Guild Wars 2

Here’s my two cents after completing a Tier 1 Bounty:

1.) I think that the missions should be tweaked a bit. You know how racing games have a time attack mode? You have a certain amount of time to get to a checkpoint and then you get more time. If you don’t make a checkpoint in time you lose. I think the bounty system should work this way. Keep all of the guild members in the same map. Take out a target and get time added to the timer. Splintering forces is rough for communication even over comms, but it is a LOT of fun.

2.) It needs a better timer system.

3.) The overflow problem is very real. We had to shuffle party members in one of the maps for our tier 2 run just so they could invite the other members that were in the wrong map. This needs a rework.

4.) I am still of the mind that smaller guilds get the short end of the stick here. Look through my post history. I brought up that this would be an issue before you guys released this content and before it was even stated how the system would work. I would say I hate to toot my own horn, but in this case I don’t hate it. I read between the lines on Leah’s blog post and was spot on with my prognostication. You guys need to show some of the smaller guilds some love and have this content dynamically scale. If larger guilds want to game the system with a pro rated earning system, let them. At the end of the day, what does it matter?

5.) There needs to be a toggle to show guild member dots on the mini map and map. Even when we split up into teams, we can’t see everyone. This doesn’t just work for guild bounties etc. It would work for guild clears of maps, for WvW etc. Commander titles don’t work for this when you need people in different maps. If maps can show where party members are, a system can be implemented for guild members and should be in the game in my opinion. A toggle can be put in place for people that wish to remain hidden so that it isn’t always active. I am not looking to trounce on privacy here.

6.) I hope that more patience is exuded with content in the future til it is ready to come out. I love the idea of this and I feel once you guys implement it fully, everyone will grow to love it. I want to say thanks for the idea of it too. It’s great and I hope it gets better, but I do honestly feel like you guys really short changed smaller guilds and it needs a rework.

idk about some of this stuff in this thread like, “i left the game” or “i am leaving the game.” this is one small new aspect to the game. it sounds like from anthony’s tone that they will change some things about this system and in favor of some things that will benefit those of us who find it broken at best.

fact remains that this is one tiny aspect of the game. the god temple events and loot are all better than they were. the daily system is a lot more dynamic. boss loot is better. gold drop and core drops are up.

patience is still a thing in mmos. this type of gaming is a marathon not a sprint. does it need to be fixed in some cases in pretty huge ways? yeah totally, but this whole, “im quitting, or i just quit” is just as ridiculous as some of the issues that the smaller guilds as a FACT are facing with the guild mission system.

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

ANet’s silence speaks volumes. It’s not the answer I was hoping for, but truthfully it was the answer I was expecting.

Agreed. It would be nice if they even came on here just to say, “Hey guys, we are reading ALL of this. We appreciate all of the feedback. We are just exercising patience in formulating a plan to address the valid points in here. Thanks for your patience in return.”

If you want to steal this ArenaNet, go ahead.

So, would giving anyone who happens to be around for a guild mission the same reward as the people in the guild that kicked it off sound like a good way to fix this? I think it does. It’s a symbiotic relationship happening. The guild gets people to help and it “advertises” that they are active. It gives random passers by a shot at stuff they wouldn’t have access to. Solo players don’t have to be in guilds, they can join this like any world boss fight etc. Small guilds can tell their members, “Hey! a guild event is going okittenuch and such a place!” they can then earn merits for themselves and have shots at pre-cursors etc.

I think this is the best way for all involved( Guilds, players of all types, and most of all, ArenaNet).

critickitten.1498:

Mackdose.6504:

-snip-

That’s why I’m saying that it’s time to get off the fence and choose whether they want a game that is friendly to casuals or one that caters to hardcore players. Because their attempts to appease both sides just aren’t working right now.

I think to a certain degree they are catering to larger guilds with vertical progression in mind with guild missions. those are a grind to be sure. they missed the boat on catering to casual guilds by not dynamically scaling the guild missions for smaller guilds. everything in the open world was supposed to dynamically scale so that you could play how you want. this deviates from that. i think that falls in line with the communication thing that was foremost in your original post.

with BiS gear, casuals don’t need it. You can do anything you want without ascended gear. I have run fractals successfully with sub 80 guildies in green and blue gear. they do get rid of the tiered progression by not gating fractals with gear. you can do the fractals at any level, but if you want to keep progressing you have to get stuff for it. it’s optional. i run dungeons with people in gold gear. gold gear is cheap. heck, if we are being honest, any casual player can pick up a set of exotic without a ton of grind. i think the trick is, “do players enjoy the game?”

i don’t want to deviate from the topic though so i won’t. i would just like to see more honesty from arenanet. they have shown they are capable of it and i would like to see them stick to it.

