Is 500 players enough for identity?

[blp.3489]

As I understand it WR/Alliances will result in Alliances being capped at 500 players, and Alliances will be grouped into a 2500 player team in a match.  Do people feel that having 500 Alliance-mates on your team, mixed in with 2000 somewhat random other players, will be enough to feel a sense of identity?  It is clearly a much smaller number of consistent teammates than being in a "host" server, I'm not sure how big the linked servers tend to be.

It seems that there are guilds that hop from server to server to find their preferred environment, so at least some people are okay with having a guild identity rather than a server identity.  I think there are also a lot of players, like me, who don't play with a specific guild that are basically operating independently, joining whatever squad is running when they are playing, or playing solo or with a few other random players they encounter.

At best there are "familiar" players on my server, other than that I probably wouldn't really notice if I got silently shuffled onto a different server.  How many of the players on your current server do you non-randomly interact with either individually or as a group like a guild, where you don't know them individually but are familiar with the group?  Is it less than 500?  Way less?  More than 500?  Will your play be significantly impacted if you have 500 steady comrades fighting alongside 2000 somewhat random other players?

I think in "real-world" warfare most soldiers are tightly integrated into relatively small squads and have a sense of identity that, other than their nationality, is as a part of a not that large a grouping, and while they may be deployed in larger groups they probably aren't very aware of individuals in the other sub-groups.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_organization  Of course what is completely different from real life military is that in real life there is an encompassing hierarchical chain of command, not a bunch of small or mid-sized groups, let alone individuals, acting completely autonomously as in WvW.  WvW is more like Troy-era Greek warfare where armies were mostly just a large rabble being herded and kept in line by local leaders.

I think if you really wanted to do an Alliance-based WvW game mode you would do away with the three team concept and have a larger number of smaller groups, each holding smaller scale objectives.  They would then be able to form larger informal alliances in order to take and hold, or even build, larger objectives and as large a combined territory as possible.  But that would be an entirely different game mode.  It may already exist in another game for all I know.

[Xenesis.6389]

14 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Do people feel that having 500 Alliance-mates on your team, mixed in with 2000 somewhat random other players, will be enough to feel a sense of identity?

Not any different than it currently is, guilds can have 500 players and operate with 2k randoms, but most wvw guilds probably have less than 50 active players. The players forming alliances will mostly be the ones who are ok with their guild identity over server identity. I'm sure there will be a couple community alliances, but for the most part the already established guilds will lead the alliance creations, and they already operate as a guild first than server first. (Go ahead and point out any still highly active original guilds left on their original servers, there really isn't much left, many guilds have moved over the years).

 

14 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

How many of the players on your current server do you non-randomly interact with either individually or as a group like a guild, where you don't know them individually but are familiar with the group?  Is it less than 500?  Way less?  More than 500?  Will your play be significantly impacted if you have 500 steady comrades fighting alongside 2000 somewhat random other players?

Personally these days I'm a lone wolf, I haven't been in a zerg guild in like 8 years, and my havoc guild hasn't been operating for like 3 years now. My play will not be impacted with randoms around me, it's been that way since day one.

 

14 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

I think in "real-world" warfare most soldiers are tightly integrated into relatively small squads and have a sense of identity that, other than their nationality, is as a part of a not that large a grouping, and while they may be deployed in larger groups they probably aren't very aware of individuals in the other sub-groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_organization  Of course what is completely different from real life military is that in real life there is an encompassing hierarchical chain of command, not a bunch of small or mid-sized groups, let alone individuals, acting completely autonomously as in WvW. 

WvW isn't that much different. Guilds are the different smaller squads deployed within a large group(servers), and servers use to have councils(chain of command), it will again with alliances as they will coordinate for times and maps to play on I'm sure.

[blp.3489]

36 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

WvW isn't that much different. Guilds are the different smaller squads deployed within a large group(servers), and servers use to have councils(chain of command), it will again with alliances as they will coordinate for times and maps to play on I'm sure.

I haven't heard of server councils, all I could find googling gw2 wvw council was this 2012 post:

https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/361211/alliance-war-council-tarnished-coast-rp-wvw-guild-alliance

For now I'm sticking to my conception that most people playing wvw don't acknowledge any authority beyond their guild leader or squad leader, and that even then they probably feel free to go do their own thing without fear of court marshal.

