Guild Wars 2

First: I am not going to read through this very lengthy thread to see if my concerns are already voiced before I set them into the thread for myself.

Secondly, let me say that the idea of Guild Events is very exciting to me, and I welcome it.

That having been said, and seeing Developers speak about “long term” commitments etc. as the reason for Level 5 (in whatever Tier, the one given was War, which of course set off a fire storm…)

I would have loved to have seen this done as an entire Tier based system, that is to say, at every Tier have something available so that smaller and less SUPER-UBER-BIG-AND-BEEFY Guilds could have some involvement, and spiffy stuff to do. Less elitist, more inclusive of all types of guilds and all level of current achievement in their own guild progress.

Say at level 1 in Architecture you get: The tiny jumping puzzle of Doom
At Level 5 Architecture you get: The big honkin’ awful, but completely worth it puzzle of Doom.

My thoughts anyway.

Of course a small guild wont have to grind for influence, after all they dont make grindy games…

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

I know there have been some concerns about Guild Bounties being in the Art of War line. Our goal with this system is to give guilds activities and long-term progression that they can accomplish by working together as a guild. These missions are meant to be difficult and challenging to not only unlock, but to accomplish.

We would also like to make every guild upgrade line valuable to every guild. Currently, Art of War is very focused on PvP and WvW, but our plan is to continue to add more guild upgrades in the Art of War line to accomplish this. These Guild Missions are the first step. Along with this system, we also added a number of new guild upgrades that guilds can earn.

In the end, our goal for all of this content is to give guilds new goals and challenges to accomplished once they have researched deeply into each line, as well as require guilds to have researched multiple lines to unlock some upgrades. We expect guild members to have to work together as a guild to earn the influence needed to unlock these new missions, as well as overcome the challenge of the missions themselves.

In the future, we plan to continue to add more guild upgrades, as well as continue to add challenging guild missions, as we don’t want guilds to run out of goals and accomplishments they can achieve.

~Izzy @-’—-

Allow me to be clear….

I have absolutely no problem with guild missions appearing 10 upgrades deep in the WvW line.

I have absolutely no problem with larger guilds being given content that only larger guilds can complete.

I have absolutely no problem with giving guilds goals to work for… I WANT MORE of that…

I have absolutely no problem with guild missions appearing 500 tiers deep in a tech line I don’t care about/have no use for.

What I have repeatedly protested in this thread is that LAUNCH CONTENT be exclusionary.

I would have had absolutely no foul reaction at all if you had announced that a “guild missions lite” or whatever name you would want to give it would be available on launch day for smaller guilds to activate some nominal small content to do together as a guild and participate in the new reward system at a lower tier in a more popular tech line AND that there would be more large guild or hard core content available 25 or 100 tiers deep in the AoW tech tree. This way… we wouldn’t bleed members to the borg while we work toward these new guild goals… to activate missions that our guild now no longer has the numbers to complete.

I agree with a lot of players that most things can be completed with a 5 man team. A small guild of 20 players has the same problem as a guild of 500 in this respect… there has been no content aside from wvw and helping to open temples in orr for any group over 5.

I want more stuff for larger groups to do that isn’t WoW raiding… but you have chosen to exclude players from launch content… most particularly a new reward system with confirmed monetary bonuses… and given players the choice between not participating immediately or leaving their guilds to join a larger collective.

Make your new missions 5 million tiers deep in whatever tech line you want…. with as convoluted an unlock system as you want… with as prohibitive a cost to research as you want… I’m fine working toward them as a goal… which you stated is what you want. LAUNCH CONTENT should not be exclusionary… because you bleed population from the excluded percentage while they scramble to catch up.

CC Charles:

What I sadly observe in this thread is a growing dichotomy in the playerbase, even before the content is released. GW2 is now just another MMO with a growing “haves and haves not” division.

