Guild Wars 2

Kuzzi.2198:

Discussion Ending Post:

I created a guild of 5 people for the purpose of trying to understand things from the perspective of people in small guilds. We cleared our bags and began farming CoF path 1 for 2.5 hours. (We can speed clear in about 6-8 minutes, but even for newer players doing it in 15-30 minutes is fairly easy). After completing 20 runs, we exchanged tokens for ectos and sold them to the highest buy orders on the market. We then pooled our gold together and had just over 73g – enough to buy 36500 influence.

I’m not sure where people are coming up with “years”, because that is just not the case if you exchange gold for influence. After this little experiment, my conclusion is that the guilds who are complaining are just not willing to put in the effort.

Fast speed running farming is not “effort”, but a playstyle which not everyone adheres to. In short, I dare you ask ANet developers if they intended for all players to play that way, and if they even expected it-exactly, so shouldn’t you, as the way you and your friends play (which yo uare entitled to) is not representative of everybody else’s.

If I were them, I would fix any and all Dungeons where speed farming is possible, to be honest, so that you understand the “effort” that other people play the game with besides your own.

We started our guild on the first day – but I, brilliantly, spent all sorts of influence on weird things – banners & such – and of course, it never occurred to me to go in AofW, since none of us really pvp-ed much. I actually HAD gotten up to 2 or 3 when one person started doing some wvw, but there’s a long way to go.

Either way, I can do that, and I don’t really mind the wait for unlocks. (I don’t think this is the best plan, but… I can do it.) What I do mind is the shift in community, and the inability for any small guild options once we get the missions open. That’s a problem.

Star Ace.5207:

Kuzzi.2198:

Discussion Ending Post:

I created a guild of 5 people for the purpose of trying to understand things from the perspective of people in small guilds. We cleared our bags and began farming CoF path 1 for 2.5 hours. (We can speed clear in about 6-8 minutes, but even for newer players doing it in 15-30 minutes is fairly easy). After completing 20 runs, we exchanged tokens for ectos and sold them to the highest buy orders on the market. We then pooled our gold together and had just over 73g – enough to buy 36500 influence.

I’m not sure where people are coming up with “years”, because that is just not the case if you exchange gold for influence. After this little experiment, my conclusion is that the guilds who are complaining are just not willing to put in the effort.

Fast speed running farming is not “effort”, but a playstyle which not everyone adheres to. In short, I dare you ask ANet developers if they intended for all players to play that way, and if they even expected it-exactly, so shouldn’t you, as the way you and your friends play (which yo uare entitled to) is not representative of everybody else’s.

If I were them, I would fix any and all Dungeons where speed farming is possible, to be honest, so that you understand the “effort” that other people play the game with besides your own.

ef·fort
Noun
A vigorous or determined attempt.

I think going outside the box and doing something you don’t normally do (for only a couple hours) qualifies as effort.

Kuzzi.2198:

ef·fort
Noun
A vigorous or determined attempt.

I think going outside the box and doing something you don’t normally do (for only a couple hours) qualifies as effort.

And you did a good job from what I read. Here’s the thing . . .

People aren’t just getting angry over having to put forward the effort, it’s that it’s in a place they normally wouldn’t go and what can be seen as an insurmountable obstacle. It’s a big number to get, and it’s naturally difficult to see it as somewhere you’re going to get if you’re starting at 0.

This guild mission and update as definitely caused cut throat attitude towards other guilds for some. On more than one occasion in the past few days, my recruitment ads in map chat have been met with individuals who have taken it upon themselves to poke fun, laugh and discriminant at my attempts or others who choose to do so, in recruiting more people. Most commenting on my measly band of 50+ active guild members.
Then replying with a witty retort that they should join a real guild, like theirs that have 300-500 members.

I may currently have only 56 members on the roster list, but 50+ of them log into the game on a weekly basis, I don’t see why such attitudes that I am not part of a real guild or that my guild sucks compared to the others overall numbers as begun. Oh wait right, it’s now a never ending influence grind game, and if your not with us your against us, is setting in.

I never seen this in chat until the update, now the atmosphere in this game is turning into the “Guild Wars”, guild mission accomplished. Destroying the sense of community outside of ones guild, is slowly seeping into the game, everyone is the enemy unless they have the same tag.

Bounty Tier 1 really need to be unlocked on a lower tier and give access to this content for a guild that have 10 people in them, or this update is going to divide and separate a once helpful community. This update was supposed to bring people closer together it is just creating segregation and hostility towards anyone that is different.

Leohan.1096:

This guild mission and update as definitely caused cut throat attitude towards other guilds for some. On more than one occasion in the past few days, my recruitment ads in map chat have been met with individuals who have taken it upon themselves to poke fun, laugh and discriminant at my attempts or others who choose to do so, in recruiting more people. Most commenting on my measly band of 50+ active guild members.
Then replying with a witty retort that they should join a real guild, like theirs that have 300-500 members.

I may currently have only 56 members on the roster list, but 50+ of them log into the game on a weekly basis, I don’t see why such attitudes that I am not part of a real guild or that my guild sucks compared to the others overall numbers as begun. Oh wait right, it’s now a never ending influence grind game, and if your not with us your against us, is setting in.

