An open letter about WvW Alliances

The recent post of World Vs World(WvW) Alliances has me concerned for the future of WvW. On its surface, the idea seems good; regrouping players based on their guilds into balanced worlds every eight weeks. However, like many things in game design, this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The initial benefits will open the gateways to several problems that will make WvW even worse.

Fans of the first Guild Wars will no doubt see the roots of this idea in the second expansion; Factions. In Factions, alliances were introduced that allowed guilds to join forces. Various events across the game world (mostly in PvP) gave favor. The alliances that collected the most favor were given cities and towns to “govern”. Once again this seemed to be a good system. However, while this system was good at the low tier, the upper tier was extremely toxic and savage.

Just as WvW Alliances, there was a limit on how many guilds could be in these alliances. The high ranking alliances would place quotas on each guild in their alliance. Each week their faction total had to be above a certain number or they were kicked out of the alliance. I still remember talking with a guild leader who’s guild was just recently kicked out of one of the top alliances. He told me about how much pressure was on farming favor and If you're ever underperforming, no matter what the reason, you’re out.

I am afraid that alliances will create this same type of behavior. Will guilds who can’t perform as well as others be kicked out of alliances because they are too small to keep up or their player’s decide to take a break?

My main concern is that WvW Alliances will break up current WvW communities. Over the course of the last six years, we have been playing with the same people. It has been a tightly knit community. Even if you don’t talk much in chat, you still know the commanders who run during your time and you know their tactics. You know the in-jokes on your world. You know the people. Alliances will ruin this.

Yes, I am aware of the counter arguments. People can just join your guild. The guilds can just join your alliance. What about the people who took a break for a few months? What about the guilds who decide to join bigger alliances? What about the smaller roamers who don’t want to join a guild? What if there’s too many guilds or players? These communities we made for the last six years will be shattered and thrown to the winds. All because of a problem with balance.

Alliances will not bring balance. Alliances are in essentially world pairing 2.0. Rather than having two worlds paired together, we will get a bunch of random groups cobbled together into a world. The issue that was with world pairing will still be there. How can you tell what is balanced? A guild who runs six thousand hours of game time last week may decide to take a break and now only runs a hundred. A commander who runs in afternoons may change his time to mornings. A player who has been running on a highly turned build may try to run a joke build for a while. Worse yet, what if you get paired with a group who are deliberately manipulating the match-ups to troll people. There are countless x factors that can throw the balance off. And once you're locked in, you are stuck for two whole months. Alliances does not fix the problem. It just puts a band-aid on a band-aid. The only thing that will fix WvW is having a dynamic system that can balance teams continuously and without turning WvW into a large scale ranked sPvP match. Ranked sPvP matchmaking has already been called a joke. How can we trust ANet to make matchmaking for WvW any better?

Breaking up all the world's should come only after all other options have failed. We should not tear down everything just to fix a simple balance problem. There are plenty of other ideas out there, both designed by other games, and suggested by other players. Give outnumbered players a small stat buff. Give outnumbered walls and gates more toughness. Give outnumbered players a npc buddy to fight with them. I just thought of these of the top of my head, and I know there are many more. Before writing this, I saw someone post about having “mercenary guilds”. The post was suggesting it alongside the alliance change. However, I can see having merc guilds that switch on demand between servers a very easy way to balance. I Think a lot of people would love to be constantly matched up with different opponents.

Even more, why not have alliances on top of worlds and provide alliances incentives to switch worlds. Such as everyone in the alliances gets 200 gold to switch to Sea of Sorrows. These offers and gold amounts can be tailored to each alliance based on what world they are on, what world they are going to, and the number of people in the alliance. After that, all that is needed is a warning to allow players who don’t want to leave a chance of backing out. This would be just as good without breaking the worlds apart.

Balance is not the main problem of WvW. Rather it’s a symptom of the real problem. The system of rewards is the main problem. Right now, there is no reason to win a WvW match. No chest. No gold. The game doesn’t even tell you if you won or not. Rewards are poorly communicated. In other modes, such as sPvP, they have the rewards clearly listed. Get the last chest in Byzantium and get 20 gold! Win a pvp tournament for 500 gold! This is designed to play into psychology. Big numbers make players want to play sPvP. Regardless if 20 gold every 3 months is not a good farming route. Big numbers make better experiences.

