Guild Wars 2

First I’m going to start by stating that the post will be long and everything I’m about to say is purely my opinion. If you disagree just remember to put your pitch fork and torch down before replying, seriously put the pitch fork down I’m not against you as an individual or trying to doom the game.

Secondly, everything I will be discussing is what I perceive to be in the best interests of WvW and as a consequence your server health and competitive guilds as well assume it’s in the context of RvR gaming.

Lastly, I am going to say this “it is human nature to try and become more efficient at everything we do in life, those who perfect it have perfected laziness.”

Contents
1. RvR Life Cycle
2. Game & Server Problems
3. Community Solutions

RvR Life Cycle

Month One: Get max level and RvR, several servers try to create a utopia where everybody is equal that eventually fail, several servers create a mega-alliance that also fails.

Month Two: Hardcore Guilds/Alliances dominated due to gear/level and rush to perfection, they start to burn out.

Month Three: Hardcore Guilds/Alliances move on, few HC leaders stick around with a reduced playerbase. Casual Guilds/Alliances start to take over due to playerbase, casual leaders start to burn out, several quit posts appear.

Month Four: General playerbase start to accept the limitations of a game, many move on and guilds start to merge or fade away. Talk about server merging becomes a real discussion, forums become more cynical.

Month Five: Usually a major patch, update or projected content appears…many people make their decision to move on or not based on it. RvR becomes more volatile, major battles become rare, people adopt a “let’s fight when the enemy is pop is low” attitude. People look for “reasons” to play a different game.

Month Six: The major update or patch most likely is deployed and brings back a PvP population boom…it doesn’t last long term and forum tears increase temporarily. Server communities start to finalize, major drama ensues when community leaders realize that nobody “needs” them…hopefully they realize it’s about wants not needs.

Month Seven: Talk about other games, in-game convenience issues, class balance and expansions frequent the forums. Game population hits its long-term plateau, at this point if populations dip it’s solely based on the communities and not game mechanics.

This is my assumed life cycle of every RvR game based on every RvR game I’ve ever played; because of the frequency of pattern I have accepted it as reality.

Game & Server Problems

We all have our idea of what matters most, I’m going to list the ones I think matter most to the long term population not the “on the fence” crowd. List is prioritized.

1. 24/7 Point Ticks – It’s not server transfers, it’s the fact that as long as we have 24/7 scoring system we will have one dominate 24/7 playerbase server. This demoralizes other servers even if it shouldn’t, more on that later.

2. Costs & Time Costs – Why spend gold and hours to upgrade something you lose 40 minutes after you go to sleep? Demoralized servers now adopt demoralizing habits.

3. Game UI – RvR game with no warband feature. Commander icons that embarrass intelligent strategy and encourages embarrassing behaviour. Lack of Alliance features.

“Exploits vs. Features” debate, class balance debate, AoE limitations debate, Culling issues…not even the orbs really mattered and so listing or discussing them I feel is irrelevant for this topic in my opinion. Why don’t those other issues matter? RvR guilds don’t quit when things equally affect the enemy, I believe how the scoring system affects morale, how the population affects behaviour and the game UI affects organization is what imbalances competition and thus are the key problems.

Cnt~

Community Solutions

Points 1 & 2 were to create context, this section is why I created this post. Instead of just following the typical life cycle of an RvR game and griping about game mechanics I believe there is a solution to maintain competition and overall satisfaction within your guild or server community.

“Alliances & Attitudes”

Hold On!

Yes the solution is alliances; the solution is not “one big alliance per server,” as well as a very minor shift in attitudes which many have already adopted.

Let me explain:

Multiple smaller Alliances (Micro-Alliances) per server using the same voice comm is the future. Why?

Pros:

1. Micro-Alliances can accommodate every style of play.
-Since there should be a micro-alliance per style when it comes to organizing RvR gamers of the same state of mind…more is always superior.

2. More Involvement of Smaller Guilds
-Smaller Guilds don’t want to lose their identity yet if your server only has one massive voice comm they often don’t participate as much since they don’t feel they are big enough to tell other people their opinions. These smaller guilds often just follow commanders while it’s convenient and bail once things gets hard, people call them PuGs and insults them daily. Micro-Alliances can give them a voice and get them involved without consuming them.

3. Many RvR Leaders burn out.
-Sometimes a guild doesn’t even participate in RvR unless “x leader” is online so the more people in the same voice comm allows other leaders to step up and utilize more RvR player talent appropriately.

4. Some Guilds quit
-Always there are few guildies who want to stay when guilds leave or core players quit but since they don’t know anybody else they end up quitting as well. Micro-Alliances using the same voice comm gives familiarity and in almost all cases new relations and so if one guild goes belly up, some of the talent that want to stay will choose to stay since they can find a new home.

5. Battlefield Performance
-Instead of having several guilds of different play styles spread across different maps trying to agree on how to take over a map you now have larger populations who can coordinate better. Ex. hardcore aggressive alliance on this BL, general kick bone alliance on that BL, slow and steady on that BL…etc. As well since said Micro-Alliances should be using the same voice comm it will be much easier to communicate strategy on a micro and macro level.

