Guild Wars 2

Am I the only one who things it would be pretty thrilling to see a dragon champion wreak havoc over queensdale while we must fend it off? Perhaps a large army of bandits assaults the front gate? Or an ascalonian army infiltrates the black citadel. I think it would make the zones a lot more exciting. However we wouldnt want the DE’s interfering with the business needed attending to by the people in the core of the city, like the TP. It also would attract more visitors to the respective cities as well, if they were cool events, maybe metas. Everyone spends too much time dancing in front of the bank in LA. We needa get out more.

lol wow please no more of these complains. Anet already caters to the casual player basis that plays 5 hours a week enough. You had plenty of time to do F&F. There isnt much more they should do.

Well its nearly a day away until we venture into the next chapter of tyria. I distinctly remember the excitement I felt at the first glimpse of living story content. Those four months went by so quick. I also remember thinking school would get in the way and thankfully it didnt. I certainly had my criticisms from time to time for F&F. Mainly there needed to be more content in March(missions each week, or bi-monthly) and maybe MF could have been made permanent with explore paths, later on maybe But im starting to feel quite nostalgic about now. Especially when I think about the cheesiness of Braham and Rox. The genesis of the F&F, the hammering of the signs, the closing of the portals, the knockbacks of the periscopes, and the ragequit from zerker boss MF, but now thats its all about to fade away, I actually feel quite happy to have partaken in this one time living story opportunity. Thanx Anet!!!

Ye I didn’t find them useful at all for the Living story. Especially since I found out exactly what to do from the mail I got. Oh well f&f was Anets first living story chapter so maybe they will learn from their mistakes, like they improved on wintersday. So we’ll see.

I think heralds have very little purpose in the game. We already are plenty informed in the mail we get during updates which makes it less of a need to consult my herald. However I think some implementations could expand their use. First off I should say that since hmm november, ive been very up to date with all the monthly patches, interviews, blogs. So much so that I actually feel like a dev. But its the only useful way to attain information. I think it would be cool if we learned about this in game. For instance, there is the southsun cove patch comin up tuesday. Perhaps we could have learned about this may 14th patch not online, but through a herald, who expresses it in a more “in-game” appropriate way. I don’t exactly know how that would be. But I think from a players perspective that would really add to the immersive experience of gw2.
What do you guys think?

Lol you guys need to calm down obviously. It hasnt even been a day since the finale started. Im sure we’ll see more stuff. This forum is full of kids with short-attention spans who continually need to complain when they get scared.

No its true. This game lacks in hardcore content. Especially permanent content at least. One of my friends hasnt played since february because of geographical issues but when he gets back im tryna think what to tell him is new. I mean guild missions is the only new content we’ve had in the past 5 months. thats hardcore and permanent. why anet why!!!

Ye I know what you mean. Ive been pondering a lot lately about the living story, its priority by anet, and whether or not its getting in the way of permanent content. The living world is great!! dont get me wrong, but need permacontent as well. The two compliment each other very well, and both bring a certain aspect to the gain that other doesnt have. Temp/DE = Living, breathing, spontaneous. Perma/Missions = Personal, rewarding, one time only(invoking a uniqueness).

I figured id add in a few remarks. Anet you really should bring back cantha. With the new engine it will look amazing, and I know with all the talent you guys have at the office, you edit and polish the hell out of it for a fantastic result. The community has made its voice heard. We will continue to do so and hopefully NCsoft will get off your a** and let you proceed with it.

Bloodstealer.5978:

Dante.1508:

How about Zero RNG and Tokens and just have everything drop from specific places, oh wait that would be too easy and fun and people might actually farm items and get stuff easier, yeah we can’t have players enjoying themselves…

I miss the old days when loot just dropped and players just farmed…and if i wanted to spend money in the cash shop i could actually buy the said item and get on with it…

I guess you don’t see how short sighted your answers are….

What you call fun in having items easily farmable is nothing more than a quick route to boredom, everyone looking the same all too quickly and those items becoming common and worthless – then the game withers as players loose interest … only a lot faster than they do when RNG Gods don’t shine on them as often.
Sure RNG can be painful… ive not had an exotic drop in the forge for at least 4 weeks now, but all they have to do is routinely modify the drop percentages, that way the game keeps some sort of “feel good factor” and the “aww man, crap all again” emotions.

