Alliance system needed?

Do we really need it? Would anyone else prefer that they spent their time and effort actually balancing wvw for more than a few specs? Or why not seasonal map changes, race specific siege and npcs. A branded ebg? An awakened ebg. This is an mmorpg and there's so much they could do with wvw.

@Samuel.4812 said:Do we really need it?It's moot at this point. They are ramped up to make it happen and I don't see why they'd second guess themselves at this point until they either succeed or find that it can't be done.

Branded awakened ebg? Looks like you're lost. PvE forums are that way.

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is to fix the population chaos which get more chaotic every relinkand level up the playing field for as many people as possible

Anet balance team =/= wvw team.As for the second point they never really did much of that even when they had a team around for it, other than winter or halloween.

@"Samuel.4812" said:Do we really need it? Would anyone else prefer that they spent their time and effort actually balancing wvw for more than a few specs? Or why not seasonal map changes, race specific siege and npcs. A branded ebg? An awakened ebg. This is an mmorpg and there's so much they could do with wvw.

Well, considering that the "team balance" is the singular most disruptive aspect of the game mode, I'd say that focusing on a mechanic that can at least reduce the worst problems on that aspect.

After all, if we end up with continual match-up's of 100 vs 10 vs 5, most of the day, no matter how much work they put elsewhere (like maps and npc's etc) is going to matter one bit, because no-one is going to bother to log in to experience it.

And while I am a big fan of balancing combat more between classes, WvW is also designed around numbers being better than unique builds, you could have 100 players running in a zerg with the worst pve builds, and still beat 10 players in the best roaming builds or an organized havoc/gvg group. So yes, I rate the Alliance system higher than I rate the class balance issues.

WvW is a large scale PVP system, and as such the main "content" is other players. The current world system is clearly showing its limitations, and the change over to Alliance system (basically generated worlds, that can adjust itself on several factors including numbers) is probably the single best thing they can add to the game to keep it playable forward, since it will actually adjust the number of match-ups/worlds, to keep things decently populated and somewhat "similar".

The only real option is merging servers, kicking people off populated servers, or ANet sitting manually creating world-linkings each link to ensure somewhat even numbers (Manual work that isn't going to work anyways, and would take more manpower than they would be willing to put at it).

TLDR: Yes. Because the alternatives are worse.

@Samuel.4812 said:Do we really need it? Would anyone else prefer that they spent their time and effort actually balancing wvw for more than a few specs? Or why not seasonal map changes, race specific siege and npcs. A branded ebg? An awakened ebg. This is an mmorpg and there's so much they could do with wvw.

In a perfect scenario they should provide us with several upgrades, but that's not gonna happen. Alliances with all it's disadvantages and problems (server identity lost etc) might be the best possible solution to improve game quality due to the fact that even with perfect balance - as its been said - numbers of players are more important than individual builds. In case of the server/ guild i'm playing this was the key factor why people left the game or moved to other servers . Simply casue even when we were able to hold key structures in prime time, during the nights roamers were flipping everything to enemies side and at the end of the week we didnt loose a battle yet we were constantly losing the match ...

Honestly the only thing that could be better for me , it would be engine improvement so we get more fps, but it's not gonna happen (probably ever)

@ShinigamiPL.4086 said:

@Samuel.4812 said:Do we really need it? Would anyone else prefer that they spent their time and effort actually balancing wvw for more than a few specs? Or why not seasonal map changes, race specific siege and npcs. A branded ebg? An awakened ebg. This is an mmorpg and there's so much they could do with wvw.

It's more a question of not letting what has been done spill to waste because as Jon-Eirik said above, it is still a good infrastructure to build from going forward. That is more for Anet to deal with larger shifts in playerbase though and not really for active population balance and content.

As a population balancer, Alliances is only second- or third-rate. Long before the announcement even came out the community had been suggesting different map-balancing systems which are all superior to Alliances in terms of balancing populations and creating content. Much for the reasons Shinigami lists with being able to balance the active gameplay without necessarily losing identities, by directly adressing off-hour balance which alliances will at best only adress indirectly and directly adressing live content and live numbers.

