Guild Wars 2

I would also be very careful about weakening communities since WvW is pretty much the only community left in GW2 aside from the RP community – which has been harmed to some extent by the megaserver. Most WvWers know people in multiple guilds and many are often members in multiple guilds, at least on TC.

Guilds and players come and go like the wind. The idea of a server endures. There’s a reason why religions continue to flourish in modernity. They are great at building community compared to the secular alternatives. Tarnished Coast is comparable to a religious institution or university. Guild are your team in the local softball or bowling league.

I’m not religious, but happy Rosh Hashana to you all!

One could adjust the score, at least to some extent, based on the numbers playing to reduce the affect of off-hour coverage on scoring. The present system gives too great a weight on off hour coverage. There’s a reason why California has more electoral votes than Delaware.

One could weight the scoring as follows: .3 (highest pop server) + .6 (middle pop server) +.1 (lowest pop server). I picked lower weight for the lowest population server since one doesn’t want to discourage people from playing so as not to harm their server. You can normalize things with some type of log function. I made another post on this topic awhile back.

I like the direction this is headed with the alliance stuff. But I think players like myself who don’t care what side we’re on, as long as we get a fair fight, are going to be crucial to making the matches balanced each week.

Reverence.6915:

With alliances, what about players with no guilds but actively participate in their server’s WvW efforts? New to WvW and have no direction on which alliance to pick?

Alliances may sound nice in theory, but I think it’ll only put up barriers to people getting into WvW, as it may forcefully separate friends due to alliance population limits. As an example, if this were to be implemented today, the majority of Blackgate would choose to move as one. Would an alliance fit that many people? or would the population cap be a lot lower and force people who’ve played together for 2 years give or take (majority of Blackgate’s guilds) to split up?

I don’t think it creates more barriers to entry. Currently people are stuck in whatever server they pick when they start playing. If you don’t read the forums in depth before hand then your WvW choice is effectively random or based on nearly irrelevant details like PVE world population. You simply lack any information to make an informed choice. Once you start playing, if the world your on doesn’t have a style of play you like then you’re effectively stuck unless you fork over some gems to transfer.

By separating WvW from world selection then it lets players play and get more information before having to choose what to do with WvW. And if Alliance recruit as guilds do I think that would reduce barriers by making the transition to WvW more informed and smoother.

However, you do have a good point that massive servers like BG may be forced to split depending on Alliance size caps. I would wonder though how many would be opposed to that if where they want was largely voluntary? I mean, it would allow most friends to continue playing together if they talk about which alliance to join instead of doing it blindly. I don’t play on a massive server so I really don’t know how they’d feel about that. I’m guessing and trying to see it from that point of view as well.

Also, having a system that allows alliance transfers/switching if you aren’t happy with your alliance would take a lot of the sting/fear out of picking an alliance.

John Corpening.9847:

Alliances would provide continuity for the community.

Very interesting idea, John,

Let me explore this idea a bit to create a possible concretization of it.

An alliance is kind of an extended guild, it may have (a) alliance leader(s) direct members and additionally it has other guilds as members. It has a total size limit, far larger than a today’s guild. A guild and a player(*) can be member in only one alliance and probably it’s a good idea that a guild can declare only a subset of its members to be part of the alliance (count against the alliance limit), e.g. I am in a large PvX-guild where only half of the members are interested in WvW and it’s probably not a good idea to count the WvW-inactive members against the alliance limit, or bother them with the alliance chat. Maybe that can be automatic, if I was in WvW during the last week I count, otherwise I don’t.

Initial alliances are the today’s server. All guilds of a server and all guild-less player of a server form one alliance, e.g. the SFR-Alliance, the Elona-Reach-Alliance, …

It has an general alliance chat, that visible to all direct members and all members of sub-guilds, and a WvW-chat that is only visible to the active WvW-player of the alliance.

Some goodies I can see,

• it has a treasury and all WvW upgrades by officers of the alliance are payed from the alliance treasury.
• it has a battle scheduler/calendar
• commander visibility level: guild-only, squad-only, alliance-only, everyone-in-team

Match-making could be totally different from today.
We have a fixed set of matches, and matchmaking would only be to place alliances into the teams of the matches, such that all teams have nearly equal man power, e.g. in one week SFR-alliance is placed as one team to fight against the team of Elona+Gandara alliances as second team and Vabbi+Millers+Abaddon+Jade sea alliances as third team (assuming the total alliance sizes of the teams are nearly equal.). At the end of the match each alliance in the team receives the team-score as alliance-score and in the leaderboard alliances and it’s score are listed (not the temporary teams). Next week, team composition of alliances could be totally different, alliances that were in a team in one week, may be in enemy teams the next week.

Also in tournaments the alliances are ranked, the temporary match-teams are only the vehicle to earn the score.

Alliances of all sizes can fairly compete with each other!

Creation of a new alliance is possible but cost a large number of gems. Transfers between alliances is possible, maybe free, maybe for a small fee. You have to be in an alliance to play WvW (you are automatically in an alliance, if your guild is in an alliance). In principle you can found your 1-man or 1-guid alliance and play WvW.
ANet could setup 1 OpenAlliance per Match-Team. If an alliance less player tries to enter WvW he automatically joins (for the rest of this week) the OpenAlliance of the smallest Match-Team.

(*) A player can be in several guilds, and the guilds may be in several different alliances. If this happens the player is considered to be in NO alliance, till a unique alliance membership exist again (the player leaves guilds, the guilds switch or leave alliances)

Samis.1750:

I would also be very careful about weakening communities since WvW is pretty much the only community left in GW2 aside from the RP community – which has been harmed to some extent by the megaserver. Most WvWers know people in multiple guilds and many are often members in multiple guilds, at least on TC.

Guilds and players come and go like the wind. The idea of a server endures. There’s a reason why religions continue to flourish in modernity. They are great at building community compared to the secular alternatives. Tarnished Coast is comparable to a religious institution or university. Guild are your team in the local softball or bowling league.

I’m not religious, but happy Rosh Hashana to you all!

Fair point. I suspect once a large alliance gets going it will take on a momentum all of its own similar to some of the large guilds. Members may come and go but the alliance remains.

At least, I’d hope so.

What would be interesting is if we could ditch the concept of servers altogether. For PvE and PvP, your server does not really matter anyway. So we’re primarily looking at WvW.

I know this is purely hypothetical, but imagine the following:

• There are no more separate servers.
• Guilds can form alliances.
• Alliances can assign other alliances as allies and rivals.
• ‘Signatures’ are calculated for WvW activity of guilds/alliances.
• Matchmaking is done by spreading the alliances out as evenly as possible, topped off by the guildless players and allianceless guilds. For guildless players they should be grouped with as many friends as possible.

