Guild Banks Need Changed

jrgray93

As it stands, every guild bank I've seen has been a personal bank extension for the guild master. Players in the guild have permission to deposit but not withdraw. Since the options for guild and personal banks are right next to each other, it is a simple matter to accidentally click guild. Since the interfaces are nearly identical, it is also a simple matter to deposit items before noticing you are not on your personal bank.

As you might have guessed, I made a mistake. I am currently trying to negotiate the return of my items with our guild master. I had to screenshot my deposits just to prove to him I deposited them and that I'm not trying to scam him. Here's my losses.

http://i.imgur.com/kn6RF6O.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/CpogyDL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/A2x5inR.jpg

Customer service won't do a thing about it, which is infuriating but somewhat understandable. It was my mistake, but GMs should have the tools at their disposal to correct the problem. I'm a paying customer. I'm allowed to make mistakes. In fact, I've purchased 6 months and 2 copies of this game thus far.

Anyway, my suggestions are simple.

A ) Implement a screen similar to "buyback" from merchants. Allow people to withdraw the exact items they deposited within a set window of time, regardless of guild withdraw permissions. This is safe and fair.

B ) Show a deposit confirmation for the first deposit whenever you open the guild bank.

These fixes would add security for guild members but would not fix the underlying issue of guild masters having a ridiculous personal bank. Guild banks should be about sharing and cooperation, not conning and hoarding.

Sakiri

Tbh if theyre going to use it as personal storage they shouldnt leave deposits in.

I can understand why they would too.

Its people like that that keeps my small guild from having a bank.

Nephys

Our guild bank is open, but with only 'all or nothing' being available our bank is at risk of being emptied. So far we have been unlucky enough to have two sad individuals who have felt the need to empty our bank. The problem is, the system is too dependent on trust and ZoS ignore any appeals to give some damage mitigation element into the structure. Reporting offenders doesn't help as because, of course, permission was given for them to withdraw. It is poor at best and ought not exist in a supposedly AAA game.

Having said that, I have every sympathy with you because it is easy to make the mistake and frankly I would not support a leader who either treats the bank his own space, or that does not return goods that are mistakenly deposited.

Blackwidow

This has been an issue for over a year.

ZOS thinks the bank systems are just fine.

Nephys

@Blackwidow ZoS thinks many things are fine. Need I say more

Sakiri

This, btw, is why I refuse to recruit three random strangers to get a guild bank for my guild.

The "open or closed" policy.

As a result, my policy is "I'm not inviting anyone until I can set limits on the bank".

As much as people hate WoW, the guild permissions system is one of the best I've seen, period.

Nephys

@Sakiri You are quite right. The current system is diabolical. It is bad enough being effectively forced into guild if you want to trade, but to also be unable to limit what people can withdraw is the icing on the cake.

The WoW system was a good one, but even the introduction of another rank where you could limit daily withdrawals would be a start, or the ability to lock out a tab.

jrgray93

Our GM was initially under the impression I was trying to scam him, since he logged in beyond the time when my deposits expired from the history. He has since been unwilling to communicate until I was on at the same time as him and was able to confront him directly. He seemed halfway willing to look into it once his "kids were no longer visiting." He also mentioned something about allowing deposits for donations, but it looks like "donations" would be to his personal stash only.

On top of providing proof of my deposits, I have offered to leave the less valuable items behind and give him 10,000 gold for the trouble; roughly half the value of the items I still wish returned. Yet he is still only halfway cooperative. I intend to quit both of my guilds once this issue is resolved because I don't want to risk a repeat incident. I intend to make my own guild with friends and some people I choose to recruit. If I'm in charge of my own thing, perhaps I can regulate it in a more practical and fair way.

EQBallzz

The entire guild bank system is horrid. Maybe the worst I have seen. No control whatsoever. Items don't auto stack. 70% of the time you can't access the bank at all because you get the "Retrieving items.." message. There is no way to deposit gold into the guild bank for a guild fund. There is no way to upgrade the bank to a more reasonable size (500 slots is laughably small for even a small-medium sized guild).

The fact that you have to set it up as an "all or nothing" system is ridiculous and makes me wonder if ZOS really understands MMOs at all. What bothers me the most is that this has been going on for 2 months and we have not heard a single comment about this from them other than when they turned off auto stacking to prevent duping. Is any of this being worked on? Will this ever be fixed? Do they even think it's a problem?

Honestly, I would rather not have any additional content releases until they resolve some of the quality of life features that should be standard in any MMO at this point and fix all the bugs to an acceptable level instead of releasing more buggy content on top of other buggy content that just compounds the problems.

If the flight of players to the much more polished Wildstar isn't an urgent message to them to get their act together I fear this game may be doomed. I'm not really interested in Wildstar but there is a lot to be said for a polished product and the number of people my guild has lost to that game is an indication that others agree and are showing it with their wallets. The fact that the veteran zones are a ghost town now with nobody to complete the insanely difficult anchors and world bosses indicates many more than my guild are being affected. WAKE UP ZOS!

Sakiri

jrgray93 wrote: »

Our GM was initially under the impression I was trying to scam him, since he logged in beyond the time when my deposits expired from the history. He has since been unwilling to communicate until I was on at the same time as him and was able to confront him directly. He seemed halfway willing to look into it once his "kids were no longer visiting." He also mentioned something about allowing deposits for donations, but it looks like "donations" would be to his personal stash only.

