Guild Improvements Master List

Badarah

Multiple tabs in guild bank

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

Badarah wrote: »

A max bid option would be AWESOME. Hell, even visible bids. That way we could at least see what someone is wanting to pay for a kiosk, and can make the decision for our guild if it's too expensive or right up our ally. It's always a risk that you're bidding on a stall that someone is going to put an outrageous bid on. If they want to keep the bidding system... at least let us see! Like eBay. Maybe a max number of bids/stalls to bid on. Something to make it just a little bit less stressful.

We discussed this option but most GMs strongly opposed the visibile bids because then you would get the same exact thing you get on Ebay... last minute snipers. I put in my bid for 800k... someone waits til 20 seconds before bids close and bids 801K. Even with max bids it would likely get ugly monday mornings and be impossible for anyone who can't be on for bid close.

The max bids is also less likely. In most cases only 1 guild bids on a stall. If we put in bids of 1K with a max of 2 mil we would probably get the stall for 1K almost every week, eliminating the gold sink possibilities.

This is why, after much discussion, the idea we thought seemed most robust is the City Bidding. You bid not on a stall but on a city. The top 5-7 guilds with the highest bids get into the city. It would reduce the guesswork because it would prevent a guild from being outbid at 800K while the stall right next door gets won for 200K. As long as your bid is within the middle of the pack for the city you're safe. Someone who tried bidding low for the city would still go without, but it would be a lot more predictable.

Yeah those are valid points. At the end of the day, all I want is some predictability. No more stress about bidding amounts/bidding times/running around the universe/server down.

Whatever needs to happen to make that happen- I'm cool with. The only problem I see with bidding on a city, is if I bid and ended up in the sewer. They can't really give stalls out according to bid- because that would ruin everything and you'd know who bid what. But if I tossed out half a mil and was in the basement all alone where no one ever goes, well... that would be less than ideal. They need to give some trader love to the refuges and make it a place people want to go more.

Endless-Shogun

Guild Mail tool

Tag Display.
In place of, or heck, even with the addition of, your character's set-able title, let one option be to display the name of one of the guilds you are a member of.
There is no display, (other than tabard, which is unique, but doesn't show any specificity), to show pride of guild.

I'd love to see:

John Doe V3
[Tyro][Master Wizard][Etc] of Farming Maniacs

You guys could even be super cool, and include the guild chosen ranks as titles, just like some other, much older, MMO has already done.

With the times, we must move forward, not backwards, lest we risk reverting to cave-men.

Xendyn

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

Hey @ZOS_RichLambert , since you like to /lurk might I recommend this thread? Much more useful than one about treasure chests.

Badarah

Multiple tabs in guild bank

OK another maint. another really annoying morning.

I am sitting here at 5:04am and have NO IDEA if I even have a stall! No email about bid, no change in name, nothing.

Oh, and no idea when to check the computer again to see if the server is back up.

Epona222

A mail utility that is restricted in use to the guildmaster and people with particular ranks as decided by the guildmaster.

FooWasHere

Multiple tabs in guild bank

The absolute most important features for me, which have already been suggested many times, are both or either of
-staggered auctions, where traders expire at different times, and
-bidding for a locations (group of traders) instead of a single trader.

I see the current trader auction system as both very straining for guilds, and highly detrimental for the quality of trade, both for buyers and sellers. Either of the above proposals would alleviate much of this.

Pman85

Recruitment Options

interesting thread here. Here is my two crowns:

1. recruitment for a guild should include some way to advertise your guild. text chat would work wonders here. if not, then i have played games where message boards are a big deal, it would be up to the player looking to get recruited to search the board. but having guilds be able to post on the board (this is all in-game btw) they would be able to apply or something like that

2. bank tabs was a close second for me. The bank as a guild master is a huge time sink to actively keep your guild bank stocked and also stacked. Stack all items in the game...who ever was against this for the making of this game should be cup checked with a nail'd bat and shown what a video game actually is these days.

