Alliances when? Not this year! Sept Studio Update

[Dawdler.8521]

That's... an awful lot of fluffy corpo speech for just saying that world restructure will go live without alliances.

[TheGrimm.5624]

6 minutes ago, Meridian.9103 said:

I was always quite supportive and patient with the development of the WR and Alliances system, but this studio update post is taking it too far. It reads like they are desparately trying to somehow deliver on their plans from 5 years ago, without putting the required ressources into it, whilst framing it as a success. Which in itself is just embarassing by now, and as a WvW player I just feel trolled. So much for "cornerstone gamemode".

I really think that releasing just half the feature is a big mistake. It's going to introduce unnecesarily high friction in maintaining any sort of community. We already know this from the beta events. And this is undoubtly going to kitten a lot of people off.

This reads as we have lost a director and the new one wants to change up the projects but no one filled in the communication in between and since the last we got was we will get back to you on that 'next' week. So you get something like we got.

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 minute ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

That's... an awful lot of fluffy corpo speech for just saying that world restructure will go live without alliances.

Yeah its that 80/20 rule that comes up in IT a lot. Well you can 80% of it now or we can get you the other 20% in 5 more years.

[XenesisII.1540]

13 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Agree. Where I am going and trying to keep tools they have now in place for the most part is if we switched the trigger flags they were using to have the sort based on which guild you were repping at the time of the sort and we had a sixth guild option so everyone has one free to do this, does that fix some of the issue of Alliances not releasing at the same time as the WR?. This would link the player's account to 'NewRandonville' server and thereby carry over the guilds they could still use to rep but at the same prevent people from over stacking a server which was part of the intent in having limits in the Alliance portion. It would also solve one of the unknown questions of switching guilds after the sort. Alliances sounded like it couple handle that.

They either add a 6th so everyone has a empty free slot for their wvw guild selection, or they bring alliances so they don't need the 6th guild and just link one of your current 5.

They probably won't add another guild slot, and with it having the same stuff you would need to program change for the ui and chat and whatever other background changes, like the 6th guild chat or alliance chat, 6th guild slot in guild ui or alliance selector, etc, they're better off working on one or the other but not both, but it will be neither for now since they have it in mind to finish alliances at some point after WR.

The repping way going cause problems, someone forgot to change their repping last minute cause they were using another guild to rep for the guild claim bonuses on something else, or were on their bank character, or on a 2 weeks vacation and didn't have the right guild selected, etc. The current selector system is the way to go, just choose the option one time and you're set and can go about your business without worry.

 

Oh look my confused stalker is back. Thanks for contributing to the discussion. 😏

Edited September 14, 2023 by XenesisII.1540

[ArchonWing.9480]

9 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

They probably won't add another guild slot, and with it having the same stuff you would need to program change for the ui and chat and whatever other background changes, like the 6th guild chat or alliance chat,

As sad as it is, guilds themselves seem to be an abandoned feature in the game too. With the exception of the occasional new Guild Hall, there hasn't really been much changes.

[Dawdler.8521]

8 minutes ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

They probably won't add another guild slot

I'm still guessing its not trivial because its "hardcoded" into the account system - otherwise they would have just upped slots by now.

People will complain either way.

[Venport.3925]

Honestly id prefer more betas to alliances without alliances, even if they aren't testing anything rolling it out incomplete sounds like an awful idea

[subversiontwo.7501]

1 hour ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

That's... an awful lot of fluffy corpo speech for just saying that world restructure will go live without alliances.

Sometimes the shortest is the sweetest, well put.

Well, that and a looming suggestion that they thought a clearly not-needed part of the package was needed - that I like you believe is an excuse but is still a terrible excuse that makes them look worse than the likely truth they do not dare to be transparent about. It paints them as incompetent rather than uncommitted.

It's Anet though, it could be true 🤡.

Edited September 14, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[Pulsefire Jayce.4753]

This is where they should just outsource the coding and development of WvW to another company.  We've seen this whole song and dance for too long to know that Anet really doesn't care about the whole of WvW, except for maybe 3 ish devs.