The only thing close to this in WvW is when two large groups of players fight. The winning side is usually showered in loot drops. While this does fit that big reward, any feeling of reward is negated by the frustration of the other side’s loss.

When players see only a small stream of rewards they believe they can get more rewards elsewhere and leave. WvW is stagnant, not because of balance, but because we have nothing to strive for. It’s a treadmill without a carrot. When people have no reason to complete, they start to farm. People group together and make it as easy as possible to play. Lack of competition encourages stacking all on one world. If we can turn it so smaller worlds are more profitable to be on, the balance issue will disappear in a few days.

Sometimes It’s good to throw out the old for a new system. Redesign and improvement are some of the basics in game making. However, nothing good can come from replacing a system that has been used for years with thousands of players relying on it, with another that is just as broken.

Thank you for reading.

Do you agree if dynamic queue will bring balance?

@Norbe.7630 said:Do you agree if dynamic queue will bring balance?

I don't quite understand what your talking about.If your speaking of Alliances; No, They will not bring balance. Alliances are a mechanic to balance on a large scale(Numbers in worlds). While the balance issue in WvW is a Small scale issue(Numbers actually in wvw). I put more detail of this in the letter.

good feedback. i can read your feelings as you wrote this since what is familiar to you may be replaced.

but, i think alliances should be given a chance. because you only know something works by testing it and it has not been tested yet.

some guilds will have quotas and i believe that is the right way. it will increase the lvl of the gaming field, whereas, there will be casual guilds too like mine, who accepts everyone no matter the level, experience or anything else but we will arm you to be competitive too. (everytime i raid many join, but there are casualties, who leave because they get wiped by jq or sbi because they are not in ts or playing their classes wrong, but those who live, get better and get stronger and stick it out)

also when wvw was at its peak, no one care about the rewards. we played because it was fun. because we worked together. and alliance will allow us to interact again. just like in the times of competition or tournaments. tournaments to me was the best part of wvw. we went overtime, used real money to buy gems to gold for server transfers etc. now we have it so easy. the rewards now are awesome. we want more but it is better than before.

game balance pop balance is the main reason why wvw cant be competitive because player based are counted based on the time a player spent per slot in a wvw over the total population all 4 bls have. so some servers will have 50 dedicated players where others will have 300 casuals doing rotations. sorry guys thats where we are having problems. players at max should only be counted from 2 to 4 hours in average because i doubt there is more than 100 players all throught na and eu playing 8 to 12. so this is addressed by the alliance where players choose a wvw guild as their contract that they are active. to ensure this activity is honest, the game can auto have an every per 8 weeks pruning of non active players who will have to choose a new home if they remain dormant for that long. so those new worlds be open and not clocked by bots x ppl who lost interest in the game (suggestion).

hoping this really pushes thru and is iterated over and over the devs.

Your worries is actually completely unwarranted when 1 max size WvW guild == 1 alliance. We still dont know the limit but we know its 500 minimum and if we assume just 500 players, then WvW alliances is merely another way to form a guild. So it wouldnt need to be exclusive in terms of how many is "allowed" to join. If people dont like how the alliance main guild dictate an alliance, just leave and recruit the people you want or create your own new alliance - or just make a 500 man WvW guild you fully control. The point of the system is to have many alliances for better MMR, not necessarily big ones. While I fully expect guilds will split into "casual" guilds (non-WvW containing all members) and "hardcore" WvW guilds with stricter demands on your presence in WvW so they dont put unneccesary load on an alliance, I dont expect many alliances to actually reach max size.

500 on guild alliance and 500 open slots yeah?

@zerorogue.9410 said:Balance is not the main problem of WvW. Rather it’s a symptom of the real problem. The system of rewards is the main problem. Right now, there is no reason to win a WvW match. No chest. No gold. The game doesn’t even tell you if you won or not. Rewards are poorly communicated. In other modes, such as sPvP, they have the rewards clearly listed. Get the last chest in Byzantium and get 20 gold! Win a pvp tournament for 500 gold! This is designed to play into psychology. Big numbers make players want to play sPvP. Regardless if 20 gold every 3 months is not a good farming route. Big numbers make better experiences.

