Guild Wars 2

It is my impression that Guild Missions, particulary Bounty and Puzzle, and to a degree Trek, were designed to be done with the aid of a resource like Dulfy.

Can you imagine trying to find bounties without the map of their pathways, and without being told the strategy to beat them? How much time would be left to fight them?

Can you imagine trying a puzzle for the first time, with the ungenerous time given, for everyone to orient themselves, speak to the NPCs, look around trying to figure out the puzzle, and administrating who should do what to continue? Finding the traps, the keys, the consequences and learning from them takes time. Dulfy’s guide does that for us all.

Some of the Treks are anyone’s guess as to what the picture indicates. This is a pretty simple mission with dulfy.net, but without it, it would be frequently failed.

The only reasoning that makes sense to me is that ArenaNet either created missions expecting us all to watch videos and check maps before trying them for the first time. That or they want us to fail several times before being able to complete anything, although they’d have to expect dulfy.net to do what it does.

What do you think of that aspect of their design?

I’d personally like to have figured some of this out on my own, especially puzzles. I didn’t even get a chance to take in the visuals of the puzzle, let alone enjoy it. It’s like we had to choose between success or preserving the magic of new content. Some bounties I’d like to have a “dry run” of to test strategies, but there’s no time to do that, and it’s too much of an expense in time for most players to fail missions just to do learning.

I both agree and disagree with the above- guides like Dulfy’s enable a guild to remove the ‘trial and error’ phase of the guild missions but do not entirely mean that these guild missions are designed with guides in mind.

Take Guild Bounty for example- a guild would remember the location(map) of each target and write it down if the guide wasnt there. My guild dont really pay attention much to routes as we have at least one party per two maps searching before the mission is started and only start when 90% are already found. Some check routes, I personally dont and usually still find the target within 10mins.

Guild Trek is made much easier with the guide but again if the guide wasnt there then we would take screenshots ourselves with the locations or just remember them.

Guild Rush we went into completely blind and have still completed two within the time limit (only unlocked last week).

The guides are a huge help but theyre not necessary to complete the missions.

I do agree that I would love to be able to discover this content, and any content for that matter, on my own (I don’t mean solo, but I mean without an external aid).

I also agree that it is near-impossible without a guide. Even if you fail a dozen or so attempts at first, the only way you will be able to do future missions is if you create your own guide. Dulfy helps with this because not everyone has the time/resources/player network to be able to do this without great frustration, or even giving up.

Regardless of the difficulty of a new challenge, there will always be people that want instant gratification and do not want to experience the content themselves. So they will turn to guides, no matter how simple. A perfect example is initiating living story: you are given mail, world event text, heralds, and news announcements to make it possible to find it on your own, however some people will always stand in town asking for the answer, or look online before ever even trying. Unfortunately for us, it seems that ANet believes it is a good idea to try and force a challenge on those who are not willing to take the challenge. What I mean by this is that it seems they are putting so much detail/difficulty into guild missions that the regular ‘instant-gratification players’ can’t be bothered to give it their time. I like this because I don’t like to bother with those types of players, however it ends up turning me into one of them for the purpose of these missions, which ruins the experience for myself. IMO it would be better to make moderately difficult content that people could experience if they want, rather than making incredibly difficult content that ultimately requires the use of a guide. It seems that the increased difficulty is only there to overwhelm the ‘instant-gratification players’ that are already overwhelmed by any kind of challenge. And of course the end result is that you scare people away from your content in general, because anyone wanting to have a natural feeling game experience will be frustrated beyond belief.

I was looking forward to guild missions, however I do not enjoy them because I always have to open a guide and it makes me feel like I’m just working off a checklist rather than actively experiencing content.

Guild Rush is the only one I think is designed with appropriate difficulty. You get ample time to find the location, and then you don’t need a guide to complete the mission itself. Yet the mission does require timing, skill, and coordination. It doesn’t feel trivial nor overwhelming.

Some challenges and puzzles are also decent, however I haven’t done enough of them to make a good conclusion. Definitely though the bounties and treks, as well as some of the puzzles and challenges are overly difficult (here’s looking at you Langmar Estate).

