Guild Wars 2

Language have not been discussed.
Shoveling under the rug the server identity and the desire to keep playing with people we know is not adressing it…
(Appart from one who present the possibility of a dynamic server based alliance)

The problems with dynamic temporary server merge :
-language (how to organise with servers we don’t share a language with? )
-culture (would it be two servers who hate each other or two servers who react differently – read a post from someone who moved from ET who got insulted for asking about a contested objective – and that is only one point of culture)
-Map capacity. In EU (from mid silver? In silver and up?), maps are pretty full at primetime. but pretty empty otherwise (depending on commander and who is winning) bringing servers together would only create file at prime, without changing much about shalow times.

An anecdote. Most nights, we are somewhat 5 to 20. A commander came. We were 30, then 40, then, after somewhat a month, we were regularly 50-60 when he took the lead. When he was leading on daytime, he would fill a map.

All servers have access to numbers. But they need to go get the people. To make it so people want to join. Stop begging a third party to save them and start saving themselves.

Chaba.5410:

The sticking point is that there is little fundamental difference between servers and alliances. For every criticism of servers, there’s an associated criticism of alliances since servers are functionally alliances. You’re looking through the lens of hindsight where after three years there’s established guilds and alliances. If alliances existed at the very beginning of the game, it would still be the same with players randomly picking an alliance just as they randomly picked a server and changing alliances to stack them.

There is a huge difference between them. Servers cannot be easily balanced or have their coverage issues addressed because the populations are too large and fixed. In the current system, several servers are stacked and stuck beating on weaker servers or have a huge off hour population that effectively does PvD.

A guild alliance’s population will be smaller than a server population since the number of players in a guild is limited and the number of guilds that can ally will also have a limit. Each week the matching system would pair alliances into factions across several matches. Every match wouldn’t be perfect and there will certainly be strong alliances but it would still be significantly better than it is today.

Add in a guild scoreboard for bragging rights and “influence” based on what guild alliance holds rather than takes and we have the makings for a very competitive WvW environment.

Chaba.5410:

The sticking point is that there is little fundamental difference between servers and alliances. For every criticism of servers, there’s an associated criticism of alliances since servers are functionally alliances.

Servers are inflexible, alliances wouldn’t be. Its far easier in an alliance system to deal with issues of off hours coverage and indeed with population issues in general.

Straegen.2938:

Each week the matching system would pair alliances into factions across several matches. Every match wouldn’t be perfect and there will certainly be strong alliances but it would still be significantly better than it is today.

I feel like you didn’t read what I wrote. There is nothing functionally different between a server and an alliance. The flaw is in the matching system that doesn’t “fill in the spaces”. There is no need to spend development time creating a new thing called an alliance when all that is needed is for servers to be paired into factions for a match.

morrolan.9608:

Chaba.5410:

The sticking point is that there is little fundamental difference between servers and alliances. For every criticism of servers, there’s an associated criticism of alliances since servers are functionally alliances.

Servers are inflexible, alliances wouldn’t be. Its far easier in an alliance system to deal with issues of off hours coverage and indeed with population issues in general.

Alliances cannot solve the coverage and population issue. They’re just an entity of organization, a method by which a player participates in a match. Some alliances would include guilds from different timezones and some not, just like servers struggle with now. The matching system would still need to group together alliances to fill in spaces in coverage.

Chaba.5410:

morrolan.9608:

Chaba.5410:

The sticking point is that there is little fundamental difference between servers and alliances. For every criticism of servers, there’s an associated criticism of alliances since servers are functionally alliances.

Servers are inflexible, alliances wouldn’t be. Its far easier in an alliance system to deal with issues of off hours coverage and indeed with population issues in general.

Alliances cannot solve the coverage and population issue. They’re just an entity of organization, a method by which a player participates in a match. Some alliances would include guilds from different timezones and some not, just like servers struggle with now. The matching system would still need to group together alliances to fill in spaces in coverage.

It may not solve it but its easier to overcome which is what I said. But if I’m reading your post above this right about organising servers into factions then I actually agree that may be a middle ground thats acceptable.

