Are Alliances Even Beneficial?

[Peachblow.2637]

Just looking for a civil discussion to help me understand what the hype of alliances is and why it is sought after versus alternative options (such as eliminating low population servers, or what have you). My opinion is that I see alliances as a step backwards, but I also recognize ignorance is bliss. Thus, here I am asking why players are looking forward to this.

Currently, with the server system as-is, I genuinely enjoy the server identity and being familiarized with the various commanders within a server without having to join a WvW "mega guild". I enjoy being able to play with friends and guild mates within my guild in WvW as we're all within one server. It's to my understanding that if you're not "dedicating" your account to a WvW mega guild with your other friends when alliances go live, you're essentially just a filler. As a filler, you no longer have server identity and you're randomly tossed around based on an alliance's population that week which then means you're not able to play with players that you have built some sort of relationship with from the current server system. How I see it, the only way to play with these people is if the people you have built relationships with all collectively create or join one WvW mega guild (or alliance) which isn't a suitable option to many of us for a plethora of reasons. 

I don't know what kind of work the developers and their teams take to make this alliance system work, but depending on the "why" this system is being implemented, would it not be easier to eliminate low-pop servers, give those players a free server transfer and voila? Is the current server-linking not working? These would seem to take far less resources that could be better spent in other areas. I see this alliance approach as more restrictive than keeping the server system intact, thus here I am seeking genuine insight on the pros of this new system. 

Cheers!

[God.2708]

You will probably get like 10 different answers to this post, but IMO there are two very important reasons alliances (in some form at least) are necessary to WvW's long term success.

The first is that match ups are not equal and leaving them with server blocs makes that an impossibility. It's like sitting down with 16 random objects and trying to put them together to make a cube. Anets only solution inside their system to do that is to forcibly move people (which is just alliances in an uglier way) or lock things and hope people will do it themselvse (hint, they don't).

The second, and is probably more relatable to you given your experiences you've posted, is that the server system actively hampers people playing with their friends. If I want to tell my real life friend 'Yo this game is great, come play with me' but my server is full, well... Anet just told my friend to indirectly kitten off. There are alternative solutions to the issue of someone being treated like 'filler' and wanting to maintain some sembelance of identity. There are no alternatives to the server system keeping me from playing with my friends other than just removing the 'full' status. In which case, see point one.

[bigo.9037]

its a rather simple solution. just make a guild with all the active players on your current server so you can all play together.

[Peachblow.2637]

23 minutes ago, God.2708 said:

You will probably get like 10 different answers to this post, but IMO there are two very important reasons alliances (in some form at least) are necessary to WvW's long term success.

The first is that match ups are not equal and leaving them with server blocs makes that an impossibility. It's like sitting down with 16 random objects and trying to put them together to make a cube. Anets only solution inside their system to do that is to forcibly move people (which is just alliances in an uglier way) or lock things and hope people will do it themselvse (hint, they don't).

The second, and is probably more relatable to you given your experiences you've posted, is that the server system actively hampers people playing with their friends. If I want to tell my real life friend 'Yo this game is great, come play with me' but my server is full, well... Anet just told my friend to indirectly kitten off. There are alternative solutions to the issue of someone being treated like 'filler' and wanting to maintain some sembelance of identity. There are no alternatives to the server system keeping me from playing with my friends other than just removing the 'full' status. In which case, see point one.

I'm not entirely sure I understand or follow the first point so much, but I do appreciate the part about server population levels on the second part. Though couldn't alliances pose as the same issue as server population levels? Theoretically, if you were to join a WvW mega guild to play with friends and you have a friendly just coming into the game, that WvW mega guild or alliance might be at its 500-person cap, thus not being able to play anyway. Whether it be the current server system or the alliance system, the only way to link up with this new friend would be to switch servers or switch guilds/alliances. Or do I have that incorrect (I thought there was a 500-person limit on alliances). 

[Peachblow.2637]

Just now, bigo.9037 said:

its a rather simple solution. just make a guild with all the active players on your current server so you can all play together.

