A Serious Flaw In The Guild Ranking System!

[Rastaliin]

Okay, so here is the problem. I logged on today to find that all my guild members had been removed, and the message of the day was changed to 'the XXXXXXXX Guild Rules'. After telling my story around in the game I discovered that I was not the only one who had been struck by the XXXXXXXXX Guilds Wave of Guild infiltration. What they do is send out spies to join other guilds and then they cozy up to you and get you to make them an officer. Once they are an officer they wait till early in the morning when you are not online and remove all your members, devastating your guild and making very difficult to get back your membership!

So there is a very simple solution to this problem and it looks like DDO attempted to implement it but never finished.

There should be a guild rank system where you can assign ranks 1-10 and create rank names for the ranks. Only the First (Leader) and Second (whatever you name it) ranks should have the ability to remove ranks 1-10. Only the Leader should have the ability to remove ranks 1-5. Only ranks 1-5 should have access to the guild chest. This totally solves the problem because people you don't trust fully will still be able to go up ranks, but will not be capable of completely destroying your guild unless you are dumb enough to make someone you don't trust fully a rank 2. This will also solve the problem of people joining guilds just to empty out the guild chest. You can get to know these people before making them better than a rank 6.

And then the other obvious flaw is that you cannot tell who has earned the renown... its such an obvious problem and so many people have suggested it that it would show a total lack of concern on the part of DDO not to implement this feature into the guilds!

I am seriously (for lack of a more appropriate word) upset that I spent all my time and effort recruiting people into my guild and then someone can just remove them all, when I didn't even know that officers had that power. I thought only the guild leader could remove people and change the message of the day! Live and Learn I guess, but Ragl (the player who removed everyone) still violated part 4 of the DDO codes of conduct and should be banned permanently from DDO. People who do such despicable acts of terrorism and grief causing, don't deserve to enjoy a game as cool as DDO.

I hope that the people who work for this game show some concern for us honest paying clients, and take the initiative to fix these blatant flaws in the Guild Rank System, and the ability for leaders to see guild Renown Earning Statistics!

Anything less than this would demonstrate a total lack of concern and appreciation for their loyal players and fans!

[Xaearth]

It seems like this isn't a flaw in the guild ranking system so much as a flaw in the way you chose to use it.

Don't promote people you don't fully trust.

Tough break and shame on the perpetrator, but the responsibility ultimately lies with the guild leader.

PS: Naming people is against forum rules. I'd suggest editing that out, as well as serious consideration as to whether or not you can be certain that said person was responsible.

[Symar-FangofLloth]

So there is a very simple solution to this problem a

Yup, it's this:



Don't promote people you don't fully trust.


I wouldn't promote someone I didn't either know real well from other places, or had been with the guild solid for months. (Were I an officer.)
I don't think an infiltrator would generally want to wait that long in a game for no gain.

[ProdigalGuru]

Vetting works.

There is a reason people like to be in exclusive clubs.

[chrisgina39]

please remove the name of the guild

[h4x0r1f1c]

Give us a RECRUITER rank and make nobody Officer.

If someone needs kicked, tell the should-be-active Leader.

Issue resolved.

[AyumiAmakusa]

Post a screenshot or I cannot fully believe you. Also, the leader should know who the officer is as the officer not present in the guild would probably be the culprit. Send the screenshot and the name of the culprit (character name) in a ticket and hope that action is taken.

[garlor]

what a laughable guild that promotes officers so easily imo

[Robai]

I fully agree that there should be ranking system in the guild.

I've made a related suggestion here:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=3134682

[Stealthdog]

Meh...really not surprising. The general chats are constantly spammed with "Join X guild...we accept everyone!" And the blind invites are very bothersome. Until I created my own guild so I could mail invite only my alts, I was getting about 4-5 blind guild invites per log-in session. Maybe guilds need to actually start screening who they allow in?

[Gkar]

what a laughable guild that promotes officers so easily imo

+1

They did it to themselves

[Irinis]

On a newly rolled vet status character, from the market to the bank while waiting for a guild invite from MY guild... had two blind guild invites.

This is simply ridiculous now.

