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

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

42 minutes ago, CrimsonNeonite.1048 said:

 

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.

I'd rather have no link occasionally and be outnumbered a lot but have my server, than have this kitten and be outnumbered a lot with pure randoms.

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

2 hours ago, Yuffi.2430 said:

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. 

This isn't my demand, this is the only real argument I hear in favour of Alliances, and you can also fix it by linking servers better. Linking a whole ton of guilds together who have all made their own groups and preferences is in no way easier than linking servers well, so Anet is just selling you holographic cake there. There will still be uneven pairings and bad links from time to time, because player behaviour just changes from week to week, and sometimes when people get a pairing they don't like, they don't play, and you get huge number differences that you couldn't have predicted or fixed without insane 'who likes who' algorythms in place.

Alliances won't fix anything in that regard, so with that the only actual argument I've heard over numerous topics is also out the window.

People dislike it, clearly, and for good reason. Don't dismiss that as a 'you haven't seen the real thing yet'. We've seen enough and the promised system doesn't deliver what we want even if it were to work. If the entree is a bowl of dirt served with a knife to eat it with, we don't need to wait for the main course to know we're not liking this restaurant.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Prophet of Flames.2783

[Doll Mistress.9267]

Why is the promised feature of being able to play with friends not working? Why should roamers and scouts have to join an alliance or be forced into an alliance with people who may or may not have the same playstyle, personality, mentality, etc? These are things my friends have asked, and I agree with.

I miss my server group of roamers. I thought this was going to balance PPT and blob vs. blob gamestyles....I haven't seen or heard anything positive about this. 

I want Darkhaven back...

[Hyperionkhv.1978]

15 hours ago, ascii.1369 said:

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.

 

As regular (each day) casual (i dont care about meta-builds) WvW player I do not have to read blogs and forums. And watch their Youtube-channel. And check Facebook. And Twitter. And Instagram. I Do Not Care About Anet's Social Nets. 

 

Its not Corporation who made me play this game. It was game itself.

 

Its 10th year of game. Can I just play calmly in mode I like? Dont ruin it please.

[rune.9572]

Gotta admit, the announcement was handled badly.

People don't usually watch your streams or read your blog, @ArenaNet Team.4819. You probably have analytics to tell you that. But there are ingame systems you can use to let players know ahead of time, heck, you could have put an announcement in the WvW panel itself as the first tab.

But that doesn't even matter since apparently our guild selection in the obscure, dedicated UI was ignored anyway.

[Comus.7365]

not sure what to think of this new system as i'm and on and off player. so i don't run with any guilds.

previously i could at least count on seeing the same people when i do play so i know how the day will play out pretty much.

if i'm going to be tossed in with randoms all of the time i'm pretty sure i wont have a good time.

[Mabi black.1824]

let's be honest guys..... it is right that something is changed to fix the balance of the matches ...... so the change is welcome.

so the right question to ask the developers (who care about this game like us and no more than us since they created it) :

is there a remote possibility to fix the balance without losing the reference of the team / server? and therefore maintain motivation, community etc ?

 

Suggest :

in europe we have 27 teams / worlds ...... we can create type 36 so as to have more granularity and connect 3 teams vs 3 teams vs 3 teams to each reset....... so that no team plays outnumbered.

 

and use the new alliance work as it contains a new player counting system and since it allows the possibility to join close-knit guilds (all positive aspects) to fill the new 36 teams / worlds.

 

just a hypothesis to have the barrel full of wine ..... and the drunken wife ( Italian proverb )

 

 

 

[MarkBecks.6453]

So before we started, our server was single against 2 double servers, and during the beta, it seems the odds are stacked against us as during the previous week, like 30 man blobs against 5 of us trying to defend. So how do the other Alliance maps have double our players? Terrible system because guild populations and activity is a thumb suck, and it will always be stacked, no point really.
 I think the Alliance servers should have their own map so they can GvG, and stay away from the WvW maps. Unfortunately, Anet are under the impression that the WvW is healthy, when its just an AOE fest that no one can survive. Condi and Rangers seem to be the order of the day, and again, after 9 years, you have power creep and Condi damage which is insane. I personally think this game is in such a state of decline, that I just do what I need to do, and log off, fun factor is gone and one word to describe it, pointless!

[Zok.4956]

22 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.

I agree.

Anets mistake is to call this a "World Restructuring beta", but it is not a beta test of the World Restructuring, only a beta test (or maybe more of an alpha test) of some part of the World Restructuring.

