Guild Wars 2

The instant gratification argument is an easy one to make, but it doesn’t see the whole picture.
Look, you really do have to look at Guild Wars 1 to see why so many people are kitten off.
In GW1, it was simplicity itself to get to maximum level and get a suit of armour with “Best in Slot” stats. On my warrior I had 4 sets of armour, likewise on my mesmer and ranger, something for every occasion.
The grind after getting that gear was purely for cosmetics. You got no mechanical advantage; it was all about the looks. And that was fine.

Here, even though the statistical difference is (currently) small, the effort needed to acquire “Best in Slot” gear is ridiculously high and makes any prior investment in your armour redundant. And gods help you if you want to get different sets for different circumstances. It’s massively different to the first game and feels like a bait and switch to many long time customers.

It’s catering to a more traditional MMO audience. And it feels positively abusive when you’ve been used to a system that positively encourages radical build experimentation through flexibility of “Best in Slot” gear.
My mesmer build list was astonishingly long, with many crazy, viable builds, all relying on some combination of gear or another, thanks to the easy availability of gear.

In the first game, I went out of my way to buy things from the store as and when they became available, even if I didn’t need it or particularly like it, as it was my way of saying thanks to ArenaNet.
Here, they’ve not had a penny from me since October, and if they continue the way they’re going, they’ll never receive money from me ever again.
I’ll continue to play, as it’ll cost them in bandwidth, but they’ll not see the inside of my wallet ever again.

Everybody was excited about guild missions and speculating about how things would work out. New content is always refreshing and exciting but the implementation is probably the hardest part to pull off (remember Legendary, Fractals?)

I refer back to this post https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/New-guild-missions-opinions-concerns/page/14#post1522077 which defines some of the problems and solutions that could help out.

Hope ANet is reading and listening to some of the feedback here.

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

Just one note on this, and I’ll not talk about it again. There’s a significant issue with this here:

(4) Engage the community in a constructive, serious manner to seek input and solutions. Do not discount the community’s ideas because they are different from notions during development of “how things should pan out.” These are irrelevant. The customer experience is.

You’re going to run into three specific objections no matter how many people get invited to discuss it:

- But they cut for time and I didn’t get to talk. They must only have wanted certain people they planted in the crowd to speak.
- But my opinion wasn’t given any weight. They clearly already had their mind made up from the start, so it was a pointless PR stunt
- Not enough people were included, so it’s not really representative of the whole player community.

“The situation worsens for the citizens of Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau. Volunteers have eased the burden, but more refugees" (from small guilds) “hobble down from the Shiverpeaks. The storm there gains momentum, but the forces of good are beginning to rally.”

Just trying to lighten my mood, taking a step back. Hopefully Arenanet is considering some of the excellent points being presented.

Speaking of feedback, since ANet seems largely disinclined to comment about our posts, can I get the forum’s feed back on a simple fix? It regards the availability of non-War guild missions. Also please correct me if I’m just misinformed.

I only see one glaring issue with the guild missions.

Yes, you can train other non-PVP/Non-WvW mission types from other trees,… BUT they require guild commendations (or whatever the currency is called) to UNLOCK them.

The only way to get commendations is to train War to lvl5 and then run the distasteful (to ME, hence MY issue) PvP style guild missions to get the PvE missions unlocked.

Can’t we simply remove the commendation requirements from the other unlocks? If GW2 is supposed to be a game where you get to choose your own play-style, and play the game as you enjoy it – this seems to be very much the opposite.

The gold for influence, the time, that will come – big deal. But being forced into a direction I resent and do not enjoy is not what I expected from ArenaNet. Honestly I had had no “downsides” to admit when talking to other MMO gamers. This is my first, and since it a game called *Guild*Wars, I consider it a big one.

My Suggestion:
Remove commendation requirements from other unlocks. That is my humble and fervent suggestion. Please.

Comments? Suggestions? Insults? I’ll take any feedback at this point.

Thanks!

I’m not seeing – or feeling – an “I want it NOW” problem. I wasn’t here voicing unhappiness with 1 karma a day to get rings/pets/etc. (and I have my first ring, tyvm)

I left mmos in the past and vowed never to try one again. Early on, in another mmo, we tried merging our little guild into a larger one – and when that failed, we tried simply joining a well known guild. Never again. If you have to disable guild chat because the members are that annoying, and you have to be in a party to speak to the people you actually know – and in some cases, only ‘see’ online, then the large guild isn’t worth it – and has defeated the reason you’re playing in the first place.

I wouldn’t have tried Guild Wars had it not advertised itself as something completely different. I didn’t try Rift, & I was very sorry to find swtor a simple wow clone with mass effect side stories. GW2 sounded like a game that allowed for a lot of interaction without the negatives – and for the most part, that’s been true. That’s why I don’t understand this weird push to reshape that community. What’s the lure? Just getting us to spend gold on something? I can be easily convinced to spend gold on things that I want – but not things I’m pushed into buying. (and if that doesn’t make people stubborn, nothing will)

All guilds, large & small, would obviously love guild missions, & benefit from them. If you want to get to know others in a 200 sized guild, there’s your chance. I want to share missions with people I know & love, & add those to memories I already have of instances with family/friends & other events. I think a lot of us were looking forward to missions, but the idea that we farm influence to unlock them negates the purpose of missions, which was to have something new & interesting to do, over time. It looks to me that the time is now spent simply unlocking it, & I’m not seeing a compelling reason to do that.

