Another horrible beta

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

And this one lasts two weeks. Great.

Outnumbered on every map, nobody playing in this 'world'.
People don't want GvG, and they're making it clear by sitting these betas out en-mass. Please just stop catering to the very vocal 5% who think Alliances is a good idea and what they want, and start making actual content for WvW rather than spending time and resources on a system nobody wants that will only hurt WvW overall.

[Dawdler.8521]

3 hours ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

Please just stop catering to the very vocal 5% who think Alliances is a good idea and what they want

Anet isnt catering to anyone outside of PvE. They already have their plans. If Anets balancing style hasnt taught you that yet, nothing ever will.

We'll be back to being outnumbered as usual on every map next week anyway.

Edited June 17, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[enkidu.5937]

5 hours ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

stop catering to the very vocal 5% who think Alliances is a good idea

people just love variety, and Anet did such a great job 🤡

we have match-ups where one team totally dominates

and match-ups where one team is completely overrun

and match-ups where one team completely dominates PPT and another dominates K/D 😏

. . .

and when Anet introduces alliances you can even choose what you want to dominate

doesn't that entertain you ? 🫠

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

10 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

We'll be back to being outnumbered as usual on every map next week anyway.

I rarely have that issue normally, and you can rarely have that option too, if you just move to an active server.

This however, randomly screws people over or not, is completely unbalanced, and will be a nightmare if actually introduced that pretty much ends wvw.

[Dawdler.8521]

31 minutes ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

I rarely have that issue normally, and you can rarely have that option too, if you just move to an active server.

This however, randomly screws people over or not, is completely unbalanced, and will be a nightmare if actually introduced that pretty much ends wvw.

... so bandwagon to winning worlds just for the sake of winning more is the definition of balance?

Hm.

[ManiacMika.9851]

It's not very bothering to be in the winning team.

Imbalance exists with old servers + links.
But you chose to be on the bullying team.

Imbalance exists with this beta.
But you've been randomly assigned to a weaker team.

Imbalance will still exist with the finalized World Restructure,
but to a less extent due to granularity and other analysed statistics.

WvW IS IMBALANCED ON PURPOSE.
Look at EBG camps: the sawmill is in an open area, while the quarry has narrow access, each facing another team.
It's literally Rock-Paper-Scissors.
Don't ever expect to beat Rock with Scissors.

[DeWolfe.2174]

The mode needs:
a) WORLDS not alliances.
b) Tiers of varying populations
c) World bonuses

The conversation has been discussed ad nauseam for almost a decade now.
Some people want large scale combat.
Some people want smaller scale combat.

Some people want a more open, democratic, and large scale World.
Some people want more exclusivity, privacy, and control of a Guild.

These cannot exist under one cookie cutter design.
There needs to be more flexibility in WvW design.

I dm'd Grouch likely a decade ago with the basic advise, empower players and let them choose. You do so by opening worlds and allowing free transfers. We'll manage time zone coverage and map queues far greater than the Dev's. In fact now it seems like the devs are stacking time zones to force turnover and the papering of everything. Which leads to a terrible experience for the majority of players as there can be only one "golden child" per time zone. That's 33% good experience vs 66% bad experience.

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, DeWolfe.2174 said:

These cannot exist under one cookie cutter design.

Yet it already exist under both regular WvW and world restructure. 

Thats kind of weird.

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

14 hours ago, ManiacMika.9851 said:

It's not very bothering to be in the winning team.

Imbalance exists with old servers + links.
But you chose to be on the bullying team.

It is very bothering, as sometimes you don't have anything to even do in WvW at that point. All they can contest are base spawn camps. But that happens very rarely.

It's not about bullying, you don't understand the basics if you think that. It's about multiple worlds with fair amounts of activity and player base going against each other, which happens pretty fast in the old system because of tier pairings. Here, you just get screwed randomly and there is no system in place to fix or address it. And it will be worse if in all that random screwing and volatility, players get to meddle with it or game the system and move around all the time. It will be impossible to create decent pairings.

