WvW restructuring has me worried

[Strider Pj.2193]

3 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Sure, most of them almost certainly do not recognize me. That's not surprising, seeing as i am not a dedicated WvW player, and do that content semi-casually, on on and off basis, when i feel like it. I do recognize a lot of guilds and players in there though. Whenever i enter, i feel like home.

After alliance goes in, i won't be in a tigh-knit 500 man alliance. Those will be made up out of WvW-focused guilds. My guild (which is primarily PvE-based) will end up being one of the ones randomly assigned to patch the holes.

See above. I did mention earlier that WvW guilds will retain their indentity - but most WvW players (or, at least, most players on Gandara) are not in those guilds. As such, they will never be part of that identity in the future. They will no longer have "their" server they could be proud of and indentify with.

You may think that it does not matter, but to many players it does.

this reply isn’t all geared towards you, but you bring up some points that others have as well.  

So..  you note your guild is PvE focused.  That does not mean that it cannot select itself as a ‘WvW guild’. That would ensure AT LEAST your Guild members would be together for WvW if they decided to play.  This would minimize you being used to ‘patch holes’

 

A second technique would be to ask some of the players that you play with frequently, what their WvW guild plans are, and seeing if they could invite you so you could designate THAT guild as your WvW guild.  Now, if you say you don’t have a guild slot open, I would say that you would have to decide the level of importance of your guilds.  Is playing WvW with people you enjoy important enough to give up another guild affiliation.  If not, I would argue it’s not important enough for you to worry about who you play with.  If yes, you have your solution.

 

Identifying with new players can be challenging, but if you have people you like to play with, there ARE solutions.

 

This last part might sound a little cold:  The people who have propped up WvW for years, playing consistently, working hard to ‘create content’ (guilds and commanders) for a mode that was flat out ignored and frankly damaged frequently by Anet since HoT, are finally going to have some attention sent their way that has been sorely needed.  If some people who just like to dabble in WvW have their comfort level uprooted? too bad.  

[Xanadrine.4352]

I think alliances are great, maybe now I can actually play with my guildmates instead of against them. Its long overdue, I stopped wvw because all our guild members are on opposite servers from each other, among other reasons.

 

I would also like to see some smaller scale wvw maps of team vs team capture the flag. Those are really fun games to get together with10 friends and do.

[Dawdler.8521]

4 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

See above. I did mention earlier that WvW guilds will retain their indentity - but most WvW players (or, at least, most players on Gandara) are not in those guilds. As such, they will never be part of that identity in the future. They will no longer have "their" server they could be proud of and indentify with.

Except, they can be part of it if they want to. That's literally what alliances and guilds are for. It just take a little more work than doing nothing. People act as if guilds will suddenly stop functioning with the alliance system, that people will become so paralyzed they cant do anything for themselves.

Have you been on a link server that no longer has its server name? A medium pop link server that feel like a ghosttown because everyone bandwagoned to other servers to get their "fights"?

This already happens in WvW. Your identity mean nothing.

[Hotride.2187]

My worry with alliances is that nothing will change in any significant way. On its own I have no problem with this, but the feature is being sold like a big thing, a big rework (it probably is in terms of developer effort).

So is wvw going to be abandoned again after alliances is deployed and finalized? Like "here, you can now play easier with your friends if for some reason you weren't already on the same world". But the gameplay is still stale?

[ASP.8093]

19 minutes ago, Hotride.2187 said:

My worry with alliances is that nothing will change in any significant way. On its own I have no problem with this, but the feature is being sold like a big thing, a big rework (it probably is in terms of developer effort).

So is wvw going to be abandoned again after alliances is deployed and finalized? Like "here, you can now play easier with your friends if for some reason you weren't already on the same world". But the gameplay is still stale?

We are also getting new especs.

[ArchonWing.9480]

6 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Sure, most of them almost certainly do not recognize me. That's not surprising, seeing as i am not a dedicated WvW player, and do that content semi-casually, on on and off basis, when i feel like it. I do recognize a lot of guilds and players in there though. Whenever i enter, i feel like home.

After alliance goes in, i won't be in a tigh-knit 500 man alliance. Those will be made up out of WvW-focused guilds. My guild (which is primarily PvE-based) will end up being one of the ones randomly assigned to patch the holes.

Although people seem rather dismissive of your concerns, I do think it's an issue.

Yes, you could join a community or alliance guild but honestly many would probably have to reconsider if you are worth the slot given the limit.  And then many parts of WvW are already extremely cliquish.

