Guild Wars 2

My feedback is about mounts:

1. Often got stuck on invisible “lip” at top of stairs or ramps. Frustrating.
2. The starting “lurch” to the left felt disorienting, clunky and not smooth.
3. Loved the sliding stop!
4. Race was a blast!
5. Suggestion: PLEASE include a hot key for cycling through one’s mount choice while not mounted. I move with LMB+RMB. Clicking to choose another mount after dismounting — say to cross water or quicksand ahead — will greatly reduce the fluidity, speed and enjoyment you have already wonderfully designed into the mount. Swapping mounts needs a seamless interface interaction and a hot key would be awesome in many scenarios. Clicking will be clunky and only doable while auto-running, which is dangerous for one’s health!

Thanks for the great fun!

perhaps this was posted already…not taking time to check…but i just realized how messed up this poll really was that NO won with a minority vote. that’s just wrong statistically, professionally and morally speaking .

for No to win it should require 75% as well. there shouldn’t be a double standard.

thus this poll is inconclusive. neither option really won (based on the 75% rule from Anet).

and yet statistically speaking Yes won by a massive majority.

Yes really is the superior option for all players (regardless of ABL or DBL love/hate) because it gives everyone a choices to play what they want every week without imposing one option on everyone all the time for months on end.

i sure hope this get revisited asap. it’s really bizarre and inconclusive for so many reasons.

see my post above…this poll was constructed poorly and inaccurately, thus leading to an inaccurate, unreliable result. don’t despair players…let’s just get them to re-run this poll, better constructed to what it should be. Something like this…..(thrown together quickly)

“Dear WvWers: Which strategy for using the various BL maps do you prefer most?

1. 2 ABL and 1 DBL every week — allows for development of future maps
2. 1 ABL and 2 DBL every week — allows for development of future maps
3. 3 months of only ABL followed by 3 months of only DBL. rinse repeat

Choose one."

majority wins

PLEASE for the love of all things WvW, re-run this poll. Nobody in any of my WvW guilds wants 3 months straight of just the DBL. 3 months of only DBL will effectively KILL WvW for those 3 months, as many people will simply not play.

Now, I personally like the DBL. But I like ABL too. So I would much rather have a mixture every week — variety is the spice of life they say — than suffer the woes of lower map populations or EB queuing during DBL months, not to mention the annoying complaints and whines from the DBL haters.

I think a large % of the NOs in this poll thought they were voting for no DBL. That skewed the results.

Please Tyler, re-run this poll and clarify the choices. I bet we’ll see very different results.

Suggestion (based on direct experience): I co-founded and ran a online polling Internet startup in the late 90s. Learned a lot about how to construct clear effective questionnaires. Going forward DO NOT use Yes vs No answers for multiple choice, non-binary, mutually exclusive responses. It’s way too confusing. This poll is proof of the confusion.

Essentially this poll was attempting to determine which of the 3 strategies on the table that people liked best. That is NOT a Yes and No question. It’s a 3-choice best preference question. Heck it could have been a rating question — asking people to rate the 3 choices based on which they liked best and least.

Because the poll was not structured properly, it’s my personal and professional opinion that the results cannot be trusted as reliable and representative.

Please, re-run it. Heck, drop me a line I’ll help you guys out with the future polls!

That said, keep up the great work and communication. I for one greatly appreciate it!!

Chris Barrett.3280:

sionnach.5391:

Whatever happens, please address the ‘guest’ server identity in any ways which are feasible, and the more the better – in fact do away with the host/guest concept and treat both servers as partners. If we flip a keep, messages should show the server majority who flipped it – if that’s not feasible, then list both servers. Sounds petty but it really isn’t; this would go a fair way towards addressing morale problems in T7-8.

Not to disagree with the idea that server identity is important, but something that’s been interesting to see is that “guest” worlds are tending to have higher ratios of “Yes” votes in favor of keeping world linking. Which I’m definitely seeing as more of a “this improves my day-to-day gameplay”, and not as a “I don’t care about my world identity”.

One problem with showing both world names is that the strings of text can get very long. When/if more than two worlds are linked together, it gets very long. Much too long for the UI.

I do like the idea of showing, for example, “Devona’s Rest captured Durios Gulch”, if Devona’s Rest had more members involved in capturing the objective. Though for the moment this isn’t among our top priorities. Such a change requires programming support, and right now we’re mostly focused on the large task of scoring improvements previously voted on.

As a player on a “guest” server, it was initially very disappointing and super confusing to always see the host server’s name when objectives were taken — especially when it was taken by my guild.

What seems to me to be a very simple, hopefully easy to program, solution to all this is to normalize everything and simply report the team color in these alert messages. For example: “Red Team captured Bluevale Refuge” “Blue Team captured Cragtop” etc. This would put both servers on even footing, be less confusing and actually might encourage a sense of team.

Oh and on the topic of naming, one of the things the DBL did so wonderfully was normalize objective naming patterns across all three BLs. For ex: McLain’s Encampment, Habib’s Encampment, etc. This made it VERY easy to memorize and reliably know exactly what just flipped, because every camp and tower ended in the same labeling name, if you will.

Alpine fails at that miserably for the nothernmost towers and camps and for south camp. And even after playing on if for so many years, I still get confused and end up referring to them by their capture/defend event names or compass direction — Lumbermill, Quarry, NW tower, N camp, etc.

A few objectives already have a pattern across all 3 BLs: Vale, Briar, Lake, Lowlands, Hills, Bay, Garrison, etc. But I, for one, would love to see some clean up in that regard.

Thanks! Keep up the good work and communication!

vana.5467:

Coverage imbalance is still the biggest problem for me and linking does nothing to fix that.

This. I agree 150%.

As an avid WvWer from GoM, linked to SoS, the World Linking has been nice for meeting new players and having more activity out on the maps. But being forced into a higher tier — especially as a roamer and a roaming guild — has been hell because of the blobbing and the coverage imbalance. When 50 foes respond to 5 allies taking a camp, that steam rolling is just NO fun. In fact, I can’t recall a single week since being linked that we weren’t outnumbered for many many hours. And to be honest, in the months prior to the linking my server was outnumbered quite often any time we dipped into T5 matches anyways. Even in some T6 matches too…..thanks to server migrations.

Thus, I am really torn about this poll. It’s been nice to see more people on the maps, and more activity/things to do/people to play with. And having more to do than just stare at an empty map is appealing. And it’s been nice to not be as massively outnumbered (although still outnumbered).