In your next round of surveys it would be interesting to ask how many people play as part of an organized guild that plays together in an organized fashion, how many have a guild but don't get involved in organized play with them more than occasionally, and how many play completely unaligned.

[Custodio.6134]

21 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Not any different than it currently is, guilds can have 500 players and operate with 2k randoms, but most wvw guilds probably have less than 50 active players. The players forming alliances will mostly be the ones who are ok with their guild identity over server identity. I'm sure there will be a couple community alliances, but for the most part the already established guilds will lead the alliance creations, and they already operate as a guild first than server first.

exactly. Also, guilds are mostly already the backbone of a server anyway, and alliances basically will result in the existing servers (more or less) be recreated in an alliance. Nothing is stopping the guilds from their server to make an alliance, and then fill the rest up with the people from the server. We don´t even know how exactly alliances will be handled for individual players, so there's a possibility to have the current servers just be packed into an alliance. So, in the end, in terms of how communities stay together, there probably won´t be that much change at all. 

No competetive guild can be that big to never serve public players, and neither will an alliance be. You know, guilds also play outside of their raiding times, excluding community-guilds ofc, but community-guilds are rarely on the higher competetive end. And a lot (not all ofc, but a large chunk) of public tags are already provided by the "leading guilds" of the respective server. doesn´t make much difference if its a server or an alliance (or a cluster of alliances)

Will there be guilds/alliances trying to "stack all the good guilds without randoms"? sure

Will these "mass-alliances" persist? probably not. Not only are there guilds rivaling each other, that will under no circumstances volunteerly join the same alliance as another, but any guild knows, that stacking all the "big" (in terms of strength or popularity) will just give them less enemies to actually fight. guilds will naturally try to avoid that as much as possible (for example: i know for a fact, that my guild has a "list" of at least 5 guilds they will never join into an alliance, probably more. at all cost)
 

1 hour ago, blp.3489 said:

How many of the players on your current server do you non-randomly interact with either individually or as a group like a guild, where you don't know them individually but are familiar with the group?  Is it less than 500?  Way less?  More than 500?

tbh: there´s like... 15 names that i recognize from my server in addition to the guilds we frequently interact with, however: even for the guilds, it´s mostly the commanders, and the rest are people you know because you have been on the server for a long time. 

[Custodio.6134]

3 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

I haven't heard of server councils, all I could find googling gw2 wvw council was this 2012 post:

that´s (in most cases) the "established guilds" (guilds that have been on the server for a very long time), combined with admins of their server-platforms (e.g. discord), the creators and/or leaders of the community-guilds or similar people. it´s nothing official, but the communities (if they exist) are usually organized around them. 

[Xenesis.6389]

9 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

I haven't heard of server councils, all I could find googling gw2 wvw council was this 2012 post:

You missed a lot of history then. Councils use to get together to discuss strategies for the week, distribute map assignments, and discuss other things such as guild recruitment and server events, there's even been servers who have offered legendaries as payment for transfers. Especially around the tournament era, which really was an arms race. These days it's not really needed, I'm sure there is still some form of it with map assignments for reset with the large guilds, done through discord, but not much beyond that.

 

9 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

For now I'm sticking to my conception that most people playing wvw don't acknowledge any authority beyond their guild leader or squad leader, and that even then they probably feel free to go do their own thing without fear of court marshal.

Well you have three types of players, the ones who only log on to mindlessly follow a tag, the ones who have played enough to not need a tag to do stuff, and the ones who are part of the organized guilds who are playing beyond their raid times. Two of those groups aren't going to form the majority of alliances if at all, the ones who are aren't bothered by the concept of server identity, they already have it with their guild. They're already use to playing with/ignoring randoms.

 

9 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

In your next round of surveys it would be interesting to ask how many people play as part of an organized guild that plays together in an organized fashion, how many have a guild but don't get involved in organized play with them more than occasionally, and how many play completely unaligned.

Maybe. But the only two significant votes were 9 for the solo and 8 for the 20-30 options, do we really want to know how many of the 8 for 20-30 have organized rallies? 🤭

 

[MarzAttakz.9608]

Back during the 2012-2015 period my server had about 4-6 large active WvW guilds and manage a decent spread of timezone coverage.

Every Friday an hour before reset we'd have a server council meeting and borderlands were assigned to specific guilds. The meeting was open to all verified server members.

As time crept on and the inevitable Guild ego clashes occurred, our server fractured somewhat around 2016 and never fully recovered. Some of the guilds transferred, others imploded, players quit the game and moved on.