3. guild calendar (for consoles) would be awesome. as voice chat is the only way to communicate, this would help a lot to keep players on schedule with guild events.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

Badarah wrote: »

Whatever needs to happen to make that happen- I'm cool with. The only problem I see with bidding on a city, is if I bid and ended up in the sewer. They can't really give stalls out according to bid- because that would ruin everything and you'd know who bid what. But if I tossed out half a mil and was in the basement all alone where no one ever goes, well... that would be less than ideal. They need to give some trader love to the refuges and make it a place people want to go more.

I had just assumed that the refuge would be counted separate. Also I was thinking that the higher bid should go in the prime spot. Number the spots 1 2 3 4 5 and stick the stores in according to number based on their bid. The store that barely kept in the city in number 5. And if they did that having the #6 get bumped to the refuge wouldn't be so bad, I'd rather have a refuge than nothing. I really want to see more than one trader in each refuge to make them more worthwhile to go shopping. Or have the refuges a little better laid out. They tend to be sprawly and confusing. I like the Auridon one best of the ones I've commonly been in and the shornhelm is nice too, but some have very long paths to go down and then lots of branches and multiple levels.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

Pman85 wrote: »

interesting thread here. Here is my two crowns:
2. bank tabs was a close second for me. The bank as a guild master is a huge time sink to actively keep your guild bank stocked and also stacked. Stack all items in the game...who ever was against this for the making of this game should be cup checked with a nail'd bat and shown what a video game actually is these days.

The reason for this horrible bandaid is that in the first few weeks or PC release there was some "duplicating glitch" that somehow involved putting things in guild banks and having them stack. As I never saw it in action I don't know the details. However the removal of auto stacking in the guild bank was the bandaid that ZOS applied instead of fixing the bug. While I understand the use of a bandaid, I am pretty appalled that a year later they have not gone in and created an actual fix for the problem and the problems that the bandaid created. The constant restacking of guild banks is also the reason that guild banks, even private guild banks, load so slowly and don't load at all about half the time players try to open them.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

Well, in the same week I just had one guild bank get robbed and another guild had a member leave complaining that he didn't want to work to meet the requirements we put in to gain guild bank access. The robbed guild bank, as usual, got the response that it wasn't an abuse since the member simply used the access they were given. The player who stole most of the items from the bank first responded denying that they'd taken anything and then when we attempted a further contact their mailbox was full... suspiciously like if they'd just posted and sold a LOT of listings in some other guild's store. We can't give access to players we don't fully trust or they loot everything and we can't lock it down too tight or players get mad that they can't use it.

DrEagleTalon

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

I chose Change the time for one simple reason. EVERYTHING else can be gotten with an ADD-On or a Guild Website other than more kiosks. But i feel like before we add more we need to fix the bidding system. It makes it impossible for a small growing guild to get past that certain line.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

I am happy to see that one of our suggested changes appears to be going into the patch tomorrow morning

UI
General

Fixed an issue where gold would occasionally not appear after depositing it into a Guild Bank. This was strictly a visual error.


Thanks ZOS, this issue with gold deposits not showing up in the history was a very big deal to guild management!

ContraTempo

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

Great set of suggestions; I hope ZoS will implement them. They should all be well within the capabilities of good programmers.

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

Direnni Guildleaders Suggestions
3. Allow guilds to place a backup bid on a secondary kiosk if the first is lost. Con: The backup bid would be hard to select, having to either compete with another good guild, or chose a backup in a much less desirable location. Backup bids could bump out other primary bids, which could then bump out the other guild’s backup bid causing logic errors.

This should not be hard to implement as it is really just a big sort. IMO they should let guilds place as many bids as they like, but only one bid per trader. So to resolve who wins each, just sort all the bids from all the guilds with the biggest on top. Obviously the very biggest bid wins whichever trader they bid on. Award that trader and eliminate all other bids from that guild. Also eliminate all other bids on that trader. Rinse, repeat until all bids are awarded or eliminated.

Programmatically this should not be a difficult thing to write. The only tricky part is deciding what to do with exact matching bids (either when a guild has bid on multiple traders for the exact same amount, or when multiple guilds have bid on the same trader for the same amount) and that is not a programming problem, just a game decision to be made by ZoS. IMO the answer there is to go on who had the biggest sales last week, or if those match, then make a psudo-random choice.

I think guild leaders should also be able to see how much each trader sold the previous week, and how much gold that generated for the guild before placing a bid. I don't know if you currently have that info or not.

