Guild Wars 2

Polls “should” be a tool that helps gauge & gather feedback before “Going All In”.

It’s like putting your toe in the water to check things out before you totally commit to jumping in.

Polls can help to make good or bad decisions.

Polls are more effective if you have a solid understanding of what you want to accomplish.

If you have no idea of what you want to accomplish…how can polls help?

Everything goes back to having a solid “vision” on what you want to accomplish…because this will give you a direction to take when making tough & critical decisions.

Having a solid “vision” provides that inner compass to move things forward in a meaningful way.

Using polls to move forward can have you going in circles without a solid vision…

I’m curious to know what the driving vision for WvW is…because I’m hoping that someday…it will match what I can envision for the future of WvW.

WvW really needs a compass…imho

Artemis Thuras.8795:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Thelgar.7214:

Battlegrounds take the worst exclusionary and “play my way or gtfo” aspects of guild/server leadership and make it a mandatory part of the WvW experience. I’m not surprised at its proponents. They are the people whose personal influence will be increased if the system is implemented.

I dont see battlegroups making anything more exclusive or more inclusive. That is human nature and any system that allows even a little self-organization will result in players expressing their preferences to play with one group vs another.

Battlegroups do balance the population. Why wouldn’t you want any system that balances the population given that imbalances in population is the most destructive part of the game mode.

And battlegroups may possibly weaken the position of server leadership since recruiting and influence will likely be locked to the battlegroups and not the servers. This isn’t likely to bother anyone except for those few players that have manage to position themselves as kings/queens of the servers. Reducing the scale of the organizations naturally reduces the influence of those players.

Simple: You can’t be kicked by another player from the server. Only anet can force you to leave a map ( which they are unlikely to do, unless they are banning you..).

A battle group is simply a guild by another name, with a larger cap. Along with all the current drama and politics that may come with it ( such as, “raid at this time or get kicked from the guild”).
However the “relinking” we currently have for worlds would be more like: world 1 : battle group 1 + 2 + random pugs number 1-100.
Effectively replacing “server” with “guild battle group”
and replacing “world 1 (+ world 9)” with faction 1.

I see lots of problems and issues to fix, but no meaningful benefit of the proposal.

It fixes the most important thing, population balance.

My understanding is that Anet would be matchmaking battlegroups, guilds and individuals to create a server population. During the match, no one can be removed from the “server.”

This both balances population and makes it stable.

It allows you to form inter-guild groups with your friends and allies so that you are guaranteed to be on a team with that group. How is this wrong?

I don’t understand this issue people have with being kicked. If you don’t want to be kicked, form your own group or don’t join a group. In either case you will be matched with some server during matchmaking if you want to participate in WvW.

I think some of you missed the part where individuals and unallied guilds would still be matched to a server with the battlegroups. No one is being left out. No one will be forced to be subjugated to some guild or battlegroup.

TorquedSoul.8097:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

TorquedSoul.8097:

Thelgar.7214:

Battlegrounds take the worst exclusionary and “play my way or gtfo” aspects of guild/server leadership and make it a mandatory part of the WvW experience. I’m not surprised at its proponents. They are the people whose personal influence will be increased if the system is implemented.

I dont see battlegroups making anything more exclusive or more inclusive. That is human nature and any system that allows even a little self-organization will result in players expressing their preferences to play with one group vs another.

Battlegroups do balance the population. Why wouldn’t you want any system that balances the population given that imbalances in population is the most destructive part of the game mode.

And battlegroups may possibly weaken the position of server leadership since recruiting and influence will likely be locked to the battlegroups and not the servers. This isn’t likely to bother anyone except for those few players that have manage to position themselves as kings/queens of the servers. Reducing the scale of the organizations naturally reduces the influence of those players.

Simple: You can’t be kicked by another player from the server. Only anet can force you to leave a map ( which they are unlikely to do, unless they are banning you..).

A battle group is simply a guild by another name, with a larger cap. Along with all the current drama and politics that may come with it ( such as, “raid at this time or get kicked from the guild”).
However the “relinking” we currently have for worlds would be more like: world 1 : battle group 1 + 2 + random pugs number 1-100.
Effectively replacing “server” with “guild battle group”
and replacing “world 1 (+ world 9)” with faction 1.

I see lots of problems and issues to fix, but no meaningful benefit of the proposal.

It fixes the most important thing, population balance.

BG1: 1000 players, play 1 hour per week.
BG 2: 100 players, each play 6 hours per week.

BG 1 gets an extra 5000 players who all play 1 hour per week.
So both “servers” play combined 6k hours in a week.

BG 1 suddenly plays 10 hours per week.

Alternatively, BG 1 and BG 2 are deemed “equal” but coverage and player time spent means BG 1 QQ’s that they are heavily outnumbered.

It solves nothing of population imbalance.

TorquedSoul.8097:

My understanding is that Anet would be matchmaking battlegroups, guilds and individuals to create a server population. During the match, no one can be removed from the “server.”

Between matches an individual would be dust in the wind. unable to control whom they are matched with next round. That means an individual is required to join the guild/battle group to ensure they are teamed with people they wish to wvw with.
This forces people to deal with drama and politics within a guild & battle group.

This is also an issue for those complaining of strategies getting leaked.

(hit the character cap.. phooey)

TorquedSoul.8097:

This both balances population and makes it stable.

It allows you to form inter-guild groups with your friends and allies so that you are guaranteed to be on a team with that group. How is this wrong?

It’s not. But it’s also not really offering anything beyond what people can do now. This is where having 5 guild slots comes in. People form their own inter-guild relations. Without a guild leader telling them who to play with.

TorquedSoul.8097:

I don’t understand this issue people have with being kicked. If you don’t want to be kicked, form your own group or don’t join a group. In either case you will be matched with some server during matchmaking if you want to participate in WvW.

