Guild Wars 2

I am extremely afraid for the roleplay community in specific. Let me explain why.

While there are some large guilds in the RP community, the vast majority are small, and/or have only small percentages of representation. The reason is because some roleplayers tend to join guilds partially based on the RP theme of the guild and whether their character concepts will fit, and therefore, many roleplayers are members of multiple small, niche guilds.

Up until now, this has been a benefit of GW2 for many – the supported ability to make new guilds easily and switch between them at will. It has allowed for niche RP ideas to flourish where in other games, the lack of dedicated players to support it might make the guild untenable. However, this freedom also means that many of these small guilds do not have a vast influence infrastructure.

Due to the high influence costs and mission design requiring high guild participation numbers, I do not think very many of us will be able to run any of this new content with our RP guilds. Suddenly, now, our many small guild associations have become a hindrance to our accessing content and rewards.

The alternative, of course, is to join a large guild – but for our community, that may be an extra element for us of being asked to play the game in a way that is not congruent with our interests or wishes. In my experience, RP megaguilds are anything but functional most of the time, and non-RP megaguilds are – well, not roleplayers, and generally contain some hostile elements towards roleplaying within them.

My own RP guild is somewhat against the usual RP guild trend – while we are small (5-8 members online per night out of 12 total), we contain very dedicated players that have been together for years. We will be able to unlock things with a little patience and bribe friends outside the guild to help us squeak by with the most basic bounty mission, but I think we may be an exception rather than the rule, and even we will struggle to succeed. Most small RP guilds do not have such longevity or single-guild dedication like we do and I cannot imagine how they will manage.

Many of us choose small guilds deliberately because it is the best way for us to experience the game in the way that makes us happiest. Now, I wonder if we will be viable anymore. We are active Fractal-runners and daily-completers on top of being roleplayers in a small guild, and until now, we have never felt like we had to choose between gameplay rewards and playstyle happiness. Now, we do.

For the time being, I can only hope that ANet sees the reason of the posts in this thread and amends their design choices to be more accommodating towards small guilds. I have been very defensive of ANet’s design choices over the years in both GW1 and 2, and often see the forest they were aiming for instead of the trees that are the mistakes and difficulties, but this time I feel they really and truly need to re-examine their process. I hope they do, because it will hurt us and eventually drive our niche of the community away.

What I do not understand: If those missions are ment as an “sink” for influence why is the entry level so high, while the costs to do one event are kinda low. 30k of Influence to research the mission is quite alot but 200 to kick it off is not at all. Shouldn’t it be the other way round somehow?

Research costs are low while the cost to do it are high? That way bigger guilds would have still something to use their influence on while small guilds could do it also here and then, even if not that often.

Hellspawn.4836:

Arod.3982:

Guild missions were created and aimed for large groups to do. There is plenty of content that small guilds can do already. If small guilds should be allowed to do this large group content, I should be able to solo all dungeons.

So is it fair that my 2-10 member guild be able to do this content with ease???

That is 100% incorrect Larger Group DOES NOT Equal more Challenging in fact its considerably easier. Heres the Numbers to prove my statement In WoW Theory crafting 10 / 25man.

In 25man Raids 2 Tanks 3 Healers 20 DPS if 1 DPS died thats only a lose of 5% man power on a boss fight.

In 10man Raids 2 Tanks 2 Healers 6 DPS if 1 DPS dies thats a lose of 17% man power

In GW2 Everyone is DPS Hybrid if 1 Person dies thats a lose of 20%!!! man power

Plus this is the first real content patch and its not easly accessiable for smaller guilds thats 100% UNFAIR

I never said it was easier, i said it was content designed for large groups. So its unfair that you cant solo dungeons either.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Then let me be the next to provide a link to this excellent post outlining what we perceive to be the problem, as well as possible solutions:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077

Honestly, every page in this thread should have this link (except the page that has the posts in question).

I just want to quote this again, for those that didn’t climb through the thread and might not have seen this. This is a well worded possible solution and calm, it’s worth the read.

Arod.3982:

So is it fair that my 2-10 member guild be able to do this content with ease???

In a word, yes.

Mattargul.9235:

Two points:
1) complaints about this guild mission being the AoW tree
Would you have felt better if they had added a whole new tree for GMs, called it Guild Mission Tree, and made the first level, which unlocks bounties, cost 500k influence? Your problem is with the cost, not that it’s in the AoW tree. And related to this…
2) smaller guilds can’t access guild missions because of the cost
If your guild is so small that you can’t earn this much influence your guild is (likely) too small to do any of these missions. Sorry. It’s like complaining about how all dungeons have been designed for 5 players and your 2 person guild can’t do any of it.

Well I don’t agree with point number 2, in a dungeon we can pick 2 friends and pick 2 random players and play the content, in guild missions you need a Big guild to do the content, Im not playing the content because Im in a medium guild, quality over quantity.

