Guild Wars 2

What about the WvW guild buffs with multiple banners active? They could stack, or you wouldn’t be able to activate yours if another guild already activated them. The numbers above are just an example, maybe they’re too much, maybe less. Guild could be able to remove their flags, too (with a 15-min timer so they don’t remove it when they see they’re going to lose the position; this could make the enemy rush to don’t let them escape, too). Scouts could have 1 flag, too, for smaller guilds that just want to watch the road.

Also, important: You’d need to research or buy some stuff to be able to claim big locations. We don’t want one-man guilds trolling or sabotaging server morale.

It’s just an example, but guilds should have a reason to defend the positions with their flags at any cost.

Events and guilds

Events and whatever are nice, but why are guilds marginalized out of them? There could be event-limited influence stuff, so guilds can party together and spend their influence on event stuff for the entire community.

And not just vanity stuff, guilds could drop event-specific buff banners, things like “Aetherblade slaying banner”, for example. There’s so much potential, I’m really surprised and saddened of how guilds do nothing special during events. Think of all the influence sinks, too!

Last logged in

I won’t ask for a “how much influence every member produces” option. I don’t think that could be positive in any way. However, inactivity detection is a must.

We should have two types: Last represented, and last connected. Last represented could require a minimum of time, like 30min, to make sure it wasn’t a flash represent that doesn’t show any kind of activity.

It’s a pain to clean inactives to make space. This is probably the most important point of the list.

Calendar with alerts

A basic calendar, where officers can write notes on specific days and hours, with customized alerts to remember members what’s going on, 30 or 5 minutes before it begins.

It could use the mail system, to make sure every member notices it, and doesn’t lost the information, or just the chat through whisper. Maybe even an alert on the screen, like when you’re told the server’s going to reset.

Guild achievements

Why do guild missions have ZERO achievements? Giving all guild missions achievements would encourage people to play them more than once per week, as well as to help other guilds complete theirs.

There should be a “Guild” section in achievements, with a huge list including guild mission achievements and other simpler things like “events/dungeons completed with guildmates”. Achievements can encourage team play and socializing, but instead they completelly ignore guilds (Except that get 10,000 influence achievement, which doesn’t encourage socializing in any way).

These achievements could give specific visual rewards, to show you’re part of a guild that did kitten stuff, too. The guild itself could have an achivement list of its own, unlocking flag ornaments or siege weapon skins for the guild, and even custom armors (not necessarily new) for guards defending positions you raised your flag at, so the enemy knows there’s good players defending the place.

TL;DR:

• Options to write long and classified pieces of text on your guild panel, for guild news and links. Editing shouldn’t remove the previous text.
• Ability to mass whisper and mail members of the selected ranks.
• Control on who is able to activate and who has activated guild mission objectives.
• Reasons in WvW to defend positions with your flags raised.
• Guild influence stuff during events, so guilds can join the party with guild-specific stuff.
• Last logged and last 30min represented options to check activity.
• Calendar with mail alerts minutes before it begins.
• Guild missions and playing with guildmates should have achievements of their own, with rewards that show guild progress and effort.

The biggest part of MMOs is people and communities, and guilds are a big part of this, keeping people playing just because of friends. Not giving guilds the priority they deserve isn’t a good decision, at all.

Well, just 8 suggestions to improve the guild system. You can find a first version of this thread on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1i0yqs/improving_the_guild_system_and_why_it_should_be_a/ which I improved a bit before reposting it here.

If you want to see more development around the guild system, support this thread, and maybe we’ll get some upgrades once they see people is interested.

Check this other thread, too: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Open-world-loot-skins-need-to-be-improved/first

TL;DR below

Some days ago there was an interview where it was said improving the guild system wasn’t a priority.

I don’t know if this is a new case of developer blindess, but I do think guilds deserve some dedication, and soon.

But what would be one of my threads without a good amount of ideas:

Making the guild panel a social panel

Each guild should have a “blog” section, where officers can write down text, add links, etc. Not a real blog, and should have limits (like removing old news posts). It’s main purpose would be posting guild news, explanations on how the guild works, etc.

People should be able to find everything about the guild in the guild panel, and the message of the day isn’t enough. I’m tired of linking guides, too, and I would love to post them at the guild panel.

Also, the message of the day shouldn’t go empty each time you try to edit it. I can’t believe I need to copy+paste the message in a .txt to avoid losing it. My calendar says it’s 2013, please.

Some space to store guild recruitment and welcome messages would be nice, too, so you don’t need to save them in .txt’s too.

Finally, displaying the message of the day in the chat when you log in could be a good idea.

Communication from officers to members

Officers should be able to mass /w or mail all members of a rank. When you want to announce something happening right at the moment, it’s a pain to go whispering each member. Doing the same with mail goes further, and it’s pretty much impossible.

There’s no way for officers to communicate with the members properly. The message of the day fails once again, since people don’t check it daily for changes.

Guild mission activation control

There should be options to limit guild mission activation for specific ranks. There’s always someone that screws up and activates a bounty, a challenge, a puzzle or a rush too soon. These kind of things should be able to be controlled.

I know there’s some kind of option, but it doesn’t work, at all.

Also, the history logs should show who activated what, so the officers know if someone screwed up, and watch him to see if he does it often, or just demote him to a rank without permissions.

WvW and guilds

Guilds can put their banners on keeps, camps, etc… To give some buffs, and that’s all. This is just boring, lame even. When a guild raises their banner somewhere, members of that guild should be encouraged and rewarded to defend the place.

The enemy should be encouraged to attack, too. Taking a tower defended by a powerful guild should give better rewards than attacking a defenseless tower. Powerful guilds should search each other for bloodlust and competition in the middle of the server battles.

(What follows is just an example of a mechanic that could be used to achieve this)

We could introduce a new mechanic: Morale.

Morale would be server and guild-tied. Server morale would affect everyone, and guild morale would only affect your guildmates. When you win, everyone gets server morale, but then you get some extra guild morale just for yourself, because you did the work. Same if you lose, then you get extra penalization, but just a bit, you’d need to loss a lot without winning even once for it to start affecting you.

You’d earn morale first by defending. Each member defending a position with your flag would give morale to the guild. If you defend a position without your flags you get morale, too, but not as much. The second way would be taking enemy positions. Every member participating on taking an enemy camp would earn morale, more depending on the time it was defended.

Morale could give basic stat boosts, opening new strategies: You might want to strike attack a poorly-defended enemy tower in the middle of the enemy territory, no matter you won’t be able to keep it, to then have a morale advantage at a better-defended tower you’re able to hold.

Of course, the different positions should be able to have more than one flag, because there’s no way a single guild can defend some places, like the keeps. For example:

• Scout: 1 flag
• Supply camps: 2 flags
• Towers: 4 flags
• Keeps: 8 flags
• Stonemist: 16 flags