Is 500 players enough for identity?

[blp.3489]

I also wonder if, in the current system, the time of choosing your server should be moved from when you create an account, when you have no idea of the implications, to when you first enter WvW.  Wouldn't it be better if when you joined WvW the first time you were assigned to a server in a way that improved balance, but with one free transfer so you can still play with friends if you want to.

[Xenesis.6389]

That's another major mistake with the game mode, the identity was left attached to a server name and random color every week, instead of an actual side or faction like other rvr games did, wow alliance vs horde, warhammer online by faction of races, elder scrolls online faction of races, planetside nc vr tr, dark age of camelot midgard hibernia albion, etc. This means whatever server you played on was secondary and didn't matter, you were fighting for your faction, your pride went to that faction not the place it was on. It would be like saying I play for the glory of the Staples Center, not for the LA Lakers! The only other identity players had was the player made ones for their servers through their tenacity of certain game play styles, mag cloud, yb siegers, bg blobbers, etc.

Now 10 years later we have very little in the way of actual original community on servers, demolished both by anet with links and cheap transfers, and the community itself with the constant bandwagons. But also destroying the foundations of game play that "forced" players to play together for the good of their server if they wanted to win, like upgrading and defending the homeland, this was a gel that held many communities together no matter if they were a homer, scout, or a fighter, but the automated systems cut away at that. As time went by guilds moved more into didn't really care to defend, but looking more for "fight content".

A lot of players play for their guild glory first now, and when alliances come they will also be playing for the glory of that instead. A good portion of players will feel homeless because of this, but that's what happens when they don't provide proper identity to motivate players to fight for something no matter the "location" they are in, other than the guilds. These players probably aren't going to rally around the alliances on their world in the name of "winning", it'll just be another population fracture that will linger on and reset every two months. But hey, I guess we'll be playing for the glory of rewards now, so what does a name matter at this point anyways. 🤷‍♂️🍿

[Dawdler.8521]

5 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

I also wonder if, in the current system, the time of choosing your server should be moved from when you create an account, when you have no idea of the implications, to when you first enter WvW.  Wouldn't it be better if when you joined WvW the first time you were assigned to a server in a way that improved balance, but with one free transfer so you can still play with friends if you want to.

That's how it works. You cant join full worlds hence you have to join a medium/high world, and you get a free transfer if you upgrade your free to play version. 

[Mabi black.1824]

7 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

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.

I am absolutely aligned with what you wrote. If at least someone in the field deigns to write it ''hei guys we send the new mechanics live, we verify the result of the balance and then we explain how the new hourglasses, the points system, the comparison between the different teams, the objectives of the teams, the long-term ranking etc etc ''

The impression here (or concern) is that no one is thinking about it. So much so that I feel like Calimero in this forum, because nobody talks about these things, about what could be a problem for this mode in the near future.

As for building on the concrete of guilds or alliances, it is not the problem. I think 90% of the average player is already organized in this sense. My problem/question is how do we put all these groups of different sizes in competition, in continuously new games, in such rapid sequences.

Edited May 17, 2023 by Mabi black.1824

[Xenesis.6389]

10 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

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. 

Yeah I can see a couple near maxed alliances to begin with(other than vip and their 1500 community), maybe ones that try to max out the round the clock coverage to beat the system early on, and maybe a community alliance or two. But for the most part we will probably see ones that are around 4-6 NA guilds with 100-200 members, guilds that already play with other guilds on their current servers. They can try and super stack alliances, but they'll need to be constantly wary of player time slots.

[Mabi black.1824]

32 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

That's another major mistake with the game mode, the identity was left attached to a server name and random color every week, instead of an actual side or faction like other rvr games did, wow alliance vs horde, warhammer online by faction of races, elder scrolls online faction of races, planetside nc vr tr, dark age of camelot midgard hibernia albion, etc. This means whatever server you played on was secondary and didn't matter, you were fighting for your faction, your pride went to that faction not the place it was on. It would be like saying I play for the glory of the Staples Center, not for the LA Lakers! The only other identity players had was the player made ones for their servers through their tenacity of certain game play styles, mag cloud, yb siegers, bg blobbers, etc.

Now 10 years later we have very little in the way of actual original community on servers, demolished both by anet with links and cheap transfers, and the community itself with the constant bandwagons. But also destroying the foundations of game play that "forced" players to play together for the good of their server if they wanted to win, like upgrading and defending the homeland, this was a gel that held many communities together no matter if they were a homer, scout, or a fighter, but the automated systems cut away at that. As time went by guilds moved more into didn't really care to defend, but looking more for "fight content".

A lot of players play for their guild glory first now, and when alliances come they will also be playing for the glory of that instead. A good portion of players will feel homeless because of this, but that's what happens when they don't provide proper identity to motivate players to fight for something no matter the "location" they are in, other than the guilds. These players probably aren't going to rally around the alliances on their world in the name of "winning", it'll just be another population fracture that will linger on and reset every two months. But hey, I guess we'll be playing for the glory of rewards now, so what does a name matter at this point anyways. 🤷‍♂️🍿

Great summary.

