Worlds Restructuring or no Worlds Restructuring? What are even the differences?

[Aeolus.3615]

Scores seams more balanced but way way less fights, the number of ktrains  during the day increased but I haven't  been in  similar numbers fights since the beta started, what I see is more blob vs nothing moments during the week from the 3 sides, and this discourages me to play...

Imagine in gw1 Alliance battles game mode we have in gw1  (AB), where kurzicks could not join cause luxons were ktrainining the shrines and kurziks would have to wait till their ktrain momentum that's how it look if this was gw1

 

Anet always wanted to bring EOTM ktrains towards WvW, I am sad.

Edited February 2 by Aeolus.3615

[Mabi black.1824]

12 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I believe actually meant the opposite of what you think (ie agreeing with you) but the point of server pride is that it’s clearly the people on the world, not the world itself. Take WSR and rename it to Wetside Ridge. Would it change anything for the people on it? Would they suddenly say oh no no more pride in what we represent every single day?

Because for all intents and purposes, the world doesn’t exist for half of the worlds - they are a link world, not even getting credit for what they are doing. It’s just a name. And tbh a rather unfair position to be in then - do only some people have a right to fight for their actual world name?

I can agree with you 50%. I agree that the server is a name. The content you'll find on that server is its players and guilds. I don't agree that the current mechanic of connecting 2 servers is simultaneously excluding someone. Because even though they are 2 servers, they are all 2 participating in the ranking among all servers. If they do well if they work well together, both will get points. Both continue to represent their server.

[TheGrimm.5624]

Server pride doesn't have a single definition and how it translates in the WR kind of depends on why any given player might say they are server pride or not.

Throughout the Forums and the WR I do think that server pride is seen by people in a lot of different ways. Even with linking there is still server pride, while hosting or as a linked server. Its still a matter of seeing familiar faces and shared experiences. But even in single server days players would see server pride different.

There are three levels to this. Player, Guild and Server. Each have various scales. Example a Guild might see them themselves as defining a server, another might see themselves as part of it. A Player might see themselves as part of a Guild, as part of a Server or as themselves and they choose to live on this server. A server makes them all up as one.

Anet is hedging that Guilds see themselves as the Server. Just as they were that Alliances would be the new definition of a Server.  Servers are bigger than both though, and no I am not asking for larger Guilds or Alliances. While watching people try and define server pride its not a cut dry 500 players. A Server is the makeup of it's Guilds and Players and that carries over month over month. The WR will change this and that what makes some of us twitch. In the current system single and then linked Servers had tendencies due to their long term members to form habits from shared experiences. The three week WR showed this in various ways as players from one server would act one way and then others from another would completely be doing something opposite and both would be asking why did you do that!? Guild interactions, which the WR will not be able to account for also varied the way that a Server behaved. Take the beta, the two week test versus the single week felt different in my opinion due the differing mixes and just Player and Guild habits interactions. 

Server pride though will not be there once this goes live. No one will be long time members of a Server. So some will be impacted and others won't depending on the way they saw themselves and Guilds to the overall Server. Players options are join larger Community Guilds or, Alliances once they come out, or join other Guilds. But this will still be a subset of the larger servers we have today. 

Vendetta is part of the game. It too will change. Vendetta will be a loss in competition. You will no longer look forward to a match up with another Server after a given resort since it won't be the same group so why bother. This too will need new definitions. Now don't take Vendetta is bad in this context, its in a good way as you look forward to a rematch, win or lose. Was watching for this during the beta and this was more distinctive in the two-week test portion over the 1 week one. To me that reads there might be more of this over 8 week links at least but still won't be at the level that Single Servers or Linked Server have today until we get to some way for Alliances to be out and be knowable entities for that Vendetta factor to be applied to. Some of this applies to Guilds today but again not the same at a Server level.

 2 cents from a Server pride viewpoint.

[TheGrimm.5624]

19 hours ago, Wolfofdivinity.6251 said:

Server pride is the only negative I see and feel from these last few weeks. It's clearly non existent.