We still have a strong sense of server community but I'd say there's a core of 50 or less veterans, and perhaps 15-25 players that I'd count as regulars during my playtime. The majority are members of all the WvW guilds that are left.

It's very different to how things started and I'd be lucky to say we have 500 players today. I don't know how things stand regarding Alliances from a server community standpoint but I know the core group I'd like to play with, and even though I prefer being guildless, they are the guild I'll be choosing during the test periods.

As a server that's for all intents and purposes permanently full (how I don't kittening know and want to see cold hard figures supporting it) and unlinked for the second time in a row, I would understand if certain guilds on our server decided to not align themselves. The need for fresh blood and different players to change the status quo is becoming pressing. Then again, rather the Devil you know, than the Devil you don't... 

[Dawdler.8521]

How come every other thread about world restructure start with arguing some aspect of it such as alliances and end with OH AND BTW DELETE WVW AND MAKE IT SOMETHING ELSE?

[TheGrimm.5624]

3 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

Do people feel that having 500 Alliance-mates on your team, mixed in with 2000 somewhat random other players, will be enough to feel a sense of identity? 

Sense of identity is a tricky one. As a server pride side peep, its gone once the servers are gone. I admit the beta weeks outside of testing for the sake of testing have been blah because that server identity was gone and why would I care if Skritt Pines loses Garri versus its our Garri and no we need to push them out that causes server peeps to respond today to callouts. Hence why it seemed, IMO, why there was even less defensive actions and more paper structures during the prior betas. Now with the new planned yet not completed reward systems who knows we will have to see.

Will Alliances have Alliance pride as guilds have their own sense of identity, yes. Will the new server/shards that surround those Alliances have identity? I think they will have more single serving friends and potentially more internal drama and guild infighting as well as Alliance versus Alliance within the same server drama a foot. I think it will be less what do we know about fighting server x and more Alliance Y is on the new Seven Pine server, we need to plan for the Mez hiding in structures or cliff jumping. I think losing servers will remove more identity than it adds in. The tradeoff question is will it make better matchups and more people playing? 

500 accounts for a guild size and not splitting a single guild. 500 in terms of many smaller guilds run risks of guilds not declaring their potential people and then having guild mates assigned to other servers during the sorting since they can't mark their primary guild as their WvW guild due to settings. In either case, the 500 number is more than likely a parameter that can be tuned as needed so is less of a concern versus other aspects of the sorting, and unless it has been addressed, the issue in accounting for time zone in sorting and how that impacts queues and off hours game play.

[Xenesis.6389]

30 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Sense of identity is a tricky one. As a server pride side peep, its gone once the servers are gone. I admit the beta weeks outside of testing for the sake of testing have been blah because that server identity was gone and why would I care if Skritt Pines loses Garri versus its our Garri and no we need to push them out that causes server peeps to respond today to callouts. Hence why it seemed, IMO, why there was even less defensive actions and more paper structures during the prior betas. Now with the new planned yet not completed reward systems who knows we will have to see.

Well the game mode is being pushed to rewards being the driving force, and the players wanted this, and anet believes in the end this will solve all the motivation problems. Server pride was only ever something the first few years and with tournaments around, winning felt like it meant something, until players realized playing overtime and burning yourselves out over something that was meaningless wasn't worth it.

It's too bad they never bothered with "seasonal" play to begin with, and mimic the sports leagues as they do with seasons and then post season tournaments. They half kittened it and put in points system to win weekly matches(which really doesn't even work with a rvr system in the first place), but then didn't bother with the over arching system for having those wins mean something significant over a period of time. Does anyone really care Blackgate has like 300 weekly wins? no, they don't, they only remember the first tournament win, the tournament they got double teamed, and the first revamp tequatl kill which started their bandwagon.

Regardless of server names, objectives in game still have some meaning, like in that example of garrison, a way point is pretty nice to have, and also pretty nice to deny. The little minions who only log on for an hour to do dailies and blindly follow a tag may not know it, but the people who play 4-6 hours a day or in an organized guild do. Also it was a beta week that meant nothing to tier rankings, so why care about saving stuff for points.

