Guild Wars 2

Maybe they want to alienate the veteran players against the new ones.
I enjoyed so much helping newcomers, showing them their first Jumping Puzzle, adding them to friends, giving them some gold and gear, and telling them to have fun and to enjoy the little detours.
How will I explain them now that, apparently, they are ruining the game for me.

BobbyT.7192:

Just under 600 posts and 6000 views under 7 hours, a lot of negative feedback in game, on the forum, Facebook, reddit, twitter.
Very hard to find a positive comment about this new gem system, you see a lot suggestions on how to change, and the defenders that you usually see with any change in there giving constructive criticism or silent altogether, (even myself who I like to think that I’m more forgiving on most of Anets directions),
I didn’t think it was possible, something of a myth, something rare as having 2 Eternities drop for you on a white mob, but they did it. Anet was able to get the majority of the community to agree on something, o.O……. Don’t think that has ever happen in this company’s history.
It would have been a magical moment too, like seeing a bloody unicorn or a condi d/d thief, Too bad it’s about this. Even when ascended gear first came out, at least they had some of the fan based defend it.

And this wouldn’t have happen if anet had actually communicated with us about this before hand. If we had known even a month before that a system like this was in the works, feedback could have been given, changes could have been made, and this mess could have been avoided.
Would there have been a lot negative feed back in the mean time? Yeah it would, a vocal minority would hate it, but that would have been contained to the forums, and I would think I would be a lot better then was is going on now, because I don’t think this is a vocal minority anymore.

I got to ask, is what your getting now really worth keeping the current policy over?
Sure, let say you make changes based on current feedback and bam, most are content.
All goes back to normal, life goes on.
But what happens when the next feature comes without warning and it too isn’t fit for purpose? Another change that makes your community question your business practices and good will towards your players. Is that backlash worth it? Would you rather not have a few people on the forums mad at you than a good chunk of the player base? I just don’t know.
I might be hyping this up more than it actually is, being caught up in the anger, maybe I am underestimating the amount of negative feedback u guys have gotten in the past, but I’ve following anet since factions (WHERES MY CANTHA) and I have never seen it this bad, plus I don’t rant as often as I should.

PS, meant to post this in the anets lack of transparency thread

You know what buddy? We might just need to go to starting zones and ask ourselves to new players what they think, teach them how to use the forums and such. If these confused new players exist at all, we should be able to find them.

We drink to nostalgia, to the days come and gone
For the greatest Aggression that they have just done
We’ll drive out this Tricksters from this game that we love
With our blood and not our wallets we will take back our Home

Down with the GemStore! The killer of games!
On the day of your death we will drink and we’ll sing
We’re the children of Tyria, and we fight all our lives
And when the Underworld beckons everyone of us dies
But this land is ours and we’ll see it wiped clean
Of the scourge that has sullied our hopes and our dreams

Down with the GemStore! The killer of games!
On the day you revealed your true intention
We raised with pitchforks, and torches of our own
The Bashing yore missed, has just begun

It’s no dragon this time, but it is something far worse
A scourge that has sullied the last of our hopes

We drink to nostalgia, for lost merrier times
When the coming of Mad King meant fun and not This
When the player was happier
When we trusted your Team
When you cared about us
When you loved it too.

:(

John Smith.4610:

edit 3 (in story form): Lemark wasn’t much of a haggler. the merchant had taken almost every copper he owned, but it was worth it. He was positive this time, no more fakes, no more copies, forgeries or lies, this was it. He could feel it, sinister…ghostly, it felt weird to hold, but he didn’t care, his journey was one quarter complete.

Ol’ Lemark sure wasn’t buying gems then. Lol. (tho not really)

Sometimes when I read PR talking about us players on the forums, saying how they know we are “passionate” about the game, and that they understand that we can get “upset” or “angst” about some things, is like we were some poor mentally unstable people that can’t manage their emotions. So patronizing.

I can understand that maybe Gaile at this point just can’t do more than what she’s doing, because I really believe that she cares about us, but then again…I really don’t need this, the fun I can have with the game (and I still do) doesn’t justify getting angry for this kind of things, I don’t need this.

You have the best community I’ve ever seen around an MMORPG, creative, educated, friendly, that care about you, look at the Guild Halls CDI, how everyone tried to be helpful, and cooperative, and wanted to share just to make something we love, better, and what we get is hit after hit, happy halloween folks, now have a punch in the face.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Ok, guys. Some of you are unhappy about this change, I can see that. BUT… quite honestly, most of you are sort of (I hate to use the word) ranting (sorry!) instead of offering suggestions.

I assure you, the team leader told me not 15 minutes ago, they will listen to suggestions.

• Does that mean you get everything you want? Probably not.
• Does that mean you should suggest something? Yes, of course! Because they’re expecting player input.

So you want lower increments? Think it through and present a suggestion! You want XYZ in the interface? Post that idea. You would rather see something else? Post what you think about that other thing. Please don’t get into the whole “I’m going to kick the devs and their little dogs, too” because it’s not doing you or us any good at all.

I’m not here to apologize. I’m here to communicate and right now, the communication is coming in without a whole lot of substance. Over to you for suggestions and constructive input!

Gaile, you are such a dear person for this community, can’t you understand why this make us upset?…

This goes beyond a “game design” dilemma, is how you deliver your “solution” to us. In a way that negatively affects us, even if we are a minuscule vocal minority, that happens to treat with you on this forums, we are your customers too, and even if we “kick your dogs”, we are here because we care. But this changes make us feel like it is you the ones that don’t care. Even if that’s not the case, you shouldn’t have us dealing with this kind of situation, we are here to have fun, not to get angry.

I suggest this:

• Revert the system to what it was before. This won’t solve the “problems” that you claim existed with the previous system (I can see some…of that being true, but not enough to justify this change, in this way)
• Make a step in the direction of transparency and good will, even if you don’t have to ask us for every change you want to make to the game, if you care about us, you will present us the problem that you think exist, and you will take our input. Because if you had done that, you would’ve never come out with this kind of change.
• We will suggest you then, many viable options that you can already see on this thread. Be it either integrate this system and the old together (leaving us the choice, even hide the old system a bit if you are concerned about inexperienced players), or we will suggest you to put back the old system, and tweak the way you can convert currencies, for example, by letting the user set the amount he wants to get, instead what he wants to spend, and then selecting if he agrees with the price of what he wants. Or we will suggest that you add better explanations about the system, integrated to the interface, so it’s clearer to players(unfamiliar with this kind of systems) what they are doing when clicking the buttons around the converter UI.
• After that, we will repeat what we have said before, and tell you that we are not dumb, we just like your game. That we feel disrespected not just by the changes you made that affect us in ways we don’t like, but also, by the explanations you give us, because as has happened before, some changes (that even you, or Colin, seem surprised about) feel like something we didn’t ask for, nor want on our game experience. Is not that hard to understand, that even if changes are needed, the form and the consensus are important when you respect your customers.

As I’ve said before, this change make some of us (I talk for myself and some people that I play with, but I suspect this extends for more than that) feel like customers of lesser category for you. And that is sad, because at least I, look up to you guys, in many ways.

I don’t mean to offend you or anyone else that works on Anet, but honestly, if the objective is to compel me to buy more things from your cash shop, there are better ways to do it. But not this, this I find offensive, this is what I expect from other types of games, not Guild Wars 2, you have a name and reputation, take care of them.

Gaile, this is shameful.
All I ask is a bit of decency.
This really make some of us feel like customers of lesser category for you :/

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Blaeys.3102:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

The Adopt-a-Dev program is a voluntary program. The developers who participate do so in their own free time and they choose from the guilds who apply to the program. If you want to see more developers participating in the lower tiers, then encourage more of the lower-tiered guilds to apply.

The adopt a dev program seems like a good thing and its nice to see developers get out into the community.