Arod.3982:

Hellspawn.4836:

Arod.3982:

Guild missions were created and aimed for large groups to do. There is plenty of content that small guilds can do already. If small guilds should be allowed to do this large group content, I should be able to solo all dungeons.

So is it fair that my 2-10 member guild be able to do this content with ease???

That is 100% incorrect Larger Group DOES NOT Equal more Challenging in fact its considerably easier. Heres the Numbers to prove my statement In WoW Theory crafting 10 / 25man.

In 25man Raids 2 Tanks 3 Healers 20 DPS if 1 DPS died thats only a lose of 5% man power on a boss fight.

In 10man Raids 2 Tanks 2 Healers 6 DPS if 1 DPS dies thats a lose of 17% man power

In GW2 Everyone is DPS Hybrid if 1 Person dies thats a lose of 20%!!! man power

Plus this is the first real content patch and its not easly accessiable for smaller guilds thats 100% UNFAIR

I never said it was easier, i said it was content designed for large groups. So its unfair that you cant solo dungeons either.

Invalid argument-any small Guild can find random strangers/friends from other Guilds to do Dungeons. They need not be in the same Guild to achieve this, nor does all your game friends need to be in the same Guild.

Helenorz.2547:

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Then let me be the next to provide a link to this excellent post outlining what we perceive to be the problem, as well as possible solutions:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077

Honestly, every page in this thread should have this link (except the page that has the posts in question).

I just want to quote this again, for those that didn’t climb through the thread and might not have seen this. This is a well worded possible solution and calm, it’s worth the read.

It was a great exposition, and again I hope someone in charge pays mind to it.

I don’t understand why some people (who obviously are in large guilds and aren’t facing the issues many here do) keep wondering why rest complaining when you can participate in new content without being in a guild that activated the mission. Assuming there is a mission scheduled by some big guild, how will the rest know about it? Only way (other than us running randomly up and down the maps hoping to stumble upon one) is if the said guild advertises the mission , shouting for more people to join in. But why would a big guild that has the influence to open the missions ( and obviously the numbers to complete it too) would do such a thing? In raids in other mmos, how often you see guilds that have the players needed to do a raid , shouting for pugs? The guilds that do that, asking for random people to team up, are the smaller ones that can’t have all people needed on , all times. But in this game, those guilds won’t even be able to activate the missions, so asking for people to stop complaining cause of the “obvious” solution is kind of pointless?

I also read we shouldn’t complain because the rewards obtained through guild missions, can be obtained through other means. How is that so? Some of the rewards (for example the ascended earrings) can be obtained through laurel vendor too, but the 50 ectos (apart the laurels) needed are not balancing at all the cost in gold needed if you get the ring through guild missions. Again we have to pay way more.

And anyway could someone from anet finally answer a few questions people keep bringing on? Like what is gonna happen with guilds that spread across servers, if guild members participating from different servers in a guild’s event all gain their commendations and merit for their server? And also if you manage to help in another’s guild event as an outsider, do you still get the same rewards, or they are reserved for when you participate in guild missions of your guild?

Only game I have ever played that releases ‘new’ content that a % of the player base CANT access, and those that can are forced to wait 9 weeks and grind the same stuff over and over to earn the pts to unlock.

Star Ace.5207:

Arod.3982:

Hellspawn.4836:

Arod.3982:

Guild missions were created and aimed for large groups to do. There is plenty of content that small guilds can do already. If small guilds should be allowed to do this large group content, I should be able to solo all dungeons.

So is it fair that my 2-10 member guild be able to do this content with ease???

That is 100% incorrect Larger Group DOES NOT Equal more Challenging in fact its considerably easier. Heres the Numbers to prove my statement In WoW Theory crafting 10 / 25man.

In 25man Raids 2 Tanks 3 Healers 20 DPS if 1 DPS died thats only a lose of 5% man power on a boss fight.

In 10man Raids 2 Tanks 2 Healers 6 DPS if 1 DPS dies thats a lose of 17% man power

In GW2 Everyone is DPS Hybrid if 1 Person dies thats a lose of 20%!!! man power

Plus this is the first real content patch and its not easly accessiable for smaller guilds thats 100% UNFAIR

I never said it was easier, i said it was content designed for large groups. So its unfair that you cant solo dungeons either.

Invalid argument-any small Guild can find random strangers/friends from other Guilds to do Dungeons. They need not be in the same Guild to achieve this, nor does all your game friends need to be in the same Guild.

You have to be in their party though.

The only thing I see wrong with the whole implementation is the rewards for your character for doing Guild Missions should be achievable in other ways.

stobie.2134:

Arod.3982:

Guild missions were created and aimed for large groups to do. There is plenty of content that small guilds can do already. If small guilds should be allowed to do this large group content, I should be able to solo all dungeons.

So is it fair that my 2-10 member guild be able to do this content with ease???

What does this have to do with being ‘fair?’ In what way does a small guild’s ability to start missions impact anything related to a large guild’s efforts? Are we headed back to the dismal time of gear-based posturing, of being an extra-special elite based on what you can acquire in game?

