For people that think World Restructuring is different from Alliances, can you explain how they are different?

[Knighthonor.4061]

For people that think World Restructuring is different from Alliances, can you explain how they are different?

[Gotejjeken.1267]

1 hour ago, Knighthonor.4061 said:

For people that think World Restructuring is different from Alliances, can you explain how they are different?

World Restructuring is exactly like EoTM--devs make a process that goes brrrr like a blender and throws everyone into big teams based on crac---err math or something.

Alliances is this, but players actually can group themselves via like allying their big fak--I mean totally real non-shell guilds and stuff.

[Custodio.6134]

Well, the meaning of World Restructuring has shifted a little bit, since ANet themselves haven't been fully consistent with it. 

Initially, "World Restructuring" was used to describe the whole process of shifting from servers, to a guild-based team-building process, including alliances, the breakdown of servers, and all reworks associated with it (including reward updates and other stuff that may come with it). 

With how ArenaNet described it more recently it's like this: 
 

• World Restructuring: putting players into teams, based on a guild selection (this, and ONLY this. nothing more, nothing less)
• alliances: allowing the guilds to be paired with other guilds (this has always been the vision from the beginning, but ANet never made it that clear)

The latter tho has now officially been postponed, and ArenaNet wants to launch it without alliances first. Which is... a delicate topic on its own, since the betas for WR  (we didn´t have an alliance-beta yet) weren't that well received (at least by a lot of players), most likely because of the lack of alliance-functionality (which people desperately asked for years by now) 
 

Quote

Up until recently, we have been considering the Alliance management UI a required part of shipping the World Restructuring system, which means that players are not currently getting much value from all of the work we have already put in. Many of the backend functions for balance and matchmaking already work at the WvW guild level. It’s extremely valuable for us to get consistent live data from players about how it’s working for them, so getting that system permanently online is now our first priority.

With the reprioritizing, we will not be opening the Alliances system to beta testing this year. We will refocus on delivering an always-on version of World Restructuring to players as soon as possible. From there we want to evaluate the new player experience, collect your feature requests, and monitor live data to allow us to make World Restructuring the best system that it can be.

One major priority in the perpetually active version of World Restructuring is growing and tuning the various criteria we use for matchmaking to create our WvW teams. Our goal here is to build a system with enjoyable experiences across a variety of player types so matchups feel as rewarding as possible.

We don’t have a timeline to share now, but we’ll keep you updated.

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/studio-update-september-2023/

Edited October 7, 2023 by Custodio.6134
added blogpost

[Cyninja.2954]

46 minutes ago, Custodio.6134 said:

weren't that well received (at least by a lot of players),

Careful there, according to which players? The 5 - 10 on the forums who in general dislike the restructuring?

I'd be careful with such claims without actually having any reliable data. 

The limited unreliable data we do have can be interpreted in different ways. What it did show though was accross the board more even matchups, which was even officially confirmed at similar activity.

Edited October 7, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 hours ago, Knighthonor.4061 said:

For people that think World Restructuring is different from Alliances, can you explain how they are different?

To be fair and honest I am server pride side. What does that mean to someone just reading? It means that I may have found friends not just in my guild but others and I like to hang with them enough that even if we fall to T4, will still like to group with, or at least lend aid to. Does that mean we share a voice, no. Does that mean we are in the same guild, no. Does it mean we squad up? No. It means to some of us that I see someone I need to lend aid I will since they are on my server and have been. It's as stated elsewhere a time to make bad decisions. People joke about Mag but I get it, its about getting your peeps up and dropping theirs, lol which is why I defend them at times till they go overboard and I have to balance the scales when they go overboard. Karma balances on both sides. But the idea is sound, help your side, get them. I can appreciate that, which is why I like them when to fight or link. Common ground you might say.

So to your question. WR just scrambles servers but doesn't allow smaller segments of a server to group up without becoming a single guild. Single larger guilds have more control of their player base by dropping players not following direction. WR without Alliances grants more control of new servers to the largest guild which leads to more imbalance due to a number of factors and leads larger guilds asking others to leave map or game mode to allow more of their players in. When said larger guild fail against the other side, they logout leaving that server outnumbered and they crash while outnumbered. See T1 tournament days as a reference as a clash between Zerg guilds, Warbands, Havocs and Roamers. Let allow k-train guilds in the mix.

So WR without Alliances just means the bigger is better, which is how we got to the point of the WR in some regards to size and over stacking in the first place. 

2 cents in a late night reply, I might question myself once I get have less blood in my coffee stream mind you.

