World Restructuring Update 3

[subversiontwo.7501]

The Grouch has spoken (also the Ray).
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/studio-update-world-restructuring-and-the-future-of-world-vs-world/

 

Spoiler

 

Studio Update: World Restructuring and the Future of World vs. World

by The Guild Wars 2 Team on September 10, 2021

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• https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/b1c61WvW-Chest-Update-590x331.jpg

 

Hi all,

Mark your calendars! The first weeklong beta event for the WvW World Restructuring feature takes place from September 24 to October 1. Today we’re here to outline development and beta testing plans for World Restructuring and talk about the future of the World vs. World game mode. We’ll start by describing the overall vision for the feature and then describe the functionality that will be introduced in the first two rollout phases.

World Restructuring: An Overview

World Restructuring is a feature that aims to address player population imbalances and create great matches. It achieves this by deprecating the current concept of “shards” (aka worlds/servers) and introducing a matchmaking system to the game mode, where players, guilds, and alliances (player-managed groups of guilds) are programmatically redistributed to new “teams” (previously known as shards) on a set schedule. This gives us more flexibility and granularity when creating new teams and helps address natural fluctuations in population over time. It’ll also give players more agency in choosing who they want to play with on an ongoing basis and allows long-standing communities to continue playing together.

Matchmaking, when teams are destroyed and recreated, occurs at the beginning of each season. The term “season” in the context of WvW describes the period of time between each matchmaking event. The length of a season is not yet finalized, but could be up to eight weeks long. Before a season begins, players can select which of their current guilds (and by extension, the alliance) they’d like to play with for that season. Once matchmaking occurs, any changes to a player’s selected guild will not take effect until the next season. While the composition of each team is static during a season, you’ll be matched up against different opponents each week using the existing one-up, one-down match up system.

Active WvW players that have not selected a WvW guild before the start of a season will be automatically matchmade onto a team. New players, or players that were inactive for an extended period before the start of a season, will not be automatically placed, but will have the option to choose which team they’d like to join. Teams will become locked (or “full”) once they’ve reached the population cap, like the current system.

Matchmaking will initially use factors such as WvW participation and playtime to place players, guilds, and alliances on teams, but we’re open to adding additional variables to matchmaking (e.g., time zone) once we’ve ironed out the initial kinks with the system.

The functionality detailed above will be rolled out in multiple phases, each with its own set of beta tests.

World Restructuring: Phase One

Phase one of World Restructuring includes a substantial backend overhaul of how World vs World works, but most of this is invisible to the player. On the player-facing side of things, it will feature matchmaking support for unguilded players and guilds. Alliance functionality will come in phase two. The goal for this first phase is to ensure that the system works at scale. We’ll be keeping a close eye on player population balance, queue times, and victory point disparity.

On September 21, a new tab for the World Restructuring feature will become available in the in-game World vs World menu. On this tab, you’ll be able to choose which of your guilds you’ll want to play with during the World Restructuring beta event. Please choose your WvW guild before 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-7) on September 23 or you may be matchmade onto a team as an individual player.

The beta event match up will begin at WvW reset on September 24. A WvW bonus experience event will be active between September 21 and October 1 (100% bonus to World Experience, a 25% bonus to reward-track progress, and a 50% bonus to magic find).

At the conclusion of the beta event on October 1, the World and World Linking system will be re-enabled and WvW will return to the current state. For example, if you were on Gandara before, you’ll be back on Gandara once again. Depending on how well the first beta event goes, we may choose to run a few additional tests without significant changes to the feature. Each matchmaking event provides our team with incredibly valuable data for tuning the matchmaking system.

World Restructuring: Phase Two

The next planned addition to World Restructuring will be alliances functionality. This will allow multiple guilds to group together for the purposes of matchmaking. Each team can include multiple alliances. Our current plan is to limit Alliances to a total of 500 players, the same maximum size of a single guild. We’re trying to strike a balance between allowing existing player communities to be able to stick together while preventing the creation of juggernaut alliances. This number is flexible and will be finalized based on what we see during the beta events. The timeline for delivering alliance functionality largely depends on how well phase one goes. If we identify a large number of bugs or core system issues, we’ll need to focus on solving those first.