Small guilds want reasonable access to content in a game that is not raid focused, that has no real reason for huge guilds. I’m not joining a big guild. I’ve done that, hated it, & no game is worth the annoyance. I’m not interested in large scale social interaction – I prefer a close knit group. It seems I’m not alone in this. Maybe this is a personality difference – some people are by nature more private. But how this turned out to be an offense to big guilds, I don’t know. It seems to me quite the other way around.

I am not in a big guild, I have 3 members in my guild. Im just saying this was designed for those people who wanted the large group interaction and it hasn’t bothered me at all. I am still doing all the pve and wvw available to me.

Here are my concerns about the new guild mission system and the effects it will have on a percentage of the community. I lead a smallish guild of around 50 members, we are a tight knit group, we focus on the skill of our members rather than sheer numbers. With the current guild system, we are looking at Months of grinds and build times, we have already dumped upwards of 200g on influence just so we can access some of the guild bounties sooner, and hopefully keep our members from jumping ship to a large guild with the upgrades already done and going, with everyone starved for new content and some sort of real “endgame” or elite areas and challenges, as a guild leader (of a smaller guild), the current system of representation is a nightmare, this update has blatantly encouraged guild hopping, and since we can only earn influence for members who are representing, it becomes harder and harder to keep people. Don’t get me wrong I love this new update, but I feel it will potentially be the death of smaller to mid sized guilds, and render growth from this point in the game onward (unless changes are made) sterile, and they will be unable to recruit or retain membership or representation. The main issues are that this leaves small guilds with 3 choices, either give up their identity as a guild and merge with a larger one, grind or buy the influence to access the new content to keep people interested, or, wait it out and further complicate your situation. The best solution that I can come up with for this would be to somehow separate the tiers into more achievable levels for smaller to mid sized guilds, such as lowering the prerequisite upgrades required to start the build on a guild mission. Its not about the skill of the players , its about numbers. Guild Wars certainly takes on a whole new meaning after this update. As always I hope this is helpful in some way and I hope something gets worked out in time.

Arod.3982:

Hellspawn.4836:

Arod.3982:

Guild missions were created and aimed for large groups to do. There is plenty of content that small guilds can do already. If small guilds should be allowed to do this large group content, I should be able to solo all dungeons.

So is it fair that my 2-10 member guild be able to do this content with ease???

That is 100% incorrect Larger Group DOES NOT Equal more Challenging in fact its considerably easier. Heres the Numbers to prove my statement In WoW Theory crafting 10 / 25man.

In 25man Raids 2 Tanks 3 Healers 20 DPS if 1 DPS died thats only a lose of 5% man power on a boss fight.

In 10man Raids 2 Tanks 2 Healers 6 DPS if 1 DPS dies thats a lose of 17% man power

In GW2 Everyone is DPS Hybrid if 1 Person dies thats a lose of 20%!!! man power

Plus this is the first real content patch and its not easly accessiable for smaller guilds thats 100% UNFAIR

I never said it was easier, i said it was content designed for large groups. So its unfair that you cant solo dungeons either.

You can (and people have) solo dungeons.

Also, this isn’t about the barrier to entry for me. This isn’t about the fact that the content is gated. This isn’t about the influence costs.

This is about turning the upgrade system in to a 100% completely linear path, which is contrary to its original design.

Before this update, you spent influence in a manner that best fit your guild. You had options. Don’t need that extra 100 slots in the guild bank? Don’t buy it. Don’t ever claim in WvW? Don’t research the buffs and buy boosts/banners in stead.

The missions, and their costs, are fine. What isn’t fine is that the system is completely linear. You’re forced in to upgrading crap you don’t want, and unlocking mission content you don’t care about in order to access the mission content you may actually want to do.

This is contrary to the entire purpose of having multiple upgrade trees in the first place, and this is a problem. This is a linear path rather than a set of horizontal paths.

Adding a tier 6 to each line and putting a type of mission or two at the end? Fine. Guilds can, as they did before, decide which researches are best suited to their membership, and work toward one type of mission at a time. The rewards per week limit is still there, researching and completing two types of missions will still make the third one go faster, but guilds actually have a choice.

In the current system, there are no choices. There’s nothing special about your guild. Your guild follows the same upgrade path as everyone else, does the same missions in the same order as everyone else, and in the end it does nothing to increase overall guild effect on the game.

stobie.2134:

Arod.3982:

Guild missions were created and aimed for large groups to do. There is plenty of content that small guilds can do already. If small guilds should be allowed to do this large group content, I should be able to solo all dungeons.

So is it fair that my 2-10 member guild be able to do this content with ease???

What does this have to do with being ‘fair?’ In what way does a small guild’s ability to start missions impact anything related to a large guild’s efforts? Are we headed back to the dismal time of gear-based posturing, of being an extra-special elite based on what you can acquire in game?

