Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Kuzzi.2198

Kuzzi.2198

I have been a leader of a large PvX guild since Beta (oh my, it’s been 3.5 years). This post expresses my impressions with the new content introduced in HoT and opinions about what features are still needed.

Let’s start with the good. No one can deny that HoT has helped breath new life into guilds which had been stale for a while.

  • Guild Halls have far exceeded my expectations – they are just phenomenal. Not only do they provide every guild with a home, but also give a set of long term goals to work towards. The upgrades may seem costly, but I think the prices are just right to make each upgrade to the guild hall feel like an accomplishment. The Aetherium and Favor time gates allow large guilds to have a sense of progression for their guild hall expansions instead of just rushing through everything.
  • Guild Missions can now be started at any time, for free. This is great. People who don’t make scheduled mission times can now still get their personal rewards by getting a couple guildies to help them out.
  • Multi Guild Chat is another awesome feature. It has enabled being and fully participating in multiple guilds at the same time.
  • Message of the Day being posted in the chat window is nice QoL feature. I feel like the MotD was often overlooked in the past and now it can be used to relay messages to all members very conveniently.
  • New Permissions related to the guild hall and bank access are a nice addition that makes ranks more meaningful.
  • PvP Teams are a great addition for PvP guilds and PvP focused members in PvX guilds. The individual stat tracker for each team is sweet.

Thank you for those changes Anet, Guild Wars 2 really is the best MMORPG ever. With all that said, I still think there are quite a few features and minor changes that could really improve guild life even further:

  • Admin Lower Ranks permission should be split up into into “Invite Members”, “Kick Members”, and “Change Ranks of Lower Members”. I made this suggestion in a similar post over 3 years ago. Is there a reason why Anet insists on combining these permissions into one?
  • Treasury is a great feature. I think we should be able to deposit items directly from our bank though, like we can with crafting. This is a small QoL improvement that could go a long way in helping guilds expand. Furthermore, I think the contributions of members should be tracked in some way. The current treasury log which only tracks the last few dozen donations does not suffice. One easy solution would be to expose the log in the API so guilds that want that information can track it themselves, but of course an in-game tracker would be nicer.
  • Ranks are still limited to 10. Especially now with the addition of new permissions, it would be nice to have more ranks available.
  • Guild Missions have some mechanics that feel clunky. For one, Guild Rushes now force all members to wait until the mission timer expires before they are awarded their personal reward. This is harsh when everyone in the guild finishes a rush within 5 minutes and then has to hang out for 25 minutes waiting for their chests. PvP missions are currently a pain for large guilds, but they are a brand new feature so I’m sure Anet will make the necessary improvements as they receive player feedback. For example, the requirement of every party having to form an official team feels like overkill. Combine that with a broken search field on the team creation tab and you get a whole lot of overhead before being able to start some simple missions. In addition, missions that end as soon as the goal is met should track individual progress better. In large guilds, all too often players who participate in a mission don’t get personal chests because another team completed the mission before they could receive their ticks.
  • Guild LFG that is built on top of the existing LFG system. It would be nice to have an LFG tab in the guild window that would show all the LFG groups that have any of your guildies. Here, they would not have to be split up by dungeons/areas.
  • Guild Buffs have been nerfed to only allow one active buff at a time and they have to be manually refreshed with potions. I think this is a very poor implementation. The old way of having multiple active buffs and being affected by everything from the guild you are currently representing was much better. There was a lot of hype about HoT bringing permanent buffs obtainable through the guild hall, but this purchasable potion method leaves a lot to be desired.
  • Mail Message Cap should be increased for guild members. I’m sure the 2 message cap is an artifact from an anti gold seller feature, but it makes sending messages 300+ members a huge pain.
  • API Features are something I’m very much looking forward to but I’ve already listed those in My API Wishlist so I won’t go into detail. However, I will throw in this shameless plug – check out my guild’s Hall of Fame.

Lastly, although these are not feature requests, I want to point out a couple guild related bugs that will also help improve guild QoL.

  • G in Guild Hall crashes the game. I’m sure this has been brought to Anet’s attention, but opening the guild window while visiting any NPC in the guild hall will cause your client to crash.
  • Slow Loading Logs are a hurdle for guild management. In particular, some entries under Guild Roster can show up as “…” for up to 15 minutes before they load in.
  • Guild Hall Instances… There should not be multiple instances of one guild’s guild hall. We want to see all our guildies who are in the hall.

Are there any important suggestions I missed? Please list them in comments and I will update this post.

(edited by Kuzzi.2198)

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Kifariel.9135

Kifariel.9135

We REALLY need a way to promote members to Guild Leader or co-leader when the guild leader has not promoted anyone, has been away for over a year, has uninstalled the game, and has no plans to come back.

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Omne.4603

Omne.4603

I have been a leader of a large PvX guild since Beta (oh my, it’s been 3.5 years). This post expresses my impressions with the new content introduced in HoT and opinions about what features are still needed.

Let’s start with the good. No one can deny that HoT has helped breath new life into guilds which had been stale for a while.

  • Guild Halls have far exceeded my expectations – they are just phenomenal. Not only do they provide every guild with a home, but also give a set of long term goals to work towards. The upgrades may seem costly, but I think the prices are just right to make each upgrade to the guild hall feel like an accomplishment. The Aetherium and Favor time gates allow large guilds to have a sense of progression for their guild hall expansions instead of just rushing through everything.
  • Guild Missions can now be started at any time, for free. This is great. People who don’t make scheduled mission times can now still get their personal rewards by getting a couple guildies to help them out.
  • Multi Guild Chat is another awesome feature. It has enabled being and fully participating in multiple guilds at the same time.
  • Message of the Day being posted in the chat window is nice QoL feature. I feel like the MotD was often overlooked in the past and now it can be used to relay messages to all members very conveniently.
  • New Permissions related to the guild hall and bank access are a nice addition that makes ranks more meaningful.
  • PvP Teams are a great addition for PvP guilds and PvP focused members in PvX guilds. The individual stat tracker for each team is sweet.