On top of providing proof of my deposits, I have offered to leave the less valuable items behind and give him 10,000 gold for the trouble; roughly half the value of the items I still wish returned. Yet he is still only halfway cooperative. I intend to quit both of my guilds once this issue is resolved because I don't want to risk a repeat incident. I intend to make my own guild with friends and some people I choose to recruit. If I'm in charge of my own thing, perhaps I can regulate it in a more practical and fair way.

Just a heads up, you need 10 people in guild to get a bank.

This is causing a headache for my guild as we have 7, and I refuse to invite randoms just so I can get a bank to share with the few people I actually want in here.

The problem lies with the fact that you don't need anyone else to start a guild. If they had done what most games do, and require a full group at the minimum, this wouldn't be an issue, but since you don't need anyone they don't want folks making guilds for personal storage.

Which is what people are doing anyways.

WoW dropped the number from 10 to 5, but the game is older and most guilds are solid anyways. Having to get signatures to charter a guild with 5 is sometimes a pain in the butt anyways as you can only sign it once per account(meaning you can't have your alts do it). I've ended up having off realm friends make a scrub over on my server to sign the charter when I can't get locals to do it(when we needed 10).

EQ2 required a full group of 6, all from the same city when my current guild was formed there. Myself, one of the main officers, my roommate and two of the guild lead council came with me. I added a few that came from WoW with me to get what I have now, but I don't trust randoms.

To make matters worse, if you lose any of those 10, you can't deposit into your bank anymore, only withdraw.

Locking guild creation to at least four and dropping bank limit to requiring four would fix that.

And I wouldn't have to clog the mail system mailing guildmates 200 things. We trade glyphs and stuff for decon. You know how big of a pain in the ass that is with 6 items per mail?

Darastix

This is not a CS issue, nor do you have any right to tell the Guild master how to setup the guild privileges, if you don't like the setup of a given guild just leave.

jrgray93

Darastix wrote: »

This is not a CS issue, nor do you have any right to tell the Guild master how to setup the guild privileges, if you don't like the setup of a given guild just leave.

Thanks for that useless bit of info. Really helping out the discussion. And I suppose you conveniently missed the parts where I said CS's lack of help was understandable and that I would be leaving the guild so that I didn't have to deal with it?

As for forming my own, I have four other friends who actively play. Not just online friends, but friends I frequently hang out with. It would just be a matter of finding five others I could trust. Ten does seem a bit too high to me.

Darastix

jrgray93 wrote: »

Darastix wrote: »

This is not a CS issue, nor do you have any right to tell the Guild master how to setup the guild privileges, if you don't like the setup of a given guild just leave.

Thanks for that useless bit of info. Really helping out the discussion. And I suppose you conveniently missed the parts where I said CS's lack of help was understandable and that I would be leaving the guild so that I didn't have to deal with it?

As for forming my own, I have four other friends who actively play. Not just online friends, but friends I frequently hang out with. It would just be a matter of finding five others I could trust. Ten does seem a bit too high to me.

I'm not missing anything, your posting on a public forums intent on shaming a guild with screenshots that only shows deposits and the guilds name, this is clearly your attempt to seek revenge on a guild your bailing on.

Sakiri

Because he screwed up and is planning on bailing after being unable to get his screwup fixed by the only person that can?

What *are* you on man?

Sakiri

Which by the way, is *why* he's bailing. Because a screwup is a pain in the ass to fix.

I can bet you he probably wouldn't be if this wasn't an issue where the GM won't give him his stuff back.

jrgray93

I have no intention of shaming the guild. The screenshots were just to illustrate how easy it is to lose multiple items in a hurry. I openly admitted that this was MY MISTAKE, but it is not within my power to correct it. What possible use could I have for "revenge" when I'm really at fault for the initial problem?

Cogo

I am the guildleader of my guild, and since we have an open guildbank for all members, which works really well, I spend quite some time fixing the guildbank, grouping most things.

This is what needs to be fixed when a lot of other problems are fixed. It works, just takes me some time.

@jrgray93

I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but the problem here isnt the guild, the guild bank or the guild leader. Its YOUR choice of guild.

There are a lot of guilds out there. There is a general rule when you pick a guild. Not always true, but mostly. The EASIER it is to get into a guild, the less quality the guild is.

Look for a guild that suits your interests.

Even if I think its beyond selfish and other words that isnt allowed here, to make a guild just for a personal guild bank, then dont give a damn about your guildmembers, it IS allowed, because of the freedome to create whatever guild you want.

However, as a member, its YOUR choice to join it. Don't blame the game, for YOUR mistake.

Cogo

And for all you who have missed it. There is guild features coming, including ranks, guild bank changes and more.

The only thing you need to do, is read about whats next. Zenimax is VERY good at showing us their roadmap and even shows us timeline. Soon incoming - In plans and will be incoming - And long term plans.

Before you start ranting about WoW guild features, which IS very good, and I am kinda expecting simular things to ESO, one being RANKS, which the DEVS already said will be added.

Patience.....

daneyulebub17_ESO

Hmmm... the guilds I'm in let you deposit and withdraw from the bank. They're full of cheap, low-level stuff, but it can be nice if you need a quick potion or lockpick. And it stays pretty full--I contribute stuff all the time.

The moral is--not all guilds are run by jerks or control freaks, and while there are certainly some jerks out their who might clear it out, the fact that there are records of every transaction allows you to weed them out pretty effectively.

Cogo

Out guildbank has all kinds. Tomatoes, motifs, etc. We have rules about the bank, which members follows.

WHO you invite and HOW you invite is the key.