11:00 am, October 1, 2013
118
***** of small guilds
So I was a GM in gw1 and an officer in wow. I've had many years experience in being a guild leader. My gw1 guild was a top 100 gvg guild for a while (not bad for pvp casuals), we owned hzh, had some speed clear records before, etc. in wow our guild was small but was semi hardcore/casual, we weren't crazy but could raid hard modes with the best of them.
I've been playing gw2 since beta and launch, haven't really found a guild that I liked, so figured I would start my own. Turns out it's almost impossible for a new guild to start up. Not sure if its bad design mechanics or if it was intentional thanks to wvw, but small guilds are dead or non existent. Personally I love small guilds. I want to make friends, get to know each other, have an elite team of core players you know and trust and can laugh and goof around with.
Here's the problems:
1) guild buffs: only the huge guilds can afford them and the upgrades. Especially these days because no one will join a new/small guild. If they do they don't rep. And why should they? It hurts them bc they could rep their big guild and get beneficial buffs.
2) Able to join multiple guilds: there's things I like about this and things I hate. I like that I can join a pvp guild, or a dungeon farming guild, and play with both. My problem is if they don't rep you then it's almost worthless. My new guild is currently about 30 members. I had 15 online earlier, but no one was rep'ing bc of having multiple guilds. 15 online should be decently active instead it's dead. I've been in guilds with 500 people who would only have about 20 rep'ing so it's a problem for everyone, not just small guilds.
3) People think small guilds = bad: well maybe how the guild system works currently but I wouldn't blame the smaller guilds for that. One of the biggest questions I get recruiting isn't if we have vent, or a website, or what's our goals, it's how many members do you have... I get no one wants a dead guild, we like to talk and do things, but I don't really think 500 people guilds are the answer. In huge guilds you are a nobody. A number, no one knows you, no one cares about you. If you want to do a dungeon it's almost pugging. In my guilds in the past we would have our hard core team/runs, and train newbies on other runs. Now forget it, people don't care that you're a guildie, If you're bad/new they won't invite you.
4) pve-wise it could be bc of zergs, or to easy dungeons: granted easy is a relative term. But I see almost every dungeon being pugg'ed 24/7, this is both a good and bad thing. But it's a terrible thing for smaller guilds that like to raid because frankly there's no point. If cof, ta, ac, etc are all so easy to pug why would you join a small guild to do it? This point kind of flows with point #3. In WoW some raids were hard (not all but at least some hard modes before nerfs, even cata heroic dungeons at first) Small guilds in wow were the good ones! It was the huge guilds that were full of noobs. Maybe if they made the dungeons harder people would form elite raiding guilds again with core players. Gw1 had it too like in Doa, fow, ampnd uw farming (before speed clears). Zergs may also be a reason small guilds are hurting. You can't advertise map clears, or ore farming, karma farms, etc, bc no one needs a guild to do a lot of those, or even a group. Just find a Zerg and stay with it. I like the no tag combat system overall, how it encourages cooperation, but I wonder if it to adds to this other problem.
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Lets try to keep this thread on topic and have useful discussion. This isn't a qq post, this is legitimate concerns that myself and many others have seen. Sure the trolls will have a field day with this but w/e. I know how to recruit, in gw1 if you had a new guild and you needed members you went to pre and got newbies. If you wanted loyalty you helped them, trained them and became their friend. If you wanted to be hardcore you recruited like minded farmers for speed clears or high end pvp. Here all of that is near impossible for the above reasons.
Suggestions:
1) buff influence gains or nerf the high requirements. It's fine for those who have it, but starting a new guild is pretty much impossible for this reason alone almost. Maybe if smaller guilds could get the same rewards easier people would be more willing to give them a try. WoW had guild ranks and privileges too, but they weren't a deal-breaker. Maybe take a page out of their book. Some guild rank or rep to encourage loyalty would help everyone, large and small guilds.
2) go back to a 1 guild system. I have mixed feelings on this one but I think the good outweighs the bad. Also a lot of these big guilds require that people rep them or they will kick you so there's really no point in multiple guilds anyways.
3) bring back alliances! Do you have a small dungeon farming guild? But there's only a few online ATM, no problem, ask your allies and away you go. It's would be great for big guilds too, especially wvw guilds. There are already many alliances in wvw servers, might as well make it official and in game.
