Guild Wars 2

gennyt.3428:

Jayne.9251:

Server communities is what has kept people playing a reward-less game for the past three years. It’s only with the advent of the new map and the pve mechanics on those maps that WvW has completely sputtered out.

The problem with megaserver is that there is no brand loyalty. The conclusion that new communities will emerge from it is specious if you look at how the mechanics will work.

First off, if you’re not in a big guild, you likely will have a randomized map. If you do defense at all for your server, you will know that the bulk of those defenders come from small or solo guilds.

Big guilds tend to want to run together, so they are not going to separate one or two members to scout and watch the maps. They just won’t.

And how many guilds do you know of that strictly do defense 24/7 in WvW? And how big are those guilds? Not likely very big.

And if those smaller solo/guilds are randomized into different matches, there’s no creation of team — the backbone of WvW will disappear simply because people won’t respond to scout call outs because they don’t know and trust that scout. Scouts will stop doing the most unrewarding task on map because their efforts are being ignored.

With no scouts, and no defenders, the map will consist of attack forces only. With nobody defending the keeps or towers, and only attack on the map, the map will ultimately morph into a pve-champ train map — all aboard the ktrain.

And I think people forget that without defense, you can’t really have fights. It’s a symbiotic relationship. You lose one, you lose the other.

For those of us who have played this game, and loved this game mode, for the past three years — and honestly with the sheer lack of rewards in WvW and STILL it drew a loyal following is indication of people’s passion for this game. And all of that relied on a sense of community.

It didn’t happen because of guilds and their alliances. It happened because of a common purpose/server pride/goals that brought all those different guilds and single players together.

Take away that, and you’ll see WvW turn into a giant pve ktrain. Which will empty the next time a big update/shiny is announced.

Please stop projecting your experience onto others. I do not play for server pride, I play for the fight and so do 99% of the people I play with regularly, we’ve had that conversation among ourselves and most of them aren’t even aware who wins the week so please refrain from speaking for everyone, or even most people for that matter. My “brand loyalty” is my guild.

Unless I missed something, Anet has yet to reveal how they’re going to go about revamping WvWvW yet people are yelling megaserver and EotM, panicking and running with arguments based on assumptions in attempts to rally support against a system they know kitten all about.

I’m a little amused at how people go on about “my community!” yet cling to something as shallow as a server name. As if its the only thing than can be a source of pride. Season stacking, “tier balancing”, players trickling up tiers, even whole guilds moving together etc to the point where it rearranges server rankings and people are still screaming server pride is the backbone of WvWvW . SMH.

P.S
@ OP
Bad idea to compare WvWvW to professional sports. I’ve never heard of a 24/7 10v20v60 game.

And likewise, don’t project your experience onto others. You already speak of your guild being your brand. That’s not the case for everyone, and most certainly not your server’s defense team.

I know you care only about the fights, but lose your defense and your map will become nothing but a ktrain, that will render it indistinguishable from a pve champ map. Both sides need to exist if this mode is to work.

Have a little foresight enough to see that your defensive team are the ones who care about community. I know it won’t matter to you, you’ve already stated your guild is all that matters.

But it does matter to others. And there’s a lot of us.

Catalin.5341:

Lol I guess you guys haven’t watched my guides https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLduHbZPbtobHjIvdoZtd_99Y2ZFJpbFAx

I’ve looked at it yes. I’ve found other solutions that work.

Catalin.5341:

dnt u think u ruined the game enough with your buffed ac’s and unbreakable walls? how about one guy just defending the whole bl by himself?

Dude, you’re missing the point. They just need to make sPvP with 50vs50vs50 and shift delete WvW. They either focus on something or close it down.
Roamers want to duel, zergs wants to gvg or blob fight, scouts want to defend (myself included), farmers want to farm. We can’t all have the same slice of pie.

Actually you can.

As a scout I can direct our zerg to the big fights. I do it with our guilds all the time. They know if I call out, they’ll accurately get a big fight. The roamers get the enemy stragglers, clean up flipped camps and sentries, duellers do their thing for 10 minutes, then join the map, and the farmers get their lewt by following the tag.

Remove any one of those from the equation and the other side suffers. Defense + zergs is a symbiotic relationship.

Everyone can (and should) have pie.

Diku.2546:

@Jane

I know Liston is probably being supportive…which I am grateful.

ANet, however, firmly believes the advice of my counter-part…imho.

Just very upset that we’re going to loose the Strong Sense of Community that a Server Based WvW creates imho.

Which I also believe is the backbone behind many Good & Hard Fought Rivalries.

The broken Base Map Mechanic has a solution in my opinion.

Players that want a Server Based Solution seem very apathetic…and can you blame them?

Just hoping to have Players that want a Server Based Solution to stand up & post their support before the un-spoken solution that is secretly being implemented is made public.