Small guilds want reasonable access to content in a game that is not raid focused, that has no real reason for huge guilds. I’m not joining a big guild. I’ve done that, hated it, & no game is worth the annoyance. I’m not interested in large scale social interaction – I prefer a close knit group. It seems I’m not alone in this. Maybe this is a personality difference – some people are by nature more private. But how this turned out to be an offense to big guilds, I don’t know. It seems to me quite the other way around.

It’s a personality type difference, and your preference is quite valid. All personality types are important, and have something to offer. It is also not wrong to want to be part of a big Guild either. It just happens that some individuals would rather not join a large Guild, and that should not only be tolerated, but respected as a personal right-it is NOT anti-social behavior to prefer a smaller, close-knit Guild at all, as it’s just a valid, personal preference which shouldn’t be punished in-game.

Let me repeat a point I made a few pages back in this thread:

With guild missions and their entry barriers, it will be next to impossible to start a new guild with any hopes of it growing beyond its founding members.

Additionally, if an existing guild (of any size) with any guild upgrades decides to switch servers, they are basically set back by months. If they already have guild mission access, they will likely never move to another server, even if they intensely dislike the crowd on their current home server.

What it comes down to is that the large guilds we have now (or that will spring into existence as a result of mergers during the next week or two) will be all the large guilds with guild mission access there will ever be.

I would have preferred new dungeons or heck make 10 man dungeons! Just anything other than this open world raid…..

Heck I would prefer if at random times within the current dungeons that the NPC guild Modus Sceleris would pop up and challenge you within the dungeon as long as your party was a full guild party and give special rewards for defeating them within a certain time frame or stopping them from reaching an important area. Something that would change up the dungeon run but the encounter would have to be completely random so you’d never know if you would run in to them during this run or the next. They need to do something with Modus Sceleris because after Halloween they’ve been pretty much forgotten about…

Oh and btw to the (fortunately few) people out there who feel the urge to “teach” us what is a guild and what isn’t, so apparently small tied together teams ain’t guilds for them cause they don’t have above 10 active players online all times, these are guilds too you like it or not. Your or mine personal ideas of what a guild should be are totally unimportant; if Anet allows people to form, name and maintain a guild with 5 people online, then that’s a guild according to what the game defines as one. The small guilds will stop being guilds and become “groups” , “teams of friends” and however else you call them when the game decides that any guild below X active members , auto-disbands.

So since they all are guilds, they all deserve equal access to guild content. The differences between a small guild and a big one should resemble the ones you meet in other mmos with guild activities ; need to pug people occasionally to complete missions opposite to not pugging, taking some time to gather influence (emphasis on some) opposite to istantly having it etc.

Guardian Of Tyria.6397:

Sowin.5187:

http://dulfy.net/2013/02/26/gw2-guild-missions-guide

Wow, it is much worse than I thought as well.

I like a challenge, long range goals, and a sense of accomplishment.

But for small guilds everything is locked for a long, if not indefinite, period of time.

The influence cost is one factor.
The fact that it is locked at all is another.
To have it structured such that you must follow a rigid upgrade path is beyond comprehension.

“This stacks so you can finish Guild Bounty right away if you have 75 × 4 + 30 = 330 k influence.”

It is waaaay worse than I thought it would be…..even for the mega guilds that have all the influence in the world it’s going to take 9 weeks (at the very least) to unlock all the guild missions….now throw in the small guilds that don’t earn a 20k influence a week and it’s going to take them infinitely longer (exaggeration) to get be able to have access to all the missions.

I was looking forward to having a guild oriented goal/mechanism in the game but now my hopes and dreams have been taken up by Anet and smashed. Guess, in order to not have to wait a year I should just lose myself in a mega guild.

Can’t wait to see how inaccessible they make actual guild halls to small guilds…..here’s a cardboard box, go live in the gutter in the shadow of the 500 member guild’s castle.

I’m in a small guild, too, so I feel your pain. But your last sentence made me chuckle.

Well here’s my point of view if anyone is interested at all, i am in a small guild of people i know. i’m not interested in getting into a guild of however man hundreds for many reasons. I love challenging content and i’m all for it but really i don’t consider grinding a challenge i consider it a chore… a challenge would be completing a dungeon in set time frame or adding new bosses that require thinking and skill to beat.

so far as i’m concerned these new “missions” need numbers to beat and w/e the rewards it enforces mob mentality. one of the biggest reasons i started a guild by myself was because i was a long time ago a new player and had no benifeits from being in a guild… a guild is not going to pop a banner because i want one… they arent going to pop +5% exp because i want it…. they will do this because the leaders want it… so i made my own guild with a few people that i could give people i knew or friends these bonuses when they asked… these guild mission banners and such just do the same thing that i disliked to begin with giving control to the leaders and letting the little peon get no control over when or how these things are used.

Problem and Solution perfectly outlined with exactly the mindset and understanding required to correctly address this issue +1 to this respectfully brilliant post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077

This is just one more slice of the player base ANet is throwing away.

