Guild Wars 2

Q: What are the benefits to players for repping a guild in 2016 and what are the benefits to the guild as well as to themselves as new players?

Extended question for clarification purposes:

I am posting on my guild’s forums a new thread as the old one is outdated with the release of HOT and the changes to guilds. Now the whole guild repping is completely different as there is no such thing as influence. What do I tell new players as the reasons to represent a guild?

There are many reasons people do not rep 100% and that is that not all are 100% what players want in one guild at all times. Some want to WvW, some want to PvE, some want a mix, and not all guilds do it all but one or the other. Some people want to be in a RP guild, some want to be in a Christian guild yet that guild they joined might not be in the same WvW server. So this won’t be on why would you NOT rep 100%, but what are the benefits to players for repping a guild in 2016 and what are the benefits to the guild as well as to themselves as new players.

There are a few reason to rep a guild, there is (afaik) one reason for a guild to need you to Rep them.

Reasons you might want to Rep a guild

• Chat Channel Ping – you can only ping to your repped guild
• Access to Guild Hall features/functions (Merchants, Bank, Decorations, Harvesting, Upgrade-Deposit, etc.)
• Drop Guild upgrades (Banners, Feasts, etc.)

Reasons A guild needs you

• Guild Mission – Trek, have to be in the guild to credit finding the location for them
• Guild Mission – WvW
• Guild Mission – PvP
• Guild Tag identification

Reasons it doesn’t matter:

• Guild Mission – PvE (Challenge, Race, Puzzle, Bounty) : Personal & Guild rewards for these trigger even if players are not a member of the guild
• Influence, this is a retired resource
• Guild Hall jump, you can jump to any guild you are a member of’s guild hall for free from the interface even if you’re not repping that guild
• Guild Boon – you need to rep to get a guild boon, but you can change guild after w/o any penalty

I mean might not be a complete list but really outside of guild events (and people knowing your guild by tag) there isn’t a reason to force rep.

With influence removed, and the addition of guild chat channels, there’s no other reason to fully rep a particular guild. I guess an exception would be for guild events to show unity and such.

Well, once a guild is upgraded enough it can have benefits for repping, such kitten discount on using waypoints.

Beyond that, there’s no reason for any guild to require that players rep that guild, although some do ask that you rep during guild events etc.

sniffle I miss my guild buffs..

Because some guilds still, in 2016, demand 100% rep. If you want to be a part of such a misinformed guild… then that’s why.

I don’t care if people rep my guild or not. Some people don’t rep and still actively participate. They can see guild chat, so what’s the difference? Why should I, as a guild leader, care?

There is little benefits for players themselves, but, at the same time, many players too are not that comfortable with this cross-chat thing or are they educated about the existence of this cross-chat thing. Repping has always been for the benefit of the guilds and not the players themselves.

Likewise, many people have this prejudice that because some guilds enforce rep in the past solely for influence, it must means that all other guilds enforce rep for the same reason. /shrugs

Regardless of whatever reasons a guild enforce rep, one can explain it in a very simplistic way and that is if players can choose which guild to join, guilds too can choose who to accept and if players can’t accept the requirements to be part of the guilds, then don’t and leave it at that.

To me, repping a guild is a matter of honor. If I’m going to take the time to join a guild and find out about them, and they about me; if I’m going to invest my game time, gold, and mats with this guild, and they’re investing their time helping me, then I want to be proud to represent them.

It’s nice that guilds don’t have to require 100% repping anymore, and it gives their members a lot more freedom. But, as a guild leader, I’m watching to see what my guild members do, or don’t do, when thinking about to whom i should offer promotions. Just as I would rep my guild in order to show my pride in, and loyalty to, them, I would hope to see the same from my guild members.

I think it would be difficult to develop a tight-knit group if everyone is always off doing his or her own thing, with no thought to loyalty to those who ‘have your back’ so to speak.

I dunno, maybe I’m old fashioned in that regard.

