Quick follow-up to December 3 World Restructuring Beta

[Josh Davis.7865]

Hey folks,

 

Quick FYI: we are NOT planning to run any additional World Restructuring beta events before the end of the year. We're working on addressing some bugs from the last beta and we also don't want to clash with your holiday plans.

 

We'll be back in the New Year with another deep-dive recap post that covers the December World Restructuring Beta, similar to the other posts we've made recently. There's so much data and feedback to dig through!

 

Happy holidays,

 

-Josh

 

[Pagan Highlander.5948]

Well, our Holiday plans was doing another Beta

Edited December 15, 2021 by Pagan Highlander.5948

[Woop S.7851]

Thanks so much for the hard work & happy holidays! 🥳 There's so many posts, not sure if the below helps...please add if something is missing...

A. Small-guild perspective:

Before Beta:

• Guilds that were aware of beta started to form large mega-guilds (alliances)
• Guild hopping/recruitment present before beta event
• Players not aware of beta (casuals) + small guilds affected most when beta started

Beta Day-1 to mid-week:

• Players in the same guild that didn't pick a 'Guild' were put on different teams during beta
• Players feeling left out waited for beta to end before re-entering WvW (cohorts' activity/data missing)
• Small guilds most affected as not all members can meet in the same time-zones + on different teams
• Small guild members hopping/stacking to mega-guilds present, but not effective due to players  'locked' to their team for a week
• Small guild members started to follow mega-guilds' scheduled WvW activity times in order to have a higher chance of winning/obtain rewards + have a tag to follow (a positive)
• With players from smaller guilds now following mega-guilds, will it affect participation of the smaller guild? Can alliances similar to GW1 help with this? (need data)

B. Beta Mid-week to end of week (need data to verify):

• New PvX players (with PvE guilds) were curious, joined battle on day 1, around mid-week they wanted to join the WvW 'guild' group (needed guidance, experience, and proper equipment) but were lost, their WvW activity/experience mid-week is mixed, activity slowed/missing (need verification by data)
• PvX players (with guilds) joined the WvW action during prime hours of the week, roamed, followed tags, had fun
• PvX players (without guilds) joined the WvW action during prime hours of the week, roamed, followed tags, had fun
• PvX players (with guilds) joined the WvW action during off-hours of the week, had no tags to follow, would wait for guilds' scheduled WvW hours (data needed to verify)
• PvX players (without guilds) joined the WvW action during off-hours of the week, died, had no tags to follow on map, no guide to help them, possibly had less fun (data needed to verify)
• PvP players + WvW Veterans -> potential future alliance leaders (skillful & understood PvP mechanics + had proper gear) had option to lead/follow tags or roam solo or in small groups anytime - mixed experiences (need data to verify)

C. Observations:

• The duration of a match until reset (4-hours? 24-hours? half a week? 1-week?) will set the premise & directly affect player behavior when forming guilds/alliances/social groups specifically for WvW
• In GW1, 10 mega guilds with 100 members each could form a 1000 player alliance, this worked as GW1 matches reset every 30-40 minutes (shorter intervals), countering 1-sided guild/server/team stacking in combat
• Unlike GW1, if match resets are 1-week, Alliance member cap needs to be set in order to counter 'team stacking' as there's no match reset mid-week
• Since the preliminary 500 player cap is projected to be set, a mega-guild of 500 vs an alliance (10 guilds each with 50 players - casuals) could work as playtimes will vary
• In the rare event where a 'mega-alliance' of 5000 appears during a weekly match reset, how can the algorithm calculate this scenario? (data needed)

D. Additional data/statistics needed:

• Amount of participation by players of all levels when a 'Commander' voluntarily tags up on a map
• Amount of participation by players of all levels when no 'tags' are on (is it off-hours? How to mitigate? Need data)
• Mon - Friday workdays player WvW participation rate
• Sat - Sunday weekends player WvW participation rate
• Match-reset "stacking" player WvW participation rate, are they guilds? alliances? roamers? hours played in WvW?
• Drilldown of guilds/alliances/commander presence within the 1-week match, map has Queue & full of players, '0' commander tags, what next? Could 'tagging up' or 'down' (based on user decision/behavior) count as an variable in balancing participant numbers, hence gameplay?