I'm not opposed to that at all. In fact, I sort of prefer it, but I guess the issue is (A) how's it really any different than just keeping the server system as-is and (B) assuming that I am correct in the 500-person alliance limit, that "server guild" would fill up extremely fast.

[God.2708]

25 minutes ago, weskay.9217 said:

I'm not entirely sure I understand or follow the first point so much, but I do appreciate the part about server population levels on the second part. Though couldn't alliances pose as the same issue as server population levels? Theoretically, if you were to join a WvW mega guild to play with friends and you have a friendly just coming into the game, that WvW mega guild or alliance might be at its 500-person cap, thus not being able to play anyway. Whether it be the current server system or the alliance system, the only way to link up with this new friend would be to switch servers or switch guilds/alliances. Or do I have that incorrect (I thought there was a 500-person limit on alliances). 

It's a game of numbers. With server blocs you have exactly 24 pieces to mix together to create 'even' match ups.
I just slapped 'give me 16 random numbers from 1-100' into a random number generator, here are your pieces: 97, 92, 27, 82, 49, 64, 16, 29, 4, 60, 35, 14, 3, 2, 96, 52

Mathematically the way you approach such a problem is to simply merge the highests and lowests until you meet in the middle

97+2
96+3
92+4
82+14
64+16
60+27
52+29
49+35

Hopefully this reveals the issues. You can do things like make sets of 3 instead of 2, etc, but it's still very difficult and generally will not play out nicely.

EDIT:  I also want to note that since the numbers were from a random number generator, they are going to automatically 'trend' towards balance thanks to the law of averages. Servers don't have that.

What if instead of 24 pieces you had 1000? Maybe 50 mid to large guilds, 150 small guilds, and 800 'solo' players. Now you have an easy time mixing to make sides equal because you have more pieces to put together.

Of course in an ideal system you don't just factor in player counts, but those are things that can be worked into the system once the groundwork is laid. The point is to give the ability to work with as many pieces as possible. I would agree that the alliance system will trend towards 'shrinking' the number of pieces as people opt into making small guilds to stick together with friends, etc. But it will still give anet a lot more flexibility than the server system will, where all you have to work with is 24 pieces.

---
You do have that correct if the guild is maxed out. And I'd agree that it is somewhat analogous to a server being full. I think the important distinction to be made is in who's hands the power is to get that person in though. With a guild the leader can check and see 'oh, this person told me they quit WvW, let's make some space.' And it's also ultimately on said guild if the person can't play together, so perhaps they break off into a new guild, which is healthier for the competitive environment. With a server we aren't allowed to see what happens behind the curtain, if we should try to start a new guild, or if the server will open up, or anything. I am personally in favor of putting as much relationship building power in players hands as possible.

I would also question just how much 'friendship' is occurring in a 500 person guild that isn't already devolved into cliques that should break into smaller guilds in the first place, but that would be a different topic.

Edited November 7, 2021 by God.2708

[Xenesis.6389]

1 hour ago, weskay.9217 said:

I enjoy being able to play with friends and guild mates within my guild in WvW as we're all within one server. 

You are already in a guild, that plays on a server, that gets relinked every 2 months with another server. The only difference with alliances is if your friends are not with your guild then they would have to either join your guild or an alliance with your guild to stay together.

You have the option to stay together by joining a guild or alliance with your friends.

 

Quote

 

It's to my understanding that if you're not "dedicating" your account to a WvW mega guild with your other friends when alliances go live, you're essentially just a filler.

 

If they were not joining your guild before this, they were essentially still filler.

You have the option to stay together by joining a guild or alliance with your friends.

 

Quote

 

As a filler, you no longer have server identity and you're randomly tossed around based on an alliance's population that week which then means you're not able to play with players that you have built some sort of relationship with from the current server system.

 

You are not tossed into an alliance, you're not tossed randomly every week. Worlds(servers) will be created every two months, they will sort players accordingly from alliances to guilds to solos, to match activity times across all the worlds. You will play wvw exactly as you do now with links, you will be with that world for two months.