[joneirikb.7506]

World Restructure:

The system/process of creating new Teams at X intervals, by fusing together Guilds and Solos (and potentially Alliances), to form new Teams. This replaces Servers as we know them today. This is what has been beta tested several times now.

Alliances:

A Sub-System of World-Restructure, that allows multiple guilds to "band together" (A Guild of Guilds, for all practical terms. Upper limit of 500, same as guild, at least initially), in order to be grouped together when World-Restructure forms new Teams. It would do absolutely nothing at all without World-Restructure (potentially a common Alliance chat, but unconfirmed).

Links:
 

 

Edited October 7, 2023 by joneirikb.7506

[Justine.6351]

4 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

To be fair and honest I am server pride side.

Remember when people were saying "just make a server alliance"?

[subversiontwo.7501]

Well, both words are ambigious and have been used to refer to different things or things in different angles over a number of years. The more time that passes, more angles will appear. Alliances with regards to ArenaNet was a GW1 feature. It was rumoured to be launched with GW2 but at axed around launch. Such features have been around in other games for 20 years and are sometimes called alliances (eg., EVE, 2003).

World Restructuring harkens back to 2014. When PvE saw the move away from servers to megaservers, the common terminology used in GW2 and in other games was Megaservers. The official name of the project, however, was World Restructuring. That implies that we could just as easily refer to this whole project as World Restructuring too: That both Megaservers and Alliances are just pet names to the same official terminology. So if anyone wonders when PvE got World Restructuring the answer is 2014 and we are behind ever since.

The furthest back I've been able to trace ArenaNet's use of the word Alliances with regards to GW2 is around the implementation of Megaservers when Colin J (before moving to AGS) was interviewed about how the changes to servers would impact server-oriented guilds and WvW. He then loosely referred to future possible changes that would turn these things into "Alliances of sorts". EotM (2014) was one such attempt. A project ArenaNet called "WvW 2.0" (2014-2016) was another etc. One way to sum it up is that PvE has alot of systems that are abandoned after release. WvW has alot of systems that are abandoned before release. I am unsure if EotM was ever actually declared out of beta.

Since then, many of us in WvW have kept referring to any work ArenaNet has pursued that implies a move away from servers as Alliances. I'm not sure how others approach it but I tend to refer to the name of the various design projects as Alliances and the entity of multiple guilds put together as alliances. One is a name so I give it a capital letter. The other is a generally understood entity (an alliance of guilds, as seen in other games).

In 2016, during the relink discussions then-ArenaNet designers referred to the project as both "the elaborate solution" (with relinks being the quick/temporary solution) and as "New Worlds". This is also a good time to underline that Alliances did not begin with the 2018 announcement. The aknowledgement of the issue and approaches to look into it began as early as 2013. You can trace this back through the devblogs on this very website alone. It's right there, click back to the beginning and go read early blogs.

What is relatively new to the terminology is to refer to these words as steps in a larger project. For some time now we have referred to World Restructuring as "Alliance project step 1" or something similar. With the most recent devblog now ArenaNet began to refer to Alliances as "Alliance project step 2". While they have always been rather vague about it, it may be good to know that by 2018 some sort five-step progression was suggested where 1 would be WR, 2 would be alliances (the guild entity), 3 would be matchmaking algorithms, 4 would be scoring and 5 would be rewards. How they look at the order or bundle it together now is subject to change. However, it helps you navigate their communication and continued fumbles since the recent devblog suggests that they have completed perhaps 90% of step 1, likely bottlenecked there, then ventured into step 2, have bottlenecked there, have ventured into step 3 and is now looking to finish up step 1 with at least part of step 3 bundled into it. Perhaps they now see that as step 1. That is their priority, but they have also not given us any deadline or indication of progress more than suggesting that most of it is already in place (ie., upwards of 90% complete).

Other terms apart of WvW and WvW-development terminology are also ambigious such as "server", "world" and "team" they have been used interchangably and transcending their meaning by players and developers alike over the years. Add "alliances" to the mix and it is easy to see why there is confusion between the four, even if they are relatively easy to understand if you know their roots (server being technical; world since relinks implying both servers forming a link; team meaning your weekly color and alliances implying a guild of guilds). If you understand that, it helps you understand that there will still be worlds when alliances comes out. They're not the same thing, but we have threads here understandably confused about it.

Edited October 7, 2023 by subversiontwo.7501

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 hours ago, Justine.6351 said:

Remember when people were saying "just make a server alliance"?

