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Guild Wars Reimagined

INTRODUCTION

Version 8.4 of Gems of War sees the re-release and re-imagining of the Guild Wars feature.

Original Guild Wars was disabled in version 7.3 to make way for the new region-based PvP System. Having initially released back in version 3.0  (March 2017), Guild Wars ran in its original form for 7 years – initially every week, and then later it ran in rotation with other weekly events. Although we were sad to see Guild Wars leave us in early 2024, it was a great chance to build a whole new Guild Wars feature that could address many of the issues that had become apparent in the old system.

OVERVIEW

The following diagram has a quick summary of how the new Guild Wars works. It’s a good place to start, and we will deal with each of the areas shown in more detail below.

GUILD WAR EVENTS

How Often Do Guild Wars Run?

Before jumping into the details of everything shown in the diagram above, let’s talk about timing.

The good news is that we’ve built the new Guild Wars to be quite flexible, so a given event can run from 2-10 days, and it is not tied to the weekly rotation of other events.

That said, everything in this article refers to a Guild War that runs for 4 days – which is how we are going to introduce them. Initially, the plan is to replace Arena Weekends with Guild War events that run from Thursday to Sunday. This will allow us to gather feedback from everyone as we balance and adjust the system. After that, we’ll look to adjust the length and frequency of Guild War events to make it the most fun it can be.

Each day of a Guild War event will see your Guild facing off against another Guild to see who can score the most points and win. Each win will increase your Guild’s Rating on the leaderboard, while each loss will cost your Guild some Rating.

As for Arena Events – they’ll probably get a rework at some point in the future and return – but we do not have anything to announce at this time.

Is There Anything Unique About Guild War Events?

Guild War Events have a couple of unique elements to keep each one fresh.

Firstly, each Guild War has an “Attacker Restriction” in place (don’t worry – defenders also have restrictions to keep it fair). This might be Troop Color, Troop Kingdom, or Troop Type. We have no plans at present to double these up and make complex restrictions that are difficult for forming teams.

Also, each Guild War introduces a Shiny Legendary Troop. You can win Shiny Tokens for this Troop in the Guild Wars reward track. Tokens for these new Shiny Legendaries will go into Shiny Chests 2-3 months after the event. 

PREPARING FOR A GUILD WAR

Opt-In

The first step in preparing for a Guild War is to OPT-IN. This may be done by anyone in the top 3 ranks of Guild Leadership. Access the check-box from the Guild Wars Menu by selecting “My Guild’s Keep” followed by the “Admin” button.

This must be done 3 days before a Guild War begins, else the option will be locked. This is to give Guilds enough time to prepare their defenses.

All Guilds who have had an active member in the last 3 months will be automatically opted-in to Guild Wars, but may disable that if wish.

Selecting Your Keep

The key idea behind Guild Wars is that you are attacking an enemy Guild’s Keep, while defending your own Keep from that same Guild. 

There are 6 different Keeps (one based on each of the gem colors). Your Guild must choose one of these Keeps to defend. Once again, anyone in the top 3 Guild Ranks can choose the Keep, and it must be locked in 3 days before the Guild War begins. 

There will be a News Item reminding players of an impending Guild War 4 days before it starts, so you will have some advanced notice to change the Keep and opt-in settings. They may be changed before that too – any time after the previous Guild War,

Upon release, all Guilds will default to the Blue Keep.

KEEPS

As mentioned above – Guild Wars has you attacking an enemy Guild’s Keep, while defending your own Keep from that same enemy.

There are 6 Keeps to choose from, and each Guild is free to pick the one they prefer. Each Keep contains a series of 10 buildings linked together by paths. Each building in the Keep may be defended by players from its Guild. Attackers will attempt to fight their way through an enemy Guild’s Keep, from the Gate towards the Palace, in order to score points.

