Guild Wars 2

First off, I’M TIRED OF the HUGE burden of expensive scribe mats for a small guild. Being the sole scribe decorator makes it a huge personal gold sink for a guild based system. Seems too much of a burden to stick one or a few people.

Secondly, A material storage for the gbank or a 4rth tab(for scribbing mats and items) would come in very handy. It should have been implemented with HoT and still can be another upgrade or unlocked by the guild having one maxed scribe? Or how bout 3 It sux to have to dump stockpiles of guild mats on yer alts filling up their bag space or in personal alt gbanks. It’s one thing if you are playing the TP and doing it yourself, its another if this is the system for community based guild halls. This system isn’t working well.
(I also understand not everyone will agree with this, and there are already 3 tabs, but for an inventory hog like scribbing, can be, you woulda thought they would have added another tab to the system.)

PLEASE PLEASE give us personal housing. I’d be fine with instanced village communities, but not instanced homes that we have now, just adding the ability to allow you to decorate would still be kinda pointless. I want the option of choosing the style and placement of my home. Open world homes would be wonderful, but that aint happening. Instanced village homes seems the best of both worlds! And opens new opportunites to explore inaccessible areas of current maps, if applied properly (see pics below)

For those that enjoy decorating they have end game content and for those that don’t, won’t have to worry about it (like me with raids ). But dumping all yer gold down for maxing scribe (for a guild) and being the sole decorator of a guild that only a few in it care about decorating really sux. No matter how much advanced advertising I do, people don’t get the hint to stockpile ahead of the event and then don’t want to donate when mats get pricey ? or they simply don’t care.
Sure you can switch guilds, but then takes time to gain respect and “privledges”(bad design imo)* and trust those people not to screw you over after you’ve dumped Tons of gold into “their guild” (already happened once to me ? )

Clearly Guild hall decorating is for BIG GUILDS, that give more people the opportunity to donate lesser quantities to the guild but still have enough mats to make stuff. Seems like small guilds got screwed. SCALING PRICE or MATS based on the number of people might be one option to fix this. Not much thought seems to have been given on this ?

*Privledges – yea I understand the reason for it, but if you aren’t trusted by the leader and given them you won’t be able to decorate. So time to look for another guild. However, if you are give everyone privledges, because there is a max limitation on number of objects, people run into not being able to place objects- because guild is maxed. Only they didn’t realize this before they decided to level scribe ahead of time and now can’t place anything.
Guild scribes really work better for a few dedicated to decorating, but then not everyone can do it. And lots more then are allowed want to I’ve found. Hence personal housing would seem the way to go!

Pics below – instanced village communities possibility?

Divinities Reach – the outer circle wall, homes could be placed all around here. This could become a new map/s. All the homes high up on the wall, although not scale, could be turned into personal housing. Either rent rooms, or buy a home. fun idea.

Holebrek – Around keg brawl area up on cliffs?
I always wanted to go up and slide down that thing that looks like a slide over there maybe more room could be added in an instanced village community map in that area. Maybe some of these home zones are inside the mountain? Also to the SE side of the map by the “Frost Basin” home zones could be placed inside mountains there too.

Rata Sum seems like the most obvious place to create new home zones. All inside the mountaneous reigon there. Sure there are labs that are around it, but there is plenty more available space for housing.

Slyvari have lots of space around the tree just outside the Grove that is currently unused? I mean what are these areas? South- “Sea Watcher’s Ledge”, West- “Privet Gardens”, North- “Necrolith Bay”, East- “The Sea Rider’s Gate”. Lots of beach front property! Could you even have underwater Quaggon like homes—oooh the things i am imagining !!
I mean that empty map between rata and the grove probably was something in GW1 but here it could be used entirely for housing

Black Citadel might have the least amount of space. But i’m thinking on the west side along the narrow cliffs, top to bottom could be reappropriated for housing. Past the trees to the mountains could be filled with kitty cat homes

Honestly the thing I wish ArenaNet would do would be to make the guild hall upgrades work the same as Warframe’s clan dojo system. In that game once you make a dojo for your clan (essentially a guild in the context of that game) when you want to add any new parts to it or build any labs the amount of materials scales with the more members in your clan.