Thank you for those changes Anet, Guild Wars 2 really is the best MMORPG ever. With all that said, I still think there are quite a few features and minor changes that could really improve guild life even further:

  • Admin Lower Ranks permission should be split up into into “Invite Members”, “Kick Members”, and “Change Ranks of Lower Members”. I made this suggestion in a similar post over 3 years ago. Is there a reason why Anet insists on combining these permissions into one?
  • Treasury is a great feature. I think we should be able to deposit items directly from our bank though, like we can with crafting. This is a small QoL improvement that could go a long way in helping guilds expand. Furthermore, I think the contributions of members should be tracked in some way. The current treasury log which only tracks the last few dozen donations does not suffice. One easy solution would be to expose the log in the API so guilds that want that information can track it themselves, but of course an in-game tracker would be nicer.
  • Ranks are still limited to 10. Especially now with the addition of new permissions, it would be nice to have more ranks available.
  • Guild Missions have some mechanics that feel clunky. For one, Guild Rushes now force all members to wait until the mission timer expires before they are awarded their personal reward. This is harsh when everyone in the guild finishes a rush within 5 minutes and then has to hang out for 25 minutes waiting for their chests. PvP missions are currently a pain for large guilds, but they are a brand new feature so I’m sure Anet will make the necessary improvements as they receive player feedback. For example, the requirement of every party having to form an official team feels like overkill. Combine that with a broken search field on the team creation tab and you get a whole lot of overhead before being able to start some simple missions. In addition, missions that end as soon as the goal is met should track individual progress better. In large guilds, all too often players who participate in a mission don’t get personal chests because another team completed the mission before they could receive their ticks.
  • Guild LFG that is built on top of the existing LFG system. It would be nice to have an LFG tab in the guild window that would show all the LFG groups that have any of your guildies. Here, they would not have to be split up by dungeons/areas.
  • Guild Buffs have been nerfed to only allow one active buff at a time and they have to be manually refreshed with potions. I think this is a very poor implementation. The old way of having multiple active buffs and being affected by everything from the guild you are currently representing was much better. There was a lot of hype about HoT bringing permanent buffs obtainable through the guild hall, but this purchasable potion method leaves a lot to be desired.
  • Mail Message Cap should be increased for guild members. I’m sure the 2 message cap is an artifact from an anti gold seller feature, but it makes sending messages 300+ members a huge pain.
  • API Features are something I’m very much looking forward to but I’ve already listed those in My API Wishlist so I won’t go into detail. However, I will throw in this shameless plug – check out my guild’s Hall of Fame.

Lastly, although these are not feature requests, I want to point out a couple guild related bugs that will also help improve guild QoL.

  • G in Guild Hall crashes the game. I’m sure this has been brought to Anet’s attention, but opening the guild window while visiting any NPC in the guild hall will cause your client to crash.
  • Slow Loading Logs are a hurdle for guild management. In particular, some entries under Guild Roster can show up as “…” for up to 15 minutes before they load in.
  • Guild Hall Instances… There should not be multiple instances of one guild’s guild hall. We want to see all our guildies who are in the hall.

Are there any important suggestions I missed? Please list them in comments and I will update this post.

100% agree with the majority of this. Probably the most comical piece is the ten rank limit. Granted im not a developer, but is increasing that limit really a taxing project?

I Cant Stop/ Ocularis
NSP | Os Guild Master
www.osguild.org | www.youtube.com/osthink

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

Disagree with the guild buffs. I think the way they exist now is pitch perfect, wheras the old version was simply too many buffs for too little effort.

Now, buffs aren’t a constant time or resource sink, but they’re free of cost once acquired for all guilds, in stead of being essentially free of cost for large guilds and cost prohibitive for small guilds. It’s a far more equal system that ensures that small guilds who work hard have exactly the same buff capacity as large guilds once the upgrades are completed.

TBH I was expecting them to work on a potion based system that actually cost a few silver to buy at the bar and stacked, as that was the stated plan for scaling buff costs. I don’t know why they went with the current system in stead.

A few things I’d like to add from an immersion/social bent. These aren’t really important systeming things, just things I feel would tie the whole expeience together a little better:

  • Tavern does not sell food or drink, and there is no belcher’s bluff upgrade. Honestly, there are myriad NPCs in the game that sell various types of alcohol which doesn’t do anything but grant the drunk debuff. It’s fun, and some of it is even useful for crafting various things. Similarly there are many inferior or low level foods sold by various vendors. It would be nice if the guild’s tavern actually sold these things as well. Nothing would be imbalanced by including these items at the bartender, and it would feel slightly better to have that first structure actually have a little bit of functionality before completing upgrades. As is, you make a tavern, but it doesn’t actually do anything until you complete at least one additional upgrade. Adding these fluff/low level items would at least give it a function without breaking anything. A permanent belcher’s bluff table upgrade would also be great. It’s a fun social/downtime activity that would fit right in at the tavern.
  • No mugs, food, and table cover as decorations. I have a bar and I can not litter it with mugs and bottles. This makes me sad.
  • No basic decorations before market 1. Decorating is a huge part of the guild hall. Shouldn’t there be at least a small selection of basic decorations available for purchase immediately just to customize the space a bit? The market 1 decorations, or even just one type of basic wall would go a long way toward getting people in to the decoration system, and excited about working toward further market upgrades and helping the guild’s scribe level.
  • The mine has no miners I love the effort that went in to making the guild halls feel like real places in the world. I like how new NPCs show up at the waypoint, and that time was taken to have them have little conversations when they show up or when they’re just hanging around the tavern before their structures are built. It lends a nice sense of narrative and story to the hall and adds a little extra interest to major upgrade steps. It is only for that reason that I feel that the absence of NPC miners seems out of place. So much care was given to introduce these NPCs as people and phrase the hall as a real place that the world of tyria interacts with, but upon building the mine, it’s just a cave which seems to produce aetherium from thin air. A couple miners with some looping animations to spice it up a bit would be cool. Bonus points if they stop digging and start sleeping or screwing around when aetherium is capped out.
Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Silly.5837

Silly.5837

Thank you for those changes Anet, Guild Wars 2 really is the best MMORPG ever. With all that said, I still think there are quite a few features and minor changes that could really improve guild life even further:

  • Admin Lower Ranks permission should be split up into into “Invite Members”, “Kick Members”, and “Change Ranks of Lower Members”. I made this suggestion in a similar post over 3 years ago. Is there a reason why Anet insists on combining these permissions into one?
  • Treasury is a great feature. I think we should be able to deposit items directly from our bank though, like we can with crafting. This is a small QoL improvement that could go a long way in helping guilds expand. Furthermore, I think the contributions of members should be tracked in some way. The current treasury log which only tracks the last few dozen donations does not suffice. One easy solution would be to expose the log in the API so guilds that want that information can track it themselves, but of course an in-game tracker would be nicer.
  • Ranks are still limited to 10. Especially now with the addition of new permissions, it would be nice to have more ranks available.
  • Guild Missions have some mechanics that feel clunky. For one, Guild Rushes now force all members to wait until the mission timer expires before they are awarded their personal reward. This is harsh when everyone in the guild finishes a rush within 5 minutes and then has to hang out for 25 minutes waiting for their chests. PvP missions are currently a pain for large guilds, but they are a brand new feature so I’m sure Anet will make the necessary improvements as they receive player feedback. For example, the requirement of every party having to form an official team feels like overkill. Combine that with a broken search field on the team creation tab and you get a whole lot of overhead before being able to start some simple missions. In addition, missions that end as soon as the goal is met should track individual progress better. In large guilds, all too often players who participate in a mission don’t get personal chests because another team completed the mission before they could receive their ticks.
  • Guild LFG that is built on top of the existing LFG system. It would be nice to have an LFG tab in the guild window that would show all the LFG groups that have any of your guildies. Here, they would not have to be split up by dungeons/areas.
  • Guild Buffs have been nerfed to only allow one active buff at a time and they have to be manually refreshed with potions. I think this is a very poor implementation. The old way of having multiple active buffs and being affected by everything from the guild you are currently representing was much better. There was a lot of hype about HoT bringing permanent buffs obtainable through the guild hall, but this purchasable potion method leaves a lot to be desired.
  • Mail Message Cap should be increased for guild members. I’m sure the 2 message cap is an artifact from an anti gold seller feature, but it makes sending messages 300+ members a huge pain.
  • API Features are something I’m very much looking forward to but I’ve already listed those in My API Wishlist so I won’t go into detail. However, I will throw in this shameless plug – check out my guild’s Hall of Fame.

Great suggestions! Even from the perspective of a small-mid sized guild I definitely agree with these.

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

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Posted by: durend.6237

durend.6237

  • Mass roster whisper despite the new multi-channel guild chat, it is reasonable to expect some players to want to turn off guild chat from larger/chattier guilds. The ability for guild leaders/officers to be able to whisper/message the whole roster at once to inform them about guild events would be a lot better than doing each member individually.
  • Guild hall upgrade queue there’s a decent amount of upgrades I have seen that need aetherium equal to the aetherium cap. Depending on the schedules of leaders/officers, this can lead to wasted aetherium production time with the level being capped, but no one to push the upgrade button. It be nice if there was an NPC that you could tell to approve an upgrade for you (assuming you have the mats/favor) as soon as the aetherium level is met. The queue size could also be as small as one, given the slow pace of aetherium build up.
  • Remove all decorations guild halls are fairly big places, so if a guild only has one copy of a decoration and it gets “lost”, the ability to remove everything to find it would be nice. Also, it’d make for a good way to remove seasonal decorations and start redecorating for the next season.

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

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Posted by: popaz.1524

popaz.1524

+1 for OP’s suggestions especially separating invite/kick to give regular members more power.

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Posted by: NTDK.4897

NTDK.4897

I agree with everything said here.

Just want to add this: Let us reorganize the Guilds in Guild Panel (/g1, /g2, /g3 ….)

ign: Larxene Rakushinu
Incoming Quaggans [iQ]

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

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Posted by: Feirlista Xv.1425

Feirlista Xv.1425

The one flaw I see in guild hall decorations is that anyone that has the permission to decorate can erase or move that persons decorations. Should be a way that once placed only the person that place it can change it or at least add another permission to allow someone higher in the guild rank to change it if someone add decorations that the guild leader or guild as a whole doesn’t like.

Opinions are like ______ everyone has one I could
put the correct term in but not everyone has kittens

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Posted by: Candacis.7048

Candacis.7048

What I’m missing is the feature to see when someone joined the guild. Like the entry date.

