World Restructuring Beta 1 - Update

[Woop S.7851]

On 9/22/2021 at 9:53 AM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

The issue that prevented players from selecting certain guilds as their WvW Guild has been resolved. Please remember to choose your preferred WvW Guild by Thursday at 11:59pm PDT (UTC-7).

Been a while since I've played WvW [Henge of Denravi], tonight was very interesting:

• 9:00pm (PST): logged online, selected my casual WvW guild for the beta, entered EB with a Queue of 14
• 9:30: two other guildmates who haven't played in months as well messaged me
• 9:45: three of us started a squad, ran 2 Firebrand + 1 Rev, we roam/capped camps opposite of our server Zerg
• 10:30: three of us still together, big Zerg numbers started to fade (getting late?)
• 11:00: enemy started to night-cap, we called for help, only 10+ roamers showed up, our towers were flipped in 2-minutes, so we sent invite & roamers joined our group
• 11:15: saw a Dev running with enemy Zerg entering Pang tunnels, all 3 of us paused, the Dev paused too & jumped up and down staring at us 🤣 we chased him into the tunnels only to be flattened by enemy Zerg
• 11:30: both Guildies had to leave (getting late), 'outnumbered' icon popped-up, roamers left our group the minute we said we were done for the night (a squad evaporated in 3 seconds)
• 11:35: enemy Zerg started to flood in EB while night-capping our towers, overall a surprisingly fun night running with Guildies

Observations:

• Knowing before midnight we had to select a WvW guild, this 'deadline' timer indirectly affected all 3 guildies' behavior/activity in WvW & we met up purely by chance to Roam EB tonight (no pre-planning at all)
• Alot of new players/strangers on both sides, most on our side followed Zergs and were downed repeatly, I had to 'chatmander' for them to not rush in after their Tag died (5-10 small group leads seems needed in order to offer alternative group-up play, and not just 50-man meta Zergs)
• Strangers were interested in joining our small group after dying repeatly from Zerg clashes, initially the 3 of us advertised our group in the LFG panel as 'EBG roaming casuals', but no stranger voluntarily joined (UI/UX issue?), however when we manually sent them invites, they joined right away & roamed with us, perhaps they saw an 'alternative' method of play other than Zerging & dying? (need some sort of auto-grouping system for dynamic mini-groups where players are coming and going?)
• We had 3 small clashes with random enemy groups of similar sizes at camps/towers (mesmers, necros, revenants), we ran 2 guard 1 rev (quite Tanky), after winning a few times, the same enemy players avoided us & ran with their Zerg, based on this behavior, it's likely they were new (the game mode might need primary/secondary objectives or better UI/UX for alternative play styles & options: Solo, Small Group roam, or Zerg)
• As I am typing this message, it's past midnight, the enemy Zerg (night-cappers) must've flipped most EB towers by now (low pop currently on HOD servers)

After watching the old GW1 Alliance battle videos again:

• Primary/secondary objectives were designed as inversions of each other in order to affect player behavior (example: Zerg during a match can capture only 1 control point at a time versus split up into small groups to capture faster), though this only works for 'short' matches (20-min)
• It does however solve the issue where a weaker combat team matched with an expert team can still win against the enemy Zerg through capturing control points (at times 1 side might have 2 leavers too - unbalanced population)
• Old GW1 AB had three teams of 4 players each (12 v 12), if this grouping can somehow be encouraged/emulated in WvW, it can counter scenarios of spawn camping where a new solo player is repeatedly killed by 3 thieves while at spawn (bad initial user experience for those new to WvW)
• The 'Match' timer will play a crucial role to player behavior, if I have double the # of Zerg minions & know a match is 24/7 for 2-weeks, of course I'd nightcap as I'd know HOD will be asleep, it'd be easier
• However, if a match was 1-day or even 4-hours like EOTM, I'd order Zerglings to split up & capture points in parallel, not only am I racing against the enemy & fighting them off of control points, but I am racing against the 'timer' as well, otherwise no matter how skilled my Zerg is in combat, I'd still lose the match when 4-hours is up...

