Wasted resources on Alliances that we'll never see. (Updated)

[Mabi black.1824]

15 minutes ago, Thea Cherry.6327 said:

We will get 1 or 2 very strong alliance powerhouses who will steamroll over everything (like WSR+Vaabi is doing right now),

No, I am convinced of what you are saying. If I take a look at the game you mentioned right now, I see a flow of WSRs that reaches 110,000 K+D. The other teams are just over 80,000 K+D. These servers would need 40% more activity to play that game on par. It is definitely no small thing.

The Alliance and WR mechanic would have put all those players in a decidedly different situation. Much more fun for everyone. Well-organized guilds would end up on all 3 sides. And when they all have similar numbers available we will finally see many alleged phenomena forced to put their feet back on the ground. They will find that he pressed the buttons correctly are many.🤭

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Thea Cherry.6327 said:

 

I guess you miss my point, what i meant was that the Alliance system won't solve the overstacking problem. We will get 1 or 2 very strong alliance powerhouses who will steamroll over everything (like WSR+Vaabi is doing right now), maybe 2 alliances like Drakkar with PVD focuses elderly people who are theire for the fun and at the end we will have x random alliances with everyone mixed despite language barriers etc.

 

If Anet would have restricted the transfering, maybe close 1 Tier and give out a free transfer for everyone to remix the servers, it would have taken way less ressources, did not implement new systems (which don't work) and we wouldn't be beating around bushes for how many years now? xD

What is the "overstacking issue" then, according to you?

Last I checked it was worlds opening up and people moving there until its full again. Then repeat when it opens again until you get a world thats stacked with the "pros" and they aint leaving.

World restructure has no worlds. It creates teams in 500 man max chunks. Hence, it solves the problem.

Arguing that a 2500 man stacked world equals a 500 man stacked alliance is moving the goalpost so you can claim it doesnt solve anything.

So yes, it solves the problem. What happens after that is another problem.

[blp.3489]

14 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

World restructure has no worlds. It creates teams in 500 man max chunks. Hence, it solves the problem.

Arguing that a 2500 man stacked world equals a 500 man stacked alliance is moving the goalpost so you can claim it doesnt solve anything.

Honest question: doesn't world restructure allow guilds to form alliances so that five guilds form an alliance of 5x500 = 2500?

[Dawdler.8521]

2 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

Honest question: doesn't world restructure allow guilds to form alliances so that five guilds form an alliance of 5x500 = 2500?

Not at all how Anet said it would work.

An alliance is a group of guilds where each guild is invited with a slot count such as a 500 man guild joining with 100 of its members, taking up 100/500 slots in the alliance.

The cap is 500 overall, which is the largest "stack" under the world restructure system (single 500 man guild or 500 man alliance, same thing) unlike an entire 2500+ world.

[Chaba.5410]

8 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Sorry too many Mag people have alt accounts and considering the number of other accounts have replied to accounts replying to questions to you while also declaring you are barely a Mag player, will have to call a drama lama. So, whatever. I spent quite a bit defending Mag on good faith before the BS of alt accounts, so sorry. Right now you are looking like a troll. So bye!?

I will at least vouch for Jul not using alt accounts to sockpuppet on the forum even though I rarely agree with him and think he's over the top sometimes.  It's just not his style.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[TheGrimm.5624]

16 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

I will at least vouch for Jul not using alt accounts to sockpuppet on the forum even though I rarely agree with him and think he's over the top sometimes.  It's just not his style.

Will defer for now if you played with the player. But am still happy I still don't have to defend Mag after their alt attempts. All about the balance and right now they are in the negative lol.

[blp.3489]

On 3/17/2023 at 11:24 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

The cap is 500 overall, which is the largest "stack" under the world restructure system (single 500 man guild or 500 man alliance, same thing) unlike an entire 2500+ world.

Thanks for the explanation.

I'm pretty sure there will be a flaw in my reasoning but, couldn't they just create five times the number of servers/worlds in the current system, group five of the smaller worlds and achieve the same effect as WR?  The point being that it can't possibly take years and years to implement having a larger number of smaller worlds.

[Chaba.5410]

12 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Thanks for the explanation.

I'm pretty sure there will be a flaw in my reasoning but, couldn't they just create five times the number of servers/worlds in the current system, group five of the smaller worlds and achieve the same effect as WR?  The point being that it can't possibly take years and years to implement having a larger number of smaller worlds.

