Guild Rep is 100% Stupid.

100%!? That's like... all percent.

Well, I think this is a valid complaint being that there's an initial buy-in period where you're kind of wondering why you have to level up reputation with a guild you've been in for a year, but that's sort of the nature of implementing new features like this.

You are correct in that we do not want people to join guilds, be able to immediately buy rewards that the guild unlocked, and jet. Your idea of unlocking rewards based on time spent in the guild instead of contribution isn't quite right either.

Guild rep exists to gate rewards based on someone's actual contributions to their guild, not just being some dope on the roster. Jumping in to guild dungeon and raid runs (with 80% members, [40% for 40 person raids] until 4.0.6 which drops 5 person dungeons to variable gains based on 3/5, 4/5, and 5/5), winning rated bg's, or earning guild achievements, all help earn guild rep. And yes, so do quests, should you find yourself doing them.

The point is not to force you to do things you do not want to do, but instead be rewarded for participating in activities with your guild. And it uses criteria that ideally keep it from getting too 'gamey'. We could probably say if you make a flask, give it to a guild mate, and they drink it, you get some guild rep. And then that type of action turns into a fun farming game that has nothing to do with actually encouraging guild interaction. The criteria we've set are hopefully those that are both beneficial to the guild and its members, as well as avoiding making grindy actions the best way to get rep.

As far as making it account wide, I'm not a designer, but that definitely hinders, again, the guild participation factor. Once you have guild rep set on one character, and if that then applied account wide, your desire to contribute to guild content that isn't pushing gearing your character drops substantially. However, if you have an alt that's 80, yeah you probably will want to join in on that Blackrock Caverns run being put together. Otherwise you're a jaded 85 guildie who has variable interest in actually helping someone else out (Yes, yes, I'm sure you're the most selfless and helpful person in your guild, but that scenario is too often the rule and not the exception). It could also be gamed to some degree... but I'm not sure to much effect.

As I said initially this can be a weird start conceptually, but while contributing with guild members you're gaining rep, and you'll get access to those rewards from then on. As this is still a fairly new and fairly big and complex system we're watching it very closely, and fully intend to keep adding to it and improving upon it. Your constructive feedback is welcome.

01/17/2011 12:10 PMPosted by Fiddlestyx

I was wondering, shouldn't the "Guild Master" be exalted?

So you can sit back and let everyone else level the guild and unlock rewards for you? Conceptually it makes sense, you're the guild master! But aside from that notion of what 'makes sense', it would feel really crappy to the other people in the guild.

01/17/2011 12:15 PMPosted by Bawsy

The point is not to force you to do things you do not want to do, but instead be rewarded for participating in activities with your guild. And it uses criteria that ideally keep it from getting too 'gamey'. We could probably say if you make a flask, give it to a guild mate, and they drink it, you get some guild rep. And then that type of action turns into a fun farming game that has nothing to do with actually encouraging guild interaction.

how do random dailies or fishing quests have anything to do with guild interaction?

Maybe not a whole lot directly (although there are a ton of indirect benefits), but it is a way for the super low pop guilds or very inactive guilds, and their members, to rep up. Say your guild has 10 people and of those 10 people a couple log in maybe once a week, we want there to be some way that you'll eventually level your guild, and in addition, be able to rep up and purchase rewards. It's going to be slower, for sure, but it's there.

01/17/2011 12:20 PMPosted by Redblueblurr

Bashiok... I think this logic is somewhat flawed to be honest. Most people would not stay in guild where the GM sits back and lets the rest of the guild do things for him. The reason my guild exists is because of our desire to see the guild run the way we all collectively thought was right... so we left the guild we were in and started this one.

I would argue that most would stay as long as the guild was otherwise functioning to their satisfaction. I'm glad your guild was built and formed around a group mantra and you're close, that's awesome, but you have to understand that is not the case for all guilds.

01/17/2011 12:20 PMPosted by Redblueblurr

As for your previous comment regarding flasks etc. I think I can see who contributes to the guild on a larger scale as well via the use of the Guild Bank. Isn't helping the guild aquire the mats and items that help us all do things a valid part of contributing to a guild?

Sure, but again, that can be gamed. Making guild rep a meta game of depositing mats, to remove them, launder them, and re-deposit to exalted is not the point of the system. And while it would be cool to recognize those things, there's simply too many loopholes.

01/17/2011 12:20 PMPosted by Redblueblurr

I have guild members who tirelessly make new epics for our members and give them those items for NOTHING. Crafter items that they had to get the Chaos orbs for while we were running Heroics. Yet I can not offer those players any increased Rep within the guild?

No, but, you can give back in other ways.

That does bring up an interesting idea of gifting someone rep who helped you out. An 85 jumps in to help you in a normal dungeon and you want to toss some rep his way for helping. Mmmm... I'm not sure how it could work and not just be a back scratcher, but it sounds cool.

