Guild Wars 2

I really find it counterproductive to WvW when guilds refuse to unite with others on their server to work together against greater numbers. The season is upon us and yet guilds are going it alone, and that is hurting the entire WvW community on their respective server. This is the time to unite to fight for your server, not stand alone and fight for your guild.

You know a raid isnt a guild raid if its a pug raid. That’s generally why guild raids dont work together with others.

And if people cant stand alone and fight for their guild… they probably have no reason to play the game anymore. Fighting for your server may sound nice and all, but I’m guessing most peeps are in it for the glory, not the server. There’s a reason why guilds jump all over the place.

Dawdler.8521:

You know a raid isnt a guild raid if its a pug raid. That’s generally why guild raids dont work together with others.

And if people cant stand alone and fight for their guild… they probably have no reason to play the game anymore. Fighting for your server may sound nice and all, but I’m guessing most peeps are in it for the glory, not the server. There’s a reason why guilds jump all over the place.

A public map with limited slots is not the place to conduct guild only raids, it hurts everyone else on the map. If a guild wants ‘guild only’ events, they should do it elsewhere.

Scandi.5693:

A public map with limited slots is not the place to conduct guild only raids, it hurts everyone else on the map. If a guild wants ‘guild only’ events, they should do it elsewhere.

Your version of WvW sounds great. No guilds in WvW, period. Think you can raid with 30 organized people in green border? Think again! 20 of your peeps just got kicked out to make way for 20 random people that dont have a guild. Are you working for Anet? You sound awfully much like the dev that considered guilds to be “ruining his gameplay mode”.

Lets just get this out of the way… Guilds are the heart of WvW. Without guilds, GW2 would have been an obscure game played by few. Anet think its the sPvP and PvE that’s made GW2 so popular. It isnt. PvE is pointless and boring, sPvP is even more pointless and boring. Take away guild based WvW from GW2 and it would be one of the most pathetic games ever. A gigantic karma train which result in… nothing. Absolutely nothing.

But hey, many of them do fight for the server. The reason for fighting “alone” is rarely because they want to ignore everything. Its because they want to accomplish something as a group.

Dawdler, I am in a WvW guild that does guild raids nightly, and I enjoy it alot. But we tag up and let pugs follow us if they wish as it is a public map. I feel it more important than ever to do that as the season competition is underway. Guilds that go it alone for group play do so at the expense of others is my point.

Scandi.5693:

Dawdler, I am in a WvW guild that does guild raids nightly, and I enjoy it alot. But we tag up and let pugs follow us if they wish as it is a public map. I feel it more important than ever to do that as the season competition is underway. Guilds that go it alone for group play do so at the expense of others is my point.

Why? WvW has no rules, apart from the one who wins is the one who gets more things during a week.

Private raids are just a bunch of guys that decide to contribute in WvW by playing together, so they can be more skillful and do more with less. I’d say it’s a much advanced, efficient and succesful way to play WvW.

Btw, don’t know your server, but in mine guilds contribute nearly everyday. Just because they’re not following the same commander doesn’t mean the don’t play together.
And a guild facing a bigger zerg is just a matter of skill improvement. Better guilds = more succes in sieges or defenses against blobs = more points to server.

PD: If people cannot respect that a group of people want to play alone and coordined, don’t expect them to be frendly when pugs join them.

Having different groups take care of different parts of the map only makes sense.

Instead of “counter-blobbing” one attackers’ blob, that most times doesn’t even work, split up and own most of the map, because one blob can’t be everywhere at the same time.

It’s not really a guild raid if you have an open public tag. Some guilds prefer to run alone, they would rather fight with smaller more organised numbers, than massive unorganized messes. Then fighting is killing enemy players that could have done something else, it’s not like these guilds you speak of just sit afk in spawn. You don’t have to have everybody on the map flock to one tag.

warriorjrd.8695:

It’s not really a guild raid if you have an open public tag. Some guilds prefer to run alone, they would rather fight with smaller more organised numbers, than massive unorganized messes. Then fighting is killing enemy players that could have done something else, it’s not like these guilds you speak of just sit afk in spawn. You don’t have to have everybody on the map flock to one tag.