I hear that small guilds should ‘work for it,’ though a large guild has access solely by being large. I don’t see that buying influence requires skill or hard work, either. I could do it, but the idea leaves a very bitter taste, & even more, a great deal of apprehension about the game’s future. Should I fork over gold for this, what’s next?

I hope they recognize this as a tipping point. I used to play lotro – I loved the game, & though I thought their store was questionable at times, I kept at it. The day they started offering stat armor in their store, I quit, & never went back. There is such a thing as going too far, & this shove towards large wow-guilds is it. So as to wanting things now, that’s a pretty strange twist on what’s actually happening. If it took 4 months of guild missions to get an earring, I’d be fine with that. If they were incredibly hard, but scaled for group size, I’d be thrilled. But this is only an incentive to find another pastime.

eta: Removing commendation requirements would be a rather easy & reasonable fix. I found those confusing, anyway – I wasn’t entirely sure why they were tiered. But of course, I built up the ones I thought we could use, and not Art of War. Something tells me that’s the category most people ignored – and that would end up costing us the most gold should we cave to that route.

Flamenco.3894:

Fox.3469:

This update is here for one reason: Gems->Gold->Influence.

I cannot grasp that people are trying to defend this. It is simply wrong. There is no excuse for these actions, it a pure case of trying to let players spend a fortune to even participate.

This company said they wanted to make an example for the future, i sure as hope noone is watching, instead of lifting the mmo out of the darkness it’s been plunged way way deeper into it then we could ever imagine. No more sub fees is a good price to get away with everything you want. What a shame and what a kitten waste of a game that is actually so much better then other mmo’s if it weren’t for this.

Your mentality is more of a concern than anything.

plz explain, i’ve defended this mmo trough allot of hardship, i just think they shoot themselves in the head with this one, i can’t see how people try to justify their favorite mmo commiting moneybased suicide… That’s all

Dragothalas.2578:

Speaking of feedback, since ANet seems largely disinclined to comment about our posts, can I get the forum’s feed back on a simple fix? It regards the availability of non-War guild missions. Also please correct me if I’m just misinformed.

I only see one glaring issue with the guild missions.

Yes, you can train other non-PVP/Non-WvW mission types from other trees,… BUT they require guild commendations (or whatever the currency is called) to UNLOCK them.

The only way to get commendations is to train War to lvl5 and then run the distasteful (to ME, hence MY issue) PvP style guild missions to get the PvE missions unlocked.

Can’t we simply remove the commendation requirements from the other unlocks? If GW2 is supposed to be a game where you get to choose your own play-style, and play the game as you enjoy it – this seems to be very much the opposite.

The gold for influence, the time, that will come – big deal. But being forced into a direction I resent and do not enjoy is not what I expected from ArenaNet. Honestly I had had no “downsides” to admit when talking to other MMO gamers. This is my first, and since it a game called *Guild*Wars, I consider it a big one.

My Suggestion:
Remove commendation requirements from other unlocks. That is my humble and fervent suggestion. Please.

Comments? Suggestions? Insults? I’ll take any feedback at this point.

Thanks!

I think there are people from Anet that don’t like it when people on the forums ask for 100% map completion to be removed from WvW and then the badge issues, and I feel like this is their way to stick a great big thumb in the eye of those people.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

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

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

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

can’t +1/thumbs up/upvote/whatever else that link enough, hope ANet sees it.

Matipzieu KyA.9613:

Best regards,

Matipzieu SilverSmash
GM of KyA since 2002

Well said indeed! Here’s hoping the team reads your views and discusses them, because you nailed it sir!

Dragothalas.2578:

Speaking of feedback, since ANet seems largely disinclined to comment about our posts, can I get the forum’s feed back on a simple fix? It regards the availability of non-War guild missions. Also please correct me if I’m just misinformed.

I only see one glaring issue with the guild missions.

Yes, you can train other non-PVP/Non-WvW mission types from other trees,… BUT they require guild commendations (or whatever the currency is called) to UNLOCK them.

The only way to get commendations is to train War to lvl5 and then run the distasteful (to ME, hence MY issue) PvP style guild missions to get the PvE missions unlocked.

Can’t we simply remove the commendation requirements from the other unlocks? If GW2 is supposed to be a game where you get to choose your own play-style, and play the game as you enjoy it – this seems to be very much the opposite.

The gold for influence, the time, that will come – big deal. But being forced into a direction I resent and do not enjoy is not what I expected from ArenaNet. Honestly I had had no “downsides” to admit when talking to other MMO gamers. This is my first, and since it a game called *Guild*Wars, I consider it a big one.