This would create more varied matches, and more equal matches. Assuming most current servers form an alliance with their current guilds, you still keep some server pride going.

Alternatively, for the sake of simplicity, skip the alliances part and just have guilds assign others as allied/rivals.

Dayra.7405:

Match-making could be totally different from today.
We have a fixed set of matches, and matchmaking would only be to place alliances into the teams of the matches, such that all teams have nearly equal man power, e.g. This week SFR-alliance is placed as one team to fight against the team of Elona+Gandara alliances as second team and Vabbi+Millers+Abaddon+Jade sea alliances as third team (assuming the total alliance size are nearly equal.). At the end of the match each alliance in the team receives the team-score as alliance-score and in the leaderboard alliances and it’s score are listed (not the temporary teams).

I think he was saying that if BG has 10,000 WvW players and alliances have a 10,000 member cap then all of BG could move to one alliance and be called the BG Alliance.

However if alliances have a cap of 5000 then BG would have to split into 2 alliances and they’d both need unique names. Or if 2000 then 5 alliances, etc. Now if alliance caps are set lower than a full world population then you’re almost guaranteed to end up with more alliances than you have servers and it’s likely not all alliances would be capped out. The more alliances you have, the more potential match ups there are which makes it much easier to match alliances up based on relative populations and skill/score.

So that creates multiple alliances at cap that would then be in the same pool to be matched against each other. Alliances that are 90% of cap would be in a separate pool of match ups. 80% in a third, etc. Match ups would then proceed as they currently do. 1 alliance vs 1 alliance vs 1 alliance.

As alliances change in size restructuring would need to be planned in to avoid a constant steam roll scenario that many people find problematic. And with the increased number of alliances over servers it should limit the stagnant feeling of always playing against the same people.

I think….at least that’s how I interpreted it. Am I close? Not sure.

Think outside of the matchup.
Make matchups unpredictable.
Break away from 4 maps for every server.

WvWvW is too limiting. I want to propose something that is difficult to implement. It may be drastic and dangerous. But is something that won’t drastically degrade the experience of playing on a map. No map cap changes. No crazy power differences based on outnumbered buffs. It shouldn’t change how a map plays, but it could have huge impacts on how players strategies and distribute themselves among maps.

Each week shouldn’t just be WvWvW. It may primarily be WvWvW. But I think each weekly matchup can have a WvAll component too.

Here is my basic idea starting with the lower tiered servers.

Not all servers can cover 4 maps all the time. So don’t force them to. Give lower tier servers EB and one borderlands to focus on. EB is the centerpiece of a matchup being symmetrical, but with a focal point. It is the focal point of a matchup and can be left alone.

The borderlands, however, can be made more exciting. It is asymmetrical, therefore, you may ask, how can you balance it, if the low tier servers only have one borderlands. Who gets the Citadel spawn and who gets the border spawns? They all get a single borderlands with which they get the Citadel spawn, but, the people they fight are not from the core matchup. Instead they are mini-matchups with other servers, (that have more than enough people to fill extra borderlands).

My Idea is that the borderlands are not just an extension of the same 3 servers fighting each other in the EB, but they are shorter termed matches that contribute to the main match’s PPT but involve facing servers from other tiers. These mini-matchups are rotated so that any advantages based on the differences in the other servers capabilities are averaged out.

On the converse side. Higher tier servers get more than the EB and 3 borderlands to spread their forces out on. They will have those 4 maps, but they will also have extra borderlands (participating as the attackers with the border spawns) for fights with the lower tiered servers. Not just 1 extra borderlands, but they may be involved with 2 or 3 extras depending on the need to keep the queues down and the time of day. Just like in the low tier matchup, these borderlands contribute to their score, so they will have to invest and spread out players to these matches in order to sustain the maximal PPT. No longer are Tier 1 people capping maps and throwing zergs against zergs, they will have to choose between sacrificing some borderlands and zerging others or risking everything and spreading themselves thin.

The main point is to have as many borderlands as needed to match the WvW demand for each server and every time of the day. NA oceanic have fewer players? well give them fewer objectives to cover by eliminating most of the mini-matchups. Need to fit more players, schedule and create more borderlands to meet the demands. Every server needs to have the number of objectives adjusted so that every objective gets equal coverage capabilities, and for the most part, balanced maps.

The biggest risk is that matches won’t be fair. Some servers may shift their populations around these mini-matchups in an un-equitable way. Maybe even in ways in spite of one particular server. The rotations of server playing each other may not be fair based on who fight which server more during prime time and what server more during off times. Great care will have to be made in deciding on these borderlands mini-matchups, and imbalances could still occur. But you know, turbulence in fairness is a good thing. Because if we believe that capability should always, always, determine the outcome of a match 100%, then we will simply have more of what we have now. We will have matches that are so predictable that they are primarily pre-determined. You can’t have upsets without a little luck or other unforeseen kicker.

Here are a few more things about this hypothetical system.
Won’t lower per map caps.
Won’t merge/break servers.
Can be tuned to adjust time of day coverage issues too.
All servers get to see and fight each other, and sometime even have level playing fields with servers in vastly distant tiers.

I may be crazy. But here is my idea anyways.

My first question, will there be a possibility that you can inform alliances across multiple server or do you have to stick to your home server and form an alliance only with people from said server?

And then I can’t really grasp how an alliance system would help tackling night capping or off hour imbalances.
Matching Alliances against each other will definitively help balancing the over all population of a WvW Matchup but how can you ensure that a specific Alliance won’t bring in more people willingly to play at off peak hours.

How can you measure that in advance and how can you incorporate a way that tackles a fluctation of off peak players in an alliance between two matchups?
From my point of view this is pretty much not doable.

Moving on from server based matchups to alliance based matchups is a good step in the right direction to ensure pretty balanced matchups from the point of total population.
But there must be a second mechanic which ensures that you don’t have to play against an alliance with way more off peak players or which diminish the result of a better off peak population.
I can only suggest adding a dynamic way of points per tick that considers the current amount of players on 1 side in a specific borderlands/across all 4 maps. So that the side/alliance who’s currently “PvDing” will get less points per tick.

Conclusion: alliance system will tackle the overall population imbalance but can’t ensure that one side wont have a bigger impact on the outcome of a matchup by having a larger off peak player base. So we need a second system preventing off peak imbalance.

Schtizzel.5497:

And then I can’t really grasp how an alliance system would help tackling night capping or off hour imbalances.
Matching Alliances against each other will definitively help balancing the over all population of a WvW Matchup but how can you ensure that a specific Alliance won’t bring in more people willingly to play at off peak hours.

How can you measure that in advance and how can you incorporate a way that tackles a fluctation of off peak players in an alliance between two matchups?
From my point of view this is pretty much not doable.