In my case, we do have very casual players that sometimes run with us that may have the same issue, but do not play very often. And we actually do care about them a little. I do think people are just kinda only caring of those within their own bubble these days.

This of course affects me none because I personally am set, but everyone is different. 

[Infusion.7149]

You're looking at it from the phase 1 angle where alliances don't actually exist.

The actuality is after phase 2 (when alliances are an actuality as opposed to guilds) you could ally your personal guild with a WvW guild of your choice , WvW server guild that exists just for banding server people together (up to 500 players), or join a WvW guild. If you're willing to do none of the above, then you probably don't care who you are playing with (unless the players are extremely vulgar and/or don't play as you like to , see the Maguuma references in the blogpost) and are just there "for the warclaw" or "for the skirmish tickets to make Conflux" or "for the skirmish tickets to make legendary armor because I hate raids and PVP". At least that is what I noticed.

[ASP.8093]

25 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Yes, you could join a community or alliance guild but honestly many would probably have to reconsider if you are worth the slot given the limit.

If the main complaint is "I love my community but they don't love me," uhhh, maybe it's time to rethink your attachment to that identity.

[ArchonWing.9480]

22 minutes ago, ASP.8093 said:

If the main complaint is "I love my community but they don't love me," uhhh, maybe it's time to rethink your attachment to that identity.

I'm pretty sure they just phrased that really badly, lol.

[Khisanth.2948]

17 hours ago, Hannelore.8153 said:

I just don't understand people. After all this time we're finally getting Guild Wars and players are worried about team identity when servers have been plagued with mass bandwagoning since many years.

You are supposed to hand wave and pretend these problem never existed. WvW has been a cheerful happy place in the past 9 years! OMG WHY are you changing it NAO???!!!

 

 

[ArchonWing.9480]

26 minutes ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

You are supposed to hand wave and pretend these problem never existed. WvW has been a cheerful happy place in the past 9 years! OMG WHY are you changing it NAO???!!!

 

 

But what's equally as silly is pretending that they would know how to fix this game mode after like 9 years of mistakes.

I mean sure this was inevitble, but can you blame the skeptics?

[Diku.2546]

20 hours ago, Rohkeus.9401 said:

Snip 8<

On first impression it feels i am losing in terms community and diversity of experience

Cheers,

Rohk 

Gandara right?  That's in Europe.

I understand what you're trying to say & agree with you wholeheartedly.

Don't put too much in emotionally investing into this game mode as a player or spectator to what could have been an incredible annual e-Sport event.

Example eSport - WvG - World vs Globes

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/89449/wvg-world-vs-globes/p1

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The forum experts here are only interested in debating you till you're frustrated...and then some...imho.

You can only shake your head, find comfort in finding other areas in life to invest your time, and say:

I Told you So...

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/1311428/#Comment_1311428

Yours truly,
Diku

Credibility requires critical insight & time.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Diku.2546

[Xenesis.6389]

11 hours ago, Kelly.5293 said:

I get it but... I'm on Maguuma and I see the server as a whole as my guild and team as a pug. Think, Breakfast Club but with more swagger.

I pug every night with many of the same complete randoms. I feel like this will remove all the camaraderie for those who pug for a server. I'll just be blue..or red or green.. What if we did this to all the sports teams? Everyone's just blue, red or green. Sounds super boring.. This will force me to join a guild, lose my play style and yet still just play for one of 3 colors.

I thought rivalries was the point of WvW? I guess we're all friends now? Maybe they don't understand the nature of playing WvW as a pug?

I don't know about this.

 

Mag already has their community guild, so join them? You'll still be able to play with those and make fun of the rest as usual.

 

And if you hadn't noticed, many times call outs are labeled blue green red, people hardly use server names anymore since the option to abbreviate names, if you don't use the names, and your enemies don't use the names, the identity has already been washed out.

 

I get that people like to attach themselves to an identity to play for and cheer for and be loyal to, but over the years many have come to use their guilds for this instead of their server. Many guilds have transferred many times over the years, and I'm sure many were tested with this choice to either stay with their server or move with their guild, many probably choose their guild. Guilds are the sports teams, servers are more like the arenas, and the none guild/casuals are the fans that come out streaking everyone at a whistle break.

 

Actual server communities that included many dedicated home guilds, have been dying for a long time now, from megaserver, from linking which killed half the servers name identities, from bandwagon transfers of stacking and destacking from day one, from players moving from ppt gameplay to just fights and not caring much about their own stuff to win, communities are a shadow of their former selves even from before HoT.