[ArchonWing.9480]

You know people keep saying server identity is dead, but the shenanigans in T1/T2 NA seem pretty intense and suggest otherwise.

I mean, all I have to do is type the name of certain servers and people will start frothing at the mouth, so at the very least some of the community is very capable of working together in large populations.

You cannot really use the declining state of an aging game as an absolute. We can never go back to 2012, that is true but it can certainly be better than 2023 (and at least it's not 2018-2019 since I actually quit the game there)

Edited May 17, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[Mabi black.1824]

7 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

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.

Don't get me wrong, my friend, I know that we have already thought about this, as I know the enormous commitment that Anet has chosen to put into this great work. We are all grateful for this, mine is just an incentive to look at what could be a '' problem '' that could affect a large number of players. Stimulating discussion on this , could lead us to the right idea to fit alliances into this game mode in the best possible way for everyone.

[Xenesis.6389]

13 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

You know people keep saying server identity is dead, but the shenanigans in T1/T2 NA seem pretty intense and suggest otherwise.

I mean, all I have to do is type the name of certain servers and people will start frothing at the mouth,

So that covers like 2 out of 24 servers. 🤭

13 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

so at the very least some of the community is very capable of working together in large populations.

I would imagine guilds and commanders taking more control. Pugs would just roll points in whatever way, most times they're unable to restrain themselves, hence why all those sucker servers that got pushed to T1 to face mag doom the past year.

[ArchonWing.9480]

1 hour ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

So that covers like 2 out of 24 servers.

It's been 12 for quite a while. Yea we lost a lot. But there's some strong emotions there at least and this is a 10+ year old game that hasn't been well supported for most of it.

1 hour ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

I would imagine guilds and commanders taking more control. Pugs would just roll points in whatever way, most times they're unable to restrain themselves, hence why all those sucker servers that got pushed to T1 to face mag doom the past year.

Is it really their fault that winning is meaningless, and you get punished for actually playing the game?

Such a situation is entirely to blame on the people in charge. My joke has always been the more you contribute, the less you get rewarded.  And that is the fundamental problem of GW2.

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[Xenesis.6389]

2 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

It's been 12 for quite a while. Yea we lost a lot. But there's some strong emotions there at least and this is a 10+ year old game that hasn't been well supported for most of it.

Yeah but the host rotate out to bandwagon whims, but not much identity left to 12 links either. Really the only two servers left to invoke any type of strong reaction is Mag, and BG(barely these days), every other server is now on a samey level of meh.

2 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

Is it really their fault that winning is meaningless, and you get punished for actually playing the game?

Such a situation is entirely to blame on the people in charge.

Definitely.

[ArchonWing.9480]

11 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Yeah but the host rotate out to bandwagon whims, but not much identity left to 12 links either. Really the only two servers left to invoke any type of strong reaction is Mag, and BG(barely these days), every other server is now on a samey level of meh.

Actually agree in most cases; in fact I'd go as far to say it's the same bandwagoners moving to t1. This is evident by the massive increase in toxicity when a server hits t1 because it's always the same bums that come to freeload. Even the current situation has many aspects of that and my guess is that it's a few weeks before we have a different head from the same hydra.

In fact, the same group that's doing this 2v1 on Mag performed the same tactic with my server a few years back to beat Blackgate. And it's been done a few more time elsewhere. Of course, it always ends with the train crashing  but  I don't want to be too dreary.

What's  far more interesting to me is the stuff happening in T2 that does not appear to be part of the plan and actually part of a server-wide effort on the behalf of at least 2 servers. At the very least it is something different.

So don't think for a second I disagree with you. I don't care much for servers myself. But some people experience a different game from you and me and this outlier is something to talk about, even if in the long run your assessment works.

 

 

Edited May 17, 2023 by ArchonWing.9480

[Xenesis.6389]

23 minutes ago, ArchonWing.9480 said:

What's  far more interesting to me is the stuff happening in T2 that does not appear to be part of the plan and actually part of a server-wide effort on the behalf of at least 2 servers. At the very least it is something different.

I mean sure that could be the exceptional rare case these days of the entire servers being on the same page for the entire week for a common cause, to screw over mag. Well other than the other case of entire communities not logging on for the week to tank(but again usually led by guilds). 🤭 It would also rely on the extreme cases of ppt pushing and not playing to tank points at the right times to keep the match close, especially when one of the servers involved is sos, most pugs don't track or are not willing/capable of doing this on their own. 

It is interesting to see it happening after a year of everyone mindlessly crying and feeding mag, but also right as they're tanking out of t1, and we know about mag alts. I doubt it was even planned, just something that happened by the end of week one when people realized the match was still close and the potential to screw mag, with that momentum carrying over to week two for the lulz.

It's such a rare occurrence it's more like a perfect storm than server communities actually being alive and functioning as one, we've always had that potential, and it happened quite a lot more in the early days, but it's basically a fluke it could happen now. I mean SoR last link was sitting in T4 barely capable of getting out of the tier, and TC yoyo's to whatever ppt link they get.

Next week will be relinks, "communities" will get split and guilds and bandwagons will move again, some already have, and mag will get their freedom. 🤷‍♂️🍿