Guild Missions

[Sakeri.6803]

I run a small guild and trying convince members to participate in guild missions, let alone find enough members online at the same time, feels almost impossible. When I finally manage to scrape together 6 people for guild missions, guild missions that are labeled as recommended for 5 players, the objective(s) end up being too difficult to complete within the specified time limit. As a result even fewer guild members want to participate in guild missions the following week.

 

My guild is at the point where we only perform guild treks, if even that much. Entire maps have have level scaling, why isn't the difficulty of guild missions scaled to the number of participants? Why is it that the recommended number of players still doesn't cut it? Five seasoned veterans may be enough to complete guild missions but how many new guilds have 5 seasoned veterans?

 

Speculation: (Better known as me trying to make sense of ArenaNet's design.)

Is ArenaNet trying to promote buying help online? (I'd never do this and I wouldn't be surprised if this was a violation of the ToS.)

Is ArenaNet trying to kill off smaller guilds?

 

Discuss and possibly help me make sense of this design. (That includes you die-hard fan boys and girls, you know who you are.)

[Khisanth.2948]

Just to be clear, are you actually looking for a solution or is this a poorly disguised rant? Can't really be sure these days.

 

Which missions are you trying to complete? The only ones I see with a recommendation of 5 players are the easy missions. Easy Trek can be completed solo. Easy Bounty can be completed by 2 or less. So that leaves the race as the only thing left where the numbers could vary a lot depending on people involved and the specific race. The biggest issue I've seen with races are people who simply walk into traps ...

 

> Five seasoned veterans

 

but are you actually? Having played the game for a long time is not the same as knowing all the mechanics involved. Treks don't have much but races have a bit and bounties can have pretty significant mechanics but not the easy ones.

[Sakeri.6803]

> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> Just to be clear, are you actually looking for a solution or is this a poorly disguised rant? Can't really be sure these days.

>

> Which missions are you trying to complete? The only ones I see with a recommendation of 5 players are the easy missions. Easy Trek can be completed solo. Easy Bounty can be completed by 2 or less. So that leaves the race as the only thing left where the numbers could vary a lot depending on people involved and the specific race. The biggest issue I've seen with races are people who simply walk into traps ...

>

> > Five seasoned veterans

>

> but are you actually? Having played the game for a long time is not the same as knowing all the mechanics involved. Treks don't have much but races have a bit and bounties can have pretty significant mechanics but not the easy ones.

 

I guess I am a little annoyed, not so much at the design of the missions but rather how hard it is to pull a team together, only to fail due to mission time constraints. In general, it's hard for smaller guilds to scrape a team together. I think the incentives are fine for the record I just wish there was more of a hadicap for inexperienced or new guilds. I'll admit I haven't sat down and read the wiki regarding guild mission tactics; something I'll be sure to do in the future. Today we ran out of time on the 3-target bounty with a team of 6. The karka race was pretty soul crushing too; my guild has informed me they won't be doing races again in the future.

[Ok I Did It.2854]

I built a guild hall with 3 people, some guild missions you will just have to face will not happen, however, for the races, its best to wait until there is another guild also doing it, you only need to have it active in your guild mission, and aslong as 15 ppl complete the course you will get credit for it, this helped alot with some of the missions, the trek missions you can do with 2 people, just have the wiki up and take some time to learn where the locations are and the fastest way to get to them.

 

The hardest things for us where, hard bounties, we never got one of them the entire time, so mostly ignored them, we also never did any of the jumping puzzles.

[ArthurDent.9538]

6 people is enough to do all the of the pve missions. Angvar's Trove is the only mission that requires 6, the rest can be done with 3 or less, though 5 target bounty can be pretty tough with less than 5.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

> @"Sakeri.6803" said:

> > @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> > Just to be clear, are you actually looking for a solution or is this a poorly disguised rant? Can't really be sure these days.

> >

> > Which missions are you trying to complete? The only ones I see with a recommendation of 5 players are the easy missions. Easy Trek can be completed solo. Easy Bounty can be completed by 2 or less. So that leaves the race as the only thing left where the numbers could vary a lot depending on people involved and the specific race. The biggest issue I've seen with races are people who simply walk into traps ...

> >

> > > Five seasoned veterans

> >

> > but are you actually? Having played the game for a long time is not the same as knowing all the mechanics involved. Treks don't have much but races have a bit and bounties can have pretty significant mechanics but not the easy ones.

>

> I guess I am a little annoyed, not so much at the design of the missions but rather how hard it is to pull a team together, only to fail due to mission time constraints. In general, it's hard for smaller guilds to scrape a team together. I think the incentives are fine for the record I just wish there was more of a hadicap for inexperienced or new guilds. I'll admit I haven't sat down and read the wiki regarding guild mission tactics; something I'll be sure to do in the future. Today we ran out of time on the 3-target bounty with a team of 6. The karka race was pretty soul crushing too; my guild has informed me they won't be doing races again in the future.

 

The key for the multi-target bounties is to not just send scouts looking for all targets right away, but preferably *fight* more than one bounty at a time too. Always call out in map chat that you're starting the fight - people usually come to help.

[Ameepa.6793]

Doable with six members without much trouble are at least:

 

-All treks

-1 and 3 target bounties

-All challenges except karkaball

-All races except karka

 

Puzzles doable too but not really worth the trouble with that few.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Sakeri.6803" said:

> > @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> > Just to be clear, are you actually looking for a solution or is this a poorly disguised rant? Can't really be sure these days.

> >

> > Which missions are you trying to complete? The only ones I see with a recommendation of 5 players are the easy missions. Easy Trek can be completed solo. Easy Bounty can be completed by 2 or less. So that leaves the race as the only thing left where the numbers could vary a lot depending on people involved and the specific race. The biggest issue I've seen with races are people who simply walk into traps ...

> >

> > > Five seasoned veterans

> >

> > but are you actually? Having played the game for a long time is not the same as knowing all the mechanics involved. Treks don't have much but races have a bit and bounties can have pretty significant mechanics but not the easy ones.

>

> I guess I am a little annoyed, not so much at the design of the missions but rather how hard it is to pull a team together, only to fail due to mission time constraints. In general, it's hard for smaller guilds to scrape a team together. I think the incentives are fine for the record I just wish there was more of a hadicap for inexperienced or new guilds. I'll admit I haven't sat down and read the wiki regarding guild mission tactics; something I'll be sure to do in the future. Today we ran out of time on the 3-target bounty with a team of 6. The karka race was pretty soul crushing too; my guild has informed me they won't be doing races again in the future.

 

I don't think it is very reasonable to expect success when going into the fights blind. If the group happens to be people who enjoy the process of discovering and figuring out how the bounties work then that is perfectly fine but if you are more interested in success then you really need to check out both their routes and mechanics ahead of time.

 

3 targets is doable with 5 people even before mounts(unless you happen to be really unlucky and get multiple with huge/convoluted paths). At least now you can retry immediately unlike the old days when you had the items to activate guild missions. With experience you also know if you need a 4/1 or 3/2 or 2/2/1 split

 

Making sure everyone has all the waypoints in all the possible maps is important too. Time spent waiting for someone to arrive because they don't have a waypoint is just time wasted.

 

> @"Tanner Blackfeather.6509" said:

> Always call out in map chat that you're starting the fight - people usually come to help.

 

Scaling tends towards punishing. If you get people who actually knows how the bounty works then that is great but if not you've just made it harder instead.