Also, while Alliances will need to be supplemented with other balancing systems (such as Map balance), Map balance both works ontop of Alliances and without Alliances (and meshes well with other concepts like EotM battlegroups as well). It is more inherently flexible and stronger through that.

the Alliance System is a myth...

@Zephyra.4709 said:Branded awakened ebg? Looks like you're lost. PvE forums are that way.

Edge of the Mists has kodan, grawl and aetherblades. Why can't eb have pve things too?

@Jura.2170 said:

@Zephyra.4709 said:Branded awakened ebg? Looks like you're lost. PvE forums are that way.

Have you seen the state of EotM lately?

@Jura.2170 said:

@Zephyra.4709 said:Branded awakened ebg? Looks like you're lost. PvE forums are that way.

because PvE doesn't belong in a PvP environment. Unfortunately a lot of the better balance suggestions are apparently impossible with the GW2 system so at least Alliances are better than nothing.

@dynomite.5834 said:because PvE doesn't belong in a PvP environment

So do you want the hylek, dredge and ogres to be taken out of eb? Or even all npc monsters on all maps?

@Loosmaster.8263 said:Have you seen the state of EotM lately?

EoTM is empty because it doesn't give reward track pips

It was dead to WvW mostly to players due to the PvE environment. I also will point to the RDBL for it's popularity.

If we're talking about just reskinning NPC's without the associated skills and just for "looks", I don't have a problem with that. But if it's to make them like the PoF maps...NO!!!

Alliance system sounds great but actually there's critical mistake inside.Anet said they want inventing an AI when can analyze the "data" of players and put them into a balanced match up.Ignore all the technical solutions and methods, but one important thing they can't predict is the members or players in each alliance.

For example, there are totally 300 people in this game and each world content 100 each, which is 100vs100vs100.

• 30% (90 people) are skilled and hardcore players
• 40% (120 people) are general players, fair in his combat data
• Last 30% (90 people) are pugs, roamers or else

In anet's view, they want to divide these people into 3 worlds with similar force, and the match up should be like as follows:

World A, World B and World C, each world should haveAround 30 skilled playersAround 40 general playersAround 30 pugs

The above result is what anet wants, but they missed one thing,

THEY CAN'T BALANCE AND SEPARATE THE PLAYERS WHICH IN THE SAME GUILD/ ALLIANCE!!!!!!

By the review on past year since anet announced the alliance system, we saw many alliance formed by players, the followings are the characteristic of their alliance.

1. These skilled players are stacked in one alliance to have a strongest force, and it will becomeWorld A90 skilled players10 pugs

2. And others players want to form another force to counter World A, and it will becomeWorld B90 general players10 pugs

3. How about the 3rd World? it will becomeWorld C30 general players70 pugs

My conclusion is, anet isn't clever and smart as they self expected, because most of the players want to form ONE strong world for winning or farming others, instead of forming three balance worlds and fight each other. Finally some worlds are stacked with pugs, and some worlds are stacked with experienced players

To me, yes we need it badly more than anything else for WvW.

@"La Venus.6598" said:Alliance system sounds great but actually there's critical mistake inside.Anet said they want inventing an AI when can analyze the "data" of players and put them into a balanced match up.Ignore all the technical solutions and methods, but one important thing they can't predict is the members or players in each alliance.

For example, there are totally 300 people in this game and each world content 100 each, which is 100vs100vs100.

• 30% (90 people) are skilled and hardcore players
• 40% (120 people) are general players, fair in his combat data
• Last 30% (90 people) are pugs, roamers or else

In anet's view, they want to divide these people into 3 worlds with similar force, and the match up should be like as follows:

World A, World B and World C, each world should haveAround 30 skilled playersAround 40 general playersAround 30 pugs

The above result is what anet wants, but they missed one thing,

THEY CAN'T BALANCE AND SEPARATE THE PLAYERS WHICH IN THE SAME GUILD/ ALLIANCE!!!!!!

By the review on past year since anet announced the alliance system, we saw many alliance formed by players, the followings are the characteristic of their alliance.