Seems like all the frequent commenters here that want this sytem happen to be from underpopulated wvw servers atm, so it's understandable they would like a fix. But this begs the question, why didn't you fix this for yourself years ago? You could've moved to a more populated wvw server and just be fine under the current system. You choose not to, and instead clammor for this system nobody but you actually prefers. Why?

[enkidu.5937]

52 minutes ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

Seems like all the frequent commenters here that want this sytem happen to be from underpopulated wvw servers atm, so it's understandable they would like a fix.

Hmmm, maybe its the blobbers that want imbalance and thus try to support World Destructioning? 🤡 So they can blob over completely unorganized and unaffiliated Randoms? 😎

 

I mean at the moment there are no real "Randoms", they might not have a guild but are still part of a server community, and consequently have access to public zergs, semi-coordinating server clouds, server scout calls, server voice chat etc.

[Prophet of Flames.2783]

17 minutes ago, enkidu.5937 said:

I mean at the moment there are no real "Randoms", they might not have a guild but are still part of a server community, and consequently have access to public zergs, semi-coordinating server clouds, server scout calls, server voice chat etc.

This is exactly why the current system is a 100 times better than any alliance stuff. Randoms on active servers can learn and become connected.

In the new set-up you get new random chaff every couple of weeks. You won't know or recognize anybody, and nobody will make an effort to have them understand WvW better, because some weeks from now they'll be gone and you get new randoms.

And it forces you to join a WvW guild or perish. That's quite something to ask of people. Anet mistakenly believes every WvW player to be a dedicated wvw only player. Because all the people that occasionally play the mode and can now always return to familiarity and 'their' server, will get thrown out of WvW with alliances because it's been actively designed to not be for them anymore.

[ManiacMika.9851]

48 minutes ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

why didn't you fix this for yourself years ago? You could've moved to a more populated wvw server and just be fine under the current system. You choose not to, and instead clammor for this system nobody but you actually prefers. Why?

I'm not really into Server Pride. I changed World once.
French is my native language and had a French server. Then I moved out of my country and I'm speaking English daily, so I wanted to reflect that in-game as well.

Same with Guilds.
Joined a guild when I was level 20 in 2012. That merged with a bigger one when Guild Halls were announced. I learned the existence of WvW later and joined a guild that specialized into that, literally the first one that asked me to join. Then my server transfer happened and joined first WvW guild from there. Then it got merged because it was too small. Now it split to another server and I stayed with the part that didn't migrate. 5 different guilds in 11 years.

I feel like I just go with the flow. I don't like paying Gems to leave behind a World I socially integrated and start over. But I do like the re-links that bring new flavour of commanders and a varied chat experience every now and then. I won't move "because of my server". There are ways to play wvw in different scales: 1, 5, 10, 20, 50. But the only Real change you can force is on yourself. You know the saying:

Quote

"You can bring pugs to a ram build site,
But you cannot force them to build."

So you have to adapt. On yourself. Go to more camps. Walk slower. Have a defensive strategy rather than an offensive.
Don't to move to another team/world/squad/group to get easy better results. They are not the result of Your actions.
What you'll improve on yourself will reflect on your group/squad/world/team.

[ManiacMika.9851]

10 minutes ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

And it forces you to join a WvW guild or perish.

If you are a solo player, you won't perish. (You can always use Waypoints 😆)
You'll experience new content from new guilds/alliances, until one of them resonates with your principles.
It'll take time to rotate through a few of them, but eventually people with same mentality will gather together.
Someone, one of them, will have the initiative to create the "Alliance Of Solo Guilds" and from that day on, you'll play with the same people you'll always know. (+ other randoms from the new Team, that may join you)

In the Beginning, There was Chaos
In the beginning, Devs created the Worlds and the Tiers. The squad was without group and guild, and pugs were over the face of the mists. And the Spirit of Alliance was hovering over the face of the players.

