Guild Wars 2

So, I’m in a fairly small guild, comprised mostly of close friends, and we hit 5k influence today with intentions to rank up architecture to level 3, hoping to eventually have a bigger bank. Laugh if you will, but getting to 5k took us almost 2 weeks, so we were stoked to queue the upgrade…

But looking more closely at it revealed to me that architecture level 3 literally offers NO rewards. Not a single one…

… Wait, what? WHY?!

So, from rank 2, we’re looking at 25k influence before we get a single reward. For a large guild, sure, 25k isn’t that much, but for us this is huge. And that’s fine, it would be nice if the game could scale influence rewards based on a guild’s size, but either way, I’m fine with working towards the big upgrades, however, having no rewards at these larger stepping stones just feels… Bad.

There’s a lot of talk on these forums about whether are not effort/time is worth some of the rewards in this game, and for a smaller scale guilds, the influence system is one of the areas I feel this applies to. No, I’m not asking that it be easy and we have these upgrades in a week, but it will take us literally months and months before we see these upgrades that large guilds obtained in the first couple weeks it seems.

It wouldn’t even have to be much. Some banners just like the other upgrades, just so it feels rewarding and doesn’t make the fact that we have 20k more to grind out feel so frustrating.

/endrant

<3

I agree, the current guild upgrade system makes life hard on smaller guilds who dont have aspirations of becoming large. maybe they could base the costs on a percentage based on current members? No that would be easily abused… dont know the answer. Maybe they can just reduce the costs of the basic guild services to make them easier to afford for smaller guilds.

It doesn’t cost you anything to gather influence.

It doesn’t cost you any effort to get somewhere.

It’s not required for everyone to have everything instantly.

I think this sums it up quite nicely.

I think that it’s fine, having the flat initiative gains, because it nicely reflects how a guild with less members might be less prominent in the world than a guild with more people.

That said, there should be a reward at every level. There’s no excuse for there to be dead levels.

ThiBash.5634:

It doesn’t cost you anything to gather influence.

It doesn’t cost you any effort to get somewhere.

It’s not required for everyone to have everything instantly.

I think this sums it up quite nicely.

I don’t quite understand where you’re going with this, but I think you missed my point. I can deal with the time taken, I don’t expect instant rewards, though, it might be nice if smaller guilds could have bigger gains than larger guilds to even out the score, but I can deal with it. My main gripe is that architecture level 3 has literally no reward. None.

It’s frustrating, and smaller guilds most definitely feel that frustration more than larger guilds, since getting that 5k actually took quite some time.

EricGORE.7896:

I don’t quite understand where you’re going with this, but I think you missed my point.

No, I get your point. You claim your issue is about the Architecture 3 not granting anything special, but I trust you realize it’s simply Architecture 4 split up over 2 projects. They could remove it, but then they’d have to make Architecture 4 more expensive, resulting in 0 gain for the players.

Your underlying issue is quite clear. You want to be done with things faster. Well, I can assure you that compared to some games (*cough* Star Kitten Online *cough*), small guilds have it easy. The number of rewards you can actually unlock is short. When you get something, you actually get something (apart from Architecture 3 of course). Everything can be unlocked in 3 months or so, even with small guilds, because you’ll also get Influence boosters during your storyline.

The only thing that seems to be tough for small guilds to get is the bigger bank. But when you’re a small guild...

...you don’t need it.

I also belong to a very small family guild and I understand that it takes a long time gather influence.
We also wanted the guild vault for the extra space so I just want to point out to you that you only need architecture 2 for this. 500 influence for lvl1, 1000 for lvl 2 and another 1000 for the fault.
We struck it lucky and were able to earn the 1000 for lvl 2 in 2 days- so now we are working on our final 1000 for the bank space.

ThiBash.5634:

EricGORE.7896:

I don’t quite understand where you’re going with this, but I think you missed my point.

No, I get your point. You claim your issue is about the Architecture 3 not granting anything special, but I trust you realize it’s simply Architecture 4 split up over 2 projects. They could remove it, but then they’d have to make Architecture 4 more expensive, resulting in 0 gain for the players.

Indeed I do realize that, that’s my point exactly. Why?… What is the purpose for offering absolutely nothing on that level? It doesn’t make any sense and, like I said, just feels bad. It’s a dead level. Not sure if there’s many people who actually enjoy them. It would be like leveling up on your character and being exactly where you started before you leveled. No trait point, no stat gains, nothing. And then you could tell me, “Well next level you get all that, the level takes 4 times longer, but they just had to split the reward into two levels.”

… And I would say exactly what I’m saying now… Why? Why offer no reward, or why split the level?

ThiBash.5634:

Your underlying issue is quite clear. You want to be done with things faster. Well, I can assure you that compared to some games (cough Star Kitten Online cough), small guilds have it easy. The number of rewards you can actually unlock is short. When you get something, you actually get something (apart from Architecture 3 of course). Everything can be unlocked in 3 months or so, even with small guilds, because you’ll also get Influence boosters during your storyline.