Perfect example of this is what the OP said: The pre-cursor scavenger hunt. The time for its release keeps getting pushed back by what Colin has been saying I would add that the guild missions should be put in that too. Their actions don’t match up with their words. Izzy said they put the first unlocks of Guild Missions in Tier 5 Art of War to make it a challenge. Awesome. Except for the fact that only guilds interested in WvW would have this unlocked right off the bat. So it’s not a challenge for multi-faceted guilds that like PvE and WvW. It’s only a challenge for PvE centered guilds. If actions matched words there would have been a whole new tier put in the guild mission tab with the first guild mission placed in that and then all the others wherever they would be. That way it would have been an even starting point for all involved.

The OP is not out of line when saying that the devs haven’t been transparent in some cases. I also feel however that at other times they have been more forthright in what they are doing and I find it really refreshing. honesty is the best policy. You can’t lose. You may ruffle feathers when people’s ideas of what they want does not mesh with the devs vision, but there can’t be any misguided conspiracy theories.

I would bring up more examples of things not being conveyed in a more transparent light, but I hope that my point has been made. Oh wait, one more: Communication on guild missions has been poor at best.

If you like to do different things this is an issue. If a guild tells you you can’t rep your sPvP guild but they don’t sPvP, then should you even consider a 100% guild? I say no.

For some reason, this storyline thing has always been ArenaNet’s Achilles heel. They do open world comedy really well. I liken it to Saturday Night Live. When the skits are funny, they are hilarious. Some of those skits get made into movies and they are terrible. They are great for 5 minute bursts, but don’t have what it takes for long form. It’s the same for GW1 and GW2. Fortunately, ArenaNet gave us the option to skip out on it.

Everything else in the open world Dynamically scales when it comes to group content. Why not Guild Missions ArenaNet?

Oglaf.1074:

What bothers me is this: this removed a lot of Warrior survivability. Where is our increased tankyness to compensate? Even Warriors who do not go all ’zerker are relying on Pies/Ghosts to survive.

Or dodging, but I see your point, except that I don’t.

The best part about dailies is you don’t have to do them. Or you can. It’s up to you, just like anything else in this game. You don’t have a full set of ascended stuff? No problem. There is nothing that can’t be done without them.

I posted a ton in the early going of this and haven’t really felt like responding since, but I have a few more comments.

First off, I think the content that ArenaNet created here is wonderful as far as the things that we will get to do. I can only imagine what that stuff is, but as I love this game so much, I know that it will be really fun to do with my guild. As a community I think we are missing the point on where this stuff is coming from. A lot of us asked for more end game. We wanted long term things to do. This stuff is long term. We got it. We just didn’t get it how we wanted it, but I think they are giving us something better than what we wanted as far as the content goes. I just think it was implemented poorly.

ArenaNet is flat out telling us that they want us to spend points in Art of War even if we have zero interest in WvW. That is a poor decision. They are also wanting to create community by having us work together. The onus is on us and the larger guilds to let everyone know when these events are taking place.

I think the other mistake was creating guild content that does not dynamically scale, as I said before a few days prior to this patch. We also need to be allowed to join as many guilds as we want. This 5 guild cap isn’t helping this at all.

I understand not wanting to play outside your guild. I am a leader of a 10 guild alliance from gw1 and I can’t even be a member of all my guilds guilds much less other guilds that focus specifically on other content. This needs to change as well. I don’t think this should have been implemented so soon. It’s a great feature, and I think in the long run, even if nothing changes, the community will grow to love this content as they play through it. ArenaNet has my trust on their created content. They do a superior job of it to other companies. I hope that they will tweak some of the things they have done with this.

If they really want to make this a community game, they need to at least give everyone participating, THE SAME REWARDS. People will be willing to help if they think they are getting treated equally. Small guilds can join in. Content can be played by all. It really is the easiest fix to assuage this situation short of making all of this dynamically scale which I believe is the best fix. Also, none of the PvE guild missions should have been in Art of War.

http://www.guildwars2hub.com/guides/basics/complete-guide-guild-missions

After reading this and Lis Cardy’s piece at Massively(I posted that link in a a previous post) I still say I am really excited about this, but not about how the unlocks work. It’s way too cost prohibitive and all the concerns about the sheer amount of Influence needed to unlock this stuff are totally justified. More so, given the fact that WvW guilds are given a massive headstart in terms of Influence needed. Yeah, the merits do gate some of that, but I am of the opinion still after having a more well formed opinion that Art of War was a real mistake to use for PvE content.

I am all about having to work for something. That isn’t the problem. My problem lies with guilds that like WvW as well as PvE having a big advantage because they already have a ton of Influence spent in Art of War. The “Challenge” is there for some, but not all.

Blacklight.2871:

Iason Evan.3806:

Blacklight.2871:

cesmode.4257:

Yeah my guild just blew a lot of gold and 30k influence to get to art of war 5, and we still need to wait a week to train it up.

Not happy.

Just curious, but why weren’t you training it up prior to the announcement of guild missions? Or if you were, how much of a priority was it for you?

