Jump to content
  • Sign Up

I see little practical difference between alliances and servers


jaif.3518

Recommended Posts

So sure, you've balanced the numbers, but it still amounts to the same gameplay - in each timezone, the strong server/alliance abuses the weak, and the server/alliance in the middle also abuses the weak because that's far more lucrative than getting spanked.

You need to account for the fact that a 50 person guild is vastly more powerful than 50 scrubs (like me).  But the current system seems to stack the timezones just as ineffectively as the last system, leading to unbalanced gameplay and no real fun.

  • Like 9
  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Because the maps run 24/7 it's literally impossible for WvW to be perfectly balanced like arena PvP and it seems like a lot of people just coming to WvW for the beta don't realize that. But there is a point that guilds could maybe be given some kind of internal ranking metric besides just player activity. So that purely WvW-focused guilds will be matched vs close peers on other teams that play similar time zones. If they decided to do that it would be best that players not know how it works. 

Edited by Zephyrus.9680
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, jaif.3518 said:

You need to account for the fact that a 50 person guild is vastly more powerful than 50 scrubs (like me). 

Well yes, in equal numbers, organized people will beat unorganized people.

15 minutes ago, jaif.3518 said:

But the current system seems to stack the timezones just as ineffectively as the last system, leading to unbalanced gameplay and no real fun.

Bring your guild and recruit people from multiple timezones and you'll have a strong alliance for the key hours, even if you are not present.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ive been on both sides of the equation this week, and over the course of the years.  I was just pointing out that balancing numbers haven't changed much outside of the times when servers are brimming with guilds.

 

I think the change needed is to rank the guilds and have the system compute the alliances.

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i see a LOT of differences. First will be more "dinamic" than link system. if they "redo" teams every week, with a mora dinamic calculus.

the balance u want its impossible because this inst matchmaking system from pvp, where a algorithm select players from a "pool" to stablish the teams.

is part of fun of WvW some unpredictable and chaotic nature, so theres will be unbalanced setups.

Edited by ugrakarma.9416
  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

i see a LOT of differences. First will be more "dinamic" than link system. if they "redo" teams every week, with a mora dinamic calculus.

the balance u want its impossible because this inst matchmaking system from pvp, where a algorithm select players from a "pool" to stablish the teams.

is part of fun of WvW some unpredictable and chaotic nature, so theres will be unbalanced setups.

Sorry, but I do not see any fun, seeing 50 blues, 30 greens, and 5 reds. That's just zero fun, it's not playable. It's even not a game anymore, so this needs to be adressed. It was already very unbalanced before, but now, with the beta, it's just totaly awful. All the maps are blue, slightly green, and not red at all. The only balancing mechanism I'ml seeing so far are people leaving the RVR because it's so boring for everybody, winning without challange, or loossing because being alone... 

Unbalanced is totaly predictable, 50 against 5 will always give the same result... 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

I see little practical difference between alliances and servers

Actually, I don't understand how you can see anything about alliances as the alliance system hasn't been introduced yet. The only thing we are seeing in this beta is the developers testing the code for getting people placed correctly with the guild they selected. As for the mismatch in numbers, it looks the same to me now as it does outside of a beta. That is, the numbers depend on when you are playing, and which map you are playing on.

So far in this beta, I've played Friday at the reset, Saturday morning and evening, est times, as well as Sunday morning est. On Friday, there were massive blobs everywhere, of all three colors, which is what I usually see when I log in just after the WvW reset. Saturday morning, there were zerg fights on EBG but I was able to solo roam on the other maps. When big enemy zergs showed up on one map, I was able to keep roaming by shifting to another map. Saturday night, two guildies and I did some small group roaming the same way. When we ran afoul of enemy zergs, we simply went to a different part of the map or shifted to another map and continued our roaming. Sunday morning, I spent some time in EBG running with a zerg. We ran into enemy zergs bigger and smaller than ours. We won some battles and lost others. 

All of that seemed like pretty normal WvW gameplay to me. The only real difference I see so far in this beta, is that our team, or shard, or whatever, seems to have a distinct lack of good, open tag commanders. The zerg Sunday morning was the first time I found a reasonably good one on our side since the start of the beta. 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 3
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, jaif.3518 said:

So sure, you've balanced the numbers, but it still amounts to the same gameplay - in each timezone, the strong server/alliance abuses the weak, and the server/alliance in the middle also abuses the weak because that's far more lucrative than getting spanked.