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: FrizzFreston.5290

FrizzFreston.5290

  • The mine has no miners I love the effort that went in to making the guild halls feel like real places in the world. I like how new NPCs show up at the waypoint, and that time was taken to have them have little conversations when they show up or when they’re just hanging around the tavern before their structures are built. It lends a nice sense of narrative and story to the hall and adds a little extra interest to major upgrade steps. It is only for that reason that I feel that the absence of NPC miners seems out of place. So much care was given to introduce these NPCs as people and phrase the hall as a real place that the world of tyria interacts with, but upon building the mine, it’s just a cave which seems to produce aetherium from thin air. A couple miners with some looping animations to spice it up a bit would be cool. Bonus points if they stop digging and start sleeping or screwing around when aetherium is capped out.

The mine expansion 2 gives you said NPCs. And im thinking more npcs will join as you build up each building.

“It isn’t working!” CL4P-TP
Ingame Name: Guardian Erik

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Kuzzi.2198

Kuzzi.2198

What I’m missing is the feature to see when someone joined the guild. Like the entry date.

I agree that having additional member information such as join date, last promotion date, contributions, time represented, etc. would make guild management much more convenient. My only concern is that this would require a GUI redesign for the current guild window, so maybe just exposing this information in the guild API would be enough.

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

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Posted by: Auralae.7482

Auralae.7482

What’s missing? All the stuff I used to be able to build for my small family & friends guild that’s now buried behind a HoT paywall, materials, and player minimums.

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

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Posted by: Xellos.4026

Xellos.4026

I agree with OP. A “donate to guild” button would be perfect, similar to the “Send to Collection” feature.

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Kuzzi.2198

Kuzzi.2198

What’s missing? All the stuff I used to be able to build for my small family & friends guild that’s now buried behind a HoT paywall, materials, and player minimums.

What stuff are you talking about? Why do you focus on the negative instead of appreciating that you now have a kittening GUILD HALL that you can call home!

If you choose to view having a challenge that you need to overcome together as a guild in a negative light then it is only your perspective that’s hurting your enjoyment of the game. Where would the fun be if you were just handed a fully upgraded guild hall? I say take on this long term goal and enjoy every step of the way.

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

  • The mine has no miners I love the effort that went in to making the guild halls feel like real places in the world. I like how new NPCs show up at the waypoint, and that time was taken to have them have little conversations when they show up or when they’re just hanging around the tavern before their structures are built. It lends a nice sense of narrative and story to the hall and adds a little extra interest to major upgrade steps. It is only for that reason that I feel that the absence of NPC miners seems out of place. So much care was given to introduce these NPCs as people and phrase the hall as a real place that the world of tyria interacts with, but upon building the mine, it’s just a cave which seems to produce aetherium from thin air. A couple miners with some looping animations to spice it up a bit would be cool. Bonus points if they stop digging and start sleeping or screwing around when aetherium is capped out.

The mine expansion 2 gives you said NPCs. And im thinking more npcs will join as you build up each building.

That’s fantastic news. Makes me wonder why they didn’t bother adding a couple to the t1 mine, especially since the proprietor specifically says a line when it’s founded about miners and wages.

It’s a bit different than the other structures, where the initial NPCs seem to adequately fulfill the purpose of the place. The mine spawns with piles of mined aetherium and some supports, but nobody seems to be mining the place. it’s weird, but only because the rest of the system seems as “real” as it does.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

Guild Features- what's great / what's missing

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Auralae.7482

Auralae.7482

What’s missing? All the stuff I used to be able to build for my small family & friends guild that’s now buried behind a HoT paywall, materials, and player minimums.

What stuff are you talking about? Why do you focus on the negative instead of appreciating that you now have a kittening GUILD HALL that you can call home!

If you choose to view having a challenge that you need to overcome together as a guild in a negative light then it is only your perspective that’s hurting your enjoyment of the game. Where would the fun be if you were just handed a fully upgraded guild hall? I say take on this long term goal and enjoy every step of the way.

I don’t have a guild hall. I don’t have HoT, nor does half my guild. Most of all, I don’t have the ability to make banners or other things that I did have before Anet decided to remove them from the core game and put them behind a paywall. I’m sorry if you can’t understand that.

And don’t assume that I’m asking for a fully upgraded guild hall. I’m not. Honestly, I don’t care about a guild hall. I care about the things my guild used to be able to do and create that were taken away from a game I paid for.

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Posted by: FrizzFreston.5290

FrizzFreston.5290

There’s an NPC selling old stuff in the guild office. Banners and such. Although last time i checked it was disabled, typical.

As for the guild hall, i believe you technically only need 1 person with access to the expansion, and then a (“hired”) group with access in order to help you do the expedition. Once it’s unlocked, you can enter and expand it freely. No HoT needed. Until you hit the materials which are account bound and only available in HoT.

And yes that is quite the work around. I understand that. It might be an idea to ask for help from the community. Personally i have HoT and i have a free guild slot (EU) and when i have the time totally willing to unlock it for you with a few of my guildies. No payment needed imo. I missed the GH claiming of my guild, and just would like to experience it.

“It isn’t working!” CL4P-TP
Ingame Name: Guardian Erik

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Posted by: Weli.4568

Weli.4568

Have to agree with the Auralae. Partially feel like I’ve been robbed of things. For example, I’m leader of small WvW guild and we sometimes do PvE events. With the guild halls we are forced to upgrade to war room to be able to claim objectives in WvW. So we are missing on lots of the stuff that was common like +5 supply capacity. Also for a small guild getting the buildings feels just so grindy. I’m sure it’s all fine and mighty when you are part of a bigger PvX or pure PvE guild with 200 members. We only now managed to get workshop but even that was with multiple guild members investing lots of their gold plus hoarders putting their stuff to good use.

