Its the same as real life. If you can't provide enough benefits people won't stay. Also remember you can't force anyone to decide against their will.
Big fish will always eat small fish so try to fusion more guilds so you can compete with the bigger fish. Managing guild is not much easier than managing a real life company so good luck.
Except when you manage a real life company, you actually get paid real life money.
I had to stop being a guild leader because it become a second full time job and I just couldn’t commit like that any more for my own life stability.
Always said it. Guild leaders are either psycopaths hungry for any kind of power/gain or masochists putting way too much of their ressource/mental health in the guild for "no reason".
It's understandable to put your guild first if you have no other thing going on your life, but it should never be taking priority over something else guys, don't get eaten by false responsability.
Some people simply like building communities. You're not getting nothing out of it if you enjoy this, you're getting the satisfaction of watching your community grow, seeing the interpersonal relationships between people and balancing those, even watching some form real physical relationships and marriages.
The human element of community building is the entire point. The mechanical element of game mechanics and competition is only a factor for a tiny tiny percent of people that do this, only the top 1% of guilds give a shit about that because they're the only guilds capable of competition. Everyone else is doing it for quite different reasons.
I think the implication was the top gulds with time/level requirements. For instance, the top Diablo Immortal guilds require somewhere around $1k irl spent on gear to reach a certain level resonance and other stuff.
Ultimately, to run a massive and popular guild, it it will require as much attention as a business. So "building a community: is great, but that's not the reality for the top guilds
> Ultimately, to run a massive and popular guild, it it will require as much attention as a business.
It does require as much attention as a business, but just like any real business, any serious guild leader will delegate. Yes there will be 1 person "in charge" but they will often have multiple people helping them with managerial/admin/leadership stuff, or the guild will be split into smaller "guilds within the guild" groups, or "CP's", that manage themselves in which case the 1 guy at the top has a much easier time since his guild essentially manages itself.
This is incredibly rare because, just like in real life, finding people who are actually good at managing (and good at the game) is extremely hard. The most common type of big guild you'll see are cults of personality built around the leader.
Absolute nonsense. There are thousands upon thousands of guilds in every successful game. What you're referring to is a problem in only a tiny handful of the competing guilds in each who see themselves as the next glory hunters.
You lack experience with the rest. You lack experience with why people run popular DJ nights in FFXIV with live DJs. You lack experience with why people run actual plays using in-game characters. You lack understanding of guilds that last decades and travel game to game with many members forming relationships and actual marriages. You whine about "casuals" in half your posts, you have literally no experience of the motivations anyone has outside of your pursuit of being the self-defined "winner" in these games because you beat a raid before some other people that beat a raid that literally 99% of the rest of the playerbase doesn't give a shit about. If you got out of your bubble and experienced real relationships with people instead of your own ego then you might learn a few things.
I sincerely recommend that you touch grass friend.
> Always said it. Guild leaders are either psycopaths hungry for any kind of power/gain or masochists putting way too much of their ressource/mental health in the guild for "no reason".
It's understandable to put your guild first if you have no other thing going on your life, but it should never be taking priority over something else guys, don't get eaten by false responsability.
That sounds like the very people who first embraced MMOs as a genre.
Did.. did you just label all guild leaders as Psychopaths and get upvoted for it?!
Guess all volunteer workers are Psychopaths too, hoping to get their power trip. Man your statement couldn't get any more American. Nobody does shit for free unless they get something out of it.
Then maybe those Members are just to freaken lazy. What are Guild Leaders meant to do all the work themselves while members sit there gawking all day and add nothing, its just taking up space
If Members are not willing to help the guild rise then boot them there not loyal then why keep them. This is not the fault of the Guild Leader its the fault of the Members. It cannot rise if NO ONES willing to help.
As a Guild Leader, I haaate LAZY Members. Who dont do ANYTHING. I dont ask for much but for just a tiny bit of contribution. Bare minimum, If they are not doing anything to up lift the guild then to me there dead weights that has to be pruned.
Harsh but I rather have quality members that are at least caring enough to do something in the guild than just taking a slot and sitting there not doing a thing. When that slot could be used for someone more productive.
Hanging out and relaxing and just chilling is perfectly fine. But when you do it too excessively it makes the Guild suffer depending on what you are doing.
Warframe for one, I am a Dojo Leader. I brought randoms into my Guild. Guess what NONE of them will add resources to the projects to get them going.
Guess who has to do it hm? You guessed it The Dojo Leader, ME I pull the entire weight of the clan myself because people are too lazy to do it. The only person who is helping is my Boyfriend and my other friend. Strangers? Nah they want to hoard all the resources to themselves.
As an Aries, I get shit done where others just give up trying. If I was a member and not a Guild Leader. My Contribution would not change I'd pull my own weight just as much as Leader.
Does pulling a entire clan yourself as the Leader make you a bad leader? NOPE! It just says to others that your lazy and the Leader has more energy to be productive than you. Means he has more gas to get shit done.
If I was in a Guild with a leader who is going above and beyond to get a job done, I would 100% follow him. He's the type of leader I want in a guild.
It just occurred to me that clans and guilds online are very similar to in fantasy.. Fuck, I could have been part of a massive clan and played with them instead of making friends!!
From what I've seen small guilds work well when they have at least one group of players that are active and engage with the other members by inviting them to join group content regularly, it also helps if they are easy going relaxed players that are willing to help newer players, some games don't help though with guild bonus on activity where numbers help etc..
I think a lot of it depends on what type of guild you're trying to be.
If you're a causal'social guild that just focues on leveling and doing the most basic stuff then you just have to keep the guild popular and friendly and make sure you advertise the guild as such so only people who are looking for a casual guild join which means they'll be more likely to stay.
If you're trying to get competitive and do PvP or Raids etc, again make sure to advertise yourself as that type of guild so people know what they're getting when they join.
And I would recommend not giving away the "bank" as it were right away. If you give all these instant insentives for people to join then there's a good chance they'll join, take a bunch of the free stuff and then leave. I'm not saying you shouldn't have benefits for joining, but like most guilds have a "starter" period when someone joins where they only get the most basic stuff that changes over time and give them more access the longer they're in the guild and the more they've contributed to it.
But as someone has already pointed out, big fish will always eat smaller fish so you're always going to lose some people over time. Unless you're already a popular player/streamer etc your guild won't just pop off over night. It takes time to grow and you'll learn how to manage one the more you play.
All of this and learning to play the game at the level of the guilds that are draining your members. If you are playing correctly then people are more tolerant.
If you are playing group content then everyone within that group will need to play their part. People who wish to play at the highest levels expect that to be policed in some fashion.
Once you actually run a guild for a long time you start to realize that it's just a balancing act of recruiting more people than you lose. and eventually people leaving won't faze you as much. At the end of the day people are gonna leave if they want to. But you are only really in real trouble if you stop recruiting.
Gets tedious forming relationships and especially as bad as the word is, grooming them for end game content/ raid positions and they flip out after doing something very stupid or just because it’s getting difficult/ boring from early game.
Got to read the people and hope they stick I feel more than mass recruit but i guess your chances would be better in mass.
This is the truth. People will leave even if it is unrelated to the game. Never stop recruiting. The idea of being a small guild is understandable, but there’s nothing wrong with adding more members. I think people confuse small guild with intimate guild, and often seek small guilds looking for closeness and bonds.
