Guild Wars 2

With the new patch, the guild upgrades are actually causing me some concern. The reason, so many players have quit the game which has devastated many guilds. Basically only the super guilds are really surviving with any degree of populations, all the minor guilds more or less died, and the guilds with less than 20 unique accounts signing on per day are struggling too.

So, here comes a big guild update – the problem is, this is going to directly hurt the game again. All the smaller guilds, or even moderately sized guilds which are lacking players are going to massively suffer because players wanting to complete these new quests. Which will directly finish off many guilds, and all the super guilds will soak up more players – don’t you see this as a problem?

By the vary nature of what information has been posted about the updates don’t inspire me to be honest, in fact I worry again, about the future of the game. This could potentially see another large amount of players quit the game. Example, your going to get members who steadfastly refuse to join massive guilds to complete this new content, they’ll be alienated. And in all sense, why should they be forced to join massive guilds in the first place anyway? Unless, all this ‘guild’ content can be completed solo or in a small team, I see a rough road ahead for many players and smaller guilds.

And, to add ~ If the ‘guild’ missions can be completed solo, doesn’t that also defeat the purpose?

>Which will directly finish off many guilds, and all the super guilds will soak up more players – don’t you see this as a problem?

No why should I? If the only thing my guild provides is doing content I’d rather do not want to be in this guild because it would be just a widespread “LFG” Channel.

it may signal the death of small guilds, which i hope is not the case.

it may be time for anet to consider tiering buff costs/influence gains by guild size… more infl for smaller guild sizes, less for mega guilds… the system is already in place due to having to purchase guild cap increases.

Only the strongest will survive.

But really, we don’t have that many details on how the guild content is going to work yet. If they’re simply going to be like 15man “raids” or something I’m sure smaller guilds would be able to handle it with all their members online.

I’m hoping it will give guilds more purposes than just WvW. Because really, what is there for guilds to do other than that. Bring on the guild updates!!! I’m excited.

Honestly I am looking forward to the update, even though there isn’t much information on what the content will be as of yet, this could mean we will start seeing the raids idea being implemented, and quite frankly will help with events for guilds.

As for these events becoming the downfall of small guilds, I don’t believe this will be an issue. If anything it will help fill some of the smaller guilds out there. Although I also would like to ask what is truly considered a small guild? I mean me personally I am in a guild with about 50 members, of which only about 30 or so are actively participating.

Maybe it will encourage people to join guilds again. You never know.

jingseng.2150:

it may signal the death of small guilds, which i hope is not the case.

it may be time for anet to consider tiering buff costs/influence gains by guild size… more infl for smaller guild sizes, less for mega guilds… the system is already in place due to having to purchase guild cap increases.

There are literally a ton of small guilds out there, <10 members active – this could really hurt them, even more guilds that used to be active but lost alot of players due to them quiting. My guild for instance, we used to have 100+ members, now we’re lucky to ever reach 10 – 20 members online each day, only seem to get active when people sign in during special events.

If these ‘guild missions’ just increase influence and no other gains, then it’ll not really harm the smaller the guilds. However, it this becomes a major thing with unique rewards/gold/loot etc…~ honestly, it could cause another crap storm of problems.

Because overnight, you’ll see thousands of guilds die as they jump ship to more active large guilds. Especially if your on a low population server to begin with, that’ll sting even more.

Would you destroy 100 smaller guilds if you could create 10 successful guilds in the process?

Personally, I feel like the guild quests should be focused around groups 5 and up. That would make localized friend guilds just as viable as superguilds like [Kiss] and Team Legacy. We’ll see.

marnick.4305:

Would you destroy 100 smaller guilds if you could create 10 successful guilds in the process?

Personally, I feel like the guild quests should be focused around groups 5 and up. That would make localized friend guilds just as viable as superguilds like [Kiss] and Team Legacy. We’ll see.