Hope this data helps! 😁

GW1 Alliance Battle Video Reference:

 

Edited September 24, 2021 by Woop S.7851

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Woop S.7851 said:

Been a while since I've played WvW [Henge of Denravi], tonight was very interesting:

• 9:00pm (PST): logged online, selected my casual WvW guild for the beta, entered EB with a Queue of 14
• 9:30: two other guildmates who haven't played in months as well messaged me
• 9:45: three of us started a squad, ran 2 Firebrand + 1 Rev, we roam/capped camps opposite of our server Zerg
• 10:30: three of us still together, big Zerg numbers started to fade (getting late?)
• 11:00: enemy started to night-cap, we called for help, only 10+ roamers showed up, our towers were flipped in 2-minutes, so we sent invite & roamers joined our group
• 11:15: saw a Dev running with enemy Zerg entering Pang tunnels, all 3 of us paused, the Dev paused too & jumped up and down staring at us 🤣 we chased him into the tunnels only to be flattened by enemy Zerg
• 11:30: both Guildies had to leave (getting late), 'outnumbered' icon popped-up, roamers left our group the minute we said we were done for the night (a squad evaporated in 3 seconds)
• 11:35: enemy Zerg started to flood in EB while night-capping our towers, overall a surprisingly fun night running with Guildies

Observations:

• Knowing before midnight we had to select a WvW guild, this 'deadline' timer indirectly affected all 3 guildies' behavior/activity in WvW & we met up purely by chance to Roam EB tonight (no pre-planning at all)
• Alot of new players/strangers on both sides, most on our side followed Zergs and were downed repeatly, I had to 'chatmander' for them to not rush in after their Tag died (5-10 small group leads seems needed in order to offer alternative group-up play, and not just 50-man meta Zergs)
• Strangers were interested in joining our small group after dying repeatly from Zerg clashes, initially the 3 of us advertised our group in the LFG panel as 'EBG roaming casuals', but no stranger voluntarily joined (UI/UX issue?), however when we manually sent them invites, they joined right away & roamed with us, perhaps they saw an 'alternative' method of play other than Zerging & dying? (need some sort of auto-grouping system for dynamic mini-groups where players are coming and going?)
• We had 3 small clashes with random enemy groups of similar sizes at camps/towers (mesmers, necros, revenants), we ran 2 guard 1 rev (quite Tanky), after winning a few times, the same enemy players avoided us & ran with their Zerg, based on this behavior, it's likely they were new (the game mode might need primary/secondary objectives or better UI/UX for alternative play styles & options: Solo, Small Group roam, or Zerg)
• As I am typing this message, it's past midnight, the enemy Zerg (night-cappers) must've flipped most EB towers by now (low pop currently on HOD servers)

After watching the old GW1 Alliance battle videos again:

• Primary/secondary objectives were designed as inversions of each other in order to affect player behavior (example: Zerg during a match can capture only 1 control point at a time versus split up into small groups to capture faster), though this only works for 'short' matches (20-min)
• It does however solve the issue where a weaker combat team matched with an expert team can still win against the enemy Zerg through capturing control points (at times 1 side might have 2 leavers too - unbalanced population)
• Old GW1 AB had three teams of 4 players each (12 v 12), if this grouping can somehow be encouraged/emulated in WvW, it can counter scenarios of spawn camping where a new solo player is repeatedly killed by 3 thieves while at spawn (bad initial user experience for those new to WvW)
• The 'Match' timer will play a crucial role to player behavior, if I have double the # of Zerg minions & know a match is 24/7 for 2-weeks, of course I'd nightcap as I'd know HOD will be asleep, it'd be easier
• However, if a match was 1-day or even 4-hours like EOTM, I'd order Zerglings to split up & capture points in parallel, not only am I racing against the enemy & fighting them off of control points, but I am racing against the 'timer' as well, otherwise no matter how skilled my Zerg is in combat, I'd still lose the match when 4-hours is up...

Hope this data helps! 😁

GW1 Alliance Battle Video Reference:

 

Nothing of this seem to have any meaning for the alliance matchup system and GW2 WvW.

[Gibson.4036]

Man, I feel like an idiot.

