Did you enjoy the beta alliance system and would you like to see more of it?

[Deniara Devious.3948]

Did you enjoy the beta alliance system and would you like to see more of it?

[Dayra.7405]

I accept the beta as a neccessary step, but it's far to buggy (esp. objectives on map) to enjoy it. I will play less till bugs get fixed.

[rune.9572]

Log in to beta

See my opponents are bad and afraid to leave objectives unless 20+

See my teammates are the same just doing ppt

Realize I will be stuck in such MUs because no transfer to pvp servers

Finish wood chest and leave for the week

 

My experience in a nutshell

Edited December 6, 2021 by rune.9572

[Custodio.6134]

technically, i didn´t expierience the alliance-beta, because we are currently not playing the alliance beta. (alliances=/=world restructuring)
we are playing the beta of the basic system of world restructuring and alliance-functionality is not enabled yet. 
The first purpose is testing, if the basic system of assigning players to shards and teams based on their chosen guild, and if this is able to balance out population imbalance. The second purpose of this beta is finding any bugs in the system (like the glitch we had in the beginning, where people were assigned to the wrong team). 

So this question cannot be truthfully answered, because it asks about alliances, not world restructuring. 

[babak.3654]

I don’t play WvW very actively at the moment although I did in the past. I like small scale and roaming over zerg  or blob play and worry that Alliances will essentially promote GvG or blob play over anything else. I’ve also been on the same server since launch and really missed seeing the usual crew in map or team chat. Not convinced Alliances will make me want to play WvW more in the future.

[saerni.2584]

A lot of people (at least those with new accounts on the forums) seem to be under the mistaken belief that this IS the Alliances feature.  For some reason they don't understand that the Alliances feature isn't implemented and most of this beta has been about testing the background systems required for a new match making system to work on a technical level. 
 

People who want to associate with more PvP oriented players will be able to make Alliances based on that (also I'm confused by the claim that any particular servers NOW are more PvP oriented than others, although some servers have map preferences like Maguuma with EBG).  It's not really implemented yet so a bunch of "I hated the beta because this is the finished product" posts are really frustrating from the perspective of someone who plays quite a bit of WvW and knows this is far from a finished presentation of the updated game mode. 
 

Anecdotally, I associated with a WvW guild for this Beta 1 and everyone in game (in the guild and otherwise) has been positive about the Beta. People actually playing the game who play a lot of WvW actually like the feature (in limited form and understanding that) quite a bit. Even Reddit has been positive. There's a serious disconnect this time between what I'm seeing/hearing in game and in other websites and what I'm seeing on this forum. 

[CheekyDee.6153]

Absolutely, positively NOT. I understand that what you exposed us to yesterday may not have been the full roll out but whatever part of it was, in which you forced us all to participate, without warning or choice was NOT fun. Where is the sense of "ALLIANCE" when you are forced out of your groups of friends onto different maps and different sides, without any way to reconfigure the grouping. Nasty trick to not warn us that even if we were in a squad of guildies and buds, we'd be splintered and split onto different maps. No instructions on how to go in as our group. There were a lot of angry people in map chat. And it negatively impacted the WvW game play for our casual, fun-loving peeps. It was nasty in there; aggressive, no longer fun at all. This felt totalitarian ... it's not the GW2 I've come to know. At least you could have sent an ingame mail or have a button with instructions that tell us what/why you changed WvW, why you are forcing us into it, and how we can go into WvW with our squad or party of FRIENDS. The reason we play this game is to hang with friends. Usually, you are awesome.  If you need to force us to participate in something to get feedback, please, at least give us a heads up. So no. No, I did not at all like the changes -- but I might have, if there had been one simple little note before I headed into this WvW version.

Edited December 6, 2021 by CheekyDee.6153
Calmed down. Sorry about the venting earlier.

