Guild Wars 2

Now that it is sinking in. (As many guilds have earned no guild credits since Oct 23). It is evident that normal game play, no longer earns any guild you rep, anything. Nada. It seems pretty clear now, that you have to initiate a guild quest to earn anything at all for your guilds.

The question then becomes: Why rep. any of your guilds during any normal game play? Especially in WvW, (and probably PvP as well). It serves no real purpose anymore. Unless you queue up a guild event, and are present at the correct date and time to complete the event with your guild, your represented guilds earn nothing for normal representation of them, as it did for the last 3 years.

So, how might this affect WvW? I am starting to believe that there could be a huge strategic advantage to those servers who purposely do NOT rep any guilds during game play.

Consider this: Your group of 30 players, whom are all representing their guilds, comes face to face with a group of 30 enemy players. But, unlike in the past. This enemy has no guild identifications. Are you facing a guild group? Are you facing a solid open field fight guild? Are you facing a rag-tag fugitive fleet of misfits? Should you engage them? Or, should you head for a strategic defensible position? They can see your guild tags, but, you can’t see theirs. They know who you are, and, what they are up against immediately. You don’t. The balance of loot bags, is tipped in their favor already.

You find out that it is a solid fight guild, and you are dispatched quickly. But, which guild was it? Who was their leader? Who is it, that is currently on the map?

You regroup and suddenly find another group of 30. They too, are not representing any guilds. Is it the same group? Who are they? Who might be their commander? When one of the groups leaves the map, which one left? Which group just came onto the map? Which guilds are they? Which players, or guilds are currently left on the map? Do you need to follow them to another map? Or, do you need to stay put?

How do you snipe a commander when you can’t even identify what guild they are in? (much harder) Or, even identify who the commander might be? How do you pick off stray militia if they can’t be singled out as such? How many actual guild groups do they have on the map, and what types?

There seems to be a huge potential tactical advantage to running in WvW without representing any guilds at this point. With virtually no disadvantages that can’t be easily overcome.

It seems that server could potentially deny the enemy of important strategic intelligence (at the expense of guild glory, of course) by running without guild tags now. Since, the current revisions dictate that normal game play earns your chosen guilds nothing. The question remains; unless, you have a guild mission up and running, why rep any guild in WvW at all now? Even if a guild claims a tower, by repping, and un-repping. Or, briefly completing a guild mission by doing the same. That only identifies to the enemy that there is at least one member of that guild on the map, nothing more.

Guild chat? Easily overcome with team speak. I can’t think of many other disadvantages to running rep-less WvW anymore. Mostly advantages.

Until such a time, that normal game play earns a chosen guild something, why not take advantage of this, and deny the enemy of very substantial battle field information? It is much harder to fight an unknown enemy, than it is to say “XXX” is on the map, here they come, here is what we have to do… Known enemy battles might then become reserved for GvG’s?

I think “put your pets away” might possibly become less important than, “stand down your guild tags”. And, I think it’s likely that the first WvW server that faces a server of completely unidentifiable guilds and enemies, could possibly drive some major changes in deceptive tactics. …Or, maybe some guilds will just want to remain seen?… But, it’s a plausible big change in tactical game play that we may be facing, none the less. Time will tell.

Interesting idea, I wonder how long till it catches on. I’m surprised guilds are still requiring rep when it’s basically useless other than for ‘glory’.

That would be interesting indeed – [Ash] facerolling everything “Oh, it’s just a PuG”.
Well guys, become better, right? You never know who you’ll be facing next.

One minor point, most of the fight guilds like you to know who beat you. Bragging rights and all that.

We just owned you!
What? We got rolled by like 30 pugs.
That was our awesome guild!
What was?
That group of 30that rolled you.
None of them were tagged, they were pugs.
No that was us.
Umm ok, prove it.
Ok here is the link to the video I posted.
That just shows 30 no tagged pugs beating us, what does that prove?
It was us! Fear us!
Quit whispering me you stupid pug.
IM NOT A PUG!
I’m ignoring you now. Stupid pugs don’t know when to quit….

It is a matter of retaining the meaning of a guild, not just simply a group made to fulfill a specific purpose and then disappear when that purpose is gone, a guild simply is more than any of that. If winning and losing are all really that important, I am not saying is not important but not “THAT” important, then one shouldn’t be in a guild in the first place or one should be in a guild like the one TS described.

