An open letter about WvW Alliances

[MUDse.7623]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> > @"Sovereign.1093" said:

> > (global balance (time balance (local balance)))

> >

> > =) fix global and all things follow.

> >

> > anet is doing it right.

>

> I suggest you read the post before responding.

 

you said yourself :

 

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

>If Your versing a world with double your population, then your likely to have twice as many numbers on right now, that means the towers are likely to be attacked by twice as many defenders. It's a problem that moves down the line.

 

isnt that baiscally the same? you said here that if there is global balance, it is likely the other 2 are balanced aswell. local balance on the other hand has 0 influence on the other 2.

i would advise against local balance, because with it if i face 1 vs 40 players that are worse then me, then with local balance i would kill them all. there are large gaps in player skill in WvW and therefor it could end up regularly solo players beating up huge groups, wich would make the game mode feel very unbalanced for the majority. because evem if in those 40 players are lets sey 5 that are better then me, it is likely i would still win as i would be upscaled to 40 and the 5 people would make little effect and basically are nerfed by their own team. this can also lead to a lot of toxicity within your team etc.

numbers should always have an impact for the outcome of a battle, it should not be the only thing that matters but making numbers irrelevant is way worse.

therefor i would say its best to try to achieve global balance in hope that we improve time and local balance aswell by the amount of people that are there, not by weird 'dev magic' as you did put it.

 

 

[zerorogue.9410]

> @"Sovereign.1093" said:

> what you wrote here is guess work.

>

> did you read the dev post and faq?

>

> world includes alliances, which includes guilds registered and non registered visitors.

>

> on our part, players will make 24 hour coverage if they choose to work at it.

>

> ex. guild a for na, guild b for eu, guild c for in between. thus covering local, time, and global, where whatever remains is based on anet calculation with your non representer.

>

> the only issue besides hacking in gw2 is pop coverage balance. if it cant be fixed because players can choose not to play, like jq (good fighters but tankers), coverage is lost. in the least the proposal allows players to find allies when their current ones dont play.

 

Exactly, That's why trying to fix things globally or time based will just result in unbalanced matches because you can't choose when people play or not. Only when you fix things at the local level (the individual battles) Do you actually get any balance.

 

 

> @"MUDse.7623" said:

> isnt that baiscally the same? you said here that if there is global balance, it is likely the other 2 are balanced aswell. local balance on the other hand has 0 influence on the other 2.

> i would advise against local balance, because with it if i face 1 vs 40 players that are worse then me, then with local balance i would kill them all. there are large gaps in player skill in WvW and therefor it could end up regularly solo players beating up huge groups, wich would make the game mode feel very unbalanced for the majority. because evem if in those 40 players are lets sey 5 that are better then me, it is likely i would still win as i would be upscaled to 40 and the 5 people would make little effect and basically are nerfed by their own team. this can also lead to a lot of toxicity within your team etc.

> numbers should always have an impact for the outcome of a battle, it should not be the only thing that matters but making numbers irrelevant is way worse.

> therefor i would say its best to try to achieve global balance in hope that we improve time and local balance aswell by the amount of people that are there, not by weird 'dev magic' as you did put it.

 

It's a two way street. Balancing can go down and it can go up. However, balance going from Global to local can break down. While Going local to global can not.

 

Local balance does not mean buffing the player, nor does it mean allowing 40v1 scenarios. It's a mid-ground we need to achieve. Something where numbers still count, but are not the only thing that matters.

 

Also "Dev magic" is basically anytime the developers fool the players into believing something. If you ever looked into how games are made, you'll be quite surprised on how much devs fool to the player.

 

[Sovereign.1093]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> > @"Sovereign.1093" said:

> > what you wrote here is guess work.

> >

> > did you read the dev post and faq?

> >

> > world includes alliances, which includes guilds registered and non registered visitors.

> >

> > on our part, players will make 24 hour coverage if they choose to work at it.