 

Alliances will function much like relinks, even eight weeks you get to see new people from another server(alliance) with you, the difference will be the usual players you see on your side regardless of linked worlds, and that can be for the most part be solved with player created guild communities. You have that choice to create or join one, you've already had three years to think about it and now organize it.

[Sviel.7493]

3 hours ago, Hotride.2187 said:

My worry with alliances is that nothing will change in any significant way. On its own I have no problem with this, but the feature is being sold like a big thing, a big rework (it probably is in terms of developer effort).

So is wvw going to be abandoned again after alliances is deployed and finalized? Like "here, you can now play easier with your friends if for some reason you weren't already on the same world". But the gameplay is still stale?

 The plan is to first gain tools to address population imbalance via Alliances, then implement sufficient rewards that people actually care about winning, then change any and all systems necessary to improve the game mode.

 

I get the feeling that we're not going to be abandoned this time, but I wonder what sort of game Anet is looking to make WvW into after all these years.  They can't just listen to the players as there are too many factions in opposition to one another, so they're going to have to make a stand on some things and it's really not clear what that's going to look like.

[Burial.1958]

3 hours ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Although people seem rather dismissive of your concerns, I do think it's an issue.

Yes, you could join a community or alliance guild but honestly many would probably have to reconsider if you are worth the slot given the limit.  And then many parts of WvW are already extremely cliquish.

In my case, we do have very casual players that sometimes run with us that may have the same issue, but do not play very often. And we actually do care about them a little. I do think people are just kinda only caring of those within their own bubble these days.

This of course affects me none because I personally am set, but everyone is different. 

 

And thats why i would love the system like in GW 1 where Guilds joining the Alliance as a division. That means that you stay in your guild everytime but your guild is a division of alliance XZY. That could also be show at the Tags then ingame. Instead "Drakkar Invader Tag Guild XZY" it would be "Alliance Name Invader Tag Guild XZY".  I really dislike to join a Big Guild where some toxic leaders can do whatever they want. With a division system the guilds will stay a bit more independent. An Alliance chat would also be a nice addition then.

 

One thing where is see a big problem is on EU. Different languages and there are peoples who don't speak english (in PvE not that problematic but in WvWvW it can be a big impact). Really problematic for baruch because it is the only spanish shard. Personally i don't have any problems with it but i know alot peoples who really dislike that and of course it makes me a bit sad that i eventually loose all my fellow comrades which i know for 9 years now. My shard has definitly more than 500 Heads......

Edited September 12, 2021 by Grebcol.5984

[apharma.3741]

I'm not sure what everyone elses experience in WvW is but I'll put mine.

 

The guild I am in has always been on WSR from core, we were there in OK times at launch, then the not so good times of forever bronze, then the slightly better times climbing out of bronze just before linked servers stopped us. I'd say a good 90%+ of our guild has never transferred their accounts off the server (though a few have alt accounts they occaisonally play) and we know many other guilds and players who do the same. So there will be an element of loss when WSR is no more and many of the other small guilds and players we have seen running around are no longer there.

I was one of the few (that <10%) who had a small stint on Gunnar's Hold for about a year and I met a few different people, they used to have commanders who tagged up a lot in the public teamspeak. A lot of the time they would get similar like minded individuals and be open to everyone to join whether you're part of the furniture or new to the whole thing. There was also Sunday morning coffee "raids" as well as drunk reset (I'm sure many other servers had this) and again all were welcome and you had a sense of community, that you were a part of something bigger than you.

 

In both instances there were a lot of players you eventually get used to seeing, sort of like neighbours who you say "Hi" to on the street, maybe stop and have a chat or help out if they look like they are having difficulties. That will be gone with Alliances, guilds and people you play with will shift every few months which is akin to having new neighbours every few months unless they all move into a house together...not sure that flies for many.

 

We'll see how it goes but I doubt Alliances will have the effect many were hoping for. That's not me saying it's bad before everyone jumps at, just be careful what you wish for...

Edited September 12, 2021 by apharma.3741

[Dawdler.8521]

19 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

In both instances there were a lot of players you eventually get used to seeing, sort of like neighbours who you say "Hi" to on the street, maybe stop and have a chat or help out if they look like they are having difficulties. That will be gone with Alliances, guilds and people you play with will shift every few months which is akin to having new neighbours every few months unless they all move into a house together...not sure that flies for many.