1. These skilled players are stacked in one alliance to have a strongest force, and it will becomeWorld A90 skilled players10 pugs

2. And others players want to form another force to counter World A, and it will becomeWorld B90 general players10 pugs

3. How about the 3rd World? it will becomeWorld C30 general players70 pugs

My conclusion is, anet isn't clever and smart as they self expected, because most of the players want to form ONE strong world for winning or farming others, instead of forming three balance worlds and fight each other. Finally some worlds are stacked with pugs, and some worlds are stacked with experienced players

I'd agree with you if each world was 1 alliance, of a single alliance was even 50% of a world.

I agree that they're not going to be able to create perfectly balanced matches/worlds (honestly that is impossible in WvW).

But once you start looking at the sheer math and probabilities around creating a world (example) with say 10 alliances (say average number 100 each) + some 200 pugs, divided over all the timezones, with variable playtime/amount. It's going to round itself out more than most methods created to actually try to separate them.

Obviously I don't know the exact numbers (no one does), but let us say that 5 full alliances is about enough to fill one world (5*500=2500), and I wouldn't be surprised if ANet made it calculate in some space for pugs/guildless players, so say they dedicate another 500 slots for that. Now I honestly have extremely little faith in anyone being able to make an Alliance of 500 dedicated hardcore players that play multiple hours every single day, and far less that there could be 2 or more such Alliances in the game. So what are the chances of a single server filling with even 1500 hardcore players ?

I mean, every single guild I've ever seen that does WvW and have a maxed out or near maxed guild rooster are community guilds and PvX guilds. Which is going to have a huge difference in skill and play hours, most likely the majority goes into WvW once a week for a few hours and leave.

Is this system going to make a couple of really ..... bad..... worlds from time to time? Sure..... but then 2 months later it will be removed.

So sure, it isn't perfect, but it's a far cry better than what we got. And it is just about the only thing they can do against server-stacking, which is probably one of the biggest problems we got in the game currently.

But shame on them if they release Alliance, and doesn't pay attention and update and fix on it! Such a huge change is going to need some patience and observation, to spot problems and come up with solutions, and to ignore all the initial knee-jerk-reactions and wait for actual useful feedback.

@"La Venus.6598" said:Alliance system sounds great but actually there's critical mistake inside.Anet said they want inventing an AI when can analyze the "data" of players and put them into a balanced match up.Ignore all the technical solutions and methods, but one important thing they can't predict is the members or players in each alliance.

For example, there are totally 300 people in this game and each world content 100 each, which is 100vs100vs100.

• 30% (90 people) are skilled and hardcore players
• 40% (120 people) are general players, fair in his combat data
• Last 30% (90 people) are pugs, roamers or else

In anet's view, they want to divide these people into 3 worlds with similar force, and the match up should be like as follows:

World A, World B and World C, each world should haveAround 30 skilled playersAround 40 general playersAround 30 pugs

The above result is what anet wants, but they missed one thing,

THEY CAN'T BALANCE AND SEPARATE THE PLAYERS WHICH IN THE SAME GUILD/ ALLIANCE!!!!!!

By the review on past year since anet announced the alliance system, we saw many alliance formed by players, the followings are the characteristic of their alliance.

1. These skilled players are stacked in one alliance to have a strongest force, and it will becomeWorld A90 skilled players10 pugs

2. And others players want to form another force to counter World A, and it will becomeWorld B90 general players10 pugs

3. How about the 3rd World? it will becomeWorld C30 general players70 pugs

My conclusion is, anet isn't clever and smart as they self expected, because most of the players want to form ONE strong world for winning or farming others, instead of forming three balance worlds and fight each other. Finally some worlds are stacked with pugs, and some worlds are stacked with experienced players

alliance system is needed, it would have been the best to have it from the start but its always easy to know better afterwards.

the system is needed to get finally rid of matching problems and give the control over that to the players.

it will rip a gap between casual and ambitious players but since wvw is a competitive game mode one who actually wants to have success is likely one who is ready to improve his gaming and gearing while all others are casual.

dont always try to blame arenanet to not have a ? % solution for everything. its still the players who are also involved so organise and keep your contacts to be successful and dont try to seek problems inside a system cause if you want to find problems you always will find some no matter in what it is. no mathematical formula can bring the „perfect“ matchup as there is sonething you cant calculate with math and that is the so called „emotion“ and changes people have in their real life all the time and also different skill of all involved players.

the alliance who cant keep their players active and keep going for the hobby will break and that will be the result the players of the alliance wanted. it has never been different in a guilds life.

simplier than that it cant get.

