204 replies to this topic

[Resolve]

Trei, on 28 February 2013 - 04:11 AM, said:

I cannot think of a single good reason to not have entry level missions be unlockable at tier 1.

Higher tiers could be for larger scale missions that smaller guilds could choose not to upgrade to.

Yeah I said the same thing. The only reasons the Anet Defense Force could up with was: 1) Anet want you to work for it and 2) It'll destroy the precursor market.

Both pretty laughable.

[Xai]

Tregarde, on 28 February 2013 - 02:14 AM, said:

It's not as bad after the patch. If you read the patch notes, they say they made adjustments so people not grouped will not be left out on loot. From my experience just last night, this looks to be true. I don't know if people in a group will still have better loot, but running solo I did notice a definite improvement.

Hm, I read the notes and must have missed this bit, and didn't play long enough last night to notice anything I guess (though I did think I was collecting more junk items than usual). If true though, I'll be happy.

[Millimidget]

I think there's at least one developer trolling the thread on this over in the official forums. They seem to take the opinion that small guilds are on their own on this; worse, they express it in terms of small guilds being excluded as an active consequence for being in a small guild, as if it was some sort of punishment.

[Shiren]

Darkobra, on 27 February 2013 - 11:43 AM, said:

A guild is like a relationship. Or rather, you should have a relationship with your guild. I know every single person in mine. I know their names. What they do for a living. What their hobbies are. What kind of things they like to do in the game. I also build my guild to what they want because we don't just do one thing.

If people leave your guild, then they never cared for your guild and you never truly knew them at all. You can't offer them greener pastures and have never really aimed to, so they leave yours and join another. After all, if you did make the effort, you'd have a lot more loyal people and people wouldn't just up and leave in a game where you can actually have multiple guilds.

Is the problem with the rest of the game or just you?

Ignoring your crazy comparisons of a game and a guild to real life (it's a game, it's not real life - when I want a fulfilling social experience I will engage in one in the real world) I'm going to reiterate the actual point being discussed here, it's not an issue with the rest of the game, it's an issue with the design of guild missions. It's well documented now across the official forums, reddit, this thread and others, the design of guild missions is a huge issue for small guilds. Not only is it not helping small guilds (one would think guild missions would be designed to bring guilds closer together and give them something to do and grow from, not tear them apart to encourage people to join super zerg guilds) it's actually hurting them. This concern is well documented by multiple people.

You might be a snob who thinks that just because you don't have a personal one on one connection with a guild member it means they have no value in your guild and there's no reason for them to be around, but some of us enjoy having people around, even if they only just joined today. These people have value to me regardless of whether they are loyal or long term fixtures in the game. One more guildie to play with is always a good thing in my eyes.

I played with multiple leavers for the last six months. We enjoyed playing together but we can still do that while they are in other guilds which can access guild content that. My guild can't access this content, not to the extent that big guilds can. If you can't see how small guilds are functionally less viable, regardless of the inane arguments you fabricate about the power of love and friendship in a guild, then you're honestly too thick to waste time arguing with. Unfortunately that's increasingly the case on GW2Guru.

[heatrr]

Shiren, on 01 March 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

My guild can't access this content, not to the extent that big guilds can. If you can't see how small guilds are functionally less viable, regardless of the inane arguments you fabricate about the power of love and friendship in a guild, then you're honestly too thick to waste time arguing with. Unfortunately that's increasingly the case on GW2Guru.

Reads and sounds like your guild, as well as many other 'small' guilds, need to get busy, huh? Chop chop.

Accordingly, this issue of what is "fair" and what is not is immaterial when you consider that there will ALWAYS be people, or guilds for this matter, that will holler about 'unfairness'....