The bigger issue, however, comes when you tout the program as a development tool or aid. If that is the intent, then effort should be made to make sure you’re getting a full and fair picture of WvW – not just the situations on the higher tier servers.

So, if the intent is just to get devs out into the community and mingling, that’s fine. If it is to help gather information about WvW, then I think you have to be mindful to ensure youre not focusing on one or two servers more than any others.

Hopefully, more devs will decide to look at the lower tiers next time (and I know that there are several lower tier server guilds that applied and weren’t chosen this past time around). That said, if the majority of developers are interested in playing on only the top tier servers, then that alone is indicative of the population issues we on the lower tiers are very much aware of.

I will make sure to stress the importance of spreading out among all the tiers when this comes around again. But, neither I nor John can force their decisions in a voluntary program.

I did, however, want to clear up the misconception that nobody was playing on the lower tiers during this past tournamnet, because I know for a fact that some were and brought back feedback that directly relates to the experiences on the lower end.

We understand and have seen the feedback regarding the proposed white swords change and the team is discussing that feedback.

Here is my counter(spell)feedback!
Please go on with the proposed change on white swords.
You can further refine that change in the future, like rewarding defense better, but this is a start.

John Smith.4610:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

John Smith.4610:

The idea is to discuss RNG as a concept inside of games and reward systems. I think more discussion will lead to better understanding of the problems current systems may have, and the pros and cons of other possible systems.

John, could you give us a bit direction here? I’m not quite sure what specifics we could/should discuss… it seems pretty one-sided that many think RNG is bad and tokens could work.

At the heart, there’s 3 basic options:
1. Mostly RNG
2. No RNG
3. Hyrbid RNG (where most games are)

starter concepts for cons of each system:

1. Many players can feel like they have “bad luck”, in fact players with standard to pretty good luck are still likely to feel bad because of how humans interpret data.

2. A completely predictable experience lacks moments when something fantastic happens.

3. You run the risk of getting the cons of both systems without very precise design

An important question may be to ask if a model is still a good concept and a great implementation just needs to be focused on or if the model doesn’t work fundamentally.

I propose another approach:

What if the problem itself isn’t in how we get items, but in what we get and how we interact with them?

A few points that might solve problems I think exist:

In how we interact with rewards:

• We should be able to salvage in a bulk, for example “salvage all blue items”
  Having to click through “trash” reinforce the sentiment of being unlucky with rewards.
• Add a gemstore (or not gemstore if you feel generous) item that let us deal with trash items, a mimic or something that eats them and give us something back. (And by trash items I mean literally trash items, not bad quality items in general)
• The same for runes and sigils of lower quality. I would like to have something similar to what you can do in the Mystic Forge, without having to carry around all those runes/sigils of no value to a lvl 80 character and stop doing what I am doing just to get a marginal value out of what I get.
• Luck is a good measure to let us deal with “bad loot”, but I think is not enough, since the benefit is too small per item, add maybe a new material that can only be obtained by destroying items (not the same as salvaging for other mats), and that doesn’t discriminate on what we destroy, this should have a convenience related usage.

What we get:

• Getting skins is a good way of dealing with rewards we can’t directly use.
• Getting mats and luck is another good way of dealing with rewards we can’t use.
• But then, why the most common case is that we can’t use what we get? In GW2 you have to be lucky to use something you get as a drop after you hit lvl 80, most of the time what you wear is something you craft, buy or exchange for some kind of token, which isn’t bad, but is unrelated to the RNG based reward system. Since at this point we have dealt with the Loot system in a similar way as Diablo 3 did with theirs, can we consider setting up conditions that guarantee a certain type of drop? In diablo, once you do X amount of some activity, in a row, you get a guaranteed high quality drop from boss monsters, rewarding longer sessions of play, and sticking with a group. This could be a nice mechanic inside of dungeons, because it doesn’t just improve the way players are rewarded, but also encourage to not skip events if you make those, the condition necessary for this.
  I imagine a good way of implementing this is, for every event inside of the dungeon, you get a “charge” of something, and once you have 5, after every event you get a guaranteed rare, with chance for exotic or ascended. This also increases the chance of getting dungeon specific rares (which now have meaning thanks to collections).

My personal top 3 priorities:

• Progression: I want to have a long journey when building GH, I want it to encourage me to do different things and explore the world.

• Utility: I want the Guild Hall to have meaningful features, that improve my experience playing the game, going from convenience to granting access to new content.

• Visual Integrity: I don’t want the world of Tyria become a creative Minecraft server, I like customization, but I also like to have my immersion.

A few solutions I think might work:

• Give players more control over loot tables. Let us narrow a bit the kind of items we can get. There is an example ingame right now: Rare Crafting Materials. I know, for example, that griffons of level 75+ will have a chance of dropping blood type and claw type materials, while barracudas of level 80 will have a chance of dropping scale type and fang type (if I’m not mistaken…) mats. This allow me to hunt for certain items, while at the same time being subject of RNG. Sadly this method is inefficient, because is always better to farm gold directly, and buy the mats.

• If meaningful drops are added in the future, think about adding systems similar to sPvP reward tracks to PvE. In fact, the same system should be working now on dungeons, instead of the token system. Is far more bearable to have loot boxes (RNG) as a bonus when you keep getting fixed rewards in between. (this is more of a perception thing, I know we get boxes and fixed rewards anyway from dungeons)

• Since rarity of gear is irrelevant in the drop system (once you are 80, you won’t be wearing greens, blues or whites, only exotics, and ascended are just too rare, like winning the lottery) Stat combinations should be the meaningful way of having control over our drops. Gear with certain stat combinations should be tied to certain themes on PvE (same for sPvP, WvW being the exception). This should lead to the addition of more creative stat combinations on exotics (2 stats only, 4 stats, new stats?, rune type of effects tied to the gear, etc)

• Super rare drops should be sellable, not-that-rare ones we can start thinking about making them account-bound. This will make doing certain content necessary (like you’ve done with Dry Top). My problem is, if gold is all we need to acquire things in the game, then efficiency will always be the best way of playing it, and ironically, or maybe good for you, the most efficient way is not playing the game, but playing with the credit card. I’m not against the gemstore or the idea of gems at all by the way, I think this is a problem with how gold-centric the rewards are, and how RNG works. Playing the game should always be more profitable than not playing it. (At least that’s what we expect from a non Pay to Win game)

Mister Smith, what is the purpose of this thread? Is it to educate us about how RNG work on online games? Is it about making suggestions to improve the reward systems on the game? both? none?
I can see that everyone is giving their opinion on what is better and what doesn’t work, but to me is not clear the goal of this thread, and I would like to know.

Said that, I will just give a few comments on what is being discussed:

- Fringe cases like the super lucky or the ultra bad luck are, in my opinion, part of the randomness that RNG systems generate, and without them it wouldn’t really be random. This is like the experiment of throwing a coin multiple times vs imagining you throw a coin multiple times. People tend to think (on the virtual case) that this kind of extreme situations “shouldn’t” happen, which is wrong, specially with independent events like throwing a coin, or killing a monster. If the goal is to have a RNG system, then this is not a problem.

- I don’t like half of the reward system of the game. I’m talking about the RNG part of it.
This is weird for me, because I tend to enjoy games where loot is based on RNG, but again, I think GW2 suffer from a similar problem the game Diablo 3 suffered during its initial months.

• We get too much loot
• Most of the time, loot is not interesting or compelling. Salvage fodder.
• This make players tend to prefer content that gives stable income over gambling by doing content that takes more time or effort (basically because by doing that kind of content, you don’t even get better rewards).
• The value of loot is too “gold-centric”, it should be, but at the same time, since nobody expects to get useful gear or items from loot, everyone sees the items dropped as their gold value.
• Initially, the idea of being able to do anything you want and be rewarded for that, is very attractive. But in reality, this means that nothing gives valuable rewards, and there is no reason to do any content over other. This make players think too much about efficiency, instead of challenge (neither of both is bad, but it should be balanced between the two concepts).