I said more than once that I was okay with the time it takes, though yes, I definitely think it would be more fair if influence gains would account for how many active members were in a guild. I’m sure a formula could be lined out to have the time investment for each guild be on par with each other regardless of size. ON PAR.

What I’d more like to see though is something added to level 3. More substance in the architecture tree in general. This has nothing to do with the time it takes. It could be as small as some banners, or maybe just an additional upgrade to the main Vault that adds 25 to 50 more slots.

In a perfect world, they would move Treasure Trove to level 3, Deep Cave to level 4, and add a new Guild Collections tab to level 5. This would flow so perfectly and each rank would feel very rewarding.

ThiBash.5634:

The only thing that seems to be tough for small guilds to get is the bigger bank. But when you’re a small guild…

…you don’t need it.

I’d say this is debatable. Sure, maybe we don’t need it, but it would definitely be nice at this point. We have people from all level ranges, and just a couple people who have hit cap, so we’re constantly cycling through all tiers of mats and crafts to help each other along the way. We always seem to be scrambling for more room with the 50 slots we have currently.

The whole guild system is terrible, upgrades are crappy aswell.

yeah, my guild’s essentially me. i just finished up the easy politics stuff (armorer) and started architecture 2 today. it seems (haven’t gotten the vault yet but…) like a reasonable amount of time. there’s not that many non-consumable upgrades in general. maybe they have place-holders for things that will be added later (when they do some type of guild hall upgrades or other additions).

I’m the guild leader of a small guild and although I wish they would bring down the influence req for bigger guild vaults, I think the current state of the guild vault to influence req system is implemented quite fairly.

The reason is smaller guild will have less members than bigger guilds, thus earning influence at a slower rate and less likely to be required to have bigger guild vaults. Big guilds with over hundreds of members will earn influence at a much faster rate and will even find the largest guild vault req to be reasonable and achievable. It’s a fair game I’d say. The bigger the guild, the more likely they will need or deserves a bigger vault and find which ever bank size to be just right for its size at an achievable rate.

I heard guild halls would be added later on. That’s probably why you need the last architecture upgrade. Get it now so you don’t have to wait later

Mystiq Angelic.8193:

I’m the guild leader of a small guild and although I wish they would bring down the influence req for bigger guild vaults, I think the current state of the guild vault to influence req system is implemented quite fairly.

The reason is smaller guild will have less members than bigger guilds, thus earning influence at a slower rate and less likely to be required to have bigger guild vaults. Big guilds with over hundreds of members will earn influence at a much faster rate and will even find the largest guild vault req to be reasonable and achievable. It’s a fair game I’d say. The bigger the guild, the more likely they will need or deserves a bigger vault and find which ever bank size to be just right for its size at an achievable rate.

Don’t get me wrong, I can definitely understand the logic and reasoning behind what you’re saying, but what that ultimately means is that bigger guilds will always have an advantage over smaller guilds, in addition to the already obvious advantages, and that is what I don’t agree with.

The size of a guild should have less impact on how the guild is able to progress, it should be more of a preference to the player/s. Some people enjoy large guilds, others, like myself, prefer being in a small, tight knit group of people they are close with and can rely on. The idea that larger guilds should have, or even deserve larger vaults or more rewards in general makes sense on the surface, but I don’t see how the concept is fun. Allowing smaller guilds to be able to gain influence on par, or at least closer to the same pace of a larger guild would really have no negative impact on anyone. So why not? Why would someone not be okay with it? Is it an ego thing with people in larger guilds? I sure hope not.

Anyways, just to be clear, all the other areas of upgrades have felt pretty good so far, and my bigger concern here is that architecture, level 3 in particular, is lacking, and smaller guilds feel that a bit more than larger guilds. To have a dead level in any tree is just bad, for any sized guild.

I have a strong suspicion that architecture will flesh out with the addition of guild halls.

I stick by what I said before, the upgrades should go something more like this in the architecture tree:

Level 3:
- New upgrade: Guild Vault expansion: Adds an additional 25 slots to the Guild Vault. (about 2500 influence)
- Treasure Trove moved to this level. (same price)

Level 4
- Deep Cave moved to this level. (same price)

Level 5
- New upgrade: Guild Collections: Adds a guild collections tab into the guild bank. (This one would obviously cost quite a lot and take some serious build time)

This would allow every level to have an upgrade, thus making the pacing feel a lot better. Also, being able to expand the Guild Vault, even a little, at the lower level could help out smaller guilds if it was a reasonable price. And, obviously, at the end of the tree, any guild would have a crazy good amount of space, which is going to feel awesome. Some might say it’s overkill, but I’d rather have more space than not enough. Plus, it’s not overkill as long as the reward is equal to the time invested, which in this case, I’d say it totally would be.

Dra Keln.2015:

I have a strong suspicion that architecture will flesh out with the addition of guild halls.

You’re probably right. They should at least throw some fillers rewards in for the time being though, if this were the case.

bad rewards plague this game in every area. but if money isn’t an issue, trade some in for rep at a guild promoter to speed things along.