Exactly, but I think anet should be careful with the deployment of this content, at least not without looking from every point of view. However, to answer your question ~ No I personally wouldn’t destroy any guilds just to make a few successful ones.

I would personally balance it so, like you mentioned ~ smaller guilds can be just as viable as superguilds. I think, in that respect it would be a beneficial change. But as my title stated, I am concerned about this up and coming change…..if the game shipped with this, it wouldn’t have been an issue way back at launch, but now ~ everyone is hurting for members.

Also, have to wonder how representation is going to work with Guild Missions? If rewards are earned…couldn’t you just join multiple guilds and cycle through representing to get all the rewards? But I digress, I guess we’ll have to see what happens.

Be creative as a small guild leader. If the content can’t be done by your 10-man guild, why not go out there and work together with other small guilds?

Or use the forums, twitter, facebook to host a server-wide event?

Really, the only guilds that would be broken down by this, are the guilds that probably don’t have a good (creative) leader to begin with.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

marnick.4305:

Would you destroy 100 smaller guilds if you could create 10 successful guilds in the process?

Personally, I feel like the guild quests should be focused around groups 5 and up. That would make localized friend guilds just as viable as superguilds like [Kiss] and Team Legacy. We’ll see.

Exactly, but I think anet should be careful with the deployment of this content, at least not without looking from every point of view. However, to answer your question ~ No I personally wouldn’t destroy any guilds just to make a few successful ones.

I would personally balance it so, like you mentioned ~ smaller guilds can be just as viable as superguilds. I think, in that respect it would be a beneficial change. But as my title stated, I am concerned about this up and coming change…..if the game shipped with this, it wouldn’t have been an issue way back at launch, but now ~ everyone is hurting for members.

I think you meant everyone is hu*n*ting for members. That’s a good thing. Previously there wasn’t much reason to join a guild, as the in-game rewards are pretty minute. It leads to guild hopping which is the primary reason guilds die. Now some guilds will become far more aggressive in their recruiting and making sure the rewards are properly distributed.

This should lead to a situation where guilds are forced to be successful or die. Currently guilds only have merits in WvW while for PVE they’re completely optional. This adds a reason to be in a successful guild and stay there.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

My guild for instance, we used to have 100+ members, now we’re lucky to ever reach 10 – 20 members online each day, only seem to get active when people sign in during special events.

That happens when people only join you to run dungeons instead of joining your guild because they like to socialize with you. That’s why small guilds won’t face any problems.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

I don’t want to go into too many more details until our team formally releases all of the information in our upcoming blog post. But I hope that helps for now.

Have you got an ETA on the post?

TheDaiBish.9735:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

I don’t want to go into too many more details until our team formally releases all of the information in our upcoming blog post. But I hope that helps for now.

Have you got an ETA on the post?

i don’t think that anet ever has an eta (besides the thermodynamic death of the universe)

i appreciate the reply, tho

i would like to ask if a “last time logged on” feature is in the works. it would help guilds manage their active membership. it would also pwrovide incentives for people to log on if the guild they like has an activity req, which is nearly impossible to do at the moment.

Thanks Anthony for the reply, but this never bothered me. I run a small guild but I also offer activities to keep my friends busy with the game plus I have a really great group. I’m confident that when ANet thought this content up they considered small and large guilds besides I remember from Colin’s blog post that it was said that it would have content for guilds of all sizes so no one was ever left out. As for the smaller guilds like mine and many others this could be a good time to find new members that are looking for an active and friendly guild.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/colin-johanson-on-guild-wars-2-in-the-months-ahead/

No guild in any game is just going to stay forever large or small. Guild leaders have to actively recruit, be active in their own guild, have leaders to help, etc…etc…to remain.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

The long answer is that guilds are indeed both social structures and reward mechanisms. We realize rewards can strain social connections and we do our best to prevent it. We want you to be able to play with your friends without feeling pressured by the game to spend your time doing otherwise. We’re still fine-tuning some details, but the general idea is that rewards from new guild content system are rate-limited in such a way that a smaller, more-focused groups can maintain a similar pace to the larger ones. So no, you won’t have to abandon your friends and join mega-guilds to benefit from the system, but that’s not to say the mega-guilds won’t have plenty of stuff to do.

