Stay of Execution

Feature Requests and Game feedback
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Although, I assume that all the devs know me.
@Kafka herself told me they told private meetings about me called “Awwww Ryan meetings” (joking of course.)
I won’t presume that everyone reading this knows me.

Long story short, I over see 5 guilds of various activity. All of them I created and the oldest and most active was cultivated 4 years ago this month. In life outside of GoW, my background is in HR.

I have strong beliefs and I never mince words. But the fact that I’ve had to talk at least 5 members out of 150 so far this week (it’s still only Friday) out of quitting the game completely. Has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with me or my Guilds and everything to do with 3 guilds events currently running at the same time.

I doubt I’m the only guild manager experiencing this right now. Made probably only worse by those unimpressed with the update. Hopefully the other managers are having the same success with the Stay of Executions as I’m having.

I don’t know what the solution is for the overwhelming amount of Guild events you have that doesn’t piss someone off. But a solution is necessary. Because this is too much. And no, it’s not just a simple matter of “choice”. Not when you’re in a guild for years and with just one update Y’all change when events are going to be.

P.S. To make it clear that I’m not entirely so lucky. It looks like I’ll have to kick a member who’s made Requirements for 3 years straight due to the devs pushing him to his breaking point. Perhaps I should just blame him for not communicating and not making Requirements. Or perhaps I can blame the devs for finally burning him out seemingly.
His behavior this week is unprecedented. But everything about this week is unprecedented as well.

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I totally agree with this! This week we have 3 events and next week? Campaign and the world event. Campaign is the “oh we have something to do on Monday” and then nothing, by Wednesday I use up my sigils and then just wait for the next week.

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I agree that it’s freakin too much. Tower of Doom AND Guild Wars in the same week? They must be kidding. We should have a free week to compensate with this nonsense. I am afraid I will consider quitting the game completely if that happens ever again.

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Why don’t people quitting because there is a lot to do just join a more casual guild instead? Some people love the high amount of events, some don’t.

I admit, I am not a fan of weekend guild events. I don’t force my guild to do it because I don’t force daily play. Though, ultimately, regardless of whether the weekend event is guild based or individual like bounty, the amount of time is roughly the same. If someone doesn’t do weekend events, they likely are a more casual player.

For GW, until they fix the issue with dead guilds, it is only an issue for older guilds in the top brackets. Those guilds are the minority. For the rest of us GW takes ten minutes a day tops. Although GW should be fixed, since it isn’t, personally I am glad they run concurrently with other events.

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Because they like the guild/people they are in/with more like than they like the game more often than not.

The game it’s self has become a secondary aspect for many long term players. They end up quitting the game despite the guild, not because of the guild.

These players want to do guild wars, they want to do Tower of Doom and they want to do Invasions.

They just don’t want to do it all at the same time. Regardless of what guild they are in. Won’t change what’s required to finish all the events. :person_shrugging:

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Wonder if allowing more people than just thirty would help? That way people who can’t keep up with the guild can still stay for the social part. It would also help the more casual guilds struggling with events and tasks.

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And I haven’t even started my ToD or Invasion stuff this week. I figured I’d do ToD on the weekend, mostly forgot about Invasion because I don’t want to know it exists. So here I am now … full sigils … rather play Terraforming Mars …

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I can relate. But at the same time, it sounds like you are doing the company’s work for them.

We lost 6 members from our roster since the last GW, and 5 from the month before then. Whether recruiting or retaining, those numbers are not sustainable for a casual guild such as mine. When I collected my Major Chaos Orb from the ToD event, we were the 44th guild to complete it on Xbox. It’s Friday. Normally I’d say we’d be the 70th guild to collect an Orb, so participation has dropped all around.

As for GW, last month there was a guild of one in b4. This month, we might’ve won with last months roster. As it is, the only reason we aren’t going to finish last down 6 members is because there is another guild down 9.

I understand how it feels to lose friends and guild mates, but you don’t earn a Christmas bonus from 505 for retaining players. It might just be better to let them go. Maybe then 505 will pay more attention to you in your other threads. Happy Holidays.

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That’s likely going to make for an increase of recruitment efforts. It’s hard enough to keep a guild at 30/30.

I seem to recall we went through this insanity last time we were between campaigns, but it’s worse this time because it’s right before holidays, too. I’m (ostensibly) off work for the next two weeks, so this week’s probably 60+ hours to keep projects on track. I have just been handing my phone to my partner to get through dailies this week, and I’m going to have to put in a marathon session Saturday and Sunday to get through the backlog of ToD/GW/Invasions sigils. I’m super not looking forward to capping off my week by being glued to yet another screen for 12 hours at a stretch, tbh.

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GW, ToD, Invasion, Faction Assault, Pet Rescue, Class Trial, Adventure Boards, Dungeons, Delves, Arena.