[Antheal]

Noob: "I can haz officer status plz."

If I were leader: [lie] "Sorry, only my real-life friends are officers in my guild."

[Bunker]

I fully agree that there should be ranking system in the guild.

I've made a related suggestion here:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=3134682

There is a ranking system in place.

1. Leader
2. Officer
3. Member

[Brennie]

I am rather surprised by the responses to this thread.

How well can you really "know" someone in an anonymous game environment? How can you ever prove that any officer you promote isn't someone with a grudge against you, or a person who thrives on causing misery for others, who has simply been playing the part of "Helpful Guildie"?

If the OP's story is true, he was targetted and taken advantage of by a griefer, DDO isn't supposed to be a game where one has to guard from strangers, distrust everyone you meet, worry about griefers, harassers, and all the other stuff often associated with hardcore PvP games.

If casual gamers can't have a casual guild without having to worry about serious griefing problems, then the system is broken. End of story. The new DDO is aimed at casual clientelle, and should take every opportunity to encourage trust and community (Here a hint turbine - Removing "only one person can pick up this item on the ground" objects would be a HUGE STEP in the right direction. Spawn of whisperdoom/Relic of a Sovereign Past come to mind...).

If officers can empty out a guild roster, then there needs to be steps between Leader, officer, and everyone else. As was suggested earlier, Recruiter would be a good title to go between Member and Officer, or some kind of Vice President/Elite Council type positions (Which by their nature would only be reserved for very few, extremely well trusted persons).

1-10 seems excessive. 4 of 5 ranks seems more appropriate. And to the op - Sorry for the difficulties you've had, and the response you've been given. I would encourage you to be more cautious and restrained in teh future, but i do not think your suggestion to make guilds less easily Griefable is a bad one.

PS - Posting names of players is against forum rules. If you honestly want your suggestion to be heard, make sure to remove the name (though i believe you can offer to PM it to people who are curious). If not, this thread will disappear, most likely with a warning.

[GraveCat]

Should OP have been more careful and not let Mr.been-here-2-days be officer?

YES

Should Turbine add a decent eventlist where you can see who has invited/kicked whom?
Maybe also a scorelist to see what member got what ammount of renown, and think about a "sarge" rank were you can only invite, or only can invite or kick one person a day? (second option sounds better, we have enough "join my guild" spam ATM)

Also: YES

[Kriogen]

Hey, that sounds like EVE Online.

It sucks, but will have to say: Wellcome to the wonderfull world of online games. Things like this are common.

Now, another things is how good, or bad guild UI is in DDO. Solid games (because of things like OP described), would delay things:
- kick guild member: 24 real time hours minimum
- guild invite: 24 hours
- disband guild: 7 days
- etc...

And other officers or leader could then cancel this actions.

[theb]

If Turbine lets you log onto your account at all, it's not more than one of the more mild flaws of the guild renown system at most.

[TekkenDevil]

Don't promote people you don't fully trust.


Wow, some dude with a high post count says something stupid like this and the problem is written off as solved.
Who 'can' we trust, anyway? What the hell is this, New York in the 80's?

[flynnjsw]

Wow, some dude with a high post count says something stupid like this and the problem is written off as solved.
Who 'can' we trust, anyway? What the hell is this, New York in the 80's?

The problem IS solved. You do not need an in game mechanic to vet your own guild. If you do, maybe you should reevaluate your own promotion guidelines.

[Daemeon]

No matter how much vetting you have if the person is dedicated enough to ruin your guild they can. In what world do we not only put a blind eye but in fact encourage bad behavior?

In EVE online people that were thought to be "trustworthy" and been in the same corp and alliance for years finally ruined some of the largest groups out there.. for fun..

Now that there is guild ranking and such this type of action must be prevented and punished. Enough said.

[Judo]

The person who did this is my hero lol

cheers :)

[TekkenDevil]

The problem IS solved. You do not need an in game mechanic to vet your own guild. If you do, maybe you should reevaluate your own promotion guidelines.

I don't see how that is better than a dev sitting down for 10 minutes and programming in a rank that can only recruit people, for example.

