Guild Member Limit for War of Emperium Guilds
Description
Limit the amount of players a single guild can field in War of Emperium.
Rationale
For a few weeks now, Hivemind and Mighty Ducks have relied on guests in War of Emperium. Both guilds wants to stay competitive, and each week, holes and gaps are filled with new recruits and new guests. Last week, both guilds had 28 or more players.
Right now, if you want to participate in War of Emperium on Sunday (to fight for the castle in a meaningful way), your best bet is to join/guest for either Hivemind or Mighty Ducks. If your guild has less than 20 players, there's not much you can hope to do. Yeah, you can be disruptive, but I don't think that's why people play WOE.
I have heard multiple people express concern over this development. Effectively, there is currently no upper limit on the amount of members a guild can run. The smaller guilds are growing in numbers and strength, but so are the large guilds. While running guests is expensive, it feels like both guilds are continuing this approach. "If we don't play this person, the other guild will". No guilds wants to get run over.
It is my suggestion that we implement a limit on the amount of players a single guild can field in War of Emperium. In my opinion, this cap should sit at around 24~36 (two full vs. three full parties). This would not force any of the current guilds to split up. It would, however, stop the growth and power of the top guilds. It would force remaining players to form new guilds or join existing guilds that currently can't field up to 24 players.
The current guilds can of course agree to not bring in a bunch of extra players. They can agree to stop recruitment. But why? The point of WOE is to do your best to hold the castle by the time WOE ends. Allow us to do everything in our power to win WOE without having to worry about growing too large.
In addition to this, some people do not like the "zerg" nature of large scale WOE. This is highly subjective, of course. A cap of 24 would allow for a certain level of "zerging", but the limit would require each player to be more than a one-button-masher in a sea of other one-button-mashers.
Don't rely on some vague gentleman's agreement. Don't assume your community will make sure WOE stays fun. Step in, right now, before it's too late, and implement a guild cap for War of Emperium. Make this one of the few servers that prevents the rise of two massive guilds.
Additional Information
I am not saying that this should affect PVM guilds. This is meant purely for WOE guilds. I leave it up to staff to figure out implementation details.
Implementation suggestions:
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Make use of an atcommand. Have the guild leader add players to (at)woeroster before/during WOE. This does not require guilds themselves to change.
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Introduce a guild skill that locks the guild as a WOE guild. Putting a point in this skill caps the guild member count at whatever staff wants. This is way less chaotic for guilds before/during WOE, but it does require a change to how guilds work.
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Same as 2, but make the skill turn a guild into a PVM guild. I have seen this solution before. The skill would grant the PVM guild a large increase in member capacity, but it would prevent members from entering castles.
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Some other smart solution.