World Restructuring - Where's the incentive to defend & to make us care about winning?

[ThunderPanda.1872]

I am not at all against the concept of world restructuring, but I still can't see how it will resolve one of the most crucial long standing issue of WvW - Care enough about winning to defend. While I'm sure there'll be great fights and rivalries between alliances, I really don't want to see the rest of WvW devolve into eotm karma train.

 

**In fact, I can see the lack of care become even worse with the new system:**

1. Many smaller, individual players that scout and maintain objectives will no longer feel as much integrated within a community.

2. Guilds & alliance will have a stronger self-centric agenda, especially since they'll no longer feel affiliated to anyone else in the world community outside of their own alliance.

3. Alliance leaderboard will not make this any better, it will only make it worse at the current state. Every alliance will farm their KDR at the expense of playing for points, and why would anyone risk death trying to hold an objective. Furthermore, any achievements on the 'point' category in the leaderboard will only be ridiculed by others in the general community.

 

I admit I don't have any magic solution, but unless we find some ways for people to care about winning, I really do not want to see this world restructuring, I don't want to see an interesting concept fail and becomes karma train.

 

Anyone who has a solution, please share.

[vier.1327]

The few communities that have survived to the Linning system screw.

 

Your friends in your server that outside of your guild screw, you can play with them anymore.

 

And the alliances are just blob fiesta with a name.

 

How can it be a solution?

[hunkamania.7561]

When was there ever incentive to defend?

[X T D.6458]

> @"ThunderPanda.1872" said:

> I am not at all against the concept of world restructuring, but I still can't see how it will resolve one of the most crucial long standing issue of WvW - Care enough about winning to defend. While I'm sure there'll be great fights and rivalries between alliances, I really don't want to see the rest of WvW devolve into eotm karma train.

>

> **In fact, I can see the lack of care become even worse with the new system:**

> 1. Many smaller, individual players that scout and maintain objectives will no longer feel as much integrated within a community.

> 2. Guilds & alliance will have a stronger self-centric agenda, especially they'll no longer feel affiliated to anyone else in the world community outside of their own alliance.

> 3. Alliance leaderboard will not make this any better, it will only make it worse at the current state. Every alliance will farm their KDR at the expense of playing for points, and why would anyone risk death trying to hold an objective. Furthermore, any achievements on the 'point' category in the leaderboard will be ridiculed by others in the general community.

>

> I admit I don't have any magic solution, but unless we find some ways for people to care about winning, I really do not want to see this world restructuring, I don't want to see an interesting concept fail and becomes karma train.

 

There is none with this system. Being part of a community and wanting to be a team player and help your server is what drives a lot of players because it gives them something to play for. You take that away you leave them with nothing to do except to join the zerg, because scouting, defending, roaming, small team play is not rewarding. What you end up with is EoTM ktraining.

 

Furthermore with the lower population caps, random placement of players, ability for guilds to stack and lock servers, it will make coverage gaps all the more noticeable and difficult to manage which will lead to more dead time zones, with nothing for players to do but PvD.

 

Guilds will suffer, because they wont be able to properly recruit players due to lack of militia on the new servers, lack of fights, and matchups having no meaning whatsoever because you are not playing for anything anymore.

[HardRider.2980]

I feel because it's over 8 weeks, It'll give people time to care..

I haven't met many people who actually care about rankings anymore tbh If anything they mostly cared about their ability to roam, zerg fight and over general good fights, with a sort of pride of winning as a massive HA to a world they were fighting.

[Eleazar.9478]

Well if they actually nail down a fair system then they can actually give it rewards. And thank God they're killing servers world linking already killed the smaller servers communities. I'm really excited for this allieance stuff, it also opens the pool to recruiting new players and actually growing your allieance.

[Aeolus.3615]

Game is not abut defend, it is about ktrain faster than the other 2 servers :D, reason structucres are easy to take under 1 minute when they are not upgraded.

And talkign about defense, when keep are build in valeys of can be trebbed directly inner and outer from nearby hill... plz.... theres no defense, just gimmicks to cap.

 

Game is ment to be easy and carry the lamers and pve'rs.

[Vermillion.4061]

PPT was dead years ago who really cares.. I'm glad anet is actually trying something massive to fix this stagnate game mode.

