Guild Wars 2

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

Matipzieu KyA spells out a lot of the issues using social science and game mechanic analysis.

Here we are at page 22, and my concern raised on page 3 regarding the growing dichotomy in the playerbase (before content was released) has been more than validated by the constant refrains of “learn to use more than one guild” or “learn to grow”.

That is not the issue. Introducing a “caste system” with this content degrades what the game originally offered (and was marketed as offering). I could expound, however, I would be repeating a lot of what has already been said by many posters, and most adequately by the series of 4 posts on page 14.

Drasleona.5049:

so my question is this, why are 5 ppl expecting to do the job of 100 people?.

People aren’t complaining why A mission is like this or B mission is like that. People are complaining about access to said missions.

So when small guilds are given proper access to missions -with a logical way of getting so that doesn’t seperate fanbase into classes (rich and powerful vs weaker who have to pay for everything) – and people start coming here asking “why my group of 5 people can’t beat the champion that was designed for 15 people”, then by all means repeat your question.

Give them a fair way to get access to missions, and let them handle them as they think and if they think they can do it, let them try to do it. What exactly that costs to you or any fellow gamer? What part of your fun it messes with?

In other games, raids (that are often compared to this new content) weren’t designed for large guilds. Small guilds and individuals could as well do them, with the obvious disadvantages of course (pugging people, slower progression etc) but they were still able to at least try them and earn rewards, without feeling as B-class gamers who only need to pay and pay and then pay some more for the fun of it.

Drasleona.5049:

and exactly where is the shortage of SHORT TERM goals?
im still hunting for good looking dagger for my ranger, and a better skin for axe.
honestly i want less short term goals, because there is just soo freaking much, daily’s, pvp daily, FOTM daily. whats next hourly achievments? pleasee no.

im not a impatient little kid who needs to have a carrot hanged infront of my eyes for me to continue going.

im a patient guy who loves having fun with my community and people i meet during my game time. if you want to be part of a large guild, talk to them and ask them if you can join them and get to know them, however when you are being turned down. understand this, people who are content leeches or loot addicted people are not wanted in social hubs because its determental to the whole guild. i dont want to have to play with people whos interests go only as far as their greed. no, thats not who i want to play with or even be associated with! i want to play with friends, people who have integrity and know how to have fun and have thick skin. which is why i found myself enjoying who VexX as a collective are. we love fun, we have thick skin and we aim to do good in what we are playing.

really why is it that small guilds need to be on par with a large guild, whats the point of managing a large guild that is a huge force to reckon with. a collective that can make a difference in PVE and WvW, not to mention dominate SPVP.
so my question is this, why are 5 ppl expecting to do the job of 100 people?

would you really feel safe knowing you are sending 5 people after a criminal that has continuously escaped capture from 50 people, and the criminals target is you? would you really hire the 5 people? NO if you care for the criminal to be caught you would hire the 100.

And this explains why they couldn’t have included any content for small guilds to engage in by the end of the week (without buying into the resource sink)?

You would think Anet would want to get people enthused about the new content by getting them involved in the new content, not leave them feeling shafted because the new content is actually weeks or months of grinding away.

Do these bounties just crap out rewards or something? Was multi-gating access to them necessary because they have no inherent gating factor when taken alone? I would suspect they’re as unrewarding as all the other content is, which is to say it could take weeks or months just to get anything interesting out of the RNG, so there’s really no reason for most of the gating anyway (except perhaps to generate some slight increase in GW2 youtube videos via “world firsts”…..exactly like WoW does).

Drasleona.5049:

im still hunting for good looking dagger for my ranger, and a better skin for axe.

Is this one of those “hardcore v casual” things? It takes all of three days to find and acquire a decent skin from a dungeon, less from the TP, unless you really want a super-unique skin such as a legendary or soft-legendary, but I’m sure we can agree those last two are long-term goals.

Are you really picky about appearance, is the ranger your seventh alt (or similar), or are you just woefully inefficient with your in-game time?

I didn’t say every casual is out of short term goals, just that I’m sure many are (possibly most, at least insofar as their “main”).

Zorainda.3495:

In other games, raids (that are often compared to this new content) weren’t designed for large guilds. Small guilds and individuals could as well do them, with the obvious disadvantages of course (pugging people, slower progression etc) but they were still able to at least try them and earn rewards, without feeling as B-class gamers who only need to pay and pay and then pay some more for the fun of it.

To be fair, this usually result in larger guilds collapsing in much the same way smaller guilds are claiming the new guild bounty system will cause them to collapse.

Leading a raid can be a time-consuming and challenging task, enough so that not every large guild will have multiple teams of officers capable of leading multiple raids. Most large raiding guilds rely on a core group of leaders/players, and they’ll usually form an “A team” to tackle small-guild oriented “raid” content, leaving the rest of the guild to fend for themselves (even transitioning from 40-man to 20-man content, there’s no guarantee the “B team” is capable of handling the 20-man raid).

I’m sure someone could relate dozens or hundreds of such stories from WoW as they started transitioning first from 40-man to 20-man content, and then from 20-man to 10-man content.

Ansultares.1567:

And this explains why they couldn’t have included any content for small guilds to engage in by the end of the week (without buying into the resource sink)?

You would think Anet would want to get people enthused about the new content by getting them involved in the new content, not leave them feeling shafted because the new content is actually weeks or months of grinding away.

yes exactly

They already set up tiers for every guild mission. They could have easily made the first level more easily accessible by all, and then have guilds building more and more into the next levels. Obviously again larger guilds would reach the last tiers and the greater rewards faster than small guilds, but that would be ok, cause everyone would have something new and fun to do with his fellow guildies, and the hope of a good reward would be more prominent for all.

How would THAT mess with someone’s fun as to come here and “whine” about our “whining” , I have no clue…

Any Qq’ers you don’t agree with is the “vocal minority”, been this way since the birth of mmo’s tbh.

Amusing that saying someone is the vocal minority still works as well for rallying a crowd against them though.

By this logic we could also say that the participants in a poll for say an election are the vocal minority.

Dosn’t change the fact however that this vocal minority can give you a pretty accurate read on the “silent majority”.

On a diffrent note, Personally I strongly dislike the way guild missions were added, Its even more gated content, gated content that richer guilds can pay theyr way trough.. rather bad design in my opinion.