And there should have been an ingame message when you enter a WvW map (maybe similar to the message that was displayed for the beta elite spec chars) that directs players to the forum.

And there could have been some form of "event double XP week" as a a little thank you for using  WvW players as guniea pigs.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Zok.4956

[Dawdler.8521]

15 minutes ago, MarkBecks.6453 said:

So before we started, our server was single against 2 double servers, and during the beta, it seems the odds are stacked against us as during the previous week, like 30 man blobs against 5 of us trying to defend. So how do the other Alliance maps have double our players? Terrible system because guild populations and activity is a thumb suck, and it will always be stacked, no point really.
 I think the Alliance servers should have their own map so they can GvG, and stay away from the WvW maps. Unfortunately, Anet are under the impression that the WvW is healthy, when its just an AOE fest that no one can survive. Condi and Rangers seem to be the order of the day, and again, after 9 years, you have power creep and Condi damage which is insane. I personally think this game is in such a state of decline, that I just do what I need to do, and log off, fun factor is gone and one word to describe it, pointless!

Look closer and you'll probably find the players are there because most of these random roamers are godawful at lifting a finger to actually respond in time and do something without a giant beacon showing them where to go.

Thats one thing I have definetly noticed more than usual this week.

Or maybe Anet just hate you and manually move players to the other teams just so that you are always outmanned, I dont know.

[Danikat.8537]

9 hours ago, Doll Mistress.9267 said:

Why is the promised feature of being able to play with friends not working? Why should roamers and scouts have to join an alliance or be forced into an alliance with people who may or may not have the same playstyle, personality, mentality, etc? These are things my friends have asked, and I agree with.

I miss my server group of roamers. I thought this was going to balance PPT and blob vs. blob gamestyles....I haven't seen or heard anything positive about this. 

I want Darkhaven back...

It's not working because it's a beta test. The first one had to be cancelled after 2 hours because it wasn't working at all and caused a bunch of other problems. This one is sort-of working in that we can get into WvW but it's not grouping players based on the guild they chose like it should. Hopefully they'll fix that by the next beta. (When they'll probably activate more of the systems which will be in the final version and we'll probably get a whole new round of bugs, that's how testing anything goes.)

As for roamers and scouts having to join an alliance with other types of players how is that new? Were you previously on a server exclusively for roamers? Of course not because that didn't exist, anyone could join any server no matter how they play. If there's specific people you want to make sure you're always grouped with you'll have ways of doing that (in this beta that's only by selecting the same guild, because that's all that's being tested now) but you will still be grouped with other players too in order to make up the numbers, just like on your normal server.

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Look closer and you'll probably find the players are there because most of these random roamers are godawful at lifting a finger to actually respond in time and do something without a giant beacon showing them where to go.

Thats one thing I have definetly noticed more than usual this week.

Or maybe Anet just hate you and manually move players to the other teams just so that you are always outmanned, I dont know.

What's with all the hyper salty defending of alliances. If people say they're outnumbered a lot you (who doesn't have a clue if that's true or not) immediately jump them and say 'no you're not, look better roamer'. Because of course, you, who aren't in their pairing, know better wether they're outnumbered a lot.

Stop going to extreme lengths to defend this bad system.

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

1 hour ago, Danikat.8537 said:

It's not working because it's a beta test. The first one had to be cancelled after 2 hours because it wasn't working at all and caused a bunch of other problems. This one is sort-of working in that we can get into WvW but it's not grouping players based on the guild they chose like it should. Hopefully they'll fix that by the next beta. (When they'll probably activate more of the systems which will be in the final version and we'll probably get a whole new round of bugs, that's how testing anything goes.)

As for roamers and scouts having to join an alliance with other types of players how is that new? Were you previously on a server exclusively for roamers? Of course not because that didn't exist, anyone could join any server no matter how they play. If there's specific people you want to make sure you're always grouped with you'll have ways of doing that (in this beta that's only by selecting the same guild, because that's all that's being tested now) but you will still be grouped with other players too in order to make up the numbers, just like on your normal server.

You seem to think only roamers and scouts aren't in dedicated WvW guilds, while in reality, it's up to about 80% of players on a world, depending on the world and how community based (rather than guild based) it is. Those people play regularly with other people they know by name, they talk with in squad chat, map or even team chat or whispers. They join blobs and tags, sometimes run open tags themselves. They're not just "roamers and scouts".

Now those people lose everything with the current proposal of what Alliance is going to look like, and they're understandably upset. They get shafted to please a few hardcore WvW guilds, and they're voicing their concerns. Don't dismiss them with a 'well then just all go into the same guild lol' that's not a fix to the problem Alliance is creating, a knowingly and willingly created problem that doesn't have to be there.

