This is a suggestion to make the claiming of objectives by guilds in WvWvW have a cost-benefit associated with them. The intent is to give guilds a greater stake in defending what they claim while recognizing and rewarding their efforts and contributions.
1) The initial claiming of an objective will incur an influence cost. When speaking with the claiming NPC, this cost will be displayed and the guild member engaging in the conversation can choose to claim/not claim on the basis of whether or not they want to pay the influence cost.
2) Guild members who are granted the right to claim objectives in the guild panel will also be the same guild members who can authorize this influence expenditure. There will be no need to add a new checkbox to the guild panel for this option.
3) The following are suggested costs of claiming an objective. Please keep in mind these are just place holder values. The actual costs would need to be adjusted based on testing.
The rationale behind my choosing these values is based on the assumption that supply camps change hands quite often and therefore should not incur too great a cost in influence to claim. I also used the current cost of guild upgrades as a guide to make the cost of claiming consistent with these values.
Supply Camp = 25 influence
Tower = 200 influence
Keep = 500 influence
Stonemist Castle = 1,000 influence
4) Following the initial cost in influence to claim an objective, they will also have a recurring maintenance cost every hour that a guild retains their claim. Again, these are just suggested values; actual values would be determined by testing.
Suppy camp = 5 influence/hour
Tower = 20 influence/hour
Keep = 50 influence/hour
Stonemist Castle = 100 influence/hour
5) Each guild buff that a guild activates and which applies to objectives only (not just global buffs like “+10% PvP Influence for 24 hours”) will reduce the maintenance costs of their claimed objective(s) by 5%.
As there are currently ten guild buffs available, the maximum reduction would be 50% if using all ten at once. At no time will the maintenance cost ever fall below 1 influence/hour, regardless of how many guild buffs are active (assuming more buffs were added at a future date).
For example, a guild claims Stonemist Castle and applies four buffs. Their maintenance cost drops from 100 influence/hour to 80 influence/hour. The intent here it to further encourage guilds to apply their buffs to their claimed objectives.
6) Each member of a guild who has claimed an objective will earn additional influence for their guild when participating in events within their claimed objectives’ spheres of influence. The sphere of influence is defined here as that radius around an objective in which guild buffs are active.
Specific values are yet to be determined; the ones used here are just place holders. A couple suggestions are a set amount such as 5 additional influence or an additional 5% of event influence awarded to each participating guild member. For each guild buff applied to the objective, this may have the effect of increasing the bonus influence by an additional 5 points or 5%.
For example, a tower claimed by a guild comes under attack and triggers the “Defend the tower” event. At it’s conclusion, players who participated earn 20 influence (I’m not sure of the actual number as I don’t bother paying attention to it in the middle of a fight; the wiki states 20 per event for groups of 2+ guild members). If members of the guild who claimed the tower participated in the event, they would earn 21 influence for their guild (assuming we use a percentage rather than a set amount as the bonus reward). If the tower had three guild buffs applied to it and we were to continue using the percentage bonus method, they would earn 24 influence for their guild.
The guiding principle here is to balance the bonus event rewards for defending an objective against the hourly maintenance costs such that a guild which actively defends their claimed objectives will not lose influence.
7) Guild members within the sphere of influence of a claimed objective gain a percent bonus to damage. What this should be will have to be determined by testing. My first thought was 5%. Each guild buff activated by the guild will increase this damage bonus by 1%. With all ten guild buffs active plus the base damage increase, this would lead to a maximum 15% damage bonus. Think of it as a morale boost for defending one’s home turf.
The intent here is to give guilds which claim objectives further incentive to defend those objectives by giving them a small advantage when fighting within their sphere of influence.
8) Guild names/tags will be displayed whenever players select a gate or destructible wall section.