I know hon. I get it.

I think the dissenting voices have been pretty vocal in lots of threads here. I suspect many have just given up. It’s a little funny to me that the threads about hot changes are being largely ignored, instead of being blamed for the diminished wvw population though.

That’s ok. If Anet doesn’t hear those like us, we can find a new place to spend our money.

Its very rare a newish MMO gets legacy loyalty you find in games like WoW and EQ. Most MMOs lose their audiences quite quickly.. That comes with a strong sense of community. You lose that sense of community and the legacy dissolves. It’s the players that keep the passion alive.

I don’t think he’s disagreeing with you Diku.

Server communities is what has kept people playing a reward-less game for the past three years. It’s only with the advent of the new map and the pve mechanics on those maps that WvW has completely sputtered out.

The problem with megaserver is that there is no brand loyalty. The conclusion that new communities will emerge from it is specious if you look at how the mechanics will work.

First off, if you’re not in a big guild, you likely will have a randomized map. If you do defense at all for your server, you will know that the bulk of those defenders come from small or solo guilds.

Big guilds tend to want to run together, so they are not going to separate one or two members to scout and watch the maps. They just won’t.

And how many guilds do you know of that strictly do defense 24/7 in WvW? And how big are those guilds? Not likely very big.

And if those smaller solo/guilds are randomized into different matches, there’s no creation of team — the backbone of WvW will disappear simply because people won’t respond to scout call outs because they don’t know and trust that scout. Scouts will stop doing the most unrewarding task on map because their efforts are being ignored.

With no scouts, and no defenders, the map will consist of attack forces only. With nobody defending the keeps or towers, and only attack on the map, the map will ultimately morph into a pve-champ train map — all aboard the ktrain.

And I think people forget that without defense, you can’t really have fights. It’s a symbiotic relationship. You lose one, you lose the other.

For those of us who have played this game, and loved this game mode, for the past three years — and honestly with the sheer lack of rewards in WvW and STILL it drew a loyal following is indication of people’s passion for this game. And all of that relied on a sense of community.

It didn’t happen because of guilds and their alliances. It happened because of a common purpose/server pride/goals that brought all those different guilds and single players together.

Take away that, and you’ll see WvW turn into a giant pve ktrain. Which will empty the next time a big update/shiny is announced.

I’d be happy with no rewards. It’s worked the past three years.

WvW is a delicate balance. Increase rewards too much and you get a giant ktrain. Not enough and you don’t encourage the casuals.

For me, the game itself is the reward — particularly when my scouting is rewarded by spectacularly smooshing the enemy.

Well there’s a lot of “bosses” to fight in WvW

insanemaniac.2456:

Odokuro.5049:

Yeah it speaks volumes about people just wanting a simple map, with simple mechanics, that they can simply go around in a loop, flipping sentries/camps/towers/keeps for money/exp and karma.

maybe if it was better to kill people than take objectives… maybe if it was better to defend objectives than kill people…

It’s always better to defend objectives AND kill people, darling

Catalin.5341:

ACs can be placed in a lot of spots that can’t be hit with AE to defend vs. catapults.

This is true only for maybe 1 or 2 walls for the entire objectives of EBG+BL combined. Most of the time your cart will get destroyed by meteor shower. Note “meteor shower” not regular aoe skills.

That’s not true at all.

There are key spots you can place where the newly adjusted LOS has been fixed and can successfully defend vs a blob.

You just have to know where to place it.

Distaste.4801:

The only consequence of merging servers or making a mega-server is killing server pride, given the repercussion of not doing so is the gamemode itself dying I’d say it’s a very smart move to megaserver up. I’m not so short sighted and selfish that I’d cling to some loose bond because it makes me feel special while the game dies. If you kill server communities, new communities will form. They always have and they always will. A new system could even include factions that guilds could join that mercenary out to whatever side has less people. Each week guilds and factions compete to see who can take more keeps, kill more enemies, etc. The other major bonus is that there is then a much easier time dealing with off-peak capping and population imbalances.

I disagree. Server communities is what has kept people playing a reward-less game for the past three years. It’s only with the advent of the new map and the pve mechanics on those maps that WvW has completely sputtered out.

The problem with megaserver is that there is no brand loyalty. Your conclusion that new communities will emerge from it is specious if you look at how the mechanics will work.

First off, if you’re not in a big guild, you likely will have a randomized map. If you do defense at all for your server, you will know that the bulk of those defenders come from small or solo guilds.

Big guilds tend to want to run together, so they are not going to separate one or two members to scout and watch the maps. They just won’t.

And how many guilds do you know of that strictly do defense 24/7 in WvW? And how big are those guilds? Not likely very big.