But at the expense of having to regularly contend with massive blobs, and being nearly constantly outnumbered, and STILL seeing one server completely run away with the score — during whatever hours — because of coverage imbalance. These are NOT enjoyable game play for me.

I am hopeful that the series of scoring changes will boost things in the right direction.

But is the Wold Linking ready for prime-time as it currently stands? I don’t think so.

TorquedSoul.8097:

There are other ways to score WvW that adhere to capture an hold. The problem with the current scoring system is that it leads a simple capture race. This happens because all assets of a type regardless of location have the same value and only a small portion of the score rewards capturing objectives in clusters.

The better scoring model is the camp -> dolyak -> objective scoring model. This requires clustered control to score. Its still capture and hold but rewards regional control. This is important because as soon as you have regional control you end up with front lines and front lines lead to designated fight locations and the fights have more meaningful impact on the game.

The current PPT system creates a system where the path of least resistance is the best strategy. Because there is only a small reward for controlling objectives near each other. The end result is a capture race with a rather unrewarding strategic feel.

Dumping PPT wouldn’t be making it a new game … it would be making WvW a better game. All they need to do add points per capture and upgrade (which they plan to do anyway) and ditch PPT and then just tweak PPK and yak values to balance the game. To further reward the supply connections and regional control, yak values can be increased when the come from higher tier camps and when they go to higher tier objectives.

Torqued makes a very astute, strategically sound assessment here. I have historically been one that greatly enjoys playing for PPT because it’s the only real strategic play. And as much as I love to fight, I love good strategy more. I’ve devised effective small team strategies solely around the PPT and 15 minute timer which in fact, are all about maximizing the low hanging fruit — the path of least resistance. It does get boring after a while, since there is little variety to it.

So I REALLY like his idea of regional control with objective dependencies. This would add a much higher level of strategic play, as well as provide for very targeted, valuable fight scenarios that tie directly to the actual score. A system based on regional control would actually create multiple fronts to fight on, since a region could be assaulted from various angles. Which might actually shift the blobbing meta in a new, better direction.

I’ve never really thought about dropping the PPT before. But from the perspective Torqued provides, I’d be highly in favor of what he’s proposing.

nice to see another poll. i just looked over the choices and tbh, it’s going to be challenging to pick just one. they all seem important to me!

i’ll have to think it over and come back to the poll.

suggestion to Anet going forward:

make sure these polls — and other important WvW info sharing, like the scoring overhaul ideas — get posted to the GW2.com blog AND facebook, so that those who do NOT read the forums can read up on the ideas and participate in the feedback process. 75% of my guildies had no clue this reward track poll was even going on, much less knew about the recent post from Tyler about scoring.

i am sure the vast majority of the player base doesn’t read the forums. but i bet a higher number of people read their load screen, where the blog posts show. so getting this info front and center for their consumption is vital to this process going forward.

Dear Tyler,

These ideas for changing the scoring sound fantastic. I’m particularly excited about the notion of skirmishes and the Victory Point system. These will go a long way from preventing runaway and skewed matches.

The only part I’m concerned with is the potential solution to “night capping”. I think it falls short of where it needs to be and would remain out of balance.

Tyler Bearce.3427:

• It’s not okay that the time periods with the smallest number of active players have the largest impact on the score

I don’t see this as an entirely accurate assessment of the situation at hand. There are basically two “night time” scenarios that need addressing:

1. mis-matched prime times: periods when one or more of the worlds has their majority of players on the maps, seriously outnumbering the other world(s), because of time zone or work and sleep schedules, and they sweep the maps, uncontested for many hours, thus generating tons of extra world score

2. time periods when a small number of players can sweep the maps, uncontested for many hours, thus generating tons of extra world score

As a member of GoM who plays NA prime, as well as many other time periods, I have seen both of these scenarios in play, and they’re not necessarily just at “night time”. However, I believe that #1 is the more common imbalance.

I feel that defining a data center “night” is unfair to those players and guilds who’s primary play time does not match a data center based definition. Time of play/time zone is something that we, both players and developers, cannot change. It’s a fixed variable that should not be designed around. Any plans around a set time will most definitely alienate a portion of the player base and the game will remain imbalanced.

The real issue is not time, but map population. And it is a variable that can and should be designed around, and that is where I see the multiplier having the greatest and most fair impact toward balance.

I am advocating for this because it’s quite often, even during NA prime, that a server can be seriously outnumbered. Even after the linking with SoS I am still frequently seeing our side being outnumbered. And I would prefer that a world wins by smarts and strategy rather than pure brute force. Of course, the 5min tic will help with this since zerging/blobbing will become even less score efficient than it already is.

A few possible examples:

1. red team has a 70 man zerg on green’s BL. green is defending with 20 people and continues to get wiped by the larger group, simply because of the size differential. The PPK red team gets from an imbalanced fight should be greatly reduced compared to the PPK green team defenders get. And if green happens to overcome the outnumbered scenario and wipes the red team, they should get far more PPK because that accomplishment is so much more remarkable and valuable to their team.

2. If that red team zerg takes an objective while outnumbering the defenders, red should earn less points for that keep than they would if the contest was not outnumbered — irregardless of upgrade level.

Now, the trick with this is to balance not just around single map population, but across ALL 4 maps. Because it’s quite common to have 1 BL outnumbered while the other 3 maps have balanced populations. But the severity of the situation increases if ALL 4 maps are imbalanced during a time period. That right there is the source of the runaway PPT and the source of the frustration around “night capping”.

TLDR: it’s not a “night time” issue. it’s a population balance issue. designing around a set time period that does not reflect the play time of all or some players is unfair and will only server to further the imbalance and alienate more players.

balancing point multipliers around single and all 4 map populations DURING skirmish periods, will be a much more effective, fluid and adaptable design that will serve the needs of those outnumbered much better.

not sure exactly how to do this, but I’m convinced it’s the way to go!

Thanks for the poll Anet. Nice to see you’re listening and asking. I look forward to more polls in the future.

I chose the scoring option. As a small team ops and roaming commander that focuses on strategy and efficiency, I would like to see such scoring changes reward strategy over brute force or imbalanced coverage.

The thing about scoring in WvW is that it comes from multiple sources. That’s part and parcel of the overall strategic of the game mode. Always has been. Always should be. Those sources of score should have different weights and values depending on the situation — such as the suggestion that upgraded objectives give more points when controlled.