E. Possibilities:

• Next beta: maybe player can select the beta 'Alliance' to fight for in WvW (identity & community forming possible)
• As mentioned by others in another post, the Alliance system/panel needs proper UI/UX/Tooltips/Guides in order to guide new players/new guild leaders/veterans to form community groups/alliances/allies & sustain it long-term
• For communities to 'feel' matches are fair, the match reset timer or time-gate (4-hours? 24-hours? 1-week?) will directly impact their experience during different hours of the day

WvW matching (theoretical scenario & user social behavior) to consider:

• Match: 1-week reset
• Players: 8-hour sleep time, 3 meals a day, varying time-zones/regions, varying skill level/activity time in WvW
• 500 player mega-guild: hardcore gamers, lots of time to recruit, farm gold, expand
• 500 player alliance (10 guilds with 50 members each): less time, less time to farm gold, casual, have school/work
• Mega-guilds will stack to win by numbers (human nature) + arrange for voice + 'schedule/time' in WvW (structured play)
• Alliance of 10 casual guilds will vary in play time (un-structured)
• hence...

Questions:

• 1-week match reset is on Friday 7PM PST time
• It is Wednesday 7PM PST time (after dinner), Mega-guild tags up on EBG
• It is Wednesday 10PM EST time (almost sleeping time), a casual Alliance is done for the night & tags off on EBG
• How will random roamers on both sides react who've just joined the map?
• How will new players on both sides react when joining WvW for the first time?
• It is now 10PM PST, 1AM EST, Mega-guild still on EBG, Opposing side has '0' commander tags, what next?
• Will automated triggers in-game help? Automated NPC tags? Better "Alliance, Commander, Squad" UI/UX/Interfaces? WvW Alliance specific goals/missions that will bring together members of any alliance guild (even during off hours)? Siege Turtle vehicle with automated respawn to retake a keep repeatedly re-captured by a mega-guild that night?
• Will scores be balanced/fair in this scenario (during start of match reset)
• And will Commander Siegerazer finally receive additional automated subroutines when no 'Tags' are active?

Edited December 15, 2021 by Woop S.7851

[bambi.6214]

Thanks Josh, can't wait for the results and more betas, enjoy your soon-to-come holiday!

[Dawdler.8521]

7 hours ago, Woop S.7851 said:

• In the rare event where a 'mega-alliance' of 5000 appears during a weekly match reset, how can the algorithm calculate this scenario? (data needed)

The algorithm doesnt need to calculate whats literally impossible under the system.

Alliances where said to be 500 due to the guild cap being 500, end of story. If anet change that they either make alliances pointless (make a guild) or opposite to the entire point of the restructuring system (smaller chunks that can be evened out).

[Mabi black.1824]

while I was reading I came up with this.......... as far as I could verify on our server / world practically in the last two years.......... if there is a full team of 50 players and some scout activity around you will have the full map and if you are lucky to find a queue of 10 men on the home map is a rarity.

the most you can get in the server rush hour.... at least that's what I saw.

can I just make an assumption saying that the map is complete with about 70 players ? the second map I am not able to fill it and so I imagine 50 players?

the other two maps not much activity so let's say 30 players?

so I counted a total of about 180 players.

First consideration: If you field a single alliance of 500 players vs a current team/server you could be devastating.

second consideration: in Europe we have 27 teams......... so I imagine in the hours of maximum activity about 4,860 players ...... let's make pure 5,000.........so 10 complete alliances.

if we assume that the games in the new system will consist of multiple alliances + single guilds + random players............ I guess we will have 1 or at most 2 three-way matches every 4 weeks? ( or for the time that will be established )

 

sorry if I posted it here but it came to my mind reading and I went live with my personal thought.