And if those smaller solo/guilds are randomized into different matches, there’s no creation of team — the backbone of WvW will disappear simply because people won’t respond to scout call outs because they don’t know and trust that scout. Scouts will stop doing the most unrewarding task on map because their efforts are being ignored.

With no scouts, and no defenders, the map will consist of attack forces only. With nobody defending the keeps or towers, and only attack on the map, the map will ultimately morph into a pve-champ train map — all aboard the ktrain.

For those of us who have played this game, and loved this game mode, for the past three years — and honestly with the sheer lack of rewards in WvW and STILL it drew a loyal following is indication of people’s passion for this game. And all of that relied on a sense of community.

It didn’t happen because of guilds and their alliances. It happened because of a common purpose/server pride/goals that brought all those different guilds and single players together.

Take away that, and you’ll see WvW turn into a giant pve ktrain. Which will empty the next time a big update/shiny is announced.

Distaste.4801:

2 years ago this forum would have been on fire with people from T1 flaming each other, now? Nothing.

Apparently you missed the part where Anet removed the match threads because they were too high maintenance.

Pensadora.9478:

K. So today as I was speeding up the yak from Speldan to the EB Keep, the guardians of the yak decided they were tired of guarding, and at a point just slightly west of the Sentry point, the two guards turned from green to red and began attacking the yak. Not sure who would have won – the sentry and yak, or the two turncoat guards, if I hadn’t intervened. Lol. I suppose this is already on the bug list?

Did the associated camp get flipped?

If so, that’s new that they flip with the camp.

Osu.6307:

You know you miss the lake.

I totally miss the lake.

They can keep the buggy quaggans tho.

Lord Kuru.3685:

I agree with this idea. Except the other way around: make EU the megaserver.

Naw it’s NA that has the population issues, not EU.

We’re fine in EU.

Rin.1046:

Not sure why this is relevant, but yes I defend. I don’t play WvW for the loot, I play to help my side win.

Well that’s the thing.

How many defenders do you know in EoTM?

The group of people you’ve worked with to defend a map to help your side win will be randomized each week with the megaserver. There will be no guarantee you get on the same maps together. Even alliances will leave some of those players out, especially if they don’t belong to a big guild.

How many guilds do you know of that are defense only? How many detach a few players to actively scout? Your mileage may vary, but in my experience it’s the solo players and small guilds that do this — not the big ones. The big ones want their guild together to raid properly.

And if you’re placed into a megaserver model, you may be a trusted defender and scout on your server, but mashed in with a bunch of people who don’t know you? They won’t respond to your call outs, particularly as alliances shift and change. If nobody responds to scout call outs, people will just stop doing it. It’s unrewarding as it is to not have your “team” respond.

Lose scouts and you wind up getting EoTM 2.0.

It’s that simple really.

Anyhow, per my OP, if the megaserver IS really what the bulk of players want, then there’s no harm making NA the mega and keeping EU as is. And then over time the more successful model will emerge. Nothing to lose.

Rin.1046:

So lets stop with this idea that the megaserver will destroy communities, that is rubbish. The problem is not the megaserver. If it was large PvE guilds would not be able to function at all. And lets stop with this server pride rubbish too. All the server does is represent the side you fight for, which can just as easily be replaced by a faction/alliance. So that pride will still be there.

Do you do defense at all?

zinkz.7045:

As for Piken’s “fantastic” community, I guess that is in the eye of the beholder, I’m pretty sure if I asked certain members of AH what they thought of Piken it would not be complimentary.

Ahahhahahaha .. oh this single sentence explains everything.

There’s a reason why every server on EU has a definite impression of AH (edited to be more polite).

It also explains why you have no connection to your server’s community. I’m sorry for that, you’re missing a lot.

Entenkommando.5208:

Jayne…you know we don’t like each other very well, but I have to agree on this.

Lol we don’t? Sorry if I’ve made you upset by my posts, I really have no issue with you at all.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Causing a lot of NA players transferring to EU is the perfect recipe for creating the nightcapping problem that we see right now in NA. And don’t forget the SEA and Oceanics transferring in.

It’s the global nature of the NA servers that makes it the way it is, and all this idea would do is make the EU servers global.

If you want EU to stay somewhat like it is now, it might be a good idea to delete the thread before Anet gets a look at it.

Ugh Mr. Kuru. You’re right. I hadn’t considered that most existing players love the old-style WvW and will flock to maintain it if changed on one side and not the other.

However, wouldn’t that speak volumes on player preference?

I think it might be a worthwhile test.

zinkz.7045:

I see the opposite, NA especially T1 for a time, was the closest thing to a competitive matchup in this game, NA complained about stale matchups, EU complained about nightcapping, because for most of the game NA had better coverage and more stable matchups, whilst in EU it was far more common to have matches decided by servers ticking silly amounts off-peak.

