For guilds that don't have enough players participating in all battles...

JayZ

The most prevalent topic/complaint during this GW beta has been from people in guilds where not everyone is participating. Those people want to be able to play more than 2 battles per war. I have my own reasons why I think that is a bad idea, but that's a discussion for another time and place.

My question is: Why not move on to a different guild or try to create a more active guild?

I've seen so many new players on the forums complaining about their guilds not being active enough (welcome to the forums, by the way, it's great to see new faces!).

So why not identify the 5-10 players that ARE active, and create a post in the Guild Recruitment forums to try to combine forces? Something like "6 active GW players (~600 stars each) looking to join forces with other dedicated players."

You can meet new people and play with folks who are just as dedicated as you are. You will also probably be able to earn more stars and rewards during the challenge because I'm assuming inactive GW players are also generally less active in the challenge.

Not trying to be rude or anything. I'm just genuinely curious because that seems like the logical solution to me.

Governator

JayZ said:

The most prevalent topic/complaint during this GW beta has been from people in guilds where not everyone is participating. Those people want to be able to play more than 2 battles per war. I have my own reasons why I think that is a bad idea, but that's a discussion for another time and place.

My question is: Why not move on to a different guild or try to create a more active guild?

I've seen so many new players on the forums complaining about their guilds not being active enough (welcome to the forums, by the way, it's great to see new faces!).

So why not identify the 5-10 players that ARE active, and create a post in the Guild Recruitment forums to try to combine forces? Something like "6 active GW players (~600 stars each) looking to join forces with other dedicated players."

You can meet new people and play with folks who are just as dedicated as you are. You will also probably be able to earn more stars and rewards during the challenge because I'm assuming inactive GW players are also generally less active in the challenge.

Not trying to be rude or anything. I'm just genuinely curious because that seems like the logical solution to me.

On paper, that sounds great. In reality, it isn't. My guild is casual and all 20 players are active (100 star min), but I have a few that aren't chatty or even interested in GW. I'm not going to boot them just because they don't want to play in on specific game mode to maximize the GW battles. I'm resigned to the fact that we'll never max out the battles. But, for those who do want to play GW in my guild, they may not get to play 2 full battles because of the players who don't want to play. That's why I suggested that there be no minimum. If we only have 4 slots filled, so be it. We'll take the loss but at least we'll earn some points regardless. I think that's the best solution for less-than-full or 100% "active" guilds.

Jenng

I don’t want to leave my guild or be forced to join a huge guild family just to have enough actives to play gws twice based on the beta. I love my slackers. 😂


NG is testing and will probably be changing and tweaking things as play and feedback continues. For solo guilds with normal activity this setup isn’t ideal.

JayZ

Thanks for your thoughts @Governator and @Jenng. All of that makes sense to me, and I 100% agree with that guilds should be allowed to start battles with less than a full squad so that players can play their 2 battles (albeit at a disadvantage).

I guess my post was more directed at those who are frustrated that the majority of their guilds are inactive (whereas it sounds like you guys are both generally happy with your guilds). If half of your guild doesn't play, then it seems like it's time to move on...

The reason I'm anti-more-than-2-battles-per-person is that top guilds can really abuse signups to only play their top players. Competitive GW guilds care a LOT about a fair and equitable playing field, which the current format allows. If each person can sign up for up to 4 battles, then what prevents a guild from only playing their best 10 every war? Or what prevents people from signing up for 4 slots and not allowing others to play if they wait too long to sign up? There are a lot of issues with increasing the number of battles per player, which is the main suggestion I've seen.

Hershal

One thing lost in this discussion is rewards fairness. The more battles you play, the more rewards you can get. Now we are all at a level playing field, we all can play a max of 2. If someone is allowed to play more than 2, then they have an opportunity to get more rewards. Why should a guild with less than full participation be allowed to get more rewards per person than guilds with full participation?

Also, everyone seems to be thinking of GW as it's own separate game and expecting to be able to play alot. If you start thinking of it as a game within a game, then you wouldn't really want it to be more than it is. Between the Distance (which you can play twice), Challenge, Outpost, Scavenging, Season modes (when active), Story modes (when not fully completed) and now GW, there is plenty to do and fill your time.

jrodrf2

@Hershal is absolutely correct. If your guild only had 10 players and they increase the battles allowed to 4, then you get twice as many RPs then a full guild's folks do. And what's stopping 10 extremely high level players from banding together and creating a war guild where everyone gets the double rewards from 4 battles each?