People that truly hate PvP cannot complete legendaries, so they quit. (No. I don’t understand the hate for PvP as I rather enjoy it myself, but I acknowledge such people exist and that they were promised a game that was “play your way”)

People who are really into loot and shinies left after it took forever for ANet to realize and acknowledge that the Nov 15 patch really was broken. By the time ANet caught on to what players saw immediately, they’d kissed a decent number of players goodbye.

People with alts cannot go for BiS gear because of real world time limiting on rewards. This one affects me. I’m not quitting right this second, but I’m also not giving any money to ANet via the gem store which means I’m costing them money with only minimal returns based on my participation helping other people enjoy the game more, and maybe some of those people spend money.

People in small guilds have been told that such guilds are no longer legitimate. I’m in a guild with 49 members. We ignored AoW because the best buffs in WvW are tied to forts, and while we like WvW, we’re not so into forts. We’ll almost certainly be able to get bounties, but I’m not sure about anything beyond that. Not that it matters. I don’t think my guild will survive beyond the members who are friends outside the game, and even they are all set to move on if something better comes along. I can’t even recruit new players in good conscience because I cannot offer them a huge chunk of the content available.

At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me that when the scavenger hunt is released, it slices off yet another segment of the player base.

Play your way was a great idea. And the game, while not perfect, had lots of different things for lots of different play styles. Pity that doesn’t seem as important anymore.

PrimalFear.4126:

Problem and Solution perfectly outlined with exactly the mindset and understanding required to correctly address this issue +1 to this respectfully brilliant post:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077

Wow, nice. If this mindset was over at ArenaNet, we’d have a lot less “growing concerned” threads. Why are solutions like this so unattainable by developers?

Sarie.1630:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Aisina.4963:

You do not need a guild of 100 players to do this! A guild of 10-20 can do this without a hitch.

I’m curious, not trying to bash you . . . but have you done it yet yourself? If so then I can at least reassure my guild a bit.

Small guilds can grind cash and buy influence. Bargain basement prices, 50k Unlock is YOURS for only 100 G’s!

Or alternatively you can ignore the “new content”. If ArenaNet realises people just aren’t prepared to jump through those kind of hoops maybe they will adjust future updates. Maybe not though.

see, here’s the gist of it … that horrible word: grind.

thanks, but i left a game i positively enjoyed (rift) because i was flat-out sick of the grind. so. the only other alternative for me, and those like me, is to accept never doing this content? yeah, THAT’S heartening!

I love this game. (Free) and just so much fun. i seen this new content coming and was vary happy to see and couldn’t wait. (Small Guild 5People atm just friends) We don’t do PVP or WVW. just don’t care for it. but then the content comes out and i see that my small guild could never do these. i’m disapointed. i would join another guild but i was removed from a large guild cus (1. i don’t have a mic. 2.I wasn’t always active. Don’t have all day to play) so i look at this new stuff and go cool. not like i’ll ever do it. but i been enjoying this game with what it had. just wish more people would get out of Lion’s and Divinity and play in orr more. always to dead. but great content as i can see. wish i could do them but o well i’m going back to what i was doing and enjoing the rest of the game. can’t wait to read about the next stuff

Isende.2607:

Sarie.1630:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Aisina.4963:

You do not need a guild of 100 players to do this! A guild of 10-20 can do this without a hitch.

I’m curious, not trying to bash you . . . but have you done it yet yourself? If so then I can at least reassure my guild a bit.

Small guilds can grind cash and buy influence. Bargain basement prices, 50k Unlock is YOURS for only 100 G’s!

Or alternatively you can ignore the “new content”. If ArenaNet realises people just aren’t prepared to jump through those kind of hoops maybe they will adjust future updates. Maybe not though.

see, here’s the gist of it … that horrible word: grind.

thanks, but i left a game i positively enjoyed (rift) because i was flat-out sick of the grind. so. the only other alternative for me, and those like me, is to accept never doing this content? yeah, THAT’S heartening!

Well said!

So, today I first time see one of champions, maybe some guild triggered this mission, but I cant participate. First I need to find some banner, i think, in unknown location. So, Anet, do you really think THIS is for people to communicate, and peoples not from guilds will participate??? How? We dont even know where to start this event.

Funny thread. ArenaNet is asking for input but over the 5 days and 20 pages of input, there’s 1 response (there’s another one too but it’s just a quote of another post with no info).

nalenb.1425:

Funny thread. ArenaNet is asking for input but over the 5 days and 20 pages of input, there’s 1 response (there’s another one too but it’s just a quote of another post with no info).

To be fair, half this thread started after the patch went live, and their next workday started only recently. Still, I don’t expect a response today, because they will also need time to actually read the concerns presented here. And that may not even be at the top of their list.

It seems like one way to handle this is for guilds to be more inclusive. I am in a smallish guild, 30 players of which 12 max might be on at one time and usually less, but we happen to have the AoW already at level 5.

I am going to talk to the guild leader about making a Guild Bounty membership setting for temporary one time members to join us to do a guild bounty with us and then leave the guild. That way we can do the content and others can also do the content and get the bonuses without having to leave the guild they normally represent.