Is this something that should be programmed in to match ups?

Part of managing an alliance would be recruiting the types of players you need which would include when they could play. Would it be fair to say this is part of a valid strategy to win? If you can spread your members around the clock instead of stacking them in prime time to help you get the points, why would that be wrong?

Also if having more off peak players results in net higher scores over time and if match ups take population and score into account, isn’t this already factored into match ups “in advance”?

Torsailr.8456:

I think he was saying that if BG has 10,000 WvW players and alliances have a 10,000 member cap then all of BG could move to one alliance and be called the BG Alliance.

However if alliances have a cap of 5000 then BG would have to split into 2 alliances and they’d both need unique names.

For sure, smaller alliances make team-composition easier and more variant than large alliances.

Also for sure it does not make sense to allow alliances to grow larger than match-team-size.

But if you say, current NA-T1 teams are perfect size to fill up 24/7 4-map matches and we stick to such matches, then todays BG-size (or SFR-size, no idea who is larger) would be the max-size of an alliance.
BG-alliance would always be one team, whereas other teams would consist of several alliances.

I’ve no idea how many matches it would give if all teams are BG-size, maybe 2, maybe 3, maybe 4. But ANet for sure can determine this.

It is also possible to have matches of different sizes. Could be nice for variance.
In one week your (small) alliance is placed in a 4-map match with many others, in another week you alliance is placed in a 2-map match (assuming we have two balanced maps), with fewer others. In one week you play on maps with high (current) map caps, in another week you play on maps with low map cap (assuming you fit).

You could even say there is only one matchup of 3 teams of alliances consisting of 10 maps every week, then of course even BG becomes a small alliance that cannot play alone. And you can even vary the match-structure from week to week.

Stop rewarding the zerglings the most in world vs world. The path of least resistance…

sigh

Gully.7358:

Stop rewarding the zerglings the most in world vs world. The path of least resistance…

sigh

oPP zerg too stronk

Dayra.7405:

Torsailr.8456:

I think he was saying that if BG has 10,000 WvW players and alliances have a 10,000 member cap then all of BG could move to one alliance and be called the BG Alliance.

However if alliances have a cap of 5000 then BG would have to split into 2 alliances and they’d both need unique names.

For sure, smaller alliances make team-composition easier and more variant than large alliances.

Also for sure it does not make sense to allow alliances to grow larger than match-team-size.

But if you say, current NA-T1 teams are perfect size to fill up 24/7 4-map matches and we stick to such matches, then todays BG-size (or SFR-size, no idea who is larger) would be the max-size of an alliance.
BG-alliance would always be one team, whereas other teams would consist of several alliances.

I’ve no idea how many matches it would give if all teams are BG-size, maybe 2, maybe 3, maybe 4. But ANet for sure can determine this.

It is also possible to have matches of different sizes. Could be nice for variance.
In one week your (small) alliance is placed in a 4-map match with many others, in another week you alliance is placed in a 2-map match (assuming we have two balanced maps), with fewer others. In one week you play on maps with high (current) map caps, in another week you play on maps with low map cap (assuming you fit).

I see where you’re going with that. I agree having 2 500 member alliances compete as a team against 2 separate 1000 member alliances could make for an interesting break from the norm. It might pose problems with score tracking/allocation for a teamed effort though.

I think the overall success or fail of an alliance system would come down to finding what the right cap is for alliance sizes. Too high and it doesn’t effectively change anything, too low and you start running into not having enough people to compete well.

I think 2000 is about right. here’s how I derived it:
(80 person map cap) x (3 maps) x (6 blocks of time based on 4 hours of assumed average play time per player) + 50% for unaccounted variabkitten
× 3 × 6 = 1440 × 1.5 = 2160. Round down to 2000.

Given I have no way of knowing what actual wvw populations are on a server, this seemed a reasonable way to guess a potential cap size. I’m sure the devs have better means of evaluating populations to find a cap size.

It’s the reason why people stack on tier 1 servers, it’s simply the easiest way to get rewarded.

Focus on better reward system for the people who do a lot of work with less then 5 or 10 man groups, add some more objectives and I have a feeling the population will actually spread out a little better while making more servers be more competitive.

Torsailr.8456:

Is this something that should be programmed in to match ups?

Part of managing an alliance would be recruiting the types of players you need which would include when they could play. Would it be fair to say this is part of a valid strategy to win? If you can spread your members around the clock instead of stacking them in prime time to help you get the points, why would that be wrong?

Also if having more off peak players results in net higher scores over time and if match ups take population and score into account, isn’t this already factored into match ups “in advance”?

It’s a valid tactic but the fact that you have to have a night crew to win a higher tier matchup, is what I a wanna address.

Your prime time can be the best of the best but then there are some server/alliance that just have a good and staple night crew (hasn’t to be 100 people but only 20-30 people every night can make a hugh different) and you can’t beat them. Playing at night when your opponent is sleeping has so many advantages: you can take down T3 keeps in matter of minutes, can upgrade everything and you can generate alot of points.
Somebody who is playing every night for 2h can have a much bigger influence then someone playing only in the evening. Dodging every fight and playing only when your opponent is sleeping that’s not what i want WvW to be.

Of course night capping is and always will be a valid tactic but the fact that 6h of a day can pretty much neglect the work during the other 18h is what needs to be addressed.

Creating an even playing ground and valuing different times when someone is playing the same should be the target not forcing alliances to have a night crew to even compete in a higher tier after all.

Torsailr.8456:

John Corpening.9847:

This would happen at regular intervals, the intervals were all over the map as were the size of the worlds in this thread so I will propose this cadence:

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

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

I think this might be over complicating it. The key is having dynamic databases that update with alliance membership numbers.

The way I see it is if Alliances are a collection of individuals/guilds then they have control over their own numbers.

Let’s go even simpler.

There is no need for user-control of Alliance membership counts beyond choice and something very like the existent Guild management system. This takes directly from the GW1 method, and builds it out as a GW2 variant of the same.

If Alliances are to be made into something that acts like World citizenship, then also reuse the existent World Transfer mechanic. Rename it to Alliance Enlistment, and impose the same restrictions as before.

Make Alliances sovereign to WvW in regard to their purposes and affects.

Allow Alliances to self-elect their allegiances with other Alliances, to form fighting groups (worlds/realms) for WvW, up to an ArenaNet-imposed limit analogous to the current world population caps. This is where John’s concept of recurring periods of allegiance shifts finds its use. It would, as John saw, have to occur after WvW tournaments, and before any other triggers for next-tournament build up. It would also need to impose a requirement that the total number of worlds ends up being divisible by 3.

The most important player limitation would be never introducing a power to kick other players from one’s own Alliance or World. This issue must be designed around.