My Suggestion:
Remove commendation requirements from other unlocks. That is my humble and fervent suggestion. Please.

Comments? Suggestions? Insults? I’ll take any feedback at this point.

Thanks!

Check again. Every tree has a mission type at lvl 6 that doesn’t require commendations. The other ones are challenges or a harder version of the lvl 6 ones.

ChackO.2346:

Check again. Every tree has a mission type at lvl 6 that doesn’t require commendations. The other ones are challenges or a harder version of the lvl 6 ones.

You’re mistaken. Not only do all of the unlocks except bounties require merits, they also require previous unlocks first. i.e. You have to unlock them sequentially, Bounties → Treks → Rushes, etc.

Mwerevu.4013:

ChackO.2346:

Check again. Every tree has a mission type at lvl 6 that doesn’t require commendations. The other ones are challenges or a harder version of the lvl 6 ones.

You’re mistaken. Not only do all of the unlocks except bounties require merits, they also require previous unlocks first. i.e. You have to unlock them sequentially, Bounties -> Treks -> Rushes, etc.

I would like to know where did you get that information (I’m not saying you’re wrong btw). But for what I could get by looking at the trees, you just have to research to lvl 6 and then unlock the “basic” version of the missions. The other ones down in the tree do require all that you mentioned.

This is the Email that I just sent out to my Guildies. For reference our guild only has FIVE Daily Active members.

Preamble: This newly released content has been made available for only Large Guilds and has NO option for us to even start participating .

We have to date used 31,600 Influence on guild upgrades and have been stockpiling in our Influence pool to over 50,000 giving us a grand total to date of around 81,500 accumulated since Launch.
Just to get to the prerequisite levels in all categories would cost us 42,500 Influence of the 50k we currently have.
Now to unlock Guild Missions, would cost us ANOTHER 50,000 Influence
So, once we would earn a total additional 42,500 influence(leaving our pool empty for any other additions) we would be ALLOWED to start BUYING the Guild Missions.
Oh yes I said Buying. It costs more influence just to start a mission.
All this for content that we don’t have enough members to complete in the first place. This new content was designed ONLY for Large Recruiting guilds (of which we are definitely NOT) and offers no options for small guilds, at all!

Conclusion: Utter waste of Influence for any guild of small to medium size.
But don’t be saddened, we will just have to wait for content designed for ALL size guilds, not just the loud ones. Maybe the upgrades for our Guild Hall will come SOMETIME soon.

Hey all,

Instead of complaining about the issue I suggest we work towards a solution. Let’s throw idea’s out there and hopefully some stick for those at Anet.

The first thing that needs to be acknowledged is the new guild missions only honed in on an already existing problem. The larger the guild, the better the experience. You’ll have more people to play with and constant bonuses activated. It’s impossible for guilds smaller than several hundred members to be appealing with the current system. The route we are heading is only going to reduce the amount of variety in guilds.

So how do you fix it? The influence system needs to either be reworked or replaced with something else. A percentage based system is one solution. For example: “x Guild Mission unlocked for 10% of current influence”. This way, it won’t matter how much influence a guild has. Perhaps an even better suggestion is to consider having dynamic guild objectives to unlock upgrades. These objectives would scale based on a guilds size and activity. This can be worked in as a guild daily. Upon completion the guild is given 1 point towards unlocking an upgrade with upgrades varying in points.

Whatever they choose they need to make guild upgrades even across the board no matter what size the guild is.

You have to unlock the one in Art of War to access any of the others.

IIvIIozzie.9250:

Hey all,

Instead of complaining about the issue I suggest we work towards a solution. Let’s throw idea’s out there and hopefully some stick for those at Anet.

The first thing that needs to be acknowledged is the new guild missions only honed in on an already existing problem. The larger the guild, the better the experience. You’ll have more people to play with and constant bonuses activated. It’s impossible for guilds smaller than several hundred members to be appealing with the current system. The route we are heading is only going to reduce the amount of variety in guilds.

So how do you fix it? The influence system needs to either be reworked or replaced with something else. A percentage based system is one solution. For example: “x Guild Mission unlocked for 10% of current influence”. This way, it won’t matter how much influence a guild has. Perhaps an even better suggestion is to consider having dynamic guild objectives to unlock upgrades. These objectives would scale based on a guilds size and activity. This can be worked in as a guild daily. Upon completion the guild is given 1 point towards unlocking an upgrade with upgrades varying in points.

Whatever they choose they need to make guild upgrades even across the board no matter what size the guild is.

Problem is: any call for an open discussion gets either ignored or deleted.

ChackO.2346:

Mwerevu.4013:

ChackO.2346:

Check again. Every tree has a mission type at lvl 6 that doesn’t require commendations. The other ones are challenges or a harder version of the lvl 6 ones.

You’re mistaken. Not only do all of the unlocks except bounties require merits, they also require previous unlocks first. i.e. You have to unlock them sequentially, Bounties -> Treks -> Rushes, etc.