Balance IS the main problem of WvW. Players don't play WvW when they feel they don't have a chance due to unequal team sizes. You then go on to compare WvW rewards with sPvP. sPvP is balanced though. People give up on sPvP matches when someone DCs, for example.

@zerorogue.9410 said:

My main concern is that WvW Alliances will break up current WvW communities. Over the course of the last six years, we have been playing with the same people. It has been a tightly knit community. Even if you don’t talk much in chat, you still know the commanders who run during your time and you know their tactics. You know the in-jokes on your world. You know the people. Alliances will ruin this.

Yes, I am aware of the counter arguments. People can just join your guild. The guilds can just join your alliance. What about the people who took a break for a few months? What about the guilds who decide to join bigger alliances? What about the smaller roamers who don’t want to join a guild? What if there’s too many guilds or players? These communities we made for the last six years will be shattered and thrown to the winds. All because of a problem with balance.

First, just so I know your frame of reference, which server community are you part of?

But more importantly lets look at the counter arguments you present. People who took a break for a few months? Free to join your new community alliance, and free of charge so long as its not mid-season. So they might have to wait a few weeks if they don't want to pay whatever gem fee Anet decides on. Seems reasonable.

Guilds who jump ship to bigger alliances? They clearly don't value your community, so good riddance.

Small roamers who don't want to join a guild? Free to join the alliance. If they don't want to do that, then clearly they don't value the community either.

What if there are too many players and guilds to fit in an alliance? Possibly a legit concern which Anet will need to be careful to address. But I would estimate(and everyone has a different guess on this) that no community in EU or NA has more than 1000 players who spend 2+ hours a day in WvW and are active within each respective community. You should be able to fit all of them into any given alliance.

But lets think about this idea that doing away with servers will destroy communities. I've been on six different servers with my main account, more with my alts, I've been involved in the communities on each server. I've attended the meetings, talked to the leaders, helped bring new people to each server, helped get more people on the respective voice coms, been active on their forums. And the truth is that the server communities since seasons ended have become increasingly anemic and pointless, with fewer people actively involved. Go look at the website for any WvW server, and compare its activity level today, to what it was four or five years ago. It is pathetic. No one cares.

Alliances will finally give people a reason to care about their WvW community again. Will it destroy some communities? Yeah, the weak ones. The ones that have been dying for years. But it will also allow the construction of new, more active, stronger communities with meaningful identities and shared values.

@Chaba.5410 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:Balance is not the main problem of WvW. Rather it’s a symptom of the real problem. The system of rewards is the main problem. Right now, there is no reason to win a WvW match. No chest. No gold. The game doesn’t even tell you if you won or not. Rewards are poorly communicated. In other modes, such as sPvP, they have the rewards clearly listed. Get the last chest in Byzantium and get 20 gold! Win a pvp tournament for 500 gold! This is designed to play into psychology. Big numbers make players want to play sPvP. Regardless if 20 gold every 3 months is not a good farming route. Big numbers make better experiences.

I suggest you go take a look at the sPvP forum. Matchmaking in Ranked sPvP is a mess. Most matches have a 200+ point difference in final score (500 = win), and what points it decides to give/take seem random at best.

The lack of rewards created the imbalance due to the age old rule in game playing. "Don't do what's hard when you you can farm easy." There's no real goal to aim for, so most players leave WvW for a better experience and the remaining players group together to make fighting easy.

@Caliburn.1845 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:

My main concern is that WvW Alliances will break up current WvW communities. Over the course of the last six years, we have been playing with the same people. It has been a tightly knit community. Even if you don’t talk much in chat, you still know the commanders who run during your time and you know their tactics. You know the in-jokes on your world. You know the people. Alliances will ruin this.

Yes, I am aware of the counter arguments. People can just join your guild. The guilds can just join your alliance. What about the people who took a break for a few months? What about the guilds who decide to join bigger alliances? What about the smaller roamers who don’t want to join a guild? What if there’s too many guilds or players? These communities we made for the last six years will be shattered and thrown to the winds. All because of a problem with balance.