This is for the RNG part of the reward system. I like the other systems, and one in particular, helps a lot while dealing with the RNG part, I’m talking about sPvP reward tracks, this system seems to me that is the best approach given the nature of the game. (The more we progress, we move between RNG boxes and certain rewards, this are themed, so it has meaning choosing one reward track over another.)

I wrote this post with a robotic tone, sorry for that.

Simon.3794:

fellyn.5083:

I’m really surprised this thread isn’t getting more discussion.

Cuz there’s nothing else to discuss about other then how anet failed to balance stuff which will result in deletion.

I think this is my stance too.

I’m just tired at this point. I still play my warrior, be it trash or not, but it feels like after every balance patch there are less and less builds to try out.

Khisanth.2948:

VodCom.6924:

Khisanth.2948:

Conski Deshan.2057:

munkiman.3068:

The more i think about decor and furnishings as a “progression mechanic”, the less i feel it’s as appropriate for halls. I’d much rather see something like that in personal instances.

Many of the ideas here including mine are probably at least somewhat co-opted from personal housing ideas. Unless they know personal housing is also coming people are going to try and get some of the recognition into guildhalls instead.

That said there’s not a lot of progression methods to choose from and you’re bound to upset one group or another. Furnishings/skins are the tried and true method.

If you make size the progression: I’d complain and decorating people would too.
If you make functionality the progression: small guilds will complain.
If you make location the progression: people who like one particular one will complain.
If you make NPC population the progression: most people won’t try.

The solution is to not have any progression at all.

This idea is very very bad.

It’s not bad because you have bad intensions. By reading your post, one can see that you are a nice person. Your idea is awful because it will remove the sense of accomplishment and challenge that the guild hall feature could bring to a community that is craving for challenge and involving content.

Nobody has ever found something that was given as granted rewarding. Nobody. Ever.

Your argument is valid and makes sense if you are playing minecraft or any good sandbox game. However GW2 is not minecraft (it’s a theme park MMO) and I doubt GH will have a flexibility remotely comparable to what players have in minecraft.

Thus we should lock the progression of the GH behind more or less challenging content, that is interesting for both large and smaller guilds to an extent.

You can lock things behind challenges without a pointless layer of progression.
You and the previous person both make the same mistake of assuming that no progression means getting everything without doing anything.

If you are already putting things behind actual challenges then there is no need for the extra layer.

Complete challenge to unlock X.

vs.

Progress to lv 5 of whatever then complete the same challenge to unlock X.

Example of existing pointless progression:
You must progress to Art of War lv5 before you can even try to unlock Guild Bounty.

Progression is just a cheap way to stretch out content.

I think you have a misconception of what progression means.
You just described “progression vs progression”.
(going from not having anything to have something is a way of progression)

The problem of Complete challenge to unlock X is that, after you unlock X, what else is there to do in that line? what about if you have unlocked X, then complete challenge to expand X, and you have more layers of progression.

We are not asking for “meaningless progression”, but when we ask for many layers, is because right now, no matter how “challenging” the content, it will be beaten in a short amount of time, and then what? At least I don’t want Guild Halls to be Legendary Items 2.0.

Can we consider the addition of new crafting disciplines to help expand the system towards building Guild Halls?

I’ve been thinking that I really like time-gated crafting recipes, because they reward having the crafting discipline over having the gold.

Retro.6831:

Baltzenger.2467:

The way I see it, who gets the plot shouldn’t be based on this idea of prestige, that’s why I say it shouldn’t be quantified.
I would rather have a crossover system that linkes GH further with other mechanics of the game.

Some possible things that I would like to see:
- Winners of a sPvP tournament getting a plot on the heart of the mists to put their Guild Hall.
- WvW related feats that allow you to have your Guild Hall on a certain tactical location.
- Raid like content that will allow a guild to have an specific plot in the world to put their GH.

All with decay systems, based on each type of feat required to conquer this plots.

I don’t see GH as an isolated system at all, therefore, I don’t agree with having it’s “endgame” be tied only to what this particular system offers.

Did you read any of the posts relevant to the suggestion you’re talking about? It kind of seems like you haven’t. Start here, then here (part 1 and part 2). All of these were not only linked right at the top of the post you guys are quoting, but I also summarized them as well.

Based on your post, the question of “who gets the plot” isn’t determined by who has the best guild hall at all. For example, you suggest that the “Winners of an sPVP tournament get a plot on the heart of the mists to put their Guild Hall”, and that performance in WvW and “Raid-like content” similarly determines who gets specific plots for just those game types. You close by saying that you “don’t see GH as an isolated system.”

Your suggestion doesn’t factor the guild halls themselves into the equation at all. You’ve instead taken Guild Halls and turned them into a new tier of reward for pre-existing gameplay platforms. The “Heart of the Mists” plot is basically a giant sPVP trophy, for sPVP players only. Sure, you can make it look cool and you have the convenience of having whatever amenities guild halls feature available in that space, but how is it anything more than an elaborate banner that says “This guild is good at sPVP?”

The whole point of the Prestige concept is to pull threads from all of the various game modes (Dungeons, WvW, sPVP, PvE, Crafting, etc.) and weave them into a unified system (not isolated, as you describe) to create something that’s potentially more rewarding for guilds.

The answer to “who gets the Guild Hall plot?” should be “whoever has the best Guild Hall,” and the prestige suggestion is one approach towards that.

You are correct here:
Based on your post, the question of “who gets the plot” isn’t determined by who has the best guild hall at all.
That is my approach.

Then here:
Your suggestion doesn’t factor the guild halls themselves into the equation at all.
But it does, it just doesn’t do it in the way you suggested it, in other words, the “plot” is a reward, an addition to the Guild Hall, not the main goal of the system.

The answer to “who gets the Guild Hall plot?” should be “whoever has the best Guild Hall”
I disagree.

The way I see it, who gets the plot shouldn’t be based on this idea of prestige, that’s why I say it shouldn’t be quantified.
I would rather have a crossover system that linkes GH further with other mechanics of the game.

Some possible things that I would like to see:
- Winners of a sPvP tournament getting a plot on the heart of the mists to put their Guild Hall.
- WvW related feats that allow you to have your Guild Hall on a certain tactical location.
- Raid like content that will allow a guild to have an specific plot in the world to put their GH.

All with decay systems, based on each type of feat required to conquer this plots.

I don’t see GH as an isolated system at all, therefore, I don’t agree with having it’s “endgame” be tied only to what this particular system offers.

Iason Evan.3806:

I suggest we add an optional upgrade called “The Giant Bloodstone Dust Pile” and guild members can keep making it bigger and bigger by throwing all their excess bloodstone dust on it.

Lol, what about empyreal fragments?

Gobble D Goop.4081:

Retro.6831:

snip for space

Prestige
The manner in which Neighborhoods develop their common area and compete with each other is through “Prestige.” This is not a currency, but a value; each Guild Hall has an individual Prestige score, and the neighborhood’s score is simply the sum of all halls located there. Think of it as a rating of how awesome your Guild Hall is; the more cool stuff you throw in there, the higher your hall’s score.

The primary source of Prestige is the furnishings that players add to their guild halls. A hall with fine-quality [Wooden chairs] can’t compete with a hall full of exotic [Ascalonian Thrones]! There are other means to increase your prestige that I am still working on, but here’s how furnishings would work;

I had an idea over the weekend. The feature above could function like the Faction system from GW1 (Luxon/Kurzick). The stuff that is claimed would be open world spaces. The Guilds with the highest Prestige numbers would be assigned a spot in the open world that their guild hall would appear in. This would only be a copy of their GH and they would still have access to their instanced version, but they would also be able to access the open world location for free. This open world location would need to be upgraded at a time interval in order to compare other prestige values (guilds being overtaken) or to add upgrades/changes that the current owner makes to their instance.