I would like to hear feedback on this for possible problems with it before I present it to the guild.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

Let me repeat a point I made a few pages back in this thread:
What it comes down to is that the large guilds we have now (or that will spring into existence as a result of mergers during the next week or two) will be all the large guilds with guild mission access there will ever be.

Mm, no. No, you’ll see turnover and large guilds dismantle and break up as egos clash and people get sick of leaders, and in general “why can’t I do my own thing” . . . no, you’ll get guild turnovers, just not at the same rate.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Wow, nice. If this mindset was over at ArenaNet, we’d have a lot less “growing concerned” threads. Why are solutions like this so unattainable by developers?

Because there is the very real possibility they don’t see it as wrong? Or that they have a misguided (not malevolent) view of it from being too close to it? Maybe because the last two solutions are rarely ever going to work with the players we have posting on the forums and elsewhere?

I’m fairly certain this mindset does exist over there. I’m also fairly certain they don’t entirely agree with the same perceptions or conclusions that is reached through topics like these. Doesn’t make them wrong or right, they may just not agree. Or there are other things in construction which shaped why things are done this way?

I do think this post deserves to be seen and read, it’s well-constructed and fairly reasonable. If any post should get an official response in this entire thread it is this one.

Isende.2607:

Sarie.1630:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Aisina.4963:

You do not need a guild of 100 players to do this! A guild of 10-20 can do this without a hitch.

I’m curious, not trying to bash you . . . but have you done it yet yourself? If so then I can at least reassure my guild a bit.

Small guilds can grind cash and buy influence. Bargain basement prices, 50k Unlock is YOURS for only 100 G’s!

Or alternatively you can ignore the “new content”. If ArenaNet realises people just aren’t prepared to jump through those kind of hoops maybe they will adjust future updates. Maybe not though.

see, here’s the gist of it … that horrible word: grind.

thanks, but i left a game i positively enjoyed (rift) because i was flat-out sick of the grind. so. the only other alternative for me, and those like me, is to accept never doing this content? yeah, THAT’S heartening!

Exactly.

The other thing people keep ignoring when they say “well, don’t do the content or join a big guild”, is that this is going against what Anet said they wanted for the game. They have always been very clear that they did NOT want to exclude one group of people from seeing content. This game was advertised as being an alternative to the ‘typical mmo experience’. (Many videos, adds showing this)

If you like the big guild experience all well and good. There is already content that big guilds can do (they never seem to though) and if Anet wants to add more options good. However, this patch is not adding options for all…but rather taking them away.

This clearly shows a push for making people join big guilds or not seeing the content, forcing people to play a certain way.

This is all in direct confrontation to what they claimed they wanted for the game.

What I believe is the case here is that ArenaNet mistakenly assumes that “small guilds” are guilds of 10-20 active people, and that they believe that guilds of 3-6 people do not exist.

I recall seeing a developer post (pre-patch) stating that even the Tier 1 Bounty Missions could be easily completed by “small guilds of 15 people”. Earlier today, they stated that “10 players is an ideal number for Tier 1 bounties”.
(Sorry, I have no links right now.)

I have a 50+ member guild, 20-30 people log in a day, 95% choose to represent and 150 person community to call upon for more participation. All rank 5 trees unlocked, building Art of War rank 5 currently with 6 days to go, we gain around 5,000 influence a day. At the time of the release we had about 12,000 influence in stock and I resorted to buying “Drinks are on me!” to obtain 10,000 more influence to be able to unlock Art of War rank 5, immediately.

Participation is actually up and people are talking about playing even more with each other, to gain influence faster. A Donation drive for everyone to donate some gold to the guild bank so we can buy the 30,000 influence to unlock bounties as been started. Things are working the way this system was intended, I guess.

Now with all that said and we seem to be the ideal middle ground Anet wants a guild to be. My only problem with this system is not the influence or merits or even the looming threat of large guild ciphering members one by one, as I hope the value of the friendships made far out weight any trinket.

The problem with this system is there is no way for us to do the higher level content without massive amount of players or recruiting. You may say having 20-30 people online at one time is enough people, however not every single person is going to do the exact same thing. The most people we had participate in a guild event at one time was 12 during World vs World.
The expectations Anet has for the entire guild to stop what ever they are doing and take part in a massive “search party” to me is not set in reality. Their is some fantasy world they live within the studio where all 300+ employees participate in testing a system out and think that because they could do it with every one on board to do the exact same task that the players will as well.

I heavily research, looking into other guilds to see how they do things and how they function for the purpose to make my community better. What I find is these massive 300+ guilds are largely dormant or have just as many people online at once as we do.

Anet was right to do guild missions and implement a system for guilds to participate together in. However this thread is for the concerns of the current system, it is just not sitting straight with some and the feelings we have towards it shows, something is just not right about it.

These are my opinions and my thoughts, does not make them correct or wrong, just simply expressing them like Anet wanted.