I think you might want to reevaluate your definitions.

Stale matches are not competitive. It means you’re getting the exact same match every week, which leads to the complaints and boredom.

EU was/still changes every week. Our former T1 EU server that was never moving from its top seat was recently unseated and is now down in T6 or so. When is the last time you saw that happening in NA?

Most of this centers on the community’s surrounding those matchups. Each has its own unique identity.

zinkz.7045:

in large part because of flawed the system is with the imbalanced populations/coverage, solving that is not an NA issue, over the history of the game it has been a bigger EU problem.

Disagree. If you’ve been around since launch, you know that the bulk of the complaints came from NA about stacking. There were thread upon thread asking people to join T1 NA servers. Guilds went down into the lower tiers and actively recruited good players, leaving the lower tiers barren.

That didn’t happen so much in EU. Yep guilds jumped from server to server, but it was mostly for fights and they self-organized.

People complained about nightcapping, yes, but we still saw a healthy and robust WvW scene in EU with changing matches each week.

You didn’t see that in NA .. at all.

zinkz.7045:

As for server-orientated, I don’t see it, I have three accounts, and on every server (EU) the number of WvW players who have been on that server the entire game is a minority, take FSP, there are many players from SFR & Deso, players from Piken, AG, Gunnars, etc (half of which were not at these servers originally either), most fighting guilds have swapped servers multiple times in this game, PPT zombies all bandwagon to whichever is number 1 zombie PPT server, server loyalty or community is for the minority.

Yup, you do get the ppt folks and the gvg guilds .. but if you talk to every one of those gvg guilds, you’ll find they identify at least one server as “home.”

If you haven’t discovered that each server has its own unique community then perhaps you haven’t spent time getting to know the people there and simply join the big blob on maps.

I know people from various servers all over EU tiers. Each of them love their server for various reasons.

I happen to like Piken because I know that even if we’re rank 2 or rank 10, there will be a set group of people who will continue to come out and play and make the community fantastic. There’s one thing that is funny about Piken and makes it unique: The more we’re winning, the less the vets show up. When we’re losing, our vets come out in droves. I adore that about Piken, keeps us scrappy

zinkz.7045:

Nor is “community” unique to a server type system like you seem to think, EVE Online has a megaserver with alliances, and its community is far stronger with much more depth than GW2’s will ever be.

And EVE has an incredible reputation for players who like to “game” others, so that in effect, the game is more than just pixels and more of a mind game. No thanks. I’ve seen enough of that effort tried here and it’s toxic.

Swagger.1459:

“But if we just closed down and merged servers”… You mean the servers where thousands upon thousands upon thousands of players are enjoying pve and not interested in wvw… just for the benefit of YOUR wvw experience… Pretty nice and selfish of some of you to destroy pve communities for the sole benefit of YOUR wvw experience…

So how exactly are the “thousands upon thousands of players who are enjoying pve” affected by server changes since pve is all mega server? Nobody who’s strictly pve would even notice.

Servers affect WvW only.

Swagger.1459:

Not logical… Not rational…

Indeed.

Oh I do defense. It’s my favourite aspect of wvw. But I don’t do it for ppt.

zinkz.7045:

Jayne.9251:

Since the whole mega server thing in wvw is essentially just to fix the NA mess….

How do you come to that conclusion?

The bulk of the complaints about population disparity over the past three years have come from NA (and the whole stacking issue).

EU was/is fine — one server usually tries to stack, and the rest just don’t care enough about ppt and look for fights

And looking at the folks responding in these threads, it seems more EU players (that I recognize) are more server-oriented than NA servers.

I just came up with a solution!

Since the whole mega server thing in wvw is essentially just to fix the NA mess, why not move forward with that for NA and leave EU the way it is?

EU has its issues, but nowhere near the problems of NA.

Then people who prefer community-based wvw can go to EU and then the rest can stay with NA.

Win-win.

And over a period of time we can see which type is more robust.

22BF12DD-6886-49A6-84BC-836A8957AD67:

server pride is past time doesn’t exist the same as it once did. it’s almost a non-factor now.

Not true at all. At least not in EU.

Hey! I have an idea! Since this merger idea is mostly to fix NA issues, how about mega server NA and leave EU as server based?

You also might want to register your name here instead of posting your game code. Just a thought.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Jayne.9251:

I wonder how many people have just thrown their hands up and already quit because of this?

Nah, ppl just quit because things got stale, or they don’t want to spend time, to adapt to the new mechanics..

Weird. Prior to HoT the maps were quite busy.

I wonder how many people have just thrown their hands up and already quit because of this?

