June 9 – June 23 World Restructuring Beta

[Cyanophyta.6345]

On 6/18/2023 at 6:20 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

I dont know maybe Anet is specifically targeting you at random.

 

On 6/18/2023 at 2:01 AM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Thats not how random works, lol.

For how much you white knight the alliance system, you hardly seem to understand it lol. If you're in a large, hardcore wvw guild, yeah you're gonna get put in an alliance filled with hardcore wvw guild members who are highly active and play at the same time as you. That's not "random". If you're not in a large/active wvw guild or in a small guild, then yeah there's a solid chance you're gonna get dumped in an alliance where everyone plays at random times and no one plays in sync. That is in fact "random". In fact, that's probably why you're seeing so many people complain about being outnumbered and unfair matchups. On my matchup right now there's no large guild active on my alliance but the enemy team has a 30 person guild blob that's taking all our keeps with little resistance. So do I help the 5-10 person tagless PUG on my team defend against a guild of 30 or log off? Sorry, you probably think I'm complaining because I'm losing right? My guess is that the winning alliances are those composed of 1-2 big wvw guilds that are hardcore, highly active, and have been playing for years. Case in point, I'm in the matchup against the alliance with the Magswag guild and they're dominating it. Then the alliances composed of small guilds, PUGs, and solo roamers get that "outnumbered" buff constantly and aren't even hardly active during NA primetime, because what's the point? Why login to get stomped by an organized guild blob? It's the same reason why people stop playing when Mag spawn camps them.  

 

Now, you could say the solution to this is to create alliance links and tiers, but how is that any different than the server tier system we have now? All it does is uproot and destroy the server wide communities people have been fostering for years. I'm not in any active wvw guild on my server, but I know most of the players there. And the 5-6 people I really enjoy playing with are spread across 2-3 guilds. With servers I don't have to choose which friends I get to play with. With alliances, I have to join one of my friend's guilds and leave the rest behind. Why?

 

Do you really trust 2023 Anet to implement such a complex system effectively so that the average wvw player has a good experience? If you do, well...*gestures broadly at Anet's patch notes removing boon strips and past wvw decisions*

[Dawdler.8521]

51 minutes ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

For how much you white knight the alliance system, you hardly seem to understand it lol. If you're in a large, hardcore wvw guild, yeah you're gonna get put in an alliance filled with hardcore wvw guild members who are highly active and play at the same time as you. That's not "random". If you're not in a large/active wvw guild or in a small guild, then yeah there's a solid chance you're gonna get dumped in an alliance where everyone plays at random times and no one plays in sync. That is in fact "random". In fact, that's probably why you're seeing so many people complain about being outnumbered and unfair matchups

Oh the irony of saying that, followed by complete misunderstanding of how the teams under world restructure are sorted and just like so many others, confuse teams and alliances:
- You're not "put in an alliance", those are player created
- Whether they are highly active an hardcore or play at the same time is up to themselves.
- Teams get randomly sorted guilds, alliances and random players in order to form roughly equal sized teams.
- People complain about being outnumbered and unfair matchups on a weekly basis (unless of course, they are normally on a dominating world but now just happen to be on a team that actually got a challenge because they are no longer being carried by the bandwagon).

Edited June 20, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Chaba.5410]

So the problem is not enough large organized guilds to populate multiple teams but enough randoms to fill teams anyway?  It's almost as if there's enough players to create more large organized guilds so other teams can have them too and not needing to leave everything up to the game dev.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Johje Holan.4607]

3 hours ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

If you're in a large, hardcore wvw guild, yeah you're gonna get put in an alliance filled with hardcore wvw guild members who are highly active and play at the same time as you. That's not "random". If you're not in a large/active wvw guild or in a small guild, then yeah there's a solid chance you're gonna get dumped in an alliance where everyone plays at random times and no one plays in sync. 

My guess is that the winning alliances are those composed of 1-2 big wvw guilds that are hardcore, highly active, and have been playing for years. Case in point, I'm in the matchup against the alliance with the Magswag guild and they're dominating it. Then the alliances composed of small guilds, PUGs, and solo roamers get that "outnumbered" buff constantly and aren't even hardly active during NA primetime, because what's the point? Why login to get stomped by an organized guild blob? It's the same reason why people stop playing when Mag spawn camps them.  

