Why do we need Alliances?

[Mabi black.1824]

3 hours ago, One more for the road.8950 said:

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

None of this, here we are just passionate players who chat, we compare, everyone freely expresses their thoughts.

It remains just a dream to see someone from development participating in these lively discussions, if only to better understand their thoughts or which direction they prefer, or what is most important to them and what is less interesting, etc etc.

[Cyninja.2954]

49 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

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.

It matters when the health of the game mode is at stake (or even it's future survival). This isn't about what individual players want and rest assured the developers aren't going down this path for shits and giggles.

This is about redesigning a system so it both addresses serious issues within the mode as well as making it more future proof. I am really unsure how anyone can be not clear on this. At least anyone who has been with the mode for a lengthy period of time to first hand experience where it once was and where it is at now.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Cyninja.2954]

double post due to forum bug

Edited October 18, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[One more for the road.8950]

30 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

None of this, here we are just passionate players who chat, we compare, everyone freely expresses their thoughts.

It remains just a dream to see someone from development participating in these lively discussions, if only to better understand their thoughts or which direction they prefer, or what is most important to them and what is less interesting, etc etc.

At this point it's probably not so much about what they prefer, it's about what they can do to stop the game mode from dying a slow death at the same rate it's currently doing.

Which means making it easier to enter for newer or more casual players as well as having a dynamic way to adjust numbers automatically to not end up at the same place again further down the road.

Edited October 18, 2022 by One more for the road.8950

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour 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.

and the reality is:

- Some players stack on a few servers creating both unbalance and queues (large extensive queues are another visual representation of unbalanced population numbers)

- Low pop servers in the meantime experience player dodging the match-up because they are far outnumbered, further adding to the problem

- some players with alt accounts play on the account which has the best "content" for them

Net result: a few players which have fun, a ton of players which do not.

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

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.

You might want to read up on what discrimination is. Missusing the term hardly adds any credibility to your argument.

Fixing, redesigning and/or reworking a system which is failing in multiple areas is hardly discrimination.

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

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

I am really unsure what you are trying to say here, so I'll refrain from commenting on it.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Ashen.5296]

1 hour 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.

I don’t think you can expect anet to change the way people treat each other. All we can do is encourage and help one another tolerate different play styles and opinions. I also think your going out the bounds of what alliances are meant to achieve. Now one thing I will say is if players don’t want to play with others or want some sort of solo experience then playing an mmo is probably not the right experience for them.

[Zok.4956]

16 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Once alliances are implemented "moving" is disabled during the match-up.

I can not find the exact quote atm but I think I read a devs statement, that they want to continue to allow server/team-transfers during a WvW-season (like it is now allowed during a linking), so misplaced players do not have to wait until the next WvW-season to join the team/server of their friends. If they really will allow this when Alliances are implemented/running and how they will prevent mass transfers if this server transfers will be allowed is probably too early to tell.

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Zok.4956

[One more for the road.8950]

10 minutes ago, Ashen.5296 said:

I don’t think you can expect anet to change the way people treat each other. All we can do is encourage and help one another tolerate different play styles and opinions. I also think your going out the bounds of what alliances are meant to achieve. Now one thing I will say is if players don’t want to play with others or want some sort of solo experience then playing an mmo is probably not the right experience for them.

 I think you misunderstood this one from your answer.

The reason current system is giving "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" is because:

- this makes some start on an almost full server with a thriving population while others go into WvW and hears crickets

You might not have an idea of how different being on the different servers is, especially in EU with entirely too many of them. And if  you are lucky enough to get paired with a server that has tons of content, you might not even understand a word of what they are saying or doing.

Edited October 18, 2022 by One more for the road.8950

[Zok.4956]

On 10/17/2022 at 1:11 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

I would say definetly, yes. Replace the word alliance in your post with guild and you describe WvW today, fight guilds and all.