They can achieve the same effect as WR by deleting all servers and automatically assigning everyone to a new server.  Then you get split up from your friends and there would be no way to adjust again in the future without deleting all servers and wrecking total havoc on the playerbase again.

[Dawdler.8521]

48 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Thanks for the explanation.

I'm pretty sure there will be a flaw in my reasoning but, couldn't they just create five times the number of servers/worlds in the current system, group five of the smaller worlds and achieve the same effect as WR?  The point being that it can't possibly take years and years to implement having a larger number of smaller worlds.

You're right world restructure is effectivly just the link system with more links per world - its a simple idea. You can ignore the alliance part of it complete, thats just an organisation aid which isnt required (kind of like the squad system).

Its how you actually split apart current worlds thats the tricky part.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[blp.3489]

4 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Its how you actually split apart current worlds that's the tricky part.

Would it be too simplistic to just split the existing worlds into smaller worlds based on their population?  A full server would be split into five, less full servers into less than five.  Offer a certain number of free transfers so that friends that are split up can get back together.  I know that people won't like losing their current world association/identity but they are going to lose that with WR anyway.  Why not save the development resources, avoid the development delays, and get most of the benefit by minimizing the changes and keeping things simple?  Do we really need to complicate things with bringing guilds into the mix?

[Chaba.5410]

53 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Offer a certain number of free transfers so that friends that are split up can get back together. 

<snip>

 Do we really need to complicate things with bringing guilds into the mix?

How are friends that are split up going to get back together if one of these smaller servers gets marked Full?

[Cyninja.2954]

57 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Would it be too simplistic to just split the existing worlds into smaller worlds based on their population?  A full server would be split into five, less full servers into less than five. 

You do realize that current servers are many thousand of players big right?

You also realize that among those players, many do not play WvW, right?

Going along those lines, you realize that not every world, even among those active in WvW can get evenly split into nice 500 player "chunks", right?

57 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Offer a certain number of free transfers so that friends that are split up can get back together. 

What about inactive players? What if they miss the free transfer phase? What about spreading out alt accounts among every world to be sure that one can always play a match-up one desires (as already done by some WvW players)? What about full smaller servers?

We already have smaller servers, those are in T4 and T5 of EU. Players are unwilling to transfer there. So your idea has tome come with a "no transfer option" along with it, otherwise we end up exactly where we are at now.

57 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

I know that people won't like losing their current world association/identity but they are going to lose that with WR anyway.  Why not save the development resources, avoid the development delays, and get most of the benefit by minimizing the changes and keeping things simple?  Do we really need to complicate things with bringing guilds into the mix?

The main development resources are going into splitting away from the server system. Your idea/suggestion changes almost nothing in that regard. On the contrary, it's a toned down approach with keeping more of the current issues and providing nearly none of the benefits of the current world restructuring idea brings.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, blp.3489 said:

Would it be too simplistic to just split the existing worlds into smaller worlds based on their population?  A full server would be split into five, less full servers into less than five.  Offer a certain number of free transfers so that friends that are split up can get back together.  I know that people won't like losing their current world association/identity but they are going to lose that with WR anyway.  Why not save the development resources, avoid the development delays, and get most of the benefit by minimizing the changes and keeping things simple?  Do we really need to complicate things with bringing guilds into the mix?

Yes. 

You're thinking about WvW like splitting up a pile of cocaine. It's easy. 

In reality it would be like splitting a brick into 5 even parts. With your pinky.

[blp.3489]

Sticking to my assumption that the developers can take all the people on a full server and distribute them randomly and equally to five mini-servers, possibly taking player's wvw rank into consideration, possibly taking guilds into consideration, it seems to me that we would not still be in the exact same situation because it is more difficult to manipulate server composition through transfers.

Meanwhile, friends or guilds can pick a mini-server that has enough room for them and transfer there so that they are always playing together.  Low population servers are less of a problem because they only make up a fifth of a side in a matchup.  If the matching puts high and low population servers together then the problems with low population servers are mitigated.

Every matchup would involve 15 mini-servers, 5 to a side, so who is on your side will be a lot more random and therefor less likely to be lopsided or become lopsided due to transfers.