You need to account for the fact that a 50 person guild is vastly more powerful than 50 scrubs (like me).  But the current system seems to stack the timezones just as ineffectively as the last system, leading to unbalanced gameplay and no real fun.

Although many of us advocated trying to dynamically handicap the game, he devs prefer a system which gives them absolute control.

 

They talked on he stream many times about being unable to do much about the troubles of WvW until the sides were even, but they've always had the option to create dynamic handicaps - they just don't want to take/commit to it.

 

One reason you're seeing people abstain from the WvW Restructuring Beta is their unfamiliarity with their team. Without familiar faces/voices, WvW is just another MOBA. Another reason is a significant lack of commanders - which could be for any reason really, but shyness and a lack of team spirit is certainly [two] of them. 

Edited by Svarty.8019
corrected number of reasons
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi, jumping by to add my 2 cents.

 

I am part of a wanna be alliance and for that beta we all join a "parent guild" in order to simulate the alliance mechanic. As far as I am concerned I see overall more commanders and fuller squad than before. Part of it is we asked ourselves in advance how to include people that were not part of the alliance so they don't feel left alone.

 

Overall the experience is positive and people outside of the alliance seems to enjoy the beta as well. But yes... The matchup probably need better tuning, which to be fair may very well come with divisions rank up and rank down.

Edited by Guybrush.4762
  • Like 2
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, jaif.3518 said:

So sure, you've balanced the numbers, but it still amounts to the same gameplay - in each timezone, the strong server/alliance abuses the weak, and the server/alliance in the middle also abuses the weak because that's far more lucrative than getting spanked.

You need to account for the fact that a 50 person guild is vastly more powerful than 50 scrubs (like me).  But the current system seems to stack the timezones just as ineffectively as the last system, leading to unbalanced gameplay and no real fun.

Actually, no ... no good game should ever account for the differences between varying group performances in competitive game modes though some mechanic ... that's the WHOLE POINT of these modes being competitive. Rewards should not be given primarily for participation in these modes (or at all depending on who you talk to)

Edited by Obtena.7952
  • Like 2
  • Haha 2
  • Confused 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Actually, no ... no good game should ever account for the differences between varying group performances in competitive game modes though some mechanic ... that's the WHOLE POINT of these modes being competitive. Rewards should not be given primarily for participation in these modes (or at all depending on who you talk to)

WvW does account for it though, the tier system. 

  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

WvW does account for it though, the tier system. 

Yup ... so that should tell you something about the problems that are in that game mode. Let's be clear here ... it's a competitive game mode so rewards should be based on ... being competitive and winning, not making people feel good if they aren't. 

Edited by Obtena.7952
  • Like 3
  • Haha 1
  • Confused 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Yup ... so that should tell you something about the problems that are in that game mode. Let's be clear here ... it's a competitive game mode so rewards should be based on ... being competitive and winning, not making people feel good if they aren't. 

Wait…. Out of curiosity, other than creating an argument just to argue, what are you doing in this part of the discussion forum?  You obviously only have contempt for the mode.  You’ve stated it multiple times over the years.

 

Please , comment on what you know.

Edited by Strider Pj.2193
  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
  • Haha 1
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Strider Pj.2193 said:

Please , comment on what you know.

No problem ... I know that view that players should get rewarded primarily for winning and being successful in a competitive game mode isn't just 'arguing just to argue' ... that's a VERY reasonable view to have. 

Edited by Obtena.7952
  • Haha 1
  • Confused 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If your game mode that involves 3 participants boils down to "two of you will lose, and gain pretty much nothing", you need to go back to the drawing board.

I mean, wow, this is... this is a 90 IQ realization. WvW is not a "best of the best, winner take all" tournament. That approach is not how you build a player base.

  • Like 5
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

No problem ... I know that view that players should get rewarded primarily for winning and being successful in a competitive game mode isn't just 'arguing just to argue' ... that's a VERY reasonable view to have. 