[eyestrain.3056]

I used to be motivated by loyalty to server/community, but after five years and four server transfers, I've learned that my first priority should always to be loyal to myself.

Is what i'm doing fun? If not, I shouldn't be spending hours doing it. Whether the scouts and defenders are people I know well or unfamiliar names, if I feel like helping defend something (whether it's a big fight, scouting, or chill maintenance like walking yaks), that's what I'll do. And if I don't feel like it, only unbalanced and myopic people would chew me out for putting my own enjoyment of my free time first.

It's a game. If someone wants to play for the team, they should play for the team regardless of who that team is. If they get stuck with a team of people who are just rotten and no fun to play with, in eight weeks they'll get a shot to be among better company. If they meet people they really love playing with, it's time to join that guild and follow them along to the next matchup.

 

What will motivate people to defend and upgrade instead of just ktraining? There are those of us who simply enjoy the challenge. Going our own way, being helpful to our allies, and being a thorn in our enemy's side is just part of our personality. There are players who find ktraining about as appealing as having teeth pulled. Hopefully even with a huge shakeup like this proposed restructuring, we will be able to find and play with each other and those who appreciate how we like to play.

 

ps- Chest-thumping about being #1 is currently the ONLY reward for being #1. When I was a newb I thought it was special, but quickly learned it isn't important or even a great indicator of any given server population's abilities due to politics and backdoor manipulation dictating much of the outcome. Outside of loot, the only motivator for even playing wvw is the love of the game mode, so I think for most, "exciting and fun experiences" are the real goal (rather than having the highest score every week). More varied and interesting matchups would serve that goal better than the current stagnation.

[Ben K.6238]

Where is it now?

 

The results of a match have been meaningless since launch. That's another problem that fixing population balance won't solve, but it may make it possible to solve without bandwagoning ruining everything.

[Thea Cherry.6327]

I bet they change nothing with Baruch Bay in the EU MUs. :D

[Dreamwolf.7423]

WvW is already a massive Ktrain. It took over from EOTM when reward tracks were added and became even more so when the skirmish rewards were added. Why else are all the zergs in EBG chasing each other around and back capping? One big Ktrain interrupted by huge open field fights to farm bags. Meanwhile, a few small roamer groups are trying to get their home BL in order, asking for help and mostly being ignored because there's no bags to be farmed. And now Anet kills off the last of server pride/loyalty.

[CrimsonNeonite.1048]

It will depend on the rewards IMO, whether it's worth pushing that agenda ahead of getting good fights.

 

 

[Tiawal.2351]

The incentive can be in a "leaderboard" or something, where every WvW player is listed and tracked. This can include hours played, kills, deaths, participation in defense and capture events, other events, and based on these a total score that shows the participation value (or caring and contributing to the team he/she was part of). This should exist anyway, otherwise players can't be distributed in a balanced way. This ranking should show your value, in how much useful you are to a team, though can't show emotional relationship, your motivating or demotivating power, and for that would be useful to have a reputation system, included in chat as well, where other players can give red & blue points (for useful contribution such as good scout report, or bad contribution such as troll EWP activation).

 

Anyway, change was needed. Really. Won't be perfect suddenly, but if we keep improving it, things will get better.

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

Until the final product is released, we won't know its impact on roamers, scouts and homeland defenders (which is the way I've played the game 90% of the time). But, I am looking forward to the change.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

People play WvW for a variety of reasons today. People played for a variety of reasons when the game launched. People will play for a variety of reasons after the new system is introduced and after it's tweaked.

 

Some people's preferences will get a boost with the overhaul and some people will find it rougher going. The main thing we can say for sure is that we'll all have to adapt and see what its' really like. The devil will be in the details (of which we have precious few right now, mostly because ANet is still figuring things out).

 

In the meantime, let's not assume that anyone else's motivations are less important to "good WvW" than our own nor that the changes will be definitely good for guilds (or bad for PUGs), nor necessarily good for k-training (bad for battles).

[Hackuuna.4085]

> @"X T D.6458" said:

> Guilds will suffer, because they wont be able to properly recruit players due to lack of militia on the new servers, lack of fights, and matchups having no meaning whatsoever because you are not playing for anything anymore.

