Guild Wars 2

I just decided to send an email to ArenaNet. Maybe that way this message could be noticed. I doubt it, but I feel the need to express myself, so here it goes:

“I was never one of the complaining types. I know that the highest tier gear is not necessary. I will never aim for a legendary and I’m fine with it, but I really wanted ascended items. So much so that now I’m feeling a bit depressed. The system after the update makes no sense and is actively stopping the guild that I’m in from expanding. It’s actually breaking the game.
Here’s the game breaking part:
I’m in a 15 member guild. We were slowly getting our upgrades, one by one. We were never big, so we never complained about how slow it is for us to get it. But here’s the thing – we will never be able to get enough influence to be able to run guild missions. You might say “just get a few more members!”. Well my recruiting efforts are going to waste now, because first thing that people want before joining is to know that your guild will have enough influence to unlock and run guild missions right now. Well we can’t have that because we don’t have enough members. And we can’t get enough members because we don’t have it.
Here’s the solo player based part:
I was able to get ascended rings no problem. Running fractals is easy enough. I thought that their laurel price made no sense (they have less stats than the amulet, but cost more), but because I already had them from fractals I had no complaints there. The amulets came out. I thought “that’s where I will spend my laurels!”. Yes, it takes 20 days to get even one and I have 8 alts, but I can do it! All it takes is time, right (it would take me about 5 months to get the amulets for all of my alts)?
But then the accessories came out. Here where it makes no sense – they have less stats than the amulets and the rings, but they cost more! 40 laurels + 50 ectos. 50 ectos would already push it close to impossible for me, but I won’t complain here, plenty of ways to get ectos, it would be my own fault if I wouldn’t get 50 of them (15 gold to buy it, so a full earring set would cost 30 gold, or if I would want to get free exotics to salvage and my luck would stay what it is – about 150 dungeon runs). But 40 laurels when their stats are lower than the amulet? Let’s see, so I have 8 alts – that’s 14 months of dailies and monthlies + 240 gold spent if the prices don’t change if I want to get it for them. "

Earrings are impossible for me. At least they’re impossible for me if I want to gear all of my alts. Either that or I’ll have to be one of those cheap shots that joins a random big guild (or more than one of them), only to get my stuff and leave. And I don’t want to resort to doing that. Yet I do want the earrings. I agree to work for them, but 40 laurels for each is something I will not be able to afford.

Rings: Cost a lot of dailies, but not a lot of time if you run

FRACTALS!

Amulets: Cost a reasonable amount of

DAILIES

Earrings: Cost a kittenload of dailies and money, but lucky there are

GUILD MISSIONS!

Hope that helps.

Resonance.4216:

Earrings: Cost a kittenload of dailies and money, but lucky there are

GUILD MISSIONS!

If you’re in a large guild, sure.

Resonance.4216:

Rings: Cost a lot of dailies, but not a lot of time if you run

FRACTALS!

Amulets: Cost a reasonable amount of

DAILIES

Earrings: Cost a kittenload of dailies and money, but lucky there are

GUILD MISSIONS!

Hope that helps.

did you read my post?
I already stated that I have nothing against rings because we have fractals and that I have nothing against amulets because that’s where all my laurels will go for the next 5 months.
Did you read my problem with earrings? OR should I make a tldr post for you? Need one? Then here it goes
tldr
I’ll either have to spend 12 monthlies and 240 gold on earrings alone to gear up 8 alts (1 year, 6 months if I want amulets and earrings, if we will have items rolled out every month or so I’m likely to be unable to fully gear up my 8 alts in 10 years) or I’ll have to grief of joining a big guild, getting the items and leaving.
Why is that? I’m in a small guild that can’t save up 300 000 influence and we can’t get more members because we don’t have that influence.

You can always buy the influence. slowly and surely Just 2g a week from each member would already go a long way to unlocking that.

penatbater.4710:

You can always buy the influence. slowly and surely Just 2g a week from each member would already go a long way to unlocking that.

Why should s/he have to take far longer than a larger guild?

Didn’t they say these guild missions could be accomplished by randoms helping out? Unless I’m misinterpreting it here. Also, why do you NEED all 8 slots geared to the teeth? Is someone pointing a gun at you? Will it leave you fulfilled? MMOs games are about the journey, not the destination. If you want instant(hollow) gratification, go hack some single player game.

penatbater.4710:

You can always buy the influence. slowly and surely Just 2g a week from each member would already go a long way to unlocking that.

knowing me I’ll still reach for it and get it, but it will take kitten forever (having in mind that only 6 of us have level 80s that would be able to afford throwing those 2 gold a week at this point) and it will still prevent the guild from growing. If there was no influence requirement I would actually have no problem, because my guild would somehow coordinate and get trough the missions with less members than there should be.
I get your point, but it doesn’t really stop me from feeling upset.