Just wanted to see what it looked like all typed out…

Granted some of that is individual play events and while I enjoy it all, I can’t play it all on a week like this. It’s a no-brainer for most of us to choose Guild Events over individual events, I just wish it wasn’t a choice I have to make.

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I can only speak of myself what I did to jump out of the event horrors that I had, but I have no clue whatsoever how it is to control 5 guilds, keep people happy and going through the weeks like this. That makes me sick just to think of.

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I’m able to do it with the same amount of guilds(with 4 additional ‘bring your own guilds’ in the alliance). Of course its not done alone by any means as I’m only 1 part of a 4 person management group. You need a support structure and a good atmosphere. Players come and go, its the nature of the beast. But I heavily disagree with OPs assertion that 3 event weeks are a big issue. This is his guild alliance situation, but it isn’t all alliances situations. Does that mean the large networks haven’t seen their fair share of hits in 2020? No, we def have and it’s definitely going to be something to deal with in 2021.

I can only speak for myself and the assessment of our network. Things are not as dire as OPs situation and players have not left for any of the reasons he has suggested. Most leave for other reasons, but never because of 3 events in a week. Im not discrediting the concern, but I don’t share it. Personally i like the 3 events. Any guild not in bracket 1 won’t be bothered by multiple events on GW week, or least they shouldn’t.

The thing is, if a player is tired of playing and this put them over the edge, they were probably barely hanging on to begin with. If a player is also in a high level guilds they should want the most rewards they can get. Weekend events like raid and invasion are super easy for high end guilds to complete with low gem cost.

If a player doesn’t want to complete all the events because that’s too much in one week, that isn’t a game flaw. That is either a GM expectation issue, or a personal player expectation issue. A high active player should not see this as a problem. The reality is players want rewards without the effort, or only when its convenient for them. These events are optional, im sorry, they are. If a guild expects them to be completed its a guild or player set expectation, not the game.

The game shouldn’t adjust it’s event schedule for them. If they don’t want to move down to a lower guild that fits their playstyle where weekend events might not be completed, than that’s on them. Seems to me like they were already one foot out the door cause 3 event weeks are not a big issue in our network. Guilds just do the best they can and they complete whatever they can. It’s only a heavy req in our most active guilds. We just don’t stress our players. And we sure as hell don’t stress them over GW scores lol.

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My entire guild is going through this chaos right now.
We have at one time Guild Wars, Tower of Doom and Invasion to complete. And we want our best in each event. But each of us has a life in the real world, outside the game. And it is difficult to reconcile both, especially at the end of the year.

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Adding to this:
For ToD, an active (and organized) guild of 30 players, each player would need a minimum of 50 battles (25 floors x 2) to get all the “free” forge scrolls. This value more than completes the whole ToD rewards (which require an average 24 dooms from each). In every guild, there will be those more active and those more casual, so someone will be overspending to scout ahead and others might be underspending. They wouldn’t need to buy any tiers to have enough sigils, but assuming they buy the weapon (which is arguably the point of the doom event), they’ll have more than enough sigils for the 50 battles and no obligation for them to spend all of them other than FOMO (or to help out their guild). In a 15 person guild, they would need twice that, or a minimum of 100 battles per person throughout the week, or 15 battles a day. This again assumes there is/are more active players that have scouted ahead. So in a 30-person guild, 15 people could ignore the event entirely if the other 15 play 15+ battles a day.

TLDR: ToD requires 50 battles throughout the week, or 7 battles a day, for a more casual player to complete all floors, assuming they’ve been scouted by more active players.

Invasion: Requires an average of 150 towers per player in a 30-person guild. As that is limited to 3 days on the weekend, it’s a little more rushed but not too much. Again we end up with 50 battles per person, although this time it’s an average. That’s 21 battles working up to the 4 towers, then 29 battles at the 4 towers.

TLDR: Invasion requires an average of 50 battles for each member of a 30-person guild over the weekend, or 17 per day.

Guild wars: 5 battles per day.

In total, that’s 7 battles from ToD, 17 from Invasion and 5 GW battles (however long those might take to play and execute). So, on the weekends, that could be 24 battles + 5 GW. But, let’s say you decide to do ToD faster to avoid piling it into the weekend. That means, instead of 7 battles/day over 7 days, you’ll do 12-13 battles/day over 4 days. That means 13 battles up to Friday and 17 over the weekend, +5 GW battles every day.

And all that IF and ONLY IF you:

  • want/have to complete all 25 floors of ToD to obtain the most “free” forge scrolls as possible
  • want/have to complete the invasion event
  • haven’t organized with the guild to do one event over the other
  • feel stressed if you don’t or are otherwise required to use all sigils

As @ButtStallion and @Snooj said, it’s a matter of guild policy and personal preference. HOWEVER, I also understand @awryan 's point that the GoW team did not have to create 3 events in the same week. While GW is 10 minutes or less out of my day(and the day of most non-top bracket players), I know it’s a time-consuming event for the upper echelon. Yet, due to being in an 11-week calendar along with a 4-week GW and 6-week weekend event rotation, things will eventually line up again.