Little Leota.5849:

To me, repping a guild is a matter of honor. If I’m going to take the time to join a guild and find out about them, and they about me; if I’m going to invest my game time, gold, and mats with this guild, and they’re investing their time helping me, then I want to be proud to represent them.

It’s nice that guilds don’t have to require 100% repping anymore, and it gives their members a lot more freedom. But, as a guild leader, I’m watching to see what my guild members do, or don’t do, when thinking about to whom i should offer promotions. Just as I would rep my guild in order to show my pride in, and loyalty to, them, I would hope to see the same from my guild members.

I think it would be difficult to develop a tight-knit group if everyone is always off doing his or her own thing, with no thought to loyalty to those who ‘have your back’ so to speak.

I dunno, maybe I’m old fashioned in that regard.

100% this. You are not the only one.

Little Leota.5849:

To me, repping a guild is a matter of honor. If I’m going to take the time to join a guild and find out about them, and they about me; if I’m going to invest my game time, gold, and mats with this guild, and they’re investing their time helping me, then I want to be proud to represent them.

It’s nice that guilds don’t have to require 100% repping anymore, and it gives their members a lot more freedom. But, as a guild leader, I’m watching to see what my guild members do, or don’t do, when thinking about to whom i should offer promotions. Just as I would rep my guild in order to show my pride in, and loyalty to, them, I would hope to see the same from my guild members.

I think it would be difficult to develop a tight-knit group if everyone is always off doing his or her own thing, with no thought to loyalty to those who ‘have your back’ so to speak.

I dunno, maybe I’m old fashioned in that regard.

Gw2 is heavily casual, loyalty or more accurately, camaraderie do not exist in many. It is a sad thing for gw2. Many people simply hop from one guild to another, just to pass time, achieve their personal goals and that’s it.

Guild representations – or even membership – shouldn’t be something that feels forced or required because of buffs or guild level.

Players should participate in a guild because the leadership and other members of that guild make the game more enjoyable – and because it feels like a place where you can play alongside people with the same ingame (and possibly out of game) interests. The beauty of the new system allows that to include multiple groups simultaneously without cutting ties with others.

I personally love the new system. Before HOT, there were a lot of friends that I didn’t talk to as often as I wanted because they were in smaller guilds focused on other things (for example, a small guild of military veterans with tight out of game ties). Now, they can retain that autonomy yet still be a part of my larger more diverse guild (even if they dont rep).

Most importantly, the new system puts the onus on us – the leaders and players in the game – to define the value of our guilds through our activities and support for our members. It is a major improvement over the old system, imo, and one my guild is taking full advantage of.

Kyle.5931:

100% this. You are not the only one.

Thank you Kyle! It’s good to know there are others who feel the same way.

SkyShroud.2865:

Gw2 is heavily casual, loyalty or more accurately, camaraderie do not exist in many. It is a sad thing for gw2. Many people simply hop from one guild to another, just to pass time, achieve their personal goals and that’s it.

It is sad that loyalty and camaraderie are lacking. I’ve already experienced one guild hopper, and I know it won’t be the last time.

My guild is pretty much casual at this point, but I don’t think being casual should preclude loyalty. That’s why I mentioned the resources both the guild and it’s members contribute. Why do this if there’s no loyalty?

That’s not to say that loyalty to a guild precludes belonging to any other guild. If a player wants to remain “in the ranks” of the guild (so to speak) while doing the same in other guilds, that’s perfectly fine. However, if a player would like to eventually be a part of guild leadership, an early showing of loyalty to that guild is important, imo.

My main reason for being in a guild was always to have a consistent group of people to talk to while playing, so my main reason for repping was to be able to see guild chat.

That hasn’t really changed since guilds you’re not repping get a dull brown chat colour that doesn’t stand out easily. If we could customise chat colours this wouldn’t really be an issue, but as it is only my repped guild’s chat is easy to read while playing.