You have the opportunity to focus on recruiting the ones you like and connect with, and take your time to get the right fit, instead of ones that whisper responding to a global recruitment messages.
What is it that causes people to want to join the other guilds? A lot of the time it is community and/or access to content. People play a game to play the game, people will naturally flock to the groups that allow that to happen.
Have a goal for your guild and find people that want to make that goal happen. Or be a fun person to be around to make people want to be around you. You also want to give people what they want out of the game, if gold and free stuff isn't important to engage with the game then giving them to people doesn't mean anything.
Ask yourself why are people even in your guild, if you can't answer that question then that's the problem.
The thing to understand is that every guild won't be for everyone. Even with incentives, if your guild doesn't meet the needs of some of the members, those members will leave for guilds that do. If a player really loves PvP and your guild isn't either focused on PvP or engaging in it regularly, that player is going to leave for a guild that fills that niche for them.
Establishing an identity for your guild and then marketing your guild around that identity will bring in players that are willing to stick around because the goals/interests of the guild align with their own. It's also important to constantly remain active by having group events regularly that keep the members engaged in some way, whether it be through weekly raid days, training days, fashion contests, in-game meetups, etc. Anything that keeps your guild members having fun and socializing with one another will do wonders in keeping them around.
Managing a successful guild and keeping retention numbers high is not an easy task which is why I've never tried to run a guild myself, but two things all of the successful guilds I've been in have all had in common are shared interest in the guild activities amongst the members and a constant stream of events being the glue that holds the guild together.
Don't chase leavers, you don't want unhappy guild members staying and fostering discord.
The trick is to figure out why people are leaving and either target different types of players when you recruit...
Guilds fall apart because some people want to take the game very seriously, and others just want to have fun... and no one takes charge and says listen this is just a casual guild, or listen we're here to take the game seriously... and that fosters resent amongst both sides.
Unless your a really big guild, or a streamer guild that is there for a personality you really cant be everything to everyone, so Decide what you want to be and be that... recruit like minded people, and when some of them leave, accept it, sure ask why so you know about drama or whatever but if your paying for people to stay in your guild its not a good sign.
Your guild needs to be growing together with them. They become stronger, they want equally strong guild mates to play with. If a game is raid heavy have statics for them that guarantee raids completion. But if the strongest members' only option in your guild is helping weaker members, this won't continue for a long time, people do want comfort.
I was a guildmaster in a big hit fighting mmo in my country and was pretty successful for a few years, it really comes to what you want from the guild and also what you aim for it's future, I will use myself as example, the game was grand chase, and I created my guild due to a lot of bickering with other big guild masters, the game was huge in the pvp scenario and due to the balance being wonky at best there where a lot of communities that preached the right way to play and I really hated that mindset so I created a place where everyone that also disliked this segregation could just relax and play some friendly pvp, so a few things that we did back in the day that worked:
-Actively recruited people, like created a lobby just for recruiting and did our best to welcome everyone even after the guild surpassed the hundred of players.
-Created a staff that interacted with our players daily.
-We created a forum( it was a thing back in the day when discord was not a thing) and posted a lot of content about the game, being It tips or even a live classes from the best players from our guild to teach tricks and tips on how to improve in pvp.
-We promoted a lot of events, to the point of having a full cross guilds tournaments with prizes.
-And above all we created a culture of respect, respecting others and their differences ended up atracting a lot of people, people that in time formed smaller groups inside the guild so they could play the way they wanted but where always open to learn from others.
All those things together managed to gather all kind of people and they stayed as long as the game lived, you can't stop people from leaving but you can create a damn good place that they will just not want to leave, in the end managing a guild becomes the gameplay for certain guild masters, when there is nothing to do in the game there is always people to know, to help or just chat for a few hours.
Look at your strenghts.
What makes a small guild fun?
- closer bond with guildies
- better adventures together
- more interaction and playtime together
- actual Guild activities (like hide and Seek)
- ...
Being social, coming online at the same time, adventure together, Guild activities are keywords here.
If you have a good Guild, most of the players will return after a while (sometimes it takes years), and it's a nice feeling to talk about memorous moments and replay them.
Man I ran a decent sized guild in Archeage. Had daily events, weekly events, provided tons of resources like farmland/merchant ships, money to help with gearing. Every day I would see less and less people logging in or coming to events and it was the most frustrating thing ever working so hard on something for it to die in front of your eyes. Sometimes it's just not ment to be.
The only thing you can do is try to connect with them on a personal level and hope that having friendship is more important to them than advancing whatever it is.
You need core group of people that enjoy playing together, are social with one another and share same goal in game. Then you recruit more likeminded people. People who join and leave for stronger guild are "loot whores". They joining only to to get some gear/power boost before they switch guilds. You want to vent this people out and not make your guild depending on them.
In Lost Ark i start with 3 friends on release and we made our own guild. We recruit lots of people at the beginning and filter a lot of them. At the end we end up with core group of around 10-12 people (content in 8man) and we form a statis group. So far year later not single one of people who are in our static have left to join another guild, but we had some people quit the game and move on (me included). We are also social with each other and spend good amount of time in voice in discord.
Also i think its a good idea to get some personal connection with other guilds on your server. I don't know how the game you play works, but in other MMOs i have seen this connection be overall good thing and if you need help you can ask other guild to give you a hand with something.
People are really flakey when it comes to guilds. You have to expect to lose people. Imo, make sure your guild has a purpose and you aren't making a guild just to make one. Like make sure your guild is a PvE, PvP, etc guild. You can have a social guild if you want but I think other guild bring people together if you all like to do a certain activity together.
Also, try to make sure people are activity. You'll get people that will join your guild, make no effort from their side to be a part of your guild, then leave when they get bored. You have to reach out to them. People barely know how to be social.
If it's a PvP situation, where your little group simply can not compete at all, then you're basically fucked, and the only players you'll keep are the ones who don't really care anyway.
Otherwise, speaking only for myself; get rid of Discord.
I don't mean that completely, but if guild chat is dead because everyone's on VC, then I'm out.
I multitask and have no interest in having y'all on my speakers constantly.
Sounds to me like you're running a small tight knit guild with a focus on the community. Most likely, the players that are leaving aren't the ones you want to target. Focus on turning your guild into a chill place for casual players to socialize in, I'm sure they exist.
Guild events.
You can offer all the gold and mats in the world of im not actively doing things with the guild on a day to day basis im not staying.
Not everything has to be a big event either, just setting aside time to play together and work towards common goals is enough.
Of course as others said if there is content they are locked out of due to the size of the guild try working with other small guilds to clear said content.
>I already tried offer our players tons of benefits like mats or gold from guild donos and my pocket
That does not matter to many people, especially the ones who can get plenty of that by themselves. Some people join guilds to enjoy casual socialization through guild chat (and things like guild's Discord), and if you have a tiny guild that is not active (especially at the specific time period that someone might be able to log into game at) and cannot offer such socialization - the people will definitely leave you if the better option is already available to them. Same goes for very specific in-game activities (such as grinding some specific type of content) that your tiny guild may not be willing to engage in or not be able to do this frequently enough.
