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Mobile games do a better job at clan management than Warframe.


Drasiel

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I've been a clan member, an officer, and a warlord and at no point did I ever find any satisfaction or enjoyment in dealing with the warframe clan system. We're not going to go into the nitty gritty of all the quality of life that is missing from clan management, I'm here to talk about the giant chartreuse elephant in the room: Recruiting for your clan.

The History of Clan Recruiting:

Spoiler

 

The original viable method of clan recruiting was the Clan recruiting section of the warframe forums. This was split up into subcategories for clan size and bumping was allowed to bring your clan post up to the front page as long as you did not spam bump and the post pertained to the clan itself. For example you could be stating recruitment was closing or opening, there was a waiting list to get into the clan, clan contests and winners that were being featured on the clan page. Essentially the clan thread in the clan forum was the one-stop spot for all your information and advertising needs for the clan. Even if you only bumped your thread once per 24 hours it almost guaranteed a handful of recruits every day.

That all changed when DE changed the rules for the clan recruiting section of the forums.

Too long; didn't click The subcategories for clan size were removed, bumping your clan thread was no longer permissible, and the forum was sorted by creation date not last post date. What does this mean in practicality? All old clans get a punch in the crotch and kick in the teeth. Fusion Community, my clan, is halfway down page 867 of the clan recruitment forum, no player is ever going to see it. Making this even worse is that when you search for fusion community in the clan section you can't even find our thread using the forum search tools.
 

Spoiler

 

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(despite the google search saying we are closed for recruiting the thread itself says we are open)

 

The alleged solution to these problems was the addition of the clan repository to the forums. This fell flat on its face. Not only did every single member of your clan have to go manually join this page to show who was in your clan but it also is default sorted by member count meaning only the biggest clans and alliances benefited from the system at all. Later sorting options were added but these were out of the way and easily missed. As this addition was extremely inadequate except for certain groups this left clan recruiters with a single viable option: Recruiting chat spamming.

If you want to maintain player count you have to spend hours in recruit chat. You don't get to play the game you get to play the chat. You sit there repeating the same message every 2 minutes while trying to snipe the random players that are looking for a clan. If your player count dips below a certain amount new players will join and just leave again because you are a "dead clan". This method is both inferior to the original clan post in volume of new recruits attainable and the amount of effort and time that has to be spent not playing the game.

Now we come to recently where the clan repository has now been removed with no replacement in sight and no information about any attempts or plans to make one. This puts even the clans that were benefiting from this system into the same mindless soul-crushing slog of recruiting chat.

 

Warframe clan recruiting on the forums has always been disconnected from the game. Even worse clan recruiting in game through recruiting chat is tedious mind numbing and awful. So let's take a quick look at a clan recruiting system that always works, is easy to use for new players and doesn't put the entire onus of recruiting of manually spamming a chat on clan members.

Here is raid Shadow legends in game clan recruitment screen. This isn't the best example of mobile clan recruitment but it's an easy example of the basics so we are on the same page I as expand on it.

Spoiler

Screenshot_20210427-105329_Raid.jpg

So what we have is an in-game UI where users can browse for clans. It should offer basic information, easy sort and search functions and ensconce both the current mail to be invited to a clan and a new mail to request to join a clan. As for layout for warframe clan information we would want:

  • Clan rank
  • Clan Name with emblem
  • Clan size
  • Member count
  • Primary Time zone - manually set with a global option
  • Open or application Recruiting - whether all applications are automatically accepted or need to be reviewed by a recruiter.
  • Edit: Closed/Private option for Recruiting - Clan remains listed but is greyed out and cannot receive requests to join as if it was full.

Each of those columns would be sort-able from low to high values with a filter system to filter by multiple values across the columns. IE filter to only storm clans with max rank and X time zone with open recruiting

When you click on apply to Join you get a popup window with a message from the clan to new members and a confirmation button to apply to join (or just join if the clan is set to open). This message is a place where you can put your basic clan rules such as preferred age or activity requirements to inform players before they apply/join. In this system full clans get automatically greyed out and moved to the bottom of the list when unsorted.

Clan members with the recruiter role would be able to accept or deny applications from potential members.

So that's my spiel to make clan recruitment in warframe at least as good as mobile free to play games. Any thoughts, criticisms, suggestions?

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Why would you like to have this kind of feature in a game where clans and alliances are a joke? They don't have any reason to exist aside from decorating a dojo with other people's help. Like you, I was a member, a warlord and also an architect, and all I can say is that I haven't seen a single reason for me to enjoy my positions. We can do everthing in the game without being a member of a clan: Railjack, trading, recruiting people to play with you, etc. Dojo building is a complete mess and clan ranks are not properly design. For example, if the warlord gives two persons permission to decorate the dojo, they can destroy and mess around with each other, because the permission of decorating the dojo is absolute, it gives no limitations. Personally, I think Warframe communities stand today thanks to things like Discord and not because of Warframe clans or alliances.

