Read on for an important announcement regarding Guild Wars guilds colluding in order to maximise their points.
Please be aware that this behaviour is very difficult to detect with any degree of accuracy. Obviously this case that brought this up is different as some evidence has been found in the guild in question’s Discord, but still no exact proof of how many people followed along and did it, or to what degree they participated. If any further proof is available either way regarding this, please send it to me directly so it can be reviewed and do not post it publicly on the forums.
Unfortunately there is no simple fix for this problem, or way to make it easier to detect without considerable time spent finding a solution and a client update. The data we have found shows no significant change in Guild Wars scores due to collusion, so even if it is happening (which it seems to be) it’s not having a great effect on the outcome of Guild Wars.
However, we do understand that even if it is not having a significant effect on the outcome of Guild Wars, the appearance of collusion is bad for the game. Because of this, we are in further discussion on how to address this issue moving forward. We have to be careful as anything we say now will be how we will conduct ourselves for all future cases, so we want to get it right the first time.
We also have some improvements planned for Guild Wars in upcoming updates. We would like to roll out some scoring changes to make collusion a bad idea. These will include incentivising defense teams with points, which will de-invcentivise cheating as you will lose points.
If we get solid proof of collusion in future (on our side as well, not just data collected by players) there will be consequences, which at the very least will be the removal of rewards. The guilds in question will also possibly be demoted to a lower bracket. We will look at all data available to determine if collusion is taking place. We should be able to tell if a guild are colluding versus playing properly, though it will be very difficult.
Any guilds that were engaging in this behaviour in the past will not be punished. These changes will be made moving forward.