EstaticFear.7692 Posted June 29 Author Share Posted June 29 First of all, thank you all for your valuable comments. My server's community has scattered into ten different guilds. You say, "Why didn't you join a guild?" I already have a guild. But of course, I am not the center of everyone's life on the server. Different balances and political situations give rise to different guilds, so even if you join the largest guild on the server, you can only play with about 20% of the population. It's time to move past these simplistic suggestions like "start your own guild" or "join a large guild" and get to the heart of the matter. Anet has been unable to resolve the power imbalances in the game, and the current approach seems to be offloading this responsibility onto the players to fix. We are players, not developers. It's the developers who should be addressing the game's imbalances, not us. Looking at all the updates and changes, it's clear that Anet is trying to absolve itself of responsibility and pass the burden and responsibility onto the players. As a result, we players are left polarized and fanatically arguing with each other on forums and everywhere else. This responsibility is not ours. It's evident that these changes have only served to polarize and fanatize people further. If they really want to make effective changes and seek our contributions as players, they need to be honest. They could have solved the problem by creating four tiers, but when they tried it last, nobody could play because of the lag. Anet needs to improve its servers, and they know it. Instead, they are trying to solve this issue by pitting players against each other and pushing expansions aggressively. I reiterate, this is neither our fault nor our responsibility. This is the state of the game after ten years. 10 4 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaba.5410 Posted June 29 Share Posted June 29 7 hours ago, EstaticFear.7692 said: Anet has been unable to resolve the power imbalances in the game, and the current approach seems to be offloading this responsibility onto the players to fix. We are players, not developers. It's the developers who should be addressing the game's imbalances, not us. Looking at all the updates and changes, it's clear that Anet is trying to absolve itself of responsibility and pass the burden and responsibility onto the players. How you come to that conclusion when it's now a game algorithm that places everyone onto teams instead of players? 2 1 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArchonWing.9480 Posted June 29 Share Posted June 29 14 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said: Name 500 players from your servers from memory. Or even name 10. 2 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EstaticFear.7692 Posted June 29 Author Share Posted June 29 6 hours ago, Chaba.5410 said: How you come to that conclusion when it's now a game algorithm that places everyone onto teams instead of players? I don't know where you got lost in what I wrote, but let me try to explain better. An algorithm might determine team placements, but it doesn't resolve the core issues of balance and community integrity. The mere act of using an algorithm doesn't absolve Anet of their responsibility to maintain a balanced and enjoyable gaming environment. Algorithms can only do so much. They are tools, not solutions. The power imbalances and fragmentation of communities are results of poor game design choices and lack of proactive management from Anet. Just because an algorithm is in place doesn't mean the underlying issues disappear. It doesn't fix the deeply rooted problems that stem from years of neglect and mismanagement. An algorithm can shuffle players around, but it can't restore the sense of unity, server pride, and cohesive gameplay experience that has been lost. Furthermore, the reliance on an algorithm highlights Anet's attempt to automate away their responsibilities. Instead of engaging with the community, understanding their needs, and making thoughtful adjustments, they are pushing the problem under the rug with a technical fix. This is a clear abdication of their duties as developers. Players should not be left to deal with the fallout of these decisions. We are here to enjoy the game, not to clean up the mess created by ineffective management. The developers need to step up, acknowledge their failures, and take real action to address the issues. Simply hiding behind an algorithm is not only lazy but also disrespectful to the community that has supported this game for years. So, to answer your question: The conclusion is based on observable facts. An algorithm is not a magic wand that fixes everything.The radical changes made in WvW have not resolved any power imbalances. Instead, players are running from guild to guild trying to survive in WvW, turning into ping-pong balls between communities as they attempt to balance power on their own. Anet's approach to shifting responsibility is evident in their reliance on such methods while ignoring the deeper, systemic issues that plague the game. It's time for Anet to take accountability and start making meaningful changes. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morvran.8265 Posted June 30 Share Posted June 30 On 6/29/2024 at 8:57 AM, Chaba.5410 said: The other thing that isn't being acknowledged is players in practice don't really know everyone on their server. Even in these 500 man alliance guilds, you know everyone? Name 500 players from your servers from memory. Nonsensical argument. Yes in theory 500 would be enough to hold most of the active core of the community. But those 500 people aren't limited to only being friends with others from that 500. Your close friends join alliance A because they often play at odd hours, your favorite commanders split between alliance B and C, the roamers you knew got to alliance D, other friends are joining their PvE guild in alliance E and so on. How are you going to keep all these people who used to make up the server, together? Or what if I take a month off playing GW2, get kicked and replaced, do I ask my friends to leave their guild for me? Do I ask the guild to kick someone for me? This was not a problem before. And each week these communities will keep changing too, unlike servers. The stability is no longer there. Even if you weren't personally friends with everyone, those people contributed to shaping a common community. WvW is a lot less social now for many of us. 7 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H K.4057 Posted July 1 Share Posted July 1 On 6/28/2024 at 6:42 PM, Farohna.6247 said: As a roamer, I've been having a lot of fun with not only behind the lines while everyone else is in a zerg, but also running along with other roamers. I've been meeting different players, more small roaming groups, and more open tags and it's been quite welcome. While this has more to do with the previous server I was on, it's nice to see less stagnation. My suggestion would be to adapt, flex a little. Run along with a zerg occasionally, but you can still run along happily being a nuisance 😄 I've been solo roaming on Dragonbrand since headstart, and this "beta" and past betas have been an upgrade in terms of my solo roaming experience. I actually have other competent roamers that will respond to call outs. When I see a friendly, I don't think he's going to just be res bait. I think a lot of the complaints that we see about this new WvW system come from people who were used to "winning," and now they are stuck with the bads the rest of us have had to deal with for a decade. That said, I don't entirely disagree with OP's point about how the the restructure is kind of worthless. We have the same kind of lopsided matchups as before, except now we don't know anyone and will never have a chance to actually form a community. Why even put all this effort into this new system when it doesn't actually fix anything? 6 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mistwraithe.3106 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 On 6/29/2024 at 6:29 PM, Ronin.4501 said: Almost every server formed a community guild in preparation for the WR betas. Why didn't you join that community guild if wanted to remain a part of that community? You could have joined that alliance guild, followed them to whatever server/shard they went to, and then continued to roam while still interacting with all the people from your old community. Instead you chose to do nothing just as so many others here did, and you reap what you sow. Are there any servers where this was actually the case? Presumably not as guilds are capped at 500 members and old WvW servers had way more than that. The people I knew from my old server are scattered across at least 5 different teams now. The three guilds I am a member of and used to play WvW with are on 3 separate teams (2 of them in megaguilds). Another guild which I ran with sometimes but wasn't a member of is on a 4th team. Then there is a "community guild" which some people on the old server created but it's only got a small fraction of the players in it as most seem to have picked other guilds instead. I'm sure there are hundreds more players in other teams that I don't even know about. So, which guild should have I have picked to continue to "roam while still interacting with all the people from your old community"? There's nuance in whether the new WR system is good or bad, I'm still somewhat undecided. But, honestly, people who say it's "our fault" for not making some magic choice that would have let us keep playing with all our WvW friends really wind me up. It's patently wrong. The only thing I could do was try to pick the least bad option. 8 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cannibalkitteh.8376 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 21 minutes ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said: There's nuance in whether the new WR system is good or bad, I'm still somewhat undecided. But, honestly, people who say it's "our fault" for not making some magic choice that would have let us keep playing with all our WvW friends really wind me up. It's patently wrong. The only thing I could do was try to pick the least bad option. That really bothers me too, it ignores that individuals often have little say in who thier guilds ally with. I got several variations of "If you want to keep playing with us, you need to join X alliance". It ignores that a lot of us relied on a lot of known pugs to fill out our groups. It ignores that the people you play with in your guild's off hours aren't going to want to join your alliance if there's no coverage in their timezone. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One more for the road.8950 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 There are some people from my old servers that are very happy that they can now split from other guilds and people on the servers, WR is basically a get out of jail card for some. Funnily enough I don't see them complaining in the forums. 2 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T G.7496 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 For most people, the requirement to make a choice is painful. Because it implies a sacrifice of some kind. And, because you also have to face the consequences of your own decision, it becomes harder to place the blame for disatisfaction elsewhere. Over several weeks I narrowed my WR choices down to two, and made a final decision only in the last couple of days before the cut-off. It wasn't easy. But two things occur to me. Because I made a choice, I'm more invested. It remains entirely open to me to reverse my decision. I just have to wait a bit. Some people, it seems, just let this happen to them. They refused to make a choice. Which is a choice in itself, I suppose, and actually one which superficially makes it easier to blame everyone and everything else for whatever comes. But whose fault is it, really? And some people, it seems, characterise what has happened as the end of the world, and not simply the end of servers. Sometimes these are the same people. I don't know if WR is better or worse. For me, so far, it has been both. I'm in the late stages of my relationship with this game anyway, I think. But at least I took some positive action in determining the shape of my future. I'd recommend it. 5 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One more for the road.8950 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 It's "easier" to blame external forces for whatever happens than take internal control for some, I guess. Neither one is good in their extremes, but taking no decision or choosing to do nothing and then blame surroundings is pretty far out from the middle. 