Loss Of Community Under WR System

[One more for the road.8950]

36 minutes ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Going by the way people ask for commanders the instant they log on the “committed relationship” to the world seem to be entirely dependant on whether there’s gonna be any snogging in the next 30 minutes or they can forget about it.

Oh, like when they blink the lights on a night out.

[Daxia.1425]

Drama will stick sadly. We are merely humans.

I am not sure but i feel the racist and discrimination remarks to people who aren't for a certain country or don't speak English grew bit more. Seems we first had server pride and now its becoming country pride. That tires and saddens me. It's a game.. 

Or maybe the in game trolls got lot louder 🤔

[TheGrimm.5624]

6 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

At the release of the game, there were no PvE mega servers. If you were on Blackgate, you saw other Blackgate players not only in World vs. World, but also in Lion's Arch, and in PvE maps. This meant that, if you team was under attack in World vs. World, you could go to PvE maps calling for assistance in World vs. World, and everybody who saw that message was on your team by default. As a result, your server's community extended into PvE maps, rather than only being WvW maps.

This structure of servers ended with the release of Megaservers on April 15th, 2014, when World vs. World servers were decoupled from PvE servers.

That makes more sense. agree understanding what you meant now.That has been an ongoing topic that continues to show up over time for a chat channel that can cross over from WvW into other game modes so an SOS can be sent. That would include PvE, sPvP, lounges, guild halls, home instances or anywhere players might be doing activities. 

6 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

Source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Introducing_the_Megaserver_System

It's not an assumption, it's a point that I have heard from former public tags that have either quit the game entirely, or decided to run closed. People like Bannok, Paralda, Visual Sun, Star Player, Tyrion Delos Bravos, and others. I'm just relaying what they have told me. If you disagree with it, that's fine, but it's something that about a dozen former public tags have mentioned as being a factor in why they quit or started running guild-only.

So those players drove the mindsets of all the others? That is interesting. Maybe they all decided to just start a bowling league together.

[Sheff.4851]

6 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

So those players drove the mindsets of all the others? That is interesting. Maybe they all decided to just start a bowling league together.

No. Just noting an alternative perspective. People may not want to do something for any variety of reasons, I'm just noting what reasons I'm familiar with. There's no single right answer to why do so few people do training and public tagging these days.

[TheGrimm.5624]

5 hours ago, Reina.1729 said:

Exactly my thoughts, this is like "committed relationship vs one night stands" . You now both can be fun, but there is a clear difference between the two in levels of depth. A sense of belonging is important in a community, knowing your people, your team, your colors, there is a sense of pride for some, not for others, we have the casuals, we have the hardcore and the middle grounds. It doesn't seem the case anymore.

So starting from 0 every month is not what I would call a community at all. Now we just have smaller isolated islands instead that we call alliance guilds.

But that might be just me.

This is where it is interesting across our old servers. Different people saw communities in vastly different ways. Personally that's what made me define it as pub style. We all might be in different voice channels or multiple ones, lots of back and fourth in chat. Many, many guilds, but we were all in the same place and knew each others habits. Knew when you looked at a fight you knew what various people would do. You might stay and fight since you know that others would do the same. Go back into a mix up to get a battle buddy out. 

For now to all the server pride players, our options are float and go on vacation, or find a comm guild of old servermates or new ones that you can rebuild that with. If you float, take it as an accelerated version of server linkings that let you meet even more players. Agree if feels like fight club with single serving friends for now, but there are still good times to be had. 

[Dawdler.8521]

6 hours ago, Sheff.4851 said:

At the release of the game, there were no PvE mega servers. If you were on Blackgate, you saw other Blackgate players not only in World vs. World, but also in Lion's Arch, and in PvE maps. This meant that, if you team was under attack in World vs. World, you could go to PvE maps calling for assistance in World vs. World, and everybody who saw that message was on your team by default. As a result, your server's community extended into PvE maps, rather than only being WvW maps.

This structure of servers ended with the release of Megaservers on April 15th, 2014, when World vs. World servers were decoupled from PvE servers.