I don’t want to go into too many more details until our team formally releases all of the information in our upcoming blog post. But I hope that helps for now.

Necro Mode ~ Activated. Just to prove a point I made over 18 days ago. Either I’m psychic and foreseen all these problems – or I know what I’m talking about.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

The long answer is that guilds are indeed both social structures and reward mechanisms. We realize rewards can strain social connections and we do our best to prevent it. We want you to be able to play with your friends without feeling pressured by the game to spend your time doing otherwise. We’re still fine-tuning some details, but the general idea is that rewards from new guild content system are rate-limited in such a way that a smaller, more-focused groups can maintain a similar pace to the larger ones. So no, you won’t have to abandon your friends and join mega-guilds to benefit from the system, but that’s not to say the mega-guilds won’t have plenty of stuff to do.

I don’t want to go into too many more details until our team formally releases all of the information in our upcoming blog post. But I hope that helps for now.

Necro Mode ~ Activated. Just to prove a point I made over 18 days ago. Either I’m psychic and foreseen all these problems – or I know what I’m talking about.

You are my hero. And that is not sarcasm.

I condone this necro.

I second it.

“The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.”

Bahahahahaha

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

The long answer is that guilds are indeed both social structures and reward mechanisms. We realize rewards can strain social connections and we do our best to prevent it. We want you to be able to play with your friends without feeling pressured by the game to spend your time doing otherwise. We’re still fine-tuning some details, but the general idea is that rewards from new guild content system are rate-limited in such a way that a smaller, more-focused groups can maintain a similar pace to the larger ones. So no, you won’t have to abandon your friends and join mega-guilds to benefit from the system, but that’s not to say the mega-guilds won’t have plenty of stuff to do.

I don’t want to go into too many more details until our team formally releases all of the information in our upcoming blog post. But I hope that helps for now.

Necro Mode ~ Activated. Just to prove a point I made over 18 days ago. Either I’m psychic and foreseen all these problems – or I know what I’m talking about.

+100

Pretty sure A.Net reps just feed people garbage these days to keep them enticed and string them along until their next big fail is too big to ignore, etc.

Kinda like how they claimed Final Rest was a rare drop from a large boss chest…6 months after launch, still no Final Rest has been found. Though it was confirmed by multiple A.Net reps that it indeed exists. Then miraculously, with today’s patch (and loot drop ‘fixes’), it’s now popping up left and right in PvE (where before, it was probably the most fabled non-legendary item..hmm..) and even PvP. I said that A.Net would never admit fault, and would just blame RNG or something. 10 minutes later a red post in the thread confirmed that theory…

Idolicious.6091:

Come on. A.Net will never take fault for this mind you, they’ll blame it on crappy RNG or something. Maybe you didn’t have enough Magic Find!

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

There’s nothing I can say that will change any minds—but I did say that the staff had an extremely low drop rate, and we did just boost the odds of rare items appearing at the end of large events. Congrats to those who got one!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Final-Rest-Current-Theories/page/18#post1522529

Just another example…

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

The long answer is that guilds are indeed both social structures and reward mechanisms. We realize rewards can strain social connections and we do our best to prevent it. We want you to be able to play with your friends without feeling pressured by the game to spend your time doing otherwise. We’re still fine-tuning some details, but the general idea is that rewards from new guild content system are rate-limited in such a way that a smaller, more-focused groups can maintain a similar pace to the larger ones. So no, you won’t have to abandon your friends and join mega-guilds to benefit from the system, but that’s not to say the mega-guilds won’t have plenty of stuff to do.