I never seen this in chat until the update, now the atmosphere in this game is turning into the “Guild Wars”, guild mission accomplished. Destroying the sense of community outside of ones guild, is slowly seeping into the game, everyone is the enemy unless they have the same tag.

Bounty Tier 1 really need to be unlocked on a lower tier and give access to this content for a guild that have 10 people in them, or this update is going to divide and separate a once helpful community. This update was supposed to bring people closer together it is just creating segregation and hostility towards anyone that is different.

This is what many of us are afraid of. If this sort of thing keeps up, and is basically being given the OK by the Devs, the community is going to get more and more negative.

We are a 5-person guild (like Destiny’s Edge)

Do I understand it correctly that we have to spend 50,000 influence just to open up this stuff in one tree? And we can’t get the Guild Merits otherwise, so we can’t ever hope to buy anything that requires them?

50,000 influence would require about 1 year for us.

stobie.2134:

People are way too eager to tear others down (as has been evidenced here) – to insult, to degrade. I don’t really care what psychological boost they get out of denigrating others, but this mission business has made it WAY too easy.

At the risk of sounding pessimistic? It’s always been easy, all that’s needed is an excuse. This is the internet, where you can anonymously and facelessly say things you wouldn’t in real life.

Before this it was the whole Ascended/Fractals thing which is still simmering in the background. People have plenty of ammunition to get started, this is one more on a small pile of stones that can be thrown.

And also, pointing out, trying to police guilds’ behavior is not ArenaNet’s job. Trying to tell them they have to stop excluding people? Or that they need to let them in? That’s not their job and we probably shouldn’t expect them to get right on that. This rude behavior rubbing people the wrong way is one of the bad things, but it’s kind of always been there.

And it’s a reason that there will probably always be new guilds popping up to compete, when egos clash and big guilds break.

No, & I’m not saying it’s their job. But a game does set the environment, & this is a step in the wrong direction.

I’m really quite saddened by the way that the guild missions worked out. There have been many good posts analyzing the problem, and so I won’t try to rehash those. I’ll just post how I feel.

I feel like I’ve been set at a disadvantage. There are other players who will have more than I have, but not through regular gameplay. Just because they chose to be part of a larger guild.

There will always be players that have better items than I do, or more things from the Gem Store, or just get lucky on a drop. But those are as the result of playing more, having more skill, more money or being in the right place at the right time.

With this update, my guild will have a near-zero chance of ever running a guild mission unless we all focus solely on the most efficient ways to get influence. Players in a larger guild don’t have to do that – they easily get the influence simply by being a part of a larger group. We have to put more effort in the game just to maybe – maybe – get the same rewards.

I’ve been in the same guild for years, in WoW since 2006. It’s a small group of friends who don’t always have time to play, but who want to get together every once in a while to have fun. For other rewards, like Fractals and ascended items, we are definitely behind the curve. But we can do them, and we can get them eventually.

With guild missions we won’t. Anet has now put me in a hard place. I can stick with my friends who I’ve played with for years, or join a larger guild in order to actually enjoy the content released in this patch. In a game that puts so much focus on players helping other players and still being rewarded – everyone can ‘tag’ a mob for loot, join in an event and still get credit, rez each other and such. But for this update, I’m essentially being forced to turn my back on my friends and my guild if I want to take part.

All my guild members were really looking forward to this, and now we are crestfallen. In all honesty, the 3rd choice of playing another game together just became much more appealing. Maybe their developers wouldn’t so intentionally alienate small guilds.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

stobie.2134:

People are way too eager to tear others down (as has been evidenced here) – to insult, to degrade. I don’t really care what psychological boost they get out of denigrating others, but this mission business has made it WAY too easy.

At the risk of sounding pessimistic? It’s always been easy, all that’s needed is an excuse. This is the internet, where you can anonymously and facelessly say things you wouldn’t in real life.

Before this it was the whole Ascended/Fractals thing which is still simmering in the background. People have plenty of ammunition to get started, this is one more on a small pile of stones that can be thrown.

And also, pointing out, trying to police guilds’ behavior is not ArenaNet’s job. Trying to tell them they have to stop excluding people? Or that they need to let them in? That’s not their job and we probably shouldn’t expect them to get right on that. This rude behavior rubbing people the wrong way is one of the bad things, but it’s kind of always been there.

And it’s a reason that there will probably always be new guilds popping up to compete, when egos clash and big guilds break.

They ARE responsible for the tone of their game. Just as Blizzard was for theirs.

There was no reason for the nastiness, big guild ego before. They made one now and also made it easy.

Anet sets the environment for their game. It is a question of what they want it to be. Do they want it to be this vicious, competitive, WoW clone? Where the only things that matter are your “gear score” and if you are in the right “Elite” guild? Or do they want it to be what they advertised? A game all play style could enjoy.

As they themselves said “If you liked mmo’s, you’ll love us. If you hated mmo’s, you’ll love us.” This is quickly turning into a game strictly for the former…..

I logged back on the forums, simply to read the dev response. Horrified there isn’t one.

Cora.9745:

They ARE responsible for the tone of their game. Just as Blizzard was for theirs.

There was no reason for the nastiness, big guild ego before. They made one now and also made it easy.

Anet sets the environment for their game. It is a question of what they want it to be. Do they want it to be this vicious, competitive WoW, clone? Or do they want it to be what they advertised? A game all play style could enjoy.