^ This. Some people want to put the builds they crafted, the communication and tactics they practiced to the test as a unit and would prefer not having every uplevel and player running terrible PvE builds glob onto them just to counter cheever blobs.

The average skill level in this game is very low, not everyone wants to running around with bad players.
In addition to that, this game makes running with bad players 100x worse ex. rally mechanic.

Let people play the way they want to. If you don’t like the situation on your server, transfer.

Guilds usually run in coordination with other groups anyway, so I don’t see the big deal.
One blob can’t be everywhere on the map, Guilds are usually running with optimal builds/gear, are more organized and know what they’re doing compared to Pug groups.

It’s also not like everyone does it out o disrespect for their community, because they aren’t to their requirement, many Guilds run open raids at least once a week.

Scandi.5693:

A public map with limited slots is not the place to conduct guild only raids, it hurts everyone else on the map.

If by “hurts everyone else”, you mean that overall server’s score is hurt, then just no. Couple guild raids will handle map better than 1 big blob, and average guild raid can take on bigger numbers of enemy pugs.

Scandi.5693:

Dawdler, I am in a WvW guild that does guild raids nightly, and I enjoy it alot. But we tag up and let pugs follow us if they wish as it is a public map.

Then you’re not running a guild raid, but open mic.

Think about it in a different way – would you rather these players (which are the best geared and skilled part of your server’s population, running best builds) to leave the map and get random PvErs in? There is a reason these people run closed raids, I know I would be bored to death with WvW in 20 mins if all I was about to do would be running in a blob spamming autoattack. I want to play with people from my guild, I want my guild to get better (and guess what, how can you improve if you run in monoblob?) and I’ve never felt, that I’m hurting my server, actually, right the opposite.

Step One – Grind 1800 gems
Step Two – Read recruitment forums for a server that suits you
Step Three – Leave the toxic server your on

Problem solved.

i’m in a server that doesn’t really have the numbers the opposition has but is still going toe-to-toe with one of the season’s candidate for the first 3 spots this week.

guilds are the only reason this is at all possible, currently making an effort to provide every map (or at least HB and EB) a commander for pugs to follow while guilds tackle other tasks.

take guilds and server pride away from wvw and you get EotM, or not, because the rewards suck, so you just get empty maps.

I doubt the problem lies in the fact that some guilds do private raids, but more on the fact that some do ignore the whole map situation they are in. For their own pride they might not join up to fight a blob for a moment to counter a lose of a T3 keep or such.

Seen it happen actually, even inside a fortification some guilds wait “in line” to have a go at the huge enemy blob that is 60+ with their 20 coordinated guild group.

Im not against organized guilds or groups because they can cover the map better than one big blob. But if their pride stops them from joining up forces with server mates every now and then to hold a keep, then thats just weird in my opinion.

Though, I’m lucky to be in a server that has a good synergy and cooperation between guilds and “pugs”. \o/

I agree about the keep part, when objective is at stake and you see other guild will not be fine, then just rush in, that’s just common sense. Thing is, from what I understand, Scandi’s point of view is, that all guild should lead PUG blobs and that closed raids hurt server. And such attitude was one of the main reasons my guild left our previous server (which we spend 1,5 year on).

Pug logs into map, sees commander tag up and running with orange swords near an objective. Pug thinks, “HMMMM I could use some XP for my uplevel ranger”, pug begins running toward tag.

Meanwhile at the tag your “guild group” is engaging the enemy and working hard to have a good fight. Ranger uplevel dude arrives, you start to get downs in the enemy zerg, pug ranger goes HAM on GS cause he heard maul got buffed. Upleveled ranger is now downstate cause bad, enemies rally….