The solution for the problem that people are forced to join a guild is to make an option for a lone wolf to be a mercenary for a certain Alliance without joining them. They can choose for who they fight every week when the round resets. Alliances will gain currency for holding objectives like castes which they can pay mercenaries with. And they can spent this on items and other loot. Problem solved

OR, you could dramatically alter the wvw situation. Rather than have servers matter whatsoever, one could remove the idea that wvw can function 24/7 and create a number of wvw instances. When one wants to join wvw, a dropdown menu could exist which allows for the joining of a number of instanced wvws (or through the LFG system).

WvW could then run in a number of instances, some which exist for only an hour on one borderland, some which exist for an entire week on all 4 maps, some that only last for a day, maybe some that last a few hours, etc.

You queue as one of the three colors (or you have guild leaders queue their entire guild for that color) and then you’d only be able to be that color for that specific matchup. You’d still have queues, but queues become much more apparent. 1 hour wvw? 100 man cap per server, let’s say. When choosing a color, you can see exactly how many have chosen what colors and the population on each map would be determined by the number of people playing on the least populated team. This should discourage people signing up for the more full servers. Matchup turnover would be frequent enough that in a lopsided matchup, you could wait it out and join a different color the next round.

Furthermore, you could have multiple matches going at once which could help with both queue times and multiple guilds-repping people. If you have multiple guilds signed up as different colors, you choose which color you’ll be repping in that matchup. It’ll be a bit messy until people figure it out, but what isn’t? If you’re queued for one matchup (let’s say a larger matchup that your guild is playing in), you could enter a shorter wvw matchup as whatever color because, and this is key, your color choice for one map would only matter for that one map. Say Guild A is blue team for Matchup A, but that is full atm, so I’m waiting in queue. I immediately enter a different map (similar to going to a borderland while waiting in queue for EB) and help out there in a smaller map where the stakes are less high. You can choose whatever color you want here, so everyone in your guild can queue for this other matchup that’s doing less well for itself as green this time.

It’s a more radical idea, but it solves a lot of things that people seem to care about. Perhaps you could have something similar to the current format where guilds can start a world event on their own, or people can start a matchup on their own and wait for it to queue. Maybe have 1 full-on wvw matchup going on per week, 5 day long, then 10 6 hour ones, 20 1 hour ones (these numbers being flexible when considering the population who do wvw at that particular hour). If the matchup gets too full for you, you can find a different one which is less populated.

Also, there wouldn’t be a fixed number of people allowed to sign up for each map at once, only a fixed number of people on each map per matchup. If too many people sign up to be red (say 300 do, but there’s only room for 100), but only 150 people sign up as blue and 100 as green, only 50 blue have to be queued if they’re playing at that moment, no green would have to queue ever, and a lot of red would have to queue. This would either lead to a bunch of idiots waiting in queue, or people would sort it out themselves. No server transfer needed, really, just either don’t queue for the fullest one the next week or split your guild appropriately. I’d imagine that any guild running more than 50 in wvw at once wouldn’t mind splitting into 2 groups and queuing opposite each other for a matchup or two, then regrouping in a different matchup when they have fewer people.

Just a thought. Consider it.

You obviously gave quite a though about this, Melanion, and it does answer most complaints against both ideas.
But except for the color choice, it is too much like EOTM.
No permanent map = no incentitives to play strategically, which might mean K-Train or fights.
The 50 blue would get tired to be outnumbered, and would falter, or green subsequently getting numbers would get on a map where red already established themselves.

Except in Eotm, it’s possibly too short and too inconsequential, as well as too map-related.

I’m thinking a complete overhaul of wvw. The only reason eotm is a gongshow is because there is still a regular wvw. If there is no more wvw, there’s a chance that we lose a lot of players, which is a shame, but we’re losing players anyways.

Plus, if the 50 blue are actually getting tired of being outnumbered, it’ll cause them to leave. The servers that do have people will then either get bored or sit on an empty map. It’s self-regulating. How long do you think you’ll stay on a map where you’re rolling over people when rewards are somewhat low and there’s nothing to do. I’d imagine that if you take out the barrier between players moving between sides (for the most part. You’d still have to keep them locked into their chosen color for that matchup), players would rarely choose a side that’s completely winning 100% of the time.

