Alliance will never work out

[zengara.8301]

Either you split up people based on skill, how close they are to tag on average, downs, builds etc and keep those stats secret and split 2 groups based on wanting to fight, PPT, roaming or even just chat (like literally only in wvw for chatting) and make each section fight eachother. Where I think each party would be most happy, because they are doing what they like, and doing it with others that like the same.

Or split individual people up where you mix people in, that want to do xyz, but still in the manner each server having good players.

Other than that, I just don't think there is a system that can work. If you log in to fight, you want to play with good players, against good players. So if your players are not good, you move. And that creates a system where everyone moves to 1 server. Like in this alliance system, I am writing with people, and people are not having fun

And of course this is going to look great, when equalized it to worst scenario of WvW at the end of the 2 months,  where players are over playing with new people and just want good fights

[Debesyla.7102]

You do know that that's exactly what is in the plans, right? It's currently just a beta for testing out if matching up people by guilds, not servers, is even working.

[Malak.7108]

I'm not sure how Alliances are meant to work but I guess they are meant to address the problem of gross unbalance that sometimes arises between server populations.  For instance with Maguuma on NA where they can dominate EBG and spawn camp both their opponents. We at Anvil Rock were linked with them once, have happy memories of them although they were so powerful we often had little to do.

Over the past few months its become apparent that many players would prefer to drop down a tier than face such dominant servers and spawn camping. This has caused lots of debate in WvW team chat about the pros and cons of throwing matches. Yes, servers are throwing matches in order to try and keep their players from transferring out. 

As for me, I opened up a trial account(now full) on small server Kaineng just so I could fight Maguuma but I'm not alone as many players want to play against the 'best' sides. For many of us, losing and being spawn camped is not always fun, but its a challenge as time passes quickly and even small victories are sweet. Of course, the problem is how to keep the majority of players happy so they don't change servers or even leave WvW. 

Most players can only be on for a short time, so if their time zone is unfavourable for them then WvW becomes a spawn camp nightmare.  A month or so ago even Maguuma were getting spawn camped - actually was sad to see 😞

Before Alliances go ahead perhaps Anet could allow sides that are spawn camped to have some supply so at least they can try to counterattack and give the spawn campers a bigger challenge. No doubt its complex but we need everyone to have fun.

By the way, for me Alliances currently don't seem fun, but I'm a bit behind the times as it took me ages to accept gliding and mounts as they seemed to make the maps much much smaller. 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Malak.7108
spelling

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

i think alot of players saying alliances won't work don't even know how they're supposed to work to begin with. there's too much misinformation out there about what exactly alliances are.

 

there's been a major problem affecting the game mode for many years called server bandwagoning. this is where players intentionally transfer to a stacked server, causing it to be stacked even more, and essentially keep their team queued on all maps for most of the day, allowing them to dominate.

 

its like the dual queue system in ranked pvp, except on a much larger scale.

 

the alliances system ensures that the maximum number of influential players is capped at 500, the same as a single guild. this is compared to the current cap which is essentially the entire server that can manipulate the matchup. because it won't be physically possible to have an alliance larger than this, (as one guild or multiple guilds), and the rest of the alliances in the server are chosen either randomly or by some set of parameters, this radically limits the scope of their influence and effectively destroys the ability to bandwagon entirely.

 

furthermore, its meant to finally give us "guild wars" and more balanced matchups (by time zones, language, etc.)  in the process and just brings alot of quality of life along with it.

 

the main complaint against it is "server identity" which hasn't mattered in quite a long time. this is something i still see thrown around alot, but the truth is its been all about guilds for at least half a decade now and alliances just pushes that as the final direction. i believe the game was always meant to be about guilds and the world system was a mistake from the very beginning.

Edited June 12, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Ashen.2907]

11 hours ago, Debesyla.7102 said:

You do know that that's exactly what is in the plans, right?

Not even close.

[Randulf.7614]

Positivity, I love it!

[Dawdler.8521]

Imagine if on day 1 in the very first WvW matchup of 2012, someone joined and instantly gave the impression "I dont know anyone here, WvW is kitten this will never work out!".

[MedievalThings.5417]

Let's say that full is 2000 players for a server.  That means that 2000 people log in each week for wvw.

Every server is above the full threshold as far as potential wvw players, but only a handful of players actually wvw.  That said, there are a few servers who have 3000-4000 people log in each week for wvw.  That's how you get domination. 

If you are wondering how that happens, well, people get beat in a fight a couple times then just play an alt acct or another game for 2-3 weeks.  Their server opens, tons of people (who play wvw every week) transfer in, and now you have a full server that is twice the active population of most other servers.

This is what BG did for years to get super-stacked, this is what Mag has done twice this year so far.

Unless they turn off server transfers, it's only going to take maybe 1 match for all the fairweather folks to manage to stack enough that alliances will look exactly like what we have now.  It doesn't help that Anet keeps nerfing defense, boon removal, wall health, tactics, etc.  At the rate we are going, wvw will just be boonballs fighting npc's, everyone will be on the same team, the structures will just reset every 5 minutes so the ktrain can keep going, and it will look like Drizzlewood.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

46 minutes ago, Ubi.4136 said:

Let's say that full is 2000 players for a server.  That means that 2000 people log in each week for wvw.