I believe Anet knows someone would eventually make a guide and considered this when designing the guild missions. Its up to the players if they want to try it without a guide.

the previous people plant the trees so the current people can enjoy the shade.

it is just that simple.

I could not imagine doing any of the missions without that guide. It can already be difficult enough tracking down the bounties even when knowing their patrol path and, like as has been mentioned, the guild trek hints are way too obscure for the average player and I imagine even seasoned ones.

I agee its virtually impossible without a guide yet the devs have stated that they were designed to be completed without such aids

Well, this is more of a problem with gaming generations than anything else. Anyone who played RPGs back in the day, before hint books and internet walk throughs, people who played Ultima 4 for example, will remember a completely different RPG experience than you get today.

In Guild Wars 2, in personal stories, my wife and I chuckle at these giant green arrows telling us where to go. In Ultima 4 they’d tell you that a guy lived in the northwest mountains and you had to find him. There was no star over his head. THere was no map. There were no arrows. You had to explore. And when you found him, as often as not he’d tell you that he didn’t have what you wanted and you’d have to find someone else.

The way games are played today, as opposed to back then, is partially down to the fact that there are so many games. Back then you bought a game and you played the game for months, not days or hours. Even non-MMORPGs. Games didn’t come out as fast an we didn’t have the same selection. You’d be waiting for the next game to come out all the time…and often that was a year away.

Today there’s a lot of competition. No one in the early days could play multiple MMOs because to get anywhere took TIME. Today, with many games competing, people jumping from game to game, most people won’t have the “game loyalty” to stick with a game and not play all others. That’s why the non-sub model is so much more popular than the subscription model of MMOs. No one wants to pay 3 or 4 subs. And people don’t want to not play other games.

So for stuff like Guild Missions, you end up using a guide instead of doing what we did in the old days. Banging our head against the wall and failing until we figured it out. Because we did you know. We played the games, we failed over and over again, we got lost and couldn’t find stuff, sometimes for weeks, until we finally solved it.

With the internet that can’t happen today, so everything has to be made with the fact that the internet is a reality.

It’s the same thing with people saying that they finish the new content in 45 minutes. If you don’t look at Dulfy and you work it out it’s a least a day or two. Maybe more depending on how much time you have to play.

Dulfy has the potential to ruin games for a lot of players. Mostly, I don’t use Dulfy at all.

Clark Skinner.4902:

It is my impression that Guild Missions, particulary Bounty and Puzzle, and to a degree Trek, were designed to be done with the aid of a resource like Dulfy.

That’s like saying raids in WoW are meant to be done without Tankspot. Game designers have to take into account guides and online resources, and make the content challenging even when players are told what to do and what not to do.

morrolan.9608:

I agee its virtually impossible without a guide yet the devs have stated that they were designed to be completed without such aids

hint hint the guide was put together by multiple guilds doing it on their first time. The mission had to be completed before they would post a guide on it.

It’s just a matter of crowd sourcing the experiences instead of figuring it out by yourself.

declan.3968:

morrolan.9608:

I agee its virtually impossible without a guide yet the devs have stated that they were designed to be completed without such aids

hint hint the guide was put together by multiple guilds doing it on their first time. The mission had to be completed before they would post a guide on it.

The paths can be documented without doing the missions.

declan.3968:

morrolan.9608:

I agee its virtually impossible without a guide yet the devs have stated that they were designed to be completed without such aids

hint hint the guide was put together by multiple guilds doing it on their first time. The mission had to be completed before they would post a guide on it.

It’s just a matter of crowd sourcing the experiences instead of figuring it out by yourself.

^^^
Just look at the comment section at the bottom of the guide:

http://dulfy.net/2013/02/27/gw2-guild-bounty-guide/

You can see that Dulfy was not given an answer key, that many people contributed to the knowledge base (just like the Wiki). So it definitely IS possible for guilds to figure these out, it is your guild’s choice whether to use the guide or to figure it out for yourself.