First, just so I know your frame of reference, which server community are you part of?

Why would anyone care about their Alliance when they didn't care about their world? There are not going to be Alliances as big as worlds. So why would people have any more reason to care that now Instead of being apart of something, you are now apart of 1/5th of something?

@zerorogue.9410 said:

@Norbe.7630 said:Do you agree if dynamic queue will bring balance?

i'll help you understand.Example: Blackgate has 350,000 WvW players. Anvil Rock has 105 players. Maguuma has 150,000 players. (in all timezone)Blackgate enters 100 people in EBG, Anvil Rock enters 100 people in EBG, Maguuma enters 100 people in EBG.Blackgate has a queue in EBG for like 349,900 players, Anvil Rock has a queue in EBG for like 5 players, Maguuma has a queue in EBG for like 149.900 players

Most Anvil Rock WvW player's play time is over so they are down to 50 in EBGBlackgate has 100 people in EBG, Anvil Rock has 55 people in EBG, Maguuma has 100 people in EBG.Blackgate has a queue in EBG for like 349,945 players, Anvil Rock has no queue in EBG, Maguuma has a queue in EBG for like 149,945 players

understand now what is meant?

@zerorogue.9410 said:

Why would anyone care about their Alliance when they didn't care about their world? There are not going to be Alliances as big as worlds. So why would people have any more reason to care that now Instead of being apart of something, you are now apart of 1/5th of something?

In a word? Agency.

Unless you're one of the handful of key leaders that matter to your server your individual impact is insignificant. You can't control any aspect of your server, nor do you have a voice in how it functions or what it values. You're just along for the ride.

With an alliance by contrast, it is something you opt into. You decide to join it. And depending on its internal structure, you might have much more sway in how it operates and what it does. And if it isn't what you want, you can find a new one free of charge.

Essentially(at least at the start) many of us joined a server at launch because our friends were on that server or we liked the name, or we just picked one randomly. Randomness is not a good foundation for a community. With alliances, you pick the one you feel is best for you, which in turn should invest you more in that community.

@zerorogue.9410 said:Just as WvW Alliances, there was a limit on how many guilds could be in these alliances. The high ranking alliances would place quotas on each guild in their alliance. Each week their faction total had to be above a certain number or they were kicked out of the alliance. I still remember talking with a guild leader who’s guild was just recently kicked out of one of the top alliances. He told me about how much pressure was on farming favor and If you're ever underperforming, no matter what the reason, you’re out.

I am afraid that alliances will create this same type of behavior. Will guilds who can’t perform as well as others be kicked out of alliances because they are too small to keep up or their player’s decide to take a break?

i dont think we will get ways to check on other people in our alliance, how efficient they play WvW. an alliance will also only be a portion of a world therefor unless the alliance actually is capped at maximum ( i doubt you will see an alliance with 500 super efficient highly active players) there is no reason to kick some guild just because they are not absolute top tier for a couple of weeks, because with them gone you might get a worse replacement next pairing.

My main concern is that WvW Alliances will break up current WvW communities. Over the course of the last six years, we have been playing with the same people. It has been a tightly knit community. Even if you don’t talk much in chat, you still know the commanders who run during your time and you know their tactics. You know the in-jokes on your world. You know the people. Alliances will ruin this.

Yes, I am aware of the counter arguments. People can just join your guild. The guilds can just join your alliance. What about the people who took a break for a few months? What about the guilds who decide to join bigger alliances? What about the smaller roamers who don’t want to join a guild? What if there’s too many guilds or players? These communities we made for the last six years will be shattered and thrown to the winds. All because of a problem with balance.

not sure on wich server you are, i personally have been on alot of EU servers so i happend to know people from many servers. every server has a few people who actually have been there as you say for six years, but most have been switching servers. therefor the communities are constantly developing anyway as it is. i personally dont even want to be in an alliance with everyone from my server, to be precise only with very few of them. on every server i have been i had people who made me wish there was friendly fire. on every server there was some kind of drama going on and people that dont get along with each other, new worlds wont fix it but you will have a great chance not to see them for a while after the 8 weeks.how many people are there on your server that you really want to play with and dont miss them, do they feel the same about playing with you? if so you surely would make an alliance. even if you are a roamer, not part of any guild if the people you wish to keep playing with do value you as much, they will let you join their alliance - or do you need all 5 slots for 1 man guilds? maybe you even get an extra alliance guildslot.