Beta Development

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/92b7dRunning-through-WvW-590x331.jpg

We’re approaching the development of World Restructuring differently than what you’ve seen from us in the past. Our intention is to release the smallest, functional versions of the feature onto the live servers, beta test it for a limited time, and then use your feedback to improve future iterations of the feature. We’ll rinse and repeat until we’ve landed on a satisfactory implementation and then polish the feature, remove the beta tag, and fully release it.

The reasoning behind this approach is straightforward: WvW is a complicated game mode that’s played in numerous ways. Some players enjoy fights, some enjoy taking objectives, and some enjoy running away from fights (he-he). Experiences can even vary wildly between shards (we’re looking at you, Maguuma). Finding the best solution for population balance that considers these differing playstyles is a challenging proposition and not something that we can do without your input. We need feedback from our players to help narrow in on the right design. We’ll be looking at both hard data and the conversation in the community to determine the feature’s future.

This approach comes with some trade-offs. For one, the initial implementation of World Restructuring will have a limited feature set. You might immediately identify some features that would be nice to have. That’s great! Tell us what you’re thinking and why you want it. This is exactly the reason we’re doing this. We want to build the things that our players want and not waste time on things they don’t.

The second trade-off is that the frontend of the system will be a little rough—using “programmer art,” as we call it. We’re going to hold off on final art and user experience polish until we’ve locked down the design of the feature. In other words, we’re going to focus on making sure the system solves the problem before we make it look nice.

We’ll be monitoring and participating in dedicated feedback threads on the official Guild Wars 2 forum for each beta event. That’s the best place to have your voice heard, whether you’re a solo player, guilded, a guild leader, or a pug commander. We’ll also keep you up to date with our latest observations and decisions regarding World Restructuring via regular updates on the Guild Wars 2 blog.

Looking to the Future

World vs World is an experience unlike any other—an epic combination of battles on a massive scale, competition, community, and of course, rivalry. It scratches an itch that many of us have had since the earliest days of Realm vs Realm gameplay in PC gaming.

WvW, as it is today, is good—but it could be great. As we stated in the July 2 Studio Update blog, our leadership team views WvW as a cornerstone game mode of Guild Wars 2 and we intend to support it as such—and we say this while acknowledging that in the past WvW players haven’t consistently received the support or attention they deserve.

So, let’s talk about future plans and priorities as we know them today, largely informed by your feedback and our own assessment of the mode. These priorities are subject to change as we continue to listen, observe, and learn. If they do change, we’ll let you know.

Player population balance is a critical component of any competitive game or game mode, and imbalances can have a marked, negative impact on gameplay to the extent that the experience no longer reflects design intent. As such, World Restructuring is going to remain our top priority until we feel that it’s been satisfactorily addressed. This will likely remain our focus through the release of Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons™.

After World Restructuring, we’ll be looking to make WvW more rewarding, with a focus on active play. There’s two major parts to this. First, we’ll be looking at improving individual rewards for participation and performance. This will be a mix of adding new rewards and improving older systems. As an example, we’d like to address how support players are under rewarded. Skirmish tracks also take longer to progress than we’d like, especially for new players. Second, we want to give players and guilds reasons to care about winning their current match up and reward them for exceptional performance during a season. Longer-term, we’d also like to introduce systems that would allow guilds to flex and compare their WvW prowess.

Once both population balance and rewards are addressed, our theory is that WvW gameplay may see a significant shift. Players tend to naturally optimize their gameplay towards “the goal”, and with that comes new strategy and meta. At that point, we intend to look very hard at core WvW systems (upgrades, scoring, siege, etc) and balance them to ensure that the WvW experience is still reflecting our vision. No system is safe from iteration!

Everything described above is aimed at addressing foundational issues affecting the WvW experience. Our priorities beyond this point are highly flexible and will undoubtedly be influenced by the community and the needs of the game mode. Expect more communications, just like this one, down the road.

