Overpowered Elders and no Co-Leader spot!

T_12 · May 2017

I have come across this thought before too but never ventured to point it out. But I don't think I am the only one that feels this way.
As the title says, I suggest a mechanism in-game where :-
1. Elders should not be allowed to demote fellow Elders.
2. Elders should not be allowed to kick fellow Elders.
3. There must be a level above Elder but below leader which can be occupied by a max. of 2-3 trusted people, called
Co-Leader. These positions can be utilized for good when the Leader is absent for a while.
4. Elders should only be allowed to kick 1 'Member' a day (if need be) and nothing more than that.

My main concern is the Elder position's capabilities as this role can be very easily exploited and can cause a massive breakdown of the guild within seconds, without the notice of the Leader.
Also 'Banished' members can't even be searched for once they've left!
Fellow forumers, what do you think about this? Please leave suggestions below!

Bill_ZRT · May 2017

I have a dozen guild management ideas that would be extremely helpful for those who run/manage one or more guilds, but I'm tired of taking the time and energy to write thoughtful, helpful suggestions that won't ever be considered... maybe some time in the future when I have more free time.

The most flexible thing I can think of that's in line with your post is to have a flexible guild 'ranking' (by ranking, I mean ranking individuals within the guild) that allows the Leader to decide what the ranks can/can't do. Have the following ranks (this is just the same as you suggested):

Leader
Co-Leader
Elder
Member

Let the leader decide what the co-leader and elder ranks can do. For example:

Kick X people in X minutes/hours/days
Can this rank kick Elders?
Can this rank demote Elders?

The reason I suggest these as settings is because some large guilds do guild movements at the end of challenges to place top performers in top guilds and at this time the elders kick the appropriate people out of the guild to make room for the people transferring in. For this reason you wouldn't want to hard code limiting one kick per day per elder.

Ideally the co-leader should be allowed to call an in game vote to assume leadership in the event that the leader vanishes from the game for months. A simple majority kicks the leader and promotes the co-leader to leader. If you're worried about drama and hostile take overs, don't promote untrustworthy people to co-leader. You don't have to use the rank at all.

Other ideas include managing multiple guilds in game (letting leaders and elders take action across guilds). Combining chats with affiliated guilds in game, etc. But those are suggestions for another day.

David_H79 · May 2017

We keep it simple.
One leader, two elder.
If one of those leaves the guild, that position gets refilled.

Guapo · May 2017

A mutiny option, that would be interesting.

zbot · May 2017

Helpful advice for running a guild.

1) Use an external chat for all members (make it mandatory for joining) (LINE, Groupme, Slack, etc). (As to why see 4).
2) A guild should be able to function with 1 leader and/or 1 elder. (Don't use the elder position as a reward for performance (that's what gifts are for). Even with an absent leader the guild can fully function with 1 trusted elder.
3) Only promote to elder users you fully trust.
4) When the shit hits the fan use 1) to regroup.

T_12 · May 2017

Well @zbot Everyone will not like to use an external chat app like we do. What then?
So force them to get out of the guild or never join at all??
No offence but is NML into advertising for external chat apps? Why can't we be self sufficient?!

Other games have global chat too and just look here, we can't even invite people in-game!

Guapo · May 2017

We use line because our chat is too precious to be left elsewhere........

zbot · May 2017

@T_12 , one of our guild requirements is to join our chat. It's for the longevity of the guild, we've gone through Facebook, Line, Groupme, and now with Slack. It's not an easy decision but a decision the leadership made. Most of our members have been with us from the beginning in 2015/2016 so having these safeguards help.

I'm old school, I make things work with the resources available. Problem: In game chat not robust, solution: find an alternative. It's not for everyone but if you look at the successful guilds, you will see something similar in the sense that most if not all have an external way of communicating with their members.

capibara · May 2017

I agree with @T_12 and @Bill_ZRT we need more maybe also a "newby" for recent ones and if possible a "rodent" class would be perfect

T_12 · May 2017

I agree with you @zbot
We do use external chat apps too, but only 2, yes only 2 of them have joined the app! Others don't seem to like the idea of having an external app just for the sake of the game. What do i do? Dissolve the entire guild on the basis of people not downloading another app??