You have the options to stay together by joining a guild or alliance with your friends.

 

Quote

How I see it, the only way to play with these people is if the people you have built relationships with all collectively create or join one WvW mega guild (or alliance) which isn't a suitable option to many of us for a plethora of reasons. 

The only viable excuse would be people don't have enough guild slots to accompany this new change. Anet said they are looking into that. But really, if you can't dedicate one out of five guild slots to a wvw guild for even staying together with your current community, I dunno what to tell you.

Quote

 

I don't know what kind of work the developers and their teams take to make this alliance system work, but depending on the "why" this system is being implemented, would it not be easier to eliminate low-pop servers, give those players a free server transfer and voila? Is the current server-linking not working? These would seem to take far less resources that could be better spent in other areas. I see this alliance approach as more restrictive than keeping the server system intact, thus here I am seeking genuine insight on the pros of this new system. 

Cheers!

 

Transfers is what the problem is, and over nine years with mass transfers it has already wrecked pretty much every server.

The system will better help balance out players, so we hopefully don't have situations like Blackgate super stack that lasted for years with no other server able to match their population or coverage, or Sea of Sorrows which has had a stack ocx for nine years with little NA which makes them incredibly difficult to get a decent match with since most of their ocx population is on that one server, meanwhile all the other servers are NA heavy.

 

If we want the nice things like tournaments in the future then the population must be even out in some way, to some degree, to make it competitive. And since long ago players decided they didn't want more smaller sized servers to give more granular pieces to even out links, anet decided to go the other way and use the player groups instead.

[Peachblow.2637]

31 minutes ago, God.2708 said:

It's a game of numbers. With server blocs you have exactly 24 pieces to mix together to create 'even' match ups.
I just slapped 'give me 16 random numbers from 1-100' into a random number generator, here are your pieces: 97, 92, 27, 82, 49, 64, 16, 29, 4, 60, 35, 14, 3, 2, 96, 52

Mathematically the way you approach such a problem is to simply merge the highests and lowests until you meet in the middle

97+2
96+3
92+4
82+14
64+16
60+27
52+29
49+35

Hopefully this reveals the issues. You can do things like make sets of 3 instead of 2, etc, but it's still very difficult and generally will not play out nicely.

EDIT:  I also want to note that since the numbers were from a random number generator, they are going to automatically 'trend' towards balance thanks to the law of averages. Servers don't have that.

What if instead of 24 pieces you had 1000? Maybe 50 mid to large guilds, 150 small guilds, and 800 'solo' players. Now you have an easy time mixing to make sides equal because you have more pieces to put together.

Of course in an ideal system you don't just factor in player counts, but those are things that can be worked into the system once the groundwork is laid. The point is to give the ability to work with as many pieces as possible. I would agree that the alliance system will trend towards 'shrinking' the number of pieces as people opt into making small guilds to stick together with friends, etc. But it will still give anet a lot more flexibility than the server system will, where all you have to work with is 24 pieces.

---
You do have that correct if the guild is maxed out. And I'd agree that it is somewhat analogous to a server being full. I think the important distinction to be made is in who's hands the power is to get that person in though. With a guild the leader can check and see 'oh, this person told me they quit WvW, let's make some space.' And it's also ultimately on said guild if the person can't play together, so perhaps they break off into a new guild, which is healthier for the competitive environment. With a server we aren't allowed to see what happens behind the curtain, if we should try to start a new guild, or if the server will open up, or anything. I am personally in favor of putting as much relationship building power in players hands as possible.

I would also question just how much 'friendship' is occurring in a 500 person guild that isn't already devolved into cliques that should break into smaller guilds in the first place, but that would be a different topic.

OK, this makes more sense. While I don't love the concept, I certainly see the value in the numbers of 24 < 1000, or whatever that number would be. It could make for more unique match-ups. Though I suppose if there are a few top-tier powerhouse alliances, a few mid-tier alliance, and a few weaker-tier alliances, in time, wouldn't the match-ups sort of become less dynamic as they are with servers anyway? Until people shift themselves to new guilds or alliance, of course. 

