What do you think can discourage stacking/bandwagoning

A few months ago, I started a topic about what you think of stacking, most participators say stacking is negative. Many by now should know the adverse effects of bandwagoning and stacking - how it can ruin the game for thousands of others.

This time, the topic is about what you think can be done to discourage stacking.

• What you think the community can do to discourage bandwagoning/stacking
• What you think anet can do now (in reasonable timeline) to discourage bandwagoning/stacking

You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

From the stickied thread posted by Raymond Lukes...

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/45856/world-restructuring-update-1

“What makes up a world?

We will build a world from any number of Alliances, Guilds, and Solo Players. This means a single alliance will not necessarily dominate the population of a world. The goal is to create even worlds, so the matchmaker builds the worlds out of whatever pieces makes sense to fulfill that goal.

Alliance size

We are currently leaning toward alliance size being 500. This is technically easier, as we already support groups of this size (guilds), and it gives us more flexibility to make the worlds even.”

People like winning. They like being on the winning side of fights. They like the increased rewards of scattering opponents to the four winds. As long as it's possible to have imbalanced matchups (even if only lasting for part of the week), there will be stacking and bandwagoning.

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

A community effort to discourage stacking/bandwagoning doesn't necessary require a system change, because it is called community, not anet.

Likewise, if you think the 2nd point is irrelevant because anet is working on a new system, I respect that.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

Read my edit please.

There is nothing that the community is going to do or can do or will do... The match up system is changing for population balance reasons and to make “fairer” matches.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:People like winning. They like being on the winning side of fights. They like the increased rewards of scattering opponents to the four winds. As long as it's possible to have imbalanced matchups (even if only lasting for party of the week), there will be stacking and bandwagoning.

Completely correct.

There is not a lot Anet can do about it, they are just hoping people want to have good fights instead of steamrolling a lesser populated or lesser skilled server. But like said, people also love to win. :/ Let's hope that steamrolling gets old fast and it will result in transfers instead of complaining on forums that the game is too easy.

Whatever the answer is...the solution NEEDS to do 2 things:

1) Encourage Sustainable Long-Term Communities <--- It's a widely known...WvW Players will always stack for the win. Any design should make use of this2) Create Healthy Competitive Match-Ups <--- Key to finding a solution is more likely found with re-designing this...imho

Can't do one without the other.

Because developer resources are limited...best effort should be directed at a solution that's the most effective at getting the WvW community satisfaction with the overall game mode.

Your truly,Diku

p.s.See some of my past posts...please vote Helpful or Thumbs up if you agree.

I really wish there was a solution, but there isn't. People want to be playing wvw, but they also want fast, easy loot and wxp (which means they ktrain, regardless of calling themselves fight guilds). No one wants to lose at all, and the easiest way to win is only run around in 40-80 man blobs, AND stack the server so you can always have said blob available at all hours of the day.

1. For coverage, I guess they could force people to only play the game in their geographical region. Meaning, only players from NA could log in to a NA server. Or, only EU could log in to EU servers. That would mean all the SEA/OCX folks playing in NA would have to find a server on that side of the world. Not really a viable or sensible idea (kind of ridiculous solution to 1 part of the stacking problem). So, this isn't a possibility.
2. Once the new worlds are created, they could remove server transfers from the game completely. This takes revenue from Anet, so this isn't gonna happen.
3. They could change the loot/reward system - but that will just encourage more ktrain'ing.

The couple ideas I have mentioned before aren't solutions to stacking, but might help wvw as a game mode:

1. Remove all siege, except rams and oil. Limit rams to 3 on a gate. Only siege damages or contests structures,
2. Remove all scoring and stats. Add a personal stat for KDR maybe. People should be fighting to fight, not avoiding them to maintain high server KDR (or only blobbing for the same reason). People should be defending to have something to fight. Let Anet handle matchups using internal metrics, let the players fight.
3. Remove all food/enhancement buffs from wvw. Some of the build/plus enhancement combos create completely broken builds in wvw.
4. Remove the guild auras from structures, or maybe just make it 10% of the values they are now.
5. Fix wall combat. Attackers can use every skill and aoe on the wall, defenders can "die on the wall". They have to figure something out.
6. Skill balance...skill balance...skill balance.

Sums it up for me.

Nothing will stop stacking, ppl always want to be on the server that wins at the moment.

I think, @SkyShroud.2865 , you should consider asking people why they stack/bandwagon. It's hard to design a technical system to alter social behavior without understanding the motivations involved.

Remember that when the game was fresh and populations were (of course) much higher, people still bandwagoned, even though the costs were always 1800 gems and it would increase the time spent queuing during peak periods. People are willing to pay very steep prices to stack.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:I think, @SkyShroud.2865 , you should consider asking people why they stack/bandwagon. It's hard to design a technical system to alter social behavior without understanding the motivations involved.

Remember that when the game was fresh and populations were (of course) much higher, people still bandwagoned, even though the costs were always 1800 gems and it would increase the time spent queuing during peak periods. People are willing to pay very steep prices to stack.

Good point, I will start a thread next month with topic "Why do you bandwagon/stack".

On the 2nd point, if 1800 gems is not enough to deter people, why not double it? Do you think doubling is enough to make people think twice or enough to delay the rate people bandwagon/stack?

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

Rome wasn't built in a day and thus I believe every small little community effort to discourage stacking/bandwagoning is a seed for a better future. Even discussing about it raise awareness of the discontents towards stacking/bandwagoning.

I believe the solution is to let people see what happens when they bandwagon and stack and see if they really think it's worth it afterwards. I know from personal experience being on BG for years that once we started steamrolling every matchup it was super boring and I didn't have any interest in playing anymore.