That is why guild raids privately.

For my small experience on WvW, I recently join a WvW guild in Fort Aspenwood and I can tell you that the whole core of this server is small guild tactic squad doing things in every map. We don’t “zerg up” unless we really need to. So I don’t see the problem.

You want a giant blob that just jump on to claim everything map by map? There is plenty of server to do so, just move to a different one.

Yes, i know guilds with mentaly challenged players whos simply not go close to any fight where they see any other non enemy player. They transfered after a month without fight, because they dont want to blob (once they stoped fight because i was close to them and nearly every day standed an hour on spawn and shouted to everyone to not follow them)
Ofcourse they disbanded after one more month.
With Golden Horde we make closed raids with max 27-8 players (mostly less) but always 2-3 pugs follow us whos die first and rally a ton of enemy. Its a learn to play issue. If you good enough you can handle it. Our record was beat sfr zoneblob with 23

meh – it’s a game…WvW is open for all players…why do people always think they’re so much better? I’ve been in guilds like that…it’s that exclusivity that causes server problems. You’d be better served to provide new players advice and mentoring. It’ll help your server and it’ll help your guild in the long-run. We were all new once…

As a member of a guild that does both private AND public raids, you get different things from both.

Private raids give you a clean environment to work on improving as a group: I firmly believe all training should be done in a private untagged raid. That’s not an insult to people outside the guild or their personal skill. You can’t see how your group performs until you put in a vacuum. You will never know if you’re being carried by numbers over skill until you can get a definite count on what you have. You also can’t hold members individually responsible until you can see what specifically they’re doing. For many people in WvW, having fun, tough fights IS the endgame. You simply don’t get that when the playing field is uneven, so you try to limit yourself to get it.

Conversely, public raids are fun. You can be more laid back. You can get to know people on your server outside of your little bubble. You get more willing scouts and better wxp. You help your server score PPT, which can be another fun game.

Both styles have their advantages and disadvantages and people tend to prefer one or the other for different reasons. Those people can and should work together. Part of that, however, is to have reasonable expectations and effective communication. If you see a fighting guild on the map and your t3 Garri is being challenged, send them a nice whisper asking to help out.

But keep expectations in line: If they’re fighting another guild at the time, then you are intruding on their enjoyment and they may or may not come. If it’s a close match, talk to them afterwards and ask them to please be more mindful in the future. If it’s not a close match: Save your anger for a time when it actually matters. I’ve been in the position of doing training on a Weds night on a non-push week when we’re 50k ahead – When someone PMed me about saving a keep in a map I wasn’t on when I was in the middle of a fight, I can’t tell you how little of a flying kitten I gave. Furthermore, that training makes us better fighters so that when matches are close and it matters, you have people with the skill to fight back.

I agree that guilds should be able to do as they please but, I have seen some pretty uncool things that they do. (Not all of them of course)

-Some guilds I know of don’t respond to calls of help by PUGs, but will respond when another guildie does the same call 2 seconds later.
-After a fight, I seen guilds only res their own and leave PUGs dead, even when they are standing right next to them and are in no rush to go anywhere.
-I have even seen certain guilds lead PUGs on a suicide run with a separate commander tag just to get rid of them. (I actually had joined that guild the same day and seen the chat)
-I have also seen guilds angrily yelling at PUGs (in chat of course) to leave WvW because they had no guild, but never gave then an option to join one of their guilds.

Nothing wrong with doing your own thing but some guilds have disgusting attitudes towards other players that are not in “popular” guilds or not in guilds at all in WvW.
I mean, do as you please but don’t treat others in your server like they are complete trash or the enemy. This is a weird “status” thing that I see in WvW alot.
Sorry this kind of gotten off topic but I really wanted to throw this out there.

ppt is pointless, as score is predominately determined by a server’s population throughout the day. Which means all those hours you spent scouting and tapping siege were completely pointless, I mean really… how is that fun to some people in the first place? I don’t get it.