If you take the m server and divide their players into five mini-servers each of which is independently matched up with other probably non-m mini-servers, it will be quite difficult for issues associated with m server to be recreated and transfers will not be as effective as they are now.  How do you know which mini-server to transfer to when 80% of the players on any given mini-server's side in a matchup are players from other mini-servers.  How can a mini-server become dominant?  Even if all the players from the original m-server transfer to a single mini-server that will just ensure they spend their time in queues, which would be unfortunate for the other players on that mini-server, but since it would be ineffective it wouldn't happen much.

TLDR: having a larger number of smaller servers that are mixed together into a side during matching should make matches more even and harder to subvert.

[Chaba.5410]

41 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Meanwhile, friends or guilds can pick a mini-server that has enough room for them and transfer there so that they are always playing together.

You still haven't answered my question as to how friends that are split up are going to be able to get back together when all these mini-servers are Full or near Full.  People come and go and come again.  There's a dynamic fluctuation to the total number of players over any length of time.  What happens when one of these mini-servers loses too many players?  Do they get deleted?  How do players get redistributed?

Edited March 18, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[joneirikb.7506]

This is exactly what Tyler Bearce asked us a bunch of years ago, if we where willing to delete all servers, create a whole pile of smaller servers, and basically use the link system to glue X number of them together. The forums/community clearly voted no to that.

The usual reasons, people doesn't want to lose their server/name, community, etc. 

But essentially, World Restructure will do all of those, and in a more dynamically adaptable way, by using guilds instead of servers. If they have to do 90% of the work anyways, why not let them do 100% and give us World Restructure with Alliances. It will already do all the things you've suggested. With a few less flaws.

[blp.3489]

38 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

You still haven't answered my question as to how friends that are split up are going to be able to get back together when all these mini-servers are Full or near Full.

Why would all the mini-servers be Full or near Full?  Why wouldn't there be medium and low population mini-servers with enough space for a group of friends?  Since sides in a matchup would consist of 5 mini-servers, lower population mini-servers can be grouped with higher population servers and so wouldn't be as problematic as they are now.

 

3 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

If they have to do 90% of the work anyways, why not let them do 100% and give us World Restructure with Alliances.

There's a saying in software development that the last 10% of a software project takes 90% of the time. 😀 

(Sometimes it's stated as 20% and 80%)

[Cyninja.2954]

24 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Why would all the mini-servers be Full or near Full?  Why wouldn't there be medium and low population mini-servers with enough space for a group of friends?  Since sides in a matchup would consist of 5 mini-servers, lower population mini-servers can be grouped with higher population servers and so wouldn't be as problematic as they are now.

 

Because as is right now, there is no cap on how many players can be on a server. There are tens of thousands of players on each server. Just not all of them are playing WvW and as such are not considered in the WvW activity algorythm.

Your entire "mini" server idea falls appart at 1 simple step: you are forgetting that there is a difference between active and inactive players in regards to WvW on each server.

Theoretically, with a huge spike of active players (meaning players who where inactive and now started playing WvW again), your mini servers could all be full with still more players wanting to play but no spaces left.

Meanwhile the opposite can happen too, players assigned to your mini servers could become inactive, blocking spaces for other players to join the server.

Unless of course you periodically wipe the mini servers, reassign all currently active players to new mini servers and adjust the amount of mini servers in total... oh wait, that's exactly what the world restructuring does.🤦‍♂️

Edited March 18, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Xenesis.6389]

52 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

This is exactly what Tyler Bearce asked us a bunch of years ago, if we where willing to delete all servers, create a whole pile of smaller servers, and basically use the link system to glue X number of them together. The forums/community clearly voted no to that.

The usual reasons, people doesn't want to lose their server/name, community, etc. 

But essentially, World Restructure will do all of those, and in a more dynamically adaptable way, by using guilds instead of servers. If they have to do 90% of the work anyways, why not let them do 100% and give us World Restructure with Alliances. It will already do all the things you've suggested. With a few less flaws.

Actually he asked about opening additional servers, (no mention of deleting all old servers), to get more pieces to use for better links, like using lego instead of duplo. Players weren't interested, probably because they didn't fully understand it, there's still people who can't wrap their heads around world restructuring/alliance yet.

This idea would have actually been the best of both worlds, the homers would get to keep their original servers, the big guilds would get to transfer off to their own server and recruits get to transfer to those open servers, instead of bandwagoning BG link for the 20th time to stay with BG guilds.