@"La Venus.6598" said:Alliance system sounds great but actually there's critical mistake inside.Anet said they want inventing an AI when can analyze the "data" of players and put them into a balanced match up.Ignore all the technical solutions and methods, but one important thing they can't predict is the members or players in each alliance.

For example, there are totally 300 people in this game and each world content 100 each, which is 100vs100vs100.

• 30% (90 people) are skilled and hardcore players
• 40% (120 people) are general players, fair in his combat data
• Last 30% (90 people) are pugs, roamers or else

In anet's view, they want to divide these people into 3 worlds with similar force, and the match up should be like as follows:

World A, World B and World C, each world should haveAround 30 skilled playersAround 40 general playersAround 30 pugs

The above result is what anet wants, but they missed one thing,

THEY CAN'T BALANCE AND SEPARATE THE PLAYERS WHICH IN THE SAME GUILD/ ALLIANCE!!!!!!

By the review on past year since anet announced the alliance system, we saw many alliance formed by players, the followings are the characteristic of their alliance.

1. These skilled players are stacked in one alliance to have a strongest force, and it will becomeWorld A90 skilled players10 pugs

2. And others players want to form another force to counter World A, and it will becomeWorld B90 general players10 pugs

3. How about the 3rd World? it will becomeWorld C30 general players70 pugs

My conclusion is, anet isn't clever and smart as they self expected, because most of the players want to form ONE strong world for winning or farming others, instead of forming three balance worlds and fight each other. Finally some worlds are stacked with pugs, and some worlds are stacked with experienced players

You are artifically creating a matchmaking problem that isnt "supposed" to exist and superimposing it as a flaw of the alliance system. Thats just silly.

All matchmaking systems fail when its at critical population levels, no matter the game.

Your comparison is exactly the same as saying 9 people are in queue for sPvP, what are we going to do?!? No matter how you look its going to be 5v4 or 4v5. Because not supposed to be 9, its "supposed" to be thousands. Hundreds of thousands. Millions for the most popular games.

Not to mention you scaled back the population, but you didnt scale alliances/guilds. In your magical world of WvW math, an alliance/guild would only be about 10 people - assuming absolute max size. Your 90 "skilled/hardcore" guild people on one server? No. That would be 20-30+ guilds/alliances which Anet could mix and match.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"La Venus.6598" said:Alliance system sounds great but actually there's critical mistake inside.Anet said they want inventing an AI when can analyze the "data" of players and put them into a balanced match up.Ignore all the technical solutions and methods, but one important thing they can't predict is the members or players in each alliance.

For example, there are totally 300 people in this game and each world content 100 each, which is 100vs100vs100.

• 30% (90 people) are skilled and hardcore players
• 40% (120 people) are general players, fair in his combat data
• Last 30% (90 people) are pugs, roamers or else

In anet's view, they want to divide these people into 3 worlds with similar force, and the match up should be like as follows:

World A, World B and World C, each world should haveAround 30 skilled playersAround 40 general playersAround 30 pugs

The above result is what anet wants, but they missed one thing,

THEY CAN'T BALANCE AND SEPARATE THE PLAYERS WHICH IN THE SAME GUILD/ ALLIANCE!!!!!!

By the review on past year since anet announced the alliance system, we saw many alliance formed by players, the followings are the characteristic of their alliance.

1. These skilled players are stacked in one alliance to have a strongest force, and it will become
   World A
   90 skilled players10 pugs

2. And others players want to form another force to counter World A, and it will become
   World B
   90 general players10 pugs

3. How about the 3rd World? it will become
   World C
   30 general players70 pugs

My conclusion is, anet isn't clever and smart as they self expected, because most of the players want to form ONE strong world for winning or farming others, instead of forming three balance worlds and fight each other. Finally some worlds are stacked with pugs, and some worlds are stacked with experienced players

You are artifically creating a matchmaking problem that isnt "supposed" to exist and superimposing it as a flaw of the alliance system. Thats just silly.