I don’t want to go into too many more details until our team formally releases all of the information in our upcoming blog post. But I hope that helps for now.

whilst i understand what you have tried to implement here Anthony, the real problem with the new guild missions aren’t the actually missions but the means to unlock them. for instance i myself own a small guild which has only a 20man member base. however not many of those are online all the time so gaining the influence to unlock the tier 5 upgrades is at the best of times a pain in the <insert word here>. i have been trying to recruit but to no success, so I’m finding my guild is loosing members because as a guild we cannot unlock the 5th tier quick enough for the members to want to stay. maybe a system where the unlock cost is reflected by the guild size might help. because seriously 20k influence to unlock a 5th tier upgrade is a bit steep when we are earning about 100 influence a day.?!

Valnar Arylith.5793:

whilst i understand what you have tried to implement here Anthony, the real problem with the new guild missions aren’t the actually missions but the means to unlock them.

Trust me…when you do them, you’ll find out that getting the influence is the easy partfor small guilds.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

New “good” content maybe, but badly implemented and badly designed? That’s a whole different story. I left due to new content, as did the 20+ members of my guild.
New content drove players away from the game.
There is your evidence.

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

New “good” content maybe, but badly implemented and badly designed? That’s a whole different story. I left due to new content, as did the 20+ members of my guild.
New content drove players away from the game.
There is your evidence.

For me personally, after my guild (group of around 10 players) couldn’t even find a single boss, and when we finally did, another guild beat it before we all got there…

…that was the moment I decided to at least take a break from the game. So believe it or not, but keep up puppying off players long enough, and it will happen.

And I don’t want it to happen, because I love the game. But the frustration is getting the overhand, seemingly with each patch.

STICK TO THE MANIFESTO!

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

New “good” content maybe, but badly implemented and badly designed? That’s a whole different story. I left due to new content, as did the 20+ members of my guild.
New content drove players away from the game.
There is your evidence.

I’m sorry that you aren’t enjoying the content, and that it being added to the game was enough to drive you and your friends away from the game. But you must understand this is anecdotal.

It’s anecdotal but also a symptom of a problem.

Guild missions are simply not catered for small groups of friends who decided to make a guild. They’re designed for large guilds. And that’s a potential problem in the long-term, because they are the only efficient way of obtaining certain Ascended items.

This problem is easily solved if they just balance the costs of Ascended gear and make it available in more places. Then people don’t feel “forced” to run with large guilds just to obtain optimal stats.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

The long answer is that guilds are indeed both social structures and reward mechanisms. We realize rewards can strain social connections and we do our best to prevent it. We want you to be able to play with your friends without feeling pressured by the game to spend your time doing otherwise. We’re still fine-tuning some details, but the general idea is that rewards from new guild content system are rate-limited in such a way that a smaller, more-focused groups can maintain a similar pace to the larger ones. So no, you won’t have to abandon your friends and join mega-guilds to benefit from the system, but that’s not to say the mega-guilds won’t have plenty of stuff to do.

I don’t want to go into too many more details until our team formally releases all of the information in our upcoming blog post. But I hope that helps for now.

Actually, putting such steep gates in front of content many people were looking forward to and the big insulting gesture the decision makes to everyone in a smaller guild is driving players from the game. Many small guilds were rejuvenated by the teases on Guild Missions, only to see morale crushed by such poor game design decisions in the way the content has been gated against all but the largest guilds.

You could have and should have gated the higher tiers of each GM category, ensuring that the lowest tiers were reasonably available to small guilds. There is no reason why a small guild should have reasonable access to Guild Bounties I, just as there is no reason that large guilds should have no cost to unlock Bounties II, III, etc…

It’s completely backwards design and it’s made worse by the PR stating that the system is meant for small guilds, as well as large ones. If you had at least been honest that the content was really only meant for large guilds, it still would have been horrible design, but at least you wouldn’t have set expectations that have only crushed many smaller guilds.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The short answer is that new content is not going to drive people away from the game. There is absolutely no evidence to support that it would.

my small guild got depressed over never being able to earn enough points for guild missions and everyone has stopped playing completely now

Yes, once again the actions did not match the words.

