Patch 4.1: Blizzard explains upcoming guild challenges
by Mathew McCurley 
Mar 30th 2011 at 3:00PM
Guild challenges will require a guild group to complete, meaning three out of five group members must be guildies in dungeons, eight out of 10 for 10-man raids and rated battlegrounds, and 20 out of 25 for 25-man content. The challenges can only be completed a certain number of times a week, and they add guild experience over the cap for the week. Blizzard is promising "substantial" sums of gold going to the guild vaults with these new features.
Hit the jump for the full announcement.
In addition to updating Zul'Gurub and Zul'Aman for level-85 players, we're also excited about another patch 4.1 feature: Guild Challenges. Built into the Info panel of the guild user interface, Guild Challenges will be weekly tasks guild groups can tackle for additional guild experience, achievements, and gold.
This feature has been designed and implemented to be quite simple. At the top of the guild user interface Info pane, a new Guild Challenges section will be displayed and broken into three categories: Dungeons, Raids, and Rated Battlegrounds. Any guild group will qualify for Guild Challenges credit and there is a set number of times each challenge can be completed per week. There's no need to add a quest to your Quest Log or anything of that nature. Just grab a guild group eligible for any of the challenges and go.
Completing a Guild Challenge will result in a popup to confirm credit has been awarded, similar to achievement popups (or "toasts"). The participating guild members will then earn experience for their guild. In addition, a gold reward will be deposited directly to the Guild Vault. The gold and experience rewarded varies for each challenge type, but you won't have to worry about receiving reduced rewards if, say, you happen to be in a guild group that completes a raid or dungeon on normal difficulty. Since there is a limited number of times each challenge type can be completed per week, we want to make sure guilds don't feel set back if a guild group of level-18 players receives credit for completing Deadmines, versus a level-85 guild group completing Heroic Deadmines. The same applies to normal and Heroic difficulty raid progression. Provided the content is level-appropriate for your guild group, you'll earn experience and gold for your guild.
To earn Guild Dungeon Challenge credit, the 5-player party must be composed of at least 3 guild members. Raid and Rated Battleground Challenges require that 8 out of 10 players be guild members, while 20 guild members are required to earn credit for 25-player raids. To earn gold for Guild Challenge rewards, a guild must be level 5 or higher and the participating members must have earned honored reputation with the guild. For example, 3 out of 5 guild members in a 5-player party must be honored to earn gold for the guild. If those three guild members have only reached friendly reputation, they would still receive credit and earn guild experience, but the guild would not receive gold.
So, let's say your guild has been regularly hitting the daily experience cap. You might be wondering how beneficial it'd be to do Guild Challenges. Well wonder no more, amigos: Guild Challenges award guild experience above the cap. Think of it like rested experience. The guild experience cap will extend itself relative to the guild experience earned by completing these challenges. It's a great way to get an extra edge on your guild leveling! Not only that, if your guild reaches the level cap, continuing to partake in Guild Challenges will yield a much more substantial sum of gold deposited directly into the Guild Vault.
We're very happy with Guild Challenges and feel that they're a fun way to continue expanding upon all of the new guild features added in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Your feedback regarding this system is always appreciated, as you can be sure we'll be looking for ways to beef it up in future patches.
This feature has been designed and implemented to be quite simple. At the top of the guild user interface Info pane, a new Guild Challenges section will be displayed and broken into three categories: Dungeons, Raids, and Rated Battlegrounds. Any guild group will qualify for Guild Challenges credit and there is a set number of times each challenge can be completed per week. There's no need to add a quest to your Quest Log or anything of that nature. Just grab a guild group eligible for any of the challenges and go.
Completing a Guild Challenge will result in a popup to confirm credit has been awarded, similar to achievement popups (or "toasts"). The participating guild members will then earn experience for their guild. In addition, a gold reward will be deposited directly to the Guild Vault. The gold and experience rewarded varies for each challenge type, but you won't have to worry about receiving reduced rewards if, say, you happen to be in a guild group that completes a raid or dungeon on normal difficulty. Since there is a limited number of times each challenge type can be completed per week, we want to make sure guilds don't feel set back if a guild group of level-18 players receives credit for completing Deadmines, versus a level-85 guild group completing Heroic Deadmines. The same applies to normal and Heroic difficulty raid progression. Provided the content is level-appropriate for your guild group, you'll earn experience and gold for your guild.