LinkR.6190:

Didn’t they say these guild missions could be accomplished by randoms helping out? Unless I’m misinterpreting it here. Also, why do you NEED all 8 slots geared to the teeth? Is someone pointing a gun at you? Will it leave you fulfilled? MMOs games are about the journey, not the destination. If you want instant(hollow) gratification, go hack some single player game.

randoms can help you to complete it, but you’ll still need to get 300 000 influence to unlock it.

Perhaps you can try temporarily joining the big guilds and then leave after you got the earrings.

penatbater.4710:

You can always buy the influence. slowly and surely Just 2g a week from each member would already go a long way to unlocking that.

Oh man that makes it sound so much worse.. A guild should never require its members to donate. Guilding should never be a privilege that should be afforded. Guilds that ask for money are just asking for trouble.

morrolan.9608:

penatbater.4710:

You can always buy the influence. slowly and surely Just 2g a week from each member would already go a long way to unlocking that.

Why should s/he have to take far longer than a larger guild?

Because… that’s the way the system works and life isn’t fair and a game is no different? Honestly, if I’m in your shoes, I’ll be glad I have the option to buy influence. Imagine if there was none, small guilds would die left and right and just merge/join the bigger ones, and the sense of camaraderie and community from that small guild would be lost.

I’m in two guilds atm, a small and a big one. I’ll probably chip in a few gold to help the small one get more influence points.

Leo Paul.1659:

Oh man that makes it sound so much worse.. A guild should never require its members to donate. Guilding should never be a privilege that should be afforded. Guilds that ask for money are just asking for trouble.

Well if they’re such a close-knitt group, I doubt donating will be the last thing they’ll worry about. When my big guild started the game out, we passed items and money and dyes and stuff left and right to each other, helping each other level up and stuff. Community-based effort.

Mirta.5029:

I just decided to send an email to ArenaNet. Maybe that way this message could be noticed. I doubt it, but I feel the need to express myself, so here it goes:

“I was never one of the complaining types. I know that the highest tier gear is not necessary. I will never aim for a legendary and I’m fine with it, but I really wanted ascended items. So much so that now I’m feeling a bit depressed. The system after the update makes no sense and is actively stopping the guild that I’m in from expanding. It’s actually breaking the game.
Here’s the game breaking part:
I’m in a 15 member guild. We were slowly getting our upgrades, one by one. We were never big, so we never complained about how slow it is for us to get it. But here’s the thing – we will never be able to get enough influence to be able to run guild missions. You might say “just get a few more members!”. Well my recruiting efforts are going to waste now, because first thing that people want before joining is to know that your guild will have enough influence to unlock and run guild missions right now. Well we can’t have that because we don’t have enough members. And we can’t get enough members because we don’t have it.
Here’s the solo player based part:
I was able to get ascended rings no problem. Running fractals is easy enough. I thought that their laurel price made no sense (they have less stats than the amulet, but cost more), but because I already had them from fractals I had no complaints there. The amulets came out. I thought “that’s where I will spend my laurels!”. Yes, it takes 20 days to get even one and I have 8 alts, but I can do it! All it takes is time, right (it would take me about 5 months to get the amulets for all of my alts)?
But then the accessories came out. Here where it makes no sense – they have less stats than the amulets and the rings, but they cost more! 40 laurels + 50 ectos. 50 ectos would already push it close to impossible for me, but I won’t complain here, plenty of ways to get ectos, it would be my own fault if I wouldn’t get 50 of them (15 gold to buy it, so a full earring set would cost 30 gold, or if I would want to get free exotics to salvage and my luck would stay what it is – about 150 dungeon runs). But 40 laurels when their stats are lower than the amulet? Let’s see, so I have 8 alts – that’s 14 months of dailies and monthlies + 240 gold spent if the prices don’t change if I want to get it for them. "

Earrings are impossible for me. At least they’re impossible for me if I want to gear all of my alts. Either that or I’ll have to be one of those cheap shots that joins a random big guild (or more than one of them), only to get my stuff and leave. And I don’t want to resort to doing that. Yet I do want the earrings. I agree to work for them, but 40 laurels for each is something I will not be able to afford.

Mirta, Mirta, I can’t believe you are QQing about any aspect of vertical progression. Remember, it’s all optional. You don’t need any of it to play the game. Simply ignore the ascending power curve if you think any part of it is too steep.

/tongueincheek

Raine.1394:

Mirta, Mirta, I can’t believe you are QQing about any aspect of vertical progression. Remember, it’s all optional. You don’t need any of it to play the game. Simply ignore the ascending power curve if you think any part of it is too steep.

/tongueincheek

actually I’m mostly questioning what will happen to the small guilds. My main concern is that my small guild will not be able to participate in the guild missions and because of that will never be able to attract more people.

