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World Restructuring Update 2


Raymond Lukes.6305

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  • ArenaNet Staff

Hey everyone,I would like to give you all a quick update about world restructuring. It has been a few months since our last update, and we are happy to let you know that progress has been good. We have overcome a few major snags and bugs and this has put a few of our big goals in sight.

What am I working on?

I am primarily working on World Restructuring with some of my time supporting the live game. These additional tasks include improvements for some live systems, addressing bugs and a bit of internal support for the team. I have worked on some QoL tasks such as removing participation decay outside of WvW. I hope that we soon will be able to announce some of the other things we have been working on. As I have discussed before, we are working on a live game, and so there are always a lot of moving parts.

What has been happening with World Restructuring?

We spent some time since the July update working on breaking down the remaining backend tasks. I have been focusing on getting those things done. Presently, many of the pieces are working on their own, though some things are still outstanding. Once I have all the parts I will begin the work of stitching it all together. I want to stress that while there has been a lot of work done, and we have made some really good and exciting progress, we are still a ways out from the launch of World Restructuring and Alliances.

One of the elements that currently is functional on the backend is the concept of WvW guilds and players being able to select a WvW guild. We test this using debug commands because none of the UI is in place, but the communication layers are there as well as the storage aspects of that data. This provides us with some of the data necessary for grouping people onto teams in the matchmaker.

Speaking of the matchmaker, I have completed a very basic implementation of a matchmaker that will churn through a huge list of players grouped by WvW guild and then place them on teams while keeping team sizes even. There is still a lot to do with this to get it to something that handles all the cases we want, but the early work and numbers look very promising.

We are taking a pragmatic approach to building and testing various parts of World Restructuring. We are already testing some of these systems in isolation using live data and the live environment. Using this method, we have already identified bugs and race conditions that would have been difficult to track down and fix with the whole system in place.

There has not been a ton of work on the player front end. We continue to focus on getting the core architecture solid so we can build the frontend on a working foundation. Once work is underway and we have something more tangible on the frontend, we can start discussing how we want to show off the new shinies to everyone.

F.A.Q.

What World Restructuring update would be complete without an FAQ section?

Is there an update on the Alliance (World Restructuring) system?Yes, here it is! ;)

Can NA and EU players join the same Alliance and play WvW together?No. The NA and EU still will be split and have their own teams. While it technically will be possible for a guild or alliance to have members in both NA and EU, the system places those players on teams in their own datacenter.

Will I need to buy an Expansion to get into an alliance?No.

What about non-WvW groups that use their shard to influence map instance selection outside of WvW?These players will be unaffected by this change. The system that chooses map instances does not consider shard.

How does the alliance system fix anything if people still will be able to transfer?Currently, the plan is to change where we allow people to transfer, and to be more responsive to transfer restrictions for teams that are overpopulated. Some of the details of how this will work are in the original post about World Restructuring.

Will time zone imbalance still be an issueIt is true that in the initial release of World Restructuring we are not planning to consider time zone distribution when creating worlds. Part of that is so we can get the primary aspects of the system in and gather data about how the system works given the metrics we are using for balance. We want to compare apples to apples to give us the clearest information. This also will allow us to have a new baseline to compare against modifications to the metrics used for balancing the teams. We also are discussing some other ways to address “off hours” play, so stay tuned for more info as we can share it.

Are only WvW play hours, not all play hours, considered in the population calculation?Yes, we only use play hours in WvW when doing the population calculations.

How Many Alliances can be on a team?There is not a clear answer here other than “however many there need to be.” The focus is on getting the population balanced and not specifically on limiting the number of alliances per team.

Are you planning to update the API?Yes. There will need to be some updates to the API to support the new system. Beyond that, I do not have details.

Is repping a guild the same as selecting it as my WvW guild?No, repping is independent from selecting your WvW guild. You still will be able to rep whatever guild you like in WvW without changing the world the system places you on.

What is next? What comes after World Restructuring?Whoa now! We should not get ahead of ourselves. World Restructuring is only one of the irons we have in the fire so we are talking about things post World Restructuring. These are things we are not ready or able to discuss yet but we’ll update you when we have more things to relay.

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so nothing new actually changing in wvw yet again :( Raymond Lukes.6305 said "we have made some really good and exciting progress, we are still a ways out from the launch of World Restructuring and Alliances." meaning if we wait as long as we have since the very 1st announcement wvw will be pretty much a dead zone and gw3 maybe on the horizon! oh happy days for us wvw'ers, wrap it in a xmas box and put it under the tree for 2020

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Is good to know you guys are working to make everything function properly. I just hope this system doesn't take long to be released, this change is really important for the WvW community.

@Nebilim.5127 said:What about the roleplaying servers? Will anything be done about keeping the already shambled community together now that there won't be any official RP server?

There are official roleplay servers?

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@JasonLucas.4981 said:Is good to know you guys are working to make everything function properly. I just hope this system doesn't take long to be released, this change is really important for the WvW community.