Politics.
Drama.
Casual play.
Time constraints & real world commitments.
Not being told they must raid at a certain time or be kicked from the guild/battle group. This has nothing to do with being “like-minded”. I’ve seen people get kicked for having commitments. I’ve even heard of an officer kicking a guild’s entire different timezone. Even kicked simply because someone “higher up” didn’t get what they wanted. The population cap and the direct control will simply encourage kicking, to fit more hardcore, more active players.

WvW is full of “pugs”. People who don’t want to be in a rigid schedule for wvw. But still enjoy integrating with a group when they get online.

TorquedSoul.8097:

I think some of you missed the part where individuals and unallied guilds would still be matched to a server with the battlegroups. No one is being left out. No one will be forced to be subjugated to some guild or battlegroup.

So where do I end up?

(1)With my unallied guild?

(2)With my guild in a battle group? ( that guild is in a BG, am I automatically in that BG?)

(3)With my bank guild That I was repping at the time of the reset & matchmaking?

(4)With that raiding & fractal guild I might’ve joined for an extra lfg rosta?

(5)The other WvW guild that runs on a different timezone, who may or may not end up on the same “server” post matchmaking?

It’s not about being left out of WvW. It’s about being moved aside from the group ( however large, however flexible) one enjoys wvw with.

I still don’t see any meaningful difference between guilds and battle groups, besides the population cap.

With the added function of guilds are dropped onto a server, with other guilds and players. Essentially just removing the player choice of which server they are on.

At which point it may as well just be X number of factions. With something in place to prioritize putting people in the same guilds together. Essentially something like the megaserver algorithm, but set at the weekly, or seasonal reset.

Diku.2546:

I’m curious to know what the driving vision for WvW is…because I’m hoping that someday…it will match what I can envision for the future of WvW.

There is no driving vision. The person ostensibly in charge of the WvW team seemingly has nothing to do with it beyond supervising the staff. The only devs with a clue about what to do have been taken off the WvW team. No-one left appears to have a vision for the mode.

MaLeVoLenT.8129:

Caliburn.1845:

Been watching this discussion with interest.

First, the battlegroup idea. To what degree it was developed and the specifics of how it would work are unclear, and if it had gone Live the finished product would almost certainly have been different than what Mal’s sources told him.

But it is clear that World Linking is only a band-aid solution to WvW. A short term fix for larger systemic problems that need to be addressed to revitalize WvW.

I have been a WvW commander since the first month of the game(and am still active). The game-mode is incredibly stale, players and guilds are quitting, disbanding, or branching into other game-modes to maintain interest in GW2.

So to McKenna and the other members of the WvW team, pick a direction for WvW and go with it. It might be wrong, it might be right. It might work, it might not. But right now WvW is just sliding into oblivion.

If you have to do away with servers in the process, do it. If you have to fundamental change how scoring works, do that. If you need to revamp mechanics and maps, do that.

But don’t rely on the players to direct your attention. We’re a diverse and argumentative group that will never agree on anything, and if you leave things to us WvW will never change in any meaningful way.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. The polls in general hurt the community. My example was something made by the devs that would have helped tremendously instead it was canceled out by Server links as a permanent solution.

Battlegroups indeed would have evolved from the point in which I knew it to be.

Well Server links were implemented as a live beta test, then we were polled on whether it should be a permanent feature, and those of us who voted, supported keeping it permanently. The implementation needs to be handled better, I think most could agree on that, as the current system just creates too much instability.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Who will “lead” these battle groups?

That just means tonnes of work to keep purging random troll f2p accounts that keep filling up my alliance battle group.

How does one then stay with their community? They would be forced to join a battle group or risk changing community random players every season?

You have a lot of very good questions, all of which need answers. For the three quoted above I can see possible solutions.

Leadership of battlegroups:

Leadership of Battlegroups could be left to the commander tags we have in place. With random placement of players and guilds into battlegroups, it will be up to those leaders to rally the players they are given.

And I would propose that nobody can be kicked by any other player. Let the system kick players for inactivity perhaps, but it would have to require not logging in for a significant portion of the match.

F2P account trolls:

Don’t allow them. Only allow people who have bought the expansion(s) to play. In fact, I would suggest that if they do introduce this system or one like it that they wait until the next expansion.

Community

The new battlegroups could be called by the Server Names we have in place. Placement into those battelgroups could be given preference to players that have been on their servers the longest. Your spot could be “saved” for a certain amount of days before opening up to be filled by someone newer to the server or randomly placed by the system.

I can see an option after you click to join a battegroup that asks if you want to be placed into your server’s battlegroup or randomly amongst the others.

.

Would rather they fix the server system we have by forcing server balance (forcibly destack BlobGate), and killing blob warfare. But if they did decide to go the battlegroup route, I think it is workable. It could even be fun if done right.

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

I want to move to BG ……….. oh wait

(I don’t really)

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

Lol.

First:
WvW is a failure in it’s current form.
Changes have to be made or it will continue to suffer the agonizingly slow death march it is currently in: Less players, less fun and most importantly – less revenue for the company that maintains it.

Second:
I am very far from an elitist and at this point in the game about as casual as you can get. Also, I actually would prefer that the existing system be fixed by killing blobs and servers like BlobGate. But I’m not blindly opposed to change. The proposed battlegroup system could work for the average casual player if done right.

Give ANET some cogent ideas instead of complaints.

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

Yup. Particularly when they downplay polling as being “harmful to the community” (they’re looking to destroy.).

Grim West.3194:

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

Lol.

First:
WvW is a failure in it’s current form.
Changes have to be made or it will continue to suffer the agonizingly slow death march it is currently in: Less players, less fun and most importantly – less revenue for the company that maintains it.

And the alliance business model outlined in this thread is terrible. The minute you narrow your focus, you eliminate groups, and lose players.