However, thinking about this in terms of an alliance of guilds also demands a managerial function that almost inevitably leads to that very power.

http://youtu.be/rJp86_tj9KQ

the “alliance world” idea is extremely cool, John…

John Corpening.9847:

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

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

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

John

I’m sorry but no. Until you guys tackle the real issues of the mode itself, this is only a band aid. I personally don’t care that the t1 servers field more people, if the system had a way to balance out population disparities and didn’t over-emphasize coverage problems, we’d see that servers would move around the ladder more. While in hindsight alliances would be a cool idea if you rolled out with it, right now, as it stands, unless you shake up the mode, we’ll be having this same discussion next year, if there is a next year.

I’m no fan of equal player quantities, because that always means get rid of server / community or you have to cap players. There’s no solution for late night hours too.

I played another game before and it was more fun than really equal for all sides and they did the following: Buff players that have less players.

. the siege weapons could have smaller cooldowns
. you could build siege weapons with less supplies

Of course that would mean you need new technique / game mechanics to implement into the game.

There’s already a game mechanic, that isn’t used how it should be used: “outnumbered”. 1 versus 3 you never win. To have +20% magic find against 3 enemies, you never have a profit of. Make it useful! Apply it with 2 vs 1 already and give some useful player attributes, it won’t be fair and perfect equal but it would be more fair then now.

Another game mechanic is to give players more vitality and healing the more they get ahead with points that makes the game more and more unequal outnumbered.
With tournaments before this, it was applied to PvE too.
Why not apply it to PvE only? There are players that not only play WvW, but PvE too. The more the week goes on and the more you get buffed, maybe some players would change to PvE and the outnumbered servers could profit.

Let the outnumbered server have a start point.
Nothing is more depressing than to have no building and no supplies on the map at all. There is this NPC Commander you can start, but 100 supplies is nothing (even outnumbered!) against another server that has 1.700 supplies every major building.
The supplies from “Edge of the mists” were a nice idea, but you get them every 3 hours only if you win? then build 1 golem and they’re gone. Make it to have supplies there if you are about to loose the game against other servers.

All mentioned could be based about player numbers but depending on actual existing buildings on a map (depending on the color) too.

John Corpening.9847:

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

• We want a thriving and vibrant WvW community in each world. That is to say, we want people to play with and against.
• We want to continue to play with our friends and the communities that we have developed already.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John

*shortened John’s quote to make the 5001 cut off.

I don’t think I like this idea, here are my concerns about Alliances.
What happens to single players who don’t belong to guilds? How do they get to be apart of the WvW experience?

What happens to the unique guilds of WvW? I mean guilds that don’t follow the “meta” but yet still contribute to the WvW experience? It has been my experience that to get into a lot of WvW guilds most players have to jump through hoops to be allowed into the guild. These Alliances seem to be another hoop that has to be jumped through in order to be accepted into any Alliance.

What are we going to do about people who don’t get an Alliance? Are we just going to say opps so sorry you are not “elite” enough to be in WvW?

One of the beautiful things about WvW is that it has been a way for all players types to come together, including those that don’t necessarily follow the “meta” , those who follow their own bliss and yet still add value to the WvW experience of all. Individuality is alive and well in WvW whereas I think these Alliances will squash that. Which imo would be really sad.

Torsailr.8456:

Dayra.7405:

Match-making could be totally different from today.
We have a fixed set of matches, and matchmaking would only be to place alliances into the teams of the matches, such that all teams have nearly equal man power, e.g. This week SFR-alliance is placed as one team to fight against the team of Elona+Gandara alliances as second team and Vabbi+Millers+Abaddon+Jade sea alliances as third team (assuming the total alliance size are nearly equal.). At the end of the match each alliance in the team receives the team-score as alliance-score and in the leaderboard alliances and it’s score are listed (not the temporary teams).

I think he was saying that if BG has 10,000 WvW players and alliances have a 10,000 member cap then all of BG could move to one alliance and be called the BG Alliance.

However if alliances have a cap of 5000 then BG would have to split into 2 alliances and they’d both need unique names. Or if 2000 then 5 alliances, etc. Now if alliance caps are set lower than a full world population then you’re almost guaranteed to end up with more alliances than you have servers and it’s likely not all alliances would be capped out. The more alliances you have, the more potential match ups there are which makes it much easier to match alliances up based on relative populations and skill/score.

So that creates multiple alliances at cap that would then be in the same pool to be matched against each other. Alliances that are 90% of cap would be in a separate pool of match ups. 80% in a third, etc. Match ups would then proceed as they currently do. 1 alliance vs 1 alliance vs 1 alliance.

As alliances change in size restructuring would need to be planned in to avoid a constant steam roll scenario that many people find problematic. And with the increased number of alliances over servers it should limit the stagnant feeling of always playing against the same people.

I think….at least that’s how I interpreted it. Am I close? Not sure.

That’s what I took away from it as well.. This sounds like setting up a system for people to voluntarily merge servers. While that is better than forced merges, it still doesn’t fix the problems.

Zepher.7803:

My idea is simple in theory, get rid of servers (everyone will have to adapt it’s the only way)

What we do now is have 3 sides the Order of whispers, Durmand Priory, and Vigil.

this allows people to pick whatever side they want just depends on the toon. and if you are new or have a problem with doing storyline, you can go into EoTM until you complete the Story step (level 30ish I think?)
this wouldn’t take long at all and ties GW2 core with WvWvW (rename it to fit if you must) now if people want to play a certain side they just need to log on the toon that has the matching order picked.

now the problem is balance on all 3 sides, well….if T1 can que all the maps at reset for 5 hours then I would say a safe option would be to have multiple WvW Maps about 4 or 5 “overflows” and get rid of the option to taxi over in another map.

in PVE we are all playing together to kill bosses etc, now we can all play together as actual “order” the hatred of server identity is gone, mortal enemies in a pixelated world is ludicrous, we all play to have fun and kill stuff/people. people can now RELAX and kill for fun not because you hate a certain server AND THEN maybe there will be an official forum for the 3 orders to poke jabs at in fun and not get all mad at because we can now all pick and choose a side whenever we want.

of course each Order would get a specific Buff kinda like EoTM to have fun with.

time to evolve people and stop the “server identity insanity” enough of holding onto the old school thinking of server vs server v server LET US DECIDE Via STORYLINE!.

how’s that?

In brief, a junk idea, the orders have nothing to do with WvW and any kind of battles in the mist. It would be totally immersion breaking, if those orders, that are in real an ALLIANCE would suddenly begin to fight agaisnt each other.

If this concept would find its way into the game, then it must be 3 completely new factions.