Even though "team" and "alliance" are being conflated in this statement, there is a good point being made here.  And we would be foolish to disregard it.  Hardcore WvW players will tend to join together in the same guilds (they do now, this won't change) and WvW guilds will tend to join together in Alliances.  So Cyanophyta is correct, it won't be random.  You're going to get clumps of likeminded people sticking together.  And if the hardcore WvWers don't split up enough, its going to end up like it was in the beginning of the game with HoD with the Titan Alliance, ET with the Ascension Alliance and SBI with the alliance of whoknowswhat, JQ with whatever they had.  Because players WILL group together with likeminded players; that is going to happen.  And if they don't group together into enough parts for Anet to distribute them around the teams then it could be bad.  

And we haven't even been talking much about timezone imbalance.  I recently have come to fear that timezone imbalance will be even worse than it is now.  Because the "offhours" players will have to group up into Alliances so that they have people to play with.  And if they don't, unless they like roaming, they might find themselves in a very sparsely populated team.  And if the "offhours" alliances aren't put on teams with round the clock coverage they might just  be PvDing all the time.  We know this will happen.  

True, people complain about mismatches and imbalance now - but they can transfer out of that situation.  With WR, you'll be stuck for 8 weeks.  I happen to be on Skrittsburgh this beta and its been really good when I've been on.  Better than the previous few normal weeks.  People are defending, making callouts, map swapping to engage the enemy.  There's people to fight and a good amount of activity.  But it sounds like that is not the case for many.  And that is a danger with WR.

[Leger.3724]

 

5 hours ago, Johje Holan.4607 said:

True, people complain about mismatches and imbalance now - but they can transfer out of that situation.  With WR, you'll be stuck for 8 weeks.  I happen to be on Skrittsburgh this beta and its been really good when I've been on.  Better than the previous few normal weeks.  People are defending, making callouts, map swapping to engage the enemy.  There's people to fight and a good amount of activity.  But it sounds like that is not the case for many.  And that is a danger with WR.

 

So yeah I'm playing against you and primetime my server does seem to be outnumbered. It's not catastrophic by any means but I'm not seeing an upgrade over Tarnished Coast.

I agree with the rest I clipped out - if you go down the alliance road it's going to kill the playerbase even further because like you said it will concentrate the hardcore people and leave everyone else out in the cold.

The mode already suffers from a lack of players willing to participate because they get dunked on by a guardian willbender build or whatever other solo roamer build. And they die in zergs without being able to do anything or recognize what is being done to them.

An alliance system where the best pile into a couple servers will put that final nail in the coffin. Even fewer casuals will stick around and some hardcore veterans will eventually get turned off exploiting the casuals and also leave.

The reward system needs to be reworked and enhanced. They should keep what they've done with this beta test 2 weeks in terms of rewards. The alliance system needs to be much less friendly to the playerbase and catering to them wanting to play with each other...... unless the goal is to eventually give up on the idea of server locking and promote competition somehow with a formula that rewards participation, that rewards fighting and taking objectives and rewards being on a smaller pop server. And finally the combat needs to be made more obvious and understandable but that is a project that will take many years and might be impossible so maybe something to look for with GW3 or whatever the next MMO Arena Net works on is if they do work on one.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Leger.3724

[Dawdler.8521]

9 hours ago, Johje Holan.4607 said:

 So Cyanophyta is correct, it won't be random. 

The whole random argument began over the claim that Anet intentionally put random players (ie non-guild) on outnumbered teams.

The following discussion then ended up the eqvivalent of looking at a 30 man group sieging a keep and going "look they all have the same guild tag, that CANT be random can it!?".