I would like to know where did you get that information (I’m not saying you’re wrong btw). But for what I could get by looking at the trees, you just have to research to lvl 6 and then unlock the “basic” version of the missions. The other ones down in the tree do require all that you mentioned.

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

ChackO.2346:

I would like to know where did you get that information (I’m not saying you’re wrong btw). But for what I could get by looking at the trees, you just have to research to lvl 6 and then unlock the “basic” version of the missions. The other ones down in the tree do require all that you mentioned.

The information comes from the in-game guild panel. Mouse over each unlock and it shows the icons of what it requires. Each one requires a previous mission type unlock. Other than bounties, there are none that cost no merits or have other mission unlock prerequisites.

ChackO.2346:

Mwerevu.4013:

ChackO.2346:

Check again. Every tree has a mission type at lvl 6 that doesn’t require commendations. The other ones are challenges or a harder version of the lvl 6 ones.

You’re mistaken. Not only do all of the unlocks except bounties require merits, they also require previous unlocks first. i.e. You have to unlock them sequentially, Bounties -> Treks -> Rushes, etc.

I would like to know where did you get that information (I’m not saying you’re wrong btw). But for what I could get by looking at the trees, you just have to research to lvl 6 and then unlock the “basic” version of the missions. The other ones down in the tree do require all that you mentioned.

The ones you should look for are the “x mission unlock”, not the “mission” ones. All the unlocks, except for bounty, require merits.
So, for example, “Guild Puzzle” requires level 6 Architecture, 200 influence, and Guild Puzzle Unlock upgrade (and spawns single Guild Puzzle mission). The Guild Puzzle Unlock requires level 6 Architecture, 50k influence, 250 merits and Guild Challenges unlock upgrade.

All the others follow similar approach, with the chain starting with Guild Bounties Unlock at AoW level 5

Well for those of guilds who can afford the massive cost of unlocking guilds missions congrats im happy for you. But as of today myself and my friends who are over the age of 30 who work 40hrs a week and have families unfortunatly cannot afford to obtain the new content.

Since we are older joining a large guild with young players is not viable for us we prefer too have a smaller more personal guild of close friends. so since we cannot have access to the new content without grinding infleunce for months we have decided to back away from GW2 take a break until the game becomes community / smaller guild friendly.

It seems the direction the developers are going isnt smaller guild friendly so its time for us to move on. Thanks everyone enjoy the new fun stuff ill watch some videos online wish we could have enjoyed them aswell.

Im sure theres some reasonable reason why they wish to make obtaining Guild missions so hard to obtain for smaller guilds I just do not see it maybe a developer could respond and clearify.

Remeber the Challenge of Content should not be the obtaining or permission to do said content, The Challenge should be the content itself!!!

Thanks for the replies, I got the info now. And it seems that things are worse than I tought =/

Yeah, doesn’t make a lot of sense to have an “unlock fee.” I don’t understand the charge at all. It’s a logical fallacy.

The guild missions should earn you stuff, not cost you stuff.

As a leader of a small guild Anet has disappointed me cause now it is hard to get my members to represent my guild to gain influence because they hear how cool the guild missions are and only represent bigger guilds for the missions. As for paying gold for influence I will not force my members to pay gold just to do guild missions. For myself I have a lvl 80 cahracter and it is hard enough to earn 1 gold so I couldn’t even comprehend trying to earn enough for to upgrade the guild to do missions. I feel the only way to solve this problem is to eliminate the ability to join multiple guilds. I guess Anet couls also make a new tree just for the Guild Missions and have the missions availavble upon creation of the guild and the tree just adds rewards to the missions.

Hickeroar.9734:

Yeah, doesn’t make a lot of sense to have an “unlock fee.” I don’t understand the charge at all. It’s a logical fallacy.

Eh?

Don’t like the new Guild Missions, but I’d like to point out you’re using that term wrong……..

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

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

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

Why do people feel that since they are in a big guild they deserve access before everyone else and try silence people by saying they wanting instant gratification.
Every one paid the same price to buy the game….and Anet said people weren’t going to have to put in a ton of work to do the fun stuff.

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

FilthyRat.4652:

Why do people feel that since they are in a big guild they deserve access before everyone else and try silence people for wanting instant gratification.
Every one paid the same price to buy the game….and Anet said people weren’t going to have to put in a ton of work to do the fun stuff.

. . . but it’s . . .

I know other people repeat this too, maybe they could chime in.

But it’s not about instant gratification, it’s about feeling like they can do it at all.

I don’t even know what to say anymore, ArenaNet.

I’ve been wishing for larger group content as 5-man dungeons just wasn’t enough to keep peoples interest and the WvW scene was spoiled by all the server transfers. I was fully expecting to be jumping into guild content this week as our guild has had all tiers of the Guild system researched , about 15k banked influence, and just waiting for new content.

