Guild Wars 2

John Corpening.9847:

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There are a number of great ideas circulating attacking the problem from different angles and with varying levels of magnitude of change. One note though, I really feel that scoring is a separate issue that needs to be addressed on it’s own. We will discuss that one after we wrap this one up. Even if we were to overhaul the scoring system population imbalance will still be an issue.

From reading through this thread I think we can agree on the following goals:

• We want a thriving and vibrant WvW community in each world. That is to say, we want people to play with and against.
• We want to continue to play with our friends and the communities that we have developed already.
  snip
  Anyway, this discussion made it clear it is who you play with that’s important and a number of ideas in this thread preserved that without restricting the number of people who could play at a time. These have had a number of names but for the sake of discussion I’ll go with Alliances. The idea that I liked for Alliances is that it is a group of guilds and people that are guaranteed to stay together no matter how things are rearranged. There would probably need to be a size limit on Alliances and several of you pointed out that whatever limits are put in place it should be based on WvW participation.

A few of you noted that things will always be changing over time so the system would have to be dynamic. There are a couple of ways of addressing this discussed in this thread. An idea that would be a small incremental change to how the game plays would be to create a new set of worlds then fill them up with our Alliances of guilds and players that are guaranteed to always play together. This would happen at regular intervals, the intervals were all over the map as were the size of the worlds in this thread so I will propose this cadence:

• Off Season
• Tournament
• Restructure
  • Create new Worlds
  • Redistribute Alliances

This cycle would take a few months given the cadence of tournaments we have had which is about the time that we would want to rebalance populations. After the restructure, players could transfer like they do now if they so desired.

Alliances would provide continuity for the community. I see the server pride of today becoming Alliance pride because of that continuity. But I also see the off season as a time for the newly formed world of alliances to develop their own identity as they head into the tournament. Keep in mind that if an alliance was big enough to fill a world that mapping becomes one to one. If that became the case maybe the world could just take the alliance name. It’s interesting because that time together gives everyone involved a chance to see if they all want to ally together to truly solidify into a world. If not, you are still playing with your community for the glory of your alliance in the next restructure. But your community would be playing with other communities new to you and maybe this new bunch is a better fit for you and an opportunity for your alliance to grow.

The pieces for this idea comes from a number of posts in this thread. There are also some thoughts in there from some discussions I’ve had with several guild leaders. I just glommed it all together into something that I think could be a workable solution. I do want to emphasize though that this is all brainstorming

Let me know your thoughts and thanks again for all the great and constructive discussion!

John

This is a summary after a long discussion with John, which was followed by a scoring discussion and a siege troll and upgrade troll discussion. We already know they are fixing the upgrade troll issue with the new HoT maps. Perhaps we can hold out some hope that HoT will bring actual guild wars to Guild Wars 2? Well, in addition to the GvG that we know is coming to guild halls…. just a reminder for those of us who feel abandoned by Anet, maybe Alliances are coming and that would be pretty awesome.

Tspatula.9086:

Well, in addition to the GvG that we know is coming to guild halls…. just a reminder for those of us who feel abandoned by Anet, maybe Alliances are coming and that would be pretty awesome.

If the guild hall arenas really fit the need for a GvG – and only IF -, they’ve still missed a big point: now you can just join OS and watch the GvGs. In GW you were able to watch them ingame via an extra viewer.
So what happens if guild halls will be used for GvGs? Do we have to hope for someone to record it and load it up to youtube?

Alliance will not keep communities together because they already proved that with megaserver. Half my guild ends up on a different map. Some people take month breaks from this game but when they come back they always know where to find me. If they limit the number of players per alliance, I’m sure when some people come back to play the alliance their friends are on will be full.

You really think alliances will help with imbalanced match ups? What happens if one alliance is stacked with NA players and another is stacked with those not in NA or have more players in off hours? Same thing we have now will happen.

Also some take the game seriously while others play for fun. I see it already when some players come from another tier and doesn’t like they way we do things. They then begin to trash talk the players and the server as a whole. Some people are just toxic altogether but alliances will bring out the toxic chat even more.

Alliance pride? More like which alliance does the best and first come first serve to join that alliance before it becomes full.

What’s the difference between an alliance of guilds and a server of guilds?