As they themselves said “If you liked mmo’s, you’ll love us. If you hated mmo’s, you’llllove us.” This is quickly turning into a game strictly for the former…..

I said a while back I feel that this was their attempt to answer people going “there’s nothing for big/active guilds to do outside of WvW or dungeons in groups of 5”. It backfired in that now people are rushing to get to the content as fast as possible . . . to which I bet there’ll be people going “so what’s next” a month from now, having wrung this dry.

To turn the question around though . . . you’re the developer. You have the game as it is right now, and you have a problem with these large 500-person guilds acting like they’re the only important thing in the world and anyone not with them should get out of their way.

How, exactly, do you fix that?

And don’t take the easy way out and say “roll it all back / take out the guild missions”. Solve the problem as it lies.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Cora.9745:

They ARE responsible for the tone of their game. Just as Blizzard was for theirs.

There was no reason for the nastiness, big guild ego before. They made one now and also made it easy.

Anet sets the environment for their game. It is a question of what they want it to be. Do they want it to be this vicious, competitive WoW, clone? Or do they want it to be what they advertised? A game all play style could enjoy.

As they themselves said “If you liked mmo’s, you’ll love us. If you hated mmo’s, you’llllove us.” This is quickly turning into a game strictly for the former…..

I said a while back I feel that this was their attempt to answer people going “there’s nothing for big/active guilds to do outside of WvW or dungeons in groups of 5”. It backfired in that now people are rushing to get to the content as fast as possible . . . to which I bet there’ll be people going “so what’s next” a month from now, having wrung this dry.

To turn the question around though . . . you’re the developer. You have the game as it is right now, and you have a problem with these large 500-person guilds acting like they’re the only important thing in the world and anyone not with them should get out of their way.

How, exactly, do you fix that?

And don’t take the easy way out and say “roll it all back / take out the guild missions”. Solve the problem as it lies.

I am not a developer however, I would make it clear that after seeing the effects of this, admit that this does not go with the vision of what I wanted the game to be.

Instead of “rolling the patch back” there is no reason why they couldn’t “tier” the bounties. Meaning, make there be different levels that could be done with small, (if not solo) groups, and make there be others for the large ones. Just like with the events.
The same things, but tailored to the groups doing them.

It becomes a question of integrity. It goes back to what I said before. What kind of game do they want to be? Do they want to be WoW, or work on following through with their promise?

As far the solution that says “oh, you can just farm a dungeon!” I don’t want to farm a dungeon and neither does my guild. Plus, that isn’t exactly “playing your way” and larger guilds do not have to do it. Also, we don’t have enough people online at a time to farm a dungeon. So there goes that idea as it’s impossible in the first place! Small 5-person guilds do not have 5 people online at all times.

I am really looking forward to the patch that fixes this (crossing fingers there will be one).

The sad thing is I was going to start recruiting more because I heard that there will be guild missions, which then my small guild could use to its advantage to recruit because at least we could do those even if we didn’t have a fully upgraded vault and other benefits. Plus, I figured we could get the vault faster with these missions that “even small guilds could do!” But that obviously turned out to be a lie. I don’t want a massive guild, just want probably about 10 to 20 people such that guildies can do whatever they like, whenever they like because I thought that since most content can be played with 5 people, it would be nice to have 5 or so people online fairly commonly.

Now when I recruit, I’m going to have to do it subtly. If I go in map chat I may get ridiculed due to the Guild Wars. The Guild Wars were supposed to be over looooong ago.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

How, exactly, do you fix that?

And don’t take the easy way out and say “roll it all back / take out the guild missions”. Solve the problem as it lies.

Releasing a watered down bounty mission “tier 0” at AoW level 4 (or even 3), with only one bounty, reduced merit gain, drop rate and only 1 commendation would be a good start. Preferably followed by watered down versions of other missions at other level 4’s (some would be easy. “tier 0” puzzle would likely take some time).
Small guilds would have something to occupy them while waiting for the bigger missions unlocks. It would stop the perception of being gated from content (which is the main reason of hemorrhaging players to the bigger guilds). It would force big guilds to adopt again a nicer attitude, because their potential (and current) members would have other options and could simply go elsewhere.

I know what I’d do! I’d look for the simplest step I could take, without disrupting my company’s larger vision, to fix what may be an unexpectedly negative result. I’d put them on the table, so to speak, & go over potential downfalls, then implement the easiest.

I’d acknowledge that the success of a small guild has nothing to do with the satisfaction of a large guild. IOW, letting small guilds in on guild missions doesn’t hurt a large guild’s ability to entertain themselves in large mass missions.

Biggest problem – besides how hard it is to unlock the first mission, and that this first unlock is in a weird spot, is that the missions can only be accomplished by large groups. Options would help. Small guilds can’t do a raid sized mission – why not give some they can do?

Put the first unlock in one of the other categories, where the missions sound easier to accomplish. (races, puzzles, etc) Give an easier bounty that can only be done by a small group. (5 man)

This does not sound that hard to fix. Big Guilds have something to work on together – what more do they need? Why does it matter to them if small guilds get something, too?

Quite a few good solutions being suggested already!

Astralporing.1957:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

How, exactly, do you fix that?