Then you go and add a completely unneeded and arbitrary tier just to initiate the content. I know full well you can join other guilds events but that isn’t the point. This was an opportunity to kick off your own missions at scheduled times and maybe help keep interest in this game.

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

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

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

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

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

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

IIvIIozzie.9250:

Hey all,

Instead of complaining about the issue I suggest we work towards a solution. Let’s throw idea’s out there and hopefully some stick for those at Anet.

The first thing that needs to be acknowledged is the new guild missions only honed in on an already existing problem. The larger the guild, the better the experience. You’ll have more people to play with and constant bonuses activated. It’s impossible for guilds smaller than several hundred members to be appealing with the current system. The route we are heading is only going to reduce the amount of variety in guilds.

So how do you fix it? The influence system needs to either be reworked or replaced with something else. A percentage based system is one solution. For example: “x Guild Mission unlocked for 10% of current influence”. This way, it won’t matter how much influence a guild has. Perhaps an even better suggestion is to consider having dynamic guild objectives to unlock upgrades. These objectives would scale based on a guilds size and activity. This can be worked in as a guild daily. Upon completion the guild is given 1 point towards unlocking an upgrade with upgrades varying in points.

Whatever they choose they need to make guild upgrades even across the board no matter what size the guild is.

The real problem is that the guild mission content was intended as a sink for all the excess influence that (larger) guilds have accumulated over the past months, with no real way to spend on anything other than more karma and MF banners than they can use.

While the guild missions now successfully fulfill that purpose for the larger guilds having excess influence, it also threw up a prohibitive entry barrier for (smaller) guilds WITHOUT several tens of thousands of excess influence points.

Your solution, while friendly towards the smaller guilds, does not solve the solve the problem of taking away the excess influence from large guilds, because a 10% influence tax to unlock guild bounties still leaves 90% of a very large influence pool.
Add to this the potential for abuse by small guilds without an excess influence pool. All they need is to save up for Art of War 5, empty their influence pool by paying for it, and then get Guild Bounty Mission Unlock for virtually nothing.
(Also, given that build times for guild upgrades are based on influence costs, variable prices for guild upgrades would be greatly unbalanced in probably very unpredictable ways.)
Large guilds would not be happy with this difference in cost, and would start complaining about a system like this ON TOP OF the smaller guilds who still have insufficient members to actually complete the missions that they unlock. End result: MORE people are unhappy, not LESS.

I don’t have any ready-made solutions, but I’m sorry to say that your solution, while admirable in its intentions, does not make the game a better place.

Mattargul.9235:

Two points:
1) complaints about this guild mission being the AoW tree
Would you have felt better if they had added a whole new tree for GMs, called it Guild Mission Tree, and made the first level, which unlocks bounties, cost 500k influence? Your problem is with the cost, not that it’s in the AoW tree. And related to this…

That’d be great because then the guilds wouldn’t have to do Art of War for things they may not ever use. Some of these small guilds just don’t do WvW with enough interest to warrant all those boosts, so putting it off onto its own tree would have been perhaps softer.

Yes, the cost is an issue, but also the time to research it and scrape together the cost (and that includes Gold also for those who want to take that shortcut).

2) smaller guilds can’t access guild missions because of the cost
If your guild is so small that you can’t earn this much influence your guild is (likely) too small to do any of these missions. Sorry. It’s like complaining about how all dungeons have been designed for 5 players and your 2 person guild can’t do any of it.

There’s a difference here. A 2 person guild can’t do a dungeon but they can pick up 3 more people to do it and still do the content. Here, there is a very real potential they won’t be able to do that for all the content.

Hence, again, they feel like there’s nothing for them.

Hellspawn.4836:

Well for those of guilds who can afford the massive cost of unlocking guilds missions congrats im happy for you. But as of today myself and my friends who are over the age of 30 who work 40hrs a week and have families unfortunatly cannot afford to obtain the new content.

Since we are older joining a large guild with young players is not viable for us we prefer too have a smaller more personal guild of close friends. so since we cannot have access to the new content without grinding infleunce for months we have decided to back away from GW2 take a break until the game becomes community / smaller guild friendly.

It seems the direction the developers are going isnt smaller guild friendly so its time for us to move on. Thanks everyone enjoy the new fun stuff ill watch some videos online wish we could have enjoyed them aswell.

Im sure theres some reasonable reason why they wish to make obtaining Guild missions so hard to obtain for smaller guilds I just do not see it maybe a developer could respond and clearify.

Remeber the Challenge of Content should not be the obtaining or permission to do said content, The Challenge should be the content itself!!!

The reasons why the wish to make it so hard for casual guilds to obtain anything is the same reason why the wish to make it so hard for casual players to obtain anything. So you buy gems. Hardcore’s grind, casuals buy. You of all people working 40+ hrs a week can afford to buy gems. 100g is $79, if you have a 5 man guild thats $14 each. Assuming you have a decent job thats 1 hour of work for each of you. In 1 hour of work you have everything unlocked.

I only have a small guild. which we like it that way. Were older guys who work have families and being in a HUGE guild listening to chat about the latest justin bieber CD and Poki’mon card isnt something we wish to be part of.