So, since the calendars are here to stay for the foreseeable future, unless they suddenly scrap campaigns, it would be good to take a good look at the state of things and have a nice chat with your players and yourself and see where your priorities and mental health lie.

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I can’t answer, if @awryan needs better guild management or whatever, cause that is not the point.
But referring to the number of things to do in GoW right now, i just want everyone to keep in mind the Dev Q & A stream (4.6, the Future, and Everything Else!) from October 28th of 2019!!! (timestamp 00:18:10, if you want to look it up)
Regarding to Sirrian’s answer and where we ended up now i suspect, that Sirrian already left this ship a long time ago…

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That’s the unfortunate blow back of any discussion of any guild manager discussing players quitting the game though.
The players who will defend the game/devs as if they are they are their own children will be quick to blame the GM for the issues instead. Even if the GM is a great GM by most accounts. And they themselves are seeing the exact same attrition issues. For whatever reason, it’s just easier for them to blame their fellow player than those responsible for the content of the game, or in this case, the overwhelming scheduling issue.

I can answer your non question though. And my current management does absolutely amazing. :wink:

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Would Gems of War break if Tower of Doom ran during a campaign week that wasn’t a guild wars week?

Clearly they just don’t want the artifacts giving you a small boost in favor towards completing floors. God forbid you scored some more scrolls that you only see every 10 weeks casual players that don’t finish all 25 floors usually.

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I just got done with Tower, Invasion, Guild Wars, Adventure Board, Dungeon and Delves for the day and I’m spent. The churn and burn is real. Please consider spreading out events more evenly going forward. Or seriously down-adjust score requirements so people can pick and choose which events to contribute to rather than the entire guild having to play every single event. Or, like guild seals, cap weekly individual contribution towards all guild events’ completion.

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Guild management and guild expectations are two completely separate things in my opinion. I don’t question your guilds management. You’ve been running a large network for a long time and you don’t keep sustained success unless you are doing something right.

I’ll use our top guild as an example. We have a trophy req that is set at 1100. This is high but being a part of the top guild you gain all the perks that come with that activity level. That means all event completion(including ToD/Invasion/Raid). GW is not optional but we don’t stress our players on it so it’s up to them if they want to spend 10 min on GW or an hour. The only thing expected is that all players pull equal weight, which is the minimum reqs to finish events and donations. If everyone does those minimums, no one needs to overspend to carry dead weight and feel resentful for others not contributing. Those are our expectations. Of course real life gets in the way and there is always room for leave requests, but the luxury of being in a high end guild means many players voluntarily go above and beyond. Our ToD was finished by Tuesday morning for example. Setting a high trophy mark sets an expectation. Events help players work toward the trophy mark so it feels less like a grind. But it’s up to each player how they get to the requirements and if an event gets completed early, no additional participation is required. You get what you put into the game and your game time isn’t wasted.

Now let’s move to 2 guilds in our alliance that are similar in activity level and event completion to each other but you’ll see how expectations have changed. One is 300 trophy req and the other is 150. Both complete most world events but will struggle with a few that are not scaling and will really struggle with weekend events. GW is expected but there are no expectations in terms of score, just do your best. Both are longtime guilds with a mix of players from vets to beginners. The only requirement is activity(measured through trophies). If players want to move to a guild that completes all events, they can move up, it’s very fluid movement in our network. Many just like playing at their own pace.

We can’t control the game or what the devs do. So we created a system that works with what we have and allows players of all levels and playstyles to play in a guild that best suites their needs. Completing all events and getting the highest amount of rewards(LTs, higher GW bracket) means higher activity level. Playing in a guild with lower expectations, means you’ll most likely get less rewards. I’m simplifying this to a massive degree of course since all guilds have varying levels of expectations and activity levels. Our goal is to create guilds where all 30 players are more even in terms of playstyle and activity. We have some things we do in our alliance to boost the lower guilds, but other than that we let players do their thing. It’s less a guild culture and more an alliance culture.

I’m aware most guilds aren’t in an alliance so these concepts are a little different, but this shows the advantage of having multiple tiers of guilds. I can see how 3 events per week can be too much. But I’ve also been left wanting when their is only an arena event or saturday pet rescue. I’m sure a balance could be struck.

TL;DR: The above is just me rambling on about nothing. If the devs are paying attention, I side with the players here who have issue with the 3 event per week complaint. While I don’t have issues with this personally, I can appreciate the fact that others do. If it’s at all possible to adjust the schedules, I suggest that is something the devs take a hard look at.

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When the first campaign came out, I stopped doing daily delves.

When the second campaign came out, I stopped doing world events.

When the third campaign comes out, I stop doing Gems of War.

Burnt out. “But it’s only 25 battles a day”. One is too many, one thousand, never enough. Know when to say when.

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