Other than that the only reasons I can think of are that you have to rep in order to get credit for guild missions (I did Rush the other day with a guild I’m not part of and only got the normal event reward, no bouncy chest or commendation), and to access some guild hall features and benefits.

And obviously many people just like to show they’re part of a particular guild.

There must have been some expectation that all the solo and casual players would have to join guilds since the old ones were destroyed. The old guild halls served those players well. The new ones don’t seem to at all.
Not likely to join and rep a system they really hate, regardless of whether it has benefits. That may be why there is concern over repping.

Katiekaboom.1980:

Q: What are the benefits to players for repping a guild in 2016 and what are the benefits to the guild as well as to themselves as new players?

There’s never been any real incentive for any particular player to rep any particular guild — the incentive has always been for the guild to get players to represent for influence. Under the favor system, player interests are better aligned with the guild’s: you rep because you like to hang out with each, not because the guild suffers if you don’t rep.

Still, there are specific, minor advantages (mostly unchanged):

• No commendations unless you rep during g-mish
• Easier to find guildies (via yellow dots), but this applies only to larger guilds involved in diverse activities (squad and/or party works much better for smaller guilds and during group activities, such as g-mish).
• Easier to chat with currently-repped guild

tl;dr there never was any personal advantage to repping guilds permanently; the benefits went to the guild, not to the individual

There’s this thing with games that don’t treat your characters individually and pretty much “bundle them up”. When i get invited into a guild, the game puts my account with all my chars into the guild roster. However, i simply don’t want all of my chars to belong to that guild. Not all of my chars are available to that guild. When i’m on the character that i started together with my gf, i’ll rep the guild that i started with her, not the one that one of my other characters belong to.
That’s also what i say to all those guilds that require you to rep them: just because the game puts all of my characters into your guild, doesn’t mean that i actually see it that way, too.

Rep only a guild name that sounds cool

Guild halls are cool and all but both the updates and insane prices have made the whole guild system useless, small guilds are dead, big guilds are just there to make profit off and fun and loyal guilds are like myths. Although Anet likes wearing rose tinted goggles and pretend everything is a-ok, the previous guild system was a lot better than what we have now. And that says a lot….

My guild, was created almost three years ago on the tenants of fun. The rule was always no rep requirement. The other guild leaders and I, had a strong belief that if people were enjoying the guild they would naturally wish to rep.

To force them to rep was asking for toxic unhappy people that were there because they had to be there, not because they wanted to be. Yes, my guild has seen alot of turn over, our recruitment cycle is constant. But the truth is through the years we have formed a tight cohesive family at the core.

Alot of People repping tells us that we are hitting our mark and doing things people want to do and like. People not repping tells us that we have missed our mark, and ussually coincides with a rest cycle (where we just decide to take a bit of a break to avoid burn-out). This has been highly effective. The fact that Guild wars has helped us and even given us more tools so that we can accommodate the changing moods of Guild members is really great!

I wish that I could have more accurate data on Rep rates(not on individuals but as a whole in your guild, this would prevent punishment to specific individuals.) so I could measure a bit more accurately as this tool would be so useful to guild leaders and tell them when they are doing things right.

Effectively, the game no longer gives players or guilds any reward for simply representing a guild, save for guild commendations from missions. Thus, the only benefit to representing a guild is cosmetic at best.

Since guild buffs are now mutually exclusive items players have to opt into using, rather than stacking buffs that automatically apply to all representing members, they are more cumbersome to take advantage of. Representing a guild for the sake of the buffs it can afford you is ancient history now.

For large guilds that have core members who will be present for large periods of time, this all has no effect whatsoever.

For small guilds and new guilds, not having any way of showing your appreciating of the strangers who join your guild before you get to know them well may prove to be a real disadvantage. You won’t have the numbers to keep your members company and you won’t be able to gloss over your lack of population or service during period when your small group isn’t all available to play together.