I would have been “ok” with it if it was not possible to rush past the timer by paying with influence, however it is..

Even so i would consider the laurel prices for new items a really bad joke..

Drasleona.5049:

really why is it that small guilds need to be on par with a large guild, whats the point of managing a large guild that is a huge force to reckon with. a collective that can make a difference in PVE and WvW, not to mention dominate SPVP. so my question is this, why are 5 ppl expecting to do the job of 100 people?

would you really feel safe knowing you are sending 5 people after a criminal that has continuously escaped capture from 50 people, and the criminals target is you? would you really hire the 5 people? NO if you care for the criminal to be caught you would hire the 100.

I have no problem with large group content being introduced into GW2. I do have problems with:

• Timing: Players are starved for content and significant content is introduced, but it is aimed only at a portion of the playerbase. Later for large-only content would have been better. What the game needed now was something aimed at a larger percentage of the players.
• Misleading Hype: “Small guilds can participate” with no mention of costs. Also, the fact that they might need to get help from non-guild members is mentioned, but no mention is made that these non-members will only get DE rewards, not the new rewards until the content goes live. People may help at first, but what about over time, when the umpteenth request for help appears in chat?
• Divisive Implementation: the cost as designed is going to be more divisive than it is inclusive. Guilds will break up, small guilds will have a harder time recruiting. Many guilds already kick people who do not represent 100% when online. With influence being even more desirable, that trend is going to increase.

Heijincks.9267:

Let’s put this into perspective. How old are the small guilds that are complaining about this? Small guilds that have been around for a few months have more than enough influence to get what they need. If a small guild was say, 2 weeks old, then of course getting the new content seems like a far reach. Simply put, the guilds that are able to obtain the new content faster only had a head start on influence building. Timewise, it probably won’t take any longer for a guild of the same size.

Because, of course, they should have had 20/20 foresight and known to stockpile influence for this update instead of spending it on any of those other frivolous things that influence can be used for.

^^ take into account lots moved recently since transferring was about to become paid. Hence many guilds, big or small, had to start rebuilding everything either way. Not much influence stocked there.

so. queensdale has an overflow, huh? how’s your content change workin’ out for ya, devs? as planned? i doubt it — everyone’s flocking to the lowbie areas to do this “content” that’s supposed to spread them throughout the world.

why do i point this out in this thread? because, dear wonderful dreamers, it’s yet another case of your plans for how people should do things blowing up, and reality sinking in. people want fast, they want easy, they’re going to take anything you offer and make sure they get it.

fast.
easy.

NOT in the method or by the manner you thought it would be done.

please reconsider your guild missions, in this light.

Ansultares.1567:

Heijincks.9267:

I’ll say for sure Anet screwed it up by putting the first unlock into Art of War. I don’t know for why they they implemented it with that tech tree either. If this wasn’t the case, I bet the number of complaints right now would fall at least 50%.

Or it would be increased by 100%, because according to their metrics, more guilds have invested into AoW than the other two branches (I don’t know that this is true, but it’s a very plausible explanation).

As much as there is complaining about this, I actually find it to be somewhat quiet, though I had initially chalked that up to the decreased playerbase.

But this talk about “why Art of War” leaves me thinking that the solely-PvE small guild crowd really is the vocal minority people always try to dismiss forum QQers as being.

One wonders why they were ever paid attention to over the past few months, because these are the folks who spearheaded the fanboy brigades since release claiming that every QQer was simply a “vocal minority.”

Ironic that they might be the most minor of vocal minorities the genre has to offer.

Perhaps there’s another way to look at this:

I’m in a guild of 4 people (close in real life) who have been together as a guild in various MMOs over the last decade+.

Our choice is first to play together, second to explore and achieve.

This means that if a game tells us we have to give up our social unit (first priority) in order to achieve (second priority), the answer is “no”.

We do not play Nintendo games. We do not play “cattle chute” open world games like what WoW became after Cataclysm: a single, inflexible thread of quests through a zone, which is the exclusive content of that zone, is not an MMO, it’s a Nintendo game where you happen to see other players.

We have led large scale open world PUG raids in earlier games. The fixed player count raiding of recent games requires repeated practice by consistent teams — it’s about execution, not about strategy, and although occasionally joining a PUG we do not value and do not choose to commit our time to that content.

“This QQ’ing” has very little to do with using scarce influence to get AOW5. If it were particularly important I’d grit my teeth, drop less than the cost of a restaurant dinner for 4 people at the gem store, and buy the ^&%$ influence.

It has a lot more to do with what was advertised as an open, inclusive game, deciding that the playstyle choices my guild and I made before GW2 was a gleam in its first developer’s eye, make us second class citizens. We left EQ2 the day EQ2 decided small guilds were second class citizens. We detested the way Vivendi tolerated Blizzard’s executives tolerating Jeff Kaplan shaming and belittling us for not following his preferred playstyle (or more precisely, not participating in the endgame he had bet his boss’s career on which less than 10% of the players liked).

And it’s not just being a second class citizen, it’s also about access to content. Creating events you pay to launch, where the events have a strict deadline and your payment is lost if the event isn’t taken down promptly, drift toward content exclusively accessible to intact teams which practice the encounter. It’s one thing if it’s fluff, but if there’s a gear progression that depends on access to this content, you’ve just created Jeff Kaplan’s haves and have nots.

Which means you’ve created a game we don’t want to play.

Heijincks.9267:

To get 36.5k it’s as simple as getting the entire guild to devote half an hour of their time into running CoF 1 for a week if 3 runs generates 1g/person in a 10 man guild. Spend even more time in other dungeons, and that process only goes faster. This isn’t much compared to what lengths some people go to get what they want in game.

If you’re expecting to be able to do things just as easily in small guilds compared to big guilds, then that just sounds like entitlement. It’s completely practical, and even if it takes longer, it’s nothing close to what people are moaning about.

People throw around the word entitlement far too easily. This is an issue of inequity, sure small guilds can do what you say but large guilds don’t so why should smaller guilds just to have access? It is fundamentally inequitable and as has already been shown that leads to resentment. It is not entitlement to criticise such an issue.