It appears that ANet has managed, in the space of one day’s worth of marketing hype to foster the same negative community tensions that define at least 3 other MMOs, making it harder to differentiate these games in terms of customer experience and feel. Perhaps that was the goal. Perhaps it was entirely unintentional. Again, the third set of content added that does not appear to have passed a focus group test.

Happy to see that part of GW2’s constituency has meaningful content.

And saddened it appears to be coming at the expense of community feel.

The new content will probably be a mixed bag of players adapting and adjusting as the new reward mechansim placed in front of them demands. There will probably also be attrition, as expected. Hopefully the balance will even out over time. Or until the next “controversial” content is released. In the meantime, a wedge has been applied and the social dynamics have been affected.

ANet has lost credibility in their “community-feel” messaging. Which was a major positive marketing factor for GW2.

@Jski Point missed again. It is 100% okay for large guilds to have an advantage in researching the high-end missions. What isn’t okay is that a portion of the playerbase will be excluded even from the very first missions. If the AoW Level 5 gate stays true, this is going to be a very disappointing patch for many guilds.

The whole small guild vs large guild argument isn’t the point, though for some reason a lot of people are focusing on it.

Many people (rightfully) expected small guilds to have easy access to the introductory missions, average guilds would have easier access to intermediate missions, and the mega-guilds would have easier access to the high-end missions.

This could have been done by starting the research at say Level 2-3 of something, then the next step up in difficulty would require Level 4 of something, and finally the massive missions would require Level 5 of something. To gate everything behind a level 5 research is what people have an issue with, especially the WvW track. This hurts small guilds which have not invested in AoW as well as future guilds that will be starting fresh.

Just adding my 2 cents. Like several others here I naturally assumed that Cantha was already being developed as the first expansion (well, after realizing that it wasn’t part of the base game, which surprised me because I had avoided reading too much about GW2 pre-launch). To now see that this is not the case, and that it’s questionable whether Cantha will even show up in GW2, is not only a major disappointment, it is worrying. Those of us who played GW1 were strongly led to believe that there would be Canthan content in GW2 – wasn’t that the point of Winds of Change? If an expansion comes out and it doesn’t do anything to bring Cantha back into the game, frankly I’m not sure I’d have a reason to buy it. GW2 has already lost enough of the original game’s charm as it is, and nothing about the new Tyria or characters compels me to see more of them. Moving forward, let’s please have more of a sequel and less of a spinoff. I want to see the successor to GW1 or I might as well play some other MMO. I’m not saying that to threaten, it’s just how it is. I’m only here because of GW1 in the first place, and if GW2 insists on not delivering any of the things I came for, in terms of gameplay or story, then it’ll be time to move on.

Maybe by Guild Wars they mean getting guilds to fight over members?

Mireles Lore.5942:

Sorry but if your guild is 5 man, thats a group not a guild, there does have to be some restriction. we cant have every small guild dropping events endlessly.

Oh I’m sorry, I thought our guild was a real guild since we have a bank and an emblem and everything. Thanks for clarifying that a real guild is made up of 5+x people!

It has been stated by a dev that the introduction of guild content into the game is gated at Art of War tier 5.

Why is this a problem for small guilds?

Because small guilds have absolutely no business claiming wvw keeps and camps. Because it’s a waste of influence for small guilds to invest in this tree… because many small guilds don’t wvw.

All or at least most guilds will invest in trees like architecture and economy. Because that’s where the guild storage and the most desirable guild bonuses reside.

This isn’t a question of whether small guilds can eventually get the bonuses… of course we can… we can grind out gold and influence to get them… and then wait the 16 days for AoW to build. This is a question of murdering small guilds so that only large guilds remain.

We all know that gamers flock to new content like seagulls to a trashcan. I’ve already received 1 pm in game letting me know that when the patch drops they will be joining and repping a mega guild so they can experience the new content.

This is about small guilds being able to maintain numbers and still have content to do together. Placing the first ever guild content to be introduced into the game in a tree that most small guilds haven’t invested in, and will require time to do so effectively makes them less competitive and attractive for recruitment and repping.