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T G.7496 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 29 minutes ago, One more for the road.8950 said: It's "easier" to blame external forces for whatever happens than take internal control for some, I guess. Neither one is good in their extremes, but taking no decision or choosing to do nothing and then blame surroundings is pretty far out from the middle. It's a lot more common than perhaps you or I would have thought. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One more for the road.8950 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 12 minutes ago, T G.7496 said: It's a lot more common than perhaps you or I would have thought. Or maybe it's just that they're louder. If you took some control, did some actions and have a notion that you can't always blame everything but yourself you're probably happier or better off, or at least a bit more level headed about pulls and pushes. 2 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronin.4501 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 7 hours ago, Mistwraithe.3106 said: Are there any servers where this was actually the case? Presumably not as guilds are capped at 500 members and old WvW servers had way more than that. The people I knew from my old server are scattered across at least 5 different teams now. The three guilds I am a member of and used to play WvW with are on 3 separate teams (2 of them in megaguilds). Another guild which I ran with sometimes but wasn't a member of is on a 4th team. Then there is a "community guild" which some people on the old server created but it's only got a small fraction of the players in it as most seem to have picked other guilds instead. I'm sure there are hundreds more players in other teams that I don't even know about. So, which guild should have I have picked to continue to "roam while still interacting with all the people from your old community"? There's nuance in whether the new WR system is good or bad, I'm still somewhat undecided. But, honestly, people who say it's "our fault" for not making some magic choice that would have let us keep playing with all our WvW friends really wind me up. It's patently wrong. The only thing I could do was try to pick the least bad option. But you're ignoring the fact that your friends all chose to go off in different directions. If the system had remained as it was you still would've had to choose whom to play with. Your community was split even before WR came out. Ultimately this change isn't really all that different. You're choosing to play with one whilst being separated from the others. WR is an opportunity for the majority of us who saw their "communities" dissolve to form communities of our own, rather than being stuck on servers that had no community. What I'm seeing based on the comments here on the forums is that some of us managed to put together good, workable communities, while so many others just slapped together something that already has become untenable. So I stand by what I said. The effort you put in is what you get out of it. 2 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keyokku.5412 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 servers before had communities just due to association and familiarity. specialized wvw guilds formed so u can join wvw players of your server large and small PvX and casual guilds are often very strong communities too and often could not play together. this update basically was trying to open up wvw so more players and pvx guilds could play together personally I've been playing more wvw now since I can run it with my friends and actually make ppl who never played wvw to join , rather than a specialized wvw guild on my server which often died out over time since they were mainly selling the guild on one game mode. im also seeing a lot more roamers, solo or small groups now in my match ups and a lot less commander led zergs. maybe speaks to the amount of ppl playing or what they did with map capacity but it's a little different and interesting.... both approaches has its pros and cons Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimm.5624 Posted July 2 Share Posted July 2 2 hours ago, keyokku.5412 said: im also seeing a lot more roamers, solo or small groups now in my match ups and a lot less commander led zergs. maybe speaks to the amount of ppl playing or what they did with map capacity but it's a little different and interesting.... This might vary per sort and per community guild that gets into your mix and/or in your matchup. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godfat.2604 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 (edited) There are a lot of good points put in this thread. I wish ANet would take some time reading them and reflect a bit. Not just about population or match making, also about only balancing around boon balls, and constantly nerfing defense. I believe all are closely related to each others. Scoring, too, even though it's not touched yet. I also see people often conflate the ideas of match making and population balance. They're different and world restructuring only touches population but not match making. I would like to once again propose that we don't have to shuffle the teams so often. If we keep the same teams for 1 year or more, it's no different than the old worlds system, except under different world names. ANet could somehow come up with a health indicator, and as long as the current teams are healthy, there's no need to reshuffle the teams. We can run the same teams as long as 10 years if they're healthy, and it would be the same as the old worlds. As long as it's not healthy like Mirror of Lyssa that I heard of, we can schedule a shuffle. We need to stabilize the teams so teams can go to the right tiers, and allow individuals to transfer like the old system once in awhile so individual can also find the right tiers for them, instead of getting stuck. Of course population balance will change if we're not reshuffling the teams often, but I think match making is way more important than that, which is going to take time to reach a more stable status. Beside, I firmly believe to build a community larger than a guild, a more persistent team like the old world is definitely needed. Next, do something about scoring so that we can balance the matches better. Population is not going to be stable if matches are unfun. Only if matches are consistently fun, can population be more consistent. Didn't we learn enough lessons from Maguuma and Blackgate? Edited July 3 by godfat.2604 fix grammar 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dayra.7405 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 On 6/26/2024 at 11:57 PM, EstaticFear.7692 said: Since GW2's release, we've developed a familiar style, shaping our play and socializing within our friend circles. Sounds like you failed to take the last step of socialization: found a loose roamer Assoziation (guild) to be further linked together. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neven.7528 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 To me it seems a roamer community shouldn't matter if they are on the same world or not. You could easily pick your wvw guild that plays the larger scale (whether its 5,10,15 or zerg play) and then still be in a roaming community and feel a sense of belonging there. Its as much fun facing your friends as it is being allied with them 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimm.5624 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 lol. Roamers will make due in any system. It's why players roam. It's what can we do solo and how much impact can we make. Havocs are impacted more by the changes. Warbands further impacted. Zergs/Full squads the least. For players that actually roam its more knowing your other roamers and havocs and what to expect. It's also more lol to see a new zerg chase you across a map without context of why. If you are using 50 to chase 1 scout, you might want to rethink your tactics. But if you don't, ok, all fair and game on. Lets visit your spawn point. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joneirikb.7506 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 (edited) 1 hour ago, godfat.2604 said: Liked your post. Oh and warning, incoming rant/wall of text. Quote There are a lot of good points put in this thread. I wish ANet would take some time reading them and reflect a bit. Not just about population or match making, also about only balancing around boon balls, and constantly nerfing defense. I believe all are closely related to each others. Scoring, too, even though it's not touched yet. Couple of points: Boonball/class/skill balance is a separate department of ANet. And has seemingly been told to only care about PVE, and ignore WvW/PvP unless something completely break something (like if a skill can kill an entire zerg kind of thing, roaming completely ignored). WvW department seems to be a couple of system-engineers, with little experience/knowledge of other things like game-mode balance/design. Likely put there just to finish off the WR and other systems from the plan back from ~2017-2018 (back when Tyler Bearce was talking to us). So even if it's something that is closely related to the feeling of enjoyment in the game, they're far away from each others logistically/priority within ANet. And would simply put have to be two separate projects from ANet's side, which would require a shift of priorities (which I doubt will happen). There are still (probably) things the WvW developers/team could do. The wall repair change for example. They can also (probably) adjust siege skills/numbers and tactics etc. But that begs the question: If they're mainly a bunch of system engineers with little balance/design knowledge, do we want them to touch things? It could get a lot worse... And before someone suggests it... do we REALLY want to let them make changes based on player democracy/voting? I certainly hope most people can see how horrible that would turn out... Quote I also see people often conflate the ideas of match making and population balance. They're different and world restructuring only touches population but not match making. Excellent point. Most players seemingly expect way more out of WR than it's really made to solve. It isn't and never was intended to be a "Silver Bullet" to solve all problems every player might have with WvW. It's a structure re-design meant to handle what was considered the biggest problem in WvW as of ~2017, which was the big size difference between servers, and the effects of transfers. With an eye toward making it future proof so they don't have to server merge/link in the future. Players are wanting all kinds of things out of WR that it wasn't supposed to do: Equal number of players AT ALL TIMES 24/7. Equal skill level Equal number of commanders at all times Never having a weak time-zone/skill-zone/non-commander-period Open WvW screen, click button "Give GoB!" and just get one in inventory Fix boonball/balance/skills/stealth/one-shots/tank-meta/conditions/your-grandma! Remove all players <you> deem toxic/bad/thieves etc Quote I would like to once again propose that we don't have to shuffle the