WvW Restructure And What It Means For Guilds

So they have made it clear that worlds will be created, guilds will be able to designate themselves as WvW guilds, and will have priority in certain worlds (Assuming that these worlds will act sort of like instances where Red, Blue and Green will fight each other in different worlds so everyone will be fighting new opponents every reset), but what will happen if a WvW guild has let's say 400 members? Would other guilds be able to join that world/instance--for the sake of the example--and still have pugs? I'm interested and excited about the coming changes to WvW but am curious to see how the Devs handle certain situations like this. Thoughts?

From what I understand, while a guild may have 400 members, not all of the members will mark that guild as their wvw guild and count towards the population. You could have 10 members do so, or all 400. Now if all 400 do, I think that'd be pretty remarkable to start with, and we don't really know the total world pop yet to determine how many other guilds/pugs would play with you. But yeah, it's a setting the player has to do.

its rare to see a fully active guild on wvw. if there is one, its tge exception =)

what i am excited about this is we may actually end up with fewer tiers

@"CoLd.4719" said:So they have made it clear that worlds will be created, guilds will be able to designate themselves as WvW guilds, and will have priority in certain worlds (Assuming that these worlds will act sort of like instances where Red, Blue and Green will fight each other in different worlds so everyone will be fighting new opponents every reset), but what will happen if a WvW guild has let's say 400 members? Would other guilds be able to join that world/instance--for the sake of the example--and still have pugs? I'm interested and excited about the coming changes to WvW but am curious to see how the Devs handle certain situations like this. Thoughts?

This is what we all know so far...

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/26877/world-restructuring-faq

Pugs would be there regardless. As mentioned its a restructure. All the players currently in WvW will still be in WvW. Anet will neither delete or create new players when this happens because thats impossible. Are there pugs now? If yes, there will be pugs after.

What it means for guilds is that we will either have a community guild (ie a single non-alliance guild or single guild alliance) such as a 500 man guild that can consist of 30+ actual guilds (you just pick the community guild as your WvW guild instead of your "real" guild) or a real alliance thats probably gonna consist of just a few larger guilds. When you fight with 2500+ other than your own guild/alliance players on the same world... theres gonna be people not in your guild or alliance and they arent gonna raid 24/7 with their guild or alliance. Ie there are just as many pugs as now.

Just interesting to see how the future changes will affect current guilds and how they operate and raid within wvw in the future. When the restructure happens, how do you think that will affect smaller/newer guilds trying to make a name for themselves within the wvw community?

@Swagger.1459 said:

@"CoLd.4719" said:So they have made it clear that worlds will be created, guilds will be able to designate themselves as WvW guilds, and will have priority in certain worlds (Assuming that these worlds will act sort of like instances where Red, Blue and Green will fight each other in different worlds so everyone will be fighting new opponents every reset), but what will happen if a WvW guild has let's say 400 members? Would other guilds be able to join that world/instance--for the sake of the example--and still have pugs? I'm interested and excited about the coming changes to WvW but am curious to see how the Devs handle certain situations like this. Thoughts?

Thank you for this thread, I hadn't read that before I posted this :)

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Pugs would be there regardless. As mentioned its a restructure. All the players currently in WvW will still be in WvW. Anet will neither delete or create new players when this happens because thats impossible. Are there pugs now? If yes, there will be pugs after.

What it means for guilds is that we will either have a community guild (ie a single non-alliance guild or single guild alliance) such as a 500 man guild that can consist of 30+ actual guilds (you just pick the community guild as your WvW guild instead of your "real" guild) or a real alliance thats probably gonna consist of just a few larger guilds. When you fight with 2500+ other than your own guild/alliance players on the same world... theres gonna be people not in your guild or alliance and they arent gonna raid 24/7 with their guild or alliance. Ie there are just as many pugs as now.

"Pugs would be there regardless." --Excellent point. I like the idea of a Community Guild, it's an interesting concept, but in my experience when too many people are involved it becomes an unorganized, chaotic, ineffective mess.

@CoLd.4719 said:

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Pugs would be there regardless. As mentioned its a

restructure

. All the players currently in WvW will still be in WvW. Anet will neither delete or create new players when this happens because thats impossible. Are there pugs now? If yes, there will be pugs after.

What it means for guilds is that we will either have a community guild (ie a single non-alliance guild or single guild alliance) such as a 500 man guild that can consist of 30+

actual

guilds (you just pick the community guild as your WvW guild instead of your "real" guild)

or

a real alliance thats probably gonna consist of just a few larger guilds. When you fight with 2500+ other than your own guild/alliance players on the same world... theres gonna be people not in your guild or alliance and they arent gonna raid 24/7 with their guild or alliance. Ie there are just as many pugs as now.

Not if the people are experienced players. The weakness of this restructuring is if someone made a experienced guild and somehow get huge number of experienced players, let say 500, it will break the balance quite easily. The players themselves have to make that conscious effort not to let that happen.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@CoLd.4719 said:

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Pugs would be there regardless. As mentioned its a

restructure

. All the players currently in WvW will still be in WvW. Anet will neither delete or create new players when this happens because thats impossible. Are there pugs now? If yes, there will be pugs after.

