Guilds and Brawling are a way of life in the Splinterlands. The Duelling arenas on Mount Mox represent the highest form of combat for would-be champions.
However, the development process for Guilds is unlike the rest of the game. We can't just start a guild, and buy your way to the top tier. The only way to become a Top Tier Guild, is to battle. And Win. For a very long time... You need to earn merits and build a personal gladius collection. Gladius are portable. But you also need to build your guild up. That takes DEC, and crowns from winning.
For a long time, the DEC contribution was not portable. Now, thanks to the recent Guild Power update, guild contributions benefit the guild, but if circumstances change, your contributions aren't entirely locked in a guild.
But we still have a problem.
The Problem is Crowns belong to the Guild Owner
For a long time, many people felt that the DEC contribution was the most valuable part of the guild. This was especially the case back when the Lodge bonus was the only economic benefit. But we are past that now, and Guild Power has a huge impact to reduce disincentive for guild member contributions.
But crowns remain a real problem. The guild earns crowns together. No single player guild will earn enough crowns to grow meaningfully. But we loyally give all those crowns to the Guild leader and sometimes that backfires and the guild leader disappears...
Just how big is this problem?
Just for context, there are 2015 guilds right now.
I scanned each guild and checked their leader's battle history with https://api2.splinterlands.com/battle/history2?player=LEADER...
Would you like to guess how many of those guilds have a guild leader that has exactly zero games in their public battle history? The answer, I found, was 1221 - that's over 60%...
You might think it's because there are so many abandoned zombie L1 guilds - and yes, there's a lot of them. But only 626 guilds have a guild rating below 300, so that's only a part of the story.
Focusing on top 300 active Guilds
So instead, let's just focus on the top 300 guilds alone, there are 70 guilds where the guild owner isn't battling, brawling or botting.
These are high performing, active guilds... ones that we see brawling every week, and they don't want to leave their guildmates & friends, and neither do they want to give up the thousands of crowns they have accumulated together.
Some of them have a Guild Bank as an owner. But many have owners that left without warning and haven't returned. Or sold all their assets and burned their gladius. Here's the list of guilds in the top 300 with leaders who haven't seen battle in recent history:
| Ranking | Guild | Leader | Members | Total Crowns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 | Legendary Dragons | legendary-pool | 26 | 16865 |
| 22 | Legendary Raptors | raptobank | 26 | 9273 |
| 23 | PeakMonsters [Legion] | tacoma | 26 | 7903 |
| 26 | PeakMonsters Pirates | monstersales | 25 | 6731 |
| 30 | PeakMonsters [CHAMPS] | peakfighter | 27 | 8860 |
| 33 | PeakMonsters [Hurricane] | jarvieguest | 24 | 4046 |
| 35 | Peakmonsters [Asia] | peak.asia | 23 | 4904 |
| 38 | CLOWN CORNER | dustinjoy420 | 25 | 4401 |
| 40 | NFT Italia | gienpeart | 27 | 5150 |
| 43 | PeakMonsters Embryon | sorrynotsorry | 27 | 6684 |
| 47 | GOAT Gang | steemgoat | 29 | 5895 |
| 52 | Digitspin FuriousChickens | digitspin | 25 | 7339 |
| 56 | PeakMonsters [Vikings] | peak.viking | 27 | 7427 |
| 67 | Albion | paleshelter | 21 | 616 |
| 74 | Immortal Gods 4 | steemmonstergirl | 22 | 10920 |
| 77 | Cardinals | cardi0 | 21 | 5795 |
| 78 | NEW BOT ORDER | aruchard | 22 | 3808 |
| 81 | PeakMonsters [Archon] | monsterworld | 24 | 5320 |
| 82 | [KoG] Cards Of Fury | m0r0s | 22 | 6243 |
