Why do we need Alliances?

[Ya Ya Yeah.7381]

Honestly, they could have just closed some servers and funneled the remaining players on to the rest, gave everyone free transfers and opened up the surviving servers and we would pretty much have the same result as now. 

I just don't know if there is something else coming later that will make all of this make sense. 

There has always been fight dodging but, I'm seeing everything the same as normal - ghost town borderlands, nobody defending, ktraining and dodging fights. Pretty much like normal, just a bit more because we are packed into basically megaservers.

Eotm 2.0 It's just that it is on WvW maps. This is just what I see.

[Dawdler.8521]

41 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Also welcome twink account number 3457. I love how so many players share their concerns on accounts with no forum interaction whatsoever and always in time for the betas. Most often sharing the exact same concerns (and mistakes) as other accounts. 🙄

Heaven forbid they get confused emotes on their main account.

[Sylosi.6503]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Heaven forbid they get confused emotes on their main account.

Which incidentally brings up one of the reasons alliances are so poorly thought out. The notion that alliances will bring meaningful balance between "worlds" when so many players have multiple accounts (especially tryhard players) is laughable. And if they ever add decent rewards, then you only have to look at PvP to see the lengths people will go to in order to "win".

Edited October 17, 2022 by Sylosi.6503

[Chaba.5410]

44 minutes ago, Crazy.6029 said:

Honestly, they could have just closed some servers and funneled the remaining players on to the rest, gave everyone free transfers and opened up the surviving servers and we would pretty much have the same result as now.

How would that allow the "server community" on those closed servers a chance to remain together, especially if the other servers end up going Full before everyone on the closed server gets a chance to join?

[subversiontwo.7501]

On 10/16/2022 at 2:09 PM, Playmate.8521 said:

Dont get me wrong, but i dont get why we need alliances. In fact this beta now is just changing Servernames to other Servernames and mixing Players (guilds) and thats it. It makes the life easier for Serverhopping Guilds/People but is this what you want? Helping people to hop servers easy and fast? Destoying existing communitys?

2 hours ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

Everyone saying alliances will be easier to balance is sorely mistaken and has no idea of game design.
If you make it easier for players to move around, you make it harder to balance things for yourself. It's that simple.
 

The problem with both of these posts is that neither of you have figured out that the new system aims to make it more difficult to transfer by resetting worlds and evening out the world populations every eight weeks.

It is much easier to affect populations through transfering when worlds that are "medium" and "high" exists. The new system will essentially place every world at "very high" (close to the "full" margin) every eight weeks. The amount of people that can transfer at any given time will be much lower. That's part of the expressed goal of the system.

Ed. When the world hits "full" the system will also impose another small margin that restricts who can transfer for the last few spots (prioritising communities that first populated the world at reset). So the system will not only limit transfers for everyone, it will restrict transfers for people who just want to hitch their wagon to the winning horse even more.

Edited October 17, 2022 by subversiontwo.7501

[Cyninja.2954]

2 hours ago, Sylosi.6503 said:

Which incidentally brings up one of the reasons alliances are so poorly thought out. The notion that alliances will bring meaningful balance between "worlds" when so many players have multiple accounts (especially tryhard players) is laughable. And if they ever add decent rewards, then you only have to look at PvP to see the lengths people will go to in order to "win".

 

Current system:

Every account is treated equal no matter if main, twink, alt or whatever in regards to server. The only factor is playtime for matchmaking aka server linking which can be circumvented. Players aren't penalized for playing an alt account except for the loss of "progress" on their main.

 

Alliance system:

- limited amount of slots in guilds and alliances creates actual value in who you want if performance is of concern

- playing an alt account does not help the guild/alliance of the main unless thatvalt is also in the guild/alliance

- if not part of a guild/alliance, no guarantee to be matched with players you want

 

I'll let you figure out how both of these systems can lead to differing player behavior.