The old days of loot drops did not account for F2P business models.. how else do you think ANET/NC Soft makes money in order to keep the game going…. RNG is there for a reason, as are all the other aspects like currency changes, and the special snowflake items.
If they were to replace loot drops from RNG to guaranteed drops, then expect a large change to DR.. for the worse!

I certainly understand anet’s reason for continued RNG + Gemstore. Its really terrible tho after this amount of time. Its just tiring. I mean basically, because the gemstore is the only way anet can make money, they are greatly lacking in what could be awesome content(missions, treasure hunts). Imagine if there was a chain of some 5 missions added in retribution. The chain became increasingly difficult, and actually took skill and time, unlike rox&braham missions. At the end we each get a token for the fused weapon vendor. That would be great!!! But we cant have that because anet has to make money somehow and therefore uses the ole sneaky bl key. Im totally understanding, just not happy at all with this issue not being addressed at all.

I also would like to know this. I would actually prefer shorter living stories, that house more content to their time interval. If this southsun cove chapter of the world lasted only 2 months, but had the same quantity of content as f&f had in 4 months, that would be nice. I mean lets be honest the first 2 months were dry. I don’t see much new to have preludes for every new chapter of the story. The living story is a book as I see it, and really only needs 1 prelude like each book has. Jan&Feb was that. So perhaps a good quantity of content, perhaps like march, would be nice for each living story.

ye but tokens are rng drop as well. too much rng all around i guess. what i really dont hope is that the dragon festival weapons are rng themself, not the tokens. this would be a terrible decision. I just don’t think RNG is the solution to every implementation of aesthetic items.

That post was awesome. Great job. You really put a lot of thought into it. Devs needa check up on this!

The crafting in this game is so dry. However I should specify. There is a great lack of interesting items to craft, at least from professions not mystic forge. But the system of crafting is pretty cool in my opinion. One solution would be to make more “account bound” craftable items. There is no need for me to craft anything if I can buy it on the tp. Plus there are only a small circle of cool craftable weapons, food, etc. A lot of it takes on the generic weapon skin and looks bad. If there were account bound weapons, foods, tonics, or armors that were craftable, it would be very motivating. Also, they should include many more recipes in the game for unique, possibly account bound, craftable items.

You know I see lots of commotion about RNG on the forums, its understandable. I think Anet does it too much. Sometimes I like RNG, it adds to the rarity of the item obviously. Plus whenever an item, say endless mystery tonic, has a low drop chance, it feels super awesome when you pick it up. As if you won the lottery!!
However as I said its overused and I think a good alternative would be replacing the select items as rewards to missions chains, or achievements. By mission chains I mean the treasure hunts likened to those planned for precursors. With achievements an example would the gauntlets rewarded for the F&F achievement, that was fun. Im sure they’ll do that more with the living story but they should also do it outside the living story.
Anyway what do you guys think? Why do you hate RNG so much? What should it be replaced by?

The feel of absence that you have is not uncommon. Certain aspects of the game are great while others are void. Im sure they will work on it.

omg i wastotally gonna post about this!!! i was there!!!

Robert Hrouda.1327:

no new armor models in the southsun shore story stuff.

Although looking like a crab would be pretty sweet.

Can you make us more armor please? This game seems to be lacking in it :O lots of cool weapons, not much armor.

Anet please make more permanent content. I love this living world idea but we need more permacontent!!! Not just permavanity items!! I mean if you put in temp jp’s or dungeons, then keep a version of them somehowwwww

This seems like such a trivial topic to bring up amidst the storm of speculation. But, BUT. I really love the wallpaper, of officer kiel hiding behind the palm tree. The expression on her face, her posture, and the colors use, really dramatic themes. Upon hearing the next chapter in the Living Story, I was pleasantly shocked by its early arrival. I really wasnt expecting anything til June. This continuous implementation of content is successfully accomplishing Anets aspirations for a Living World. Especially since I am really really eager to learn what happens next in the Tyria!!!

Im glad as well. Its a chance for them to renew the zone, to polish it. It really needs a meta event or 2, and some more dynamic events. Or a dungeon. Karka dungeon????

So according to the may 14th update, pve culling will be fixed, or should be. I know A-net had also said a couple months ago that theyd lay off the one-time before they could fix the problem. I don’t know if culling was the only problem needing to be fixed with one time events, maybe server capacity issues as well but hopefully so. I don’t know about you but I liked the Lost Shores one time event, especially its rewards >:D!!!