Chaba.5410:

snip

You are asking the structure of the game mode to be changed, however, that doesn’t means the fundamental of the game is changed. Fundamental involved the type of population the game has, this game is filled with casuals and driven by casuals. Even then, there will be casuals not wanting to be placed randomly, there will be casuals wanting to have a choice, there will be casuals not wanting to be playing in multiple servers, so and so.

To forcefully change the fundamental of the game design, is to tell majority of players to get lost.

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

Lol.

First:
WvW is a failure in it’s current form.
Changes have to be made or it will continue to suffer the agonizingly slow death march it is currently in: Less players, less fun and most importantly – less revenue for the company that maintains it.

And the alliance business model outlined in this thread is terrible. The minute you narrow your focus, you eliminate groups, and lose players.

What do you propose they do to fix the fubar system they have now?

I meant to post more before hitting reply as you can see in my edit. I’m not sold on the battlegroup system either. But it could work with the right setup.

But one thing I don’t like about the replies so far is the constant whining without any possible solutions. We already know the current system sucks. Offer a fix to what we have now or come up with something better.

The Devs are just as desperate as we are for a solution.

Grim West.3194:

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

Lol.

First:
WvW is a failure in it’s current form.
Changes have to be made or it will continue to suffer the agonizingly slow death march it is currently in: Less players, less fun and most importantly – less revenue for the company that maintains it.

And the alliance business model outlined in this thread is terrible. The minute you narrow your focus, you eliminate groups, and lose players.

What do you propose they do to fix the fubar system they have now?

I meant to post more before hitting reply as you can see in my edit. I’m not sold on the battlegroup system either. But it could work with the right setup.

But one thing I don’t like about the replies so far is the constant whining without any possible solutions. We already know the current system sucks. Offer a fix to what we have now or come up with something better.

The Devs are just as desperate as we are for a solution.

I’ve suggested that you cap existing servers like the battle group suggestion and keep them locked, no matter what, with spaces only opening through attrition.

Overcrowded existing servers would evict accounts based on seniority, until parity is reached.

The alliance system locks people into a group for 14 weeks. You don’t think that will annoy people?

Couple that with a doubling transfer cost each time you jump, and I think you’d begin to see stability, cater to ALL players who all paid the same cost of the game, and keep everyone happy, rather than the select few who have clearly outlined their agenda in the past couple of pages of this thread.

Most games are scrambling to create community, because they know that equates to player attachment and longevity of the game.

Blow that up and it will be a steady slip into obscurity.

The alliance system would absolutely delight organized guilds, give them their GvGs (which I am not against), but it does very little for everyone else. And given how many guilds have folded and how frequently they fold, it’s a minority of the entire playerbase.

Do you think it’s fair to rework a beloved game mode for a minority of players?

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

Jayne.9251:

Grim West.3194:

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

Lol.

First:
WvW is a failure in it’s current form.
Changes have to be made or it will continue to suffer the agonizingly slow death march it is currently in: Less players, less fun and most importantly – less revenue for the company that maintains it.

And the alliance business model outlined in this thread is terrible. The minute you narrow your focus, you eliminate groups, and lose players.

What do you propose they do to fix the fubar system they have now?

I meant to post more before hitting reply as you can see in my edit. I’m not sold on the battlegroup system either. But it could work with the right setup.

But one thing I don’t like about the replies so far is the constant whining without any possible solutions. We already know the current system sucks. Offer a fix to what we have now or come up with something better.

The Devs are just as desperate as we are for a solution.

I’ve suggested that you cap existing servers like the battle group suggestion and keep them locked, no matter what, with spaces only opening through attrition.

Overcrowded existing servers would evict accounts based on seniority, until parity is reached.

The alliance system locks people into a group for 14 weeks. You don’t think that will annoy people?

Couple that with a doubling transfer cost each time you jump, and I think you’d begin to see stability, cater to ALL players who all paid the same cost of the game, and keep everyone happy, rather than the select few who have clearly outlined their agenda in the past couple of pages of this thread.

Most games are scrambling to create community, because they know that equates to player attachment and longevity of the game.

Blow that up and it will be a steady slip into obscurity.

I definitely agree with what you are trying to accomplish. We are on the same page.

My differences are minor, like instead of doubling the gem cost of transfers, I would limit transfers to a certain time interval, payed vs f2p, etc.

And instead of evicting players (like on BlobGate), I would lock BlackGate for transfers for 1 or 2 years. Schadenfreude. I’m not usually like that, but in this case they deserve it. ANET won’t go that far but they should. BlackGate gamed ANET’s system until it broke, and we are ALL suffering the consequences. Make them pay.

Agree that 14 weeks is WAY TO F’ING LONG. Modern gamers don’t have the time or inclination for 14 Week Snooze Fests. Match results will be determined within a couple of weeks at most. Why prolong the agony? Total waste of time. ANET still has a Snail mindset in the Age of Leopards.

As for “Community”; you can acknowledge the hardcore server vets by giving seniority priority in Battlegroup assignments. But in reality, community just isn’t as big a deal as you claim because ANET’s fool move of being able to transfer at whim pretty much killed community in the womb. And I say that having never paid for a transfer.

The “minority of players” you mention has never been a part of ANET’s philosophy. What makes you think they would be that stupid now? If ANET made the system all inclusive (which fits with their stated philosophy and what they have built so far) then it won’t be any worse than we have now.

And if ANET truly gets a clue, they will make small groups and singles the focus of any changes they make.

TLDR:, Kill blobs and all is well.

Jayne.9251:

I’ve suggested that you cap existing servers like the battle group suggestion and keep them locked, no matter what, with spaces only opening through attrition.

Overcrowded existing servers would evict accounts based on seniority, until parity is reached.

The alliance system locks people into a group for 14 weeks. You don’t think that will annoy people?

