Guild Wars 2

In the spirit of yesterday Colin blog post I want to provide my preliminary feedback on Guild Claiming and War Room upgrades.

I’m part of a WvW guild (~20 active players) and we set our priority to unlock all the upgrades for WvW (+ arena), so we rushed all possible upgrades and this morning we unlocked the War Room (thanks for correcting the bug with last patch!), starting the long journey to have everything unlocked to give our contribution to our server (GO WSR!).

I strongly back John Coperning statement that “Guilds are the lifeblood of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™, and it’s our desire that they become a greater part of World vs. World.” and I think it’s really important that guilds see their contribution matters, at all levels. Coordination between guilds should win matches, not numbers and coverage (but that’s another sad story which we hope it will be tackled soon as John stated elsewhere)

The good

Claiming announcement
After unlocking camps claiming, I went straight to capture a camp and claim it. We can’t yet do anything with it, but just seeing my guild name on the announcement was glorious. It reminded me of Hall of Heroes victories in old Guild Wars.

Gating claiming rights
I like a lot the idea of gating a bit claiming rights in WvW. Having a troll claim or simply a claim from an unknown guild just because some new players stumbled on Garrison lord was harsh.
It also rewards guilds for putting efforts and becoming a “qualified WvW guild”, being able to show to fellow server members that. Note: I’m not saying that if you don’t pursue those upgrades you are not a “real WvW guild” (it might be case for guilds focused on fights), it’s a different concept.
Camps and Towers are not hard to reach, Keeps is a bit down the line but obtainable. SMC is like a “prize”.

Upgrading itself
Not WvW related, but unlocking stuff in the guild hall is really rewarding, it’s not cheap but seeing our hall becoming better and better it’s a nice feeling!

Auras
Having stats buff in form of auras that will always be available on claimed structures it’s a good plus. It won’t change much but it’s a nice addition (except for Supply Capacity, see below).

Guild catapults nerf
They were simply too overpowered, 4 people could take a keep really quickly. Too much.

Too early to call

Tactics and Improvements
I was able to toy a bit with those during stress test. We’ll surely need to test banners and vehicles in “real action”. But I like the idea of those.

Guild Siege
Without unlocked recipes, it’s hard to know whether they will be worth over regular or superior siege. It could be another tool for guilds, we’ll see.

The bad

Supply Capacity
With the old guild upgrade system, Fort +5 Supply was a 200 influence (aka 10 events with 2 people, so about 20 minutes of playing) upgrade. It was available at Art of War 2 and amongst the first ugprades.
Now we have Auras, that have the undoubtedly advantage of being permanent. However, Supply Capacity has been moved to the last tier of upgrades, requiring Guild Level 37 and a good amount of upgrades!
I made some rough estimation yesterday, and I don’t see this upgrade being obtainable in less than 2 months (not mentioning the costs for all the upgrades, probably in the thousands of gold, which could be troublesome for some). Sure it will be permanent, but it’s 2 months!
Guild Arena in 2 months was a bad idea and as a matter of fact it was reverted to a smaller timeframe now (thank you)

While all other auras have limited utility (but being permanent will become nice addictions) Supply Capacity is the back bone of WvW upgrades. It’s like “WvW 101”

Having small groups (4-5 players) being able to play at 75% of their full capacity (while just a week ago the upgrade was a no-brainer) after ~3 years of the same is a questionable design decision. I’m worried that small guilds (~10 people) who enjoyed small operation will have another reason to abandon WvW, draining overall population.

It’s ok to have some progression, it’s ok to put some prize at the end of journey, it’s a terrible decision to strip us something we were used to do every day and put that behind a huge pay wall and time gate.

This decision will have (actually, already has) a huge impact on all levels, while favouring mindless blobbing over small organised play. Please, stop this policy right now. Make guilds have an effect on the game, all type of guilds, including small ones. Everyone wants to contribute with their possibility.

(I don’t even want to mention the fact that we will get +MF and +XP in the middle, like WvW guilds care about those)

Final Words

I like the changes of the new system (with the notable exception of +5), I think that will reward guilds more in the future.

However, supply capacity alone is keeping down everything. I can’t overlook it, it’s so important that everything else of the new system seems worthless to me.

TL;DR: Please switch back Supply Capacity back at the beginning of upgrade line.

