damn good post, nailed the issue.

I have now received a response from Support that says the decision is to make the guilds more even, and that we just have to recruit. What a lot of hogwash. My guild has played in hundreds of GCs, and won over 150, many of them tight, regardless of our numbers. Our recruitment is now bringing in very low-strength players (with unknown commitment) which will only reduce our guild strength for GCs, not increase it. We have no choice if we are to make the 20 for GC qualification. Experienced, strong, players are not likely to move to a guild that currently does not qualify. Numbers of members by themselves do not equate to strength, any more than the stupid fan base assessment of strength. We are still recruiting actively, but how long will stronger members remain in a guild that is not GC qualified when offers are being made by guilds that are? If my guild folds, I will not be staying in this game. Sweet Nitro, you are killing the game with this stupid and high-handed decision, followed by your arrogant responses.

I think a lot of players in guilds with 25 members got tired of constantly drawing guilds with 15 and thus being forced to sit out 10 of their guild. Other ways around this, but they at least have good intentions and are trying to address a real issue.

Black Monks, I can appreciate that happened - it happened reasonably frequently in my guild when we were full, but we lived with it and used it as encouragement for the less strong members to improve. Having equal numbers does nothing to address the inequity of results if the outcome is substantially weaker guilds that merely meet the "numbers" requirement. My guild has managed to recruit several new members to move us towards 20 but it has substantially weakened the guild as a whole and will result in even more inequitable results overall. More attention to a workable algorithm based on team strength (not fan numbers) and a much smaller +/- percentage for guilds to meet would have achieved more without discriminating against smaller guilds.

I agree it could have been done better, letting a guild decide how many want to be in a la CoC. But at least they are trying.

Ultimately, guild points for guild championship levels I think is the best option. Match the best with the best. Avg with avg and so on.

I agree with all this. The only way to search for guilds is top down. They are all full or over 20 players so won't want to move.

I disagree with the decision to make a change to the minimum number of members and worse. The difficulty to recruit.

If you could search for smaller guilds you Gould invite groups of players so they can keep their friendships together.

If you could talk to a player in another guild or in the challenge or a tournament you could ask them if they were interested in a conversation. Actually sell your guild to them instead of just being a random begging for a player.

So many things that can be improved in this area. I hope they actually read the forums and act on them. Cos this is a stupid decision.

I expect an increase in guild mergers as a result of this. Agree that a better (non guild) communication system would improve the game in lots of ways. I'm afraid I was not a fan of having to bench half my guild because we happen to meet a small guild in GC.

We have managed to fill our guild as a result of drastically reducing our entry requirements, and as a result have a severely weakened guild that is now GC compliant. We now have no room to move if stronger people come along wanting to join, and I would be reluctant now to boot teams, partly because these are the people who have helped us get compliance just by being there, but also because between 20 and 25 it is too easy to fall below the line again......... I agree with Oxford that benching teams was not great, but playing teams 30% stronger wasn't either, and a better way of doing this would have been to match guilds by team numbers as well as by a narrower % difference. At the smaller levels, guilds are learning and growing, and exchanging teams frequently, and this rule has just made that much more difficult for guilds in the 100-200 rank level (as we were but will be no longer). We will be honourable to our weaker members but it will cost us in guild growth.

This decision has tipped Seriousfun over the edge and he has made the decision to leave the game, having also started this post (players on the market already). Very sad state of affairs.

100% agree with most comments made here.