[joneirikb.7506]

Because I can't figure out how the kitten quoting system works: @Prophet of Flames.2783
 

• It's about multiple worlds with fair amounts of activity and player base going against each other, which happens pretty fast in the old system because of tier pairings. Here, you just get screwed randomly and there is no system in place to fix or address it.
• In the new set-up you get new random chaff every couple of weeks.

If they actually ran a full test of the World Restructuring it would work the same. Their plan (for now) is to run it in 2 months duration, same as the current linking system. So you'd have a world created similar to relinks now, and that world would stay together for 2 months, and the worlds would move around tiers in the same way.

Currently we've only seen short beta weeks, and now two weeks for this beta so they can test the 1up1down system with the WR. But this will in the end be similar to the current Link system just with smaller bits to mix. 2 months matches, 1up1down, new worlds finding their spots and get some balanced matches the last 4 weeks, and then another mashup again where everything is borked for some weeks until they get back into place.

• And it will be worse if in all that random screwing and volatility, players get to meddle with it or game the system and move around all the time. It will be impossible to create decent pairings.

Players will only be able to move about every 2 months, when the worlds are re-created (relinks basically). Outside of that they can't change teams.

They've said there will remain some way to transfer, but we don't know the details of that yet. But if they have any smarts, they'll not allow as free transfers as we've had these last 11 years, which is the reason we have had so much horrible population balance in the first place.

• Seems like all the frequent commenters here that want this sytem happen to be from underpopulated wvw servers atm, so it's understandable they would like a fix. But this begs the question, why didn't you fix this for yourself years ago? You could've moved to a more populated wvw server and just be fine under the current system. You choose not to, and instead clammor for this system nobody but you actually prefers. Why?

Not very relevant. But I don't want to go to a bigger world. Personally I'd rather consider transferring if I could go to a place with less zergs/blobs and more small scale. I'm still in favour of World Restructure. Not because I think it will be better for me personally, but because I believe it will be better for the majority of players, and it will create a system that can adapt and change to the games population/depopulation as they years go by. It also gives more options for each individual player to seek the experience they want to, without having to go through the cash store and deal with bandwagons and server limits. And will ultimately lead to a more balanced game mode in general. There are drawbacks and negatives, but I believe the positives outweigh that for the majority. 

• You won't know or recognize anybody, and nobody will make an effort to have them understand WvW better, because some weeks from now they'll be gone and you get new randoms.

This is actually quite similar to how many/most pugs feel it is with the current system (links), because they don't take the time to look out people or form relations with them anyway. Now people will be different, some might attach easier to a server or to a guilde than the other.

• And it forces you to join a WvW guild or perish. That's quite something to ask of people.

It's a matter of opinion, but personally I see that having your entire wvw experience forced to whatever random name you randomly clicked before character creation to be quite a lot more to ask of people. At least with guilds you can leave and join new ones fairly easy. Without having to pay gems for it, at the cost of either real life cash or emptying out your bank on the TP.

[enkidu.5937]

9 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

I don't want to go to a bigger world. Personally I'd rather consider transferring if I could go to a place with less zergs/blobs and more small scale. I'm still in favour of World Restructure. Not because I think it will be better for me personally, but because I believe it will be better for the majority of players

According to your signature, you've just managed the frist step: to understand your side. So, since you are not interested in large scale communities and more in small scale gameplay, you will obviously not be affected by the negative aspects of „World Resuckturing“ anyway. Understanding "their side", I see a lot of speculation there, e. g. "how pugs feel" and that a transfer would "empty their bank" 😙

[joneirikb.7506]

38 minutes ago, enkidu.5937 said:

According to your signature, you've just managed the frist step: to understand your side. So, since you are not interested in large scale communities and more in small scale gameplay, you will obviously not be affected by the negative aspects of „World Resuckturing“ anyway. Understanding "their side", I see a lot of speculation there, e. g. "how pugs feel" and that a transfer would "empty their bank" 😙

Most of that post was about clarifying points where the poster seemed to misunderstand how the World Restructure worked, or gotten the facts wrong. And you pick out my reply to the one thing I was doubting if I should even reply to, since it's simply an opinion vs opinion thing. Thus why I started that with "Not very relevant". Honestly, it feels like you're trying to side-track the conversation away from the other points.