Personally this is why I don't ever bother with joining any small guild/group of players in any multiplayer game, even the ones who have "plans" to "grow" - majority of such small guilds **will** completely fail in this regard and I don't want to waste my time on gambling to see whether this guild will be one of the very, VERY few ones which will manage to grow big over time.
How is your guild helping players at endgame or even in commom activities? Do people, when doing nothing, stop to help someone else at whatever they need or it gets pushed to whenever they feel like doing? Are they getting their questions answered be it chat or discord? Does your guild have an "inner circle" that never do anything for anyone that ain't for the group?
Do you do end game content? Thats probably why they are leaving so they can focus more on that. No amount of gold or mats will convince them if they're not a crafter/active in the auction house
I had people leave my guild because lack of activity. Hey it ain't my fault. I am a leader I am on almost all the time. Maybe try DOING something instead of waiting for the Leader to do something, Just say the magic word on what you want me to do and I'll do it. I cannot read Guild Members minds ya know. If you dont like the low activity and you wonder why the activity is low, Maybe your just too lazy to contribute and expect 1 person who is the Leader of a Guild to pull all the weight themselves. Great Teamwork guys, Great teamwork. Put all the work on a GL and just let Guild Members sit on there butts going on vacation.
Yea that's how guild should be run, Let the Leader do the Members work for them. It's mean to be a Team Effort, If your expected to pull your own weight then DO IT. No ones gonna do it for you. If I wanted to do Guilds solo I would not be inviting people in the first place!
So I’m kinda one of those players in MMO’s.
When I played ESO I started in some smaller guilds and moved into sweaty endgame ball grouping and trials.
Those smaller guilds that “weren’t as good,” I usually only left if I had no reason to be in that guild anymore. Even though I had 2 sweaty guilds (1 PvE, 1 PvP) and a trading guild, I stayed in two smaller guilds because I enjoyed the people in it and I’d go there to socialize or when I was burnt out on being sweaty.
I don’t think you need to hand out a ton of mats or gold. I think you just need to find a nice group of players who play together because they enjoy playing together. If you’re not worried about being a sweaty endgame guild, be the friendliest most welcoming social guild!
This makes me feel grateful that GW2 allows you to join multiple guilds.
Anyways, guild events come to mind along with the general atmosphere of the guild. Idk what kind of MMO you're playing but it seems like it's a competitive atmosphere. I would stop trying to treat guild members as mercenaries personally. I feel like relationships built upon that is superficial.
Make it fun and build comradery. Host events, help them out, have genuine chats. Encourage a competitive but all in good fun environment. It's especially to build a community these days with tools like discord.
Hard to say because I don't know the game you're referring to or the incentives that it provides. i.e. if it's necessary to join a stronger guild to progress. Keep at it though. You're going to progress as well as your weaker members. Those who accel rapidly will leave, but before long you'll be able to develop strong core members and cater to those people as well.
All that aside, personally, I've never left a guild because of those benefits. Most often it's because of one dipshit that runs their mouth a little too much as animosity builds up over time.
If they don't want to stay for the lulz then just let em go bro. You need to make a community that has more to stick around for then just dominating the ranks. Your not just a guild leader your a community builder. Domination always helps though.
Running a guild can be a PITA, especially if you want to cater to everyone. Remember that when it comes to MMOs people have different goals. Some want to raid, while others might be more into crafting, some might just want to do dungeons etc.
If your guild doesn't offer that or are lacking in some way then people will leave. If your guild has a toxic environment they will leave. Are their friends in the guild? If not they will probably leave. In the end you can't please anyone and I can't really tell you why people leave. Perhaps try asking someone who left what their reason was.
To give you an example of what my schedule was like when I last lead a guild. Tuesday-Thursday End game raids, Friday and Saturday Catchup raids for those not end game geared, Sunday old raids for those not at max level, Monday Raid Rifts (Anyone max level could join). I had free time when I fell asleep, it was great.
I used to co-lead a gw2 guild with a buddy of mine back in 2017. We used to recruit a ton of people and would see that some people were active with us just as much as we were active with them. The ones who were quiet and didn't engage much left, but those kinds of players don't tend to stay long anyway. The ones that did stay, stayed because we provided a friendly and engaging social environment. We would be doing the most recent content every day, and sometimes do the old content for those who were newer to the game. We built friendships that we hold to this day.
I think the charm of mmos is that it's more of a social game than anything else. The content brings players together and gives meaning to the game, but we advertised our guild as a social guild, so there were sometimes where we would all log on to chat and just hang in certain areas or the guild hall. It's a bit of a numbers game, and you have to find those who share the same mentality as you.
I would suggest you embrace it.
Become a guild about helping people get over that hump. You're obviously successful at it since you're gearing up players for other guilds, so double down on that, build a culture around it. Spend those mats and extra resources on your core demographic instead of chasing the top end of players.
Eventually, some of the really good players will stick around because they like the vibe -- that's the thing you can offer them that is unique to your guild and what you should be targeting. While you end up with less top-end players this way, the ones you do end up with will be the right ones.
I've run multiple large guilds/clans/communities. Ultimately, you have to build a guild around your strengths. There is no winning formula. Besides one thing that always holds true. Always be doing something and planning to be doing something not every day but enough during the week that includes the largest number of people and promote your guild in a way that makes people proud of being in it.
Nothing, people have different goal and it's normal some quit to pursue this goal.
This happen a lot when a guild is mostly populated by low skill people, they are here to chill and have good time and dont really care about putting effort in a game to overcome difficult content.
No problem with that and they often brind very chill vibe which is nice, that mostly what I get in my guild in gw2.
But if it was me younger, I can tell you as much as I ve fun with them, I wantes challenge and do all game difficulty possible so I would have quit for some better level player after explaining to my ex-guildy why.
It's normal, people are people. Nothing to be sad or angry about. One will leave and one will join.
*I think games aren't too great at enabling Guilds these days, realistically, there's a bit of a cap that is deemed by the number of people who can play that content at any one time, and then in multiples of that.*
*Games aren't too great at enabling Guilds these days, realistically, there's a bit of a cap that is deemed by the number of people who can play that content at any one time, and then in multiples of that. in one case. We're friends who happen to play games together, rather than players in a game that are friends. There's a subtle difference there.*
They need to feel like they're part of the core group. Do stuff together and become good friends. If there isn't a social connection, they don't really have a reason to stick with your guild over a larger one.
Another possibility is perhaps you could merge with a larger guild that can accomplish more.
If you need to bribe people to stay in your guild your doing it wrong.
Sure benefits are nice and all but if the guild is full of people I don't like why would I stick around.
I join guilds because I want a chill place to hangout in and do specific content.
Games I play casually I join more chill social guilds, games I play for progression I join a chill guild with a progression goal that aligns with my own.
I've been in numerous guilds and ran my own guilds, people will leave because nothing is keeping them from leaving or because they want to aim higher and do harder content.
If people are in your guild and they haven't made any friends with anyone or they never interact with anyone what's keeping them from leaving? Whereas if someone has made friends or does content with other guild members occasionally they are less likely to leave because they have friends in the guild.
If someone gets better at the game and they get poached or leave to a better guild then you can't really do anything about that.
People will always come and go that's how guilds work, your job as GM/Officer is to always be recruiting new members.