There are enough different play styles in WvW that any scoring improvements must take into account that those wishing to play in their preferred style — or any style for that matter — all see that their actions positively and powerfully contribute to the overall team’s success. And that no one play style — ppk, ppt, blobbing, zerg-busting, roaming, scouting, defending, etc — is any more or less effective than the other. Every play style is valid in WvW and every play style should be able to make an impact, not get stonewalled/steamrolled by another style and be rewarded, both on a team and individual player level.

On a small QoL but oh so important tangent..PLEASE give us an option to run a tagless squad, so that commanders have access to all the great squad features — like organizing sub groups, setting participation sharing, having lieutenants, checking supply, etc etc — without having to tag up temporarily, drop group and get invited back, subsequently losing the squad powers. This is SUPER essential for small team roaming groups, closed guild groups or other groups that don’t want random followers tagging along simply because they see a tag on the map. Thanks

Despite the use of the term “linking” for this beta experiment, it still ends up feeling like a merging when the “guest” server — such as mine — doesn’t see it’s name anywhere. Many people from my server got the impression that we were merged. There were many question about this in map chat. Bear in mind, many people probably don’t read the forums. So the perception of merging, while not the reality, overrides the technical reality.

When I looked at millenium this morning to check our progress and saw the host server name and not mine….it felt a bit sad.

From my perspective — and I’m not a huge server loyalist — both servers are being linked, thus both servers should “loose identity” on some level. I would much rather prefer the game reports that “Red Team captured Hardened Rampart” or “Green Team captured Habib’s Encampment” etc. Much more neutral. After all, server name is really irrelevant. Half the time I don’t even see it. I just see enemy nameplates.

Or, from a more fun perspective, just conjoin the names. For example “Sea of Madness”, “Ehmry Denravi” ,“Blackgate Terrace”, “Magumma’s Rest”, “Stormbluff Desert” etc. That way both servers retain some connection to the overall team identity but the paring takes on a whole NEW identity, which is, quite honestly, what’s really going on.

Just some thoughts for down the road.

I wouldn’t mind more colors. However, I would LOVE shapes that have meaning based on group style and roles: zerg-mander, guild only, havoc squad, guerilla strike force/black ops, roaming, defense, scouting, etc.

Our server tried to reach a consensus on assigning such meanings to the various colors, but eventually, since we couldn’t really control or enforce them, we learned to live with multiple tags and colors and didn’t worry about the meanings so much. And that actually improved our communication and coordination.

The Lumber 4 upgrade at the Workshop says “Add elder logs as a possible output from the workshop’s lumber synthesizer” and yet it requires 500 Hard Wood Planks.

Is this a bug or a misprint or something? Every node before this has required the corresponding resource that it is intended to output. This seems a bit out of sync and rather weird to me.

Dear Gaile,

so far I’ve really been enjoying the update! highlights include:

• how many different ares of the game were covered
• gliding in central tyria is just awesomesauce!
• the WvW changes have restored the value and fun of roaming and supply denial (2 of my favorite activities) as well as greatly reduced the previously ridiculous number of fully upgraded objectives.
• thief changes in the acrobatics line and the staff auto-attack sequence are wonderful and greatly appreciated (although there were 2 posts about the % increases for the staff, making me unsure if it got boosted twice or what exactly was happening)
• i am actually liking the changes to the scrapper trait line and feel a tighter build synergy, despite some loss of defensiveness. should work out as a win-win

my only criticism comes in the form of a suggestion:

• the removal of the timer-based objective upgrading in WvW also removed something that I found very very helpful — looking at the objective panel from afar and being able to tell just by looking at the timer, whether or not RI was on it.

I believe it is absolutely imperative we have some kind of easy, highly transparent RI indicator as soon as possible. here’s why: every minute spent traveling on the BL counts. running clear across the map only to find out an objective has RI really sucks and is hugely inefficient, for any sized group. for years now WvWers have been using various web sites and apps to be able to see the RI timer. running these extra windows of side apps is also hugely inefficient (compared to a simple in-game indicator). and honestly, players shouldn’t have to use outside resources. it should all be in game. especially since it’s all in the API. and now that we can see, in game, which guild claimed it, and how upgraded it is. and extra especially with the new BL being so huge and taking so long to travel through. full RI transparency is essential for maximum strategy and quality of life.

I suggest an RI badge on the objective map icon (similar to how the claimed “badge” is used) or perhaps a visual effect — like a thick boundary line that “counts down”, disappearing as it moves clockwise around the main icon. there should also be an RI timer in the objective panel. this way we have 2 forms of noticing this vital information!

those are my only thought so far. thanks for a great update!!

yay for gliding nearly everywhere!!!! :P

re: the Desert BL

I understand many people’s frustration over the new BL maps. i’ve talked to a number of players on my server, and i’ve read many of the comments on this thread and others.

as a roamer and small-squad leader, i personally really like many aspects of the new map, I like the keep layouts. I enjoy the more difficult lord/supervisor mechanics. I love how the keeps and towers are themed. I love the upgrade tiers. i love the benefits from the shrines. i love how enemy sentries mark us for a short while when we get close to them. i love how they look. I even like a number of the anti-zerg / blob-slowdown mechanics in place.

the only thing I don’t love — and this one thing would probably bring many of the population back on my server — is the travel time. even with swiftness and 25% movement speed on my characters, it still takes me a hell of a long time to get from spawn to the opposite side of the map. and that’s going N to S and even E to W.

this is clearly a function of scale, geographic mechanics and familiarity with the layout. my familiarity has increased alot, making me feel better about the map. but if either scale of mechanics or both were reduced — i’m not saying eliminate all the obstacles, they are strategically good and fun in some places/cases — I think these maps would see a much higher population then they currently are seeing.

oh…and for the love of all things WvW, please ensure that you gather the opinions and test play experience of small-squad commanders as well as players and commanders from low WvW populations servers. I feel the new map didn’t take into account enough feedback from these demographics before it launched.

thanks!

Squad Suggestion: Please create options to allow us to form tagless or non-public (publicly invisible) tagged wvw squads.

currently, to accomplish this, I tag up, form the squad, LEAVE the squad, then get invited back. a bit ridunkulous to have to do it this way, in my opinion. and my squad mates can’t see my tag any more.

one simple solution would be to put an option in the squad leaders UI to “hide commander tag”. there are some use cases for this. but perhaps an even better solution would be an option to allow use to set the commander’s tag to only be visible by squad members. this would allow for having the tag up — which the squad members often wish to see — but not publicly visible.