[Darkobra]

Shiren, on 01 March 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

Ignoring your crazy comparisons of a game and a guild to real life (it's a game, it's not real life - when I want a fulfilling social experience I will engage in one in the real world) I'm going to reiterate the actual point being discussed here, it's not an issue with the rest of the game, it's an issue with the design of guild missions. It's well documented now across the official forums, reddit, this thread and others, the design of guild missions is a huge issue for small guilds. Not only is it not helping small guilds (one would think guild missions would be designed to bring guilds closer together and give them something to do and grow from, not tear them apart to encourage people to join super zerg guilds) it's actually hurting them. This concern is well documented by multiple people.

You might be a snob who thinks that just because you don't have a personal one on one connection with a guild member it means they have no value in your guild and there's no reason for them to be around, but some of us enjoy having people around, even if they only just joined today. These people have value to me regardless of whether they are loyal or long term fixtures in the game. One more guildie to play with is always a good thing in my eyes.

I played with multiple leavers for the last six months. We enjoyed playing together but we can still do that while they are in other guilds which can access guild content that. My guild can't access this content, not to the extent that big guilds can. If you can't see how small guilds are functionally less viable, regardless of the inane arguments you fabricate about the power of love and friendship in a guild, then you're honestly too thick to waste time arguing with. Unfortunately that's increasingly the case on GW2Guru.

So because it's a game, you can't be bothered spending the time to get to know the people within the game? Well I hope you're at least better with money than you are with people as I suggest you start buying up that influence.

Just because you can't do it RIGHT NOW doesn't mean it can't be done. A small guild can start it. A small guild can grow. A small guild can buy influence. You have many options and chose none.

People were very quick to say there's nothing to work for in this game. Now that there is, the same people are very quick to say that they can't be bothered doing it because they can't have it now.

[Pyrea]

Darkobra, on 01 March 2013 - 02:36 PM, said:

People were very quick to say there's nothing to work for in this game. Now that there is, the same people are very quick to say that they can't be bothered doing it because they can't have it now.

I recently left my old guild to start my own one for the challenge. Guild Missions will just be another challenge to add to all the other challenges. There are still plenty of things to do

[WrathfulForce]

One of the negative aspects of these missions is that people are jumping into huge guilds now. Not because they want to be in a massive guild but because those guilds can unlock these missions way faster than a small or a regular sized guild can (unless those small guilds buy items that grant influence and so on, but by default large guilds get massive amounts of influence just for having a lot of members) and to be honest the rewards are just that good that people want to complete them.

I think they intended people to be like "oh those guys can unlock this mission, they must be active, I want to join them!" or something like that but because a lot of these guilds require 100% representing status from players a lot of small guilds will lose a lot of players (or "lose", not representing at all and not being in the guild have the same end result from guild activity point of view) not to mention the fact that how many of these large guilds will actually want players to their guilds if they're only going to participate in guild missions?

In my opinion they should have simply made it so that everyone that assists the guild that started the mission (for example damage a boss) gets the reward chest regardless of whether they are part of the guild or not. This would have still required a lot of coordination from guilds themselves (firstly to locate the npcs in the world) and the guild that activated the mission would still be rewarded in a form of merits which can be used to get guild buffs such as +5% gold from mobs buff.

Small guild members could have simply waited in the guilds and work towards unlocking the missions so they could earn merits for their guild and get the buffs themselves but with the guild mission rewards players are very likely to feel that they "need" to be able to complete those missions as soon as possible because otherwise they're going to miss out.

Even before this update the big guilds had advantages (could have more guild buffs on 24/7 because of influence) but they weren't all that vital that small guild members felt like they were seriously hindering themselves by not being in a large guild with those buffs but with the new rewards, particularly the commendations I'm sure a lot of players will think differently.

Luckily the guild I'm in can afford these guild missions.

But still, I'm surprised the amount of people that argue that getting influence is a valid form of challenge. It's not. Large guilds do not have to do anything to get influence, they get a ton of influence simply if their players log in.

If small guilds can't complete these missions because they lack the numbers, fine, so be it. But at least let them try.

Edited by WrathfulForce, 02 March 2013 - 01:30 AM.

