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Forwarded: Idea to stop "Ghost Guilds" - Simple, Much Needed

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DeletedUser

Proposal: Implement guild minimum requirements to participate in GvG. See details section below for suggested requirements.

Previously Suggested: Not that I have seen, nor others that I have asked that frequent the forums.

Reason: My reason for this is not actually to stop organized ghosts guilding itself, although it would put an end to that as well. I will use an example of what's happening in Arvahall to explain my reason for targetting putting an end to this.
In Arvahall, we have a player who is changing guilds daily, most likely to collect goods. While I don't have a problem with that specifically, here's the problem: Every couple of days or so, he will leave whatever guild he is currently in to create a guild called "win battles!". He then goes around the GvG continent map lay siege on random sectors and fights until he is out of units and/or goods. He sometimes wins the sectors, and when he does, he just releases them immediately. It is obvious to everyone in the world that he has no interest to participate in GvG. He is only do this to rack up PvP Tower points as well as his game score. This needs to be stopped. When a siege only costs 5 goods, it will never stop unless the devs put an end to it.



Details: So how do we put an end to it? Simple. Implement minimum requirements that will be required to participate in GvG. For example, a minimum of guild members as well as a minimum amount of time the guild needs to have existed for. Let's say, for example, a guild needs to have a minimum of 10 members and needs to have existed for at least 7 days before a guild is eligible to begin their journey into GvG. These are low enough requirements that a new guild won't take too long to achieve before they can start in GvG...while at the same time, they are high enough to prevent "ghost guilds" from forming.


Summary: It shouldn't be very hard to implement this idea, or something along the lines of it. I don't see this affecting the current gameplay in any way for the legit guilds competing in GvG. If there are any problems with this idea that I have not thought of, I'm sure someone that reads this will mention it so we can discuss that as needed. I'm very much looking forward to hearing feedback on this. I have discussed it with several players already and have heard a lot of good reactions to the idea. I welcome the bad as well, because i'm very interested in hearing the flip side if there is one.
 

DeletedUser15432

Good idea Alex and I quite agree with the reasoning behind the idea but would suggest 15 members and 2 weeks otherwise you will still get guilds forming just to take sectors and I would also suggest that a sector must be held for an entire 24 hour period before being released
 

DeletedUser4879

Or as I suggested before, Players leaving a guild have to wait some days
before they can join another one or start a new one!!
 

DeletedUser99263

I totally agree with this idea.

1) A guild is a group. A group means several players.
2) GvG was not initially conceived to give unlimited tower points.
 

DeletedUser

1) A guild is a group. A group means several players.

1. Actually on that point I disagree - a guild can be made up of one player, and if that player wishes to compete in GvG, why not? It's not going to be easy for a one-man guild, so he will have to have a good strategy to get anywhere.

On the point of ghost guilds in general, rather than one player in particular, it would help to have some restrictions, but disenfranchising smaller guilds may not be the way to do it. I am against having a minimum guild size for this reason and for the fact that time restrictions are probably better to prevent larger guilds forming ghost guilds.
 
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DeletedUser

I agree that something must be done to stop the use of these ghost guilds. I believe that some FoE players are using loopholes in the newly conceived gvg to exploit an oversight on the part of the game developers. Ohcrapitsalex has put forward an excellent proposal, and time restrictions seem like the most sensible first-step solution.
 

DeletedUser99263

1. Actually on that point I disagree - a guild can be made up of one player,

Sorry but if you look the definition of a "guild" in a dictionnary, you'll see the words "group", "cooperation" and "association". That's means implicitly more than 1 person. That's all! :p
 

DeletedUser100877

Stop Ghost Guilds

Proposal: Implement guild minimum requirements to participate in GvG. See details section below for suggested requirements.

Previously Suggested: Not that I have seen, nor others that I have asked that frequent the forums.

Reason: My reason for this is not actually to stop organized ghosts guilding itself, although it would put an end to that as well. I will use an example of what's happening in Arvahall to explain my reason for targetting putting an end to this.

I completely agree on this point, Alex, I really don't see how this exploitation of a loophole cannot be stopped, especially as there are perfectly good solutions and suggestions right here.

Greth.
 

DeletedUser2989

I don't mind the time limit, like in Hippocratica's link after all it makes sense to give a new guild a week to work on a plan, preparing their towns, troops and goods. The minimum guild limit might be a bit high (it would kick out 3 guilds currently in GvG on C world) and I'd say we might need a minimum of 5 if the timer isn't enough to deter ghost guilds from being used.
 

DeletedUser2006

Details:
So how do we put an end to it? Simple. Implement minimum requirements that will be required to participate in GvG. For example, a minimum of guild members as well as a minimum amount of time the guild needs to have existed for. Let's say, for example, a guild needs to have a minimum of 10 members and needs to have existed for at least 7 days before a guild is eligible to begin their journey into GvG. These are low enough requirements that a new guild won't take too long to achieve before they can start in GvG...while at the same time, they are high enough to prevent "ghost guilds" from forming.

i agree with it but the FOE support team said that they have still not received any new guidance regarding this tactic, so it is officially still legal at this time.

does that means we all should use this tactic or just quit ?????
 

