Guilds - Needed Upgrades and some Wanted ones.

This post was going to be about quite a few things but i feel those ideas need to be fleshed out a bit more before sharing them, however below are the changes i personally think would not only bring aspects of this game back to life but also bring in a lot of money for GGG.

Edit: please do give this a read but if you are going to contribute to the guild topic in general try to do it in this thread https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2333534/page/1%3Cbr%3E

A great deal of focus on leagues and new mechanics have been introduced over the years, even some really nice quality of life changes such as the level-downscaling system but in all this time one things has fallen to the side: Guilds

Please consider these ideas and if possible contribute your own thoughts and ideas to this thread :D


Guilds: The needed

First of all the invite button for guild needs to be moved down the context menu so that it is not directly next to invite to party, this small change would drastically improve quality of life with trading and such as almost every user I've promoted in my guild has requested that i demote them because they are constantly accidentally inviting people to the guild.

Guild ranks also need to be expanded by at least 1 or more this would allow for much more complex management of guild stash tabs and allowing for internal progression which is needed and healthy for any group of people, This would also allow an intermediary rank where a user can not kick but can still invite, or if two ranks were added the second rank would simply be able to access any configured tabs but not be able to invite or kick, Officers would be able to rank users up but not obviously to their own rank of Officer.


Guilds: The wanted

Guild hideouts where members of configured rank can decorate and also hang out as a group in a communal place, These hideouts bundled with the current system of unlocking hideouts and gated by challenging group content would help revitalize the guild system and create more community than ever before.

On top of the guild hideouts there are quite a few interesting features that could be implemented, such as..

Custom stashes configured to specific tabs instead of showing every single tab in a guild this can be quite overwhelming in large guilds.

The ability to gate off certain rooms and areas to certain ranks within the guild hall, this would syngergize with the custom stashes allowing for progression of what the user has access to in a guild

For example a guild could have a reception area for their newest members who still have not proven themselves, in that room could be a few stashes containing non-valuable items that one might consider 0 risk of people running off with, as the user gains rank they would gain access to higher tier rooms, chest of gear with higher value and the feeling of accomplishment and pride of being in a guild would only be strengthened.

Multiple map devices allowing configured ranks to input maps and run them within the guild hall also allowing anyone of similar rank to join in, This kind of brings me back to the early days when i would do maps with people in the A3 map device area and it was really a nice feeling.

Edit(got too excited and forgot this tid-bit):Master missions accessible through the guild hall enabling guild reputation with that master to buy decorations for the hideout, This is not exactly compatable with todays new master system so perhaps simply allowing users to spend their own reputation to buy things for the guild hideout is an alternative.


Why should GGG consider this?

What would this do for GGG? well enabling sales of larger Guild Hideouts, increasing the sales of member slots and guild stash tabs and perhaps the ability to buy hideout items for your guild.

Guild hideouts would be expensive but only compared to a single hideout for personal use, as seen with the custom leagues people are definitely willing to shell out some extra cash for that community experience i can only see this profiting GGG and the community of PoE as long as there are some decent hideouts that can be obtained by doing content in addition to the payed hideouts.


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If you actually read through this mess thank you for your time i hope this idea is one many users can get behind i see no downsides other than, how the f do i decorate this massive hideout :P

for the "invite to guild" - button: create a new account, make him guild leader and login to that account if you need to do guild leader stuff.

ggg likely isn't improving guilds soon

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vio wrote:

for the "invite to guild" - button: create a new account, make him guild leader and login to that account if you need to do guild leader stuff.

ggg likely isn't improving guilds soon

That not only has nothing to do with the entire thread but also would not in any way address the reason why i stated for changing the context menu, The QOL change to the context menu would affect guilds in a very positive way allowing the promotion of people who normally would request to be left a normal user ONLY because of the fact that the context menu needs to be changed.

Compared to everything else mentioned in the original post this one would be among the smallest changes and the most impactful on the general quality of life of an officer/guildmaster.

The proposed changes and suggestions beyond that would all require extensive testing and coding and in no way do i think they are something that could simply be slid into a general patch.

Id put trade and sooooo many other needed changes before id want GGG to even bother with guilds.

Imagine they release a huge update and its just guild improvements

The entire community would be like - meh cool I guess

Thats about all they will get for what could be thousands of hours of work

For that reason alone they will not do anything to guilds for awhile...

Id put it at the bottom of my list with PVP

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Id put trade and sooooo many other needed changes before id want GGG to even bother with guilds.

Imagine they release a huge update and its just guild improvements

The entire community would be like - meh cool I guess

Thats about all they will get for what could be thousands of hours of work

For that reason alone they will not do anything to guilds for awhile...

Id put it at the bottom of my list with PVP

PVP is its own separate issue that has been backed into this corner by power creep and other things over many years.

Again trading is its own separate issue and has nothing to do with anything here, i agree with many proposed trade changes but that's not what this topic is about.

The needed guild updates at least the context menu issue would unlikely take thousands of hours of work and be able to be slid into a general or major patch as a simple QOL improvement, the other things i mentioned beyond that i agree would maybe not get a huge HURRAH if they were to simply focus on a guild update, but the chances of GGG ever doing that is slim, While GGG is not perfect and they do stumble here and there they are not stupid.