Before we wrap up this section, we did want to mention that we understand how important profession balance is for World vs World gameplay. To address this, after the expansion releases, we’ll be dedicating design resources to overseeing profession balance for the Live game in a full-time capacity, supporting PvE, PvP, and WvW. This will allow us to deliver balance updates on a much more consistent cadence.

Wrapping Up

https://d3b4yo2b5lbfy.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/1fa04WvW_Alpine_Borderlands_Siege-590x331.jpg

That’s it for today! If you have questions or feedback regarding World Restructuring or our overall priorities for WvW, please drop us a note on the official forums. ArenaNet staff Raymond Lukes (Lead Gameplay Engineer) and Josh “Grouch” Davis (Head of Live Operations) will join ArenaNet Partners MightyTeapot and Roy on September 16 at noon Pacific Time (UTC-7) on Twitch for a live discussion regarding World Restructuring and the future of World vs World, so we’ll look to address as many of your questions as we can then.

Thank you for reading. We’re incredibly excited to finally bring World Restructuring to life and we’re looking forward to building World vs World into the experience we all know it can be.

–The Guild Wars 2 Team

 

 

 

Edited September 10, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Justine.6351]

Sorry but I will be playing Diablo 2 Resurrected.

[subversiontwo.7501]

Just now, Justine.6351 said:

Sorry but I will be playing Diablo 2 Resurrected.

We guys have phones?

[Dawdler.8521]

Well, this is repeating pretty much everything we already knew 😕
I was hoping for more details on alliance management.

[Bristingr.5034]

Lol, when even Anet calls out Maguuma for the kitten they do...

Edited September 10, 2021 by Bristingr.5034
I fixed my english.

[Infusion.7149]

Quote

After World Restructuring, we’ll be looking to make WvW more rewarding, with a focus on active play. There’s two major parts to this. First, we’ll be looking at improving individual rewards for participation and performance. This will be a mix of adding new rewards and improving older systems. As an example, we’d like to address how support players are under rewarded. Skirmish tracks also take longer to progress than we’d like, especially for new players. Second, we want to give players and guilds reasons to care about winning their current match up and reward them for exceptional performance during a season. Longer-term, we’d also like to introduce systems that would allow guilds to flex and compare their WvW prowess.

I guess they're going to pander to PVE players because it is said that skirmish rewards take too long and "supports are underewarded". Literally only heal scrapper that has a tagging problem, every other class that is a support whether it is support spellbreaker (since Winds is no longer channeled), support aura tempest, support chrono, support scourge (not really a thing anymore outside PVP/ some PVE groups that need carrying), or support firebrand all hit things with their weapons.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[SKYWALKERLUKEJUNI.1896]

For people that enjoy to fight in wvw imo the two points that need to be improved upon with alliances are:

-'Fight' Servers/Alliances should get matched vs other Fight Alliances more often rather than vs ppt groups.
-Better coverage in general outside of primetime. I don't know how that can be achieved but smaller zerg fights outside of primetime would be nice, instead of only zerg fights in primetime (if lucky). 

I wish the best of luck to the devs and hope the community can give constructive feedback. This is the chance, to make this gamemode we love great. <3

[subversiontwo.7501]

6 hours ago, SKYWALKERLUKEJUNI.1896 said:

For people that enjoy to fight in wvw imo the two points that need to be improved upon with alliances are:

-'Fight' Servers/Alliances should get matched vs other Fight Alliances more often rather than vs ppt groups.
-Better coverage in general outside of primetime. I don't know how that can be achieved but smaller zerg fights outside of primetime would be nice, instead of only zerg fights in primetime (if lucky). 

I wish the best of luck to the devs and hope the community can give constructive feedback. This is the chance, to make this gamemode we love great. ❤️

I think the hope most of us keep with these budding changes is that over time this will restore the ladder and push the servers that are stronger in their respective primes towards the top of the ladder. That is best achieved by adressing the scoring system. However, Alliances alone provides more accessible tools to everyone to recruit night crews at the very least - making the regions more migrateable.