Each Keep has the following properties

  • A color theme – linked to one of the 6 Gem colors.
  • A Guild Guardian – one of the 6 Underspire Sentinels. Its color will match the Keep.
  • A series of 10 different buildings joined together by paths

Keep Buildings

The first building is always the Gate. The final building is always the Palace. The 8 buildings in between are different in each Keep, and attackers must choose their path through those buildings if they want to try and reach the Palace on their 5th battle. As you approach the palace, the buildings are worth more points – and the Guild with the most points wins the day!

Each building (except the Gate) may be defended by up to 3 players from its Guild. Their defense teams will have a troop type restriction based on the selected building (e.g. the Smithy must be defended by Dwarves, but the Temple must be defended by Divines).

Guild Guardians

The Gate is always defended by the Guild Guardian, with a predetermined team. For now, he fights at level 20, but we have plans for him in a future update. Even though the Gate is worth the least points, it is a great location for newer players to repeatedly attack, especially if they do not have the team strength to win any further into the Keep against PvP opponents. The Guild Guardian has another ability too – discussed below.

SETTING DEFENSES

From 3 days out, until the final hour before the Guild Wars event begins, Guild Members may set their defenses. The Keep is locked in at this point, so all that remains is for players to do two things:

  • Select a building to defend.
  • Set up a defense team.

Defending is an important part of Guild Wars, as active defenders give your Guild a Morale Bonus that increases Daily Rewards for winning.

Daily Rewards & Morale Bonus

Your Daily Reward – collectable whenever you win a day’s Guild War – is heavily tied to your Morale Bonus.

The basic Daily Reward, for every member of a winning Guild, is:

  • 10 Gold Marks
  • 20 Silver Marks
  • 10,000 Gold

Morale Bonus adds to these rewards, and is determined by two things:

  • Your active Defenders (0%-250%)
  • Your Guild’s position in the global leaderboard (0-250%)

These bonuses are additive, so if the top Guild fielded all defenders, it would gain a 500% bonus to the rewards (60 Gold Marks, 120 Silver Marks, and 60,000 Gold).

Morale Bonus for defenders is calculated at: +2% each for the first 7 defenders, +6% each for the next 10 defenders, +15% each for the next 8 defenders, and +28% each for the last 2 defenders.

Morale Bonus for the leaderboard is calculated at: +250% for position 1, +200% for position 2-3, +150% for position 4-10, +100% for position 11-20, +50% for position 21-50, +25% for position 51-100, +0% for positions 101+.

Defending Buildings

Up to 3 players can defend any building (except the Gate). When attacked, one of the defenders will be chosen at random for a PvP Battle. If no defenders are present, the Guild Guardian will defend instead, with its level 20 team (the same one that was used on the gate).

Each defender must choose a defense team matching the building’s restrictions. Failure to choose a team means you will not be selected as a Defender, and you defense will not count towards your Guild’s Morale Bonus.

You may notice that there are only 27 defense slots, but Guilds have 30 members. This is intentional, as we realize that Guilds may have a few inactive members on any given week.

One final consideration when defending buildings is this – which Rank is a building in? As the buildings get closer to the Palace, their defenders gain a small skill buff.

  • Rank 1 (one step past the Gate): +5% buff to all skills
  • Rank 2: +10% buff to all skills
  • Rank 3: +15% buff to all skills
  • Palace: +20% buff to all skills

Guilds may opt to have fewer defenders at certain locations in order to restrict the choice of Defenders at that location and make it harder for attackers. This is a valid strategic choice. It will, however, lower the “Morale Bonus” of a Guild which will result in them receiving less rewards if they win the day.

Guild Guardians & Player Defense

Guild Guardians have an extra ability that will help defenders (even themselves when THEY are the defender).

If a battle lasts 15 turns or more, once on the defender’s 15th turn, the Guild Guardian will appear to cast a spell and help the defending team out. These spells are listed on the Keep diagrams above.

Although only having a very minor impact on battles at the moment, we have some plans for the Guild Guardians that did not make it into 8.4, so watch for some changes here in future updates.

ATTACKING

Once a new Guild War day begins, your Guild will be assigned an opponent – reasonably close in ranking to your own Guild. Both your Scores will reset to zero, and your Guild’s members will be free to begin attacking and earning Score – the Guild with the highest Score at the end of the day is the winner.