 

Technically speaking, aren't we still under the beta testing of world linking from the announcement 6 years ago?  Yeah.....

[subversiontwo.7501]

17 minutes ago, Pulsefire Jayce.4753 said:

Technically speaking, aren't we still under the beta testing of world linking from the announcement 6 years ago?  Yeah.....

You can more or less add EotM to that as well, since they basically just left it in a beta state and then suggested it could be used as something else.

A something-else that it doesn't really have the features for, while those features are somewhat provided by Armistice Bastion, which is an additional game-purchase.

[Kelida.8690]

I think alliances are going the way of the fractal leaderboard.

[Hesione.9412]

Get rid of desert, replace with EotM!

Am I reading between the lines correctly that their update said the reason they don't see WvW as too important is because not enough people play it?

Gosh, I wonder why there is less "engagement" from players. Maybe fixing the major bugs and stopping cheats might do something to improve engagement.

[devastoscz.9851]

1 hour ago, Hesione.9412 said:

Am I reading between the lines correctly that their update said the reason they don't see WvW as too important is because not enough people play it?

Self-fulfilling prophecy. It's not like they're gonna gain players by ignoring the game-mode and consistently lying to the current players. At this point, Arenanet is slow choking this game mode with the crazy eyes and bared teeth.

[Solvar.7953]

Given there is often the request for additional guild slots for PvE players, and for WvW it would make sense, any bets on Anet offering to sell you a 6th guild slot for some amount of money?  I just don't see them doing it for free.

 

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, Solvar.7953 said:

Given there is often the request for additional guild slots for PvE players, and for WvW it would make sense, any bets on Anet offering to sell you a 6th guild slot for some amount of money?  I just don't see them doing it for free.

 

People would pay for it though. But thats the thing - its been requested for PvE, yet it hasnt happened. Its probably in the same category as race change, you can do anything but its too much work. And if its too much work for PvE, it aint happening for WvW.

[Burnfall.9573]

"Anyone can say they care. But watch their actions not their words."

I look forward to Anet actions. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Burnfall.9573

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 hour ago, Burnfall.9573 said:

"Anyone can say they care. But watch their actions not their words."

I look forward to Anet actions. 

Burn, mind sharing your thoughts on releasing WR without Alliances? To be fair I asked the question so I will answer first. I see it as removing existing servers and that has an upside and downside. Upside is servers that were stacked are split and servers that had people that stayed since that was their home/local bar both impacted in the same way. What I see as different is larger guilds are less impacted than groups of smaller guild banding together which Alliances would allow to confront larger single guilds. 

 

[Mabi black.1824]

10 hours ago, subversiontwo.7501 said:

Well, that and a looming suggestion that they thought a clearly not-needed part of the package was needed - that I like you believe is an excuse but is still a terrible excuse that makes them look worse than the likely truth they do not dare to be transparent about. It paints them as incompetent rather than uncommitted.

I have to say that I do not agree. Changing your mind, changing your opinion, just proves that you are an intelligent person. As I have already written in this forum, if you look in the mirror 5 years later and see the same person as before , who has not changed anything, ideas and opinions, you are looking at a person who will have little success in life. Look at everything around you with an open mind , because it is the very nature of this life that has been given to us, change and grow.

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 minute ago, Mabi black.1824 said:

I have to say that I do not agree. Changing your mind, changing your opinion, just proves that you are an intelligent person. As I have already written in this forum, if you look in the mirror 5 years later and see the same person as before , who has not changed anything, ideas and opinions, you are looking at a person who will have little success in life. Look at everything around you with an open mind , because it is the very nature of this life that has been given to us, change and grow.

Mabi, I admit, this sounds more like one director had a vision of what they thought and after they left others did not see it the same. So the new director said what can we use and what do we throw away. Have lived this a number of times so it sounds familiar. So when stepping outside of developers view points we need to banter on about can players fill gaps and still try and impact servers so its less EoTM and more like our normal WvW with peeps we know and get good matches and still allow encouragement to win so we can get post WR project in place to keep people competitive?