Every server is above the full threshold as far as potential wvw players, but only a handful of players actually wvw.  That said, there are a few servers who have 3000-4000 people log in each week for wvw.  That's how you get domination. 

If you are wondering how that happens, well, people get beat in a fight a couple times then just play an alt acct or another game for 2-3 weeks.  Their server opens, tons of people (who play wvw every week) transfer in, and now you have a full server that is twice the active population of most other servers.

This is what BG did for years to get super-stacked, this is what Mag has done twice this year so far.

Unless they turn off server transfers, it's only going to take maybe 1 match for all the fairweather folks to manage to stack enough that alliances will look exactly like what we have now.  It doesn't help that Anet keeps nerfing defense, boon removal, wall health, tactics, etc.  At the rate we are going, wvw will just be boonballs fighting npc's, everyone will be on the same team, the structures will just reset every 5 minutes so the ktrain can keep going, and it will look like Drizzlewood.

i'm confused at what you mean by this. alliances won't have server transfers, as servers won't exist anymore. presumably there will be about 2000-2500 players (not confirmed) per each randomly generated world, and while you can stack into a guild you'll still be hard capped at 500 players per alliance.

 

players won't be able to chose or influence what other alliances are included in the matchup, and you also won't be able to change your account-wide wvw guild after the match has started.

 

there's no mechanism to stack alliances. that;s the whole point.

Edited June 11, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Xenesis.6389]

5 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

i'm confused at what you mean by this. alliances won't have server transfers, as servers won't exist anymore. presumably there will be about 2000-2500 players (not confirmed) per each randomly generated world, and while you can stack into a guild you'll still be hard capped at 500 players per alliance.

players won't be able to chose or influence what other alliances are included in the matchup, and you also won't be able to change your account-wide wvw guild after the match has started.

there's no mechanism to stack alliances. that;s the whole point.

It was stated in the original WR post there would be transfers, and they've yet to change that stance since.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/19480-world-restructuring/

Quote

Region Transfers

Transferring between regions, from NA to EU, will still exist. We have not determined the costs for transferring but a region selection will be available on the character select screen that will allow transfers.

World Transfers

We understand that even though this system tries to keep guilds and alliances together, there will be times during the season when people want to change teams. Because of this, there are plans to allow transfers between worlds during a season. This means that new worlds will have size restrictions on them, as they do currently.

Players will be able to select worlds from the WvW panel in game. Worlds that are available for transfers will show up in the new WvW world panel. Worlds can be in these three different states:

The cost of transfer worlds has not been determined.

[blp.3489]

It seems to me that the overall effect of alliances will be to encourage people to join a guild so that they aren't thrown into random worlds with all the individual players mixed up randomly.  With guilds and alliances able to have 500 players in them it seems like there is plenty of room to build a sizeable community that holds steady from matchup to matchup.  Your guild/alliance will get thrown in with random other guilds/alliances so there will be a big change in both ally and enemy composition each matchup.

If you want to be able to say my guild/alliance is the demonstrably/statisticallly the best that might be difficult as your guild/alliance will always be a minority in your matching created world.  Still, 500 active players is probably enough to dominate a world if they are playing at the same time.

Edited June 11, 2023 by blp.3489

[Kasumi.8532]

13 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

alot of players saying alliances won't work don't even know how they're supposed to work to begin with

Tbf, neither does ANet...

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

17 minutes ago, Xenon Z.6015 said:

Tbf, neither does ANet...

they're not even implemented yet, all the betas have been for the backend system.

 

1 hour ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

It was stated in the original WR post there would be transfers, and they've yet to change that stance since.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/19480-world-restructuring/

this is an extremely old post from the original roadmap. the developers have talked abit about this since then and have said nothing about including a transfer mechanism going forward except for players who didn't chose a guild or other special circumstances.

Edited June 11, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Xenesis.6389]

23 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

this is an exrtremly old post. the developers have talked abit about this since then and have said nothing about including a transfer mechanism going forward except for players who didn't chose a guild.

Neither have they changed it, so the possibilities exist either way. 🤷‍♂️ 

And knowing them.... why wouldn't they include a way to make some extra gem sales after all this work. 🤷‍♂️

Edited June 11, 2023 by Xenesis.6389

[enkidu.5937]

14 hours ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

alot of players saying alliances won't work don't even know how they're supposed to work to begin with. there's too much misinformation out there about what exactly alliances are.

Oh yeah, so let Anet clarify on this:

Lead Dev: „Its a really big experiment, we have a lot of theories how this is gonna pan out. Players dont always do the things you expect them to do.“ 👀🤡

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/X84_AdzJ2Qs?t=2246

Edited June 11, 2023 by enkidu.5937

[jul.7602]

Of course it wont work. Seven pines/stonefall/firsthaven is a typical example of what a bandwagon with alliances would look like. You got one server that has all the pvp guilds, and the other server with practically none and just a bunch of pugs thrown in to get farmed relentlessly.