Alliances will not bring balance. Alliances are in essentially world pairing 2.0. Rather than having two worlds paired together, we will get a bunch of random groups cobbled together into a world. The issue that was with world pairing will still be there. How can you tell what is balanced? A guild who runs six thousand hours of game time last week may decide to take a break and now only runs a hundred. A commander who runs in afternoons may change his time to mornings. A player who has been running on a highly turned build may try to run a joke build for a while. Worse yet, what if you get paired with a group who are deliberately manipulating the match-ups to troll people. There are countless x factors that can throw the balance off. And once you're locked in, you are stuck for two whole months. Alliances does not fix the problem. It just puts a band-aid on a band-aid. The only thing that will fix WvW is having a dynamic system that can balance teams continuously and without turning WvW into a large scale ranked sPvP match. Ranked sPvP matchmaking has already been called a joke. How can we trust ANet to make matchmaking for WvW any better?

no system is able to adapt fast enough to sudden activity or efficency change without being able to be manipulated easily. i dont know if there will be any system that will even check if you run a 'joke build' or not, as some on a joke build might actually kill lot of people on their serious builds. even roamers who often are scorewise more efficent then another dude in a zerg fight will probably not be valued higher for world population. there wont be a 100% balance, that is simply not possible - but alliance system has a high chance to bring us way closer to population balance then we are now.

Breaking up all the world's should come only after all other options have failed. We should not tear down everything just to fix a simple balance problem. There are plenty of other ideas out there, both designed by other games, and suggested by other players. Give outnumbered players a small stat buff. Give outnumbered walls and gates more toughness. Give outnumbered players a npc buddy to fight with them. I just thought of these of the top of my head, and I know there are many more.

outnumbered how? like on the map or dynamically in a fight ? how will you determine who is part of the fight?giving stats based on being outnumbered on the map is stupid because i might be running a 5 man gank group on a map with no commander from my world. we are outnumbered and then can with increased stats gank 5 vs 1 people running to their zerg - doesnt really make sense to me.giving stats based on a fight situation has a high chance to be able to abuse it.NPC buddies allways are predictable, they either are too weak or too strong very hard to balance.

Before writing this, I saw someone post about having “mercenary guilds”. The post was suggesting it alongside the alliance change. However, I can see having merc guilds that switch on demand between servers a very easy way to balance. I Think a lot of people would love to be constantly matched up with different opponents.

this is an idea i would like. or 'neutral' 4th group with the aim to balance matches, by flipping stuff to white from the dominant side. they dont compete in warscore to the 3 other worlds but against other neutral servers about who was able to create the closest matchup.

Even more, why not have alliances on top of worlds and provide alliances incentives to switch worlds. Such as everyone in the alliances gets 200 gold to switch to Sea of Sorrows. These offers and gold amounts can be tailored to each alliance based on what world they are on, what world they are going to, and the number of people in the alliance. After that, all that is needed is a warning to allow players who don’t want to leave a chance of backing out. This would be just as good without breaking the worlds apart.

if an alliance with alot of people from your server is paid to leave - how is that not breaking your server community apart? if you are fine with large alliances leaving your server then you can aswell with the rest, that are dear to you form an alliance, i dont see what the issue here is. or are they not willing to join an alliance with you or each other? then why should they play together?