[Peachblow.2637]

9 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

You are already in a guild, that plays on a server, that gets relinked every 2 months with another server. The only difference with alliances is if your friends are not with your guild then they would have to either join your guild or an alliance with your guild to stay together.

You have the option to stay together by joining a guild or alliance with your friends.

 

If they were not joining your guild before this, they were essentially still filler.

You have the option to stay together by joining a guild or alliance with your friends.

 

You are not tossed into an alliance, you're not tossed randomly every week. Worlds(servers) will be created every two months, they will sort players accordingly from alliances to guilds to solos, to match activity times across all the worlds. You will play wvw exactly as you do now with links, you will be with that world for two months.

You have the options to stay together by joining a guild or alliance with your friends.

 

The only viable excuse would be people don't have enough guild slots to accompany this new change. Anet said they are looking into that. But really, if you can't dedicate one out of five guild slots to a wvw guild for even staying together with your current community, I dunno what to tell you.

I'm curious to see what ArenaNet has in stores for people that already are at max guilds. Even if it's not a grand-scale issue, I'm sure others are in the same boat as me in that I have a primary guild I represent say 90% of the time and then a few others for very specific needs whether that be a storage/bank guild, Friday night raid guild, family/kid guild, and perhaps a meta world-event guild. I face a similar issue in that I don't have space for a WvW mega guild, nor do I *really* want to be in one. I suppose that's the double-edged sword for me in why alliances put a sour-taste in my mouth. I'd sooner represent and dedicate my "allegiance" to the 90% guild I am in so I can still play with my dozen friends. Though, the issue is that these friends would also have to do the same, but I know a few are in some WvW guilds that they'll probably end up dedicating themselves to that guild. It sort of poses as an ultimatum in that you either join that guild all together or you don't and will rarely ever play together. 

Despite the sour-taste, I do appreciate your views and thoughts on this. 

[Xenesis.6389]

11 minutes ago, weskay.9217 said:

I face a similar issue in that I don't have space for a WvW mega guild, nor do I *really* want to be in one.

You said you have a guild in wvw already, why do you need to join a mega guild?

Also if those friends are all currently on your server, playing in different guilds, you all still have the option to create an alliance of those guilds to stay together as you do now....

 

P.S there are other benefits to this system, like players can now always be with their guild, they won't have to paid transfer fees, they won't have to wait on servers to open up, they won't have to keep joining link servers in order to play with their guild on a host server.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Xenesis.6389

[Peachblow.2637]

5 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

You said you have a guild in wvw already, why do you need to join a mega guild?

Also if those friends are all currently on your server, playing in different guilds, you all still have the option to create an alliance of those guilds to stay together as you do now....

That's right. Although we're all together in one guild and roam together a few times during the week for a few hours, others will link up with larger zerg guilds at other times. When alliances go live, they'll have to decide if they want to dedicate themselves to us or to that zerg guild rather than just being able to play with both with the current server style. That's what I'm referring to about the ultimatum. I'm the guild leader of the guild we're all in so I'm reluctant to want to dedicate myself elsewhere and said friend is just one person in that zerg guild of (probably) well over 100 people. So creating an alliance between my guild and theirs is likely not a reality. It creates a more restrictive environment for myself and others in similar situations. 

[Xenesis.6389]

4 minutes ago, weskay.9217 said:

That's right. Although we're all together in one guild and roam together a few times during the week for a few hours, others will link up with larger zerg guilds at other times. When alliances go live, they'll have to decide if they want to dedicate themselves to us or to that zerg guild rather than just being able to play with both with the current server style. That's what I'm referring to about the ultimatum. I'm the guild leader of the guild we're all in so I'm reluctant to want to dedicate myself elsewhere and said friend is just one person in that zerg guild of (probably) well over 100 people. So creating an alliance between my guild and theirs is likely not a reality. It creates a more restrictive environment for myself and others in similar situations. 