Answers like these are like saying: "Oh, you want a built in media player to this game? A system where you can chose which songs to play on which level? Dude, you're stupid, just turn on your mp3 player lololololol!"

Just because there's a workaround doesn't justify the absence of its professional part-of-the-game alternative.

[Mobeius]

Simple Answer is dont invite just anyone in your guild that has a heartbeat, first off. Secondly, take a lot more time to know your officers before trusting them. Finally, unless you named them successor, you CAN recover as they cant remove the leader and even then I dont think its possible. In any case, bottom line is that you need better recruiting and promotion methods.

[justagame]

I don't see how that is better than a dev sitting down for 10 minutes and programming in a rank that can only recruit people, for example.

Answers like these are like saying: "Oh, you want a built in media player to this game? A system where you can chose which songs to play on which level? Dude, you're stupid, just turn on your mp3 player lololololol!"

Just because there's a workaround doesn't justify the absence of its professional part-of-the-game alternative.

I don't think it's a flaw at all. IMO, it's not a matter of programming an additional feature, it's a principal. I think it's a horrible concept to separate "recruiting" from "dismissing" priviledges. Either someone has the authority to decide who should be in the guild, or they shouldn't. Either you trust someone to make membership decisions, or you don't.

Thinking that the solution to the OP's problem is a programming change to the ranking system (to enable indiscriminite invitations) ignores the real problem here.

[Schmoe]

I don't think it's a flaw at all. IMO, it's not a matter of programming an additional feature, it's a principal. I think it's a horrible concept to separate "recruiting" from "dismissing" priviledges. Either someone has the authority to decide who should be in the guild, or they shouldn't. Either you trust someone to make membership decisions, or you don't.

Thinking that the solution to the OP's problem is a programming change to the ranking system (to enable indiscriminite invitations) ignores the real problem here.

It's rare that I read a comment on these boards that brings new perspective to an issue. This is one of them. Very poignant and well said.

I'll paraphrase, because I can't really add to it :)

If you trust someone enough to make their own decisions on who should be in the guild, then you should also trust someone enough to make their own decisions on who should NOT be in the guild.

[Canuckish]

um... while i agree with the majority, dont put in an officer you do not trust. I have seen people who get ****y that are officers and just do stuff because someone stepped on their toes.

An easy solution could be simply limiting the power of officers to a value the "guild leader" can assign that limits the amount they can recruit \ dismiss in a given day.

So they cannot kick more then X per day, recruit more then X per day.... might help guilds who get that officer who thinks bigger guild - better guild and just recruits any non-guilded in meridia, they must be good they are level 16!

[Redlotusninjagrl]

jeez... how obvious the answer is...

Like everyone else is saying, be more selective about who you bring into your guild and be even more selective about who you make an officer. As an officer I try to group with everyone in the guild and have toons at all levels so that I can accomplish that. When I am in a group with guildes, I try to get to know them. Some are more personable than other and will share information about themselves. I try to learn at least three generic things about each person. But someone isn't rising to the rank of officer after two weeks. That is asking for trouble.

[jwdaniels]

It's not really that hard to fix, either - correct the MotD and mail guild invites to everyone in the guild. If you don't know the names of the characters that were in your guild, then your guild recruitment policies were questionable at best and you may have inadvertently received a favor from the infiltrator.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

More guild ranks and options would be nice.

However your problem is not a flaw in the guild ranking system, but a flaw in your guild's recruitment and promotion system. In other words, you recruited Tot didn't you?

[flynnjsw]

I don't see how that is better than a dev sitting down for 10 minutes and programming in a rank that can only recruit people, for example.

Answers like these are like saying: "Oh, you want a built in media player to this game? A system where you can chose which songs to play on which level? Dude, you're stupid, just turn on your mp3 player lololololol!"

Just because there's a workaround doesn't justify the absence of its professional part-of-the-game alternative.

I am just going to agree to disagree at this point, but think about this; why is it that you require that someone else do the work that you yourself can do. If you can not, where is the flaw?

[dranreb]

More guild ranks would be nice.

You could just make everybody an officer. I don't think officers can kick other officers from the guild.