No, the 2 battles is perfect. Sorry to say but this is GUILD wars. If your GUILD is not as strong, you will not do as well. I would suspect any sports team that trots out half of a squad would lose; same concept here.

If you choose to stay in a guild that isn't full, I commend you for staying with your friends, but they shouldn't adjust the game simply because you don't want to adapt yourself. Those of you with only half a guild - there are others posting the same problem on these forums. Merge yourselves, that way you don't lose your friends and get to participate more fully.

The one concession I would make is making each battle a 5 player max, 1 player minimum. If someone can't get 5 folks up and running but wants to try for some kind of reward (and a likely loss), they should be able to try even if the squad contains less players.

While I'm ranting and rambling, the 20 battles is also perfect. It forces you to strategize where you will use your attacks to optimize your score. The goal is not to clear all the maps, it is to score more points. Also, I'm 100% sure they would reduce reward points if they increased the number of battles (or jack up costs in the guild shop) so more battles would not necessarily mean more rewards.

The current iteration of guild wars is perfect as is @Fluxxx and I would be happy if you didn't change a thing.

***I feel I should point out that when I say "you" above I am referring to all players, not specifically to those replying in the thread above. I have nothing but mad respect for many of you and didn't want to make you feel targeted, so I thought I should make that known.***

Artminius

I could get behind the allowance of fewer than 5 per battle.
It's messy, but at least it lets everyone who want to do 2 battle, do them. Such guilds aren't going to win battles anyway; might as well let them push themselves to high rows and columns to get a few RPs. Here's to The Lone Warriors!

3vilrine

exactly what @jrodrf2 said, perfect.

Trishalove

The Guild I lead is from a family of 6 Guilds. Most of the players in the Guild family have been with us a year to over 4. So, if I have 4 or 5 players in the guild who just have no interest in playing GW, pushing them out for outside players who will is not an option.
What I don’t like is, if I have 16 players that want to play and 4 that don’t or some have to drop out (for whatever their reasons and goings on in their real life) it:

1. Causes me to constantly try to convince people to shuffle around from days they already picked. This is time consuming and a bit frustrating in the “try to make all your players happy” department.
2. Somebody(s) here that wanted to play is not going to get to a second time. this can cause a slow build up of resentment against other players (who didn’t play) over time in an otherwise happy Guild where everyone got along.

It would really help if say, the first 4 days nobody can play more than twice. The last 4, that restriction gets lifted so empty slots can be filled and players that want to play can.

Trishalove

Let me just say, with the last bit, the 4 days restricted and the 4 days not... How about giving Guild Leaders the power to remove players signed up from GW on any given day. That would prevent “hogging” during the last 4.

Or at least change it to allow people who have played twice, to join again in the last 4 days in the hour before the roster is locked in.

billythegates

I‘m playing a for a top 10 guild with a guild family of a total of 5 full guilds. We are doing switches based on challenge stars. While many of us like the new guild wars format in general, we have some players that are BIG WEIGHTS, regularly doing 3k+ challenge stars which are 100% not interested in gw at all. With the obligation to join two gw matches each player per war, we are having conflicts already and we will pretty likely lose these players. Or if we make the non gw players to join incomplete gw days, we risk bad discussions, because we‘ll lose if we don’t have a full team. Also because of our regular weekly switches we had first day matches not taking place because some teams were missing a single player because they switched guilds before.

So while I follow some of the above proposals, most of them would only solve part of the problem...

My idea would be to have one optional spot per day with one result (the worst) that does not count to the total result, so it could be okay to start a mach with only 4 players! That way, up to 4 players could not play or sign up at all while still being able to compete as a team with the other 16+ players...