[Eon Lilu]

We did tier 3 bounty mission just now, was really easy, the boss's need more health and skills, they died in about 5 seconds...

Got 2 rares, 50 silver and 2 commendations.

Also anyone know when the guild mission weekly reset is?

The unlock time for all this is just stupid aswell...

Edited by Eon Lilu, 02 March 2013 - 01:38 AM.

[Azure Skye]

Eon Lilu, on 02 March 2013 - 01:37 AM, said:

We did tier 3 bounty mission just now, was really easy, the boss's need more health and skills, they died in about 5 seconds...

Got 2 rares, 50 silver and 2 commendations.

Also anyone know when the guild mission weekly reset is?

The unlock time for all this is just stupid aswell...

Any of the guild upgrades and levels takes a long time. It's nothing we haven't done before.

http://wiki.guildwar...Influence#Usage


I found a video of the guild bounties of them,  its in german and its speed up the actual gameplay. Its around 4:18



Dulfy round up on the guild bounties.

http://dulfy.net/201...d-bounty-guide/

Edited by Azure Skye, 02 March 2013 - 02:17 AM.

[Bryant Again]

Strange, this.

Cool looking content, of course, but older school raid attunements? Not applying to multiple guild sizes?

Just seems with a few edits and changes, they could've made a lot more people happy.

[drkn]

Quote

Here's few reasons why people don't want to be a megaguild: a) noise b)no commitment c)guild can be full of strangers that may not be the type of players you want to be around with at all.
-snip-

I do agree that t1 missions should be available easier. I even think there should be some WvW-centric mission for WvW-only guilds. We may argue, and provide arguments, that the system is flawed - or not - to our heart's content; we may present opinions, voice concerns, say what we don't like and why or sum up the pros and cons of both big and small guilds.
We may rage, whine, suggest, cry, dance, plot, or bake muffins.

But then we're faced with the game's design. It's the greatest reality check a game can have and does have.
There are no alliances. Guild rosters are expanded to host 500 people. Upgrades cost a lot of influence - and not only the new ones, 20k influence for lv5 lines isn't something easy for a small, tight guild either. Maintaining guild buffs, even ignoring the WvW ones, costs a lot of influence. WvW is designed as a mass PvP format, and with zerging as one of its main - and, whether we like it or not, actually used and working - strategies. Guild missions, in both cost and gameplay, are designed for big groups of people, possibly to substitute for raids.

This is how the game is designed. Not how we'd like it to be, how we thing it should, or how the devs wanted it to be.
Now, our choice is to either subdue to what the design calls for and getting easier access to enjoying the whole content, not putting extra effort on ourselves in a game, or we can limit ourselves (in time, in accessibility) from a part of the designed and existing content.
The choice is actually ours. It's a bit tragic, too, as for some people it's down to choosing between doing stuff they rather wouldn't or not doing stuff they would like to, but no human project is perfectly suitable for everyone, and we are forced to make compromises with the very design of things, not just games.

In GW2, the pros of large guilds outweigh their cons, even if they simply act as hubs or substitute for alliances, comprising of social circles within circles. We may not like it, we may not approve it, but it doesn't change anything.

Quote

In my opinion they should have simply made it so that everyone that assists the guild that started the mission (for example damage a boss) gets the reward chest regardless of whether they are part of the guild or not.

Why waste influence to research them, then?
Pretty much all of the new buffs are crappy or just not worth their price for the moment. Guilds are not researching Politics 6 for the new banners, but only for the guild rush; merits are not too useful for now except for unlocking more guild missions.
I do agree that the level of access to t1 guild bounties should be a bit lower (although it's still not as extreme as to puzzles atm), but letting everyone out there get rewards for one guild's earned influence isn't the way to go either, and actually would be more upsetting.

Edited by drkn, 02 March 2013 - 02:57 AM.

[Eon Lilu]

The bounty missions are pretty pathetic to be honest, it's mainly just get people in partys, run around and tag something before it dies before getting rewarded.