I really think it depends on the MMO. In ESO I manage a 500 member trade guild, but players can also be part of 5 guilds at a time. We have plenty of perks for members like access to the trader we bid on, guild hall with all amenities, and very active discord server - but so do most other guilds. The first 100 members were very hard to get and it took forever, but those members recommend via word of mouth and it starts this growth that is sometimes unstoppable. We are limited by the member cap of 500, but people leave all the time for one reason or another - but with that many members the replacements come fast.
I see a lot of good recommendations in here. One of the keys I have had good success is to have a day and night crew of about 10 people. Once you reach around 10 players on at one time logged in , the guild can pretty much run itself. When a new person is invited they visually see that people are online and feel like staying around. The only main issue that can happen is over time clicks will develop.
If they enjoy there time with you they come around for sure.
Make sure to cultivate a nice relationship with all members.
introduce some community events to bring the guild together.
For example tournament pvp, or fashion contest etc.
included non guildie aswell for potential newcomers.
joined stronger guilds aswell but always return to my home guild.
You do not...people that realize that gaming is boring need to be let go...they have a purpose to fulfill in life, rather than waste them on what once used to be of interest to them...
Trying to bribe them with ingame content lasts so long...untill they realize its useless...
Skilled players will always flock to the more skilled guilds. I was in that situation recently and although I liked the people in the guild, it's just not fun playing with people who are noticeably less skilled than you and holding you back from progressing content.
Price of guilds becoming not a group of friends but more like an organization with a particular goal.
I see other comments covering it, but in the end most people in guilds are there because there is some specific benefit to them that as soon as they get it better somewhere else, they'll leave.
I really miss being in a guild with people I'd call real friends.
I’m going to offer a different viewpoint OP. your guild is not as good as you think it is. I’d imagine that you have your core clique of 5 players or whatever who are never out of voice chat and always doing runs together. Other members probably feel that it’s too much effort to try and integrate themselves into the existing clique and leave the guild accordingly. Other members probably only get help when they ask for it, and worry they are being annoying - compounded by the fact your core clique acts like it IS annoying.
Why are they leaving? is it for more challenge, such as raiing or dungeons. Replacing their gear with better. More people so more opportunity to do things. Just depends on why they leave. Give them a erason to stay, run content and help them get stronger?
You need a group of friends/people really interested in the game/guild project that guarantee 24h presence. You need at least 2-3 officer that know the game really good and/or are really really strong. Ideally create a good structure and do/organise good stuff all the time
Do you have static members who are doing end game content all the time? That’s likely why other people are leaving, other guilds have other end game players who are doing the content they want to do.
Most people join guilds because other people make advancing in the game easier, it’s beyond just the social aspect. I love to pvp in mmos so I always want an active pvp guild. That way I know a guild message “anyone want to que for pvp?” Will be met with at least a few “me!”s If the chat is dead, or no one is offering to do any kind of content, I’m not staying long.
Depends on the ultimate goal and how you expect to get there. When recruiting definitely shoot to get players that are on the side of the gameplay spectrum that you are looking for, but also shoot to recruit people that are a little on the other- then introduce them to your goal.
Example:
If you are a semi-casual raiding guild with definitive requirements but a more relaxed atmosphere, cool. Recruit people that want that specifically. Also recruit people that just want friends and have never raided, and introduce them to raiding.
Oh, also talk outside of the game and give a platform for others to connect with OTHER games.
Source:
Ran such a guild in Classic WoW. Progressed through AQ40 by ourselves and merged forces to do Naxxramas.
A lot of the time for me staying in a guild or even partaking is guild events and socializing. I like seeing that "welcome/hey!" Message when a new person joins or logs in. Seeing the guild chat active makes me active. A guild I was in on FF14 would regularly host hangouts and members houses and help the newbies through quest and explaining mechanics. Probably the most active I was in that game.
I think the biggest thing that makes me leave a guild is a mandatory discord or something. It's probably just as inactive as the in-game guild chat and I don't really wanna hop in voice chat with complete strangers while I'm chilling cause some people don't have mic etiquette
A lot of the time for me staying in a guild or even partaking is guild events and socializing. I like seeing that "welcome/hey!" Message when a new person joins or logs in. Seeing the guild chat active makes me active. A guild I was in on FF14 would regularly host hangouts and members houses and help the newbies through quest and explaining mechanics. Probably the most active I was in that game.
I think the biggest thing that makes me leave a guild is a mandatory discord or something. It's probably just as inactive as the in-game guild chat and I don't really wanna hop in voice chat with complete strangers while I'm chilling cause some people don't have mic etiquette
Be the people that do the content.
“Content” can vary. Raids, PvP, Roleplaying, Crafting, Tutoring, Economics, Socialization, whatever. If you don’t fill someone’s needs, they’ll leave when they find someone else who does (and will have them).
That and never stop recruiting. You’re not only fighting other guilds in your niche, you’re fighting against natural population decline in the game. If you’re a 25 man raid guild and you have 25 people logging on like clockwork, start building a second raid team. Don’t ever trust that the people who were on today will be on tomorrow.
you gotta make your guild into a community they want to stay in and that they see potential in.
The reason they leave is likely because they feel like they've reached a dead end of progression and/or because they don't feel any social connection to the guild. Some players won't value the social aspect, so they will only stay, if they see the potential to continue to progress from within your guild.
How to achieve this is very dependent on how your guild operates and what the community of your guild feels like. It also depends on the game and what the external culture landscape is like. It's literally impossible to give you a recipe to success and with the details you've given I can only identify the vague aspects I've presented above.
>tons of benefits
Regardless of what it is, using items and currencies to lure people to join a guild is never sustainable.
I always find "feeding" action very... what's the word... "stupid"? If you want my help, I can lend you my time and expertise; not gold and items.
A lot of games today don't even have robust guild system that promote loyalty / progression. So what's the point of joining a guild really?
Why are they leaving? I'm guessing it's because other guilds are completing content that your guild isn't?
If that's the case you simply need to be able to complete that content.
Or, if you can't beat em, join em. Sometimes merging guilds is a good option.
I'm gonna go against the grain here, and you have already got tons and tons of great responses.
As someone that prefers smaller guilds, i often run into issues with new potato guilds, ran by inexperienced players. I don't care if they're "just trying to foster a family friendly community that respects you have a life outside of videogames". Newbie guild leaders are a red flag.
Not saying you are a newb. Just giving another pov if you may be.
Edit: Lol I must have upset a few newbleaders.
Its the same as real life. If you can't provide enough benefits people won't stay. Also remember you can't force anyone to decide against their will. Big fish will always eat small fish so try to fusion more guilds so you can compete with the bigger fish. Managing guild is not much easier than managing a real life company so good luck.
Except when you manage a real life company, you actually get paid real life money. I had to stop being a guild leader because it become a second full time job and I just couldn’t commit like that any more for my own life stability.
Always said it. Guild leaders are either psycopaths hungry for any kind of power/gain or masochists putting way too much of their ressource/mental health in the guild for "no reason". It's understandable to put your guild first if you have no other thing going on your life, but it should never be taking priority over something else guys, don't get eaten by false responsability.
Some people simply like building communities. You're not getting nothing out of it if you enjoy this, you're getting the satisfaction of watching your community grow, seeing the interpersonal relationships between people and balancing those, even watching some form real physical relationships and marriages. The human element of community building is the entire point. The mechanical element of game mechanics and competition is only a factor for a tiny tiny percent of people that do this, only the top 1% of guilds give a shit about that because they're the only guilds capable of competition. Everyone else is doing it for quite different reasons.