1st use case: keeping a squad small I mainly lead small roaming/havoc groups but I don’t want more than 10 players following me. being able to go “tagless” or invisible to others, would allow me to use the squad UI, control the subgroups, see supply, broadcast, etc. but not be publicly open or visible to anyone else.

2nd use case: guild-only wvw groups. there are many many times in the past that I’ve wanted to just play with my guild group — perhaps just for fun, or we’re practicing new comps, strategies or coordination — and we don’t want any random players tagging along. in this case the tag is important for the squad to see, but for random players outside the squad.

3rd use case: wvw guild missions. I’ve lost track of how many times a random player starts following us around and asks what we’re doing, then runs off when they hear we’re doing missions. I need to be able to form and control a commanded squad, but hide my tag so that it’s not distracting to other players who are expecting a commander is actually commanding regular wvw.

thanks!

Oh, one other thing:

FIX or remove the scribe gating for WvW unlocked War Room upgrades.

I run a small 7-9 active player guild. We have 2 players working on scribing. We have unlocked a number of War Room upgrades. But because scribing is so poorly designed and challenging to level (I am at 55, the other is at 76) we have no way to reproduce ANY of these items except the supply drop. Why put us through the paces of unlocking an upgrade we can’t even reproduce?? This is just ridiculous.

If you want players to learn how to use the claiming upgrades, so you can see whether they are of value, strategically sound or horribly broken, then make them more accessible than is currently allowed.

P.S. Scribing is the worst crafting I’ve ever seen. It’s expensive, complicated, imbalanced and honestly, no fun, non-compelling and incredibly infuriating. Every time I try to scribe, I get about 5 points into it, then throw my arms up in frustration and exclaim that I will wait for the next nerf. I hate it.

Wow! Really good, small changes that might (or might not) have much larger impacts. I’m excited about each one and think they’re a start in the right direction. A few questions/comments.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Objectives upgrades will no longer be automatic based on time. They will upgrade based on dolyaks that reach them. Smaller groups can now prevent an objective from upgrading by preventing dolyaks from reaching that objective.

Question: What about camps? This mentioned nothing about camps. Will they still upgrade automatically over time? If so, that is potentially still problematic. For example: prior to HoT, while roaming alone, I could solo a whole camp quite quickly, but only if it wasn’t fully upgraded. After HoT, since I am on a low WvW population server, and due to the auto-updating, most camps are fully upgraded, making solo capping alot slower and harder.

Suggestion: Have camps upgrade based on dolyaks successfully reaching their destination. Then the value of dolyaks in your original change above increases even further, and solo/small roaming groups once again have distinct and definitive value.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Supply cost for all catapults are being reduced by ten supply. The layout of the Desert Borderlands map has increased the number of catapults required to take some objectives. We agree with your feedback that also increasing the cost of catapults pushed the balance too far towards defense so we are tuning that more towards offense.

Thank you! Love this change. Once again a 3-man roaming party will be able to fully build one guild or regular catapult. Especially since we’ve been robbed of our +5 supply buff.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• Points per kill will be turned on and kept on. This is to more directly recognize the contribution that fighting other players adds to the success of the world.

I never had an issue with this, since I run a small 5-7 man roaming guild. However, it is a fair and valuable change that I know many of the WvW guilds on my server will really appreciate. The main point here — if you kill someone or are killed, your death matters to the overall success of the match up.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• The number of players who can rally off a single kill has been reduced from five to one. Players will also no longer be able to revive defeated players while in combat. You still will be able to revive downed players while in combat. Both of these changes are designed to help fights resolve and to give smaller, more skilled groups a better chance against larger groups.

When I first read this, I didn’t like it because it is such a huge departure from how it is in PvE (unsure how it is in PvP). But then a friend commented that the change to rallying off a kill creates a fair and balanced playing field. One rally for one kill. This will indeed change the nature of fights, eliminate worries about uplevels being rallybots and the wild and erratic changes to how many foes, or allies, are in the fight at any given time.

Question: What about stealth rezzes from fully downed? For small roaming groups with 1 or more thief, a stealth rez has been a vital part of game play and group composition. Will thieves need to be out of combat to perform such rezzes once this change is made?

I have done some additional investigation on this. 2 days ago I roamed with a buddy for about an hour and we took 4 camps, a ton of dolys and a few sentries. later on he took a keep with some friends of ours. here are our results:

camp 1: 2 badges
camp 2: 0 badges
camp 3: 1 badge
camp 4: 0 badges
keep 1: 1 badge

we both got 10 badges from 1 daily and 20 from another daily.

these results just feel low to me. I am mostly a roamer — camps, dolys, sentries and towers. prior to HoT I remember being able to go into WvW for a few hours and be able to afford buying a weapon or piece of armor from the WvW badge vendor. at least 100 badges in a few hours.

to make matters worse, we now need them for certain guild hall war room upgrades.

i know EotM badge drops were nerfed, but it feels like WvW proper drop rate was nerfed as well.

please look into this. it’s a significant hamper to progress. thanks!

it was in WvW proper. and I have done some additional investigation on this. 2 days ago I roamed with a buddy for about an hour and we took 4 camps, a ton of dolys and a few sentries. later on he took a keep with some friends of ours. here are our results:

camp 1: 2 badges
camp 2: 0 badges
camp 3: 1 badge
camp 4: 0 badges
keep 1: 1 badge

we both got 10 badges from 1 daily and 20 from another daily.

these results just feel low to me. I am mostly a roamer — camps, dolys, sentries and towers. prior to HoT I remember being able to go into WvW for a few hours and be able to afford buying a weapon or piece of armor from the Wvw badge vendor. at least 100 badges in a few hours.

to make matters worse, we now need them for certain guild hall war room upgrades.

i know EotM badge drops were nerfed, but it feels like WvW proper drop rate was nerfed as well.

(posted in bug reports, reposting here for greater visibility)

Went out roaming for an hour WvW yesterday, as I require 60 more badges for the next war room upgrade. I figured, 60 would be easy to get. From a normal quick roaming session. For the first 30 minutes I wasn’t paying attention to my currencies. Then I checked. No change. So I started watching after each capture event.

I took 5 sentries, 2 camps and several shrines.

