A proposal in regards to the current DE policy for clans.

[CHEAT0S]

 

I would like to treat this as a proposal and please do not make this the mistake of it being my personal experience, this should be a discussion of the POLICY at hand. And my proposal to amend it in a way that everybody gets what they want. Please keep the conversation on topic. WHICH IS ABOUT THE POLICY, and if this would be a good change or not.

This is my feedback to the current game rule set.

The problem as I see it:

DE's policy to hand over a clan to another person will cause way more problem than it solves. And the following is why in short it will cause problems and below that is my solution, feel free to comment or suggest as you will. but again stay on topic.

The policy I am referring to is the one concerning the ability of DE, through no process of vetting or fact checking has the ability to have clan founders essentially removed from their clans if they do not log in once every 30 days.

Most people that start clans do so with the understanding that their investment of time, effort, and in many cases money will remain theirs. This is why most guilds that exist in this game are in fact solo guilds. With this new policy, it turns out the People that did make solo guilds were validated in doing so. At the time of me forming my guild in 2014 the descriptions in the game and on the website and wiki were all correct. In the intervening time time the powers that be at DE had opted for a change in policy and this is where I see the cascading of failures in this start.

DE never elected to let anybody know:

it was not put into the game

It was not posted clearly or at all for that matter on their website. (there is a small blurb added to the support site faq not the main site)

 Never emailed to game accounts in game or out

Its easy to have a smooth transition and no issues when nobody knows a change has happened. What wasn't given any thought was what this might lead to. My biggest fears with this policy are as follows

Guild leaders will simply dump their rosters if they decide to take a break:

Lets face it, if you are a guild leader currently and you want to not risk your clan and all the research that you put into it simply because you want to leave or there are situations that require you away from the game (in short because that thing called life happens) then this is the simplest and most sure way to keep the body of work that a clan represents yours. Bad idea on DE's part because for all the counter arguments about how members are entitled to be there a clan leader can simply flush the slate and no recourse at all is open the the members. This is going to create a real air of distrust in clans. Frankly I'm astonished that no member that posted in the other thread had the wisdom to see that if The leader has security in still being able to come back to that body of work then the members wouldn't have to worry about being kicked if the leader goes away. Now at the same time because of this policy why would a player want to risk what they themselves had invested so much time and effort into if it could be taken away simply because the leader is not planning on logging in for 30 days or more. Nobody will want to risk that either

Alliances will replace guilds essentially

This is already the trend and this policy has validated most solo clanner's worries. I know the alliance I'm in is comprised mostly of solo clans. And when I asked most of them, their sentiment was universal in agreeing with the concerns in this post.

I predict the trend of solo clans escalating and the whole notion of clans falling away in an effort to have it's protect their investment into this game. Because when you really look at it that's what clans are, the product of time and effort and in most cases money. Its how most players see it, And I would venture to say how an overwhelming majority of clan leaders see it. What most people fail to see is that this policy doesn't help clans, it will hurt them worse than not having an absentee leader. The first thing any member would fear is losing all that work, not to mention access to research and future research you cant get anywhere else. Yet they are all in favor of doing that to another player, in this case the leader of the clan, and its not for personal reasons, but a simple reason and ill discuss that further later on. I for one am happy with DE's choice to keep some things clan specific because it keeps the whole notion of a clan relevant and have some importance other than the social aspects

Abuse of this system due to no vetting.

Currently if you simply say that you are in a clan, and the leader has been gone a month, guess what you have a nice new shiny clan. No fact checking aside from clan leader gone for 30 days? check. And that's it. Can anybody see abuse of this system inside 10 whole seconds of thinking about it? Of course you can. Anybody with an IQ over 20 can.

 

So, How do we UNF**CK this mess? Simple.

Most people that responded to my previous thread that weren't trolling but or over sensationalizing their plight cited research as their number one problem of having access to. Personally I had always made my clan research accessible to anybody of any rank in that clan. I have been Managing or the owner in my professional life for the majority of my career, and one thing you'd never catch me doing is micromanaging  something for the appearance of being important. I would venture most clan leaders operate without the benefit of that wisdom. So that means those clans are left not being able to do or get the research for "X", "Y" or "Z" events. This is also what most people had cited as the rationale behind people opting to be installed in their clans as the new leader. So about those solutions.