@Nebilim.5127 said:What about the roleplaying servers? Will anything be done about keeping the already shambled community together now that there won't be any official RP server?

There are official roleplay servers?

That's the point, there isn't, but there is an unofficial. And with this update, we won't have none i'm guessing.

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@Arbiter.1794 said:

That's the point, there isn't, but there is an unofficial. And with this update, we won't have none i'm guessing.

In PvE servers don't exist anymore anyway, it is all one mega server with sharding. Or do you mean RPing in WvW? then you can join a RP alliance.

It does exist, shards attempt to pair people while picking them from the same server first, then they add more to fill the rest through the megaserver system when they can't. With servers fumbling and changing, this won't happen anymore. Yes megaservers killed this a bit, but it is still there.

I can see roleplay all the time in divinity reach since i'm from Tarnished coast. If you aren't there, then try going to DR and check yourself so you can see any or not.

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@"jqjazz.4097" said:so nothing new actually changing in wvw yet again :( Raymond Lukes.6305 said "we have made some really good and exciting progress, we are still a ways out from the launch of World Restructuring and Alliances." meaning if we wait as long as we have since the very 1st announcement wvw will be pretty much a dead zone and gw3 maybe on the horizon! oh happy days for us wvw'ers, wrap it in a xmas box and put it under the tree for 2020

If you can make it, test it and launch it.. by all means go ahead... but all players who talk like this do is measure time from one update to another without fully understanding the amount of work that is involved behind what the player sees

Yes... we would all love some sort of live update to come out anytime now or before in hopes of sorting out wvw... But asking for a whole new system to be built with the snap of the fingers is... well I'm just going to keep it simple and say it's wrong of players to think that.

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@"Raymond Lukes.6305", my only comment is :Why keep "World Transfers"? With the new system it doesn't make any sense, and honestly that's the reason why this is needed. Keeping world transfers is anathema to this whole system.Changing "Worlds" with the new system is supposed to be as easy as changing guilds, or is that not wrong? I mean, what's the deal?

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@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Changing "Worlds" with the new system is supposed to be as easy as changing guilds, or is that not wrong? I mean, what's the deal?

Today, World-change is instant. That can be dropped in my oppinion. You can declare something else your WvW guild, but this has only an effect on the next relink.

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Thanks for the update, for the great effort, and for making us finally understand that this is the end: a very small team, working 1+ year on a vital feature for the survival of the main end-game, that is WvW for a lot of players... What ArenaNet think will be left of us, if this will still take 6months+, even 1 more years, while the remnant of the remnants, barely log into a dying game mode?RiP WvW.

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@HardRider.2980 said:

@"jqjazz.4097" said:so nothing new actually changing in wvw yet again :( Raymond Lukes.6305 said "we have made some really good and exciting progress, we are still a ways out from the launch of World Restructuring and Alliances." meaning if we wait as long as we have since the very 1st announcement wvw will be pretty much a dead zone and gw3 maybe on the horizon! oh happy days for us wvw'ers, wrap it in a xmas box and put it under the tree for 2020

If you can make it, test it and launch it.. by all means go ahead... but all players who talk like this do is measure time from one update to another without fully understanding the amount of work that is involved behind what the player sees

Yes... we would all love some sort of live update to come out anytime now or before in hopes of sorting out wvw... But asking for a whole new system to be built with the snap of the fingers is... well I'm just going to keep it simple and say it's wrong of players to think that.

As for this last statement its been what, a year since the original announcement and not a single alteration in that time. snap of the fingers...really??

I would expect Something tangible after almost a year such as removing dead/low pop servers such as GH/AG/UW & Blacktide would be a start. Be very easy to move the remaining player base on each to another server to populate it and give each player moved 1 free transfer should they not be happy. I accept it would be short term fix but until they actually release an action plan to reduce guilds server migration on going these low populated servers are a wasted resource, and it would increase player populations elsewhere and making wvw a lot more fun.

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@"jqjazz.4097" said:so nothing new actually changing in wvw yet again :( Raymond Lukes.6305 said "we have made some really good and exciting progress, we are still a ways out from the launch of World Restructuring and Alliances." meaning if we wait as long as we have since the very 1st announcement wvw will be pretty much a dead zone and gw3 maybe on the horizon! oh happy days for us wvw'ers, wrap it in a xmas box and put it under the tree for 2020

Yeah but did you expect anything else?

Guild Wars 2 is, by and large, old by now. Yeah there are juggernauts of near-endless life such as WoW, but in the grand scheme of MMOs it's nearing the EOL where the playerbase shrinks considerably and the game is put on minimal-team life support to keep the remaining players happy with small tidbits.

Meaning, the fact ANet has someone working on this at all probably means this is as much explorative work for whatever comes next - say, a Guild Wars 3 - as it is an actual update to GW2.

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Hi, where to even start lol...