You’re supposed to fail guild missions the first time and without guides. That’s the whole point. You don’t go into a WOW raid and expect to down every boss on the first try; you shouldn’t expect that for guild missions, either.

The fact the challenge is so easily negated by zergs and guides means scaling and difficulty need serious work. Guild missions are too easy right now.

I don’t think you were meant to beat them on the first try. These are the top challenges for the game right now, they should involve a few fails before your first success as a guild.

This is why they brought out two of the newer bounty targets: the rat guy and the tree guy. You can’t just follow a path and find the single NPC on the map, you have to keep checking rats and trees randomly spread out across the entire map to find them. For the others, they ARE so easy to find, assuming you have enough players to search the map, that your really don’t need to know the path. Especially since some guilds track them down in advance.

Rush guides can help a bit, but it really comes down to doing it. Same with Challenge: all the guide does is explain your objective and mechanics better than the in-game hint; how you actually achieve it within your guild is a matter of organisation and skill. I think Puzzle is most comparable to WoW raids: there’s a set sequence of events and ways to do things, which you kinda have to follow to succeed. And then you have to be able to actually do those things successfully.

As for Trek, there are lower tiers. I doubt it’s even possible to fail a T1 Trek, even without a guide. For a T3, unless you have a seriously massive guild, it’d be a lot harder with no guide. And of course there are Trek locations inside jumping puzzles, so you sometimes do require some skill. Also note the rewards: Trek gives no commendations and the least merits, even for a T3, while Challenge and Puzzle, that require organisation and skill, give the most. I think the balance is fine.

Haven’t unlocked puzzles yet. They are timed too? Sigh. Was hoping we’d get to enjoy cracking them out but if it’s a time rush, meh.

Funnily enough, ‘Guild Rush’ is the most trial-and-error friendly mission with more than enough time. Haven’t used a guide on any course and enjoyed all of them.

They are supposed to be hard. it is a guild effort.
If it were easy it would be boring.

It is natural that you fail the first time. You are learning how things work -_-

I dont know hwat your problem is. They give a lot of hints everywhere

- Bounty Hunt: They tell you were the enemy is. You just have to look around. Spread out.

- Picture Search: They give you Picture of the location. You just have to find where it is. It is a group effort. However, if you dont care for the world you play in, it is your loss. Open your eyes, the places are beautiful (also, names give a lot away)

- Race to the finish: Very easy. They tell you the location and you have 5 hours to find it… then 20 minutes to finikitten. Enough time to scout the area, kill enemies and give orders on who does what.

- Defence or offence mission: Depends, this is actually hard, but you dont really need a guide.

- Guild Puzzle.. i dont know. We do it this sunday for the first time. However, we know the location. ut i guess, sticking together and help each other will work again here.

Btw. we are a small guild. If we tackle these missions we are about 12 people at most, which we split in three groups and up till now we were highly successfull. (aside from the defending mission. we need to work on that)

A lot of the guild missions can be made easier by just using more people. If you’re using 5 people then you might need online aids. If you’re using 20 people you might not.

Dulfy is in my guild and I remember when we first had guild treks come out. Going around the world trying to find those spots was pretty fun (since you had so many places to search and subtle clues to examine.) We all split up into groups to find the places and forward our SS to her. Good times. I don’t think anyone else will get that experience again since the guide is right there.

I did GMs without any guide in my guild, after having fun we tried Dulfy’s guide to speed things up.

Lopez.7369:

You’re supposed to fail guild missions the first time and without guides. That’s the whole point. You don’t go into a WOW raid and expect to down every boss on the first try; you shouldn’t expect that for guild missions, either.

The fact the challenge is so easily negated by zergs and guides means scaling and difficulty need serious work. Guild missions are too easy right now.

I don’t think arena net knows how to make content difficult.

I am curious: How do individuals such as dulfy get their information/strategies/maps/locations/etc ? Unless shes got the inside scoop with Anet, she/her guild does these on their own and gets community feedback/help. She is not Viki from iRobot that has all of this information.

cesmode.4257:

I am curious: How do individuals such as dulfy get their information/strategies/maps/locations/etc ? Unless shes got the inside scoop with Anet, she/her guild does these on their own and gets community feedback/help. She is not Viki from iRobot that has all of this information.

