Guild Wars 2

Proposal: Return Guild Influence
Why: It’s Fun

So with the changes introduced in HoT influence was replaced with favor and resonance. Guild missions were changed to allow guilds to still gather a currency they could then use to ‘fund’ their guilds. Vendors were added and caps were introduced to allow the old currency to be converted to the new ones over time with a conversion rate that was pretty aggressive to reduce the built up supply that was out there.

But…..that then removed an aspect of the game that I know many enjoyed which was an extra bit that was gained for your guild when you played the game together with other guild members. It was token but it was still fun and it added up. It made it so every time you did events together or PvP’d together or did various things there was a little more reward and incentive to do it together. It also then allowed guilds to build items from the time that members put in to return value to its members. I like the new systems but I don’t think they have to be mutually exclusive. The game needs a good supply and demand system to ensure materials are collected and removed from the game but it still feels like part of the why do it together aspects was removed.

What I am proposing is bring that back, and leave the new currencies, converters and caps in place. That way guilds small and large working with guild mates are still creating a usable currency for their guild, people can see that working together helps the guild and it gives people things to work towards together. The conversion rates can be adjusted over time as well as the weekly caps if need be and it creates an infrastructure to allow ANet to create more items that guilds can purchase for themselves with favor and influence down the road. This would also allow people that are still having issues with gaining favor via missions a much slower way to still grow their guilds but with the time gate caps on the conversion still keep the large and maxed out guilds with a form of check and balance.

I know we have a lot of different currencies already, but these are all already in place now as well. Favor via missions would still be the best way to gain guild currencies but playing the game would also create a means to that end but at a much reduced rate.

Anyway, 2 cents and thanks for your time, good gaming!

The thing is, from what I recall, the “currency” you get from unlocking the workshop was to replace influences use to speed upgrades up? And the more your guild plays together the more you get?
I heard something about it on one of the streams.
I vote no for influence back, no matter how it’s implemented.

No Riku, they scrapped it. Here is a breakdown of all new guild currencies + how to get

You have:
Favor → reward from guild missions
Aetherium → overtime (mine)
Resonance → Rare bonus drops from guild missions (this is what was supposed to replace influence)

Thus guild missions is the only way to actively help your guild, and its hardcapped…

Ergo, I say return influence to do something or make resonance the new influence (like it was supposed to be) for what OP said, please.

Completely agree with the OP. Bring it back!

Resonance is the currency that you can use to speed up the items that are queued after your scribe has crafted them. You can convert influence via the vendors to either favor or resonance currently. I might be missing something but I don’t see where allowing a larger guild to build guild consumables faster than my smaller guild is a disadvantage since the offset is allowing more favor for the smaller guilds on their architecture side.

Favor allows the growth of guild infrastructure but all resonance does is allow your guild to build items that have been crafted faster. Still requires the scribe and/or guild to collect the materials for the item though.

That’s one of the reasons I would like to see influence returned so that members actions outside of missions can still benefit the growth and management of the guild based on actions they do with others in game.

I agree with OP bring back influence to help smaller guilds and bigger ones. with breaking the missions for a week were no guild could gain favour if we still had the older system at least we would have still been able to gain some that week. We need gaining favour back for repping and doing things together. Especially for smaller guilds and when ANet breaks missions.

I don’t think we need influence back, at least not the way it once was. Influence had a lot of problems, primarily the login influence that automatically rewarded just having more guild members, regardless of what they were doing. With F2P accounts, that login influence could be easily abused.

I think we need to expand resonance.

The initial idea was to have resonance added to the drop table when you’re with guild members in a party or squad, and that was a pretty solid idea.

However, resonance is extremely limited in its applications, currently only being used to speed up creating of schematics in the assembler. Simply allowing it to be used as it once was, however, would completely undermine what’s good about the new systems.

Requiring people to occasionally assemble as a group and complete guild missions is good. It means you can’t upgrade a guild that doesn’t play as a guild. Upgrades are good. They reward guilds that are willing to forego some personal wealth in order to work toward powerful or unique shared benefits.

The new system is better than the old one because it gives personal benefit to people in the form of unique opportunities as a reward for investing time and effort in to the guild, often at the expense of personal goals. Any further changes should reinforce this design, making sure that the hall remains the centerpiece, and that people feel they get a personal return on their investment.