Well, if it's the same, why change the system? 😉 Yeah, I know, the numbers at the moment when Anet is doing the Alliances-server- "reshuffle" will be more fine-grained compared to the numbers at the moment of relinking-creation, and such. And this change will only be the beginning and groundwork for further optimizations etc. etc. and because of that WvW will see a bright future as a corner-stone of GW2, etc. etc.

However, with Anets track record I don't trust them anymore to really understand WvW and do the right thing for WvW and I would be a lot more optimistic if they could give us a better and bigger overview about the final system and game mode they want to achieve for WvW.

 

[Mabi black.1824]

2 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

You might want to read up on what discrimination is. Misusing the term hardly adds any credibility to your argument.

Fixing, redesigning and/or reworking a system which is failing in multiple areas is hardly discrimination.

discriminate : distinguish , differentiate , treat differently, distinction between people or things etc etc. if you choose an update that allows you to constantly change servers because you identify mainly in your guild, but I am denied the ability to stay with my server, which is the tool with which I mainly identify. So of the term is correct , you are discriminating against me. ( with the hope that Google Translate works properly because I don't speak English )

And I don't need to be credible, I don't have to convince anyone. I am here as a free and happy player, I am comparing myself with other players in a transparent and sincere way. What I have told you I assure you that they are only my real and personal concerns, there is no deception. I do not pretend to change anyone's mind, talking to each other and having different opinions is just a good thing, it helps us to understand how others think and maybe they offer us the opportunity to see from a new perspective.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I am really unsure what you are trying to say here, so I'll refrain from commenting on it.

It's very simple, just my suggestion, a compromise spece. I add something instead of removing something. using an inclusive and non-exclusive logic.

We send the new system of alliances live so ANET can build 15 servers full and very similar (in terms of flow) players, guilds and alliances will be distributed randomly. That will be their team for the whole season (6 months? 12 months?) and we give all WWW players a beautiful tournament to win and a leaderboard to climb.

Because, I repeat, the only tool you can put in competition with each other are the servers / worlds , says the same Nemo of our favorite mode. In fact, alliances are born with the aim of making these worlds more similar, because they can confront each other in a correct and honest way. It is of no use to anyone to balance alliances or guilds, because alliances cannot compete with each other.

My Alliance has 100 players Your Alliance has 200 players. My guild did 1k kills (20 members) your guild did 2k kills (30 members) as you can compare different things to each other. impossible. while here the players want to confront each other honestly.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Mabi black.1824

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

discriminate : distinguish , differentiate , treat differently, distinction between people or things etc etc. if you choose aornament that allows you to constantly change servers because you identify mainly in your guild, but I am denied the ability to stay with my server, which is the tool with which I mainly identify. So of the term is correct , you are discriminating against me. ( with the hope that Google Translate works properly because I don't speak English )

And I don't need to be credible, I don't have to convince anyone. I am here as a free and happy player, I am comparing myself with other players in a transparent and sincere way. What I have told you I assure you that they are only my real and personal concerns, there is no deception. I do not pretend to change anyone's mind, talking to each other and having different opinions is just a good thing, it helps us to understand how others think and maybe they offer us the opportunity to see from a new perspective.

Except you aren't being treated differently and you are most certainly not being discriminated against. I am sharing my opinion on a matter. I have just as much impact on the alliance system as you: none. I'd appreciate if you either brush up your English language skills or refrain from using terminology which is inappropriate. In this case I recommend you refrain from using terms like discrimination in this context because quite frankly: it's way off the mark.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Xenesis.6389]

6 hours ago, Ashen.5296 said:

I also think the profession balance changes they’ve introduced recently are positive and really shows they want to make wvw better.

Pardon me but..... LMAO.

I don't, and I'll tell you right now I haven't been playing wvw very much since they nerfed mesmer and scourge once again.

World restructuring/alliances won't get me to quit wvw, but the biased terribad class balancing surely will.

[nthmetal.9652]

For the last few betas I was thinking: Well. This might work. Yes, there were bugs, there still are, but at least in my team there was a lot of activity, open tags, events, fun.