Couple that with a doubling transfer cost each time you jump, and I think you’d begin to see stability, cater to ALL players who all paid the same cost of the game, and keep everyone happy, rather than the select few who have clearly outlined their agenda in the past couple of pages of this thread.

Most games are scrambling to create community, because they know that equates to player attachment and longevity of the game.

Blow that up and it will be a steady slip into obscurity.

If they are going to keep the current system then I actually agree they need to make changes something along these lines. However in a broad sense IMO this will lead to the mode continuing to stagnate, plus it doesn’t really fix the issues of population disparity. There’s real no incentive for player engagement so the player base will continue to decline. It will become more and more casual, which probably means less headaches for anet it must be said.

morrolan.9608:

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

I want to move to BG ……….. oh wait

(I don’t really)

Do or don’t it’s all cool, long as you are free to choose how you want to play. Militia or member of a guild, everyone deserves equal treatment.

Grim West.3194:

X T D.6458:

Here is what I concluded from reading this nonsense about battlegroups….A bunch of elitists want to exclude the rest of the community. Yea…no thanks, how about we let people play how, when, where they want.

Lol.

First:
WvW is a failure in it’s current form.
Changes have to be made or it will continue to suffer the agonizingly slow death march it is currently in: Less players, less fun and most importantly – less revenue for the company that maintains it.

Second:
I am very far from an elitist and at this point in the game about as casual as you can get. Also, I actually would prefer that the existing system be fixed by killing blobs and servers like BlobGate. But I’m not blindly opposed to change. The proposed battlegroup system could work for the average casual player if done right.

Give ANET some cogent ideas instead of complaints.

If you disagree with my comment, I would strongly suggest you go back and read your posts.

In your words:

-I would lock BlackGate for transfers for 1 or 2 years. Schadenfreude. I’m not usually like that, but in this case they deserve it. BlackGate gamed ANET’s system until it broke, and we are ALL suffering the consequences. Make them pay.
(No bias at all right)

-"As for “Community”; you can acknowledge the hardcore server vets by giving seniority priority in Battlegroup assignments. "
(Because non hardcore and new players dont exist right?)

-“The “minority of players” you mention has never been a part of ANET’s philosophy. What makes you think they would be that stupid now?”

-“Leadership of Battlegroups could be left to the commander tags we have in place. With random placement of players and guilds into battlegroups, it will be up to those leaders to rally the players they are given.”
(So only those with a tag matter and get to decide what happens with the random players they are given?)

-“Let the system kick players for inactivity perhaps, but it would have to require not logging in for a significant portion of the match.”
(The system already kicks players for inactivity after several minutes, and you want to prevent them from being able to log back in? Um you know people have lives right, and can’t stay in front of a computer screen all day.)

-“Only allow people who have bought the expansion(s) to play.”
(Really? Force people to buy something they can play for free already?)

-“Placement into those battelgroups could be given preference to players that have been on their servers the longest. Your spot could be “saved” for a certain amount of days before opening up to be filled by someone newer to the server or randomly placed by the system.”
(Because who cares about new players right?)

-“There is no good reason to allow a server like Blackgate to exist.”
(Because even though we are full, and have no link, and do lose matches, we are still the boogeyman of wvw right? And no other server has blobs of course.

Oh and of course this gem…
“The destruction of small guilds and elitism is deadly to the game”

Now..can we please stop this nonsense about battlegroups, and get back to actually discussing server linkings?

Diku.2546:

Polls can help to make good or bad decisions.

The way Anet does these polls serve no purpose anyway other than they can say afterwards “Hey guys we asked you so don´t complain” . How can we make an educated decision about something if we do not get enough data from Anet to get into that position. Making a Poll “Do you want A or B” is useless. First they should provide and explain the data that they have, outline possible consequences of either choices and so on. If they make other decisions in the same way they do polls, lol, than it´s no wonder that things are like they are.

Jayne and I are listing the issues linking will/would have since day 1. So I guess this discussion doesn’t really matter anyway as anet will do whatever they want regardless.

I persuade myself that they listened to me with the first EU linking, but then they went fully overboard anyway and destroyed EU. So whatever. We will never really have a say in this and anet will never really have a clue about what they’re doing.
No offense, although I know this sounds bitter.

ETA: I agree on your poll issue though: “Do you want bad or worse?” I don’t really feel as if I have a choice and often it’s too soon or too late to ask a certain question.

morrolan.9608:

Diku.2546:

I’m curious to know what the driving vision for WvW is…because I’m hoping that someday…it will match what I can envision for the future of WvW.

There is no driving vision. The person ostensibly in charge of the WvW team seemingly has nothing to do with it beyond supervising the staff. The only devs with a clue about what to do have been taken off the WvW team. No-one left appears to have a vision for the mode.

I really hope you’re wrong & that there’s at least a first mate piloting our WvW ship.

If the captain is missing at the helm…then WvW may end up going in circles & end up being completely lost at sea.

Still hoping to be a compass & lighthouse in this storm of uncertainty…if they’re willing to hear a guiding message.

Diku.2546:

Still hoping to be a compass & lighthouse in this storm of uncertainty…if they’re willing to hear a guiding message.

Thanks for the laugh I’m having right now.

Jana.6831:

Diku.2546:

Still hoping to be a compass & lighthouse in this storm of uncertainty…if they’re willing to hear a guiding message.

Thanks for the laugh I’m having right now.

Not sure how to take that, but I fully agree with your typical postings that the EU servers are not the same as NA servers.

Different Languages, Time Zones, and even National cultures make it a completely different ship to pilot when steering & navigating…each World Server…for your particular Theater of War.

EU is not the same as NA.

Grim West.3194:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Who will “lead” these battle groups?

That just means tonnes of work to keep purging random troll f2p accounts that keep filling up my alliance battle group.