This isn’t about incentive for large guilds to be large… this is about first ever content being gated for large and established guilds only. Your initial rollout should be inclusive for all guilds no matter the size… so that we don’t bleed membership to mega guilds while we struggle to catch up (we already bleed membership to mega guilds because sometimes we cant afford to keep guild bonuses up without spending gold). Tier 2 or 3 in architecture or economy would have been fine. AoW is a useless tree to many small guilds. Later patches could introduce content that only large guilds can afford. This way… smalls guilds have new content they can experience together soon… and so can large guilds…

And yes… small guilds want to experience the new content together and see what the new rewards are… we don’t want to join as spectators to someone elses event, get jack kitten for rewards and have it be old news by the time we get a chance to do it with our own influence.

It was stated by Anthony in the previous thread that the first guild mission type, Guild Bounties, requires Art of War level 5 to begin research. My questions are:

1. Is this true, or was it miscommunication?
2a. If true, why did you choose the PvP track for this?
2b. If true, why did you choose a prerequisite level of 5 instead of a more accessible level?
3. Do the other mission types require Guild Bounties to be researched first?

It seems the chief concern stems from the answer to this thread:

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Will-Guild-Missions-need-a-levelled-Guild/first

“Each guild mission type becomes available through an upgrade that is researched in the guild tech tree. The first one is Guild Bounties, which does require Art of War level 5.”

The concern is that small guilds have not invested any influence into this track because they most likely are not WvW oriented.

• The current work around is that this small guild spend 78g (assuming NOTHING is placed in AoW) and 16 days while the AoW rank 5 continues to cue.

I’m assuming that the conflict is this:

• Is this a reasonable barrier between small guilds doing what larger guilds are inherently able to do.

The biggest concern I have is small PVE guilds remaining competitive as it pertains to recruitment and retention.

By placing the first mission at Rank 5 in Art of War, a tier dedicated to WvW in the past (and thus, something many small PVE guilds may have ignored completely up to this point), you are ensuring that smaller guilds who dont have deep wells of influence will not have access to these missions for some time to come – while huge guilds do right away (and will thus become more enticing recruitment-wise).

I understand the need to partition the content and make it something guilds – even small guilds – have to work for. It just seems that the requirements for the initial mission – specifically rank 5 in Art of War – may end up hurting small PVE guilds considerably right off the bat.

I like the concept of an MMORPG. I love PvE’ing in the Shiverpeak Mountains. The music and naturescapes are quite impressive.

Then I seem to hit this ideology wall with the Dev’s. I’d much rather see an inclusive system, than an exclusive one. Rewarding only the large guilds that are already ahead, is to further punish the family guilds or stifle those that are just trying to start.

It only takes 1 competent person to deal with the defiant stacks, now that nonsense “frenzy” skill on the champ abom in CoE…yeah that’s a whole lot of rubbish.

Because the open world experience teaches them that damage spam is the only thing that matters.

1. control effects last too short in open world to matter when you get 2+ mobs chewing on you. You simply can’t use them to divide and conqueror a mob group.

2. control effects and interrupt are interlinked.

3. interrupts can happen even when defiant is up, but the control effect will not. Meaning that the interrupt popup is the only indication that the control effect did anything at all.

4. it is easier to hit the dedicated dodge button when that big hit starts winding than try to remember that control skill x with that long cooldown can interrupt it (and pray that it is off cooldown since the last time you touched it). Never mind that there are zero traits that will half the cooldown of such skills, while vigor halves dodge cooldown.

End result is that by the time they hit a dungeon, most people have forgotten or ignore the interrupts because they so rarely had any use for them (except if they happened to also do some damage).

If people could more reliably control effect lock one or more mobs, then they would pay more attention. This because then there would be some incentive over the usual AOE spamming, dodging kite that most non-zerg fights devolve to.

This is an exceptionally good idea that’s well thought out and brings the kind of awesome flexibility and collectibility I experienced in DCUO to GW2.