1. Make at all times, research accessible, meaning able to start new research to all players regardless of ranks in a clan

This by far solves most of the problems and issues raised. It is simple and the growing imperative to oust absentee leaders is all but taken away

2. Put in a De facto leadership role

The way i envision this to work is a temporary role that can be assigned to a player in the guild, by the clan leader or possibly have the ability to to name as many as 3 people in descending order of preferred choice on the chance the one person on that list is also not playing and the list hasn't been updated in a long time. This temporary role enables the named player all the abilities the clan leader has save the ability to boot the clan leader. And the clan leader could also specify how soon this role can be enacted, from say a week but no more than your established 30 day mark. In the case of already absentee leaders then the players would go through the same process as what is happening currently. That being 30 days then apply. This role goes away when the clan leader logs back in. Now lets say the clan founder never returns? Then there is still no disruption of leadership. All problems solved for.

This is probably the best way to ensure protection for the clan founder while at the same time allowing the clan to fully function with out issue if that leader is gone for any extended amount of time.

I would venture to say that there are some people that just want to be the boss, and to them I would say at any time they can be exactly that, with the guild that they themselves found and build. Yes it takes a lot to do. Yes there are days you purely grind for that one resource for your clan and no, that sucks believe me. But after you build your own clan then you would also not want to have it taken away from you all because you don't log in every 30 days because life happened to you.

 

I would like to treat this as a proposal and please do not make this the mistake of it being my personal experience, this should be a discussion of the POLICY at hand. And my proposal to amend it in a way that everybody gets what they want. Please keep the conversation on topic. WHICH IS ABOUT THE POLICY, and if this would be a good change or not.

I welcome your thoughts and questions and suggestion below, but stay on topic that being the policy and not making assumptions on my experience in the game

Edited December 1, 2017 by CHEAT0S

[Fishyflakes]

Lol I'm just waiting for my clan leader to take a 30d break

[krc473]

38 minutes ago, CHEAT0S said:

1. Make at all times, research accessible to all players regardless of ranks in a clan

DE should just do this already. There is no logical reason for this to be rank restricted. Hopefully with the rework this will happen.

39 minutes ago, CHEAT0S said:

2. Put in a De facto leadership role

We have something like this already. The clan founder is an invisible rank, meaning that you can promote people to warlord and then boot them again. But the founder cannot be kicked. Of course, this only applies to post update 13 (approx) clans. DE should find a way to extend this to all clans. This would solve the issue, with a system that is already in game.

Of course, if DE cannot extend it, then your suggestion works too.

 

My solution to this issue: promote the people that won’t boot me if they get warlord and I am absent. (My clan was founded very early, so missed the founder thing).

[---RV---Maniac]

4 hours ago, CHEAT0S said:

The way i envision this to work is a temporary role that can be assigned to a player in the guild, by the clan leader or possibly have the ability to to name as many as 3 people in descending order of preferred choice on the chance the one person on that list is also not playing and the list hasn't been updated in a long time. This temporary role enables the named player all the abilities the clan leader has save the ability to boot the clan leader. And the clan leader could also specify how soon this role can be enacted, from say a week but no more than your established 30 day mark. In the case of already absentee leaders then the players would go through the same process as what is happening currently. That being 30 days then apply. This role goes away when the clan leader logs back in. Now lets say the clan founder never returns? Then there is still no disruption of leadership. All problems solved for.

If multiple people get the temporary role, it can get messy quickly too. This protected the clan leader but not the actual clan.

Also if the leaders never return, there's no way the "temporary" leaders will feel safe comanding their clan thus creating the same problem for someone else. They can go on, work on their clan and then suddenly the old leader pops by and decided to overrule everything. Takes over again and dismantles all the work from the temporary leaders. It's another policy which can create the same exact issue again.

Not sure how to fix it, but simply sending a message to the email conected to the account of the clan founder's would help, and giving them about 2 weeks to respond to it would help alot. 

4 hours ago, CHEAT0S said:

1. Make at all times, research accessible to all players regardless of ranks in a clan

There is no way to stop someone from acessing research, anyone even with no rights on the hierachy as long as they are in the clan, can acess research. I got no ideia where this comes from. 

[CHEAT0S]

1 hour ago, ---RV---Maniac said:

If multiple people get the temporary role, it can get messy quickly too. This protected the clan leader but not the actual clan.

 

There would only be 1 temp role given out at any given time so that would alleviate the confusion, though i would like to see or rather make a list of people that could be leader. But no there would only be 1 person, if they stop showing up then the idea is that the next one on that list would then lead, if nobody on that list is active then the remaining players would have to apply like they currently do, or join aniother clan or form their own.