No badges. Nothing.

Only badges I saw yesterday were from doing the WvW dailies.

From the standpoint of guild hall war room progress, this is a serious setback/bug.

Anyone else noticing this?

Went out roaming for an hour WvW today, as I require 60 more badges for the next war room upgrade. I figured, 60 would be easy to get. From a normal quick roaming session.

For the first 30 minutes I wasn’t paying attention to my currencies. Then I checked. No change. So I started watching after each capture event.

I took 5 sentries, 2 camps and several shrines.

No badges. Nothing.

From the standpoint of guild hall war room progress, this is a serious bug.

Finally and excitedly unlocked my Dash trait today and was shocked to find myself wiggling around like a spazz as I dashed forward. I really don’t like or need to see my character doing this. Not to mention it doesn’t seem realistic to me.

I can understand that this extra little effect might add the “appearance” of dodging attacks and that some people might like that. But in all honesty, it hurts my eyes and makes me dizzy. It’s even worse when moving backwards.

Perhaps I’ll get used to it. But I was quite happy with how the animation was in BWE3. Can you revert it back to that?

Update: 1 hour of using it and low and behold, I am actually getting used to it! Fancy that. Silly me. lol The sound effect on the animation is pretty cool too. That said, I can see the point Kash.9213 makes below about it causing a positional and orientation challenge.

So while I prefer not wiggling as I Dash, I am certainly able to live with this.

oh cool. didn’t know we could buy supers with these. that’s great. thanks

still…..since WxP is account bound — and thus each rank point is usable by every single character on an account — the proof itself should be usable by any character. the point of the proof is to unlock hero points. not buy siege.

The chest they come in are account bound. WxP is account wide. So the proofs should be too.

With the random amount of proofs in each chest we have no idea whether to save them or give them to your other characters. And we have no idea how many chests you need to open in order to have enough proofs to unlock your next elite spec item.

Worst of all, I foresee reaching a point where we’ve unlocked our entire elite spec line — all 400 hero points — and have a few proofs left in our bags, useless and wasteful, which by all rights — because WxP is account bound — should be usable on our alts. But they’re not.

Please make them account bound.

This would align Proofs 100% with the WxP mechanic, remove the current complexity, keep it simple, usable and reliable (actually be able to plan how much effort for how much gain) so that RNG doesn’t control our progress but that we do by our direct efforts.

Thanks for listening!

As the leader of a small havoc squad guild, I am also greatly missing the strategic advantage of this buff. However, we are dead set on getting the guild hall to a level where we can get it back. Just wish they had grandfathered at least that in. The other former fort buffs I could care less about.

I really love this hall and greatly appreciate the inclusion of the jump pads. A huge part of the appeal of this hall is the gliding. However the pads fall a tad short of being fully beneficial for this hall with their current functioning.

Suggestions:
The following changes to jump pads and their associated updrafts would make them rock by making them much more useful and reducing any tediousness or extra steps in getting around this amazing guild hall.

1. Have them on by default.
We shouldn’t have to land, activate, jump, open our glider (if you can even get that to happen right on the 1st jump) and take off again. That’s 4 extra steps. This becomes quite tedious when traversing a long distance and adds unneeded time and complexity to gliding around. Less fun too!

It would be more efficient, easier and greatly appreciated if these were just on by default. We could get around without having to stop and come up with fun circuits around the hall — for guild games or contests or what have you. Imagine the aerial adventures we could have!!

2. Make them work for guild members who don’t have Updraft
At least during the expedition where having updraft made a huge difference in getting around. But in general as well.

3. Fix the “jump” when starting at the pad
I had great difficulty getting my glider open and back into the updraft before hitting the ground again for two reasons. (1) The jump needs to be a bit higher — extra elevation would help immensely! (2) The animation is awkward. I roll around in the air, often out of the updraft, and It just doesn’t feel precise or clean or like much of a jump. I don’t even understand why I have to roll around in the air or out of the draft. It would be ideal if the pad just shot me up, inside the draft, in a vertical/falling animation position so I can immediately open my glider.

If having the pad drafts on by default is not an option, then that greatly escalates the need for a smoother easier and higher jump execution!

4. Provide more/bigger updrafts near the entrance
So that we can fly a bit farther from there, like over to the tavern or center area or beyond. At least enough to reach the next draft/pad. Would be great for folks who are visiting or newly arriving that don’t have the waypoints!

Thanks for listening!!

i LOVE the new nodes. having them in objectives and giving random mats is a HUGE improvement over the way they were in the alpine maps.

Dear Anet,

Situation:
I lead a 5 to 7 person guild. We mainly focus on WvW but also enjoy PvE. Last night we claimed our guild hall and got our tavern. I was dismayed when I saw that the Mine Tiers require so many Silverwaste Shovels. We had maybe 12-15 total on 3 of us.

Problem:
Upgrade resources like these shovels place small guilds at a severe disadvantage because they are account bound, exclusive to specific content and rather rare. Which thus, greatly increases the time it will take for small guilds to get their buildings.

For example: A guild with 20 active players can do a few hours of SW and probably come up with the 50 shovels easily. Just 3 shovels per person is very doable. For a small guild like mine with 5-7 active players this will take much longer because each person needs to acquire 3 to 4 times the amount per person, thus taking 3 to 4 times longer. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. How many hours will we need to spend in SW instead of playing the new content?

This completely goes against the design intent of making it so that larger guilds don’t get upgrades faster.

Solution:
For specific resources like these shovels (and there may be others I haven’t noticed), I see 3 possible solutions:

1. Increase the drop rate of such items
2. Allow such items to be acquired via other/current content or other means.
3. Scale the amount of required resources for items like these based on guild size, time to acquire and range of availability of the item.

In fact, you might need to do one or more of these in some combination.

Summary
However, and probably most importantly, I really do not want to be spending all week in SW when there are wonderful new PvE zones and story to explore, an excessive amount of Hero Points (per character) to earn for elite specs and amazing new WvW maps to explore and play in — all of which is what I really want to be doing.

Please, find a better solution for resources like this! Something that aligns well with playing the content we want to experience. You did it with Hero Points in WvW. You did it with gathering in WvW by adding those sythensizer nodes (which are awesome btw). You can do it with these type of items too.

Heck one of those ships in Verdant Brink had to have a cargo hold full of shovels which got scatted over the zone right? :P lol

Thanks for listening!

