Joining a guild shouldn’t feel like volunteering for a circuit of never-ending fetch quests.
[Edit: this post is not intended in any way to address the length of time required to upgrade a guild hall. I’ve no issue with rewards taking long times to yield appreciable, well earned results.]
Before HoT, as the leader of a small guild of 40-50 members, I was able to provide representatives services based on their regular play. Due to how influence was earned, I could count on having enough to keep bonus experience, gathering and karma buffs on all members most of the time, consistently, without asking players for anything but some fun in the game. This has evaporated with Heart of Thorns.
Despite starting HoT with a rank 5 guild, I’ve now spent every day since the cost of guild halls was released nagging my members for some sort of donation, either coin or materials. While I’ve been doing this I’ve been offering my members nothing in exchange but the promise that one day, in the far future, it will all be worth it and we’ll be back to where we were in September.
As mentioned in another post by basemoan the new guild system offers players no reward or incentive for making donations to their guilds while constantly increasing demands on guild leaders to compete for player donations. What results is that large guilds who can rely on regular contributions from 5-15 players dedicating their play time to upgrading their guild halls can upgrade quite quickly. Meanwhile, smaller guilds like mine, lose members to larger guilds who are advancing quick enough to provide their members services they once had before HoT.
There’s nothing fun about constantly asking guild members for donations. What’s even less fun is being on the receiving end of all those solicitations for contributions. It’s remarkable that a company with a dedicated economist on staff hasn’t found a more equitable economic system for guilds. The short-sighted design of guild upgrading has disrupted the economy to such an extent that ArenaNet has issued hints at resource farms in an attempt to give guilds a chance to recoup their lost capabilities without bleeding coin or members.
I hope that the iterative design process solves these issues and gets guild leaders out of the begging for donations business and back into the role of leading, promoting and inspiring fun within the game.
As a suggestion toward improvement, I’d like to see guild favor become a currency that can be exchanged for progress on upgrades, in a way that is capable of eliminating the materials requirements currently forced upon members. For example, rather than simply asking for “X Widgets”, the system should ask for “Y favor or X Widgets”.
Naturally, I understand the temptation to build an unavoidable materials sink into guilds to balance the failings of the looting and trading systems; but, I’d prefer to skip that temporary fix for a more reliable and fun solution. Making favor a currency capable of replacing material demands allows guilds to upgrade while having fun, without requiring them to beg their members to “kill ten rats” for them on a regular basis.
I’m curious what other players thing about the new guild upgrade system. How do you feel about this?
(edited by Brown Fang Thump.9482)