ContraTempo

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

Direnni Guildleaders Suggestions

Kiosk Location
More Kiosks.

I would add, never put a kiosk off by itself. That seems like a guarantee of low sales. Always put at least 2 together so there is more draw.

I know this might sound kinda nuts, but putting two competing stores near each other usually increases the sales at BOTH in the real world. That's because that area becomes a destination where people know they can hit more than just one store. It should work the same in Tamriel. Adding basic banking services would help too.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

ContraTempo wrote: »

I think guild leaders should also be able to see how much each trader sold the previous week, and how much gold that generated for the guild before placing a bid. I don't know if you currently have that info or not.

This has been discussed more than once, but most guildmasters objected on grounds that it would lead to more sniping, bidding just barely more than the other guild. I think I would prefer if GMs could see the average bid and sales in each area because the info wouldn't tell them as much that could be used against specific other guilds. Having been targeted by another guild, the more they have to work to get info to use against my guild, the better.

Recently it seems like the problem with newer/smaller guilds being unable to get grouped traders has gotten worse. Most guilds with smaller budgets find themselves unable to get a steady spot in ANY town. And there are some town spots that go for far more than the one right next to it. The backup bid system you described does seem workable, but as a GM I am reluctant to have to go and place bids all over the map. Placing multiple backup bids in many locations would be time consuming, making the bid on a city a lot less of a strain on the GMs.

I definitely agree about having at least 2 traders in each spot too. I like that! Even the roadside stalls would be better because you'd have double the chance of being actually able to find your item in them

ContraTempo

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

ContraTempo wrote: »

I think guild leaders should also be able to see how much each trader sold the previous week, and how much gold that generated for the guild before placing a bid. I don't know if you currently have that info or not.

This has been discussed more than once, but most guildmasters objected on grounds that it would lead to more sniping, bidding just barely more than the other guild. I think I would prefer if GMs could see the average bid and sales in each area because the info wouldn't tell them as much that could be used against specific other guilds. Having been targeted by another guild, the more they have to work to get info to use against my guild, the better.

That is not what I was saying. I meant they should be able to see the total sales that guild trader had the previous week, how much total gold came in through the sale of armor, weapons, motifs, mats, etc.. I was not suggesting that they show the current guild's winning bid.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

So another example this week of the problem with the bidding system. ;( One guild in Rawlkha had an officer who had bid permissions in 2 different trade guilds. When they other guild lost their trader that officer attempted to hire an open trader. Unfortunately they accidentally placed a bid instead of a hire and placed it for the wrong guild. Even with a whole 7 day notice they were unable to undo this accidental click and lost their place in Rawl which ended up going to a guild with less than 1 page of listings

Also @ZOS_JasonLeavey did you find an answer to the question of why maintenance and bid close is at the same time and whether or not that can be adjusted?

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

Also @ZOS_JasonLeavey did you find an answer to the question of why maintenance and bid close is at the same time and whether or not that can be adjusted?

Another really long maintenance and another really good trade guild is biting their fingers because the server is up but many people are still downloading. I am still only at 30% and chances are that all of the empty stalls this week will go not to the guilds with the most officers willing to be on at bid time, but instead to the random player who had the fastest internet.
Such a big week for trading, my heart goes out to any GM or officer who lost their bid and is waiting hoping to find a stall. That download bar is painful for all but it's excruciating when you know it's going to ruin your entire week.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

SOOOOO!! The maintenance is on Tuesday! Is this a permanent change? It makes back up stalls much much better!

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Negative. Maintenance to release patches will still be on Mondays for PC. In this case, we had some backend server work to perform, and chose Tuesdays for it.

Is there a way that the regular maintenance time, or the regular bid close time could be changed? Most trade guild GMs have been THRILLED the last couple of weeks since we can look for hirable kiosks and then get back to our lives without being forced to sit near and watch our computer for the maintenance light to swap for hours and hours on end.

I understand that Oceanic players are having regularly scheduled raids changed. But the maintenance was announced by Sunday night giving time to plan, and if it were permanently changed then it would be a think that could just be planned around.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

Currently updating main post. These are issues that we have brought back up to the attention of ZOS. Are there any other guild tools or improvements that the community would like to see?

mamericus

Guild Mail tool

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

Which of these improvements would you rate as the #1 highest priority?