However you approach this issue with the „final“ Version of Guild wars. Please keep in mind that not all (hardcore) players want to be forced to play an additional game mode, which is totally understandable, and also there are ppl who even prefer gw over the challenge which would love to not be locked out of gw because some other player did not not make it to sign up for a match in time. THX!

capibara

I agree with @billythegates ..it can be a way to fix this...
i still prefere the first format.. who can start the game will apply and the game will start no matter if they are 3 or 5 or 10. At least i can understand there could be a limit of players x match

ATLAS-Z

I have 5 guilds (4 active) in my family, and I've given permission to the other leaders to boot people who don't participate in Guild Wars. We put a lot of effort onto managing the guild family and trying to make it the best possible experience for everyone and if those players are too selfish to even sign up for two battles then I don't have time for them and feel no remorse sending them on their way.

Remember signing up for battles doesn't mean you have to play but it does allow the folks that do have time to play a chance to earn some points to spend in the shop.

It takes almost no time and zero effort to click that button to sign up and fill those empty slots. It's extremely selfish for those players that don't.

Active players stuck in a dead-end guild know they can message me and I'll find them a home as would many of the other families on here.

WellyLuga

I think if you're in a guild that isn't full or has many inactive players then I think it's best to accept that you're going to get sub par results from this game mode. It's designed with the idea of 20 players all pulling in the same direction. To me that's the best part of it and what sets it apart from any other. What I don't want to see is have it changed to suit players who don't want to do that.

Every player is different and every player makes their own choices. When I first started playing this game I bounced from guild to guild and many of them had players scoring 0* and I thought no, not for me. Would you work for a business and say nothing if several of your colleagues sat around doing nothing whilst you worked away? So I joined a guild family with many dedicated players who had a similar enthusiasm for the game.

I share the opinion of @ATLAS-Z, if 1-2 players choose to not play it this hinders other players and hinders the guild as a whole. It's 40 missions every 2 weeks? I played one battle the other day and with the reward points I bought 50 reroll tokens with change. Name me another game mode you can get that so easily? If you're not interested then just breeze through the easy missions in 20 minutes, collect your free resources and help your teammates. Literally costs you nothing but a small amount of your time.

rogueDS

@ATLAS-Z @WellyLuga I hear you they should at least sign up. It is just a little bummer maybe if always short a win because when its 5 on 5 with 1 zero it gets tricky. I respect people who dont want to play it's all good. I am dropping in a top guild to a lower guild so I can play in GW. I cant put up 2200 plus stars and do GW when I dont buy gas or spend gold.

TontonCactus

I also have my reasons for not trying to join/create a more active guild.
I'm casual, some of my guild mates are too.
Some of us are more active than others, but even among them not all play guild wars. Some prefer the challenge mode, or the simple mission, I actually don't k is because most of them aren't very chatty... And I respect that.
And there's a guy who is among the most actives, who made a good score on his first enrollment but did not show up on the second one. I don't know why yet... "Shit happens" I guess.
Even if I'd like more activity on the guild wars mode I can't join another guild b cause I don't want to be forced to play. It's a game, I just play when I'm in the mood for, otherwise there's no more fun.

This being said, I agree that we should be able to play even if we're not 5 guild mates engaged. But then I also think that we should be able to enroll for a third (or more) round so we still have a chance to participate in 2 "full" rounds. There could be some condition:
- the two first enrollments are passed
- we can enroll only for the next one, so that only other players with less than 2 enrollments can register for the others. This way, players who want a third round can only fill the gaps and don't take anybody's place.

rogueDS

I get that @TontonCactus. Dont think many guilds make it mandatory. Some make it mandatory to sign up. Like my guild of 5 guilds we just ask that you sign up. If you can put up some points great if not its okay. The rewards are really good though. You might want to consider joining a bigger family/guild. It really does bring a new aspect to me the game. Many guilds have their doors open to more players.

rogueDS

Also their is fairness of some getting more rewards because of an extra battle. Everyone gets 3 or everyone gets 2 and so on.

Clydezdale

Just wondering if inactive members receive rewards too? We have won 3 GWs just curious if the members that don’t signup received the rewards. I’ve asked but not one has replied. It’s cool if some don’t care for GW & don’t care to chat but what’s the point of being in a guild for these folks?

TransmuteJun

I'm not going to boot people who have been with my guild for years just because they don't want to (or can't) play one single game more. I don't play outposts, does that mean that I should be booted from my guild? No, it's one aspect of the game.