Speaking of rewards, there’s also a possibility that you could alter wvw rewards to retroactively function off of how much you do on a map and then the game calculates it and sends you those rewards at the end of the wvw period. If it’s a week long thing, the game tallies how many events, kills, etc you’ve done that week and rewards you thusly (note that both killing and defending and capturing would be taken into consideration for the rewards, as well as the regular wvw rewards that essentially don’t exist at the moment). Then you could give rewards as a percentage of players. If the top 10% of players in a specific match have killed x number of players and taken x number of objectives, they get marginally better rewards, but you still get a reward no matter how poorly you do (unless maybe you’ve killed 0 people, defended 0 things, captured 0 things, assaulted 0 things, etc). That way there’s an informal sort of loot ladder, but anyone participating gets rewarded for doing so.

This type of rewarding would so prevent people from stacking, theoretically. Killing the same people over and over would give you no rewards, so farming a group wouldn’t help you any after the first time (much like how wxp per kill works. You’ve got to wait like 1 minute between killing someone before they give you anything). Permanently holding towers and keeps would give you few rewards because you would only get rewards from actually playing the map. The best way to get rewards would be to actively play wvw. Defending gets you some rewards and obviously more rewards based on how many times you defend.

You could also change how siege worked to make it so that it costs less supply to build siege in shorter lasting games, maybe?

As far as keeping it unlike EotM, I’d wager that players would find their way around and disrupt things. The K-Train in EotM ends as soon as a group decides to fight, right?

Gideon.6742:

Then there will be even less players because, hell no I’d quit playing

Thing is, it’s mostly because players are quitting that such a change has become a necessity.

If WvW continues to be empty, this idea of taking temporary alliances while retaining our individual servers might work (three alliances; each alliance = a balanced combination of servers based on server scores or something else).

It’d be nice to stick with purely using our servers, but with things in decline, Anet is more likely to stick us on a megaserver (like with PvE) with three colors than find other ways to fix the situation. Who knows what calculation would choose our colors…

I’d love to see the fights work like Edge. All Green vs all Blue vs all Red. When a map fills, it opens another instance. Sure it would be hard for servers to find a map together, but it would solve many issues regarding population.

morrolan.9608:

Chaba.5410:

morrolan.9608:

Chaba.5410:

The sticking point is that there is little fundamental difference between servers and alliances. For every criticism of servers, there’s an associated criticism of alliances since servers are functionally alliances.

Servers are inflexible, alliances wouldn’t be. Its far easier in an alliance system to deal with issues of off hours coverage and indeed with population issues in general.

Alliances cannot solve the coverage and population issue. They’re just an entity of organization, a method by which a player participates in a match. Some alliances would include guilds from different timezones and some not, just like servers struggle with now. The matching system would still need to group together alliances to fill in spaces in coverage.

It may not solve it but its easier to overcome which is what I said. But if I’m reading your post above this right about organising servers into factions then I actually agree that may be a middle ground thats acceptable.

Yea, you read that right. I don’t see an overwhelming need to program some new interface to join an organizational unit beyond guilds and servers when servers are functionally alliances of guilds and independents. The development resources could be better spent on the core issue: creating matches that “fill in the coverage holes” rather than only between individual servers. And that would go far to keep current server community relationships intact (appeasing that crowd) while also improving the competitiveness of matches. The only drawback would be when rival server “alliances” end up on the same team. There might be some salt.

The good thing with alliance is that you can choose your ally….
You know… Those supply troll…. Those one who made anet completly kill our supply and upgrade system… With guild alliance system you can just kick them out…
The 3 faction way, where you can’t choose your ally is a real issue…. And CU or ESO have the same issue…
And this remove a big part of diplomacy… (3 factions way).

A good guild alliance system could be interesting.

