Top 5 Misconceptions by Anet

[enkidu.5937]

I remember the big live stream from last year 👍, where the Devs presented their concept of “world restructuring”. Now after several Betas and the longlasting experiences from EotM, some misconceptions from Anet’s side have become clear imo.

 

Misconception 1: Deleting the servers = innovative rework

We already stack up to 500 players in 1 megaguild, so Alliances will just add a nice QoL. The new matchmaking algorythm is still bugged and seems to consume 90% of the Devs resources. It could become a tool to factor e. g. time zones into matchmaking, but would only happen at a later time. Also, the remodeling of the reward system will not be part of this rework. So that leaves “deleting the servers” as the one “innovation” at this point. *sadface*

 

Misconception 2: Deleting the servers = world restructuring

That’s only a “destructioning” 😏, and Anet seems to expect it as “naturally given” that the players will do the restructuring of worlds. Most players don’t have a WvW guild, but are organized in non-player-controlled servers. That would need a huge change in how people play WvW, they would need to form lots of new smaller player-controlled communities, create tons of guilds and alliances. Not gonna happen imo.

 

Misconception 3: Even warscores = exciting matches

We’ve already seen in EotM, that people don’t care about winning when they are part of a mostly random team. Warscores might become more even at the end of the week, ok, but that’s pointless then.

 

Misconception 4: Even warscores = more balanced matches

When “Red Alliance Raid” dominates at 4 pm, and “Blue Alliance Raid” dominates at 6 pm, and “Green Alliance Raid” dominates at 11 pm, we will have an even warscore. But the matches would be massively unbalanced. When servers get deleted, your only way to have a team feeling and community is to stack in alliance with players that usually play in the same time zone, share the same playstyle (PPT, PPK, voice chat only etc.), and a comparable skill level (casuals vs. elite). That’s inevitable imbalance imo.

 

Misconception 5: Up to 50% difference in activity = servers have to be deleted

Anet re-links to compensate for population shifts during the last 8 weeks. But no matter how hard they try to puzzle, the players of the biggest new team had up to 50% more activity during the last weeks, compared to the players of the smallest new team. That’s not optimal, I agree, but teams get sorted into Tiers, so this extreme match will only occur once every few months. That’s not relevant, and even then, it would only mean that Team Red has 80 ppl online on average, Team Blue 100, and Team Green 120. That’s playable imo.

 

Maybe not a pure Misconception: Obvious solutions = not worth testing

We know that 2 servers are missing in EU, so 2 teams get no link. We know that in NA, some servers might not need a link. And we know that re-linking based on the activities during the last 8 weeks is pointless when ppl are allowed to do mass transfers directly after re-linking. That seem to be the real problems, and they could (easily?) be fixed without deleting the servers. Maybe its not a misconception by Anet, why they regard this package as “not worth testing”. Maybe its due to money reasons, cause ppl invest in transfers and upgrading second accounts, to stack and steamroll over pugs. *sadface* again, cause the deletion of servers cannot be “tested”, its irrevertable. And the concept of mostly random team vs. random team has already been tested in EotM, and it failed.

 

Add yours if you like to 😉

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

okay, let me sum up YOUR misconceptions:

 

1) lmfao u are acting as if server still had any identity. they do not, nobody seriously cares anymore. nor stays on the same server for even anything past a year

 

2)  how are u even thinking u know what these "alliance beta" things test? afaik anet never told us what things they precisely test there... it is 100% no any matchup alorithm, bc that stuff was completely random in most cases
 

3) there is no winning. ppt score top1 isn't a win. its absurd and pointless to try to sell a ppt score #1 as a "win", as u first win nothing, second u don't really do anything challenging to win it. u just pvE within Wvw, mostly focused on flipping empty things in a mass pvp mode.

literally u act as if u win by not playing this gamemode.

 

4) its impossible to get a fair balance share of players either way. u cannot possible have any algorithm balance things over like 5 different playstyles. but don't worry, the serious guilds are yet fading out of the game/mode.
 

like, misconceptions like these are what led anet to destroying their combat system with pointless "bAlLaNcE" patches, leading to further people ragequitting the game and the casual guilds enjoying their blobbing up even more.

so this basic fatal error u even share with the devs.