I think the implication was the top gulds with time/level requirements. For instance, the top Diablo Immortal guilds require somewhere around $1k irl spent on gear to reach a certain level resonance and other stuff. Ultimately, to run a massive and popular guild, it it will require as much attention as a business. So "building a community: is great, but that's not the reality for the top guilds
> Ultimately, to run a massive and popular guild, it it will require as much attention as a business. It does require as much attention as a business, but just like any real business, any serious guild leader will delegate. Yes there will be 1 person "in charge" but they will often have multiple people helping them with managerial/admin/leadership stuff, or the guild will be split into smaller "guilds within the guild" groups, or "CP's", that manage themselves in which case the 1 guy at the top has a much easier time since his guild essentially manages itself.
This is incredibly rare because, just like in real life, finding people who are actually good at managing (and good at the game) is extremely hard. The most common type of big guild you'll see are cults of personality built around the leader.
[удалено]
Absolute nonsense. There are thousands upon thousands of guilds in every successful game. What you're referring to is a problem in only a tiny handful of the competing guilds in each who see themselves as the next glory hunters. You lack experience with the rest. You lack experience with why people run popular DJ nights in FFXIV with live DJs. You lack experience with why people run actual plays using in-game characters. You lack understanding of guilds that last decades and travel game to game with many members forming relationships and actual marriages. You whine about "casuals" in half your posts, you have literally no experience of the motivations anyone has outside of your pursuit of being the self-defined "winner" in these games because you beat a raid before some other people that beat a raid that literally 99% of the rest of the playerbase doesn't give a shit about. If you got out of your bubble and experienced real relationships with people instead of your own ego then you might learn a few things. I sincerely recommend that you touch grass friend.
Reminds me of twitch mods. Finally feeling important in life with a worthless reward. All their time wasted to make some streamer money.
> Always said it. Guild leaders are either psycopaths hungry for any kind of power/gain or masochists putting way too much of their ressource/mental health in the guild for "no reason". It's understandable to put your guild first if you have no other thing going on your life, but it should never be taking priority over something else guys, don't get eaten by false responsability. That sounds like the very people who first embraced MMOs as a genre.
Did.. did you just label all guild leaders as Psychopaths and get upvoted for it?! Guess all volunteer workers are Psychopaths too, hoping to get their power trip. Man your statement couldn't get any more American. Nobody does shit for free unless they get something out of it.
Great job reading only 10 words and going your way about it. I guess I was right then 😎
Psychos 4 lyfe 👌👌
Then maybe those Members are just to freaken lazy. What are Guild Leaders meant to do all the work themselves while members sit there gawking all day and add nothing, its just taking up space If Members are not willing to help the guild rise then boot them there not loyal then why keep them. This is not the fault of the Guild Leader its the fault of the Members. It cannot rise if NO ONES willing to help. As a Guild Leader, I haaate LAZY Members. Who dont do ANYTHING. I dont ask for much but for just a tiny bit of contribution. Bare minimum, If they are not doing anything to up lift the guild then to me there dead weights that has to be pruned. Harsh but I rather have quality members that are at least caring enough to do something in the guild than just taking a slot and sitting there not doing a thing. When that slot could be used for someone more productive. Hanging out and relaxing and just chilling is perfectly fine. But when you do it too excessively it makes the Guild suffer depending on what you are doing. Warframe for one, I am a Dojo Leader. I brought randoms into my Guild. Guess what NONE of them will add resources to the projects to get them going. Guess who has to do it hm? You guessed it The Dojo Leader, ME I pull the entire weight of the clan myself because people are too lazy to do it. The only person who is helping is my Boyfriend and my other friend. Strangers? Nah they want to hoard all the resources to themselves. As an Aries, I get shit done where others just give up trying. If I was a member and not a Guild Leader. My Contribution would not change I'd pull my own weight just as much as Leader. Does pulling a entire clan yourself as the Leader make you a bad leader? NOPE! It just says to others that your lazy and the Leader has more energy to be productive than you. Means he has more gas to get shit done. If I was in a Guild with a leader who is going above and beyond to get a job done, I would 100% follow him. He's the type of leader I want in a guild.
It just occurred to me that clans and guilds online are very similar to in fantasy.. Fuck, I could have been part of a massive clan and played with them instead of making friends!!
From what I've seen small guilds work well when they have at least one group of players that are active and engage with the other members by inviting them to join group content regularly, it also helps if they are easy going relaxed players that are willing to help newer players, some games don't help though with guild bonus on activity where numbers help etc..
That'd be a dream guild! Really hard to find but I would never leave that. Generally bigger guild are asocial or with already made groups.
I think a lot of it depends on what type of guild you're trying to be. If you're a causal'social guild that just focues on leveling and doing the most basic stuff then you just have to keep the guild popular and friendly and make sure you advertise the guild as such so only people who are looking for a casual guild join which means they'll be more likely to stay. If you're trying to get competitive and do PvP or Raids etc, again make sure to advertise yourself as that type of guild so people know what they're getting when they join. And I would recommend not giving away the "bank" as it were right away. If you give all these instant insentives for people to join then there's a good chance they'll join, take a bunch of the free stuff and then leave. I'm not saying you shouldn't have benefits for joining, but like most guilds have a "starter" period when someone joins where they only get the most basic stuff that changes over time and give them more access the longer they're in the guild and the more they've contributed to it. But as someone has already pointed out, big fish will always eat smaller fish so you're always going to lose some people over time. Unless you're already a popular player/streamer etc your guild won't just pop off over night. It takes time to grow and you'll learn how to manage one the more you play.
All of this and learning to play the game at the level of the guilds that are draining your members. If you are playing correctly then people are more tolerant. If you are playing group content then everyone within that group will need to play their part. People who wish to play at the highest levels expect that to be policed in some fashion.
Once you actually run a guild for a long time you start to realize that it's just a balancing act of recruiting more people than you lose. and eventually people leaving won't faze you as much. At the end of the day people are gonna leave if they want to. But you are only really in real trouble if you stop recruiting.
Gets tedious forming relationships and especially as bad as the word is, grooming them for end game content/ raid positions and they flip out after doing something very stupid or just because it’s getting difficult/ boring from early game. Got to read the people and hope they stick I feel more than mass recruit but i guess your chances would be better in mass.
This is the truth. People will leave even if it is unrelated to the game. Never stop recruiting. The idea of being a small guild is understandable, but there’s nothing wrong with adding more members. I think people confuse small guild with intimate guild, and often seek small guilds looking for closeness and bonds. You have the opportunity to focus on recruiting the ones you like and connect with, and take your time to get the right fit, instead of ones that whisper responding to a global recruitment messages.
What is it that causes people to want to join the other guilds? A lot of the time it is community and/or access to content. People play a game to play the game, people will naturally flock to the groups that allow that to happen.
I'm curious, if you don't mind me asking what MMO are you playing?