*Benefits:
-The larger guilds would have something to compete for
-Open world plots for guild halls to show off their awesomeness

*Issues:
-Guild hall plots might not match the area (Sylvari tree GH in Orr, Norn Ice Lodge in Dry Top etc)
-Prestiege would need an upkeep to prevent older, larger guilds from having a time advantage on newer guilds
-would create a need to update zones on a time based system to accomidate any changes to the guild hall areas (maybe have a weekly GH update time for this?)
-There would be an oversaturation of merchants/crafting stations/BLTraders etc (maybe remove NPCs from open world GHs)

Thats my suggestion for open world halls with instanced halls piggybacked on Retro.6813’s post.

This is a good idea.
It needs a bit of work in my opinion, but the basis is there.

I think this solves the problem of instanced vs open world.
If everyone can have a GH no matter how much space there is in the Open World, and at the same time you have a “chance” to show your GH to the world, it didn’t just solve the issue, but adds a layer of depth to the idea of prestige around GH.

If we come up with a good system for determining who gets to have his guild on this spots, and for how long, and how to compete for it, we can now have two layers of prestige around GH:

• Getting prestige things on your GH.
• Being able to show those prestige things on the Open World.

Btw, I don’t completely agree with Retro’s idea of prestige, to me it shouldn’t be quantified at all, but a concept that serves as a result of getting difficult things.

I agree with Vodcom here.

Not having complaints shouldn’t be the end goal of adding things to the game, complaints are a source of information, feedback, but that doesn’t mean that anyone that can complain (and everyone can) is the holder of vision and truth of what should be in the game.

I for once, would like to see progression in every possible direction, anything that can be expanded onto, should have some sort of progression, be it for increasing the size, or getting new functions, or adding new stuff, etc.
The thing is, as long as progressing is a fun journey, we are good.

On some other matter.
Maybe Gaile can answer this for me.

About the breaks between releases and the communication about what those breaks mean for us (players). I don’t really know the reasons behind those breaks, I can guess, but I don’t know.

What I would like to know, is if what happened this year is how it’s supposed to be, or if this was just a period of adjustment. I ask this, because what I really want to know is, if next year we will have more releases than this year, like in 2013.

I try to follow the news and comments from the team closely, but I don’t recall any substantial information regarding this. Players tend to talk about how feature patches affect LS releases, and how it’s normal to have this kind of breaks, others say no, most releases on last feature pack were from the China release so it doesn’t make sense, etc.
Gaile asked for a case where an answer could satisfy the customer, well, this are two yes/no questions, and knowing the answers will at least leave me comfortable.

is it normal?
will we have more releases (more than this year) next year?

Even if the answer is more complicated than yes or no, I would appreciate an answer, at least for the first question, if the second cannot be answered for x or y reason.

Togashi Jack.9531:

Biggest issue I can see with transparency is the following

There doesn’t seem to be any consolidation. Some stuff shows up on reddit, some on twitter, some on facebook, and some here. Something might be caught somewhere in a PoI or a Ready-Up, and unless you’re using some kind of E-Wizardry, you’re going to miss it.

Gaile mentioned that SAB is in fact going to be returning. I didn’t know this, must have missed it in the ridiculous pile of drek that we have here. People are saying that there’s no plans for new dungeons. Must have missed that one too. With a forum that’s nigh impossible to use and information scattered to the winds, how am I, the end user, supposed to even have a chance of knowing any of this?

THAT is the biggest issue with transparency. It isn’t so much a lack of information(of note: there’s a lack of information), its the ability to access the information.

Well, to be fair, the Dev Tracker do wonders in this matter.
Most of the things that go on reddit are reposts of news sites, interviews or the forums.
And I have yet to find anything relevant or unknown on twitter or facebook apart from members of Anet leaving the team, or things like that.

It would help though, to se the “hot topics” as you enter the forum, like in most forums, but the Dev Tracker is a good tool in my opinion.
The most controversial information on the latest months, has come in the form of interviews during cons, or for news sites, and I believe that this “controversial information” wasn’t meant to be like that, good example is the case with SAB and the dungeons.

Donari.5237:

Baltzenger, I think maybe what we’re asking is not to get the back cover three months in advance, but just to be told the author has a book coming (possibly even which series it is in). Amazon tells me all the time about books coming from S&SF authors whose works I’ve bought; some of them I am so determined not to miss that I pre-order rather than just hoping to notice it in Recommendations when I’m looking for my next novel.

Again, no details on the content. Just a heads up that it’s coming down the pike and roughly what flavor it is (I do remember being vastly disappointed when I picked up Orson Scott Card’s Saints, back when he was a sight-unseen writer for me, and found it to essentially be a historical documentary with a few fantastical bits. Um, apologies to those who believe in those fantastical bits, but for them it was even more a documentary, right? I expected a fantasy novel and didn’t get one).

Oh, sorry, I didn’t really meant it in that way. I don’t expect Anet to deliver “back covers” to us early, not at all, but I feel that not wanting to deliver information because it will contain spoilers is not a good option either.
I really don’t want to be told anything about the story or the lore before it is released, but things more mechanical, or schedules on updates, I do want.
To be honest, and it might sound a bit unfair…I do feel a bit dissapointed for the amount of “breaks” the content delivery has taken during this year, I was expecting something different. I know there might be very powerful reasons for that, but at the same time, why was I expecting something different? I understand it’s partially my fault, but at the same time, there must be reason behind it.
Specially about Living Story, I understood the model when it was presented, as a steady delivery of content every two weeks, and I was sold for that. I didn’t care about expansions, or big patches, nothing, I was fine with it. But then if you look at the calendar and the amount of content delivered during this year, it doesn’t look that promising. Particularly the Dragon Reach part, that felt it was divided to fill a quota, and not really because the story justified it. Again…just my opinion.

edit: Sorry, I forgot:
!http://holycuteness.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Screenshot-27-8-2012-21_33_47.jpg!

slamfunction.7462:

DonQuack.9025:

Phenn.5167:

I’ve seen several online, large-playerbase game developers do an excellent job of what I’ve outlined above.

like?

I’ll give you a hint: It starts with a “B” and rhymes with the word “lizzard”.

Yes, i know, different ball park, but the point being is that they give away everything, months in advance. Sure, its spoilers galore, but you gotta give the consumer benefit of the doubt that if they don’t want to know about it, they simply won’t read about it.

That goes back to that slip cover thing Gaile just said. Its not like the author or publisher is ramming that slip cover down your throat or anything abrasive like that. When you pick up the book, you choose not to read it. Easy peasy.

Its not worth arguing, really. In a year of reading forums off and on, i’ve seen alot of good requests, issues, and etc. Its rare one gets addressed, so i’ve grown the open that the company policy towards the consumer is much like Square Enic back in the FFXI days and that was to just randomly do stuff and explain it when it drops with very little advertizement.

People, you just gotta lower your expectations and take it for what it is. Thats all. You’ll sleep better at night if ya do.

About the Blizzard case. I was a Diablo 3 player since its release, and I have to say, what kept the game breathing until it’s expansion, was communication. I won’t say it was top notch, it wasn’t, but it showed the importance of managing the playerbase expectations.
There was some good done there, and some bad too, specially regarding the “pvp” additions of the game.

nightwulf.1986:

Labjax.2465:

I usually try to avoid mentioning other games on this forum, out of respect, but because it’s integral to the example I’m going to talk about, I’m making an exception.

Once upon a time, I played the game Rift. I played it for a very long time. And although there were moments when the communication from Trion felt minimal, there was a driving force that made me love their communication style on the whole.

They had (and still have, as far as I know) a guy who was basically the one making a lot of the calls concerning the direction of the game and he was a straight shooter to the point that he actually joked once openly on the forums about how he attached pictures of cute animals to emails sent to his coworkers, so that they would be less likely to take offense to his blunt feedback.

Because he mostly knew about the direction of the game at any given moment and was so blunt about things, he would just say things sometimes, like, “We have no plans for X at this time.”