Blacklight, most of us are totally wanting the guild missions. Especially us PvE guilds. The issue is they put it in Art of War at Tier 5 which was exclusively WvW track until 4 or 5 days ago. Those of us that don’t like WvW were not leveling it up. Why would we if we don’t do WvW? So now we are having to scramble to unlock a track we had zero interest in til now. I hope that clears it up for you. Do you see the disconnect for some of the players here? Why should PvE guilds have to unlock Art of War stuff to do PvE stuff? The reasons that Izzy gave weren’t really thought out well either. ArenaNet is basically telling the PvE only guilds that they are giving guilds that do everything a headstart to PvE access simply by way of them liking content that PvE guilds don’t like. It makes no sense. If it was really the way that Mr. Cartwright was explaining and they wanted it to be challenging for EVERYONE to get, they would have made a whole new tier for Guild Missions.

Look at my post history in this thread. I’m vehemently opposed to this guild mission system as it’s been described, for precisely the reasons you stated. I was curious if cesmode was in a similar situation.

The thing about why he wasn’t training it up is what i was responding to. threw me off a bit.

Blacklight.2871:

cesmode.4257:

Yeah my guild just blew a lot of gold and 30k influence to get to art of war 5, and we still need to wait a week to train it up.

Not happy.

Just curious, but why weren’t you training it up prior to the announcement of guild missions? Or if you were, how much of a priority was it for you?

Blacklight, most of us are totally wanting the guild missions. Especially us PvE guilds. The issue is they put it in Art of War at Tier 5 which was exclusively WvW track until 4 or 5 days ago. Those of us that don’t like WvW were not leveling it up. Why would we if we don’t do WvW? So now we are having to scramble to unlock a track we had zero interest in til now. I hope that clears it up for you. Do you see the disconnect for some of the players here? Why should PvE guilds have to unlock Art of War stuff to do PvE stuff? The reasons that Izzy gave weren’t really thought out well either. ArenaNet is basically telling the PvE only guilds that they are giving guilds that do everything a headstart to PvE access simply by way of them liking content that PvE guilds don’t like. It makes no sense. If it was really the way that Mr. Cartwright was explaining and they wanted it to be challenging for EVERYONE to get, they would have made a whole new tier for Guild Missions.

http://bit.ly/13kudgp this is a link to Lis Cardy’s preview of this stuff over at Massively. The rewards look great, but she echoes the same sentiment as here, albeit in a less caustic fashion as some of the people here.

ArenaNet has implemented something that could really build community from the get go and put it behind a tiered wall of Influence. I am gonna go light on the superlatives and say that it left me scratching my head as to why.

My prediction? A bunch of people that haven’t played in a while will download the patch and see that they can’t do this stuff straight away with their guild and not research that they can do this with other guilds that are larger and play more and they are immediately going to log off again until the next patch. That part is on ArenaNet. If there was an immediate tier of this stuff to do, it would get people excited about the game again. The other part is on those players. If they can’t be bothered to figure out how it all works, then this isn’t the experience they were looking for to begin with.

Overall, I think this is a wonderful addition to the game. I am just a tad disgruntled with how it was implemented at the entry level because the bar is so high. It goes against original design philosophy.

I don’t understand why this content doesn’t scale dynamically like the rest of the open world content.

Here’s my suggestion(s) ArenaNet:

1.) Dynamically scale the Guild Missions. They are in the open world where everything scales. Include those in on it. Win/Win for all.

2.) Create a new Guild Tab for Guild Missions. It should have it’s own tiering system because it is its own thing.

3.) Let players know the direction you are heading in without making us read in between the lines with your actions because they don’t match your words. Unless of course you don’t want honest backlash to things we honestly don’t want or like. Your actions are telling us you want us in big guilds.

4.) Implement a plan of action to lift the number of guilds we can be in like you guys have been saying since WAY before the game came out. This wouldn’t even be a problem except for the fact that you let us have 10 guild alliances in GW1. As a leader of a 10 guild Alliance, I can’t even be in all the guilds of my friends dating way back to 2007!

there is a multi-fold problem here. the players are looking at it from perspectives only focusing on certain aspects of the game. players should have condi caps on them. monsters shouldn’t. let conditions affect certain yellow objects in pve. don’t let them affect stuff in wvw.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I must be missing something in this discussion. how do 5 man guilds not have all the research done at this point? I joined a guild 2 months ago and have contributed 15,000 influence to my guild in that time. Even if you have a 5-man guild, if you formed near the start of the game you should have earned around 200,000 influence by now assuming you haven’t spent a single gold to buy any extra.

Also why can’t these small guilds join a bigger guild and do the events as a 5 man group within the big guild while they work up the research in their small guild? I mean that is the entire point of being able to join 4 guilds at once isn’t it? I’m in a smaller guild but i’m also in a 400 man guild and we have 300,000 influence just sitting in the bank. Just run with your friends in a larger guild and earn the rewards there until you can finish the research in your small guild.

Yeah you are kinda missing the point a little. The “Bounty” Mission which is PvE content, is locked away in tier 5 of Art of War. Art of War is ALL WvW. If your guild doesn’t do any WvW, there has never been any reason to unlock it. A small guild then needs tens of thousands of Influence to first unlock stuff it will never use to get to something it wants to use. You have to wait weeks to get it. The devs are also sending a very clear message(Intentionally or ignorantly; for the sake of argument I will go with the latter and cut them some slack) that WvW guilds or multi-faceted guilds that dabble in all areas of the game are going to get a significant advantage for doing guild missions solely based on the fact that they like WvW and unlocked Art of War. Make sense now?