The issue with PPT (over PPK) has always been night crews. The issue with night crews has always been the same issue with population imbalance but that population imbalances over night hours are even worse than during day hours or specifically prime hours. PPT is rarely an issue over prime and PPT/PPK balance is usually much better during regional prime (ie., ~17:00-23:00 during a region's designated timezone eg., EU=CET +/- 1).

Edited September 11, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Heibi.4251]

So it appears that we aren't getting alliances in the sense of several guilds wanting to play together. We are actually going to have to invite everyone we want with us to one guild. So if someone has full guild slots they are stuck. Also, in order to meet the player cap, ANET is forcing a guild to make a decision to KICK players who aren't as active in the game but who may have been in the guild for years.  This is not a good solution or Alliance in anyway. An alliance is the joining of forces by multiple guilds. 

 

Solution(s):

1. Give everyone a Sixth Guild Slot - a WvW specific slot. We create the alliance and invite people to that slot. But this creates the old problem of having to invite up to 500 players(leaving out possible guildies due to limit cap).

2. Have Guilds themselves invited to the Alliance(a new slot needed), not worrying about the player numbers. All a player would have to do is designate that they want to use their guild, a member an actual ALLIANCE(of guilds), and then we wouldn't have to worry about creating new guild halls or brand new guilds to invite 500 players to.

 

Overall, I see this as one big mess. It is not an alliance unless it joins groups(guilds) together.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Heibi.4251

[Dawdler.8521]

2 minutes ago, Heibi.4251 said:

So it appears that we aren't getting alliances in the sense of several guilds wanting to play together. We are actually going to have to invite everyone we want with us to one guild.

For a one week beta before it returns to normal worlds.

[b k.1648]

1 hour ago, Justine.6351 said:

Sorry but I will be playing Diablo 2 Resurrected.

 

Let us know if you find anything remotely like WvW in there.

[Heibi.4251]

5 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

For a one week beta before it returns to normal worlds.

Yeah, not good. We need an alliance system that lets us invite a Guild to the Alliance. Then everyone in that guild that belongs to the alliance can select who to represent easier. Literally all I read from ANET's post was that you need to create a brand new guild(falsely called and alliance) to play in WvW. Or be randomly tossed around to where ever ANET wants you.

 

I want to be able to say that the alliance I belong to has these guilds in it, not just player number.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Heibi.4251

[Xenesis.6389]

7 minutes ago, Heibi.4251 said:

So it appears that we aren't getting alliances in the sense of several guilds wanting to play together. We are actually going to have to invite everyone we want with us to one guild. So if someone has full guild slots they are stuck. Also, in order to meet the player cap, ANET is forcing a guild to make a decision to KICK players who aren't as active in the game but who may have been in the guild for years.  This is not a good solution or Alliance in anyway. An alliance is the joining of forces by multiple guilds. 

 

Solution(s):

1. Give everyone a Sixth Guild Slot - a WvW specific slot. We create the alliance and invite people to that slot. But this creates the old problem of having to invite up to 500 players(leaving out possible guildies due to limit cap).

2. Have Guilds themselves invited to the Alliance(a new slot needed), not worrying about the player numbers. All a player would have to do is designate that they want to use their guild, a member an actual ALLIANCE(of guilds), and then we wouldn't have to worry about creating new guild halls or brand new guilds to invite 500 players to.

 

Overall, I see this as one big mess. It is not an alliance unless it joins groups(guilds) together.

 

It's a one week beta test, not a permanent change, to see how it works on the guild level first.

The second beta will have alliances in it.

[Dawdler.8521]

Just now, Heibi.4251 said:

Yeah, not good. We need an alliance system that lets us invite a Guild to the Alliance. Then everyone in that guild that belongs to the alliance can select who to represent easier. Literally all I read from ANET's post was that you need to create a brand new guild(falsely called and alliance) to play in WvW. Or be randomly tossed around to where ever ANET wants you.

