Suggestion: A new kind of Guild Missions. It's time for them.

Guild Wars 2 has always been missing a lot of potential with their guild missions. We were fine so far because we had a lot of content to do while we ignore guild missions, but lately Anet has been focusing more and more on story episodes that can be completed in 1 week (1-2 days for the hardcore gamers). If we take into account that each episode goes Live each 3+ months, we have a lot of dead time in between. The story is now fine, Anet, you are delivering a great story, one thing mastered. Now it's time to use some resources on something else and think about replayability.

Right now we have an issue with Replayability (Absolutely no reason to go back to most of the maps once you have completed the achievements/story in there). Guild Wars 2 maps are beautiful but there are some maps where I literally never go back. I loved Domain of Kourna, Domain of Istan and Sandswept Isles, but I completed all achievements in there and I never went back. Why should I? Let's talk about that later.

The second issue that we have is that guilds content feels dead. The entire game is built around being in a great community, helping people, rezzing others, no mob-tagging, portaling strangers, etc. That pretty much screams "It's great to do stuff with your friends". But in the end, you are mostly completing events with random players and rarely ever with your guild. The only moments where you see your guild together is usually at guild events like missions/raids/fractals. I've been in a lot of guilds after 10.000 hours of gameplay and usually the experience that I find is that each member is in a different map doing their own business and just using the guild chat/voice chat to communicate, but not playing together.

I think we can fix those two issues if we tie them together. This is my suggestion:

New 24-hours based guild missions that could re-vitalize the entire game experience. They would be activated by an officer/member of the guild with permissions like we do usually, but once activated, you would have 24 hours to complete them. These missions would still rotate each week, sso you have 7 days to try and repeat if you fail.

I'll put some examples.

Easy: Complete 25 events in Kessex HillsMedium: Kill 1000 WurmsHard: Complete the Metaevent: Mouth of MordremothEasy: Chop 100 trees in Auric BasinMedium: Complete the Metaevent: Shadow BehemothHard: Kill 1000 Branded and 100 OakheartsEasy: Mine 100 Ore nodes in Gendarran FieldsMedium: Complete 50 events in Metrica ProvinceHard: Kill 1000 Oozes and 100 Hydras

More examples: I coded a full code script to generate endless combinations here, just click the Play icon a bunch of times to get different results.

Overload, don't simplify: This is just a small example with some basic stuff. Anet should overload this section with THOUSANDS of combinations. Missions about mining, gathering, wood, etc. Please don't just add 10-30 different ones; the less we get, the sooner it will be boring after 2nd week. If you overload the database of possible choices with a ton of them we'll always have stuff to do and it won't feel as repeatitive as "we did this last week" like it's happening with the current guild missions.

Credit: To get credit, just completing a single one of those should be enough. Mission is to kill 100 centaurs. You kill a centaur? Cool, if the entire guild kills 100 together you'll get your reward. If guild is already 100/100 done but you didn't log in time and now you go and kill 1 more before the 24 hours timer end, you should also get a reward. These missions are 24-hours based and you will also get credit even if yours is the centaur killed #101. Same applies for events and everything else. As long as you participate in the task, no matter if you contributed or not to get to the quantity requested, you will get a reward if your guild succeed as a whole. For meta-events, the guild takes reward as long as 1 person completed it, but those of the guild that get the reward will be those that actually completed the meta-event. Fair for everyone.

Note: Same as it happens right now, you would only be elegible if you are representing that guild.

It's already there: I took those examples because those would be also the easiest for Anet to add, as they don't have to code new events or assets for them. No new enemies, no new dialogues, no new npcs, no new voices. The game is massive already and you can benefit from it. Also, the game actually tracks each of those things as seen by the daily achievements, so the tracking code is somewhere there as well.

Expansion missions: Did you notice PoF and HoT missions? Yeah, there they are. The common excuse that I read years ago when Anet was asked about adding guild missions for HoT was "What about the persons that do not have those maps? They can't do those missions." Well, I don't want to sound rude but that is our choice to make. Right now, on the Guild missions pannel we have a checkbox for PvP, WvW, PvE (For those who don't know, the choice made there takes effect at the start of next week). If you add new ones for HoT, PoF, LWS3, LWS4 it would be sorted. Just let the players choose their own scope. Those with everything will benefit from the entire game, instead of having their experience crippled because not everyone have access to all maps. Those guilds that are missing an expansion or some maps, they will be able to filter them out.

No need to organize it as a guild. It would feel just right.