teams so often. If we keep the same teams for 1 year or more, it's no different than the old worlds system, except under different world names. ANet could somehow come up a health indicator, and as long as the current teams are healthy, there's no need to reshuffle the teams. We can run the same teams as long as 10 years if they're healthy, and it would be the same as the old worlds. As long as it's not healthy like Mirror of Lyssa that I heard of, we can schedule a shuffle. We need to stabilize the teams so teams can go to the right tiers, and allow individuals to transfer like the old system once in awhile so individual can also find the right tiers for them, instead of getting stuck. Of course population balance will change if we're not reshuffling the teams often, but I think match making is way more important than that, which is going to take time to reach a more stable status. Beside, I firmly believe to build a community larger than a guild, a more persistent team like the old world is definitely needed. An interesting point, but I see one big fault with it: That "transfers" are now linked to the "WR shuffle", so we need WR-shuffles somewhat regularly to move players around to play with their friends. That said, I'm absolutely for longer WR-shuffle times, and that seems to be what the system is designed for/around. The current 1 month plan is a temp solution for two reasons: To allow more rapid player movement, as they assume (rightly) that a lot of players are going to need some months before they manage to find guilds they like and settle down. More rapid data and tests of the system. I expect that once they feel they got what they need out of those two, they're going to move back to either 2 or 3 months WR-shuffles. Which should be enough to at least let the system work. But we'll have to see, no plan survives first contact with the enemy and all that. Quote Next, do something about scoring so that we can balance the matches better. Population is not going to be stable if matches are unfun. Only if matches are consistently fun, population can be more consistent. Didn't we learn enough lessons from Maguuma and Blackgate? The point that interest me the most, a lot of the reason because you manage to cram a lot of things into a very small sentence. - Points/Score - Points/Score is the main "matchmaking" system of WvW, I think we agree upon that. As well that we can learn a lot from BlackGate/Maguuma. I think where we might differ on that, is that I think BG/Mag mostly abused the point system to get what they wanted. Which is more fun for them, which should be a good thing. But created more negative experience for others, which is a bad thing, and honestly was out of their control most of the time. I see those two servers as both the biggest abusers of the point system, but also as the biggest users of it at the same time. Now, Point/Score is an important design of WvW, and one which most of the game-mode is built around. And one which players for the most part ignore, which means that a lot of the mechanics and systems of WvW becomes unused/unnecessary. For example if you consider Points/Score primary purpose to be match-making, then you're ignoring quite a few of the systems and purpose of the system already. Which is understandable, most players have ignored most of those systems for near a decade already. But that means the entire Point/Score system is clearly insufficient for what you want it to do, if you think its only purpose is matchmaking. At which point the most important question is "What do I want the point system to do? And how does that affect the rest of the game-mode?" I think it could be a useful discussion to have between both players and ANet exactly what kind of point system we would want, but that also strongly dictates what kind of game-mode we want/would get. There's a reason why I keep saying that the majority of WvW players would probably be more happy with EotM with PIPS and EBG map than anything else, most just aren't that invested into a 24/7 mode any longer, and just want instant action/zerg and rewards. - Fun/Fair - A large part of the problem with WvW is that most of the time, if one server have fun, the other one or two doesn't. Which again related to "Fair-Weather" population, which will ditch the moment things goes against them, thus ensuring that we'll effectively never have similar population at any given time. For the simple reason that most players doesn't enjoy losing. I don't think Points, Balance, Population, or really anything else can change the "Fair-Weather" effect. The only real way to change that, at least that I can imagine is: * Pull a miracle, and make combat so fun that even casuals ENJOY the game even when losing. (Hint, no game developer pulled this off yet) * Just flat out link good enough rewards to losing, that players are willingly running into enemy zergs naked to die faster for better rewards... Edited July 3 by joneirikb.7506 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGrimm.5624 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 2 minutes ago, joneirikb.7506 said: Liked your post. Oh and warning, incoming rant/wall of text. At 5:30 AM! Ok, you win, I need sleep. 🙂 Sleep well and will check after some zzzzs. Good hunting as always! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuks.8241 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 On 6/29/2024 at 10:06 AM, EstaticFear.7692 said: Anet has been unable to resolve the power imbalances in the game, and the current approach seems to be offloading this responsibility onto the players to fix. We are players, not developers. It's the developers who should be addressing the game's imbalances, not us. Looking at all the updates and changes, it's clear that Anet is trying to absolve itself of responsibility and pass the burden and responsibility onto the players. As a result, we players are left polarized and fanatically arguing with each other on forums and everywhere else. This responsibility is not ours. It's evident that these changes have only served to polarize and fanatize people further. On 6/30/2024 at 12:08 AM, EstaticFear.7692 said: An algorithm might determine team placements, but it doesn't resolve the core issues of balance and community integrity. The mere act of using an algorithm doesn't absolve Anet of their responsibility to maintain a balanced and enjoyable gaming environment. Algorithms can only do so much. They are tools, not solutions. The power imbalances and fragmentation of communities are results of poor game design choices and lack of proactive management from Anet. Just because an algorithm is in place doesn't mean the underlying issues disappear. It doesn't fix the deeply rooted problems that stem from years of neglect and mismanagement. An algorithm can shuffle players around, but it can't restore the sense of unity, server pride, and cohesive gameplay experience that has been lost. But they are trying to do exactly what you're saying they are destroying. They want more control over power balance and still keep player communities and actually give players more options to unify. Their hands were pretty much tied with servers as they only had linking. They couldn't just boot players from one server to another. They really couldn't do much on the power balance issue without taking away player's agency completely. On the other hands players also didn't have much agency over their community. You only had a limited option of servers and if their friends weren't on one of those servers well tough luck, wait until it opens up which also means it's suddenly a different server. Big server to server migration just further shifted power balances without control leaving dead servers behind and making new stacked servers. Now when community is limited to 500 players' guilds and Anet can shift them around they should have much more control over power balance (now they must only apply it well). And also players have more agency over their communities. They can freely join their friends and in max 4 weeks time they can play with them and not completely screw up the power balance (at least that's the goal of the system). 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godfat.2604 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 9 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: Liked your post. Oh and warning, incoming rant/wall of text. Thank you for being explicit about that. I am responding to your points below and making another wall of text: 9 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: So even if it's something that is closely related to the feeling of enjoyment in the game, they're far away from each others logistically/priority within ANet. And would simply put have to be two separate projects from ANet's side, which would require a shift of priorities (which I doubt will happen). Yeah I think I did remember one of the ANet staffs did mention that they couldn't touch skill balance because that's on a separate team. I would encourage them to share this kind of information to us, but this shouldn't be the excuse for doing badly for WvW as a whole by ANet as a whole. We players are not responsible for how ANet structured their teams, and individual developers are not responsible to players. They're responsible to ANet, and ANet (leaderships) are responsible to players. If this structure didn't work well, ANet should change it. I did remember they announced internal structure change from time to time, but in the end I didn't really see improvements, or only in very short terms. We don't know what's wrong inside ANet. I would simply conclude that ANet don't really care about WvW for whatever reasons. 9 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: And before someone suggests it... do we REALLY want to let them make changes based on player democracy/voting? I certainly hope most people can see how horrible that would turn out... No, of course not. There's a famous saying. Don't listen to what customers say, watch what they do. My answer to this is, yes and no. My experience is that what customers suggest can often be wrong, but what customers feel are usually real. Customers would say anything, including what they suggest and what they feel. Listen to what they feel, and listen to what they suggest to understand what they feel, because sometimes customers can't exactly express what they feel, either. In the end, ANet are responsible for their own products after all. Putting the decisions on customers is irresponsible because the customers can't really actually make decisions. 10 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: An interesting point, but I see one big fault with it: That "transfers" are now linked to the "WR shuffle", so we need WR-shuffles somewhat regularly to move players around to play with their friends. To clarify a bit on this: The transfer I suggest was once mentioned by ANet but I don't know if they still keep this in mind. It's not about shuffling the teams, but allowing individual players to transfer to another team after the teams are already formed. It's the same as the old server/world transfer. I don't remember what constraints ANet did mention it should put behind this, but I'll suggest that anyone can transfer every 2 weeks by paying gems like before. The old constraint was every 1 week. I suggest we can raise it to every 2 weeks. People shouldn't transfer often. Also, team capacity like the old world should be put into places as well. Full - no transfer. Very high - very expensive, and so on. I think this is needed as an escape card for people who got stuck in a bad status or people who want to play with their (new or old) friends. Things are always changing, and we can't change teams so often, so we need to allow individuals to be able to change, or they might quit which isn't better. Just put constraints on that. 10 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: To allow more rapid player movement, as they assume (rightly) that a lot of players are going to need some months before they manage to find guilds they like and settle down. I think if we allow individual to transfer, there's no need for waiting for months before settling down. 10 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: More rapid data and tests of the system. I would argue they had enough data from years of beta and we suffered enough that we deserve immediate change. Of course if it's so bad like Mirror of Lyssa, maybe they should consider just shuffling right now. If it's proven bad and hurting, immediate action should be taken. 