Wryscher.1432:

One minor point, most of the fight guilds like you to know who beat you. Bragging rights and all that.

You have a point, but you underestimate the power of trolling – and there’s always youtube to prove that it was indeed said guild.

ETA: Or they can just tag up when they wiped you.

People represent guilds in games even when there arent any purpose of the tag other than having a tag. I see where OP is going and it would mean a tactical advantage… but honestly I cant see any serious/hardcore guild doing it. We have seen guilds secretely reform under other tags but thats still tags. I cant see any less serious guild bothering with it.

Worst case scenario, I can imagine the somewhat less than honorable but very well known roaming small size gank guilds running tagless.

road range.6293:

Guild chat? Easily overcome with team speak. I can’t think of many other disadvantages to running rep-less WvW anymore. Mostly advantages.

You can see guild chat regardless of whether you’re repping or not.

A 0% rep wvw guild can actually pull this off.

Repping guilds in a Raid has never been worth it.
Theres what 15-30 people. while it only takes 2 people to get influence for that guild.

If you have more then 2 people compleeting the same event they added 0 influence extra.
So why didn’t they do this earlier??
as a 30man raid guild. you could had earned 300influence per event. but all choose to get 20Inf.

And since those 20inf is gone aswell you expect people to use this tactic??
Can you see what a guild could had done if they earned 500 per raid night. they could had gotted 7500 and just made guild cata’s in the 14 Spare guilds to keep there raid cost low.

Repping a guild had social side to it. With Guild chats avaible even when not repping that guild. Then repping becomes pointless. There is only a few reason to rep and thats Bragging rights and Missions.

On the other hand if you just reformed a raid guild and are afraid of makeing fun off run with 20+tags and Only rep all after you wipe an enemy.
But if they defeat you and show up in there movie. they can’t say its your guild and there video is just Them rolling over pugs.

I get the OP view But this tactic isn’t new.

Do any of you guys actually do WvW with your guilds, or command for your guilds? Every guild member who is repping is a yellow dot on your map with their name displayed. Being able to see how many people are missing from your stack, the exactly location of your pick team, the distance you are from various guild members. This is hugely helpful for any commander.

Plus, when you’ve been in a tier for a decent length of time you don’t need to see guild tags to know who you’re fighting, you can tell by how they manuever or the profile pictures of their commanders, or other indicators.

Caliburn.1845:

Plus, when you’ve been in a tier for a decent length of time you don’t need to see guild tags to know who you’re fighting, you can tell by how they manuever or the profile pictures of their commanders, or other indicators.

EU = non locked tiers. It’s a lot more fun.

I don’t if guilds have actually gotten their upgrades yet, but in the stresstest here are some things that you ought to keep an eye on

Invulnerable Fortifications: Craft schematics to manufacture a tier 2 tactic that temporarily makes the walls and gate of your claimed objective impervious to enemy attack.

Turret Gates: Craft schematics to manufacture a tier 3 improvement that causes the gates at your guild’s claimed objective to actively attack invaders.

Assault Roller: Craft schematics to manufacture a tier 2 tactic that summons a charr assault roller at your camp, which one of your guild members can transform into as a highly mobile siege weapon.

Invincible Dolyak: Craft schematics to manufacture a tier 1 tactic that sends an invulnerable supply dolyak from a claimed camp.

Speedy Dolyaks: Craft schematics to manufacture a tier 2 improvement that significantly increases the speed of dolyaks departing from your guild’s claimed supply camp.

Minor Supply Drop: Craft schematics to manufacture a tier 1 tactic that refills the supply cache at your guild’s claimed objective.

Sabotage Depot: Craft schematics to manufacture a tier 1 improvement that rigs the supply depot at your guild’s claimed objective to explode if your objective is captured by enemies, destroying all of the supply there.

(Pre-apologies, I type really fast)

Agreed… all good points…

…“I don’t if guilds have actually gotten their upgrades yet, but in the stress test here are some things that you ought to keep an eye on”…

Wow. Every item on Infusion’s list there, just takes the topic right off the rails. But, also, kind of ties it all together. (sigh) Truthfully, everything on that list makes me want to cry for the imminent loss of real WvW. The big guilds will soon control all maps, and all of the game play, and only those big guilds. Add to that list, “Squads” and, on, and on. It just hands complete control of the game to a few select commanders and guilds. And, it makes everyone else just pawns.