Edited October 17, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Ya Ya Yeah.7381]

They would have to leave all the servers open for a while. I don't see much of difference between doing that and having the ability just to switch your alliance in the wvw tab to change which alliance you want to go to, which is what we have now. Maybe it will change. /shrug

I don't really think that they will listen to any of these suggestions at this point (they have too much rhetoric behind this idea as well as public acknowledgement) so it doesn't really matter they won't do it, but I can tell you this new alliance system is a disaster in the making if they don't put in some rewards for winning the week. 

You have to have rewards to make the very fundamentals of WvW applicable. There needs to be a reason to defend. PPT has to come back to mater, THEN the fights begin over the structures like the first couple of years. That was the time that most people look back on and say were the good times, until it got boring. Well, now they need the carrot on the stick to get it to happen, then the fun will come back. 

To Anet : Make winning matter is all I am saying. Promote competition to make combat matter. The game is designed for it. Just needs the support for it.

If they don't put in rewards, then it will turn in to eotm 2.0 on wvw maps. Which is going to make it easy for the pvers that want to get stuff done and the occasional new player, but it will be at the cost of probably a lot of players that actually loathe eotm ktrain structures with little to no defense style of play.

In this beta, just talking about this beta, already you have those not even caring to respond to defense, just letting T3 structures get capped cause, well, they are capping a T1 somewhere about to get that 800 WExp, they don't even try to make it. Last beta was the same but not quite as obvious.

The objectives force the combat, it forces the sides to come together to fight. The PPT forces the objectives to matter. What is missing? The REWARDs to make the PPT matter.  

TL;DR  Rewards for winning make for good fights. This alliance system without them, guaranteed to fail or rather keep everything the same pretty much as before. No defense, lot of fight dodging, so why change and destroy servers unless there is some greater plan that we all just don't see.

[Xenesis.6389]

2 hours ago, Crazy.6029 said:

In this beta, just talking about this beta, already you have those not even caring to respond to defense

How many times does this need to be explained to you?

This week means nothing to win or moving up or down tiers, same with last week.

It's also a bonus week so people will look to get wxp as a priority.

When the world restructuring system is fully done wvw will still operate exactly as it does now. It will also be possible for them to move on to more widespread rewards, when the populations are on more even terms, and not just a couple servers that rampage stack their way to wins.

But don't worry, things will be back to normal next week as people try to avoid servers like BG and Mag once again.

[Mabi black.1824]

12 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

The first step to stimulate competition would be to remove as many of the elements which go against a competitive nature, in one case imbalance in regards to population.

Yes of course I agree with you, in fact for a few years the community is telling Anet that there is a problem of lopsided teams, they are rather badly built and the player can abuse transfers and make the constructions even worse and blah blah blah

Then finally comes the right time, and Arenanet considers it appropriate to take care of the aquilibrio (in terms of flow) between all these worlds that collide.

The problem I'm highlighting is that Anet has chosen to update this mode in order to solve or otherwise greatly improve the balance between all the teams, but does not realize that it is at the same time canceling the teams participating in this great competition.

[Mabi black.1824]

12 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

There is the argument to be made that WvW is no competitive game mode

I don't know what to tell you about this,

or I have I completely missed the point or you have completely lost the point. We are in a PvP mode I imagined a player (or group) who wanted to confront another player (or group) to demonstrate their skill and supremacy. I saw that there is a register, a ranking and a medal table. The feeling is that the project put in competition (as the word itself of the world vs world mode says) entire worlds with each other.

[Mabi black.1824]

13 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

It's already lost any meaning.

I guess that's exactly why Arenanet is working and considering this restructuring. If this great work that Arenanet is carrying out to solve the construction of the teams, brings to the table another problem (equally important) in terms of long-term competition, I feel compelled to point it out.

[One more for the road.8950]

It's kind of interesting to see so many in here talking about their community on their servers not understanding that not everyone has it. No matter how many times it gets said. Some might have had it in the past, but no longer, or they might never even have experienced being on a server with a somewhat united server community even if playing - by now - for years.