Attackers must follow the Guild War event’s troop restriction for attackers. This will be the same restriction every day in the event.

Every attacker is able to fight 5 battles per day. This is precisely enough to reach the enemy Palace if you win every battle.You are not obliged to keep pushing forward though, you may continue to fight a previously unlocked (or previously-defeated) location multiple times.

As you defeat a location, one or two new locations will open up – these follow the diagrams above.

All battles for a given day must be completed on that day. This is a departure from old Guild Wars, which allowed players to save up all the battles and do them at the end of the week. There are two reasons for this change; the first is a technical reason – delayed battles contributed to some instability in the old Guild Wars system; the second involves the player experience – delaying battles would delay ALL rewards for ALL days until the very end of the event, and also mean that results from many days earlier could be snatched back at the very last minute, which was never something we liked to see, and was often difficult to explain.

Scoring

Every VICTORY contributes to your Guild’s Score. The amount is determined by a Base Score (from the building you are fighting), modified by a Bonus Score (identical to the bonus VP you earn in PvP)

The Base Score:

  • Gate: 100 points
  • Rank 1 Buildings: 150 points
  • Rank 2 Buildings: 200 points
  • Rank 3 Buildings: 300 points
  • Palace: 500 points

The Bonus Score:

  • Made a 4/5/6/7/8-of-a-kind match: +2/3/4/5/6 points
  • Won in 10/8/6/4/2 turns or less: +2/4/6/9/12 points
  • Won with 2/3/4 allies alive: +3/5/10 points
  • Received 2/4/6/8 or more extra moves: +1/2/3/4 points
  • Killed an enemy in a single shot: +3 points

Building Sets & Score Bonuses

The final part of scoring involves defeating “Sets” of buildings in the enemy Keep. This is an optimization aimed especially at larger, more coordinated Guilds.

A Set of buildings is earned each time your Guild conquers 1 of every single building in the target Keep. You can see the count of conquests for each building on the small gray shield attached to each building’s name.

Collecting a Set of conquests earns a bonus 1,000 points for a Guild. Your current Set Bonus is displayed on the left side of the screen when you are looking at the enemy Keep.

PERSONAL REWARD

As well as the Daily Guild War rewards for winning the day, all players also have a personal reward track for winning battles.

This gives a reward for every 2 victories a player achieves.

  • Event Starts: 50 Silver Marks
  • 2 Wins: 1 Silver Icon
  • 4 Wins: 1 Lesser Orb of Glory
  • 6 Wins: 30 Gold Marks
  • 8 WIns: 10 Burning Marks
  • 10 Wins: 1 Silver Icon
  • 12 Wins: 5x Swift Talismans for PvP
  • 14 Wins: 1 Orb of Glory
  • 16 Wins: 2 Shiny Keys
  • 18 Wins: 5 Shiny Tokens for the featured Shiny Legendary Troop

Players may also purchase a Guild Wars Medallion (US $4.99, or equivalent price in your region).

This opens a second reward track for this event only (below), 

  • Event Starts: 10 Shiny Tokens for the featured Shiny Legendary Troop
  • 2 Wins: 1 Gold Icon
  • 4 Wins: 20 Burning Marks
  • 6 Wins: 3 Shiny Keys
  • 8 WIns: 10 Shiny Tokens for the featured Shiny Legendary Troop
  • 10 Wins: 1 Gold Icon
  • 12 Wins: 20 Burning Marks
  • 14 Wins: 1 Greater Orb of Glory
  • 16 Wins: 25 Burning Marks
  • 18 Wins 10 Shiny Tokens for the featured Shiny Legendary Troop

In addition, the Guild Wars Medallion will give 2 further bonuses during this event only:

  • You will earn triple Gold, Souls, and VP from all Guild War battles in this event.
  • You may purchase any missed rewards at a cost of 20 Gems per milestone (so, suppose you only had 14 wins, and were 2 milestones short of finishing, you could buy the last 2 for 20 Gems each, for a total cost of 40 Gems).

