Open Guild No Longer Being Recommended To Players

Update on original issue. Guild is still impacted about six months after initial issue and four months after opening ticket. Understand it is a "known issue" but no indication if a fix is on the horizon or even being actively pursued.

Some more info that might help troubleshoot the bug:

- Appears to impact guilds of a certain combined GP. Our current GP is about 162M.
- Guessing issue originally hit us in the 150-160M GP range, we’ve been stuck there as the lack of new players plus attrition has us basically flat.
- Went from steady stream (we kept the good ones, booted the bad) for years to absolutely nothing, even after dropping all pre-reqs, so it’s a bug not just needing to be patient waiting our turn with lots of guilds and less players.
- About 2 months ago we got a sudden influx. First new players in four months, got a flood in a single day, then bug seemed to hit us again.
- Guessing we dropped below the GP that triggers to bug, only to hit it again same day with the new players.
- Guild has disappeared from in game search, even when searched by exact name, once the bug reoccurred.

We’ve tried posting on forums and reddit, but stark reality is it’s hard for a casual guild to stand out. Some of us do spend, and reality is this is driving us away from the game. Guessing most casual players start using the in-game suggested guilds, and a bug limiting the quality of those guilds is a direct threat to new player attraction and retention, so I’m honestly perplexed as to why this bug does not appear to be a priority.

@GladOS-013 I’ve seen you give similar answers to similar issues before, so I don’t mean this the wrong way, but how closely did you read the bug report I’ve posted and now updated? How are wild swings in the numbers of recruits the system is bringing to a given guild suggestive of anything other than a bug, or at least the system not working as intended? How am I asking for preferential treatment?

It’s not like we’ve seen a decline. There was a sharp break. Weekly, if not daily, new members joining (and we were picky on who we kept) suddenly just stopped. Not a single individual in four months. Then, as far as I can tell, when this issue damaged my guild to the point it was below a certain GP, we got 10 or so in one day. Then another abrupt break without a single new member joining in 2 months and counting, presumably because we were back above the GP cut point.

Not sure why I’m arguing the point, given EA already directly confirmed “There is a known issue where some guilds aren’t able to be recommended”. I was hoping to provide more information to those working on the known issue and perhaps get an update.

@Hesoid I read both of your reports, including the one that I easily showed had no issues. Just because you were unaware of the best way to use the guild search function, it didn't mean your guild had "disappeared." (Note: I've been told you can't search for your own)

I've been told that the search function hasn't changed in years. It obviously is hard to measure  how frequently your guild appears on searches since the number of reported results from each search are so low, and any individual player's perspective will be so limited that it's similar to determining shard drop rates after one day of f2p farming.

So while there "could" be a bug, there are many criteria that impact this that have a perfectly reasonable explanation.
1- The number of guilds (growing, making your hold less sought after)
2- the GP of the players searching, relative to your guild's GP (impossible for players to measure)
3- the widening GP gap (since >100M is the top, the pool of guilds in that criteria is also growing)
4- the number of players searching (variable every day)

While you may believe your passive recruiting is statistically improbable, you have no credible basis for making that determination. You're just guessing. It's fine to ask the question, but refusing to accept the possibility that nothing is wrong is not helpful. Even if there is a bug, you can either choose to be a helpless victim, or choose to take action to help your guild. It's up to you.

Unfortunately, the dev team won't give updates on bug fix timelines here. You can either watch the Dev Tracker or just be patient.

Good luck!

@Negotiator003 I have to bring in every recruit as well (or my recruitment officer does).

It's very difficult to even define what "level playing field" means, however. Without knowing how many times a guild has been suggested and rejected/accepted compared to all others, it's impossible to measure.

That's why I caution players from making "definitive" accusations based on unmeasurable subjective perception. It's one thing to ask a question. It's another to accuse CG of malfeasance and demand restitution.