Secondly this isnt just about size but time. We dont have 4-8 Hrs a day to GRIND influence like some players or a large Guild who can effortlessly earn the required amount through little to no effort. Why is the little guy being dumped on…

We figured out based on our daily influence gain that it will take us nearly 2 months to unlock the guild missions. This is not only discouraging and frustrating but it gives larger guilds an unfair advantage to being able to access content that smaller guilds would have to mindlessly GRIND to obtain…

I cant stress enough the cost for guild missions are, I see no logical reasoning behind forcing smaller guilds to GRIND so hard just to be able to enjoy the only real content patch since launch.

The Challenge of New Content shouldnt be gaining permission to access it… The Challenge should be the Content itself….

Here is what I think can be done to help rectify this situation for smaller guilds. Basically, I think the alliance system from Guild Wars 1 should be reintegrated into Guild Wars 2. In GW1, guilds shared faction points that dictated territory and city control in the continent of Cantha. Small guilds were not likely to ever control a town in Cantha on their own, but they could join an alliance with a big guild and still reap the benefits of controlling a town. I propose that this gets implemented into Guild Wars 2, but instead of having it for territory control you have it for guild missions. This would change “guild missions” to alliance missions, essentially. This would allow small guilds to stay small and ally with larger, more influential guilds. They could share some upgrades as well as influence. There could be a donation system similar to the donation system of factions in Guild Wars 1 in which players would take their personal faction points that they gained and donated them to their total alliance points. The same could be done with influence in GW2. Players and guilds could donate some or all of their influence to a common pool that all members in alliance could gain access too. Thereby allowing all players in the alliance to gain access to the new content regardless of guild size. I know, as a guild leader of a fairly small guild, it would be much easier to convince my members to join an alliance with a larger guild than to actually try to merge with a larger guild. We want to have some level of autonomy, but we also want to play this new content that seems really cool. I personally think this is the best way to do it.

I know I’m reiterating what many others have stated, but I’m really frustrated at the implementation of guild missions. They were being touted as something for guilds of all sizes to participate in, but that clearly is not the case.

We’re a small guild of maybe 7-8 regular players. Here’s a quick rundown on our influence flow and what it will take for us to do guild missions:

We’ve spent 47,600 in influence on guild upgrades to date. We currently have just under 13,000 stored up. We’ve purchased several banners and such so it’s hard to say exactly how much we’ve earned total, but likely around 50k?

We need another 30k (which our current 13k counts towards) to unlock Art of War 5. Then we need another 30k to unlock guild bounties. Then we need 200 to kick off a guild bounty. Essentially we need to again earn as much as we’ve earned to date since the game’s launch to even unlock guild missions.

Each other guild mission type requires level 4 in that tech tree, then 50k plus some merits from doing bounties. Yeah, that’s right. Each bounty type requires us to spend as much influence as we’ve earned to date. Plus you have to spend even more influence to kick off the mission.

I was hoping guild missions were going to be a fun focused activity for guilds to do out in the world, and it seemed like they were gearing them for all guilds, not just large guilds. Unfortunately the implementation doesn’t support small guilds.

My only issue, as stated by so many here is putting the beginning unlock for this in War. From a Lore/Story stand point it would make since that Bounties would be under war. But for those of us in NON-PvP (WvW) guilds that have not considered the War tab important, we are we are way behind the curve. Meanwhile the WvW guilds that may not care about PvE content can likely access it now.

The seems to me a large case of what I call the #1 developer mistake; implementation with out end user input. Why not make bounties open access to all and let us earn the others as normal. That is my free advice for the day and in truth it may be worth exactly what you paid for it.

Edit: I also have to ask this. What do people think this will do to A-Nets own mechanic of allowing people to be in multiple guilds?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

FilthyRat.4652:

Why do people feel that since they are in a big guild they deserve access before everyone else and try silence people for wanting instant gratification.
Every one paid the same price to buy the game….and Anet said people weren’t going to have to put in a ton of work to do the fun stuff.

. . . but it’s . . .

I know other people repeat this too, maybe they could chime in.

But it’s not about instant gratification, it’s about feeling like they can do it at all.

I am in a medium sized guild so we will be able to get to new content in about a week, for small guilds that never put any influence into AoW…going to be a lot of influence and research time just to unlock missions.

For the people in the larger guilds to dismiss everyone else and claim they want instant gratification is just silly. There is a reason why people avoid large guilds and the feel of being back in Barrens chat.

bigtime.7410:

Hellspawn.4836:

Well for those of guilds who can afford the massive cost of unlocking guilds missions congrats im happy for you. But as of today myself and my friends who are over the age of 30 who work 40hrs a week and have families unfortunatly cannot afford to obtain the new content.

Since we are older joining a large guild with young players is not viable for us we prefer too have a smaller more personal guild of close friends. so since we cannot have access to the new content without grinding infleunce for months we have decided to back away from GW2 take a break until the game becomes community / smaller guild friendly.