The number and population is just an example i made. Everyone know same number is not possible.But my view isn't focus on the numbers of each world. I only concern the combat power of each side.

Why Anet thinks the players are looking for a balanced world? Check the past one year we saw many alliances formed in few servers.And the result is these better players just transfer in and stack in one world.

If the size of alliance is big as you described, that's more terrible because more players and guilds will probably stack together.The will recruit guilds as more as possible for forming a alliance.If they already stacked in same alliance. No matter how's their combat data, Anet has no ways to separate or pull these players out anymore.That's already a unsolvable situation.If players or guilds still have rights to choose and form their army, they must look for a strongest organization for winning.

And i express more.

The game cannot simulate the real world, we all know a completely balance is not possible to achieve.To make it more realistic the only way is put more unpredictable and random factors into the new system.

1. Minimize and limit the numbers of guilds in ONE alliance,
2. Minimize and limit the numbers of members in each WvW guild.

The size of alliance is small, that means more alliance is consisted in one world, and alliances are assigned by the AI.That can avoid players and guilds forming a overhauled organization to monopolize the fights and control victory or defeat.

@La Venus.6598 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@La Venus.6598 said:Alliance system sounds great but actually there's critical mistake inside.Anet said they want inventing an AI when can analyze the "data" of players and put them into a balanced match up.Ignore all the technical solutions and methods, but one important thing they can't predict is the members or players in each alliance.

For example, there are totally 300 people in this game and each world content 100 each, which is 100vs100vs100.

• 30% (90 people) are skilled and hardcore players
• 40% (120 people) are general players, fair in his combat data
• Last 30% (90 people) are pugs, roamers or else

In anet's view, they want to divide these people into 3 worlds with similar force, and the match up should be like as follows:

World A, World B and World C, each world should haveAround 30 skilled playersAround 40 general playersAround 30 pugs

The above result is what anet wants, but they missed one thing,

THEY CAN'T BALANCE AND SEPARATE THE PLAYERS WHICH IN THE SAME GUILD/ ALLIANCE!!!!!!

By the review on past year since anet announced the alliance system, we saw many alliance formed by players, the followings are the characteristic of their alliance.

1. These skilled players are stacked in one alliance to have a strongest force, and it will become
   World A
   90 skilled players10 pugs

2. And others players want to form another force to counter World A, and it will become
   World B
   90 general players10 pugs

3. How about the 3rd World? it will become
   World C
   30 general players70 pugs

My conclusion is, anet isn't clever and smart as they self expected, because most of the players want to form ONE strong world for winning or farming others, instead of forming three balance worlds and fight each other. Finally some worlds are stacked with pugs, and some worlds are stacked with experienced players

You are artifically creating a matchmaking problem that isnt "supposed" to exist and superimposing it as a flaw of the alliance system. Thats just silly.

1. Minimize and limit the numbers of guilds in ONE alliance,
2. Minimize and limit the numbers of members in each WvW guild.

combat power is not arenanets responsibility. its the players responsibility.thats what alot people always wanted. to have the control of who plays with them.

who forms an alliance gives the signal to want the competition and will need to steady improve.

is like every other sports competition out there no matter what sport it is.

team x is not as good as team y but wants to win. team x has to improve. it has never been different. if team x does not improve everything stays as it is. it has never been different.

now starts the time all the wanna be commanders who always blamed the bad bad bad randoms and pve people in wvw for the loss will need to show what top shots they really are.

im glad arenanet sorts out the cheap excuses.

@"La Venus.6598" said:The size of alliance is small, that means more alliance is consisted in one world, and alliances are assigned by the AI.That can avoid players and guilds forming a overhauled organization to monopolize the fights and control victory or defeat.

Which is how its supposed to work. At "100 players" equaling the average server size stated by Anet in the alliance thread, a normal raiding guild of 100+ is quite literaly "2-3 players" in your example and an alliance would practically only contain 2-5 such guilds.

Thats why I said your math is off. For a world to gather 90 out of 100 hardcore players in a rigid "these 90 guys are forced together by the alliance matchmaking structure" manner you are stating that alliances will be what is now almost an entire world, or 2000+ players.

Anet has stated otherwise.