End of the day, todays "wvw players really are into pve" - Mike O'Brien, they're only really in it for the rewards, as evident by the repair farms when OSR came out. Maybe they'll do actual seasonal and tournament play and server/world rewards again as they hinted with the WR posts, but they also stated burnout is usually high with those. "You think you do, but you really don't." - J Allen Brack.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Xenesis.6389

[Riba.3271]

2 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Sense of identity is a tricky one. As a server pride side peep, its gone once the servers are gone.

I would like to make it clear that servers are gone already:

✅Always open (at least link)

✅ Randomized teammates every 2 months

✅500 gem transfers almost everywhere

✅ 2 names instead of 1

✅No rivalries or staple enemies

✅Pugs aren't extra but unwanted: relinking sets population same

 

I can understand how they see alliances as a decent idea tho when they're comparing it to current nonsensical system.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Riba.3271

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I'm a lone roamer in only dead guilds so it won't affect me too much I think. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

7 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

I would like to make it clear that servers are gone already:

✅Always open (at least link)

✅ Randomized teammates every 2 months

✅500 gem transfers almost everywhere

✅ 2 names instead of 1

✅No rivalries or staple enemies

✅Pugs aren't extra but unwanted: relinking sets population same

 

I can understand how they see alliances as a decent idea tho when they're comparing it to current nonsensical system.

* "Always open due to link" - I can enjoy meeting people on the linked servers and like them but that doesn't add them to my server. I can like guilds I fought and can enjoy being sided with them and aid in our mutual cause but that didn't remove their association with their server and me with mine.

* "Rando teams every two months" - again doesn't mean there are not 2 servers there even if the other side may not ID it as such.

* "Transfers" - over a decade did this once to group with friends from a prior game as others from a prior game left GW2 and the server I was on so can't talk to this one

* Linking - wasn't asking for and was against at first, but have enjoyed meeting the other side and can /wave at them when relinked against, doesn't remove server pride, just made more friends

* "No rivalries" - My servers stuff is still ours, you can't have it. With WR, this one will be rougher and see this if in Alliance it may hold out more, if left to drift on the wind and random assignments not so much. Today you might see server mates holding outnumbered and aid them though its a lost cause. See a downed that you fight with daily you attack to try and get them up. With the WR spins, more single severing friends outside of the Alliance.

* "Pugs" - Servers attract or discourage pugs. How will the WR impact this? Pugs become the mortar for the bricks. So pugs will either group up or be the filling in the walls and then face what pugs always have. Build a build to do a job role and then focus and risk not finding a group for your defined setup or build roamer builds to meet demands or roam when that doesn't happen. Note Dawdler's comments on people building builds to handle multiple roles and play scales which is a thing I agree with.

[TheGrimm.5624]

10 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Server pride was only ever something the first few years and with tournaments around, winning felt like it meant something,

Was stronger before, and each to their own, but when I see peeps I see daily getting jumped it makes me want to jump to aid even if lost cause. You never know, sometimes that 2v6 turns into a win, sometimes, your a bag. 🙂

10 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

until players realized playing overtime and burning yourselves out over something that was meaningless wasn't worth it.

100% agree here. Had friends in T1 that boost they stayed up all night to overnight cap. Had to call them out at it during server meetings asking if they would do that week after week after they over rated the server position and the impact that would have on the other time zones.

10 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Regardless of server names, objectives in game still have some meaning, like in that example of garrison, a way point is pretty nice to have, and also pretty nice to deny. The little minions who only log on for an hour to do dailies and blindly follow a tag may not know it, but the people who play 4-6 hours a day or in an organized guild do.

Good example of job roles and denial of resources that people not playing various levels may not get. Again my best example from tournament days was a tag jumping to a BL asking for roamers to blind all sentries and move to tap all keeps and take camps. Assigning havocs to towers and drop part of each squad to the three keeps at the same time and adjusting the squad targets as needed pending keep response. Either way the map was hammered in quick time even if just the roamers and havocs landed their attacks. 

10 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Also it was a beta week that meant nothing to tier rankings, so why care about saving stuff for points.

That why I agree with a multi-week test but still not sure how the data may play out. I don't think we will see people really caring about winning and keeping their stuff.

10 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

End of the day, todays "wvw players really are into pve" - Mike O'Brien, they're only really in it for the rewards, as evident by the repair farms when OSR came out. Maybe they'll do actual seasonal and tournament play and server/world rewards again as they hinted with the WR posts, but they also stated burnout is usually high with those. "You think you do, but you really don't." - J Allen Brack.

