Higher guild ranks are rarely used. Traditionally people who get them either get straight to 19/20 with elections, or occasionally are (were? don't know if anyone does this anymore) appointed there for being a secretary or something. No one comes to mind who's ever been higher than 15 for a reason other than those two. It's also discouraging to get a guildfavour, when it doesn't even give you a rank, cosmetic or otherwise. This makes the vast majority of the actual guild rank structure totally wasted, which is a shame since admin and players have gone and made some pretty cool rank names and stuff.

Guildfavours should automatically boost your guildrank by 1, regardless of who gives it. This means guild leader GFs are no longer more relevant than low-rank GFs but that is so far from mattering at this point that whatever hypothetical problems that might cause are at least worth suffering through for a while.

I agree that it seems to take far too long to progress through guild ranks, especially once you get higher than GR5 or so. I've never seen anyone progress past GR10, which is a shame because of the aforementioned waste of guild rank structure. Any mechanical benefits of high guild rank may as well not exist, considering very few people will ever achieve a rank high enough to enjoy them. As a result, it becomes too easy to think of guild ranks as nearly meaningless, because all they seem to bestow is a higher number and the right to wear a different title.

In case Shiri's suggestion proves too difficult to implement in a coding sense, I wonder if the situation would be improved if the number of guild ranks were drastically reduced. I know that'd mean cutting out a lot of cool rank names, but if the current favoring system is too hard-coded into the game to be easily changed, I wouldn't mind this solution as well. It'd just be nice to have high guild ranks seem attainable and relevant, one way or another.

Been a while since I was in a guild, but I always thought it was silly that guild leaders were bumped up to the highest rank and then remained there after they were replaced. It seemed to me they should have their * rank while in office, but return to their previous rank after their term. Or better yet, their actual rank could increase slowly over time while they're still serving as a guild leader, so leaders who perform successfully enough to remain in office will have a rank that reflects their actual service when they eventually step down. That way, you don't get crappy leaders being replaced but remaining at the highest guild rank.

As for the actual topic at hand, a nice alternative might be a GUILD ADVANCE syntax, which would bump somebody up a rank. Favors might have to be adjusted to have some other temporary mechanical benefit, though.

I like this, cutting ranks to make it alike to city ranks would be a shame to be honest.

If you want someone to go up a guildrank, you can just start pouring in guildfavours. The problem isn't getting the rank, it's having a reason for getting the rank. Especially when you have guild achievements that are rewarded with a favour, instead of a rank.

The question is really if you are going to raise their rank, why not facilate an easier method to do it. Most guilds relate tasks to a rank advancement rather than just a favour anyway. (also I imagine raising a GR15 to GR16 is horrid for smaller guilds)

That's how it's done in mko.

House leaders in Achaea have their rank slowly increased (it's the equivalent of a HL-strength favor every RL day) as they serve, so long-serving leaders end up with the maximum rank.

In other news, I definitely agree that there should be a method of just flat-out giving rank, and slightly altering favors somehow. Or just keep favors and only let the guild leaders give out insta-advances.

So I'm GR16 (pretty close to 17, I hope, since I've gotten 6-7 favours since then). Currently, everything from GR10 onward in Nekotai is "you're on your own", with no assigned tasks that will raise you to a higher rank, so I got from GR10-16 on just doing my own thing and getting favours. I don't get yearly favours for holding my secretary position, which I think some other guilds give out. I actually think that for my character, getting GR19 from just favours is going to be possible, since Nekotai leadership isn't going to change soon and I don't have a problem with anyone currently holding the position.

Point is, it's possible, but it does take a lot of commitment to your role and -always- finding stuff to do, which is getting harder for me. I really like Daraius' idea for having people who hold office go back to the rank they were previously and having to have them gain their ranks over time rather than instantly being bumped up. It might just be a point of pride though, since I have put a ton of work into raising my character up.

I got 15 in the MDs back in the day but almost everyone (or everyone?) else just went straight to 19. 16-18 may as well not have existed and it might well be that 12-15ish may as well not exist there now. Of course it's possible theoretically, but that's not really the point, is it?

And people talking about CR: yeah, I went back to necro a thread I remembered on this subject but it was about changing GRs into CRs...which wouldn't be an abysmally horrible idea, but it seems a shame to get rid of all those titles (and probably is more work than the admin can be bothered doing, whereas this might plausibly be more straightforward.)

Providing a mechanism to automatically bump GR will mean that guildfavours will never be used. This is true even now. I can't remember how many times I've had people "put off" guildfavours until someone GR19/20 is around because they want the highest favour that will give them the best chance of moving up a rank.

I don't mind that it takes more favours to move up in GR the higher you are. I just think it takes TOO many.

My main beef with guild ranks and that a lot of them just feel like filler and also the titles start to sound bland or silly. On that note I wonder if the Cantors' ever got around to updating their guild rank names?

As I understand it, the system works like this:

Favours give a point value equal to the GR level. A GR5's favour gives 5 points, GR10 gives 10 points, an elected officer gives 20 points, etc.

In order to go up to the next guild rank, you need your current guild rank x10.

So to go from rank 1 to rank 2, you need 10 points. To go from rank 2 to rank 3, you need an additional 20 points, for a cumulative total of 30 points. Etc. That's why it gets so crazy at GR10+, as you'll need like 5 of the highest tier favours just to go up a rank. The easiest way to fix this is either by adjusting point value thresholds per rank, adjusting how many points are granted per favour, or some combination thereby.

Total agree with this, I think it's pointless having to give out 5 favours to get someone from one guild rank to another. When I was in the Tahtetso, which is quite a small guild, it took ages to get from GR8 to GR9. I think maybe have a guild favour which boosts 1 rank at a time, no matter who gives out the favor, however I feel that if this happens then the rank at which someone can give out a guild favour should be increased from GR5 to GR10-15 maybe?

If that happens we should keep that Guild Honours system but make it advance 2-5 ranks? (not sure how many ranks it does now)

Some added transparency to the system would help, also. As far as I know, not a single person in the guild can monitor how close someone is to reaching the next guild rank. I'd think that would be something at least the leadership would like to know.