Balance is not the main problem of WvW. Rather it’s a symptom of the real problem. The system of rewards is the main problem. Right now, there is no reason to win a WvW match. No chest. No gold. The game doesn’t even tell you if you won or not. Rewards are poorly communicated. In other modes, such as sPvP, they have the rewards clearly listed. Get the last chest in Byzantium and get 20 gold! Win a pvp tournament for 500 gold! This is designed to play into psychology. Big numbers make players want to play sPvP. Regardless if 20 gold every 3 months is not a good farming route. Big numbers make better experiences.

population inbalances are the main winning factor in WvW. if the alliance system is able to get a way better population balance, then we might see rewards for it. with current system giving huge rewards to winning servers would most probably be undeserved. rewards in WvW are also not balanced regardless of activity you do. the larger your groupsize, the more rewards you will probably get - not the better you play.When players see only a small stream of rewards they believe they can get more rewards elsewhere and leave. WvW is stagnant, not because of balance, but because we have nothing to strive for. It’s a treadmill without a carrot. When people have no reason to complete, they start to farm. People group together and make it as easy as possible to play. Lack of competition encourages stacking all on one world. If we can turn it so smaller worlds are more profitable to be on, the balance issue will disappear in a few days.

there is no competition without balance, but you dont need rewards for competition as winning is reward enough. rewards are nice addition but balance is way more important.

Sometimes It’s good to throw out the old for a new system. Redesign and improvement are some of the basics in game making. However, nothing good can come from replacing a system that has been used for years with thousands of players relying on it, with another that is just as broken.

i highly doubt it is just as broken. sure it wont balance everything a 100%, but you never can expect perfect balance. communities may change as they have been the last six years, but players who want to play with each other will still do with an alliance system. there might be some people who want me to play with them, while i dont want them to play with me, so we will part. but that is perfectly fine.

@zerorogue.9410 said:

@Chaba.5410 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:Balance is not the main problem of WvW. Rather it’s a symptom of the real problem. The system of rewards is the main problem. Right now, there is no reason to win a WvW match. No chest. No gold. The game doesn’t even tell you if you won or not. Rewards are poorly communicated. In other modes, such as sPvP, they have the rewards clearly listed. Get the last chest in Byzantium and get 20 gold! Win a pvp tournament for 500 gold! This is designed to play into psychology. Big numbers make players want to play sPvP. Regardless if 20 gold every 3 months is not a good farming route. Big numbers make better experiences.

And in the past when sPvP didn't have such match-making, it also didn't have the rewards it has now. It was still a balanced game of teams of equal size and people played to win. I'm speaking as someone who played sPvP long before the pip system and reward tracks. People want balanced matches. The complaints these days with regards to the match-maker in sPvP are not about rewards, but balance of skill by individual. We can't even get to that discontent about skill in WvW without teams of equal size.

i won't repeat things said before.

The main Point is, things should not stay as they are. They could, but they should not anymore.

WvW just has to survive the first weeks after the changes. After those few weeks things will return to normal. A new WvW Culture will develop.

You are right about the rewards. They are small and indifferent between matchup winners or losers.

I think the main point against the OP's worries is: Worlds in the new system are not only an alliance, but alliances + unallied guilds + unguilded player.I think this reduces pressure a lot, you can play as well inside an alliance as well as outside one.

Alliances solve 2 blatant problems:

• Bandvagoning to whatever server is doing well. Fight alliances can finally try to win matchups because they're obviously better players than casual servers. Means stronger servers will finally be on top instead of dodging going there because potential 500 gem transfers that refuse to join voice comms. Now they will have to pay 1000-1800 gems per 8 weeks and find out where to transfer which will be seriously hard for a casual player.
• Each world will have equal population at start of matchup. It means servers like Bg wont have 20% more players and 5000 more players dormant waiting for bg to start losing matchup.

Now it might solve following problems:

• Declining player population because: 1) PvE/PvP guilds can transfer together for free to test WvW, typically each guild has 1 commander that will get excited about it and then form a core inside PvE guild that will have fun together 2) Also theres bunch of servers that dont want to play often because fights in T1 are pretty terrible.
• Organisation and quality of fights in general, like 90% of the pugs don't belong to guilds atm meaning they have almost 0 reason to run even remotely good builds. Thus they play dragonhunters and rangers and other bad classes for the scale of fights in question. Joining a guild will force you to relog and give you more faith in the players around you.
• Amount of commanders. Theres a reason to win now so theres a reason to ppt/ppk/defend. All enemies will have now organised alliance to arrange fights with.
• Finding casual WvW guild will be easier because they are on decline atm. There will be options to choose from alliances recruiting or PvE guilds recruiting for WvW action. Guilds that you have fun with keep players in the game, not a silent core community that you feel comfortable around...
• Surge of old players back to WvW. Theres also LOT OF HYPE going on around the upcoming change. Id approximate about 10 fight commanders coming back to EU for at least a few months to test the game again. Thats like doubling the current number.
• Fight servers being overly oppressive: They cant control the amount/quality of pugs by match manipulation anymore. They will reluctantly train the pugs and the game will get better quality in general. 2000 random pugs will give even old bad fighting servers a chance to win some fights during the week. For example, I havent seen a single fight where Piken won against Vabbi this week with equal numbers. Now server like vabbi cant be stacked by fighting players anymore because there will be 2000 random WvW players that didnt have a guild.

ops double post Kappa

@Norbe.7630 said:

@zerorogue.9410 said:

@Norbe.7630 said:Do you agree if dynamic queue will bring balance?

Ah, that's a nice idea, however I am concerned on exactly how you would limited the numbers, and it would not be that fair for the larger server. I think having some way to increase the numbers on Low population dynamically would be better. The Mercenary Guild idea would be a better alternative. Having a extra pool of players to pull from at a moment's notice will allow quick balancing.

Concept:Players can choose to enter WvW or Enter as a "Mist Warrior".Entering as a Mist Warrior fits you in where there is low population currently.You get a monetary bonus(+% gold drop, Magic find, etc.)You can't enter into the match your world is in.You can't use tactivators.You can be ejected from siege by anyone on the owning server.

@zerorogue.9410 said:

Ah, that's a nice idea, however I am concerned on exactly how you would limited the numbers, and it would not be that fair for the larger server. I think having some way to increase the numbers on Low population dynamically would be better.

It's an idea lurking in the old official WvW forums based on the custom PvP queue system to get your dailies done.It will be fair for every server not for the largest server.

@zerorogue.9410 said:

Sometimes It’s good to throw out the old for a new system. Redesign and improvement are some of the basics in game making. However, nothing good can come from replacing a system that has been used for years with thousands of players relying on it, with another that is just as broken.

You might be on denial but the feedback towards the new system is just positive in 80%+ most players see servers as a negative thing, there is a lot of players coming back to the game just because the announcement of this alone. Allinaces is the way to go, servers are just flawed 100% they allow for bandwagoning, some servers are closed so u don't get to play with your friends to start of, some servers do not want to fight another servers, some servers will just tank to avoid matches, etc, etc, etc all this things kill WvW and make players quit everyday it is just a terrible system. If you think servers are ok you are just thinking about them from nostalgia, the times when servers actually worked somewhat was only at the very start of the game with ques 24/7 other than that the system starting showing it's flaws right after the SoR collapse.

Alliances give the comunity the ability to build up their own playerbase into something they want, either being a PPT winning wrecking train, or just a fight comunity, or a roaming comunity, a keep defender siegehumping crew, anything u want to shape you alliance into basically and allows you to exclude people you don't want them to be part of your comunity, toxic players, trolls, supply/tactivator pullers etc. It also reshapes the Worlds every X ammount of time to prevent ¨we don't wanna fight blackgate¨ kind of scenario from happening ever again, basically fixes 60% of the problems why people quit WvW in masses. Monolithic servers are a mess, imposible to balance and a terrible desing overall, and the WvW comunity as a whole is very happy hyped and excited they are finally getting rid of them.

You have to remember something most players do not care whatsoever about winning in WvW, some players care about winning fights, some players care about defending SMC, some players defend Garrison and homeBL, everyone has their own WvW goals so to speak, aliances allow players seeking for any of those goals to build up their own comunity arround them and that is key of success for that system over the old one from a social/comunity standpoint, old system kills comunities bro if you cannot see this after 5 years, you are clearly new to WvW or just naive.

People who are emotionally attached to their community and aren't willing to nut up and join a guild or alliance that's a member of their community just confuse me. Are you with your community or are you not? What is stopping you from joining a server community guild like many servers have already created?Why are you worried about getting kicked out of a hardcore alliance if you aren't hardcore? Can you not find a guild which more closely suits your preferred playstyle, especially since you can now join any guild without needing to front a $5-$25 fee to transfer?