 

and above all I thank and reciprocate my best wishes for a happy Christmas to all developers and all players.

[Danikat.8537]

Alliances are limited to 500 players, but teams/worlds are not.

An alliance is a group of guilds and/or individual players who always want to be in the same team, but they're capped to 500 specifically so one alliance cannot dominate a team. Last time I saw an update from Anet they said they hadn't decided on a cap for teams, but it would be similar to worlds currently which I think allow for a few thousand players (but not all in WvW at once of course).

There used to be a diagram which showed this really nicely, but I can't find it now.

Edit: Found it in an external article: https://i.imgur.com/CdEJAFF.png

Edited December 16, 2021 by Danikat.8537

[antonhavre.6359]

So those of us who are crashing from opening the gemshop? already converted gold to gems to buy things on sale but will miss that?

[borogove.4739]

Don't know if this is the place or not, but i've got a suggestion for later down the road:
Rivals.
Two guilds could pick each other for the matchmaker to set them against each other. It would only work if the leader of both guilds lists the other, or you could even set a list of guilds you'd like to be set against depending on availability. I'm part of a mega guild network, I think there's three or four of us now, and it would be so much fun to set a rivalry up between the sub-guilds. It might also let the really dedicated wvw guilds set themselves a proper challenge, even allowing for them to coordinate major rivalry battle nights.

[van smite.9308]

Im curious to know if you bumped the maximum capacity or if there was some issue (bug) where certain teams had more players on  map than others - for instance on reset might our full guild squad (green) was fighting what appeared to be 2 full guild group squads (blue) compared to our one full squad and maybe 15 sidecar pugs - at the same time it seemed like there was very few red team members on our cued map

 

other observations:
some guildmates who had chosen to rep our guild were still linked with other teams - though putting in a ticket resolved that for many of them - so cheers to that

you had to look at the color of the supply depot in a tower or keep to see who really owned it - the color of the tower would be wrong

 

RI timers were broken

 

cheers to the team putting in all the hard work to make this happen

 

 

[gOo.7928]

Dudes skip holiday just let me play WvW with my guild thats what holidays are for😝

[Lord Rhett.9360]

I just want to throw my two cents out there: I know this was probably a concern, but the breaking up of existing server communities was a really awful experience for me. I know we've dealt with this ever since server linking was a thing, but at least you still had your own people from your own server around. I'm a solo player primarily but I enjoy seeing familiar faces and guilds. The Alliance system threw me in without a lifeboat.

I think it could be really beneficial if there were some kind of Alliance Browser system, where you could see what guilds are where. There are some guilds I would like to follow, and more specifically, guilds I want to avoid. At the very least, it would be nice to know what I'm getting into. Could even make for some interesting recruitment opportunities, so which guild(s) you choose finally matters.

And it'd be nice to get an in-game warning about the beta. There wasn't one last time and it completely threw me off.

[Gorani.7205]

On 12/15/2021 at 2:44 AM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

 We're working on addressing some bugs from the last beta ...

 

 I hope this includes this too

Removed the WvW participation grace time granted from repairing ... a lot of other things, including defense events, dolly escorts on Red Borderland (but not on EB and Alpine). Please check all the stuff that should still give participation and make sure it really does. Thanks & happy holidays

[Loke.1429]

Looking forward to more betas and polish 😁 also looking forward to post eod balance patches

[lzboon.1809]

I feel there should be an option to free up a guild slot on our side. 

since its an alliance I believe an UI for guild to be merge into and select as a whole team is better rather than all

have to join under a guild. Maybe the guild leaders that agreed to form an alliance can form into a squad or party 

to register with the NPC in charge, then all guild members will then just have to select ur own guild to be in the same 

alliance ... so many years into the game, its like forcing ppl to give up many years of friendship in that one guild just cos of alliance 

[Strider Pj.2193]

On 12/16/2021 at 8:19 PM, Lord Rhett.9360 said:

I just want to throw my two cents out there: I know this was probably a concern, but the breaking up of existing server communities was a really awful experience for me. I know we've dealt with this ever since server linking was a thing, but at least you still had your own people from your own server around. I'm a solo player primarily but I enjoy seeing familiar faces and guilds. The Alliance system threw me in without a lifeboat.