Given this, the best reason to represent any guild at any time has become to get credit for guild missions (via guild commendations). That’s the long and short of it. You can do everything else in the game, and earn every other reward in the game, without representing any guild.

There are no guild wars in this game, save the grind for guild hall mats and the churn of guild members. So, if you need an excuse to represent a guild, guild commendations is your only bet.

Of course, if you work for ArenaNet, representing a dev guild may also be a subtle form of job security. That does nothing for the rest of us. Representation requirements are just silly though if you don’t happen to be a dev guild and your job isn’t contingent on getting on well with other developers.

As Nightshade.2570 said above, having an in-game source of representation data would really help us guild leaders. It might also help good intentioned players juggle their representation time more efficiently.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

there never was any personal advantage to repping guilds permanently; the benefits went to the guild, not to the individual

Actually, the buffs that influence bought for guilds did give personal advantages to all guild members, if your guild leader was savvy enough to use them. My guild spent every bit of influence it could on providing experience, karma, crafting and harvesting bonuses to all members. Those benefits were applied to all representing members automatically. Many guilds failed to do this; but, it was possible. It isn’t now.

I’m not mentioning this to distract this thread from the subject of the original post; but, rather, to point out that a reason to represent a guild was removed.

Little Leota.5849:

I think it would be difficult to develop a tight-knit group if everyone is always off doing his or her own thing, with no thought to loyalty to those who ‘have your back’ so to speak.

Although I value honour and loyalty and camaraderie, I look at guilds like sports teams. I wouldn’t refuse to watch any basketball game unless the Lakers were playing in it, even though I consider myself a Lakers fan. Equally, I don’t expect my guild members to refuse to play in a guild unless they are playing in my guild.

Loyalty and camaraderie are earned over time. Guild membership is an instantaneous missive that can be revoked just as quickly. Demanding 100% representation is a lot like demanding loyalty you’ve yet to have earned.

Nightshade.2570:

My guild, was created almost three years ago on the tenants of fun. The rule was always no rep requirement. The other guild leaders and I, had a strong belief that if people were enjoying the guild they would naturally wish to rep.

To force them to rep was asking for toxic unhappy people that were there because they had to be there, not because they wanted to be. Yes, my guild has seen alot of turn over, our recruitment cycle is constant. But the truth is through the years we have formed a tight cohesive family at the core.

This. I founded my guild in the first Guild Wars 8.5 years ago and we’re still going strong. We have never had a rep requirement and encourage everyone to play the way they want. If your guild provides the type of community that players want to be a part of, they will represent.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I am proud to rep a guild. I agree with you both, it’s a matter of pride and honor. Granted I usually represent the dev guild, but even there, our guildies have worked hard to build up our Guild Hall, and my repping Anet is a sign of respect for everyone involved and of support for my fellow team members.

I can tell that people have been hard at work on the Anet guild hall. I got a chance to explore it over a month ago and it was already well decorated.

I am very oldschool when it comes to this, but I do have my principles. I am there, I am representing and I am proud. There was a little FC in FF14 and it was the best place. A lucky find so to say. Nobody knew us, their were not in any ranks at the top, yet it’s this diversity that made it great. And I LOVED that.

It’s a matter of your attitude. I hate people that always seek the most shining things and leave people behind. I’ve been in many guilds in many games. They join a guild, have a good time and suddenly it’s like “hast left the guild”. I whisper them out of curiousity and their response: “Guild XYZ is more famous, screw you noobs”. I was so baffled.

I join a guild and I am loyal. When I saw that there are people here not even representing I was shocked about this in a game called GUILD Wars (^^). I am casual myself, because I have a project going on in real life, but I got removed due to the lack of activity. Which is good because this is what I want to see (active guilds), but also sad because I liked those guys. However, I think there should only be one guild and you have to represent them. Period. In FF14 there is even a 24-hour punishment for leaving a guild.