| 87 | PeakMonsters Landlubbers | peakphoto | 23 | 4494 |
| 90 | 🦉Owly Farm🦉 | donma | 21 | 4182 |
| 94 | Admiral - YiSunShin | thrallbro | 15 | 0 |
| 99 | Secret Stachers | cryptostache | 21 | 4706 |
| 108 | The Furious Chickens | trashdragon | 21 | 3109 |
| 130 | The Shadowalkers | shadowalker21 | 19 | 2871 |
| 147 | YGG Splinter Sharks | liljami95 | 20 | 2372 |
| 151 | ZZ9PZA | zaphod-42 | 28 | 5218 |
| 155 | EMP Money Emperors | emp-money | 23 | 1361 |
| 169 | [TYC] Québec | blutengel | 20 | 3231 |
| 172 | Samurai Soul 🌸 LLAC | ss02 | 21 | 5987 |
| 176 | Hyper Splinter | collywobbles-hs | 23 | 1206 |
| 184 | Canary Island | legendarycanary | 23 | 1596 |
| 185 | Broke Plebs | absea | 18 | 1833 |
| 187 | Surging Bulls | nidorino | 22 | 3502 |
| 190 | Blazar Force | blazar-force | 22 | 2632 |
| 191 | Humen not welcome | hive-vault | 19 | 3670 |
| 192 | Fallen Angels | fallen.angels | 19 | 3594 |
| 195 | Splinter Ro | zimos | 17 | 2924 |
| 196 | GOAT Monsters | goatgang | 22 | 2569 |
| 197 | Bitcoin & Brews | captaindingus | 19 | 4174 |
| 203 | MetaCult | icecreamtony | 26 | 2492 |
| 205 | Raccoons of the North | plakanc | 18 | 3751 |
| 215 | TEAM KR | glory7 | 29 | 2493 |
| 219 | Immortal Gods 7 | youlose | 20 | 4284 |
| 222 | PeakMonsters - Feeder 7 | peakfeeder7 | 19 | 507 |
| 223 | Draconian | dragunovz | 13 | 107 |
| 224 | The Syndicate | mavrik | 17 | 662 |
| 226 | NFT Warriors | ivan23 | 21 | 3174 |
| 231 | Pirate Archers | betaaaa | 13 | 120 |
| 232 | Phoenix Uraenus (‿!‿) | john-chen | 21 | 3551 |
| 234 | T&A Legion III | jph007 | 18 | 3096 |
| 238 | Landlords | candice-d | 19 | 2977 |
| 240 | Spirit Animals | cheesenoodle | 21 | 1558 |
| 241 | YGG Roosters | jackal-bandit | 15 | 3523 |
| 246 | HD2 MARAUDERS OF CROM | darkse1d | 21 | 7572 |
| 250 | SplinterForge.io | splinterforge | 17 | 2106 |
| 251 | Tokrz | midnightokr | 20 | 2500 |
| 252 | PEAKMONSTERS [BRASIL] | darketernals | 22 | 2595 |
| 253 | Hall Of Göndul | agustuszarko | 23 | 1217 |
| 262 | Cherry Blossom | johnjustine | 16 | 59 |
| 264 | kaklase.com 3 | webpera | 17 | 615 |
| 285 | 💀Splinter Skulls 💀 | drabs587 | 18 | 2942 |
| 287 | cryptomonKeys | jmaii | 18 | 2988 |
| 288 | Team Pilok | hillbillz | 21 | 1306 |
| 289 | Play to Earn World | icaro-nz | 17 | 2588 |
| 292 | Citrus | citrus-soap | 25 | 0 |
| 294 | Elysium | rhiaji | 16 | 612 |
| 296 | Hivemonsters | dimarius | 18 | 2928 |
| 297 | UT | seinkalar | 19 | 1916 |
| 299 | Desperate | cryptoseba | 16 | 1 |
(guild rankings as of one moment in time on July 22)
Possible Solutions always get stuck in quicksand
Whenever people debate this particular situation, people quickly align on one of two sides... either
- they give the community guild example, where everyone participates equally, or
- they use the sponsored guild example, where a guild leader has paid all the DEC and risks having his guild taken from him.
Obviously these two situations are extremes, but they illustrate that the current system has a problem.
A Potential Solution: the "Guild Layer Cake"
I'm proposing that a potential solution could involve a simple layered guild structure, where a guild members can choose to create a new guild (without probationary period) that optionally sits on top of the original guild.
- Both guilds participate together in the brawl as a team.
- Crown and GP contributions are combined for building level purposes.
- Players can move between the guild layers without probation.
- Crowns are distributed proportionately to the guilds based on the brawl participation
- The leader can remove his guild from the collection at any time, or both leaders can merge the guilds. Merging the guilds back would effectively "burn" one of them.