I feel like all the nostalgic stuff should just be on the gem shop. if you want it, convert gold to gems or buy it with money.

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 @-’—-

I have responded to this and missed a point I wanted to make: If you wanted to make it a challenge for all, why let the guilds that already have Art of War unlocked off easy simply because they like WvW? So many people have stated in this thread time and again that it should have been in a new category so that everyone is in the same position. There are quite a few flaws in the design choices for this(either that or there are things you guys aren’t explaining which leaves us in a bad position to come up with relevant reasons for how we want to see content released) and I will list them:

1.) Art of War is WvW. Guilds that don’t WvW have more of that “Challenge” that you speak of. Guilds that like WvW don’t have the same challenge.

2.) You are forcing smaller guilds that want to do this to group up with other guilds. So much for playing the game how we want. Unless you guys are saying, play how you want as long as it’s in big groups, but then just come out and say it.

3.) When you switch a guild category to include PvE when it’s WvW only, give guilds time to build for it. It puts those guilds on unequal footing. You let us know, “Hey! Guild Missions!” We got excited and then 4 days prior to the patch you let us know it was in a category that we may not have built for because our guild may not like that content.

I honestly thought it would be in that tier 5 category that had nothing in it. PvE category, nothing so far related to it. Whatevs though. You guys can either rectify it or not. I just feel like there were honest design mistakes here(intentional or otherwise) and you have given some guilds a head start negating some of your “challenges” for them simply because they enjoy an aspect of your game that maybe others don’t.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

SNIP

~Izzy @-’—-

Then, with all due respect, you guys should have labeled it differently. Why would a PvE guild ever buy those guild lines before now? It gives multi-faceted guilds a huge headstart just in terms of which buffs they have open. My guild is fully unlocked on PvE buffs, but had the description of Art of War said even an iota of something about PvE, I would have purchased it. If nothing else, it’s a real shame about the lack of communication about what Art of War does.

I’d hate to say anything dumb, but as a leader of a fairly big sized guild(110 people) I am pretty ticked about it and I feel I have very good reason for being ticked. You are putting PvE unlocks in what has been ENTIRELY a WvW line. A heads up on it a month ago would have been great. I love your guys game. I downright adore it, but the fact that this was totally glossed over by you guys and you didnt even see that it would be an issue and I made a thread about this before it even happened and you guys didnt respond to it is totally disconcerting. My guild now has to wait way longer than it should have to because you all are putting a PvE buff in a WvW line and telling us about it way too late.

Mag Li.2581:

Maybe the intention is to cull the number of small guilds. Not out right eliminating small guilds but put in HUGE incentives for player to join an additional, larger guild.

It would be nice for Anet to comment on some of these, kind of pointless to create a thread for questions and just leave it like this…

The only problem with this is the 5 guild join cap. My alliance came over from GW1 and we have a 10 guild Alliance there that formed in 2007. As leader it makes it tough because i can only be a member of 5 guilds total. I can’t even rep all the guilds that are members of our previous alliance. You factor in sPvP only guilds and WvW guilds and that makes it impossible to stay in all the ones you want to be a part of. We were told as this game was in development that we could be in as many guilds as we wanted to be in. That is a moot point now. IDK if this stuff was being designed with that in mind, but it can’t be denied that larger guilds are being catered to, while at the same time, not being catered to, because you can not do large guild map clears without a certain degree of tedium involved. Sans having a few commanders, there is no option to see guild members on the map or mini map outside of a 5 person group. Anything over that requires a commander and if you don’t have multiple commanders costing hundreds of gold, it makes it difficult to keep track of it all. ArenaNet should give us at the very least, a toggle just to see guild members as dots on the mini map. I don’t believe that is too much to ask for.

http://thepaletree.net/2013/02/22/guilds-and-the-demerit-system/

A good blog that speaks to the problem better than I can communicate it. I am in the same boat. I lead a guild of 110 people and we are all on the same server. I am not communicating my problems with the system for my guild. I am communicating it for the people that have small guilds for which the Influence needed just to get to the proper tiers to do this stuff will take a while.

I am not saying this is some huge deal and it’s ruining the game. It isn’t. Guild Wars 2 is amazing. Some of the design choices are odd though. Putting PvE Guild Missions in “Art of War” which is the de facto WvW guild tab for rep rewards is akin to a restaurant putting hamburgers in the dessert section on their menu. It makes ZERO sense.

Flamenco.3894:

To make this content some kind of end-game and exclusive, make a tier 6 art of war, which will take 3 months to be researched. The reason for this is so the content will last much longer.

You mean it will take longer to start because of the gating. Implying it will last longer means that smaller guilds have to be able to start it. If they can’t start it for a few weeks or months, then your point is moot.

