Definition: "One-man guilds" are guilds in which there is only one main player with any number of alts wherein. Henceforth referred to, as OMGs.
OMGs are bad for the game because:
1. The main player can exploit his alts to boost guild levels and buffs.
2. The main player gets no competition in guild auctions, allowing accelerated blessing material acquisitions.
3. Players who exploit this would have no incentive to buy gems to boost their game.
Important distinction:
OMGs are distinct from family guilds - where a guild comprises of players from a family unit or close knit group (i.e. classmates).
How to identify OMGs:
OMGs are likely to possess the following characteristics..
1. Single very powerful player as the guild leader of a guild with or without other players.
During guild war, this player would be placed on the first barrier alone. Defeating said player would reveal the alts he/she has inside his/her OMG.
2. Low guild level with many low level actives.
New players are typically sorted randomly amongst a large population of low level guilds. So the number of active new players per low level guild should observe a random distribution. Statistically, truly random distributions can either be Gaussian or Poisson. In the case of an OMG, it is clearly an outlier. i.e. There shouldn't be that many new players in a low level guild.
This argument does not apply to higher level guilds because population distributions tend to move from "rural" to "urban" with the converse being far less likely to happen. Hence a truly low level guild with many actives would not remain low level for long, and many actives within a low level guild would eventually move on to a higher level guild.
3. Many players on at the same time or staggered along a fixed time frame during non-events.
Easiest way to observe this is through guild mining.
Proposal:
Nobody likes nerfs. Nerfing guild rewards may inflict unnecessary disadvantages to legit small/family guilds (OMGs are not limited to guilds with low levels and high numbers).Instead, I propose a counter-balance.
Introduce multipliers to guild rewards.
The idea is simple. Main players of OMGs benefit because they lack competition in guild auctions. Players in legit guilds bid insane points for the same. E.g. Here in Necessarius, material stones go for >2k+ in guild points whereas a main in an OMG can grab the same for 1050.
Moreover, in guild wars, one single powerful main can rack up guild points at leisure. And now, there is the compounded bonus of acquiring 5-star weapons and soulstones boosting the tally. Again using our guild as a counter example, our wars barely exceed 1h, with many members destroying the competition in just 1-3 battles.
To even the playing field, I propose increasing guild rewards from guild wars and dungeons to the guild auctions by three compounded multiplier tiers (rounded to the nearest number).
1. Guild level
2. Number of players in guild
3. Average power of players in guild
Elaborating, I propose the following tiers:
1.1 Guild level
- levels 1-5: ×1
- levels 6-9: x1.1
- levels 10-12: x1.25
- levels 13-14: x1.45
- level 15 and up: x1.7
1.2 Number of players in guild
- Below 15: x1
- 15-20: x1.1
- 21-25: x1.25
- 26-30: x1.45
- Above 30: x1.7
1.3 Average power of players in guild
- Under 7k: x1
- 7000-9999: x1.1
- 10000-14999: x1.25
- 15000-19999: x1.45
- 20k and above: x1.7
So, a level 1 guild with one player of 5k power still gets x1 of whatever rewards he/she supposedly gets (1x1x1=1), but a level 12 guild with 25 players, with each player averaging 14k power gets x2 (1.25x1.25x1.25=1.95..) the stated rewards, etc. Which if you think about it, is still very conservative as they still have to bid for the rewards in auction.
Under this paradigm, a traditional OMG would receive a much lower reward multiplier for either having low player populations in guild, or low average player power. And while family guilds may have less players, the standard deviation of power would be significantly less skewed than in OMGs. And big guilds with many actives would be far less penalised.