P.S.
Thank you Matipzieu KyA.9613, +1 given
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077

Leohan.1096:

The expectations Anet as for the entire guild to stop what ever they are doing and take part in a massive “search party” to me is not set in reality. Their is some fantasy world they live in int he studio where all 300+ employees participate in testing a system out and think that because they could do it with every one on board to do the exact same task that the players will as well.

No, I think their expectation is that the guild will go “Hey we’re doing a bounty in an hour, everyone ready then?” And not just pop the bounty mission on without warning.

I just want to thank to whoever is responsible for destroying our little guild,
due to a fact that our guild is made out of 4 RLs and we just reached lvl 4 in all stats.
Even if we spend all our gold on upgrades, we don`t have enough ppl to play any of guild events.

Basically, we need to join bigger guilds(even if only temporarily for events), and lets just say its impossible to get ascended gear on more then 1 character.

Thank you from bottom of my heart for showing us that this is just another grind festival game, before we lost year or more on it.

I just hope i can get some money back with selling acc with 5000points and 2 characters 35 & 30 AR.

Guild missions were my last hope for some fun in the game. Now I don’t even want to talk about them… Here goes… You killed small guilds, all small guilds, you don’t even give us rewards if we partake in another guild’s event. More so you give big guilds even more gold with free rares and shots at precursors. There is no GvG in sight in GW2 and this patch just killed any competition completely. People will just join and represent big guilds in hope for that precious event to pop up so they can get their pink earrings. This issue has been discussed ever since you announced guild missions yet as always you fail to listen your own community. I’ve been on this journey for many years now. As much as I love this game it’s hard to keep calm with the latest patch.

I forgot how annoying it is to participate on the first day of new content, getting booted every other minute. On the plus side, it took far less time to be disappointed by it, as I was looking forward to new guild stuff. I hoped to have new things to do without going to WvWvW play. Like many others here my guild is small, and without having every single member play every single day for hours, I can’t hope to be able to initiate a bounty mission until April. It’s nice to have something for which to strive, but it would’ve been nice if there was some guild goodness in the instant gratification category. Also, guild halls seem like they would be complementary with such content. It would provide a sweet place to display accomplishments, and kick back after knocking out one of these new guild majiggers. Instead, I’ll have to resign myself to entering the influence grind. I thought that you guys prided yourself on eliminating the grind from accessing gameplay content, but here we stand. This has been a huge let down.

Yalora Istairiea.6287:

Maybe the upgrades for our Guild Hall will come SOMETIME soon.

Don’t be surprised when guild halls also require massive resource investments only viable for large guilds to accumulate in a reasonable amount of time. Guild halls and player housing are, given the current trends, very likely going to be high-cost sinks for various resources and materials.

nalenb.1425:

Funny thread. ArenaNet is asking for input but over the 5 days and 20 pages of input, there’s 1 response (there’s another one too but it’s just a quote of another post with no info).

I read that as I was discussing with my guildies how we’re pretty much never going to be able to do the guild content that we’ve been so looking forward to. And I remembered what happened in mid-November.

They’re not in the habit of listening to their players. I’d be absolutely astonished if we got some sort of well-thought, intelligent response from them. I’d probably go buy a lottery ticket (or dump all my rares into the MF) if they actually admitted to making a mistake, apologized to the players, and busted their kittens to try and make it right. I just don’t believe that they care whether or not we have fun, nor do I believe that they’re interested in our inputs outside of whatever money-making formula they’ve got concocted. Why?

Here’s a thread where the community expressed overwhelming dislike for something:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thoughts-on-Ascended-Gear-Merged-threads/first

You can see how far a mega-thread of disappointment got us. You can see how much feedback and communication from ArenaNet came from that.

Wake up, ArenaNet. Get it together, and start interacting with your community. That ivory tower you guys are sitting is is going to look awfully silly when most of your players leave to go play something else.

i was very excited about this patch but after it came out, I just sighed. my guild is about 12 players (3 on a different server) and on weekends we may have 5-6 of us on at the same time. I was really looking forward to doing a puzzle with them or running around the world looking for certain places/people. But, that does not seem to be how it will be.
I am extremely bummed that we are going to have to wait (probably) a month(s) to get the influence to even start the guild missions. we are currently working to get the 20K influence needed for level 5 AofW. I am thankful that we have 5k towards that total, but to know that we will need another 30k to start the mission, then wait even longer for the build time…sigh.

I am sure that down the road, we will try to allign with another guild or two to get enough people together to do the missions, it just seems very daunting right now.
also, knowing that the puzzle mission is the last mission you can unlock and that you have to unlock them in order..well, it is disheartening.

I guess that what I will have to do, is to join a bigger guild, represent them while we do a mission or two, then represent my guild when done. as I type this, I realize that it is not that big of a deal to do that. Our newest member is in a guild of one and he does this when he is playing with one or more of us. I can do the same if I want to do some of the new content.
It’s not the solution I wanted but it is definetly a doable work-around for the time being.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The fact is for the majority to be happy with these guild missions you need 1 guild of 500 people for every 100 guilds of 5 people. I’ve talked to about half a dozen 500 member guilds and they said all their members are THRILLED with this addition of large scale content.