Xxorzist.2809:

For some player they like to do duel in WvW Zone. And sometime is hard to know if they are dueling or not. In exemple; I ran back to my guildies from my Keep and on the way back. I saw 2 players were fighting each other ( I tough it was a duel) But After the guy died, I have recieved a Whisper about I was kitten cause I didn’t help him… I said sorry I tough it was a duel. And later, same scenario but I jump in the fight and I recieved another Whisper cause I was a kitten about getting into the fight during a duel…
I know there is a place in Pvp mode that ppl can do duel whitout getting frustrated about others.
What is your think about it?

I personally think WvW is not a good place for dueling.

If the guy is bawling you out for not helping him in a 1v1, then he needs to improve. Simple as that.

Nobody should need an extra body to gang up on one enemy player.

Tell the guy he better learn how to play his class or he’ll keep dying.

If I’m duelling, I’ll go out of my way to use /say and say “duelling” so there’s no confusion.

But honestly, if someone is 1v1 and needs help .. lol .. I’d just sit down and watch them.

Only way to improve is to do 1,000 faceplants…..

Osu.6307:

Also, if they announce a couple weeks before going live, all the guild leadership could reach out to other guild leaders and decide that campaign A will be the open-field battle campaign, and campaign B will be PPT-focused, etc.

I don’t think you are understanding that you cannot have one without the other in WvW.

It’s symbiotic.

Or you get dead maps.

Or you get ktrain maps similar to pve champ trains. And if you prefer this style of play, you already have EoTM.

must
fix
broken
thread

Jana.6831:

Well, our Garri WP is open, no matter what “Ohh, the enemies killed me in our keep – I think I’m just gonna port and backstab them” (needless to say that I won).

+1000.

You get ’em tiger

There’s a big difference between people who are pro-ppt and those that simply like defense in the game.

One cares about the score; the other about the fight.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

I know plenty of guilds with their own TS/voice comm servers.

Will they let non-guild members use it?

Yuffi.2430:

Currently the funding for TS servers comes from players who care enough about their server to help crowd fund voice comms for it.

I’m right there with you on this. You’ve written my thoughts exactly.

It will be the final straw for me too, sadly.

Dawdler.8521:

Jayne.9251:

Me too. It was a good addition to gameplay.

What did it really add to gameplay though? IMO removing the player interaction of scouting add nothing, it only removes gameplay.

Also, we already had this feature by proxy – the contest swords. It could have easily been expanded to sentries without giving everyone x-ray vision and the ability to see if its a zerg or solo player (ie marking white swords warning on the minimap, just like yellow swords does). It could have been the eqvivalent of the sentry yelling “hey players, I see enemies, come help me!”. The strategical gameplay around this across-the-zone-x-ray feature is negligable and benefit the zerg in every scenario (just like the barricades, lol) while a single/small group roamer has no option but to expose himself if he want to go through the sentry.

I find it actually enhances my scouting abilities. I can be in different part of the maps and my eye will catch a little red dot up in the top Northeast corner.

I still have to run there like I did before as a scout, but this gives me an immediate signal, that you can miss if you aren’t paying attention.

It’s like scouting 2.0.

It’s fantastic.

FogLeg.9354:

Noob.5908:

4.) Why you burning up my processor doing needless things. The little dots that have been added to the mini map showing enemy movement is just wasting bandwidth and adds really nothing to the game. Its hard to believe you committed devs to coding this up.

Thats one of the things about HoT I actually like. And I hope it will be expanded so guards around structures mark enemy players same way.

Me too. It was a good addition to gameplay.

Odokuro.5049:

Maybe their deleting threads because, they’ve ran out of buckets to catch all the tears in, and are trying to allow other threads to see the light of day, out from behind the tsunami of whine posts.

But maybe not, it’s best to just keep rumors going, and fuel the “Pity party” fire.

If it’s just rumours, then address it. Pretty simple.

If not, deleting threads is a bad idea. It only fuels the speculation and fear.

Ok I finally had time to read through this all, and can comment.

DeceiverX.8361:

A lot of NA moved to get fights. Problem is as soon as a fight tier server started to lose and lose repeatedly, they’d flee into another server when they lost pug morale for losing the week. This leads to a crash of one and ultimately an escalation of another. It ends up disrupted again, and people yet again move around to try and find a good place to WvW and fight. People leave with the cost of moving and general fragmentation, and a lot of the guilds just end up relocating to T1 because they’re sick of moving. It’s why there’s a lot of volatility in the top half of NA, but none in the bottom; people jump ship a lot to fight in the upper tiers, but never move downward because it’s just so unbelievably boring.

The thing is, while I can appreciate that you enjoy having fights and have moved for such (and a lot of EU gvg guilds have done the same), there’s still folks who enjoy non-blobby fights and smallscale activity. One shoe doesn’t fit everyone.