Source: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Introducing_the_Megaserver_System

It's not an assumption, it's a point that I have heard from former public tags that have either quit the game entirely, or decided to run closed. People like Bannok, Paralda, Visual Sun, Star Player, Tyrion Delos Bravos, and others. I'm just relaying what they have told me. If you disagree with it, that's fine, but it's something that about a dozen former public tags have mentioned as being a factor in why they quit or started running guild-only.

Yeah as a sidenotenote to that, PvE was in a death spiral on some worlds - events couldnt be completed, people couldnt gather groups for dungeons and maps where empty on low population worlds (and that's with ALOT less maps than what we have today). Something had to be done for the good of the game as a whole.

If PvE had died, WvW had gone down in flames along with it. 

Megaservers is basicly the reason GW2 is still relevant today.

Edited August 1 by Dawdler.8521

[TheGrimm.5624]

On 7/31/2024 at 9:55 AM, Atoclone.4810 said:

I saw quite a few tags doing this in the last round, not seen any this time but I've not had much chance to play. But the one day I did there were open tags and they were all really pleasant. 

It may well be it's the same folks doing it now who were doing it for their old servers. If that's the case then some of you used to have that and it was great but others didn't and that was less great. 

Tbh the only guaranteed way for all sides to have decent commanders is for anet to employ them and set a schedule

 

 

This might be part of the mixes and one that I think they were attributing to spread around. The other impact is invis tag spread and part of the concern with weighting of timezones. If prime time has has an excess of invis tags versus open it impacts players that might play thru prime where they have tags around prime but then none during prime as people group with their tag and then they go invis which can be impactful. Now that said I recommend to all players to all be able to work with a tag, Havoc and Roam since it helps their own team at all times regardless of tags. But that is easier said then done if players aren't already used to do doing so. This is also where servers being split up impacted things. Again knowing the players on your server helped even if you were in different guilds and voices, you knew that when saw various players heading into the enemy third, there would be mischief to be had. 

One of the things I found interesting from the first 6 week sort was how many people told me they were getting their own tag after interacting with pugmanders. Had one get one and I joined their squad and they asked if I wanted to drive and told them no I was going to run support. They asked questions as we went. At the end of their run their players had fun and so did they. They asked how did I do, so I returned the question, did you and your squad have fun? They said yes, which based on chat considering no one was on voice, was true. So I was honest, they did great. 

So in general there is still room for pugmanders. Comm/Alliances guilds will slowly gather people up but that doesn't mean there isn't time for more of them, but how exclusive they become will be a question and again I support invis tags but it does become more constraining as we go with the WR and is something to keep an eye on if more tags just go invis during prime time leaving players that may have their normal tags around prime but not during. But that is also why players should train in Havocs and Roaming tactics as well so they always have content. 

Good hunting! 

[TheGrimm.5624]

4 hours ago, Daxia.1425 said:

Drama will stick sadly. We are merely humans.

I am not sure but i feel the racist and discrimination remarks to people who aren't for a certain country or don't speak English grew bit more. Seems we first had server pride and now its becoming country pride. That tires and saddens me. It's a game.. 

Or maybe the in game trolls got lot louder 🤔

NA you still get various languages but I don't get it in the same sense as EU sounds impacted by it. They did indicate that was one of the factors they were looking at down the road so that is some good news in that sense. Hoping that gets better for you. 

 

[TheGrimm.5624]

42 minutes ago, Sheff.4851 said:

No. Just noting an alternative perspective. People may not want to do something for any variety of reasons, I'm just noting what reasons I'm familiar with. There's no single right answer to why do so few people do training and public tagging these days.

Heard. Pugmanding has never been easy. It's a moral game. Keeping your players happy, dealing with issues with other tags, closed, open, visible, invis. PPT/PPK thoughts. Servers made that easier, but its still an option under the WR. You just have very little time to allow players to get to know each other. So will you get into in-depth training, no I doubt it, but that doesn't mean people can't get used to moving together or various tactics that might be used. I counter posted since I don't want to see any new players approaching the forum and thinking about trying it to not do it. It is harder now due to various reasons including alliances. But for those thinking about it, if there are people you can pick up, give it a go.

[Veeber.3192]

As a guildless semi-active normie, there seems to be less info/interaction with people/guilds. It's like trying to put hats on a chicken with no one to help!