The real problem here is that the minimum size for a guild is much too small. There should be a 10 member minimum like in some other MMO’s. 5 people is not a guild, it is a group of friends. A guild is a group of people banding together for a common purpose and to pool resources.

The vast majority of people are in very large guilds (50+ members) and this new content is geared towards them. There is nothing stopping you from doing this content with the larger guilds and getting individual credit for it. But please stop trying to water down our first large group content that actual guilds have waited months for with some crap instant gratification version.

Such a lack of understanding and disrespect as well as a display of selfishness.
Play as you want has been abandoned by anet-simple as that and those that don’t play yours’ and anets’ way are are having a more difficult time.

birdiegirl.2463:

I guess that what I will have to do, is to join a bigger guild, represent them while we do a mission or two, then represent my guild when done. as I type this, I realize that it is not that big of a deal to do that. Our newest member is in a guild of one and he does this when he is playing with one or more of us. I can do the same if I want to do some of the new content.
It’s not the solution I wanted but it is definetly a doable work-around for the time being.

If the bigger guild will let you get away with not representing them 100% of the time, or with not being online every day, or whatever other nonsense they sometimes require for membership.
Don’t forget that guilds with guild mission access now actually have an incentive to charge membership fees from recruits who want to join just for the missions.

Mattargul.9235:

Two points:
1) complaints about this guild mission being the AoW tree
Would you have felt better if they had added a whole new tree for GMs, called it Guild Mission Tree, and made the first level, which unlocks bounties, cost 500k influence? Your problem is with the cost, not that it’s in the AoW tree. And related to this…
2) smaller guilds can’t access guild missions because of the cost
If your guild is so small that you can’t earn this much influence your guild is (likely) too small to do any of these missions. Sorry. It’s like complaining about how all dungeons have been designed for 5 players and your 2 person guild can’t do any of it.

Just not true. I have no qualms about the cost – the advantage of having little time to game is that all that other time fills up my wallet. Buying the influence is a non-issue.

The lag between now and whenever AoW gets from 0 to 5 is the issue. Which incidentally could be made a non-issue entirely by removing the merit cost. Simple fix.

It’s designed for larger groups – I’m fine with that. Forcing an enormous lag-time on my already limited gaming is the issue. An issue that seems nonsensical in a game where “play it your way” is the all-encompassing theme.

So no, my issue is NOT with cost. Thanks for trying, have a nice day.

If this continues, I’m really starting to hope that ESO gets it right.

I’m sure this has been stated in various other posts, but as I’m not digging through 20+ pages, my thoughts are thus:

The idea of guild missions is great; however tailoring them specifically for larger guilds feels like an intentional kick in the teeth to smaller guilds.

Yes, there is plenty of 5 person content in the general pve which is a barrier to larger guilds that want to do things in larger groups, I have no gripe about providing them with content such as guild missions so that larger groups CAN do things together.

However, this content should also be scalable, or have some lower tiers, as to not bar smaller guilds from being able to access it as well. As it currently stands, it pretty much says ‘small guilds need not apply’ because they don’t have the influence amassed, and the upgrades completed like a larger guild would.

Leaving the smaller guilds out is likely to cause a couple of issues –

1)disparity between player classes – the super wealthy…and everyone else

2)the death of small guilds – even with the multiguilding system, small guilds are going to start losing a lot of players to the big guilds bc their members want access to this content and as a small guild member, will have a much reduced chance of accessing it

Personally, I don’t like feeling like I’m not ‘good enough’ or that I ’don’t matter’ because I belong to a small guild.

I’ll quite myself from earlier in the thread:

It was said that for some guild mission non-guildies can participate and get a personal reward.. so.. was this a lie?

Once a bounty mission is done, can you do that tier again for those who missed it the first time or can I join in on another guilds bounty mission once they stareted engaging the mob and receive a personal reward (for that week)?

I guess it was a lie after all..

Most important thing to fix this disparity as mentioned above is:
" (Use per capita math tools that track membership.)"

Economists don’t look and say “oh the US is the strongest economy” because of it’s size, they look at per capita data where the US is not the strongest economy.

This isn’t the first time they forgot their “Economist Hats”, the creation of Ascended items threw a tremendous wrench into the economy of the game and sadly not to the benefit of ANETs stakeholders…..talk about opportunity cost lol.

Blackwolfe.5649:

I guess it was a lie after all..

Not at all. You get 2s, 500 XP and 300 Karma of personal rewards for doing them. See, you are rewarded.

@LanfearShadowflame:
You should read this post on page 14 of this thread for a very well-argued account of the (potential) problems you describe. Even if you ignore the rest of this thread, you should read this.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077

(It’s 4 posts long, with one person’s short post somewhere in the middle.)