What it means for guilds is that we will either have a community guild (ie a single non-alliance guild or single guild alliance) such as a 500 man guild that can consist of 30+

actual

guilds (you just pick the community guild as your WvW guild instead of your "real" guild)

or

a real alliance thats probably gonna consist of just a few larger guilds. When you fight with 2500+ other than your own guild/alliance players on the same world... theres gonna be people not in your guild or alliance and they arent gonna raid 24/7 with their guild or alliance. Ie there are just as many pugs as now.

Yep server balance has always been in the communities hands.

Idk where these 500 man wvw guilds are. Most guilds struggle to field 30. I assume pvx community guilds in which case those guilds will need to figure out their roster and open new focused side guilds or something.

Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@CoLd.4719 said:

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Pugs would be there regardless. As mentioned its a

restructure

. All the players currently in WvW will still be in WvW. Anet will neither delete or create new players when this happens because thats impossible. Are there pugs now? If yes, there will be pugs after.

What it means for guilds is that we will either have a community guild (ie a single non-alliance guild or single guild alliance) such as a 500 man guild that can consist of 30+

actual

guilds (you just pick the community guild as your WvW guild instead of your "real" guild)

or

a real alliance thats probably gonna consist of just a few larger guilds. When you fight with 2500+ other than your own guild/alliance players on the same world... theres gonna be people not in your guild or alliance and they arent gonna raid 24/7 with their guild or alliance. Ie there are just as many pugs as now.

Every top wvw guild in EU has said that they won't be together, because there is not going to be any fights for them. But sure there are going to be some strong alliances, i can see Vabbi making a strong alliance for isntance.

@rng.1024 said:Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

It does NOT ensure your friends end up on the same world.

IF your friends are in your guild AND they selected the guild that YOU have selected as your WvW guild, then you will be together.

OR If you are both in guilds that you have designated are your WvW guild, that are part of the same alliance, then you will be in the same world.

Those are the only two proposed ways to ensure you are on the same world.

And being on the same world means you are on the same team.

@SloRules.3560 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@CoLd.4719 said:

@"Dawdler.8521" said:Pugs would be there regardless. As mentioned its a

restructure

. All the players currently in WvW will still be in WvW. Anet will neither delete or create new players when this happens because thats impossible. Are there pugs now? If yes, there will be pugs after.

What it means for guilds is that we will either have a community guild (ie a single non-alliance guild or single guild alliance) such as a 500 man guild that can consist of 30+

actual

guilds (you just pick the community guild as your WvW guild instead of your "real" guild)

or

a real alliance thats probably gonna consist of just a few larger guilds. When you fight with 2500+ other than your own guild/alliance players on the same world... theres gonna be people not in your guild or alliance and they arent gonna raid 24/7 with their guild or alliance. Ie there are just as many pugs as now.

Good for you, can't say much about NA. I find many in NA like to make a lot of false shillings and when come to population balance, very little will choose not to stack despite their claims of not stacking. Words have very little credibility in this game.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

I see what you mean, but if what you say is true and someone has a 1000 member alliance and they all are on the same team, that means (according to wiki map limit) that 700 people will constantly have to queue up to play. That's just a silly high number. Which is why, yes you are right in that guilds will most likely get their spot on a world before roamers fill out the blanks, but as far as guilds in alliances go they can be spread across teams (still whole guilds will be on same team ofc), this system only ensures you atleast will play with everybody in your alliance (either with or against). Sorry for being unprecise, what I meant is yes you can play with YOUR WvW guild on the same team, but not necessarily your alliance friends as they will most likely shift onto other teams depending on amount of members ^^

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

An alliance will only make up a portion of the world. Info has shown maybe 20% of the worlds pop cap.

people have speculated that means around 500 for an alliance cap.

Yes, that is speculation, but..

some unaffiliated guilds will fill in the blanks along with unaffiliated players.

So.. if you are truly in an alliance, you will definitely be able to play with the other people from that alliance.

If new people come to the guild once the Cap is met for that alliance, then they likely wont be able to get in. If that is the case, then a choice will need to be made by the guild leader: Leave the alliance... Kick someone else... or wait until someone drops.

Rep requirements though, will be back. and guilds that are part of an alliance, will likely require a certain amount of play to stay in.. especially if the alliance is popular.

Also.. one or two of the quotes in the restructure post suggested that someone who starts the alliance will be able to kick guilds from it as well.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

Hmm, you're probably right. Not that I mind though, repping should be a thing again :) If I remember correctly though, they wrote there will be 6 worlds. If we then look at primetime tier 1 EU numbers they are around 400 (full maps) + tops ~60x4 average in queue = 640 max team pop. An alliance would then have to be max 128 players (20%) unless we will get monster queues, which I don't see as healthy for the mode. Also it seems odd that if you have 1 full alliance they will literally have an almost entirely own team, and looking at server populations and players today today that by this logic there will have to be alot of worlds to fit all. I would agree with you if anet raised the map cap, but the math is what is restricting your argument here.