[Dawdler.8521]

2 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

So in general there is still room for pugmanders.

Still room?

Last time I tagged up just to indicate I was beginning to cata a tower on a seemingly empty border - no one in spawn, no one anywhere - it took 60s and then I saw 5 green dots coming from every direction on the minimap.

People behave like a pack of cats when a tuna can is opened. 

Edited August 1 by Dawdler.8521

[CafPow.1542]

Yeah I’m just not going to join 10 discords per day. Is all.

hahaha

[TheGrimm.5624]

10 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Still room?

Last time I tagged up just to indicate I was beginning to cata a tower on a seemingly empty border - no one in spawn, no one anywhere - it took 60s and then I saw 5 green dots coming from every direction on the minimap.

People behave like a pack of cats when a tuna can is opened. 

lol, I was countering the point that even in the WR there is room for new pugmanders. It is just harder with more invis tags that have been drawn in via the Comm/Aliiance system. Less open players means less pugmanders. Normal supply versus demand equations just applied to game mechanics.  

[Atoclone.4810]

2 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

lol, I was countering the point that even in the WR there is room for new pugmanders. It is just harder with more invis tags that have been drawn in via the Comm/Aliiance system. Less open players means less pugmanders. Normal supply versus demand equations just applied to game mechanics.  

Not sure if I've missed something but what's all the issue with invis tags? Folks are always going to have times when they only want to play with their mates. 

What does it matter if they are following an invisible tag or just running as a group with out having the invisible tag?

[TheGrimm.5624]

3 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

Yeah I’m just not going to join 10 discords per day. Is all.

hahaha

This is a big point. Losing servers lost a lot of voice comms. A lot of players don't want Anet to host as we have seen. But that just leaves more random 3rd party voices. Not sure that is going to get better. Random admins versus Anet, I would error on Anet personally. Tried random over 3 decades and they can be bat kitten crazy. No thanks. 

[Atoclone.4810]

3 hours ago, CafPow.1542 said:

Yeah I’m just not going to join 10 discords per day. Is all.

hahaha

Id be more inclined to join them if I could copy paste from chat. As a dyslexic typing out those random letter URLs is a challenge 

[TheGrimm.5624]

1 minute ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Not sure if I've missed something but what's all the issue with invis tags? Folks are always going to have times when they only want to play with their mates. 

What does it matter if they are following an invisible tag or just running as a group with out having the invisible tag?

Background, spent years asking for them before we had them. Have spent years defending them after that. With the WR, if they go with weighted time zones there is some question in them, and more so if they add in value to win. So if they weight time zones, we might need to have those prime times block invis tags. Else it impacts servers trying to work together versus any invis tag logic we have now to define their value as being invis. Which many I have stated myself over the decade. 

[TheGrimm.5624]

17 minutes ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Id be more inclined to join them if I could copy paste from chat. As a dyslexic typing out those random letter URLs is a challenge 

I might already be in a voice or two, I learned years ago being in three, doesn't work so well. 

Edited August 2 by TheGrimm.5624

[Atoclone.4810]

2 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

I might already be in a voice or two, I learned years ago being in three, doesn't work so well. 

That's another thing, when sharing the link if folks could share the name too then if know if I was already a member and just join

[Dawdler.8521]

16 minutes ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Not sure if I've missed something but what's all the issue with invis tags? Folks are always going to have times when they only want to play with their mates. 

What does it matter if they are following an invisible tag or just running as a group with out having the invisible tag?

Hidden tags matters alot since it leaves everyone else on the map in the dark and unable to properly spread out and react to enemies. You’ll have no idea if the orange swords is yours or the enemy which just lead to wasted time trying to figure out what’s going on. I find it disrespectful to the team. It goes a little hand in hand with the whole everyone on the map has to stack in commander or GTFO of the map.

That said yeah there was never any way to stop that happening anyway and it was perfectly possible to do it by leaving/joining. This feature just made it easier. If tags want to run hidden, that’s their choice.

[One more for the road.8950]

 

2 hours ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

Id be more inclined to join them if I could copy paste from chat. As a dyslexic typing out those random letter URLs is a challenge 

That the only place you can actually copy a Discord link is from squad message - and squad often is invite only if already in voice, is indeed a problem though. There are those that tag up and have a mix of on and off voice, but still, would be nice with some way to copy the url instead of trying to type it out mid-fight.