Alliances would allow for a megaserver based WvW and matchups could be balanced based on numbers of active players in an alliance and perhaps a time zone estimate. Server identity could be maintained and ranking could be both by alliance and home server independently. Alliances would be fixed over a given match but then there could be rebalancing for the next weeks matchups. It could be super flexible and fluid. If an alliance had enough players they would be a boarderland, if not the boarderland would be shared by 2 or more alliances grouped together for the match.

Tspatula.9086:

Alliances would allow for a megaserver based WvW and matchups could be balanced based on numbers of active players in an alliance and perhaps a time zone estimate. Server identity could be maintained and ranking could be both by alliance and home server independently. Alliances would be fixed over a given match but then there could be rebalancing for the next weeks matchups. It could be super flexible and fluid. If an alliance had enough players they would be a boarderland, if not the boarderland would be shared by 2 or more alliances grouped together for the match.

Sounds like a pretty broken and community destroying idea, as you explain it. Forced rebalancing, that would limit or break apart and rebuild alliances week to week is an abysmal concept.

I do not want a the players in my community to be “flexible and fluid” when it cones to our ability to play together.

that’s not what I am talking about, guilds would form alliances not Anet, guilds within would have control over alliance composition, so it would strengthen the ability to play with whom you wished not weaken it.

Be careful what you hope for, if Anet decides to overhaul the system, they really need to consult the WvW players. By WvW players I mean those of us who play WvW, not the casuaks, not the PvE players that visit once a week/month.

If they do what they usually do and ignore our suggestions and just decide they know whats best you can be assured it will be a disaster.

Tspatula.9086:

that’s not what I am talking about, guilds would form alliances not Anet, guilds within would have control over alliance composition, so it would strengthen the ability to play with whom you wished not weaken it.

What happens to people who are unguilded, but an integral part of the existing community? I know tons of people who are in small or solo guilds and losing them in the shuffle would not be good.

Jayne.9251:

Tspatula.9086:

that’s not what I am talking about, guilds would form alliances not Anet, guilds within would have control over alliance composition, so it would strengthen the ability to play with whom you wished not weaken it.

What happens to people who are unguilded, but an integral part of the existing community? I know tons of people who are in small or solo guilds and losing them in the shuffle would not be good.

And those people wouldn’t join an alliance of guilds they know from their server or guilds of their friends? An alliance would only dictate what home map you were playing on for any given week.

So each week a guild could change their afinnity to another alliance, isnt that what will break the cumunities, isnt that the same that having free transfers every week?

Assuming a player can represent several guilds also can be in several alliances by just swich the current guild representation? cold wars 2 ?

I’m all for making the matches more balanced but if you use megaserver and wvw in the same sentence, I will not stand by that idea for as long as I play..

briggah.7910:

I’m all for making the matches more balanced but if you use megaserver and wvw in the same sentence, I will not stand by that idea for as long as I play..

It can be bad or good, it all deppends how the “unique server ideia” is introduced/adapted to the game(wvw).

briggah.7910:

I’m all for making the matches more balanced but if you use megaserver and wvw in the same sentence, I will not stand by that idea for as long as I play..

By this I mean the mega server ability to fill maps and create new ones, but implimented differently than how it is used in PvE. In this case the megaserver would spawn sets of the 4 WvW maps at reset, all spawned maps would remain persistent through the entire week, no new maps would be spawned during the week. Megaserver would need to have a matching function to match up Alliances. If one considers a map total population of about 100 players, that would be 400 players per Alliance say per time zone maybe divied it into 4-6 hours time zones, so if your alliance had 1600 (-/+ some number) active players then your alliance could “own” a borderlands. It could be up to the alliance to ally with the right guilds to provide zone coverage, that would make things easier for Anet. Then that week your alliance is gaining some sort of points (maybe glicko) for holding objectives, PPK, etc… But those points or some ratio of the points would also go to individual guilds in the alliance and to the home servers of the individual players.
During the week, realignments of guilds in alliances can be organized and total active WvW could be updated to Anet’s megaserver match bot for the following week. Or Alliances could have a set make up of guilds over a 1-3 month period. And then allow “open enrollment” if you will to allow Alliances to change their composition, prior to the next match up.