And don’t take the easy way out and say “roll it all back / take out the guild missions”. Solve the problem as it lies.

Releasing a watered down bounty mission “tier 0” at AoW level 4 (or even 3), with only one bounty, reduced merit gain, drop rate and only 1 commendation would be a good start. Preferably followed by watered down versions of other missions at other level 4’s (some would be easy. “tier 0” puzzle would likely take some time).
Small guilds would have something to occupy them while waiting for the bigger missions unlocks. It would stop the perception of being gated from content (which is the main reason of hemorrhaging players to the bigger guilds). It would force big guilds to adopt again a nicer attitude, because their potential (and current) members would have other options and could simply go elsewhere.

I think this is a reasonable solution. I don’t think there is a need to lower the requirements for the missions because in my opinion the influence is not the problem, but making easier versions of missions for smaller guilds to be able to complete would definitely be a good thing.

At the same time, it would keep us bigger guilds happy because our content wouldn’t get easier.

Kuzzi.2198:

Astralporing.1957:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

How, exactly, do you fix that?

And don’t take the easy way out and say “roll it all back / take out the guild missions”. Solve the problem as it lies.

Releasing a watered down bounty mission “tier 0” at AoW level 4 (or even 3), with only one bounty, reduced merit gain, drop rate and only 1 commendation would be a good start. Preferably followed by watered down versions of other missions at other level 4’s (some would be easy. “tier 0” puzzle would likely take some time).
Small guilds would have something to occupy them while waiting for the bigger missions unlocks. It would stop the perception of being gated from content (which is the main reason of hemorrhaging players to the bigger guilds). It would force big guilds to adopt again a nicer attitude, because their potential (and current) members would have other options and could simply go elsewhere.

I think this is a reasonable solution. I don’t think there is a need to lower the requirements for the missions because in my opinion the influence is not the problem, but making easier versions of missions for smaller guilds to be able to complete would definitely be a good thing.

At the same time, it would keep us bigger guilds happy because our content wouldn’t get easier.

That sounds perfect, though I would prefer a mission aimed at small groups (say 5) be just as hard. I don’t think small guilds are looking for easy – just do-able.

stobie.2134:

There’s another backlash here, too, which people aren’t considering. Someone had a topic up a day or so ago about ‘why the large guild hate?’ The poster seemed genuinely confused. She seemed to love her guild, and if all large guilds were like her (ok, maybe it was a guy – not sure…) maybe people would be more favorable toward them.

I suspect that younger people will go to the big guilds faster & quicker than those who have had more experience & time in other mmos. (When I was very young woman, I accepted abusiveness a lot more than I do now – I didn’t even recognize it.) But there will be bitterness after seeing the incredible rudeness of large guilds, who now have a rather silly sense of importance. Charging to join? Daring to yell at strangers over a mission? Why give them this much power? And it may be that this stigma will cling for a very long time.

You have an excellent point stobie. At least in GW1 when they charged you to join guilds, it was because of leet PvP skillz so they had a fancy cape. It wasn’t about some nonsense of gated content, it was about skill, so no hatin’. I liked GW, I thought GW2 was a vast improvement, but I’m not sure now. I really hope they get this fixed and fast.

Honestly, at this point in time, I’m thinking I’ll refuse to play the content! Even with the large guild (70 plus) I’m friends with. I don’t want to give ArenaNet the idea that this was in any sense a good idea.

I don’t have a large guild, but if I did I wouldn’t be hatin’ on people who came into it just for the missions.

I’m rather laid back and I don’t like to complain, but this drives me up the wall, particularly as a Guild Leader (Faerie Queen!) of a Small Guild.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . you’re the developer. You have the game as it is right now, and you have a problem with these large 500-person guilds acting like they’re the only important thing in the world and anyone not with them should get out of their way.

How, exactly, do you fix that?

And don’t take the easy way out and say “roll it all back / take out the guild missions”. Solve the problem as it lies.

My (no doubt unpopular) fix #1 would be that upon completing a guild mission, the total amount of guild credits are -reduced- the more guild members there are. What!? That makes no sense!

Actually, if you think about it – it does. Bounty example: 2 outlaws on the run. 100 people chase them, they get 1 credit each on success. 1 person chases them, and somehow succeeds, he gains 10000 credits because obviously – it’s more awesome (he’s probably Batman).

Another (more unpopular) fix is that the bounty missions scale to the guild size. Regardless of how many of them are actively participating. A guild of 5 with all members participating have a better chance of success than a guild of 500 with 10 participants (quest is still scaled against 500, may not be a good idea to continously recruit then).

Those two were to try offset the income of guild credits vs influence. My next (still unpopular) fix is to negate guild credits by awarding people who don’t switch guild representation for x amount of time automatically gain them or not have the other guild missions locked with guild credits [on top of influence] to begin with.

Cora.9745:

I am not a developer however, I would make it clear that after seeing the effects of this, admit that this does not go with the vision of what I wanted the game to be.

Instead of “rolling the patch back” there is no reason why they couldn’t “tier” the bounties. Meaning, make there be different levels that could be done with small, (if not solo) groups, and make there be others for the large ones. Just like with the events.
The same things, but tailored to the groups doing them.

It becomes a question of integrity. It goes back to what I said before. What kind of game do they want to be? Do they want to be WoW, or work on following through with their promise?