To earn Guild Dungeon Challenge credit, the 5-player party must be composed of at least 3 guild members. Raid and Rated Battleground Challenges require that 8 out of 10 players be guild members, while 20 guild members are required to earn credit for 25-player raids. To earn gold for Guild Challenge rewards, a guild must be level 5 or higher and the participating members must have earned honored reputation with the guild. For example, 3 out of 5 guild members in a 5-player party must be honored to earn gold for the guild. If those three guild members have only reached friendly reputation, they would still receive credit and earn guild experience, but the guild would not receive gold.
So, let's say your guild has been regularly hitting the daily experience cap. You might be wondering how beneficial it'd be to do Guild Challenges. Well wonder no more, amigos: Guild Challenges award guild experience above the cap. Think of it like rested experience. The guild experience cap will extend itself relative to the guild experience earned by completing these challenges. It's a great way to get an extra edge on your guild leveling! Not only that, if your guild reaches the level cap, continuing to partake in Guild Challenges will yield a much more substantial sum of gold deposited directly into the Guild Vault.
We're very happy with Guild Challenges and feel that they're a fun way to continue expanding upon all of the new guild features added in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Your feedback regarding this system is always appreciated, as you can be sure we'll be looking for ways to beef it up in future patches.
WoW Patch 4.1 is on the PTR, and WoW Insider has all the latest news for you -- from previews of the revamped Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub to new valor point mechanics and new archaeology items.
Filed under: Guilds
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
zcubed Mar 30th 2011 3:04PM
This looks sweet, maybe this will spur heroic dungeons in my guild again!
coville Mar 30th 2011 3:17PM
Thank you Blizzard for continuing to add to the guild experience system.
I would like to see guild heirlooms, gear you can buy and put into the guild vault for other guild members to use with xp bonuses. This would allow guilds help new members with low level alts level faster. You could also make the item unsellable and only usable by members of that guild, so the user would re-deposit it after they exceed the usable level of the gear.
adam Mar 30th 2011 3:37PM
That sounds great but I'm pretty sure the coding would be near impossible for blizzard. Amount build is a little bit easier. I'm sure that's why heirlooms while earned threw guild perks are still account bOumd and nNot bound to the guild that earned them
AK4T7 Mar 31st 2011 6:47PM
The coding is not impossible, this was actually part of the benefits of Catacylsm before it went live. They decided to scrap that idea and just make them purchasable with gold at revered guild rep.
Darkseid Mar 30th 2011 3:44PM
Looks to be pretty good. I was really excited until I saw that to get the gold reward, all the participating members have to be honored with the guild. >_<
That kind of nulifies their argument that its just as good for a group of lvl18 players as it is for a group of lvl85. But at least you still earn the extra expierience and guild rep.
So all in all, seems like a step in the right direction for balancing things between large and small guilds.
Boobah Mar 30th 2011 4:41PM
On the other hand, with a low-level guild group, you'll gain guild rep far, far faster than you can under the current system. Admittedly, it's kind of a waste if you've got the ability to complete the challenges with high-rep toons. Add in the guild tabards that award guild rep for wearing them, and low-level characters are for more likely to make it to honored.
Evelinda Apr 1st 2011 9:26PM
the announcement up there doesn't actually mention guild rep at all. So from what i can see, your lowbie chars will be earning rep at exactly the same rate as before, which is kind of disappointing... seems like if you have the capacity to run appropriate content with characters who are honored or above already, it would provide no real benefit to do it on lower characters at all.
Drakoizen Mar 30th 2011 3:50PM
After reading further on this, it seems that not only do you have to be honored with your guild, but the guild itself has to be level 5, at least for the gold. It's not a huge deal to the majority, but it still sucks for some of us. I enjoy my guild, I have fun with it, but we are not a raiding guild. We don't want to be. We have less than ten members, and we like to play the game how we like to play it. I'm not really complaining, I suppose, but it does kind of suck. I really don't want to be penalized because I like my guild the way it is.
Baba Mar 30th 2011 5:16PM
This doesn't penalise you in any way, it's an extra.. It's not like Blizzard is sucking gold out of your gbank if you don't complete these
Nick Mar 30th 2011 3:50PM
Actually I am considerably disappointing in these "challenges"
Running several heroics or downing a raid boss are already things that a majority of guilds do on a weekly basis, essentially these guild challenges are just going to reward guilds with more xp and gold for things that they already do
I think they could have been so much more creative with the actual content of the challenges and I had been lead to believe that they would require your guild to go out of their way and do things they did not normally do
Rob Mar 30th 2011 8:26PM
I'd say I'm disappointed too, but really, it's not like expected more. It's just another way to get everyone to do the same boring content over and over. There's nothing new or challenging here at all, except challenging yourself not to die of boredom.