I'm only in two guilds, one that is largely defunct, and the other that only has my family of four in it. I've been playing WvW largely alone, so I thought, why choose to select a defunct guild or a guild of four? Might as well just let the system randomly assign me during the beta.

My son, though, just got interested in WvW and we've played an hour or two together. I didn't even think that we'd need to both choose our family guild so we could continue playing together over the beta. Ah well, live and learn.

[reddie.5861]

so i logged in, i didnt check any guild,  i open WvW window.
guess what im still on same freaking server. i was hoping i would be randomly thrown around to other servers but nope..

then question 2. im a leader of a guild, say i want to make a alliance with people on other server how i get this done?  i get free transfer then for 8 weeks?

basically what im saying is i wanna be thrown around every 8 weeks or w/e it takes to end a season.
i dont have anything with blob guilds, i just wanna be this freedom guy 😄

[Sviel.7493]

@reddie.5861The Alliance beta hasn't started yet.  You'll be shuffled at reset tonight.

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

19 hours ago, Josh Davis.7865 said:

Interesting question. You'd technically be matchmade as a guild, but it wouldn't change your placement really since we look at your WvW activity. Your WvW activity would be the exact the same if you matchmade as a solo player or as part of a 1 player guild.

Means you can still play as a guild in WvW even when aren't part of an alliance?

[Woop S.7851]

2 hours ago, Gibson.4036 said:

Man, I feel like an idiot.

I'm only in two guilds, one that is largely defunct, and the other that only has my family of four in it. I've been playing WvW largely alone, so I thought, why choose to select a defunct guild or a guild of four? Might as well just let the system randomly assign me during the beta.

My son, though, just got interested in WvW and we've played an hour or two together. I didn't even think that we'd need to both choose our family guild so we could continue playing together over the beta. Ah well, live and learn.

That's an interesting scenario 🙂 I was reluctant to log-on last night as well in order to select a WvW designated guild, the worry was there'd be cases where others forgot to do so & split us apart (hence throwing the algorithm & metrics off). All of the 5 guilds have been inactive for 2-months as well, yet surprisingly & unexpectedly 2 guildies showed up from my own guild, we mainly WvW (don't even have a guild hall), right away we roamed & had fun from the match, part of it might be due to the social nature of running solo (alone) versus wiping as a group (something hard for the algorithm to logically analyze), not sure about how other small groups approach it, but usually we'd re-evaluate our builds & try to sync them after each wipe, or try & figure out what the enemy was using...it creates a sense of helpfulness & 'common objectives/goal'...something the code/algorithm + UI/UX can possibly encourage...

Aside from the metrics of selecting a WvW guild, hopefully the algorithm will also capture 'random' or 'solo' player metrics (time of day, rank, kills per day, armor ratings, movement/distance etc.), it could improve 'sorting' at least & group them into the proper matches, this would increase the probability of them grouping up & establishing new guilds/communities resulting in a healthy ecosystem/loop, WvW over the years lost quite a bit of PvE players & Veterans, zerging aside, if the code can encourage group ups + provide a cushion where PvE newcomer is not 1-shoted repeatedly (dies alone), the transition of PvE -> WvW would be smoother, micro-communities might bloom, the only thing that seemed to be missing from last nights' match was a better Group-up/Party/LFG/Commander UI/UX (very hard to chatmander with these old fingers), but Algorithm should be the focus 1st I suppose, there's hope! 👍 😁

Edited September 24, 2021 by Woop S.7851

[Gibson.4036]

So, my son and I logged on over my lunch break today, and found we can still choose our battle guild. Hopefully that means we'll still get to play together across the week.

I'm very amused by the idea of the algorithm placing our little family guild with about a weeks worth of WvW experience somewhere in a team.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Chaba.5410]

22 minutes ago, Gibson.4036 said:

So, my son and I logged on over my lunch break today, and found we can still choose our battle guild. Hopefully that means we'll still get to play together across the week.

I'm very amused by the idea of the algorithm placing our little family guild with about a weeks worth of WvW experience somewhere in a team.

Don't think so.  The deadline was midnight.  Changing it after supposed to not do anything.

[Gibson.4036]

5 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Don't think so.  The deadline was midnight.  Changing it after supposed to not do anything.