[TekkenDevil]

I am just going to agree to disagree at this point, but think about this; why is it that you require that someone else do the work that you yourself can do. If you can not, where is the flaw?

I would rather have 2 people and myself with kicking privileges, and idunno 5-10 more who can recruit, rather than giving both of these to several others.
This way I only need 2 people to trust with the kick grief-magnet, and the other 5-10 would only have to prove they are good at "polite, non-blind, explain our Guild's agenda first" recruiting.

I don't want doors that open both ways, I want positions.

[Robai]

There is a ranking system in place.
1. Leader
2. Officer
3. Member
You know very well that I meant OTHER ranking system, i.e. by renown earned (1st, 2nd, etc. scorer).
Leader, Officer, Member is also ranking system, but it is not related to the system I described here:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=3134682
By the way, as someone suggested, Recruiter would be nice too.

It's very easy to say "don't promote players to officers, etc. if you don't trust them".
There is no way to pick always the right players for officers.
Random part always takes place.
Trust = making a guess with 60% - 80% probability that you are right to do so.

Why it has be so dependent on trust?
Why not make it more civilized way, by adding some rules by which officers automatically will become responsible?

One of possible solutions I suggested here:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=3134682

And please, someone tell me, why is it so bad to be able to see how much each member has earned renown?

[Xaearth]

Now, another things is how good, or bad guild UI is in DDO. Solid games (because of things like OP described), would delay things:
- kick guild member: 24 real time hours minimum
- guild invite: 24 hours
- disband guild: 7 days
- etc...

And other officers or leader could then cancel this actions.

No. If a member in my guild is harassing other members, I want them out, and now.


Wow, some dude with a high post count says something stupid like this and the problem is written off as solved.
Who 'can' we trust, anyway? What the hell is this, New York in the 80's?

I have a high post count? I'm a forum lurker with .56 posts per day I've been a member for crying out loud. :rolleyes:


I would rather have 2 people and myself with kicking privileges, and idunno 5-10 more who can recruit, rather than giving both of these to several others.
This way I only need 2 people to trust with the kick grief-magnet, and the other 5-10 would only have to prove they are good at "polite, non-blind, explain our Guild's agenda first" recruiting.

I don't want doors that open both ways, I want positions.

They had this option. It was called guild recruitment sigils and they could be given to non-officers to pass on to potential new members.
The devs scrapped that idea. They are now BTC mailouts.

As far as an actual guild rank that could invite people but not kick, what happens when one of these "recruiters" invites a random player who then takes it upon himself to render guild chat useless with spam, insults, and general harassment... when no one who can kick is online?
Sure, report the guy, I'm sure he'd hate having his f2p account suspended. :rolleyes:
Then again I suppose for such guilds that recruit random players off the boat their guild chat already is useless. :rolleyes:

[Kriogen]

No. If a member in my guild is harassing other members, I want them out, and now.
..
/squelch not working?

And what if devs would do a proper job and you'd have 'options' panel where leader could set this rules? Can you kick now or is there delay of X days/hours and so on.

[DSC]

I am rather surprised by the responses to this thread.

How well can you really "know" someone in an anonymous game environment? How can you ever prove that any officer you promote isn't someone with a grudge against you, or a person who thrives on causing misery for others, who has simply been playing the part of "Helpful Guildie"?

QFT. Even if you recruited someone who was a genuine friend, "drama" can sometimes intervene. Why have a system that makes it so easy for someone to grief a guild, even if he does have to get to Officer first?

It's reasonable that Officers have the power to kick members, for example... but there's no need for Officers to have the power to kick out ALL the members in rapid succession. Is there ever a situation where that would be desirable? Heck, the game places limits on much less serious forms of griefing, like trade requests.

[BurnerD]

Another simple solution to this is to require the Leader or Successor to validate a dismissal.

Example: A guild control that provides a prompt when the leader or successor logs in with
"Officer X would like to dismiss Member Y ... Is this OK?"

This way a leader or successor is warned before someone is dismissed.

As a 4 year old guild all of our vets have officer status so they can recruit someone if they feel they are a good fit. Why can't we have a permissions option to decide who can recruit and who can dismiss? regardless of their rank. I would like to see this by account (character family), rather than be individual character. Being able to look at a list of a main with a sublist of his alts would be a worthwhile tool in itself. Attach group permissions to it and perfecto!

