Alliances are nowhere near complete. Poorly managed project with serious concerns.

[jul.7602]

There should be no optimism about this new system at all. This is going to sound horrible, but whoever is managing this project should seriously be dismissed. One of the most basic things you should do before having a beta-test is to let you participants know ahead of time, probably a good week or so  on some official line of communication, such as on the forums or in-game. I can't imagine this that this is the level of communication and coordination that takes place at a respectable publicly traded company, not some crowd-funded upstart game. Now, it's not like this is a technically complex thing to do, we already get plenty of in-game mail to notify us for other events, so its obvious that Anet already has some sort of automated system that they can use to alert of us upcoming betas. Instead we got a last minute notice 48 hours reset. Like what happened? We already know that they have to plan/schedule these betas well in advance, so did they just forget to tell everyone about the beta? What type of management structure is in play here? How could such a basic task be overlooked or completely forgotten? I've had my doubts about alliances ever coming to gw2 for a long time, but how can anyone actually be convinced that Alliances will ever be finished if this is the level of inter-communication and coordination of the development team? Aside from that, we've had little to no progress over the past year and a half.

 

Let us begin with the following quote from Joshua Davis (Grouch), posted on the GW2 reddit in June 2022. 

Quote

To clarify, World Restructuring hasn't been actively developed since its original announcement in 2018. Previous studio leadership deprioritized the project shortly after it was announced. We put a team back on it last year. The idea has existed for 4+ years, but meaningful progress has mostly happened over the last year. -Joshua_Davis (Grouch)

 

Based on the bolded parts, we can reasonably say that the Anet has been working on alliances since around mid 2021, which means that so far Anet has spent around a year and a half working on alliances. In the first phase of the beta, the following goals have been stated.

 

"A substantial backend overhaul of how World vs World works, but most of this is invisible to the player. On the player-facing side of things, it will feature matchmaking support for unguilded players and guilds. Alliance functionality will come in phase two. The goal for this first phase is to ensure that the system works at scale. We’ll be keeping a close eye on player population balance, queue times, and victory point disparity."

 

Nothing so far suggests that this even close to operating at scale. Every patch we still have people being placed on incorrect servers, we still have the notorious 'que bug', which actually I believe has gotten worse over the last 3 months. The map interface doesn't always show friendly/guild players on the map and sometimes cannot properly display alliance members who are on different servers in the squad UI. The only verifiable progress is the addition of an interface that lets us select which guild to be the alliance guild. Being blunt, at this rate alliances are nowhere near being complete, and we'd be lucky if we had them in early 2024.

 

We should cut our losses. This is just a waste of development effort. Maybe we could have gotten some actual new features, like map redesign, better rewards, new capabilities, ect. ect.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 2, 2022 by jul.7602

[Svarty.8019]

There is a perception in the WvW community that World Restructuring is a blockage preventing Arenanet from presenting us with  changes to maps, rewards, siege, guild upgrades, etc.  

 

The truth is that those things aren't on the radar at all. WvW is done - all of that wonderful potential has vapourised. The company didn't nurture it after HoT.

 

Our only hope is the notion of private servers.

 

 

[Chichimec.9364]

22 minutes ago, Svarty.8019 said:

There is a perception in the WvW community that World Restructuring is a blockage preventing Arenanet from presenting us with  changes to maps, rewards, siege, guild upgrades, etc.  

 

The truth is that those things aren't on the radar at all. WvW is done - all of that wonderful potential has vapourised. The company didn't nurture it after HoT.

 

Our only hope is the notion of private servers.

 

 

Just to be clear - I put the first emote on your post and it wasn't the confused one. It was the sad one because I am afraid you are right.

[Xenesis.6389]

45 minutes ago, Svarty.8019 said:

There is a perception in the WvW community that World Restructuring is a blockage preventing Arenanet from presenting us with  changes to maps, rewards, siege, guild upgrades, etc.  