How does one then stay with their community? They would be forced to join a battle group or risk changing community random players every season?

You have a lot of very good questions, all of which need answers. For the three quoted above I can see possible solutions.

Leadership of battlegroups:

Leadership of Battlegroups could be left to the commander tags we have in place. With random placement of players and guilds into battlegroups, it will be up to those leaders to rally the players they are given.

And I would propose that nobody can be kicked by any other player. Let the system kick players for inactivity perhaps, but it would have to require not logging in for a significant portion of the match.

F2P account trolls:

Don’t allow them. Only allow people who have bought the expansion(s) to play. In fact, I would suggest that if they do introduce this system or one like it that they wait until the next expansion.

Community

The new battlegroups could be called by the Server Names we have in place. Placement into those battelgroups could be given preference to players that have been on their servers the longest. Your spot could be “saved” for a certain amount of days before opening up to be filled by someone newer to the server or randomly placed by the system.

I can see an option after you click to join a battegroup that asks if you want to be placed into your server’s battlegroup or randomly amongst the others.

.

Would rather they fix the server system we have by forcing server balance (forcibly destack BlobGate), and killing blob warfare. But if they did decide to go the battlegroup route, I think it is workable. It could even be fun if done right.

By who will lead, I do not mean who will command.
I mean who will take care of the admin, who will have the powers to kick/invite to a battle group?

You can’t simply say: WvW is now for people with the xpac only.
Remember the backlash when it came out about features previously available now locked behind the xpac paywall? You want that all over again? PR suicide.

Will that reservation be there for every single time they reset the matchmaking?
How will that work with multiple battle groups allied up? How will that work with attempting to create fare matches? Assume every player is worth the same regardless of time/effort put into wvw?

The solution to the free account problem would be to not link low servers with high servers – but I haven’t had a look at NA lately, so no idea whats going on over there.

The base problem still is bigger = better.

Jana.6831:

The solution to the free account problem would be to not link low servers with high servers – but I haven’t had a look at NA lately, so no idea whats going on over there.

The base problem still is bigger = better.

How does that relate to the context of battle groups with a proposed 1000 player account cap?

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Jana.6831:

The solution to the free account problem would be to not link low servers with high servers – but I haven’t had a look at NA lately, so no idea whats going on over there.

The base problem still is bigger = better.

How does that relate to the context of battle groups with a proposed 1000 player account cap?

That does relate to “ban free accounts, only let people with xpac play”.
That is a general problem and the 1000 player thingy is made up for now anyway. I don’t want anet to pick and single out the issue of free accounts and chose the wrong thing. Sorry if you wanted to talk about other things.

ETA: To me your discussion is as offtopic as it can be, sorry.

SkyShroud.2865:

Chaba.5410:

snip

You are asking the structure of the game mode to be changed, however, that doesn’t means the fundamental of the game is changed. Fundamental involved the type of population the game has, this game is filled with casuals and driven by casuals. Even then, there will be casuals not wanting to be placed randomly, there will be casuals wanting to have a choice, there will be casuals not wanting to be playing in multiple servers, so and so.

To forcefully change the fundamental of the game design, is to tell majority of players to get lost.

And how exactly would a more league-controlled team formation process exclude casuals? sPvP team formation right now is casual. Casuals by their definition play for fun, not for team-formation rules.

X T D.6458:

Now..can we please stop this nonsense about battlegroups, and get back to actually discussing server linkings?

Gaile merged the battlegroup thread into this one. This is where we are to discuss it.

As for the rest of your comments, you misunderstood my intent. But that’s ok.

I would prefer to hear your proposed solutions to WvW’s problems.

Jayne.9251:

I’ve suggested that you cap existing servers like the battle group suggestion and keep them locked, no matter what, with spaces only opening through attrition.

Overcrowded existing servers would evict accounts based on seniority, until parity is reached.

The alliance system locks people into a group for 14 weeks. You don’t think that will annoy people?

Couple that with a doubling transfer cost each time you jump, and I think you’d begin to see stability, cater to ALL players who all paid the same cost of the game, and keep everyone happy, rather than the select few who have clearly outlined their agenda in the past couple of pages of this thread.

Most games are scrambling to create community, because they know that equates to player attachment and longevity of the game.

Blow that up and it will be a steady slip into obscurity.

But they can’t cap existing servers like you could battlegroups. Existing servers contain tens of thousands of accounts; everyone who ever bought the game is on an existing server.

And talk about annoying people. Evict them from their server? That would do more than annoy people.

Not that I am for battlegroups, I think there’s a reason Anet didn’t go in that direction and I don’t think they’re going to change their mind; at least not before the next xpac. I think server linkings can work, they just need to make some adjustments.

Grim West.3194:

X T D.6458:

Now..can we please stop this nonsense about battlegroups, and get back to actually discussing server linkings?

Gaile merged the battlegroup thread into this one. This is where we are to discuss it.

As for the rest of your comments, you misunderstood my intent. But that’s ok.

I would prefer to hear your proposed solutions to WvW’s problems.

I started a thread on server linking that got closed, and a thread on battlegroups, that I apparently must have missed,got merged with this one? Seriously mods?

I basically stated 3 steps for improving linking, instead of putting out a wall of text I will try to keep it short.

1)Linking is meant to boost populations for a server but this should be reserved for lower tiers, tiers 1 and 2 should be unlinked. Here is why, the native population of linked servers is more likely to help lower tier servers then higher tiers. Higher tier servers are only experiencing short term gains from linking, which leads to a roller coaster type of effect, made worse by the cheaper price of transferring to the linked world. Since you don’t know when you might lose your link, or if you will get a link, the host server is constantly put into an unstable state because you actually get punished for winning, eventually losing your link, which means losing players, losing coverage, and not being able to stay competitive. This is why you will keep seeing higher tier servers keep rising up and falling every new linking.
It is just a short term boost at the cost of long term stability.