Angrycelt Mar 30th 2011 9:07PM
But by the time this goes live, the Mega guilds and extremely motivated and competitive guilds will already be lvl 25. This is great for smallish and less aggressive guilds as they'll be able to make up some ground.
Comito Apr 1st 2011 6:54AM
Yep, I was expecting this "challenge" to be something along the lines of doing the instance in a slight different manner but harder in some way......mayb less players or something......thats just a random poor one off the top of my head.
But these are just guild bonuses for teaming up more for weekly benefits....not challenges lol
spookykabuki Mar 30th 2011 4:42PM
So about adding XP above the daily guild cap, what happens if a guild is at lvl 25 when 4.1 drops. LOL just curious
Abbadon Mar 30th 2011 5:10PM
Moar goldz!!
/shrug
I really don't know, but that's sorta my complaint. We're lv 22 now, and with the daily cap removed at 23, we're gonna be 25 well before 4.1 ever sees the light of day.
Groth Mar 30th 2011 5:16PM
"Not only that, if your guild reaches the level cap, continuing to partake in Guild Challenges will yield a much more substantial sum of gold deposited directly into the Guild Vault."
So they'll get a shed load of gold for thier guild vault when they complete challenges.
DBNM Mar 30th 2011 5:07PM
My question for the developers would be: Is the experience and reputation rewarded for completing a guild challenge enough that it could make it possible for smaller guilds to reach the respective weekly caps? At the moment the guild leveling system, while in theory very fun and fair, has made starting a new guild or running a small guild very difficult because they cannot level at nearly the same pace as larger ones. My guild is composed of 5 players ( 4 veterans and 1 new recruit) and after the initial guild xp nerfs have never earned more than 1/3 of the daily guild xp cap (more often than not we have earned less than 10% of the daily cap). As a result we are currently lvl 5 (thank goodness) but have been unable to push beyond this point.
Now that several guilds are approaching the maximum level it has become all but impossible for me to offer good reasons to join our guild even when approaching players who are brand new to the game. The perks that higher population guilds enjoy simply for having more players has essentially killed the prospect of building a guild from the ground up.
If these challenges allow smaller guilds like my own to have a shred of hope at reaching the daily xp cap then kudos to Blizz! If however they only offer marginal rep/xp rewards then this will do very little to solve the problem that smaller guilds are having and will instead actually exacerbate the issue by allowing the higher population guilds to progress even further beyond what a small guild is capable of.
Another thing that worries me about this is that the challenges revolve around dungeons, raids and RGBs. Two of these activities are less accessible to smaller guilds (raids and RGBs) and will only further inflate the discrepancies between guilds with lots of members and guilds without. I hope that Blizzard might consider adding additional challenges that revolve around gaining achievements, questing, or leveling up characters as well.
Sorry that this was half rant half post. I think it is a legitimate concern but obviously I am somewhat emotional about the topic.
Backfire the Exalted
Groth Mar 30th 2011 5:28PM
I can see your problem, but ultimately, people who join your guild for the perks are not the ones you want to have in a small guild.
Do you really want to attract players who are new to wow? Having helped build a levelling guild where I was the only experienced player, it's not something I'd want to go through again. Ofc there are people who enjoy teaching new people about the way that the game works, running low level content and really building the social aspect of the game. Apologies if this offends, but with 5 members and Guild Level 5, I don't think that sounds like you.
If you set out clear goals, aims and policies for your guild, then you'd be suprised at how many people may give you a shot. I know plenty of people who leave high lvl guilds to raid in one of a lower level for example. If all you have to offer members is faster leveling or faster mounts, then do they really have much incentive to stay with you?
As it is, you'll still be able to hit up the dungeon challenge- which should give a nice chunk of guild xp.
If you want to stay small, then you'll have to accept that you'll have a slow levelling speed as a guild. If you want to grow, then having members who become more invested in the guild as the levels increase is a great way to decrease turnover.
Small guilds will always level slower than big ones. Don't see it as a competition, see it as another way you can gain Gxp.
Eirik Mar 30th 2011 7:35PM
"My question for the developers would be: Is the experience and reputation rewarded for completing a guild challenge enough that it could make it possible for smaller guilds to reach the respective weekly caps? "
FTA: "Guild Challenges award guild experience above the cap. "
So... no. OTOH, the cap that you won't be reaching will be higher... :)
Billaos Apr 1st 2011 10:16PM
I prefer smaller guilds as well, and was prerty excited to join a small, starting one a while ago. I offerd to be an officer, and seemed like it would be gat group. A week later, I login to see "guild merging with whatever". Guess they couldn't resist the lure of the perkz.
It would be so simple to fix that in my opinion: make the XP cap proportional to the number of members.