So yeah you're not wrong I guess 🤷‍♂️

 

[Cyninja.2954]

10 hours ago, Johje Holan.4607 said:

Even though "team" and "alliance" are being conflated in this statement, there is a good point being made here.  And we would be foolish to disregard it.  Hardcore WvW players will tend to join together in the same guilds (they do now, this won't change) and WvW guilds will tend to join together in Alliances.  So Cyanophyta is correct, it won't be random.  You're going to get clumps of likeminded people sticking together.  And if the hardcore WvWers don't split up enough, its going to end up like it was in the beginning of the game with HoD with the Titan Alliance, ET with the Ascension Alliance and SBI with the alliance of whoknowswhat, JQ with whatever they had.  Because players WILL group together with likeminded players; that is going to happen.  And if they don't group together into enough parts for Anet to distribute them around the teams then it could be bad. 

Hardcore players already do all of this, at least some (and significant enough to affect all matchups). It's the bandwagon transfers which happen regularly. With no limit mind you because, what most seem not to know: a server does not immediately go to full when players start transferring. Large blob transfers can exceed 500 players easy currently. That happens regularly on EU (not sure how large the WvW NA population is at this point and if this is an issue there, EU is significantly larger).

Obviously there will be stronger and weaker alliances and guilds. Not only count and number wise but skill wise. That is fine because this will even out over the different tiers (similar to now, when some servers move to T1 and others move to T5), the main difference being unlike now, players won't be able to stack as many players plus it will be an algorithm which re-balances sides with much more granular elements.

As alliances or guilds establish themselves, they will look forward towards competing with each other, or not, depending on what their goal is (similar to how now certain "servers" look forward to meeting specific other servers, most often related to what guilds are on the other server).

Not only that, but it is not uncommon for WvW veterans to have multiple alt accounts, freely hopping between them as they see fit. Great from a personal perspective, bad for the game mode overall. This too will become more difficult under the world restructuring system, depending on how guilds enforce activity. Where now players can simply spread their alt accounts to multiple servers.

Quote

And we haven't even been talking much about timezone imbalance.  I recently have come to fear that timezone imbalance will be even worse than it is now.  Because the "offhours" players will have to group up into Alliances so that they have people to play with.  And if they don't, unless they like roaming, they might find themselves in a very sparsely populated team.  And if the "offhours" alliances aren't put on teams with round the clock coverage they might just  be PvDing all the time.  We know this will happen.  

It hardly will be worse than now (from a balance perspective, it might from an individual player perspective of low involved players). On the contrary, if off-hour coverage is important to a guild/alliance, they will dedicate certain amount of slots to players who can cover those times slots.

Others will be forced to join a guild/alliance which players during their time zone, but being limited to 500 players max, so something like Baruch (permanent open Spanish EU server which is highly night time active, while everyone else sleeps) won't happen (very high off hour activity all stacked in 1 spot).

Quote

True, people complain about mismatches and imbalance now - but they can transfer out of that situation.  With WR, you'll be stuck for 8 weeks.  I happen to be on Skrittsburgh this beta and its been really good when I've been on.  Better than the previous few normal weeks.  People are defending, making callouts, map swapping to engage the enemy.  There's people to fight and a good amount of activity.  But it sounds like that is not the case for many.  And that is a danger with WR.

The ideal solution here is to reduce the necessity for transfers overall. Transfers on an individual basis are not an issue but the mass transfers we see currently are. That said, every player will have more personal agency over how their WvW experience will turn out.

TL;DR:

From a design standpoint, world restructuring changes a ton of things which are more beneficial to the individual now, towards being more beneficial to the game mode overall, from a population perspective. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Mabi black.1824]

4 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Hardcore players already do all of this, at least some (and significant enough to affect all matchups). It's the bandwagon transfers which happen regularly. With no limit mind you because, what most seem not to know: a server does not immediately go to full when players start transferring. Large blob transfers can exceed 500 players easy currently. That happens regularly on EU (not sure how large the WvW NA population is at this point and if this is an issue there, EU is significantly larger).

Obviously there will be stronger and weaker alliances and guilds. Not only count and number wise but skill wise. That is fine because this will even out over the different tiers (similar to now, when some servers move to T1 and others move to T5), the main difference being unlike now, players won't be able to stack as many players plus it will be an algorithm which re-balances sides with much more granular elements.

As alliances or guilds establish themselves, they will look forward towards competing with each other, or not, depending on what their goal is (similar to how now certain "servers" look forward to meeting specific other servers, most often related to what guilds are on the other server).