Toxyn.9608:

Cuchullain.3104:

Please stop adding gated content. For the life of me I can’t understand why you put up so many barriers to having fun in GW2. Is this a game or job?

Just let guilds have fun and do the missions without prerequisites . How hard is that?

This is the other end of the spectrum that I also disagree with. If content wasn’t gated in some way, the content would be consumed within a week and then everyone would be asking for more.

The same could be said of the development team. If they aren’t tasked with creating entirely fun to repeat content, said game is doing it wrong. Gated is a lazy way to do it.

Toxyn.9608:

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?

^ I have the same concerns. Art of War consists entirely of WvW upgrades. If your guild isn’t WvW focused, then you have to start from scratch. Why would you gate new content like this if this is indeed correct.

As for my less diplomatic response if it is the case: This is like me writing a paper called “WvW Tactics” and then spending the whole paper writing about PvE. I am really hoping this is just incorrect information, because if true, it’s a head scratcher to say the least.

This is my post from a thread I started yesterday about this very thing. I guess I will post it here to try and get some answers. Thanks.

My concern(albeit minor) with this is that you can’t have your guild be super small and do this. It’s worded in such a way as to say when I read between the lines, “If you are a small guild you need to get more people to help you, and BTW, it’s also gonna take your guild WAY longer to earn the Influence necessary to do this.”
How am I coming to the conclusion that it will take a lot of influence? Colin Johanson did an interview in England the other day saying a lot of the guild mission types will take a long time to get. Influence is NOT pro-rated to the size of the guild. Smaller guilds can not get stuff done in the same amount of time that a larger guild can. I think that needs to change. Why? ArenaNet seems to be telling us two different things.
1.) Our Alliances from GWClassic are null and void. I am a Leader of a large guild on Sanctum of Rall. All of our Alliance guilds had to fold into my guild and not without haranguing. People get attached to their guilds. And for good reason. They had to join my guild as it was the lead Alliance guild and I couldn’t even be a member of all 10 guilds that were in our Alliance in GWClassic in GW2. So instead of picking and choosing, we all folded into 1 guild. That leaves people disgruntled and for good reason. I don’t know why Alliance chat was not a no brainer decision for GW2. It should have been. More so now that we have a guild mission system.
2.) ArenaNet is basically saying if you have a small guild and want to do guild missions you need help and if you had a large alliance in GWClassic, you need to fold all of that into 1 guild and then ArenaNet doesn’t even give us the option to have Guild parties of more than 5 people in the open world sans a Commander title that costs 100 gold.
3.) Why are there no guild options to form larger parties for PvE outside the Commander title which is supposed to be for WvW? With these guild missions spanning multiple maps it seems like the best way to handle that is to give us leaders tick boxes that let us choose who can lead larger forces in PvE. At the very least, why can’t we just have an option to have guild members appear on our maps and mini maps that we can turn on or off as we desire?
I was going to put this in the Suggestions section, but it presents more questions than actual suggestions. Thanks for your time, and thank you for any candid answers to my queries. My Alliance and I are actually really looking forward to this content as it is going to be a blast. We are the right size for it. I am just trying to look out for the smaller guilds that this doesn’t seem to want to cater to. Maybe in the future these events can dynamically size to fit the needs of smaller guilds while at the same time give guilds the option to track their players for these missions to help facilitate larger forces across multiple maps, and at the very least for large map completion events. It’s not unusual for it to be very frustrating for us to have 25+ people doing a map clear on an evening and not be able to all keep track of each other. Letting us see each other by dots on our map would assuage that issue completely.

Warscythes.9307:

Iason Evan.3806:

I don’t see a problem with small guilds staying small. If that’s what they want, a nice cozy circle of friends, then I don’t want to tell them they need more people so they can do the content.

If a guild is small because it can’t recruit people, however, maybe this can indeed help them grow if they run a couple events and get noticed.

which is fine, but they need to pro-rate the influence earned for smaller guilds. why should a larger guild have access to guild mission buffs faster because they earn influence at a faster rate by sheer numbers? does anyone have a problem with smaller guilds being able to earn influence or pay for buffs for less influence cost?

it seems a penalty is occurring for smaller guilds. Not only do they have to get more guilds to jump in, but they can’t buy things with influence at the same rate or even close to the same rate as larger ones. there is a disconnect to me there.
[/quote]

Why should larger guilds be able to earn rewards faster?

Well gee, maybe it is because they have more people playing, therefore earning it faster? How is it fair to larger guilds if smaller guild of 5 can access the same tier of content at the same rate as a large guild of 500? You are still able to do the content regardless because you can participate in other guild’s missions. So it is not as if you have been locked out.

Really, what you are basically saying is how is it fair a guy playing 8 hours a day can get faster access to content than a guy playing only 2 hours a day.

Do you see the problem here?[/quote]

I am saying exactly that. A guild of 8-10 should be able to acquire a guild karma buff at the same rate as a guild of 100+(which is the size of the guild I happen to lead). A smaller guild shouldn’t be able to do it faster, but if a guild of close friends wants to play with only themselves, they shouldn’t be penalized for wanting to remain smaller and therefore earning buffs slower. Why do any of us care if a small guild is earning 15% more karma or getting the same magic find as a large guild. To argue against them getting the exact same rewards as a large guild is asinine.