Not sure I agree here, there have been plenty of posts that I would define as server pride showing up during the tests.

[disForm.2837]

On 2/1/2024 at 7:11 PM, Wolfofdivinity.6251 said:

Server pride is the only negative I see and feel from these last few weeks. It's clearly non existent. This may be less of an issue for bigger guilds. But I'm in an exclusive roaming guild (smaller as you have to perform at a higher level to be accepted) that prides itself on hunting gankers and zerg busting. 

 

We all feel less motivated to log in and deffend our lands and these faceless people we care nothing for. I've probably logged in once this week. Been playing more Hell Let Loose than anything because it's just sucked the fun out of roaming.

 

Other than that clearly the activity and lack of transfers has been great. However how long until big guild learn to manipulate this system and stack? 

Thing is, we are comparing current Worlds, established along a decade with something as incipient as WR shards and that's a bit unfair.

Personally, I think WR will be better than the current system. They are going to release a sixth guild slot (or something equivalent, it really doesn't matter as long as you can pick who you play with). Your small guild will be able to choose other guilds and even individual players that fit your ethos. Over time, we will consistently play with the core players we want in our side, that's our new "world", much closer and personal than current worlds. 

 

[Dawdler.8521]

18 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

While watching people try and define server pride its not a cut dry 500 players

Pretty sure no one has ever defined server pride as 500 players. Maybe that you should have pride in your guild but that has nothing to do with a 500 player cap, does it.

[joneirikb.7506]

Just a different perspective:

My server was the original bandwagon (Kaineng), a gigantic guild transferred in during the tournaments, and dragged others with them. They completely took over the server, if you wanted to put a more negative spin on it you could call it a "Hostile Takeover". And when they got to T2 and realized they couldn't fight T1 they abandoned the server and transferred elsewhere (thus leaving the server in months of Glicko hell on its way back to T8).

So I personally see "servers/worlds" as revolver doors, like random pvp match-making, and not this entity to build up simply because you don't really have any control over it. Just completely unbalanced and abuse-able.

Now, I do think "Community" is something different, and because of my experiences, I see it as separate from "servers/worlds". So the servers are just containers that can be used to contain multiple communities. During the Bandwagon/WarMachine days there was multiple communities on the server, like for example the "new Kaineng" with WarMachine and their follower guilds, and then "old Kaineng" with the .... couple of dozen or so old roamers.

----

Now, when people talk about "server pride" I split it into two different parts: "Community" and "Stacking abuse". I'll only talk about the Community part of it:

Players playing MMO's are usually seeking communities in various ways (Exceptions exists, as always), and different players have different capabilities in terms of how much effort they can/will put into finding and joining a community. And so we have a lot of different types of communities and a lot of different definitions on what people consider to be a community. Typically the more active a person is about finding social/community in the game, they'll end up joining one or more guilds, and be very active in talking, organizing, and running with that guild. While more socially passive people might join a guild and just stay quiet and not interact that much. So the least socially active people can be happy just recognizing names in OW or WvW and feel that is a sense of community.

There's not really a right or wrong way to it, people are just different.

World Restructure is trying to change the "Container" that people have tried to interact with their sense of "Community" within. So when people say that organized guilds don't have a problem with WR it makes sense, because their sense of Community is already focused around the Guild Container. The major change that WR does to this, is that it makes "Community" more of an active/proactive thing, people have to organize their community. And for those people that are more socially passive that's a drastic change, and takes away what they feel is a nice and comfortable low-social effort Community.

A somewhat extreme compare would be if they changed PVE OW so that you instanced all maps, so if you went to queensdale you where alone. If you wanted people, you'd have to party/squad other players to bring alone (like in GW1, just without henchmen). Suddenly, you wouldn't be able to see other people in OW, and those that doesn't feel comfortable with talking with other players or join a guild, or ask others to join would feel completely isolated from the rest of the game. They would feel that the "Community" in the game was ripped out.