It seems the direction the developers are going isnt smaller guild friendly so its time for us to move on. Thanks everyone enjoy the new fun stuff ill watch some videos online wish we could have enjoyed them aswell.

Im sure theres some reasonable reason why they wish to make obtaining Guild missions so hard to obtain for smaller guilds I just do not see it maybe a developer could respond and clearify.

Remeber the Challenge of Content should not be the obtaining or permission to do said content, The Challenge should be the content itself!!!

The reasons why the wish to make it so hard for casual guilds to obtain anything is the same reason why the wish to make it so hard for casual players to obtain anything. So you buy gems. Hardcore’s grind, casuals buy. You of all people working 40+ hrs a week can afford to buy gems. 100g is $79, if you have a 5 man guild thats $14 each. Assuming you have a decent job thats 1 hour of work for each of you. In 1 hour of work you have everything unlocked.

The amount of content provide doesnt justify the cost to unlock it. Im not gonna force my guys to PAY to unlock content and put people on the spot if they cannot afford it.

Would you feel cofertable asking your friends to chip in on something which may put them into a situation to say “hey ummm I just paid bills bought my kid some diapers I cant really afford it”

Its not like its an expansion pack. Tell you what when a expansion comes out ill gladly pay 30-40 dollars for a good amount of content.

But a handle of new content for $80.00 is not worth it too me. Nothing disrespectful towards you or your opinion but thats a terriable way to see that as a reputable means of aquisition for content.

I could see if this was a A+ Title like WoW and theres was more content than you could do sure then I dont mind paying $10.00 a month for quality premium content. But $80.00 for a small update, Nope not worth the value in my books.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

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

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

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

I don’t see how if the scale it by size it would be watered down? Large guilds would get the same content as they do now while smaller guilds would get scaled down content for a smaller reward based on size. What most people are suggesting would not affect large guilds at all, like it now affects small guild by lack of access, so (and no offense is meant I’m just asking) I can’t see what large guilds would have to complain about so long as the contest for them is left as is.

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

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

Dreaded Gazebo.2780:

I know I’m reiterating what many others have stated, but I’m really frustrated at the implementation of guild missions. They were being touted as something for guilds of all sizes to participate in, but that clearly is not the case.

We’re a small guild of maybe 7-8 regular players. Here’s a quick rundown on our influence flow and what it will take for us to do guild missions:

We’ve spent 47,600 in influence on guild upgrades to date. We currently have just under 13,000 stored up. We’ve purchased several banners and such so it’s hard to say exactly how much we’ve earned total, but likely around 50k?

We need another 30k (which our current 13k counts towards) to unlock Art of War 5. Then we need another 30k to unlock guild bounties. Then we need 200 to kick off a guild bounty. Essentially we need to again earn as much as we’ve earned to date since the game’s launch to even unlock guild missions.

Each other guild mission type requires level 4 in that tech tree, then 50k plus some merits from doing bounties. Yeah, that’s right. Each bounty type requires us to spend as much influence as we’ve earned to date. Plus you have to spend even more influence to kick off the mission.

I was hoping guild missions were going to be a fun focused activity for guilds to do out in the world, and it seemed like they were gearing them for all guilds, not just large guilds. Unfortunately the implementation doesn’t support small guilds.

I couldnt agree with you more.

Arod.3982:

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

Yes, it’s completely fair that a small 2-10 member guild should be able to start these missions.

Also, to clarify, I’m perfectly happy if upper tiers of missions are out of reach for a small guild. I don’t expect us to be running tier 3 missions. It seems reasonable to expect that we could run tier 1 missions though. But putting a massive wall in front of these missions really seems to go against a lot of ArenaNet’s design decisions with Guild Wars 2.

It’s horribly implemented.
That’s my reactionary feedback.
It’s still horribly implemented. Running a small guild with ~10 active members means you’ll probably be able to see this content within two months, even slower for smaller guilds that maybe do activities together once or twice a week. Not to mention any members on other servers will be completely separate on influence gain. Why gate this stuff? Why put it behind a gold/influence barrier that’s completely arbitrary. It has nothing to do with skill, it has nothing to do with organization, and it’s a bandage for the problem of having no reason to be in a guild. Not to mention most of these activities are going to have to be organized, when there hasn’t been any need to organize anything before this.

I posted a ton in the early going of this and haven’t really felt like responding since, but I have a few more comments.

First off, I think the content that ArenaNet created here is wonderful as far as the things that we will get to do. I can only imagine what that stuff is, but as I love this game so much, I know that it will be really fun to do with my guild. As a community I think we are missing the point on where this stuff is coming from. A lot of us asked for more end game. We wanted long term things to do. This stuff is long term. We got it. We just didn’t get it how we wanted it, but I think they are giving us something better than what we wanted as far as the content goes. I just think it was implemented poorly.

ArenaNet is flat out telling us that they want us to spend points in Art of War even if we have zero interest in WvW. That is a poor decision. They are also wanting to create community by having us work together. The onus is on us and the larger guilds to let everyone know when these events are taking place.