The argument that small groups of top players who play GW multiple times will form guilds is ridiculous. Those same guilds would be at a huge disadvantage in the challenge.

I agree with giving everyone a chance to sign up for 2 battles in advance, This is fair., But IF, after that time, there are empty splots, then other players should be allowed to sign up for >2 battles, just to be able to participate. We have 3 players who signed up 'late' who can't compete in GW at all this round because everyone else is in a full battle and is unable to sign up for their battles with 2 empty slots each. Why can't we sign up to fill those extra slots and allow other battles for our guild?

echonap

Why not match up guilds 4 vs 4, 3 vs 3, 2 vs 2, or 1 vs 1? Still limit each player to 2 battles per week, but if they can't get 5 to fill up that day, match them up with another guild that has less than 5. Then they can still earn their individual rewards, but due to the lack of victory points, the guild tier will limit what rewards they can buy. It will still be an advantage to be in a full guild, but not as harsh of one.

Troublemaker

I expected a lot more from GWs after one year "in development", according to NG.

They did nothing but tweaks.

Social servers are still malfunctioning. The p2w potential is clear. It's grind'ish and boring after
a while. And although we don't have the time tourniquet, playing 5 on 5 is far from GUILD wars. Also didn't understand the 8-day cycle. Doesn't fit the game cycle.

Mode still needs lots of improvements, which should have been made already (again: ONE YEAR).

So far, it's just boutique Outpost.

JayZ

TransmuteJun said:

I'm not going to boot people who have been with my guild for years just because they don't want to (or can't) play one single game more. I don't play outposts, does that mean that I should be booted from my guild? No, it's one aspect of the game.

The argument that small groups of top players who play GW multiple times will form guilds is ridiculous. Those same guilds would be at a huge disadvantage in the challenge.

I agree with giving everyone a chance to sign up for 2 battles in advance, This is fair., But IF, after that time, there are empty splots, then other players should be allowed to sign up for >2 battles, just to be able to participate. We have 3 players who signed up 'late' who can't compete in GW at all this round because everyone else is in a full battle and is unable to sign up for their battles with 2 empty slots each. Why can't we sign up to fill those extra slots and allow other battles for our guild?

GW was introduced as a way to introduce more advanced PVP than Outposts and to encourage cooperation among guild members. What you are proposing sets a dangerous precedent for the fairness of competition, particularly at the top of the leaderboards. For example, all of the top guilds like Wild Walking, Mavericks OG, Legacy Eh, DTP, and GK Crew A have a handful of players that score 2500-3000 in challenges. They also have a lot of players that score in the 2000-2300 range. What prevents a top guild from stacking their GW lineups so that their 3000+ star whales play every match?

There were already reports during GW1.0 of players sharing accounts so that more skilled players with more time would play for their teammates. Granting an uneven number of battles to each player ruins the competitive balance of the game mode. I'm fine with allowing guilds to be able to start battles short-handed - that is a totally reasonable compromise, but pushing for solutions that break the entire point of the game mode because you want to run your guild a certain way is ridiculous.

Also, I'm not advocating for "small groups of top players" who play GW to combine forces. Most of the top GW and challenge players already have stable homes. I'm suggesting that if a guild has a mix of active and inactive players, the active players should probably team up with other active players to get the most out of GW and challenges.

This is not directed at you, but a more general statement: People can't have it both ways. You can't have a laid-back approach towards your guild, but also complain that you aren't getting to play GW often enough.

Until NG changes the signup system, there are still viable solutions for everyone to play. For example, have all of the active players concentrate their signups to a few days. Or, if there are people in your guild who don't want to play GW because they don't care, they have time constraints, whatever, at least ask them to sign up for battles so that others can play. If they won't do the bare minimum of signing up for a battle (even if they don't play) so that others can play, then what's the point in having them in your guild?