+1

Berto is right in terms of +5s being thrown into the early tiers of upgrades.

My guild has only 1 member. Me.

Long story short: before HoT i had 2 guilds both sustained with influence points purchased via an NPC (that has been removed).

Now you can say all you want about how pathetic it can sound to have not 1 but 2 guilds as a single player. However, point is with both upgraded purely for +5, i was able to either have 2 +5 in a map or “chain the 2 claimings” so that my server/s could have +5 even after i logged off.

And if you are a smart/experienced WvW player, then you can immagine how useful that “tactic” can be. Not to brag, but as for +5 claims i was more reliable than entire guilds.

So i’ll get to the point. I am not in a real guild. I am not interested in GH and all the rest. (Altho ofc i perfectly understand real guilds want to discuss and fix any problems about GH, upgrades etc, and i genuinely wish you all the best luck with that).
All i want is the +5

Before HoT I spent many days/time/gold to care about sharing +5 with my server and now suddenly the game threats me like some kind of “non-WvW-player”. This is riddiculous.

Yes, guilds hall are for guilds, yes, give them all the upgrades they deserve, i am totally fine with that. But please, don’t cut me off +5 only because i prefer to stay guildless…

Honestly I miss the good old days where 10 supply was the max and there was no way to change that. I do agree it feels weird that everything that was accessible to guilds before the expansions is gone now but it gives our guild something to work towards. I don’t think the +5 only helps small groups either, it helps large zergs too giving them way more supply then they will need (as long as they don’t get it drained by treb). Good luck with the upgrades.

Pink Ninja Man.4375:

I don’t think the +5 only helps small groups either, it helps large zergs too giving them way more supply then they will need

100 supply camp can resupply 5 men with 20 or 7 with 15.

If the 5 men can only carry 15, they cannot take the full advantage of a freshly flipped camp, they might need to resupply etc.

The 7 (or more) men won’t care.

That’s why it hurts more smaller groups.

Given that it’s permanent, I don’t think this is as big of a deal as you say. It does feel disproportionately large due to having all of that stuff and having it taken away, but it should be fine in the long run.

That should, the MF and XP buffs should probably be changed to things that are more useful in WvW.

Nedus.6952:

My guild has only 1 member. Me.

Long story short: before HoT i had 2 guilds both sustained with influence points purchased via an NPC (that has been removed).

Now you can say all you want about how pathetic it can sound to have not 1 but 2 guilds as a single player. However, point is with both upgraded purely for +5, i was able to either have 2 +5 in a map or “chain the 2 claimings” so that my server/s could have +5 even after i logged off.

And if you are a smart/experienced WvW player, then you can immagine how useful that “tactic” can be. Not to brag, but as for +5 claims i was more reliable than entire guilds.

So i’ll get to the point. I am not in a real guild. I am not interested in GH and all the rest. (Altho ofc i perfectly understand real guilds want to discuss and fix any problems about GH, upgrades etc, and i genuinely wish you all the best luck with that).
All i want is the +5

Before HoT I spent many days/time/gold to care about sharing +5 with my server and now suddenly the game threats me like some kind of “non-WvW-player”. This is riddiculous.

Yes, guilds hall are for guilds, yes, give them all the upgrades they deserve, i am totally fine with that. But please, don’t cut me off +5 only because i prefer to stay guildless…

Totally agree with you. I actually have a larger guild of 50+ members, but people don’t represent.

I USED to run as a Solo PUG Commander capping camps for my BL.

Now…I feel I’m useless. I can’t really WvW anymore.

I’m currently working in PvE to earn my Masteries…so I don’t fall behind the PvE curve and to earn Hero points to get my Elite.

It’s going to take me some time to get my Guild Hall and War Room.

I’m feeling like HoT is cheating me out of what I had before for my guild…and took me over 3 years to unlock over constant playing.

Prior to HoT I had the following unlocked for my guild:

Architecture Level V
Example – Guild Stash / Treasure Trove / Deep Cave

Art of War Level V
All bonuses for Level V
Example – Guild Catapult / Siege Suit / Bounty Tier 1-3

Economy Level VI
All bonuses for Level VI
Example – Vault Transport <—- It’s supposed to be grandfathered to my guild

Politics Level Level VI
All bonuses for Level VI
Example – Heroe’s Banner, etc

Edit – Hurts I can’t +5 Camps like before…until I get a Guild Hall & War Room.