[saerni.2584]

3 minutes ago, CheekyDee.6153 said:

Absolutely, positively NOT NOT NOT. You forced us all to participate, without warning or choice. And you didn't warn us that even if we were in a squad of guildies and buds, we'd be splintered and split onto different maps. No instructions on how to go in as our group. There were a lot of angry people. And it completely negatively impacted the WvW game play for our casual, fun-loving peeps. It was nasty in there; aggressive, no longer fun at all. I was going to buy the expansion last evening. I was excited. But this kind of totalitarian approach to your players ... it's not the GW2 I've come to know. Very disappointed.  At least you could have sent an ingame mail or have a button with instructions that tell us what/why you changed WvW, why you are forcing us into it, and how we can go into WvW with our squad or party of FRIENDS. The reason we play this game is to hang with friends and you completely sabotaged that. Usually, you are awesome. What happened? Why didn't you explain and warn? Why did you ruin WvW? Was it to cater to hard WvW players? So, sayonara, if we want to play casually in WvW now and then; is that it? What happened -- are you the dregs of Blizzard developers, come to ruin ArenaNet by sucking the life out of yet another game by forcing all players to do the same thing? Why did you make us all go to different maps ... even different sides. Nasty thing to do. I held you to a higher standard and you have fallen into the murky waters that Blizzard drowned in. I ask again, what happened? Information ingame about changes would have been so simple to include. You really dropped the ball, and now I worry that the expansion is not the game to which we all looked forward. Has there been a big change in staff? Where are the people that cared about player enjoyment of all different flavors? I was appalled and incensed. Incandescent with outrage. And so were my guildies. Words like "ruined", "spoiled the fun" and "wtf" were bandied about on Discord as we all banded together, ready to pop into WvW for a few dailies -- and were scattered to the winds with no warning. If you are going to force us to participate in something, at least give us a heads up. Man. How the mighty have fallen. So no. No, I did not at all like the changes. 

See this is what I'm talking about. You have someone who wanted more of a heads up; and tbh that isn't unreasonable. 

 

However, we had two attempts at a beta that were cancelled, people have been talking about the beta in Team chat for months, and there have been multiple Anet blog posts about the tests over the last 6 months. 
 

I don't think Anet could have given more of a heads up that would have been satisfying. Should Anet have sent an in-game mail? Or maybe an email sent to all Guild Wars 2 players? 
 

I could see that working "better" but I don't read most/any emails from Anet and in-game mail is not really how Anet communicates (most of that is the blog). 
 

And a threat to not buy the expansion based on a test run of only a part of an experimental / developing feature...idk it just comes across as a bit of a tantrum. Don't buy it if you don't want to I guess...but maybe calm down first?

[Toast.6459]

If the way they do matchups doesn't improve, I have zero hope for it. Its been blobs all day every day from one team that just constantly rolls through most/all of our stuff.

[CheekyDee.6153]

Yes, saerni.2584 -- you are right. It was a bit of a tantrum, and I apologize for that. I really did try to calm down but it was so Blizzard-like and I left that game -- I can't even claim a knee-jerk response because I actually gave myself over 12 hours to cool down and when I started typing ... I was still incandescent. Because avoiding that would have been so easy. When you click the WvW Castle Icon, then overlaid on the usual window could have been a "hello! We're testing a beta and hope you will participate. Here is what is different, this is why we are doing it, and this is how long we'll be doing if for. And btw, if you want to stay in your group, this is how you do that." Communication. But instead, no warning, and scattered to the winds. It so smacked of the paternalism we endured in That Other Game. One in which I had invested 15 years before I said, "enough is enough". In GW2, I had found a kinder, gentler more fun loving community with a helpful culture that I enjoyed but last night, it was like someone dipped me into the Blizzard Bath and all my ire rose to the top in response. I felt like a favorite book had been burned in front of me. 

Edited December 6, 2021 by CheekyDee.6153
grammar

[Xispeo.1706]

Stucked on a wrong server because of this beta, I have no idea if new systems is better or whatever, and I don't care since I cannot play with guildees. 

[ascii.1369]

20 minutes ago, CheekyDee.6153 said:

but whatever part of it was, in which you forced us all to participate, without warning or choice was NOT fun.

That seems to be the primary issue I see on here. People who have been surprized by the beta and have no understanding of what it actually is or how it's supposed to work down the line.