> >

> > ex. guild a for na, guild b for eu, guild c for in between. thus covering local, time, and global, where whatever remains is based on anet calculation with your non representer.

> >

> > the only issue besides hacking in gw2 is pop coverage balance. if it cant be fixed because players can choose not to play, like jq (good fighters but tankers), coverage is lost. in the least the proposal allows players to find allies when their current ones dont play.

>

> Exactly, That's why trying to fix things globally or time based will just result in unbalanced matches because you can't choose when people play or not. Only when you fix things at the local level (the individual battles) Do you actually get any balance.

>

>

> > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > isnt that baiscally the same? you said here that if there is global balance, it is likely the other 2 are balanced aswell. local balance on the other hand has 0 influence on the other 2.

> > i would advise against local balance, because with it if i face 1 vs 40 players that are worse then me, then with local balance i would kill them all. there are large gaps in player skill in WvW and therefor it could end up regularly solo players beating up huge groups, wich would make the game mode feel very unbalanced for the majority. because evem if in those 40 players are lets sey 5 that are better then me, it is likely i would still win as i would be upscaled to 40 and the 5 people would make little effect and basically are nerfed by their own team. this can also lead to a lot of toxicity within your team etc.

> > numbers should always have an impact for the outcome of a battle, it should not be the only thing that matters but making numbers irrelevant is way worse.

> > therefor i would say its best to try to achieve global balance in hope that we improve time and local balance aswell by the amount of people that are there, not by weird 'dev magic' as you did put it.

>

> It's a two way street. Balancing can go down and it can go up. However, balance going from Global to local can break down. While Going local to global can not.

>

> Local balance does not mean buffing the player, nor does it mean allowing 40v1 scenarios. It's a mid-ground we need to achieve. Something where numbers still count, but are not the only thing that matters.

>

> Also "Dev magic" is basically anytime the developers fool the players into believing something. If you ever looked into how games are made, you'll be quite surprised on how much devs fool to the player.

>

 

even by local level ppl can choose not to play. there is no fix for that.

 

so global is the only way.

 

wvw is like a marathon, many compete only a few will push to the finish.

 

it is not like chess

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> Exactly, That's why trying to fix things globally or time based will just result in unbalanced matches because you can't choose when people play or not. Only when you fix things at the local level (the individual battles) Do you actually get any balance.

And you cant do "local level" balance because that's impossible. What are you going to do when 5 people randomly meet 2 near a camp? Teleport 3 random people from across the map on top of them?

 

Population and server balances is there to encourage an even playing field. You cant *force* balance. The rest is up to players. If Anet played the game for us it would be boring.

[Hexinx.1872]

No matter what level, the system can and will be gamed by people. It's part of what motivates people to shift even the meta. One thought is if you take a culmination of player wxp gain and time of gain across their current timers. I mean there has to be a map maximum wxp gain you can feasibly achieve as a player, and server / # of players a map allows. I don't know if wxp or pips is better to use, but I like wxp because it's granular. Anet should also consider things like commanders tagged up (with active squads)during periods., tracking when tags are active. I mean that data alone would show the disparity between servers. Yet players can still game the system by tanking one week playing another, so maybe an average wxp gain across a larger period of time.

 

There was also another posting about adjusting the calculations based on # active players in each world, one that accounts for low population/activity providing less reward.

 

I don't think there will ever be any way to not game the system from the local level because it's just out of anets control, the best they can do is get averages from active players.

[Sovereign.1093]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> > @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> > Exactly, That's why trying to fix things globally or time based will just result in unbalanced matches because you can't choose when people play or not. Only when you fix things at the local level (the individual battles) Do you actually get any balance.

> And you cant do "local level" balance because that's impossible. What are you going to do when 5 people randomly meet 2 near a camp? Teleport 3 random people from across the map on top of them?

>

> Population and server balances is there to encourage an even playing field. You cant *force* balance. The rest is up to players. If Anet played the game for us it would be boring.

