Guild Wars 2

Since before the release of HoT, I have been working on my personal guild. Because I have been a one man team, the guild promoter had been a great way to buy influence to bolster the resources for my guild. Building it up on my own, so that when I was ready to start recruiting, the competition with larger guilds with more resources wouldn’t be as great. Then HoT was released and influence was replaced with favor points. The only way to earn favor is through guild missions and the missions typically require a certain number or members to complete it.

I get the whole idea of promoting community game play with using guild missions to earn favor. But limiting the earning of favor to just guild missions seems unfriendly to a small or tiny guild, such as the case is with mine. For guilds that have a limited number or members, it can make it challenging to coordinate a meeting time to do the guild missions, especially with time zone variations between players.

Attracting new players to a small or tiny guild can make it extremely difficult when so many larger guilds have the guild amenities that players are looking for. Why would a player be interested in joining a guild with little to no upgrades to said potential guild when they could join one that already outfitted with most, if not all upgrades.

This is why I think bringing back the guild promoter would be good way to include small and tiny guilds for greater community involvement within the game. Instead of influence, those guilds could buy favor. Alternatively or in conjunction, non guild missions, activities, or other challenges could be developed to earn favor as well. If ArenaNet wants community involvement, what better way then to promote a sense of community with things that can earn favor that is non guild related. Players that do not belong to a guild could be asking themselves what they are going to spend the favor points that they have earned and decide to make their own guild. And for those players that do belong to small guild that have difficulty getting together for guild missions, this can be a great way for the player to feel he/she is able to contribute to the growth of their guild. Thus, the greater sense of community is re-enforced with alternatives for making more new guilds or building up smaller ones.

ArenaNet had said that smaller guilds would be treated “respectfully” according to the wiki. I would agree that they have. But with limiting the opportunities in which small or tiny guilds can grow, I just don’t think ArenaNet has been as supportive as it could be.

Just my opinion. I would be happy to hear any feedback.

Maybe it’s just me, but 99% of my recruits never bother to ask for the status of the guild hall. Neither do I talk about it during recuritment.

Shouldn’t small guilds be more about community, rather than about “Look what we’ve got!”?

I know it is not the best comparison. But my time as a co-guild leader in Guild Wars 1, I had found that our small guild had a hard time holding on to members because of not having everything available to them. I would agree with you it should be able the community. But, in my past experience, I found that a lot of people wanted to come in to the guild with those upgrades already in place. I suspect partly because they didn’t want to spend their own gold for the guild.

So, this was an idea to circumvent that problem. My topic wasn’t about showing how much bling each guild has, but rather just to make earning favor points less limited.

Ed Triebsch.1937:

I know it is not the best comparison. But my time as a co-guild leader in Guild Wars 1, I had found that our small guild had a hard time holding on to members because of not having everything available to them. I would agree with you it should be able the community. But, in my past experience, I found that a lot of people wanted to come in to the guild with those upgrades already in place. I suspect partly because they didn’t want to spend their own gold for the guild.

What would be the point of acquiring guild members who do not want to contribute to the guild?

What would be the point of acquiring guild members who do not want to contribute to the guild?
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There wouldn’t be much point. I am not going to know how much of a contributor a new member is going to be if I don’t already know them. before they were recruited. I would assume that they would be a contributor, but until they were actually a member I am not going to know.

Ed Triebsch.1937:

Since before the release of HoT, I have been working on my personal guild. Because I have been a one man team, the guild promoter had been a great way to buy influence to bolster the resources for my guild. Building it up on my own, so that when I was ready to start recruiting, the competition with larger guilds with more resources wouldn’t be as great. Then HoT was released and influence was replaced with favor points. The only way to earn favor is through guild missions and the missions typically require a certain number or members to complete it.

I get the whole idea of promoting community game play with using guild missions to earn favor. But limiting the earning of favor to just guild missions seems unfriendly to a small or tiny guild, such as the case is with mine. For guilds that have a limited number or members, it can make it challenging to coordinate a meeting time to do the guild missions, especially with time zone variations between players.

Attracting new players to a small or tiny guild can make it extremely difficult when so many larger guilds have the guild amenities that players are looking for. Why would a player be interested in joining a guild with little to no upgrades to said potential guild when they could join one that already outfitted with most, if not all upgrades.

This is why I think bringing back the guild promoter would be good way to include small and tiny guilds for greater community involvement within the game. Instead of influence, those guilds could buy favor. Alternatively or in conjunction, non guild missions, activities, or other challenges could be developed to earn favor as well. If ArenaNet wants community involvement, what better way then to promote a sense of community with things that can earn favor that is non guild related. Players that do not belong to a guild could be asking themselves what they are going to spend the favor points that they have earned and decide to make their own guild. And for those players that do belong to small guild that have difficulty getting together for guild missions, this can be a great way for the player to feel he/she is able to contribute to the growth of their guild. Thus, the greater sense of community is re-enforced with alternatives for making more new guilds or building up smaller ones.

ArenaNet had said that smaller guilds would be treated “respectfully” according to the wiki. I would agree that they have. But with limiting the opportunities in which small or tiny guilds can grow, I just don’t think ArenaNet has been as supportive as it could be.

Just my opinion. I would be happy to hear any feedback.

You raise good points, but I feel like they would be a larger issue except for the fact that you can be in multiple guilds in GW2. You can be a part of a large guild for the benefits and for upgrading easy, at the same time be a part of a small, close knit guild that may not improve as fast.