[Xenesis.6389]

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Suggest :

in europe we have 27 teams / worlds ...... we can create type 36 so as to have more granularity and connect 3 teams vs 3 teams vs 3 teams to each reset....... so that no team plays outnumbered.

 

This was already suggested 5 years ago, go ahead and read the responses.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hypothetically-Speaking-New-Worlds

[Xenesis.6389]

19 hours ago, Mazdan.2071 said:

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.

 

You can play with friends, join a guild with them, you just need to pick the same guild for world creation.

 

Alliances isn't about gvg, it's about evening out the population and to stop bandwagons from screwing over servers every 2 months.

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

13 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Alliances isn't about gvg, it's about evening out the population and to stop bandwagons from screwing over servers every 2 months.

Yet you put players (guilds) in full control of bandwagoning and make it easier and cheaper. How will it fix this?

On top of that "bandwagoning" is hardly an issue in EU servers. There's only so many times entire groups of people are willing to move from one server to the next.

[Xenesis.6389]

34 minutes ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

Yet you put players (guilds) in full control of bandwagoning and make it easier and cheaper. How will it fix this?

On top of that "bandwagoning" is hardly an issue in EU servers. There's only so many times entire groups of people are willing to move from one server to the next.

 

Full control you say?

Anet will now fill in the spaces around those giant pocket of players, instead of them leaving a giant black hole on a server right before relinks so it gets dunked to T4 for two months, while super stacking a random server that will shoot to the top of the standings for the next two months. This is anet controlling the bandwagon, not the other way around. Even last relink had two servers restacked and going from a link to a host.

 

Yeah sure their will be some super sized alliances, and I'm sure there will be multiple alliances to compete, because as much as we've seen guilds and players sellout to stack servers like BG in the past, we've already had players spread their guilds in tiers to find more competitive fights, aka the fight tiers of past. 

 

Bandwagon less of an issue in EU? probably, since language barriers would limit a lot of it, but then again we have relink thread come up and like 90% of the complaints are from EU players, so not exactly problem free now is it?

 

Would you rather just stay in this endless cycle of spinning servers up and down the ranks fighting for points that ain't a worth dime or the time anymore? or get populations under some control so we can maybe move into projects that could give wvw some meaning again, like tournaments or seasonal play?

[Mabi black.1824]

50 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

 

This was already suggested 5 years ago, go ahead and read the responses.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hypothetically-Speaking-New-Worlds

 

hello xenesis I read the posts you indicated.

at the time you were discussing the new server matching system....... someone proposed to increase them as I did ........ and the gocatori wondered who would abandon existing servers to get into new empty servers..... and how increasing the already sparsely populated servers could handle new empty servers.

 

conditions today are very different.

 

I try to explain myself better on what I have indicated ....... you don't save anyone....... make 36 new servers/worlds.

 

since we still question the current servers/worlds in the near future......... you just don't save anyone...... and use this fantastic ''alliances'' tool to fill them all over again in the most balanced way possible.

alliances have been formed and continue to form....... those who want to play together have already defined it by joining in an alliance.

filling new worlds will be super easy for anet.

 

more teams to match = more granularity = more balance

at the same time you will still have your own team..... you will feel part of it..... and you will work for it. it also stirs up every 4 weeks but I will always have my reference team and you will still have alliances (limited group of guilds or players who want to stay united)

 

 

[Teleoceras.1298]

On 12/6/2021 at 8:18 AM, rune.9572 said:

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

    Same for me. I'm part of a multi-guild scouting network in Fort Aspenwood and NONE of the people I know were in the same sides. Everything is a mess. I finished wood and then called it for the week.

 

    Believe it or not, but there are people out there with long term server loyalty from different guilds who work well together. I chose Fort Aspenwood nine years ago and have stayed true to it while forming friendships over the years with other like minded people. If this is made permanent, then I'm done with WvW as alliances has sucked the fun out of the gameplay.

[Danikat.8537]

4 hours ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

You seem to think only roamers and scouts aren't in dedicated WvW guilds, while in reality, it's up to about 80% of players on a world, depending on the world and how community based (rather than guild based) it is. Those people play regularly with other people they know by name, they talk with in squad chat, map or even team chat or whispers. They join blobs and tags, sometimes run open tags themselves. They're not just "roamers and scouts".