 

Alliances have room for 500 people and unlimited guilds. Have you asked them about alliances?

 

[Peachblow.2637]

1 minute ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

Alliances have room for 500 people and unlimited guilds. Have you asked them about alliances?

 

I thought it was 3 guilds per alliance. If it is unlimited, that'll be handy. Though I can imagine that the 500 member limit could hit its cap quite quickly. I haven't inquired about any alliances, but we've been looking at some alternatives anyway that we can hopefully all collectively agree on. I'll keep that in mind, however. 

[Dawdler.8521]

9 hours ago, Peachblow.2637 said:

I thought it was 3 guilds per alliance. If it is unlimited, that'll be handy.

Dont think we have seen any information for how the alliance management system works (ie admin, player and guild handling, limitations, etc). I'm still not even sure Anet knows, they've only focused on WvW guild selection and the shuffle system so far.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Danikat.8537]

I'm in a similar situation, but it's made me realise my current 'team' is random anyway. I didn't choose to be on this server because I knew and liked the commanders or other players (I picked it shortly before the headstart weekend and wasn't thinking about WvW at all) and I'm not in contact with them outside of joining their squads in WvW so I don't know when they move on or off the server. A while ago I found out one commander I like isn't even on my server, they're on one we're frequently linked with.

One reason I've never moved is that based on how some people talk about WvW I seem to have gotten lucky, my server is generally friendly and there's often open tags to join, but I doubt that the only way to continue that experience is to somehow follow the same commanders into their team/s.

I'm also not in a position to join a WvW guild because I only play it occasionally. I might play WvW 2 hours a day for a week, then not at all for a month, or 4 hours on one day, or 1 hour every other day, then skip it for 2 weeks...I doubt a WvW guild would want someone who isn't there most of the time, so I'm going to be joining one of my 2 social guilds in whichever team they end up in. If it doesn't work out I'll figure something else out, but for now I'm finding it helpful to remember my current match-up is effectively random anyway.

 

35 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Dont think we have seen any information for how the alliance management system works (ie admin, player and guild handling, limitations, etc). I'm still not even sure Anet knows, they've only focused on WvW guild selection and the shuffle system so far.

I suspect someone at Anet knows, but they're a UI designer and/or programmer and not part of the WvW team. The people who are mainly developing the Alliance system will decide what they want the end result to be and then hand it over to the UI designer and if necessary a programmer to work out the details and put a system together.

That's how things typically work in my job. For example my team is currently designing a website and I've said it needs to include an image gallery users can upload images to, and the ability to embed those images in articles. I won't know the specifics of the system until it's build because it's not my job to build it (thankfully, my web design experience largely consists of typing HTML and is 20 years out of date), I just get final sign-off on whether it's right or changes need to be made.

[Dawdler.8521]

4 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I'm also not in a position to join a WvW guild because I only play it occasionally. I might play WvW 2 hours a day for a week, then not at all for a month, or 4 hours on one day, or 1 hour every other day, then skip it for 2 weeks...I doubt a WvW guild would want someone who isn't there most of the time, so I'm going to be joining one of my 2 social guilds in whichever team they end up in. If it doesn't work out I'll figure something else out, but for now I'm finding it helpful to remember my current match-up is effectively random anyway.

Well if those in the social guild arent on the same server today, it can only be an improvement even if they or you dont play so frequently, since presumably those in that guild will default to it unless they got another WvW guild lined up.

Either way there will be lots of "reorganisation" for many months when alliances go live. The entire point of the system is to keep it fluid over time. Combining or splitting two servers is easy - but then people move, stop playing or hell even more join... and you're back with the same "problem".

Edited November 8, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[Xenesis.6389]

Don't think there's going to be a small limit on guilds in alliances, unless there's a hard cap they need to put in, and the reason is if you had 10 guilds of 500 total people wanting to ally, but alliances limited to 3 guilds, well those 500 players could just join one guild to get in the same world, and then go back to repping their old guilds anyways. Alliances are only needed for world creations, nothing else special about them, unless they want to tie reward and performance systems to them.