Not only that, but it is not uncommon for WvW veterans to have multiple alt accounts, freely hopping between them as they see fit. Great from a personal perspective, bad for the game mode overall. This too will become more difficult under the world restructuring system, depending on how guilds enforce activity. Where now players can simply spread their alt accounts to multiple servers.

It hardly will be worse than now (from a balance perspective, it might from an individual player perspective of low involved players). On the contrary, if off-hour coverage is important to a guild/alliance, they will dedicate certain amount of slots to players who can cover those times slots.

Others will be forced to join a guild/alliance which players during their time zone, but being limited to 500 players max, so something like Baruch (permanent open Spanish EU server which is highly night time active, while everyone else sleeps) won't happen (very high off hour activity all stacked in 1 spot).

The ideal solution here is to reduce the necessity for transfers overall. Transfers on an individual basis are not an issue but the mass transfers we see currently are. That said, every player will have more personal agency over how their WvW experience will turn out.

TL;DR:

From a design standpoint, world restructuring changes a ton of things which are more beneficial to the individual now, towards being more beneficial to the game mode overall, from a population perspective. 

Great summary of what we have now and where we are going next.

Unfortunately I remain in the company of my perpessity. The biggest fear is that I will find myself in a beautiful balanced game, 3 very similar teams facing each other, and not understanding the reason, the purpose, what you get if you win or if you lose, find a valid reason to bleed and defend my castle. Especially in the long term, in my opinion, this mode needs a season and a seasonal tournament that involves all the teams, all the players.

I would also like more variety on how teams can earn points, weekly yes, but also through daily events. The quitidians should invest your entire server, for example bring the enemy bay to T3. or capture the enemy garri between 20.00 and 22.00 earn 1 extra point for your server. etc etc.

And every time I look at how to ''motivate/stimulate'' the player inside WR I come up against those 8 weeks that you have defined.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Mabi black.1824

[TheGrimm.5624]

19 hours ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

Case in point, I'm in the matchup against the alliance with the Magswag guild and they're dominating it.

After the initial betas people started to try and figure out how to keep their servers together and/or started to try and figure out how to form Alliances prior to actually getting to the Alliance system within the WR project. You can see this each time we have a beta and people jump to say 'x' days of warning is way too short of notice we won't have time to get people together to group up. This to me are good examples of people trying to mass switch from their real guilds to an Alliance style guild while others are not. So the question is that the sorting logic, an issue in sorting various size "Guilds", examples of future issues as people form massive guilds, issues that there are Alliance sized guilds that are un-expected as part of the sorting? That will be up to ANet's data analysis to determine.

I will say as I said before, coding random is hard, it's not random. We also have another factor that makes even a 2 week tests add in a level of unknown is the existing glicko logic that places a server in tiers after normal re-links impacting the test. So you really need to take week one scores, figure out really who should have been where versus where glicko dropped them and then do close to the same the week after. Even that directional idea though can be flawed since a higher score difference could be multiple factors of team versus team playstyle, coverage, people skipping betas compared to people just joining for the WvW boost that inflates some populations while the beta may deflate others. Translation, those are factors that might add what people think of as random as well.

Key is share what you are seeing just know there are lot of variables impacting the beta as well. Example tried to pop on and off to try and see if I was seeing mixes of guilds and their sizes, how many I recognize playing with or against and then considered when the larger ones were not on how were the map groups. Also tried to look for large groups that I have never seen. Tags same thing, how many do I recognize and how many have never seen and how large were they. How many tags and how often it was tagless or all private or not. One top of that when there was no seen tag how well was the open flashmob doing? To me that shows how many players were vets versus new players looking to make gains with the Call To War.

Short answer to the above, saw a number of unknown tags with few guildmates, to me that says good number of pugmanders be them normal or havocs showing tag versus private. Some larger guilds that are normal. Didn't see any large unknown ones this time, have in the past. Tagless fights could be seen in EB and some of those were massive slugfests. Some time zone coverage issues, normal though. Some callouts of can people leave map so we can get in, not a fan of that, and I think we might see that more as we did so see that the same as in the 2012-2014 timeframe, but that's OT. Good spread of scouts and havocs on all three sides.