So I’d say scale the needed amount of stuff based on the people in roster.

To people saying we should play more or go out of our way to enjoy the features we used to. Try forming a small guild starting from a scratch money and resource vice and building a guild hall. If there are people who are part of a small guild. Less than 20 active members and have had no problems with getting guild hall up and not feeling like grinding I’ll take all my words back.

ps. I recall guild wars 2 being advertised as not grindy game.

Scatter the Weak [WK], Extraordinary Gentlemen [EXG]
Desolation

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Posted by: Kuzzi.2198

Kuzzi.2198

So I’d say scale the needed amount of stuff based on the people in roster.

To people saying we should play more or go out of our way to enjoy the features we used to. Try forming a small guild starting from a scratch money and resource vice and building a guild hall. If there are people who are part of a small guild. Less than 20 active members and have had no problems with getting guild hall up and not feeling like grinding I’ll take all my words back.

This has been suggested before and it does not make sense because there would be a loophole for large guilds to rework their rosters for upgrades. But in my opinion, that is not even the point.

Although I lead a large guild and we have a level 21 guild hall already, over 90% of the resources for our guild hall upgrades came from a handful of people (<10). Sure, having a large guild increases your chances of having very active players in the guild who have lots of gold/resources, but this experience suggests that small guilds with dedicated players should have no problem getting their guild halls up. On the contrary, I’d think members of more tight knit communities should be willing to donate larger percentages of their capital.

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Posted by: Weli.4568

Weli.4568

Well ya see, you have guild level 21. We just managed to pop it to lvl9 huraaay!
I assume from checking link to your guild site that those 10 people are doing pretty much nothing but PvE. Compared to the people in my guild where people played WvW before it kinda died. So now it’s occasional and roaming around mainly which isn’t that rewarding even resource vice after the nerf to the nodes.

Yes I thought of that too but there are always ways to avoid that issue. For example track the roster size which shouldn’t be a problem and keep the requirements that are needed for lets say 2 to 4 weeks. Would it be worth it to go all the way around of that? Don’t think so. Especially if you want your guildies together under the same name.

Also the point about being dedicated. Sure that could work if forcing people to play content they don’t want to is cool. Of course there are counter arguments to that like “but then you must not want that thing you are yearning for so bad…” etc. I’m just saying I don’t feel like working for a thing that I already had but got taken away from me.
To add, some people have 9 to 5 jobs or go to university or even work retail with silly hours. So being dedicated isn’t really an option. Because you try to use those hours you have left to enjoy the game whether it’s playing pvp or wvw or pve. But I dare to assume many people want to spend it grinding something they do not enjoy.

Scatter the Weak [WK], Extraordinary Gentlemen [EXG]
Desolation

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Posted by: Wintuo.1356

Wintuo.1356

I don’t post much but here is my view of the guild changes and what I’ve read so far from people combatting the complaints.

So I have led a small guild almost since launch, we worked hard to earn our upgrades. Large guilds don’t know what that means because having more players meant more influence gain for upgrades so naturally it seemed too easy. Even so the goals were not insanely out of reach for all who strived for the upgrades. Now every upgrade has been locked behind a wall of material grind that some forum white knights feel is a justified trade off for a shiny guild hall.

Look at it this way, before, every guild member contributed to upgrading the guild by simply playing day by day. This was taken away and changed into players needing to buy or farm mats everyday for upgrades we already had. Not only is that insane but it will take 6 months for an active 10 man guild to achieve the level of upgrades we had before HoT. Why is this even considered a fair trade for a guild hall.

Before the white knights jump in, has it even occurred to you that although a hall would be nice some guilds would have preferred to keep things the way they were rather than start at almost less than square one. The only upgrade they left us was the Guild bank, which honestly I was shocked they left us with that much after all they had taken in the first place. How is this fair, points will be made new people joining the game wont be able to earn it the old way…oh I’m sorry I and others like myself that have been working on the same guild upgrades since launch should be concerned with a new player base that may or may not stick around to fully upgrade a hall.

Lastly, to all of you who think it’s just that easy to recruit 100-200 or max members honestly haven’t been on the hunt for members lately because everyone is committed to the already massive guilds. I know of 3 guilds alone that have 2-3 guilds for all their members because people want the quick result of mass communication of already stable guilds. It is not easy for a small guild anymore to expand to the numbers needed to make guild hall upgrades bearable, and there will be few to achieve that goal. There will be even fewer that actually want to get more than 10-20 on roster. Why must they be left in the dust when the large farm guilds will be back to full upgrade capacity in weeks not months?

Win Two Ohhh lvl 80 Human Mesmer
Guard the Guild lvl 80 Norn Guardian
Outlaws and Vagabonds(LaWz) on TC

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Posted by: Weli.4568

Weli.4568

Good post above.

Like personally I don’t mind the buildings for PvE. Heck we even got arena that is “small” but still playable and with pve stats instead of pvp. But I’d just want to claim stuff in wvw and use wvw buffs without silly grind.