So smaller clans still get to enjoy building a dojo the way they want to and large clans have enough members to farm quickly to compensate for the higher material costs for the upgrades and decorations.

If they had this system in Guild Wars 2 it would save small guilds a huge burden and would hardly effect larger guilds allowing everyone to enjoy the amenities afforded from guild halls without having to join a massive guild.

But wouldn’t that system be extremely exploidable? Like, all members besides the scriber/guildboss leave the guild for 5mins, they craft all the stuff/get all the upgrades and people join in again? I’m in a small guild aswell and we are kind of tired of this issue aswell. We just can’t afford the ~800-1000G you need for scribing. But I also don’t really see a way anet could change this to be equal for everyone.

Scaling can work, but it needs to dynamically adjust to the total size of the guild. For example, they would need to limit guilds to 5 people at first, which could be upgraded or downgraded in quantities of 5. As you changed the size of the guild, everything would scale accordingly, including the requirements of anything already completed. Any excess would be banked for future upgrades, or a portion could be recovered.

Decorations should be easy to make and simply be balanced around singles though, but they can easily scale by requiring multiples in order to place them.

The problem however is that guilds would be discouraged from increasing their size, especially when smaller guilds are more likely to contribute compared to the spam invite zerg guilds.

Takashiro.8701:

But wouldn’t that system be extremely exploidable? Like, all members besides the scriber/guildboss leave the guild for 5mins, they craft all the stuff/get all the upgrades and people join in again? I’m in a small guild aswell and we are kind of tired of this issue aswell. We just can’t afford the ~800-1000G you need for scribing. But I also don’t really see a way anet could change this to be equal for everyone.

no. putting limits on it like i said, would mitigate that. More people join, upgrades would become locked again, until more mats are used. Obviously it would be less mats then a big guild , but as your guild grows the amount of mats required would scale up to the original amount. There might be stages to hit 50 people 100 people 150 peopl 200 etc . When u hit 50 people things would lock again and the neccesarry mats for that stage would need to be used to unlock. Basically the final stage would be what it is now, stages b4 that would be scaled. The idea is to prevent exploiting. Like i mention before. it’s an idea, i’m sure there are other scaling ideas.

basically in your scenario if everyone left the mats required to unlock would be for 1 person. They’d unlock everything and would be good to go. But if more people joined say 100people, Things would become locked again and more mats would have to be used to unlock that level. (still only20% of the original cost in mats- not bad)

Mats required would scale depending on the number of people in the guild. It wouldn’t be more mats in total then what it currently is, it would just be less mats in stages.

Obviously the flaw with this would be the annoying fact that constantly things get locked again as you guild grows, but more people you have the less everyone needs to donate to unlock. Some people have small guilds this idea would work better for them as they tend to keep their guild at a small size. It’s one idea, i know it isn’t perfect, but i’m sure there are other scaling ideas out there.

Kelly.7019:

Takashiro.8701:

But wouldn’t that system be extremely exploidable? Like, all members besides the scriber/guildboss leave the guild for 5mins, they craft all the stuff/get all the upgrades and people join in again? I’m in a small guild aswell and we are kind of tired of this issue aswell. We just can’t afford the ~800-1000G you need for scribing. But I also don’t really see a way anet could change this to be equal for everyone.

no. putting limits on it like i said, would mitigate that. More people join, upgrades would become locked again, until more mats are used. Obviously it would be less mats then a big guild , but as your guild grows the amount of mats required would scale up to the original amount. There might be stages to hit 50 people 100 people 150 peopl 200 etc . When u hit 50 people things would lock again and the neccesarry mats for that stage would need to be used to unlock. Basically the final stage would be what it is now, stages b4 that would be scaled. The idea is to prevent exploiting. Like i mention before. it’s an idea, i’m sure there are other scaling ideas.

basically in your scenario if everyone left the mats required to unlock would be for 1 person. They’d unlock everything and would be good to go. But if more people joined say 100people, Things would become locked again and more mats would have to be used to unlock that level. (still only20% of the original cost in mats- not bad)

Mats required would scale depending on the number of people in the guild. It wouldn’t be more mats in total then what it currently is, it would just be less mats in stages.