 

it will be pve. set timers for events =)

[MUDse.7623]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > isnt that baiscally the same? you said here that if there is global balance, it is likely the other 2 are balanced aswell. local balance on the other hand has 0 influence on the other 2.

> > i would advise against local balance, because with it if i face 1 vs 40 players that are worse then me, then with local balance i would kill them all. there are large gaps in player skill in WvW and therefor it could end up regularly solo players beating up huge groups, wich would make the game mode feel very unbalanced for the majority. because evem if in those 40 players are lets sey 5 that are better then me, it is likely i would still win as i would be upscaled to 40 and the 5 people would make little effect and basically are nerfed by their own team. this can also lead to a lot of toxicity within your team etc.

> > numbers should always have an impact for the outcome of a battle, it should not be the only thing that matters but making numbers irrelevant is way worse.

> > therefor i would say its best to try to achieve global balance in hope that we improve time and local balance aswell by the amount of people that are there, not by weird 'dev magic' as you did put it.

>

> It's a two way street. Balancing can go down and it can go up. However, balance going from Global to local can break down. While Going local to global can not.

>

> Local balance does not mean buffing the player, nor does it mean allowing 40v1 scenarios. It's a mid-ground we need to achieve. Something where numbers still count, but are not the only thing that matters.

>

> Also "Dev magic" is basically anytime the developers fool the players into believing something. If you ever looked into how games are made, you'll be quite surprised on how much devs fool to the player.

>

it is way easier to achieve global balance, local balance is pretty much impossible without being able to exploited or ruin the mode.

as you say global to local CAN break down, but is that a reason to vote against an attempt to bring us closer to global balance? only because it cant gurantee to also bring local balance?

i would actually say local balance is not that important as we got multiple objectives we fight for. while i might be 1 vs 40 on my map, my world might be 40 vs 1 on another map and then its again up to who can do make the best out of the situation, can i delay the 40 longer then the solo player on the other map and ensure my zerg returns to safe objectives on my map after successfully capturing the one on the other.

 

if we had perfect local balance, then global balance would be irrelevant but you could probably win a matchup with only 5 players , 1 for each map and 1 resting. thats not really what i would want.

a middle ground local balance i am not sure what that is for you - one could say we got that now. i cant win against 40 but last week i killed some opponents 1 vs 7 to defend a tower. but then again the current state is not really good because we still got matches decided by coverage - or are you actually fine with the current population balance?

 

[Askadia.4395]

WvW will be just like the PvE Mega Server thing, where guilds and alliances will be kept together. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Chaba.5410]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> I think a few people are hyperbolizing the current state of WvW. We are talking about a strict issue of local balance here.

>

> There are many levels of balance to be taken in account in WvW.

> -Global balance(world pop)

> -Time balance(currently playing)

> -Local balance(In a specific area)

 

Either way, server system does not support any sort of these balances.

[zerorogue.9410]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> And you cant do "local level" balance because that's impossible. What are you going to do when 5 people randomly meet 2 near a camp? Teleport 3 random people from across the map on top of them?

>

> Population and server balances is there to encourage an even playing field. You cant *force* balance. The rest is up to players. If Anet played the game for us it would be boring.

 

Local balance is not only possible, It's already happening in WvW. Although, not enough. Things like the orange swords that appear when large groups of players get into combat is one such balance trick.

 

As you example, no you can't just teleport players in, however If you directed players to organize it would not be necessary to teleport anyone. An example of this trick can be seen in PvE when an event in a chain finishes. Usually players Think once an event is over that's it. However If they notice the quest npc running towards a new location many will wonder "where's he going?" and naturally follow him to the next event in the chain.

 

While quest npc's running around WvW would be a terrible idea. There are alternatives; for instance just having dots on the map of your allies would gravitate people together.

 

> @"MUDse.7623" said:

> it is way easier to achieve global balance, local balance is pretty much impossible without being able to exploited or ruin the mode.