Ever since I found out about the consortiums involvement in feb, Ive suspected they had somethin to do with the molten alliance. Somehow they have to be tied. Its too convenient for them. THAT, or they did have no connection, and are using this situation as a ploy to gather refugees towards southsun cove for their own nefarious means. Somethin with the karka. We still dont know much about the karka, so who knows. Im very excited to see what happens next though.

lol because i wanted to hear about the real scavenger hunt. badly.

this is a stupid post take it down.

Ive had this odd feeling that maybe the consortium are behind all this lol. It sounds unlikely but would be funny. Maybe this whole thing was to get refugees back to southsun haha. To sacrifice them to the karka I dno. Perhaps the consortium arnt really who they say they are. They are wolves in sheeps clothing.

This post is not meant as a complaint, but an offer of insight and suggestion.

So over the past 2 months, I have begun to ruminate over many issues in gw2. The endgame, the living story, dynamic events and quests, along with needed pve content. I think Anet has made it apparent that in gw2 they are vehemently striving for a mmorpg world that is living, breathing, and evolving. Dynamic events make this happen, very well. Something is always goin on in a zone. There is always some boss up, an escort missions, and sometimes even metas. Dynamic events that are sprinkled across the surface of tyria really set a nice basis for this the living world. Its interactive, its spontaneous, it works.
Now, the Living story! The macroscopic aspect of a living world. Halloween, Lost Shores, Wintersday, and now Flame & Frost are all examples of this. They represent the current “theme” of the Living world while the dynamic events play in the background like ambience. Flame & Frost has its successes, but can be improved as it has been voiced by the community.
However, I now arrive at the detriments. Most of our patches (October, November, Dec, and Jan-April) have had some type of large scale Living story content. But, its also all been temp content. Temp content alone cannot suffice GW2 and thats where this game is really struggling. We need more permanent content. A lot of the permanent content that has been added has been aesthetic. I do like content like guild missions, my guild does them all the time, and fotm is nice as well, but beyond that its also a lot of tweaking to current systems. Maybe Anet is aware of this as they already mentioned in January that Jan-April would be building a strong foundation.
Now that the time is up, I am very interested to see what their next move is. I really think it is nearing the time to implement generous sums of “permanent” content. Dungeons are nice, we all love them, and new guild missions will be fun as well, but I think we still need something that is on the scale of raids. Not a raid itself, but of that scale. Also, more missions would be nice. Treasure hunts would be an example. I like that Anet adds gemstore items but I sense a notion of laziness whenever they send their cool new items directly to the gemstore. It would feel much more rewarding to actually work for them, whether that be through an achievement, series of missions, or other endgame content.
So now I review. My conclusion is that even though dynamic events and the living story succeed at creating a living, breathing, world; it alone cannot stand to suffice the player-base because of its short-lived nature. The implementation of permanent content, ALONG with temp content would much solve the problem.

If you want a hand, I will help. Ive completed it already.

Either way its somethin that needs to be brought attention to from anet. Even if we have to call them “missions” because the word “traditional quest” isnt part of anets gw2 philosophy lol.

Zorby.8236:

Let’s play “How many skulls, spikes and flames can you put on a greatsword?”!
Don’t need this, and thankfully it won’t happen either…

lolol thats not true at all. Have you seen some oft he contest winner skins from gw1? they are very very good, and are implemented in the game now. A lot of amateur designers might try to do somethin stereotypical like that, but anet can filter through those.

I give him 8 weeks before hes bored xD

Dante.1508:

Hearts are Quest givers just renamed different, the only thing different is you don’t have to run up to them anymore…everything else is the same.

I never had an issue with Quest givers honestly.

Thats not true at all. Those are very short lived quests. Barely quests at all. More like a mini event, since you never accept the quest. Questing is different, and you have to understand by playing games like gw1 or others that do traditional quests. They have their own storyline, and it develops very well. Its very personal, while dynamic events are, as wooden potatoes put it, “hollow”, and short-lived. Having traditional questing with long chains along wiht dynamic events would be a perfect match. Anet needs to do this!! They would compliment each other very well, because there is nothing unique about dynamic events. They arnt quests as much as they are a type of ambience to the zone. Look at the types of quests for example, i.e. “save the asura facility from the attack krait”. This is a type of event that makes sense to happen over and over and over again. Meta events make sense for areas that have ongoing struggles. Like in diessa plateau, the struggle between the charr mine and dredge. Its back and forth. DE’s are great for that.