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8 minutes ago, -Lobis- said:

Why would you like to have this kind of feature in a game where clans and alliances are a joke? They don't have any reason to exist aside from decorating a dojo with other people's help. Like you, I was a member, a warlord and also an architect, and all I can say is that I haven't seen a single reason for me to enjoy my positions. We can do everthing in the game without being a member of a clan: Railjack, trading, recruiting people to play with you, etc. Dojo building is a complete mess and clan ranks are not properly design. For example, if the warlord gives two persons permission to decorate the dojo, they can destroy and mess around with each other, because the permission of decorating the dojo is absolute, it gives no limitations. Personally, I think Warframe communities stand today thanks to things like Discord and not because of Warframe clans or alliances.

Because improvements to a neglected system are a good thing

Because for some players in-game community is important

Because The current options are terrible

Because this is already a widely used system across mobile free-to-plays that shows how successful this system is once implemented.

I know there are multiple issues with clans from UI, to permissions, to ranks. If it's to be fixed gotta start somewhere and recent changes have made recruiting arguably the worst feature right now, so I'm starting there.

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Note that I've never been in a bigger clan, nor did I care to actively recruit people.

But it's pretty clear that Clans and Alliances -- speaking generally -- have been going downhill for some time. Which strikes me as really odd, in a game with that much complexity and so few explanations.

Recruitment Chat works, I guess, but is not very well suited for this. The forum search function is a joke because it is so limited. I don't really know what their strategy here is, maybe they're putting all their focus on Youtube and Twitch? I rarely use those, so I can't tell. I just have that impression. (While unrelated, removing "fansite" Discord communites didn't help matters, either).

 

Imho, it wouldn't need to be anything complex, and it doesn't matter whether it's ingame or some website. Just at least a directory that's searchable, maybe with some recruitment information and a recruitment-open-toggle would already go a long way.

Or build an API and let the fans sort it out. That has worked well with several other things, too.

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It's amazing that a simple yet impactful feature like Clan search and Lobby system does not exist in Warframe. It would solve a lot of the glaring issues Warframe has.

However, I think this recruit system should be toggle-able. Not every clan are willing to go through the huge list of clan member applications. Maybe a "Clan visible in public search list?" option in the clan menu would be great.

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3 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

It's amazing that a simple yet impactful feature like Clan search and Lobby system does not exist in Warframe. It would solve a lot of the glaring issues Warframe has.

However, I think this recruit system should be toggle-able. Not every clan are willing to go through the huge list of clan member applications. Maybe a "Clan visible in public search list?" option in the clan menu would be great.

solid suggestion. Are you wanting an unlisted option specifically for anytime use or just something that blocks and/or optionally clears applications when the clan is full?

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12 hours ago, DrivaMain said:

However, I think this recruit system should be toggle-able. Not every clan are willing to go through the huge list of clan member applications. Maybe a "Clan visible in public search list?" option in the clan menu would be great.

I thought that went without saying. Some of us have "personal" clans, built for ourselves and a few close friends. The idea of admitting strangers into my clan is absolute anathema, and any system which exposed me to that would be most unwelcome.

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5 hours ago, Steel_Rook said:

I thought that went without saying. Some of us have "personal" clans, built for ourselves and a few close friends. The idea of admitting strangers into my clan is absolute anathema, and any system which exposed me to that would be most unwelcome.

ah that makes sense. I would have never actually considered that because to me clan means internet people not just local friends.

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5 hours ago, Drasiel said:

ah that makes sense. I would have never actually considered that because to me clan means internet people not just local friends.

Understandable, but that's why Ghost Clans exist. Mine consists of about 5 or so people :)

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Mobile games generally have a hard requirement for being a part of guilds/clans, it would make sense for games that require them to be better than games where they serve almost exclusively for an extended friend list.

This is a thing even for PC games. Most games that have a strict requirement for joining clans/guilds have better interfaces and methods for joining them without relying on chat/3rd party sites. Where as games that have it as an extended friend list scenario, don't. GW2 even takes it a step further and lets you join five guilds, rather than being hard limited to one.

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1 hour ago, Yamazuki said:

Mobile games generally have a hard requirement for being a part of guilds/clans, it would make sense for games that require them to be better than games where they serve almost exclusively for an extended friend list.

This is a thing even for PC games. Most games that have a strict requirement for joining clans/guilds have better interfaces and methods for joining them without relying on chat/3rd party sites. Where as games that have it as an extended friend list scenario, don't. GW2 even takes it a step further and lets you join five guilds, rather than being hard limited to one.

not all, in many mobile games clans serve as little more than an extra login bonus and some special daily missions. Even so they present a much easier to access and use interface. Warframe could do a lot worse than copying them.

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Id like to see all around better clan management tools. Something like an auto inbox message for new members where we can detail information like website, discord, forums, etc. Basically who to contact for issues, help, and any other important clan information.

We need a system to communicate to all members, regardless of online or offline. Clan leaders being able to put out an inbox message to all members should have been a thing years ago. Youve made database increases for rivens and other things, lets do it for clan management tools.

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