I think it could be really beneficial if there were some kind of Alliance Browser system, where you could see what guilds are where. There are some guilds I would like to follow, and more specifically, guilds I want to avoid. At the very least, it would be nice to know what I'm getting into. Could even make for some interesting recruitment opportunities, so which guild(s) you choose finally matters.

And it'd be nice to get an in-game warning about the beta. There wasn't one last time and it completely threw me off.

Then ask those guilds what their plans are.  And , more importantly, if they would have room for you.

 

Then the problem of not knowing people fades.  
 

And if that guild doesn’t want you, then likely you don’t want to be with them either.  
 

Yes, we can get into lots of potential issues from individual player to individual player about their unique situation, but there truly is a relatively easy way to avoid most of the problems.

 

People just need to be willing to try.  

[Strider Pj.2193]

On 12/26/2021 at 1:31 AM, lzboon.1809 said:

I feel there should be an option to free up a guild slot on our side. 

since its an alliance I believe an UI for guild to be merge into and select as a whole team is better rather than all

have to join under a guild. Maybe the guild leaders that agreed to form an alliance can form into a squad or party 

to register with the NPC in charge, then all guild members will then just have to select ur own guild to be in the same 

alliance ... so many years into the game, its like forcing ppl to give up many years of friendship in that one guild just cos of alliance 

I want to point out that you have 5 guild slots, but you already know that.

 

I would love to see them add one guild slot (6 in all) with the introduction of Alliances.  Given that we haven’t heard it mentioned, we should probably go on the assumption that they aren’t going to add one.

 

I have said it before, if it’s not important enough to prioritize a guild for WvW selection by dropping one that you are currently on, then maybe running truly solo is better for you.

[lzboon.1809]

I am in a wvw guild its just that i have to give up another guild slot to make way for an alliance guild which my current wvw guild choose to alliance with .. 

i just feel it works better if we dun need to be in another guild just for that .. a way that truly works with ally with diff guilds into one alliance or something rather than just one major guild 

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, lzboon.1809 said:

I am in a wvw guild its just that i have to give up another guild slot to make way for an alliance guild which my current wvw guild choose to alliance with .. 

That makes absolutely no sense. If your current WvW guild choose an alliance... thats your alliance. Why would you need to give up a guild slot?

[Chaba.5410]

3 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

That makes absolutely no sense. If your current WvW guild choose an alliance... thats your alliance. Why would you need to give up a guild slot?

Well that's what people did for the beta because the alliance functionality wasn't there yet.
 

4 hours ago, lzboon.1809 said:

I am in a wvw guild its just that i have to give up another guild slot to make way for an alliance guild which my current wvw guild choose to alliance with ..

You won't have to give up another guild slot.  The beta didn't have the guild alliance function added yet so what you did was only a temporary work-around.

[lzboon.1809]

Oh I see thats good 

 

[Corma.7268]

On 12/15/2021 at 2:44 AM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

We'll be back in the New Year with another deep-dive recap post that covers the December World Restructuring Beta, similar to the other posts we've made recently. There's so much data and feedback to dig through!

 

 

Did I miss that recap psot somehow? We had another beta since then, and I'm quite curious about what you leaned from these events, and what will come next.

[Ashantara.8731]

On 12/15/2021 at 2:44 AM, Josh Davis.7865 said:

We'll be back in the New Year with another deep-dive recap post that covers the December World Restructuring Beta, [...]

 

Hello Josh,

Sorry for kidnapping this thread to post my question, but I didn't want to spam this subforum with yet another thread, so:

Can we have an estimate on when the actual Alliance System is planned to go live? Within the next six months? 12? 2 years?

Kind regards,
Ashantara