Sich.7103:

The good thing with alliance is that you can choose your ally….
You know… Those supply troll…. Those one who made anet completly kill our supply and upgrade system… With guild alliance system you can just kick them out…
The 3 faction way, where you can’t choose your ally is a real issue…. And CU or ESO have the same issue…
And this remove a big part of diplomacy… (3 factions way).

A good guild alliance system could be interesting.

This would probably work fine in EU. Not so much in NA.

Anything that gives players the ability to kick will be trolled, sadly.

Can’t help but feel like my thread got hijacked here…

Chaba.5410:

I feel like you didn’t read what I wrote. There is nothing functionally different between a server and an alliance. The flaw is in the matching system that doesn’t “fill in the spaces”. There is no need to spend development time creating a new thing called an alliance when all that is needed is for servers to be paired into factions for a match.

How do you pair anything with a server like BG particularly when they are running full force? They can instance matches like EotM but that would obliterate identity.

A guild alliance will balance the population in each match and weigh the coverage issue by not stacking one side with all typical NA Prime players. This would also give holding an objective a point. Guilds will gain influence for holding and defending objectives rather than attacking them. Influence will be spent to upgrade their guild, build siege, improve fortifications, etc. The guild alliance model has been brilliantly executed in EVE Online. They don’t have the match system but the structure is very similar.

Straegen.2938:

Chaba.5410:

I feel like you didn’t read what I wrote. There is nothing functionally different between a server and an alliance. The flaw is in the matching system that doesn’t “fill in the spaces”. There is no need to spend development time creating a new thing called an alliance when all that is needed is for servers to be paired into factions for a match.

How do you pair anything with a server like BG particularly when they are running full force? They can instance matches like EotM but that would obliterate identity.

A guild alliance will balance the population in each match and weigh the coverage issue by not stacking one side with all typical NA Prime players. This would also give holding an objective a point. Guilds will gain influence for holding and defending objectives rather than attacking them. Influence will be spent to upgrade their guild, build siege, improve fortifications, etc. The guild alliance model has been brilliantly executed in EVE Online. They don’t have the match system but the structure is very similar.

Personally, I would really like something like this. However, because of the system we’ve had in place from release, this game has a significant population of unguilded players who are affiliated with servers and not particular guilds. Many of these players have spent thousands of hours in WvW, and it’s beyond unfair to those players to completely skew the system in favor of guilded players.

Anet may decide to effectively screw over a portion of WvW players in order to make things more balanced and interesting for another part, however if they did, i’d be incredibly surprised. Ultimately if you want to discuss any sort of chance to WvW, it has to be a compromise that offers something for both sides.

Straegen.2938:

How do you pair anything with a server like BG particularly when they are running full force? They can instance matches like EotM but that would obliterate identity.

The higher tier servers obviously wouldn’t need as much pairing. Pairing could be done with lowest population first, like ET. Or done by comparing coverage. The data should all be there.

Chaba.5410:

Straegen.2938:

How do you pair anything with a server like BG particularly when they are running full force? They can instance matches like EotM but that would obliterate identity.

The higher tier servers obviously wouldn’t need as much pairing. Pairing could be done with lowest population first, like ET. Or done by comparing coverage. The data should all be there.

It is:
http://coveragewars2.com/timezone/

Chaba.5410:

The higher tier servers obviously wouldn’t need as much pairing. Pairing could be done with lowest population first, like ET. Or done by comparing coverage. The data should all be there.

What about coverage issues? Even YB, JQ and BG have hours of the day where less than 20 people are playing across all maps. The current server system is fundamentally flawed and I see no easy path to a fix.

Guild alliances would go a long way toward resolving population and coverage issues. No system is perfect but at this point I believe it is worth the effort.

Straegen.2938:

Chaba.5410:

The higher tier servers obviously wouldn’t need as much pairing. Pairing could be done with lowest population first, like ET. Or done by comparing coverage. The data should all be there.

What about coverage issues? Even YB, JQ and BG have hours of the day where less than 20 people are playing across all maps. The current server system is fundamentally flawed and I see no easy path to a fix.