NA T1 is an odd beast. I played there for a while, I know that the bulk of what happens is politics more than gameplay — and I guess in a sense that’s part of the gameplay too. The problem with that, and I do hear you on people getting tired of transferring, is how it affects everything below it.

I guess I just look at how things are in EU (and they’re not perfect either), and wish that variety for NA. I mean if EU players could collectively move around and “quasi balance” an entire system, surely it’s within the capabilities of all players?

DeceiverX.8361:

Perhaps I can’t speak for EU. I was operating on assumption that people would prefer to stay on the server they’re on for community rather than just for fights. If people only want fights, there’s no reason to care about server because the name is arbitrary, and such a proposed system (below) would end up yielding way more action while simultaneously preserving community.

I moved to EU about two years ago. Aside from a one-month stint on another server, I’ve stuck with Piken. Those moving servers are predominantly the gvg guilds, and they don’t care about what language is spoken. At core there’s a unique identity for each server and its subsequent community. I prefer to stay on a server for community, but I know I’m not alone in that regard either.

DeceiverX.8361:

People should be willing to scout to benefit their team, particularly if it benefits them. If you’re on the same side, there’s not much of a reason to actively avoid divulging information about the common enemy to others, even if you don’t know exactly who they are. Dunno, maybe the culture is hugely different, but transfers on all of the servers I’ve been on have always been welcomed and given information about TS and assisted pretty readily by the top dogs to help a win. Not really much of a difference here. Guilds can transfer out the next week just as being rotated can.

Here’s where you and I disagree. I spend the bulk of my time as a scout. Those of us who do it are pretty passionate about it. We cultivate relationships, work between guilds, and organize maps to benefit everyone. Often coordinating all four maps for the server.

But that takes time to develop and curate. And create trust.

Absolutely most maps want people calling out info. But if those call outs are ignored because “oh we don’t know that person, they could just be calling for five people attacking” — then eventually the good scouts are going to get frustrated and just stop doing that job. I mean why continue to do rewardless work if your work is being largely ignored?

If I spend the bulk of my time in WvW doing that rewardless scouting duty, you better kitten well come when I call out an attack incoming. I know what I’m doing that way, but you don’t know me — we just got shoved into a map together for the week. So do you trust the person yelling out the call, or do you trust your own judgement and just plow ahead fighting?

Nine times out of 10, you’ll plow ahead fighting and ignore the scout call out. Soon, the scouts just stop doing it.

DeceiverX.8361:

- Basically, all servers stay as they are. Everyone has a home server, just as it is now.

- Glicko rating and tiers are removed altogether.

- “Alliances” are created for each color currently in WvW, and the matchmaking system selects servers based on a set of data to determine the most “balanced” match-up by allocating each server to a color. Multiple servers fight for one color for the week on the same team color as like in EoTM.

Because of rotation, that means that you don’t know who you’re going to be grouped with, nor does it take into account overflow maps, making getting the regulars onto the same map is problematic.

Even if the matchmaking service calculated balance, this will be fine for variable matches in EU, but will return to the stagnant tiers in NA because of players stacking — one elephant in the room is that T1 servers are significantly bigger than the ones below. So no matter who they’re paired with, you’ll still get the same surplus bodies issue.

I love that you stick with your server, I’m just trying to suss out the potential problems. I also get that you’re trying to address population issues, particularly for the lower tiers.

If you could come up with a solution that would guarantee no overflow maps where your team is scattered, I wouldn’t be opposed to this idea.

DeceiverX.8361:

- At the end of the week or near the end of the week, data from the past 7 days is compiled and applied to a function to determine each server’s capabilities under various scopes; coverage, population, guilds, commanders, peak times, etc.

- The function using a certain amount of past data weighted against what occurred in the previous week updates performance measures of each individual server.

I guess you’re assuming that the data will be variable since different servers are grouped together? How do you crunch data to include the steady stat sink of T1? I guess I’m wondering how it will vary if this is essentially just having one tier, but mixing up the different servers. (If I’m misunderstanding, please clear it for me, I’m assuming this is just one gigantic tier?)

DeceiverX.8361:

- Some servers are chosen at random to generate the next base match-up, and a matchmaking system using the performance metrics just calculated attempts to make an optimal decision of how to allocate the servers in the “fairest” distribution. Random base servers means that the distribution can change weekly, such as one week where all of the highest-scoring servers might be allied against a split of the rest of the game combined, or another where the split is relatively even by performance across all three.

Again, if you could clarify how set teams could get on the same map every week and not be subject to overflow, then I could see the benefit of a system like this — it gets more bodies on the map. Also, how do we address those players who don’t like the big blobby maps? There’s a good chunk of that kind of player too.

DeceiverX.8361:

- Maps need adjustments not to be fully instanced like EoTM to ensure players can move where they want to.