P.S. I am LOVING the new zones and new WvW maps. Hero Points — not so much.

human male scrapper

I just got to this story step 5 mins ago. I flew by him on a rock which was by the vista, across a ravine from his platform. he disappeared when i flew by and suddenly appeared over on his platform. I’ve tried gliding by him several times from different places to no avail. something definitely off.

also….it was night time when this happened, just in case that trigger has anything to do with it.

thanks for your efforts Matthew!

Update: (30 minutes later)
So, I logged out while posting here earlier. Came back and it was nightfall…again. So I figured I must have spawned in a new instance, because night doesn’t come back THAT fast. lol Long story short, i flew over to him and walked up on his platform and voila…he could talk!

ColinJohanson.2394:

It’s 400 points total to unlock everything in an elite spec training line – I just can’t remember off hand how many points folks have currently if they have done all the existing ones, but it’s right around 200. The rest you’ll need to earn in jungle to unlock the deeper skills/traits/etc. in the training line.

You only need 60 hero points to begin using your elite spec, the points you spend after that continue to unlock more skills, traits, skins, etc.

Again, hero challenges are worth 10 points each in the jungle. So no you don’t need to go do 200-400 jungle challenges.

While I am 100% on board with having to earn, train and unlock our elite specs, I think that 400 hero points is horribly excessive. Especially for WvW only players. (Note: I love PvX and have done world completion 3 times, but play mostly in WvW).

Many WvW purists hate PvE. They hate running around Tyria doing something that does not contribute to the weekly matchup. Which means, they are likely to have NO excess hero points because they have no map completion. So they will need to drum up the 400 points using the new WvW system.

Assuming the Notarized Scrolls of Maguuma Heroics give 10 hero points (which still needs to be confirmed) they would need 40 of these scrolls. At 5 ranks per scroll, that’s 200 ranks in WvW.

(Note: there still remains the unanswered question of being retroactively rewarded proofs in WvW based on current rank — something that Anet should seriously consider since that would be the new WvW hero point system equivalent and having finished world completion!!)

Now, 200 ranks is no small feat. Heck it took me nearly 2 months to go from 1100 to 1320, because I am on a lower tier server, mostly roam with my guild havoc squad and very rarely get in large scale zerg fights or take keeps, which generate the most WxP.

200 ranks will take a heck of a lot longer than finding 40 hero challenges in the jungle. I bet many PvE/PvX players will find their full 20-40 either on launch day or by the end of the 1st weekend.

I highly doubt anyone in this entire game has earned 100 ranks in one weekend of WvW. Even with a birthday booster one. If they have, they spent every waking moment doing it, hard core via EotM or zerg-festing.

And with the new borderlands map being so much bigger and taking longer to get across, we’re possibly looking at earning less WxP than the smaller alpine map has provided, because it takes longer to get somewhere to cap something to earn the WxP.

And what if you’re on a server where your role is to scout and defend? You’re getting even less WxP because defending rewards less than attacking. Which draws the time line out even further.

Then throw in the fact that MANY WvW players hate leveling and will use Tomes to level their Revenants. Meaning that WvW players who want to be a herald on launch day won’t be able to because they’ll have to wait to earn 30 ranks to unlock the elite line, which can easily take a week or more for some players, depending on play styles and amount of play time.

Suddenly WvW players are looking at several weeks to a month just to fully train their elite spec, when PvE purists will have it done in a matter of days. Simply because of their preferences for certain content types.

To make matters worse, if my assumption about scrolls is incorrect — if they give less than 10 hero points — then this timeline is extended even further.

I predict that if this is not remedied immediately, we’ll find WvW players are going to forget about their 1st week’s matchups and storm EotM armed with boosters to karma/rank train just to fully train their elite specs as fast as possible. That is NOT supportive of the new borderlands map or any of the great WvW changes coming. And I doubt this is what Anet is intending.

TL;DR: It takes much more effort and time to get 5 ranks in WvW than it does to find one Maguuma Jungle Hero Challenge. PvX friendly players will have their elite specs fully trained by Sunday. Meanwhile WvW only players will still be working on it for days, if not weeks to come and, will once again, feel pressured to play content they have no interest in, just to get their elite spec. This disparity is way out of balance and horribly unfair.

Thanks for listening!

ColinJohanson.2394:

You’ll set the preference in the guild mission panel itself – anyone with the appropriate permissions can do this from anywhere in the world.

One other question:

When we set our preference in the mission panel, will it be multiple choice or mutually exclusive? For example: can we choose just WvW and PvP? Or will it be such that we can only choose one of the three choices?

Thanks!

I have 2 questions regarding Tyler’s post on the earning of Hero Points via WvW in HoT:

1. Will any of the proofs be earned retroactively based on how many core Tyria Hero Challenges have already been completed and what rank the player is at launch? Please explain.

2. Since WvW rank is account-wide and Hero Points are per-character, will these Proofs and Notarized Scrolls be account bound and usable by any character on that account? If they’re not account bound, then we’ll have a massive hassle on our hands and the new system may be highly unsuccessful.

Thanks!

Colin,

Thanks SO much for providing this information to us ahead of time. It will definitely help with our missions planning. Two quick questions:

ColinJohanson.2394:

On the good news side – guild missions reset 3 days after the launch of HoT, so at most you’re waiting 3 days if you’re not interested in doing the launch day missions. Just make sure to set your guilds preferences in those first 3 days!

1. What is the specific day and time (PST) that the launch missions will reset? 3 days later is not specific enough to plan around.

2. After the launch missions reset 3 days later, what day of the week and time (PST) will guild missions reset on a weekly basis? This will be very helpful for planning. Thanks!

Thanks again and super excited about launch!

lordvroom.1274:

Before you go all melodramatic we do not know the current cost to build the new +5. Yes it may take some time to build up the War Room but it could simply be a scribe recipe like 50 badges of honor, 10 wood, and 10 leather.

Yes I get that it is gonna suck to have to rebuild up that progress to get our essential buffs back I don’t think it will be hard to do. From one of the streams that I watched they said that there is a separate WvW queue to build items (like +5) than the PvE things you may need.

I trust that Seth and the other programmers know how important these are to running efficiently in WvW and doubt that the new system is a disaster. Just wait 9 days and then we can pass judgement.

thanks for the reminders Vroom. i had forgotten about how they said there’d be a pve build queue and a wvw build queue. i trust the devs too. just a bit worried this new system will make life harder for small guilds. but ya, i guess waiting and seeing really is the only solution. lol

thanks again!