Sorry, the more you talk about it, the more I hate the idea .. it sounds very superficial and prone to a shifting assembly each week, regardless of whether you pick alliances or not, someone’s going to get the short end of the stick (and then we’ll have the same complaints about population on the forum all over again) — otherwise people would just stack with Alliance A rather than Alliance B, because they know it’ll have more bodies. The possibility of that leading to overflow maps and separation of real teamwork created over time and trust and real relationships in WvW … this idea would completely ruin that bond.

Sorry no.

Jayne.9251:

Sorry, the more you talk about it, the more I hate the idea .. it sounds very superficial and prone to a shifting assembly each week, regardless of whether you pick alliances or not, someone’s going to get the short end of the stick (and then we’ll have the same complaints about population on the forum all over again) — otherwise people would just stack with Alliance A rather than Alliance B, because they know it’ll have more bodies. The possibility of that leading to overflow maps and separation of real teamwork created over time and trust and real relationships in WvW … this idea would completely ruin that bond.

Sorry no.

So the stale match-ups and map cues of the current status quo is good, you like that? I guess you don’t have very many guilds that you or your guild coordinate with and would want to ally with? I get that if you haven’t experienced coordinated guild operations on your server, the idea of Alliances could certainly lead to lots of hopping, but in my experience, I already know a large portion of the people and guilds who would ally together. We wouldn’t have enough coverage for all time zones and would actively recruit guilds into our alliance to gain it. There will always be stacking at the top, but this idea would allow for alliances to match up better against others, and to develop long lasting relationships. And there would be NO overflow maps, AND Alliance total active population would have to be limited to something close to full ques on the 4 maps. You can hate this idea, that is fine, I hate the current system so we’re kinda even….

Tspatula.9086:

Jayne.9251:

Sorry, the more you talk about it, the more I hate the idea .. it sounds very superficial and prone to a shifting assembly each week, regardless of whether you pick alliances or not, someone’s going to get the short end of the stick (and then we’ll have the same complaints about population on the forum all over again) — otherwise people would just stack with Alliance A rather than Alliance B, because they know it’ll have more bodies. The possibility of that leading to overflow maps and separation of real teamwork created over time and trust and real relationships in WvW … this idea would completely ruin that bond.

Sorry no.

So the stale match-ups and map cues of the current status quo is good, you like that? I guess you don’t have very many guilds that you or your guild coordinate with and would want to ally with? I get that if you haven’t experienced coordinated guild operations on your server, the idea of Alliances could certainly lead to lots of hopping, but in my experience, I already know a large portion of the people and guilds who would ally together. We wouldn’t have enough coverage for all time zones and would actively recruit guilds into our alliance to gain it. There will always be stacking at the top, but this idea would allow for alliances to match up better against others, and to develop long lasting relationships. And there would be NO overflow maps, AND Alliance total active population would have to be limited to something close to full ques on the 4 maps. You can hate this idea, that is fine, I hate the current system so we’re kinda even….

How would there be no overflow?

You have 500 WvW players. They hear X guild is going to Alliance A — they all flock to Alliance A. Alliance B remains empty and barren and gives no fights for Alliance A. WvW dies.

As for working with guilds, and knowing organized guilds .. I guess you didn’t read my sig line I’m well known on my server for JUST that — coordinating with various guilds.

As for stagnant matches — that a NA thing. And you’ve done it to yourselves essentially. With TW moving to YB, that should shake things up a bit hopefully — but otherwise you have no one to blame for the stagnancy but yourselves. EU, even Tier 1, has different matches almost every week — without Alliances.

Ok, how it would work would be you set your alliance and anet could calculate your active players, then at reset the boarderlands would be assigned to however many alliances were required to “fill the maps” within reason. Once those groups of maps were generated they would be set for the week, AND the alliance could also be set for some duration either week by week, or a longer match period. So there would be no mid-week realignments. Non-allied people who entered WvW could be randomly assigned an ’Alliance boarderland" the first time they when into WvW that week.

As to server stacking and stagnant matchups, that has much more to do with how the glicko is set up, it’s inevitable if there are competitive players, and fortunately for us NA players, the game isn’t played exclusively on EU servers so our situation matters regardless of the reason why it exists…

@Tspatula.9086, i think the sense of genereting shards due alliances it gives the sensation to players of casualty and randomness, it aniallates them, even with more temporary stack and fight content, that will be reseted just for a score reward basicly it will not last longer, game lacks in indepth development everything is equal and bland, way to much bland.