Alliances won't really "fix" this, it will just make it easier logistically to organize. Essentially under WR, players are going to have to re-consider/learn what they consider to be a "Community", it's too radical a change for anything else.

In the end, "Community" is the players and how they interact with each others. WvW have always been a sandbox mode, where they just stick a few things in and let players try to figure it out for themselves, and this includes the social interactions, and as such players have found a lot of different ways to build their own sense of social interaction/community. If you had 10 different players try to explain "Community" as detailed as they could, you'd probably get 6+ different answers, and they likely wouldn't be able to agree with each others.

There's just no way ANet can make any changes to the game mode/servers without destroying part of that, which is why they've been so reluctant about deleting or merging servers, or changing them at all. I think with WR they just decided they'd have to bite the bullet one way or another if they ever wanted to fix/change anything in the game mode. And they're hoping that players will be able to adapt again the same way we did at launch.

[Scolix.4879]

I don't know to me matchmaking felt far more balanced than the normal server vs server stuff now that the beta is over its back to completely onesided boredom where mithril/diamond blobs just rule over normal plebs.

All i can say the beta event was way more fun than regular wvw atleast for me because there was actual fun fights instead of just gigantic blobs waving crap at each others.

[TheGrimm.5624]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Pretty sure no one has ever defined server pride as 500 players. Maybe that you should have pride in your guild but that has nothing to do with a 500 player cap, does it.

Alliances which were to hold existing servers are capped at 500 as Guilds were. Some Guilds have spread among multiple Guilds that we have seen in NA. I can't speak to EU. In either case Alliances will not be able to hold a given server of today's size and Anet has stated servers are too big for them to work with. To the OPs idea of allowing players to opt into a system that allows a vast amount of a server to stay together may still leave more players then the 500 cap that was released by Anet in the past and leave too big a chunk that they will have problems sorting. We have both seen players already asking for that cap to expanded in the past as well as players asking that cap to be reduced as well.

Short version there may be passive options for servers to stay intact but that is questionable in the 500 size that was quoted for an Alliance. Personally I don't think Alliances would have been that size in the first place since any Guild in an Alliance would want to allow for all their potential members and allow for room for growth. Again have some thoughts about a passive server options but want to ponder them a bit. 

[Dawdler.8521]

10 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Alliances which were to hold existing servers are capped at 500 as Guilds were. Some Guilds have spread among multiple Guilds that we have seen in NA. I can't speak to EU. In either case Alliances will not be able to hold a given server of today's size and Anet has stated servers are too big for them to work with. To the OPs idea of allowing players to opt into a system that allows a vast amount of a server to stay together may still leave more players then the 500 cap that was released by Anet in the past and leave too big a chunk that they will have problems sorting. We have both seen players already asking for that cap to expanded in the past as well as players asking that cap to be reduced as well.

Short version there may be passive options for servers to stay intact but that is questionable in the 500 size that was quoted for an Alliance. Personally I don't think Alliances would have been that size in the first place since any Guild in an Alliance would want to allow for all their potential members and allow for room for growth. Again have some thoughts about a passive server options but want to ponder them a bit. 

The definition of server pride still have nothing to do with 500 players. 500 players is just a cap.

The defintion of server pride would be a group of players sticking together and fighting for their tag/name/association. Such as a server, or a guild, or an alliance, etc. It can be 10 people for all we care. It also has nothing to do with current server caps (which we dont know, but since "medium" and "full" servers are probably the eqvivalent of going from 1000 and 3000+ it vary a fair bit). It has nothing to do with name either. I dont have my server name this week. Am I automatically excluded from having server pride, I'm not allowed to have it?

But of course when I say that server pride are the group of people you are familiar with ie those you know on your server... "it's complicated". 

No. It really isnt.

Edited February 3 by Dawdler.8521

[TheGrimm.5624]

48 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said:

Just a different perspective:

My server was the original bandwagon (Kaineng), a gigantic guild transferred in during the tournaments, and dragged others with them. They completely took over the server, if you wanted to put a more negative spin on it you could call it a "Hostile Takeover". And when they got to T2 and realized they couldn't fight T1 they abandoned the server and transferred elsewhere (thus leaving the server in months of Glicko hell on its way back to T8).