 

5) again, server identity is a myth, a bold joke, a meme. u could delete easy 50% of all existing EU servers and nobody would seriously care

 

6) while its hypothetically a issue that 2 server get no link, it's also plainly because these server had absurd activity before. the algorithm sofar, as far as we know, mostly balances population around activity. so if u have tons of karmatrain ppt, u get endangered to lose your linking - and not even this scare people to do hourlong dull karmatrains, ppt for days and night. some ppt blobs even just run and port at "enemy contact".
which is a fun sight, but shows everything what is wrong with this mode when u see 40+ people running from 20. tho thanks to anets failure balance they don't even need to run anymore bc its hardly possible anymore to kill double size in 2/3 cases

[jul.7602]

Someone finally gets it.

[Labjax.2465]

Hmm, good points.

[Invalid.8765]

It is very pathetic how Anet is approaching this, literally doing the bare minimum and not solving any issue while creating a whole new slew of issues that their shortsighted views are unable to see

 

None of their changes will solve imbalances which will always remain just the same as people whining on the forums about X server/X matchup

 

They will go forward with alliances no matter what the WvW playerbase says, because plenty of FvF players are complaining and that means "something must be done" (Forum v Forum); Anet is -reacting- out of desperation rather than a proper approach to help WvW

[roederich.2716]

Since many years it was the wish of the players who „want to win“ to have more control of who is in their server and who not.

thats why ever since competitive guilds try to form the best team they can have and not just take anyone who comes along and asks for a guild invite.

all others who only do random stuff dont really want to win and are there cause of playing the game casual. What should be here a „misconception“?

Alliances is a result of people not wanting to form matches of equal numbers themselves so anet assigns them automatically in the future. Its a shame that such a change must be done by the developer to „help“ adult persons to form teams in a competition and only shows how much some people only slack their time away in this game mode.

keep in mind its NOT arenanets responsibility to form equal competitive teams. Its the players responsibility. The persons behind the screens who want to interact with the competitive game.

If any random person doesnt want to join an competitive alliance that person will be randomly assigned and cant complain not to win cause if that person would want to win that player would join an alliance which calls out to win the wvw. Why play on a server to win but not want to join such alliance in the future? „Misconception“ by anet or failure in thinking of the player?

what are all you crying people think a competition is that you always try to make your personal fate an matter of the game developer?

what are you people thinking that your personal win or loss in wvw is a matter of arenanet?

stop it. Just fckn stop it!

If you dont succeed in life its not „the state“ or „the systems“ fault.

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, roederich.2716 said:

keep in mind its NOT arenanets responsibility to form equal competitive teams. Its the players responsibility.

Hahahahahahahaha...

You mean the same players that happily does 50v5 or do you mean some other responsible players?

[roederich.2716]

5 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Hahahahahahahaha...

You mean the same players that happily does 50v5 or do you mean some other responsible players?

Then its in the responsibility of the 5 to make effort to expand their team.

do you see any postings on this forum where people seek others to join their server to form more numbers at certain daytimes?

No you dont, you see one after the other of them "mimimmi we cant win, we get blobbed, anet do something NOW!! the system is sooo bad"

These solo players sitting 24/7 infront of their computer and insist that anet must take care for equal content numbers instead of making contacts and expand their network and server team.

People who never learned in life to be part of a team but run around solo calling the system must feed them cause mama did so much for them. LOL

Yeah, its a misconception by anet that these players dont know how or refuse to network... YADDA! YADDA!

Im happy that these solo lonewolfs get randomly assigned in the future and maybe they learn to be part of the wvw community and learn what it is to be part of something cause they never did. if they did they would not complain like that.

[Dawdler.8521]

24 minutes ago, roederich.2716 said:

Then its in the responsibility of the 5 to make effort to expand their team.

True, but that is on an instance level - if you're outnumbered on a map, get reinforcements. Its not Anets responsibility to send players from EBG to your EWP on bay so you can fight the enemy, it's your whole worlds responsibility.

World restructure, alliances and matchups however is on a whole different level and here it actually is Anet that can try to make sure the worlds are decently even. Thats not up to players. That should never be up to players because they dont have the moral integrity to "balance themselves".