I’m not interested in debating their integrity or track record right here in this topic. (Or at all really.) I’m more interested in at least getting things out here which would work, or other opinions on how this could be fixed short of “rip it out and start over”. Which is rarely a good move.

Astralporing already came up with a potential candidate, and it looks good. It about suits what I’d do.

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

. . . you’re the developer. You have the game as it is right now, and you have a problem with these large 500-person guilds acting like they’re the only important thing in the world and anyone not with them should get out of their way.

How, exactly, do you fix that?

And don’t take the easy way out and say “roll it all back / take out the guild missions”. Solve the problem as it lies.

My (no doubt unpopular) fix #1 would be that upon completing a guild mission, the total amount of guild credits are -reduced- the more guild members there are. What!? That makes no sense!

Actually, if you think about it – it does. Bounty example: 2 outlaws on the run. 100 people chase them, they get 1 credit each on success. 1 person chases them, and somehow succeeds, he gains 10000 credits because obviously – it’s more awesome (because he’s probably Batman).

Another (more unpopular) fix is that the bounty missions scale to the guild size. Regardless of how many of them are actively participating. A guild of 5 with all members participating have a better chance of success than a guild of 500 with 10 participants (quest is still scaled against 500, may not be a good idea to continously recruit then).

Those two were to try offset the income of guild credits vs influence. My next (still unpopular) fix is to negate guild credits by awarding people who don’t switch guild representation for x amount of time automatically gain them or not have the other guild missions locked with guild credits [on top of influence] to begin with.

Instead of your third, I’d start awarding Guild Credit/Merits for doing large meta events successfully with a full guild party. Still unpopular, but would permit people to skip around Bounties if they really wanted to.

All influence costs should scale to the amount of people in the guild for all upgrades. Not sure why it wasn’t like this in the first place. To prevent people from exploiting it by kicking a bunch of people right before you purchase something, just put like a 72 hour timer or something before the costs update after removing members.

@Tobias Trueflight: Your solutions would have been far better than what we have now and still would be far better. I think both groups could stomach that.
@Proximo: I entirely agree. I don’t want a super-easy path, but it’s taken forever to not get a fully updated guild vault for us. My guild was able to get everything we thought necessary in GW (vault, a couple traders) and do all the content except the Underworld. Yes, we three-manned elite areas. We’re quite happy to add 0-2 people though to do dungeons in GW2 to our “core” group, if you will.
@Kuzzi: I do agree, that is a good compromise.

And now I totally want Guild Halls and alliances! I miss those soooo much from GW.

Proximo.1290:

All influence costs should scale to the amount of people in the guild for all upgrades. Not sure why it wasn’t like this in the first place. To prevent people from exploiting it by kicking a bunch of people right before you purchase something, just put like a 72 hour timer or something before the costs update after removing members.

It’s very easily gamed for the people who would game it. Build a small guild (absolute minimum) to farm Influence or even just purchase through already-owned Gold. Upgrade (fully) on the cheap, then advertise a fully upgraded guild or have your buddies jump ship from other guilds they were in.

In my opinion a simple (from a gamer’s point of view) solution to the entire “small guilds can’t do these things” would be to simply make Tier 1 Guild Missions very easy to unlock and make it so that everyone that helps out with completing the guild mission (ie. attacking the bounty target) regardless of whether they are part of the guild that started the event or not would get the item, guild commendation and gold rewards (with a weekly limit so “only” one reward per week regardless of how many times you helped with a mission).

In addition to that, in order for there to still be something for big guilds to chase Tier 2 and Tier 3 should be difficult to unlock but would give more rewards (possibly even more merit points than they currently give) but nothing too significant.

This way a) small guilds could help out each other to complete tier 1 missions b) nobody would be left out from the basic missions regardless of the size of the guild they are in c) big guilds would still get more benefits with the buffs and stuff that require merits and d) a lot of people would be happy because this’d support cooperation without making people to jump into very large guilds regardless of how they’d want to play.

There’s nothing wrong with large guilds and giving benefits for them but I’d hope that small guilds could still at least try the content. Surely a 20-man guild can’t complete a tier 3 bounty hunt by themselves (alliances would be awesome) but if they could at least try the easiest tier it’d be great.

Kuzzi.2198:

Star Ace.5207:

Kuzzi.2198:

Discussion Ending Post:

I created a guild of 5 people for the purpose of trying to understand things from the perspective of people in small guilds. We cleared our bags and began farming CoF path 1 for 2.5 hours. (We can speed clear in about 6-8 minutes, but even for newer players doing it in 15-30 minutes is fairly easy). After completing 20 runs, we exchanged tokens for ectos and sold them to the highest buy orders on the market. We then pooled our gold together and had just over 73g – enough to buy 36500 influence.

I’m not sure where people are coming up with “years”, because that is just not the case if you exchange gold for influence. After this little experiment, my conclusion is that the guilds who are complaining are just not willing to put in the effort.

Fast speed running farming is not “effort”, but a playstyle which not everyone adheres to. In short, I dare you ask ANet developers if they intended for all players to play that way, and if they even expected it-exactly, so shouldn’t you, as the way you and your friends play (which yo uare entitled to) is not representative of everybody else’s.

