Every man/woman for himself/herself!

[blp.3489]

I think they should test out having an option that you can check to be placed as an individual in matches entirely made up of individuals.  This would provide a nicely chaotic environment where individual players aren't just bag fodder for the organized boon balls and dedicated WWW guilds.  Keep in mind that this would be an opt-in option so that all you players who want to play with friends or in an organized guild would continue to go on with play as usual.  This would actually benefit the organized players as they would be concentrated in a smaller number of matches and playing against other organized groups.  Players who want to play with a friend or who can't motivate themselves without having a server or guild to play for clearly won't be interested but for all those players that just play for their current side it could be fun.

I think it would add an interesting element to the game where you have to organize and cooperate with a somewhat random group of other players.  I think for a lot of newer players that are used to solo play in PVE this would be an interesting transition and learning experience before deciding if they want to get into more organized and structured play.  Players could also develop their pugmander skills and it would be less common for squads to be requiring specific builds.   Potentially these matchups could have higher overall populations by combining players from different time zones.

I think it would be interesting to at least test whether some segment of the player base enjoyed that sort of environment.

[Dawdler.8521]

You can always join sPvP if you want a more safe environment with less people in it 🤷‍♂️

[blp.3489]

3 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

You can always join sPvP if you want a more safe environment with less people in it 🤷‍♂️

I'm guessing that you didn't read beyond the second sentence because your response seems unrelated to my post. 🤷‍♂️

[kash.9213]

I would put those ideas into UI elements that can guide people and newer players within the mode.  I don't think you want to split the player base up too much, especially by interest in group scale in a realm vs realm mode. I think the only splits should come from emergent events or encounters on the maps.

Edited June 13, 2023 by kash.9213

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, blp.3489 said:

I'm guessing that you didn't read beyond the second sentence because your response seems unrelated to my post. 🤷‍♂️

Oh I read it. The entire point of WvW is that it's not safe, it's unpredictable. Dividing and watering down WvW to have training wheels is counterintuitive to it's endgame status. You cant opt-out once you go in, unless you plan to run away alot. Yes it can be chaotic. Yes you can be outnumbered. Yes, it's dangerous to go alone.

That's why you join guilds.

[babana.7521]

9 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

I think they should test out having an option that you can check to be placed as an individual in matches entirely made up of individuals.  This would provide a nicely chaotic environment where individual players aren't just bag fodder for the organized boon balls and dedicated WWW guilds.  Keep in mind that this would be an opt-in option so that all you players who want to play with friends or in an organized guild would continue to go on with play as usual.  This would actually benefit the organized players as they would be concentrated in a smaller number of matches and playing against other organized groups.  Players who want to play with a friend or who can't motivate themselves without having a server or guild to play for clearly won't be interested but for all those players that just play for their current side it could be fun.

I think it would add an interesting element to the game where you have to organize and cooperate with a somewhat random group of other players.  I think for a lot of newer players that are used to solo play in PVE this would be an interesting transition and learning experience before deciding if they want to get into more organized and structured play.  Players could also develop their pugmander skills and it would be less common for squads to be requiring specific builds.   Potentially these matchups could have higher overall populations by combining players from different time zones.

I think it would be interesting to at least test whether some segment of the player base enjoyed that sort of environment.

There is already a game mode where you can do that, it is call PvP

[blp.3489]

I really don't understand why people bring up PVP when that is on a completely different scale, doesn't have siege, etc. etc. etc.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

revive EotM!

add the same rewards and let the boon balls spam boons on SMC for all eternity!

[Zok.4956]

18 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

I think it would add an interesting element to the game where you have to organize and cooperate with a somewhat random group of other players.

So you want some large scale "last man standing" battle royale in WvW maps?

 

18 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

I think it would add an interesting element to the game where you have to organize and cooperate with a somewhat random group of other players.

Ok, so you still have teams like it is now in WvW and it is not a battle royale that you want.

The game mode already exists and is called "wvw restructuring beta"  😎

 

18 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

I think it would be interesting to at least test whether some segment of the player base enjoyed that sort of environment.

You can already test this on EBG every time there is no zerg or public comm around. Slightly more experienced/organized small groups farm the less experienced/organized players, and many players simply hide in structures until they see an advantage in their own team player count and afk or pew-pew from walls.

 

[solemn.9670]

+1 yes pls

[Riba.3271]

This is cool idea. I think matchmaking issues might arise if the choice is too unpopular or popular tho.

Guildless WvW sounds amazing. I wish there were inbuilt voice comms in game tho.

[MedievalThings.5417]

On 6/13/2023 at 7:50 AM, blp.3489 said:

I think they should test out having an option that you can check to be placed as an individual in matches entirely made up of individuals.  This would provide a nicely chaotic environment where individual players aren't just bag fodder for the organized boon balls and dedicated WWW guilds.  Keep in mind that this would be an opt-in option so that all you players who want to play with friends or in an organized guild would continue to go on with play as usual.  This would actually benefit the organized players as they would be concentrated in a smaller number of matches and playing against other organized groups.  Players who want to play with a friend or who can't motivate themselves without having a server or guild to play for clearly won't be interested but for all those players that just play for their current side it could be fun.