Carrots and sticks all around it seems. lol, that said as I lean closer to the screen as I type, more carrots in the real world is something I work towards. Computer vision is a thing the eye doctor has said. Rambling at 3 AM when work starts in 5 hours is another. 🙂 Good hunting!

Edited May 16, 2023 by TheGrimm.5624
Rambles

[Cyninja.2954]

11 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Well the game mode is being pushed to rewards being the driving force, and the players wanted this, and anet believes in the end this will solve all the motivation problems. Server pride was only ever something the first few years and with tournaments around, winning felt like it meant something, until players realized playing overtime and burning yourselves out over something that was meaningless wasn't worth it.

Yup. Now rewards themselves are not necessarily a bad thing, if implemented properly. It does say a lot though when the glory and golden days of a game mode where when rewards yielded a net negative versus net positive.

11 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

It's too bad they never bothered with "seasonal" play to begin with, and mimic the sports leagues as they do with seasons and then post season tournaments. They half kittened it and put in points system to win weekly matches(which really doesn't even work with a rvr system in the first place), but then didn't bother with the over arching system for having those wins mean something significant over a period of time. Does anyone really care Blackgate has like 300 weekly wins? no, they don't, they only remember the first tournament win, the tournament they got double teamed, and the first revamp tequatl kill which started their bandwagon.

Again, fully agreed. What's even worse is their lack of actually implementing long term goals or reducing those in place (the armor rank requirement change comes to mind).

There are multiple things to tackle here:

1. "winning" a week (or link period) would have to have more meaning, but

-> this causes pressure/desire for players to bandwagon because losing automatically yields less rewards (if rewards are the driving factor)

2. "fixing" population imbalances and preventing excessive stacking/bandwagon would need to be addressed, but

-> this removes players ability to play with players they want/desire

3. thus it's necessary to give players the ability to actively shape and affect who they  play with, but

-> this leads to players stacking or bandwagoning

and those 3 points are not even tackling any issue related to balance and the actual combat experience or ability to have players affect fight outcome unrelated to bodies brought to a fight.

Or the issues of coverage and time zones leading to different player activity.

The alliance system and world restructuring will not solve most of the issues. At best it will shacking things up, allowing for this cycle to get disrupted (while introducing new problems/issues) at the expense of "server identity". Where the developers go from there will decide how WvW moves forward (if the alliance system and wr work out).

11 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Regardless of server names, objectives in game still have some meaning, like in that example of garrison, a way point is pretty nice to have, and also pretty nice to deny. The little minions who only log on for an hour to do dailies and blindly follow a tag may not know it, but the people who play 4-6 hours a day or in an organized guild do. Also it was a beta week that meant nothing to tier rankings, so why care about saving stuff for points.

The entire structure and upgrade design would need a rework, if a proper RvR game was the goal. Right now, having upgraded structures yields a significant benefit but the most deciding factor for keeping or losing them is player numbers.

11 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

End of the day, todays "wvw players really are into pve" - Mike O'Brien, they're only really in it for the rewards, as evident by the repair farms when OSR came out. Maybe they'll do actual seasonal and tournament play and server/world rewards again as they hinted with the WR posts, but they also stated burnout is usually high with those. "You think you do, but you really don't." - J Allen Brack.

The WvW players are into PvE thing is likely the developers looking at how much ppt/karma farming is happening (and it obviously is a lot) without actually taking into account WHY this happens. Often it's due to lack of opponents, lack of meaningful balanced sides, lack of rewards for actually pvping, etc.

Sure there are the karma trains and PvE only players entering only for their daily/weeklies, but even regular WvW players are confronted with HAVING to PvE more often than not. That's not always a bad thing either, it allows to smooth-en out those situations where not enough human players are present on each side or it allows for occasional more relaxed content for some who come home after a hard days work.

Unfortunately the amount of time where PvE is the go-to WvW experience has increased over the years, essentially causing more and more players who seek such content to join and stay. The irony here is that with the reward changes and covid before, a lot of players actually got to experience how much more fun it is to actually engage other players instead of just PvE (due to more activity overall).

Edited May 16, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Mabi black.1824]

20 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

The tradeoff question is will it make better matchups and more people playing? 

The answer is that it will definitely lead to more balanced ,far more balanced, guaranteed. It could also bring a lot more players. who will play EOTM 2.0 unfortunately. Defending or capturing anything will make no sense. If it has little now, if you complain because with the new rewards people are not defending etc etc. wait to see what will go beyond (if we do not contextualize alliances within our WWW or any other new logic you want to invent). 