 

The truth is that those things aren't on the radar at all. WvW is done - all of that wonderful potential has vapourised. The company didn't nurture it after HoT.

 

Our only hope is the notion of private servers.

I mean... it's sad... but true...

Because they gave up on it a long time ago. Even simple changes they won't even do regardless of WR. Increasing rewards a little can't be that complicated. Introducing new rewards can't be that complicated. Putting in vendors for exchanges, can't be that complicated, they do it every frigging single living story espisode.

 

And if WR is a bottleneck they're just repeating the exact same pattern as before, when Mike took over content development for Colin in 2016, and released all the planned wvw stuff between 2016-17. But oh, look, Colin is back again.... so...... yeah...

They just continue to drop crumbs on the ground with these bonus weeks and hope you eat it up and buy something from the store while you're still here...

 

Each passing beta getting worse, tonight stuck on a server of back cappers cause we somehow don't have the same numbers in prime time, but desert has a queue. Might as well just keep the old server structure if that's what WR is gonna bring, sphagetti mismash population against stacked alliances. Six betas and the algorithms are getting worse somehow lol.

 

Wvw is truly a special game mode, I wish it could have been treated better.

[ArchonWing.9480]

What, you guys were taking it seriously?

I don't mean any disrespect to the devs. I know they have inherited a huge mess from the IBS era of mismanagement and a callous balance team that had an incredibly cynical view of players. I was never offended by any failed promises from that era because any one could see it was just vapor.

Even if World Restructuring came out immediately in 2018, it was highly doubtful that it would alleviate population issues. And despite what people may think, the solution isn't very simple especially when it comes to the exploitable factors.  Not that it excuses their lack of effort, but I've seen enough threads from people who come here to save the game mode have worse ideas. And often they are part of the problem.

To me, the best outcome of World Restructuring is that groups will have more control over where they will be playing and hopefully be able to play with other similarly minded people outside of the unsustainable tier system. Of course, to your average casual enjoyer or solo players it really means nothing either way, and this game is just revolved around that sort of player.  And balance is just simply a buzzword at this point --it'll never happen.

I would say that I reached the same conclusion as most anyways, the difference is just that I never expected to see anything substantial.

The main problem is just the utter lack of competition. The gaming industry seems to always set the bar lower in pretending to not be a cash grab, and we consumers have long normalized the buying of incomplete products and fake promises. Certainly, everyone would love to see a Realm vs Realm killer elsewhere but all the new hype trains derail as fast as they appear, so we're stuck, and leaves Anet no incentive to improve it at all-- even if they cared.

In any case, the betas just serve as a brief reprieve from the current crappy links, even if it's just crappy in a different way.

Edited December 4, 2022 by ArchonWing.9480

[jul.7602]

2 hours ago, Svarty.8019 said:

There is a perception in the WvW community that World Restructuring is a blockage preventing Arenanet from presenting us with  changes to maps, rewards, siege, guild upgrades, etc.  

 

The truth is that those things aren't on the radar at all. WvW is done - all of that wonderful potential has vapourised. The company didn't nurture it after HoT.

 

Our only hope is the notion of private servers.

 

 

I don't know if I entirely agree with that. WvW only has a scarce amount resources allocated towards, and whatever team we have now is probably tied up trying to figure out how to get alliances up and running. If we just scrapped alliances, then maybe over the past year we could have gotten some of the other stuff we asked for; map improvements, better rewards, maybe better balance ect. ect.

[Ausar.9542]

The problem with WvW isnt the Alliances, its the lack of new content. New Features never come. Alliances mean nothing since it only destroy what little community and faction feel we have. 

 

We want new Sieges, new Maps, new NPCs, new Structures

[Justine.6351]

I BELIEVEEEE !

[aspirine.6852]

5 hours ago, Ausar.9542 said:

The problem with WvW isnt the Alliances, its the lack of new content. New Features never come. Alliances mean nothing since it only destroy what little community and faction feel we have. 