I hate to say this but again Anet this is poorly executed. I don’t think Anet has quite shaken off this “When it’s ready” attitude in regards to information provided on updates. A lot of it is theorizing within the community and hope bars being raised and then crushed. A bit of de ja vu happening I think. Blog posts are good however! If you’re going to make a blog post you need to have all the facts and I mean all the facts not just the tantalization aspect of it, if it’s got a sour part to it then it needs to be mentioned to keep your players in the loop. Again I feel it’s tied in with this “When it’s ready” attitude. Which is wrong because judging by this thread this update wasn’t ready at all and needs to be looked at. I do appreciated that you are working hard in order to provide more content for the players and I feel slightly sad that the company I believe in to deliver a great game is making fundamental mistakes when it comes to consumer communication.. Incidents like this can be avoided if you just listen to the feedback that’s being provided to you. Release all the information before the patch goes live and make adjustments with player help. We’re not on this band wagon of hating on you as a company and saying “YOU FAIL ANET GO AWAY AND HIDE IN SHAME”.. Not at all, I personally want more communication in regards to future updates because you can learn from your players and your players can help make this game great. The damage has been done now because the update went live and then all the information regarding it was let out. That should be in reverse..

Heijincks.9267:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Heijincks.9267:

Let’s put this into perspective. How old are the small guilds that are complaining about this? Small guilds that have been around for a few months have more than enough influence to get what they need. If a small guild was say, 2 weeks old, then of course getting the new content seems like a far reach. Simply put, the guilds that are able to obtain the new content faster only had a head start on influence building. Timewise, it probably won’t take any longer for a guild of the same size.

Because, of course, they should have had 20/20 foresight and known to stockpile influence for this update instead of spending it on any of those other frivolous things that influence can be used for.

What do you think disposable income is? What happens if you don’t spend disposable income?

Game economies do not usually involve taxes (non-disposable income). Hence, disposable income is a real world concept that does not apply in a game. However, irl if disposable income is not spent, that would be “savings.” If it were spent on non-necessities (like, oh, games) it would be discretionary income. Since game economies also do not involve necessities (rent, food, transportation, etc.), the term discretionary income does not apply either.

So what was your point?

Heijincks.9267

Let’s put this into perspective. How old are the small guilds that are complaining about this? Small guilds that have been around for a few months have more than enough influence to get what they need. If a small guild was say, 2 weeks old, then of course getting the new content seems like a far reach. Simply put, the guilds that are able to obtain the new content faster only had a head start on influence building. Timewise, it probably won’t take any longer for a guild of the same size.

This is factually incorrect. My day 1, 4 person guild, which has been focused on building a precise group composition/specs/gear/etc allowing us to 4-man the 5-player Explorable dungeon content, doesn’t happen to be doing enough things to generate remotely the kind of influence you suggest. We’ve maxed out the bank vault tabs, but nothing else. And yes, we were a little unhappy the day we hit the CoF explorable encounter that required 5 players to proceed (we don’t view the spoilers before attempting the content).

Heijincks.9267

Of course, that’s just me. For others, for whatever reason, leaving their small guild might be too much of a sacrifice.

Can we please stop bullying those who have different goals in playing? That is not helpful to the game or the community. Thanks!

Heijincks.9267:

Of course, that’s just me. For others, for whatever reason, leaving their small guild might be too much of a sacrifice.

For many people like me, it isn’t about what is more “practical” but about what is more personally meaningful. My Guild was once quite big on its GW1 days, and I was one of its older members (and officials), but as it got bigger, even I did feel lost and out of touch… I didn’t know many members anymore, and felt a disconnect that wasn’t there when the Guild was in its initial “Chamber Music” version. When we migrated to GW2, our Guild wasn’t as big anymore, but it’s small size allowed for more intimacy and comraderie, which I cherish. Having been a member of the same old Guild, and indeed, one of the first when they were initially recruiting based on playing with people rather than annoucing themselves over chat, I feel a great personal responsibility to keep the old torch alive for the sakes of both old and new friendships. It is not “practical”, or perhaps not even what’s “best” for me, but indeed it really is, and I wouldn’t have it any other way-representing a large Guild JUST to take advantage of the Guild Mission system seems to me a betrayal not only of my old Guild, but rather dishonest as well, since I wouldn’t be joining such large guild otherwise (I.E. if I am going to join your Guild, it must be for a very good value-based reason other than “getting ahead” in the game.)

Note that while I have high standards for myself regarding other Guilds (I don’t like representing other Guilds other than mine), I don’t apply those standards to guildies, and am happy with whatever choice they wanna make. If they don’t want to represent us anymore, that’s OK. If they want to leave, it’s OK. In short, we rather have the people that enjoy being with us (and indeed they must, because we are small and have little to offer save for the selflesness and great small community feel) than forcing them to do stuff for us. For our current poor numbers, we have already unlocked the tiers that matter to us (of course, we are only II Art of War, since WvW is something we don’t do all the time-none of the following tiers are of any practical use to us, quite honestly.) I like my old Guild, though of course it’s hard for the newer members to feel as much attachment as I have, since it’s been part of my life in the past (at least I do try to make the newer members feel as family, treating them as if they had been my friends since the beginning.)

I was looking forward to share some new ventures with my old small Guild, but it wasn’t meant to be, due to what I feel was either a hasty or not well-researched design decision (again, no offense intended.)

before the game launch Arenanet had that whole thing going on about not wanting players to spend hours on end just to prepare to have fun.

This is exactly that. Preparing to have fun.

Heijincks.9267:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Game economies do not usually involve taxes (non-disposable income). Hence, disposable income is a real world concept that does not apply in a game. However, irl if disposable income is not spent, that would be “savings.” If it were spent on non-necessities (like, oh, games) it would be discretionary income. Since game economies also do not involve necessities (rent, food, transportation, etc.), the term discretionary income does not apply either.

So what was your point?

You can dodge the topic. You knew precisely what I meant and avoided confronting it.

bewhatever.2390:

This is factually incorrect. My day 1, 4 person guild, which has been focused on building a precise group composition/specs/gear/etc allowing us to 4-man the 5-player Explorable dungeon content, doesn’t happen to be doing enough things to generate remotely the kind of influence you suggest. We’ve maxed out the bank vault tabs, but nothing else. And yes, we were a little unhappy the day we hit the CoF explorable encounter that required 5 players to proceed (we don’t view the spoilers before attempting the content).