Obviously the flaw with this would be the annoying fact that constantly things get locked again as you guild grows, but more people you have the less everyone needs to donate to unlock. Some people have small guilds this idea would work better for them as they tend to keep their guild at a small size. It’s one idea, i know it isn’t perfect, but i’m sure there are other scaling ideas out there.

Locking out previously accessible upgrades is horrible. It would keep small guilds from wanting to increase their size too rapidly. And what would you do about a guild bank or trove that had items in it but now can’t be accessed because your guild is a friendly guild that decided to let more people in? But can’t be accessed now for a long while because it and the upgrades you had done to it require other upgrades to be fixed.

This very idea has been hashed out at least a dozen times in these very forums, as well as more often on Reddit and elsewhere. The conversation is always the same:

• People who dislike bigger guilds think the system is unfair, while those in larger guilds aren’t necessarily aware that there’s an issue to discuss.
• Some think the system is completely fair because everyone is free to proceed at their own pace, because the entire game is advantageous to small guilds except in the case of Halls, because guild halls are entirely options, and (a popular argument) everyone is able to join a large guild to reap the benefits.

There really isn’t a good way of offering identical upgrade paths, while charging large & small guilds differently. There are all sorts of ways that can be abused and, at the very least, it’s immensely complicated to code & troubleshoot.

I think a more realistic alternative would be to offer an alternative upgrade model, with lower costs but also fewer benefits. Any guild could convert from “budget” to “full” once (for a substantial fee, of course). For example, the “budget” alternative might only offer the 50-slot bank, 200 decoration max, repair & regular merchant, and not much else.

This would still be expensive for ANet, but would have the advantage of being simpler to setup and maintain. It wouldn’t put smaller guilds in a permanent crimp and larger guilds could choose to use the budget version, too or go straight to the GH with which we’re familiar.

I think individual housing would just be better. If you join a big zerg guild you lose permission to decorate. Then it doesn’t really matter anymore at all. Stay in your close-knit small guild price/cost is huuuuge.

I guess for some its the conveince of what a big guild has for benefits like WvW stuff or guild buffs, while for others its only about decoration. (exploration also is dependant on whether you can place objects or not. I don’t have permissions in my LP guild, can’t have fun exploring that hall :d)
With big guilds if you’re not the guild leader or officer no decorating for you. If small guild usually your friends with everyone and have permissions but costs are huge, benefits don’t really apply.

Permissions kills the idea of decorating. Other people want to decorate too. I think village/community housing is the next way to go since obviously guild halls don’t really work for allowing everyone to decorate. Plus it adds more end game content and huuuuge possibilities.

Seera.5916:

Kelly.7019:

Takashiro.8701:

But wouldn’t that system be extremely exploidable? Like, all members besides the scriber/guildboss leave the guild for 5mins, they craft all the stuff/get all the upgrades and people join in again? I’m in a small guild aswell and we are kind of tired of this issue aswell. We just can’t afford the ~800-1000G you need for scribing. But I also don’t really see a way anet could change this to be equal for everyone.

no. putting limits on it like i said, would mitigate that. More people join, upgrades would become locked again, until more mats are used. Obviously it would be less mats then a big guild , but as your guild grows the amount of mats required would scale up to the original amount. There might be stages to hit 50 people 100 people 150 peopl 200 etc . When u hit 50 people things would lock again and the neccesarry mats for that stage would need to be used to unlock. Basically the final stage would be what it is now, stages b4 that would be scaled. The idea is to prevent exploiting. Like i mention before. it’s an idea, i’m sure there are other scaling ideas.

basically in your scenario if everyone left the mats required to unlock would be for 1 person. They’d unlock everything and would be good to go. But if more people joined say 100people, Things would become locked again and more mats would have to be used to unlock that level. (still only20% of the original cost in mats- not bad)

Mats required would scale depending on the number of people in the guild. It wouldn’t be more mats in total then what it currently is, it would just be less mats in stages.

