Good morning chaps, chapesses and associated goat hating brethren!
Firstly a shout out to @dreadzz who is clearly a distant cousin on my mothers sideā¦
To the point in hand: I think that thereās actually been a few underlying issues that mean itās not quite as black & white as people just not hitting the numbers. By that I mostly mean that as a group - as far back as early summer weāve been flip flopping between 28/29 - 30 members. There were many weeks that I think no soooner had we recruited to fill the slot, weād then loose another member.
So I think that the very first thing we should focus on is actually stability - ensuring we have a full roster will mean an easier distribution of resources and a fairer appropriation of the tasks.
I know that collectively we have been performing well in terms of reaching the legendary tasks each week, BUT if that is as a result of some folks feeling they need to prop up the contributions to sustain that on a regular basis then I can understand there being some resentment/make playing starting to feel like a chore etc. so we do need to help resolve that otherwise weāll be back to loosing folks through burnout and/or poaching from other guilds.
In terms of the top 10 rankings - I think weāve put quite a lot of effort into being in the position that we are and whilst it doesnāt have any appreciable effect in terms of rewards etc it does have a certain kudos to it that is worth fighting for.
In terms of the targets each week I think setting hard targets is needed and closer monitoring a good idea. What theses should be and how strictly they are enforced is a debate all on its own!
Iād air on the side of caution and @Fourdottwoone makes some good points - if you set it too high/enforce it too strictly youāll probably hit burnout again from lower members (Iām including myself in that) which takes you right back to the stability section I mentioned at the start.
Donāt get me wrong - I think @dreadzz and others made some valid points and we should be thinking about ways to recognise strong performers and reward them just need to go about it in a sensible way
Perhaps tracking the numbers over a week or two and then looking at the averages would be a fairer way?
E.g. Set donations to Ā£xxx and monitor for 2 weeks. What was the average across the guild as a whole? If itās significantly more then we announce that the minimum donation will increase by X% to Ā£yyy the following week to give folks a heads up and give feedback.
The other thing to bear in mind is peopleās play styles and times; Myself these last few months I usually start the week with Ā£250k in donations. The remaining Ā£250k comes across the week from keys, logins/towns and PvP etc. Whilst I have a lot of screen time in the game (probably 3-5hrs a day) my actual active time is likely much less due to nodding off (I have Narcolepsy - yes I know a match 3 game with repetitive music is probably not the best way for me to relax ) So for me whilst Iām probably there or thereabouts each week, it is spread across the week rather than all up front etc.
For the guild levels my thoughts were that they arenāt being used at the moment really so we could repurpose them whilst we wait for updates within the game.
My thinking was along the lines of having a couple of folks be able to take up recruitment, a couple more to take up communication (messages, weekly updates etc.) and a couple to track the stats etc. This would spread out the load a little, but allow some additional input from players that have been performing well, as a reward for their efforts.
Finally the very top tier/ GM would have final say on promotions/demotions and (should it come to it) retirements from the guild.
How weād implement all that, and how weād keep churning over is probably the tricky bit, but I think something like a Facebook group or Discord chat server is probably the way to go and then perhaps leave the ingame chat for guild wide messages etc
ā¦wow that was a lot of textā¦and all without nodding off I must beā¦