So I have been working through upgrades with my relatively small guild since HoT launch, we had an unfortunate set back by having to remake a guild due to an inactive guild leader so we started from scratch. We have about 50 members and normally have about 10-12 active most of the time, we have managed to settle atm at guild level 30. I won’t focus on the negatives as that’s been done to death but rather what could make things better overall to the development of guilds. (In my and some other guild leaders opinions anyway)
I. Guild Costs – While I don’t like the need for 100’s and 1000’s of high quality matts, I do understand there need in some circumstances, namely the physical building upgrades. Where the real issue is, is in minor upgrades, alot of those are excessive and do not meet what could be considered reasonable for cost vs reward. The balancing of requirements should be heavily considered. And some upgrades should allow for more unlocks across the board.
e.g. PvP Arena Upgrades unlock cosmetic options at the deco merchant – Practice Dummies, or Targets etc. WvW, has Deco seige, or dolyaks etc. Tavern has naturally tavern related things.
II. NPC’s and Ambients – The guild halls are huge, and they are brilliant places to explore but they lack life, As our Guild Halls level up, maybe every 5 ranks we unlock a new upgrade that allows npcs to move into parts of the guild hall. Rep’s from the factions: Pact, Whispers, Priory etc. Maybe some thematic npc’s like scholars from the priory who’ve come to learn more about your guild hall. More Guild Initiative npc’s working around the place. More animals roaming about would be cool as well.
III. Bridging the separation between Guild Initiative and the Guild – As it stands the only thing we know about the Initiative is they are their to help us and vice versa with the development of the guild, but really game wise they don’t. A few ideas floated with a few fellow guild leaders was to actually tie participation/rewards into guild related activities and in the open world.
a) Guild Missions – Every Successful Guild Mission rewards the typical weekly reward, but also rewards a new Guild item: Guild Initiative Supply Crate. These crates allocate a random amount of supplies to existing upgrade requirements within the guild Treasury, You can get one of these each week from every guild mission you have done. Not only would it tie in the activity of the guild initiative to your guild progression it helps smaller guilds gain some much needed resources to continue with their progress. It’s a way for players to be rewarded for successfully doing guild missions, and reward individual guild success.
b) Guild Initiative Crates – These could also be made as a Permanent Extra Map Reward Bonus, we know the map reward system is broken down to a point tier system like spvp reward tracks, so with that in mind the crates could be awarded at the 50% and 100% marks of the entire track, this would replace the old influence system that used to exist before Guild Halls, and again a way for guild hall progress to be awarded for actual activity in game. Another way they could be awarded is as a random reward in World Boss Daily chests, but not 100% guaranteed just as a rare chance.
IV. Decorations – Decorations should be not tied to scribes entirely, exclusivity for a profession that currently is horribly implemented is not good enough, and IMO makes little sense. Decorations should be unlocked via guild level at the decoration merchant, and the costs should have variations, paying 40-50s for a wood box is ridiculous, and having no alternative to purchase is again an oversight.
e.g. Wooden Box – 5s or 5 Greenwood Planks.
Decorations should also be rare drops in the world, A rare chance to gain Trees/planters from harvesting and logging nodes. Available from some Event karma vendors, or heart vendors. Rare drops from World Boss Chests as well.
V. Guild Boosts – Once a Boost is unlocked make it a permanent Boost upgrade, this is how it was implemented before, we all worked to unlock and utilise these upgrades we should be rewarded with the permanent boosts they supply.
VI. Aetherium Uses – For smaller guilds one of the big noticeable things is the pool of Aetherium not being used, we have had ours capped for a few days now, and the stretch between upgrades is not small. One idea was to use Aetherium as a currency to order/buy expeditions from the Guild Initiative. The Basic idea would be that you would have 2 expedition slots in your guild interface for expeditions, you can then buy depending on how much aetherium you want to use short/Medium/Extended Expeditions for resource. So say 2.5k, 5k, 10k Aetherium, and an expedition will be mounted for a certain period of time.
As an example:
Small Expedition – 2.5k Aetherium – 1day. One Expedition slot is used and after a day you will receive rewards from the small expedition. Reward: [Small Crate of Supplies/1 Random Decoration]
Medium Expedition – 5k Aetherium – 3 days. One Expedition slot is used and after 3 days you will receive rewards from the expedition. Reward: [Medium Crate of Supplies/3 Random Decorations]
Extended Expedition – 10k Aetherium – 7 days. Two Expedition slots used, and after 7 days you will receive rewards from the expedition. Reward: [Heavy Crate of Supplies/5 Random Decorations]
VII. Decoration Limit – A small thing, but remove the limitation for the amount of items in a specific spot, some players like to play SIMS: GW2 edition and make random things out of decos, remove limitations. I found when making 1 of the 2 JP’s we have in our GH some things were a bit frustrating when we hit deco caps for like more than 5 things.
Hopefully some of these are ideas worth considering, as much as I like the guild halls, and so do the guild leaders I confer with, some more QoL changes would make it much more reasonable.
(edited by Sernius Alathar.6538)