Anyways fighting as a guild and testing yourself against the odds is some peoples endgame, just because their interests don’t align with yours doesn’t give you the right to complain. After all you are server mates and trust me, you’d much rather have a guild that occasionally takes up queue spots then to not even have that guild in the first place.

Gizmo.9178:

snip

You want guilds to respect you. But you won’t respect them.

I have no problem spending 20 seconds rezzing up some pugs if they just happen to have crossed our path, and will then continue on their own way doing their scouting or roaming or w/e.

I will not rez them if they’ve been following us around all night, and won’t move off when asked.

You want respect? Then reciprocate it.

And 90% of the time we don’t respond to pug request for help because the “request” is something vague like “INC ZOMG helpz keep quick!”. A guildie is more likely to get a response from us, because they provide actual information like “40-50 SFR at NE gate garri, 3 rams up, gate 70%”.

Do you see the difference?

I don’t know how often we went to help after someone called in mapchat “INC Garri” only to find 5 people there killing guards and two of our pugs already on the siege. Therefore +1 Ragnar (also for the other reasons)

Also if our guild group fights other guild groups it will be less time for them to actually try to capture stuff.

Ragnar.4257:

Gizmo.9178:

snip

You want guilds to respect you. But you won’t respect them.

I have no problem spending 20 seconds rezzing up some pugs if they just happen to have crossed our path, and will then continue on their own way doing their scouting or roaming or w/e.

I will not rez them if they’ve been following us around all night, and won’t move off when asked.

You want respect? Then reciprocate it.

And 90% of the time we don’t respond to pug request for help because the “request” is something vague like “INC ZOMG helpz keep quick!”. A guildie is more likely to get a response from us, because they provide actual information like “40-50 SFR at NE gate garri, 3 rams up, gate 70%”.

Do you see the difference?

Your first statement goes both ways.

Your second statement seems to deal with a specific situation in which someone was just following you when you didn’t want them to. When I spoke on rezzing, I was speaking on general terms in which certain guilds would leave players dead regardless of the situation.

On your last statement about requests for help, maybe try asking for numbers or more about the situation. On my server, both guilds and PUGs will sometimes just say “inc bay south” or something similar and someone else will ask “what are the numbers” then they will realize they didn’t give enough info at first and will then explain the situation in full. It is not that hard to ask.

Do you see the difference?

A little of the issue here is the “server mentality” or even “server loyalty” topic bleeding through. Not all (BUT SOME) guilds really do not care about anything outside of their guild. That being said, callouts, PUGs, etc are of little concern to them.

These type of guilds do exist and they are most likely in the minority, but regardless WvW is a sandbox and as such they can basically play as they like without breaking the EULA, (etc).

Gizmo.9178:

On your last statement about requests for help, maybe try asking for numbers or more about the situation. On my server, both guilds and PUGs will sometimes just say “inc bay south” or something similar and someone else will ask “what are the numbers” then they will realize they didn’t give enough info at first and will then explain the situation in full. It is not that hard to ask.

Do you see the difference?

After 2 years of asking “numbers?” 50 times a night, and people still never ever learning to get it right first time, patience can wear thin.

Can’t be bothered typing a number? Then I can’t be bothered typing to remind you, and certainly not running across the map.

Well new and old players alike will continue to make the mistake of not giving enough detail on their first call for help.

If you want to ignore them then hey, go right on ahead, but I hope there is never an actual threat when one of your own guildies is not there to make the call for you.

Sometimes it is simply due to not having the information at the time or being too busy defending oneself and getting to a better position in order to type more info out. Most people can only manage an “inc” before having to spam 1 again.

My guild runs both public and private raids.

Public raids are nice for helping to recruit pugs to your guild but you need to run private raids to train those pugs so they are actually fighting as a member of your guild instead of being another pug rallybot who happens to share the same guild tag.