2) Shorten the linking evaluation schedule to 1 month rather then 2. It doesnt mean that linkings have to change, just be evaluated. This will help compensate for glicko’s poor matchmaking which can be slow to react and does not take into effect changes in population, which linking is based off of.

3) 2 options here: For NA
One option is to reestablish a 5th tier and have the tier 3/4/5 matchups be 2v2v2
Second Option is to keep 4 tiers but allow tiers 3/4 matchups be 3v3v3

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We wanted to clear up some of the information in this thread.

The Battlegroup system mentioned in a previous post in this thread was part of an old discussion with alpha testers which then was leaked by someone who no longer is in the program. In the past, we would propose systems/ideas to our alpha testers to help gauge player opinion. However, as you know, the WvW Team since has moved to posting these discussions on the official forums.

For further information, the response of the alpha testers to the Battlegroup concept was very mixed, similar to the responses in this thread. Additionally, it would also have been a huge undertaking to build that system, and we ultimately decided it wasn’t the correct route to go.

In contrast, World Linking utilized a lot of existing tech and required considerably less time to construct, meaning we could move on to addressing other core issues in WvW much more quickly. Even though there is a lot of debate around World Linking, it is “easier” to change and adjust unlike other systems that have been discussed. With all that being said, the team does appreciate the feedback and discussion happening in this thread and will continue to evaluate World Linking feedback and make adjustments as necessary.

Understandable, thanks for clearing that up. Especially about the tester leak…now we know how all this nonsense went public in the first place.

morrolan.9608:

Jayne.9251:

I’ve suggested that you cap existing servers like the battle group suggestion and keep them locked, no matter what, with spaces only opening through attrition.

Overcrowded existing servers would evict accounts based on seniority, until parity is reached.

The alliance system locks people into a group for 14 weeks. You don’t think that will annoy people?

Couple that with a doubling transfer cost each time you jump, and I think you’d begin to see stability, cater to ALL players who all paid the same cost of the game, and keep everyone happy, rather than the select few who have clearly outlined their agenda in the past couple of pages of this thread.

Most games are scrambling to create community, because they know that equates to player attachment and longevity of the game.

Blow that up and it will be a steady slip into obscurity.

If they are going to keep the current system then I actually agree they need to make changes something along these lines. However in a broad sense IMO this will lead to the mode continuing to stagnate, plus it doesn’t really fix the issues of population disparity. There’s real no incentive for player engagement so the player base will continue to decline. It will become more and more casual, which probably means less headaches for anet it must be said.

Wanted to highlight this post. It is a good prediction of the direction of WvW.

Basically we’re moving toward EotM mode. And the more I think about it, I think that is what the developers wanted or had in mind from the start of WvW. I honestly can’t see a single way to make the current WvW design competitive in any fashion. So the question becomes:

“What is WvW supposed to be?”

Chaba.5410:

SkyShroud.2865:

Chaba.5410:

snip

You are asking the structure of the game mode to be changed, however, that doesn’t means the fundamental of the game is changed. Fundamental involved the type of population the game has, this game is filled with casuals and driven by casuals. Even then, there will be casuals not wanting to be placed randomly, there will be casuals wanting to have a choice, there will be casuals not wanting to be playing in multiple servers, so and so.

To forcefully change the fundamental of the game design, is to tell majority of players to get lost.

And how exactly would a more league-controlled team formation process exclude casuals? sPvP team formation right now is casual. Casuals by their definition play for fun, not for team-formation rules.

Comparing spvp, a 10-15 minutes match and only 5 person against wvw, a week long match and more than hundreds of people, really?

SkyShroud.2865:

Chaba.5410:

SkyShroud.2865:

Chaba.5410:

snip

You are asking the structure of the game mode to be changed, however, that doesn’t means the fundamental of the game is changed. Fundamental involved the type of population the game has, this game is filled with casuals and driven by casuals. Even then, there will be casuals not wanting to be placed randomly, there will be casuals wanting to have a choice, there will be casuals not wanting to be playing in multiple servers, so and so.

To forcefully change the fundamental of the game design, is to tell majority of players to get lost.

And how exactly would a more league-controlled team formation process exclude casuals? sPvP team formation right now is casual. Casuals by their definition play for fun, not for team-formation rules.

Comparing spvp, a 10-15 minutes match and only 5 person against wvw, a week long match and more than hundreds of people, really?

Yes. Really. This exercise is called “thinking outside the box”, not allowing a thought process to be constrained by barriers we automatically throw up. Why would you constrain changing team-formation rules because of match-length? That’s silly if we are imagining a WvW that is broken into “seasons”: world-linking already introduced 2-month long “seasonal” teams. That’s far different from the original “always” design of server-based teams.

What if players were automatically added to a team based on their individual participation levels rather than the shards ? Or what if there were a guild-based WvW team UI like what was created for sPvP as a means to “sign-up” to get placed on a team in order for guild teams to be able to play together? And these teams would change every month or so like what is done now? Success is measured by how well the system fosters fun and competitive matches, yes even casuals are attracted to fun. And what creates a fun and competitive match in WvW? Teams of relatively equal size and skill at any one time.

McKenna Berdrow.2759:

We wanted to clear up some of the information in this thread.

The Battlegroup system mentioned in a previous post in this thread was part of an old discussion with alpha testers which then was leaked by someone who no longer is in the program. In the past, we would propose systems/ideas to our alpha testers to help gauge player opinion. However, as you know, the WvW Team since has moved to posting these discussions on the official forums.

For further information, the response of the alpha testers to the Battlegroup concept was very mixed, similar to the responses in this thread. Additionally, it would also have been a huge undertaking to build that system, and we ultimately decided it wasn’t the correct route to go.