HOWEVER! Certain areas of the game cannot be satisfied by DE’s. I’ll make somehting up. Say there is a quest line, maybe 8 quests long, takes an hour to complete. The plot is about reuniting a certain person, perhaps a refugee, with someone he lost during the attacks, maybe his wife. We go through a series of investigations in different zones, maybe interrogate some molten alliance, and then finally get to his wife, and they reunite. At the end we get some type of unique prize, maybe the refugee has ties to hoelbrak and he hooks us up!! That makes sense for a traditional quests, not a DE. DE’s are repetetive and meant to be. Can you imagine how stupid that would be if we keep saving this guys wife over and over again. That makes no sense!!! Thats why we need traditional quests, or missoins if thats what u wanna call them.

Ive been asking this for so long. GW2 NEEDS the traditional quests GW1 has. Anet needs to realize this, because its one area where PVE is really lacking. Dynamic events are great Anet, really, they bring the world to life in a way I dont see other mmo’s do. Its spontaneous, interactive, but also, SHORT LIVED. Heart tasks are also very superficial, they offer a small amount of activity and thats it. Traditional quests are great because they are for the big pve lore nerds! They are for the hardcore players, who want more immersive pve, and quests bring that. I want to go to a zone and actually learn more about it, its history. A long quests chain does that justice, dynamic events dont, heart tasks dont. Please Anet consider this!!! GW1 quests were great, if you had both Traditional Quests AND Dynamic Events, this game would be absolutely amazing.

Soulstar.7812:

You know what you got this month?
a F&F mission…

BUT

also the Super Adventure Box, three new sets of skin: Guild, Super Adventure, and fused.

I’m no white knight and there are problems in the game…

Not a one OP posts about, is relevant.

It is unrelated to F&F but I agree SAB was a success in my eyes. I really want to continue through the other worlds in the future. I do remember hearing that their Living Story team was busy, with what I dont know, but it was a big reason on the lack of content in the first two months. Hopefully it changes. I really wonder sometimes if anet is lacking on the manpower to pull off some of these projects.

lol no need for the jab at the beginning buddy. We have barely learned about braham and rox at all. One missions was insufficient for gathering much information. It was a nice introduction but only that. Saving villages? You mean those dynamic events that get stale after 3 tries? I don’t know if you have kept up with the story like I have, but the Razing was supposed to be the big kick off for flame and frost? Relative to jan and feb, it was much bigger, but still not big. Absolutely nothing has happened during the razing besides the content introduced in the beginning of the patch, that lasted a week or so. Im sure we won’t even hear about the side storyline of the involvement of the whispers. I don’t think you are getting my point though. Its like we’ve barely learnt anything about the dredge and flame legion, now we are ending it all by attacking their facility. How is that well designed story content? Its all over the place. Jan and feb were just “teasers” as anet put it. Small hints at whats to come. As far as I can see, March came, we learnt about the big merge of flame legion and the dredge, and now we are going straight to demolish them.

I mean seriously, did you just say “saving villages, destroying periscopes, killing members of the molten aliance, finding lost trinkets, and even trasnlating spy drop messages” as if it is actually good fulfilling content? LOOOOL. That is sufficient content for 1 PATCH, not 3. The only aspect of F&F that had any interest to it were the missions types. The small side activities shouldnt take much time at all to develop, which is why I think they could have easily released this much each month.

Usually I dont complain that much about gw2, and offer constructive criticism, but F&F the razing was initially spectacular, but short lived. Looking back on the entire month id say its a huge dissapointment. Each character, Rox and Braham, were only given one completable mission. That is surely not enough to last a month. The living story aspect completely failed there for me, and was a let down, as it was for many other players. Myself, along with many other players, probably thought a series of missions would be rolled out through the razing. But no, and thats where the living story made a huge mistake. Anet could really improve from this scenario. The Razing was popularized as being the genesis of big content, and the first week of the patch, it sure looked like, but then it was followed by 3 very very blan weeks. Actually there was nothing at all. And im reading now in the retribution content article at a specific section that says " Fight alongside Rox and Braham on this final mission against the combined forces of the dredge and Flame Legion".

Wait..what? Final missoins? There were only beginning missions for each npc!!! Is 2 missions for each char Anets idea of a living story? Lets be honest its kind of a joke. There was very little character development, if any at all, leading up to this finale. Anyway Anet I think your living story team could learn a lot from this when creating future content.