The problem ic with WvW is the lack of indepth, it has a feeling of lacking after some time, if i want to play a super fast combat with score reward and resets, i would play a mmofps, that on a mmorpg might be acceptable on paper, but awful on practice after some time, and thus is the reason the actual wvw start to “decline” (not quite the right word but is to be refered as less quallity due stalness or poor indepth).

I liked that ideia of a alliance hold a bortherland, but if as the means for it, not only the numbers, gw2 is already a low effort casual game, it needs something that is important and valuable when attainable.
(Carefull here, BL that would be copy pastas w/o change and that is not good, a change to get the same result at the end, that we have actually??).

I can see those ideias work(probably at long term), but not with a pale simple game that Anet looks forward.

*and sorry for the bad english.

I think alliances would actually build stronger permanent bonds between players and guilds. Non-allied/non-guilded people could still be placed in matchups that had people from their server predominantly so as to maintain some server identity and expose them to the alliances that would be most obvious for them to join.

Tspatula.9086:

Ok, how it would work would be you set your alliance and anet could calculate your active players, then at reset the boarderlands would be assigned to however many alliances were required to “fill the maps” within reason. Once those groups of maps were generated they would be set for the week, AND the alliance could also be set for some duration either week by week, or a longer match period. So there would be no mid-week realignments. Non-allied people who entered WvW could be randomly assigned an ’Alliance boarderland" the first time they when into WvW that week.

So if the map fills up and you’re part of the alliance, you have to sit out the week? Gee that would suck. I guess you aren’t used to fighting with the cooperation of an entire server — it’s something magical when it happens, believe me. You should try it. Then maybe you’d understand why this alliance idea is not a great choice.

Everything you are suggesting is a bit naive. You assume that an alliance would fill a map and no more — when there are intricate and intimate ties between guilds, solo players, scouts, roamers, havoc teams that don’t fit into your square peg in a square hole theme. Your solution would ultimately leave someone out and not where they want to be — or would, ugh, create overflow maps, where you could never count on having the same people on the map each week.

Have you played WvW outside of your guild .. where it takes many guilds, heck, the whole server, to push together? It seems that your scope is limited.

Tspatula.9086:

As to server stacking and stagnant matchups, that has much more to do with how the glicko is set up, it’s inevitable if there are competitive players, and fortunately for us NA players, the game isn’t played exclusively on EU servers so our situation matters regardless of the reason why it exists…

Yes but NA can fix itself instead of kittening itself. It’s just too many kids see this fake first place status and flock there for easy matches, instead of playing GW2 as a game and enjoying challenges — which is probably the reason why EU WvW is so healthy. But hey, if you enjoy stagnant matches, go for it. Just don’t try to shove a solution to a problem onto the game that was created by the players itself and can be easily fixed. And would likely revert to the same old sorry situation of population imbalance, even with this alliance idea — only by that time, server pride/connection/sense of community would be completely annihilated and there’d be nothing tying virtual strangers together to fight the good fight.

I’d prefer stale matches and map queues that are almost non-existent in my tier as is then an alliance which will mostly be filled with players who hop into one alliance and lock the rest into other alliances.

Also if they do not adjust the alliances per week or longer, it will not change the imbalance in any way. The most populated alliance will still win over all others.

I don’t really like using EoTM as an example but that is basically your alliance right there. Notice that most complaints about EoTM in the past is that green always has the majority of the alliance.

Jayne.9251:

So if the map fills up and you’re part of the alliance, you have to sit out the week? Gee that would suck.

I believe that is what is referred to as a “Map que” currently. If you have experienced one recently I am sure you noticed how your number in the que drops? I have yet to enter a map que that lasted a week, I very much agree, that would really suck…

All in all, you don’t seem to like us in NA very much….

briggah.7910:

I’d prefer stale matches and map queues that are almost non-existent in my tier as is then an alliance which will mostly be filled with players who hop into one alliance and lock the rest into other alliances.

Also if they do not adjust the alliances per week or longer, it will not change the imbalance in any way. The most populated alliance will still win over all others.

I don’t really like using EoTM as an example but that is basically your alliance right there. Notice that most complaints about EoTM in the past is that green always has the majority of the alliance.