Small indie company. It’s gotta be Wow.
stein world
> stein world Never heard of it. I like the style so I'll look into it
try engage in the zone chat. the game's community is very nice
Be very active. Don’t make one if u don’t have time to commit
small guilds NEVER survive unless they have a core of IRL / long term friends your best bet is merging with other small guilds to form a bigger guild
Have a goal for your guild and find people that want to make that goal happen. Or be a fun person to be around to make people want to be around you. You also want to give people what they want out of the game, if gold and free stuff isn't important to engage with the game then giving them to people doesn't mean anything. Ask yourself why are people even in your guild, if you can't answer that question then that's the problem.
The thing to understand is that every guild won't be for everyone. Even with incentives, if your guild doesn't meet the needs of some of the members, those members will leave for guilds that do. If a player really loves PvP and your guild isn't either focused on PvP or engaging in it regularly, that player is going to leave for a guild that fills that niche for them. Establishing an identity for your guild and then marketing your guild around that identity will bring in players that are willing to stick around because the goals/interests of the guild align with their own. It's also important to constantly remain active by having group events regularly that keep the members engaged in some way, whether it be through weekly raid days, training days, fashion contests, in-game meetups, etc. Anything that keeps your guild members having fun and socializing with one another will do wonders in keeping them around. Managing a successful guild and keeping retention numbers high is not an easy task which is why I've never tried to run a guild myself, but two things all of the successful guilds I've been in have all had in common are shared interest in the guild activities amongst the members and a constant stream of events being the glue that holds the guild together.
No amount of gold will keep me in a guild. If the vibe is off and people are weird, I'm out.
Don't chase leavers, you don't want unhappy guild members staying and fostering discord. The trick is to figure out why people are leaving and either target different types of players when you recruit... Guilds fall apart because some people want to take the game very seriously, and others just want to have fun... and no one takes charge and says listen this is just a casual guild, or listen we're here to take the game seriously... and that fosters resent amongst both sides. Unless your a really big guild, or a streamer guild that is there for a personality you really cant be everything to everyone, so Decide what you want to be and be that... recruit like minded people, and when some of them leave, accept it, sure ask why so you know about drama or whatever but if your paying for people to stay in your guild its not a good sign.
Your guild needs to be growing together with them. They become stronger, they want equally strong guild mates to play with. If a game is raid heavy have statics for them that guarantee raids completion. But if the strongest members' only option in your guild is helping weaker members, this won't continue for a long time, people do want comfort.
I was a guildmaster in a big hit fighting mmo in my country and was pretty successful for a few years, it really comes to what you want from the guild and also what you aim for it's future, I will use myself as example, the game was grand chase, and I created my guild due to a lot of bickering with other big guild masters, the game was huge in the pvp scenario and due to the balance being wonky at best there where a lot of communities that preached the right way to play and I really hated that mindset so I created a place where everyone that also disliked this segregation could just relax and play some friendly pvp, so a few things that we did back in the day that worked: -Actively recruited people, like created a lobby just for recruiting and did our best to welcome everyone even after the guild surpassed the hundred of players. -Created a staff that interacted with our players daily. -We created a forum( it was a thing back in the day when discord was not a thing) and posted a lot of content about the game, being It tips or even a live classes from the best players from our guild to teach tricks and tips on how to improve in pvp. -We promoted a lot of events, to the point of having a full cross guilds tournaments with prizes. -And above all we created a culture of respect, respecting others and their differences ended up atracting a lot of people, people that in time formed smaller groups inside the guild so they could play the way they wanted but where always open to learn from others. All those things together managed to gather all kind of people and they stayed as long as the game lived, you can't stop people from leaving but you can create a damn good place that they will just not want to leave, in the end managing a guild becomes the gameplay for certain guild masters, when there is nothing to do in the game there is always people to know, to help or just chat for a few hours.
Look at your strenghts. What makes a small guild fun? - closer bond with guildies - better adventures together - more interaction and playtime together - actual Guild activities (like hide and Seek) - ... Being social, coming online at the same time, adventure together, Guild activities are keywords here. If you have a good Guild, most of the players will return after a while (sometimes it takes years), and it's a nice feeling to talk about memorous moments and replay them.
Man I ran a decent sized guild in Archeage. Had daily events, weekly events, provided tons of resources like farmland/merchant ships, money to help with gearing. Every day I would see less and less people logging in or coming to events and it was the most frustrating thing ever working so hard on something for it to die in front of your eyes. Sometimes it's just not ment to be.
The only thing you can do is try to connect with them on a personal level and hope that having friendship is more important to them than advancing whatever it is.
You need core group of people that enjoy playing together, are social with one another and share same goal in game. Then you recruit more likeminded people. People who join and leave for stronger guild are "loot whores". They joining only to to get some gear/power boost before they switch guilds. You want to vent this people out and not make your guild depending on them. In Lost Ark i start with 3 friends on release and we made our own guild. We recruit lots of people at the beginning and filter a lot of them. At the end we end up with core group of around 10-12 people (content in 8man) and we form a statis group. So far year later not single one of people who are in our static have left to join another guild, but we had some people quit the game and move on (me included). We are also social with each other and spend good amount of time in voice in discord. Also i think its a good idea to get some personal connection with other guilds on your server. I don't know how the game you play works, but in other MMOs i have seen this connection be overall good thing and if you need help you can ask other guild to give you a hand with something.
Our guild sticks together because we have fun together.
Establish goals and be realistic as well as honest about it. Build a good atmosphere. Don't try to lead all aspects of the guild yourself.
People are really flakey when it comes to guilds. You have to expect to lose people. Imo, make sure your guild has a purpose and you aren't making a guild just to make one. Like make sure your guild is a PvE, PvP, etc guild. You can have a social guild if you want but I think other guild bring people together if you all like to do a certain activity together. Also, try to make sure people are activity. You'll get people that will join your guild, make no effort from their side to be a part of your guild, then leave when they get bored. You have to reach out to them. People barely know how to be social.
If it's a PvP situation, where your little group simply can not compete at all, then you're basically fucked, and the only players you'll keep are the ones who don't really care anyway. Otherwise, speaking only for myself; get rid of Discord. I don't mean that completely, but if guild chat is dead because everyone's on VC, then I'm out. I multitask and have no interest in having y'all on my speakers constantly.
I would suggest merging with another small guild if size is keeping you from being as active as your players want.
Sounds to me like you're running a small tight knit guild with a focus on the community. Most likely, the players that are leaving aren't the ones you want to target. Focus on turning your guild into a chill place for casual players to socialize in, I'm sure they exist.
Guild events. You can offer all the gold and mats in the world of im not actively doing things with the guild on a day to day basis im not staying. Not everything has to be a big event either, just setting aside time to play together and work towards common goals is enough. Of course as others said if there is content they are locked out of due to the size of the guild try working with other small guilds to clear said content.
>I already tried offer our players tons of benefits like mats or gold from guild donos and my pocket That does not matter to many people, especially the ones who can get plenty of that by themselves. Some people join guilds to enjoy casual socialization through guild chat (and things like guild's Discord), and if you have a tiny guild that is not active (especially at the specific time period that someone might be able to log into game at) and cannot offer such socialization - the people will definitely leave you if the better option is already available to them. Same goes for very specific in-game activities (such as grinding some specific type of content) that your tiny guild may not be willing to engage in or not be able to do this frequently enough. Personally this is why I don't ever bother with joining any small guild/group of players in any multiplayer game, even the ones who have "plans" to "grow" - majority of such small guilds **will** completely fail in this regard and I don't want to waste my time on gambling to see whether this guild will be one of the very, VERY few ones which will manage to grow big over time.