Aha! I needed to scroll down ><

Ok but how do you prevent one map from being let’s say “more popular” than another? (ie, stacking in T1). Surely there will be map caps?

DeceiverX.8361:

- Server chat and server-specific commander tags are created to prevent spying issues and maintain server integrity/identity within communities. Server Ally Joe will always be using his server tag to command your pugs or might work with some other servers and run a general pug tag on a particularly intense night. A havoc guild might interact with another on a different server which has a community that doesn’t promote havoc, say, or people meet across servers and end up friendly, causing people to now only move for community reasons instead of stacking servers for wins, because next process the system assigns a new random spread of base servers causing a constant change in alliances and therefore preventing stacking from being done.

This is interesting. A good idea.

DeceiverX.8361:

Server identity is much more about internal community than just winning, and now the lowest of “T8” have action-packed maps to enjoy while “T1” might get some hefty GvG or retaliation from a coalition of smaller guilds. You now also end up with fewer servers “on the fence” of two distinct tiers, where they dominate below but get dominated above, for they have additional support and vice versa.

Ok now I’m confused again, lol. From what you described above, it would just be one big tier, but now above/below? You mean first second third spot in that mono-tier?

DeceiverX.8361:

- Additionally, if WvW booms beyond this point such that it causes population inflation, these can be factored into breaking the setup down into additional alliances running independently while balancing each out separately and sharing the same pool of servers.

No, I’d hate this. Anything that can be gamed will be gamed. It’s why servers are the better option to begin with — it’s inclusive and unbiased and not subject to “I’m going to take my ball and go home” behaviour. Y’know?

The only concern is map instances, but I think these could be resolved by just again having the system scale expected player numbers at any given time to generate more maps if necessary before the week’s battle begins.

Well the implications are more than just scaling. If instances are used and fill up, they aren’t any different from the existing server tiers that are stuck and stagnant (in NA). It also means that you can’t get onto the same map as people you’ve played with for three years — or worse for guilds, you cannot get all your guildies into the same map.

Most of the guild movement in EU to spread out was because of queues. EU’s I guess are less patient than NA players, and cannot stand queues. They will literally move to a silver server (sometimes bronze) just to get everyone onto the same map and fight. It’s why things spread out so much in EU.

Put up queues and you’ll lose a ton of EU players. They’ll just head out to their nice restaurants and pubs and have a life instead

DeceiverX.8361:

Hope that helps explain things a bit better.

It did, thank you!

Hope my comments are fodder for further dialogue.

Fuzzion.2504:

FROM REDDIT

LEAKED UPCOMING CHANGES

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3uznbc/major_wvw_overhaul_colin_j_ft_e/#s

We had a whole thread on this, pages and pages of “don’t do it”. It was deleted.

Myrm, shush you, I still love Gaile. I suspect her hands are tied or we’d have heard from her.

The beautiful thing about the Internet is programs that just mass-capture deleted posts and tweets. Once it’s online, it’s online forever.

Old program but more have popped up since: http://mashable.com/2009/03/22/tweleted/#CXrIKvqTOsq0

I want two-thirds!

Claimed!

Thank you for the fair and reasonable commentary. It’s an indication I need to step away for a few days and detach.

I’ve been a staunch supporter of various changes anet has implemented recently. To the point of pollyanna-ism, glass is half full, it’s not so bad.

I just cannot stomache this particular proposal (not yours, I’ll have to go and think about yours), because I can see how it will further segregate instead of being inclusive.

Anyhow, thank you for taking the time to type that all out. I’ll go chew on it.

Twinny.9304:

GROMIT.7829:

Gonna have to agree with OP

but honestly EVERY server we fight can’t fight back or just runs,

Im sure that’s not entirely true, im from EU and regardless of numbers i can never recall running from a fight.

You’ve totally run from me and my pink mesmer a TON of times.

And I just wanted to hug you.

Sniff.

Piken: “We only want to hug you!”

DeceiverX.8361:

I don’t think you’re reading what I’m writing, here. I disagree entirely with the notion of “joining” any kind of system. I disagree with guesting or whatever you’re referring to in any such system as well.

To be fair, I’m not sure you had the chance to read that massive thread that was here yesterday in its entirety before it was deleted. I’m also not sure if you’ve read this one carefully either.

This thread outlines how GW2 WvW rumoured format change will be similar to ESOs. It requires “joining” .. much like GW2’s current system does. The guesting is part of the discussion in this thread about how ESO’s RvR functions. Believe that starts on the first page.

DeceiverX.8361:

The notion of “picking” a side would lead to stacking and is entirely contrary to what my post entails.

Perhaps we just have our wires crossed. You are talking about X and I’m talking about Y.

This new proposed alliance system won’t change the stacking. It’ll just be stacking under a different name, ie. alliance.