Those are kind of mission that anyone can collaborate to without the need to organize big groups of players, but it's always cool to have the chance to help to your guild. "Hey guys, lets go to Kourna and complete some events". It's those kind of things what keeps a community together. Anet is delivering new maps but they are missing a lot of potential in each episode with it because the guilds don't have a reason to be together there. We have a reason to go on our own, complete the story/achievements and not much more.

If this would be implemented, I can see myself going to Gendarran fields to do random events for my guild mission count and casually find my guildies defending Neboo Terrace. Opening the map would result of a lot of yellow dots on the same map completing events all around or killing enemies there. Isn't this what a great guild would feel like? We would play as we usually do, but the players around would be your guildies. At the end of the day we are always killing enemies and doing stuff. It's what we do, the game it's about killing enemies most of the time. A guild is about being together, why not to tie those together also? And let's not forget, we would have a reason to visit a different map each week!

CRITICAL - Rewards: Now, the core point is that in order for this to work, the rewards should be GOOD, not crap. I don't know how to balance that so I'll just give some two examples:

1. Right now there is a lot of materials that are very hard to get. Maybe use some in there.
2. Black Lion Keys, there is a lot of hype when we get a black lion key from drop in the game, as rare as precursor weapons. Black Lion Keys are nice but they are still a gamble that can go right or wrong. I don't think giving 3 keys per week would prevent people to still buy them from the shop. Maybe even more would buy if they are teased with those 3 lol (Okay, I'm semi-joking there, I have no idea about that but I think it would be a great reward for guild missions). Anyway, It would be a nice gamble as you could maybe get an expensive skin and sell it for money. Since there are thousands of rewards from those keys, guilds would benefit instantly from a very big pool of things that players want, adding value to being in a guild.

TL;DR I sincerely think that it's the right time for Anet to build a Guild Team and deliver updates/changes, not having that is a big misstake. My suggestion adds as guild missions what we usually do in PvE and give us a reason to re-visit some dead maps.

I made a similar thread late last year that received a good deal of positive feedback - https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/8794/the-importance-of-guilds-in-guild-wars-2/p1

Unfortunately, in an AMA not long after, ANET confirmed that they no longer have a guild content team and do not plan to create a new one. As perplexing as it can be, they have essentially abandoned the idea of guild-focused content.

That said, I still hold out hope that they change their minds on the topic. Guild content designed to make the open world more alive and interesting for everyone (not just those in a particular guild) could easily be the saving grace of the game long term.

I don't really think we need more guild missions but I would like to see more guild hall upgrades.

I think the idea of a new type of guild missions is great! The current missions really are very problematic since they're repeated over and over again. Actually I have problems even finding enough members that are willing to participate because some say they just don't want to do the same event a 294th time.Also the suggestions seem interesting. And with that many variations, the challenge is a little different each time. However, if you consider the killing being a mission, you'll end up having people farming specific spots (mostly on day 1) until the mission is done, and others wont really have the feeling to be able to help imo. That is the same when you think about the gathering.Also would I really appreciate if the missions would be scaled more properly depending on factors like numbers of guild members and total in game activity and/or representation times, so that smaller guilds have a somewhat similar chance of getting stuff done as 250 man guilds, thereby cutting off the quite common method of leeching hard missions in a 250 man guild mission guild.Also there should be temporary guild hall upgrades (like an increase in magic find, karma, or whatever; similar to the waypoint cost reducing upgrade that is currently available) which you can buy for favor. That way, fully upgraded guilds would still profit from the missions and won't eventually just give up on doing them at all.And we need an upgrade for a trading post merchant in the hall. We really do. #ScribesWillUnderstand

Some tots:

1) rewards could be given in reward track format2) to combo with and encourage map completion, exp that every repping member gets is duplicated for the guild's total map exp counter, to count towards the total, for example. Total is scaled for each type of map3) allow guild to select maps (out of a pool of 3 random core, 1 hot, 1 pof, 1 lw3, 1 lw4 etc)4) world boss train5) option of small/med/large goals that a guild can select from, to scale for number of interested partiea6) guild reward can either be for materials for specific queued upgrades (direct deposit into guild storage), or select a guild upgrade for cumulated progress

Guilds, Guild-Missions and Guild Halls are orphaned content. ANet won't ever do anything with it because you can't sell it on the Gemshop. Sad but true, and as good as the suggestions might be that the community has, nothing will happen to improve guilds. The community has part in this as well, sadly. But should ANet give anything worthwhile to guilds it has to be either so easy that a 3 ppl guild can do it and therfor hardly worth the effort or, if they add content where you need 15 ppl and decent rewards, the outrage of the "I want to play this MMO as a solo game, thanks for leaving me out of rewards"-crowd would fill up the front page for weeks. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and ANet knows that. The backlash when missions were introduced that needed more than 3 ppl or when ppl saw the price tag on the GH stuff was big enough to shy them away from ever doing anything again for guilds.