Yup that was one of the few ways for people to stay grouped under the WR project. Now the only options is to make a server guild, but that then impacts individuals guilds depending on if they allow you to change guilds once the new server is formed which is unclear at best.

[Dawdler.8521]

5 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

 but that then impacts individuals guilds depending on if they allow you to change guilds once the new server is formed which is unclear at best.

What do you mean? Thats always been crystal clear. We already know exactly how WvW guild selection work since we had the betas.

[Illustratr.9054]

Some of y'all post so much I wonder how much WvW you actually play. o/

[TheGrimm.5624]

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

What do you mean? Thats always been crystal clear. We already know exactly how WvW guild selection work since we had the betas.

But without Alliances does that make sense? So now the Alliance peeps to try and group up will need to act like the mega guilds and join a mega guild thus losing both claim rights and identity to group to fight a larger group whereas with Alliances various size groups could join together to fight single mega guilds. To me these are not the same thing and leaves mega guild more in control of what happens on new servers. Have seen how poorly that worked in T1 in tournament days to say that is not a good idea.

[TheGrimm.5624]

19 minutes ago, Illustratr.9054 said:

Some of y'all post so much I wonder how much WvW you actually play. o/

Oh boi. obs, is this another random account? Else you might want to keep your kids in line. Here I can support Mags thoughts on disliking WR since I am also server pride as you are and can even tell peeps to go Mag style when facing boon balls. But if you haven't figured out yet, not a fan of the of the misdirection since it doesn't help the conversation.

Edited October 8, 2023 by TheGrimm.5624

[Dawdler.8521]

2 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

But without Alliances does that make sense? So now the Alliance peeps to try and group up will need to act like the mega guilds and join a mega guild thus losing both claim rights and identity to group to fight a larger group whereas with Alliances various size groups could join together to fight single mega guilds. To me these are not the same thing and leaves mega guild more in control of what happens on new servers. Have seen how poorly that worked in T1 in tournament days to say that is not a good idea.

It's even more clear without alliances. It's literally the WR beta and that's it. 

There's nothing saying a community guild have to be a "mega guild". It can be 50 people from 5 different guilds. It functions the same as alliances, just without the UI organisation since it's a guild and based on individuals. The rest of what you say make no sense. Loose claim rights? You can still rep your regular guild and claim rights AFAIK are based on the number of repping members, not your WvW guild selection. Identity would be identical as alliances. You belong to a team just like todays worlds for two months. If you have been a link you know how that works when you get randomly assigned another world name that's not actually your "identity". We still dont know whether alliances would have been visible on the field (personally I still wanted [alliance][guild] to be the new tags but I digress) so it make no difference.  

Take the largest guild you have on your world, that's as much "control" over what happens on new teams that a "mega guild" have. 

Edited October 8, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[TheGrimm.5624]

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

It's even more clear without alliances. It's literally the WR beta and that's it. 

There's nothing saying a community guild have to be a "mega guild". It can be 50 people from 5 different guilds. It functions the same as alliances, just without the UI organisation since it's a guild and based on individuals. The rest of what you say make no sense. Loose claim rights? You can still rep your regular guild and claim rights AFAIK are based on the number of repping members, not your WvW guild selection.

That's a question I have, do you remember the UI that feature that if you changed guilds you were prompted for a confirmation and then told you would change guilds after the next restructure? That's where I question if they are going with that or that only applies during restructure. That's where I ask if we would be able to change guilds. If not that means that you would join your community guild that is your only guild option till next restructure. In that case if 10 guilds grouped as 1 they have per map one claim right. If these 10 were normally guilds that helped claim and thereby rank up and apply tactics and improvements you just lost 9 of those in your community guild.

7 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Identity would be identical as alliances. You belong to a team just like todays worlds for two months. If you have been a link you know how that works when you get randomly assigned another world name that's not actually your "identity". We still dont know whether alliances would have been visible on the field (personally I still wanted [alliance][guild] to be the new tags but I digress) so it make no difference.  

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/world-vs-world-update-june-2022/

The setting/unsetting bit is what I refer to. I didn't test this during the one multi-week test since it wasn't part of the test cycle. You may be right and I may be wrong and we can freely change, again I didn't try it since the plan was an upcoming Alliance test and that made more sense to test that feature there. So if you did, let me know, or if anyone did, let me know out of curiosity. Else this remains an open issue in the WR project in my mind.