If I were them, I would fix any and all Dungeons where speed farming is possible, to be honest, so that you understand the “effort” that other people play the game with besides your own.

ef·fort
Noun
A vigorous or determined attempt.

I think going outside the box and doing something you don’t normally do (for only a couple hours) qualifies as effort.

I play the game vigorously and with determination-that doesn’t mean I have to do “effective” CoF speed runs. It’s your sort of effort, but not my own, which is what I meant. Anyone else that doesn’t adhere to your playstyle doesn’t mean they aren’t being dedicated enough.

In short, your test was invalid, beause people are not you and your friends.

Lorelei.7809:

@Tobias Trueflight: Your solutions would have been far better than what we have now and still would be far better. I think both groups could stomach that.
@Proximo: I entirely agree. I don’t want a super-easy path, but it’s taken forever to not get a fully updated guild vault for us. My guild was able to get everything we thought necessary in GW (vault, a couple traders) and do all the content except the Underworld.
@Kuzzi: I do agree, that is a good compromise.

And now I totally want Guild Halls and alliances! I miss those soooo much from GW.

Solutions? I only offered one so far. Mostly because I would have built this whole thing differently. I would have stuck the basic Bounties on Art of War 2 (and probably not have adjusted the cost too much), Trek on Economy 2, and Challenge on Architecture 2.

Then I’d have put in five tiers, at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Each tier requires Merits but also a successful completion at a lower tier. The higher you go, the tougher the challenge and the better the rewards.

For Bounties, Change the flat 15 minute limit to 15 minutes at basic (one Champion target) and add 5 minutes and one target as you go up. Let anyone who participates who has a guild get the option of standard DE loot or one (1) Commendation per tier of difficulty. You can only take one Commendation this way in a day. I don’t know anything about the others, but if they’re open like Bounties, same idea.

As for Guild Halls? Architecture 6, and you need to have completed one of each of the Guild Missions to get your word out. Your Hall is more opulent the more people you have when you buy it (but you can upgrade with Influence through an Architect at the hall) but functionally the same. You can guest people into your Hall to show off your trophies.

Trophies? Sure. If you complete a Guild Mission you can show a banner in your hall for that mission which will have a description of what you did. If you finish a dungeon with a full guild group, you can earn a trophy of some sort to show off, which can be more impressive as you complete the other paths.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Proximo.1290:

All influence costs should scale to the amount of people in the guild for all upgrades. Not sure why it wasn’t like this in the first place. To prevent people from exploiting it by kicking a bunch of people right before you purchase something, just put like a 72 hour timer or something before the costs update after removing members.

It’s very easily gamed for the people who would game it. Build a small guild (absolute minimum) to farm Influence or even just purchase through already-owned Gold. Upgrade (fully) on the cheap, then advertise a fully upgraded guild or have your buddies jump ship from other guilds they were in.

I guess I’m not really seeing the problem. If people don’t want to be in the guild they’re in they shouldn’t have to be stuck there just because of the upgrades. Also it would still take time to fully upgrade due to build queues.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Instead of your third, I’d start awarding Guild Credit/Merits for doing large meta events successfully with a full guild party. Still unpopular, but would permit people to skip around Bounties if they really wanted to.

Hey, now that’s a good idea. Beginning to wonder if any of these posts are even being read though (by Anet). >.<

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Instead of your third, I’d start awarding Guild Credit/Merits for doing large meta events successfully with a full guild party. Still unpopular, but would permit people to skip around Bounties if they really wanted to.

Hey, now that’s a good idea. Beginning to wonder if any of these posts are even being read though (by Anet). >.<

They are, I’m relatively certain given some of the activity around here . . . but nobody’s saying anything yet.

I’d just like someone to tell me AN’s reasoning behind making us wait three days to unlock the quests, without me having to read this whole bloated thread. Because none of the reasons I can think of make much sense to me. I was thinking at first that maybe it was to give smaller guilds a chance to get their art of war ranking up or something, but realistically how much could they accomplish in three days? So the whole thing just seems like a big tease to me. If they wanted to make us wait three more days, why not just wait three more days to put the patch out? If they weren’t sure it was all ready for prime time, that would have been the best way to go about it. Anyway, I’m not crying about it, I’m just genuinely curious. Can someone point me to a AN post that gives an official explanation for it?

After reading through this thread once again all I get from it is that the commentors in large guilds also seem to be rather large kittens. This makes me even less likely to join a large guild.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

@Tobias Trueflight: Your solutions would have been far better than what we have now and still would be far better. I think both groups could stomach that.
@Proximo: I entirely agree. I don’t want a super-easy path, but it’s taken forever to not get a fully updated guild vault for us. My guild was able to get everything we thought necessary in GW (vault, a couple traders) and do all the content except the Underworld.
@Kuzzi: I do agree, that is a good compromise.

And now I totally want Guild Halls and alliances! I miss those soooo much from GW.

Solutions? I only offered one so far. Mostly because I would have built this whole thing differently. I would have stuck the basic Bounties on Art of War 2 (and probably not have adjusted the cost too much), Trek on Economy 2, and Challenge on Architecture 2.

Then I’d have put in five tiers, at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Each tier requires Merits but also a successful completion at a lower tier. The higher you go, the tougher the challenge and the better the rewards.