 

We want new Sieges, new Maps, new NPCs, new Structures

Agreed, alliances will be the death of this mode.

[Svarty.8019]

18 hours ago, jul.7602 said:

I don't know if I entirely agree with that. WvW only has a scarce amount resources allocated towards, and whatever team we have now is probably tied up trying to figure out how to get alliances up and running. If we just scrapped alliances, then maybe over the past year we could have gotten some of the other stuff we asked for; map improvements, better rewards, maybe better balance ect. ect.

Yeah! No. 

 

Let me tell you a little story. 
Once upon a time, the developers asked players if they wanted "New Worlds", and the resounding response from the WvW community was "Nah."

So the developers said, "Okay, we won't do anything, then." 

Then there was silence for ages and no content.

Then the developers asked players if they wanted "World Restructuring" and (I posit) because the players saw "World Restructuring" as something (anything) as opposed to nothing, they said "Yes."

 

So when you suggest that the alternative to something is something else, I disagree. The alternative to something, as we've seen, is nothing.

[jul.7602]

28 minutes ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Yeah! No. 

 

Let me tell you a little story. 
Once upon a time, the developers asked players if they wanted "New Worlds", and the resounding response from the WvW community was "Nah."

So the developers said, "Okay, we won't do anything, then." 

Then there was silence for ages and no content.

Then the developers asked players if they wanted "World Restructuring" and (I posit) because the players saw "World Restructuring" as something (anything) as opposed to nothing, they said "Yes."

 

So when you suggest that the alternative to something is something else, I disagree. The alternative to something, as we've seen, is nothing.

Honestly, I don't remember Anet asking if people wanted this Alliance system. From the beginning it wasn't even really popular at all.

[Xenesis.6389]

13 minutes ago, Svarty.8019 said:

Yeah! No. 

 

Let me tell you a little story. 
Once upon a time, the developers asked players if they wanted "New Worlds", and the resounding response from the WvW community was "Nah."

So the developers said, "Okay, we won't do anything, then." 

Then there was silence for ages and no content.

Then the developers asked players if they wanted "World Restructuring" and (I posit) because the players saw "World Restructuring" as something (anything) as opposed to nothing, they said "Yes."

 

So when you suggest that the alternative to something is something else, I disagree. The alternative to something, as we've seen, is nothing.

New worlds was suggested in may 2016, New Worlds they were still working on releasing the rest of the wvw stuff for the next year after that, including the skirmish mode, 1u1d, territories and gliding. 

WR/Alliances was announced jan 2018, then the drought began, until 2021 when apparently josh came back and decided to work on WR again.

It's quite possible the new team they put back together last year for WR/Alliances could have been working on other wvw projects instead. But like you I feel like the same, the alternative would have just been nothing, they still haven't mentioned anything beyond WR other than support might get some reward help somewhere at some point. I still think it's only like two devs on wvw tbh, Floyd(he's checking the forums today), and is Raymond still on the wvw team or did he silently get moved like Tyler and McKenna did...

[Svarty.8019]

26 minutes ago, jul.7602 said:

Honestly, I don't remember Anet asking if people wanted this Alliance system. From the beginning it wasn't even really popular at all.

There was a vote thread called "New Worlds" on the old forums, but I'm struggling to find it now.

 

All I found was this.

[Infusion.7149]

All I have to say is at least Josh Davis has the guts to tell the truth instead of just years of complete silence regarding WvW.

[Xenesis.6389]

Meanwhile he also hasn't said anything in regards to WR since Jan.

lol

[Diku.2546]

5 hours ago, Svarty.8019 said:

There was a vote thread called "New Worlds" on the old forums, but I'm struggling to find it now.

 

All I found was this.