[/quote]

I don’t see a problem with small guilds staying small. If that’s what they want, a nice cozy circle of friends, then I don’t want to tell them they need more people so they can do the content.

If a guild is small because it can’t recruit people, however, maybe this can indeed help them grow if they run a couple events and get noticed. [/quote]

which is fine, but they need to pro-rate the influence earned for smaller guilds. why should a larger guild have access to guild mission buffs faster because they earn influence at a faster rate by sheer numbers? does anyone have a problem with smaller guilds being able to earn influence or pay for buffs for less influence cost?

it seems a penalty is occurring for smaller guilds. Not only do they have to get more guilds to jump in, but they can’t buy things with influence at the same rate or even close to the same rate as larger ones. there is a disconnect to me there.

‘“But what if my guild is super small?”’ you may say? Not to worry—all these missions take place in the persistent world, which gives you the ability to rally people from the surrounding countryside and maybe make some new friends in the process!" -taken from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/leah-rivera-on-new-guild-missions/ by Leah Rivera.

My concern(albeit minor) with this is that you can’t have your guild be super small and do this. It’s worded in such a way as to say when I read between the lines, “If you are a small guild you need to get more people to help you, and BTW, it’s also gonna take your guild WAY longer to earn the Influence necessary to do this.”

How am I coming to the conclusion that it will take a lot of influence? Colin Johanson did an interview in England the other day saying a lot of the guild mission types will take a long time to get. Influence is NOT pro-rated to the size of the guild. Smaller guilds can not get stuff done in the same amount of time that a larger guild can. I think that needs to change. Why? ArenaNet seems to be telling us two different things.

1.) Our Alliances from GWClassic are null and void. I am a Leader of a large guild on Sanctum of Rall. All of our Alliance guilds had to fold into my guild and not without haranguing. People get attached to their guilds. And for good reason. They had to join my guild as it was the lead Alliance guild and I couldn’t even be a member of all 10 guilds that were in our Alliance in GWClassic in GW2. So instead of picking and choosing, we all folded into 1 guild. That leaves people disgruntled and for good reason. I don’t know why Alliance chat was not a no brainer decision for GW2. It should have been. More so now that we have a guild mission system.

2.) ArenaNet is basically saying if you have a small guild and want to do guild missions you need help and if you had a large alliance in GWClassic, you need to fold all of that into 1 guild and then ArenaNet doesn’t even give us the option to have Guild parties of more than 5 people in the open world sans a Commander title that costs 100 gold.

3.) Why are there no guild options to form larger parties for PvE outside the Commander title which is supposed to be for WvW? With these guild missions spanning multiple maps it seems like the best way to handle that is to give us leaders tick boxes that let us choose who can lead larger forces in PvE. At the very least, why can’t we just have an option to have guild members appear on our maps and mini maps that we can turn on or off as we desire?

I was going to put this in the Suggestions section, but it presents more questions than actual suggestions. Thanks for your time, and thank you for any candid answers to my queries. My Alliance and I are actually really looking forward to this content as it is going to be a blast. We are the right size for it. I am just trying to look out for the smaller guilds that this doesn’t seem to want to cater to. Maybe in the future these events can dynamically size to fit the needs of smaller guilds while at the same time give guilds the option to track their players for these missions to help facilitate larger forces across multiple maps, and at the very least for large map completion events. It’s not unusual for it to be very frustrating for us to have 25+ people doing a map clear on an evening and not be able to all keep track of each other. Letting us see each other by dots on our map would assuage that issue completely.

I would like it more if after Unshakable dropped, we had a timer where we could stun, daze and KD. It would make fights more interesting for coordinated groups. You could also negate certain boss mechanics if timed properly. I LOVE my Warrior Mace/Mace build for the control it offers, but sadly, that build is rendered useless in all boss fights. It’s as if ArenaNet is encouraging us to just run high DPS builds.

LOCO.1785:

There’s a scavenger hunt on the way, which is addressing the issue of precursors.

I don’t usually like to do it, but it’s so applicable here:

/thread

After having done the Demagogue Event 2 times in less than 24 hours with my guild was interesting. I used the same character and the second time, the chest was still displayed as open for me and a guildy who used the same characters twice. I don’t think that is the chest. It acts as a world chest and boss chest at the same time. It was hidden by a gourd that was over it both times til the boss died. It also only drops a few items like a world chest and I just don’t believe that chest will contain that item. It doesn’t fit the quest very well.

We also did the Zhoqafa Event chain in Straits this morning. It is a total of 10 events. There is a 15-30 minute interval between the first parts til when you can spawn the anti-aircraft event and then get the escort mission. There is an event to escort even after you beat the boss. The chest from the Eye of Zhaitan takes a few seconds to open because it has an activation time, and it is a big chest. The staff skin just seems to fit the event. I could see how no one would have gotten it yet. It’s long and has a break and most wouldn’t even know what to do during that down time and the airship event in the swamp isn’t close at all to where you are at the start. This is the event people should be farming ad nauseum.