Irenio CalmonHuang.2048:

Rocket Charge will have the leap play at start rather than finish (like other leaps) and isn’t going to be so erratic once you’ve closed to your target.

I’m a little bit confused on this. The behavior of leap finishers that I am familiar with — for example Heartseaker — as well as blast finishers — like Rocket Boots — is that they activate when leaving a field and when landing/arriving in a field.

Will Rocket Charge behave this same way? How you’ve worded your information above sounds like it will only activate on departure from a field. This would be horrible, as placing hammer #5 at range and Rocket Charging into that field to cause the finish was highly effective and pretty darn fun!

Thanks for all the hard work Irenio. You guys must be excited and exhausted at the same time as launch approaches. Can’t imagine the level of intensity!

I think Lord Faren is an elder dragon in disguise! :P lol

Just a flesh wound.3589:

CHS.5160:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Question. If WoW were to bring out an expansion that gives the purchasers 10 more levels and they completely own the non buyers in PvP, is that p2w?

No.
In WoW, players are matched within the levels 1-10,11-20,21-30 and so on.
Giving players the opportunity to grow to level 101-110 would not be p2w because players who do not own the expansion would never get matched against other players whose characters did reach such a level.

This is not happening in GW2 however, and this is the primary reason this concern even came up in the first place.

Then why do I see complaints about max level chars slaughtering people in the PvP maps? One thing they complain about is how it’s now impossible to fight them whereas at the start of the game mid level chars had a chance against max levels.

And yes, those are world PvP maps but it’s still max levels against chars that can’t compete where they used to be able to.

If you’re talking about WvW (which is NOT the same as PvP), the different in levels has nothing to do with Heart of Thorns or pay to win. A higher level character is always going to have an advantage over lower level characters in any game, whether it’s f2p, p2w or buy to play like GW2.

The reason you’re seeing complaints that you mentioned are because a while back Anet changed the system for unlocking traits. Very low level players now bring less unlocked traits, etc, into WvW than they did when the game 1st launched. Max level players in WvW have more traits, skills and stats unlocked. This has NOTHING to do with HoT or any purchases. Not related.

The very definition of play-to-win is about the ability to purchase highly superior gear with real life cash via the cash shop/gem store. It usually relates to a free to play game where you don’t have to pay anything to play the game.

And btw….the beta ended last weekend. Right now no one is playing anything connected to HoT. No elite specs are being played right now.

Dear Anet,

I have heard/read/seen very little about whether there is any connection between Mastery Tracks/Points and WvW play and I have a few clarifying questions about it.

1. Will we be able to train any Mastery Tracks by playing WvW as a level 80?
For example: training the Legendary Precursor Crafting Mastery. It would be grossly negligent and hugely disappointing if this track was unaffected by WvW play.

2. Will we be able to earn any Master Points in WvW?
For example: would be rather odd if WvWers could train, say the Precursor Crafting masteries, but not earn mastery points to unlock them.

3. What Masteries will and won’t work in WvW?
For example: will Advanced Logistics from the Pact Commander track work? I heard a passing loose reference to it working in WvW during one of the twitch casts, but no real details. (Obviously the HoT masteries won’t work, as those are specific to the new content).

4. Will there be any WvW only Mastery tracks?
I don’t personally see the need for it, as we have the WxP ranks and abilities. But I figured I’d ask anyways because it could be really fun and rewarding.

I’m hoping you’ve planned for some Masteries — either now or in the future — to be earnable by playing WvW. Looking forward to more information on this topic.

Thanks!

sephiroth.4217:

Is HoT pay to win?

New skills I keep bumping into feel extremely effective and have made certain classes harder to deal with than normal, you can only attain new skills by spending $72 (Australian) so that would essentially make it pay to win right?

Guild Wars 2 is NOT pay to win.

Pay to win would be where the cash shop sells gear and weapons that boost your statistical power well beyond what a player who doesn’t buy from the cash shop can get from just playing the game.

In GW2 gem store items are solely for looks, quality of life and convenience. Anyone spending their hard earned cash has no advantage above those who don’t spend their real life cash.

The expansion is simply an expansion of the core game. New features. New builds. New class. New content.

Good questions MH. I’ve been mulling over what I plan to do in that regard as well.

Personally, based on the information provided on the precursor crafting journey (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-legendary-journey/) and the Tyria based mastery track (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Tyria_mastery_track), it would appear wise to wait till HoT launches to work on your world completion. Simply because, these mastery tracks will be “trained” and unlocked by earning new levels while doing things in Tyria — not in the HoT new maps.

Save yourself time and effort and wait just a few short weeks, so you can accomplish all this stuff at the same time as you explore throughout Tyria. That’s what seems to make sense to me.

Hope this helps!

Nike.2631:

Arrow.4619:

Nike.2631:

All true. Believe me, the prospect of my Thief being a first-round draft pick for raid-tank has me salivating.

Nothing against you as player . . . but I think you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

I’m not offended. What’s your concern? Best capacity to dodge in game, 10% mitigation after dodge, dishes weakness, self-heals left, right, and center (on hit and on spend initiative), evade on #3.

Bunker thieves (all 8 of us in the entire game…) are already incredibly tanky. The last round of changes builds on that like I could only dream of.

Wow! Nike you just might be onto something there. Kudos!

I’ve never tried a bunker thief, but I can see why you’d be getting excited, given what you quoted. I’ve mulled over the idea of a combat medic thief using the DD line. Perhaps I’ll look into both one day.

I’m just so happy to read about someone playing a build that is rare and enjoyable for them — who’s finding the hidden gems and synergies in the traits that many of us might quickly dismiss. Sets a great example.

I sure unearthed a gem with Daredevil! I started using Withdraw instead of Hide in Shadows with my Daredevil, paired with the Trickster trait in Trickery. It ended up synergizing really well in all but one situation — running away from a zerg in WvW LOL. But the extra “free” evade, solid heal. no cast time and extra condi cleanse made a huge difference in PvE, 1v1s, forward facing combat and good kiting. Certainly an unexpected gem I never have tried before.

babazhook.6805:

Auesis.7301:

babazhook.6805:

Just a question and I am sorry if this answered before but to any that might have tried it.

Does Fist Flurry double up the Pulmonary Impact off the chain if successful with the traited skill Impacting disruption?