Obviously the flaw with this would be the annoying fact that constantly things get locked again as you guild grows, but more people you have the less everyone needs to donate to unlock. Some people have small guilds this idea would work better for them as they tend to keep their guild at a small size. It’s one idea, i know it isn’t perfect, but i’m sure there are other scaling ideas out there.

Locking out previously accessible upgrades is horrible. It would keep small guilds from wanting to increase their size too rapidly. And what would you do about a guild bank or trove that had items in it but now can’t be accessed because your guild is a friendly guild that decided to let more people in? But can’t be accessed now for a long while because it and the upgrades you had done to it require other upgrades to be fixed.

maybe the tabs of 100 instead would get access to fewer slots at first, more join slots increase and once upgraded they’d be unlocked. idk there’s many ways to do it. Look at other games or what GW1 had for instance.

People who played the original game and already had their Trove /guild bank maxed when HoT launched had to regain access to all that again?right? So it seems Anet already implemented this idea, in part, kinda.

I’d settle for guild shed. Room for a handful of people and their beers.

I agree the costs are WAY too high, not only for Scribe but Upgrades as well. It really hurts lower Guilds and makes it hard for them to grow, because everybody wants to join the larger Max-level Guilds with all Upgrades unlocked so they have access to Gatherings nodes and Potions.

The scaling thing, like Warframe, would be great! I don’t think it’s exploitable (like getting people to leave) just to make an upgrade, the scaling effect could have a delay (in days) to prevent that. Plus, imagine the inconvenience of that.

Here’s an idea for both smaller guilds and personal housing: a pre-set limit on max # of members for the guild. Set to 1 for poh & 2-499 for however smaller than 500 for guild. To prevent exploitation, guild must pay suitable cost in gold & mats to break through the pre-set limit that will not be refunded when members leave.

All costs for smaller guilds can be lowered depending on the max limit set. Single member guild can work the same way as home instances so that the guild member has to be in party/squad for others to access services at all times.

As for scaling, here’s an example: single member guild costs 1/500th of regular (since 500 is max), 375 members = 75% of the cost, 250 members = 1/2 & so on

Scaling based on number of members will force large guilds that care about guild halls to be a Jimmy Wales on steroids or force them to have membership fees.

DoctorDing.5890:

I’d settle for guild shed. Room for a handful of people and their beers.

A shed isn’t big enough for all these kegs …

Im ok with since when you are in a small guild you get more control over areas in the guild hall where as people in a big guild halls have rules.

Like people get mad when taking fractal stuff, triple trouble boss drops, etc etc etc

I just want scribing to be better since we have to put in all this time for alot stuff that just feel like garbage when done.

Just as info, leveling a scribe from 0-400 costs currently ‘only’ 350 gold, assuming you have to buy all the materials for it off the TP. (still the most expencive crafting profession to level up, but compared to the old system when it was 1K gold with the guide… (without it costs ranged from 3K-5K for the early adopters). its a lot better currently). But unlike most other professions, i Highly recommend a guide as you risk spending a lot of gold extra if you do not use one due to the way how the scribe profession works.

The cheap way requires some guild unlocks, but if your guild does not have them, feel free to mail me in game for an invite, and you can craft them in our hall (we have been offering this service ever since i wrote the innitial scribe guide). Note that currently the best scribe guide is the one from gw2crafts.net which you can find here:

http://gw2crafts.net/scribe.html

You can ofcourse also level up fully with decoration crafting but you are prone to spend way more gold that way and need to craft way more of items you probably do not need/want… and usually the best things require lv 400 scribe anyway.

Ofcourse that still leaves you with the cost of decorations, but to be honest, even in our large guild, most of the items are fully funded by the scribe crafting them. There are some exceptions ofcourse if most members really like a specific decoration and they are willing to donate, but in my experience that does not happen too often.