I lost count of how many times we have had a dozen plus enemy singles and one of our pugs dies and rallies them all. If you see a guild running tagless and in private comms you should respect what they are trying to do.

Keep in mind the reason some guilds don’t want you around. It is that you can be a liability. It is because you can cause enemy players to rally with your death. In this respect your presence works against their effort to win a fight. Some guilds which let you follow them around are using you to bolster their numbers and don’t really care about the rally liability. I’ve personally done this while leading a guild raid too.

The guilds that don’t want you around are trying to perfect their combat. If there wasn’t an issue of rallying the enemy they wouldn’t care if you were there. You’re a useful distraction to the enemy. The rallying is the issue, where by dying you reverse their efforts.

I’d also suspect if most pick up group players (pugs) were actually good, that is following metagame specs and builds, being decent at pvp (not top 100, but decent enough), and getting into their voice comms to follow the raid call, then pugs would be more welcome in guild raids. Unfortunately that type of pug is the exception rather than the norm: A guild player whose raid is not running at the moment.

The average pug ignores all the “join the server teamspeak at yourserverforums.com:1337” calls in team chat, doesn’t know about metabattle (http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki) and barely sets foot in spvp. This person gets 2 shot by the enemy zerg and rallies all the pugs on the enemy zerg, compromising all of the effort taken thus far to defeat the enemy. I hope this person doesn’t run to the forums to complain about guild raids when they’re asked to leave (polite or otherwise), but is a person who tries to work with them and the server instead.

Something for everyone to think about. If you are an “elite” pve player you can get ur guild mates together and go speed clear dungeons with no outside interference. If you are a “casual” player you can get ur guild mates together and take your time and do what ever it is u want to do with no outside interference. In wvw this is not the case. The map is shared by hard cores and casuals alike. Having been in a small wvw and also as a pug comander I can’t say that as long as you either have an understanding of wvw , or are expressing interest in learning wvw the wvw guilds are tolerate of you. If you go in to wvw with no idea what is going on and cause problems you are gonna get raged at. From what I have seen stubborn solo players that refuse to learn are as much or more of a problem to the wvw effort as the elite wvw guilds

Scandi.5693:

Dawdler.8521:

You know a raid isnt a guild raid if its a pug raid. That’s generally why guild raids dont work together with others.

And if people cant stand alone and fight for their guild… they probably have no reason to play the game anymore. Fighting for your server may sound nice and all, but I’m guessing most peeps are in it for the glory, not the server. There’s a reason why guilds jump all over the place.

A public map with limited slots is not the place to conduct guild only raids, it hurts everyone else on the map. If a guild wants ‘guild only’ events, they should do it elsewhere.

Yes it is. They bought the game, they can do what they want. They arn’t violating the contract of the game in anyway. Thats the way they want to play WvW. They play for fights and challenge themselves as a group to get better. Until something is implemented in game to make this possible without affecting PPT, they have every right.

yesterday i was running around home border, a commander from my guild was leading pugs and defending objectives, all in all a pretty standard wvw sight. I was in a party with 2 other staff eles and one of us says: “ranged 3/5”.

there comes the upleveled bearbow, joining us in running around the place.

ok, whatever, that’s no big deal, then this conversation occurs:

Bear: “the commander is too fast, he should wait for people”

“are you on ts?”

“no”

“there’s your problem, he’s not too fast if you hear what he says, join at X”

“no need guys, i’ll go EB now instead”

because players like this exist guild raids often prefer not having pugs around.

adozu.6398:

yesterday i was running around home border, a commander from my guild was leading pugs and defending objectives, all in all a pretty standard wvw sight. I was in a party with 2 other staff eles and one of us says: “ranged 3/5”.

there comes the upleveled bearbow, joining us in running around the place.

ok, whatever, that’s no big deal, then this conversation occurs:

Bear: “the commander is too fast, he should wait for people”

“are you on ts?”