The boss's need some buffing and decent skills to make it more interresting and challenging.

They very lack luster and boring.

Hoping the other guild missions are more fun.

Edited by Eon Lilu, 02 March 2013 - 04:09 AM.

[WrathfulForce]

Yes the system is built around so that you get the best performance by doing things in a large group (WvW, event zerging and so on) and it totally fine. That's how the game works. You are being rewarded for being in a large group of players both in a guild and in the game world. However, before guild missions were introduced a solo player or a player of a small guild wasn't in a significant disadvantage when it comes to rewards.

Large guilds (or even medium sized ~50-100 members) had their karma, magic find and gathering buffs and all that good stuff and it was nice. You felt like you gained something for being in a large guild but it wasn't too much that small guilds' players felt like they were in a significant disadvantage content and reward wise.

However, with the guild missions not only will they have a very hard time unlocking even the basic tiers of guild missions (well, at the moment tier 1,2 and 3 require the same research upgrade so they all take the same time) which is a rather impressive form of new content (puzzle, bounty hunting etc.) simply because of the influence cost requirement. Even if they had the most coordinated players and possibly could take on the easiest missions (tier 1) they most likely can't even try them out for a very, very long time (it takes a long time even for huge guilds because of merit requirements, so, it'll be a very long time before the small guilds can both get the influence and merits required) due to research requirements. And as I already brought up, it's better to just make it so that they can even try them out. Even if the content is too difficult for a small group; let them at least fail. You can join WvW and run around solo trying to capture SM but you will soon find out that you simply can't do that (scouting is important but yeah I hope my point gets across).

drkn, on 02 March 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

Why waste influence to research them, then?
Pretty much all of the new buffs are crappy or just not worth their price for the moment. Guilds are not researching Politics 6 for the new banners, but only for the guild rush; merits are not too useful for now except for unlocking more guild missions.
I do agree that the level of access to t1 guild bounties should be a bit lower (although it's still not as extreme as to puzzles atm), but letting everyone out there get rewards for one guild's earned influence isn't the way to go either, and actually would be more upsetting.

I should have been more clear about this one. So, as it's very likely that there will not be any significant changes to how guild missions are unlocked it'd be better to at least promote cooperation so that small guilds' players could get rewarded for assisting larger guilds in guild missions (because the small guilds can't start off the missions themselves). Otherwise small guilds are very likely to see a lot of players leaving to big guilds just to get the guild mission rewards.

At the moment there's very little reason for outsiders to help out a guild because they get a reward similar of a regular event (karma, exp and a silver or two). If everyone helping out would get the chest reward (with all the goods) then there'd be a lot more idea for outsiders to help out a guild "hey I saw the npc here *waypoint*".

And I believe that the new rewards are good. +5% gold from mobs and -15% WP costs are nice buffs but not anything too significant that a player that doesn't get those would be too sad about it. And even if those are not "good enough" rewards I'd say that being able to start off a mission is worth the researches themselves.

The optimal solution in my opinion would be to make it so that:

tier 1 missions are a lot easier to get access to (like politics 2, economy 2 and so on) and tier 2 and 3 would require much higher upgrades. This way smaller guilds could get access to tier 1 missions without that much of a trouble.

in addition to making it so that everyone assisting a guild doing a guild mission regardless of whether they were part of the guild or not would get rewarded. If a player was from the guild they would help out with getting the merits for the guild and some influence bonus or something.

And I know it's all about "that's not how the game works, our discussion changes nothing" but what's the point of discussing about things then? I disagree with the design of how the rewards and unlocking guild missions work and that's a topic to be discussed. And I still think so even though I am in a position where I can get access to the missions and rewards rather easily due to being in a healthy sized guild.

I simply don't want to see "selling temporary guild spot for guild mission that starts in 15minutes, only 5g!" or people leaving small guilds just for the rewards. They didn't join a huge guild before so they obviously had fun in the guild they were before. The game wasn't optimal for them at that point but it wasn't too bad. Now, the rewards are just too high in my opinion.