The bandwagons forced anet to take the next step, now we are indeed getting the full delete all servers, while also using player guilds/alliances(instead of additional servers) as the pieces to form the worlds. GG wvw community.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hypothetically-Speaking-New-Worlds

[blp.3489]

If there are ten thousand players on a server there will be two thousand on the mini server and the ratio that play wvw should be the same on the mini-server.  If there is a spike in the number of players that participate in wvw on a mini-server the per map cap is the same as it is now, one mini-server won't be any more constrained than it is now.

Fundamentally, nothing will change except that there will be a larger number of smaller servers and match ups will consist of more servers.  Given the megaserver system, is there something fundamental that requires servers to be the size they are now?  I'm guessing that anet could adjust the number of players per new server without much effort or effect as long as matchups took it into account.

As per the thread title, the main thing is the implementation time should be quite limited.

Edited March 18, 2023 by blp.3489
Typo

[Cyninja.2954]

33 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

If there are ten thousand players on a server there will be two thousand on the mini server and the ratio that play wvw should be the same on the mini-server.  If there is a spike in the number of players that participate in wvw on a mini-server the per map cap is the same as it is now, one mini-server won't be any more constrained than it is now.

Fundamentally, nothing will change except that there will be a larger number of smaller servers and match ups will consist of more servers.  Given the megaserver system, is there something fundamental that requires servers to be the size they are now?  I'm guessing that anet could adjust the number of players per new server without much effort or effect as long as matchups took it into account.

As per the thread title, the main thing is the implementation time should be quite limited.

I don't think you understand the differences between players on servers who are not currently active, and the active part of players on those servers (which currently get relinked every 8 weeks).

Fine, how do you propose the over 16 million accounts of players should be spread out over your proposed mini server system?

The current server system works because a large amount of players do not need to be reassigned. 

Meanwhile there nothing to prevent servers going inactive population wise (the actual issue we see now which leads to imbalance) from a standpoint of active WvW players. Your suggestion again does not address this.

Let's take your idea and simply change some of the terminology:

- Servers are now worlds

- mini servers are now guilds or alliances (they are limited to maximum of 500 but can be smaller)

 

World 1 = alliance a + alliance b + alliance c + random players

World 2 = alliance d + alliance e + alliance f + random players

World 1 size = World 2 size

 

See, the world restructuring system is literally your idea without the flaws and far better thoughtout.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[aspirine.6852]

Even if we see it, it will change absolutely nothing. 

[Chaba.5410]

3 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

Why would all the mini-servers be Full or near Full?  Why wouldn't there be medium and low population mini-servers with enough space for a group of friends?  Since sides in a matchup would consist of 5 mini-servers, lower population mini-servers can be grouped with higher population servers and so wouldn't be as problematic as they are now.

Those are questions you need to answer for the system you are designing here.  If you can't answer them or generally ignore them, then your system is going to fail when it runs into those very use cases.  Are you going to keep opening new mini-servers?  What will you do when you have too many mini-servers that are too low in population?  Are you going to close some and reshuffle the population anyway and putting every player through the free transfer thing again? Are you going to still have the same number of match ups?

Edited March 18, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[blp.3489]

Let's simplify things a little bit.

My first premise is that if Anet were to double the number of servers, halve the number of players per server and double the number of servers per matchup, software wise nothing that works now would be broken.  I.e. there is nothing magic about the current server sizes.

My second premise is that with a larger number of servers included in each side in a match the matching process would produce more balanced matches.  I.e. you can produce a better match if you have a larger number of smaller pieces to put together.

My third premise is that if you randomly assigned players on an existing server to two new empty servers the system software would continue to function, the only fundamental problem would be that some players that want to play together would be on different servers.  Exactly like the current system, players that want to play together can agree on a server that has enough room for them and transfer there.

My final premise is that although some number of users will be unhappy with the reassignment the same sort of unhappiness will be generated if the current WR process is implemented anyway.

If you think one of these premises is false please explain.

Either you disagree that the current system software would continue to function if there were a larger number of smaller servers or you disagree that having a larger number of smaller servers would result in better match ups.  Everything else is a distraction until those two points are resolved.

[JTGuevara.9018]

(shrugs)

Good. Alliances would've solved jack anyway. Alliances, and the biggest advocates, are in the interests of mega-guilds who just want to farm people actually having fun. (Yeah, I said it...)

People seem to FORGET that wvw is a 24-hour game mode. There is no fixing that. I used to be the person complaining about "nightcapping" but it is what it is. That's the nature of the system.