I totally love this idea. I also wish we could do it for guild events. So tired of NOT being able to all show up as a guild on the mini map for our Tuesday Night Map Clears. It’s frustrating for officers and members alike. Guilds need more love. If you let us form guilds, and let us all get loot from kills beyond our party sizes, how do you expect us to all see each other in PvE? In WvW, what’s the point of being in a guild if you can’t see your guild members? You are basically telling us that following random commanders is more important, or that we can’t just be casual WvW players unless we want to spend 100 gold.

the one in metrica in the air is boss. so is the garden one. i also like the one in lornar’s. they are all pretty boss.

As much as I loved Cantha, I would reall rather see wholly new continents that have their own place in the lore. I would much rather find out about The Isle of janthir. Nightfall is another place I wouldn’t want to go back to. I think wholly new places for this game would be much more fun. We’ve seen those before and we already have Tyria in both games. It’s time to bring on wholly new adventures!

We need to make kitten room a 1v1 cross server PvP arena.

exocet.6308:

1. Remain calm.
2. Hear me out.
3. Share your thoughts.

What bothers me is that it requires an uninterrupted 1h per day (time for daily + time for monthly roughly divided across the 20 days) x 20 days streak.
[EDIT] I apologize if this sounded like I’m looking at it as a chore. The point I’m trying to get across is that perhaps there should be a more flexible way to handle laurels. Like something else other than the daily quest, with a weekly cap sort of thing.

The flexible way to get the laurels is to do it when you feel like it.

No. I would have type it in caps, but I don’t want to be rude. There is zero reason for a cap increase. If anything I would rather see more starter to mid range areas introduced, or just more of a saturation of those areas with new events and create more level 80 areas. This is one of those rare MMO’s where I have more fun after hitting cap than the journey. Making all of the level 80 exotics obsolete is a waste imo.

I hope so. It needs to change back into a lush region especially if we ever go to Elona in an expansion. Another “undead” region would bum me out. I am actually kinda hoping we go to a wholly new continent and skip Nightfall.

ColinJohanson.2394:

One thing worth checking is what effective fractal level your party is playing at, though nothing about loot rewards in fractals changed, we did change the system allowing what levels of fractal you could play with others which means you might simply be qualifying for much lower fractal levels (and thus loot).

The “level” of loot dropped for a player is the min of fractal scale and reward level. The reward level will still be displayed in the UI as a higher number than the fractal scale which might be cause for confusion, reward wise you’re still earning items based on the actual fractal scale you’re playing in. We display your personal rank because the players are awarded extra karma if there personal rank is over the current fractal scale.

You can add a second person to your list of people getting items, in my two fractal runs since the January release I’ve got an exotic and three rares. So there ya go!

I had my BEST Fractal run since the update happened. 4 rares and an Exotic drop. in a single run. Grawl, Swamp, Norn level and Kraken(level 10). Gonna have to agree with Colin here. For me, I would have thought it was changed for the better!

Achievements are just for fun. Laurels aren’t an end all reward so it really doesn’t matter. I will take someone on my dungeon run if they are wearing green gear. I don’t care. This game doesn’t work like that.

I don’t agree with all the stuff people want from Map Completion and a Legendary. The Map Completion nets you a title and a shiny badge next to your name tag and two items for a Legendary Weapon. What more do you need? The Legendary is the reward itself. It also gives a nice badge at the load screen for YOU to enjoy PERSONALLY. If you are chasing anything more than that, it’s my opinion that you are doing it wrong.

The title of my thread really says how I feel about it. I love the Wizard’s Tower. It has fascinated me since I first set foot in Kryta when GW1 came out. For those of you that don’t know, Wizard’s Tower for GW2 and Wizard’s Tower for GW1. These links will show you what I am talking about.

Little is known about it, but it is one of the only truly recognizable things in GW2 that was in GW1. The instant any player sees it that played GW1, they know what it is. Most things have aged in GW2 to a point that you really have to know what you are looking for to recognize something from GW1 in GW2, but not with The Wizard’s Tower. It is instantly recognizable. Since the Fractals are a way to travel through The Mists to any time period, the tower would be the perfect place for a Fractal that could happen in the past, present or future. It could help to flesh out lore surrounding its mystery or to create lore for future releases. When I thought about it, it seemed a no brainer. Who is “The Wizard”? Is he still there? These are all rhetorical questions, but they lay a great framework for future content and the location could be totally amazing for jump puzzle mechanics in the Fractal etc.

i don’t really get this first stage. all the info that i could gather from NPCs in the game is the same info I knew before the event started meaning the game did nothing to advance any information from what we already had. That makes the first part of this event feel really needless. This stuff is supposed to be about fun, but idk what is fun about running down and fixing signs and taking jewelry off of dead NPCs. I could see it being fun trying to piece together where to go based off of some sort of info we could gather when we got to their corpses on where to go next.