These are all outstanding suggestions, but I think an integrated guild mail function/permissions are of the most basic and paramount importance. Even though there are some great addons out there that cover this and I certainly appreciate the addon devs' effort, this is something I feel should have been in the vanilla game since day one.

Badarah

Multiple tabs in guild bank

Woot! All great suggestions. Guild tabards are such a fun way to show off your guild pride- but don't get used as often as I think they could be. Some suggestions for improvements:

Make guild tabards a costume slot, accessible to all account characters. I never want to buy the tabard twice, for different characters- especially because they gold doesn't go TO the guild.

Which brings us to... make the gold from purchasing the tabard go to the guild- not oblivion.

Make tabards BoE- so that guilds have the option to send out tabards as rewards/auction prizes/welcome gifts.

Allow tabards to be worn over costumes!

And of course- some new tabard customization options would be superb. Maybe even allow the use of guild logos on shields!

fryguy101

I would really like to see Guild Mailing Tools, Mailr sucks for guild mail as it hangs in que way to often.I have sent mail 3 times a week for the past 20 months & all has been great until now. It seems for the first time I have got a Social Ban (no sending mail, no access to the guild bank, no access to the guild store, no access when talking to the NPC Trader or sending players a /tell)!

NobleNerd

Multiple tabs in guild bank

I would like to see a Guild Cresting system in the game to either remove or give more options to those who do not wish to have a tabard covering their armor. You would be able to stamp your heraldry on shields and armor to represent one specific guild. Then take the guild representation a step further and give guilds unlock-able bonuses for when a player chooses to represent them.

The only huge reason most players connect with a guild right now is to sell items. We need more love in game through achievements and special bonuses that guilds can offer to their members that represent them and their cause.... because... not every guild wants to be nor needs to be a trading guild!

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

NobleNerd wrote: »

I would like to see a Guild Cresting system in the game to either remove or give more options to those who do not wish to have a tabard covering their armor. You would be able to stamp your heraldry on shields and armor to represent one specific guild. Then take the guild representation a step further and give guilds unlock-able bonuses for when a player chooses to represent them.

The only huge reason most players connect with a guild right now is to sell items. We need more love in game through achievements and special bonuses that guilds can offer to their members that represent them and their cause.... because... not every guild wants to be nor needs to be a trading guild!

One of the suggestions above is a small bonus when running in a group with others wearing the same tabard. If it's not still in there I also like the idea of the guild image on a shield since I don't really care for wearing the tabards all the time either. I think if there were to be a bonus for wearing guild colors, it should come either from wearing your guild image while grouped with others also wearing it (encourage more guild grouping) or they should be earned by guilds in contests. For example other games have had weekly events where the guild who gets the most points in raids, or in PVP wins for the week.

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

We definitely appreciate that the maintenance was on a tuesday this week instead of monday for bidding purposes, even though it is really REALLY long! Wow

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

So, with the time change we are back to maintenance being the same time as the bidding close. Out of 7 days, 24 hours each day this is pretty much the single worst possible time that the bid close could possibly be. Can we get any response at least on why this is? It's clearly possible to have it other times since for half the year the bids close 1 hour before maintenance. Annoyingly early but at least we can get our business done before the servers are offline.

failkiwib16_ESO

More kiosks for guilds to hire

Eh for once a good thread with on-going issues that is being necromanced.

The list of tools guildmasters lack is really long in this game. Trading guilds lack tools to track individual members statistics over sales. Guildmembers being able to see bids done. A better messaging or mail system for guildmasters etc. x_x

ElfFromSpace

Bidding closing time changed to Sunday evenings

We've actually talked with ZOS about these issues multiple times. The announcements promise some guild tools updates, hopefully soon. I've updated the top main post a few times, but since few of the issues have been resolved there haven't been many updates to do. Many of these issues are BIG, and or should be easy fixes, so I try to remind them now and then. Like the bid times. So much testimony about the pain this causes, but even though timing on other things like weekly trials rewards have been changed, this has not been.