Alliances – Whats the concept?

[enkidu.5937]

Obvioulsy, I'm still too dumb to get it. But its Christmas and I was a good boy this year, killing lots of Soulbeasts, and some Deadeyes as well. So maybe someone can give me some clarification? :p

(1) We already have „mega“-guildsOn my server there is a community guild with 400+ players. Another „mega“-guild, a dozen smaller guilds, and several hundred random players, that jump in occassionally. So this is imo exactly how worlds will look like, if alliances kick in. Seems more like a QoL thing to me: the guild / alliance leader doesn't have to recruit and manage every single player, but instead guilds, that organize themselves.

(2) The (imo) bad thing: worlds are completely mixed up every 8 weeksImo this will result in even more splitting of communities. We will have more private raids with hidden tags. Alliances will have their own voice chats. Server TS / Discord will be gone. And for EU, language restrictions will stay (→ more splitting of communities due to different languages). I loved the initial idea of WvW as an open-world big scale mode. But with alliances, WvW will become more of a private fight arena with an alternate matchmaking (guilds can choose, who they want to fight on which map, instead some kind of Elo or league or tournament).

(3) The good thing: transfers will be restrictedOk, but this feature could have been implemented already 2 years ago. You don't need alliances for that.

(4) Smaller entities to make worlds populations more balancedBut is this really a thing? We will never have perfectly balanced pops at every time of the day at every map. Ppl will still go off, if they don't like the matchup or link. The true problem with world pop balance seems to be excessive transfers, right after each re-linking. But this is going to be tackled anyways with the new transfer restrictions.

(?) If Anet would create worlds only with players in the same tier . . .. . . pro guilds / alliances would climb to T1 over time and can have their competitive environment there. Whereas, casuals would come together in lower Tiers, having some casual fun there. But iirc, Anet already said, that they won't introduce some kind of ranking or kind-of „elite“ worlds. So, this point won't happen.

So, whats the point of alliances then? :#

merry Christmas @ all

[MedievalThings.5417]

Honestly @OP, I would just forget they ever mentioned alliances. It's been 2 years since they were announced, and we now know by their Q1 2020 plans, that they won't even have started working on them by then either. People keep bandwagoning to outblob smaller servers, and those gem sales are likely a big motivator for them to never actually start work on alliances. Can we just move on from this topic, because it's never going to happen.

[Dawdler.8521]

@enkidu.5937 said:So this is imo exactly how worlds will look like, if alliances kick in.Of course its exactly how the worlds will look. Its the same players, the same guilds. Players dont vanish nor do Anet magically create them. I really dont understand why people have such problems with that.

Alliances would just be the eqvivalent of turning our current duo/triple-link system into a dynamic multi-link system. Thats it. Its that simple.

[subversiontwo.7501]

Like others have said:Worlds are just ServersAlliances are just Guilds (sort of)The two-month shuffle is just linking (sort of)

The difference is in the details and in how the new system is purpose built rather than just put in as a placeholder:Setting a WvW-guild provides an alternative to paid transfer (helping both finding new guilds and putting guilds back together)The shuffle of home servers makes guilds less inclined to transfer away from servers they dislike (or provides alternative)The new rules for paid transfers has checks to stem the tide once a wagon starts banding (giving paid priorities based on guild)

Most of the changes aim not only at making guilds the anchor point the system builds around but also in many ways make them more coveted to have and provide boons to players who are trying to create- and keep their guilds intact (in the form of alternatives or advantages over unaffiliated players, advantages that today are only upheld by access to information). The mode needs most of these things. However, at this point the entire system is more about stopping or reversing the damage done by linking and paid transfers, replacing the placeholder system with a system that has better balance and less weakness to exploit.

I think that's why some people have trouble understanding it, the name misleads them and they expect something more. The changes are under the hood so to speak. You do not necessarily see or understand them unless you are apart of a guild and keep seeing it torn asunder. The big behavioural change is to make people create more guilds again because guilds provide so much of the content.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

actually from what they've told us so far, transfers won't be limited at all really. there is a week at the end of the match up where you can't transfer but for 7 weeks after that you can, only thing is that you don't get rewards. yeah ppl won't transfer cuz of that lol.

[Acheron.4731]

Without transfer restriction and timezone taken into consideration (which they said would not be) it solves very little. I agree with you OP...not much of a project and it has taken so long...so....meh

[T G.7496]

We need to be patient.It's only been two years.There are far more pressing matters.For example, at the moment they are working hard to change two variables on the Warclaw.It's a high pressure environment.

[knite.1542]

Alliances won't happen. There is no concept.

[Sovereign.1093]

dead end because change in personnel

[borgs.6103]

The Alliances Soon™ meme isn't funny anymore. At this point it's just sad that after two years since announcement, they have nothing to show for it.

[primatos.5413]

The concept is just keep players playing the game by promising improvements and make them spend money äh.. hope for releasement sooner than 'soon' i think

[Sovereign.1093]

alliance is a myth

[Fearless.3569]

Alliances is a lie ANet tell the gullible WvW players. To keep them spending money, on curb stomping low pop servers.

At this point the game mode only supports at most 3 tiers. But I doubt ANet is working on anything WvW related at this point. It seems the company is in high distress atm too.