He wasn’t giving anything away most of the time. In fact, looking back on it, I don’t think he shared much more about real plans than you guys do. Probably about the same amount of information.

But because he was so blunt and honest about things that weren’t being worked on, or that the Rift team had no plans for, I feel it helped manage expectations in a lot of cases.

I’m certainly not expecting you to try to copy another company, but I do believe there are ways to sort of “give info” without actually sharing what all is in the works. One way is what my example talks about; essentially, giving information through negation, such that people can go, “Oh, they have no plans for X right now. [Or, oh, this isn’t something that they feel is in line with their goals for the game.] I feel like I know better where they stand on that issue.”

Just something to think about.

On the subject of telling people what’s not being worked on: Super Adventure Box. There goes the hope of telling people that something isn’t being worked on in an exploding cloud of pixellated glory.

That wasn’t the problem, the problem was timing.
We were told that SAB wasn’t being worked on, right before the time we were expecting it to come back, that was the problem.
Many of the players that were upset about it, weren’t because SAB didn’t come back at some random time, but because, given the previous releases, they were expecting it to come back at that particular time.

It’s the same with a TV show, if you get your weekly episode of The Walking Dead, and after you wait 5 days, on the 6th, you read “there won’t be an episode this week”, you will feel dissapointed, of course, I don’t condone the so called “passionate” reactions, but again, having a schedule always do wonders, or being told after the episode finishes “next week we won’t be having one”.

@Gaile:
I know what you mean, but at the same time, there is a substantial difference. You don’t spoil yourself because you will be reading it, to improve your experience. But what if they only give you the back cover, and then tell you “wait 3 months until we send you the book”. Then “not reading the spoilers” feels a bit different.

My opinion on this matter:

I have very little experience with this, so mind that, this is my point of view.

I can’t speak for all the player base, but I can say how I tell my friends about what is coming to the game, when trying to encourage them to play.
It ranges from:
X thing is gonna be added next patch.
They mentioned that Y thing they are looking into.
We are discussing Z thing, it might come to the game in the future.

Note, those 3 examples, in my opinion, are good ways of being transparent with your development process.
Playing GW2 is an investment of time, I, like many other players, simply cannot play more than 1 mmo at a time, I certainly can’t, I like GW2, I want GW2 to be my mmorpg of choice, and I invest my time in the game, and as such, I’m concerned of what its future will be (both as a stakeholder, and as a way to organize my time).
For example, right now there are not many interesting things for me to do in the game, I decided to invest my free time on other games (not mmorpg), and I know, that since I have a date for the return of content (halloween) I can manage my time with it.

There are many things I want added into the game, and some things I want to see returning (SAB!), and to me, it would be great to have the kind of information that allows me to both manage my time, and to invest it in a smart way.
Be it:

• At least, monthly blogs of “state of the game” or “plans for the future”, just plans, I don’t care if you repeat a thousand times that “nothing here is set on stone”, because I will know that at least, X or Y thing is in your minds, in fact, if after that you find out that X or Y feature you cannot add/work/develop, being told so would be great too.
• At least every 6 months have an overall view of what would be added on the following term, this is important. I want to know when do you plan to have a hiatus, how many chapters you plan to release of the Living Story before a break, which recurring festivities will we celebrate (it wasn’t a pleasant surprise to find out on the spot, that dragon bash wasn’t comming back, or that SAB wasn’t comming back). Just plan ahead, and stick to the plan, and if changes have to be done, communicate! It helps us with managing our expectations. In my case, I always expect the best from you.
• Keep on with the CDIs, and the weekly media releases like PoI and Ready UP, it’s a great initiative and I enjoy it.
• Disclosure big questions. Or better put, the answers to those questions. There are some big interrogatives around, that at this point of the game, we players really need to have answered. “Will be an expansion?” “Will be new classes?” “Will be new playable races” “new weapons?” “new dungeons?” “new pvp modes?” etc. This are big questions, and I know that the answer is tricky to give, yet, there is something worse out there: the confusion. Some believe those things are being “secretly developed” or “it will be a surprise”. I love surprises in my daily life, but I hate them when I try to invest my stuff ( be it money or time), and I understand most people that get upset with this. If you really can’t answer those questions, because you really don’t know, or haven’t planned it yet, don’t just say “it’s not out of the table”, don’t say what we “wan’t to read”, say what we need to read: “we don’t have plans for it yet, we are not working on it yet, we will communicate when we decide to take that path”.

Communication has improved a lot the latest months, and I feel that you guys are putting a lot of effort on it, thank you for that.
Just my opinion.

@VOD: Well done mate! I recommend your summary to anyone participating.

@Marcus Greythorne: At some point we discussed the idea of adding “private rooms” for guild members, with a single entrance for it, you enter an instanced, personal small room just for yourself, that you can customize. Other than that, why don’t you tell us what kind of benefits you would like to se, that are not necessarily focused on the group, but rather on the single player perspective?

Devata.6589:

Retro.6831:

~

Just play WvW and do something specific there to earn that WvW thing. An example I said before. Claim a keep in WvW and hold the keep for 1 full week to unlock a portal to that map. That would be a thousand times more interesting and engaging and rewarding and more fun to unlock that portal then to just do some WvW to get a currency up (or down) to then buy it. But thats how I see it.

You add a nice reward for doing that, and I’ll be a happy frolicking quaggan.

krosis.7598:

Guys, you’re dragging down the thread.

I agree, please let’s keep it cool guys, we have been doing it so good.

At the start of this thread, at least on the first pages, we talked about how we wanted small guilds to have access to the features we are discussing. I think that is a consensus at this point. We want small guilds to have, at least, access to Guild Halls.

But a completely different thing is, what kind of progression do we want.
Is it long term objective based kind of progression? Vertical? Horizontal?
Do we want some kind of progression that doesn’t depends on how many members do you have in your guild? Time gated?
Should it be diverse? or focused on some specific activity (like gathering resources)?

I think those are the questions we should be asking, instead of if we should balance it around 100, or 200, or 500 members. Because the problem with that is, well, not really thinking outside of the box.

We should come up with a way that is enjoyable, compelling, and interesting, that will net us a system of progression that will last, and hopefully, that will renew itself as new players come into the game.
At the same time, we shouldn’t lose focus on what we expect from Guild Halls, apart from convenience and self expression, we need it to be a link between game modes (so every player can benefit from it), and it needs to be something worth having. Something that reinforce identity among guilds, and serves as a way to gain prestige in the game.

Retro.6831:

Some thoughts I’ve put together over the last 15 or so pages;

Well, to be fair, most of what you just said have already been discussed, your proposal of horizontal progression in particular I remember well because I proposed it. Not saying that your ideas are bad, or that it is improper to post them, but I’d watch better how you refer to other posts, because, well I personally haven’t made any “six huge posts at once” and I can understand that those tend to be harder to follow, but if you find “insufferable” or derailing a post (or posts) that happened many pages ago, I don’t see the purpose of bringing it up, specially while even the devs have stated how good this CDI has been, and how “unrestricted” people should feel about posting their ideas.
Let’s keep it cool.

Other than that, welcome to the thread, I like most of your approaches to the topics discussed, I’m waiting for the next part.

@Chris:
I just finished watching your presentation on The Modern Role of a Game Designer, it is a very good presentation, and even if this is going to be a little bit offtopic, I think it can be helpful to make a reflection on it, considering how good this CDI has been going.

I’ve worked as an independent designer for about 5 years (since I was about 17), I’m always eager to learn about the industry, and specially about the logistics of development and design, so I find your presentation very illustrative, and I can relate many points made there to personal experience, (more specifically, personal mistakes), so thanks for sharing.