Guild alliances would go a long way toward resolving population and coverage issues. No system is perfect but at this point I believe it is worth the effort.

I’m not sure why you’re asking when I mentioned coverage. But yea, even alliances would have coverage issues, not sure why you think they would ‘go a long way toward resolving’.

neville.3420:

Population is becoming an issue even on T2 servers (I’m on FA and anything but EBG is routinely empty).

They simply need to revert the server transfer rules so we can adjust the populations ourselves.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

neville.3420:

Population is becoming an issue even on T2 servers (I’m on FA and anything but EBG is routinely empty).

They simply need to revert the server transfer rules so we can adjust the populations ourselves.

The playerbase has already proven it is unable to unfortunately.

Chaba.5410:

I’m not sure why you’re asking when I mentioned coverage. But yea, even alliances would have coverage issues, not sure why you think they would ‘go a long way toward resolving’.

A guild alliance system will match guilds that typically play at different times of the day together into the same faction for a week. The sole function of the match making system will be to align population numbers at different hours. Being predictive it will not be perfect but it will still be significantly better than it is now which is to say non-existent.

Alliances will be motivated to have better coverage since holding becomes vastly more important than taking. An alliance that can hold for 24 hours a day will do much better than guild alliances that can flip for 4 hours a day. Defenders, scouts and broad coverage will be worth their weight in gold to many alliances.

I am not saying it is a small development undertaking but it does fit within the existing framework and isn’t a monumental shift in design. It doesn’t fix everything but it is a few leaps forward in overall game play enjoyment.

Anet doesn’t even have a choice at this point. If they don’t merge the servers the gamemode will just die as the scattered population stop playing.

ugh . . . I don’t what is worse, that the game has been driven to the point where more people actually think EotM style Alliances are a good idea or the fact that most of the people who use to vehemently oppose such posts for the community killers they would be no longer bother to post here. Very sad times indeed

To be clear, there are really 3 distinct Ideas that people are talking about in this thread (including just keeping the current system). What we have is:
——————————————————————————
Current system (Server v Server v Server)
Pros:
- Strong sense of server community and culture
- Tier system develops stable (although not always balanced) matches
- Tiers each have a distinct style of play (zerging vs small group vs medium group)
Cons:
- Matchups often become stale
- moving around to face different servers and play with different people is expensive
- currently there are too few players, and too many tiers
———————————————————————————————————
Server Alliances (Server + Server v Server + Server etc…)
Pros:
- Keeps server communities intact
- Allows different communities to interact without completely dissolving them
- Should fill out population some
- Is not technically a “server merge” but has a similar effect
Cons:
- Might force some conflicting communities together (language servers, servers with different WvW culture)
- System possibly easy to manipulate (tanking for a week to get a stronger ally)
—————————————————————————————————————————————————
Player Driven Alliances (Guild + Guild v Guild + Guild OR red v green v blue)
Pros:
- Should provide consistently full matches
- Gives players more control and agency over matches (this is PvP after all)
- would effectively delete server boundaries, making transfers meaningless
Cons:
- Complete dissolution of current server communties (new communities would form)
- System could be easily gamed by one or a few influential players
- Matchups would be fluid and unstable
- With guild system solo or small guild players would be effectively nomads
————————————————————————————————————————————————

Some of this stuff (and whether it became a pro or a con) is clearly subjective, but I tried to keep things as general and overarching as possible. Also all but the first system, we don’t really know exactly how things would turn out, so I just put down what I though would be likely to happen.

Personally i’m in favor of the second system (the server alliance one) because it provides a middle ground between what some people have proposed, and what we have currently.

Polismassa.6740:

---

Server Alliances (Server + Server v Server + Server etc…)
Pros:
- Keeps server communities intact
- Allows different communities to interact without completely dissolving them
- Should fill out population some
- Is not technically a “server merge” but has a similar effect
Cons:
- Might force some conflicting communities together (language servers, servers with different WvW culture)
- System possibly easy to manipulate (tanking for a week to get a stronger ally)
—————————————————————————————————————————————————

Nice summing up, thanks. I personally prefer guild alliances but I do think the server alliances is the only think that will work with the game as it stands now without alienating a large proportion of the player base.