Something like:

The Mist Lords
The Celestial Inquisition
The Rebellion of Dhuum

Something along the line of this would work, but not the 3 pve story related orders. Thats just nonsense.

Jim Hunter.6821:

That’s what I took away from it as well.. This sounds like setting up a system for people to voluntarily merge servers. While that is better than forced merges, it still doesn’t fix the problems.

After all the discussion now, since you’re the OP, where do you stand on the solution? Do you still feel a lower map cap is going to help address population imbalance?

Good Afternoon,
firstly would like to sorry for my english.

I didn’t read everything , and probably that idea already in , but will try to explain how i see how could be balanced servers.

As a EOTM player , will write only about EOTM , cause too often we got as a 10vs50 and etc.

As we know EOTM spliting for 3 teams R-red/G-green/B-blue.

What if to put variable limit of 10.

How does it looks like.

R-5,G-11,B-7. (max limit to enter is 11) R/B got outnumbered buff, as soon as all 3 teams reach 11 (max limit increase +10) and could enter 21 person.

For example R-32,G-37,B-33 (max limit is 41(all 3 teams got buff) and after another fight where loose R , some of ppl quit the game or map. R-25,G-37,B-33(max limit is 31) until R didn’t get again 31 , and as a limit dropped buff get only R.

Again would like to sorry for my english, and i hope you will understand and support my idea.

Thank you.

Schtizzel.5497:

And then I can’t really grasp how an alliance system would help tackling night capping or off hour imbalances.

It allows new solutions to coverage. The root of the coverage problem is that the amount of players that want to play WvW is different all around the clock, whereas the match-capacity is equal all around the clock, i.e. the match-capacity per team is always fix around 400, while the number of players per team vary from 0-1000.

Let’s assume for a moment that we will have just ONE match in the future, where all the alliances are distributed over the 3 teams, such that overall man-power is nearly equal.

4 map is not enough for that in prime-time, we likely need 10-20 maps in primetime, but in off-time we need much less maps maybe only 4.

We have

• EB-map
• (rebalanced) EotM-map
• 3-BL-map (can be used only together due to their asymmetry)
• maybe new maps in the future

We may use them in two versions

• large (capacity is 100% of current)
• small (capacity is 50% of current)

We may have an 3-BLs-large map(s) that fits around 300 player per team, we may have a EB-medium map that fits around 50 player per team, etc..

These are the blocks ANet can setup the match-structure. ANet knows (could know) the man-power/time graphs! of all alliances from last week and can estimate the man-power/time graphs of the teams from it and can setup a match-structure that fits it well from it.

E.g. always the match consists of the match-structure of today

• EB-large
• 3BLs-large

thats 400 capacity per team.

In prime-time that’s far from sufficient to fit all player, we need more capacity for prime-time, so lets add maps that can only be played during prime-time each day

• 3-BLs-small ( + 150 capacity)
• EB-small ( + 50 capacity)
• EotM-large (+100 capacity)
• EotM-small (+ 100 capacity)
• …

till the capacity exceeds the estimated demand. The maps are saved when their demand ends and restored when they are demanded again.

• This cannot be manipulated because it is estimated from last weeks demand.
• If all alliances are stable it will fit, and you will have no queue and no coverage problem
• Only if many alliances are rather unstable, you may have queue or coverage problems, but that’s your fault, be more predictable.

Instead of basing the alliances around guilds and players, base it on servers and add maps to the match to accomodate the numbers.

So, it would be Servers A, C and E vs Servers B, D and F vs Servers X,Y and Z playing across 12 maps (nine borderlands and 3 EBGs). And, make it so only your server can defend your borderlands (to give you somewhere to retain server pride).

Everyone wins.

I was thinking that to even things out without doing something as drastic as a server merger would be too first lock the top third of the rankings for transfers no one gets in. The middle third would cost 1200 as usual and the bottom third would be free. Also to help with the PPT change it so that the owner of each point must have held it for the entire tick and not just grab it before the timer expires.

too much qq from t2.. proclaimed good fighter good roamers bla bla.. come to t1 bro.. lots of good roamers here..

The issue that causes the unbalancing of WvW is not over all population of a server, but “Off Prime time population”. Whether it be NA servers or EU servers, the matches are almost entirely decided by WvW activity during Off peak hours for whatever region you are in. Whoever can get closest to 24 hour coverage wins, as evidenced by NA T1 and the efforts all servers put in to shoring up weak time zones.

Merging servers would simply induce queues for the NA population of those servers yet would not fundamentally effect their performance with regards to end of week score. “Night Capping” would still be an issue because there is simply not enough Off-prime time WvW players to go around.

I am not advocating for any solution because this is beyond my abilities to solve. But This is the CORE issue when it comes to score and PPT and all things encapsulated in “winning WvW”

If the end result of fixing population imbalance is to have competitive matches then THE ABOVE NEEDS TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED AND ADDRESSED.

You can NOT find a solution to this problem, ergo not part of this thread.

There is simply not enough Off Primetime population to go around to make matches competitive. Even if they “merged servers” or made “battlegroups” there wouldn’t be a big enough Off Prime time population to make more than 1 tier of competitive matches like it is now. The servers that are T1 have LOTS of coverage 24 hours a day, BUT no server is running queues all maps all day everyday or anywhere close. Look at what Mal said on the WvW forums about how much planning and organizing for coverage they did in preparation for this season to fill in the gaps BG had in their coverage. Look at JQ, arguably the king of T1 riding on the back of their monster SEA population. They get it. So does BG, BG specifically went for a Russian team in Season 1 to counter the SEA timezone of JQ.

This is all from looking at PPT and scoring and the whole 24 hour aspect of 7 day long matches.

tl:dr WvW cannot be competitive until population imbalance through ALL time zones is addressed

Dayra.7405:

Schtizzel.5497:

And then I can’t really grasp how an alliance system would help tackling night capping or off hour imbalances.

It allows new solutions to coverage. The root of the coverage problem is that the amount of players that want to play WvW is different all around the clock, whereas the match-capacity is equal all around the clock, i.e. the match-capacity per team is always fix around 400, while the number of players per team vary from 0-1000.

Let’s assume for a moment that we will have just ONE match in the future, where all the alliances are distributed over the 3 teams, such that overall man-power is nearly equal.

4 map is not enough for that in prime-time, we likely need 10-20 maps in primetime, but in off-time we need much less maps maybe only 4.

We have

• EB-map
• (rebalanced) EotM-map
• 3-BL-map (can be used only together due to their asymmetry)
• maybe new maps in the future

We may use them in two versions

• large (capacity is 100% of current)
• small (capacity is 50% of current)

We may have an 3-BLs-large map(s) that fits around 300 player per team, we may have a EB-medium map that fits around 50 player per team, etc..