It would have made more sense to stagger the tiers across the levels of each category of guild reward.

For example: Art of War III contains Tier 1 Bounty, Art of War IV contains Tier 2 Bounty, Art of War V contains Tier 3.

Then you wouldn’t have needed to add a clunky sixth level into the game like you did just recently, and even small guilds would be able to access at least one tier of rewards (since third level is pretty easy for even a smaller guild to access, as my own ten-man full-of-inactive-friends guild has proven).

It encourages big guilds(read: guilds that constantly spam chat, have 200+ members on at all times, etc), something I’m personally not a fan of.

@Anthony Ordon:

I have taken the liberty of copying your post to the “official” thread about “New guild missions: opinions & concerns”, because people over there have discussed the guild content and raised many opinions and concerns, and have been clamoring for some official response (or at least acknowledgement that their posts are being read) for some time now.

This is the relevant link:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/40#post1608423

Finally, there is one set of 4 posts in that thread that I would specifically recommend for ArenaNet representatives to read, as it is an in-depth and professionally worded breakdown of the things that cause people concern:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077 (Really! Read this, please.)

(If you haven’t done so already, of course.)

idk about some of this stuff in this thread like, “i left the game” or “i am leaving the game.” this is one small new aspect to the game. it sounds like from anthony’s tone that they will change some things about this system and in favor of some things that will benefit those of us who find it broken at best.

fact remains that this is one tiny aspect of the game. the god temple events and loot are all better than they were. the daily system is a lot more dynamic. boss loot is better. gold drop and core drops are up.

patience is still a thing in mmos. this type of gaming is a marathon not a sprint. does it need to be fixed in some cases in pretty huge ways? yeah totally, but this whole, “im quitting, or i just quit” is just as ridiculous as some of the issues that the smaller guilds as a FACT are facing with the guild mission system.

I’d like to point out that the Anthony Ordon’s post is not new. It’s been made before the guild missions patch, when some players started voicing concerns about future (then) update.
As it turns out, the concerns were not only completely valid, but predicted what happened later quite well. Anthony’s explanations on the other side turned out to have only passing connection to the actual content.

That saying, again – this post is not new. Anything mentioned in it (blogpost, additional informations) concerns things that already happened. There is no new Anet reaction to the guild missions problem (yet, at least).

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

So no, you won’t have to abandon your friends and join mega-guilds to benefit from the system, but that’s not to say the mega-guilds won’t have plenty of stuff to do.

Really close to considering it, because no matter how many times we try 5-8 of us are really struggling to complete bounties not due to taking down the bounty because that’s not too much a problem, its not having the time yeh its easier in a super sized guild to split up and find the bounties and ur smaller groups make a start on them while the others are starting on the other ones, but with a handful of u its not enough time, perhaps the time limit should be scaled to the amount of guildies u have online. As it stands the most bounties we have been able to complete in that time is 2, which is a poor show i know but what more can we do? It could take us most of the allocated time to track them down.

I have been with my guild for over 6yrs who we are all very close friends and tbh its breaking us that we cant take full advantage of what the game has to offer.

atm we have a guild of around:
50 players,

around 20 are regularly active,

30 members u have lost due to one of ur previous patches (dont know why, personally i love the game just needs some slight improvements).

but u will be very lucky at least 1 night a week to see around 8 ppl max on at any 1 time, most of the time there are 2-3.

I can understand its hard to please everyone, and better to please the majority over the minority. But please don’t forget about us the small close friend guilds that are slowly breaking apart due to the consideration of being forced into a “mega-guild” away from their friends to fully take advantage of ALL the game has to offer

I am sure this was not the devs intentions but there is no denying this is what’s happening and would love to hear you thoughts on this