We have a very good momentum in this thread, the fact that even the press is interested on what’s going on here is very exciting. I think that even from my amateur point of view, I can say that the features and ideas we are discussing have enormous potential for the game, not just because of how interesting and compelling to the players is the idea of having a customizable personal space, but because of how transverse it is among different game modes. (Making this a potentially interesting topic for almost every player of the game)

It makes so much more sense, after watching your presentation, the processes that we are following.
I just wish at this point, out of curiosity, to know what do you guys think of the idea of Guild Halls, after reading what we have until know, your personal preferences, or what do you think fits or doesn’t into the current game. I don’t think that at this point the discussion can be “contaminated” at all. Well, at least, I would like to know, to further understand how our ideas are understood, or seen, from a more educated perspective.

And because, I think we should keep this momentum, not just for this CDI, but for the following ones. To me, and to some I think, it was a huge step to go from “suggest what you think would be accepted” to “suggest what you would like, no restrictions”, and something tells me that it isn’t the only huge step we’re gonna make during this process.

AlienMenace.7516:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Gulesave.5073:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Hi Gulesave,

There has been a ton of discussion and brainstorming on Guild Hall Content in the thread. Maybe once Jon gets some time he an summarize some of it.

Chris

Chris,

Let me take this from a different angle: What are the things guilds like to do together, and how can the guild hall and its various spaces makes these things easier and more enjoyable?

For example, how can the hall serve as a superior launching pad for jumping en mass into PvE or WvW content?

…

Yep those are some good questions. Thoughts folks?

Chris

If Guild Halls were instances connected to real PvE zones (via some kind of doorway that took you into an instance if your guild had its hall in that location), guilds could pick a Guild Hall near their favorite activities. For instance, if a guild had a favorite dungeon they ran daily and there was a Guild Hall entrance site near that dungeon, guilds that wanted to could select that hall location for their Guild Hall and then they could just be a stone’s throw away from their favorite content whenever they stepped outside.

It has the advantages of giving the guild an instanced place to call their own, and any number of guilds can select that portal as their location, but it also still gives meaning to the choice of which hall to pick other than just the aesthetics of “I like the Guild Hall site one near CoF because it’s all molten-looking” (not to say that that wouldn’t also be an equally valid reason to select that site versus another).

Or, if Guild Halls are mobile instances like Airships, you can “park” your Guild Hall on the map of your choice for the activity that you will do.

For example, if you are doing Guild Missions, and as usual, people tend to “ping the WP” to the place you need to go, instead you can say “everyone onboard”, and move the Guild Hall to the selected location, and drop them there, that way if, for instance, Guild Halls can give buff to the surrounding area, like magic find, or extra stats, it makes sense to try to play “under the wing” of your Guild Hall.

What about Tixx’s Infinirarium? It shows that airships can be as big as castles, and have very interesting shapes.

Also, its mechanic, if Guild Halls would be airships, then you can move them, map instances (open world maps) could have air space trafic, and a limit at so, so if the air space is full, you enter another instance of the megaserver, but as an object, not as part of the map itself.

All this, while the “inside” of the Airship is an instance, again, just like Tixx’s Infinirarium.

http://www.devilsmmo.com/sites/default/files/uploads/images/guildwars2/wintersday/wintersday-concept-art-3.jpg

man…I miss wintersday already…

I like the idea of dividing the day, and also the ones proposed in the video at the start of the thread.

What I would also like is to give some relevance to EotM, it’s such a cool map, that I feel shouldn’t just end up being a massive farm, neglecting all the interesting stuff that it has.

Devata.6589:

I just remembered that there was in fact a summarize made before:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/7#post4459255
and I think there was even a small follow up on this one a few pages later, not 100% sure about that.

Thanks Devata, this is the small follow up I made after that one:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/CDI-Guilds-Guild-Halls/page/13#post4466306

But to be fair, I think we really need a new summary at this point, to know where we still have open roads of discussion, and to include the questions that have been made by Chris and Jon.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Re: “What happens to the alliance guild hall…”

The answer is simple: Alliances as an entity do not get guild halls but rather an instanced place to call home which does not receive upgrades (perhaps aside from cosmetic revisions) and thus nothing is lost if the alliance dissolves for whatever reason.

This doesn’t allow small guilds to work with others in regard to progression of the guild hall though.

Chris

Is that a bad thing?
Since alliances are temporary, the progress that “small guilds” could achieve towards this goal, will be lost eventually.
Why not look at how current guilds work in tandem right now?
I often see the word “emissary” or “ally” on guilds that work with others, basically meaning that if you want to help other guild (right now), you join that guild as an “emissary” or an “ally” and help them.

Now if we separate the idea of halls and alliances, we can think of ways that allow members of other guilds (or alliances) to help a particular guild with some of the work required to get or improve a Guild Hall.
We don’t want to define what alliances can and cannot do at this point, alliances have different terms depending on the context.
What kind of agreement can have a group of small guilds regarding the building of a Hall/Halls. Well, “you help me, and I help you” comes to my mind.

Devata.6589:

Baltzenger.2467:

While doing some research, I found something interesting that is happening on TERA korea.

http://vimeo.com/103889876

I think some of the things shown in that video resemble many of our ideas, specially what we discussed about Airships. Food for Thought.

Hmm I wonder if the person who came up with that idea had it from TERA. Nonetheless, it even more so underlines what I was saying to munkiman. Whatever Anet comes with needs to be able to compete with all these competitors.

Imho that means that if you down one element (liken open world) then you have to up another (like building but that can also be something else).

A basic guild-hall with some tier upgrading system and maybe some basic customization will not be able to compete with those competitors, it would be the lesser system.

But thats my personal view on things.

Well, to be fair, what is shown in the video is still on development, and will be released on korea only, so I don’t think so, also, Airships are kind of a thing in GW2. Not that I care if someone saw something on another game and suggested it here, in my opinion, you have to look everywhere, and take the best from it.

While doing some research, I found something interesting that is happening on TERA korea.

http://vimeo.com/103889876

I think some of the things shown in that video resemble many of our ideas, specially what we discussed about Airships. Food for Thought.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Donari.5237:

I think Lanfear’s question is what happens if the guild you are repping swaps alliances and no longer is in the alliance that made the hall — how do you handle man-hour investment in an alliance hall if for reasons fair or foul you need to go separate ways?

Yes, this is precisely what I was asking. I know in GW1, my guild was in several different alliances over the multitude of years that I played. Sometimes alliances just don’t work out for a variety of reasons and guilds go their separate ways.

What happens in such a case, when the guilds split, to all the effort that was put into these ‘shared’ halls. The man hours, the funds, etc. When they join another alliance that has it’s own shared hall already, do they now have their hall, the old shared hall, and then the shared hall for the new alliance as well? This could get cumbersome. Do they lose the old shared hall instead and thus all the effort put into it? That could really tick some people off. Or do shared halls simply no longer exist if the alliance does not exist? Could this not be a double edged sword – ie, as much deterant as incentive to build such an item?

Yeah this is a real problem. This could completely preclude Alliance functionality on our Guild Halls discussion. Can we have some ideas to beat this problem please and see if we can solve it?

Chris

I can think of several options that would solve this situation.
1.- Alliance Halls customization is restricted to rental:
Alliance Halls could be part of a big building on the Major Cities, where you can “rent” a Hall, there can be some level of customization (acquiring certain services + space), all tied to an amount of gold that you have to pay for a set amount of time you will be using it, the more things you get on your Alliance Hall, the more expensive it gets. This solves the situation when alliances break up, since you just stop paying the rent.

2.- Alliance Hall is a separated tree on the Guild Hall progression system:
You can develop your Guild Hall to have an Alliance Hall, the investment is made by a single guild, and stays with said guild. Now we introduce the “Guild Key”, this could be an item, or a tab on the Hero Panel, where you get registered to the different Guild Halls you can access to, with different levels of membership, be it, “Guest”, “Member” or “Alliance Member”, and depending on the level of access you get, is where you can access inside of the Guild Hall. This puts the control on the owners of the hall, where they can set the level of access required for each room of their hall.
If the alliance breaks up, all you have to do is remove ex-alliance members from your access book (if you add an option to add “guilds” instead of members to the access book, it would be easier to manage)

3.- Rooms on Guild Halls could be demolished for resources:
Each room on a Guild Hall will hold record of each resource spent on its construction, if you need to destroy one, you will get back “some” of the resources (can be an 80% of them, depends). That way if you need to demolish an Alliance Hall, you will get some of the investment made, and if it is built in conjunction with other guilds, it should record which guild sent which resource.