For Bounties, Change the flat 15 minute limit to 15 minutes at basic (one Champion target) and add 5 minutes and one target as you go up. Let anyone who participates who has a guild get the option of standard DE loot or one (1) Commendation per tier of difficulty. You can only take one Commendation this way in a day. I don’t know anything about the others, but if they’re open like Bounties, same idea.

As for Guild Halls? Architecture 6, and you need to have completed one of each of the Guild Missions to get your word out. Your Hall is more opulent the more people you have when you buy it (but you can upgrade with Influence through an Architect at the hall) but functionally the same. You can guest people into your Hall to show off your trophies.

Trophies? Sure. If you complete a Guild Mission you can show a banner in your hall for that mission which will have a description of what you did. If you finish a dungeon with a full guild group, you can earn a trophy of some sort to show off, which can be more impressive as you complete the other paths.

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Ghanto.9784:

I’d just like someone to tell me AN’s reasoning behind making us wait three days to unlock the quests, without me having to read this whole bloated thread. Because none of the reasons I can think of make much sense to me. I was thinking at first that maybe it was to give smaller guilds a chance to get their art of war ranking up or something, but realistically how much could they accomplish in three days? So the whole thing just seems like a big tease to me. If they wanted to make us wait three more days, why not just wait three more days to put the patch out? If they weren’t sure it was all ready for prime time, that would have been the best way to go about it. Anyway, I’m not crying about it, I’m just genuinely curious. Can someone point me to a AN post that gives an official explanation for it?

Afaik, there is no such post. However, some in this thread are already reporting about doing bounties. I believe it is possible to speed up the “research” process by spending even more influence. My guild leader in chat said something like, “75K influence for a 25% increase in research speed, not worth it.”

Spekingur.1062:

After reading through this thread once again all I get from it is that the commentors in large guilds also seem to be rather large kittens. This makes me even less likely to join a large guild.

There has been a tendency to reinforce my worst held suspicions, & perpetuate a stereotype that doesn’t exactly engender sympathy.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Possibly, but it’s also possible that they can do something similar and/or be inspired by your ideas. I don’t think there’s any reason they can’t use at least a similar idea from yours, if not the same.

Lorelei.7809:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Lorelei.7809:

Pardon me (I was referencing your unpopular ideas)! Your ideas sound fantastic. This certainly sounds like a way for any guild of any size to be proud of their accomplishments and reasonably attain them.

There’s just one hitch. Since I laid this out, there’s probably a high chance ArenaNet can’t use it.

Possibly, but it’s also possible that they can do something similar and/or be inspired by your ideas. I don’t think there’s any reason they can’t use at least a similar idea from yours, if not the same.

I should explain.

Writers are usually highly discouraged from listening to a fan who has “this idea for a character” or reading fanfiction (even if it’s really good) because you run into a very real legal matter over where the material originated. I don’t know if it falls under “plagiarism” specifically, but you can get in a lot of trouble for even subconsciously winding up using someone else’s idea in your material.

I’d put Gold down that there’s similar provisions in software/game design preventing them from directly taking or in other ways apparently modifying, something submitted as an unsolicited idea.

One really easy fix would be to allow us to open any of the categories – not just Art of War. The races sound pretty reasonable, for instance. I don’t expect them to design new content & I’d assume that scaling content isn’t just a flip of the switch, but opening up the other categories might be easy. (unless they’re not ready yet, hence the Art of War first decision – in which case, I wish they’d just say that’s it)

Formal Guild Alliances probably need a lot of work (though it seems like they could model it on whatever existed in GW1) Just for an easy fix, either let people open other categories, pop in an easier mission (which risks being exploited by larger guilds, I suppose – unless it’s rewards for, say, 5 people only), or at the very least, drop the ‘research unlock’ from A of W & let us get to work negotiating with guilds that aren’t completely obnoxious. That said, I’m not looking forward to that. Seeing guilds trying to recruit now is painful – people are being such twits. It’s like they opened a floodgate which let latent Twitdom explode.

Korrigan.4837:

Mungrul raised a good point.

As a leader, if someone joins my guild just to get to participate in the guild events but doesn’t represent the guild to earn the influence required to start those events, he will get in trouble and will most likely get the boot if he doesn’t change is behavior.

I have a word for that kind of behavior – it’s called a “leech”. And I don’t like leeches. Want to benefit from the size of my guild? You better also participate in building it.

The multi guild system just failed.

ArenaNet, perhaps it’s time to look at an alliance system. And allowing an alliance to launch guild events…somehow.

Korrigan, I hope that was hyperbole and that you actually value individual players and the community more than this statement says if taken literally.

bewhatever.2390:

Korrigan.4837:

Mungrul raised a good point.

As a leader, if someone joins my guild just to get to participate in the guild events but doesn’t represent the guild to earn the influence required to start those events, he will get in trouble and will most likely get the boot if he doesn’t change is behavior.

I have a word for that kind of behavior – it’s called a “leech”. And I don’t like leeches. Want to benefit from the size of my guild? You better also participate in building it.

The multi guild system just failed.

ArenaNet, perhaps it’s time to look at an alliance system. And allowing an alliance to launch guild events…somehow.

Korrigan, I hope that was hyperbole and that you actually value individual players and the community more than this statement says if taken literally.