This is currently set up for a 4-day Guild War. There will be changes to these rewards tracks if Guild Wars run for different durations.

Also note: Personal Rewards are not affected by Morale Bonus

LEADERBOARDS

New Guild Wars features a single leaderboard for all Guilds, and every Guild has a “Rating” on that leaderboard by which it is ranked.

This replaces the bracket system from the old Guild Wars system which had 3 issues:

  • It was extremely slow to move up and down
  • It had issues with Guild cooperation within a bracket
  • It had technical issues related to our particular database configuration.

As such, we are moving to this new unified leaderboard.

Leaderboard Rating

Each Guild has a Rating on the leaderboard. This is based on an Elo rating system, much like you would find in Chess.

All Guilds are ranked based on their current Rating, from highest to lowest. The top 100 Guilds in the list gain extra Morale Bonus during a Guild Wars event. The leaderboard will be available to view via the Leaderboard button inside the main Guild Wars menu.

Each day, after a Guild War has ended, every Guild will gain or lose some Rating, based on whether they win, lose, or draw for that day. Note that, with an Elo system, it doesn’t matter whether you win by a lot, or win by a little – all that matters is whether you win, lose, or draw.

These daily changes to Rating will not be applied until the end of the Guild War event, when they will all be applied simultaneously.

Gaining and Losing Rating (Elo Calculations)

For the technically-minded out there, we are including the Elo formula here so you can see what’s happening with your Guild’s Rating behind the scenes. Elo Formulae have two arbitrary numbers that can be assigned to adjust their behavior. Over time, we may modify these numbers to better reflect the environment we are operating within:

  • K-Factor – The degree of movement of scoring
  • Skill-Difference – What do we think is a significant difference in Ration

Chess often uses a number between 16-32 for K-Factor, and 400 for Skill-Difference. We are starting with similar values, using 24 and 400 respectively

The formula then works like this:

So we have the values by which Guild A’s Rating, and Guild B’s Rating should be adjusted

Rating Decay

If a Guild chooses to opt-out of Guild Wars, their Rating will decay by 2 points for each day in the event. We will review this number and may increase it in future if the Leaderboards are not as dynamic as we would like.

Initial Leaderboard Placement

Initial placement will be based on Guild Trophy Count

Guilds will be assigned an initial Rating based on the following formula:

  • Trophies: 0 – 100,000
    • Rating = Trophies/100
  • Trophies: 100,000 – 600,000
    • Rating = 1000 + (Trophies-100,000)*(250/500,000)
  • Trophies: 600,000 – 1,400,000
    • Rating = 1,250 + (Trophies-600,000)*(250/800,000)
  • Trophies: 1,400,000 – 2,500,000
    • Rating = 1,500 + (Trophies-1,400,000)*(500/1,100,000)
  • Trophies: 2,500,000 – 5,000,000
    • Rating = 2,000 + (Trophies-2,500,000)*(500/2,500,000)
  • Trophies: 5,000,000+
    • Rating = 2,500 + (Trophies-5,000,000)/100,000

Designer’s Notes: As you would imagine, this was a very tricky problem – how we initially assign a Rating to every Guild. Elo systems tend to work best with a seeding period, where members would play 10-20 matches to determine their ratings. Unfortunately, that is not possible with Guild Wars, so we needed to find another method to assign a rating to all Guilds.

Ideally then, you would assign a rating based on the abilities of the players in a Guild. But THAT was a problem too. Once we released the calculation, players would move around in Guilds to try and manipulate their way to the top of the table.

So we needed to base initial placement on something that was INHERENT to a Guild. The old Guild Wars scores would have been a possibility, but were extremely out of date and difficult to use, based on database changes in the last year.

And so we were left with Trophy Count as the only real possible contender. An imperfect solution, but we believe the best one available. We believe that Guilds will soon begin to reposition themselves correctly anyway.

We have also published our updated Guild Wars game guide article for a simplified breakdown of Guild Wars.

Please note, some details such as rewards listed may still be subject to change.

Keep an eye out later in the week, for further information about the future of Guild Wars!