4) make harder content. Maybe hard/heroic modes, but do something. Most explorable modes are now easily pugable. Make more content like arah, cof path 3, Coe, etc and maybe small raiding guilds will come back again.
I've been playing gw2 since beta and launch, haven't really found a guild that I liked, so figured I would start my own. Turns out it's almost impossible for a new guild to start up. Not sure if its bad design mechanics or if it was intentional thanks to wvw, but small guilds are dead or non existent. Personally I love small guilds. I want to make friends, get to know each other, have an elite team of core players you know and trust and can laugh and goof around with.
Here's the problems:
1) guild buffs: only the huge guilds can afford them and the upgrades. Especially these days because no one will join a new/small guild. If they do they don't rep. And why should they? It hurts them bc they could rep their big guild and get beneficial buffs.
2) Able to join multiple guilds: there's things I like about this and things I hate. I like that I can join a pvp guild, or a dungeon farming guild, and play with both. My problem is if they don't rep you then it's almost worthless. My new guild is currently about 30 members. I had 15 online earlier, but no one was rep'ing bc of having multiple guilds. 15 online should be decently active instead it's dead. I've been in guilds with 500 people who would only have about 20 rep'ing so it's a problem for everyone, not just small guilds.
3) People think small guilds = bad: well maybe how the guild system works currently but I wouldn't blame the smaller guilds for that. One of the biggest questions I get recruiting isn't if we have vent, or a website, or what's our goals, it's how many members do you have... I get no one wants a dead guild, we like to talk and do things, but I don't really think 500 people guilds are the answer. In huge guilds you are a nobody. A number, no one knows you, no one cares about you. If you want to do a dungeon it's almost pugging. In my guilds in the past we would have our hard core team/runs, and train newbies on other runs. Now forget it, people don't care that you're a guildie, If you're bad/new they won't invite you.
4) pve-wise it could be bc of zergs, or to easy dungeons: granted easy is a relative term. But I see almost every dungeon being pugg'ed 24/7, this is both a good and bad thing. But it's a terrible thing for smaller guilds that like to raid because frankly there's no point. If cof, ta, ac, etc are all so easy to pug why would you join a small guild to do it? This point kind of flows with point #3. In WoW some raids were hard (not all but at least some hard modes before nerfs, even cata heroic dungeons at first) Small guilds in wow were the good ones! It was the huge guilds that were full of noobs. Maybe if they made the dungeons harder people would form elite raiding guilds again with core players. Gw1 had it too like in Doa, fow, ampnd uw farming (before speed clears). Zergs may also be a reason small guilds are hurting. You can't advertise map clears, or ore farming, karma farms, etc, bc no one needs a guild to do a lot of those, or even a group. Just find a Zerg and stay with it. I like the no tag combat system overall, how it encourages cooperation, but I wonder if it to adds to this other problem.
-------
Lets try to keep this thread on topic and have useful discussion. This isn't a qq post, this is legitimate concerns that myself and many others have seen. Sure the trolls will have a field day with this but w/e. I know how to recruit, in gw1 if you had a new guild and you needed members you went to pre and got newbies. If you wanted loyalty you helped them, trained them and became their friend. If you wanted to be hardcore you recruited like minded farmers for speed clears or high end pvp. Here all of that is near impossible for the above reasons.
Suggestions:
1) buff influence gains or nerf the high requirements. It's fine for those who have it, but starting a new guild is pretty much impossible for this reason alone almost. Maybe if smaller guilds could get the same rewards easier people would be more willing to give them a try. WoW had guild ranks and privileges too, but they weren't a deal-breaker. Maybe take a page out of their book. Some guild rank or rep to encourage loyalty would help everyone, large and small guilds.
2) go back to a 1 guild system. I have mixed feelings on this one but I think the good outweighs the bad. Also a lot of these big guilds require that people rep them or they will kick you so there's really no point in multiple guilds anyways.
3) bring back alliances! Do you have a small dungeon farming guild? But there's only a few online ATM, no problem, ask your allies and away you go. It's would be great for big guilds too, especially wvw guilds. There are already many alliances in wvw servers, might as well make it official and in game.
4) make harder content. Maybe hard/heroic modes, but do something. Most explorable modes are now easily pugable. Make more content like arah, cof path 3, Coe, etc and maybe small raiding guilds will come back again.