 

Ah, okay. Bummer.

[phreeak.1023]

wow, anet screwed that up badly.

 

hope we get a rollback and a normal relink in some hours.

[Burial.1958]

very strange. My whole guild joined an Alliance. We all did the check but now we are playing in different teams. lulz

PS: Those WS are crap like kitten. Do i have now to wait 2 hours everyday do play? 

Edited September 24, 2021 by Grebcol.5984

[HitmanHaydon.1053]

Just got thorugh a queue of 50 people. Tried to travel to the boarder when it popped, said it was full and put me at the back of the queue.

TYVM for wasting mt evening.

[Dawdler.8521]

23 minutes ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

very strange. My whole guild joined an Alliance. We all did the check but now we are playing in different teams. lulz

PS: Those WS are crap like kitten. Do i have now to wait 2 hours everyday do play? 

There are no alliances yet. So kind of impossible. 

But the teams, yes they are kittened up haha. We where 4 in my guild joining on reset - 3 of us got on green side, 1 got on red side. When one of the 3 relogged, he got the same wvw selection as the 1 on red.  But when another did... still the same as before. The WvW menu says we're on a border we arent. The restructuring menu says we're all on the same team. Everything chaos. 

[Mores.2458]

Until these ridiculously long queues can be addressed, we cannot say that WvW is "fixed".

Frankly, I don't see the problem with creating shards on the fly to adapt to player load.  So you get green, red, blue, pink, yellow, brown with pink spots, mauve with yellow stripes etc. shards as WvW population grows.

[Burial.1958]

5 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

There are no alliances yet. So kind of impossible. 

But the teams, yes they are kittened up haha. We where 4 in my guild joining on reset - 3 of us got on green side, 1 got on red side. When one of the 3 relogged, he got the same wvw selection as the 1 on red.  But when another did... still the same as before. The WvW menu says we're on a border we arent. The restructuring menu says we're all on the same team. Everything chaos. 

Now over the top of that -> I got a french team. 😄 I can't a single word french so thats cool to play with persons i do not understand. At this state that's not even a Beta. That is an Alpha.

Edited September 24, 2021 by Grebcol.5984

[Sviel.7493]

I'm guessing that a bunch of people that were not all that active in WvW suddenly showed up again for this test.  That will likely mean that each team feels more stuffed than it usually should.

[Burial.1958]

Just now, Sviel.7493 said:

I'm guessing that a bunch of people that were not all that active in WvW suddenly showed up again for this test.  That will likely mean that each team feels more stuffed than it usually should.

 I have over 4000 Hours in WvWvW 🙃

[Sviel.7493]

15 minutes ago, Grebcol.5984 said:

 I have over 4000 Hours in WvWvW 🙃

I mean, there are likely people (including vets) who haven't been playing much recently who decided to come back for this test.  I don't think there's a way to account for that if they're being matched as solos.  The number of matches was probably fixed based on the population active at the time--new people (or old vets) popping up won't generate additional matches, so the existing ones just get stuffed.

[Burial.1958]

But that has nothing to do that there are multiple Instances. Peoples are also getting team changes when they logoff and login. There is something really buggy.

[Sviel.7493]

That part is definitely a bug.

I was talking about the massive queues some people are reporting.

[Chaba.5410]

EU queues are NA players logging into their EU accounts.  🙂

[Pesti.2685]

Rollback would be nice. Nearly no enemies were found and queues from hell.

I wanna have a choice, being a beta tester or not.

free week now.

thx.

[Burial.1958]

4 minutes ago, Pesti.2685 said:

Rollback would be nice. Nearly no enemies were found and queues from hell.

I wanna have a choice, being a beta tester or not.

free week now.

thx.

A PTS would solve this Problem. 

[Chips.7968]

11 minutes ago, Sviel.7493 said:

That part is definitely a bug.

I was talking about the massive queues some people are reporting.

Think there's a problem with the queues - I was in Obsidian Sanctum as the only place I could queue to get into. While inside OS I was surprised to find the outnumbered buff popping up. I checked, there was still a 14 man queue to OS.

 

Outnumbered on a queued map.