Guild Wars 2

Thinking about ladders & matchmaking, I feel like GW2, even more than GW1, is suitable for Guild vs. Guild play. By that I mean having ladders, rating, matchmaking etc. belong to a “guild” rather than belonging to individual players. I’m not talking about the GvG game mode. That’s offtopic!

In GW1, GvG had a high barrier to entry because each guild could only field 1 team at a time.
- If your guild had too many players, then some players would miss out on GvG sometimes.
- If your guild had too few players, then its hard to field a full team.

However, in GW2, people can belong in multiple guilds. So just like how a basketball player can play for his pro team as well as his national team in the olympics, a player can belong in multiple guilds.

Also, guilds can split themselves into multiple sub-guilds, and every member can belong to every sub-guild. Like Team A, Team B, etc. Team A can be the primary team. The guild wants to compete with this team, and have its rating be as high as possible. Team B is the overflow team. If Team A is full and currently playing, people can play in Team B. Or new/lesser skilled players can play in Team B, etc.

All of this means, the problems caused by a guild ladder in GW1 don’t exist for GW2.

I feel like having a ladder based on Guilds is far more interesting than having ladders based on individuals, because having a team identity in a team game makes things more interesting.

It also add a bit more meta to the gameplay, in that guild leaders can start to become like “sports team managers” – trying to recruit the best players to their team, trying to protect the reputation&rating of their team, etc. The team (guild) itself becomes an entity – it has a Name and a Rating.

I feel like, when ANet introduces ladders and matchmaking, the best first step should be to base it around guilds. Individual rating can come later if we want, but Guild rating is more interesting.

I’m a fan of the idea.

1- Read the lore before you derive rhetorical meanings from semantic content. Guild Wars refers to the historical wars that were once waged in Tyria.
2- What makes you think teams cannot have an identity outside the context of your usual guild dynamics?

Rezz.8019:

I don’t want any guild. I definitely don’t want to socialize with mmo players. But I do want personal ratings.

Correct me if i’m wrong, you don’t want a -guild- in -guild-wars, and you don’t want to socialize with MMO players, whilst playing an MMO? :p

Rezz.8019:

I don’t want any guild. I definitely don’t want to socialize with mmo players. But I do want personal ratings.

I think you may be playing the wrong game…

I do like the idea in the op though.

OneArmedBandit.7936:

1- Read the lore before you derive rhetorical meanings from semantic content. Guild Wars refers to the historical wars that were once waged in Tyria.
2- What makes you think teams cannot have an identity outside the context of your usual guild dynamics?

1. I never mentioned the name of the game, so you are the one who is reading too much into it.

2. How will teams have an identity in a competitive ladder, if the ladder is based on individuals? And if we wanted to have a ladder based on teams, why make an alternative group structure when you can just use guilds?