This is the same as saying its players responsibility to cap far in sPvP but it is most certainly not players responsibility to make sure that 5 players is matched against 5 other players while taking into account player rankings. Your argument was that it is.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, roederich.2716 said:

You want something to rely on? Then join a fix team. Simple rule. That a member of KALE dont get it is nothing of surprise here tbh. Big brains guild lol.

Lol you think I am in Kale? Where on earth did you even get that idea? Hahahahaha.

Anyway, alliances is just a part of a team - an alliance can be just 50 people, 150 or a capped out 500 man. It isnt their responsibility to balance an entire team vs other teams. Are you mistaking alliances for teams?

Once again, despite the sPvP comparisons apparently going over your head, worst case thats like saying its a 2-man group responsibility to make sure that 5 players is matched against 5 other players while taking into account player rankings. Well actually the 1 player comparison is still more accurate since an alliance would be roughly 1/5th or less of a team, but I digress.

Edited November 9, 2022 by Dawdler.8521

[Blackfish.7349]

Most of you still don't know how alliances work. Please read all posts from anet, specially the last ones to get a proper idea. Most of OP misconceptions are just OP opinions and are all based on wrong own self-digested statements.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

On 11/8/2022 at 11:45 PM, Invalid.8765 said:

None of their changes will solve imbalances which will always remain just the same as people whining on the forums about X server/X matchup

 

They will go forward with alliances no matter what the WvW playerbase says, because plenty of FvF players are complaining and that means "something must be done" (Forum v Forum); Anet is -reacting- out of desperation rather than a proper approach to help WvW

thats just also not the point. it doesn't matter what players think of matchups really. but it would effectively babygate the bandwagoning pugs, who transfer plainly for the easiest ganks. like whenever known groups of players transfer, there is a ton of leeching bandwagoners transfering like 2-3 weeks after this to strong servers, messing those up completely. this kinda behaviour could be circled out, if pugs who have no direct guild to rep get not the option to transfer-chase others

 

yet again, the game is in a dire status atm. alliances would require active guilds kinda.

 

and that last paragraph is just a pretty bold theory idk. nobody knows anets real intentions, or if the wvw hamster has intentions at all

[Mabi black.1824]

On 11/9/2022 at 4:36 AM, roederich.2716 said:

Since many years it was the wish of the players who „want to win“ to have more control of who is in their server and who not.

thats why ever since competitive guilds try to form the best team they can have and not just take anyone who comes along and asks for a guild invite.

all others who only do random stuff dont really want to win and are there cause of playing the game casual. What should be here a „misconception“?

 

In my opinion you are completely off track. I think it's good that it remains a desire for all those players who ''want to win'' to have control over who is on their server and who is not.  Anet builds games Players or groups of players just play them with what they have available. It is only Anet's job to try to get + or similar teams. personally I am interested and passionate about competition when it has similar numbers, when until the last day you don't know who wins or who loses, this leads to fun participation on all sides of the skirmish and that's what matters. Whether you win or lose does not matter, if you got what I wrote above. Also I would like to understand well how you distinguish the players who ''want to win'' and all the others that you define as '' only random ''.

I have played for many years in a very small guild of good friends since the days of GW. We are committed to contesting objectives, rehashing supplies, opening walls for larger groups, and following larger groups to steal structures etc etc. probably in your eyes are among those "only random players". Yet everything I did I did to help my server win. 

therefore? Am I just random or am I someone who just wants to win? It is not clear to me.

[Mabi black.1824]

On 11/9/2022 at 3:24 PM, roederich.2716 said:

Want to be in a winning team, then join an alliance who declare its goal to win. The alliance who organises and adverts for players will win

And what exactly will the Alliance win?

What do we want to compare? Did you go up your server? But who cares anymore if after 8 weeks you will be in another server. Want to compare your organized alliance of 500 players with mine of 50 players? completely useless I would say. therefore? How do we understand what your alliance won in terms of credible competition?

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

2 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

And what exactly will the Alliance win?