2019.06.25 - Removing Language Restrictions for EU World Linking - Predict Community Collapsing
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/55738-removing-language-restrictions-for-eu-world-linking/page/4/#comment-896991

2016-06-11 - Vote thread - Pandora’s Gennie in a Box opened - Churn & Burn
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/WvW-Poll-6-June-World-Linking-Schedule-CLOSED/page/5#post6197744

2016-05-25 - Hypothetically Speaking... New Worlds?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hypothetically-Speaking-New-Worlds

World linking became a permanent feature by vote, but I don't  really remember the community being asked if we wanted Alliances.

My old notes on the history of WvW historic postings.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/886101#Comment_886101

I really wish ANet would stop wasting Dev Time & money after a failed solution & change course to make WvW profitable by directly changing the Match-Up model instead of tinkering with Team Creation.

Directly change Match-up model:
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/89449/wvg-world-vs-globes/p1

Alliances if it ever launches . . . will fail for the same reasons Server Linking & Language Linking fails to create a healthy & competitive game mode . . . Team Creation Solutions are bad for WvW . . . imho

Yours truly,
Diku

Credibility requires critical insight & time.
#MyEoDPurchaseComingSoon
#AlliancesWhen
#RoadMapWhen

Edited December 5, 2022 by Diku.2546

[Infusion.7149]

23 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Meanwhile he also hasn't said anything in regards to WR since Jan.

lol

We have a newer dev Floyd Grubb giving us information. Be fair in your assessment.

[Sviel.7493]

This is beta number 6 or 7 depending on how you count.  For every other beta, they gave ample warning ahead of time.  Thus, I'm inclined to believe that this was some sort of error rather than the new standard we should expect from them.

[Xenesis.6389]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

We have a newer dev Floyd Grubb giving us information. Be fair in your assessment.

You talked about a specific dev I replied about the specific dev.

And do I really need to repeat all that has happened this week to see what's been fair to whom now?

You can suck up to them all you want, their communication has been horribad as usual.

[Justine.6351]

7 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Meanwhile he also hasn't said anything in regards to WR since Jan.

lol

what is WR?

[MarzAttakz.9608]

1 hour ago, Justine.6351 said:

what is WR?

He who shall not be named: World Restructuring

[Svarty.8019]

14 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

New worlds was suggested in may 2016, New Worlds 

Ah you found it! Thanks for that.

 

[devastoscz.9851]

First couple of betas my guild got put into different teams and it was a mess. Starting around the third Beta, whenever we actually checked the box within the time limit, there were no major problems. Sure, other guildies not placed in our match (due to untick or choosing other guild) could see you across matchups, and the map names were all screwed up in panels/friendslist... but 'progress' seemed to be going on, or at least it was announced that way.

 

This latest beta has felt like they took a step backwards off a cliff. Not only was it not properly announced (48h before in a rickety corner of the forums), they added the team selection UI feature that nobody knew what to do with, was not properly socialized, and undoubtedly caused confusion and is more than likely a factor in the amount of guilds getting mismatched.

 

Anet devs need to start taking this seriously or just scrap the project already. Alliances a few years ago was something to look forward to; today its become a pipe dream at best or something to be extremely cynical about at worst. I teeter between those two and honestly this last beta has made me veer sharply towards the latter. This beta is an utter failure, not only did the lack of a timely announcement leave people out of choosing a guild, the matchmaking scattered guilds badly again and the UI problems we've had have not been fixed (in fact one could argue they've increased). 

Personally, I'm skipping this week of WvW, at least when it comes to official "raid with my guild" times. I might dabble in roaming, but organized play is impossible due to the poor planning of this Beta and even worse implementation. Betas are supposed to be about gathering actual real gameplay data; I can't conceive that purpose being met, as so many players are likely taking a break cause they can't play with their friends/guilds right off the bat, so why play at all?

 

[Chaba.5410]

Of course it's nowhere near complete.  They haven't even started Phase 2 yet.

[jul.7602]

9 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Of course it's nowhere near complete.  They haven't even started Phase 2 yet.

The point is that its a garbage idea, wasting everyone's time. It's no popular, or even initially asked for by the community. Anet is just digging themselves a bigger whole until enough people finally tell them to drop the dumb idea.