I think it would add an interesting element to the game where you have to organize and cooperate with a somewhat random group of other players.  I think for a lot of newer players that are used to solo play in PVE this would be an interesting transition and learning experience before deciding if they want to get into more organized and structured play.  Players could also develop their pugmander skills and it would be less common for squads to be requiring specific builds.   Potentially these matchups could have higher overall populations by combining players from different time zones.

I think it would be interesting to at least test whether some segment of the player base enjoyed that sort of environment.

The only thing that would happen, is comps would all "join to play by themselves" so that their "group of individuals" can just farm pugs.

[Sereath.1428]

I support this.

[blp.3489]

2 hours ago, Ubi.4136 said:

The only thing that would happen, is comps would all "join to play by themselves" so that their "group of individuals" can just farm pugs.

Groups that sign up as individuals will, like all individuals, be (largely) randomly distributed among the worlds so they would end up fighting one another.  Only very rarely would they all end up in one world, and the larger the group the more likely they will be split up.

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by blp.3489

[blp.3489]

15 hours ago, Zok.4956 said:

The game mode already exists and is called "wvw restructuring beta"  😎

That is what got me thinking about this!  One problem with the current beta is that if you place experienced WVW guilds and inexperienced individuals on the same map the guilds can just farm the individuals.

Hypothetically, if the numbers just happened to work out, you could have matches consisting entirely of guilds and matches consisting entirely of individuals. For those that like less lopsided matches,  the fights might well be more fun and interesting.

[Cyanophyta.6345]

On 6/13/2023 at 4:01 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

Oh I read it. The entire point of WvW is that it's not safe, it's unpredictable. Dividing and watering down WvW to have training wheels is counterintuitive to it's endgame status. You cant opt-out once you go in, unless you plan to run away alot. Yes it can be chaotic. Yes you can be outnumbered. Yes, it's dangerous to go alone.

That's why you join guilds.

You know what's safe and predictable? The same 2 guilds on opposite alliance teams boonballing each other with organized squads, comms, and builds over and over. That's exactly what you're getting with alliances. THAT is what the "training wheels" you're talking about. Every squad is organized into 5 man subsquads with 1 firebrand and 1 ele healer per sub squad with a competent comm telling everyone what to think and do. Everyone gets constant STAB uptime and heals and just follows the commander. Boring.

 

You know what's not predictable? Completely random people that don't know each other with different skill levels and builds working together in PUGs. Stab uptime probably isn't great. Heals are not great. Things are chaotic and unpredictable. You would get that with this option.

 

Bonus points: you don't have to sell yourself out to the cool kid's club (guilds) to get good content. I really don't get alliances, they're literally just servers except more granular. Server transfers are available if you want to play with your friend/guild, and the full servers have been full for a long time, so it's nothing new. There's plenty of guilds on each server so you got options, and the sheer fact that you are active and present on your server makes joining your server's wvw guilds easy. Alliances are just servers 2.0 except smaller and you have to beg the cool kids to let you join their stupid club. That's dumb. I'm too much a lone wolf to be bothered with ostentatious social clubs. I'm not "applying" to join your wvw guild. I'm not giving you my wvw "resume" from gw2 mists. I play to have fun, not boast about my kda.  

 

Ostentatious Social Club...maybe I should make a guild with that name.

[Zok.4956]

6 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

Hypothetically, if the numbers just happened to work out, you could have matches consisting entirely of guilds and matches consisting entirely of individuals. For those that like less lopsided matches,  the fights might well be more fun and interesting.

Well, my earlier comment about going to EBG when there are no groups/comms/zergs around was not only ironic but also had a grain of truth in seeing it happen there.

It was interesting for a moment, but then became very boring. Some classes with high mobility and burst potential (no, I don't say the class, you all know their name 😉)  were sniping/ganking new players but nothing else really happens. 

So, maybe it would be fun for players of those classes who like to burst/gank other players... but it would not be my cup of tea.

[MedievalThings.5417]

15 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

Groups that sign up as individuals will, like all individuals, be (largely) randomly distributed among the worlds so they would end up fighting one another.  Only very rarely would they all end up in one world, and the larger the group the more likely they will be split up.

 

Not rarely, every time.  If it randomizes where they are placed, every login, they will log in and out until their comp is on the same server fighting pugs.  It's why open world pvp games are not popular, because this is what some players do.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Ubi.4136

[subversiontwo.7501]

I like part of this idea, but perhaps not for the same reasons BLP made this thread.

I think it would be very nice to have a free-for-all mode, but like others have pointed out, this is an MMO so it is pointless to try to enforce rules on it being "solo only". Instead they should take pages from other successful world-PvP games, like EVE and WoT, and draw upon successful systems from those games and existing tech in this game.