When I am joining a guild (which takes like 30 minutes of a whisper with the leader/recruiter to find out they match my style and attitude) I am there forever like the Mount Everest or the sun. When I had to leave I do explain and wish them all the best. A little ceremony so to say.

I am kinda annoyed by the attitude of many players in this regard. But then, I have been raised by good parents with manners, not selfish and social-incompetent Hillbillys.

imho, the game now applies to both types of players.

Some Players find a group of people or the majority of a guild which they get on with and enjoy talking to them / Playing with them and seek to be apart of a guild for community purposes to get to know players or be apart of a Diverse Community through their shared love for the game / content / desires.

Others Rep guilds for guild hall access or Simply just to meet players or be apart of multiple guilds to get to know a Larger variety of players which will hold More activity in Chat or offer you more as in content wise as u’ll be aiming ur questions / groups across a much bigger mass of players.

I participate in a guild for the players rather then a reward or Profit from being apart of it,

SkyShroud.2865:

Little Leota.5849:

To me, repping a guild is a matter of honor. If I’m going to take the time to join a guild and find out about them, and they about me; if I’m going to invest my game time, gold, and mats with this guild, and they’re investing their time helping me, then I want to be proud to represent them.

It’s nice that guilds don’t have to require 100% repping anymore, and it gives their members a lot more freedom. But, as a guild leader, I’m watching to see what my guild members do, or don’t do, when thinking about to whom i should offer promotions. Just as I would rep my guild in order to show my pride in, and loyalty to, them, I would hope to see the same from my guild members.

I think it would be difficult to develop a tight-knit group if everyone is always off doing his or her own thing, with no thought to loyalty to those who ‘have your back’ so to speak.

I dunno, maybe I’m old fashioned in that regard.

Gw2 is heavily casual, loyalty or more accurately, camaraderie do not exist in many. It is a sad thing for gw2. Many people simply hop from one guild to another, just to pass time, achieve their personal goals and that’s it.

Agree with Leota.

I’ll go one step farther and say that I also think it is stupid that you can join 7 or so other guilds and be in all of them at the same time (especially ones on other borderlands). It’s for reasons like this that Loyalty and camaraderie no longer exist. The game doesn’t reward these behaviours, and it actually goes out of it’s way to make players who do uphold these things look stupid. The game is pretty much about going in on a daily basis….doing your dailies and then if you have time then doing the same stuff you did yesterday or the day before that. It just feels like an individual grindfest where everything is a tool and method to grinding more…now guilds are just a tool and method toward personal grind. I feel stupid for being nice to and helping guildies. I feel stupid for supplying materials to a smaller…or any guild. I feel stupid for thinking that guildies stick together and support eachother. I’m wondering to myself why I don’t just join the largest richest guild available….forget what borderland it is on…forget camaraderie and loyalty I should just use it to further my farm and not care either way how it goes. Then when I’m on WvsW I’ll just send messages to the guildchat, selling out my BL for a few silver pennies. This game just feels so disconnect now….
Why should I be nice to someone who is in the guild but not representing? I feel guildies should always be nice to eachother and have eachother’s backs against any outside threats. If you are in the guild and not representing though….how does that make you a guildie in the ‘community’ sense? You are just a random person as far as I’m concerned. As soon as you start representing though I feel the need to treat you with great respect.

Wait if guilds and everything we do is redundant then what was it we are grinding FOR again?

Cerby.1069:

SkyShroud.2865:

Little Leota.5849:

To me, repping a guild is a matter of honor. If I’m going to take the time to join a guild and find out about them, and they about me; if I’m going to invest my game time, gold, and mats with this guild, and they’re investing their time helping me, then I want to be proud to represent them.

It’s nice that guilds don’t have to require 100% repping anymore, and it gives their members a lot more freedom. But, as a guild leader, I’m watching to see what my guild members do, or don’t do, when thinking about to whom i should offer promotions. Just as I would rep my guild in order to show my pride in, and loyalty to, them, I would hope to see the same from my guild members.