01/17/2011 12:25 PMPosted by Skyblade

So if this is the case, and you want people that contribute to gain the rewards, why is there an arbitrary weekly cap on how much reputation you can earn?

This seems like it's nothing more than another rep. grind designed to take as long as possible while keeping players chained down.

Something isn't arbitrary just because you don't understand it. Let's be a little more open minded here.

The weekly cap helps pace people so they aren't encouraged to do the most menial tasks to grind the rep 24/7, but instead, ideally, cap their rep while doing their normal weekly guild runs or PvP bouts.

01/17/2011 12:33 PMPosted by Goblinbob

Not only rep, but leveling is all jacked up.

If you're in a 200+ member guild, great. What about my bank guild? I keep alts there and level through it for access to my bank tabs for leveling professions and gearing up. I've gotten 4 toons to ~30's through this guild and I've barely moved the exp bar at all, let alone make the daily cap.

This whole idea needs to be rethought and redesigned so that every guild has the chance to level up and not spend the next 3 years doing so.

That's only a guild in technical definition that you got a charter signed. To design around such off-topic uses of guild banks would likely destroy the base intent. And, as you said, the experience bar has moved. You do have the ability to level it up, although it will be slower. Much, much slower.

01/20/2011 12:28 PMPosted by Leidolf

Diablo 2 will offer GUILD INNS!

Failed ideas are fail.

I was so excited for those too...

01/20/2011 12:39 PMPosted by Morley

So what if people grind out potions, food or other items for reputation? There is a weekly cap, so it isn't like we are going to fly to exalted, and at least I am doing something FOR my guild regardless of what you folks think of it.

I think it's awesome, and you're great for contributing to your guild. They think so too I'm sure. But solo-guild bank guy up there could do the same, simply generating flasks for no good reason, and keep pace with you who are actually contributing. I'm betting that you probably don't care, and this is more of an issue that you want guild rep faster, and not necessarily fairly (because what you're proposing would not be). To that I can't really offer anything to make you feel better about game systems that are intentionally limited to encourage specific types of interactions.

01/20/2011 12:39 PMPosted by Morley

The current guild rep system SUCKS. It is boring, NON-INTERACTIVE and...most importantly...not fun.

I read this, and then looked at your character portrait.

01/20/2011 12:49 PMPosted by Favog

The system as it is is cumbersome, inflexible, and just poorly thought out. The decision of who gets access to the rewards should be made by the guild leader. They should decide what level of rewards the members of the guild should get by assigning the members different ranks. The ranks then determine the level of reward the member can buy.

This would solve all of Blizzard's "concerns" about new members being able to get access to rewards before they've "contributed" to the guild. Besides what business is it of Blizzard's if a guild wants to let new member get access to all the rewards? This is a false concern and what's really going on is that Blizzard wants people to waste time doing pointless time sinks. Don't be fooled by their false claims of wanting to prevent undeserving new members from getting access to guild rewards.

Sounds great, here's how that would work out: I have an awesome end-game progression guild. We're level 25. You give me 20k gold, I send you an invite and promote you to the highest officer rank. You buy whatever rewards you want, and then leave.

This is not the intent of the system.

01/20/2011 12:56 PMPosted by Favog

Sounds great, here's how that would work out: I have an awesome end-game progression guild. We're level 25. You give me 20k gold, I send you an invite and promote you to the highest officer rank. You buy whatever rewards you want, and then leave.

This is not the intent of the system.

So what? If people want to do that let them.

No.

01/20/2011 2:06 PMPosted by Morley

That's not appropriate. Please refrain from using Jabs like that at your customers. Thanks!

PS - I've also forwarded this for further Penalties to you. I for one, and many others, don't appreciate childish acts. Blizzard employee or not, it's just not cool : /

I took this in the tongue-in-cheek manner in which it was meant.

I mean, look at my portrait. I look...angry.

I didn't mean it to be impolite, I thought it was just sort of funny that you looked so angry while I was reading your post... It fit well.

01/20/2011 6:12 PMPosted by Hammerheart

[quote="19151547022"]Sounds great, here's how that would work out: I have an awesome end-game progression guild. We're level 25. You give me 20k gold, I send you an invite and promote you to the highest officer rank. You buy whatever rewards you want, and then leave.

So they leave, and lose the perks. Problem solved lol. What's your next rebuttal?

That would cause a whole host of other issues, and when someone legitimately works up their rep with a guild we feel that them keeping the reward is only right.

Punishing the majority who work to earn their rewards is not a solution.

I apologize, I don't intend to keep being combative against specific comments as if the system is perfect. We've brought up a lot of these concerns to the designers, I know for a fact they're constantly discussing it, and we're of course looking for ways to improve the system as a whole. To briefly reiterate, we appreciate the constructive feedback that's been offered or has yet to be posted.