[Dawdler.8521]

1 hour ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

That's a question I have, do you remember the UI that feature that if you changed guilds you were prompted for a confirmation and then told you would change guilds after the next restructure? That's where I question if they are going with that or that only applies during restructure. That's where I ask if we would be able to change guilds. If not that means that you would join your community guild that is your only guild option till next restructure. In that case if 10 guilds grouped as 1 they have per map one claim right. If these 10 were normally guilds that helped claim and thereby rank up and apply tactics and improvements you just lost 9 of those in your community guild.

We have seen exactly nothing that indicate any change from the WR beta. As mentioned, they have pretty much declared it's exactly like the WR betas by delaying the alliance feature yet saying they want to implement it ASAP (although with each passing day... yeah...).

You know how the WvW guild selection work as well as just having an extra community guild, come on. You are inventing a limitating that doesnt exist. WvW guild selection is not guild rep, nor is community guilds forced rep like they are your only guild. There are tons of us in community guilds today. Kitten I dont think I have repped FSPG in months and I claim with like 3 different other guilds.

1 hour ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

The setting/unsetting bit is what I refer to. I didn't test this during the one multi-week test since it wasn't part of the test cycle. You may be right and I may be wrong and we can freely change, again I didn't try it since the plan was an upcoming Alliance test and that made more sense to test that feature there. So if you did, let me know, or if anyone did, let me know out of curiosity. Else this remains an open issue in the WR project in my mind.

As above, there is absolutely nothing that indicate any change from their initial idea - 7+1 weeks, if you select a new WvW guild you are still on the same assigned team for a max of 7 weeks and then you get sorted with your new WvW guild on reshuffle.

You can argue if its an "issue" all day long but that describes a whole of things. Boonballs is an "issue". Balance is an "issue". Permastealth is an "issue". The missing cornerstone is an "issue". EBG not being Tangled Depths is most definetly an "issue". But WvW is still there aint it?

The only thing a non-alliance WR mean is more annoying guild management on individual level, if that's your "issue". For example if you select a new WvW guild mid shuffle, you are still part of the community guild. Question is will they know? Not sure if the GUI will be updated to reflect your WvW guild, if the guild will be informed automatically somehow. As is if you dont leave, the guild leader/officers wont know until the reshuffle and they see you on another team than theirs. Which means every reshuffle community guilds would have to clean it. Since WvW guild selection isnt your actual guild, they cant link them. Anet cant kick people automatically for selecting a new WvW guild since the guild they have selected could still be one of their main guilds, lol. 

If they stick to what they have said, they cant really do anything about that because it would mean completely remaking the how WvW guild selection works together with guilds and the GUI, which is... basicly alliance implementation.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Dawdler.8521

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

Alliances: Guild A joins forces with Guild B and Guild C to form an alliance. They are all thrown into Mogooloo to confront Seven Pines, who, in turn, is filled with solo players (PUGs) seeking to obtain their Gift of Battle. Mogooloo and Phoenix Dawn collaborate to take down Seven Pines. Guilds A, B, and C emerge victorious, while Phoenix Dawn, who has Guild F, doesn't mind their losses as they consider Guild F a group of losers anyway.

World Restructuring: Guild A finds itself in Mogooloo once again, this time to battle Seven Pines, who now has Guild B on their side. They join forces to take on Reaper's Corridor, where the only skilled player happens to be me. Guild A emerges as the victor, while Guild B faces defeat. In the next encounter, Guild A is double-teamed by Guilds B and Y.

[allshallperish.4620]

its not

[Dawdler.8521]

8 hours ago, Arianth Moonlight.6453 said:

Alliances: Guild A joins forces with Guild B and Guild C to form an alliance. They are all thrown into Mogooloo to confront Seven Pines, who, in turn, is filled with solo players (PUGs) seeking to obtain their Gift of Battle. Mogooloo and Phoenix Dawn collaborate to take down Seven Pines. Guilds A, B, and C emerge victorious, while Phoenix Dawn, who has Guild F, doesn't mind their losses as they consider Guild F a group of losers anyway.

World Restructuring: Guild A finds itself in Mogooloo once again, this time to battle Seven Pines, who now has Guild B on their side. They join forces to take on Reaper's Corridor, where the only skilled player happens to be me. Guild A emerges as the victor, while Guild B faces defeat. In the next encounter, Guild A is double-teamed by Guilds B and Y.

Your comparison falls flat on its face because it’s not two different systems. The matchmaking and players on each side between your two examples would be identical, the only difference would be alliances vs community guilds for organising them.