JayZ

@Troublemaker not sure I agree. What is the p2w potential? This is way better than the old GW, which relied on p2w to get gas to run more missions and to heal quickly because of the time constraint. I think the current system is as far from p2w as any game mode in the game.

ignas

> @JayZ said:
> (Quote)
> Granting an uneven number of battles to each player ruins the competitive balance of the game mode. I'm fine with allowing guilds to be able to start battles short-handed - that is a totally reasonable compromise, but pushing for solutions that break the entire game mode

Amen. I hope NG won’t fold under smaller/inactive guilds pressure as this is their problem. The only thing to help them is to remove the need of 5 people per battle to allow them to be able to earn RP.

Troublemaker

JayZ said:

@Troublemaker not sure I agree. What is the p2w potential? This is way better than the old GW, which relied on p2w to get gas to run more missions and to heal quickly because of the time constraint. I think the current system is as far from p2w as any game mode in the game.

There's no red gas anymore, but attacks instead. More attacks = more points = win. Even if playing easier missions!

JayZ

Troublemaker said:

JayZ said:

@Troublemaker not sure I agree. What is the p2w potential? This is way better than the old GW, which relied on p2w to get gas to run more missions and to heal quickly because of the time constraint. I think the current system is as far from p2w as any game mode in the game.

There's no red gas anymore, but attacks instead. More attacks = more points = win. Even if playing easier missions!

But aren't "attacks" limited to 20 per person, and twice per war? Every guild has a total of 800 attacks per 8-day period (20 attacks per day * 5 players per day). So theoretically, two guilds with 100% participation start off on even footing.

Of course, strategy, badges, survivor strength, gear, etc. all come into play, some of which is p2w, but that is no different than any other game mode. Unlike the challenge, you can't just flee, heal, and retry. This is basically the Mimica game mode

BigBob

Silly question? How hard would it be to just sign up however many and match them against a guild that has the same. Ie: 1 sign up-vs-1 sign up or 5 sign ups-vs-5 sign ups. Everyone that wants to play can do so.

Icarus

> @JayZ said:
> (Quote)
> GW was introduced as a way to introduce more advanced PVP than Outposts and to encourage cooperation among guild members. What you are proposing sets a dangerous precedent for the fairness of competition, particularly at the top of the leaderboards. For example, all of the top guilds like Wild Walking, Mavericks OG, Legacy Eh, DTP, and GK Crew A have a handful of players that score 2500-3000 in challenges. They also have a lot of players that score in the 2000-2300 range. What prevents a top guild from stacking their GW lineups so that their 3000+ star whales play every match?
>
> There were already reports during GW1.0 of players sharing accounts so that more skilled players with more time would play for their teammates. Granting an uneven number of battles to each player ruins the competitive balance of the game mode. I'm fine with allowing guilds to be able to start battles short-handed - that is a totally reasonable compromise, but pushing for solutions that break the entire point of the game mode because you want to run your guild a certain way is ridiculous.
>
> Also, I'm not advocating for "small groups of top players" who play GW to combine forces. Most of the top GW and challenge players already have stable homes. I'm suggesting that if a guild has a mix of active and inactive players, the active players should probably team up with other active players to get the most out of GW and challenges.
>
> This is not directed at you, but a more general statement: People can't have it both ways. You can't have a laid-back approach towards your guild, but also complain that you aren't getting to play GW often enough.
>
> Until NG changes the signup system, there are still viable solutions for everyone to play. For example, have all of the active players concentrate their signups to a few days. Or, if there are people in your guild who don't want to play GW because they don't care, they have time constraints, whatever, at least ask them to sign up for battles so that others can play. If they won't do the bare minimum of signing up for a battle (even if they don't play) so that others can play, then what's the point in having them in your guild?

Chances are you are not going to compete with these guilds anyways. It would be going into a buzzsaw

Burmeliinis

Maybe change the setup so that everyone in the guild gets signed up automatically, and then you could manually change the date if you wanted to? Do it with a dimmer color or similar and allow manual changes to override the default suggestion?

Or allow battles to start if even one player is signed up, whichever is easier to implement (obviously this solution is better as it allows all players in guilds with uneven number of players to participate fully).

Ghostdance

I would imagine there are only a few players in full Guilds that are not interested in Guild wars so why not just lower min sign up to 4 out of 5 slots but give 25 battles each to those 4 players so they can still have a chance against a full team....yes it could be exploited but it would solve a lot of issues.