But whilst I’ve up-voted it, I still don’t see it happening.

ArenaNet probably believe that at the moment, if they leave it the way it is, it will foster infinite investment in fine transmutation stones.
Of course, it doesn’t really work that way, but in theory it does, and that’s good enough for their economist.

Let’s debunk the theory:
Once people have spent a huge amount of gold or time on one particular style, ArenaNet know that players will do a lot to keep that look, even pay for the privilege.
What ArenaNet DON’T see is that it stifles experimentation in both style and gameplay, as players are reluctant to throw away in-game time and gold as well as real world cash in order to try a different build whilst retaining the look they’ve invested so much in.

Let’s face it, even if you’re really fond of your Tier 3 Cultural set, you’re not going to spend 120 gold every time you acquire a new set of armour in order to give it your favourite look.
ArenaNet would LOVE it if you did, but players are so cash poor in this game, this’ll never become commonplace enough for them to profit off of it.

So eventually, because you’re reluctant to change your aesthetic style in order to try a new build, and because acquiring new, top-tier gear requires a big investment of time, chances are, the majority of players will get locked in to one build. And over time, you’ll get bored of that build.
And when you get bored enough, you’ll stop playing.
If you stop playing, you stop paying.

Adopting the OP’s idea would solve this problem and add a whole swath of new goals for the player base to pursue and encourage investment. Sure, it would also require a lot of work on the art team’s behalf in order to keep things fresh and interesting, but hey, you have to work to make money.

And there’s the other rub: now the game’s out of the door, it’s hard to justify spending more money in order to make more, and people like publishers and shareholders aren’t interested. They want their money, and they want it now for no further investment.
That’s why you see the crap you see in the gem store.
That’s why we have copious amounts of RNG.
That’s why we have the current, callous aesthetic model.

It’s all about investors interested in short-term gain with no interest in better, longer term gains through fostering good relations with the player-base.

Good that they finally admit there’s a problem with the way loot is handed out. It was very frustrating hearing so many people (devs and players alike) claiming that nothing was wrong.

Let this be a lesson to the lot of you: The game isn’t perfect and it does have problems. And if we don’t complain about those problems, they can’t get fixed.

As I investigated I became more and more convinced that it had to do with damage done, or some kind of “kill credit” fubar.

I am a support build. It is a sad day for those of us who are support. It is always…always about power and just muscling your way through. Forget finesse, forget tactics, forget all that.

Hooray for glass cannons. You win. Game over.

I also agree with this but with one little change to what the OP put. Instead of taking it out altogether, why not just have an option added to the “video” tab in the options menu to “Disable Spinning Death Cam”?

Doing it this way would make it so people who do enjoy it or want it can have it but people who don’t like it can just turn it off. I find it annoying in WvW, PvP, and dungeons but I tend to like it in PvE at the lower levels.

We’re adding in other problems here: I saw one of you say we’re a paw in a child’s toy war. I agree to that, but that isn’t necessarily a problem that can be solved by dropping commanders.
It just doesn’t feel like you’re valuable when mindlessly running opponents down, without actually requiring any skill in doing so. Instead I think it’d be a better idea to make dedicated roles in wars, so people actually feel like they have contributed to anything and they do get rewarded for it!

This is how I see it. When people first play WvW on one of their characters, they get the chance to accept a few roles: the standard roles in war are usually these:
- Soldier/Heavy: these are the heavy classes such as warrior, guardian
- Assassins/Snipers: these are the spy units in the army that should focus on getting behind the enemy lines and cutting supply lines, killing war leaders. This role could be filled by thieves and rangers.
- Sappers: the sappers are those who are devoted to siege and undermining the fortifications of enemies. Perfect for this role is probably the engineer.
- Wizards: these are the classes that are supposed to crowd-control the enemy, protect from opposite wizards etc.

Now: each of these different roles has a different target in warfare, and should get awarded for it just the same, wether you are in the frontline as a heavy-arms warrior, wether you’re a thief, poking knives in the backs of people or an engineer trying to blow up walls with bombs.