From what some small guilds wrote in this forum, that didn’t seem to be the case. Asides from that, influence can be bought off with farmed money which is relatively cheap when split between guild members. Earlier I mentioned that the amount of money needed to get started on unlocking the guild missions can be obtained in a week.

Methinks he doth protest too much.

More directly, I acknowledge there is a playstyle which would have allowed my guild to acquire 10x the influence we have, and max every tab, and be ready to … what? 4-man these new raid encounters? We’re good, but nowhere near that good

Heijincks, this isn’t WoW. There isn’t one optimal playstyle. This is an open game which (at least until now) has embraced a wide variety of playstyles, personal life constraints, and social preferences. Other games do not, and in particular WoW required subordinating in game social and real life scheduling to the requirements of raiding.

What is being resisted is not an obstacle that can be removed by writing ArenaNet a check for $100 in real life (or whatever the number is). What is being resisted is a move by ArenaNet to prefer certain social styles (ie guild size) and play styles (I don’t choose to do Fractals, for example). Please stop coaching people on how to make those changes. It’s not that we aren’t smart enough to adapt, it’s that ArenaNet is asking us to adapt in ways that we as individuals do not prefer.

I suspect that your preferred playstyle is to focus on rewards and adapt in social, scheduling, content type, and minute to minute activity to maximize those rewards. I envy you the breadth of games which allow you that preferred playstyle. Please respect the diversity of preferred playstyles among GW2’s customers, and understand that many of us were shamed and belittled for our playstyles by the likes of Jeff Kaplan in WoW. By wanting to impose your preferences and playstyle on us, you are not just getting reactions in the present, but also reactions to past situations.

Star Ace that was a beautiful post and exemplifies the standards and values that I’m sure many players have.

That is not to say that reasons for joining large guilds are not valid. They are. As are joining and wanting to remain in a small guild.

People just have different values that result in observable behavior.

And it’s been proven scientifically.

According to scientific research done over 40 years ago, people generally fall into 4 distinct styles of interpersonal behavior (developed by the age of 6). These are aligned on 2 axes – one horizontal axis and one vertical axis. The axes contain sliding scales of observable behavior.

The two sliding scales are:

assertive —-- non-assertive
emotive (uses feelings) —- non-emotive (uses data)

Placing these axes together, they create 4 squares (quandrants) of interaction style .

As a general rule, when people are not stressed or angry they tend to operate 75% of the time consistently within these interaction styles.

Amiables – support experts

Someone who places more value on feelings and people, and is not high in assertiveness falls into the “Amiable” quandrant. These are normally people who place other people and other people’s feelings above other considerations first. Not exclusively. Just first. Because they are low in demonstrated asssertiveness, (they usually ask a lot of questions rather than tell), they are called “support experts”. These are the folks that care about being in a guild where they can get know other players, value being placed on feelings. They like to accomplish goals through supporting others in a teamwork environment.

Expressive – social experts

Someone who places value on feelings and people and is high in assertiveness (demonstrated by “telling” communication instead of asking), falls into the Expressive quadrant. These are generally the people who know a lot of people, love to name drop and are very good at dealing with people, both in large groups and one on one. They are called “social experts”. And usually care about prestige and status. These folks will generally want to be in a guild that has “made a name for itself”, a well-deserved status acquired through teamwork. They tend to gather a lot of people around them. They like to accomplish goals through/with people.

Analytics – process experts

Someone who values data (analysis, credibility) and is low in asssertiveness (again, demonstrated by asking questions) falls into the Analytic Quandrant. These people are usually excellent with executing well defined responses/actions. And often times are more comfortable with small amounts of players they trust that have proven their credibility. They are known as the “process experts”. They function very well in large guilds that have established processes and hierarchy. As well as being those that help create processes for small guilds. They like to accomplish goals through data-driven processes.

Drivers – control experts

Someone who values data and is high in assertiveness (again, demonstrated by “telling” communication rather than asking questions,) fall into the “Drivers” quadrant. These people value efficiency. They want to do things directly, often quickly, with little to no wasted effort. They are known as the “control experts” and are very good at pushing for results, driving (solo) or groups towards accomplishing their goals. They want a clear direction and a clear goal and will be happy to change direction, if data supports changing it, as long as they are actually moving in a direction period. Often, these people end up being guild leaders and/or officers and will join any guild of effective players to achieve results.

Not just people

The 4 styles of interaction described above can also (scientfically) be applied to cultures, organizations, companies, countries … anything that is a collection of people.

MMO’s have cultures. And often display the values of the founding developers. Which then in turn, fosters more of the same based on the players attracted.

Those cultures can change if traumatic events affect the values (see: sudden design changes).

*What this long winded post based on Wilson Learning research (NFI), implies is that the customer base can be diagnosed/segmented along these 4 basic personal interaction styles as well as Bartle’s classic identification.

And it effects guild size, reasons for joining, reasons for staying, reasons for leaving, etcetera.

So, to those that have difficulty understanding that players don’t or won’t embrace your playstyle (“just join a larger guild”), please know that three-quarters of other players (the other 3 quandrants) probably don’t share your values.

Geez, why wouldn’t I want to join a giant guild full of complete strangers that will take just about anyone to pad their numbers and inf income?

I really miss out on the drama, favoritism, elitist attitudes, abuse and generally being ordered about like I was at a job instead of playing a game for fun. Not to mention the wonderful topics that’ll come up in guild chat…

I’m sure there are a couple good ones on each server but you really only find out what they are like once you are in there and I’m not keen on building up a reputation as a guild hopper.

Its too bad, I thought this would be really fun to do with my friends, but just like WoW I’m being told that this part of the game isn’t for people like me. Not due to any lack gaming ability, but because I don’t hang out with enough people apparently.

Heijincks.9267:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Game economies do not usually involve taxes (non-disposable income). Hence, disposable income is a real world concept that does not apply in a game. However, irl if disposable income is not spent, that would be “savings.” If it were spent on non-necessities (like, oh, games) it would be discretionary income. Since game economies also do not involve necessities (rent, food, transportation, etc.), the term discretionary income does not apply either.