I think it would be difficult to develop a tight-knit group if everyone is always off doing his or her own thing, with no thought to loyalty to those who ‘have your back’ so to speak.

I dunno, maybe I’m old fashioned in that regard.

Gw2 is heavily casual, loyalty or more accurately, camaraderie do not exist in many. It is a sad thing for gw2. Many people simply hop from one guild to another, just to pass time, achieve their personal goals and that’s it.

Agree with Leota.

I’ll go one step farther and say that I also think it is stupid that you can join 7 or so other guilds and be in all of them at the same time (especially ones on other borderlands). It’s for reasons like this that Loyalty and camaraderie no longer exist. The game doesn’t reward these behaviours, and it actually goes out of it’s way to make players who do uphold these things look stupid. The game is pretty much about going in on a daily basis….doing your dailies and then if you have time then doing the same stuff you did yesterday or the day before that. It just feels like an individual grindfest where everything is a tool and method to grinding more…now guilds are just a tool and method toward personal grind. I feel stupid for being nice to and helping guildies. I feel stupid for supplying materials to a smaller…or any guild. I feel stupid for thinking that guildies stick together and support eachother. I’m wondering to myself why I don’t just join the largest richest guild available….forget what borderland it is on…forget camaraderie and loyalty I should just use it to further my farm and not care either way how it goes. Then when I’m on WvsW I’ll just send messages to the guildchat, selling out my BL for a few silver pennies. This game just feels so disconnect now….
Why should I be nice to someone who is in the guild but not representing? I feel guildies should always be nice to eachother and have eachother’s backs against any outside threats. If you are in the guild and not representing though….how does that make you a guildie in the ‘community’ sense? You are just a random person as far as I’m concerned. As soon as you start representing though I feel the need to treat you with great respect.

Wait if guilds and everything we do is redundant then what was it we are grinding FOR again?

I feel you. Helping guildies and naturally, you expect those guildies to help other guildies but many received whatever help they can get, ditched or even backstab you, then went somewhere. Then, after experiencing several of that, you simply get demoralized and no longer want to help.

A lot or should I say most people when talking about rep, it is all about tangible benefits. There are couple of guilds deliberately enforce rep rule to shoo off people who merely looking for tangible benefits or people simply wanting to join a guild to take advantage of.

A lot of people say gw2 community is friendlier than other communities but honestly speaking, that is just the surface, it is not any different from any other communities but is just that other communities are more honest than gw2’s.

I see some guilds with no rep policy and the members talk to each other without repping and do alot of things together.

I don’t think there are many guilds out there who organizes everything on a regular manner. There are so many activities in HoT that requires organization. Some guilds do this and other guilds do that. If you were only allowed to join one guild, you would be missing out on a ton of activities. I don’t think it is a matter of taking advantage of a guild, it has to be both ways.

Roxanne.6140:

I see some guilds with no rep policy and the members talk to each other without repping and do alot of things together.

I don’t think there are many guilds out there who organizes everything on a regular manner. There are so many activities in HoT that requires organization. Some guilds do this and other guilds do that. If you were only allowed to join one guild, you would be missing out on a ton of activities. I don’t think it is a matter of taking advantage of a guild, it has to be both ways.

Key words: both ways
In reality, there are way more one way than both ways.

Thank you everyone for this discussion as well as the answers. This will help me in my guild’s new guild recruitment message since the old one no longer is appropriate. I do miss some things that once were but I do see some new good things. Time will tell if it is just as good as before or even better or worse. I would like there to be more incentive for people to want to represent a “MAIN” guild instead of repping none or choosing to stay guildless. At the same time without influence there no longer is people just repping who ever has the highest benefits anymore so that is good for guilds and the benefit of being in a guild at all is access to guild halls which is nice when a guild has those buff vendors and resource nodes available. I also realize some choose to join an alternate guild now to have access to the guild hall that their main guild doesn’t have so that they can see what both have.