Except you're just describing the link system that's been in place for 5 years or so.

Also I find it somewhat funny you say WSR when its a world so many guilds bandwagoned onto. But apparently guilds moving around when it benefit your world is OK, but it's not gonna be OK when they'll move around under the alliance flag. 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[apharma.3741]

1 minute ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Except you're just describing the link system that's been in place for 5 years or so.

Also I find it somewhat funny you say WSR when its a world so many guilds bandwagoned onto. But apparently guilds moving around when it benefit your world is OK, but it's not gonna be OK when they'll move around under the alliance flag. 

I think you're missing that the velocity of these changes will be literally every 2 months where you may not recognise anyone outside of your own guild. That is VERY different to the linking system we have now.

 

Ah yes, I knew there would be a salty remark about the WSR bandwagon, they have moved on, I suggest you do the same. It was always going to happen and there will always be people who stack match ups, alliances won't change that.

[ASP.8093]

11 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

I think you're missing that the velocity of these changes will be literally every 2 months where you may not recognise anyone outside of your own guild. That is VERY different to the linking system we have now.

 

Ah yes, I knew there would be a salty remark about the WSR bandwagon, they have moved on, I suggest you do the same. It was always going to happen and there will always be people who stack match ups, alliances won't change that.

I mean, at least half of them will just be people I already remember from a year of relinks.

 

Same "oh, yeah, that guy" energy as seeing a neighbor or acquaintance after a few months.

[Dawdler.8521]

28 minutes ago, apharma.3741 said:

I think you're missing that the velocity of these changes will be literally every 2 months where you may not recognise anyone outside of your own guild. That is VERY different to the linking system we have now.

Unless that guild is in an alliance which makes it VERY similar to the link system albeit with smaller links, of course. 

[subversiontwo.7501]

On 9/11/2021 at 11:51 PM, Rohkeus.9401 said:

Since u can only join 1 guild per season and since guilds appear to be segregated by levels of try-hard (from community guild to 95% benchmarks) wont this completely separate the community ? And hence the more casual are gona get shitstomped ? And even if they balance it, i always found the mix of casual and guild groups to be more interesting. And a way to disseminate game knowledge through the community?

I think this is you mixing up Worlds and Alliances. Alot of people who have concerns do. Alliances (and Alliance-less Guilds and Guild-less Players) will be put on Worlds (of 2500 or something to that effect). Even if you choose to be transfered solo you will always be put on a World every 8 weeks or so. That world is random or you will be given a choice among remaining open slots. You can end up on the worst world, you can end up on the best world or you can end up in anything in the middle. A strong Guild or Alliance will never make up more than ~1/5 of a World. There will likely be algorithms running pairing stronger and weaker groups together like the linking system pair servers now; but under the new system the strong groups will not be able to transfer together, yet they will also not be forced to transfer because their popularity constantly pushes their server full.

 

The only thing you could be a bit worried about is that your present server has guilds and commanders that are relatively casual friendly. Not every server does. However, many other servers do have casual-friendly guilds. That has always been a double-edged sword though, especially for your server where friendliness is met with selfishness or turns into weakness. Every server toils with getting people to learn, to balance out the composition of squads and with getting people to a point where they can be lead (incl. voice). Your server is one of the few servers where commanders can be taken advantage of, or taken for granted and the tags keep going even when they ask why they have 2/50 Firebrands or 36/50 Scourges 🙂 .

 

Quote

How will this solve the distribution of players ?

The relinking system we have now only pair differently sized servers together in a world. It does not change the sizes of the servers. When relinking came out in 2016 Anet posted a slope graph image of the server sizes (without names). The difference between the largest and the smallest was more than 10x. While players can transfer under the new system too, the system takes all the worlds and even out their numbers every 8 weeks. Any maldistribution of players thus get evened out every 8 weeks. Any attempt to stack a world gets reset every 8 weeks and so forth.

 

It will also enable something else with that. It will give players more reason to organise into something again. It gives you more tools to organise with. It opens up more recruitment pools so players organising will more easily find likeminded players in these levels of tryhard that you speak of. It will lead to more reasons to be more ambitious in building community, sharing information and teaching players. It will hopefully diversify more ways to organise and play. People even on your own server today are highly uninspired and just go through the motions.

 

Quote

Are we pretending there is not gona be a bunch of tier 1 super alliances with the same pooling of players at the top ?