I think it will be difficult to have Alliances big enough in the early stages of this kind of matching, for them to “own” a borderlands, more likely a borderland would be “owned” by a collection of Alliances, and those would be maintained over the event period. What would be cool and interesting, at least in my thinking, would be that you could fight against Alliances in one event period (say 2 months) and recruit them to your Alliance for the next event period, since Alliances wouldn’t need to be restricted. Same for the ones you would fight together with. It might turn into a hot mess but it could be tweaked as things were worked out.

Also…. game would end with more alliances than servers thats for sure lol, since each t6 guild can have 500 players where players can represent diferent guilds, and each guild being in deferent alliance, so a players could jump from alliance to alliance…..something would had to change here.

Aeolus.3615:

Also…. game would end with more alliances than servers thats for sure lol, since each t6 guild can have 500 players where players can represent diferent guilds, and each guild being in deferent alliance, so a players could jump from alliance to alliance…..something would had to change here.

Yes, some sort of WvW lock-in to 1 guild 1 alliance thing would have to be put in place, so you might have to designate your WvW guild prior to a match up or something… If think of the total allowable number of Actives per Alliance something like 1600 over the full 24hr period, and large guilds are usually 100 or so actives any particular borderland would be an Alliance(s) of roughly 10 large guilds and 10 med, and a bunch of smalls and indiduals… (aside: I’m a very naughty boy and i have to wait 900 seconds… zzzzzzzzzzz……)

Worlds need WAY more put into them, not less. The Mega Server is the problem as it goes against the basic concept of Worlds as communities. In practice, there is no “World” in PvE and sPvP. There’s no secure line of communication for Worlds. There’s is no place, region, or territory for players of said World Community to reside. Unless you hit “b” and look at that panel, WvW is virtually hidden. Heck, even the new portals in LA are vague and tucked away. Outside of deleting the mode, the Dev’s couldn’t do worse by World vs World players. What makes the mode soldier on comes from the efforts and 3rd party solutions players themselves had to rig up. Any new “alliance” system would destroy that.

Before any changes are considered, I hope the Dev’s talk to us about it. There’s obviously a lack of understanding between us. Heck, I barely ever see a Dev playing the mode either! Last week I saw one for a minute. Before that was the start of Season 3. So please, keep the eager dev’s wanting to change everything and especially the marketing dept far away from WvW. They just have no clue what we like in there.

Here is what alliances could do with half a thought. Just keep in mind that I hail from DaOC whereas we had alliances from the get go. And they did help.

Alliances are a subset of guilds. Whereas today you can join x amount of guilds while representing one actively alliances should be restricted to one and only one. On top of that it is limited to WvW map(s) only. So one to one and restricted to WvW.

With that out of the way you may be saying, “What”? Yes, one to one and WvW maps only. Those in said alliance – can pick a number to restrict the size of it – get guard messages from claimed towers, keeps, and castles. You could include sentries for a price as well as supply camps but at a high level I think towers, keeps, and castles is a good starting point. Door gets tapped or guard axed, message gets sent to /a, they can react, dispatch, acknowledge, scout, engage, direct, whatever. So far, so good. Alliance is something you join for pride, because you want to, like minded, and now you get warning messages…all on the same server. Still with me? Cool, here is the kicker.

Now, we have server rankings, population balance, and of course the dreaded favorite wall clock coverage. What or how can an alliance help here you might be asking when Joe is on server A but the guard is yelling warning on server B. Well, server B who needs help can hit the boarder land map, control all 5 ruin points, and open a temporary portal to server B that alliance members on server A can join. Slick, eh? Let me repeat. Joe is a member of Whacky Wolf Hounds alliance that is created and hosted on server B yet plays on A. B rallies because they need help and dispatches a group of players to a borderland map to open the portal. They control all 5 ruins, a portal opens, and players from A enter and engage. Portal closes once the ruins are lost or a set time – to be determined.

Ok, this sounds neat you might be saying. There is more. Three servers one if first, one in second, one in third. We all can’t be first, right? So now let us restrict portals from opening to the server in first place. Not fair you might be saying but let us face it. They don’t need the help. They can still get the warnings and all, as they should, but the extra help and portals only work for those in second and third This would help with the wall clock coverage or server that needs a bit more help. They wouldn’t necessarily have queues so it shouldn’t be an issue – or we add another queue for x-server allowance.