There is quite a number of people that doesn't want to do/try out the mode in the game simply due to this. Or had bad experiences when trying it out. There is also servers having a community fitting themselves and their individuals, but that is very hard for someone new to claw their way into or to even understand - and my personal guess, or hope if you will, after talking to some of these people that has experienced these things might have a lower threshold for giving it another go.. If nothing else, if this new system gets implemented, you can give it several goes in fact, like every two months (or every new season) to see what changed. And if you find yourself in one you like, maybe you can even find a guild within those two months that you like and want to join for further game play. 

Not to mention the possibility that if a few PvE friends want to check out the game mode together, they absolutely can! Without transferring at a high costs. Back in the day the people you met and bonded with in PvE would also be in the same team in WvW, while people nowadays going from PvE to WvW might find themselves in a server without anyone they recognize, or barely anyone at all for that matter. And nobody to turn to asking for help other than map chat or team chat having no idea who is who and who might be the resident troll(s) and proud toxic player(s).

I am sure NCSoft and Anet,, as most other game companies and  mostly anyone else providing services for customers for that matter, doesn't necessarily base their decisions on what to try out and not on whoever yells loudest or posts the most posts about a topic of a very selected few in a sub-forum compared to players in the game mode (even if in decline) themselves. They see people are falling off the mode one by one, sometimes guild by guild, and they probably also see that people on servers wanting to keep their community will lose it too as their reason for even being there disappears - as I am sure you don't want your server to be a glorified chat box. It'd be like mIRC with a new GUI. 

[Mabi black.1824]

13 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

As to how to encourage players to perform in the alliance system: I'd imagine it's the same as with servers. You do what it take for the alliance and eventually the temporary server it is part of.

I guess I interpret this mode in a completely different way, compared to what you are indicating to me. And that's nice too, it shows how different we can all be. Fifth, let me explain. For many players like me the guild or the group of friends are a step below what is a server / team. the mode provides (at least from my point of view) to compare the servers ( because they should be the same or at least very similar ) and from way to the players or groups of players (guilds) to prove to all opponents to be the best, to be more close-knit, to be more organized etc etc.

Many players put their commitment (and fun) just for their server, the mode provides just that, the server is the tool you use to compare yourself compared to all the others. If you delete it or deprive it of all meaning, for me it is a problem. The consequence is that my guild friends and I will look each other in the face and ask ourselves why we should open a tag and protect that tower?

What is it for? And again, who needs it? Those around us are not our team. They are with us only 4 weeks and then they will be on the opposite side. and so on.

[Cyninja.2954]

22 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I guess I interpret this mode in a completely different way, compared to what you are indicating to me. And that's nice too, it shows how different we can all be. Fifth, let me explain. For many players like me the guild or the group of friends are a step below what is a server / team. the mode provides (at least from my point of view) to compare the servers ( because they should be the same or at least very similar ) and from way to the players or groups of players (guilds) to prove to all opponents to be the best, to be more close-knit, to be more organized etc etc.

and I'm saying for a lot of players this is the opposite: they put friends or guild before the server, if there even is a server community worth speaking of.

This is even more visible with the players jumping around with each relink. Those players are 100% disinterested in their current server but only the content they can get. While on their current server they will engage with the mode (most often more than just afk flipping camps) but that is it.

22 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Many players put their commitment (and fun) just for their server, the mode provides just that, the server is the tool you use to compare yourself compared to all the others. If you delete it or deprive it of all meaning, for me it is a problem. The consequence is that my guild friends and I will look each other in the face and ask ourselves why we should open a tag and protect that tower?

You say many players, I say it's a minority by now. Even more given that population disparity makes for the biggest difference in performance.

Server "pride" or commitment took 2 big hits in the past. The first was linkings, which were necessary due to decline in population. The second was removal of language linkings years later, again to try to achieve a better balance between sides.

My point is: by now, the few players that are there for their server are the vast minority.

22 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

What is it for? And again, who needs it? Those around us are not our team. They are with us only 4 weeks and then they will be on the opposite side. and so on.