I still think what we will see is more organized Alliances, though the feature was mock-created by some people for this one, will be in higher tiers naturally as make sure they can both handle coverage on maps and in time zones. They will soon be matched with others doing the same thing and will again have fixed T1s and people there will do what they do now. Its where you will find hardcore players looking to band and I think you will find more drama as those personalities clash. Classic T1 in the tournament days where internal server politics flared.

However how many tiers we get will be the question from there. After T1 gets in a fixed state the tiers below will work their way down till into fixed states as well. I think we will see as we do now people will be aiming for that T2-T3 spots when you mix out the more organized groups upward. If we end up with 8 tiers again in NA/EU then that moves the more chaotic action to T3-T5. Now mind you if sorting works there should be players for all, but do they choose to play is the question, and do you allow transfers to mess with the numbers creating artificial bumps in activity in tiers that can disrupt normal +1/-1 activity. Also can we fix the existing logic that we have already in the relinking placements we see now every 8 weeks making for better matches in the first 4 weeks after re-linking?

[TheGrimm.5624]

41 minutes ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

Great summary of what we have now and where we are going next.

Unfortunately I remain in the company of my perpessity. The biggest fear is that I will find myself in a beautiful balanced game, 3 very similar teams facing each other, and not understanding the reason, the purpose, what you get if you win or if you lose, find a valid reason to bleed and defend my castle. Especially in the long term, in my opinion, this mode needs a season and a seasonal tournament that involves all the teams, all the players.

I would also like more variety on how teams can earn points, weekly yes, but also through daily events. The quitidians should invest your entire server, for example bring the enemy bay to T3. or capture the enemy garri between 20.00 and 22.00 earn 1 extra point for your server. etc etc.

And every time I look at how to ''motivate/stimulate'' the player inside WR I come up against those 8 weeks that you have defined.

As I said it seems that Call To WAR draws people. We typically get Call to War during testing and events, but to get more real numbers we need some Call to War events outside of this to try and understand the true impact of the player draw when it does feel like its more in line with other game modes. You also need to have a more rewarding system for vets be that in whatever will catch their eye. So some it might be more coin, others it might be achievements. Example new WvW achievements on placements after 8 week periods. Number of achievements at various levels, Alliance play, Guild play, Solo play so that no matter how you choose to group for that 8 week you have your own and group placement achievements to chase. To also encourage vets you could have tiering rewards, activity goals in various categories from attacking to defending to killing to win skirms, weeks, tier moves and such that they earn over the 8 weeks and are rewarded after the final week so that people can earn based on their own activity versus just rushing thru the first days of the week and then going silent for the rest. Show them their own placement compared to the average for everyone else, while keep others private, in that category that way you create competition that is personal for people to work toward, and then reward them for their time at the end of the 8 weeks with chests of some sort. People like to chase goals and like to get rewards for their activity.

Short answers, WR should lead to the end goal as well is reasons to win if you want people to get back to questioning, should I be in PvP, PvE or WvW, reasons to win will help there in my opinion. Don't want tournament level of burn out but something in between.

[Cyanophyta.6345]

22 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

- You're not "put in an alliance", those are player created
- Whether they are highly active an hardcore or play at the same time is up to themselves.
- Teams get randomly sorted guilds, alliances and random players in order to form roughly equal sized teams.

You got so close to understanding my point, then intentionally missed it. A small percentage will be very active and hardcore. They'll play at the same times and always have good numbers while also having good off hours and time zone coverage (i.e. Magswag). Magswag has such good time zone coverage because they have a lot of EU players despite being an NA guild. They also have a lot of people that play wvw 6-12 hours a day on average. Those that can't join the cool kid's club will be thrown into whatever crummy team/alliance they're left with (i.e. random, those not in a dedicated wvw guild or a pve guild). The solution to this is to create a tier system similar to what we have now, so effectively nothing changed except you've concentrated all the hardcore people into several elite alliances/teams. The casuals or new players get left with whatever garbage is left over. Wvw is already difficult for new players to get into and this will exacerbate all those issues. This will also tear apart the server communities where friends play with people not in the same guild. I'm telling you, that will cause a mass exodus from wvw. Many people have already stated, even in this thread, that alliances will be the last straw for them.