I don’t think it does any good to start repeating suggestions to not have them “buried” in the thread, because by doing so, the thread is getting very messy and hard to read. I do not know if the purpose of this is that “we” get to a consensus, because how will we? It’s better to just post your suggestions/ideas (once!), answer to the questions proposed, and move on.
I’m sure the team will read the whole thread and not just the last pages, also, if something needs to be further discussed, we will be asked to expand on that, like we have been doing to this point.

I mean, it shouldn’t be that an idea gets more attention because it is posted more times on the same thread…

Serophous.9085:

JonPeters.5630:

I like this, but would want to make sure we don’t deny access to core features. Someone suggested guild hall upgrade trees as guild hall structures. I think you could make an argument for structure types. Ones that contain core features vs more unique specialized structures that guilds must choose some number of to build.

-snip-

Another way points could be done would be like the gw1 system for characters specializations (like beastmastery or marksman, etc). The more points you put in one stat, the more expensive it becomes.

I think that is the way to go. That would also mean that guilds could choose to focus on only one feature and be unique because of that, even have a competition against other guilds focused on the same aspect.

At the same time, I was reading the previous version of your post where you mentioned the TaN guild, and I’m thinking…how awesome would be if guilds could develop services in the game, and the more deep you are into a particular branch the higher quality your service is, this could make a new layer of economy into the game, and let people compete on another level too.

JonPeters.5630:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

JonPeters.5630:

My box is guild upgrades. I want us to brainstorm how we could revamp the upgrade system given the introduction of a feature such as guild halls.

1.) Something that comes to my mind would be a system where you have a specific number of free slots and you have to choose which things you’d put into them – just like the skill-system (3 utility slots but many choices to put into those). This would make guilds relatively unique vs. others.

The bigger the guild – the more variety is available for them via more slots. Small guilds may have only 2 slots (e.g. they specialize on dungeons and sPvP) but it’s not too hard for them to reach the higher tiers in these categories, since their chosen slot-options are designed for small groups.

2.) What if each player could choose 1-2 occupations in the guild hall? He would gain personal reputation and would unlock stuff only specialists on that area could get. This way the huge guild-group would be split into multiple sub-groups which work together for their sub-goals. (e.g. the dungeon-specialists would unlock dungeon portals for their guild, but only on higher level tiers in their sub-paths. Players who play a lot of GvG could unlock new GvG-maps for their guild. They also unlock personal prestige rewards (like costumes) but also stuff for everyone in the guild. etc.)

Not everyone can unlock everything, which would make smaller groups within the guild more meaningful. You would have to specialize, which would be important so that more people are involved in the upgrade-process instead of only a few hardcore players who unlock everything and make the others feel redundant.

(something like TF2’s classes – the more you play with one, the more you can customize your character and the more you can help your team in a variety of ways).

This could go even further: The dungeon team could also have multiple sub-categories, where players can and should specialize. Players who play very supporty (revive a lot, heal a lot) could unlock exotic gear with support-stats for everyone to purchase, while they unlock personal things as well (skins which show off the support-role).

The TLDR here would be: give every player something to specialize in so that this player would feel special in a guild while he unlocks stuff for himself (prestige-items) as well as for the whole group (useful items).

I like this, but would want to make sure we don’t deny access to core features. Someone suggested guild hall upgrade trees as guild hall structures. I think you could make an argument for structure types. Ones that contain core features vs more unique specialized structures that guilds must choose some number of to build.

What about looking at how the WvW level system work?
There, you are never denied any core features, but since you can have “masteries” on certain aspects of WvW, there are subtle roles among players that run in organized groups. For example, “the ones that have ram mastery” or now the “Golem drivers”.

At this point we could start talking about Guild Hall research points. Something that can be spent, that is limited, and that can be acquired by the guild (at this point I think merits are ruled out).

In my opinion, the way to balance how Guilds could access every core feature, but keep the specialization as a way to diverge progression, is that for every core feature you have to research in two ways:
a.- A way to adapt the feature to the number of members (something along the way of making a feature more efficient, so more members can benefit from it, without queing for it). Example: A room for meetings becoming larger, or a farm producing more crops. (depends on the features)
b.- A way to make the feature expand, become more specialized. For example, getting more merchants, or the armorer getting more items to offer. Or getting better quality furniture, or more fancy models for the rooms, and so on.

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Morning All,

Due to recent events I must confess that I am only properly knowledgeable up to roughly page 12 but I want to jump in and start discussing things with you. I hope that is ok.

I want to emphasize that my questions, thoughts, and brain storming are theoretical and should not be taken as a given. With that said I want to start at the foundation.

Ok lets assume that in the world of the CDI Guild Halls have a lot of horizontal progression such as the ability to create buildings, upgrade them and customize the whole experience. What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

An idea I wanted to throw into the mix would be could small guilds have a shared Guild Hall with an Alliance?

Chris

Hi, yeah it’s a bit hard to summarize at this point, I’ve made some attempts though.

What is the smallest guild size that this would be suitable for. Even more specifically is it ok to have a ton of progression in this Guild Hall example and have small guilds work through it.

I’ve answered this before, I think we kind of discussed this a bit on some of the pages.
I believe that the smallest guild size should be a 5-man group sized guild. To me, it’s the basic unit after the “single player”.

As I’ve stated before, I think guilds have a variety of sizes and purposes in the game, and the smallest “valid” guild imo is the one made by a group of friends that can complete content in the game (like dungeons).

Other thing I would like to add is, I think that the progression on Guild Halls should follow two “rules”.

1st Rule: The progression shouldn’t lead to the same outcome every time. What I mean is, there should be interesting choices along the way, choices determined by the nature of a guild, that are relevant, and lead to an outcome “designed” for that kind of guild. I don’t think big guilds have the same needs/objectives as small guilds, nor PvE based guilds have the same needs as WvW or PvP based guilds. Having this variety could be useful, and also, benefit the idea of joining many guilds.

2nd Rule: Guild Halls and its progression should follow certain rules of economics, for example, the “size” of the guild hall should follow certain conditions similar to the “production curve”. Quick example, if you have 20 workers on your factory, and you want to have 20+ workers to increase production, you need another factory, else, you start losing productivity. On simpler words, a small guild could use a “house” while a big guild could use a “castle”, but a big guild couldn’t use a “house”, while a small guild could use a “castle”. This doesn’t mean “punish big guilds for being big”, nor “benefit small guilds for being small”, on the contrary, the investment of bigger guilds should be bigger, because they want to have greater gains.

edit: About sizes of guilds related to guild halls, I would like to add some info about a series I’m a fan of, what to me is the epitome of MMOs. The .Hack// series.

In The World:R2 (the fictional world of a fictional MMOrpg), each guild inhabits a @home or Guild Hall, smaller guilds from the size of 5 to 15 members have bases with a couple of rooms, while bigger guilds from the size of 1000 to 2000 members have bases the size of a town.

I’m sorry to read that Mr. Whiteside, please don’t worry about us, take your time and as others have said, we’ll help you get back on track once you’re back.

JonPeters.5630:

Jon

Can I answer for this?

1) What makes a creature interesting and challenging? Is it their skills, and would a combination of two random skills be balanced, rewarding, challenging?
Choice. Choice is what make not just creatures, but content interesting and challenging. Right now, we lack choice, because there is a “best way” to approach creatures and it is heavily set by one, only one, alternative: DPS.
I interpretate Rambo’s suggestion as, if creatures get stronger against certain specs, then bringing only DPS focused characters is detrimental, because one thing they lack, is adaptability. A tankier spec can kill a monster, maybe slower, but can, and certainly can adapt too. The same goes with Condi specs (those tend to be tankier), or even, CC focused specs.