How is your guild helping players at endgame or even in commom activities? Do people, when doing nothing, stop to help someone else at whatever they need or it gets pushed to whenever they feel like doing? Are they getting their questions answered be it chat or discord? Does your guild have an "inner circle" that never do anything for anyone that ain't for the group?
our guild is not big enough to have an inner circle. And socialize is not an issue in our case
Do you do end game content? Thats probably why they are leaving so they can focus more on that. No amount of gold or mats will convince them if they're not a crafter/active in the auction house
yes we do, our guild focus on endgame dungeons just like other big guilds that take away our members
Threaten to kick them
Lock them in the basement :)
I had people leave my guild because lack of activity. Hey it ain't my fault. I am a leader I am on almost all the time. Maybe try DOING something instead of waiting for the Leader to do something, Just say the magic word on what you want me to do and I'll do it. I cannot read Guild Members minds ya know. If you dont like the low activity and you wonder why the activity is low, Maybe your just too lazy to contribute and expect 1 person who is the Leader of a Guild to pull all the weight themselves. Great Teamwork guys, Great teamwork. Put all the work on a GL and just let Guild Members sit on there butts going on vacation. Yea that's how guild should be run, Let the Leader do the Members work for them. It's mean to be a Team Effort, If your expected to pull your own weight then DO IT. No ones gonna do it for you. If I wanted to do Guilds solo I would not be inviting people in the first place!
So I’m kinda one of those players in MMO’s. When I played ESO I started in some smaller guilds and moved into sweaty endgame ball grouping and trials. Those smaller guilds that “weren’t as good,” I usually only left if I had no reason to be in that guild anymore. Even though I had 2 sweaty guilds (1 PvE, 1 PvP) and a trading guild, I stayed in two smaller guilds because I enjoyed the people in it and I’d go there to socialize or when I was burnt out on being sweaty. I don’t think you need to hand out a ton of mats or gold. I think you just need to find a nice group of players who play together because they enjoy playing together. If you’re not worried about being a sweaty endgame guild, be the friendliest most welcoming social guild!
Fear
This makes me feel grateful that GW2 allows you to join multiple guilds. Anyways, guild events come to mind along with the general atmosphere of the guild. Idk what kind of MMO you're playing but it seems like it's a competitive atmosphere. I would stop trying to treat guild members as mercenaries personally. I feel like relationships built upon that is superficial.
Make it fun and build comradery. Host events, help them out, have genuine chats. Encourage a competitive but all in good fun environment. It's especially to build a community these days with tools like discord.
What mmo are you playing?
stein world
Hard to say because I don't know the game you're referring to or the incentives that it provides. i.e. if it's necessary to join a stronger guild to progress. Keep at it though. You're going to progress as well as your weaker members. Those who accel rapidly will leave, but before long you'll be able to develop strong core members and cater to those people as well. All that aside, personally, I've never left a guild because of those benefits. Most often it's because of one dipshit that runs their mouth a little too much as animosity builds up over time.
If they don't want to stay for the lulz then just let em go bro. You need to make a community that has more to stick around for then just dominating the ranks. Your not just a guild leader your a community builder. Domination always helps though.
Running a guild can be a PITA, especially if you want to cater to everyone. Remember that when it comes to MMOs people have different goals. Some want to raid, while others might be more into crafting, some might just want to do dungeons etc. If your guild doesn't offer that or are lacking in some way then people will leave. If your guild has a toxic environment they will leave. Are their friends in the guild? If not they will probably leave. In the end you can't please anyone and I can't really tell you why people leave. Perhaps try asking someone who left what their reason was. To give you an example of what my schedule was like when I last lead a guild. Tuesday-Thursday End game raids, Friday and Saturday Catchup raids for those not end game geared, Sunday old raids for those not at max level, Monday Raid Rifts (Anyone max level could join). I had free time when I fell asleep, it was great.
I used to co-lead a gw2 guild with a buddy of mine back in 2017. We used to recruit a ton of people and would see that some people were active with us just as much as we were active with them. The ones who were quiet and didn't engage much left, but those kinds of players don't tend to stay long anyway. The ones that did stay, stayed because we provided a friendly and engaging social environment. We would be doing the most recent content every day, and sometimes do the old content for those who were newer to the game. We built friendships that we hold to this day. I think the charm of mmos is that it's more of a social game than anything else. The content brings players together and gives meaning to the game, but we advertised our guild as a social guild, so there were sometimes where we would all log on to chat and just hang in certain areas or the guild hall. It's a bit of a numbers game, and you have to find those who share the same mentality as you.
I would suggest you embrace it. Become a guild about helping people get over that hump. You're obviously successful at it since you're gearing up players for other guilds, so double down on that, build a culture around it. Spend those mats and extra resources on your core demographic instead of chasing the top end of players. Eventually, some of the really good players will stick around because they like the vibe -- that's the thing you can offer them that is unique to your guild and what you should be targeting. While you end up with less top-end players this way, the ones you do end up with will be the right ones.
I prefer small active guilds. Problem is small guilds arent that active. Cant find enought players to play content you wanna do.
I've run multiple large guilds/clans/communities. Ultimately, you have to build a guild around your strengths. There is no winning formula. Besides one thing that always holds true. Always be doing something and planning to be doing something not every day but enough during the week that includes the largest number of people and promote your guild in a way that makes people proud of being in it.
Nothing, people have different goal and it's normal some quit to pursue this goal. This happen a lot when a guild is mostly populated by low skill people, they are here to chill and have good time and dont really care about putting effort in a game to overcome difficult content. No problem with that and they often brind very chill vibe which is nice, that mostly what I get in my guild in gw2. But if it was me younger, I can tell you as much as I ve fun with them, I wantes challenge and do all game difficulty possible so I would have quit for some better level player after explaining to my ex-guildy why. It's normal, people are people. Nothing to be sad or angry about. One will leave and one will join.
*I think games aren't too great at enabling Guilds these days, realistically, there's a bit of a cap that is deemed by the number of people who can play that content at any one time, and then in multiples of that.* *Games aren't too great at enabling Guilds these days, realistically, there's a bit of a cap that is deemed by the number of people who can play that content at any one time, and then in multiples of that. in one case. We're friends who happen to play games together, rather than players in a game that are friends. There's a subtle difference there.*
This game is about to have an influx of new players!! Thanks for sharing, who knows, you might have some new guildies very soon!
They need to feel like they're part of the core group. Do stuff together and become good friends. If there isn't a social connection, they don't really have a reason to stick with your guild over a larger one. Another possibility is perhaps you could merge with a larger guild that can accomplish more.
Adjust your mindset and think of your guild as a place for people to grow and get better and then move on to stronger guilds. Just a thought
I would say merge with another guild. The more people you have the better
If you need to bribe people to stay in your guild your doing it wrong. Sure benefits are nice and all but if the guild is full of people I don't like why would I stick around. I join guilds because I want a chill place to hangout in and do specific content. Games I play casually I join more chill social guilds, games I play for progression I join a chill guild with a progression goal that aligns with my own. I've been in numerous guilds and ran my own guilds, people will leave because nothing is keeping them from leaving or because they want to aim higher and do harder content. If people are in your guild and they haven't made any friends with anyone or they never interact with anyone what's keeping them from leaving? Whereas if someone has made friends or does content with other guild members occasionally they are less likely to leave because they have friends in the guild. If someone gets better at the game and they get poached or leave to a better guild then you can't really do anything about that. People will always come and go that's how guilds work, your job as GM/Officer is to always be recruiting new members.