[drkn]

I think we agree on the principle ideas of what should be, it's just that i have a very pragmatic and problem-solving approach to things like that; i simply evaluate the situation, consider options and go for what i deem best in the current, given situation. ANet may listen and give in to the community of small groups and change it in the future, but for the moment large-ish guilds are the way to go.

Quote

At the moment there's very little reason for outsiders to help out a guild because they get a reward similar of a regular event (karma, exp and a silver or two). If everyone helping out would get the chest reward (with all the goods) then there'd be a lot more idea for outsiders to help out a guild "hey I saw the npc here *waypoint*".

Medium guilds might use help of the outsiders, as you called them, but big guilds will be fine on their own - and possibly even would prefer to keep any outsiders away, so they don't kill the champions TOO fast, giving everyone a chance to tag them.
And tbh you don't really need 100 people to do t1 bounty - aside from unlocking it, which will come over time even in a small guild, you should be able to succeed in t1 bounty even with 15 people, which isn't much. Other missions, except for guild challenge perhaps, are much easier in terms of the force required than bounties, so there's still the opportunity to get fun - obviously further down the road, though.

[two maces]

My guild is small, so what we've been doing is leveraging our alliance with [AFS] to do guild missions for the commendations, while slowly doing our own guild's bounty to earn merits. We accept that we will unlock the tiers a lot slower than the alliance leader, but we still get to earn commendations and learn how to get things done so we can apply them to our own missions.

I encourage smaller guilds to link up with bigger ones, we used to have this thing called an Alliance in GW1 where you would have a group of 10 guilds, and each guild contributes in AB and faction farming so you can get outposts.

[Illein]

Got to say, after doing Bounty T1 and T2 - it was a terrible bore, the only thing that was challenging, was actually finding them - the bosses themselves have rather limited mechanics and are merely champion level.

I certainly hope the Guild Challenge is a lot more difficult, otherwise it's quite the disappointment.

[d_fens]

drkn, on 02 March 2013 - 02:54 AM, said:

Now, our choice is to either subdue to what the design calls for and getting easier access to enjoying the whole content, not putting extra effort on ourselves in a game, or we can limit ourselves (in time, in accessibility) from a part of the designed and existing content.
The choice is actually ours. It's a bit tragic, too, as for some people it's down to choosing between doing stuff they rather wouldn't or not doing stuff they would like to, but no human project is perfectly suitable for everyone, and we are forced to make compromises with the very design of things, not just games.

That's pretty limited choice TBH. There is a third option as well, force developers to change the design.

[Lordkrall]

d_fens, on 02 March 2013 - 09:10 PM, said:

That's pretty limited choice TBH. There is a third option as well, force developers to change the design.

Ah, yes. Lets force the developers to build their game completely around our needs and wishes.
It is their game. They have decided to add a minimal portion of the game for large guilds. Either we accept that or we move on. No point trying to force them to do anything.

99% of the game is fully available to even the smallest of guilds. Why not let that last % be focused on large ones?

[Zeus_CM]

Just did my first guild mission with my guild, we finished guild bounty tier 1 and 2. Lots of fun, the whole guild was on Teamspeak and we split ourselves to find each NPC. Once we found all 14 or so npcs we activated the bounty and killed them. Finding npc and coordinating with lots of people was super fun

http://i.imgur.com/NPgj7vT.jpg

Edited by Zeus_CM, 02 March 2013 - 09:41 PM.

[HawkofStorms]

Omedon, on 26 February 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

See... and, I'm so not smiling at your funeral here, but hear me out...

That's the genius of this system.  I'm suddenly seeing it, and I am pulling a complete 180 on the emergent community dynamic of this.

Those "guilds," those "communities" that are dissolving as a result of this decision of "friends or loot," choosing loot over friends, are doing two things:

1) They are self filtered.  You know who your friends really are.  Nothing, NOTHING being offered by this new system, is worth ditching your friends for.  So those that ditch... that's revelatory self filtration.  Soak it up and consider your inner circles cleansed and purged.