I think the other mistake was creating guild content that does not dynamically scale, as I said before a few days prior to this patch. We also need to be allowed to join as many guilds as we want. This 5 guild cap isn’t helping this at all.

I understand not wanting to play outside your guild. I am a leader of a 10 guild alliance from gw1 and I can’t even be a member of all my guilds guilds much less other guilds that focus specifically on other content. This needs to change as well. I don’t think this should have been implemented so soon. It’s a great feature, and I think in the long run, even if nothing changes, the community will grow to love this content as they play through it. ArenaNet has my trust on their created content. They do a superior job of it to other companies. I hope that they will tweak some of the things they have done with this.

If they really want to make this a community game, they need to at least give everyone participating, THE SAME REWARDS. People will be willing to help if they think they are getting treated equally. Small guilds can join in. Content can be played by all. It really is the easiest fix to assuage this situation short of making all of this dynamically scale which I believe is the best fix. Also, none of the PvE guild missions should have been in Art of War.

Arod.3982:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I haven’t really read most of the rest of the thread because reading and trolling forums generally gives me a headache, so please forgive me if what I’m saying is repetitive. Suffice to say that I lead a guild within -reach- of Guild bounties, but it’ll be a bit before we get there.

I was very excited when I heard about the Guild Missions idea; it’s a great concept, something that really brings guilds together… in groups of more than 5 people…. to accomplish fun tasks. I love it, and just what the game needed I think. Guild rush makes me laugh my head off.

However there’s several areas where I feel like I’ve been let down:

1. It’s really a terrible feeling to have all this awesome content promoted like crazy, get really excited about how it’ll benefit your guild, only to find out that it’ll be a long wait before your guild can do it at all. (Made all the longer because the missions sound like lots of fun and laughs.)

2. Art of War 5. I totally get that there was a desire to make this tree relevant to all guilds. Personally, I think it’s a great idea to do so. But the reality is that the first 4 tiers of this category were PvP-specific — and still are. I am baffled by the logic of gating PvE, guild-enhancing content behind here when the first 4 tiers hold absolutely no interest to a PvE guild whatsoever. Was it really necessary to make it so that you had to get Guild bounties FIRST? Why the merit requirements on the other tiers, forcing any guild that wants to experience this content to research down the Art of War path, which holds no other benefits to some guilds aside from the Mission itself? (As an aside: Want to make Art of War relevant to all guilds? Add something to the first 4 tiers that make it attractive to PvE guilds and you’ll make it more exciting and feel less like a colossal waste of influence points for those guilds.)

3. As a result of the delay, what I predict will happen is thus. Instead of this content being a boon to my own guild, my members (and myself, really, as I want to play as well), will be representing other guilds to do the Guild Mission content and enjoy the fun rewards. This will leave large numbers of people in my guild representing elsewhere for decent chunks of time, and not paying attention to our own guild chat, which is never a particularly good state. Eventually we’ll get our own, and that’ll be good, but in truth? By that point, other guilds will have more and shinier missions. A great deal of the goodwill and good, guild-bonding fun that I was really hoping for from this update will benefit other, larger guilds. Additionally, with my members representing elsewhere, all the guild-related rewards for their participation (merits, influence from events as they explore), not to mention the social benefits of having all the people representing to do the mission, go to other guilds. This hurts.

I have confidence in my group and love them like my family, but regardless of that confidence, the inability/difficulty that we’re going to have enjoying this new content under our own banner – and yes, “Under our own banner” is important – is heartbreaking.

So here’s my 2 cents.

Really, I think it’s a waste and an oversight that there is no Guild mission content at ALL at a level that smaller guilds can reach. Doesn’t have to be anything major and I’m definitely not saying that there shouldn’t be expanded and shinier content that’s much harder to reach, but with such a wonderful concept added to the game, shouldn’t it be enriching all guilds at least to some extent as opposed to forcing them to represent other guilds in order to even have a chance to play any of the content?

Ideally, I’d like to see the merit cost taken off of unlocking the other guild missions – with the exception of Guild Challenges, which could logically be gated that way since they’re after Guild Bounty on the Art of War tree. Let guilds go through their preferred tree and unlock the missions that suit their personality and their liking. Having to go through Art of War feels artificial and forced.

And finally… when hyping new content, please be realistic with us about who will be able to do the content. I was REALLY excited about this update. I still am to an extent, but I also feel let down that we only found out so late that the gateway to the content was so daunting – and yet beforehand blissfully had no idea that there would be any problems with small guilds accessing it at all.

All that said, I will say that I’ve always been fond of the Guild Wars team, and I’m really excited about the potential for expansion that Guild Wars 2 shows. I do, however, strongly feel that this content – at least parts thereof – should have been made more accessible so that can — how was it put before? “create a solid foundation to support PvE guild play.” — for ALL guilds instead of just ones with massive influence to devote to it.

Rain

Sowin.5187:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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