Edited August 2 by One more for the road.8950

[CafPow.1542]

2 hours ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

This is a big point. Losing servers lost a lot of voice comms. A lot of players don't want Anet to host as we have seen. But that just leaves more random 3rd party voices. Not sure that is going to get better. Random admins versus Anet, I would error on Anet personally. Tried random over 3 decades and they can be bat kitten crazy. No thanks. 

I joined the eu-wr discord. There are voicechannels there too. You have to select your world / „alliance“ first.

if a squad usws that, no prob.

or if we manage to organize 1 or 2 channels somewhere, no prob.

but i would need to join a new discord server on every comm i see if i wanna follow them by now. Am not going to do that folks. I guess i just roam then. Fine by me.

 

2 hours ago, Atoclone.4810 said:

That's another thing, when sharing the link if folks could share the name too then if know if I was already a member and just join

It gets even better. Last time the com had a link in description and the leutenant called a different link in /t chat. Both led to the same guild but still 2 different squads?

besides me having to click myself through some questions to make sure I’m not misgendering somebody in their channel and whatnot i should now also decide and „trial & error“ multiple links?

you know when i start gw2 and join wvw i wanna play wvw and not „discordchannelsearch wars 2“.

 

should i finnaly be able to join a discord, then i can be lucky to understand some french dudes (no shame) broken english when they have no fancy radio-music-spam bot that i have to deactivate first.

 

all those different channels and discord servers are gently welcomed to fu** themself i am just roaming and pugmanding from now on.

Edited August 2 by CafPow.1542

[CafPow.1542]

2 hours ago, Dawdler.8521 said:

Hidden tags matters alot since it leaves everyone else on the map in the dark and unable to properly spread out and react to enemies. You’ll have no idea if the orange swords is yours or the enemy which just lead to wasted time trying to figure out what’s going on. I find it disrespectful to the team. It goes a little hand in hand with the whole everyone on the map has to stack in commander or GTFO of the map.

That said yeah there was never any way to stop that happening anyway and it was perfectly possible to do it by leaving/joining. This feature just made it easier. If tags want to run hidden, that’s their choice.

Agree.

i would only hide my tag if my „casual 6man noob roamy-grp“ is strolling around.

[Chaba.5410]

On 7/31/2024 at 5:57 AM, Sheff.4851 said:

Most people who were public tags, doing public trainings, point to the release of the world linking system as the beginning of the death of public tagging, because now people on your server weren't necessarily people on your server.

Is this what you gathered from your research?  IMHO the root cause was that server links removed the necessity players felt to build their servers to be competitive.  It didn't affect only pug training, but also players no longer needed to recruit, buy for coverage, etc..  When Anet makes the teams, you no longer have to actively attract and retain players to your team.

It certainly felt like a relief from all that "overhead" to play when server links started and server meetings became no longer necessary either.  I know some servers kept doing them though, but they became a minority.  The only planning that remained a necessity was knowing which maps guilds would go to for reset and that was a simple post in discord (still a necessity even, which is why players been asking for the team placement data from the API before WR resets!)

Besides, commander burn-out with training pugs was happening much earlier.  It became the big meme to join a server meeting every week and someone would drop the suggestion, "We need to train the pugs." for the umpteenth time.  My eyes would roll.

Edited August 2 by Chaba.5410

[Chaba.5410]

On 8/1/2024 at 5:45 AM, Sheff.4851 said:

Tyrion Delos Bravos

Tyrion stopped running public well before server links.  And then he focused more on building his guild and GvGing.  You can't do that well if you are running public because all the pugs then expand your numbers and the guild members don't get the challenge of carrying themselves as much in order to improve themselves.  And that was a good thing IMHO because I was concerned he would burn-out if he kept pugmanding like he did in the past and it created space for other people to start tagging up.  The man is a machine and very passionate.  🙂  The server didn't become dependent upon Tyrion alone.

I used to pug tag myself late night to help build up that tz (there were no tags on any map during that tz at the time).  When TLC started getting more members and other tags appeared, I too ran private for the same reason.

Edited August 2 by Chaba.5410