So, Lets say Alliances hit over night and it just "works as intended"

So, what are we to believe that means? and "why" is it going to be benefiting.

As stated by Anet, its NOT going to solve coverage issues or even take them into account right away.

So what is it going to do? "its going to quote divide the populations into even smaller portions to work with"

So that the Anet Gods can do what? finally BALANCE populations right?

But How? are you going to FORCE oxc/sea guilds into alliances they may not want to be in?

and how "thin" do you think, you can spread populations before WvW isn't WvW anymore?

as is right now, how many alliances do you think "can" be formed that would in reality give the "feel" of "coverage" and what REAL WvWing is?

and what is the best way to arrive at this answer? - to look at what we have right now correct?

I mean sure, we can hope that once the alliance system is announced PLAYERS WILL RETURN IN MASS!!!!

but what will they return to? and do you REALLY think it will be such a new and enriching experience that it'll keep them here for long?when even a 15 minute downtime in coverage can mean your entire map, and everything your team has protected throughout the day is annihilated cus you got NOBODY and siege is nearly worthless?

And i'm sure, the magics of coverage fixing isn't exactly going to happen over night either right?

I mean look at how long we have basically been being told the same thing BIG ANNOUNCEMENT GUYS! "oh we're making progress things are happening!coming soon™"

How long do you think it'll take to get "coverage solved" and actually see any kind of benefit out of the "new system"i mean wasn't the alliance system originally brought up to solve coverage issues? and now its not even going to be doing that "right away"so alliance system 1-2 years likely to implement(total i'm hoping who really knows tho right? not even Anet apparently...), another 1-2 years to "fix" coverage? lol...

How many people do you think are going to flock away from this game, once you destroy the communities?or are bluntly so overwhelming dissapointed by a system thats going to be in the works for over a year now likely, and not really fix anything, just more of the same....

BIGGER question, when it is a complete disaster, as many people who have played this game for 6 years KNOWS how big of a untested, unreliable, complete mess new releases and content from anet are/is INNATELY.how long is it going to be to fix that stuff? its not even a paid expansion like HOT, and any WvWer knows exactly how bad, and how "tested" that TRULY was... AND HOW LONG IT TOOK TO CHANGE ANYTHING...

And now its going to be "Harder" to transfer to where you want to go? and make it harder for the average person/pug to find an active alliance?

and How are they going to "join" those few "good" alliances? - "NO EXPANSION PACK REQUIRED" LOL how many pugs are going to RNG into dead alliances or bluntly be refused from the "few" good alliances that will ultimately be "possible"...THIS SOUNDS LIKE A TRULY PLAYER ENRICHING EXPERIENCE TO ME!

  • i think thats been a huge part of the problem for a long time now, servers going full status for no real reason and being kept on full status for far to long causing guilds to stack links or dead servers to get their entire team in and its only going to get worse? lol...1 pug who plays 48 hours is still only 1 guy taking up who knows how many population slots along the way and potentially stopping their server from getting any meaningful population...

But Anet believes right now thats the best "metric" is "time played" without any consideration to coverage or actual "worth" of the people idling or capping camps or just going out an getting destroyed solo...

Yaks Bend for example has been "full status" since PVE-Halloween Event (somehow 5-6+weeks now) and we've lost guilds some large(60+members), yet still "full" and the only thing it has done is encourage me to NOT play even with a near 12 hour DEADZONE in the hopes we get off full status for long enough to get any kind of meaningful transfers.

Is it going to better our quality of life? or do absolutely ANYTHING FUN OR MEANINGFUL or enriching? - i really doubt it -ultimately its going to be "MORE OF THE SAME" - best case scenario - I'd love for example to be-able to use more then my 1 skill in a SMC 3 way que fight particularly on reset night.... Maybe work on your packet compression, or engine, or core machines you run the game on, instead of giving out free cars from pve-events ect with the gem store money you get... or maybe when a siege print is 100% built, it ACTUALLY BE 100% built... and maybe i dunno, promote world vs world alot better? by giving people a reason to enter the gamemode and spend a little time there, like map completion used to do... and maybe a SERVER WIDE Chat - where we can ask our community's pve population for help kinda like what people did in lions arch back in the day to get people into WvW when stuff is going on...

anyways have fun responding and picking out 1 or 2 things you can make an argument about out of my statements and ignoring the rest which is equally as important o7

Wishing you the Best Anet GOODLUCK, you need it...

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Thanks for the update! It must be a lot of work. I wish you had more help to expedite the process for what is “end game” for all us WvWers. You put in so much time and I appreciate it. I will continue to enjoy WvW with my guildies until alliances do come out.

I see a lot of negative in the comments and I get that. You all expected alliances to be out by the end of the year and started prepping early for it. At least we have an update.

ALSO, let’s show some love for the great QoL change Ire (Raymond) game us- removing pip decay outside of WvW. This is such a huge change for me in so many ways as someone who’s main game mode is WvW. Thanks Ire ❤️

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