So, is WvW supposed to be PvE now, or is it just GvG now? (I’m so confused. lol) Why not just treat the entire server as a single server guild, and let the respective servers earn those items through weekly game play, and erase them all at the end of the match? Because whatever it has become, it’s clearly just not WvW anymore. It does make a really nice stop for premium harvesting now though… lol. (sad, but we all know that is true now too). Every “guild crafting” item on Infusion’s list there, just shows that everything we’ve done and earned in the past, and everything most of us players liked to contribute with, is right out the window. It doesn’t exist anymore for many of us.

Personally, I figured I would never get the new HoT story lines done, for many months. Because I wouldn’t want to leave the new WvW maps long enough to play the new content. Sadly, the opposite has been true. I have dumfoundedly found a lack of incentive to even play WvW. Probably, in part, because I don’t care about the other 3 maps anymore, or, what the score is there. But for sure, the fact that, most of us long time players in smaller guilds can’t even +5 a camp, or a tower, or do upgrades anymore. Our contribution is greatly reduced now. What we had earned, has been stripped from us. So, what fun is that? Additionally, as pointed out above; If the only thing that matters is an ego pumping “youtube video” of one guild besting another, what good does that do for the server as a whole? I think you guys may be absolutely correct. The big guild’s egos may not ever allow themselves to try and run guild tag-less groups, because, it may be way more a matter of GvG now, and, not so much actually tactically winning the match anymore.

If we are not collectively playing to win the match for the entire server, but, ONLY to best another big guild, and have exclusive rights to control of the game via guild hall crafting. What is there that makes others want to play, and what does the topic’s plausible tactics even matter? That’s GvG, not WvW… And, I must admit, I suddenly can’t find much that makes me truly want to play WvW since the HoT release. And, I was an every single day WvW player. They have taken all of the things we loved to play for, and could do in the past, and taken them away. And, as Infusions list shows, have put ALL of the privileges and control, into the exclusive hands of a select few, that will soon have complete control of the game. Even players with rank 2000, 3000, 4000, are suddenly unable to be anything but pawns to commanders of the big guilds. Commanders, I would add, that often aren’t even ranked to have full mastery yet. In short, the small guild players can’t contribute nearly as much to the good of the server anymore, other than for fighting skills alone.

So, after reading the responses so far, and thinking about the topic some more, I realize that my personal drive is always to contribute to the whole server, and winning as a server, not guild domination. I guess that I actually hope now that we might actually start fighting WvW without any guild representation, and zero Guild based upgrades. Play more for the server, play to win the matches. Remove all these exclusive “guild crafting” upgrades, and put them back into the earn-ability, and control, of ALL dedicated WvW players who earn it by playing hard on their servers, match by match, and reset all of the “Server Earned” upgrades weekly.

So, seemingly, some off the topic rails feedback, is actually, somehow, right on topic, and nails the answer to the coffin. Unless we care less about which guild we play for, and, care more about winning for the servers we play for… Tactics like this, no matter how tactically sound, or plausible, or FUN, they might be. May indeed never be tried, or, used, because of the current status of big guilds suddenly taking full control of all WvW upgrades, buffs, and controls .

I think Infusion’s answer wins thus far. (In an indirectly direct way.) But they all seem to sum it up pretty well.

Cheers.

GvG has moved to arenas AFAIK.

WvW buffs are mainly PvE gained though,since many of the required materials are from PvE.

My point was that is why you rep your guild , the guild buffs/claiming . Guild missions also.

Also you can tell where your guildmates are on all the BLs.

P.S. I did a typo in the passage above, it should read “I don’t know if” , not “I don’t if”

Pretty much this. Being able to see where everyone in the guild is on the map is hugely helpful for determining how long to wait to regroup etc.

Caliburn.1845:

Do any of you guys actually do WvW with your guilds, or command for your guilds? Every guild member who is repping is a yellow dot on your map with their name displayed. Being able to see how many people are missing from your stack, the exactly location of your pick team, the distance you are from various guild members. This is hugely helpful for any commander.

Plus, when you’ve been in a tier for a decent length of time you don’t need to see guild tags to know who you’re fighting, you can tell by how they manuever or the profile pictures of their commanders, or other indicators.