I'm baffled that you think I won't be affected by it though, but I'd rather not ask for an explanation as that would just sidetrack further.

---

So, how many sides is there? For example, but there could be more:

* Server Loyalists
* Guild Loyalists
* Pugs
* Large-Scale
* Small-Scale

And how many of these interacts in multiple ways? And how much variety is there within each? How many are 100% one thing and not another? Or is it more likely that there's a whole bunch of greyscales and no blacks and whites?

In terms of large vs small scale, World Restructure won't be a significant change from Links. There will still about approximately same number of players, and with that large number we will generally enough averages that there will be players trying both large and small scale. The ones interested in organized large/small scale already do so with guilds, the ones more interested in unorganized large/small scale will either run as a pug, or often join a community guild of some sort. There will always be some exceptions to everything, and there is sure to be a couple of no-guild-server-only players out there, but realistically how many? And is it enough to be worth sticking to a system with so many other systematic flaws for a potential small number of players?

Guild loyalists obviously isn't going to have much trouble with this system.

Server loyalists are obviously going to have problem with this, now the question becomes what aspect of servers they're loyal to. Some are loyal to the community and I can understand that (always liked my own server community). The problem becomes when the loyalty is aimed at the ability to game the system, stacking, transfers, coverage etc. At which point it becomes a systematic/mechanics discussion, and no longer a playstyle/preference discussion. And also the main mechanic that players have abused to practically ruin the game mode balance for 11 years. WR is aiming at trying to fix a lot of those systematic problems with the game mode, which is the major part I agree with.

Lastly if we thus say that pugs are the ones that are not either server nor guild loyalists, they're usually there either as new players or just there for rewards. The majority of them will be happy if they get loot, commanders, and don't get constantly trampled all the time. 

---

Now one of the most critical parts of this discussion is that we don't have the numbers, ANet are the only ones that does, if they even can have the numbers on something like this. So we can't say how many there are of each type, and for every player that comes here and says "All my friends are server loyalists!" there will be another that comes and say "All my friends are guild loyalists/don't care." Because players largely play with people they agree with (effectively echo chambers lite).

So yes, understanding other players perspective/side is a very difficult thing, and honestly the majority of humans aren't capable of it. I try, but I'm not perfect. 

[LCL.6259]

12 hours ago, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

You could've moved to a more populated wvw server and just be fine under the current system. 

Probably has something to do with the devs promising this for years, until I stopped caring about the mode entirely. Consequently, that was the moment my server became active again. Oh well. 

[jul.7602]

Well. To those who thought that you couldn't stack alliances. Look at Seven pines. Massive PvP alliance steamrolling servers in both of their match ups. KDR differential is worse than Maguuma.

[Dawdler.8521]

28 minutes ago, jul.7602 said:

Well. To those who thought that you couldn't stack alliances. Look at Seven pines. Massive PvP alliance steamrolling servers in both of their match ups. KDR differential is worse than Maguuma.

Highest KDR on NA is only second place by a fair bit in their matchup, while the second highest KDR just barely inches out second place. The other two matches are fairly even in KDR. 

Highest KDR on EU is shared by two matchups (by a hair since its 1.2 vs 1.1 or lower) and once again, it's either second place or just barely leading by a thousand points.