1 hour ago, ---RV---Maniac said:

 

Also if the leaders never return, there's no way the "temporary" leaders will feel safe comanding their clan thus creating the same problem for someone else. They can go on, work on their clan and then suddenly the old leader pops by and decided to overrule everything. Takes over again and dismantles all the work from the temporary leaders. It's another policy which can create the same exact issue again.

 

I guess my question is how secure should they feel? they are the de facto leader. Are you under the impression they would get booted for picking up the slack and stepping up to lead? Again this is to address the health of the clans and security in said clans. If the research can be qued up by anybody and at that point the rest of the functions are transferred to a temp leader. How would that be an issue? How secure would your position in a clan be if the leader wanted or needed to take a break but didnt want to sacrifice the years he put into it. The only current way for that to absolutely happen with out fail is clear the roster. otherwise somebody could annex it from them. if somebody wants to feel secure in their ownership of a clan, they should make one themselves, and then under any circumstances fail to login every 30 days according to this new policy

1 hour ago, ---RV---Maniac said:

Not sure how to fix it, but simply sending a message to the email conected to the account of the clan founder's would help, and giving them about 2 weeks to respond to it would help alot.

I couldn't agree more, but they didn't. another case of DE dropping the ball.

1 hour ago, ---RV---Maniac said:

There is no way to stop someone from acessing research, anyone even with no rights on the hierachy as long as they are in the clan, can acess research. I got no ideia where this comes from. 

Im saying make it completely accessible. meaning being able to start research as well as access it. ill switch the wording

[CHEAT0S]

5 hours ago, krc473 said:

DE should just do this already. There is no logical reason for this to be rank restricted. Hopefully with the rework this will happen.

We have something like this already. The clan founder is an invisible rank, meaning that you can promote people to warlord and then boot them again. But the founder cannot be kicked. Of course, this only applies to post update 13 (approx) clans. DE should find a way to extend this to all clans. This would solve the issue, with a system that is already in game.

Of course, if DE cannot extend it, then your suggestion works too.

 

My solution to this issue: promote the people that won’t boot me if they get warlord and I am absent. (My clan was founded very early, so missed the founder thing).

actually the current system allows for the possibility of many players in one guild having the top rank , now say more than one of them return for something like the POE, now you have alot of chiefs in the mix when all of the confusion could be alleviated by the subsequent leaders only having a temp role. My clan also predates update 13, and i did put somebody in charge that was resposible and had the ability to be much more dedicated to the game than i could at the time.

[krc473]

16 minutes ago, CHEAT0S said:

I guess my question is how secure should they feel? they are the de facto leader.

Generally, a de facto leader should be able to retain full control indefinitely. Until the leader returns. If the leader is gone for more than X period, then the de facto leader should just become the Leader. This would have to be through support message. DE could run some statistics, figure out how long someone is usually offline before they return in terms of months. Say, 6 months. If the leader has not returned after 6 months, the De Facto leader can email support and ask to be the clan Leader. Support sends an email to the actual leader, with no reply in 7 days leadership gets changed. The clan founder should be immune from kicking, regardless of their online status.

 

8 minutes ago, CHEAT0S said:

actually the current system allows for the possibility of many players in one guild having the top rank

Yes, it does. But you have to pick who gets that rank. It is no different from picking three de facto leaders. There would be less discontent if three people were able to lead, than ranking people for de facto leader. To me, it makes more sense to have a set of people (say 3) that can manage the clan in the absence of the leader. Why would de facto leader 1 not just boot out 2 and 3 if they did not like them? Remember, they have full control, so they should be able to do this. Then de facto 1 leaves the game for a year, and the leader has not returned yet. Your clan is back to having no leader.

[CHEAT0S]

37 minutes ago, krc473 said:

Generally, a de facto leader should be able to retain full control indefinitely. Until the leader returns. If the leader is gone for more than X period, then the de facto leader should just become the Leader. This would have to be through support message. DE could run some statistics, figure out how long someone is usually offline before they return in terms of months. Say, 6 months. If the leader has not returned after 6 months, the De Facto leader can email support and ask to be the clan Leader. Support sends an email to the actual leader, with no reply in 7 days leadership gets changed. The clan founder should be immune from kicking, regardless of their online status.

 

Yes, it does. But you have to pick who gets that rank. It is no different from picking three de facto leaders. There would be less discontent if three people were able to lead, than ranking people for de facto leader. To me, it makes more sense to have a set of people (say 3) that can manage the clan in the absence of the leader. Why would de facto leader 1 not just boot out 2 and 3 if they did not like them? Remember, they have full control, so they should be able to do this. Then de facto 1 leaves the game for a year, and the leader has not returned yet. Your clan is back to having no leader.