Your last point is something that must be considered carefully, especially in light of the way the current server cap changes were still able to be successfully gamed by servers. And I think anet need to be more transparent about such changes so they can get frank feedback. The playerbase will eventually work out the system and attempt to game it. TBH I think the system might have to be manual.

morrolan.9608:

Nice summing up, thanks. I personally prefer guild alliances but I do think the server alliances is the only think that will work with the game as it stands now without alienating a large proportion of the player base.

This is exactly how I feel about it. I definitely think that something needs to be done, but completely removing the current system seems like a recipe for disaster.

morrolan.9608:

Your last point is something that must be considered carefully, especially in light of the way the current server cap changes were still able to be successfully gamed by servers. And I think anet need to be more transparent about such changes so they can get frank feedback. The playerbase will eventually work out the system and attempt to game it. TBH I think the system might have to be manual.

A manual system would prevent any serious shenanigans, but I still think that using some sort of consistent algorithm is more the way to go. IMO the best way to prevent gaming the system would be to measure man hours played by a server for each week, while also taking into account the average man hours played over several previous weeks. It would cause the system to be slightly slower to respond to actual population changes, but ensure that tanking for a week would not change standings too much.

Chaba.5410:

The playerbase has already proven it is unable to unfortunately.

Perhaps but players did a better job than what is happening right now.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

Chaba.5410:

The playerbase has already proven it is unable to unfortunately.

Perhaps but players did a better job than what is happening right now.

Really? The player base created this problem with constant band wagoning and gaming the system to stack. I’m not going to say that the system anet set up was perfect but most of the problems came from players.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Really? The player base created this problem with constant band wagoning and gaming the system to stack. I’m not going to say that the system anet set up was perfect but most of the problems came from players.

What exactly is wrong with stacking? It means we get some decent fights, unlike now.

Right now I logon we have no commanders and no one to fight. This is in Tier 1.

I’d actually really love some guilds stacking in T1 right about now.

If JQ/BG/YB get too full and we end up with 45 minute queues then people will start transferring off.

Queues make the player populations becomes self organising, not arbitrary “Full” designations.

Do guilds stacking onto Tier 1 servers impact play at Tier 2 levels? Is that what you’re concerned about?

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Really? The player base created this problem with constant band wagoning and gaming the system to stack. I’m not going to say that the system anet set up was perfect but most of the problems came from players.

What exactly is wrong with stacking? It means we get some decent fights, unlike now.

Right now I logon we have no commanders and no one to fight. This is in Tier 1.

I’d actually really love some guilds stacking in T1 right about now.

If JQ/BG/YB get too full and we end up with 45 minute queues then people will start transferring off.

Queues make the player populations becomes self organising, not arbitrary “Full” designations.

Do guilds stacking onto Tier 1 servers impact play at Tier 2 levels? Is that what you’re concerned about?

No guilds/players stacking into tier one affects EVERY server, except tier one.

It no longer is a game of skill, but simply numbers.

Games stagnate when players don’t improve and grow.

There’s a certain reticence with Tier one servers to see beyond their own tier.

And no, queues did not make players “self-regulate.”

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

bloodletting wolf.2837:

Really? The player base created this problem with constant band wagoning and gaming the system to stack. I’m not going to say that the system anet set up was perfect but most of the problems came from players.

What exactly is wrong with stacking? It means we get some decent fights, unlike now.

Right now I logon we have no commanders and no one to fight. This is in Tier 1.

I’d actually really love some guilds stacking in T1 right about now.

If JQ/BG/YB get too full and we end up with 45 minute queues then people will start transferring off.

Queues make the player populations becomes self organising, not arbitrary “Full” designations.

Do guilds stacking onto Tier 1 servers impact play at Tier 2 levels? Is that what you’re concerned about?