So I personally see "servers/worlds" as revolver doors, like random pvp match-making, and not this entity to build up simply because you don't really have any control over it. Just completely unbalanced and abuse-able.

Now, I do think "Community" is something different, and because of my experiences, I see it as separate from "servers/worlds". So the servers are just containers that can be used to contain multiple communities. During the Bandwagon/WarMachine days there was multiple communities on the server, like for example the "new Kaineng" with WarMachine and their follower guilds, and then "old Kaineng" with the .... couple of dozen or so old roamers.

----

Now, when people talk about "server pride" I split it into two different parts: "Community" and "Stacking abuse". I'll only talk about the Community part of it:

Players playing MMO's are usually seeking communities in various ways (Exceptions exists, as always), and different players have different capabilities in terms of how much effort they can/will put into finding and joining a community. And so we have a lot of different types of communities and a lot of different definitions on what people consider to be a community. Typically the more active a person is about finding social/community in the game, they'll end up joining one or more guilds, and be very active in talking, organizing, and running with that guild. While more socially passive people might join a guild and just stay quiet and not interact that much. So the least socially active people can be happy just recognizing names in OW or WvW and feel that is a sense of community.

There's not really a right or wrong way to it, people are just different.

World Restructure is trying to change the "Container" that people have tried to interact with their sense of "Community" within. So when people say that organized guilds don't have a problem with WR it makes sense, because their sense of Community is already focused around the Guild Container. The major change that WR does to this, is that it makes "Community" more of an active/proactive thing, people have to organize their community. And for those people that are more socially passive that's a drastic change, and takes away what they feel is a nice and comfortable low-social effort Community.

A somewhat extreme compare would be if they changed PVE OW so that you instanced all maps, so if you went to queensdale you where alone. If you wanted people, you'd have to party/squad other players to bring alone (like in GW1, just without henchmen). Suddenly, you wouldn't be able to see other people in OW, and those that doesn't feel comfortable with talking with other players or join a guild, or ask others to join would feel completely isolated from the rest of the game. They would feel that the "Community" in the game was ripped out.

Alliances won't really "fix" this, it will just make it easier logistically to organize. Essentially under WR, players are going to have to re-consider/learn what they consider to be a "Community", it's too radical a change for anything else.

In the end, "Community" is the players and how they interact with each others. WvW have always been a sandbox mode, where they just stick a few things in and let players try to figure it out for themselves, and this includes the social interactions, and as such players have found a lot of different ways to build their own sense of social interaction/community. If you had 10 different players try to explain "Community" as detailed as they could, you'd probably get 6+ different answers, and they likely wouldn't be able to agree with each others.

There's just no way ANet can make any changes to the game mode/servers without destroying part of that, which is why they've been so reluctant about deleting or merging servers, or changing them at all. I think with WR they just decided they'd have to bite the bullet one way or another if they ever wanted to fix/change anything in the game mode. And they're hoping that players will be able to adapt again the same way we did at launch.

I think you kind of nailed it, and you made me think about it in a different way to put it. In real life you may choose to live in a town. That doesn't mean you pick your neighbors that may move in afterwards nor that you knew your neighbors when you first moved in. Doesn't mean you don't grow used to your neighbors and passively connect with them while you still might be active with your friends that moved in with you. A difference here is moving into a closed gated community that may require applications and references before they allow you in ( will never get this one but it happens) and then require you to follow a Homeowner Association. These are both types of communities, one is more passive and one more active but both are types. 

The bandwagon issue....WR is pointless if transfers are not addressed.

[TheGrimm.5624]

9 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The definition of server pride still have nothing to do with 500 players. 500 players is just a cap.

Just feeling a bit grumpy this morning are we? Why are you creating a strawman out of the 500 reference? You know where 500 comes from in the WR design.