That's what you have a guild and alliance for.

The alternative is just more of what we had in the past: more linkings (maybe even server merges), more decline in population. Worse yet: based around a very unflexible system.That's what you are looking at currently without a revamp to how populations are redistributed. We have years worth of decline to undermine this direction (with a short period of post COVID spike. Unfortunately we can't bank on an epidemic happening every few years to save the mode).

Edited October 18, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Ashen.5296]

11 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

The developers have more than just what you see point wise to determine how balanced match-ups are. All communication so far has been that they are far more balanced with the beta system.

Really do you work for Anet or have some source you’d like to quote on this or is this just sheer speculation?

11 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Also yes, there is a high chance that some players will not enjoy the alliance system. In fact there is a 100% chance that some players will not enjoy it given it is impossible to please everyone. If that applies to you that might be unfortunate, but as long as the change overall gets more players to return, stay or even enter for the first time, it'll be fine.

Again, points are not the only metric that the developers have at hand.

Good for your server. Unfortunately this does not apply to all servers and I'd also question how big your servers sense of community is without factoring for WvW guilds, which I am sure make up part of that community.

The alliance system has been in development for 2 years, not 5. It was mentioned 5 years ago and dropped immediately after due to lack of resources as we have been told. The ongoing work seems rather complicated as one can see from the recurring bugs happening.

This has nothing to do with reservations but rather a cost vs benefit analysis. It might very well be that the developer cost to actually finish the alliance system is far to high versus the benefits it might bring. Until that is officially communicated though, rest assured the developers are moving forward.

Also welcome twink account number 3457. I love how so many players share their concerns on accounts with no forum interaction whatsoever and always in time for the betas. Most often sharing the exact same concerns (and mistakes) as other accounts. 🙄

I get not all servers are in a good state and something need to be done here I just don’t think this system is the solution. I also think the profession balance changes they’ve introduced recently are positive and really shows they want to make wvw better.

Your comment about players enjoying it is part of the problem most people I’ve spoken to are not enjoying it and a fair amount have just given up playing wvw this week wonder what that does to anets data?

 

Also thanks for the rather sour welcome I’ve had this account since gw2 launched and been playing the game since then just not always wvw I just haven’t posted on the forums before, are you always this welcoming? Maybe this might be why your server population is low 😛

Edited October 18, 2022 by Ashen.5296

[Ashen.5296]

1 hour ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

It's kind of interesting to see so many in here talking about their community on their servers not understanding that not everyone has it. No matter how many times it gets said. Some might have had it in the past, but no longer, or they might never even have experienced being on a server with a somewhat united server community even if playing - by now - for years.

I think this is really important on my server we have a server discord loads of information for new players to wvw guides people to ask for help. I get that some servers won’t have that kind of a community or maybe enough players. Clearly this what anet is looking to address which I think is great. I’m not sure this is the way to go about it however, out of the beta tests we had so far I think there’s been maybe one balanced mu that I’ve seen.

I mean for one thing high pop servers will all just create an alliance out of the guilds they already have, what do low pop servers do? Won’t we just end up with the same groups of people and the same problems in a different format?
 

To an extent I think the current system of server links does help with low population problems but clearly it doesn’t always work, maybe a low pop sever merge? I don’t know glad I don’t have to figure it out!

[Cyninja.2954]

31 minutes ago, Ashen.5296 said:

I mean for one thing high pop servers will all just create an alliance out of the guilds they already have, what do low pop servers do? Won’t we just end up with the same groups of people and the same problems in a different format?