 

Which is frustrating for those players, I get it, but I don't think ANet can be blamed here. They've been talking about world restructuring and the beta timeline in blog and forum posts for weeks now, and the vast majority of feedback from people engaged enough to notice their communication has been positive.

 

Casuals, who aren't all that engaged with WvW or ANet communication, have of course just as much right to their opinion as the hardcore WvW players that have been waiting for this for weeks. But while I can see that the new system, even after it's fully implemented, will have negative effects for some players, ANet has to look at the bigger pciture here. And for the health of WvW as a game mode and the majority of active WvW players, world restructering + alliances is a good thing.

[Dawdler.8521]

The correct answer to this poll is "there hasnt been any beta of the alliance system yet, why are you asking this question?".

This is a basic matchmaker test with a good chunk of bugs.

The main mistake Anet has done is not making this incredibly clear. It's going to leave people with a bad first impression of something that's not even featured.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Dawdler.8521

[aikatara.3462]

I am mostly a PVE player and play WvW very inferquently and didn't follow the discussions around the alliance system very closely and as a such the new system as presented in the beta is quite confusing.  I just opened the WvW tab, was directed to the Word Restructuring Tab and now I am supposed to join a team? Or is my (tiny, tiny friends/family guild) now assigned a team? There is a list of names with no explanation what they are.

There appears to be no explanation in the game what these teams are and how this new system works , at least none that I can see. If this becomes a permanent feature this definitely needs to improve drastically.

Edited December 6, 2021 by aikatara.3462

[Infusion.7149]

The matchmaking needs work and one of my guildmates has theorized there are only two matchups with higher map caps running concurrently instead of 4-5 tiers.

[nthmetal.9652]

2 hours ago, CheekyDee.6153 said:

Absolutely, positively NOT. I understand that what you exposed us to yesterday may not have been the full roll out but whatever part of it was, in which you forced us all to participate, without warning or choice was NOT fun.

You know, I kinda understand the sentiment. It is mistargeted, and IMO it's weighing way too heavily, but generally I understand it? Why? Because every now and then we get the NoDownState event, which I personally think is very kitten. We also don't get to choose whether we wanna participate in it. But you know what? It's for a week, and then it's over.

What could have happened better was the communication before the event: Display a popup to alert players of this rather important beta. Take the time to explain what people have to do, what the beta is and isn't. It isn't a problem to do such things for End of Dragons, so generally the technology is there. Make people aware in-game what is going on, what they need to do, and how long it is happening. From there you can link to the forums, blog or wiki for deeper information.

[Danikat.8537]

As other people have said it's too early to say how the alliance system is working because we haven't seen it yet. We've got the first steps - players can designate a guild to be associated with and guilds (and solo players) are grouped into teams but we haven't got the actual alliances - there's no way for anyone to choose which team they're in and even the automated match making isn't happening yet (for example we've been told language will be a factor in the final version).

There's also a lot of bugs, probably the most important one being that people in the same guild have ended up on different servers.

So what we've seen so far is not the alliance system we're going to get.

[ASP.8093]

34 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The matchmaking needs work and one of my guildmates has theorized there are only two matchups with higher map caps running concurrently instead of 4-5 tiers.

Higher map caps means brutal skill lag whenever there's an SMC/garri battle.

(It sounds like an "n^2" problem as well. So just adding even 10-20% more players would have an outsize impact.)

Edited December 6, 2021 by ASP.8093

[Mr Bimble.2764]

APPALLING MESS.

[Corma.7268]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The correct answer to this poll is "there hasnt been any beta of the alliance system yet, why are you asking this question?".

This is a basic matchmaker test with a good chunk of bugs.

The main mistake Anet has done is not making this incredibly clear. It's going to leave people with a bad first impression of something that's not even featured.

This!

I'll make up an opinion when we see alliances in phase two (as announced by josh).