This is where influence was a problem. For the day to day member it was a mostly invisible system that they had no control over. Sure, it helped keep up buffs, que missions, etc, but unless you were a leader or officer, it didn’t really matter to you, the normal member, and you didn’t get to make decisions that made you feel like the guild was a valuable part of your day to day play in a mechanical rather than a social sense.

My guild adores the new system. They like that they get to make choices about things. They like that upgrades always benefit them directly. They feel like its worthwhile to contribute and do missions because they get access to cool merchants, buffs, and other stuff to activate and control when they feel like it.

In stead, how about moving back to the initial design of resonance, but adding resonance to the accepted currencies for a few vendors, and adding a new one?

Guild Trader
Now accepts resonance crystals or guild commendations for items.

Decorations Merchant
Now accepts 50s or a resonance crystal for all wares.

Armor/Weapon merchants
Now accepts gold or an equivalent amount of resonance crystals.

Resonance Trader
Accepts resonance donations as before, but grants a mysterious tonic when donating. These out of print tonics are unique rewards as they can be transformed in to various other tonics, and would be a nice litte thank you for the donation.

Guild Portal
Can be opened to any waypoint you know at the cost of one resonating crystal. Great way to save money or help your guildmates unlock WPs. This isn’t permanent, just for that one portal activation.

Tavern
Bartender will now sell belcher’s bluff tables (single use) and Bottles of Elonian Wine for resonating crystals.

War Room
Will now sell siege blueprints for resonating crystals.

Treasurer
Will now sell “Crate of Surplus Inventory” for resonating crystals. This box contains a random item, 20 currency, or 20 crafting material from all of those acquirable as drops anywhere in GW2. The goal here is a gamble box with low chance but highly desirable payouts. You may get blues and greens, but you may also get a precursor, 20 ectos, or other valuable rewards.

Guild Halls are a cash grab nothing more, your living in a world where you think they care . get over it

Perhaps I’m failing to understand how things are different now than they were under the only system. Our guild still seems to be able to do everything we did before under the new system without any constraints except from aetherium at times because our members manage to make all the donations needed before we have the aetherium needed. In fact under the old system our guild had a surplus so that it was to the point that we didn’t really even need to be a guild any more to fund the guild activities. And we aren’t a large guild.

No, influence can stay dead and buried for all I care.

The reason influence was scrapped was because we are able to be part of 5 guilds yet influence incentivised only representing a single guild all the time. It’s the reason we see “100% rep req” as part of guild recruitment messages even now.

Don’t get me wrong. I like the new system as well. It just feels like we lost some incentive. True you can get guild members together to do missions but you lost some incentive to do smaller things together. Silverwaste is a good example. The random Veteran events that pop up in the middle of no where. They don’t advance the map, they don’t really drop loot that’s worth the time, but they were a good way to stop and take a second and kill with a guildmate for 20 points. Now its more, move along they aren’t worth the time. Doing random events in Tyria while doing dailies, same kind of thing. Champ trains, though smashed over time, were also a great way for a guild to build up currency together and do some events that rewarded the player and the guild.

I agree valid points on the F2P accounts, the 100% rep thing is mixed in but is also different but still fair points. As I said, looking for a way to tie the old into the new since the groundwork is already in place.

The difference in the old and new is that the only activity now that benefits a guild is the missions and you don’t even have to do those together for the most part. I won’t deny that a lot of people didn’t realize how much their activities were adding to their guilds but a good number did as well, hence the 100% rep thing. Double sided coin that. Jia’s point on how much currency their guild had built up is a good example of people playing the game while being member’s. With a conversion rate similar to what is in place now that time just enjoying the game as a guild member and building influence could create things to enhance a guild’s experience.

I also agree that the guild halls are a sink, be it in game material and/or people spending real money to outfit their guild. The material sink part makes since though since we need more things to move material around the world and out of it else you again end up with things having no value and therefore, why bother.

Key point here is that the more you can associate a member’s activity to a guild and allow the guild to give back to its member the stronger the tie between the two. Else you end up with everyone just running around in their bank guilds.

Pope crossed into a different conversation and one I touched lightly on above as well which is at some point people are going to be asking that there be more things that their guild can spend guild currency on to benefit their members and show that the guild can give back. The current currencies have their distinct roles which will need to be modified at some point else they too become, why bother kind of items which are not healthy for a system.

I appreciate all the feedback. Good gaming to you!