So what was your point?

You can dodge the topic. You knew precisely what I meant and avoided confronting it.

Hindsight is 20/20, foresight isn’t. While choice is an important part of games, so is knowledge.

@goldenwing

I’m not concerned about that, I understand that some people just don’t want to leave a guild they enjoy being a part of without substantially good reason. No. . . right now I’m concerned of two things. One of them has to do with this update and one with a reaction to it.

First, I’m not pleased with the cost in time/Influence. I anticipated it being “Art of War 5 and you’re set”, not another cost on top of it. It’s “a bit much” in my parlance, which translates to “oh my that’s a big chunk”. The costs for the rest of the unlocks tell me this is very much intended to be content which isn’t munched quickly but done over a longer period of time. Now I could be wrong and the intent could be for every guild in existence to drop $400 on gems and convert them through to Influence so they can get started. However, no matter what people here say I really don’t think ArenaNet would expect people to do that . . . not that they’d discourage it, naturally. (Let’s not delude ourselves? They are a business and the system is in place to funnel cash into influence should someone be that driven.)

The other concern is how people are reacting now, and it’s a throwback to when Ascended Gear came out BOTH times thus far. There are two sides forming who aren’t talking with each other about it, they’re screaming at each other thinking if they get louder and more abrasive then their message will get through. We’ve had examples of truly awesome cases made against this new system, or at least to revamp it so it possibly could work better.

(Look, I’m not sure the proposed solutions can work out without more tweaking done to them. I’m not saying they wouldn’t work at all.)

Can we please get someone to make an eloquent case FOR the current system without the name-calling or the rancor being thrown around? I’d do it except I’m not sure I could do it justice.

Heijincks.9267:

Of course, that’s just me. For others, for whatever reason, leaving their small guild might be too much of a sacrifice.

In my case it’s loyalty. My friends vs new content. Sorry, but friends win out each time. That’s just me. Maybe I’m wierd.

Just to clarify – I’m not annoyed big guilds can do the content now, I don’t even care for any ascended junk. We’ll get there eventually too, but having to complete a mission that doesn’t seem to scale well to lower numbers (bounty hunt) before being able to do one that’s more favourable (trek) is what is irksome. Especially since the mandatory mission (bounty hunt) is under the most useless research branch for us. This would have been the best place to put guild vs guild missions instead but I guess that’s not going to happen.

Everyone is time poor. So when it comes to game night it will be: Hey should we all grind influence in GW2 to be able to do the missions we want some other time in the future or simply play a different game where we can all get to the content we want now? L4D2, Torchlight 2, Mabinogi, UO, WO, CoD, Dungeon Defenders, Vegas2, hell even Castle Crashers… lotsa choices. Just saying ANet isn’t really making it attractive enough with their current system to pursue over the rest.

(you know ANet is doing something wrong when we play Castle Crashers over GW2 – lol) :P

Anywho, on the off chance I feel like grinding, any tips for non-dungeon gold generation? WvW and dungeon content really doesn’t suit me so if I’m to grind, I’d better grind effectively. Selling mats at trading post I guess?

I’m more concerned for the playerbase at this point. How many more times can they swallow? It’s like watching reality-TV.

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

Heijincks.9267:

Of course, that’s just me. For others, for whatever reason, leaving their small guild might be too much of a sacrifice.

In my case it’s loyalty. My friends vs new content. Sorry, but friends win out each time. That’s just me. Maybe I’m wierd.

Just to clarify – I’m not annoyed big guilds can do the content now, I don’t even care for any ascended junk. We’ll get there eventually too, but having to complete a mission that doesn’t seem to scale well to lower numbers (bounty hunt) before being able to do one that’s more favourable (trek) is what is irksome. Especially since the mandatory mission (bounty hunt) is under the most useless research branch for us. This would have been the best place to put guild vs guild missions instead but I guess that’s not going to happen.

Everyone is time poor. So when it comes to game night it will be: Hey should we all grind influence in GW2 to be able to do the missions we want some other time in the future or simply play a different game where we can all get to the content we want now? L4D2, Torchlight 2, Mabinogi, UO, WO, CoD, Dungeon Defenders, Vegas2, hell even Castle Crashers… lotsa choices. Just saying ANet isn’t really making it attractive enough with their current system to pursue over the rest.

(you know ANet is doing something wrong when we play Castle Crashers over GW2 – lol) :P

Anywho, on the off chance I feel like grinding, any tips for non-dungeon gold generation? WvW and dungeon content really doesn’t suit me so if I’m to grind, I’d better grind effectively. Selling mats at trading post I guess?

Read my signature. Remember when they said that? This whole prepping to have fun thing is the most absurd I’ve had the displeasure of coming across in any game.

kKagari.6804:

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

Heijincks.9267:

Of course, that’s just me. For others, for whatever reason, leaving their small guild might be too much of a sacrifice.

In my case it’s loyalty. My friends vs new content. Sorry, but friends win out each time. That’s just me. Maybe I’m wierd.

Just to clarify – I’m not annoyed big guilds can do the content now, I don’t even care for any ascended junk. We’ll get there eventually too, but having to complete a mission that doesn’t seem to scale well to lower numbers (bounty hunt) before being able to do one that’s more favourable (trek) is what is irksome. Especially since the mandatory mission (bounty hunt) is under the most useless research branch for us. This would have been the best place to put guild vs guild missions instead but I guess that’s not going to happen.

Everyone is time poor. So when it comes to game night it will be: Hey should we all grind influence in GW2 to be able to do the missions we want some other time in the future or simply play a different game where we can all get to the content we want now? L4D2, Torchlight 2, Mabinogi, UO, WO, CoD, Dungeon Defenders, Vegas2, hell even Castle Crashers… lotsa choices. Just saying ANet isn’t really making it attractive enough with their current system to pursue over the rest.

(you know ANet is doing something wrong when we play Castle Crashers over GW2 – lol) :P

Anywho, on the off chance I feel like grinding, any tips for non-dungeon gold generation? WvW and dungeon content really doesn’t suit me so if I’m to grind, I’d better grind effectively. Selling mats at trading post I guess?

Read my signature. Remember when they said that? This whole prepping to have fun thing is the most absurd I’ve had the displeasure of coming across in any game.