You can get a decent feedback of what I'm writing to you when we get the next betas of more weeks. They should be enough to give us an idea. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Mabi black.1824

[Mabi black.1824]

19 hours ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

It's too bad they never bothered with "seasonal" play to begin with

It's just my opinion, but with alliances and WR they will have to do it. I believe that the only way to make the new mechanics work and contextualize is precisely with a seasonal concept. Anet must make its own decisions, and make sure that the player is involved and transported in the common action of the new servers that it goes to create and recreate ''seasonally''. He has to find a way the player still cares about his new ''seasonal'' server. 

This is more important than getting balanced matches. because they can be few against many, but work for their server ( therefore provide content ) otherwise the balance does not serve anyone. Motivation, anet focus on this word, because you can build a perfect mechanical gear, but if you do not put the fuel it will not start. ✌️

[Mabi black.1824]

8 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Where the developers go from there will decide how WvW moves forward (if the alliance system and wr work out).

They are erasing the server concept in a game mode built on servers. We are going to use a good portion of players as a random ''filler'' every 8 weeks. Mind you, I have been a fan of this game mode for a long time. But how do I think WWW will work better? Honestly I'm worried quite a bit. Anet made 30 with this development must make 31, and decide how to contextualize alliances within WWW. 

and maybe (if you want) share it with this community.

[enkidu.5937]

An alliance of 500 hardcore players is too much, it will just kill the game mode. 💪 Cause there is no way to counter with a "team" that consists of randomly assigned players that get shuffled every few weeks.

 

An alliance of 500 casuals is too few, cause people spread across time zones / activities / playstyles. So, people will stack with other people that play same time zones /activities / playstyles in the same alliance, and consequently dominate their time zones / activities / playstyles. Total imbalance, and those alliance raids will ofc be internally, so no team feeling or identity.

 

As it was often said by many:

World destructuring will turn WvW into a second EotM. You won't even know with whome you will play with or against, its stupidly anonymous. 🥸

 

Does EotM provide you with any kind of team feeling or identity?

[Dawdler.8521]

48 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Honestly I'm worried quite a bit.

Wait until you hear about this thing with throwing an entire world under the bus by naming it something completely random every 2 months and smashing it together with a bunch of random people - and it happens for half the worlds!

Edited May 16, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

They are erasing the server concept in a game mode built on servers.

A game mode built around servers, which where already diluted by random linking pairs (or not getting one, great fun, yaaay), players bandwagoning over and over, hemorrhaging players left and right until only the hardcore ppt players are left, and the "I want legi armor but don't want to raid" pve crowd.

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

We are going to use a good portion of players as a random ''filler'' every 8 weeks. Mind you, I have been a fan of this game mode for a long time. But how do I think WWW will work better? Honestly I'm worried quite a bit. Anet made 30 with this development must make 31, and decide how to contextualize alliances within WWW. 

and maybe (if you want) share it with this community.

Here I'll make it very simple: if the new system leads to more fun game play, it will succeed. If not, it won't. It's that simple.

WvW with the server system right now is doomed to fail and go down the road it has been going down for years by now.

Edited May 16, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Mabi black.1824]

13 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

WvW with the server system right now is doomed to fail and go down the road it has been going down for years by now.

WWW is a very entertaining game, based on large teams/servers clashing or confronting each other on 3 sides, based on weekly matches 24/7. This is not doomed to failure. You just have to worry about maintaining some control where it is needed and stimulate the player in participation.

I see alliances and WR as a great opportunity.

We will finally have much more balanced matches, the servers will finally be able to confront each other in a more dignified way and above all all the servers will be treated in the same way.

The ''problematic'' part of this project (for the info we have) is that we go from 10-year servers to 8-week servers. The risk is that everything rolls too fast . From a long-term perspective, it may be more profitable to build new and fresh servers every 12 months. With alliances implemented, which allow you to redistribute players consistently to ensure your friends still play together, you can now do that.

This would allow you to build a season that all new servers can participate in, a points board, and some prizes to be distributed at the end of the season. Then you reset all the teams and start a new season. and so on. When I write that alliances are not enough because you have to contextualize them within WWW, I mean this.  Make sure that the player can still feel part of a large server, put content for that server, even if a seasonal server.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Mabi black.1824

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

WWW is a very entertaining game, based on large teams/servers clashing or confronting each other on 3 sides, based on weekly matches 24/7. This is not doomed to failure. You just have to worry about maintaining some control where it is needed and stimulate the player in participation.