What does this do you now may be thinking…

What it does is bring attention and focus to the borderland map. More specifically, the ruins. It gives a reason to hold them. It allows alliances to have meaning. It gets players to work together, and servers. It brings temporary people to a server that needs help. Skills, traits, players, stuff all works the same so the only logistics is with regards to cross realm connectivity – which by the way is already in game because of shards or whatever else happens on the PvE maps. We are just going to isolate it to alliance and WvW. Should work and be cheap to implement with higher rewards.

Oh, and by the way this would work top to bottom and bottom to top. And think of all the drama you could have. See, there is drama within guilds already. Forums, internet, whatever. Well, now we have alliances and all the politics that could form within. You don’t need a alliance bank or other bs. You just need the formation of a private channel, restricted to x amount of players, and claimed towers, keeps, and castle guards to report to when they get beat up or their co-workers killed.

A place for like minded players.
Single point of communication.
Cross realm assistance.
Borderland map play.
Ruins mean something.
Alliance ranks by week, month, etc.

What more can you want…

Deli.1302:

What’s the difference between an alliance of guilds and a server of guilds?

^^

lol, gosh the more people write about it, the worse it sounds.

One thing to be considered: If there’s a feature that can be abused by players, it will be abused.

The fellow one above me talks about portals from two servers onto one … Nooo, that wouldn’t be abused, at all. Nuh huh.

Jayne.9251:

lol, gosh the more people write about it, the worse it sounds.

One thing to be considered: If there’s a feature that can be abused by players, it will be abused.

The fellow one above me talks about portals from two servers onto one … Nooo, that wouldn’t be abused, at all. Nuh huh.

That would be me. And yes, we would want that abused. It is hitting a map, controlling the ruin portals to open one master portal so your alliance can assist. 1st can’t open but they could prevent… 2nd and 3rdcan open for help.

That isn’t anything that would or could be an exploit. Servers can and do work together. In fact that is one thing a.net thought would happen more but it has not. This isn’t Eve…

I do agree with your comment that people will find ways to exploit to find bugs and use to their advantage but something is needed. Look at last week for a quick example…

Crapgame.6519:

Alliances are a subset of guilds.

Non starter right there.

DeWolfe.2174:

Crapgame.6519:

Alliances are a subset of guilds.

Non starter right there.

In context of how they work.

Guild is parent. You can be in multiple yet rep one.

Alliance is similar code yet you can only be in one at a time, period. You don’t want to know who is online or where by looking at the alliance tab.

Look at it this way people. No discussion – nothing happens. Discussion gets people to say, “Hmm”.

WvW is a dead format with no direction or indication of what is to come in the expansion pack. That isn’t a dig against the developer. That is just stating what we know today. Now break down how much you play of the various formats and that determines how important it may or may not be for “you”.

Crapgame.6519:

Look at it this way people. No discussion – nothing happens. Discussion gets people to say, “Hmm”.

WvW is a dead format with no direction or indication of what is to come in the expansion pack. That isn’t a dig against the developer. That is just stating what we know today. Now break down how much you play of the various formats and that determines how important it may or may not be for “you”.

The indicators that Anet are giving are not good, more casualty, more easy and lesser effort game play…

Gw2 WvW could have content to be even a unique game…. it lacks so much..
WvW would be much better if it was a “continent” and each server is a zone/alliance of that continent, instead of copy pasta borderlands where players effort is rewarded by a reset and ppt score.
Anet could even introduce special forges and mines in map to aquire mats, hold important zones with good rewards for the alliance or guild, like presecursors due holding more than X days or mats to help craft the legendaries.

A more seamless pvx game, instead the pure casual themepark where everything and every one is the same.

Aeolus.3615:

Crapgame.6519:

Look at it this way people. No discussion – nothing happens. Discussion gets people to say, “Hmm”.

WvW is a dead format with no direction or indication of what is to come in the expansion pack. That isn’t a dig against the developer. That is just stating what we know today. Now break down how much you play of the various formats and that determines how important it may or may not be for “you”.