I talked with the designers late last night and early this morning on the rep system. There are some improvements being discussed but any changes made would at the earliest, be seen in the first major content patch, if not after. For that reason they aren't changes we're willing to yet discuss as they haven't been implemented, but there is some agreement that additional ways to earn rep, as well as help for PvP'ers and PvP guilds is in order.

Future improvements aside, one basic point we kept coming back to while discussing it was the nature of the system, and the intent and vision for how it should be a part of someone's play time when they log in. First and foremost it is not a system we want to encourage people to grind out by making certain activities either give rep, or give more of it. We realize that this is contrary to what is possible for most NPC rep factions, but this isn't an NPC rep, and it's deliberately different. Secondly, and most importantly, we are ok with this continuing to be a very slow moving rep that you can't quickly progress. These are bonuses, and not requirements to ensure a fun or properly progressing gameplay experience. The gain of guild rep is something that is intended to happen slowly over time, and not something you can focus your efforts on to push toward the cap as quick as possible. Obviously there are ways to make it quicker, and actions you can take to try to build it up, but as many of you are aware they still aren't always extremely lucrative. This is intentional.

To reiterate my first paragraph, we do have some improvements planned in the way of adding or improving the way rep is gained in certain situations. We do not however feel the system is performing beneath or beyond the intent and design, and are mostly happy with the rate in which it's being gained. Slowly but surely.

01/21/2011 1:56 PMPosted by Failthal

My Guild, Forgotten Redemption (FR) is a raiding guild that has been around for a few years. We are specifically linked with our leveling guild, Knights of War (KOW) buy useing Guild 2Guild addon so we can chat togeather on Bronzebeard. I am the GM of FR, With our sister guild we share many things and have a great time doing so. We are basically one and the same guild. However with the new changes and guild lvling system we have hit a snag, as Shadayah has said . Our Guilds serves two purpose's. We have a bank for leveling, and we have a bank for Raiding flasks, food, etc. We can turn on the Guild repair function in one guild and leave the other off. It has worked very well up until now. OK with that said here is just an IDEA give the guild masters the ability to merge the guilds with just the click of a button and naming the guild they are linked to. This will give 2 or more guild the ability to merge together and still be apart of our own guilds at the same time. So when KOW and FR raid together we can still get our guild rep and achievements Like I said just an IDEA think about it.

I really like the idea of merging two guilds and allowing the merged members to keep their guild rep. I don't know how the mechanics would work on the backend as far as guild bank contents etc. However I don't see this being a feature that would be used very frequently and not really worth the dev time to implement.

We definitely have discussed and would like to implement some features that help sister-guilds integrate or work together more easily. Right now there's a full reliance on mods and they're not able to do a lot of things we'd need to make actual game features. It's not anything we've begun work on, but it is a wish-list item.

01/21/2011 6:19 PMPosted by Redwood

You do realize that if you intended for things to happen "slowly over time" that you immediately failed that design philosophy when you didn't cap progress on the achievements that unlock these "bonuses?" When you have guild achievements like Critter Killer and allow guilds to go out and grind all their critter kills in one insane day of violence, your system becomes asinine and arbitrary to then deny the reward - not a "bonus," the reward - for doing the thing you asked the players to do. If there was a cap on critters killed per week, your design makes sense. There isn't.

I don't see how limiting the achievement unlock while regulating personal rep with the guild makes good sense. Because one has a regulation on it the other one should too or regulations are dumb?

01/21/2011 6:19 PMPosted by Redwood

The "problems" you brought up earlier, in guilds selling spots so that any random person could buy a seat and then the reward before bailing, do not apply either. If that was your concern, why did you not do the exact same thing you do with all reputation gear? If I bought an Oracle trinket that says "Requires Exalted with the Oracles" but then defect to the Frenzyheart Tribe the next day, what happens? The item deactivates. If someone pays 20kg for a guild seat, gets bumped to whatever rep level, buys the reward, and then bails, you could have just as easily made the item not work. "Requires Exalted with XXXX guild" to activate. Problem solved. You already remove learned schematics from engineers when they switch professions, so don't even say that you couldn't remove learned pets/mounts/etc.

The second the Oracle NPC's become self-aware and kick you out of their good graces with no personal choice on your part, we'll put some thought into it.

01/21/2011 6:19 PMPosted by Redwood

Ultimately, the guild reputation system adds nothing fun to the game.

Then don't sweat it if you don't want the rewards.

01/21/2011 6:19 PMPosted by Redwood

It is arbitrary precisely because you believe it measures "guild contribution" in ways completely aside from what players actually consider contribution.

I don't think anyone believes it is a measure of total guild contribution. It is however based on some actions, performed with a guild, that are trackable, encourage participation in progression, and don't have crazy loopholes.

A few changes are being made in 4.0.6 that directly affect rep gains which sort of shifts what this thread meant a few weeks ago.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2011384#blog

If you want to continue a discussion on specific areas of this topic please be aware of the changes, and please ensure that you aren't creating multiple threads on the same subject.

Thanks!