Why do you think WvWers would respond to monetary incentives for transferring when they're still playing WvW?You say it yourself; WvW has bad rewards. WvWers still WvW, so it only makes sense that the rewards are not an issue for them.Why, then, would they take the bribes? Membership on many servers is priceless. Gold is meaningless by comparison.

First off - everyone seems to be forgetting servers will not matter any longer.

It will be whether your guild reps WvW and what alliance they are associated with. Then you have to take into account the play hours and ranks of the players, which will determine what your match-ups are.

So if you want to continue to play with the ppl you continually see and play with, then you need to do 1 of 2 things: Either join their guild (if yours isn't as active in WvW) or know the guild leader of that guild well enough they are willing to make an alliance with your guild.

Yes, you will probably not see the exact same players you currently randomly see now, but if you look at your play time and your friends list you might see quite a few.

Secondly, does server pride really exist? Don't must of us play WvW because we enjoy doing so? I play WvW about 8-12 hrs a week. When I look at the map on reset I look to see which color I am for the week and what other colors I can flip to be my color. I don't log in every week and think my server needs to be the best and most populated. No I am not on Blackgate or JQ, and maybe that makes a difference since my server gets paired with another server every week. I just look at it as whatever color I am - I need to work together with whoever is around me at the time and take keeps, supply camps and win group fights.

Yes, you may not see the same commanders or even the usual guild tags, but if that is really a concern you need to take steps to make yourself part of that guild or part of what will become an alliance. Anet has given us plenty of notice on this (yes we don't know when this will occur), and most likely this alliance/server/whatever won't happen for 6-9 months. plenty of time to get your shit together.

Alliances are like world bosses, you can never claim any victory for yourself. There is always going to be more than just your group. At least in the current WvW system any victory can be placed on your world. With Alliances there will be no practical way to compete, as any ranking or results will be dictated by the randomly selected members of your temporary "world". Any sort of success or failure is the result of who your are matched with, not skill.

Like I said in my opening paragraph; Alliances looks like a good idea, till you dig into it and realize it just strips out any identity or competition from matches.

@"zerorogue.9410" said:Alliances are like world bosses, you can never claim any victory for yourself. There is always going to be more than just your group. At least in the current WvW system any victory can be placed on your world. With Alliances there will be no practical way to compete, as any ranking or results will be dictated by the randomly selected members of your temporary "world". Any sort of success or failure is the result of who your are matched with, not skill.

Like I said in my opening paragraph; Alliances looks like a good idea, till you dig into it and realize it just strips out any identity or competition from matches.If alliances strips out all identity and competition then there is zero loss going the restructured system, because by the same definitions guilds already have no identity and servers already have no competition.

@"zerorogue.9410" said:Alliances are like world bosses, you can never claim any victory for yourself. There is always going to be more than just your group. At least in the current WvW system any victory can be placed on your world. With Alliances there will be no practical way to compete, as any ranking or results will be dictated by the randomly selected members of your temporary "world". Any sort of success or failure is the result of who your are matched with, not skill.

Like I said in my opening paragraph; Alliances looks like a good idea, till you dig into it and realize it just strips out any identity or competition from matches.

with alliances it will matter what each individual does way more then it is now. sure you cant handpick every player on your world then - but can you now? this week my server will win, i didnt play half as efficient this week as i usually do, cause there were simply close to no opponents, i dont feel like i accomplished anything or like i won. i just see a lack of opponents and a boring week. then you have weeks were you feel like you get overrun by masses, while wondering that your server is full - full with people you didnt select, that die in fights , that are unable to use siege properly etc. then i dont feel like i lost, i then feel surrounded by idiots and people that dont log in when they know there wont be full bags of loot.if population/coverage is close to balanced, then it doesnt matter if i selected everyone and allow them to play with me, the sheer fact that what i do in WvW matters for the outcome is enough to claim the victory because then i know i was part of this and my actions among others led to it and not because there were simply no opponents.