In a ranked, structured game mode like PvP I would agree with you.  But in WvW, we're talking about a large blend of experiences with "winning" as just one thread.  For many people, it's simply fun to be part of the big army running around with omega golems while getting blasted by arrow cart fire.  I would argue that the blend of people and experiences is what gives WvW its unique charm, and if you boil it all down to just winning & losing, people will abandon the mode; the casuals and losers will leave as the fun factor dies off (for them), and the try-hards will gradually manipulate the selection process until they have nobody to fight against.

 

I want to be clear, I have nothing against people striving to be the best, forming elite groups that take on many times their numbers.  That's very cool stuff.  But if you want WvW to succeed, you can't group all of the elites in a big alliance and hope to balance that with an equal number of regulars.  The game mode will have a steady drain as frustrated players go elsewhere, and WvW is meaningless without those healthy populations.

 

  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, jaif.3518 said:

In a ranked, structured game mode like PvP I would agree with you.  But in WvW, we're talking about a large blend of experiences with "winning" as just one thread.  For many people, it's simply fun to be part of the big army running around with omega golems while getting blasted by arrow cart fire.  I would argue that the blend of people and experiences is what gives WvW its unique charm, and if you boil it all down to just winning & losing, people will abandon the mode; the casuals and losers will leave as the fun factor dies off (for them), and the try-hards will gradually manipulate the selection process until they have nobody to fight against.

 

I want to be clear, I have nothing against people striving to be the best, forming elite groups that take on many times their numbers.  That's very cool stuff.  But if you want WvW to succeed, you can't group all of the elites in a big alliance and hope to balance that with an equal number of regulars.  The game mode will have a steady drain as frustrated players go elsewhere, and WvW is meaningless without those healthy populations.

 

All of the elites won’t group in one alliance.  For multiple reasons:

1.  Most of the ‘elites’ want people to fight against.  That can’t happen if they are in the same Alliance

2.  There is only going to be room for 500 players in an alliance.  Of course, if all of them play 24/7 then you get ques etc.  of course it’s not going to happen.  It didn’t happen with the hyper stacked BG.  Who, I think everyone would agree had more than 500 active players.  And queues only happened at reset times or one map during NA prime for the past 4 years.

3.  This actually will allow for guilds to recruit again.  Locked servers made it very difficult for guilds to recruit new players.  Their choice was, keep the status quo, or ‘bandwagon’ to other servers.  It made it extremely difficult to develop any sense of community within servers as we saw links become hosts then links again with mass transfers.

4.  People who aren’t willing to join some form of a WvW guild for placement purposes may leave.  Initially.  But IF they actually like the game Mode, they’ll come back.  
 

My friends list which was anemic for active players the last three years has lit up over the last 3 months.  And the bulk of them are showing in WvW maps.  Now, some are intrigued by EOD, but most are noting alliances has re invigorated them.  And of course, my experience is anectodal, but we’ve predicted the death of WvW for 8 years.  It’s changed no less than the game as a whole over that period of time.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

 

And of course, my experience is anectodal, but we’ve predicted the death of WvW for 8 years.

 

To be clear, I'm not predicting "the death of WvW". 

 

I think many people here will agree with me that when WvW is good, it's GREAT, but the issue is how often it's good to start with.  While I'm certain there will be more "good" with population controls, returning players, and so-on, I don't think it stops the long-term slide.

 

1 hour ago, Strider Pj.2193 said:

1.  Most of the ‘elites’ want people to fight against.  That can’t happen if they are in the same Alliance

 

I disagree.  When it was the word "server" instead of the word "Alliance", the elites banded together on a few servers.  Now I'm expecting the same behavior as before, only substituting the word "Alliance".

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, jaif.3518 said:

To be clear, I'm not predicting "the death of WvW". 

 

I think many people here will agree with me that when WvW is good, it's GREAT, but the issue is how often it's good to start with.  While I'm certain there will be more "good" with population controls, returning players, and so-on, I don't think it stops the long-term slide.

 

 

I disagree.  When it was the word "server" instead of the word "Alliance", the elites banded together on a few servers.  Now I'm expecting the same behavior as before, only substituting the word "Alliance".

They went on a ‘few servers’ because it could be counted in to be matched up against each other for good content.  It wasn’t ‘one server’.  
 

Most don’t want to play with the elites anyway, or so everyone in the forum says lol..  🤣

 

To be clear, I am not concerned about EU prime (for the eu servers) or NA prime (for the NA servers.  I worry more about SEA and OCX.  
 