I feel like I worked really hard to un-lock a lot of things of a guild, but I can’t have a Guild Hall for me to just hang up my hat & try to start a social environment for the guild members that currently don’t represent.

If anything…please provide Micro-Guilds a Guild Hut/Room…so we can have a place to start building a community…much like the Guild Halls in GW1.

“I USED to run as a Solo PUG Commander capping camps for my BL.

Now…I feel I’m useless. I can’t really WvW anymore."

You can’t play WvW without +5s? Maybe ya should stack swiftness and run supplies instead.

People can’t play because one feature was made hard to get which was a core part of the supply/siege/repair mechanics, accept it, move on work on organisation or running supply, jeez so much negativity because wvw got harder.

xXBAKESXx.6731:

“I USED to run as a Solo PUG Commander capping camps for my BL.

Now…I feel I’m useless. I can’t really WvW anymore."

You can’t play WvW without +5s? Maybe ya should stack swiftness and run supplies instead.

People can’t play because one feature was made hard to get which was a core part of the supply/siege/repair mechanics, accept it, move on work on organisation or running supply, jeez so much negativity because wvw got harder.

“WvW got harder” lol. I’m glad you are enjoying your new PvE map. Keep on white knighting.

Nedus.6952:

My guild has only 1 member. Me.

Long story short: before HoT i had 2 guilds both sustained with influence points purchased via an NPC (that has been removed).

Now you can say all you want about how pathetic it can sound to have not 1 but 2 guilds as a single player. However, point is with both upgraded purely for +5, i was able to either have 2 +5 in a map or “chain the 2 claimings” so that my server/s could have +5 even after i logged off.

And if you are a smart/experienced WvW player, then you can immagine how useful that “tactic” can be. Not to brag, but as for +5 claims i was more reliable than entire guilds.

So i’ll get to the point. I am not in a real guild. I am not interested in GH and all the rest. (Altho ofc i perfectly understand real guilds want to discuss and fix any problems about GH, upgrades etc, and i genuinely wish you all the best luck with that).
All i want is the +5

Before HoT I spent many days/time/gold to care about sharing +5 with my server and now suddenly the game threats me like some kind of “non-WvW-player”. This is riddiculous.

Yes, guilds hall are for guilds, yes, give them all the upgrades they deserve, i am totally fine with that. But please, don’t cut me off +5 only because i prefer to stay guildless…

This was me too. I had two guilds specifically for this purpose, or to buff when others didn’t have any up. I miss the +5 and being able to buff a keep.

Most of the folks who did this regularly were from small or solo guilds — the scout types. Wish they’d find a way to give it back to us — and I’m not fussed if I ever get a hall itself. I’d just like the buffs back.

Being in a small WvW only guild created by players that know each other personally and have played together for 20 years, they completely destroyed the usefulness of guilds. We don’t even open the guild menu up any longer other than to see who might be logged on.

Prior to this change we had a fully upgraded guild and always had +5 supply buff. Now we have a shared tag next to our names. None of us do PvE in GW2 (it is that bad) and the guild hall unlock like most things in this game is hidden behind a bunch of PvE.

On the matter, there should be a vendor in WvW that exchange BoH for account bound items required for Guild Halls obtainable only in PvE (like SW shovels).

Even at outrageous rates if that is needed, but let WvWers play WvW in peace if they fancy that.

@xXBAKESXx
WvW didn’t get harder…just the rewards of past efforts got nerfed in my opinion. I’ve always played under rough and un-even odds…so that doesn’t bother me.

I’m still probably going to play WvW after doing PvE grinding to get resources in place so I can enjoy WvW.

In the meantime…I believe in my opinion…all WvW World Communities as a whole will decline due to the PvE grind that will happen with HoT & Holiday events.

@Puck
I’m still a hard core WvW player. You got the wrong impression from xXBAKESXx comment. I’m very comfortable fighting for hours with outnumbered buff on. Usually I look for the BL that can give me that buff while I run havoc for my Home World.

No disrespect to either of you btw…just disappointed with things on where WvW game mode is going…imho. I feel that ANet is trying to make hard core WvW players fit their vision of how we should be playing…and past achievements are thrown out as they mold us into the new play style.