[Peachblow.2637]

8 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

I'm also not in a position to join a WvW guild because I only play it occasionally. I might play WvW 2 hours a day for a week, then not at all for a month, or 4 hours on one day, or 1 hour every other day, then skip it for 2 weeks...I doubt a WvW guild would want someone who isn't there most of the time, so I'm going to be joining one of my 2 social guilds in whichever team they end up in. If it doesn't work out I'll figure something else out, but for now I'm finding it helpful to remember my current match-up is effectively random anyway.

At the end of the day, I suspect this is kind of the main factor. This change is appealing to those that are WvW focused and are already in WvW-only guilds. I get that aspect, but I don't have to agree or respect it. Players that like to dabble in everything aren't going to be overly fond of the change. 

[Fatherbliss.4701]

The blog post that Grouch posted talked about there being a 50% difference in activity levels across servers right now. Their preliminary numbers showed that gap narrowed considering to single digits in matchups. Plus a "world" in the new system would be comprised of multiple alliances, guilds and individual players. Giving Anet the ability to balance out the worlds. However, that is a big bet. We don't have all the final specifics since that is what the beta weeks will do is give Anet more data to make the system. There has also been talk about changing things over time. I'm positive about it overall but also apprehensive. Generally speaking I really like underdogs and finding ways to win while outnumbered. That does get old over time though. lol.

You made valid points in your OP and many of those I've seen expressed from various friends. As others said in this post, transfers and the ability to hop to a linked server have created some very unbalanced matches over the years. They are also looking at rewards and bonuses are part of this process. I don't know how many people actually play only WvW for 20+ hours a week. I'd have to imagine those of us like myself are not the majority. Anet has surprised me before though with things like mounts. Their implementation in the game (talking in general here not specific to WvW because that carries its own set of problems) surprised me. I've stated a few times I'm cautiously optimistic about this change. We also have no clue when this feature will be launched.

The final point I'll make is that traditionally people would just move to your server assuming there is room and there isn't a darn thing you could do about it. I like alliances because I can at the very least group up with folks I want to group with and know that people can't just pay to come crash the party. There is an element of chance involved. It should hopefully spark some changes. In conjunction with the expansion we have a shot at shifts in meta. We'll see.

[X T D.6458]

Restructuring a game mode is no easy task and will undoubtedly impact many players to some extent. For some it will be good, for some it will be terrible. I think it will be a work in progress even after its actually implemented because it wont be a smooth transition by any means. Eventually the major structural problems will be sorted out, and players will get used to it and will hopefully lead to a better experience for everyone. 

[MedievalThings.5417]

It changes nothing about wvw.  The only thing that will be different, using myself as an example, is that I will no longer be on TC, I will be on "New Name" (whatever they call the place I get stuck).

 

Players stacking - unchanged.

Players refusing to fight unless they outnumber their opponents - unchanged.

Blob guilds avoiding each other cause they only want to fight pugs - unchanged.

Guilds avoiding each other because the fastest way to get loot/wxp is to ktrain or fight 10 guys with 50 - unchanged.

Players transferring because another comp'd guild played during their playtime - unchanged.

Your entire third papered overnight because every SEA player chose the same alliance (server) - unchanged.

Comp'd groups refusing to fight each other - unchanged.

 

Anet said that alliances won't fix anything about wvw.  Yet, we're gonna do it, cause why not.  It's been "Soon" for the last 4 years.

 

The good news is they are removing participation for anything related to defense.

The better news is that you can still AFK on a treb all week and earn pips.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Ubi.4136

[kash.9213]

The benefit is to guild and alliances leaders who control guild membership from match to match. If you don't want to be placed randomly by algorithm, then you can join a guild and have your game time, membership, and placement be at their control. Getting all of the floaters and other players who built server communities over time, not just raged on discord and teamspeak, into one guild is a useless suggestion but give a shot. At the least you might start off small and pick up people along the way, but then it will always be a guild dynamic that could tank suddenly at any dramatic turn and you'll be random placed again. 