The indicators that Anet are giving are not good, more casualty, more easy and lesser effort game play…

Gw2 WvW could have content to be even a unique game…. it lacks so much..
WvW would be much better if it was a “continent” and each server is a zone/alliance of that continent, instead of copy pasta borderlands where players effort is rewarded by a reset and ppt score.
Anet could even introduce special forges and mines in map to aquire mats, hold important zones with good rewards for the alliance or guild, like presecursors due holding more than X days or mats to help craft the legendaries.

A more seamless pvx game, instead the pure casual themepark where everything and every one is the same.

I agree. We can look at the original WvW tournament season one which had a pretty solid requirements that took some time. Second season comes along and it is done in a matter of minutes.

So yeah, you are pretty much spot on.

I would rather fight every single guild than be allied with any of them, you know …. Guild Wars, not Guild Alliances.

Lets all plot to make a revolution and take Divinity’s Reach down….

3rd guild wars = money.

Tspatula.9086:

Alliances would allow for a megaserver based WvW and matchups could be balanced based on numbers of active players in an alliance and perhaps a time zone estimate. Server identity could be maintained and ranking could be both by alliance and home server independently. Alliances would be fixed over a given match but then there could be rebalancing for the next weeks matchups. It could be super flexible and fluid. If an alliance had enough players they would be a boarderland, if not the boarderland would be shared by 2 or more alliances grouped together for the match.

This sounds horrid imo. Shared TS, Tactics, strategy, knowing what to expect, camaraderie, all of these would be destroyed by Alliances system. It sounds like a rehash of EotM, which most WvWers feel is terrible for real WvW. It also sounds like a method to make WvW meaningful for bottom tier servers, while destroying it for servers that actually have WvW population.

Kaiser.9873:

Tspatula.9086:

Alliances would allow for a megaserver based WvW and matchups could be balanced based on numbers of active players in an alliance and perhaps a time zone estimate. Server identity could be maintained and ranking could be both by alliance and home server independently. Alliances would be fixed over a given match but then there could be rebalancing for the next weeks matchups. It could be super flexible and fluid. If an alliance had enough players they would be a boarderland, if not the boarderland would be shared by 2 or more alliances grouped together for the match.

This sounds horrid imo. Shared TS, Tactics, strategy, knowing what to expect, camaraderie, all of these would be destroyed by Alliances system. It sounds like a rehash of EotM, which most WvWers feel is terrible for real WvW. It also sounds like a method to make WvW meaningful for bottom tier servers, while destroying it for servers that actually have WvW population.

Honestly did you read what I posted, or did you see the word “megaserver” and have a seizure? I understand that, I don’t play in EtoM at all unless I need to level a toon. But look, I already play in a sort of alliance of guilds that would absolutely be the basis for the people I play with’s actual “Alliance”.

Alliances wouldn’t and shouldn’t be random. They should be player created just like guilds. If you think about it, servers are already our Alliances. Only, we are being forced to play a set of maps no matter how many opponents we face or deploy. Most people would ally with current server mates and guilds, and there will be issues with the stacked servers, but those stacked servers ARE the problem in the first place. If this was done correctly, we would have ALL of the camaraderie, teamwork and “server pride” but with the flexibility to have the very competitive alliances field close to 24/7 coverage.

There would be, without a doubt, a spectrum of skill levels and people could also choose an alliance based on the environment they were looking for, sort of the same as now, but either you are in a stacked qued server blob (T1,T2) or (T3,T4) which is still more blob than a lot of “roamers” prefer, or T5 and below which gets empty quickly. That’s pretty much half of the servers basically idling, half the servers will the same devoted Anet resources, barely being used. (No offense to T5 and below, I know there are great players and guilds and people have fun there).

Tspatula.9086:

Alliances wouldn’t and shouldn’t be random. They should be player created just like guilds.

Sounds to me you’d be happy with a private server.

Not my cup of tea. I’d miss out on all the new and creative people that come into WvW every day and add to my gaming environment.

Jayne.9251:

Tspatula.9086:

that’s not what I am talking about, guilds would form alliances not Anet, guilds within would have control over alliance composition, so it would strengthen the ability to play with whom you wished not weaken it.

What happens to people who are unguilded, but an integral part of the existing community? I know tons of people who are in small or solo guilds and losing them in the shuffle would not be good.