Scatter the Weak [WK], Extraordinary Gentlemen [EXG]
Desolation

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Posted by: devi.9863

devi.9863

I completely agree with this Kuzzi guy

http://www.facebook.com/rob.zinke
Asuran Mesmer · Starting on Aug 25, 2012
I am a trickster and smarter than any bookah

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Posted by: Kuzzi.2198

Kuzzi.2198

After unlocking a couple more Enhancements I have a comment to add about the current state of these. Forcing every member to visit the tavern every time they want to switch the buff they are using is very tedious.

Buffs are one of the only bonuses that guilds offer to their players through game mechanics. We used to have them all active prior to HoT, and they did not provide too much of an advantage to begin with – they just felt like a nice little perk. Why were they turned into a chore?

This really hurts PvX players. It’s simply not worth it for me to go to the guild hall every time I want to play a PvP match, or mine a couple nodes, or pop into WvW to cap a camp or a tower. Instead, I’ll probably just keep the EXP buff active until I max my masteries (even though it provides no bonus in PvP, WvW, and pre-HoT content) and after that I will only use Map Bonus or Magic Find. Please change Enhacements to make them useful.

The Numbers:

  • Buffs provided before HoT: +5% EXP, +10% MF, +15% Karma, +10% Crafting, +10% Gathering
  • Buffs provided after HoT: +10% EXP (only after your guild spends thousands of gold upgrading Enhancements)

(edited by Kuzzi.2198)

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Posted by: Odyssey.6523

Odyssey.6523

My only feedback is the aggravation in collecting ley-line tools. Unless another guild has found a better system we have simply been buying most of these. They are heavily gated by account bound, time gated materials that require a specific (weaponcraft) high level craft and a level 3 mastery (nuhoch). The result is the onus to collect this very important material is placed on a very small population of the guild since a candidate to collect and craft these materials must have weaponcraft 400 AND nuhoch lore 3. Then at that, they can only make 1 a day. Limit the craft limitation to all weapon disciplines and provide other ways to farm ley-line sparks. On the bright side, it appears there is very little incentive to research the mining rate past 4 since the aetherium gain would then exceed the favor gain by a margin higher than what you could reasonably research.

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Posted by: Silly.5837

Silly.5837

The enhancements are BS. Before HoT we had +10% Gathering Bonus, +10% Magic Find, and +15% Karma for all our guildies. Now, we have to CHOOSE between +4% Exp or +4% Karma. What we had was taken away and replaced which much weaker buffs which are also mutually exclusive… We have the option to work hard towards strengthening the buffs, but we will always only be able to have one active. This is just plain stupid.

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Posted by: Valiant.5078

Valiant.5078

  • Member notes. A way to add a small note (perhaps only visible to people with a specific rank/permission), about individual members on the roster. This can be used for stuff like ‘On Vacation til <date>’, ‘Good leadership qualities’, or something more negative like ’Hasn’t participated in events since <date>’.

(edited by Valiant.5078)

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

After unlocking a couple more Enhancements I have a comment to add about the current state of these. Forcing every member to visit the tavern every time they want to switch the buff they are using is very tedious.

Buffs are one of the only bonuses that guilds offer to their players through game mechanics. We used to have them all active prior to HoT, and they did not provide too much of an advantage to begin with – they just felt like a nice little perk. Why were they turned into a chore?

This really hurts PvX players. It’s simply not worth it for me to go to the guild hall every time I want to play a PvP match, or mine a couple nodes, or pop into WvW to cap a camp or a tower. Instead, I’ll probably just keep the EXP buff active until I max my masteries (even though it provides no bonus in PvP, WvW, and pre-HoT content) and after that I will only use Map Bonus or Magic Find. Please change Enhacements to make them useful.

The Numbers:

  • Buffs provided before HoT: +5% EXP, +10% MF, +15% Karma, +10% Crafting, +10% Gathering
  • Buffs provided after HoT: +10% EXP (only after your guild spends thousands of gold upgrading Enhancements)

Waitwaitwait.

You’re saying you find it tedious to click a button, walk ten feet, visit a vendor, and then click the same button?

Consider that the buffs aren’t exactly designed for you to toggle them when you just want to “hit a few nodes” If you’re going to do heavy harvesting, you hit the harvesting buff. If you’re going to go run pvp, you take the pvp buff. If you’re working on masteries, you take the xp buff, if you’re trying to run zones for zone loot, you take the map rewards buff, etc. They last for 24 hours so the only time you’re really going to swap them out is specifically when you’re “switching gears”

The new system, once you’ve got your full suite of buffs is massively improved from a management standpoint. It offers better buffs on many things than the old system. It’s completely cost free once earned. The tradeoff is you have to swap them out.

They all scale to at least 10%, gaining 1% per type of buff added to the tavern. (possibly more if they get a buff from upgrading the tavern, haven’t gotten that far yet as our resources are focused on filling out/upgrading the buffs and guild trader)

That’s a tradeoff I’m happy to make. The previous system was a constant influence sink which equated, for many guilds, in to a constant gold sink. The new system is a one and done cost, which is overall less stackable, but as or more powerful, and allows members to administrate their own buffs.

It would have been pretty broken to have the massive stacking potential of the old system combined with the permanent nature of the new. The only guild which benefitted from the old system were the ones so massive the influence cost or queing and accelarating things was a non-issue. Influence was retired as a system of constant sinks balanced against constant member activity for this very reason. It was impossible to utilize efficiently for small 5-15 person guilds, and effectively cost nothing for 50+ member guilds.