Ive been in support of the Living Story so far, jan and feb were acceptable, because they were teasers. But March wasnt meant to be a teaser. Initially I really did like the content. New weapon vendors, braham and rox msisions, agent of whispers missions. Its awesome. But if they really wanted to keep to their word of the great majesty of the living story, they should have updated it weekly. New missions each week woulda been great. But it hasnt. Its pretty disappointing.

Zaxares.5419:

We’ll probably see the next phase of F&F content come around 23/24 of April.

I know that. But you’d think theyd do more for the march update. A few missions really doesnt last for the span of a month, everyone got them done in like a day or two. Id say its still not much content at all for march. Certainly an improvement though.

The update hit around the 26th of march, and since then there have been no weekly updates to F&F. No new missions, no nothing. Maybe some new npcs at the refugee camp but thats it. I thought there were gonna be new missions each week or somethin like that. Anyone else know whats goin on? I was thinkin since today is the end of the first week i April they might decide to update it so they could line up the updates everyweek. Maybe im wrong. hmmm. Where are my new missionnss… >:O

So I finished SAB and it was super cool and fun and adventurous, killed the frog queen, advanced through the rapids getting killed by ninjas and finally got to moto. Is that all tho? I mean there is a greater nemesis I know. But is that all that allowed for the preview today? Do they release the full thing tomorrow? Or weekly? I know there is some Lord Vanquish who we still have to kill, but will we be doing that in the month of April? Or is all that we had today, all that is for the month of april. Just curious, I really like the content and wanna know more about whats gonna happen xD

Rieselle.5079:

anyways, i repeat -.hardcore content isn’t grindy raids that drop rare gear or anything like that, or ultra hard content that only 1% find fun. All it needs to be is content that measures and recognizes player skill.

So even if a player goes from terrible to slightly less terrible, he can enjoy himself.

Thats a more general definition of hardcore content, I just used raids as an example because of their long term type content. Its basically there to satisfy players who enjoy an intense test of player skill, like you said, but also a long term system of rewards. Some people like chugging in 20 hours a week for a month just to get a few certain items, whether that be gear or aesthetics. I think I can agree with you on the player skill part though. There certainly needs to be much more difficult content in the game, that equally rewards the difficulty. Guild Missions have been somewhat of a push in that direction.
I think however they need a system to satisfy the desire for that same content but on an individual scale. Its really a hastle for me to take time organizing 10 people in the guild for missions. Id enjoy something challenging that I can do on my own.

Ive been playing this game since launch and after multiple patches and continuous PR, I feel like im getting the impression that Anet only caters to a certain population of players, that being the casual audience. The long term progression has slightly improved, with fotm, and guild missions, but Anet could definitely do better. I think theyve lost a lot of playerbase because of it as well. People have always said their is a lack of end game. Well thats partially true, its a lack of a specific type of endgame, that being raid type content. Now Im not asking Anet to put in raids although it would be pretty cool, but they needa use their heads to find a Anet styled replacement for raid type content.

Back in January Colin said the monthly updates over the next couple months were aimed at strengthening the core of the game. I think they have taken a step in that direction but they better not be done. I mean theyve added plenty of systems to the game, and I know they are attempting to avoid overcomplicating everything. There still is a gap needing to be filled which is hardcore progression endgame content. I feel like Anet has silently tiptoed over that part of the content. Again I say this because Anet is losing a very large population of potential players for gw2. A lot of people left a month after launch for that exact reason, and so far they have no reason to come back since thats what they want.

The only problem is that it can be somewhat difficult integrating hardcore endgame progression type content for the people that play 7 hours a day, with proper rewards, and without interfering with casual players who feel like they will be cheated because they don’t like the grind. I think if Anet can solve the problem and do both then they it will be a monumental step for Guild Wars 2. Anyone this is my perspective and has been for a long time I hope to see and hear more about this type of issue in the future.

So after putting up my settings for culling, jumping into wvw, i was pretty impressed on how many players I could view, and how few I couldnt. I also noticed it affect pve as well, which is nice.
Check out this pic

I disagree. First off im so tired of posts like this lol. This entire forum has become a nagfest. This recent patch, the razing, has given me hope. For a while I had dwindling hopes of the games future, but now I raise my head. The living story really improved, and as a growing lore fanatic, ive explored many aspects that the living story has offered so far, through npcs, events, and the ones currently, and am very happy. Its nice to see so many storylines playing out, and potential storylines for separate zones. The living story has huge potential for gw2. I cant wait to see how the rest of this month and april turn out for flame and frost, as well as the adjacent zones and storylines that could be affected.