These are the blocks ANet can setup the match-structure. ANet knows (could know) the man-power/time graphs! of all alliances from last week and can estimate the man-power/time graphs of the teams from it and can setup a match-structure that fits it well from it.

E.g. always the match consists of the match-structure of today

• EB-large
• 3BLs-large

thats 400 capacity per team.

In prime-time that’s far from sufficient to fit all player, we need more capacity for prime-time, so lets add maps that can only be played during prime-time each day

• 3-BLs-small ( + 150 capacity)
• EB-small ( + 50 capacity)
• EotM-large (+100 capacity)
• EotM-small (+ 100 capacity)
• …

till the capacity exceeds the estimated demand. The maps are saved when their demand ends and restored when they are demanded again.

• This cannot be manipulated because it is estimated from last weeks demand.
• If all alliances are stable it will fit, and you will have no queue and no coverage problem
• Only if many alliances are rather unstable, you may have queue or coverage problems, but that’s your fault, be more predictable.

Blaeys.3102:

Instead of basing the alliances around guilds and players, base it on servers and add maps to the match to accomodate the numbers.

So, it would be Servers A, C and E vs Servers B, D and F vs Servers X,Y and Z playing across 12 maps (nine borderlands and 3 EBGs). And, make it so only your server can defend your borderlands (to give you somewhere to retain server pride).

Everyone wins.

Wait… what? So you’re saying that the “Alliances” are just the same old EotM-style Green/Blue/Red teams, with everyone playing on the same teams all the time, no more Tiers or unique matchups, and Servers and guilds who never see each other on the map or even speak to one another will now have to count each other in order to win each week?

Please, keep the casual, EotM-style teams OUT of WvW.

I feel like this Alliance system would have the potential to destroyer server communities.

Otokomae.9356:

Dayra.7405:

Schtizzel.5497:

And then I can’t really grasp how an alliance system would help tackling night capping or off hour imbalances.

It allows new solutions to coverage. The root of the coverage problem is that the amount of players that want to play WvW is different all around the clock, whereas the match-capacity is equal all around the clock, i.e. the match-capacity per team is always fix around 400, while the number of players per team vary from 0-1000.

Let’s assume for a moment that we will have just ONE match in the future, where all the alliances are distributed over the 3 teams, such that overall man-power is nearly equal.

4 map is not enough for that in prime-time, we likely need 10-20 maps in primetime, but in off-time we need much less maps maybe only 4.

We have

• EB-map
• (rebalanced) EotM-map
• 3-BL-map (can be used only together due to their asymmetry)
• maybe new maps in the future

We may use them in two versions

• large (capacity is 100% of current)
• small (capacity is 50% of current)

We may have an 3-BLs-large map(s) that fits around 300 player per team, we may have a EB-medium map that fits around 50 player per team, etc..

These are the blocks ANet can setup the match-structure. ANet knows (could know) the man-power/time graphs! of all alliances from last week and can estimate the man-power/time graphs of the teams from it and can setup a match-structure that fits it well from it.

E.g. always the match consists of the match-structure of today

• EB-large
• 3BLs-large

thats 400 capacity per team.

In prime-time that’s far from sufficient to fit all player, we need more capacity for prime-time, so lets add maps that can only be played during prime-time each day

• 3-BLs-small ( + 150 capacity)
• EB-small ( + 50 capacity)
• EotM-large (+100 capacity)
• EotM-small (+ 100 capacity)
• …

till the capacity exceeds the estimated demand. The maps are saved when their demand ends and restored when they are demanded again.

• This cannot be manipulated because it is estimated from last weeks demand.
• If all alliances are stable it will fit, and you will have no queue and no coverage problem
• Only if many alliances are rather unstable, you may have queue or coverage problems, but that’s your fault, be more predictable.

Blaeys.3102:

Instead of basing the alliances around guilds and players, base it on servers and add maps to the match to accomodate the numbers.

So, it would be Servers A, C and E vs Servers B, D and F vs Servers X,Y and Z playing across 12 maps (nine borderlands and 3 EBGs). And, make it so only your server can defend your borderlands (to give you somewhere to retain server pride).

Everyone wins.

Wait… what? So you’re saying that the “Alliances” are just the same old EotM-style Green/Blue/Red teams, with everyone playing on the same teams all the time, no more Tiers or unique matchups, and Servers and guilds who never see each other on the map or even speak to one another will now have to count each other in order to win each week?

Please, keep the casual, EotM-style teams OUT of WvW.

Alliances are not blue, green, red, but blue, green, red are the teams of a match.
The initial alliances are the current servers, 1 today server = 1 future alliance.
Several alliances together are assigned to a team, such that teams have equal size.

Differences to today’s EotM

• EotM has no 24/7 match, alliance WvW will have 24/7 matches.
• alliances fight for their permant ranking in the leaderboard, whereas in EotM all score is forgotten after 4h

Imagine it as one gigantic map where all alliances are placed to fight for their score. 2/3 of the alliances are hostile, 1/3 of the alliances are friendly (you cannot fight each other, how much you actually cooperate depends on rivalry)

If an alliance controls territory proportional to its size it is as expected and stays at it’s current score, if it controls more territory than expected it gains score, if it controls less than expected it looses score.

Crius.5487:

I feel like this Alliance system would have the potential to destroyer server communities.

Communities are based on relationships. If you have those relationships in place, they will remain regardless.

The model we have now cannot stand for one simple reason – it isnt fun for everyone. The people on low population servers should have access to the same experience/level of fun as those on full servers.

The megaserver accomplished this in PVE. Now its time to come up with a system that levels the playing field in WvW as well. Alliances seem like the best way to do that.

Again, I think they should be based on servers rather than guilds/individuals (to combat that loss of server identity and pride), but that is just my opinion.

Done properly, it would give us a fun experience in WvW that keeps competition in place – while making sure EVERYONE (not just the top 2-3 servers who have the numbers) gets to participate in an epic WvW experience.

The why i believe is make ppt depend on how many players are on map, if you tick like 50points / tick if you own everything have everything max upgraded when no players on then it will give litle, and give 0 reward for capping paper places. then if you cap a fully upgraded Keep you get 100% reward if it is defended, if no defense you gain like 20% reward.

Shadow.3475:

The why i believe is make ppt depend on how many players are on map, if you tick like 50points / tick if you own everything have everything max upgraded when no players on then it will give litle, and give 0 reward for capping paper places. then if you cap a fully upgraded Keep you get 100% reward if it is defended, if no defense you gain like 20% reward.

…you don’t see the problem with this?

“No! Stop building siege! Don’t defend! They’ll get more points if you defend! NOBODY PLACE SIEGE IN THIS KEEP! DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND HOW THE POINT SYSTEM WORKS?