TheBRADLeyB · May 2017

zbot said:
Helpful advice for running a guild.

2) A guild should be able to function with 1 leader and/or 1 elder. (Don't use the elder position as a reward for performance (that's what gifts are for). Even with an absent leader the guild can fully function with 1 trusted elder.

But you can give Elder as a performance reward to an individual while the Guild Gifts go to everyone, regardless of performance.

But don't get me wrong, you shouldn't promote people willy nilly to Elder just because they got over 400 challenge stars. I've been in a few guilds that just rewarded people with the Elder role for reaching a certain number of stars and it's stupid as all hell. I mean, I'm not saying it's a worse decision then the ones NG makes at times but it's pretty bad and a needless risk. Me being the elder of a guild doesn't do a damn thing for me. I don't get extra or bonus rewards, I don't have a badge on my profile. I don't receive any benefit to being an Elder but it gives me complete power to remove everyone from the guild except the leader and destroy the guild because just like when STU was abandoned by his guild, there's no way to take that shit back since you can only communicate with people through Guild Chat and due to the ability to have multiple guilds with the same name, even re-joining after an accidental kick can be too difficult to bother with!

zbot · May 2017

@T_12 that's a leadership decision, if the leadership is ok with it then there's no issue. When I first joined my current guild back in Nov 2015, I had a heart to heart with our leader to see what kind of vision, how we wanted to guild to operate and hammered out most of the details so that we were on the same page. The main thing is leave the egos at the door and work for the good of the members.

@TheBRADLeyB , we use the description of the guild to search for our guild since searching by name doesn't show up. You can put in key words at the start of the description.

As for gifts, our leader has given gift cards to individual members so yes, having alternative form of communication helps in sending Amazon or other forms of gift cards as thank you for good work.

DLich · May 2017

I wish "elder" positions within NML accounted for more than just the ability to accept, promote it kick people.

I've played other games where leadership positions come with some type of playing benefit.

Guild Leader gets 10% boost to abilities offense and defense
Vice leader gets 5% boost to abilities offense and defense
Offensive leader gets 10% boost of offensive abilities
Defensive leader gets 10% boost of defensive abilities

Guild leader can decide to give any of the lower leader positions to anyone in the guild. Only guild leader can accept members into the guild.

Leadership positions (other than guild leader) can be alternated each week to outstanding players within the guild as a "reward" for the next challenge

Guapo · May 2017

Wait, how do we get in on the gift card action???

Captainslayer · May 2017

I played a game years ago with those leader positions and the same boosts we may have played the same game lol @DLich
it was pretty motivating for the players to perform well to and gave them a sense of achievement.

Jaden · May 2017

I have people in my guild that say "I don't have time for a Slack chat, I just want to play the game and nothing more". Even a "you don't need to be active in there, just join so we could reach you should something happen" doesn't work.

So what to do? Making Slack mandatory could mean that we
a) lose old members
b) have an even harder time to find new ones

What we did is set up an email address and told everyone to note that down so they can contact us, I told everyone I'm in here and on LINE...

We only have 2 elders.

We get asked frequently how to become an elder, though, since people seem to see this as a sort of title.

So having the ability to give people title, even without any benefit to them, would be great. If there was some privilege like 10% bonus on whatever - without giving people means to destroy a guild - that would be awesome.

And for many people, guilds seem to be a main motivational factor.

Any chance we get some love for the guilds like special rewards for scoring well, better chat (including private messages), additional guild ranks (ideally with some bonuses attached to them) @Teeceezy ?

madrob11 · May 2017

We have the situation that our leader is gone since weeks / months.
I requested support because i dont know him in RL, so he can transfer me the leadership.

Support cant help, or isnt willing to

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Overpowered Elders and no Co-Leader spot!

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