But of course, these things are all possible without alliances and without world restructuring. And as this beta shows, world restructuring isn't gonna solve the issue of stacked servers vs inactive ones. If anything, it's gonna make it worse, unless factors like activity and success become part of the algorithm which is used to build teams.

If, in an environment, where the system still has a high amount of control over team assembly, we end up with teams, where basically nothing is happening all day long, vs teams with big active groups, how can the designers be thinking that in a system, where the players have MORE control, and thus the system itself has LESS control, this is gonna work out?

So as of now, I am not convinced that the alliances design, as it stands now, will really improve the situation in WvW all that much 😕 It needs some additional design work and instead of only looking at population numbers, the following factors should be taken into account:

• population / activity
• open tag time
• success in PPT
• success in fights

Ideally you want all alliances to have more or less equal numbers of all of these, and by rebalancing the impact of features like "success" and "open tag time" you can tweak the structure of teams and also prevent, or at least somewhat control the danger of all elite fightgroup players only grouping up in one alliance.

Edited October 18, 2022 by nthmetal.9652

[nektar palas.5987]

On 10/16/2022 at 3:09 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?

 

I know alliances from Guild Wars 1 - it was Kurzick and Luxon and we had one Map we fought against and got points and then we could donate to points to our ally and if we had enough points we could hold a city with a VIP area for the ally members. So it made a sense to be in an ally but i dont see the sense in GW2 - please explain it to me, what this beta has to do with alliance and why we need this in wvw. Oh and my Server isnt good in wvw but i still stay on this server because i love the "vibes" we have there - i feel like home when i join wvw map, even when we have a drama im teamchat. And now its just bs for me. I play wvw since 2012 and i dont see a future for me in wvw with this ally-bs.

to satisfy the "fight club" inside a totally pve game...

this is why.

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, nthmetal.9652 said:

If, in an environment, where the system still has a high amount of control over team assembly, we end up with teams, where basically nothing is happening all day long, vs teams with big active groups, how can the designers be thinking that in a system, where the players have MORE control, and thus the system itself has LESS control, this is gonna work out?

Did you forget that we have tiers and 1u1d? 

The team with the big active groups go up and start meeting other teams with big active groups. The teams which doesnt have so much active groups fall down and get matched against more similar teams.

I really do not understand why people seem to selectively/intentionally forget how WvW works when talking about world restructure.

[TheGrimm.5624]

6 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

I can not find the exact quote atm but I think I read a devs statement, that they want to continue to allow server/team-transfers during a WvW-season (like it is now allowed during a linking), so misplaced players do not have to wait until the next WvW-season to join the team/server of their friends. If they really will allow this when Alliances are implemented/running and how they will prevent mass transfers if this server transfers will be allowed is probably too early to tell.

 

 

This might be it:

 

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/world-vs-world-update-june-2022/

 

Take a look at the slide that is Setting/Unsetting/Switching WvW Guilds. Can switch at anytime but it won't take effect until the next match making session. I translated next match making set as new relink but is that till just new week 1Up1Down reset? Either way that labelled as Phase Two and we are still in Phase One. 

 

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/studio-update-world-restructuring-and-the-future-of-world-vs-world/

[nthmetal.9652]

41 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Did you forget that we have tiers and 1u1d? 

No? I don't really find the tiers very relevant though. Because the top servers are not in the top tier, but these days it seems they intentionally go for the middle tiers. The top tier is very definitely not defined by a server's performance. And it wasn't balanced and didn't GET balanced over time.

Same in T5. I've seen servers stuck down there for a long time, including my own. Constantly facing vastly better performing servers, and vastly worse performing servers. So whatever tiers are doing, they, in my opinion, have nothing to do with the balancing of matchups, and they have even less to do with the balancing of LINKUPS.

[Zok.4956]

6 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

This might be it:

(...)

Take a look at the slide that is Setting/Unsetting/Switching WvW Guilds. Can switch at anytime but it won't take effect until the next match making session.