2) They become public content generators.  Let the giant guilds amalgamate and grow to ridiculous levels.  They're just creating public content for everyone to enjoy.

So look left, and look right.  The one that is no longer to your left because they wanted gear/precursors, they weren't your friend to begin with.  The one on the right, smile, and walk out with them into a world that will now have more events running.

ArenaNet did it again. They took our worst traits, and used them against us to the betterment of the game.

Good job indeed!

Eh, that's kinda shallow, and ignores another possibility.

My entire guild just merged into a larger one.  So we never "abandoned" any friends for loot, we just added several more friends.

[Millimidget]

Bryant Again, on 02 March 2013 - 02:47 AM, said:

Just seems with a few edits and changes, they could've made a lot more people happy.

Assume a few edits and changes were made before pushing it live, and this is what they produced.

Now start guessing as to what the system was like before those few edits and changes were made. Anyone care to bet that "a few edits and changes" consisted of slapping on the gating and calling it a day? Anyone else care to bet as to whether their metrics suggest AoW5 is the most commonly completed or least commonly completed branch?

[Lordkrall]

Millimidget, on 02 March 2013 - 10:23 PM, said:

Assume a few edits and changes were made before pushing it live, and this is what they produced.

Now start guessing as to what the system was like before those few edits and changes were made. Anyone care to bet that "a few edits and changes" consisted of slapping on the gating and calling it a day? Anyone else care to bet as to whether their metrics suggest AoW5 is the most commonly completed or least commonly completed branch?

I would actually say that it is quite likely that it is one of the most commonly completed branches, seeing as WvW is more or less the only thing big guilds could do together, and the other buffs are rather useless in most cases.

[drkn]

Zeus_CM, on 02 March 2013 - 09:33 PM, said:

Just did my first guild mission with my guild, we finished guild bounty tier 1 and 2. Lots of fun, the whole guild was on Teamspeak and we split ourselves to find each NPC. Once we found all 14 or so npcs we activated the bounty and killed them. Finding npc and coordinating with lots of people was super fun

http://i.imgur.com/NPgj7vT.jpg

Yes, did the same for t3 bounty tonight, seems a really decent tactic, although another guild dropping their bounty and killing champions right before you do it might screw it up a bit. Still, not that much of an issue.
I'm pretty sure that from now on we'll be finding and tailing champions only for t3, t1 and t2 are just too easy if you do it, and you can actually 'fail' them with no biggie; as long as some guildies kill a champion and get their commendations, a t1 run is decent



By now, the Iron Marches champion is certainly the hardest to get - can't be stalled, moves fastest, despawns and disappears. The Blazeridge one seems to be annoying to find, but then it's not an issue; the Gendarran one is sure irritating, champions with patrols are generally easier

[Resolve]

Tracking down the bounties is quite tedious. And then you have people waiting while the others are found. The actual combat happens so quickly that it's very easy to miss out on getting credit. Overall I think it's 'ok', probably a good thing it'll only be done once a week.

A week until the next one unlocks, hopefully they get better.

[stretchs]

These are neat, but sadly even if you complete them with your guild but it resides on a different server you dont get the reward.  I was guesting to the home server of the guild, representing it, and got no reward =\

[Illein]

Apparently if you represent other guilds and join their guild mission, you can farm those Commendations like a mad man.

Hope they'll patch that.

[dss_live]

Illein, on 06 March 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

Apparently if you represent other guilds and join their guild mission, you can farm those Commendations like a mad man.

Hope they'll patch that.

you can only get the commondations 1 time a week. no matter how many guilds you join to do the bounty. I tried so no farming possible rly.

[DeadlyShield]

Whats the reward limit?

Is different tier considered a different type of guild mission? You said weekly but i just receive it again in less then a week.

[heatrr]

I love how the scaling really comes into play when taking these bounty's down, especially at Tier 2 and 3.