[joneirikb.7506]

Future proofing the tech by making it scale.

If they remove X servers now, so the total population is even among the remaining servers (and lets not get into how pissed people will get if they're moved from their server and split from their friends and guilds to be put into another server). Then say 6-12 months down the road, if we now have less players (or more?), are they going to prune the servers again? Or open up 3 new ones? and then kick everyone around again so the population can average out among the X + 3 new servers?

Just adding/removing servers is a simple solution in theory, not so much in practise.

This is one of the big advantages with the Alliance system. Every new shuffle, it can automatically adjust for changing population, make more or less words, bigger or smaller ones depending on the total population it has to work with.

And while everyone gets thrown out of their worlds, at least it's fair. And adds the ability to play with any friends on any "old server" just by picking the same wvw guild to be sorted by.

And lets just pray they keep their promise and kills transferring for good.

----

Also just to clarify, wasn't sure if you got this part or not.

Alliance is NOT = World.

World = X Alliances + Y Guilds + Z Solos

We don't know the exact size and numbers (Because ANet never likes to give us those, for good reason). But a maxed alliance will probably be somewhere from 10-20% of a world from the estimates we've seen.

[Peachblow.2637]

6 hours ago, Fatherbliss.4701 said:

The blog post that Grouch posted talked about there being a 50% difference in activity levels across servers right now. Their preliminary numbers showed that gap narrowed considering to single digits in matchups. Plus a "world" in the new system would be comprised of multiple alliances, guilds and individual players. Giving Anet the ability to balance out the worlds. 

3 hours ago, Ubi.4136 said:

Anet said that alliances won't fix anything about wvw.  Yet, we're gonna do it, cause why not.  It's been "Soon" for the last 4 years.

2 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

This is one of the big advantages with the Alliance system. Every new shuffle, it can automatically adjust for changing population, make more or less words, bigger or smaller ones depending on the total population it has to work with.

These are all good reads. I think these three posts above sum up what I'm mostly gathering from this change. The alliance system only seems to be beneficial long-term with populations increasing or decreasing from server to server. That part certainly makes a lot of sense to me. Though in a perhaps selfish kind of outlook, I have yet to read any benefits to me as the player or players that are in similar situations. 

2 hours ago, kash.9213 said:

The benefit is to guild and alliances leaders who control guild membership from match to match. If you don't want to be placed randomly by algorithm, then you can join a guild and have your game time, membership, and placement be at their control. 

That's the main issue. I don't have space between my primary guild, 2x storage guilds, and two other guilds for other interests outside of WvW. I've had this "set-up" for years now. I suppose they could implement a sixth guild slot but... eh. It's human nature to fear, resist, or hate change, but I guess it's really the only way to still group up with the current server community instead of being tossed around as a filler. Unless ArenaNet decides to bomb the idea and spend their resources elsewhere. One can hope lol. 

[enkidu.5937]

Transfers only during the one week before linking:

-> That’s great, but Anet should’ve implemented this 5 years ago, the day they introduced linkings. It has nothing to do with Alliances.

 

Alliances:

-> Also great. But its just a QoL thing, cause 500 ppl can already group up as a Guild. Now 500 ppl can group up as several guilds.

 

Servers get deleted:

-> Just terrible. Nobody benefits. We already face private guild raids. Soon we’ll additionally face private alliance raids, with private voice chats, private communities. This will kill the idea of a big scale MMO experience for most ppl.

 

Balanced matches:

-> Not at all. Ok, final scores at Friday will be more close. But who cares? Ppl care about balance when they are online. I get online and an alliance of the green nameless team dominates. I get online later, and an alliance of the red nameless team dominates. I get online after, and an alliance of my nameless team dominates, but I don’t even notice, cause the map that this private alliance is on has queue. That’s massive imbalance, even the final scores will be close.

 

Randoms and part-time WvWlers are supposed to entertain and get farmed by dominating alliances? That’s the “concept”?

-> Alliances will get bored soon. And randoms will get bored even sooner.