In contrast, World Linking utilized a lot of existing tech and required considerably less time to construct, meaning we could move on to addressing other core issues in WvW much more quickly. Even though there is a lot of debate around World Linking, it is “easier” to change and adjust unlike other systems that have been discussed. With all that being said, the team does appreciate the feedback and discussion happening in this thread and will continue to evaluate World Linking feedback and make adjustments as necessary.

Ok. I shall exhale now

Thank you very much for stepping in and not letting speculation fester as is wont on MMO forums.

Xox.

joneirikb.7506:

morrolan.9608:

Jayne.9251:

I’ve suggested that you cap existing servers like the battle group suggestion and keep them locked, no matter what, with spaces only opening through attrition.

Overcrowded existing servers would evict accounts based on seniority, until parity is reached.

The alliance system locks people into a group for 14 weeks. You don’t think that will annoy people?

Couple that with a doubling transfer cost each time you jump, and I think you’d begin to see stability, cater to ALL players who all paid the same cost of the game, and keep everyone happy, rather than the select few who have clearly outlined their agenda in the past couple of pages of this thread.

Most games are scrambling to create community, because they know that equates to player attachment and longevity of the game.

Blow that up and it will be a steady slip into obscurity.

If they are going to keep the current system then I actually agree they need to make changes something along these lines. However in a broad sense IMO this will lead to the mode continuing to stagnate, plus it doesn’t really fix the issues of population disparity. There’s real no incentive for player engagement so the player base will continue to decline. It will become more and more casual, which probably means less headaches for anet it must be said.

Wanted to highlight this post. It is a good prediction of the direction of WvW.

Basically we’re moving toward EotM mode. And the more I think about it, I think that is what the developers wanted or had in mind from the start of WvW. I honestly can’t see a single way to make the current WvW design competitive in any fashion. So the question becomes:

“What is WvW supposed to be?”

It’s funny you say that.

My trail of thought earlier in the thread led me to this thought:

“So it ends up as eotm matchmaking, with week or league long scoring.. HA, I can see that going over well..”
But at the time it sounded a little too aggressive and.. snidey so I cut it from the post.

It does however seem like factions may be worth considering still.
Balancing with something along the lines of alliance battles in gw1.. A server wins too much, map changes to favor the teams getting whipped.
DBL shrine buffs could be used in such a way ( losing team gets the buffs if they hold the keep, winning teams can’t get them at all. For the extreme case. while neutral/evenly scored/matched functions as they do currently).
Could also be: severely losing faction has objectives start at t2 or even t3. Then the map doesn’t actually need to be swapped out.

Heck, this could even be used in some kind of “comeback” system to give losing servers a chance to turn a match around?

Chaba.5410:

SkyShroud.2865:

Chaba.5410:

SkyShroud.2865:

Chaba.5410:

snip

You are asking the structure of the game mode to be changed, however, that doesn’t means the fundamental of the game is changed. Fundamental involved the type of population the game has, this game is filled with casuals and driven by casuals. Even then, there will be casuals not wanting to be placed randomly, there will be casuals wanting to have a choice, there will be casuals not wanting to be playing in multiple servers, so and so.

To forcefully change the fundamental of the game design, is to tell majority of players to get lost.

And how exactly would a more league-controlled team formation process exclude casuals? sPvP team formation right now is casual. Casuals by their definition play for fun, not for team-formation rules.

Comparing spvp, a 10-15 minutes match and only 5 person against wvw, a week long match and more than hundreds of people, really?

Yes. Really. This exercise is called “thinking outside the box”, not allowing a thought process to be constrained by barriers we automatically throw up. Why would you constrain changing team-formation rules because of match-length? That’s silly if we are imagining a WvW that is broken into “seasons”: world-linking already introduced 2-month long “seasonal” teams. That’s far different from the original “always” design of server-based teams.

What if players were automatically added to a team based on their individual participation levels rather than the shards ? Or what if there were a guild-based WvW team UI like what was created for sPvP as a means to “sign-up” to get placed on a team in order for guild teams to be able to play together? And these teams would change every month or so like what is done now? Success is measured by how well the system fosters fun and competitive matches, yes even casuals are attracted to fun. And what creates a fun and competitive match in WvW? Teams of relatively equal size and skill at any one time.

The game mode is design on a plug and play basis, unlike a draft match of pvp, not everyone gonna play every minutes. How are you gonna measure that kind of ad-hoc participation to the point that is relatively equal size?

SkyShroud.2865:

How are you gonna measure that kind of ad-hoc participation to the point that is relatively equal size?

How can they not? The game generates massive amounts of data. I realize this gets speculative here now since we don’t have view into the actual code, but consider that reward tracks are literally based on measuring individual participation as is shard population status. Why would an individual’s average weekly participation amount not be known?

Do you remember TylerB posting here asking what players thought about if Anet were to open smaller shards so that they had smaller chunks sets of players to do world-linking with? Basically the idea was that smaller shards are far easier to link into teams of relatively equal size than the large blocks we have currently. I can only surmise that’s the Battlegroup idea filtering through.

Chaba.5410:

SkyShroud.2865:

How are you gonna measure that kind of ad-hoc participation to the point that is relatively equal size?

How can they not? The game generates massive amounts of data. I realize this gets speculative here now since we don’t have view into the actual code, but consider that reward tracks are literally based on measuring individual participation as is shard population status. Why would an individual’s average weekly participation amount not be known?

Do you remember TylerB posting here asking what players thought about if Anet were to open smaller shards so that they had smaller chunks sets of players to do world-linking with? Basically the idea was that smaller shards are far easier to link into teams of relatively equal size than the large blocks we have currently. I can only surmise that’s the Battlegroup idea filtering through.

That idea from Tyler, which he only brought up for discussion was to gauge reaction and feedback because it wasn’t actually something they were working on, it was basically to create some extra worlds specifically designed for smaller amounts of players in the same server system model that currently exists. It has no similarity whatsoever to battlegroups, at least not how some people are describing it.