The new system equalizes all benefits by phrasing everything in terms of up front costs and making the material cost of consumables like banners the constant sink. That sink is equalized by the new free guild mission system, which allows individuals in smaller guilds, if their guild can’t regularly provide banners, to provide their own, which was, again, a redundant system for large guilds and a false choice for small guilds before because of the influence gating of guild mission attempts.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

(edited by PopeUrban.2578)

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Posted by: ReaverKane.7598

ReaverKane.7598

/signed the original post.
I’ve been a guild master on GW2 since launch, and i’ve been GM for 10 years on the same multi-game guild.

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

The enhancements are BS. Before HoT we had +10% Gathering Bonus, +10% Magic Find, and +15% Karma for all our guildies. Now, we have to CHOOSE between +4% Exp or +4% Karma. What we had was taken away and replaced which much weaker buffs which are also mutually exclusive… We have the option to work hard towards strengthening the buffs, but we will always only be able to have one active. This is just plain stupid.

Add more buffs. they’ll all be 10%+ by the time you are finished.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

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Posted by: Silly.5837

Silly.5837

The enhancements are BS. Before HoT we had +10% Gathering Bonus, +10% Magic Find, and +15% Karma for all our guildies. Now, we have to CHOOSE between +4% Exp or +4% Karma. What we had was taken away and replaced which much weaker buffs which are also mutually exclusive… We have the option to work hard towards strengthening the buffs, but we will always only be able to have one active. This is just plain stupid.

Add more buffs. they’ll all be 10%+ by the time you are finished.

I’m aware that the buff will eventually be +10% magic find after we have spend over 2000 gold that we don’t have right now. But just 3 weeks ago we had +10% Gathering Bonus, +10% Magic Find, and +15% Karma at all times.

The only guild which benefitted from the old system were the ones so massive the influence cost or queing and accelarating things was a non-issue. Influence was retired as a system of constant sinks balanced against constant member activity for this very reason. It was impossible to utilize efficiently for small 5-15 person guilds, and effectively cost nothing for 50+ member guilds.

What are you talking about? My guild has 5-10 people online at peak times and we had absolutely no issues with keeping up the buffs under the old system.

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

The enhancements are BS. Before HoT we had +10% Gathering Bonus, +10% Magic Find, and +15% Karma for all our guildies. Now, we have to CHOOSE between +4% Exp or +4% Karma. What we had was taken away and replaced which much weaker buffs which are also mutually exclusive… We have the option to work hard towards strengthening the buffs, but we will always only be able to have one active. This is just plain stupid.

Add more buffs. they’ll all be 10%+ by the time you are finished.

I’m aware that the buff will eventually be +10% magic find after we have spend over 2000 gold that we don’t have right now. But just 3 weeks ago we had +10% Gathering Bonus, +10% Magic Find, and +15% Karma at all times.

The only guild which benefitted from the old system were the ones so massive the influence cost or queing and accelarating things was a non-issue. Influence was retired as a system of constant sinks balanced against constant member activity for this very reason. It was impossible to utilize efficiently for small 5-15 person guilds, and effectively cost nothing for 50+ member guilds.

What are you talking about? My guild has 5-10 people online at peak times and we had absolutely no issues with keeping up the buffs under the old system.

I’m assuming you used influence to do nothing but build buffs and accelarate production times, or people made regular gold to influence trades right?

That was kind of the problem. Buffs conflicted with banners, guild missions, and guild upgrades on a permanent basis. Running buffs meant you were attempting less guild missions, building less banners, and in general slowing your progress by maintaining them.

This is why I prefer the new system of permanent unlocks and the new upgrade/mission systems in general. They don’t get in the way of one another with the exception of consumable banners/tactics, which are the single endpoint of the whole system. Thus, while upgrading you can actually use your buffs and do guild missions, and you can do this early so that you have a good set of functionality in your guild, as the buffs themselves are all t1 upgrades.

The old system was kind of this mess of various levels of mission, banner, and buff unlocks all sort o haphazardly thrown together. The new one is pretty clear and usable from the jump. You start a guild, you do missions, you get a guild hall, you build buffs, structures, vendors, nodes, etc. based on what your guild finds important. During that time you either ignore or budget your tactics/banners/decorations, but you can do missions every week without worrying that they slow you down, and you can use your buffs without worrying that they slow you down.

Once you’re done upgrading things, you now have a functional, cost free system of great benefits, vendors, and buffs, and now you can afford to regularly drop consumables and tactics and bling out the hall with tons of sweet decorations, or you can actually choose to never spend anything on it ever again.

It just feels to me a lot better from a progression standpoint. You guild can get and do guild stuff from day 1, and you don’t feel like the system is fighting itself.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

(edited by PopeUrban.2578)

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Posted by: Silly.5837

Silly.5837

I agree that having Guild Missions on a separate track is a great improvement, and overall most of the changes to guilds are great. I’m not sure why you are bringing up those points though.

The issue I have with enhancements is that we can only have one active at a time whereas before we had 3 (and other guilds probably had more).

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Posted by: Kuzzi.2198

Kuzzi.2198

You’re saying you find it tedious to click a button, walk ten feet, visit a vendor, and then click the same button?

Slap 2 load screens on each of those times and the need to switch buffs ~15 times per day if you like to play a variety of content, and yes it does become VERY tedious.

I don’t like to be forced to play the game one way or another. I run a PvX guild and I myself like to experience everything in the game. Having to constantly switch buffs is an unnecessary inconvenience.

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

I agree that having Guild Missions on a separate track is a great improvement, and overall most of the changes to guilds are great. I’m not sure why you are bringing up those points though.

The issue I have with enhancements is that we can only have one active at a time whereas before we had 3 (and other guilds probably had more).