NA will have enough commanders bounce to multiple different alliances because of space.  Individual guilds will be able to recruit.

 

Nit sure there are enough OCX and SEA players that, would spread out significantly enough.  And one or two alliances of those time zones exclusively could be a problem.  I don’t think that will happen, but it could be a problem.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, jaif.3518 said:

I disagree.  When it was the word "server" instead of the word "Alliance", the elites banded together on a few servers.  Now I'm expecting the same behavior as before, only substituting the word "Alliance".

What is your indication of that? At least on EU thats not the case. It's just that people sometimes missinterpret high tiers and high ppt scores with playing good. At least on EU, servers that are top tiers usually have very little quality content and guilds avoid it. It's usually just random clouds and disorganised pug blobs. No offense to those few good guilds in t1.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the real issue w wvw is players often express that they don't feel connected to the team Alliances sounds better but, in practice, if alliances dont create a motivation for people to care how the team does vs how they individually do it will always be the same in WvW alliances wont matter. Why? Motivation and personal benefit. Right now all the benefits and rewards are for the individual I dont notice any gain when my server is winning vs losing. I dont care who is on my team because its always changing. Unless people happen to be in one of the wvw mega guilds I see no motivation or reason for each player to care about winning or losing. They will tend to only care about personal triumph (that kill on that certain player, or some momentary action) but the big picture and reason to care about the team seems 100% missing from the game, in general and particularly, in wvw.

 

TBH I think what might help/fix WvW alliances or not would be Guild System rework. The Guild System has sucked for years. Missions are pointless, Guild Hall provides nothing much, Guilds are 99% a chat channel at best. Many Guilds are nothing but crickets even in Guild Chat.

How can alliances fix WvW when the Guild System is such trash??? Rework the Guild Sytem to give benefits for people doing things as a guild and that would help fix wvw, pvp, raids, etc. Why? because it would create social bonding of players and the enjoyent that comes when you actually care about the person you are working/playing with and feeling like you are part of a group .

GW2 seriouly lacks any system to give people a reason to bond or care about other players and the group. That is, gw2 players tend to care about the group only so far as how the group is performing and will it let them get the individual reward they want. A good example is raid pugs and the way people just drop out of the Blue after one pull. That person is thinking as a solo player and that group didnt give them the solo experience they hoped for so they drop and look for another rewarding opportunity for themselves cause that's all the game is designed to motivate them to care about.

Edited by Moradorin.6217
  • Like 2
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

55 minutes ago, Moradorin.6217 said:

I think the real issue w wvw is players often express that they don't feel connected to the team Alliances sounds better but, in practice, if alliances dont create a motivation for people to care how the team does vs how they individually do it will always be the same in WvW alliances wont matter. Why? Motivation and personal benefit. Right now all the benefits and rewards are for the individual I dont notice any gain when my server is winning vs losing. I dont care who is on my team because its always changing. Unless people happen to be in one of the wvw mega guilds I see no motivation or reason for each player to care about winning or losing. They will tend to only care about personal triumph (that kill on that certain player, or some momentary action) but the big picture and reason to care about the team seems 100% missing from the game, in general and particularly, in wvw.

 

TBH I think what might help/fix WvW alliances or not would be Guild System rework. The Guild System has sucked for years. Missions are pointless, Guild Hall provides nothing much, Guilds are 99% a chat channel at best. Many Guilds are nothing but crickets even in Guild Chat.

How can alliances fix WvW when the Guild System is such trash??? Rework the Guild Sytem to give benefits for people doing things as a guild and that would help fix wvw, pvp, raids, etc. Why? because it would create social bonding of players and the enjoyent that comes when you actually care about the person you are working/playing with and feeling like you are part of a group .

GW2 seriouly lacks any system to give people a reason to bond or care about other players and the group. That is, gw2 players tend to care about the group only so far as how the group is performing and will it let them get the individual reward they want. A good example is raid pugs and the way people just drop out of the Blue after one pull. That person is thinking as a solo player and that group didnt give them the solo experience they hoped for so they drop and look for another rewarding opportunity for themselves cause that's all the game is designed to motivate them to care about.

Granted, this is spinning slightly off topic, but: I got very curious if you had any ideas in mind for such a change to the guild system? Looking back to the old guild system, we had the Influence resource which was pretty much meant to work that way, but in the end got mainly used as a stick forcing guilds to make 99/100% rep required to join!