 

I can't say I agree with the thought that giving players greater freedom to move around and self-organize will make recruitment harder. EoTM style ktrainers are in for a rude awakening if they think there won't be fight guild alliances looking to farm bags. As far as matchups having meaning, I think the only meaning I've seen consistently for the past 6 months has been "avoid T1".

[ReaverKane.7598]

Lets be honest, the only remote reason to care about your world was gone when they removed the world bonuses.

After that it was all about the _"me me me me me me me me mine!" _

So the new system won't make much difference. And this is coming from a guy that has been on the same server since pre-launch, never even guested out of it.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> the only remote reason to care about your world was gone when they removed the world bonuses.

 

I know almost no one who cared about their world because of the Power of the Mists. On the contrary, I know people today who still care about their world. Not everyone views the universe the same way. Those reasons might not matter to you, but that's okay since they are reason enough for those that see their world as important.

 

As it turns out, lots of humans are "joiners" and they'll bond for all sorts of esoteric reasons that are difficult to describe. Maybe it's technically accurate to say that people don't care much about their world, but lots of people care about the people they know from their WvW world. So it's simply a useful shorthand for folks to say they are "loyal to their world" instead.

 

 

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> > @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > the only remote reason to care about your world was gone when they removed the world bonuses.

>

> I know almost no one who cared about their world because of the Power of the Mists. On the contrary, I know people today who still care about their world. Not everyone views the universe the same way. Those reasons might not matter to you, but that's okay since they are reason enough for those that see their world as important.

>

> As it turns out, lots of humans are "joiners" and they'll bond for all sorts of esoteric reasons that are difficult to describe. Maybe it's technically accurate to say that people don't care much about their world, but lots of people care about the people they know from their WvW world. So it's simply a useful shorthand for folks to say they are "loyal to their world" instead.

>

>

 

Well, then you mean loyal/care about their world's community, right?

That's handled by alliances.

 

And if you had cared to read below the lines below the one you quoted, i've said i'm actually one of those that actually cares about their world.

[ArchonWing.9480]

Short story short, you are being consolidated. Anet no longer sees any value in your play style, though that's been a recurring theme.

 

In practice though, your community will most likely create a guild for you to join and ally with whoever was there. So honestly, you're probably not going to see too much change in this regards actually. Unless of course you were on break from now into then, then well, I guess gg.

[Sarrs.4831]

I pretty regularly see people saying that PPT is not an effective measure of score. With this in mind, I don't see what we're actually losing by potentially encouraging people not to PPT that much.

 

That said, if these roles are necessary for competitive alliances to win, then those competitive alliances will need to either form scout guilds as members of their alliance or allow scouts into their own guilds. If they don't, then these roles were never important anyway... And truth be told I think the sentry/scout role is an artifact anyway.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

I don't understand. a few good acs with a decent 20 person squad can farm kills like crazy.

 

I think alliances will be generally big enough to support a few scouts / roamers.

[Threather.9354]

**Ahoy, past-dweller**

 

Servers have become traveling places for bandvagoners going to whichever server is doing good at the moment. Server pride is just name and living in like 3 years in the past is seriously not good for anyone.

 

Now you just join alliance with core members of your servers (like commanders that come to defend when you scout) and try to convince people who you like scouting/defending with you. Which shouldn't be hard considering you already have defender comms with ya.

 

New server pride is Alliance pride, you build your own community. You meet new people every 8 weeks, pick them up for your alliance, and thus your community grows. People with bad attitude get left out and you get more and more cool people instead of your server corroding away to a pile of rubbish.

 

Now if you ever manage to meet that 500-1000 people cap,... Isn't that enough of incentive for you to scout? They actually have power to affect how their server is built now, so they won't be leaving your server as easily like dozens of other friends you have seen abandon you in the past.

 

**Stronger rotating community** that grows and lives for the future instead of **Wishy-washy community** where everyone quits eventually and lives in the past glory? I would take this deal without looking back...

 

**Sincerely**

**Vision of the future**

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

As long as my guildies and I can roam and small scale, thats all I care about and all I ever cared about. We are more PPK focused, but wont pass up a shot of taking something while PPKing. Anyone can run in a group and spam 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1, but skill comes from what happens if you are singled out in a 1v1 or 2v1.