9 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

The defintion of server pride would be a group of players sticking together and fighting for their tag/name/association. Such as a server, or a guild, or an alliance, etc. It can be 10 people for all we care.

Yes, its what we have now. Now doesn't this group involve both players that have just chosen not to jump servers? Doesn't that include people that join the same guild? Doesn't that include people that are on disparate voice comms? Doesn't that also include people that just fight together daily and may only emote but will still jump in a fight together with any of the above because they seem them daily? 

9 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

It also has nothing to do with current server caps (which we dont know, but since "medium" and "full" servers are probably the eqvivalent of going from 1000 and 3000+ it vary a fair bit).

Again you are trying to pull a point out of context since you took in a way that it wasn't meant. The OP was talking about a way to allow passive groups to stay together, aka what we have now. But Anet has said they can't work with server level links. 

9 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

It has nothing to do with name either. I dont have my server name this week. Am I automatically excluded from having server pride, I'm not allowed to have it?

So did you play in EoTM last week? What was your feeling about Red this week versus Red last week. Will Blue still hold that grudge from last week?

9 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

But of course when I say that server pride are the group of people you are familiar with ie those you know on your server... "it's complicated". 

No. It really isnt.

Please share then your uncomplicated view of what it is? I use complicated since as we have both seen overtime a number of definitions are used meaning different players might use a variety of versions of it. So when players ask can't this be coded for, which was one of the points of the OP, how would you code to allow a server group that is passively linked today to be grouped together in one of the new worlds without them organizing which may risk them losing players as was described by the OP? The point was the system doesn't handle passive groupings, which is true and as far as I know and isn't planned for, which you seem to say is simple. 

 

[Dawdler.8521]

14 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

What was your feeling about Red this week versus Red last week. Will Blue still hold that grudge from last week?

Well that I can answer because it's same kitten people we fight this week. As in literally, both enemy teams last week contained large alliances from this weeks two enemy servers.

WvW really isnt as big as people think it is.
 

14 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

The point was the system doesn't handle passive groupings, which is true and as far as I know and isn't planned for, which you seem to say is simple. 

Passive grouping as in players not lifting a finger? That'd be just having a team for 4 weeks before you get another. Active grouping would be joining a guild so you can be part of the group for more than 4 weeks. No coding would be required at all because that's what's already implemented.

The point of the OP was that WR doesn't fix the combat balance of WvW which, of course, isn't what's it's there for. There was absolutely no point about server groupings. Unless you are refering to another OP than the thread itself.

Edited February 3 by Dawdler.8521

[TheGrimm.5624]

23 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Well that I can answer because it's same kitten people we fight this week. As in literally, both enemy teams last week contained large alliances from this weeks two enemy servers.

WvW really isnt as big as people think it is.

I do think this might a EU versus NA environment. I think you have more larger groups where we have some but we have many more smaller groups. So how many guilds are you seeing in these large alliances would you say?

[Lucy.3728]

Alliances should be able to define their focus for better match-ups.

I prefer community alliances that offer room for everyone (yes, even the ranger, everyone should be allowed to play what and how they want, except gankers and AFKers) and cover all WvW tasks.

In the first two weeks we had an alliance (red) as an opponent that was obviously designed for combat. We ( blue) were no match for them, so we always avoided them and concentrated more on the third party (green), which probably also covered all WvW tasks without a recognizable focus and was closer to us in terms of combat than the red alliance.

Due to the beta and the sometimes faulty distribution, we knew players from each side and the red side had no fun because they found no content.
We, blue, felt comfortable with green but we didn't see any success against red, they took whatever they wanted from us.
Green was the underdog and had a lot of pressure from red and blue and probably the least fun.
Red became less active in the second week, had their prime time and we (blue) dominated outside.

After two weeks I changed alliances and had other opponents that suited me better.

But all this made no difference to the linking system for me. There you are also matched with opponents who are too tough or too weak.
Except that I like the linking system more because I keep everyone on one server regardless of guilds and alliances. My server has no big jumper guilds. And is not a victim of it.