The issue at the moment is that anet broke WvW so far fewer people want to play. You apparently haven’t ever been stuck in the stupidity that IoJ and NSP had to go through with stacking the end of last year and the beginning of this one. Players want the easiest win. Give them the choice and they will sit in q just to blob all over the place and Ktrain. It really pains me that the people on these forums and in game claim to want fights when all they really want is to spam 1 while watching Netflix beating the skritt out of doors and run away when there is one ac.

Btw I could care less about T1 or T2.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

The issue at the moment is that anet broke WvW so far fewer people want to play. You apparently haven’t ever been stuck in the stupidity that IoJ and NSP had to go through with stacking the end of last year and the beginning of this one. Players want the easiest win. Give them the choice and they will sit in q just to blob all over the place and Ktrain. It really pains me that the people on these forums and in game claim to want fights when all they really want is to spam 1 while watching Netflix beating the skritt out of doors and run away when there is one ac.

Btw I could care less about T1 or T2.

How is the current system stopping T4 bandwagoning given your servers are open to all transfers?

The current system only blocks transfers into T1 or high end T2 servers.

Jayne.9251:

No guilds/players stacking into tier one affects EVERY server, except tier one.

I agree there is an impact, but making guilds play somewhere they don’t want to be isn’t a way to advance the game.

If you lose a guild to tier 1, that guild wants to be in tier 1 (for whatever reasons).

Forcing them to stay in a tier they don’t want to be in isn’t healthy for the game.

Jayne.9251:

It no longer is a game of skill, but simply numbers.

Nope, your assumption is that we’re trying to win the PPT game in T1.

Most of the time we are actually trying to get good fights.

Both sides having numbers helps start fights.

Defenders can’t turtle against huge numbers so they have to come and defend their keep.

It is a false assumption that lower tiers players are more skilled than high tier players. From my experience the majority of the players from T2 that make it into T1 (i.e., Yaks Bend, Tarnished Coast) take 6 months to adapt to the increased skill requirements in T1. There are always some talented/untalented exceptions on both sides of course.

Jayne.9251:

Games stagnate when players don’t improve and grow.

Games stagnate when players can’t get fights and can’t play the game the way want to play it.

If they want to blob let them. Why dictate to other players that they must roam in parties of 5 when all they really want to do is get drunk on reset and run with their massive guild taking on some other massive guild?

Holding people back from doing what they want in the game is unhealthy for the longevity of the game.

Jayne.9251:

There’s a certain reticence with Tier one servers to see beyond their own tier.

I agree, hence I asked why T1 stacking had an impact on T2/T3.

If it is just a case of losing a guild to T1 that didn’t want to play with you anyway. I don’t think it is a good idea to force that guild to stay in T2/T3.

I think it is fairly selfish of non-T1 players to demand that players that don’t want to be on their server/tier must stay there.

Jayne.9251:

And no, queues did not make players “self-regulate.”

Yes they do. I’ve heard guilds say they are moving servers to avoid queues.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

I think it is fairly selfish of non-T1 players to demand that players that don’t want to be on their server/tier must stay there.

People stacked to the top servers not because of the fights, per se, but because more numbers = easier stomp.

It meant that the matches stagnated with the same three servers fighting the same three servers every week. And even people in Tier 1 came to the forums to complain about that.

Because of the pillaging of lower-tier servers for active players, that meant it impacted ALL the tiers below Tier 1 to the point where their matches stagnated as well.

WvW was never meant to be a stale, rinse, repeat match up each week. It was meant to be guilds and players pushing up individual servers and fighting competitively for top spot. The intention was that those positions would CHANGE periodically.

Tier one guilds went down to lower-tiered servers and actively recruited more bodies to fill the gaping maw that is Tier 1. Repeatedly. Leaving the pillaged server empty and unable to compete with even the servers in its tier.

You don’t need full map queues to get good fights. Map queues only indicate that your server is unbalanced because those waiting in queue are not actively in your map helping you win. They’re waiting in queues.

To not see how that impacts other servers beyond Tier One is the selfish deed really.

Jayne.9251:

People stacked to the top servers not because of the fights, per se, but because more numbers = easier stomp.