On another note the hideout system is already made they would simply be adding onto it unlike the leagues which we play where a lot of mechanics and complex things need to be developed, balanced and tested heavily, the benefits of any upgrades to the guild system would be far-reaching and affect all users in all leagues not just standard or temp leagues.

What if we did not have the level-downscaling function simply because some people thought pvp were more important? That train of thought would have us chasing our own tails until the game shuts down, I am not going to try to play favorites here this is simply a few idea's i'd like to share and collaborate on in hopes that some day when the moment is right that perhaps some of the changes especially simple QOL changes can be added.

For the needed part:

I would say instead of pre-made ranks allowing leaders to actually implement their own. Giving away specific roles to each specific rank.

This way we could also allow for different members to have specific access to the guild-stash.
Namely:
Only able to input specific items.
The ability to input all items into some.
The ability to take out items separate from that.
The ability to even see specific tabs at all.

As well as general guild-management. Suggesting people for invitation as one part, another role to actually invite people.

This can be expanded as needed and would make for vastly improved functionality.

guilds haven't got improvements since their introduction.

i think they implemented them to just have some basic grouping functionality and then never expanded on them.

of course you can try convincing them to improve guild functionality. i'm trying that for years now.

and i also think there are more fundamental things wrong how they approached guilds but i dunno if these are holding them back improving guilds.

- buying guild points with real money on one account and having the guild leader account spending those points for his own account basically is a real money transfer for favour (access to more guild stashes, officer position, etc)

- you won't get your guild points/money back in case a guild is dissolved or joins with another guild

- no clear procedures in case a guild leader account goes inactive


my internal issue list is longer, i tend to get off on them if guilds are mentioned ;) taking it slow today, i'm on holiday

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try asking them for guild improvements in the coming develper q&a :-)

Thank you for the constructive posts so far!

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Kulze wrote:

I would say instead of pre-made ranks allowing leaders to actually implement their own. Giving away specific roles to each specific rank.

I like this idea and it has crossed my mind but i was trying to avoid unnecessary over-complication, however i completely agree that the ability to configure these ranks would be ideal and allow for more personalized guild setups and far more preferable to simply adding static ranks.

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Kulze wrote:

This way we could also allow for different members to have specific access to the guild-stash.
Namely:
Only able to input specific items.
The ability to input all items into some.
The ability to take out items separate from that.
The ability to even see specific tabs at all.

This idea is quite ambitious in the scale of itself, It would definitely take a lot of work on GGG's end to make it happen but the customization would likely be very welcomed and in some situations stopping people from inputting HUNDREDS of skill gems and other things would definitely be a huge QOL improvement to the guild stash system, I think it would have to be Generalized into some simple categories otherwise we'd end up with a poe.trade search level of difficulty to configure individual tabs without a system to import a template.

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Kulze wrote:

As well as general guild-management. Suggesting people for invitation as one part, another role to actually invite people.

This can be expanded as needed and would make for vastly improved functionality.

The suggestion function would be very nice as your junior members go through the game and meet other nice and like-minded people without actually clogging up the pipeline forcing leaders and officers to sort out who is who, and unfortunately in most cases kick people out of a guild making those people less likely to try and join a group later.

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vio wrote:

guilds haven't got improvements since their introduction.

Its a real shame that its been stagnant for so long and hopefully with the teams focus being on matching up with more modern and other RPG that this will become something that receives some attention, Personally it has been the group activities and interactions that have kept me playing MMORPG.

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vio wrote:

- buying guild points with real money on one account and having the guild leader account spending those points for his own account basically is a real money transfer for favour (access to more guild stashes, officer position, etc)

This definitely is one of the major things that needs to be addressed and perhaps buying guild-stashes needs to be bound to the users account so that if they do leave a guild or are kicked the stash tabs go with them, how would this work for tabs with items in them already? simply make those tabs remove-only, and the player retains their guild stash tabs and they join any guild the tabs become available again.

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vio wrote:

- no clear procedures in case a guild leader account goes inactive

Definitely another issue that is important, perhaps being able to set people to inherit the guild if the leader is not online for x amount of months up to a year, Most guilds would probably survive just fine with only some officers but with no one to make new officers if they were to also become inactive essentially the guild will exhale its last breath.

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vio wrote:

my internal issue list is longer, i tend to get off on them if guilds are mentioned ;) taking it slow today, i'm on holiday

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try asking them for guild improvements in the coming develper q&a :-)

Understandable its quite easy to get passionate about this game and that can lead to emotions going a bit out of control especially if you don't feel like your voice is heard, which I'm sure instigates a lot of the more aggressive posts on the forum.

And i will keep that Q&A in mind, Again thanks for the constructive posts here i hope to see more people chime in on their ideas as no one is going to come up with the best solutions to all of these problems without a little debate and brainstorming, Any changes to this game affect us all.

making guild tabs of leaving players just readonly is a splendid idea. thanks

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vio wrote:

making guild tabs of leaving players just readonly is a splendid idea. thanks

wat