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

Phase 2 or 3 or 15082874 of Alliances won't be better, because at its very core its a flawed design.
Hardcore WvW guilds aren't what keeps WvW alive or fun for most worlds, it's communities that cross guilds in general Discord servers and /t chat, open tag commanders and more of that. More often than not, the guilds are elitist and not even actually playing for the pairing (they just run by themselves, ignore any teammates that need help, do not defend objectives etc.). They don't play WvW now, so why do we expect they will when they're basically running the show? They'll only get more elitist and dismissive of general players.
This of course doesn't apply to all guilds, but most guilds that it doesn't apply to have no idea what to do with Alliances or why it's a good idea, because they mostly play for their World primarily, and the guild is just a way to organize and have some friends on that same server close to each other.

Shelf Alliances asap. It has always been an ill-conceived idea catered to a vocal minority of players who don't truly carry WvW for the masses anyway and don't speak for them.
If you want WvW to be better, work to link servers better rather than semi automatically pair them, and add new content from time to time to keep things fresh. Maybe new maps you can rotate, maybe new parts in the existing maps, anything that actually adds to WvW rather than forcing us to play GvG (which incidentally was the least played pvp mode in GW1, that should have taught us years ago).

[Yuffi.2430]

So now we get to your actual complaint. You don't like the idea that this change might break up your community feeling. 

If your community is a guild, then you should be fine because the whole point of these tests is to produce a working system that will let guild members play together.

If your community is a server, then you could form an alliance based on your current group of guilds you play with. Many servers already did this for the test. Of course you could choose not to do this, or not to join this alliance when others form it, in which case you will loose your old server identity. At least you have a choice in this. When ANET created the linking system we have at the moment they ripped apart half the servers in the game - these became nomadic links with no control over where they were sent. We either had to stick it out or pay for transfers. Whether we liked it or not, ANET ruled that this was the way forwards, and to be fair it has meant that I see fewer empty maps now.

The final version of Alliances is intended to allow ANET to make matches more evenly populated by using guilds as the main building blocks instead of massive log-in servers. This is, in fact, the solution to your "link servers better" demand. 

Edited December 6, 2021 by Yuffi.2430
(removed useless spaces)

[Mazdan.2071]

I will uninstall the game if Alliances becomes the norm and no you cannot have my stuff. The supporters of this will go on the attack and troll those of us who do not like it instead of having an adult conversation because they are children who need to scream, insult, attack and pout to get their way. "Boomer in his Mom's basement can't handle alliances" kitten. Maybe you'll call me a white supremist or racist or some other crap instead of listening to opposing viewpoints like an adult; go ahead. I've heard it all and it means nothing.

 

All I know is that I all I do is WvW and now I can't play with my friends and I'm not impressed with the folks I am matched with. I have no motivation to play WvW and thus GW2 in general if this is the future. 

 

If GW2 wants more GvG, why not use Edge of the Mists? It's a great map, no gliding or mounts keeps things even and it doesn't hurt WvW as a whole. Increase the rewards for it and there you go. Edge of the Mists is too good of a map to let it keep going to waste.

 

[CrimsonRise.7650]

9 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The correct answer to this poll is "there hasnt been any beta of the alliance system yet, why are you asking this question?".

This is a basic matchmaker test with a good chunk of bugs.

The main mistake Anet has done is not making this incredibly clear. It's going to leave people with a bad first impression of something that's not even featured.

 

Exactly.

In our 'Alliance' we've opened the Discord to everyone now if they wish to join, it's not just Guilds doing things among themselves, unless they choose to do so atm in it's current state.

Most of what they plan for the Alliances are not in place, it is a mess right now, but over time and with player feedback, WvW should be better off than the current flawed Server Linking system, with these RNG relinks, bandwagoning and servers being left with no links in the EU.

Server linkings were likely built on top of the old systems in place, population algorithms and all that, so they can't magically balance wvw populations better with the current system.

The game mode will likely, never be quite like when the game came out either, you still had underpopulated and stacked servers back then though.

Edited December 7, 2021 by CrimsonNeonite.1048

[ASP.8093]

52 minutes ago, Mazdan.2071 said:

Maybe you'll call me a white supremist or racist or some other crap instead of listening to opposing viewpoints like an adult; go ahead. I've heard it all and it means nothing.

Does this happen to you often for some reason?