Personally i set aside legendary crafting and expensive skins collecting completely to level my scribe and decorate our hall instead.

Rin of Rivvinda.4971:

Just as info, leveling a scribe from 0-400 costs currently ‘only’ 350 gold, assuming you have to buy all the materials for it off the TP. (still the most expencive crafting profession to level up, but compared to the old system when it was 1K gold with the guide… (without it costs ranged from 3K-5K for the early adopters). its a lot better currently). But unlike most other professions, i Highly recommend a guide as you risk spending a lot of gold extra if you do not use one due to the way how the scribe profession works.

The cheap way requires some guild unlocks, but if your guild does not have them, feel free to mail me in game for an invite, and you can craft them in our hall (we have been offering this service ever since i wrote the innitial scribe guide). Note that currently the best scribe guide is the one from gw2crafts.net which you can find here:

http://gw2crafts.net/scribe.html

You can ofcourse also level up fully with decoration crafting but you are prone to spend way more gold that way and need to craft way more of items you probably do not need/want… and usually the best things require lv 400 scribe anyway.

Ofcourse that still leaves you with the cost of decorations, but to be honest, even in our large guild, most of the items are fully funded by the scribe crafting them. There are some exceptions ofcourse if most members really like a specific decoration and they are willing to donate, but in my experience that does not happen too often.

Personally i set aside legendary crafting and expensive skins collecting completely to level my scribe and decorate our hall instead.

I think you have just proved OP’s point about the disparity between large and small guild.

It seems like the material costs of the guild upgrades for scribing was so trivial for your large guild that you were completely oblivious to their existence. In a small guild the person leveling scribe is very likely to end up as the person paying for a large part of the upgrades as well.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

This very idea has been hashed out at least a dozen times in these very forums, as well as more often on Reddit and elsewhere. The conversation is always the same:

• People who dislike bigger guilds think the system is unfair, while those in larger guilds aren’t necessarily aware that there’s an issue to discuss.
• Some think the system is completely fair because everyone is free to proceed at their own pace, because the entire game is advantageous to small guilds except in the case of Halls, because guild halls are entirely options, and (a popular argument) everyone is able to join a large guild to reap the benefits.

There really isn’t a good way of offering identical upgrade paths, while charging large & small guilds differently. There are all sorts of ways that can be abused and, at the very least, it’s immensely complicated to code & troubleshoot.

---

I think a more realistic alternative would be to offer an alternative upgrade model, with lower costs but also fewer benefits. Any guild could convert from “budget” to “full” once (for a substantial fee, of course). For example, the “budget” alternative might only offer the 50-slot bank, 200 decoration max, repair & regular merchant, and not much else.

This would still be expensive for ANet, but would have the advantage of being simpler to setup and maintain. It wouldn’t put smaller guilds in a permanent crimp and larger guilds could choose to use the budget version, too or go straight to the GH with which we’re familiar.

Has anyone ever suggested having more then one 1 size of guild roster and guild halls? Smaller guilds get smaller guild halls, cost less to upgrade, and are capped on membership. Want a bigger guild? You have to upscale everything, and prorate the value of the existing guild hall when they move into the new one.

From an organization standpoint, its suicide to incrementally upgrade a guildhall to try to max out benefits as they grow…. so aside from complaints of it not being easily exploited, you’d think the results should reasonably match the size of the guild.

As for tertiary services, such as PvP and WvW upgrades, locking certain features behind a minimum size requirement doesn’t really pose a problem given how those groups tend to coalesce. A guild of 5 doesn’t need the ability to max out Claim bonuses for Keeps and Castles, nor have guild missions to capture them. But WvW guild of 100+ should have bigger, more difficult objectives for their harder guild missions, and the claim bonuses that would support that.

The only wild card in this scaling situation is the way guild commendations are used as rewards. If small guilds don’t have access to hard missions, then big guilds get a higher commendation payout…. but if its scaled to the guild size, then small guilds can be exploited to get them easier. Of anything guilds currently offer, the commendations are holding the entire system hostage.