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

As to the number of worlds, they stated with the new system, the number of worlds might change each season. So there could be 3,4,5 tiers (9,12,15 worlds) depending on population. This, in theory, allows them to adjust worlds to offset some queue and empty world issues.

Some alliances might choose to be mostly one timezone. Which is primarily what you are worried about. More than likely, an alliance will include players from multiple timezones. Thus spreading players out.

If players decide that a 500 person group from, let's say SEA time slot, will make up one alliance, then yes, those players will have queues that they have to face if they all play together. I say too bad. That is a different form of stacking.

But then that alliance cannot cover its other time zones. And will likely lose the match.

If they are not interested in 'winning', then they will likely have no real fights either.

One other thing: an alliance made up of one-time-zone-type-players would also have issues with queues only if all of the players play on the same days.

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

Yeah there definitely will be some organizing there for sure, so different guilds play at different times. But all this does is actively lock players out of a gamemode for 2 months at a time because they want to play with their friends. As it is now you are either in or out - which imo is better as you can still play. When people play won't matter much, esp for EU regions as people come off work at around the same time anyways (which is when most can and want to play) and these will now face massive queues that most likely will stay all evening, resulting in an effective lockout. Judging by today's forum opinions it doesn't seem high tier players are incredibly willing to serverhop down, why would this system change that? Problem is you can't even move down tiers with the new system either because of your affiliated guild. Luck of the draw can mean that for 2 months you are locked out of the mode, willing or not. How is that okay? Guilds will end up fighting for playtime, and will be forced to not play the gamemode if it's not their allocated hour. This is a great way to make people loose interest and which has always been the allure for many WvW players, to hop right in an make a difference. If all alliances were smart then yeah they will do as you suggested, but you forget most alliances will be made to keep communities together. These will mostly play at the same time of day anyways. I get where you come from, but don't agree this is a good solution.

I have understood the whole alliance system like this: currently, you follow your friends to different servers to be able to play at same side. With alliance system, you follow your friends to same guild and mark it your WvW guild to be able to play at same side. I have understood that this is meant to split WvW players to smaller "movable" units than entire servers to be able to dynamically balance sides (numbers and activity).

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

Your math is completely wrong unless you assume that 100% of a servers WvW population only play in prime time, every day of the week. They dont.

Anet said that if an alliance is like a maxed out guild (500 peeps), that would roughly equal 20% of the current average server population. So there are ~2500 WvW peeps now on your average server, yet you dont see a 1000 man EB queue every night do you?

No because people dont spend their entire life in WvW. Even with all maps queued you are only seeing a small fraction of your servers population.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@Strider Pj.2193 said:

@rng.1024 said:Keep in mind the way they worded it only ensures your friends will be on the same world. Not necessarily the same teams.

Been trying to explain that.., but yeah.

You very well may be right, but with the new WvW guild system it seems logical we will have a higher density of dedicated WvW players as those who aren't get spread around. We already have servers covering their timezones, so why can't they keep doing that with the new system? If the dedicated WvW players form alliances then ofc the PvE'ers will condense into the free space there is, even though they don't necessarily play the mode. Which is why using todays servers (mix'n'match of both types) isn't representative for how the new worlds will be. I fully agree on that breaking players into units is a good thing, but I just don't see how having on the off chance 2500 DEDICATED (remember, guilds in here too) WvW players on the same team isn't going to be a problem.

@"rng.1024" said:You very well may be right, but with the new WvW guild system it seems logical we will have a higher density of dedicated WvW players as those who aren't get spread around. We already have servers covering their timezones, so why can't they keep doing that with the new system? If the dedicated WvW players form alliances then ofc the PvE'ers will condense into the free space there is, even though they don't necessarily play the mode. Which is why using todays servers (mix'n'match of both types) isn't representative for how the new worlds will be. I fully agree on that breaking players into units is a good thing, but I just don't see how having on the off chance 2500 DEDICATED (remember, guilds in here too) WvW players on the same team isn't going to be a problem.Well... how exactly is that a problem? How is it a bad thing? We've been down this road before. WvW once had probably 5x the population it has now.

We had alot higher queues and more servers, to the point Anet was even forced to make EoTM in addition to all those servers. However did we survive? If people start liking WvW again because of this, great!

You dont need to worry about numbers because the restructure allows Anet to adjust matchup sizes, unlike current fixed server they cant do anything about. 2500 players in 1 tier is too much? Make 1250 players in 2 tiers after 8 weeks. Under the new dynamic system its that simple.

Also again you arent seeing the big picture. Todays servers are most definetly representative of the restructure worlds because its the same players. If we have 50,000 WvW players today, theres gonna be 50,000 WvW players after the restructure. Whether they are "dedicated" or not is irrelevant, the total pool of players in WvW is gonna be... restructured. Its not gonna suddenly be 25,000 players because Anet murdered half of them or 100,000 players because Anet magically created life. Thats not how reality works. The algorithm for assigning them is going to take care of matchup.

It does not sound very good imo. Perhaps on paper it will work out fine, but in the end it will probably hurt wvw more than they intent to. Lots of people missing their old server friends, and what about the country or language servers.What they should focus on right now is the ridiculous amount of scourges in the game imo.