You bring up a good point for possible abuse that i had not considered, as for multiple leaders I would contend a vast majority of clan  populations are under 10 poeple none the less you might be onto something when you split this up by clan ranks and maybe thats what would need to happen as far as how many people should be managing the clan. And to a point i agree provided that the founder if he returns still has the absolute authority over the clan as far as who manages it.

On the question of it the de facto leaves and the clan being leadderless again, thats no different from the current situation and they can apply for the defacto role in 30 days as it is now.

 

 

 i agree completely that a founder should never be kicked regardless, though in my reading up on this policy i have found a few examples of this not being the case. and one post in a previous thread saying he was happy to kick out the old leader. I dont see how the hell that it would be ethical to boot a founder who put 3 years into a game and for whatever reason left for an extended amount of time say 6 months, so because of those 6 months he somehow has the time, effort, and money he put into the clan invalidated because some random showed up and filed with DE. Because from what i have seen in numerous examples and testimonials given there is zero fact checking.

Also if no de facto is named then the system of filing for a leadership role in a clan would remain as it is now with the exception of if the founder returns the de facto role goes away, At that point the founder could and should name another person so that way the longest a clan would be without a leader would be as short as a week. but again without the issue of who can start research, most of the imperative to remove a leader is negated as thats the number one driving force and rationale behind wanting the leader gone in the first place. Most of my professional career has been with me in the management or ownership role so I wouldnt dare dream of micromanaging anything, so its been my policy that anybody can start research or build or hire in at will, the decision for anything to remain that way is up to management. though admittedly now with these changes im going to have to rethink the part of anybody can hire into a clan.

 

actually you dont have to pick if they file with DE, and thats part of the problem im having with this policy, once more now you also open yourself to the possibility of not closing down a guild to just keep your progress as now one of the new leaders can in fact keep hiring in people if you leave again, opening up the possibility of in the future even more leaders. so say you leave again for another 6 months , then in that time you could have as many as say 3 more leaders you have to contend with who may or may not be online. Its my contention that if there are in fact multiple leader roles and the founder does come back then the founder should be able to demote i rank down as needed or as they see fit.What this all comes down to is a ruleset that determines who has absolute authority and the fact the current system does nothing to address that.

[krc473]

14 minutes ago, CHEAT0S said:

actually you dont have to pick if they file with DE, and thats part of the problem im having with this policy

DE's policy is that anyone can request the leadership role be changed. But only the person with the next highest rank (active in the last 30 days) will get it. So, you can technically use your system as is. If you are Warlord. Then create Ranks for De Facto 1 - 3, these people will get promoted to Leader, in that order if someone makes a request to DE. I cannot be the lowest rank in your clan and request leadership, it goes to the person with the highest rank.

17 minutes ago, CHEAT0S said:

Because from what i have seen in numerous examples and testimonials given there is zero fact checking.

The fact checking part of it is for the clan to deal with. I guess it would be too much of a burden on DE to do this. Basically, if you do not trust your 2IC to not boot you, do not put them in that position. I have little sympathy for people that promote people to the top or second top rank when they cannot trust them.

[CHEAT0S]

7 minutes ago, krc473 said:

DE's policy is that anyone can request the leadership role be changed. But only the person with the next highest rank (active in the last 30 days) will get it. So, you can technically use your system as is. If you are Warlord. Then create Ranks for De Facto 1 - 3, these people will get promoted to Leader, in that order if someone makes a request to DE. I cannot be the lowest rank in your clan and request leadership, it goes to the person with the highest rank.

The fact checking part of it is for the clan to deal with. I guess it would be too much of a burden on DE to do this. Basically, if you do not trust your 2IC to not boot you, do not put them in that position. I have little sympathy for people that promote people to the top or second top rank when they cannot trust them.

Its worth noting that that hasn't been what more than a few people have said in their retelling of their experience in gaining control of their clan, and there was even one instance where the current leader was actually the fourth leader, and was just a low lvl member. If there is supposed to be fact checking there has in my researching the issue been no example of it.

And I agree that choosing who you have lead while away is important, but at the same time, the larger question and problem that goes with it is what if your choice stops playing as well? This proposal is the attempt to address this.

Edited December 1, 2017 by CHEAT0S

[CHEAT0S]

bumping on the off chance (unlikely as it sounds) that a mod or somebody from DE actually reads this