I’m not sure I think it has failed. It could certainly use some tweaking though.

The alliance system would certainly help with some of the issues and would make it more interesting.

There have been quite a few good suggestions made here. Hopefully Anet would be willing to hear some of them.

In GW, the alliance system was such:
a) Alliance Chat. Possibly the best feature.
b) There was an Alliance Leader Guild
c) That guild chose the Faction you aligned yourself with and gained (effectively influence, then known as) Faction for.
d) There was an Alliance Faction total, along with individual guilds’ faction totals.
e) You could hop to any Guild Hall in the Alliance (which was useful if one Guild was more updated than another).
f) The leading Guild could kick Guilds from its Alliance.
g) The leading Guild would have to pay to invite other Guilds to its Alliance
h) Other guilds in the Alliance had to align themselves with the same Faction as your Guild. This is probably the feature that was the worst. Honestly having two Factions and splitting the guilds between them was rather annoying and I know ArenaNet didn’t like that aspect of GW. But now there aren’t factions to align yourself with, so that problem is impossible to have.
i) You could have 10 guilds/alliance.
j) Donating Faction to the alliance helped the player’s Allegiance Rank (a title to do with the two factions in GW).

So you know, I was my tiny alliance’s leader. My current guild’s name actually comes from our old alliance.

I would love most of these features including the total faction/influence thing. This could also help such that one guild could go for one type of guild mission and another could go for a different type and both would benefit from the content of the other’s. So long as they don’t require them to be obtained in order. I really really miss alliances. Then you wouldn’t have to stop representing your guild to talk to other guilds that you’re close with. Multi-guilding doesn’t quite cut it in that sense. I’d also be happier to not represent my guild and be able to speak to it in Alliance chat if I wanted to.

Edit: Alliance members could also participate in your Guild’s GvG to help out smaller guilds.

With their attitudes towards guilds now, it almost seems like a different company :/

That sounds fun! Except I’d want a Quaggan Alliance, with homage paid at least monthly to the Quaggan (being a symbol of all that is good & round & mostly blue) People would have to sign allegiance to the Quaggan, sworn on as defenders.

Weren’t guilds in some other mmo based on race? LOTRO, maybe? (like you’d be a Hobbit themed guild) That would be easy enough here.

I’d be happy with just a loose Alliance, under some shared banner of theme & intent, though. Anything is better than having a few huge guilds dominating each server, allowed into content no one else sees, & harassing others in map chat. That’s… so not good.

Just did a couple guild missions today. The objectives are buried way, way too deep within menus. I have to open the guild tab, then click the upgrades tab, then click the missions tab? What? I really feel like this critical information should be readily available to anybody participating. As in, up in the top right corner of your screen. How you decide whether somebody is participating or not is up to you guys.

Vargs.6234:

Just did a couple guild missions today. The objectives are buried way, way too deep within menus. I have to open the guild tab, then click the upgrades tab, then click the missions tab? What? I really feel like this critical information should be readily available to anybody participating. As in, up in the top right corner of your screen. How you decide whether somebody is participating or not is up to you guys.

I’m going to thumbs-up your post because you’re pointing out a very real interface issue.

Korrigan.4837:

Mungrul raised a good point.

As a leader, if someone joins my guild just to get to participate in the guild events but doesn’t represent the guild to earn the influence required to start those events, he will get in trouble and will most likely get the boot if he doesn’t change is behavior.

I have a word for that kind of behavior – it’s called a “leech”. And I don’t like leeches. Want to benefit from the size of my guild? You better also participate in building it.

this is where the problem comes in.

one of the things we small guilds are hearing, shouted over and over, is “well, you can join a larger guild for the missions, then represent your guild again when it’s done.”

i see two problems with this approach:

1) as you said, korrigan, you consider that leeching. understandably so!
2) if i’m representing your guild, i’m NOT contributing influence to MY guild, which i’m attempting to help grow and build up influence.

given these two problems — yet again, small guilds are left with the dilemma — leave my small, homey guild and become “absorbed” by a larger, more impersonal guild solely for the sake of doing these bloody kitten missions, or stay in my guild, with my friends, and hope that there are more like-minded folk out there … and slowly build ourselves toward what you currently enjoy.

when it was just buffs? we didn’t mind only activating them on weekends. now that it’s missions? puhleeze. we wanted these missions. we were excited for them. we do things,regularly, as a guild. and now we get to sit back and wait … oh, six months?

oh, wait, i almost forgot! we can GRIND. or we can BUY GEMS.

right. that’s happening quickly — hold your breath!

Palinore.9204:

Out of all the years I’ve played mmos. This game has brought out some of the worst complainers I have ever seen. I don’t think Anet needs to change. It’s your attitudes. Look at how a game makes you talk to others and how serious some of you sound. I have taken it upon myself to give Anet tons of money to code in tampons to the gem store for you guys. Your welcome.

Eh, I don’t see anything wrong with my attitude, or the fact that I can approach this seriously . . . or not seriously . . . as I see fit. While it’s true there are complaints which don’t have anything to fix (“This sucks and I hate it”) I also see plenty which are well reasoned, well written and worth thinking on even if you don’t agree with their point.

I do agree the attitudes need to be dialed back just a bit so it can come down from 11 for some people.