They should probably ditch the old overarching map-system and just have one type of map that they can multi-instance the entire region to fit into (ie., 100 copies of EBG). Everyone could start out red to everyone else and people could then set friendly relationships through guilds and alliances. This way they could also make both players and groups find each other on different maps and shape the content on it to their liking. It would also let people claim objectives for anyone visiting the map to see and with the indignation/invulnurable tech they could easily create vulnurability windows for when the holder has to defend; so things can't be nightcapped or require broad coverage. That would let Anet reward players and groups for holding objectives over time - for a true map-ownership alternate mode as well that could include player-owned GvG structures too. They could literally solve all content-issues and provide for all types of subcontent at once with a system like that.

Roamers could go find solo maps that draw people from the entire region, publics could go find other publics for attack-defense/map control or rewards farming, guilds could go find skirmish maps, raid maps and have attack-defense maps as well as be able to hold secured competetive content within the safety of temporarily invulnurable objectives.

I've noted on this on multiple occassions in the past. I think one map-type + multi-instancing is the way forward for WvW or at the very least an alternate mode to pursue instead of EotM or OS or whatever.

The most stand-out thing about all of this is that I think they already have the tech for all of it, so they are missing out on endless creative potential and easy forward-looking design and content-management if they can just put all the pieces together: FFA system (AB) + multi-instancing (PvE) + in-walls/indignation (WvW) and just running variations of EBG instead of EotM or OS.

Edited June 15, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[blp.3489]

9 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

I think it would be very nice to have a free-for-all mode, but like others have pointed out, this is an MMO so it is pointless to try to enforce rules on it being "solo only".

Just to clarify, the individuals only aspect merely referred to the distribution of players across worlds, ie it would be exactly like the current beta where individuals who didn't set a wvw guild got distributed among the worlds without any way for the player to influence their placement. All I was proposing was to have an option to get placed in a match that no guilds were placed in. In retrospect my choice of subject line wasn't the best as it gave the impression of there not still being teams.

Your proposal is intriguing. I don't understand how players would be placed in instances and/or move between instances in search of their preferred type of content. Can you elaborate on that aspect?

[blp.3489]

Today's posts inspired a new variation of this idea.  Let people opt into matches made up entirely of individuals who mainly want to do their dailies!   Life will be easier for people who just want to get their dailies done (and/or work toward legendary armor?) and the population of the rest of the servers will largely be people who want to ppt/ppk.

[joneirikb.7506]

Curious, wouldn't it be easier to just set off a own map for this? Map where people that got into the world as a guild can't go ?

[Dinas Dragonbane.2978]

2 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

Today's posts inspired a new variation of this idea.  Let people opt into matches made up entirely of individuals who mainly want to do their dailies!   Life will be easier for people who just want to get their dailies done (and/or work toward legendary armor?) and the population of the rest of the servers will largely be people who want to ppt/ppk.

And this is where many roamers would also opt into to go around and obliterate overs trying to do dailies. The "easy target" option. 

People will play how they want to get what they want. Some would go so far as to queue up 20 players on that ffa-server and even if they are 6-7 players on each server they still would roam around in those groups killing unorganized players while dodging their guild mates on the enemy servers, possibly giving info as well.  If the players loyalty is greater to the guild than their server this can easily happen, much like eotm's playerbase being more loyal to the karma train than anything else.

[blp.3489]

3 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Curious, wouldn't it be easier to just set off a own map for this? Map where people that got into the world as a guild can't go ?

That might well be the easiest way to go.

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

On 6/13/2023 at 3:50 PM, blp.3489 said:

I think they should test out having an option that you can check to be placed as an individual in matches entirely made up of individuals.  This would provide a nicely chaotic environment where individual players aren't just bag fodder for the organized boon balls and dedicated WWW guilds.  Keep in mind that this would be an opt-in option so that all you players who want to play with friends or in an organized guild would continue to go on with play as usual.  This would actually benefit the organized players as they would be concentrated in a smaller number of matches and playing against other organized groups.  Players who want to play with a friend or who can't motivate themselves without having a server or guild to play for clearly won't be interested but for all those players that just play for their current side it could be fun.

I think it would add an interesting element to the game where you have to organize and cooperate with a somewhat random group of other players.  I think for a lot of newer players that are used to solo play in PVE this would be an interesting transition and learning experience before deciding if they want to get into more organized and structured play.  Players could also develop their pugmander skills and it would be less common for squads to be requiring specific builds.   Potentially these matchups could have higher overall populations by combining players from different time zones.

I think it would be interesting to at least test whether some segment of the player base enjoyed that sort of environment.

i mean you realize everyone is a individual anyways?

but the idea u mention is absolutely nothing new, been discussed like years ago as well. the question about this full solo modes is, how many people really would prefer to go full alone - without friends or people they know. do u think this would make any sense? it would probably be boonballs all again, after all

and you don't need much skill to be a pugmander, the people who run after you need skill rather
____
also the different time zones mixed together isn't a new idea, but that one is good, because it would prevent downtimes,

and it would prevent karmatrain blobs that try to play severly off hours (like let's say, germans that play till 4am their time etc) to avoid any player content as much as possible