Surge Participation

[Writer]

This is a question aimed specifically towards guilds.

Currently my guild has been doing Medium difficulty Surge for quite a while. Finishing Medium Surge is not a problem for us as it’s usually done in less than 3-4 hours since opening. This has caused a problem where some members are unable to participate in Surge because of it finishing before they’ve had a chance of throwing their heroes at it. Logically, the difficulty would be put up to Hard so that at least everyone has a chance to do Surge. Additionally, with Medium being such a cakewalk naturally you would think Hard would be an extra challenge.

However, my guild has consistently failed to beat Hard Surge. Part of the problem is that not every member attempts Surge, which is obvious when I look at the Surge log. I’ve tried to encourage members to participate in Surge and implemented rules to kick non-participating players, but to little effect.

Right now the guild feels like a mixed bag of slightly competitive and casual players. I’m having a hard time gauging if my guild want to be serious (i.e. actually do check-in and Surge daily) or if they’re just not as serious about it. This is honestly my first time being a high ranking member of a guild and I honestly don’t any experience in managing guilds.

What should I do? Am I being too harsh and demanding for a guild that doesn’t exist, or should I put my foot down and get the guild functional? Should I accept that the guild is casual and not demand constant Surge participation?

[Mr_fasTastic]

First I would suggest that you ask yourself (and other leaders), “do I want to be in a competitive or a casual guild?”

Running a competitive guild can be alot of work sometimes and be sure what you want first.

More specifically surge. As I see it it’s not necessary the completion of surge that’s most important, but do you get more influence and tokens by increasing the difficultly.
If you’re able to clear 5+ regions on the higher difficulty it’s worth it.

Maybe also try to make members see the value of surge.
More surge = more influence = more perks = more fun?

[Explorer_Tigger_III]

Alternatively, you could suggest for a cap of how many regions each member can attack on the medium difficulty. I’m not sure how it works as i’m not high enough a member in my guild to see that feature. But if you implement that, you might end up with difficulty completing the medium surge instead.

You could also suggest for the rest of your guild mates to only attack 1 region at the start of the surge and follow up in the last 1-2 hour of the sureg. That way everyone have a chance at it. And you still get to complete it.

[Caster]

Unless you’re on the highest difficulty & still having people miss out on Surge, I don’t recommend setting limits at all.

Staying at a difficulty where you’re consistently finish Surge is good! It means you have the potential for competitive/semi-competitive activity. However, when people can’t join, they can’t grow & they get lazy with Surge activity (why should they attack if it’s gonna finish anyway?) & if this goes on too long, you start seeing a dip in login activity, as a whole (what’s the point in playing if you can’t do anything?). This is when you start seeing competitives fall to semi-competitives fall to casuals.

As a guild leader, keep in mind:
In order for your members (& guild, as a whole) to grow, they need access to Gold & Tokens (Perks are a wonderful bonus). Is everyone able to get those here, in this guild?

Much like Mr. fasTastic said, check how much Influence you get from an Incompleted Hard & then compare it to a Completed Medium. You’ll find that a Surge completion feels good, but it takes a back seat when looking at the numbers. Your main goal when raising the difficulty level will always be to either MATCH OR GET MORE Influence than the difficulty before it.

[Orion]

this is what ruler and chaps see when they hit the cog icon on the surge screen .

If you’re completing surge in a few hours, and members are complaining, you could cap number of regions they can hit. But definitely look at how much influence and tokens people get from Hard surge, it could be worthwhile to go up a difficulty even if you dont finish it.

[Writer]

Hi everyone.
I want to thank all of you for taking your time to reply to this. This honestly has been very helpful to me!

[Funk_Pirate]

Simply asking the guild if they would like the difficulty to increase is good too. When my guild was starting out this is what I did and found that some members were quite happy to keep progressing. It got to the point that the guild became more competitive and we now finish hard surge, but ive had to make strict rules (3 strike rules etc) to ensure members surge. Fortunately its worked out for us and we are currently ranked 24th on our server ^^ so guage your guild first!

[Writer]

This brings up another issue, which is my guild is very quiet. The guild chat is hardly used and both the leader and I have tried many times to open up communication with our members. We’ve asked our members what Perks they would prefer us to invest in for their benefit, or whether they would prefer Medium or Hard Surge to name a few. Often our guild members will remain silent and never give an answer, so much of the time we’re driving this guild blind and without input.

So I guess another question would be how do you keep a guild social and communicating?

[Orion]

If you and a few others can chat frequently in guild chat, that helps. Even just asking questions, tips, advice, new disks etc… i post encouraging comments too - about surge progress, new perks unlocked, congrats on a new disk. If you can get a couple of people chatting, more may start.

Some people prefer a quiet guild though, where they’re not expected to participate in that aspect so if it’s working… dont fix it

[Caster]

I have an anxious personality, so I worry about this CONSTANTLY, despite my having an active, fairly-chatty guild.

As Orion’s pointed out, you - as the co-leaders - are responsible for your guild environment. It’s great to hear that there are at least 2 of you engaging in conversation! It can be a little discouraging to new members to see only 1 person speaking at all times. So, keep up the casual conversation! Try not to bicker in guild chat or single members out for underperforming (reserve those for PM). People will talk when they’re comfortable, so continue to encourage them. Keep in mind that:

• Some members are shy or are scared of being ignored/offer incorrect information.
• Some have been with the guild long enough that they feel they’ve missed their chance to say anything.
• Some speak in another language & think the translator is bogus (or won’t be translated correctly), so they only wanna speak to like-language individuals.
• Others simply don’t care or don’t know to care (they may know things they think is common knowledge, but isn’t).

A few things that have helped me:

• Applaud Milestones: “Congrats on promoting in Arena/Coli!”, “X just hit 400k in Surge, woot woot!”, “We just unlocked this perk!”
• Teachable Moments or Coordination: Heist is a good example of this! Having members learn & teach each other is a great team building tool. So is something like jumping in Arena/Coli (if multiple members are in the same bracket, you help each other get higher & higher in ranking).
• Courtesies: Regularly welcoming newbies to the guild, thanking people for recruiting, or saying a Surge Zone is FFA (free-for-all) are easy enough things to say to be mimicked by others.
• PM Members: Sometimes all it takes is getting someone familiar with you. PM them if you notice worrisome activity, teach them how to do better (at the game) if they need to be taught & - whether you know/don’t know - invite them to talk about those things openly in guild chat. What you’re teaching them/vice versa may help everyone (including yourself).

[WizardMerlin]

Agreed!

Thanks for the tips.