We help her. When guild missions were new we’d constantly run missions with her and when appropriate email pics such as guild trek.

cesmode.4257:

I am curious: How do individuals such as dulfy get their information/strategies/maps/locations/etc ? Unless shes got the inside scoop with Anet, she/her guild does these on their own and gets community feedback/help. She is not Viki from iRobot that has all of this information.

She has lots of help from players. She was actually on yak’s bend’s Lions Arch sometime ago asking if anyone had gotten some of the molten weapon skins yet (I think it was dagger and axe, don’t remember) when they were newly introduced because still was missiong screenshots from those.

Trek and Bounty would be difficult, but we did both puzzles without referring to dulfy.

The trickiest bit was probably the curtains.

Not only can I imagine it…..

Funny though, I’d say Treks lend themselves to employing Dulfy way more than any other type. I mean those screenshots are super tiny!!

I’ve no problem running challenging content like dungeons blind, but the minute I waste several weeks unlocking the priveledge to run this content, I kitten well better succeed. And I’ll use every resource to do that.

That’s what the training missions are for, you have a long time to find them and beat them.

If you’ve done enough training missions it’s not so required.

Either way their is a /wiki command ingame, to external stuff does seem to be a design decision.

Guild Missions are garbage an the worst thing added to the game to date. They are only doable with large guilds that have 50+players on at that time who all have 80’s an a large part of the world map done. Its the death of small guilds the end of ‘fun with guild members’. My guild of 120 players have given up on them, we only have 10-20 on at one time an half of those dont have a 80. Hell we lost 10-20 members when we failed the guild bounty mission for the second time.

Discovering things that have been discovered by other people first is redundant.

In and of themselves, the missions don’t seem too bad. My guild has only done bounty and trek, though. The real problem is the time limit. Why do we only get fifteen minutes to hunt two bounties? This necessitates either dedicated researchers in your guild to figure everything out beforehand or an online guide in order to have any chance of finishing on time.

Both of these options are not ideal. I do not think Anet intended the dedicated research route. Can you expect each guild to independently do the legwork for all bounties if somebody else already made a guide? Even if you do, how do you even know who to look for? Does it really even make sense to look for your bounties before you know that they are bounties (i.e., before starting the mission)?

That leaves guide as the only feasible way. We already knew this; that’s why we have this topic. I think it’s a problem. If the time limit were removed, which I’d like to see, then guilds would have the time to actually just use the in-game hints to find the specific bounties they’ve been assigned.

It is a bit disappointing to hear that guild puzzle has a time limit.

I have to fully disagree. Our guild now uses dulfy for convenience reasons and because it allows us to finish all guild missions rather quickly in one setting and evening – but we did all the missions without a guide before. It takes longer, yes. Sometimes it makes you fail, yes. But that makes it a challenge and certainly not impossible.

I personally NEVER open the guide while I do it, because it makes it boring as heck. I find my bounties without it, I do the trek picture that I actually recognize, I follow common sense in guild rushes and puzzles, I read the little instructions the description in the top right corner gives me and use that instead. It’s really not THAT hard. It’s harder, but thank god for that. If I were to just follow the guide, I’d be bored out of my mind.

Clark Skinner.4902:

Can you imagine trying to find bounties without the map of their pathways, and without being told the strategy to beat them? How much time would be left to fight them?

Spoken like a true casual.

It turns out that you can comb the map quite effectively with minimal organisation and planning.

All those guides pretty much ruin the community.