Okay, let's explain this again:

Let's assume a pool of 10,000 players (aka play hours but let's keep this simple). Let's also assume 2 tiers of 3 sides each. In the current system you get:

1 server stacked with around 2,500 players (Tier 1 green)

1 server stacked with around 2,000 players (Tier 1 blue)

1 server stacked with around 1,500 players (Tier 1 red)

1 server stacked with around 1,500 players (Tier 2 green)

1 server stacked with around 1,300 players (Tier 2 blue)

1 server stacked with around 1,200 players (Tier 2 red)

 

Players are incentivized to stack on the winning server. That's literally the system we have right now. If players number increase, the emptier severs fill up somewhat (and only because the top ones are full), if player numbers decrease, the stacked servers pull ahead even more because there is no re-balance of their population. The system is very unfelxible and rigid.

 

Now let's assume the guild/alliance system is in place (and let's use 500 size cap per guild/alliance).

Guild, alliances and single players of different sizes are mixed and matched to get around 1,600-1,700 players per server.

Server 1 now has 1,700 players

Server 2 now has 1,650 players

Server 3 now has 1,650 players

etc.

If total player numbers increase or decrease, the new system is flexible in adjusting server sizes and ideally even match-up tiers.

So no, the problems would not be the same. There would be different problems yes, but not population wise.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Catchyfx.5768]

we need them, for stacking all great guilds in one alliance and then we can farm rest of the servers nonstop. Ez lootbags 😄

[One more for the road.8950]

10 minutes ago, Ashen.5296 said:

I think this is really important on my server we have a server discord loads of information for new players to wvw guides people to ask for help. I get that some servers won’t have that kind of a community or maybe enough players. Clearly this what anet is looking to address which I think is great. I’m not sure this is the way to go about it however, out of the beta tests we had so far I think there’s been maybe one balanced mu that I’ve seen.

I mean for one thing high pop servers will all just create an alliance out of the guilds they already have, what do low pop servers do? Won’t we just end up with the same groups of people and the same problems in a different format?
 

To an extent I think the current system of server links does help with low population problems but clearly it doesn’t always work, maybe a low pop sever merge? I don’t know glad I don’t have to figure it out!

 
Well, obviously the MU's won't be balanced, it's a week long beta without any tier settling whatsoever, so basically WvW in current state after relink and mass transfer where T1 material is in T4 and vice versa. Not to mention it's just world restructuring, the Alliance system hasn't even been implemented yet, other than a few community guilds or guilds banding together in a new one to bypass the lack of system for now.

And what low pop servers will see, is that they find themselves in a world with other alliances and or guilds that fills up the space that today is empty - or taken by a link server that perhaps even drains them for even more players. Now it won't be a matter of people leaving a server with friends due to lack of options, if nothing else, it will be an alliance or guild that is paired with other alliances, guilds and players that together will make a world for that season. And if moving around it will be due to finding communities and people catering to your own interests and comfort, not whatever you happened to end up with and next to for years. People moving between guilds and player bases will be a more fluid and dynamic way to adjust to the game mode and least you won't be left behind due to no options or not wanting to shell out money on a move that might not give you anything you want anyway.

And anyone afraid of fight guilds stacking an alliance running over everyone else will find that a) they are only active at certain times and their enemies will then be free to do whatever they want when they are not around, b) it won't take long before running over an enemy without any effort gets boringly stale and c) that boredom will lead to infighting and drama in a community with competitive people already well known for infighting and drama already and therefore d) won't last long whenever they try.  Fight guilds and GvG is great content when it works, but it mostly works when there is an enemy to hone your skills against - when not it resorts to tchat and discord content instead.

[One more for the road.8950]

31 minutes ago, Ashen.5296 said:

I think this is really important on my server we have a server discord loads of information for new players to wvw guides people to ask for help. I get that some servers won’t have that kind of a community or maybe enough players.

Also, for this, there are also just servers that doesn't fit the different players, even if there is a community going already. If you have a community being "policed" like some other people have been talking about in this forum just the last months - or even just servers with a couple or few strong personalities running the show - you'll have players on those servers that will draw a relieved breath getting away from it.

And that can go several ways, just as much getting away from people that's been in the game mode for years berating anyone not understanding right away that they aren't doing things the "right way", or it might also be for keeping for the server down by not giving space to people that enjoy more focused fight or competitive content. Any server with a community that looks at any part of WvW while scoffing, be it GvG, PPT, BvB, chatmanding, voices squad only, roaming, dueling, havoc squads, you name it - you have  a community with someone not fitting in.