> as you say global to local CAN break down, but is that a reason to vote against an attempt to bring us closer to global balance? only because it cant gurantee to also bring local balance?

> i would actually say local balance is not that important as we got multiple objectives we fight for. while i might be 1 vs 40 on my map, my world might be 40 vs 1 on another map and then its again up to who can do make the best out of the situation, can i delay the 40 longer then the solo player on the other map and ensure my zerg returns to safe objectives on my map after successfully capturing the one on the other.

>

> if we had perfect local balance, then global balance would be irrelevant but you could probably win a matchup with only 5 players , 1 for each map and 1 resting. thats not really what i would want.

> a middle ground local balance i am not sure what that is for you - one could say we got that now. i cant win against 40 but last week i killed some opponents 1 vs 7 to defend a tower. but then again the current state is not really good because we still got matches decided by coverage - or are you actually fine with the current population balance?

 

That's actually a bit of a trap in logic. Global balance is easier up front but harder to maintain, this is why we have quarterly balance patches. Local balance is the reverse, hard to set up but it governs itself afterwards.

 

Continuing to your other comments, this is exactly what I want for WvW. Local balance is not the end all solution. Nor is global balance. It takes some on each level. Alliances is strictly Global and Timed balance.

 

I should also mention our current line of discussion is just one part of what's needed to balance WvW. The first step to fixing any balance problem is to fix any further inbalances(what were speaking of), After that things need to be put back in order(some plan to balance the worlds back to normal), then finally some reward/encouragement to prevent imbalance. Alliances does step 2, however without fixing the current balance issues in WvW Alliances will never be able to do much.

 

People will always try to take advantage of the system, and alliances are easily exploitable.

[MUDse.7623]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> Local balance is not only possible, It's already happening in WvW. Although, not enough. Things like the orange swords that appear when large groups of players get into combat is one such balance trick.

>

so how is knowing that there is a large group fighting the door of my tower going to help me fight them ?

 

> As you example, no you can't just teleport players in, however If you directed players to organize it would not be necessary to teleport anyone. An example of this trick can be seen in PvE when an event in a chain finishes. Usually players Think once an event is over that's it. However If they notice the quest npc running towards a new location many will wonder "where's he going?" and naturally follow him to the next event in the chain.

>

> While quest npc's running around WvW would be a terrible idea. There are alternatives; for instance just having dots on the map of your allies would gravitate people together.

>

i wouldnt want my allies to come to me only cause they are not able to get productive themselves.

gravitating people together still wont create a local balance. it will just get people together per side.

> > @"MUDse.7623" said:

> > it is way easier to achieve global balance, local balance is pretty much impossible without being able to exploited or ruin the mode.

> > as you say global to local CAN break down, but is that a reason to vote against an attempt to bring us closer to global balance? only because it cant gurantee to also bring local balance?

> > i would actually say local balance is not that important as we got multiple objectives we fight for. while i might be 1 vs 40 on my map, my world might be 40 vs 1 on another map and then its again up to who can do make the best out of the situation, can i delay the 40 longer then the solo player on the other map and ensure my zerg returns to safe objectives on my map after successfully capturing the one on the other.

> >

> > if we had perfect local balance, then global balance would be irrelevant but you could probably win a matchup with only 5 players , 1 for each map and 1 resting. thats not really what i would want.

> > a middle ground local balance i am not sure what that is for you - one could say we got that now. i cant win against 40 but last week i killed some opponents 1 vs 7 to defend a tower. but then again the current state is not really good because we still got matches decided by coverage - or are you actually fine with the current population balance?

>

> That's actually a bit of a trap in logic. Global balance is easier up front but harder to maintain, this is why we have quarterly balance patches.

i got no idead how what your global population balance got to do with our quaterly balance patches. and yes the activity of people will change, breaking global balance, thats why there will be new worlds every 8 weeks. rebalancing too frequent will make the system too easy to exploit so i do think 8 weeks is fine.