For a one week beta. If you cant survive with "only" your WvW guild for a week I have no idea how you'll survive alliances. They stated the alliances would be phase 2.

[Infusion.7149]

2 minutes ago, Heibi.4251 said:

Yeah, not good. We need an alliance system that lets us invite a Guild to the Alliance. Then everyone in that guild that belongs to the alliance can select who to represent easier. Literally all I read from ANET's post was that you need to create a brand new guild(falsely called and alliance) to play in WvW. Or be randomly tossed around to where ever ANET wants you.

Have you played GW1? They had alliances in GW1 already so I'm pretty sure a similar system would be in place with alliance chat (in essence team chat but even outside WVW).

[Heibi.4251]

1 minute ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

For a one week beta. If you cant survive with "only" your WvW guild for a week I have no idea how you'll survive alliances. They stated the alliances would be phase 2.

I'm talking about the whole idea of what an Alliance actually is. We might have 15 guilds aligned but the way ANET proposes this is that the current guilds mean nothing. It's only a single guild in their eyes, but they want us to believe it is an alliance.

[Sviel.7493]

As far as new information I think it was just the details on how the Alliance phases will be done.  Still, that's more or less all that could really be said on the topic so I think it's fine.

 

My only concern is that they may be giving too much weight to player's willingness to adapt their strategies to accomplish goals. They said:

Quote

Once both population balance and rewards are addressed, our theory is that WvW gameplay may see a significant shift. Players tend to naturally optimize their gameplay towards “the goal”, and with that comes new strategy and meta.

However, previous WvW updates suggest that the organized crust of WvW is very static.  Players have one strategy (zerging) and they get upset when that strategy becomes less effective.  They don't look for other ways to be effective--they just whine a lot until things get nerfed/reverted.  Within zerging, there are some meta shifts here and there, but there's never any movement away from stacking tons of bodies on one tag as the solution to any and all problems.

 

It's possible that this will change once population balance and rewards are addressed, but I wouldn't bet on it.  Eventually, Anet is going to have to commit to WvW being a zerg-only mode OR they're going to have to add things that diminish zerging and not cave to pressure to neuter them later on.  I don't think they need to eliminate zerging, but if they don't move away from any competent zerg being able to one-push a keep in 5-10 minutes, there won't be any room for any non-zerg strategies.

 

Also, I think they should give a siege rework higher priority.  It is unlikely that "new strateg[ies] and meta[s]" will emerge given how one-dimensional sieges are.  You place your siege somewhere where enemies can't interact with it, then put a paperweight on your attack skill and do your best to stay awake.  Even if population balance and rewards are fixed, there are no trade-offs in siege play to give rise to alternate metas.  Disablers were intended to give some interaction, but projectile hate put the kibosh on that real quick.  If siege doesn't change, the one-push zerg strat will be unlikely to change even with balanced populations.  Defense will continue to be nothing but zerg fights in the lord's room.

 

That said, it's definitely a good strategy on their part to tune most things one at a time.  Tackling population imbalance first is absolutely the right call.  Rewards, on the other hand, should probably be worked on in tandem with other core systems.  Since the point of rewards is to incentivize you to play effectively, they need to ensure players have a wide degree of options to be effective.  Better rewards are meaningless if there is still only one effective strategy.  Rather than encouraging players to try new things, it will just make them feel worse about not having the beefiest zerg at any given moment.

[Dawdler.8521]

Just now, Heibi.4251 said:

I'm talking about the whole idea of what an Alliance actually is. We might have 15 guilds aligned but the way ANET proposes this is that the current guilds mean nothing. It's only a single guild in their eyes, but they want us to believe it is an alliance.

What are you even trying to say? 15 guilds in an alliance would be an alliance with 15 guilds.

[Heibi.4251]

1 minute ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Have you played GW1? They had alliances in GW1 already so I'm pretty sure a similar system would be in place with alliance chat (in essence team chat but even outside WVW).