Maybe they could have just skipped this part, or included it with the meat of the event itself?

The real reason to me seems like these bodies and signs all being next to events that were already in the game. That’s fair enough, but tell us that. Don’t tell us we are getting this new story line and then have no real story unfold for us in the first part. It’s a letdown and doesn’t really do anything to pique my interest in subsequent parts. Does that make sense? I hope it does. I know you guys at ANet have something really great planned. Your game is awesome. This first part though? Not so much.

my suggestion while waiting for the patch to release is to go see a movie, walk your dog, tell the CM’s here how much you love them in a thread(it’s community manager appreciation day) read a book, or just play gw2 as you have been playing it since launch and don’t think about it. That way, you won’t be building the anticipation up to heights that can never be reached and you won’t become one of those people that gets on forums and whines that what they released isn’t what you wanted and that you are going to quit the game etc. No one likes those people when they act like that.

my opinion? if you are using the stuff that just replaces condition damage with magic find, it isn’t that big a deal depending on your weapon sets. you can still make a really nice dmg. build with a magic find set. if you are running a rare or green magic find set, then get in a different party.

I’d farm Skelk in Southsun Cove. There is a nice beach of them on the SE part of the island. They drop Powerful and potent blood but they also drop the fangs(both Vicious and Large). This is the deal. Take the large fangs and potent blood and craft rare weapons or armors etc. Then salvage those for your ectos. Sell the Vicious Fangs and buy more Powerful Blood. That way you are killing two birds with one stone.

plasmacutter.2709:

Iason Evan.3806:

plasmacutter.2709:

Iason Evan.3806:

In this forums we also need to start talking about what Jonathan is saying as well. There are some weapon sets where AoE is an issue for some professions. They will address those specifically. That is fine. What they need to work on is how they communicate that. I see what ArenaNet is talking about. They just didn’t communicate it well.

So which weapon set is “overpowered”

lolengineer with grenade kit hitting for less than environmental weapons, or bunker eles whose 45 second cooldowns don’t hit as hard as a rifle warrior auto-attack? maybe the “miss thrower”?

or maybe its staff necro (trying. to. control. urge. to. gut. laugh.)

cough kill shot cough backstab cough still cough being hack, cough IGNORED!

I don’t think any one of those builds is OP at all. I don’t think anyone thinks that. If you would like to have a serious discussion fine, but mentioning those builds doesn’t make sense at all. Countering Thieves isn’t all that hard. Proc a block.

I am having a serious discussion. I’m asking what AOE you see as overpowered, becuase the ones I’m seeing are either heavy-hitting with massive cues and cast time and/or massive cooldowns or range trade-offs, or hit like wet noodles and could honestly use some kind of buff (grenade kits should, for instance, do significantly more damage to foes with at least one condition, this would produce a “rotation” in that kit rather than 1, 1, 1, 1)

even “spin-2-win” has a tradeoff and should remain as-is on guardians (not just in pvp, in pve too!)

Fair enough. Keep in mind my original post about different formats. I think Guardian greatsword is a tad strong in sPvP. i run it a lot and it needs minor adjustments. There are just too many weapon skills that can make combo fields with it. For holding cap points and also having offense, it needs a look at.

I think Ele AoE while strong, there is a fair trade off with their survivability and what they have to do to protect themselves. I think it’s fine because you don’t see a lot of staff ele in sPvP. That tells me that maybe it needs a buff there, but in other aspects of the game, the staff shines. I prefer scepter/dagger in PvE, and d/f in sPvP, but that is just me.

Ranger AoE needs a buff imo. It’s all control really. Traps need a tweak, especially for trapcasters. Greatsword needs a minor buff for sPvP and PvE. Most greatswords for classes are pretty strong. Ranger isn’t.

Mesmer is one of my fave classes to play. I think the changes they have made to them so far have been for the better. They still shine in WvW even with some of the things that have happened to them. In sPvP and PvE they are really strong.

Thing is: I trust ANet after playing their 2 games since the launch of GW1. All people may not like what they do and they do a good job. I think the strength of this game is that weapon skills come down to preference. There are a lot of viable builds and it really is about opinion of playstyle in a lot of cases and i find that to be a strength.

plasmacutter.2709:

Iason Evan.3806:

In this forums we also need to start talking about what Jonathan is saying as well. There are some weapon sets where AoE is an issue for some professions. They will address those specifically. That is fine. What they need to work on is how they communicate that. I see what ArenaNet is talking about. They just didn’t communicate it well.

So which weapon set is “overpowered”

lolengineer with grenade kit hitting for less than environmental weapons, or bunker eles whose 45 second cooldowns don’t hit as hard as a rifle warrior auto-attack? maybe the “miss thrower”?

or maybe its staff necro (trying. to. control. urge. to. gut. laugh.)

cough kill shot cough backstab cough still cough being hack, cough IGNORED!

I don’t think any one of those builds is OP at all. I don’t think anyone thinks that. If you would like to have a serious discussion fine, but mentioning those builds doesn’t make sense at all. Countering Thieves isn’t all that hard. Proc a block.