[Jski.6180]

They should work but it will take time for the player base to get use to it. So it will be painful when they do comply go over. These small beta weeks i think are more to get ppl ready for it then any thing else.

[Zoser.7245]

I logged few times only for curiosity.  I haven't seen a single commander in the whole weekend. The chat was also dead all time i was trying to figure what was going on out there.  I did not even selected a guild this time, in the ones i have only few players play wvw and we use our public server/discord as a place to coordinate us with other players of other guilds.  You can join it at almost any hour and find plenty of players to talk and speak your language.  In a guild you only have few hours a week at the raid time to do that and also a lot less people.  In our public one, when people are no raiding also join it with players of other guilds and randoms. You often find there 30 and more players, which make the experience a lot more fun.,

For me, alliances kill all that enjoyment.  I also have my list of guilds full. With a lot of friends. So i'm not going to leave a single of my beloved guilds for a WvW dedicated one.  It's a no go for me.  So at most, i'll be a random the few times i'll need for some Gift of the Battle if i need one and stop counting.  And that from a player with all abilities unlocked and a relative high rank that have played WvW for years since the beta.

Enjoy your alliances. I will not miss them, although i will miss my Server and people there.  In my list of friends from other guilds, i saw them all splitted randomly.  I can't imagine the mess or join alliances when there are tons of guilds and  a small limit per alliance when only few players of each one play WvW. Then add the "you are not allowed to join here"  when they'll add the feature of kick guilds from alliances by vote and certain guilds will want to law/govern the alliances and lobby them to only allow the most wanted ones to own and dominate everything.

Also, matchmaking or ranks?  Well if the sytem works as good as in SPvP. It will be like R55 or Team USA at tournaments, or duoqs abuse, we will always know the winner unless they will be dodging or windtrading. Like when no ones want to play with Maguuma. Once some will watch X or Y guilds tags in certain alliance, it will time for holydays until the next match few weeks or months later.

Hopefully, after this beta ends at 23th, i will still enjoy my server for a while and end my last legendary before alliances are released. Until then,  enjoy your beta testing.

 

Edited June 11, 2023 by Zoser.7245

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

this is example of the confusion that i'm talking about. even if there are "server" transfers  (when servers won't even exist), the maximum players per alliance will still be capped at 500. no where have the developers said that you'll be able to just hop into a full alliance and start stacking a world.

 

in theory, if an alliance can field all 500 players at once, they could stack, but that's all. doing this would likely come with an incredible amount of difficulty compared to how easy it is now, however.

Edited June 11, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[jul.7602]

6 minutes ago, SoftFootpaws.9134 said:

this is example of the confusion that i'm talking about. even if there are "server" transfers  (when servers won't even exist), the maximum players per alliance will still be capped at 500. no where have the developers said that you'll be able to just hop into a full alliance and start stacking a world.

 

in theory, if an alliance can field all 500 players at once, they could stack, but that's all. doing this would likely come with an incredible amount of difficulty compared to how easy it is now, however.

Honestly I don't think Anet has any intentions of retaining any type of "server" transfer. That would defeat the whole point of the alliance system because everyone would just bandwagon to the server with the strongest alliances and we'd be back to square one.

[Xenesis.6389]

1 hour ago, Zoser.7245 said:

I logged few times only for curiosity.  I haven't seen a single commander in the whole weekend.

Seen 6 different commanders in the 4 hours I've played through yesterday and today. 🤷‍♂️

[Tiamat.8254]

It is still in beta. How can you say it's not going to work? I might be in the minority but the last couple of days have been the best in wvw in a long while. It's working for me. 

[Zoser.7245]

50 minutes ago, Xenesis.6389 said:

Seen 6 different commanders in the 4 hours I've played through yesterday and today. 🤷‍♂️

Well, I'm happy for you. Perhaps the team that i got is not as active or good. Or I have not been lucky enough to see them. Who knows.

In any case, I don't like to follow random tags. Often when you charge and you don't have voice communication you're stuck when the squad/commander maneuvers, uses portals, etc, for not being able to react in time. Although I imagine that some random or casual players can go with the non-private ones  as extra bags if they don't know what to do on their own.  As i don't have dedicated WvW guilds and space for add several ones to cover my variable play hours, i can't see this working for me. None of the betas have done so so far.

Maybe Arenanet could or should add voice communication for teams/alliances regardless of whether the guilds have their own discord. But that will take resources and cost money, so i doubt they'll do something like that for improve the new WvW.

If alliances/restructuring work for you, then enjoy them. One way or another is what will be in the future, there is no alternative. So those who like the new system will stay and those who don't  or don't work for them will look for something else to play. There's no more. Greetings.

[Xenesis.6389]

Dunno why people make wvw life so hard. 😏🍿

[senftube.6081]

The 500 Cap is dumb. It is no Alliance it is a big guild. And sadly with that cap u can't make a real Alliance full of members from your old server. That means you have to play against your own friends. Then this cap is also toxic because every stronger alliance will insta kick peoples which are not that active in wvw ....for making place free for "better Players".  The Cap has to be bigger.