There should also be more class specific features in this I think.
- Engineers should have special options to break down walls faster.
- Thieves should have the ability to break into a fortification and steal treasures.
- Rangers should have the ability to attack the enemy by using animals that are around in the enemy fortifications.
- Necromancers should have the ability to raise minions from the graveyards. This is an addition I’d like: how can there be a battleground without graveyards and other normal things such as farms etc?
- ETC

Hope you like it

It is actually really simple: Unlocks and usability.

In GW1 I could buy a costume set, which was then unlocked for the entire account, allowing infinite free respawns. I could have my entire account in Halloween clothes for Halloween without having to pay extra or sacrifice precious storage space to store the outfits ’till next year. This elicited the “gotta catch them all” response for me, and thus I bought all the costumes, even the ones I never even used, just to have them available. In GW2 on the other had, I have to weigh each purchase on a (literal) gold scale; only buying items I really want and that I deem worthy of the storage space they consume (which is at a premium already). No more buying items just in case, or for a bit of temporary holiday fun. And to the surprise of no one, I have yet to buy a single costume item.

Usability is of course the fact that so many of the items are only allowed as town clothes. Now I understand that it became a bit silly in GW1 with people running around in DoA in top hats and evening gowns (even though the line is blurry to some of the actual armor sets… :P), but I would still like to use my sunglasses everywhere, not only in town. If at least there was a way to set it so that town clothes were automatically loaded when entering a town it would be immensely better. But as is one has to make a conscious choice to activate town clothes every single time entering a town. So people just don’t bother (surprise!). Then of course the question becomes, why buy it in the first place?

The same basic principle of not offering items in a format most convenient and enticing for the customer (another example is random dyes only, not even sorted on hue apart from green and orange) goes for a lot of the GW2 Gem Store items, but where ANet really lost the money on me was the costumes.

For those that haven’t played The Lord of the Rings Online, the manner in which you choose your cosmetic appearance is by slotting the gear you wish to appear to be wearing in the cosmetic gear slots. Basically, you have your regular gear slots, which affects your stats, and your cosmetic gear slots which affects your appearance.

The beauty of this system as opposed to the current one implemented in GW2 is that it allows you to look how you want without the hassle of constantly having to transmutate your gear. Another bonus of that system is that you only ever have to get a cosmetic set once (as opposed to once per set of gear, in GW2).

I understand that transmutation stones are a source of income for ANet in the gem shop, but I honestly think that the new system would overall result in more sales of cosmetic gear itself, rather than items that enable it, due to the ease at which people could customize their appearances. If you know that once you buy a cosmetic set of gear – you have that unlocked to always look that way without any hassle, you are likelier to make the purchase.

Selling extra cosmetic gear slots (ala LOTRO, allowing multiple cosmetic appearances to be made and switched at any given time) is also another viable income option from the gem shop.

Feedback would be appreciated.

As Guild Wars 2 grows and more armor and weapon skins are introduced to the game, the sheer number of aesthetic equipment sets is going to outweigh even the most avid collector’s ability to store them. Bag and bank space is finite, and using it to store armor skins is counterproductive and a hindrance to collectors, crafters and farmers alike.

So, I would like to suggest that Anet create a wardrobe function.

Basically, this would be a UI feature that would allow players to save skins that they’ve attained at one point or another, then customize those skins into multiple “skin sets” and save them in the wardrobe, so the players can switch between them easily and at any time.

Not only would this create an ease of use and storage for multiple armor skin, but it would grant Anet another monetization method, in the form of selling wardrobe slots. Granting players 2-3 slots to begin with, then selling additional slots in the gem store would make the function useful to everybody, while still allowing Anet to encourage gem sales in a way that adheres with their cash shop and gear acquisition design philosophies.

It would also help if it were linked directly to the armor preview screen that is currently in the game, so that players can view their skin sets easily without having to individually right-click and view each individual piece that’s already saved into their wardrobe.