Xapheus.1235:

…
Both of these options are not ideal. I do not think Anet intended the dedicated research route. Can you expect each guild to independently do the legwork for all bounties if somebody else already made a guide? Even if you do, how do you even know who to look for? Does it really even make sense to look for your bounties before you know that they are bounties (i.e., before starting the mission)?…

Actually that’s what the guild I’m on does for the bounty, we gather everyone on mumble, then each person goes to a different area and start looking for the bounty there, once we have them (or most) located, we divide into 2 or 3 groups (depending on the bounty tier) and kick it off, each group gets assigned one target, whoever had eyes on that target switches to the group that got it, and calls off the waypoint nearest to where he is. If there’s anyone with the commander icon available, then he/show groups with the person following and activates the icon, so that everyone can easily see where to go.

Galk the Bloody.4629:

Guild Missions are garbage an the worst thing added to the game to date. They are only doable with large guilds that have 50+players on at that time who all have 80’s an a large part of the world map done. Its the death of small guilds the end of ‘fun with guild members’. My guild of 120 players have given up on them, we only have 10-20 on at one time an half of those dont have a 80. Hell we lost 10-20 members when we failed the guild bounty mission for the second time.

We do Guild missions routinely with FAR less than 50 players online. We’ve done them with less than 15 players online. Today we didn’t have a huge number of people for the mission, less than 15 turned up, so we did a Tier 3 trek…finished it successfully with 20 seconds left on the timer.

It was quite a rush (no pun intended).

Anyone who thinks they need 50 people online to do guild missions is not paying attention.

locoman.1974:

Xapheus.1235:

…
Both of these options are not ideal. I do not think Anet intended the dedicated research route. Can you expect each guild to independently do the legwork for all bounties if somebody else already made a guide? Even if you do, how do you even know who to look for? Does it really even make sense to look for your bounties before you know that they are bounties (i.e., before starting the mission)?…

Actually that’s what the guild I’m on does for the bounty, we gather everyone on mumble, then each person goes to a different area and start looking for the bounty there, once we have them (or most) located, we divide into 2 or 3 groups (depending on the bounty tier) and kick it off, each group gets assigned one target, whoever had eyes on that target switches to the group that got it, and calls off the waypoint nearest to where he is. If there’s anyone with the commander icon available, then he/show groups with the person following and activates the icon, so that everyone can easily see where to go.

I understand; that’s how my guild initially did the bounties. It can be effective (in fact, it is a perfectly valid way of doing the bounties as they are today), but I feel having to do that rather than just looking for your assigned bounties does not make sense, per this part of my last post you quoted:

Xapheus.1235:

…
[H]ow do you even know who to look for? Does it really even make sense to look for your bounties before you know that they are bounties (i.e., before starting the mission)?…

EDIT: Also, the “legwork” method I’m referring to isn’t the same thing you are talking about. You’re talking about taking a known list of bounty targets with a known set of maps they can be in (via a guide). I’m saying, without using a guide at all, could your guild do the bounty?

I see that Vayne.8563 is a gw2 apologist. Saw that you replied to every negative post and try to dismiss the complaints raised. 2-5 replies an hour, every hour, seems like you work for Anet or have a Colin Johanson picture hanging on your wall.

Clark Skinner.4902:

It is my impression that Guild Missions, particulary Bounty and Puzzle, and to a degree Trek, were designed to be done with the aid of a resource like Dulfy.

Can you imagine trying to find bounties without the map of their pathways, and without being told the strategy to beat them? How much time would be left to fight them?

Can you imagine trying a puzzle for the first time, with the ungenerous time given, for everyone to orient themselves, speak to the NPCs, look around trying to figure out the puzzle, and administrating who should do what to continue? Finding the traps, the keys, the consequences and learning from them takes time. Dulfy’s guide does that for us all.

On Guild Puzzles?
Easily can be done without a guide. You just NEED to be able to communicate with guild members. We of [EG] actively called for guild members to be on RC if/when they joined our First run of the three puzzles, and only talk about things or details relating to the puzzle.
Proximic’s Lab? Done on first try, no guide on the very first day it was released (no Dulfy guide.) Wrote a guide ourselves for this one, though Dulfy’s is much better.
Langmar’s Estate? Finished on the second try. The first try we ran out of time, due to trying to puzzle out the Portrait room. We helped Dulfy with the guide on this one, rather then rely on it to get us through.
Angvar’s Trove? Finished on the first try. Again, helped Dulfy with the guide.