LOOK, IT’S EASY, EVERY ARROW CART YOU PLACE MEANS THEY GAIN 1 EXTRA POINT PER TICK WHEN YOU PLACE IT, MORANS! OH FOR DWAYNA’S SAKE!"

And so on.

Dayra.7405:

Alliances are not blue, green, red, but blue, green, red are the teams of a match.
The initial alliances are the current servers, 1 today server = 1 future alliance.
Several alliances together are assigned to a team, such that teams have equal size.

Differences to today’s EotM

• EotM has no 24/7 match, alliance WvW will have 24/7 matches.
• alliances fight for their permant ranking in the leaderboard, whereas in EotM all score is forgotten after 4h

Imagine it as one gigantic map where all alliances are placed to fight for their score. 2/3 of the alliances are hostile, 1/3 of the alliances are friendly.

So “Alliances” in this instance are basically just like servers, and are going to be forced to play on “Teams” of servers, with whom they communicate through Map Chat, and these “Alliances” are not fighting for their own win, but are forced to rely on the performance of other “Alliances” that they’ve been grouped with that week. That is how EotM Battle Groups/Teams/RGB-style works. And it’s terrible for competition, and is probably the largest reason why no one even looks at the score in EotM, since they’re too busy making sure they go around the map at an even pace, so they never have to see any enemy “Teams”.

Would these “Teams” be permanent, or would be change periodically? Would the “Alliances” get to pick their teams, or is it random, or is it decided for them by some combination of Glicko/population/whatever? Because if the “Teams” are changed by Anet periodically, then they’ll never be able to form groups that can work together, communicate well, coordinate across maps, etc, and that’s how you turn WvW into “EotM Casual Mode”.

PLEASE do not let anything like this happen.

Holy walls of text…
So if I get what you are saying right.
Basically this would be a balanced EOTM? except we would pick the color (alliance) we want to be in, and once that hits cap, you would have to pick one of the other colors(alliance)?

Team composition replaces match making, i.e. It happens every Friday at 20:00.

You do not have to rely on the other alliances of your team, each alliance can be scored separate based on its individual performance in the match. Maybe you don’t want to cooperate, but are in a race of taking stuff from the enemies.

Torsailr.8456:

John Corpening.9847:

This would happen at regular intervals, the intervals were all over the map as were the size of the worlds in this thread so I will propose this cadence:

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

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

I think this might be over complicating it. The key is having dynamic databases that update with alliance membership numbers.

The way I see it is if Alliances are a collection of individuals/guilds then they have control over their own numbers. If the alliance membership size is kept in a database it can be updated either dynamically as the alliance changes or as a call each week. Each week when it comes time to create matchups you group the alliances into tiers based on population then refine it based on previous scores/leaderboards (if none treat as 0).

This allows match ups to be made independent of what is happening in the alliance and allows the match ups to always be current with membership levels. If an alliance drops 200 members in a week then they’ll be matched against someone with a similar number of members the following week. It would prevent a situation where someone gets railroaded by higher numbers.

It may be possible for people to try to game the system by not having many people in the alliance and then joining up after a match up is set. I think a few smaller alliances might try this but enough of the regular players would find this idea abhorrent and wouldn’t bother trying. We want meaningful matches, not new ways to game the system and cheat. But no system is 100% cheat proof. I think the community would self police itself in this regard and if it proves to be a re-occurring problem with some then a GM could hand out suspensions if necessary.

It may be necessary to freeze placements in the tiers for a Tournament. But I think there might be a few unconsidered variables there to make a decision like that now. Personally I think after 6-9 months of alliances things would be fairly stable and the increased number of alliances over servers would allow for a more robust round robin tournaments making freezes unnecessary.

You could have alliances only change at weekly reset. So you’d play out the week and have the alliance swap set up to happen once reset hits. then you might have an hour downtime for the system to get everything set up and matched and then boom you start again with a new match

I will say that Darya’s interpretation of how alliances work is not the same as my interpretation and I consider it a very troubling interpretation. I would not want new WvWvW “world comps” every week and John’s insistence that they have no intention of destroying server communities makes me think Darya is wrong.

Edit: and if you look at it, John even mentions it being “every few months.” So every few months you can think of it as being a free transfer period for groups to switch alliances after the most recent tournament.

My problem with the alliance thing is that it boils down to turning wvw into alliance v alliance – megaguild v megaguild. To an extent that is how wvw rolls at the moment, at least in high tier servers, but it also has the effect of shutting out roamers, newbies, small and/or unconventional guilds, etc. As someone who’s been on the recieving end of guild drama, I’m also not keen on the idea of such a huge part of the game potentially being dictated by the whims of guild and megaguild politics – a difference of opinion between a couple of people that ultimately resulted in an alliance kick could result in tens of people suddenly unable to play a core part of the game through no fault of their own.

Ever since megaservers though, other than the EU/NA split there is no connection whatsoever between your ‘home world’ and pve, the only thing it matters for any more is wvw anyway. Not that PvE events and communities don’t still happen, but they happen around large pve-focused guilds – which is great for pve players, don’t get me wrong. For wvw though, it makes it all the harder to recruit from your server’s pve population, as such a thing no longer truly exists, and the average pve player probably doesn’t know or care about the tiny bonuses they gain from their world’s wvw score.

Rather than turning wvw into megaguild v megaguild I would rather see a rethinking of how world association works. my badly thought out proposal follows:

require a player to select a wvw “home world” before they can enter wvw (even edge, as it affects if they are red/blue/green). have a hard cap on how many people can be associated with a wvw world at any one time. require a player to sign into wvw at least once a week (or every three days, or some other cadence) to remain associated with their world; after that time passes without a login, they lose their association with that world and must reapply to join that world.

maybe have a queue system so that people who want to join a popular world can still have a chance without having to hammer “select $bestservereu” 24/7. you can join a low pop world so you can still wvw while waiting but once your queue pops you’re shifted to whatever world you chose. same rules still apply – fail to login for the set amount of time and you lose your spot.

for implementation, people would initially be associated with whatever world they are currently playing on, but what you would see is that after the first ‘week’ (or whatever cadence) passes, pure pve and pvp players who do not enter wvw would lose their world association and the population levels would start to stabilise. Removing the bank/tp/crafting stations from the WvW citadels would also help, as much as it would be a pain for pve players it would also mean a lack of people jumping into wvw just to craft, which would mean that people entering wvw would be a true reflection of people who are /playing/ wvw.

for setting the population cap, obviously anet would need to look at all the metrics and set a reasonable cap on the numbers per wvw world. it’s likely that this number would have to be lower than the current wvw population of high/gold tier servers simply because population imbalance is what we are trying to fix. my proposal for this would be for gold tier servers to only be able to /lose/ people until they are below the cap.

example:

server a has 250 players
server b has 100 players
server c has 50 players

the pop cap is set to 150 players

server a is 150 players above the cap before the limit is set, so while it is losing population due to people losing the association via the login limits, new people cannot join.

servers b and c however have 50 and 100 free slots respectively, so new players looking to join wvw and/or former server a players who need a new home can pick one of those.

player d wants to join server a, but cannot because of the cap. player d thus joins a queue to join server a, which cannot happen until server a has 149 players. in the mean time, player d is able to join server b or c if there is an available spot (and indeed may end up change their mind about joining server a in the mean time).

this would not prevent people from joining high pop servers/worlds if they want to, but also encourages people to join lower pop servers. it also does not shut out roamers, newbies, and guilds who do not want to deal with large alliances.