Just a thought...

[Symar-FangofLloth]

It's not really that hard to fix, either - correct the MotD and mail guild invites to everyone in the guild. If you don't know the names of the characters that were in your guild, then your guild recruitment policies were questionable at best and you may have inadvertently received a favor from the infiltrator.

Yeah. Your guild isn't dead. Just all non-officers are gone.
Get them back if you want. And be more careful next time.

[Brennie]

Another simple solution to this is to require the Leader or Successor to validate a dismissal.

Example: A guild control that provides a prompt when the leader or successor logs in with
"Officer X would like to dismiss Member Y ... Is this OK?"

How about a guild suspension program?

When an officer "kicks" a player, they are instead put on "Suspension". They remain on the guild roster with some kind of note (or icon, or text color change, or whathaveyou), but no longer have access to the guild airship or chat channel, and possibly no longer have their guild name float over their head (Or replaced with something like <suspended>, to let other players know that player is not free for recruitment, but also not currently representing the guild they're suspended from. But I can see the Scarlet Letter implications here, which makes this a "needs to be worked on" part of this suggestion).

After 24 hours (or 48, or 72) the "suspended" player is allowed back into the guild. This is assuming, of course, that the suspended player has not quit the guild during their suspension, and the guild leader has not "reviewed the case" and decided to permanently kick the player. An alternative is that after 48 hours a "suspended" player is then kicked from the guild unless the guild leader decides to "save" them. In either case, a guild leader could end the suspension early, either allowing a player back into the guild, or cutting them off entirely.

EDIT: Additional idea - To prevent suspensions being handed out willy-nilly, and to allow guild leaders (Or secondary leaders, suggested below) to have better insight into why a player was suspended, suspensions should require "notes" to be filled out. For instance, when Officer X kicks player Y, a screen pops up saying "please input your reasons for suspending player Y" with a text box. Officer X then inputs their reasoning which is sent to player Y when he gets the suspension notice, AND creates a readable note next to the suspended players name. This way, the player knows exactly why they were suspended, and when the guild leader logs on they can see the current list of suspended players, click the notes to see "Officer X suspended Player Y because: ..." and then be able to act accordingly, either talking to officer X for being too harsh, talking to player Y for breaking the guild rules, talking to both to get both sides of the story, or simply acting on the note.

Guild leaders would, of course, have the option to suspend players or outright kick them. Guild leaders should also have the ability to kick/suspend player accounts (Since we know Turbine can track that kinda thing for guilds now), to prevent a kicked/suspended player from logging on an alt everyone has forgotten about, just to attempt some kind of misguided revenge (Such as emptying the guild chest, claiming to represent the guild while attempting to spread bad reputation, etc).

What does this solve? A few things, really. First, it allows guild officers and leaders to give temporary punishments to misbehaving guildies. If the guildies are serious about staying in the guild, they'll know to shape up or else they'll get the boot. This also would prevent mass-kick-griefing the op talked about, as the guild leader could see the entire guild roster on suspension, and simply un-suspend them.

However, this system puts all the hard work into a single players hands. The best way I can think of to rectify that is to have secondary-leader positions, who have similar powers to the guild leader (Able to review suspension, able to both kick and suspend, etc) that would be reserved for only a few people. Infact, secondary leader positions could have a cap that scales with guild size, to prevent "easygoing" guild leader from simply handing out "vice president" to everyone in the guild.

Lastly, I'd liek to see guild "ranks" apply to accounts, rather than characters. i don't know if they already do, as I'm not intimatly familiar with the guild rank system, but i seem to recall my guild leader mentioning "Sure, let me get on my guild leader character to do Such and Such). An officer should br on officer on whichever character they're playing, and a guild leader should be a guild leader on their level 60 TR (thats 3x capped TR, just so i don't confuse anyone) and their level 2 reroll.

And now I'm just rambling.

[SaisMatters]

WOW
so what your saying was someone pulled a "totmacher" lmao

[Robai]

Lastly, I'd like to see guild "ranks" apply to accounts, rather than characters.
Yes, agreed.