What do we want to compare? Did you go up your server? But who cares anymore if after 8 weeks you will be in another server. Want to compare your organized alliance of 500 players with mine of 50 players? completely useless I would say. therefore? How do we understand what your alliance won in terms of credible competition?

u realize that its the same with servers and ppt? they are equally faceless and winning ppt matchups is equally pointless

just by the point/tick score, there's nothing to win.

but what u missed:: alliances in the final format are merges of equal sized guilds, not the same thing directly as in the beta tests sofar. the beta tests till now had just random matchmaking, as the were plainly testing stuff like assigning players to teams and other basic issues that the old spaghetti code might cause...

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

but what u missed:: alliances in the final format are merges of equal sized guilds, not the same thing directly as in the beta tests sofar. the beta tests till now had just random matchmaking, as the were plainly testing stuff like assigning players to teams and other basic issues that the old spaghetti code might cause...

Wasnt completely random if people had community guilds to approximate an alliance, which I'm pretty sure some worlds had. Not sure what you mean by equal sized guilds.

[Mabi black.1824]

4 hours ago, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

u realize that its the same with servers and ppt? they are equally faceless and winning ppt matchups is equally pointless

just by the point/tick score, there's nothing to win.

but what u missed:: alliances in the final format are merges of equal sized guilds, not the same thing directly as in the beta tests sofar. the beta tests till now had just random matchmaking, as the were plainly testing stuff like assigning players to teams and other basic issues that the old spaghetti code might cause...

dear kamikharzeeh,

I agree with what you write here. I know, you know it and even Anet knows that the current mechanics, which had to be only temporary for a few years (blatantly contradictory ) , brings with it a series of problems that make this great and passionate competition of worlds vs worlds useless, because it is evident devoid of credibility competition.

In fact, finally Anet has decided to act and improve this experience for its players.

So if the result after so many years and after so much work of Anet is to get this modalidà still meaningless in winning, first because the competition is not credible and then because you find yourself with alliances that have no way to compete and compare with each other, maybe it is better to talk about it now, and give some good suggestions to the people who are putting work in all this,   using respect and using a constructive spirit in confronting each other.

If it is not yet clear, we are already in the middle of the mechanics of alliances, the state of the mode you see now is precisely because we are already completely in it. Anet has decided to act and the betas have arrived, so even the groups that you have never seen transferred since day 1 you began to see them transfer, move to look around, find new players with whom to build their alliances. If before playing for your server was complicated and with little meaning,

Now it is completely useless. So alliances are needed, you can no longer do without them if you do not want to do even more harm to this game mode. I have also already written that alliances are smart, and will be a fundamental tool to build new servers in a very similar way, and at the same time allow you to play together with your friends.

So what is missing is only the last and fundamental part that Anet must embroider around all the new servers (full of alliances, guilds and lone players) and make sure that they can compete (finally credibly) against other new servers, climb a leaderboard and win a seasonal tournament. Too boring a 1 year season, ok, let's ask for two big competitions, two big tournaments every year. but please we grant to players and organized groups of this way of competing and confronting each other.

Edited November 17, 2022 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

On 10/29/2022 at 10:40 PM, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

again, server identity is a myth, a bold joke, a meme. u could delete easy 50% of all existing EU servers and nobody would seriously care

I'm glad you wrote this, because the other 50% is still a lot of stuff. The players who enter this mode because it identifies in their team / server also in my opinion are many.

[Reborn.2934]

On 10/29/2022 at 11:07 AM, enkidu.5937 said:

I remember the big live stream from last year 👍, where the Devs presented their concept of “world restructuring”. Now after several Betas and the longlasting experiences from EotM, some misconceptions from Anet’s side have become clear imo.

 

Misconception 1: Deleting the servers = innovative rework

 

We already stack up to 500 players in 1 megaguild, so Alliances will just add a nice QoL. The new matchmaking algorythm is still bugged and seems to consume 90% of the Devs resources. It could become a tool to factor e. g. time zones into matchmaking, but would only happen at a later time. Also, the remodeling of the reward system will not be part of this rework. So that leaves “deleting the servers” as the one “innovation” at this point. *sadface*

 

Misconception 2: Deleting the servers = world restructuring

 

That’s only a “destructioning” 😏, and Anet seems to expect it as “naturally given” that the players will do the restructuring of worlds. Most players don’t have a WvW guild, but are organized in non-player-controlled servers. That would need a huge change in how people play WvW, they would need to form lots of new smaller player-controlled communities, create tons of guilds and alliances. Not gonna happen imo.