I think the same thing was used for the higher level items the time that something or other was bugged and countless number of things often proven wrong. Its not a good idea to have your cause on your sleeve because it make it less of a reason and truly its a very tried out argument that lost all creditably.
Added note:
I think all of this has made the forms a very toxic places for Discussion about GW2. If Anet dose not see that some ppl are unhappy about this then they are not reading this but most like they do see what ppl are saying its just the same things are being said over and over. Its a very stressful thing to even come here and talk about something or ask something at this point. I think ppl need to take a breath and take a step back and try to look at the big pic of things.

Heijincks.9267:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Hindsight is 20/20, foresight isn’t. While choice is an important part of games, so is knowledge.

Leftover, unspent influence accumulate. Done

While I understand saving for retirement, new car and such irl, influence was, if any irl comparison can be made, discretionary income, stuff you spend for fun. Sure, if a small guild spent very little, they would have more. However, some didn’t, whereas if they’d known this was coming, they might have…
_________________________________________________________________

Heijincks.9267:

How the content was implemented, yes I understand why some people abhor it. On the flipside, many people seem to be pretty happy. This seems to be a case of politics really; you make one group happy and make the other group disappointed.

Of course, where there’s less time, there’s less progress. This is something that’s unfortunately unavoidable, and with regards to small guilds, the lesser resources to work with makes the cost heavier per person. Each member would have to therefore invest more time/energy to get the content. I personally like to make the best of my time; to complete things through the path of least resistance. To my end, my solution was to simply join a bigger guild (and get all friends to do so as well). Of course, not everyone would agree with me on that.

Asides from just the general disdain of big guilds, what other reason do small guilds have for the refusal to join a bigger one?

As far as getting money for the new content is concerned, I don’t really have any ideas other than the alternatives available (eg. Orr farming). I personally run dungeons which I find is far more time efficient for money than anything else.

What I find to be a shame about the implementation was that if there had been no cost, then there would have been no politics about that issue. That would have been a way to make both groups happy. Now, ANet is facing a stiff challenge with keeping people interested in logging in, and may feel a need to time gate content. If the influence buy was their best option to do that, fine. At least let people know up front what the mechanic is so they don’t build expectations that turn out to be unrealistic.

As to the folding into large groups … it just isn’t everyone’s thing. Maybe they prefer being in a smaller group where their presence actually matters? I had been thinking of leaving the largish guild I’m in (where people are kittening about the 72 hour wait, so almost nobody has patience) for precisely that reason.

I’m also fine with my choices leading to my being barred from content. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t think it would have been better if it had been implemented inclusively rather than divisively.

Heijincks.9267:

kKagari.6804:

Read my signature. Remember when they said that? This whole prepping to have fun thing is the most absurd I’ve had the displeasure of coming across in any game.

In one way you’re correct. In another, you’re not. Your message in your signature is completely circumstantially relative. This differs from person to person.

If you don’t immediately get everything you need right off the bat to have fun, would that mean Anet broke their promise? Is the only way to meet their promise is to break every sense of progression, including something as trivial as getting exotic gears? After all, everyone has to go up the ladder for the sake of “having fun”.

Personally, I fall somewhere in between. I think some of the progression is far too extended (eg. ascended). But let’s be honest here; their statement is only contradictory to one’s opinion.

What happened to the days where challenge was the only form of gating that stopped you from doing further challenges. I have to finish 1-1 in Mario before I get to 1-2. This whole researching missions BS is completely superfluous. Am I supposed to feel like I achieved something when I click the the research button? The irony is that, even if you argue that point, why is the research TIME relevant at all? You’ve made us grind our guts out for influence, now we have to wait even longer.

I confess, I’m in a small guild. In fact, I’m the leader of one. There is close to no way that getting the 150,000 influence required to get to guild bounties is going to feel like anything but a grind. Guild bounties already have gating mechanisms in themselves, with the separate difficulty levels. The influence gating only punishes small guilds.

Is it intended that guild members don’t receive rewards for mission completion when guesting? We have a multi-server guild and were planning on running all missions on one server, but it looks like this won’t be possible.

@ IndigoSundown.5419
Small guilds:
The thing is its not just small guilds its inactive guilds too. If you think you should be able to do every thing day one after not playing the game for 1+ month your taking a lot of liberty with the rights of thoughts who have been playing for the month that you missed. The major thing is Guild events is not the entirety of GW2 its just the “FOTM” if all your coming back for is just one set of events to only leave once your done what the point of getting the new items? We need active ppl for guilds and WvW because we have server that become low pop that they fall behind the other WvW. This is an instinctive to keep playing longer then just the content of this month is done something to work on as a long turn goal.
Look at it this way take a person who just started the game. Now what can this person work for. At level 1 (well level 2) they can build up points to use on a level 80 gear. Now we have a person who can level them self up playing content as if its end game level events all at the same time. Now this person find them self needing ppl to talk with beyond the random encounters so you join up with a guild. Now this guild may or may not have been there for a time to upgrades but over all the guild that they join is a long turn investment to there rewards and over all enjoyment of the game. Now at 80 this person can work on getting the bits that they want with there saved up they cant get every thing but they can some a few things and start to work on the other gear both ascended and exotic. This is where the investment kicks in where you can get ppl from your guild to help you when you cant find random ppl to do things and in being in the guild you grown relationships with ppl making your team work all the better. AND that what its all about mmorpg at its best making long turn relationships with other humans. Yes you can do this in real life and you should but the ideal of these game IS to be with other humans over the long run.

hello everyone,
Id like to start in saying I understand much of the frustration many of you are having with the new guild content, but I do feel I should put my two cents in as it were.

I am a Guild Leader of a medium size guild, we have 155 members with about 15-20 active daily during the week at any given time and about 30 active on the weekends at various times. like most guilds have experienced I’m sure, we have had a drop off of people who stop playing to personal reasons and simply wanting to try new things. no monthly fee makes this completely acceptable in my eyes.