Something will certainly develop in Southsun Cove. It would be foolish of them to completely break off that storyline. The consortium were introduced and are obviously involved, and it seems more likely for them to break off into their own plot instead of secretly being tied in with the molten alliance. One of the norn refugees in lions arch even said he planned on moving to southsun cove with a group.

I think it will be a success. I mean so far we’ve seen what they have labeled “teasers”. Feb certainly had more content, more interactive camps and environmental factors, and colin even said it would be relatively small like jan. So if march is considered big in terms of living story it should be promising.

I havent really noticed changes in diessa, but I dont go there often so I wouldnt know. I do recognize that wayfarer received a new structure above dolyak waypoint. With that large gate, is that what you are talking about? Seein the camps grow is cool tho.

Kilrain Daggerspine.6843:

3 Extra Merits?

Really sky?

Also I’d love to see people reliably finding wildman and sotzz in 5 mins.

Also intresting to see more and more people who only ever do t2, claim t3 is fine.

Can you do t3 without preparing? sure, if you luck out with mobs and tracking… is it reliable or skill dependant? no its rng dependant.

The only bounty that you will ever have trouble finding is sottz, because of his ridiculous spawning nature. Its the fact he can spawn practically anywhere and he is also drunk and stationary. Wildman isnt hard. You station people north, east, west, and south of the map, and go against his path, it should only take 3-4 minutes. T2 is doable with 10 people as well. T3 is very doable without hunting down the npcs before hand. Espcially if you have +30 people. Once you have 40, there is no excuse to fail. You can easily put between 6-7 people in each zone, which is plenty if thye know what they are doing. You spread out equally throughout the map. For example, tarban has a veyr straightforward path. Its practically a circle. Goig against his path as one person is difficult, and can take +10 minutes. However if you have 5 people equally split up along his path, it shouldnt take more than 5 minutes, unless he just died.

Victory.2879:

Excellent! Now big guilds and those well organised and regimented (or just with a lot of time on their hands) will be able to show the rest of us what we are missing out on by being in our smaller, relaxed, casual group of friends guilds,

I knew someone would say this, and I kinda dont care to be honest. You can still be dedicated to your small treehousesque group of friends guild, and still be part of a much larger guild. I am in a large guild, ankittenhe officer who pretty much has organized everything guild mission related. I can tell you that of the 35-40 people i see online whe I log in, 15 of them dont rep, and are only here for the guild mission aspect. Sure it kitten es me off but I dont blame them. There is so much here-say in the community about having to be in a big guild to get this that. The reality is big guilds are now totally abused. 50 percent of the members who have joined in the last month only rep for about 3 hours a day because they know thats when guild missions are organized. Its like tagging a long to a birthday party just for the cake.

This is such a wasted argument. The dev is right, it certainly requires coordination, and is easily achieve if u do so. My guild is large, and on occasion ive had 20 doing one guild bounty, in the beginng, we needed 15 peoplel to do tier 1, because we did it like everyone else and tracked downthe bounties before hand, spent an hour doing so, people left, we’d get it done sometiems, fail others. I realized after 3 guild successful tier 1 guild bounties that that was a stupid idea. I can easily complete guild bounty tier 1 with a group of 5 including myself. Take the 5 people, split up them evenly amongst 1 zone, it shouldnt take more than 3 minutes to find the bounty if u do that right. 3 minutes for each bounty, 6 minutes total for searching 9 mintues for killing 4.5 minutes for killing each bounty. Its usually less than that, because first off, people spot the bounties very quickly, usually just wanderers in the zone. Secondly, I have never done a guild bounty where at least 3 other outsiders dont join in. It always helps. As for tier 3 bounty, ye, u need 6 groups of 5. But I really dont bother with it. I do tier 2 bounty at most and dont really desire the 3 extra merits that much. I think small guilds with be fine in terms of attack strategy, but not so much influence. But I can see anet has taken the first step to approaching this which is nice to see. It should also be mentioned that adding more bounties wont affect this strategy, unlike the strategy and hunting down the bounties beforehand. The ratio is pretty constant no matter what. 5 people to 1 bounty. 4 people I guess if all of them have the speed booster.