 

Misconception 3: Even warscores = exciting matches

 

We’ve already seen in EotM, that people don’t care about winning when they are part of a mostly random team. Warscores might become more even at the end of the week, ok, but that’s pointless then.

 

Misconception 4: Even warscores = more balanced matches

 

When “Red Alliance Raid” dominates at 4 pm, and “Blue Alliance Raid” dominates at 6 pm, and “Green Alliance Raid” dominates at 11 pm, we will have an even warscore. But the matches would be massively unbalanced. When servers get deleted, your only way to have a team feeling and community is to stack in alliance with players that usually play in the same time zone, share the same playstyle (PPT, PPK, voice chat only etc.), and a comparable skill level (casuals vs. elite). That’s inevitable imbalance imo.

 

Misconception 5: Up to 50% difference in activity = servers have to be deleted

 

Anet re-links to compensate for population shifts during the last 8 weeks. But no matter how hard they try to puzzle, the players of the biggest new team had up to 50% more activity during the last weeks, compared to the players of the smallest new team. That’s not optimal, I agree, but teams get sorted into Tiers, so this extreme match will only occur once every few months. That’s not relevant, and even then, it would only mean that Team Red has 80 ppl online on average, Team Blue 100, and Team Green 120. That’s playable imo.

 

Maybe not a pure Misconception: Obvious solutions = not worth testing

 

We know that 2 servers are missing in EU, so 2 teams get no link. We know that in NA, some servers might not need a link. And we know that re-linking based on the activities during the last 8 weeks is pointless when ppl are allowed to do mass transfers directly after re-linking. That seem to be the real problems, and they could (easily?) be fixed without deleting the servers. Maybe its not a misconception by Anet, why they regard this package as “not worth testing”. Maybe its due to money reasons, cause ppl invest in transfers and upgrading second accounts, to stack and steamroll over pugs. *sadface* again, cause the deletion of servers cannot be “tested”, its irrevertable. And the concept of mostly random team vs. random team has already been tested in EotM, and it failed.

 

 

 

Add yours if you like to 😉

 

 

nice post and very accurate and i can write some misconceptions and with hystorical evidences from the old forums but i will not write them now because i have already opened my fight to bring Guild Alliances by not destorying the Server system as you can read on this forum thread ,.

 

But i will say only this.... There is no back to Server System if Guild Alliances destroy it!

Edited November 18, 2022 by Reborn.2934

[Invalid.8765]

That is the plan by Anet, to delete servers. Too many people bandwagon to servers and demand a solution rather than strengthen their own community. In fact, most of these players in the forums especially the high post counts that are defending alliances as better than sliced bread, are the first to transfer off to another server for the most minor of reasons.

 

The grass is always greener on the other side; until they get there and realize that it is not, but they never realize the cause only looking at the symptoms.

 

People can invest in where they are currently, or they can flee like cowards to another server. Most want to flee like cowards and this is where alliances will help them not have to use gems to invade another community that does not want or need them.

 

In short alliances cater to your average WvW player that logs in a few times a year, complains in WvW Team chat about how bad X server is how and Y server is better. They cannot wait until alliances so they are finally away from X server; which will turn into "X alliance is so bad, Y alliance is better, I cannot wait until they fix alliances so I do not have to be paired with X alliance".

 

Then they can finally stop playing for a few years or indefinitely at that point because nothing has improved but will continue to post on the forum as if they are active WvW players. Anet is splitting up people that did not make it into 'alliance guilds' but have been on X server since release and never have transferred, likely the main factor of what X server has their good reputation. Often those players that will be left behind are the reason X server is so good and/or fun to play on/with, not the bandwagoning players that are gung ho because they transferred to X server day(s)-week(s) and now claim they are why the server has said reputation, but Anet could careless.

 

Further, most if not all of these alliance guilds will fall apart to e-drama in time, but let's act surprised when it happens "wow how did this happen, never saw that coming". Anet is shifting from a server structure to a power structure where 1 guild leader has all the power to ruin a server/alliance and only naive people would say "just reform" ignoring the damage that will be done each time this cause and effect happen.