So now that you know mainly where I am coming from Id like to say I am happy to see the new updates to the guild system. I do wish they focused on more then just this, but I see this as a great tool to focus my guild members and get them talking to one another. I realize these mission will keep small guilds of just a party of members from doing them, but they don’t strike me as geared towards party’s of people but more the co operation of a large group of people.

now for the bitter truth which is…how could you not see this sort of thing coming? I mean even with this update they still haven’t released the guild halls and the actual guild wars part of the game. I mean there was even an upgrade to lvl 5 in the influence some where that had zero benefits to it, how could you not see you were going to need a lot of influence to do the next step? I don’t have a huge guildie population but we managed to save up 88k influence and have everything unlocked AND keep 24/7 buffs AND kick on all the other buffs during the weekends for guild dungeon and wvwvw events.

I don’t see the problem people have with joining a bigger guild really. I mean if you take the time and shop online you can find out what all the guilds in the game are all about before even joining. we have been in talks with some smaller guilds to join our family and take part in the fun. its not like you will lose your group of friends once you join a larger guild, the only thing you lose is the ability to kick things off when ever you want.

one last thing I have to say is I would expect an answer from Anet for possibly as long as a week. I mean would you really want to answer a community this large the moment they start to complain about something new? right now they are probably taking all of your complaining down on a piece of paper with how many people have an issue and how many issues there are. that process takes time, time for us to vent the information and time for them to come up with a response. I just ask they my fellow community members show a little more patience with this.

thank you for your time

I have a question for the dev,

Why do we have to redo all the rank 5 mastery (economy, politic, WvW) in guild?
cause we had them already… now we have to remake them and is 20 000 point already spent in the past for that…

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

@goldenwing

I’m not concerned about that, I understand that some people just don’t want to leave a guild they enjoy being a part of without substantially good reason. No. . . right now I’m concerned of two things. One of them has to do with this update and one with a reaction to it.

First, I’m not pleased with the cost in time/Influence. I anticipated it being “Art of War 5 and you’re set”, not another cost on top of it. It’s “a bit much” in my parlance, which translates to “oh my that’s a big chunk”. The costs for the rest of the unlocks tell me this is very much intended to be content which isn’t munched quickly but done over a longer period of time. Now I could be wrong and the intent could be for every guild in existence to drop $400 on gems and convert them through to Influence so they can get started. However, no matter what people here say I really don’t think ArenaNet would expect people to do that . . . not that they’d discourage it, naturally. (Let’s not delude ourselves? They are a business and the system is in place to funnel cash into influence should someone be that driven.)

The other concern is how people are reacting now, and it’s a throwback to when Ascended Gear came out BOTH times thus far. There are two sides forming who aren’t talking with each other about it, they’re screaming at each other thinking if they get louder and more abrasive then their message will get through. We’ve had examples of truly awesome cases made against this new system, or at least to revamp it so it possibly could work better.

(Look, I’m not sure the proposed solutions can work out without more tweaking done to them. I’m not saying they wouldn’t work at all.)

Can we please get someone to make an eloquent case FOR the current system without the name-calling or the rancor being thrown around? I’d do it except I’m not sure I could do it justice.

I haven’t read anything past your post because you bring up an important point, one that needs to be reiterated.

Yes, there is a gap in content sorely needed for large guilds outside of WvW. From other game boards, back before release, and in the last several months, GW2 has been dismissed by many gamers as a “casual” game (e.g. does not support large guilds).

The fact that several other MMOs have captured a great deal of this playstyle is a concern to the longevity of GW2 if the current financial model is at risk and/or large attrition has occurred. We don’t know. ANet is not transparent regarding that. Nor would it be in their best interest at the moment.

What we do know, based on what has been said in interviews, is that ANet understood there was a need to serve a different segment of their players. And that has been demonstrated with the addition of fractals and changes to the dailies/monthlies and the current content.

How that content was actually executed and presented to the playerbase is topic for several other threads (going back to November). I obviously have expressed concerns regarding trust, etcetera. And concern about balance and equity (see: the numerous times the cost has been brought up). There are valid points on all sides that need to be taken into consideration to avoid this content release being viewed, historically, as a major impact on the game’s on-going success.

I think there is room for this content to work, with a revisit using feedback from this thread (something I mentioned on page 4). And plenty of people have pointed at Matipzieu KyA’s 4-posts as a starting point.

And I agree, there are many players who are at the moment, talking past each other in an effort to be acknowledged. I also do not have the eloquence to address that.

I think the thing we ALL have in common, regardless of actual content execution, is that we care enough about the game to want it to continue, hence the long thread and some heated discussion.

Isende.2607:

so. queensdale has an overflow, huh? how’s your content change workin’ out for ya, devs? as planned? i doubt it — everyone’s flocking to the lowbie areas to do this “content” that’s supposed to spread them throughout the world.

why do i point this out in this thread? because, dear wonderful dreamers, it’s yet another case of your plans for how people should do things blowing up, and reality sinking in. people want fast, they want easy, they’re going to take anything you offer and make sure they get it.

Dead lowbie zones were a common complaint, and posed a serious threat to their ability to keep new players. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was intentional, or if it was unintentional that they’re pleasantly happy with the results.

Heijincks.9267:

If you don’t immediately get everything you need right off the bat to have fun, would that mean Anet broke their promise?

No, but that’s not what happened here. This is preparing to have fun.

Ansultares.1567:

Dead lowbie zones were a common complaint, and posed a serious threat to their ability to keep new players. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was intentional, or if it was unintentional that they’re pleasantly happy with the results.

I believe it was not the direct intention, but perhaps what they hoped to achieve. Now, if only it wasn’t in a volume which smothered the zones on some servers . . .

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Now, if only it wasn’t in a volume which smothered the zones on some servers . . .

Be grateful its active.

Ansultares.1567:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Now, if only it wasn’t in a volume which smothered the zones on some servers . . .

Be grateful its active.

Believe me, I’m at least somewhat grateful but as is so ever present in an MMO – the answer to a problem often leads to another problem.

Well hello gw2 community , back from a long brake after the new implemented aggro stealth tables which pretty much destroyed thief even more , we get these new awesome guild perks/missions and ascended accesories. 40 laurels + 50 ectos for one piece that’s just great no grind at all ( wth ? ) , these patches are getting worse by the date with new gated content I used to praise this game like a madman , now I simply won’t log on to grind more pink gated gear. Hoping for eso to give us some more hope even though I doubt it, the mmo scene may rest in peace.

bewhatever.2390:

This is factually incorrect. My day 1, 4 person guild, which has been focused on building a precise group composition/specs/gear/etc allowing us to 4-man the 5-player Explorable dungeon content, doesn’t happen to be doing enough things to generate remotely the kind of influence you suggest. We’ve maxed out the bank vault tabs, but nothing else. And yes, we were a little unhappy the day we hit the CoF explorable encounter that required 5 players to proceed (we don’t view the spoilers before attempting the content).