6. Less Drama
-More accountability by default leads to less drama, if X Alliance says they can cover and map and they fail miserably one would think drama would ensue but what often happens is people finally accept it’s time to listen to the advice of others at that point. (Yes some people need to bomb first) More information sharing is good only if it’s needed, having Micro-Alliances claim BLs some nights allows people to identify performance more realistically as opposed to several guilds hiding under the rug when things are bad but pop out when it’s good. As well keeping people of the same state of mind on the same maps by default decreases drama, if somebody trolls their Commander they now have a larger playerbase to back their Commander up.

7. Increased Morale
-You on a lower pop server that doesn’t always win yet you know you kick bones but nobody believes you…Micro-Alliances to the rescue! Imagine on the forums saying “butt kick alliance of server-x was on Red BL 9pm-1am and crushed!” You may not be on the best server but you can build morale by talking about your micro-successes. Who cares if the server is doing bad, when butt kick alliance plays people notice…when you play other servers people will be talking about you saying “which BL is butt kick on? I don’t wanna mess with them!” Increased morale = increased population, others will want to mimic butt kick alliances success and slowly your server should do better.

8. Micro-Alliances happen anyway
-That’s right, already there are guilds that prefer to work with other guilds and many guilds merged with others…etc. Don’t wait until it’s too late, don’t play politics with everybody trying to “like everybody,” get your guild involved with others and start up or join a Micro-Alliance before your server population bleeds talent slowly and silently.

Cons:

1. Potentially more drama
-If you don’t filter the guilds you want to create a micro-alliance with there could be disagreements. So if you do it, do it right.

2. Potential Identity loss
-If you start up a micro-alliance you do it for the greater good, not so you can talk about your individual guild tag. Frankly I think it’s a good thing anyway but some people are so paranoid about how they as an individual or guild is perceived they may not like being treated normally. My advice to that is, go watch Fight Club and figure out you aren’t special.

Cnt~

Now that you know Micro-Alliances is awesome let’s talk about that minor attitude issue too. Stop worrying about your server score right now, no you stop worrying about it. That’s it, don’t look at the score but here’s what you should care about…your performance when you do play. Focus on dominating during the times you play, doesn’t matter if it’s just one map that does well a night for your entire server. If you win when you play that’s what matters and people will notice whether you want them to or not.

I’m on SBI currently and been here since the start, I can tell you we are currently #1 solely because of 24/7 population. We have more people participating because we have higher morale which feeds more participation; we are not super duper organized like some bravado bozos brag about especially if you compare us to other RvR games. Your servers still have a real good chance to be competitive but due to the scoring system just focus on being competitive when you play, the #1 server long term is all about who doesn’t burn out the fastest.

That’s it, that’s my advice take it however you like or leave it and call me crazy.

I name thee crazy.

Jokes aside it was a decently written overview of how some individuals may perceive GW2 WvW.

Some items I would like to point out is that, while your suggestions (or perception) of WvW are good, I see it as an extremely difficult task to accomplish as a single alliance, guild, or even an individual. The unification of a server through micro-alliances is a sound idea (or at least it is to me). However, it seems more like an optimistic idea than a practical approach. I seem to come across the ‘join when we are doing well, leave when we are in the red’ mentality quite often in my server. The want to join something already established seems greater than the want to achieve the big picture so to speak and although I can see a great benefit through what you have written I simply cannot see it being done throughout a server. Suffice to say, I am still trying the idea in the hopes it will be successful but, the winds do not seem to be blowing my way.

I appreciate the fact that you actually read my bloody rant so kudos to that. I completely agree with your assessment that it is optimistic and heck I’d go further and say it’s almost pretty much idealistic. I’m glad you are going to try because the worst that could happen is what we already have.

I wish you the best of luck for trying and hope you and a couple other guilds get a recognizable alliance name.

Nice read, I agree on many of the points. Will be interesting to see where the server goes in the next few months.

Just want to chime in and say I thoroughly enjoyed your post and will be finishing my beer while cross-posting this to my guild to ponder over.

If ArenaNet implemented the tools needed to facilitate in game alliances I think it would be a lot easier to put these ideas into practise though.

@ Dekar.2759
I do not post much but this is one of the best reads about MMO’s from an end user I have ever read. If you do not mind I will post it is our Alliance Website Yaksbend.com.

We try to do things this way and keep getting better at it. Many do not relise that our site is a community site and not just WvWvW Alliance. Wonderfull read, spot on with the Micro" team set idea Imo* that is what we have tried to do from day one of Gw2 to keep a large group/Family of people having fun.

+105 web points and Cudo’s to you my friend. You should be a game Dev…for ..some one! They would do well to have you.

Dekar, the server you base your observations on doesnt sound like much fun mate :-(

I dont recognise a lot of it. Different servers have different cultures.