Yes, but you represented one of the two factions. And your guild was aligned with that particular faction. Thus hundreds of guilds played on each side and they were in either the Canthan Alliance or the Kurzick Alliance. With the system proposed we won't have multiple guilds joining an alliance, we'll have a guild created and then invite people to it so we can all make sure we play on the same side. 

[Telgum.6071]

If guilds are going to receive such importance perhaps the maximum number of joinable guilds should be raised. 

Also, while I understand Anet wants to full focus on the restructuring part to make it well, it doesn't seem very logical to let the other improvements for the coming months. Many PvE players could show interest on WvW due to Alliances, many other exWvW players could return, and perhaps people who joined New World (with that disastrous feedback) would give GW2/WvW a shot. The time to implement motivations to play WvW is now, be small balance adjustments, better individual and group rewards and bug fixes.

World restructuring is great, but there has been a good amount of months, even years, waiting for other improvements. Don't keep delaying them, at least not those that could be made with not much effort, considering we are talking about one of the cornerstones of Guild Wars 2.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Telgum.6071

[Infusion.7149]

Just now, Heibi.4251 said:

Yes, but you represented one of the two factions. And your guild was aligned with that particular faction. Thus hundreds of guilds played on each side and they were in either the Canthan Alliance or the Kurzick Alliance. With the system proposed we won't have multiple guilds joining an alliance, we'll have a guild created and then invite people to it so we can all make sure we play on the same side. 

Read the phase 2 part

 

Quote

World Restructuring: Phase Two

The next planned addition to World Restructuring will be alliances functionality. This will allow multiple guilds to group together for the purposes of matchmaking. Each team can include multiple alliances. Our current plan is to limit Alliances to a total of 500 players, the same maximum size of a single guild. We’re trying to strike a balance between allowing existing player communities to be able to stick together while preventing the creation of juggernaut alliances.

 

[Dawdler.8521]

Just now, Heibi.4251 said:

 With the system proposed we won't have multiple guilds joining an alliance, we'll have a guild created and then invite people to it so we can all make sure we play on the same side. 

Oh for cripes sake you're not reading a word anyone writes. FOR A ONE WEEK BETA, BECAUSE ALLIANCES WONT BE IN IT UNTIL PHASE 2. 

[Heibi.4251]

1 minute ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

What are you even trying to say? 15 guilds in an alliance would be an alliance with 15 guilds.

Not the way it is being presented. If we have to create a completely new baby guild to invite "people" to, we aren't having a Guild Alliance at all. We are just having a new guild. And we have players with max guild slots.  Or, we have to kick players to make room for the new players. And I know many guild leaders won't like the idea of having to kick people just because they don't play WvW or get on as often.

This is going to be one big cluster.

[Heibi.4251]

5 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Oh for cripes sake you're not reading a word anyone writes. FOR A ONE WEEK BETA, BECAUSE ALLIANCES WONT BE IN IT UNTIL PHASE 2. 

Fine, we'll see in phase 2 if they keep their word. But once they set a player limit it comes down to kicking people if they only look to guild size. A TTS guild, for example, would be stuck with what they have.

ANET is too caught up on player numbers. How will they filter it? If 10 guilds join together and they have 100 players each but not all play WvW, how will they solve that issue? I'm sure they have some idea. But right now I see this as a massive cluster.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Heibi.4251

[Dawdler.8521]

7 minutes ago, Heibi.4251 said:

Fine, we'll see in phase 2 if they keep their word. But once they set a player limit it comes down to kicking people if they only look to guild size. A TTS guild, for example, would be stuck with what they have.

If phase 2 doesnt include alliances it wouldnt be phase 2. You're ranting about nothing. 

For the one week beta the very point is to spread out people everywhere so they can test the matchup algorithm. That's why it's a beta and why it'll reset after one week. If you want to create new guilds go ahead - it's totally pointless since they'll only last a week and then it's back to normal WvW. It would be hilarious if people leave their normal guilds for that or delete them to make space, or larger guilds kick their members to "make room". I can only imagine the cries at the end of the week when it's over.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Dawdler.8521