It would seem you should get two Pulmonary impacts off the chain if you managed an interrupt. Is that correct?

Yes, it stacks.

Thank you. It would seem to me that haste would be devastating if coupled with this skill.

Yes indeed it is! I typically run the Flanking Strikes and Sleight of Hand traits from Trickery. This weekend I also ran the Haste skill itself. An awesome combo I found was Steal (or some other “port to target” skill), pop Haste, use Impairing Daggers for the immob/slow, then the Fist Flurry and Palm Strike. Incredibly devastating. Add to that Impacting Disruption (which I haven’t tried yet), and if you get interrupts from the daze from Sleight of Hand and the Palm Strike stun, it’s double extra damage. Insanely great in PvE, but sadly not as reliable in WvW.

Wow! These are GREAT changes. Super stoked to see every single one. Thanks for the update Karl and the great work!

BrunoBRS.5178:

• swapping driven fortitude and escapist’s absolution around (DF is a strong contender in itself, i’d argue with a slight buff it would be on par with the other two traits, but EA is just mandatory for any competitive scenario, meaning no one takes the other traits because they just can’t give up EA’s cleanse)

+1 for baselining EA!

Bruno has an excellent point here, which has had me concerned. The cleanse is absolutely mandatory in PvP and WvW. Which sucks, because then we miss out on taking Staff Master and Impacting Disruption. I tested the former, but never tested latter, which is a shame because I run Sleight of Hand.

Personally, I’d like to see both EA and DF merged into the master minor trait slot. This provides 2 levels of sustainability that are essential for a melee based, in-your-face, brawler type specialization. That said, I would be happy enough if DF and EA traded places.

As for Weakening Strikes, at first I was mulling over how to make the trait appealing to both physical and condi damage dealers, for example adding poison or a chance to cause vulnerabiltiy. But the more thought about it, it almost has to support our survival to be a viable strong trait.

So here is a possible overall scenario:

1. Add the damage reduction to Weakening Strikes or a heal connected to the weakened foes such as “attacks from (or maybe against) weakened foes cause you to be healed for an amount”
2. If damage reduction is added to Weakening Strikes, then merge EA into DF at the master minor.
3. Alternatively, if a heal is added to Weakening Strikes, just move EA to the minor and remove DF entirely.
4. Add a new master trait where EA was that supports condition damage builds.

These changes do the following:

• Greatly boost survival on the cleansing, healing and damage reduction fronts, which we desperately need
• Allow low or non-stealth Daredevils to have a comparable level of sustainability that they got from Shadow Arts, freeing them up to choose other trait lines that compliment the elite spec better. Because lets’ face it, taking SA for survival as a non-stealth Daredevil is a complete waste. Even stealth-using Daredevils would be hampered, because they’d feel they have to take SA to be viable. If the Daredevil line can provide solid survival, then it’s much more lucrative to our damage to take either the DA or CS lines.
• Send some love in this trait line to the condi builds.

My only other comment is that, despite absolutely loving Dash, I am a little sad I will rarely get to choose Bound, since Dash is so much stronger in WvW and for group fights, and thus will miss out on the Bound finisher.

Any chance we can see Vault become a blast finisher then? That would add so much more group utility for WvW and raids!!

Thanks again. I am now even more excited for launch than I was after BWE3!

This summary of the Guild Week Q&A last week, pretty much answers your question:

http://dulfy.net/2015/10/02/gw2-guild-week-day-4-livestream-qa/

_"Q: Guild has only 3 players, can we get a guild hall and get enough favor?

Yes if you are really good players you can get a guild hall with less than 5 players. Less than 5 reduce the amount of guild missions you can run and the amount of favor you can earn.
We are balancing most of the cost assuming 10 players."_

and

_"Q: How feasible is it for guild to claim their guild hall first week after launch

Very feasible. You need to run some guild missions first to gain enough favor to run the expedition. You should be able to get enough favor in the first week but if not definitely the second week."

Hope this helps!

sirjarros.4107:

Yargesh.4965:

The above is what I got out of the information as well. It does not however say how the favour will be distributed if for example you have 2 or more guilds doing a puzzle together or other events where small guilds would benefit from joining up.

This is a valid point/concern. But I would think that if a guild queued the mission, and completed it, regardless of the presence of other guilds or players, that guild would get the full favor reward.

In other words, I doubt that favor gets “distributed around”. The favor is connected to the completion of the mission — not how many players or guilds participate. Or so I would suspect.

Bounties work this way on live currently, as random folks on the map often come to help down the bounty without being part of the guild.

However, confirmation from a dev would still be helpful.

Yargesh.4965:

The above is what I got out of the information as well. It does not however say how the favour will be distributed if for example you have 2 or more guilds doing a puzzle together or other events where small guilds would benefit from joining up.

This is a valid point/concern. But I would think that if a guild queued the mission, and completed it, regardless of the presence of other guilds or players, that guild would get the full favor reward.

Bounties work this way on live currently, as random folks on the map often come to help down the bounty without being part of the guild.

I am thinking this will depend on if that guild hall guest will have access to your Treasury, which is where those materials will be stored. And since this is probably controlled by rank permissions, then the likely answer to you question is NO.

However, your friend can just mail the mats to you and you can put them in the Treasury. So….not really a huge issue.

My hope is that two or more guilds can team up and do a missions together, without members need to rep a guild other than their main one. I believe this will be true based on the following quotes from https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-mission-changes-and-improvements/.

“every guild will roll the same guild missions every week”

and

“There are now two types of missions: prerolled and random target. Prerolled missions are missions that allow you to see everything that’s required of your guild as soon as the mission is rolled…once Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is released, we’ll be moving most missions over to prerolled, and only Bounties and Treks will remain random target missions.”

Example
Let’s say week one you have a “hard” difficulty WvW mission to capture and hold a keep until it upgrades to Tier 1, or perhaps the Ghost Wolf Guild Rush. Based on the above details, every other in the game will also have that “hard” WvW mission and that same Guild Rush.

Thus, it’s feasible that you could meet up with another guild, both queue the mission, help each other complete it and then both guilds would get credit, and all members would get their individual rewards as well, without anyone needing to change their rep status or temporarily join some other guild.

Exceptions are for puzzles and challenges, which will be instanced. But you could still do them together with another guild, as the blog post explains.

That’s my current understanding/hope of how it will work. Would be nice to have a dev confirm this is correct. Hope this helps the OP.