I mean sure it can change completely in the weekdays but is that the low bar we set for steamrolling nowadays? 🤷‍♂️

Edited June 18, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[jul.7602]

5 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Highest KDR on NA is only second place by a fair bit in their matchup, while the second highest KDR just barely inches out second place. The other two matches are fairly even in KDR. 

Highest KDR on EU is shared by two matchups (by a hair since its 1.2 vs 1.1 or lower) and once again, it's either second place or just barely leading by a thousand points.

I mean sure it can change completely in the weekdays but is that the low bar we set for steamrolling nowadays? 🤷‍♂️

It's not a low bar. Seven pines is literally a alliance full of pvp guilds, and the other servers are just getting farmed day in day out. KDR is a landslide and people are realizing how dumb of an idea this was.

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, jul.7602 said:

It's not a low bar. Seven pines is literally a alliance full of pvp guilds, and the other servers are just getting farmed day in day out. KDR is a landslide and people are realizing how dumb of an idea this was.

Yet the matchup only tells us far that the team is great at zerging, horrible at coverage since they're not leading. This happen all the time in WvW 🤷‍♂️

The bar is so low not even Hermes can get under it.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Tiamat.8254]

I've enjoyed the beta. I can say is been a lot more interesting than normal but that might be people coming back for the perks like reward track bonus. 

Maybe just keep it as it was and have the bonuses as a stable to the game mode 😉

[Sugar Min.5834]

On 6/17/2023 at 9:58 AM, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

And this one lasts two weeks. Great.

Outnumbered on every map, nobody playing in this 'world'.
People don't want GvG, and they're making it clear by sitting these betas out en-mass. Please just stop catering to the very vocal 5% who think Alliances is a good idea and what they want, and start making actual content for WvW rather than spending time and resources on a system nobody wants that will only hurt WvW overall.

Yes I am sitting this one out. Totally.

Really, after so many betas dragged over a super long  period of time and then what? NOTHING CHANGED. Lobbed sided matchups, fake long queues and super lag. Give us new features and new maps instead. If it can't be done, it can't be done. We understand.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Min Min.9368

[modulo.8413]

I'm not one to post however, this has been the least fun experience I've had in wvw in almost 11 years. At this point I hope alliances never gets finished and the dev team can focus more on balancing and rewards. Seriously, what a huge let down for such a novel game mode. The balance team has made it clear that huge blobs with little to no skill are more important than smaller highly skilled groups. Maybe innovate ways to prevent map queues from glomming together like some zombie apocalypse.  

[Mabi black.1824]

On 6/17/2023 at 3:58 AM, Prophet of Flames.2783 said:

And this one lasts two weeks. Great.

Outnumbered on every map, nobody playing in this 'world'.
People don't want GvG, and they're making it clear by sitting these betas out en-mass. Please just stop catering to the very vocal 5% who think Alliances is a good idea and what they want, and start making actual content for WvW rather than spending time and resources on a system nobody wants that will only hurt WvW overall.

So let's see, someone writes you who has lost count of how many posts he has written because WR and alliances are not enough to improve the WWW gaming experience, because more work is needed to add, to make sure that these two new mechanics are contextualized in this mode, and make sure not to leave anyone behind.

But having said that, from T1 to T5 in the EU, we've probably never seen such balanced games in the first week and I predict it will be even better in the second week. Of course if you come from a very well organized and very numerous server, used to constantly overcoming the enemy with numbers or even with good experience. 

This would be a valid reason to justify this beta 7 as a bad experience for you. For the player on the less organized and less experienced server it will be an experience exactly opposite to yours. But WR is also this, we are mixing many small pieces with this precise intent. You will have some less certainty in the next WVW, because your certainties will be redistributed to everyone. But this could/should be more challenging for everyone, more fun, more stimulating.

Only the final touches to this project are needed, to make sure that winning or losing finally takes on (after so many requests) a meaning and allow all PvP players to be able to confront each other honestly. to get involved and to find a valid motivation.

Edited June 19, 2023 by Mabi black.1824