Now those people lose everything with the current proposal of what Alliance is going to look like, and they're understandably upset. They get shafted to please a few hardcore WvW guilds, and they're voicing their concerns. Don't dismiss them with a 'well then just all go into the same guild lol' that's not a fix to the problem Alliance is creating, a knowingly and willingly created problem that doesn't have to be there.

When someone has quoted a post it helps to read the quote as well as their reply, it often provides important context. I refered to "roamers and scouts" in my post because that's what the one I was replying to was about and I didn't think it would be helpful to change the subject when responding to a specific point.

Here it is again for context:

15 hours ago, Doll Mistress.9267 said:

Why is the promised feature of being able to play with friends not working? Why should roamers and scouts have to join an alliance or be forced into an alliance with people who may or may not have the same playstyle, personality, mentality, etc? These are things my friends have asked, and I agree with.

I miss my server group of roamers. I thought this was going to balance PPT and blob vs. blob gamestyles....I haven't seen or heard anything positive about this. 

I want Darkhaven back...

Also I am one of "those people" who isn't in a WvW guild and just joins an open tag or runs solo if I can't find one. I'm in exactly the same situation: if I want to keep playing with people from my server I will have to join a guild. I don't understand why that idea is so offensive to some people. I'm not sure if it's what I'm going to do yet (I'm not sure if there's a guild for my server which would take me, because I haven't looked yet) but it seems like the sensible option if you want to play with specific people. It's what guilds have always been for, even if this exact process is new.

But because I'm not in a WvW guild I don't play with specific people. Yes I recognise several guild and individual names from my server, but they've changed over the years. Many of the ones I used to see all the time aren't there any more, and I don't know if they moved to other servers or quit because I'm not in touch with them outside of squad, team and map chat and the occasional whisper about what we're doing. It seems likely that the ones I see frequently now will move to other servers at some point too, from what I've heard all the WvW guilds and a lot of hardcore players move fairly often whereas I've always stayed on the same one, so in a way I'm playing with random people now anyway.

This week has actually made me less worried about alliances, because I'm not with my server but my experience in WvW hasn't been that different, and I'm already playing with whoever I happen to be grouped with because we chose the same server, so it looks like not much will change for me.

[Nidome.1365]

On 12/6/2021 at 2:28 PM, saerni.2584 said:

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. 

 

I play a lot of WvW and have done since launch. I remember the 3-way fights on each border at north camp following reset to get the orbs of power, getting pearls for the quaggan and capturing the krait island. When commander tags were only 100g each and you had to use the commands /squadinfo and /supplyinfo.

I also remember when Anet decided to have a free transfer window causing some guilds to hop servers en-mass because they thought they would get better fights (or whatever) by being on a different server, unfortunately most of these found that the grass was not greener causing significant numbers of their guild members to leave WvW, and thus did WvW numbers start their massive decline and the population imbalances to begin.

The Alliance system sidelines the stalwarts who never hopped servers regularly and rewards those that did and I believe that nothing good can come from that.

I don't like the Beta and anecdotally I am not the only one to express such an opinion.

[Dawdler.8521]

4 hours ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

What's with all the hyper salty defending of alliances. If people say they're outnumbered a lot you (who doesn't have a clue if that's true or not) immediately jump them and say 'no you're not, look better roamer'. Because of course, you, who aren't in their pairing, know better wether they're outnumbered a lot.

Stop going to extreme lengths to defend this bad system.

I dont know, call me cynical but often when people claim they're outnumbered they are also for some reason on the winning team. 

What's the status of your matchup out of curiousity then?

[Custodio.6134]

5 hours ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

Yet you put players (guilds) in full control of bandwagoning and make it easier and cheaper. How will it fix this?

On top of that "bandwagoning" is hardly an issue in EU servers. There's only so many times entire groups of people are willing to move from one server to the next.

Do you exactly know how "bandwagoning" and "overstacking" (with the latter being the bigger issue) even work?
Let me explain: 
bandwagoning is the effect that occurs, if one guild transferring to a different server leads to players and other guilds doing them alike. The result is like a little snowball effect, that drags more and more people from one server to a different one. This can also result in overstacking, if conditions are met. 

now to overstacking: 
Overstacking is the phenomenon, when after a re-link, the two linked servers have a massively larger population than they should have by the time of relink-calculation. 
The reason for this is the ability of players to transfer to a non-full server at any time, regardless of the future linking. so how do they do it?
You probably noticed, that every re-link ANet announces the new constellations of linked servers hours ahead of the actual reset and relink. The players then massively transfer to the low-population servers, which are not linked together yet (because of their low population), but WILL be linked after the re-link is done. 
This way you can shoot 2 medium-populated servers which are "marked" for being linked together to a full population after the links have been set, creating a link out of 2 full servers after the re-link.