10 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: I think where we might differ on that, is that I think BG/Mag mostly abused the point system to get what they wanted. Which is more fun for them, which should be a good thing. But created more negative experience for others, which is a bad thing, and honestly was out of their control most of the time. I see those two servers as both the biggest abusers of the point system, but also as the biggest users of it at the same time. I think we need to look at this from the perspective of the health of the game, rather than players. We should agree that ANet should strive for making everyone happy, or at least they shouldn't make someone so frustrated to just quit the game. Blackgate and Maguuma might have some good fun time in short term, at the cost of making it unfun for other players, to the point that they might just quit. This was not healthy for the game, and eventually losing players means everyone will eventually lose contents. This would go back to Blackgate and Maguuma and they'll hibernate again because it's unfun, waiting for the next fun time. This was a vicious circle. It's just losing players and making it worse and worse. Right, Blackgate and Maguuma couldn't really control this and this wasn't responsible for them either. It's on ANet to let this happen for years without trying to make some changes. Let's look at the economics. ANet made countless changes to make sure the economics were balanced. While sometimes they just did bad jobs like research notes are just annoying, but they did do something to change economics and the intention was right, just the execution was god awful. Remember the times when they opened Blackgate or Maguuma when everyone knew that that had the most population. What happened? They failed to properly handled that. Again, not the fault of players. 10 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: But that means the entire Point/Score system is clearly insufficient for what you want it to do, if you think its only purpose is matchmaking. At which point the most important question is "What do I want the point system to do? And how does that affect the rest of the game-mode?" Exactly, so we need to update the scoring system. Or they can have some other internal scoring for match making, like the very old glicko system which everyone hated, rightfully so because it's only designed for 2-player games, certainly not something like WvW. But ANet can think about something else, sure, show us ANet really know WvW (of course they couldn't, but I am happy to be proven wrong). 10 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: A large part of the problem with WvW is that most of the time, if one server have fun, the other one or two doesn't. Which again related to "Fair-Weather" population, which will ditch the moment things goes against them, thus ensuring that we'll effectively never have similar population at any given time. For the simple reason that most players doesn't enjoy losing. I don't think this is necessarily the case. If we just claim that most players don't enjoy losing, then this game would be dead long ago, because you know, 50% of the players are losing, or 66% of the players if we think only 1st is winning. We can also look at PvP, that would certainly be dead long ago, and if match making is working correctly, all the players victory rate would be 50%, losing half of the time. Would anyone really complain about that? People shut good game when lost for a reason. 10 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: I don't think Points, Balance, Population, or really anything else can change the "Fair-Weather" effect. The only real way to change that, at least that I can imagine is: That's quite pessimistic but I understand for so many years after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neven.7528 Posted July 3 Share Posted July 3 (edited) 11 hours ago, joneirikb.7506 said: I expect that once they feel they got what they need out of those two, they're going to move back to either 2 or 3 months WR-shuffles. Which should be enough to at least let the system work. But we'll have to see, no plan survives first contact with the enemy and all that. I see this period as completely unhealthy. 1 month periods are needed to move people asap. Whether its for people trying to join friends, or get away from conflicts. Internal guild splits atm will spill over and can cause toxicity to spill out pretty quick, without transfering they are stuck there for a matchup, when normally a group would just move elsewhere. I do not want to see xfering back, it created much worse problems in the old host/link era than it solved, as the groups causing the imbalance refused to accept the tier they belonged in. You also don't want the two top servers and 2 bottom servers stuck in the same matchup for multiple weeks in a row. The 4 week period can be adjusted to help push groups to their right tier quicker, while limiting staleness. I recommended this in another thread: Week 1 : Tier A through E completely random. (in the future glico ratings could be calculated for initial seeding) Week 2 : A1 vs B1 vs C1 D1 vs E1 vs A2 B2 vs C2 vs D2 E2 vs A3 vs B3 C3 vs D3 vs E3 Week 3 : 1up 1dwn Week 4: 1up 1dwn (A1 = Tier A 1st place of week 1, B1 = Tier B 1st place of week 1, etc....) Edited July 3 by neven.7528 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now