I see alliances and WR as a great opportunity.

We will finally have much more balanced matches, the servers will finally be able to confront each other in a more dignified way and above all all the servers will be treated in the same way.

Sure, yet you dislike everything which you disagree with continually, which too is fine, but at some point you might want to accept what is going to happen.

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

The ''problematic'' part of this project (for the info we have) is that we go from 10-year servers to 8-week servers. The risk is that everything rolls too fast . From a long-term perspective, it may be more profitable to build new and fresh servers every 12 months. With alliances implemented, which allow you to redistribute players consistently to ensure your friends still play together, you can now do that.

and lose one of the main benefits of the new system? Continual adaptation of the world sizes and count based around actual active players to prevent huge population gaps to begin with. Small hint: we are not even sure we will remain in an 8 week cycle. We might just as well see a 4 week cycle (or 12 week or w/e), depending on how the system works out.

This discussion was had already, you seem to not have understood or are willfully forgetting what the actual benefits of the restructuring are. Mixing and matching of players is not a primary benefit, nor is the reshuffling of guilds or worlds. It's the possibility to create and remove worlds/tiers in a reasonable time frame. 1 year is NOT a reasonable time frame for such an approach.

What you are asking for could have been done within the framework of the current system. The developers specifically decided against going the easier route. The developers are DELIBERATELY taking the far more difficulty, expensive, intrusive and risky approach instead of just patching things up. That should make you think.

1 hour ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

This would allow you to build a season that all new servers can participate in, a points board, and some prizes to be distributed at the end of the season. Then you reset all the teams and start a new season. and so on. When I write that alliances are not enough because you have to contextualize them within WWW, I mean this.  Make sure that the player can still feel part of a large server, put content for that server, even if a seasonal server.

Let's worry about getting the game mode into a decent state first, then worry about seasons or anything after.

If a player wants to feel as part of something consistent, they are free to join a guild or alliance. Encouraging players to actually want to be part of a social organization they themselves choose is beneficial, versus some just vegetating away on some abstract server which they chose ages ago.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[blp.3489]

7 hours ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

The ''problematic'' part of this project (for the info we have) is that we go from 10-year servers to 8-week servers. The risk is that everything rolls too fast .

I can see where, if you had at least four fifths, and likely much more, of the players you play with swapping out every eight weeks it might be hard to achieve team play.  If your guild is self-contained and doesn't interact with the rest of the players on your team it won't be a problem but for everyone else it could be disruptive.  Although, perhaps that is part of the challenge, getting the team as a whole organized and operating in a coordinated fashion every eight weeks.  Presuming the guilds will generally be much smaller than the 500 limit, at least to begin with, it does open the possibility of two guilds that were randomly thrown together finding they work well together and either merging or creating a new guild that they both join, hence, somewhat organically, alliances could be grown and become progressively more cohesive.  You would still have to adjust to playing with possibly a large majority of players and guilds being new to you every eight weeks.

That could be attenuated if the matching algorithms were biased to keep most of the elements of a team the same, only adjusting the fringes as necessary for balance.

It will be interesting to see how the distribution of unaffiliated players works out, if there are a lot of them then balancing could be done entirely by shuffling lone players, keeping groups of alliances stable.  There is also the possibility of dynamic balancing within the season by choosing where to place the unaffiliated players as they first log on during a match period.  There's really no intrinsic reason these players have to all be assigned a team at the start of an eight week match.  They can be used to dynamically balance matches, even in the face of transfers.  What kind of experience it will be for unaffiliated players to be bounced around randomly is another question.  But perhaps that will encourage unaffiliated players to affiliate.

Edited May 17, 2023 by blp.3489

[Dawdler.8521]

10 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

Presuming the guilds will generally be much smaller than the 500 limit, at least to begin with

Alliances wont be some kind of 500 or nothing deal. A vast majority of them will probably be below 200 because it's going to be groups of smaller guilds that cant be arsed to organize that much other than joining their guild with a bunch of other guilds they want to play with, or it's gonna be a grouping of a few "hardcore" guilds where most of them cant for the life of them work together anyway, too many drama queen guild leaders. 

Edited May 17, 2023 by Dawdler.8521