Anet already stated why they don’t want mounts in the game, but everyone ignores this piece of information even though it’s the most logical, fact driven reason. Moving faster from point A to point B makes the space between point A and B effectively smaller and less significant. Anet put way too much effort into creating to huge beautiful world just to turn around and trivialize it by making the journey through it a quick, forgettable experience.
TL;DR mounts make the world smaller and we don’t want to make the world smaller.
This leads me to propose my second suggestion. Anet should create some new tiers of guild upgrades which give permanent and very significant bonuses to certain areas of gameplay. In Economy, for example, there should be a new tier which adds specialization in dungeon tokens OR magic find. The bonus should be big enough to make the difference for individual players decision on which guild to represent. It should also be a choice that the leader must make. The guild cannot have all of the bonuses, only 1. This would allow guilds to physically be different from each other. Economy could have a specialization tier for extra karma OR experience. In addition Anet could add tiers to Art of War for improved siege OR defensive upgrades OR maybe even a flat movement speed buff. Architecture could have something all on its own for RP guilds; a guild hall. Everyone knows Anet has the best kitten artists in the industry, so why not let them go bananas and make an amazing guild hall for roleplayers to meet and do things. After researching any one of these specialization upgrades, all others would become locked and inaccessible. The guild could have EITHER extra exp, OR the guild hall, OR extra dungeon tokens for example. Again the purpose of this would be to allow guilds to truly distinguish themselves from each other and give their members unique benefits and incentives to represent. If a guild is going to have a focus, give it a physical thing to focus on.
In an attempt to wrap this wall of text up, I’d just like to say that the way guilds are right now, they aren’t families anymore like they are in other games. Guilds in GW2 are less like friendly communities of players, and more like department stores. The GM and officers are like salesmen and the members are the customers. We salesmen have to work our butts off to sell our product to these customers and if we can’t satisfy every whim (pve, wvw, spvp, dungeons, etc) of every customer, they go to a different store (guild). If we don’t get enough customers, we don’t make enough money (influence) to maintain our store. If we can’t maintain our store, we go out of business (less and less players representing over time). It looks really really bad for a guild when a significant portion of its members don’t represent. There’s less activity in guild chat and less upgrades rolling in to benefit members which discourages more people from representing and thus a multiplicative effect consumes the guild until the non-representation is a giant cancerous tumor that I have to deal with.
I know that removing the multi-guild feature would result in the most deafening community outcry since the ending of Mass Effect 3, and I have no wish to remove player freedoms from the game. I also don’t want to feel like Hitler demanding loyalty and respect from my subjects, so I hope that Anet reads this and seriously considers improving the family and community aspect of guilds in this game somehow, even if it’s not something I suggested. Hire some sociologists and behavioral psychologists if you need to. Your guild leaders will love you for it; hell I would be willing to pay for my suggested upgrades in gems if I had to!
I’m a guild leader and I’m new to this role. I’ve been learning how to do things as I go and struggling to adapt to the way guilds are set up in this game. I’ve sought advice from experienced guild leaders and attempted several methods of promoting guild growth and activity. Allowing players to freely join multiple guilds is a great concept, but in practice it only serves to harm guilds by compounding the flaky, whimsical nature of human beings. I’ve heard all the arguments of the idealist individual players, but as a leader trying to build a community, I have to be a pragmatist. I don’t want to remove freedoms from the game, I’d just like to quickly(ish) outline my concerns before giving suggestions.
PvE focused guilds are practically pointless. Dynamic events are easy to pug because its so easy to cooperate with ad-hock groups in the field. Dungeons are easily pugged all the time. If I wanted to do nothing but PvE with people all I would need is my friends list.
SPvP focused guilds don’t seem necessary for the same reason dungeon guilds don’t. The teams are limited to 5 players and the system is designed for easy pug access. You can have a small guild focused on it, but there’s no point in building a guild larger than 10-15 people for it.
WvW focused guilds are the only true type of large guild that can be sustained in this game. WvW is a massive scale type of gameplay that guilds ranging for 5 players to 100 players can all join in and play together at the same time. This is great, but technically this is a PvP guild; leaving many players somewhat homeless as they may only enjoy PvE content.
Here’s what I have been having a huge issue with in my guild. We recruit our butts off just to keep our activity level acceptable. Every day we have to deal with more and more members not representing. Our roster got clogged up to the point where we could have 30 people online but only 3 or 4 representing. We’ve tried whispering and talking to members to simply understand why they don’t represent us. 50% of the time it’s because they didn’t even know about the representing feature. So my first suggestion to Anet is to put some kind of pop-up notification on the player’s screen that guides them to the represent button and explains what it’s for. I’ve tried providing that explanation myself, but I really shouldn’t have to. Sometimes I am met with hostility at the assumption that I am treating them like a noob and/or trying to impose representation rules they don’t like when in fact I am simply trying to make sure they are aware of the feature.
Going back to the issue of having 30+ members online but only 3-4 representing, what am I supposed to do about this? I thought maybe if I get the right bonuses with influence, I can give my members a reason to represent. We unlocked all of the banners and started planting them at the portal hub in Lions Arch, and we activated and maintained the 10% magic find and 5% experience passives. We whispered everyone and sent mail to make people aware that we had all of these perks to take advantage of if they come back and represent us. None of it worked. It seems no one cares about these advantages, probably because of how easy they are to acquire. Any guild can easily get them so they all have them which means there’s no reason for someone to represent a particular guild for a particular buff. Indeed the only thing this does is harm smaller guilds which may be too small to earn the influence necessary to maintain the buffs. All of the larger guilds will be practically identical. cont…
I can’t count how many great sword warriors I’ve seen jump into pug dungeons with their full glass cannon build and rage when they get wrecked. 5 signets and all traits/gear pushing damage. They charge, hit hundred blades, and get theirkitten handed to them.
so a lot of bossfights aren’t melee-unfriendly or just plain suicide trying to dodge stuff when you can’t see any circles under all the effects or trying to see a move the boss telegraphs in that big shiny explosion of light?
I’m curious how better gear/traits help you with these mechanics…
My friend can solo tank mobs in AC explorable. In fact it made the dungeon so easy, we cleared it in like an hour with no wipes. Maybe they need to nerf guardians… Or maybe more guardians/warriors could learn to appreciate the usefulness of a defensive spec and a mace/shield and 2H hammer.
Home World: Dragonbrand (Dragonbread!)
Guild Name: Adeptus Mechanicus [Mech]
Guild Website: gw2adeptusmechanicus.enjin.com
Game Contact: Xenon, Magos Explorator, Gai Nise, Spirit Silverwind, Nissa Revina, Techpriest
Focus: PvX, leveling, dungeons
Quick Notes: We are a fast-growing semi-hardcore guild focused on helping people level at the moment. We run dungeons and plan to do WvW once we have enough core members leveled up. We use Teamspeak3 for group activities.
(edited by Xenon.4537)
Join Adeptus Mechanicus and gain high favor with the Machine God! 40+ and growing, we’re looking for friendly, active players to fill our ranks on the server Dragonbrand. We have Teamspeak and website too! We have members ranging from casual to semi-hardcore. We’re PvX, mostly focusing on leveling and building the guild. We run dungeons a few times a week and have plans to organize groups for WvW. Feel free to PM me or one of our officers in game:
Magos Explorator
Linto
Nissa Revina
Spirit Silverwind
Techpriest
Or you can apply via our website. gw2adeptusmechanicus(dot)enjin(dot)com