

[netsike]

And a few words about raiding: it's a good idea to make training runs, but it won't help the small guilds. I know all the tactics of T1, T2, T3 and I was leading them several times before. I go to T4 regulary and I also would like to try T3.5. But I'm getting tired of pugging them, cause we cannot fill a whole raid with just guild members. I almost always have to deal with idiots, which is "okay" in T1 or T2, but not T3. Mostly people just don't listen to me, for example I ask the tanks NOT to pull the adds after 2 wipe pull in W1, but they dont care, they continue and we wipe because of adds again. People start to leave and I also get pissed, so I disband the whole raid...

But T3 is even worse... Obviously I had to fill the rest of the raid with randoms from global and I have just really bad experience. First of all when people got enough tokens or got a weapon, they just left, so I always had to fill up their places again. Mostly they don't even say "sorry, but I must leave now", they simply quit and then I have to check what class was it, and so on. Very annoying... Or they just don't do what I'm asking for. My best example: at Master Gyas I made 2 Impel groups, everyone is taking their position except a necro and a ranger, they stay too far away after pulling the boss and of course behind the raid, so everyone gets Impel -> wipe. I ask them to come closer, they just don't even move their asses, doesn't matter if I say it on TS or write it in the chat. Obviously the whole raid and also me becomes angry and ppl start to rage quit if there are a few idiots and we are wiping because of them. But the best was when another f*cker wrote me tells all the time like "beautiful lady" (I'm a girl) and he was chatting on TS with his Italian or Spanish friend all the time and asking him politely didn't help at all.

And how is it possible to filter out the stupid ones? Simple, you just need a guild with enough members. How do you get more members? For example with going to raids, so actually it closes the circle...

To be honest, I don't know why Funcom changed the raiding progression system. For me it's so obvious, that everyone should take all the steps of raiding, that means as long as you didn't kill all the bosses in T1, you can't go to T2 and so on. It would make the lazy people to learn some tactics and encounter mechanics. IMO it's unacceptable, that a DT with full khitai gear doesn't know how to turn Vistrix - a sin who has no idea about the Khitai gears, but wants to go to T4 - people have no clue about their mana drain abilities when it's about to fight Louhi and I could write a lot of examples. Did anyone think about it?

[Phil77]

Crompugs is the only other organized PuG that can currently clear T4

wrong. there are ze germans and some other group that clear t4.