 

Short sighted devs want to ruin what is left of WvW out of spite or ineptitude, or both. This applies to most of the forum warriors too, they want to see X server broken up because they are too incompetent to handle them in X+XvX much less XvX; the remaining are just too unable to see the forest for the trees.

[meerfunkuhtron.9725]

On 10/29/2022 at 1:40 PM, kamikharzeeh.8016 said:

1) lmfao u are acting as if server still had any identity. they do not, nobody seriously cares anymore. nor stays on the same server for even anything past a year

5) again, server identity is a myth, a bold joke, a meme. u could delete easy 50% of all existing EU servers and nobody would seriously care

The only reason server identity has been null is because it was literally killed by Anet through world linking. Of course people don't care about it now, what's the point of holding on to something that Anet says should no longer matter? However, the reason "server identity" has been brought up, even if it no longer exists, is because some of us recognize that things were better when it existed. Not to say that things were perfect before, but simply that having server identity was one of the things Anet should've kept through all these changes.

We can look at server identity as something else--a basic, quasi-stable community. It worked because it gave people more motivation to play outside of just getting points. It meant actually caring about losing some structures, about defending and building them up, about fighting and being good at it so that you can actually win against stronger opponents instead of just caring about ppt. It meant that WvW wasn't just a way to get fights, even though that's a big component of the game mode. It made people care about strategies and working within their community, instead of just jumping wagons towards the winning teams.

So yeah, you're partly right in that server identity is no longer a thing, but it is neither a myth or a joke to many of us who played WvW from the beginning (though obviously your mileage may vary as it could differ between each player and server) and saw how this game mode took a nosedive after it was nuked. I completely understand why the subject is brought up when it comes to 1-why WvW sucks atm, and 2-possible things we could do to make it better (by possibly bringing a version of it back).

Edited November 29, 2022 by meerfunkuhtron.9725

[Dawdler.8521]

5 hours ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

We can look at server identity as something else--a basic, quasi-stable community.

Which is the eqvivalent of alliances, hence the weird discourse between the sides. Every concern people have about it - such as "1 guild leader having the power to ruin it" to take a random example mentioned above, apply to the old server identity in the "better" days - 1 popular and famous (or infamous) commander leaving and *poof* the server is dead and everybody else leaves.

[Custodio.6134]

Yep. The "server identity" won't be gone entirely, it will only be replaced with "alliance identity". It's literally the same. 

A handful of people, guilds, or even single persons keeping communities alive is also already a thing, so not really a big change is to be expected in that regard. 

[Mabi black.1824]

11 hours ago, meerfunkuhtron.9725 said:

The only reason server identity has been null is because it was literally killed by Anet through world linking.

In my opinion, the identity of the server is still there. Players who enter this mode because they identify themselves in their server (even if they are in one or more guilds) or because they feel like a small part of that server, are there. And they will be there forever, the only way you have to undo them is to take away their server. That said, all these players who have a clear idea of their identity as a team and as a community, They have lost motivation, yes, they are not stimulated to do everything they could do, and they are disoriented in terms of competition, comparison, for everything we see ....... Wild transfer, completely out of control, matches in T1 with 100,000K+D and matches in T5 with 30,000K+D, prtite with never a queue and numerical inferiority always active.

The result is what we often read in this forum. Winning has no meaning. Players want to be part of a team and want to be able to compete with other teams. And credible competition constantly needs love, control and supervist from development.

[Mabi black.1824]

Working hard for good competition in WWW, so that players are transported and motivated and involved in a common action, so as to create content in this game mode and thus achieve McKenna's first goal of World Restructuring '' to get great matches'' does not mean making alliances. Indeed, it is better to say that it is not enough to make alliances.

Also because (maybe it's something just about me) I still don't know what Anet has in mind to put players in competition. What are the parameters? If my alliance is 100 players and yours is 500 players. How do they want to create a new leaderboard? Will players finally be able to participate in an official tournament in this mode? Or will I still have to go and see on the mist all the personal initiatives of individual players who no longer know what to invent?