An alliance system is everything WvW needs right now.

You could also add “soft” alliances where players are assigned to automated alliances should they opt out. You could even do a system like the PvP hotjoin menus and custom arena type deals.

You get your base alliances and then you have your player made alliances.

I’m also going to touch on the subject of coverage. People are complaining about “night capping”. As an oceanic, this kind of comes across as stupid. I’m on Isle of Janthir, have been since beta. We have one of the largest non-T1 OCX communities. We’re still in T4. We’re rank 12. We’re getting beaten by servers with basically no oceanic coverage. It isn’t completely black and white. Just because you have a large OCX/SEA/EU base, doesn’t mean you’re going to steam-roll other servers.

Dayra.7405:

Imagine it as one gigantic map where all alliances are placed to fight for their score. 2/3 of the alliances are hostile, 1/3 of the alliances are friendly (you cannot fight each other, how much you actually cooperate depends on rivalry)

Exactly – and it is exactly what we need.

To the claims from those that this would just be “EOTM” in WvW, you have to remember there are very distinct differences between how EOTM and WvW function. Most importantly, this wouldnt rely on overflow servers the way EOTM does. Logging in and out wouldnt put you with a totally new group of people.

Additionally, there is a big difference between matches that last 3 hours and matches that last 7 days.

The comparison between EOTM and server alliances simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Groups that play (and coordinate) together would still be able to easily play and coordinate together. That wouldnt change.

And., the “I dont want to play with the kids from the poor side of town” argument is not healthy for the game either. Its best to look at it as a leadership challenge. Learn to work with others and this becomes an opportunity to make the game stronger – rather than one to just complain more.

Finally, keep in mind that a change like this is desperately needed to keep WvW healthy. A competitive match between the top 3 servers is fine, but if it is at the expense of the bottom three (who dont have the numbers due to bandwagonners), then it is just a wound that will keep bleeding until the entire thing is dead (large and small servers alike).

Could something like alliances replace the current Edge of the Mists? I think that’d be great as long as an unaligned player could choose his/her faction based on detailed information like currently allied guilds and servers, or simply because they like the color or special armor/rewards a faction could give. So if I’m familiar with guilds on SBI, DR or Blackgate, maybe I could see as an end user what percentage of Blackgate is in what faction so if I hate them, I can join another faction. Maybe the guilds I’m a member of can be highlighted on the faction details if they’ve already signed up to help me make a decision as to which one I will align. With guilds being more compatible cross-server now, something like factions could be the bonding setting or a dip into GvG people are looking for, at least until something like GvG comes along.

How it might be better than EotM is it’s less anonymous. It’s hard to have group pride in EotM because you’ll be a different color next week. I feel like alliances could be just as competitive as WvW and that it could be specifically made to go beyond the numbers a certain server has. It would no longer be a question of JQ vs BG, or night/off peak coverage. Since it’s a different mode of WvW, I think equivalent faction player capping would work there.

The problem I foresee with factions off the bat though is grieving/trolling. If I don’t like your guild, and yet I’m part of your faction, whether by accident or because I intentionally chose to be in the same one, I can find several opportunities to grieve with siege, intentionally becoming a free kill, misdirection in map and team chat, tagging up when I’m not supposed to, etc. The list goes on.

I guess I’d want the alliances to be purely guild-based, but that also opens up issues with grieving. If I kick a problem player from my guild but they are members of an allied guild, or I have a sadistic person with power over me that kicks me from a guild but I’m a member of another guild that it has alliances with, the conflicts of interest become very clear.

I don’t really have a solution for how lopsided wvw can get, but then I don’t really see how alliances wouldn’t have a whole new crop of issues as well, as cool as the idea is and the implementation could be…

timmyf.1490:

I will say that Darya’s interpretation of how alliances work is not the same as my interpretation and I consider it a very troubling interpretation.

Of course it is only my imagination how it could be, neither yours nor Johns nor ANets nor …
I try to describe my imagination, such that others can see it and can like or dislike (parts of) it. And describe your own imagination maybe using parts of it.

At the end john and ANet will implement their picture of it, and it may or may not contains (or be influenced by) parts of each imagination.

John Corpening.9847:

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

This alliance idea will certainly help with keeping communities intact, but it also causes issues with coordination.

Currently, servers are CONSTANTLY trying to get their members to coordinate, communicate, and use the server TS. If every few months the server structure is rearranged, this work will be undone over and over.

Whose TS should we use? How should we protect against spies? What sort of conduct is allowed on the TS? Who is leading that large zerg in EB and how I can coordinate with them? I just spotted 50 XYZ headed for Bay, who should I send the call-out to?

Every server has had to answer these questions, and any community leaders know how much of a pain it can be to get these all squared away. Under the new system, these kind of questions “reset” every few months. We will be constantly trying to coordinate with our team, and never making any permanent progress.

Eventually, everyone might get to the point where people no longer try to communicate or coordinate on a server level, because it is wasted effort. Everyone would just talk to the members of their own alliance, and ignore everyone else. That would be a really sad day for WvW.

TL;DR
Frequently rearranging server structures causes a nightmare for server communication and coordination, which might end with people not coordinating at all.

Dayra.7405:

timmyf.1490:

I will say that Darya’s interpretation of how alliances work is not the same as my interpretation and I consider it a very troubling interpretation.

Of course it is only my imagination how it could be, neither yours nor johns nor ANets nor …
I try to describe my imagination, such that others can see it and can like or dislike parts of it. And describe your own imagination maybe using parts of it.

At the end john and ANet will implement their picture of it, and it may or may not contains parts of each imagination.

John spent the time to lay out a proposal and immediately afterward you began discussing a system by the same name that bears no resemblance to the goals of his proposal. Or the specifics.

You’re certainly welcome to your “imagination,” but let’s be honest: you’re asking for an expansion of EOTM into WvW. That’s very different from Alliances in the manner that John has suggested.

(As I interpret it, anyway.)