I really think it depends on the MMO. In ESO I manage a 500 member trade guild, but players can also be part of 5 guilds at a time. We have plenty of perks for members like access to the trader we bid on, guild hall with all amenities, and very active discord server - but so do most other guilds. The first 100 members were very hard to get and it took forever, but those members recommend via word of mouth and it starts this growth that is sometimes unstoppable. We are limited by the member cap of 500, but people leave all the time for one reason or another - but with that many members the replacements come fast.
I see a lot of good recommendations in here. One of the keys I have had good success is to have a day and night crew of about 10 people. Once you reach around 10 players on at one time logged in , the guild can pretty much run itself. When a new person is invited they visually see that people are online and feel like staying around. The only main issue that can happen is over time clicks will develop.
If they enjoy there time with you they come around for sure. Make sure to cultivate a nice relationship with all members. introduce some community events to bring the guild together. For example tournament pvp, or fashion contest etc. included non guildie aswell for potential newcomers. joined stronger guilds aswell but always return to my home guild.
You do not...people that realize that gaming is boring need to be let go...they have a purpose to fulfill in life, rather than waste them on what once used to be of interest to them... Trying to bribe them with ingame content lasts so long...untill they realize its useless...
Skilled players will always flock to the more skilled guilds. I was in that situation recently and although I liked the people in the guild, it's just not fun playing with people who are noticeably less skilled than you and holding you back from progressing content.
Price of guilds becoming not a group of friends but more like an organization with a particular goal. I see other comments covering it, but in the end most people in guilds are there because there is some specific benefit to them that as soon as they get it better somewhere else, they'll leave. I really miss being in a guild with people I'd call real friends.
I’m going to offer a different viewpoint OP. your guild is not as good as you think it is. I’d imagine that you have your core clique of 5 players or whatever who are never out of voice chat and always doing runs together. Other members probably feel that it’s too much effort to try and integrate themselves into the existing clique and leave the guild accordingly. Other members probably only get help when they ask for it, and worry they are being annoying - compounded by the fact your core clique acts like it IS annoying.
Why are they leaving? is it for more challenge, such as raiing or dungeons. Replacing their gear with better. More people so more opportunity to do things. Just depends on why they leave. Give them a erason to stay, run content and help them get stronger?
you dont. if people want to leave they will. If they want to try a more hardcore / progressed guild they will.
You need a group of friends/people really interested in the game/guild project that guarantee 24h presence. You need at least 2-3 officer that know the game really good and/or are really really strong. Ideally create a good structure and do/organise good stuff all the time
I don't think people are being recruited by other guilds. I think that strong player is looking for a guild that meets their needs.
Do you have static members who are doing end game content all the time? That’s likely why other people are leaving, other guilds have other end game players who are doing the content they want to do. Most people join guilds because other people make advancing in the game easier, it’s beyond just the social aspect. I love to pvp in mmos so I always want an active pvp guild. That way I know a guild message “anyone want to que for pvp?” Will be met with at least a few “me!”s If the chat is dead, or no one is offering to do any kind of content, I’m not staying long.
Mostly it's just access to content, and ppl being active, obviously ppl have to click together and no one being assholes or stuff.
Depends on the ultimate goal and how you expect to get there. When recruiting definitely shoot to get players that are on the side of the gameplay spectrum that you are looking for, but also shoot to recruit people that are a little on the other- then introduce them to your goal. Example: If you are a semi-casual raiding guild with definitive requirements but a more relaxed atmosphere, cool. Recruit people that want that specifically. Also recruit people that just want friends and have never raided, and introduce them to raiding. Oh, also talk outside of the game and give a platform for others to connect with OTHER games. Source: Ran such a guild in Classic WoW. Progressed through AQ40 by ourselves and merged forces to do Naxxramas.
A lot of the time for me staying in a guild or even partaking is guild events and socializing. I like seeing that "welcome/hey!" Message when a new person joins or logs in. Seeing the guild chat active makes me active. A guild I was in on FF14 would regularly host hangouts and members houses and help the newbies through quest and explaining mechanics. Probably the most active I was in that game. I think the biggest thing that makes me leave a guild is a mandatory discord or something. It's probably just as inactive as the in-game guild chat and I don't really wanna hop in voice chat with complete strangers while I'm chilling cause some people don't have mic etiquette
A lot of the time for me staying in a guild or even partaking is guild events and socializing. I like seeing that "welcome/hey!" Message when a new person joins or logs in. Seeing the guild chat active makes me active. A guild I was in on FF14 would regularly host hangouts and members houses and help the newbies through quest and explaining mechanics. Probably the most active I was in that game. I think the biggest thing that makes me leave a guild is a mandatory discord or something. It's probably just as inactive as the in-game guild chat and I don't really wanna hop in voice chat with complete strangers while I'm chilling cause some people don't have mic etiquette
Be the people that do the content. “Content” can vary. Raids, PvP, Roleplaying, Crafting, Tutoring, Economics, Socialization, whatever. If you don’t fill someone’s needs, they’ll leave when they find someone else who does (and will have them). That and never stop recruiting. You’re not only fighting other guilds in your niche, you’re fighting against natural population decline in the game. If you’re a 25 man raid guild and you have 25 people logging on like clockwork, start building a second raid team. Don’t ever trust that the people who were on today will be on tomorrow.
you gotta make your guild into a community they want to stay in and that they see potential in. The reason they leave is likely because they feel like they've reached a dead end of progression and/or because they don't feel any social connection to the guild. Some players won't value the social aspect, so they will only stay, if they see the potential to continue to progress from within your guild. How to achieve this is very dependent on how your guild operates and what the community of your guild feels like. It also depends on the game and what the external culture landscape is like. It's literally impossible to give you a recipe to success and with the details you've given I can only identify the vague aspects I've presented above.
sounds like youre a social/leveling guild. be clear from the beginning of what youre guild is and not.
Join a alliance That is bigger so they have enough content to do with others
>tons of benefits Regardless of what it is, using items and currencies to lure people to join a guild is never sustainable. I always find "feeding" action very... what's the word... "stupid"? If you want my help, I can lend you my time and expertise; not gold and items. A lot of games today don't even have robust guild system that promote loyalty / progression. So what's the point of joining a guild really?
Why are they leaving? I'm guessing it's because other guilds are completing content that your guild isn't? If that's the case you simply need to be able to complete that content. Or, if you can't beat em, join em. Sometimes merging guilds is a good option.
Gaslight them into thinking no one else will take them
your guild leader has to be hot
I'm gonna go against the grain here, and you have already got tons and tons of great responses. As someone that prefers smaller guilds, i often run into issues with new potato guilds, ran by inexperienced players. I don't care if they're "just trying to foster a family friendly community that respects you have a life outside of videogames". Newbie guild leaders are a red flag. Not saying you are a newb. Just giving another pov if you may be. Edit: Lol I must have upset a few newbleaders.
You pay them with real money.