Now let me explain how World Restructuring and Alliances can prevent that: 

If you have followed the blogs and forum posts where ANet explained their concept, They already gave some crucial information. 
Once the teams have been built, any change of your chosen Guild/Alliance will NOT take effect until the next re-building of worlds (until the next start of the WvW-season which will come back with the final system). So what i mentioned above (guilds and players transferring after new links have been set, overstacking servers as a result) will no longer be possible, since teams are locked for the entire season after the new teams have been built.  
Of course, bandwagoning will partially still occur, since alliances will break and other alliances will be built anew, but this will also be accounted for when worlds are built (because the final system builds the worlds out of alliances, guilds and solo players). 

[Shroud.2307]

I haven't participated in it, and I've played maybe 2 or 3 times for less than 1 hour in the last nearly 3 months.
That is, I've been playing very little, if at all, for quite some time.

Before I start, I just want to say that this is less of a criticism and more of an observation. I've never felt very strongly about the idea of Alliances, and as it gets closer to full release, my feelings are becoming more and more divided.

On one hand, it could be great for identity. It allows for more curated choices in your community on who you as an Alliance choose to recruit, promote, and abandon. People are more likely to get passionate about an Alliance controlled by a community they feel a part of than a generic Server with no control over who comes and goes.
This could mean that some Alliances will have very prevalent personalities akin to Servers pre-links, where long periods of time with the same people solidified certain strategies and communications. You knew what to expect when facing certain Servers, where as with links, communities mix and become harder to predict.

While I think it's great that actions and ideas are shared between Servers with links, it also means it's easier to feel like matches are a generic battle between team A vs team B and C. How do you motivate yourself to contribute or be someone in a community you're unfamiliar and that's ever-changing?

Alliances may resolve this in some ways, and worsen it in others. Players may come and go more frequently than before, and Alliances on both ends of the spectrum may form with teams of veteran players able to steamroll teams that accept anyone and everyone.

Obviously I don't think these are things that can be completely avoided, so again, this isn't a criticism.

For players like myself that don't like to commit to Guilds, the problem I fear is loss of identity. 
I could join an Alliance, some will likely be the very same as Servers with no real requirements, but you may need to consider how the community handles people who only ever do their own thing.
If you never talk or join groups, you may be let go. A problem that Servers never presented.

Q: Why do you prefer Servers if that's a commitment in and of itself? Being a part of that community and contributing to it has the same structure as an Alliance.
A: Because I can be a nobody and still be a somebody. I don't care if my Server wins or loses, but I can contribute in my own thankless ways, know people through indirect exposure, and feel like I always have a home.

Q: If a Alliance had no requirements, how would you feel about joining it? What about one with strict requirements?
A: The overarching problem here is that I feel like I no longer have a home. Instead of living in a house, I now live in a R.V. (recreational vehicle). My home is always moving and I'm not in control of where it goes. With Servers, I feel stationary - I don't have to worry about my home suddenly being gone, though my doors are always open to the neighborhood. The reason I'm uncomfortable is that either I choose a Alliance that may crumble or let me go, or I choose nothing and go with the wind. What ever I choose, the foundation is unstable.

I play WvW not for my Server, but for my neighborhood - the people I know through exposure. Some I like, some I don't, but I'm happy that I can't cast a vote to remove them, and they can't to me. We have to live with each other, but we have the freedom to move elsewhere if we choose. The point is that the end result is our choice and no one elses.

Although where I reside is a concern, it's only a part of what worries me for the future. I don't feel any motivation to do anything if I feel like I won't know half of who I'm playing with a couple weeks down the road. Sure I'd hate it if I weren't accepted in to the Alliance I wanted to join, or if I were kicked from one, but that's not the issue. It's that if I'm being shuffled around all the time, I don't care to play.

Ultimately, I want a place that I can come home to, where I like the residents or not. I want everything I do to feel like I'm in control of it, and my efforts are decided by those around me because I want to help and contribute to those I care for.
Those things can all be answered by Alliances, but the foundation will never be the same.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[Custodio.6134]

@Shroud.2307 finally!
the first forum-post i´ve seen since the first announcement of alliances, that is reasonable even though it is not "pro-alliances". 
It´s pretty rare nowadays that disaggreement is brought out on an objective level, without any "whaaa everything is bad and my opinion is the only truth, but i cannot support my opinion with logical, grounded arguments". 

quite refreshing tbh.