1a) How do you make sure that all 6 combinations of skills are similarly balanced, create a variety of tactics, work together, get used in a way that makes their synergy work. Don’t create problems of triviality or difficulty when combined with a different creatures randomly chosen combination of skills?

This is a hard question, but I would say: Mimic players. The game is old enough to have certain guidelines towards how different “styles” work against others. The scenario has changed since the last years, now we can respec on the go, and the BiS type of gear, can be used on multiple characters, that means, we “could” expect players to bring more than one set of gear, and adapt to the situation. Also, you don’t really need to have all combinations being random, look at what Diablo 3 did with their “elite monsters” and the special abilities they get, the system has a lot of randomness, but they made it so, certain abilities go together, or don’t, because certain combinations weren’t smart, and didn’t encourage smart gameplay.

2) One thing that makes difficult content satisfying is mastery. How does this system allow players to develop a sense of mastery?

This is a tricky question. I don’t think even reknown speedrunners feel completly satisfied with the current “mastery” they have towards dungeon content. I’ve heard them ask for “gambits” on dungeons. I bring this up, because mastery isn’t necessarily remembering an algorithm used to finish a certain task as quick as possible, being able to adapt, in my opinion, is true mastery. Being able to “see” what is going, and knowing “hey, the mobs in this instance got x and y abilities, this are the traits/skills I need to face them, and I know how to make this build work in this situation.” = mastery

2a) How do we develop a clear visual language for 4 skills and how they combine into 6 patterns for creatures using the already limited set of creature animations and effects?

You can introduce icons, like you did with gambits for the queen’s gauntlet, you could use the text under the entity’s name.
But again, if we are limited on animations and visual effects, you need to focus on numbers and mechanic effects (which you have done before, with gambits.)

3) Many of the dungeons already have walls, and requirements for completion that players have found workarounds in the system to get past. How does your system actually solve those problems?

Adding more walls, is part of the solution. But the other thing is, stacking on corners makes content trivial, it removes any choice at all from it too.

4) You suggest some aspects of skill ideas, namely the outcome but you do not discuss what the player experience is in getting to that outcome. How do you propose to build those creature skills in a way that allows players to use a variety of tools to gain mastery over them? How do they force the players to use strategies that enforce what we think are the important pillars of GW2 combat.

The idea isn’t to force players to use certain strategies, but to have a choice in what strategy to use. And I’m talking about depth, because if out of 10 options, one is the best by a huge margin, then I don’t really have 10 options, I have 1, and 9 unreasonable alternatives.
I’m reading the book of your new AI designer, and I think there are great ideas there to achieve what you are asking. It’s all about choice, and making the combat, an interesting problem.
Right now, what I can say, is that, we have many mechanics in the game, very interesting, and very fun to use. But most of those mechanics, are irrelevant on PvE, why? well, there are either barriers for them to be effective (like condis caps, and CC caps), or because monsters lack responsiveness towards certain actions, like having a stack of monsters on the corner of a pillar, and them not moving out of there (even if some of them are clearly ranged monsters).

Sorry for derailing :P

Devata.6589:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

The only request I have is: please give small guilds (2-5 people) something to strive for, too.

Your post did me realize something.. What are people talking about when they talk about small guilds?

I am talking about 15 active (So online at least once every 2 weeks) people.

In all honestly I personally would think 2 – 5 is so little that would be the same as making it available to every-body’s personal guild what I would think as undesirable.

But what are other people talking about when they talk about small guilds?

In my opinion, 5 people should be considered a small guild.
That is the minimum required for dungeons to be completed, to tPvP teams, is the max pop. of a group, etc.
When we talk small guilds, we speak about groups of friends that do stuff together, and the minimum required for that is 5.

15-60 people is a medium guild, and over 60 active, is a big guild. I think most guilds in the game must be medium guilds, and very few compared to that, are big guilds. Then 5-15 is a small guild, less than that, and we are talking about personal guilds.

MajorValtiel.6310:

JonPeters.5630:

MajorValtiel.6310:

Would also be nice if, within the Guild Halls, players could buy private chambers for themselves. No need to add a physical space for them in the guild hall either, a door titled Private Chambers would lead players to their own Private Chamber Instance. They could also invite maybe a miax 8-10 players to their own PC instances.

What would you want to be able to do in there?

Or perhaps what happens in private chambers stays in private chambers?

Would be a great place for individual player costumization of their own place. We would also be able to furnish it either by buying on the tp or crafting (could also be a good oportunity to release the ocasional furniture on the gemstore) or maybe specific timed events that would happen throughout a week or two that could reward us with unique items for this space. Living story could also give us recipes for these furnitures – or even the pieces of furnitures themselves – via achievments after the 1st playthrough. (Eg: Finishing each part of dragon’s reach, would awards us with two pices that combined together would become a table with simbols of the 5 races in it for us to put in the private chamber).

Maybe even add some QoL features embeded into this chamber. Like a chest specific to store toys like kites and musical instruments and tonics.

This private chamber could also be a great place for RPers.

This sounds great, I think you’re right, Guild Halls could also offer a personal space for each member.
I wonder if one could have a room like the one Scarlet had under Prosperity…

At this point is kind of hard to summarize everything that has been posted to date, because of how diverse and innovative some ideas can be, and I wouldn’t want to cut parts from an idea that was designed as a whole. So for the sake of helping those who want to join the discussion from now:

Guidelines about what we expect from Guild Halls

1.- Progression: One thing that replicates itself from one suggestion to another, is how we want to add progression to the game, this might have many origins in how the game currently is, but the main consensus is that we want to add progression onto different aspects to the game, relating them to Guild Halls.

2.- Self Expression: The sole idea of customization is tied to the ability of self expression in the game, from being able to decide the “theme” of your Guild Hall, to being able to decorate it, be it with freedom of placement for elements (like furniture), to being able to plan themed rooms, services. Guilds in GW2 have a huge variety of purposes and themes, and their Halls should resemble this.

3.- Interaction with the World: Many suggestions include ideas that would affect the way Tyria “reacts” to the presence of guilds, from having your “airship” parked on a map and by doing so, affecting the mechanics of how it works (like adding bonuses to the map), to the idea of competing over land plots for having control over a certain map. Players from GW2 want to leave their mark on the world, and with the current premise of a Living World, this makes sense.

4.- Deeper social interaction and identity: In GW2 guilds want identity, players join guilds not just to get the mechanic benefits of being on one, but also because of how the content is improved when you play with people you know. Dungeons get easier and more profitable, huge world events too, WvW requires this as a basis for success, and so on. Guilds then require every tool out there to help them in the process of bonding and organization. Guild Halls help to this cause greatly.

Also I would like to add a comment about a small confusion I’ve noticed we players have toward this thread. In many posts members of Anet tell us to just be creative and don’t restrain ourselves to what our ideas can be. This is not intuitive for us, because, and I think most people here, as players of this genre, this is a weird situation, not many times we are heard in this way, so we tend to try to suggest things “we think would not be rejected”, over standards that we really don’t know, like how costly this would be, or how much time it would take to be implemented, or if by proposing a complex idea, it would damage the game by taking attention away from other matters.
To that, I only can say “thanks”, I can’t speak for everyone, but at least for me, I think we are being listened, and that we are really participating, it is a bit scary, but also exciting.

In my opinion, content should be designed for everyone, not just those who “you think will be potentially interested on it”, at least speaking of MMOs.

When you do that, later, you suffer from splitting your playerbase, specially when the game ages and you need to shift populations toward certain game types. Maybe Holly Homemakers should be taken into consideration when making the core of the system, but the guy that only plays fractals, will actually never try anything else, because the content will be designed to be “not for him”.