> Local balance is the reverse, hard to set up but it governs itself afterwards.

i still dont see how you aim to achieve local balance and as said earlier not sure if we even need it.

>

> Continuing to your other comments, this is exactly what I want for WvW. Local balance is not the end all solution. Nor is global balance. It takes some on each level. Alliances is strictly Global and Timed balance.

so you want all 3 types of balance and as alliance has only potential to bring you 2 of them, they are bad? i would be happy if i had a better global balance. you got to keep your expectations real - you wont get all 3 balanced or it would become very restrictive wich could hurt the game alot.

>

> The first step to fixing any balance problem is to fix any further inbalances(what were speaking of),

oh really? there are very few games without inbalances, even chess is not balanced as one side has to do the first move. so you wont finish this step.

>After that things need to be put back in order(some plan to balance the worlds back to normal).[..] Alliances does step 2, however without fixing the current balance issues in WvW Alliances will never be able to do much.

you are right there will still be plenty of issues, some people dont like to fight certain builds or playstyles - what is you issue with alliances getting you better global balance? you make it sound like there is a fixed order in wich issues got to be addressed and if we do it in another order - then what? who cares i am happy they tend to one issue. you could get us completly new combat system so everyone enjoys fighting every build etc and then someone else will say : cool but i still loose cause of coverage so why would i care about the combat. there are many issues and you got to start somewhere to work on them.

> then finally some reward/encouragement to prevent imbalance.

how do you do that ? do i get more loot if i kill people in 5 vs 5 then in 1 vs 5 or 5 vs 3 ? will my opponents then stand in a line to fight me 1 on 1 for greater loot?

> People will always try to take advantage of the system, and alliances are easily exploitable.

they are not even set in stone, yet you already know how to exploit them sure. every system can be gamed so what of it ? currently people bandwagon to whereever it generates maximum rewards for setting the brain on stand by , find a tag , /follow and spamm 1.

 

 

[Tiawal.2351]

WvW needed constant improvement, at least with every major change that made it worse, such us:

- Transfers introduced without having any working plan to counter stacking & coverage imbalance

- Worlds ceased to exist (at Megaserver) and made the already dilluted meaning of home team even worse

- PPT race became pointless (because a bandwagon coverage decided the outcome) and was still left as the core of the WvW game

- expansions made WvW meta even worse, TTK (time to kill) decreased constantly, but WvW still had to work with the mixture of PvE & party of 5 sPvP balance

and so on.

 

Will the new changes fix everything? Certainly not. But if they keep trying things, and make more changes, keep the good parts and modify or replace what won't be good, then WvW will improve. Letting it to be as it is, would be the worse.

[Euryon.9248]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> > @"Dawdler.8521" said:

 

>

> People will always try to take advantage of the system, and alliances are easily exploitable.

 

Please specify precisely how alliances are more exploitable than the current server loading is, and how they will produce a *worse* population imbalance than we currently have.

 

Arguing that we shouldn't do something because it's not perfect/won't fix everything/can be gamed is a nihilistic approach. The Devs should all just give up and go home.

[Sarrs.4831]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> without fixing the current balance issues in WvW Alliances will never be able to do much.

 

But it does

Blackgate is too big and breaking up blackgate does a lot to fix the current game balance

Genuinely, two tiers of WvW are not playable as intended because people are either up against Blackgate (in T1) or are purposely tanking so that they don't have to play against Blackgate (in T2).

[Dawdler.8521]

> @"zerorogue.9410" said:

> Local balance is not only possible, It's already happening in WvW. Although, not enough. Things like the orange swords that appear when large groups of players get into combat is one such balance trick.

 

Thats not "local balance" imposed by some oppressive gameplay function telling you no this isnt balanced, I need to balance it.

 

That is the game bringing attention to focus. The players do the work to scout and call for reinforcements (NPCs and watchtowers taking some of the work). Objectives being contested is part of the same thing as is having commander tags to create squads, so now the question is: why is that not enough on this level?