In all cases, we went in blind, swarmed in trying out various things then saying over voice chat or guild chat what worked, or if something occurred, then getting everyone to stop what they are testing, and then sync up to pull off the puzzle at hand.

In other words, no the Dulfy Guide is not needed for the Guild Puzzles. They DO mean a LOT of guildies will not be left behind and miss out on the end of the puzzle AND make it a heck of a lot less confusing though. Especially when trying to get people to sync up to do a task.

Guild Bounties? Its the Location Maps I love from the Dulfy site. It lessens the area that is needed to be searched rather drastically. Never bothered reading the Dulfy Strategies as you usually can figure out the trick to the Bounties just by reading the tooltip on the Bounty itself if its not dieing for some reason. That said, a number of us have started memorizing the locations/paths for various Bounties to the point we don’t bother loading up the Dulfy guide anymore.

Guild Challenge and Rush? Its very nice knowing exactly where to go. I have never really read the Dulfy Guide beyond that though.

In the end, the Dulfy Guide is not NEEDED but that does not make it WANTED or USEFUL. People can learn how to do the guild missions without the guide, and sure they may fail a couple times before they learn the tricks, tactics, and/or locations to specific ones though. The guide is especially useful for guild members who haven’t had the chance to do the Guild Missions repeatedly just yet.

I don’t know, every time my guild does trek I end up recognising a lot of the locations straight away. I might not know exactly where the mark is but I could get close enough to find it with a little looking, and have often done exactly that.

With the bounties the most effective strategy is often to go into the map and ask other players if they’ve seen the target. And of course as you do it more you get to know their paths just from past experience.

I don’t think I’ve ever used a guide for rush and challenge, but then I have had other members of my guild telling me what to do and they might well have found out from a guide.

As other people said guides make it quicker and easier but that doesn’t mean you HAVE to do it. Same way you can make your own build through trial and error or you can copy one someone else has made from a website.

Xapheus.1235:

locoman.1974:

Xapheus.1235:

…
Both of these options are not ideal. I do not think Anet intended the dedicated research route. Can you expect each guild to independently do the legwork for all bounties if somebody else already made a guide? Even if you do, how do you even know who to look for? Does it really even make sense to look for your bounties before you know that they are bounties (i.e., before starting the mission)?…

Actually that’s what the guild I’m on does for the bounty, we gather everyone on mumble, then each person goes to a different area and start looking for the bounty there, once we have them (or most) located, we divide into 2 or 3 groups (depending on the bounty tier) and kick it off, each group gets assigned one target, whoever had eyes on that target switches to the group that got it, and calls off the waypoint nearest to where he is. If there’s anyone with the commander icon available, then he/show groups with the person following and activates the icon, so that everyone can easily see where to go.

I understand; that’s how my guild initially did the bounties. It can be effective (in fact, it is a perfectly valid way of doing the bounties as they are today), but I feel having to do that rather than just looking for your assigned bounties does not make sense, per this part of my last post you quoted:

Xapheus.1235:

…
[H]ow do you even know who to look for? Does it really even make sense to look for your bounties before you know that they are bounties (i.e., before starting the mission)?…

EDIT: Also, the “legwork” method I’m referring to isn’t the same thing you are talking about. You’re talking about taking a known list of bounty targets with a known set of maps they can be in (via a guide). I’m saying, without using a guide at all, could your guild do the bounty?

It would be harder, for sure, but I’m sure we’d end up doing it anyway, by searching all over the area before starting and asking in map chat whether someone has seen the NPC (even if we don’t know the name just ask for an NPC with a star on it), and we would probably fail once or twice as well.

Actually I’ve done just that, by the time I’m online usually the search for the targets is well underway and there’s at least one person on each map, so I usually just go to whichever map I have explored the least and start grabbing waypoints (just in case the bounty target is there I might end up with no waypoints near), at couple of times I’ve bumped into the target by doing that and ended up following it for the guild without ever seeing the guides.