I've found that I'd personally rather be on a server that loses the PPT almost every week but has enough heart to keep showing up and fighting men every day than on a server that only exists only to facilitate matchup wins. It's a personal choice and you have to let people make up their own minds.

issue is player mentality.

got to change it in a way where to win in this game atleast 2 teams in a map is not enough to do the mechanic

therefore if you have multiple mech, you can force players to split and coord.

like atlest 3 per area to hold. so atleast 9 per map.

so u can have 3 teams of 15 to 25.

example

mid isle sm

surounded by 3 towers.

to open, one team.has.to hold the tower. another team opens.the sm gate and the 3rd fights for the keep.

no one owns sm.

from the mlment xapped. 15 to 20 minute event rest.

playeers can pk.each other or take each otbers towers.

when event on - take sm.again.

atleast in that sense.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:I think, @SkyShroud.2865 , you should consider asking people why they stack/bandwagon. It's hard to design a technical system to alter social behavior without understanding the motivations involved.

Remember that when the game was fresh and populations were (of course) much higher, people still bandwagoned, even though the costs were always 1800 gems and it would increase the time spent queuing during peak periods. People are willing to pay very steep prices to stack.

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

There is already awareness from both developers and players. That is why the devs are creating alliances to tackle the issue.

There was a “top 5” wvw wants thread and the number one issue was “population balance”. Mike O’Brien commented in that thread from like 2 years ago. Much later the devs brought up the fact that they were looking into how to address the issue and shorty after announced Alliances...

You are asking moot questions because it has already been discussed on all sides and the devs are doing something about it...

Think you should spend more time following the dev tracker, and reading all the clear dev communications first, so you can avoid recycling the same issues over and over that are already being addressed.

Bg is open, wvw dead this will be the greatest stack ever

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

The community has shown us it wants to stack. It wants to bandwagon. It wants to blob. Anet waited way too long to address the problem.

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:I think, @SkyShroud.2865 , you should consider asking people why they stack/bandwagon. It's hard to design a technical system to alter social behavior without understanding the motivations involved.

Remember that when the game was fresh and populations were (of course) much higher, people still bandwagoned, even though the costs were always 1800 gems and it would increase the time spent queuing during peak periods. People are willing to pay very steep prices to stack.

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

I think your timeline is wrong but nvm, it isn't important.

Firstly, there are always new players so to claim players' have awareness is a big word. I do assume by players you literally means everyone.

Secondly, it isn't rare to see players boosting and bragging about how "good" they are, after blobbing people down. Is that the kind of awareness you are talking about?

Thirdly, I thought the regular forumers would know I am one of the people that have been posting about population imbalance and what's not until they post the alliance announcement. Surely I know of it. On a side note, I also part of the initial batch of people of this particular discord (not troll discord) filled with leaders, officers and vet from various wvw involved guilds which now also happen to have a dev in it talking about things related to WvW. So yes, I think I am very up-to-date to stuffs than most people.

Most importantly, like I mentioned in first two points, it never about awareness from dev. It is about awareness from players because definitely, not every single player will be aware of what bandwagoning and stacking do to the game mode. Thus, as the topic main post stated, "What you think the community can do to discourage bandwagoning/stacking?"

Lastly, even in school, study materials are also recycled topics. Are they suppose to stop teaching the people? Of course not, they are new people.

@Blodeuyn.2751 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

The plenty of players do belong that segment but surely there also players that don't belong that. While we cannot do anything about those that chose that path but surely, we can do something to educate the new and future wvwers.

Players have stacked as far back as 1st week of launch, as far as I can remember the main reason was they did not want to fight for 3 hours for control of and objective/s and then lose it to the next time zone. So, they stacked so they could maintain control of objectives they fought hard to get. Bandwagoning came a bit later cause players wanted to be on servers that were stacked with coverage and going to win. There were various reasons for that. There isn't much that can be done about it. It really is the players choice. If you eliminate players choice , they run the risk of losing players due to them not being able to play they way they want. After all Anet is a business and they have to please there customers to a certain degree.

We all know the answer to this and it's disable transfers or make it so expensive to the point where only a madman would pay for a transfer.

Nothing else will.

Make any transfer cost more. The more often you transfer, the more you pay and make people lose wvw ranks on a transfer.

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:I think, @SkyShroud.2865 , you should consider asking people why they stack/bandwagon. It's hard to design a technical system to alter social behavior without understanding the motivations involved.

Remember that when the game was fresh and populations were (of course) much higher, people still bandwagoned, even though the costs were always 1800 gems and it would increase the time spent queuing during peak periods. People are willing to pay very steep prices to stack.

@Swagger.1459 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

@Blodeuyn.2751 said:

@SkyShroud.2865 said:

@Swagger.1459 said:You do realize that the devs are making alliances with player caps and having rotation of matches... Not really sure what you are expecting to happen at this point or what you expect the players can do when the system is changing.

No, my timeline is correct.

Seriously, there is nothing the player base will do, or is realistically capable of doing... What do you expect every wvw player to spread out evenly? Do you have the exact stats on player population per server? Are you going to individually mail ever player who participates in wvw and force them to move? You going to pay for everyone’s “destack” transfers?

... This issues has been discussed and the devs are doing something about it. Not sure why you can’t understand all this.

Reduce map caps.Make map caps dynamic based on the least populated server, and/or simply make them smaller across the board. 80 becomes 50 or whatever. People that can't get into the BLs to play will start to look around for places where they can.

@Swagger.1459 said:... This issues has been discussed and the devs are doing something about it. Not sure why you can’t understand all this.

I could be wrong but I think he's saying that he doesn't believe alliances are going to change much. I think he's probably right.

only issue i see is how to spread the population.

periodic reset by keeping it into guilds may be the solution.