It's on the community, i.e. the guilds to come up with fun stuff to do, organize something for your guild, maybe raise some funds so you can give away some rewards yourself, don't hope for ANet to ad anything for guilds.

@"Elrey.5472" said:"What about the persons that do not have those maps? They can't do those missions."

Players who do not have HoT/PoF, while they can enter the Guild halls there, they cannot use all their services. So some sort of exclusion already exists. This is also valid for Guild-armor- and Guild-weapon-recipes, because the currency needed to buy them one only gets during and after the Dragon's Stand Meta. It'd be a huge improvement for guilds where people not always have one or both addons to either remove the HoT currency or make it drop as a reward when guild missions are completed.

I never really understood why there has to be a dedicated Guild team to make more guild missions. I'm sure if they want to do them, they could use existing teams to do so - either as part of the festival/current events team or any of the other pve focussed ones

Their very first decision of NOT having fundamental NPCs inside the Guild Hall (standard merchants, at least a TP and PERSONAL bank) shows how much they actually wanted to not put guilds and guild halls into any kind of spotlight. If there was a bank and a TP inside the Hall you'd already be seeing guild members eventually interacting with each other simply by being there to do their stuff and eventually talking to each other. I have no idea why they want this natural interaction to happen to complete strangers in Lion's Arch but give no incentive for guild members stay next to each other in their idle time. This makes it all the harder to actually make a guild come together (I am in 2 guilds, both full of active players, that struggle to find people to do missions, and I doubt the sole reason is how badly designed and repetitive they are, given these people don't even do cooler things like fractals together). Anet alienates players from guilds and I'm starting to think this is a design decision, and those in a tight-knit group are actually going against the grain.

Would be cool to get new Guild missions , but also please fix some older ones like Prions 1141 is still bugged :I .... And for myself it's not really a good sign if a game doesnt get some stuff fixxed in some old content :I ... sometimes i really wonder in such conditions our developer have to work :I

@"lokh.2695" said:Guilds, Guild-Missions and Guild Halls are orphaned content. ANet won't ever do anything with it because you can't sell it on the Gemshop. Sad but true, and as good as the suggestions might be that the community has, nothing will happen to improve guilds. The community has part in this as well, sadly. But should ANet give anything worthwhile to guilds it has to be either so easy that a 3 ppl guild can do it and therfor hardly worth the effort or, if they add content where you need 15 ppl and decent rewards, the outrage of the "I want to play this MMO as a solo game, thanks for leaving me out of rewards"-crowd would fill up the front page for weeks. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and ANet knows that. The backlash when missions were introduced that needed more than 3 ppl or when ppl saw the price tag on the GH stuff was big enough to shy them away from ever doing anything again for guilds.

It's on the community, i.e. the guilds to come up with fun stuff to do, organize something for your guild, maybe raise some funds so you can give away some rewards yourself, don't hope for ANet to ad anything for guilds.Well, community does organize events, but community shouldn't substitute development. Otherwise just release a make-your-own-server version of GW2 and allow players to manage their content.Second, its normal that when system is poorly thought out, and doesn't scale well, that people rail against it. Basically Arena Net scaled missions and costs thinking on the minority of large guilds, and forgot that there exists a vast majority of small 5-10 guy friend guilds.A game that does this sooo well is Warframe, you scale your guild size through upgrades and then subsequent upgrades are scaled to your new guild size. Sure this also ends up with some guilds "downsizing" when new costly features crop up, but for the most part it's a system that works well, and it's not on a 40€ pay-upfront game.

Another good example of a good guild system is BDO, there you have several types of missions which you can do to improve your guild's "level". The rewards are in the form of a special guild-only daily login reward, and a "salary" that the guild automatically pays it's members. Also it has proper guild wars, and guilds can own and "tax" areas of the game. A pretty good system in a game called Black Desert... Shame that in a game Called Guild Wars, we get such crappy guild system, definitely one of, if not the worse in any MMORPG i've played for the last 13 years.