If players couldn’t get their act together and spread out prior, can you guess how they’ll behave when a new system is introduced?

DeceiverX.8361:

Recall my post mentions smarter balancing systems paired with mutations and random seeding to create new match-ups very frequently, and since servers can be distributed to each alliance unevenly, this can create completely new and foreign scenarios. This fixes night-capping and outnumbered/transfer-out server problems for the entire format holistically;

Ok this is where I think I’m having trouble understanding. You mention servers and alliances in the same sentence. I do believe the proposed system is an either/or. Servers will be eliminated entirely. And I’m not sure I understand what you mean by using “mutations” and “random seeding” to resolve nightcapping.

DeceiverX.8361:

A lot of people in NA move not because they want to stack servers but because they want to fight

You can believe that if you want, but if NA players truly wanted fights, they’d have spread out so that servers rotated up and down frequently instead of remaining stagnant.

DeceiverX.8361:

and I imagine a lot of EU are hesitant to move because of language barriers between servers.

And you’d be incorrect about that. EU players have jumped from english to german to spanish to french servers without even knowing the language. The key was to get the best fights, even if it meant working around language issues. They spread out.

DeceiverX.8361:

But claiming that no shared “alliance”-or-whatever terminology is an inferior solution or not a solution simply reeks of bias without looking at the greater system.

It’s not bias. It’s years of playing a game mode and having enough foresight to see how the destruction of servers will erode WvW until it becomes a giant ktrain pve map.

If you are thrown in with random people every week (if you don’t belong to a massive guild), and you have no guarantee of getting on the same map because it’s filled up quickly (because of the new stacking tactic), then you lose a sense of team and cooperation because you cannot reliably count on your scouting or defensive calls to be responded to. Nobody wants to scout for people they don’t know. That will lead to traditional scouts/defenders abandoning their jobs they’ve done for the past three years because lack of response = job is pointless. Once those people are gone, there’s nobody left to defend — so that leaves only attackers. Having a map with only attackers leads to guess what? Ktrain.

And how many guilds do you know that focus solely on defense? Guilds are not going to split their ranks to scout the maps.

Suggesting that the alliance system is the holy grail for WvW is far worse than bias. It’s inexperience, or a stubborn self-serving ideologue.

DeceiverX.8361:

Consistent and stagnant matchups up the current system are no better.

This was more of an NA issue than EU. We didn’t have those problems in EU really. And the reason for that is because players took the initiative to spread out for the fights instead of stacking a few servers. I kept hoping NA would do this, and they started to, but then this stuff emerged.

DeceiverX.8361:

The consequence is some guilds might back down a little, but maintaining tag control over their own server would keep them relevant and if they do well, potentially bring some stragglers along for the ride.

No sadly it’s a bit more dire than that. Guesting is capped, and given the history of players stacking in NA, that means that it’s a crap shoot what map you get each week if you miss a reset. I don’t think people are understanding that.

There’s no bottomless guesting map. There’s no bottomless home map either. It will have a cap and once capped, it’s locked.

So either you join another campaign, or you sit out the week and try the next week to get a good “spot.”

morrolan.9608:

There are 2 caps, map cap for current players on the map and a cap on the number of players for whom the campaign is the home campaign. Similar to GW2. Except players can guest to any campaign so long as the map isn’t queued. Plus there are campaigns of differing lengths so campaigns of 7 days will be dissolved after 7 days and a new 1 created that is open to all players to be their home campaign.

As for guesting itself. Oh gee, can ya’ll see how that will be gamed?

GROMIT.7829:

I am amazed that no company hasn’t carbon copied Gw2 WvW with it’s class mechanics, maps, siege and combat etc because if they did and they listened to the community and did as we asked WvW would be only played by people wanting to level in Gw2. I would even be happy to pay a small sub if it meant i get a high qaulity version of Anets WvW because Anets WvW is no longer a quality product.

WvW is dead, long live WvW.

If you find one, let me know.

Gonna miss you Grommie.

Yep, was sad to see that massive reddit thread deleted from here.

It had a lot of feedback — just not necessarily positive feedback.

Deleting that thread speaks volumes.

I’m pretty sure some of the sampling has been done from streamers who aren’t really connected to the community and do everything to get more viewers/ratings. Including pve. I’ve watched other great games go down in flames because execs sourced streamers only for feedback.

Entenkommando.5208:

Jayne.9251:

I think the latest rumour of change that the majority vocally doesn’t want was the final straw sadly.

Speaking of the “majority’s” opinion about unconfirmed rumours… GG

Well they appear to have deleted that massive Reddit thread where 90% of the comments were negative about the suggested change.

So I guess the “majority” has been silenced.

I think the latest rumour of change that the majority vocally doesn’t want was the final straw sadly.