 

Put simply, the beauty of the server system is you get to choose your wvw community without being told "no" by some smug guild. You get to play with friends from multiple different guilds. Each server has its own "culture" and "identity", with Mag being the most dramatic example. My old server, Devona's Rest, had its own culture too. It was a mix of Zerg guilds with several well known open tag comms with family friendly guild/squad discords and a chill atmosphere. What Would Jesus Do [WWJD] and Leather and Lace Vanguard [LLVG] were the most active/popular guilds, so they set the "culture" of the server. While I liked the people there, I got bored and transferred servers to find more like minded people. I wasn't stuck there due to my guild. So what you consider freedom in choosing your wvw guild/alliance is actually a restriction to a lot of people, and you don't get that with servers. I really don't understand what prevents you from playing with people in the same guild right now anyways. Most guilds are focused on one server, as determined by the guild leader (i.e. Indo chooses the server his guild plays on). The servers that are "full" have been so for a long time and sit comfortably against each other on T1, so this bandwagoning issue you've been complaining about is under control. New players HAVE to join a different server. And you're free to transfer servers as much as you want aside from a short server transfer cooldown, which is reasonable.

[Cyanophyta.6345]

On 6/17/2023 at 4:41 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Guessing it would be about as interesting as the downstate polls after every downstate week where a very vocal group always claim it should be deleted and that no one want downstate... yet polls show a majority in favor of keeping it. 

The irony of someone with 10.8 k posts complaining about a vocal minority.

On 6/17/2023 at 4:41 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

 loosing teams

Lol

[Chaba.5410]

5 hours ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

Those that can't join the cool kid's club will be thrown into whatever crummy team/alliance they're left with (i.e. random, those not in a dedicated wvw guild or a pve guild).

This is not how the system works and you are intentionally misusing the word "random".  All teams are formed by attempting to equalize playhours between all teams.

This means that the playhours of the Magswag guild/alliance is used to place them on a team.  Your personal playhours are used to place you on a team if you don't assign your playhours to a guild.  If you+Magswag playhours can form an entire team that matches in playhours to every other team, then you get placed on the same team as Magswag.

It only feels random because you may have the same or similar playhours to other individuals and your or them could go on any team.

Edited June 21, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Chaba.5410]

5 hours ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

Put simply, the beauty of the server system is you get to choose your wvw community without being told "no" by some smug guild.

Smug guilds have nothing to do with how you get placed on a team.

[Chaba.5410]

On 6/20/2023 at 3:39 PM, Johje Holan.4607 said:

So Cyanophyta is correct, it won't be random. 

Only, he keeps using the word "random" without realizing that individuals like himself have also gotten placed on the same team as Magswag.  Placement is done very purposefully by playhours.

[Cyanophyta.6345]

2 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Only, he keeps using the word "random" without realizing that individuals like himself have also gotten placed on the same team as Magswag.  Placement is done very purposefully by playhours.

I'm not on the team with Magswag, I'm on a team against them.

2 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Smug guilds have nothing to do with how you get placed on a team.

The guild you are in determines your alliance which determines your team, so yes it does. Had I been in Magswag's guild, I'd be on their team right now.

2 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

This is not how the system works and you are intentionally misusing the word "random".

I'm not intentionally misusing any word and I don't appreciate the accusation. If you don't dial back the ire you're getting blocked, not worth the energy.

3 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

you may have the same or similar playhours to other individuals and you or them could go on any team.

"You or them could go on any team". You mean if you don't choose a guild you get placed on a team randomly?

[Chaba.5410]

50 minutes ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

I'm not on the team with Magswag, I'm on a team against them.

And others like yourself got placed on a team with them without being in their guild.

50 minutes ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

The guild you are in determines your alliance which determines your team, so yes it does. Had I been in Magswag's guild, I'd be on their team right now.

Your playhours determine your team assignment.  The guild/alliance you are in only determines that your guildmates will be placed on the same team with you.

50 minutes ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

I'm not intentionally misusing any word and I don't appreciate the accusation.