Actually look at it this way: an alliance is an open structure, meaning it could contain 4 guilds of each 100 players, or it could contain 20 guilds with 20 players.

Often, players that are guildless BUT work together with guilds often see themselves as a an integral part of their “server”. In an alliance they could just be categorized in a sub-group of the alliance like “lone wolves”, that doesn’t work like a guild (no ties, no guild chat…), but allows them to have a place in the alliance anyways.

Jayne.9251:

Tspatula.9086:

Alliances wouldn’t and shouldn’t be random. They should be player created just like guilds.

Sounds to me you’d be happy with a private server.

Not my cup of tea. I’d miss out on all the new and creative people that come into WvW every day and add to my gaming environment.

Currently you are limited to encountering a very limited subset of your gaming environment, with Alliances that would certainly expand, but I understand sometimes the glass looks half empty, sometimes half full…

Sirendor.1394:

Jayne.9251:

Tspatula.9086:

that’s not what I am talking about, guilds would form alliances not Anet, guilds within would have control over alliance composition, so it would strengthen the ability to play with whom you wished not weaken it.

What happens to people who are unguilded, but an integral part of the existing community? I know tons of people who are in small or solo guilds and losing them in the shuffle would not be good.

Actually look at it this way: an alliance is an open structure, meaning it could contain 4 guilds of each 100 players, or it could contain 20 guilds with 20 players.

Often, players that are guildless BUT work together with guilds often see themselves as a an integral part of their “server”. In an alliance they could just be categorized in a sub-group of the alliance like “lone wolves”, that doesn’t work like a guild (no ties, no guild chat…), but allows them to have a place in the alliance anyways.

Yeah and guilds love randoms…this won’t work.

illenos.5134:

Yeah and guilds love randoms…this won’t work.

Randoms are a permanent part of WvW whether guilds, alliances, or other players like it or not, it’s a non-issue.

Sirendor.1394:

Jayne.9251:

Tspatula.9086:

that’s not what I am talking about, guilds would form alliances not Anet, guilds within would have control over alliance composition, so it would strengthen the ability to play with whom you wished not weaken it.

What happens to people who are unguilded, but an integral part of the existing community? I know tons of people who are in small or solo guilds and losing them in the shuffle would not be good.

Actually look at it this way: an alliance is an open structure, meaning it could contain 4 guilds of each 100 players, or it could contain 20 guilds with 20 players.

Often, players that are guildless BUT work together with guilds often see themselves as a an integral part of their “server”. In an alliance they could just be categorized in a sub-group of the alliance like “lone wolves”, that doesn’t work like a guild (no ties, no guild chat…), but allows them to have a place in the alliance anyways.

Your making poor assumptions here. Simply because a guild has a certain amount of players, does not mean they are all active.

How do guilds connect to form an alliance? How do you handle the guilds that ally up, and have numbers in the guilds thay match the other alliance, yet half as many actual active players? What if guilds from multiple alliances, want to shift alliances to play with new peaople, how and when is that orginized? On reset, is WvW locked out until an alliance finishes rebuilding, to allow alliances, new guilds? While they settle movement out, are the alliances forced to wait on them before entering WvW? Are the o r her alliances allowed to start playing and take over stuff when the other alliance is releasing a guild to another alliance, and situating their new guild?

You offer no solutions to a mass of problems.

Wow. I’m definitely glad these ideas were never implemented. Sounds like someone missed the sign to EotM. Go play there.

style.6173:

Wow. I’m definitely glad these ideas were never implemented. Sounds like someone missed the sign to EotM. Go play there.

yeah creating more map shards than servers, like having a map shard per alliance it is fuggly as it sounds :\, before changing wvw anet needs to find a good way to solve how players would connect to the mist war and wich side they would be.
A solution is the megaserver for WvW (i was a megaserver hater for wvw but the mode is so bad atm even megaserver would be nice for it..) so it would be a bit like Eve alliances system on a continent style eich was divided by several maps, hold zones and be rewarded by that, call bounties where havock(or smaller guilds) groups could apply to wreck supply lines on distant maps for a reward, guilds could make a reserch that would be like intel under enemy lines before send havock squads, and im loosing myself here with this ideas…….

(edit) funny as this sounds like a complete new game…. im thinking about a game with lots of stategy and real PvX gameplay, cause the actual wvw is already close to eotm…