It is possible that one of the options they discussed was to change the server structure to differentiate between tiers and servers. Meaning smaller tiers would have a smaller population cap, highest tier with the maxed population cap, etc. Instead of each server basically being the same. Who knows.

X T D.6458:

That idea from Tyler, which he only brought up for discussion was to gauge reaction and feedback because it wasn’t actually something they were working on, it was basically to create some extra worlds specifically designed for smaller amounts of players in the same server system model that currently exists. It has no similarity whatsoever to battlegroups, at least not how some people are describing it.

It is possible that one of the options they discussed was to change the server structure to differentiate between tiers and servers. Meaning smaller tiers would have a smaller population cap, highest tier with the maxed population cap, etc. Instead of each server basically being the same. Who knows.

Yes, it was a post to gauge interest. See my emboldened part.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hypothetically-Speaking-New-Worlds/first#post6173458

“The ultimate goal of this hypothetical plan would be two-fold:
1) Give players/guilds that are too big for their ‘Full’ status world an opportunity to move to new worlds, enabling them to grow more easily again.
2) Achieve a larger number of smaller worlds that we can link together to achieve more balanced numbers for each team.”

Do you see the assumption that a larger number of smaller worlds would help Anet achieve more balanced numbers for each team? The only reason I’m associating the idea of more smaller shards with Battlegroups is exactly because of the smaller size. A battlegroup was described as being limited to 1000 players. How many players do you think one of those smaller shards would have been capped at? This is what I mean by how the battlegroup idea seems to have been “filtered” into that smaller shard proposal.

Both also have the feature of being player-formed. Guilds would theoretically xfer to get all their players into the same shard. The message I take away from the idea of a 1000-player capped battlegroup and a smaller shard is how it makes achieving balanced teams easier than the large chunks we have now.

Chaba.5410:

X T D.6458:

That idea from Tyler, which he only brought up for discussion was to gauge reaction and feedback because it wasn’t actually something they were working on, it was basically to create some extra worlds specifically designed for smaller amounts of players in the same server system model that currently exists. It has no similarity whatsoever to battlegroups, at least not how some people are describing it.

It is possible that one of the options they discussed was to change the server structure to differentiate between tiers and servers. Meaning smaller tiers would have a smaller population cap, highest tier with the maxed population cap, etc. Instead of each server basically being the same. Who knows.

Yes, it was a post to gauge interest. See my emboldened part.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hypothetically-Speaking-New-Worlds/first#post6173458

“The ultimate goal of this hypothetical plan would be two-fold:
1) Give players/guilds that are too big for their ‘Full’ status world an opportunity to move to new worlds, enabling them to grow more easily again.
2) Achieve a larger number of smaller worlds that we can link together to achieve more balanced numbers for each team.”

Do you see the assumption that a larger number of smaller worlds would help Anet achieve more balanced numbers for each team? The only reason I’m associating the idea of more smaller shards with Battlegroups is exactly because of the smaller size. A battlegroup was described as being limited to 1000 players. How many players do you think one of those smaller shards would have been capped at?

Yea but just looking at numbers and seeing some kind of association of battlegroups doesn’t take into account all the other features which are totally separate. His idea would still keep the server structure and would not overturn it in favor of an alliance/battlegroup model.

More, smaller “worlds”, which would of course be easier with matchmaking.
Problems are heavily stacked servers.. what incentives would there be to destack from servers like BG?

I don’t honestly trust anets legendary matchmaking skills atm either.
add the complexity of how much time people spend actively playing wvw and it may not end well.

I suppose it’s flexible, but how many factions would you suggest? 3/6/9/12?

Certainly one of the better proposal’ I’ve seen though.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

More, smaller “worlds”, which would of course be easier with matchmaking.
Problems are heavily stacked servers.. what incentives would there be to destack from servers like BG?

As long as ANET doesn’t open up BG for transfers for a very extended period of time (a year or more) then it will destack naturally through attrition. ANET will have to stick with it though. Even opening it up for a short period allows the bandwagoners to jump to the easy mode blobship.

Grim West.3194:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

More, smaller “worlds”, which would of course be easier with matchmaking.
Problems are heavily stacked servers.. what incentives would there be to destack from servers like BG?

As long as ANET doesn’t open up BG for transfers for a very extended period of time (a year or more) then it will destack naturally through attrition. ANET will have to stick with it though. Even opening it up for a short period allows the bandwagoners to jump to the easy mode blobship.

It is not just BG.
Top servers in T2 and T3 are historically the popular choice of bandwagoners. They completely kill the competition in their tiers. WvW really kinda worked like a massive scale of hotjoin PvP. People will always join the winning side to create a snowball effect.

Chaba.5410:

Yes, it was a post to gauge interest. See my emboldened part.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/wuv/Hypothetically-Speaking-New-Worlds/first#post6173458

“The ultimate goal of this hypothetical plan would be two-fold:
1) Give players/guilds that are too big for their ‘Full’ status world an opportunity to move to new worlds, enabling them to grow more easily again.
2) Achieve a larger number of smaller worlds that we can link together to achieve more balanced numbers for each team.”

I’m disappointed that post didn’t get more consideration personally. I’d have been fine with taking my guild and a couple allies to a smaller server, so we could continue to play together without being stuck in one tier for a long period of time.

The advantage of doing this would be that the smallest servers wouldn’t necessarily be folded into T1/2 every time, meaning they’d be perfect destinations for those who like some variety but don’t want to bandwagon.

The downside is we’d need to get our own voice comms server. But I can arrange that.

Ben K.6238:

The downside is we’d need to get our own voice comms server. But I can arrange that.

And create a greater gulf/insulation between guilds and the rest of the population.

Next up: You can’t play with us unless you have <insert FOTM here>