- This structure creates a single-brawl guild alliance structure...
So if a guild leader leaves the game, or disappears for 6 months... the rest of the guild can pivot to a related guild and keep progressing.
I like this idea for merging small guilds too... allowing smaller guilds to be competitive with older established guilds might be attractive for the game as a whole, and also make guilds an asset that can be built and sold easier. But it might need some additional thought about whether it could become exploitable.
Your thoughts?
Let me know what you think about the concept of a layered guild to deal with these issues, and also whether you can see opportunities or risks from merging guilds?
don't think battle history is relevant to see whether the guild leader is active or not. I help manage new bot order and I can tell you that Aruchard is still there. He just doesnt have the time to play and rents his cards out waiting for land.
As for guild layer cake, I don't think this is necessary. It's just taking away dev resources away from things that should be of higher priority. Just choose a guild carefully and keeping 90% of your guild power if you leave it should be good enough. There's so many guilds available at tier3/4 that are still looking for players so it won't be hard to move to a better guild. If you really cant trust and have faith about the guild leader, then create your own guild! then you know if you leaving or disappearing and wont have to worry about that ^ and get people that have the confidence in that to join you.
Thanks @shawnnft for your perspective. It is good to get lots of different viewpoints so we can improve our understanding. I do want to address a few points though.
It's definitely "relevant" - but you are right that guild leaders can still be active and involved even if they aren't battling. But there ARE many guild leaders on that list that have sold their cards, left Discord and Hive, and not looked back - leaving their guilds hanging.
Blaming players for not choosing a guild carefully is not helpful.
As an example, my guild was started nearly two years ago, I was an early joiner, and our core members have built up what we have today. Over 50% of the guild is still original members, and we have earned nearly 3000 crowns together. My guild leader stopped playing last summer. At first he would pop in every few weeks. Then once a month. I haven't been able to contact my Guild leader in over 3 months, and all cards have been sold. Does it seem right that one person's decision to move on would cause the team that contributed all the crowns and 10x his DEC contribution should have to give up 3000 crowns and restart in a new guild?
Having spoken to some of the other guilds on this list, we are not the only ones in this situation.
Yes, I do understand dev resources are limited, and I'm not stomping my foot screaming that this needs to change immediately.
But it IS a an actual problem so I don't think dismissing it is helpful, just because you don't have the same problem in your guild. I'm pointing out the current guild structure is a real problem that many guilds "just have to deal with it" but it is anti-competitive and a solution should be given some consideration.
The "layer cake" concept may, or may not, be a solution. That's why I put it here, to bring some awareness, get some feedback and have some people poke holes or suggest better alternatives. I'm fine if we don't take THIS solution, I just need ANY solution that addresses the issue.
Thanks again for your input and consideration.
And you have proof of this for every single one? You just assumed based on battle data. You were already wrong with aruchard and I'm sure probably with many others as well.
Well can't always choose the right guild all the time but at least you get 90% of your GP back right. I think this is still better than nothing and just lets you move to a new guild. I still think there's a judgement call here. I've joined previous guilds where there was lack of growth or dead leader and I decided to make my own guild. I lost the DEC and "crowns" i helped for those guilds but that's why you gotta take matters to your own hands. Once that leader starting being inactive you guys shouldve just made that quick call to start up a guild yourselvs and have everyone leader right. Like i said there's many opening in already better guilds. I see tons of people repeatedly advertising so there shouldn't be an issue. YGG, peakmonsters , etc is always looking for players and could probably help open new guilds if you guys dont have the DEC to do it.
The crowns were earned for the guild. It's not like it should go back to the players. You guys did get the extra bonus RP from lodge and the merits from the brawls. It's not like you got nothing.
If anything make a proposal with those guilds that mentioned they had the issue. pool together 100k dec and convince members of community to support so action can be taken if the solution provided makes the 67% majority happy to proceed the proposal.
It's definitely not easy to come up with a solution for this as there will be one side of the spectrum unhappy so if u can find a solution that both sides are happy and it works out that would be great.
I guess moving forward they can create another type of guild where changes can be made with a majority instead of having 1 main leader everyone has a fair stake in the guild.
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