No, there will likely be tier 1 Super Alliances. The WvW mode has a ladder and that ladder intends for there to be Alliances that are somewhat super in tier 1. However, what makes them super will not be them being 10x larger anymore. What makes them "super" will at least be less likely that they are stronger at night than at day anymore.

 

It will likely restore the ladder, make it more meaningful and make it better at providing fair match ups - making the true "supers" sit in tier 1 rather than bullying other worlds in tier 3. The problem since WvW came out is that tier 1 never was the best, it was always the largest and those most out of their own timezone. With population (size) balanced and timezones (region) at least a bit better re-tooled things like organisation, experience and the like is going to impact the system more (until Anet does something that directly affects scoring and hours even better).

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by subversiontwo.7501

[Sykper.6583]

Dumb question, what's stopping guilds from forming naming themselves say, 'Guild of Magumma' or so on with the new system and making that alliance? I think Server identities could still be retained to an extent.

Heck, we could get some feisty stuff where guilds in an alliance divide due to some drama. The key point idea is that WvW does become something more fluid and guilds matter more than they do now.

If Anet has the right idea for rewards, it's probably hopeless optimism but I would love a resurgence of WvW.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Sykper.6583
spacing

[ArchonWing.9480]

5 minutes ago, Sykper.6583 said:

Dumb question, what's stopping guilds from forming naming themselves say, 'Guild of Magumma' or so on with the new system and making that alliance? I think Server identities could still be retained to an extent.

Heck, we could get some feisty stuff where guilds in an alliance divide due to some drama. The key point idea is that WvW does become something more fluid and guilds matter more than they do now.

If Anet has the right idea for rewards, it's probably hopeless optimism but I would love a resurgence of WvW.

That will probably be the defacto way of organizing things.

I guess people could be afraid of abuse of power when the stakes are a bit higher. Incidentally, did you know same ranked people can kick each other?

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

You're looking at it from the phase 1 angle where alliances don't actually exist.

The actuality is after phase 2 (when alliances are an actuality as opposed to guilds) you could ally your personal guild with a WvW guild of your choice , WvW server guild that exists just for banding server people together (up to 500 players), or join a WvW guild. If you're willing to do none of the above, then you probably don't care who you are playing with (unless the players are extremely vulgar and/or don't play as you like to , see the Maguuma references in the blogpost) and are just there "for the warclaw" or "for the skirmish tickets to make Conflux" or "for the skirmish tickets to make legendary armor because I hate raids and PVP". At least that is what I noticed.

I get the feeling that some people just don't want to commit.

 

"I love you but it would be better if I could also 'see' other people."

"I love playing with these people but there are also these people on the side ..."

 

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Yes, you could join a community or alliance guild but honestly many would probably have to reconsider if you are worth the slot given the limit.  And then many parts of WvW are already extremely cliquish.

and why would anyone want to cling to a group who has no interest in having them as part of the group? Feelings are clearly not mutual if it is like how you describe it.

 

Don't be a stalker.

 

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

In my case, we do have very casual players that sometimes run with us that may have the same issue, but do not play very often. And we actually do care about them a little. I do think people are just kinda only caring of those within their own bubble these days.

Would they truly be any worse without you?

 

Sure it might push them out of their comfort zone. They'll have to go and meet new people but at the same time they might meet people who care about them more than just 'a bit'.

 

Putting it another way ...

"but MOM I don't want to transfer to a new school, all my friends are here"

Mom: "you'll make new friends and hey things like phones and the Internet exist these days, you can still keep in contact with your friends even if you move to the other side of the planet"

 

2 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

But what's equally as silly is pretending that they would know how to fix this game mode after like 9 years of mistakes.

I mean sure this was inevitble, but can you blame the skeptics?

Doing nothing won't fix anything either. Certain problems have been identified but probably not all of them. This(and other changes) is an attempt at fixing some of them. The solution may create new problems of their own and that is fine, **as long as ANet continues to commit resources to developing WvW**.

 

 

 

[apharma.3741]

1 hour ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

That will probably be the defacto way of organizing things.

I guess people could be afraid of abuse of power when the stakes are a bit higher. Incidentally, did you know same ranked people can kick each other?

Yes I believe a lot of servers will likely have a guild or several for the community to stick together, I know we're organising one.

 

If there's a reason to win I'm sure we will see a return of the Whitedoor server with heavily curated and bought members of guilds where the majority of public coms are all in one server as well as several "raid" guilds and more able players who want to win at all costs.

 

As I say, be careful what you wish for.