[Cyninja.2954]

12 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said:

If I were to speculate, I'd say it had more to do with losing one of the WvW devs than that.

Agreed, pretty sure that will have impacted the timeline. Tbh I am amazed they are still working on WvW restructuring at all. I was almost expecting them to not tell us that they stopped working on it.

The irony here being that in the current state of SotO, WvW players have more downsides than upsides with lack of a legendary relic so while the success of SotO is great for the game, there are some WvW players which are a bit left out for now. Let's hope there is a WvW legendary relic version once it releases.

That said and trying to be less cynical myself: if World Restructuring is implemented without alliances it will lead to a situation which would force the developers hand:

- either WR works well enough without alliances, in which case they will likely tweak it at best or not at all (biggst issue here is what the developers might consider "working" versus what the players think)

- or it requires alliances, which forces the developers hand to commit resources

either cases are wins for players. I doubt they would return to a server system once WR is actually completed and I stand by my assumption that this remains a huge "if it gets completed".

 

[Mabi black.1824]

31 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Mabi, I admit, this sounds more like one director had a vision of what they thought and after they left others did not see it the same. So the new director said what can we use and what do we throw away. Have lived this a number of times so it sounds familiar. So when stepping outside of developers view points we need to banter on about can players fill gaps and still try and impact servers so its less EoTM and more like our normal WvW with peeps we know and get good matches and still allow encouragement to win so we can get post WR project in place to keep people competitive?

My friend, you know that I completely agree with what you wrote. How many times have we written and suggested to Anet to better evaluate this hard work of alliances and WRs? How many times have I written that what it takes for WWW is to feed motivation and help/transport players to put their content? I've lost count. Let's ask ourselves a question among ourselves. In August we reached 11 years. How is it possible that wvw , practically with 3 small maps, day after day, has transported and continues to transport so many players 24 + 27 servers from 1500/2000 players ? virtually no major changes. While at PVE you constantly have to put a huge amount of work to add entire worlds ? And that says a lot about the true potential that our game mode really has.

Answer: It's the teams, the bias and the competition between the teams, It is the exact same feeling that the fan has for his sports team of hearts, and even more, because in addition to being a fan and observer, for your WWW team you are also allowed to participate and contribute. This is the secret of this mode. This is what makes WWW ''magical'' as someone wrote.

What now? It would take a little more courage to Anet, which I would like to be able to give him. To put the WR part on hold as well. and start talking about whot you need in wvw. Do we want to talk about changing a series of parameters? Do we want to talk about a new map? Do we want to talk about a new scoreboard? Do we want to talk about daily and weekly events that influence the pinteggio of the teams? We really want to talk about how WWW players can have more fun or not?.

Edited September 15, 2023 by Mabi black.1824

[Grand Marshal.4098]

47 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

The irony here being that in the current state of SotO, WvW players have more downsides than upsides with lack of a legendary relic so while the success of SotO is great for the game, there are some WvW players which are a bit left out for now. Let's hope there is a WvW legendary relic version once it releases.

 

SotO is "successful" ?

I had no idea..

[Mabi black.1824]

14 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Yes WR works at the guild level, but still have the problem of needing an extra guild slot for many players who already have maxed their guild slots out.

which is a non-issue. Do you need to be part of 5 different guilds to have fun in WWW? Delete one and overcome your frustration if you find it necessary to join a community guild to bring together more WWW friends.

[Mabi black.1824]

14 hours ago, XenesisII.1540 said:

Since it's deemed not necessary to have alliances to run WR, it may never be developed.

Honestly, even this does not move anything. You can bring together the people you want through a community guild, select it and they can all play together, with the same limit that an alliance would have. The real problem is WR, the real problem is to no longer have your kingdom, your home to defend, how to say motivation / purpose in a broader and more inclusive perspective, compared to the trivial guild.

[Swamurabi.7890]

WvW development can be summed up as Anet constantly lowering their standards and consistently failing to meet them.