[freelove]

there seems to be too schools of camp on this and many issues

older players been here since dirt who are happy to put two cans together with a string to play the game cuz that is how it has always been and by the way I am really good at hearing the vibration from those cans!

newer players who have played other games who would like to see some of the elements that are pretty standard in even free mmo's like better guild systems, less bugs, etc

The battle rages on and is hilarious in many ways

I wonder if the people who defend the often underwhelming programing of ddo are really secretly working for turbine or maybe they hope if they defend it then they will get a brownie award.

on the issue, I am sure many who see no need to improve the guild system are playing with the same players in their guild for the last 2+ years. That is great but we all know server population had to increase so unless you want to go back to not being able to run a VoD for over an hour, etc then improvements have to come.


the game needs to conitinue evolving to help the next generation of players that have made it possilble to fill groups and of course you can now complain about how poor they play or under geared they are :)

Just some prospective - I got lucky and after my 4th guild fianlly found one that is moderatly active, do not yell at me too much when I do not know something or screw up, and run ToD, epic on a weekly basis.

[Illtemperedclavier]

I'm not saying this was the case in your situation, but I feel with guild renown and housing, guilds simply became too big, too fast. We all see the guild spamming and we all know FTP brought some unscrupulous neighbors ( and some fine ones as well), to the game. In the race for top spot on leaderboard, some of the unsavory miscreants seep through and maybe promotions were handed out prematurely trying to increase guild size.

Are there problems with the system? Of course, and there were some solid solutions mentioned. When it's all said and done though, it comes down to careful recruitment and a refined promotion system within the guild.

It's not about the destination (i.e. Guild ship w/ all the fixins), but rather the journey (i.e. Playing with people whom you enjoy being with).

And to the OP- sorry to hear about your incident, may the force be with you.

[Waukeen]

There is a ranking system in place.

1. Leader
2. Officer
3. Member

QFT.

There are serious flaws.

In your open guild policies, blind invites, and mass of unknown ranks.

Ever since Tot pulled off a coup like this it has been a laugh for everyone, a way to stick it to the annoying mega-**** guilds.

Get to know your guildies, and for **** sake your officers...

Or come crying here where sympathy is few and far between and empathy is non-existant because frankly most of us are smarter than this.

Pfft.

Also the reason that it will be hard to put it back together is you really don't have much of an idea of who was in it to begin with, do you?

[RJBsComputer]

Example: A guild control that provides a prompt when the leader or successor logs in with
"Officer X would like to dismiss Member Y ... Is this OK?"

This way a leader or successor is warned before someone is dismissed.

Just a thought...
/sign

Don't promote people you don't trust????

What type of trolls do we have on the forums. So everyone that says "trust" knows when someone is lieing to them and when they are not lieing. There is nothing wrong with having some checks and balances in the system.

Just remember the Rule of Law only works when everyone agrees to obey the Rule of Law.

[Xaearth]

/sign

Don't promote people you don't trust????

What type of trolls do we have on the forums. So everyone that says "trust" knows when someone is lieing to them and when they are not lieing. There is nothing wrong with having some checks and balances in the system.

Just remember the Rule of Law only works when everyone agrees to obey the Rule of Law.

So, instead of unvetted officers kicking members, they'll just invite anyone they want to spam your guild chat, loot your airship, harass your guildies, and do everything they can to make your guild's reputation with the server worse...
And other officers can't do anything about it until the (yes, two singular entities) leader or successor logs in.

Or would you also like the leader and successor to get a prompt before allowing new recruits in as well? :rolleyes:

As someone already said, the people you trust to recruit new members for the guild are the people you trust to know the kind of people that fit for your guild. Having the power to recruit without the power to dismiss is foolish.

[RJBsComputer]

So the world is full of people that don 't lie or cheat. The real world is full of examples of "TRUSTED" people breaking that trust. What makes the world of DDO any different. Show me one example of an Orginization that has never had a member break the "trust" and then I might believe that someone can't get in under the radar.

Bottom line, you don't know what people can do until the do it.