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

They are with us only 4 weeks and then they will be on the opposite side.

WvW shuffles are 8 weeks, not 4.

[Mabi black.1824]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

and I'm saying for a lot of players this is the opposite: they put friends or guild before the server, if there even is a server community worth speaking of

I really struggle to make myself understood here. It is clear that friends and the guild are important, what could be better than having fun with friends (have fun with girls 😅 - forgive the joke a bit sexist but it is in absolute good faith) 

What I want to say and what is evident from our comparison is that presumably in WWW there are both. those who jump from one server to another because they only see their guild, and those who instead stay and face what is proposed against their server. Probably both enjoy doing what they do, diversity does not matter and it seems a good thing if you learn to look at it with curiosity and not with fear.

So, why do we have to discriminate against anyone? You want to jump between servers and you can continue to do so. I want to stay with my server and I can't do it anymore. If your update leaves behind a part of players I assume that in a short time you will lose them. Maybe it's better to make a more inclusive update and set yourself a different goal, that of making your players grow.

This does not mean throwing away all the work of alliances (I also can't wait for alliance to go live) it means implementing alliance in this mode of world vs world. You have to embroider around this mechanic of alliance the competition (probably seasonal) in order to maintain the concept of team, so that the players (or groups of players) can continue to engage, to compare themselves with other teams, prove to be the most effective etc etc

[One more for the road.8950]

4 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I really struggle to make myself understood here. It is clear that friends and the guild are important, what could be better than having fun with friends (have fun with girls 😅 - forgive the joke a bit sexist but it is in absolute good faith) 

What I want to say and what is evident from our comparison is that presumably in WWW there are both. those who jump from one server to another because they only see their guild, and those who instead stay and face what is proposed against their server. Probably both enjoy doing what they do, diversity does not matter and it seems a good thing if you learn to look at it with curiosity and not with fear.

So, why do we have to discriminate against anyone? You want to jump between servers and you can continue to do so. I want to stay with my server and I can't do it anymore. If your update leaves behind a part of players I assume that in a short time you will lose them. Maybe it's better to make a more inclusive update and set yourself a different goal, that of making your players grow.

This does not mean throwing away all the work of alliances (I also can't wait for alliance to go live) it means implementing alliance in this mode of world vs world. You have to embroider around this mechanic of alliance the competition (probably seasonal) in order to maintain the concept of team, so that the players (or groups of players) can continue to engage, to compare themselves with other teams, prove to be the most effective etc etc

Because one of these things also discriminates others. And it's not the server hopping ones.

Today's server system gives people extremely different and uneven playground for getting into WvW already from the start based on whatever server you picked without knowing anything about it or what it was even used for back when you created an account.

[Mabi black.1824]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

You say many players, I say it's a minority by now

It does not matter if they are many or few.

We have read so many times about this section of the forum, how fun WWW is in so many different ways for each of us, for me in one way and for you in another way, designing it this way was smart and inclusive maybe it is the real reason for its success (despite it has always received very little attention from development),  Changing this policy and going in the opposite direction, I personally consider it a mistake.

[Mabi black.1824]

5 minutes ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

Because one of these things also discriminates others. And it's not the server hopping ones.

Today's server system gives people extremely different and uneven playground for getting into WvW already from the start based on whatever server you picked without knowing anything about it or what it was even used for back when you created an account

You're right and I agree with you, in fact I like the concept of alliances, because more dynamic, you can meet new people more easily, I just add that it is too dynamic, I just say that Anet must add a bit of work and build around alliances a team competition, even if only seasonal but still a competition between worlds / kingdoms / servers or whatever you want to call them. all work ndi alliances is to get servers + or - similar,

Because it's the only metric you have to allow large different groups to compare, players want to engage and show that they are good at what they do.