Alliances with a focus on combat should be able to compete against each other in a match so that they also have their desired content.
Actually, these alliances are what the GvG was in the Hall of Heroes in GW1.
The restructuring should take this into account and offer them something in this regard.
This can be within the WvW if they are brought together, since they are hardly active 24 hours a day but also have their fixed playing times (usually after work and dinner) and outside these times the WvW is again the classic WvW.

You could even determine the times by activating corresponding events at fixed times that combat alliances find attractive. Anet would have to monitor the popular game times per alliance and adapt accordingly.

[CafPow.1542]

20 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

WvW really isnt as big as people think it is.

That one got me. How big do you (and others) think it is?

but most importantly: should it be bigger? I only speak for myself but mostly, it’s big enough for me. As soon as i have Q‘s on all maps on primetime it‘s big.

have i no Qs ever it’s probably to small, and have i always Qs no matter the time, i would consider it to big (since i cannot play)

[Dawdler.8521]

37 minutes ago, CafPow.1542 said:

That one got me. How big do you (and others) think it is?

but most importantly: should it be bigger? I only speak for myself but mostly, it’s big enough for me. As soon as i have Q‘s on all maps on primetime it‘s big.

have i no Qs ever it’s probably to small, and have i always Qs no matter the time, i would consider it to big (since i cannot play)

I was not referring to queues. That is a very narrow point of view.

[CafPow.1542]

19 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

I was not referring to queues. That is a very narrow point of view.

True, it is just my pragmatic approach of measurement. How the game works „for me“, and i know this is not optimal.

in the end what for me or some average joe matters is:

can i play? (Are there enough players around)

can i even entet?

is it more or less balanced.

 

but what would you consider big, or big enough?

[Lucy.3728]

From the amount of posts wvw and pvp seem very popular.

[kash.9213]

On 2/4/2024 at 6:12 AM, CafPow.1542 said:

That one got me. How big do you (and others) think it is?

but most importantly: should it be bigger? I only speak for myself but mostly, it’s big enough for me. As soon as i have Q‘s on all maps on primetime it‘s big.

have i no Qs ever it’s probably to small, and have i always Qs no matter the time, i would consider it to big (since i cannot play)

The population in general is enough to queue up almost all maps during prime time on most matchups, in NA at least, and maybe more so in those upper 3 to 4 tiers. The population in focus moves and displaces in volume by the whim and maneuvering of a portion of the general population. I've gone stretches of matches having been teamed up with and having gone against some guilds or quasi alliances from one match to another who kind of create their own gravity well. 

I think they're saying in a kind way that the more numerous fodder doesn't account for as much as the influencing guilds who can dictate standings for the course of a few matches just by going somewhere or another. 

Edited February 5 by kash.9213

[Scolix.4879]

On 2/3/2024 at 7:19 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

WvW really isnt as big as people think it is.

To me it is and its been the very reason why i have stayed playing the game since beta if it would dissappear or just completely be ignored i would propably just go play ESO as it has something similar i just hate the combat in ESO so much.

[Scolix.4879]

On 2/4/2024 at 4:51 PM, Dawdler.8521 said:

I was not referring to queues. That is a very narrow point of view.

Considering how big queue times are at peak times and how active wvw community in general is i would say wvw is very popular.

[Dawdler.8521]

57 minutes ago, Scolix.4879 said:

Considering how big queue times are at peak times and how active wvw community in general is i would say wvw is very popular.

I wasn’t referring to how popular WvW is either.

The point was how often we meet recognizable foes because we can fight almost all the tiers in a 4 week shuffle if there is enough movement. In WR we fought the same players and alongside recognized guilds we met so many times before.

 WvW isn’t really that big.

And people just went straight for their own queues in prime time, pretty selfish lol.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

the one thing making wr tolerable for me was the promise of alliances. as thats gone, i don't see wr being any better than what we have now

[Chaba.5410]

On 1/31/2024 at 2:08 PM, Riba.3271 said:

Every 2 month everyone transfers around

Literally the first year or two of the game.