Yeah, the thing is though that the old system was balanced around this idea that it was cost prohibitive to do that (even though in practice influence costs for stuff were all over the place and never functioned as intended)

Sure, it would be cool to stack them, but there isn’t any sort of counterbalance in the permanent unlock system to counterbalance that like there was a cost counterbalance in the old system. If I have to choose between free buffs, or buffs that cost me gold (like they had planned originally) that I can stack, I totally pick the free ones.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

You’re saying you find it tedious to click a button, walk ten feet, visit a vendor, and then click the same button?

Slap 2 load screens on each of those times and the need to switch buffs ~15 times per day if you like to play a variety of content, and yes it does become VERY tedious.

I don’t like to be forced to play the game one way or another. I run a PvX guild and I myself like to experience everything in the game. Having to constantly switch buffs is an unnecessary inconvenience.

I guess I don’t understand why you need to switch buffs 15 times a day. Do you literally do like one pvp match, and then do one event, and then go gather ten nodes, and then go back to do another pvp match, and then zone in to wvw to cap one camp or something?

If that’s the case i can see how adding more loading screens to your already massive self imposed giant number of loading screens would be an issue.

If It’s that you have to visit the hall after an hour of PvP when you switch gears to go do events, I don’t get how that’s a massive inconvenience, or why you wouldn’t be in the hall already to access the services, bank, etc. there in stead of LA since the load time is way faster.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

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Posted by: Kuzzi.2198

Kuzzi.2198

I guess I don’t understand why you need to switch buffs 15 times a day. Do you literally do like one pvp match, and then do one event, and then go gather ten nodes, and then go back to do another pvp match, and then zone in to wvw to cap one camp or something?

If that’s the case i can see how adding more loading screens to your already massive self imposed giant number of loading screens would be an issue.

If It’s that you have to visit the hall after an hour of PvP when you switch gears to go do events, I don’t get how that’s a massive inconvenience, or why you wouldn’t be in the hall already to access the services, bank, etc. there in stead of LA since the load time is way faster.

I’m not sure why you’re playing devil’s advocate. There are 2 simple solutions that would be a clear improvement over the current implementation:

  • Leave the 24 hour potion approach but make it give all guild buffs
    OR
  • Let us simply switch the buffs through the guild window

I feel like no matter what your view is, you should think that one or the other solution is leaps and bounds better over the current implementation. I would be happy with either.

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Posted by: PopeUrban.2578

PopeUrban.2578

I guess I don’t understand why you need to switch buffs 15 times a day. Do you literally do like one pvp match, and then do one event, and then go gather ten nodes, and then go back to do another pvp match, and then zone in to wvw to cap one camp or something?

If that’s the case i can see how adding more loading screens to your already massive self imposed giant number of loading screens would be an issue.

If It’s that you have to visit the hall after an hour of PvP when you switch gears to go do events, I don’t get how that’s a massive inconvenience, or why you wouldn’t be in the hall already to access the services, bank, etc. there in stead of LA since the load time is way faster.

I’m not sure why you’re playing devil’s advocate. There are 2 simple solutions that would be a clear improvement over the current implementation:

  • Leave the 24 hour potion approach but make it give all guild buffs
    OR
  • Let us simply switch the buffs through the guild window.

I feel like no matter what your view is, you should think that one or the other solution is leaps and bounds better over the current implementation. I would be happy either either.

Of course I wouldn’t be against having it in the guild window, but maybe I’m weird.

I like having reasons to visit the hall, and I like the micro-immersion of “buying a drink” that the current implementation has.

I get that not everyone likes or cares about the guild hall though, but it’s also entirely possible that the “hassle” was done intentionally to prevent people from basically benefitting from them as if they were stacked, even though the system doesn’t allow them to stack.

I mean I don’t know, but I’d imagine that when anet decided to say a 10% gathering and a 10% xp buff don’t stack, they’re assuming people won’t just swap buffs every time they come across a single ore node or tree, as that sort of nullifies the stacking limitation. Maybe it’s supposed to be kind of a pain to discourage rapidly swapping buffs all the time? IDK.

Guild Master – The Papacy [POPE] (Gate of Madness)/Road Scholar for the Durmand Priory
Writer/Director – Quaggan Quest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky2TGPmMPeQ

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Posted by: Bekkr.6192

Bekkr.6192

If you want to min/max to the point where you’re switching buffs 15 times a day, fair enough, but there absolutely should be a convenience penalty associated with that, IMO.

Doesn’t seem broken to me, so I don’t agree that it needs fixing.

Lots of other good suggestions in this thread though.

Separating invite / kick permissions is top of the list for me personally.

The problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it.
-Salvador Dali

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Posted by: SilverThorn.5047

SilverThorn.5047

OMG this is all things i wanna say about the new guild halls. thanks for highlighting all these points OP +1 for ya

Main: Silverthorn Ventus – swift as the wind, sharp as a thorn
Alt: Mulciber Ironbarrel – The fire creates as much as it destroys

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Posted by: Loosmaster.8263

Loosmaster.8263

You’re saying you find it tedious to click a button, walk ten feet, visit a vendor, and then click the same button?

Slap 2 load screens on each of those times and the need to switch buffs ~15 times per day if you like to play a variety of content, and yes it does become VERY tedious.

I don’t like to be forced to play the game one way or another. I run a PvX guild and I myself like to experience everything in the game. Having to constantly switch buffs is an unnecessary inconvenience.

If that isn’t a 2 faced back crawling statement, I don’t know what is. At the same time you’re telling small guilds to grind for what they and can’t possibly get in the way they play or even game mode. How big is the hole in your foot?


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