Our large guild completed Tier 3 Bounty this evening and I can assure you, influence should be the least of your worries. Small guilds simply do not have the manpower to provide coverage on all the maps.

Even if ANet gifted you the influence, there’s no way a small guild can do this. There are too many bosses on too many maps, you don’t know which ones you will get until you start the mission, you have to track them down, they sometimes travel in huge and random paths and the timer would just be too harsh for a tiny guild.

While I feel for the smaller guilds, many people have been asking for large scale PvE guild content since the game launched. Not every patch is going to bring content for every subset of the community.

Our small guild is primarily in WvW, so I had no idea what a kittenstorm there was over the guild missions.

After investigating, I’m flabbergasted.

My only comment is this: why did Anet gate access to large raids according to guild size?

It seems like some bizarre experiment in human psychology (like the Stanford Prison Experiment.

Karizee.8076:

bewhatever.2390:

This is factually incorrect. My day 1, 4 person guild, which has been focused on building a precise group composition/specs/gear/etc allowing us to 4-man the 5-player Explorable dungeon content, doesn’t happen to be doing enough things to generate remotely the kind of influence you suggest. We’ve maxed out the bank vault tabs, but nothing else. And yes, we were a little unhappy the day we hit the CoF explorable encounter that required 5 players to proceed (we don’t view the spoilers before attempting the content).

Our large guild completed Tier 3 Bounty this evening and I can assure you, influence should be the least of your worries. Small guilds simply do not have the manpower to provide coverage on all the maps.

Even if ANet gifted you the influence, there’s no way a small guild can do this. There are too many bosses on too many maps, you don’t know which ones you will get until you start the mission, you have to track them down, they sometimes travel in huge and random paths and the timer would just be too harsh for a tiny guild.

While I feel for the smaller guilds, many people have been asking for large scale PvE guild content since the game launched. Not every patch is going to bring content for every subset of the community.

Congratulations on completing Tier 3 Bounty!

Agreed, unlocking these new missions is not the real barrier. This is raid content, and I don’t care how good the 4 of us are, we can’t chase down “n” different mobs with a timer ticking.

No problem with ArenaNet putting large scale open world raid content in the game, or putting content in the game for large guilds to work on together.

My objection is to any means of delivering that content which creates “haves” and “have nots”, or worse, “superior players” and “peons” (by any name, including references to Jeff Kaplan’s female ancestors in NY Times interviews ). Already heard the first anecdote of someone in /map chat annoucing his guild was launching an event and inviting “peons” to come watch… GW2, both game and community, do not need this kind of divisiveness.

Thrumdi.9216:

Our small guild is primarily in WvW, so I had no idea what a kittenstorm there was over the guild missions.

After investigating, I’m flabbergasted.

My only comment is this: why did Anet gate access to large raids according to guild size?

It seems like some bizarre experiment in human psychology (like the Stanford Prison Experiment.

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/History-Repeats-killing-the-golden-goose/first#post1521726

I’m not sure why are people arguing over this. Small guild aren’t gated from this contents as it will just take a longer time to unlock it since your guild is smaller. However, since a big guild is well, big. Then obviously they gain influence a whole lot faster than a small guild.

Somehow this thread is akin to a small company comparing itself to a giant corporation. This is an issue because small guilds demand to have the content available to them immediately or at the same time as a big guild get it. Your guild is small, you want it to remain that size and hence, the lack of manpower to accumulate influence.

Small guilds might be gated from the content designed for large guilds, but the player surely isn’t.
This is where the possibility to join multiple guild really shines.

So there isn’t actually really a problem, if you just open your mind to the idea of joining another big guild.

In the end small guild start small guild-content and big guilds start big-guild content.

There is no problem as i see it, everyone can be in a small guild and a large guild

I’m really appalled that people are surprised when their 3 man family “guild” (is that even a guild?) achieves things 10x slower than a 30 man guild…
Maybe it’s time to enlarge your online friend circle a bit? I know meeting strangers can be scary, but it’s also very rewarding, and I don’t mean in game items.

Everyone touting the muti-guild functionality conveniently ignores the pettiness of human nature and the fact that many guild leaders will resent you representing another guild.

Indeed, this is more likely to happen now that ArenaNet have attached such value to representation.

Any time you represent one guild, you’re not generating influence for the other. Therefore, the guild leadership may very well resent you, and they can definitely claim to have a valid reason, so they’ll end up kicking you out of their guild.

Indeed, on the other side of the coin, the leadership of the large guilds you are now representing in order to get your shinies may very justifiably insist that you leave your other guilds, otherwise they’ll kick you and cut off your access to the guild missions.

This will happen.
It’s just the way people are, and this kind of behaviour is only made easier thanks to the relative anonymity of the web.

Our small guild of 8 operating on Gandara had an excercise last night when only 4 players were online to see how much influence we could earn in an evening. We split into 2 groups of 2 to maximise the earned influence from events and set to work on two different areas of Plains of Ashford. Within 2 1/2 hours we had clocked up just over 1000 influence for the guild. (and the coin we earned can buy even more)Now i’d not like to play like this every night. And every time a guildie logged on i’d not want to insist that they played like this to earn us influence. But comeon folks, stop whining about “i can’t get this content”, with a little bit of effort and guild management it’s entirely possible.
And oh yes, as posters are now pointing out Multiguild!

Mungrul raised a good point.

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

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

Korrigan.4837:

Mungrul raised a good point.

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

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

Elitism, and a profound lack of a sense of community rolled into one

Arenanet,

Thank you very much for this amazing new content. This has really brought our guild together to work towards earning influence for missions and hoping to tackle these in the future.

Although the prices are steep, I think they are fair. I wouldn’t want to have been handed everything at once, I feel like earning something is a lot more gratifying. Please do not give in to the cries of those who like getting everything for free.