@maxwelgm.4315 said:Their very first decision of NOT having fundamental NPCs inside the Guild Hall (standard merchants, at least a TP and PERSONAL bank) shows how much they actually wanted to not put guilds and guild halls into any kind of spotlight.In case you weren't aware, you can access your personal bank from the scribing station. No TP though. :(

I'd be happy with the current Guild Missions being expanded to include HOT and POF maps as well as LW maps.New locations for the guild Trek, new bounties for the guild Bounties.However, I do thoroughly like and appreciate the new ideas for additional guild missions.

I'm glad to read that I'm not the only one to feel the guild system a bit... loose, lacking. People indeed just chat, link their stuff, but most of the times they just work on their own (me included). And also the replayability is a good topic.

Your suggestion is very interesting, Elrey, like 2 birds with one stone. However I have one major concern, that maybe could be solved somehow:Unleashing a horde of players to kill a huge amount of mobs in the same map, could be problematic. The nodes to gather are not shared, so this is fine, but the mobs... it could be even very difficult to complete some heart for the new players, if 100+ players instantly kill them (especially with the mounts).It's not really replayability, but rather "pillage" of a map.Maybe there could be 1 task involving gathering mats (so that there's no need to rush to steal it from other players. It's even better to go in group with your guild mates) and 1 asking you to repeat an easy/medium achievement on that map (so that even players who don't belong to the guild could participate and be helped). HoT anf PoF are perfect for this.

@Deimos.4263 said:

@maxwelgm.4315 said:Their very first decision of NOT having fundamental NPCs inside the Guild Hall (standard merchants, at least a TP and PERSONAL bank) shows how much they actually wanted to not put guilds and guild halls into any kind of spotlight.In case you weren't aware, you can access your personal bank from the scribing station. No TP though. :(

That's a work-around.

@"Stu Grockalot.2937" said:I'd be happy with the current Guild Missions being expanded to include HOT and POF maps as well as LW maps.New locations for the guild Trek, new bounties for the guild Bounties.However, I do thoroughly like and appreciate the new ideas for additional guild missions.

This as well! I mean, some people are asking "what about those that don't own HoT?" Well the immediate answer is that they didn't think about that when they restricted Guild Buffs that used to be available to everyone pre-HoT to those that own HoT. To this day a lot of Guild systems are restricted to those that own HoT unless they patched it without me realizing. It's ironic but even people that have PoF only, with their guild hall in the Desert will be unable to use stuff like the arena and the buffs.

The guild missions such as Trek and Bounty are randomly rolled as it is.There are some treks that are at the end of a jumping puzzle that we as a guild can't do in time as there are only a few of us.If that happens we cancel the mission and re-roll the RNG for the mission type.I guess you could do the same if you happened to roll a guild bounty in a POF map and all your guild members were free to play.It would also nudge players who maybe hadn't bought it yet to possibly purchase the game. Which in turns provides a revenue for Arenanet and which of cause goes towards developing the next expansion and LW stories.

I see guilds zerging all the time during my travels doing events, bounties, WvW etc. Good guild leaders keep their members busy with already existing content.

We needed more guild missions like 4 year ago. Now we need a complete overhaul of Guilds, with special focus on the mission aspect, but also recruitment, organization, halls, rewards, WvW and a lot other stuff too.

I think better support for guilds could be the thing that saves open world in this game - for everyone. Implementing a guild mission system that essentially mirrors the individual daily system already in the game would provide the core organization needed to invigorate content throughout the game. Something as simple as "complete 10 dynamic events in Frostgorge" (just an example) would ensure that guilds are in that zone on a given week, meaning that players looking for something to do would know where to go. At the same time, it would allow Anet to develop meta events that require a higher level of organization (eg, a weekly mission like "complete the Serpent's Ire meta in Domain of Vabbi").

Yes, guilds should (and many like mine do) do things together anyway. A revamped mission system would just take advantage of that to provide core organization for everyone in the game - even those not in guilds - by focusing guild activities in predictable locations.

This game is about large community content. The sooner Anet accepts that and begins supporting it in more ways, the sooner we get a game that is truly unique in the marketplace.

Yes! Guild missions have become so stale that awakened run from them. We need more things like op suggests. Bounties that are bounties in the expac areas and not another broopaloo or brekkabak... ?. The puzzles as they are now in guild missions are tedious and require a certain number of people. We have things already in game that could be used as alternatives. And treks could go into the new areas, that would be super easy to implement.