Moonyeti.3296:

You raise good points, but I feel like they would be a larger issue except for the fact that you can be in multiple guilds in GW2. You can be a part of a large guild for the benefits and for upgrading easy, at the same time be a part of a small, close knit guild that may not improve as fast.

Are you saying that if a player is in more that one guild and they earn favor points through the larger guild, they could in turn take those favor points and use them in smaller one to help build that one up?

I think he is more saying, if a member -really- wants to access the extra amenities he’ll simply click one button and rep his big guild with all the frills. This isn’t GW1 anymore. Guilds are more interested in the community you create than on shiny things. It makes sense that larger guilds have greater resources too.

I’ve never been swayed into joining a guild over their guild hall. In fact a few of the guilds I’m in I can’t even say if they even have one. I know for a fact one of them doesn’t, and I don’t feel any inclination to leave it.

Rivindor.7258:

I think he is more saying, if a member -really- wants to access the extra amenities he’ll simply click one button and rep his big guild with all the frills. This isn’t GW1 anymore. Guilds are more interested in the community you create than on shiny things. It makes sense that larger guilds have greater resources too.

I’ve never been swayed into joining a guild over their guild hall. In fact a few of the guilds I’m in I can’t even say if they even have one. I know for a fact one of them doesn’t, and I don’t feel any inclination to leave it.

That does make me feel a bit better Rivindor, My former GW1 guild was small, but we were in a large alliance. Because of drama and troublemakers in the larger guilds, I have tended to shy away from the larger ones. I am in a large guild that happens to have minimal drama. I really got lucky with this guild. After speaking with the guild leader, I have found some ways to earn favor points for my guild.

I was just concerned that all my efforts with working on my guild would have gone to waste had I not been able to continue to earn favor points. While I am lucky to have a larger “parent” guild to help me out, I think that this issue I have brought up may be good for those that don’t have the support of a larger guild.

First, favor is an extremely easy resource to acquire, even in a solo guild.

The real limit on upgrades is resources. Resources which can be bought, like influence from the promoter, with gold.

Set your guild missions to PvE. Your favor income from soloing one easy trek in a week is enough to pay for an upgrade that week. If you pull a bounty or race, do it on reset day on mondey and you’re almost assured to find another guild doing it. You’ll get credit for it.

My guild has a lot of members, but there are rarely more than five members online at the same time, as our schedule is spread out throughout the day. After the first few upgrades to missions, we usually don’t event guild complete the soloable ones any more because we’re constantly capped on favor. One you hit the favor cap the first time, you’re unlikely to ever be short on favor to complete an upgrade again due to the timed nature of aetherium mining and the cost of upgrade materials.

In general, as long as you’re guild completing at least one, maybe two missions a week, you’re golden unless you have an abnormally high rate of material contribution for such a small guild, or have wasted your time and resources taking unnecessary mining speed upgrades that fill your aetherium faster than you can get resources/favor for upgrades.

In my experience the mining rate upgrades are a waste of time and money for guilds that don’t already have thousands of gold worth of resources ready to go for upgrades. Capacity is a waste until you literally require higher capacity to get higher tier upgrades.

Favor is the opposite of challenging to acquire for smaller guilds. The system you want to bring back already exists. If you’re willing to leverage gold in lieu of contributions, you can do that already, and it’s going to get you a lot farther than favor. After the first week HoT came out, favor became almost a non-resource.

Just do the missions you can actually achieve each week. Ignore “suggested player” counts and try them anyway. There is no cost for failing, and you’ll fuind that the “suggested” counts on many are gross overestimations.

PopeUrban.2578:

First, favor is an extremely easy resource to acquire, even in a solo guild.

The real limit on upgrades is resources. Resources which can be bought, like influence from the promoter, with gold.

Set your guild missions to PvE. Your favor income from soloing one easy trek in a week is enough to pay for an upgrade that week. If you pull a bounty or race, do it on reset day on mondey and you’re almost assured to find another guild doing it. You’ll get credit for it.

My guild has a lot of members, but there are rarely more than five members online at the same time, as our schedule is spread out throughout the day. After the first few upgrades to missions, we usually don’t event guild complete the soloable ones any more because we’re constantly capped on favor. One you hit the favor cap the first time, you’re unlikely to ever be short on favor to complete an upgrade again due to the timed nature of aetherium mining and the cost of upgrade materials.

In general, as long as you’re guild completing at least one, maybe two missions a week, you’re golden unless you have an abnormally high rate of material contribution for such a small guild, or have wasted your time and resources taking unnecessary mining speed upgrades that fill your aetherium faster than you can get resources/favor for upgrades.

In my experience the mining rate upgrades are a waste of time and money for guilds that don’t already have thousands of gold worth of resources ready to go for upgrades. Capacity is a waste until you literally require higher capacity to get higher tier upgrades.

Favor is the opposite of challenging to acquire for smaller guilds. The system you want to bring back already exists. If you’re willing to leverage gold in lieu of contributions, you can do that already, and it’s going to get you a lot farther than favor. After the first week HoT came out, favor became almost a non-resource.

Just do the missions you can actually achieve each week. Ignore “suggested player” counts and try them anyway. There is no cost for failing, and you’ll fuind that the “suggested” counts on many are gross overestimations.

Thank you for your insight Pope. I really appreciate the feedback and especially the encouragement with your reply. Between your suggestions and my other guild’s assistance, I am sure I will be able to continue to work on building my guild. I would also like to thank all of those who took the time to reply to my posting and shared their views on this topic.