Mirta.5029:

Raine.1394:

Mirta, Mirta, I can’t believe you are QQing about any aspect of vertical progression. Remember, it’s all optional. You don’t need any of it to play the game. Simply ignore the ascending power curve if you think any part of it is too steep.

/tongueincheek

actually I’m mostly questioning what will happen to the small guilds. My main concern is that my small guild will not be able to participate in the guild missions and because of that will never be able to attract more people.

I don’t think the guild mission thing should be the main feature that attracts your members in the first place. Sure it’ll be nice to have some, but the main/important features to advertise would probably friendly, close-knitt group, funny, etc whatever suits your fancy.

penatbater.4710:

Mirta.5029:

Raine.1394:

Mirta, Mirta, I can’t believe you are QQing about any aspect of vertical progression. Remember, it’s all optional. You don’t need any of it to play the game. Simply ignore the ascending power curve if you think any part of it is too steep.

/tongueincheek

actually I’m mostly questioning what will happen to the small guilds. My main concern is that my small guild will not be able to participate in the guild missions and because of that will never be able to attract more people.

I don’t think the guild mission thing should be the main feature that attracts your members in the first place. Sure it’ll be nice to have some, but the main/important features to advertise would probably friendly, close-knitt group, funny, etc whatever suits your fancy.

This is what guilds originally meant for me. Sadly, with guild missions, it has turned for the worse.

First of I agree with the OP, all of us who prefer to roll in small guilds , we knew the drawbacks – slower building of influence, pugging dungeons more often, not same benefits in WvW etc – and we were fine with them. Because we still weren’t excluded from any activity and we could still get our gear within a logical time.

With this new update they are practically making it almost impossible for us to participate in guild missions with the small guild we set up and loved , and also they triple the time we’ll need to get our earrings – if we ever actually…cause I am not sure if and when small guilds manage to unlock the missions, will they have the people needed to complete them? And please don’t just say “randoms can help”, that’s more easily said than done. What will be a pug’s motive to help you? Will there be any valuable reward?

Some people keep suggesting to “buy the influence”. Sure if I was in a big guild too (and liked to stay there) I could go around post "easy’’suggestions like that. It is a way, but as someone said above, the guilding experience shouldn’t depend on money. I don’t feel like a part of a whole community anymore, rather it’s like I was just thrown into a class struggle; you can join the big and powerful, stay impersonal but get it all easy, or you can remain with the few good pals, hardly get anything done and furthermore empty your pockets in the process.

As the OP says, they took away from us even the ability to recruit more people, in an attempt to help our guilds now that they need it the most.

And cause I read around people comparing this to WoW, saying we finally got our 15 men “raids” and we still complain…it’s not the same at all. You get raid rewards/achievements even in pug groups, here you are forced to do everything with guild for those rewards and if your guild is small, you may as well farewell the idea. Is that 15 number going to apply here too? I mean you will need to have around 10+ doing same time the guild mission for it to count? Cause in that case , not only influence is the problem.

Now, the big guilds will be entitled to their “24/7 representation or risk being kicked out” because of these guild missions. They should’ve just made influence distributed to every guild you have joined instead of the one you are representing.

Zorainda.3495:

Some people keep suggesting to “buy the influence”. Sure if I was in a big guild too (and liked to stay there) I could go around post "easy’’suggestions like that. It is a way, but as someone said above, the guilding experience shouldn’t depend on money. I don’t feel like a part of a whole community anymore, rather it’s like I was just thrown into a class struggle; you can join the big and powerful, stay impersonal but get it all easy, or you can remain with the few good pals, hardly get anything done and furthermore empty your pockets in the process.

(bold mine)

You’re upset that it takes a small guild more time to build up a given amount of influence. You then acknowledge an alternative way of achieving that goal (a way that a single person could reasonably hope to achieve). However, you then just simply discount that alternate?

I don’t see a lack of unreasonable alternates.

Biohazard.4196:

Zorainda.3495:

Some people keep suggesting to “buy the influence”. Sure if I was in a big guild too (and liked to stay there) I could go around post "easy’’suggestions like that. It is a way, but as someone said above, the guilding experience shouldn’t depend on money. I don’t feel like a part of a whole community anymore, rather it’s like I was just thrown into a class struggle; you can join the big and powerful, stay impersonal but get it all easy, or you can remain with the few good pals, hardly get anything done and furthermore empty your pockets in the process.

(bold mine)

You’re upset that it takes a small guild more time to build up a given amount of influence. You then acknowledge an alternative way of achieving that goal (a way that a single person could reasonably hope to achieve). However, you then just simply discount that alternate?

I don’t see a lack of unreasonable alternates.

except that it’s pretty expensive, not all can afford it and we would be left with no money for our gear :/