GvG has always been a sort of haven for Lockdown; a place where you can escape the struggles of unbalanced teams and under-geared random team members, a proving ground where you could have a competitive 1v1 in peace, or just a place to have a nice brawl between guilds. Now, I've never participated in so much competitive Lockdown until just a month or so back, so I may be slightly uneducated when I'm talking about this, but regardless, I feel that there's an issue that needs to be talked about.
Echo of Silence has been the largest, most active guild in Spiral Knights for quite some time now. It's age and success, coupled with its friendly veteran players is practically a giant flame ready to attract moths. And while EoS is going through a time of great prosperity right now, its growth is slowly killing GvG in the background, and here's why.
1: Simply by existing and recruiting, Echo of Silence is "killing off the competition".
I'm sure we can all agree, EoS is a prime example of an ideal guild. As such, most people will be attracted to it's already established greatness. To want to be the best player, own the best gear or be part of the best guild is standard in an MMO because it's part of human nature to want to have the best. This will lead many people to apply for EoS, and if they are accepted, there's a good chance a smaller guild has just lost one of their ace players, and as a result, has had their foundation weakened, and their competitive abilities lowered. By losing able players, the smaller guild is alot less likely to put up a fighting chance against EoS, which will cause discouragement among members, and perhaps enable some to consider switching. It's a cycle that will repeat until the guild eventually dies and is absorbed into EoS.
2: Players flocking to Echo of Silence are essentially wasting their talent.
Imagine you just signed up for a GvG match against EoS, which six players would you expect to be up against? On the team you've just thought of, I'm sure Jumazo, Son-Of-Hades and Shadowcookiez are somewhere on the list. In the past three weeks (perhaps even further back), not once have I witnessed an EoS team without these players on it. If we were to go further, I'd also assume that the rest might include players such as Saturnknight, Sigle, Krakob and/or Mechadutchy. Unless you are on par with or better than these players, there is a very small chance you will ever make the team. This builds off of the first point in the fact that, as humans, we want the best. So of course, EoS would only want their most elite players representing them in affairs such as GvG. This turns any player that joined EoS for the GvG into nothing more than a benchwarmer who might get to play one game when a team member goes AFK. This practically robs smaller guilds of their best players and adds them to EoS' fold, where their talents are neither adequately nor frequently used.
Quick note regarding Solo Art here. What I've said about team selectivity here applies to them too, but to a much lesser extent, as to my knowledge they do not actively recruit.
I'd like to note that a couple of the players I've mentioned here (among others I haven't) have been great inspirations to me to improve my skill as a player to a level where I could stand up to them. However, you cannot grow strong if you do not face adversity, and by being in EoS, you limit your access to this kind of challenge to chance RLD encounters, or an inhouse session.
3: Due to it's application system, Echo of Silence is incredibly selective.
This is a minor point, but still relevant. You have to apply to EoS before you can be recruited, therefore any application is subject to any form of bias. Here is another example of people wanting the best. EoS will be more likely to accept somebody who has a strong reputation, rather than one that has just started, or one that has a kink or two in it. This leaves the less fortunate players to seek out lesser guilds that have already lost their talent to EoS, or had none to begin with. There's no real way to fix this as every guild has a member limit, and removing applications would cause a huge flood of recruits, but it does factor in to the situation.
4: Echo Of Silence is destined to become an empire if it continues down this path.
As it continues to absorb every other guilds' best players, it will eventually reach a point where nobody outside of EoS can put up a fight, or even want to try and put up a fight. When it reaches this point, the majority of GvG will be occupied by inhouse sessions. Now, there's nothing wrong with an inhouse; they're a fun way to play against fellow guildies, but it does remove the competitive side of GvG if its only used for inhousing, and it already is. We're almost at the end of a leaderboard week here, and five out of the ten guilds on the leaderboard belong to EoS. This shows how far GvG as gone, and why effort needs to be put in to make it live again.
5: Conclusion and Possible Solutions
Now, I by no means have a grudge against EoS for whats happening, neither do I blame them for it. There are certainly plenty of other reasons that a player would want to join it that are non-Lockdown related, such as friends, nice people, people to play with, etc. However a good portion of most recent applicants are heavily active in Lockdown, and do list GvG as a reason to join, and most of these applicants (as I have seen in game) were accepted. It's just a long chain of coincidences that stranded together and formed an issue for the GvG scene, and Lockdown orientated guilds in general. Developing a solution to reverse this mess would be difficult, but I thought one up that could be taken for consideration; Echo of Silence divides itself into 3-4 smaller, nonrelated guilds. This would split their talent into separate groups while still maintaining the generally nice people and attitude that made EoS a success in the first place, effectively turning GvG into an actual fight between Guilds again, and help bring variety back to a game mode that has lost it. I don't expect this to happen, but it's food for thought, and hopefully, a true solution will arise. If not, it's clear that players are simply too lazy to try and save a game mode from losing its luster, and would rather watch it die while making a quip or two about it.
Regardless if you agree or disagree, thank you for your time.
~Gianor
"1: Simply by existing and recruiting, Echo of Silence is "killing off the competition"."
GvG has always been like this.. did you like ignore all those LD guilds that have spawned every week? Cause there has been so many I wouldn't be able to count all of them, a lot of "LD players" go play for that guild then quit and join the next, there's names I remember seeing on like almost every LD guild there has been, or at least back then anyway.
"3: Due to it's application system, Echo of Silence is incredibly selective."
Not to criticize EoS or anything but I've seen anyone getting in EoS nowadays for months. I'm sure nj acknowledges SK is more inactive than ever now so can't be as selective as he used to be for his new members.
"4: Echo Of Silence is destined to become an empire if it continues down this path."
Or you can just accept that LD is losing it's spark (lost it already imo) and make a thread about how SK is dying
Jempire was worse and my first GvG ever was against them, but hey I didn't quit, it just made me want to get stronger to beat them someday.