Thanks, but no, I was not writing about how (and when) guild selection change has an effect on matchmaking/teammaking before a season. I remembered to have read about server/team transfer during a season (but don't remember in which devs statement it was).

[Cyninja.2954]

24 minutes ago, Zok.4956 said:

Thanks, but no, I was not writing about how (and when) guild selection change has an effect on matchmaking/teammaking before a season. I remembered to have read about server/team transfer during a season (but don't remember in which devs statement it was).

 

Given the article linked is rather recent: June 2022 and some of the last communication we have had on the issue, I think we can rest assured that what ever you read somewhere is either obsolete or you misremembered.

The current last stand is: you can switch at any time, but it takes effect with the next match making session. There was no communication about allowing payed transfers to this day besides the developers stating they are willing to forgo the gem revenue from transfers in favor of a better game mode experience.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Dawdler.8521]

28 minutes ago, nthmetal.9652 said:

No? I don't really find the tiers very relevant though. Because the top servers are not in the top tier, but these days it seems they intentionally go for the middle tiers. The top tier is very definitely not defined by a server's performance. And it wasn't balanced and didn't GET balanced over time.

Same in T5. I've seen servers stuck down there for a long time, including my own. Constantly facing vastly better performing servers, and vastly worse performing servers. So whatever tiers are doing, they, in my opinion, have nothing to do with the balancing of matchups, and they have even less to do with the balancing of LINKUPS.

You where talking about activity. Nothing about performance. Nothing about balance. Nothing about "top tier". And activity matter for tiers, especially if the assumption is that the teams have roughly the same population numbers.

Claiming it's irrelevant is literally denying how WvW works as a game mode.

What's next, we gonna see people in the sPvP forum claim that 5 platinum players vs 5 bronze players in ranked matches is great because ranks doesnt matter for players performance.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[nthmetal.9652]

I was claiming that activity is insufficient and thus was specifically talking about performance ...

[Dawdler.8521]

27 minutes ago, nthmetal.9652 said:

I was claiming that activity is insufficient and thus was specifically talking about performance ...

What do you even mean by claiming that activity is insufficient? Insufficient for WHAT? Are you saying that if people dont play WvW... there's no one playing WvW?

How does that logic lead to world restructure bad?

Sidenote: If the data is right (not 100% sure the API is working properly with the beta), there's been 818,000 deaths in WvW since friday and the variance of k+d (ie commonly accepted as combined "activity") range from 47,000 to 72,000.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 hour ago, Zok.4956 said:

Thanks, but no, I was not writing about how (and when) guild selection change has an effect on matchmaking/teammaking before a season. I remembered to have read about server/team transfer during a season (but don't remember in which devs statement it was).

 

In the beginning when first mentioned and then shelfed until the new leads came into play there was talk about server transfer being locked except for a small window, but that was before the current leads and Grouch. Granted I didn't follow it back to the reddit post mind you but the Wiki peeps (thanks again Wiki peeps for your time!) did have the following documented from a 2021 Q&A session with Grouch:

* Alliances = no transfers, your WvW guild is what determines your server. This was in response to someone asking how will they stop bandwagoning if you can still transfer post alliances. Solo players will be able to choose but it will still have metrics to lock worlds.

Ref: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alliances

[Zok.4956]

1 hour ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

* Alliances = no transfers, your WvW guild is what determines your server. This was in response to someone asking how will they stop bandwagoning if you can still transfer post alliances. Solo players will be able to choose but it will still have metrics to lock worlds.

Ref: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alliances

Thanks, for digging this up. Yes, maybe I remember it from that Q&A or similar and not from a studio-blog-post and that's why I could not find it in writing. But I think there was more about this topic than what's included in the notes.

So, it was, at least last year, an idea floating around at Anet. Perhaps this idea is still floating around at Anet's, perhaps they have discarded it. But they don't seem to have mentioned it again lately. We will see how it works when it will be implemented finally.