[TheGrimm.5624]

 

12 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

We have seen exactly nothing that indicate any change from the WR beta. As mentioned, they have pretty much declared it's exactly like the WR betas by delaying the alliance feature yet saying they want to implement it ASAP (although with each passing day... yeah...).

Where did we have a multi week beta where we could switch guilds? Or let me change the question since I did not try, did you switch guilds during any of the betas? I didn't try it, hence my question since I didn't try the feature.

12 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

You know how the WvW guild selection work as well as just having an extra community guild, come on. You are inventing a limitating that doesnt exist.

lol orly? So how often have you seen me make things up? I question when I have not seen or tested a thing. Is this like when you said welcome to WvW while we were both thousands of posts in. lol come on my snarky friend I hope you know me well enough that I don't tend to troll but ask when I see a reason to ask. I know how guild selection works, but again I didn't test trying to switch guilds during the single double week beta nor the single weeks, did you? Seems like a straight forward question? 

Edit: I don't code for games but for distribution and the number of times that assumptions are made about coding is over the top. There is a reason that only 10% of software projects hit budget because of the assumptions made in either scope or purpose as defined and understood by all sides defining those details to come up with those numbers. Having lived that, I don't agree that we have a great scope of what has been defined. IMO, hence I question.

Edited October 9, 2023 by TheGrimm.5624
Edit: Insight

[Dawdler.8521]

8 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Seems like a straight forward question? 

It’s a question that’s pretty irrelevant. The beta was a test for the shuffle. I couldn’t be bothered to change WvW guild no because there was no point. I can’t even remember if the 2-week was a normal reset or an actual new shuffle.

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

It’s a question that’s pretty irrelevant. The beta was a test for the shuffle. I couldn’t be bothered to change WvW guild no because there was no point. I can’t even remember if the 2-week was a normal reset or an actual new shuffle.

I didn't either. Since I was expecting the next test, which we didn't get, which would allow it.  I was hoping you did. I hope I am wrong, but I don't want to assume. I admit to being a kitten, IRL, but I try and not be one unless grumpy on the forums so we can get details. If I come across as trolling, then I will try and do better. But I really would like more details so we all can not assume. And my friend, any time you think I am trolling, ask me, we have both been around long enough I will answer the question fairly. Till then, rest well when you seek it, or I hope it was restful at this point if it's passed. Its 3:15 AM on this side and alarm in 4 hours. Good hunting till the morrow! Forum Wars 2 awaits a new day. 🙂 See you then and may your bags be full! Good hunting!

[Custodio.6134]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I can’t even remember if the 2-week was a normal reset or an actual new shuffle.

It was just a normal reset, no rebuild in-between. It's been literally the same tests as before, just with a normal reset in the 1up1down system

[Mabi black.1824]

On 10/7/2023 at 9:01 AM, Cyninja.2954 said:

Careful there, according to which players? The 5 - 10 on the forums who in general dislike the restructuring?

I'd be careful with such claims without actually having any reliable data. 

The limited unreliable data we do have can be interpreted in different ways. What it did show though was accross the board more even matchups, which was even officially confirmed at similar activity.

How can you not see that WR will be a new problem of this game mode. What do you need similar teams/servers for when you're simultaneously depriving teams/servers of identity? Are we used to being a small part of our team/server for a virtually infinite period of 11 years, and do we want to switch to an 8-week period? Is there really nothing else in between?

Every single content I can propose in WWW I do in reference to my team / server. not in reference to my guild. which I am very fond of. But Gilda is only a means to participate in this mode. not the purpose. They are players who know each other along the way, who have similar schedules, who interpret the game action in a similar way etc etc.

I don't know how many players participate in this game mode in reference to their team/server. In any case, I am here to testify to this. And in my team there are many others. And I can only imagine it's the same on the other teams.

Surely this is the part of players who have held and still hold this game mode together. With so many small problems that deserve to be solved as we all know well. While the other part of players who have lost their identity and have difficulty understanding why they are playing WWW are the ''problem'' because the only thing they do for sure, is to contribute to the imbalance rather than try to manipulate the games in their favor.

Having said that, now I would like to ask the guys at Anet: when? When do we want to give some love that this game mode deserves? When can we really talk about how to give WWW something more? And make sure that WWW truly remains an immersive and addictive large-scale PvP game? when?✌️

[Dawdler.8521]

3 minutes ago, Custodio.6134 said:

It was just a normal reset, no rebuild in-between. It's been literally the same tests as before, just with a normal reset in the 1up1down system

Ah then indeed swapping wvw guild selection would have been pointless.