DeletedUser

i agree with it but the FOE support team said that they have still not received any new guidance regarding this tactic, so it is officially still legal at this time.

does that means we all should use this tactic or just quit ?????

It's not against any rules, and anyone can use it if they want, but ideas to combat it are also being considered.
 

DeletedUser97594

I have been in long discussions with FOE support about htis, as it is not only 'ghost' guilds that are an issue, but at times, certain hexes that are being sieged, the siege is taken down in under a minute, which is partly to do with guild hopping, but could be something else, although some brave person in support has said that FOE has never been hacked....... as an Level 4 International IT support Specialist, anyone who can say that for certain... well!!
However, getting to the main issue of so called ghost guilds, it is like the enemy using your flag to sail up beside you, say hello and then blow you out of the water, as was done in a certain World War, which from what I recall, was against the Geneva Convention and gamesmanship. Basically, whatever you call it, it is cheating, I know FOE say it's not against the rules, but we have certain guilds and players that will do everything they can to bend the rules.
My concerns are the amount of players that are becoming so annoyed, angry and upset about this, that our guild and a lot of others, have had players, not only stop playing the GvG, but actually leave the game. In some of their words, we don't play with cheats and thought that FOE had better standards?
The easiest way to stop this, is either to have at least a 72 hour embargo, so that if a player leaves a guild, they cannot return for at least this length of time and therefore, if they are in this apparent ghost guild, the other guilds can actually attack them, because at present, the 'cowards' make a new guild, attack the unsuspecting guild at such a cheap rate that they can afford to make 4 or 5 attacks on hexes and then, just leave. The other option is to stop any player taking part in any GvG for again 72 hours?
I know this is a very emotive subject, but if this isn't stooped soon, a lot of players wilt ask the question, what is the point, if the game doesn't have a level playing field, then what does this teach us, if you bend the rules, you win.....
Capernica
Alpha Guild Co-Founder
 

DeletedUser1931

I agree with this, its a serious problem that needs addressing!
 

DeletedUser4879

I happen to be on the map when 3 hexes of our guild where taken by a Ghost Guild
in such a short time there had to be some cheating going on, or at least 10 players
attacking at the same time! When trying to search for the guild I couldn't find it!
If this is not Cheating, I like to know what is!! No wonder Players getting angry!!!
To sum it up, it would be nice to read about that something is done about it, instead
of some lame excuse by a Moderator....:o
 
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DeletedUser

I happen to be on the map when 3 hexes of our guild where taken by a Ghost Guild
in such a short time there had to be some cheating going on, or at least 10 players
attacking at the same time! When trying to search for the guild I couldn't find it!
If this is not Cheating, I like to know what is!! No wonder Players getting angry!!!
To sum it up, it would be nice to read about that something is done about it, instead
of some lame excuse by a Moderator....:o

Ah I think you might have missed Remorce's comment in this post:

http://forum.en.forgeofempires.com/...cussion-thread&p=134490&viewfull=1#post134490

This is the relevant bit regarding Ghost Guilds and what is currently happening. Is this official enough for you?

As I have stated before the creation of Ghost guilds is within the rules at this time. I am refraining from posting any type of rule by request of the Development team. As they want to see how players are getting around the settup of the game for guild vs guild as they want to know so they can plug these obvious holes. This will take time. In the meantime if its not exactly against the rules that currently exist then its ok AT THIS TIME. however I can guarantee soon there will be rules and coding blocks for certain actions or behaviours.

Just because you don't see what's happening behind the scenes, doesn't mean that it's not being worked on. :D
 

DeletedUser7719

Back to the idea, I think Hippocratia's suggestion would be more effective than this one since all you would need to do is find guild with at most 70 members (or [10 minus the amount of members planning to join] through [80 minus the amount of members planning to join]) that is not participating in your age, and join them...
 

DeletedUser2989

Back to the idea, I think Hippocratia's suggestion would be more effective than this one since all you would need to do is find guild with at most 70 members (or [10 minus the amount of members planning to join] through [80 minus the amount of members planning to join]) that is not participating in your age, and join them...

You'd definitly need some form of restriction timer on being able to participate in GvG in the event of "new guild creation" or "new member joining" otherwise there will be ways around whatever is implemented and the behaviour will continue.

Restricting the minimum size of a guild though wouldn't be that out of character though as this feature is surpose to encourage grouping up to take on a challenge and they don't let you participate from BA because your "not ready" so why not limit the minimum guild size because your "not ready"?

Restricting the minimum size alone won't stop ghost guilding but would help discourage people from setting up small "mercenary" guilds
to take sectors and drop them. It wouldn't stop it entirely (you'd still be able to get a group of 10 people together who may do the same thing) but it'd discourage it I'd say.
 

DeletedUser4879

Ok Hippocratia, I'll take the lame excuse out!
Maybe it's time for devs to pull up their socks and get
stuck in! Aahh, forget it has to be after Easter....
Happy Easter!!:D
 

DeletedUser

Ok Hippocratia, I'll take the lame excuse out!
Maybe it's time for devs to pull up their socks and get
stuck in! Aahh, forget it has to be after Easter....
Happy Easter!!:D

Actually it will be a relief when there's a solution to this issue, even though I know it's being worked on. However at the moment I'm rather busy hiding, finding and eating Easter eggs. Happy Easter. :)
 
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