Team placement isn't random, but based on playhours.  It's the same whether you are an individual, a guild, or an alliance.  Random implies no method, no variables.  Variables are used in placement.  There's a clear method.

50 minutes ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

You mean if you don't choose a guild you get placed on a team randomly?

Why do you keep using that word "random" when it's not?  I meant what I said that it only *feels* random because your variables may be similar to another player.  Go read the FAQ on how teams are formed and what the plans are for additional variables like whether you tag up or not.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Chaba.5410

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

 

"You or them could go on any team". You mean if you don't choose a guild you get placed on a team randomly?

No, it seems random (and for all intents and purposes it could be, given the amount of players being sorted) but in the end it's not random.

It's done via a sorting algorythm which, as far as we know, currently only takes into account play hours (it might not even do that). The difference? Algorythms can be adjusted and fed more variables. If it were random that would not be possible.

Also: Alliance/guild =/= world.

A world is a combination of multiple guilds/alliances/players. Far to often these terms get misused or misunderstood.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 hours ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

I'm not on the team with Magswag, I'm on a team against them.

The guild you are in determines your alliance which determines your team, so yes it does. Had I been in Magswag's guild, I'd be on their team right now.

Cyanophyta, we aren't yet at the Aliiance portions of the beta, that's later this summer. The fact that you ran into Magswag was an example of players trying to pre-test Alliance features that aren't open yet. 

4 hours ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

You mean if you don't choose a guild you get placed on a team randomly?

No, random is extermrely hard, it means you could be placed against other players that match your attibutes on other teams. That doesn't mean it will place you with teammates but may place you against them to help balance out sides.

[Dawdler.8521]

7 hours ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

It's done via a sorting algorythm which, as far as we know, currently only takes into account play hours (it might not even do that).

I dont think it does that at all yet, its just pure random sorting. Without having a baseline over time of people having selected their WvW guild, the algorithm wouldnt even know which of the guilds you are in to count (especially if you switch just for beta or use an "alliance guild"). This type of "weight" for the overall player strength of WvW guilds and alliances would require many months to get.

[Chaba.5410]

58 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I dont think it does that at all yet, its just pure random sorting. Without having a baseline over time of people having selected their WvW guild, the algorithm wouldnt even know which of the guilds you are in to count (especially if you switch just for beta or use an "alliance guild"). This type of "weight" for the overall player strength of WvW guilds and alliances would require many months to get.

Why are you throwing more confusion into the subject? The very idea of testing is to test the sorting algorithm. Data is gathered every time you log into WvW and participate.

[Cyanophyta.6345]

What I'm getting from this thread:

 

Players choose a guild, and guilds can choose other guilds to be together in the same alliance. Alliances in turn are assigned to teams based on play hours. Players without guilds chosen get assigned to a team, also based on the total play hours of the team. The assignment process is random but still based on the player's play hours. The goal is to create teams with roughly equal play hours. How the algorithm "sorts" unguilded players and alliances into teams isn't actually known but is based on play hours. In other words, much of this talk about how alliances actually "work" is actually conjecture and probably only the devs working on this know how it actually works, because they're the only ones with access to the sorting algorithm and the data from the beta test. 

[Chaba.5410]

25 minutes ago, Cyanophyta.6345 said:

What I'm getting from this thread

Or you can just read what Anet has published on how they are designing the system.

[Dawdler.8521]

53 minutes ago, Chaba.5410 said:

Why are you throwing more confusion into the subject? The very idea of testing is to test the sorting algorithm. Data is gathered every time you log into WvW and participate.

A sorting algorithm would still work perfectly fine without playtime - you sort by guilds until you reach roughly equal team sizes and then you sort by unguilded players on top of that.

If you got a source on it being based on playtime for the beta well then we can put the confusion to rest quickly, I dont read every dev post or reddit.

If it does use it well at least we know why everyone feel outnumbered all the time - they cant perform as good as Anet think they can.

[Chaba.5410]

3 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

If you got a source on it being based on playtime for the beta well then we can put the confusion to rest quickly, I dont read every dev post or reddit.

Just read the FAQ.  There's no proof that they're doing anything different during betas than iterating towards their published design description.