It is the fights for many (most) of us. I spent nearly two years between T3-T6. With the exception of the balanced Mag T2 GvG days, T1 is more fun. There are more skirmishes, duels, roamers and the big fights can be pretty epic (as well as filled with lag). The difference I have seen in T1 is that the style of a large fight varies greatly often with multiple attack fronts from the same enemy.

I would not go back to below T2 and wish I had spent more time in the higher tiers sooner and I roam/skirmish 80% of the time.

Jayne.9251:

People stacked to the top servers not because of the fights, per se, but because more numbers = easier stomp.

I don’t agree with that….
More people on server is more people at off peak time…
What the point to play when there is no one on the map except on prime time ?
Playing should be fine, not a full time work for the 3 players online at once at off peak time.

Even on Piken, full server, we have difficulty to gather people to make something during the morning….

I understand people who want to find another player… Friendly or ennemy… Don’t forget that we are not all playing at prime time for 2H… 3 times / week…

And to come back to the main topic.
I’m ok with guild alliance. PUG players can join actual community guild. Or special guild can be made to accept those players.

The problem with that system is how to allow new players to join the guild…
Public forum to advertise ? What should do the solo players or solo guild before they can ally ? Joigning some eotm MU with automatic team base on active players ?

And this system need some ranking system. Like the actual server, but for alliance.
Then each alliance can move in the ladder and figth against other team with the same “power”.

Sich.7103:

Jayne.9251:

People stacked to the top servers not because of the fights, per se, but because more numbers = easier stomp.

I don’t agree with that….
More people on server is more people at off peak time…

I think you’re forgetting what it was like fighting the old SFR.

No skill per se, (no offense SFR), just lots and lots of bodies to throw into the fight.

More people on the server doesn’t mean more people during off time. That’s a bit silly. People play when they have time to play — off-peak or prime.

yes but if you have 5% people playing at off peak time, then you have more with 300 people on the server that if you have only 50 people on the server….
And we had very few fight against SFR… With the ranking system you fight against same sized team…

Straegen.2938:

The difference I have seen in T1 is that the style of a large fight varies greatly often with multiple attack fronts from the same enemy.

There’s a term for that and when it is done in T2 or T3 a lot of tears flow.

Chaba.5410:

Straegen.2938:

The difference I have seen in T1 is that the style of a large fight varies greatly often with multiple attack fronts from the same enemy.

There’s a term for that and when it is done in T2 or T3 a lot of tears flow.

And yelling at you from your own side to not do it.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

take 6 months to adapt to the increased skill requirements in T1.

Don’t mistake meta for skill. When the size of fights scale up, build and group composition metas change.

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

I think it is fairly selfish of non-T1 players to demand that players that don’t want to be on their server/tier must stay there.

Be honest. A little gold always greases that wheel.

Jayne.9251:

dzeRnumbrd.6129:

I think it is fairly selfish of non-T1 players to demand that players that don’t want to be on their server/tier must stay there.

People stacked to the top servers not because of the fights, per se, but because more numbers = easier stomp.

You’re making assumptions and generalising, some players are certainly like that, although I’d say those sort of players are mainly in EOTM now rather than WvW, but a lot maybe even the majority now aren’t.

The server system has proven to just not work in the long run. Anet now has more than enough playtime data to create alliances based on a cluster of a few servers. Basically take One Tier 1, one Tier 2 and two Tier 3 servers, combine them into an alliance and give them a name. Base these server clusters off of the performance data/coverage over the past few years to try and create balanced alliances. Likely should also reset/re-organize the alliances every 6 months based on the data to optimize skill/coverage balancing as people play more/play less per server.

Yeah, I know the whole: play for your server thing (which, in a sense you would STILL be doing, but you would be a part of a larger system), but WvW is waaaay too set in stone at this point. There are 2, maybe 3 servers that ever duke it out at the top, with no real surprises/interesting turn of events because of the current system. Also, those on lower pop servers just have a bad WvW experience when they fight servers with better coverage. An Alliance system like I described that is constantly balancing every few months should, in theory, have a better chance at creating more equal playing fields and thus, more interesting and lively WvW.