“no”

“there’s your problem, he’s not too fast if you hear what he says, join at X”

“no need guys, i’ll go EB now instead”

because players like this exist guild raids often prefer not having pugs around.

Are you referring to the player telling someone they have a problem if their not on your ts? Or the player that was trying to tell the commander his/her business? IMO they are both wrong.

the player was telling to us (one of the party following the commander) that he felt the commander was too fast.

after being told it would be easier to follow if he joined ts (and that he might tell the commander personally there) he replied he couldn’t be bothered and went to the eternal battlegrounds with his lvl 26 bearbow. (i did cut out the conversation a bit for forum’s convenience)

why do you care how other people play the game mode.

I really like the part where the guy of defend pug totally ignore the fact that some of them are really bad and hurt guild raid most of the time.

I think we can all agree that if ANET would remove downstate and/or rally mechanic then guilds probably wouldn’t care as much.

King Amadaeus.8619:

I think we can all agree that if ANET would remove downstate and/or rally mechanic then guilds probably wouldn’t care as much.

Too true. Killing an uplevel pug should not rally 5 – 10 people or whatever it is. Someone said anyone who hit the person will get back up… Keep it to just banners, multiple skills, and rub rubs… isn’t that enough?

displayname.8315:

King Amadaeus.8619:

I think we can all agree that if ANET would remove downstate and/or rally mechanic then guilds probably wouldn’t care as much.

Too true. Killing an uplevel pug should not rally 5 – 10 people or whatever it is. Someone said anyone who hit the person will get back up… Keep it to just banners, multiple skills, and rub rubs… isn’t that enough?

Yes, if you so much as sneeze on someone and they die during that “in combat” session, you rally.
GW2’s combat was not designed with WvWvW in mind. In PvE, rallying makes for an easy going, forgiving experience, it’s a non issue when fighting NPCs with scripted behavior. In sPvP, since the teams are so small, it can add an intense layer to a skirmish(eSports!). In big WvWvW fights, it serves as an additional advantage to having more numbers(a 5 target AoE limit makes things worse).

Why exactly should they care? instead of complaining that guilds play the game in a different way that you like, complain to anet for not giving them the space to not do it while interfering with your PPT adventures.

NotOneToRidicule.2340:

meh – it’s a game…WvW is open for all players…why do people always think they’re so much better? I’ve been in guilds like that…it’s that exclusivity that causes server problems. You’d be better served to provide new players advice and mentoring. It’ll help your server and it’ll help your guild in the long-run. We were all new once…

Its not that anyone thinks they’re better or shouldn’t be if that’s what it is to them. However I’ll explain from a driver’s perspective of things.

Guilds can have a wide array of requirements for you to join, some are light and fairly casual, others are geared toward seeking out individuals better suiting the guilds needs and playstyle.

So on average I have 20 people for raids or so, those players are in voice comms with me, they’re about to commit 2-3+ hours of their time to the raid, of their time. These players have spent gold, gearing and optimizing themselves in order to produce a sort of effective machine.

So why should I unfairly open up to the public, who are free to join without any of those requirements needing to be met, while my 20 or so players in the guild need to go the extra mile? Or invite players that may cause an already difficult fight to get harder due to rallying,etc. It’s not a sense of the guild being better (although some are stuck up like that), but its more so just because of the level of coordination, your aims, and goals as a guild, and then this machine you crafted, has an unexpected wrench tossed into it.

Now training new players, I’ve tried this, I’ve even taken on new players into the guild, now this is where its up to the player themselves, I’ve had people with drive to improve, they took time, and learned. They became competent players I can count on, but there are players just looking for the easy bag without any heavy lifting, or simply refuse to improve themselves. Them dragging their feet like that purposely isn’t good, and isn’t fair to those giving all they’ve got.

It all comes down to the guild that you’re looking at, the players around you.

Not much of an “GUILD” Raid, if there are tons of pugs around.. aye?

Stop being a PUG and join a guild that raids in your timezone.