On the main topic: Well yeah, World-Restructure only aims at dealing with a single problem (for now), which was Worlds and stacking of such. It doesn't try to make perfectly balanced pvp matches, like matching coverage, skill, organisation, etc. Grouch said they want to look into a few more things down the road, once World-Restructure works, including Coverage.

But, the very structure of the 24/7 game mode means that perfect balance will never exist (for more than a small fleeting moment here and there). So "Balanced population/coverage" in WvW still has to be dealt with in a very rough fashion. 

And a very important aspect of the system to help balance out matches, is the World Ranking system, which is completely neutered during these beta weeks. Normally after 2-3 weeks, most Worlds would have risen or sunk down to the tiers they should be in, based on the population/coverage/organisation they have. 

Unfortunately, the greatest culprit of this problem in the first place, was stacking coverage players into specific servers. And that's likely a problem that will remain. 500 Sea/Ocx players in a single alliance will most likely be just as damaging to the system as a whole, as the same is now in the World system. I guess the main difference is that now they might not be able to fit ALL of them inside the same World.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Granted, this is spinning slightly off topic, but: I got very curious if you had any ideas in mind for such a change to the guild system? Looking back to the old guild system, we had the Influence resource which was pretty much meant to work that way, but in the end got mainly used as a stick forcing guilds to make 99/100% rep required to join!

On the main topic: Well yeah, World-Restructure only aims at dealing with a single problem (for now), which was Worlds and stacking of such. It doesn't try to make perfectly balanced pvp matches, like matching coverage, skill, organisation, etc. Grouch said they want to look into a few more things down the road, once World-Restructure works, including Coverage.

But, the very structure of the 24/7 game mode means that perfect balance will never exist (for more than a small fleeting moment here and there). So "Balanced population/coverage" in WvW still has to be dealt with in a very rough fashion. 

And a very important aspect of the system to help balance out matches, is the World Ranking system, which is completely neutered during these beta weeks. Normally after 2-3 weeks, most Worlds would have risen or sunk down to the tiers they should be in, based on the population/coverage/organisation they have. 

Unfortunately, the greatest culprit of this problem in the first place, was stacking coverage players into specific servers. And that's likely a problem that will remain. 500 Sea/Ocx players in a single alliance will most likely be just as damaging to the system as a whole, as the same is now in the World system. I guess the main difference is that now they might not be able to fit ALL of them inside the same World.

I have a few ideas about how guilds could do a better job of getting members to interact. Im basically spit balling but I play and think allot about gw2. First I think a simple reward system for grouping with x^n, y^n, z^n in which x, y, z are reward tiers and n is the number of guild members in party/squad when doing ANY content. The purpose would be to give players benefit for doing things with other members and it could be scalable for more members. It should be things like XP, MF, gold from kill % boosts. That would be beneficial but not so much that people start new farms or what not. This wouldn't seem to have the same issue as guild influence but might still motivate guild interaction and bonding between players.

I also  think Guild Missions in all modes need to have rewards redone because you cant even get good ascended trinkets from them at this point unless the person is running a core stat (zerker or cele) and most dont collect the Guild Skins and dont like them. So update the Commendations merchant to carry stat selectable ascended trinkets or something like that so people will actually want some of the rewards. Then rework Missions the chase down 10 Bounties in 10 minutes crap is so pointless considering the rewards. The only Missions that are decent are the easy ones right now, but again mostly because they give kitten for rewards to most players and nothing on a failure. If the rewards arent repeatable they could at least give a small prize for failure of Mission so people dont walk away thinking "WOW Guild Missions SUCK". I wont even get into how stupid bad most of the wvw Mission designs.

 

Side topic: I also tend to think private tags shouldn't get the commander map bonus. I think the commander bonus should help motivate people to command with a tag out so they are benefiting the server and yes I think private tags are bad in wvw and I know many think the opposite and have had that debate and feel I'm right and who ever doesn't agree is wrong.

 

In some ways I think the alliance system is the opposite of what might be best. TBH it might be a better mode if everyone in WvW was stripped of Guild Tags and lost Guild chat while in WvW and everyone was forced to work with those actually on the server at a given time. It would force people to stop just hidding in private little groups that ignore the rest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...