Tiawal.2351

Scoring system could use some improvements, but before that other things has to be changed, first among those is a population balance that considers time zones as well, with the extra option to temporarily switch servers to keep the balance real. The Alliance feature itself won't fix this, but balancing is considered in the same rework. While they will go far enough with changes or not, depends on the level of commitment Anet has towards fixing the WvW game mode. The WvW dev team group is likely still smaller than what is needed. So better if they do one step at a time, and scoring should be adjusted after population balancing, then adding back missing systems like the Orb mechanism was and redesigning the whole defensive buff and upgrade process. There's much to do, and they sadly too slow. We are far beyond hoping now, after too many years of neglect and many generations of lost players. But if things change to better, I will still take it, and WvW can be reborn. For now, just enjoy those very rare moments of fun that can be found at times, there's nothing else left.

That's best. Why hide behind a meaningless title "Servername Tin Toy Soldier Legendary PPT rank".

More were changed, just no explanations given. I can guess that they don't want to allow earning pips too easily, so while giving more, they also removed some sources. It seems to me that almost everyone will earn more after these changes: you still can take a camp or help in taking it, or a sentry, and both should be easy enough. "World vs. World Addressed an exploit that allowed siege weapons to be placed within the red-team spawn location in Eternal Battlegrounds. Addressed an exploit that allowed siege weapons to be placed within the home world spawn in Alpine Borderlands. Increased the number of pips earned for match placement from 3/4/5 to 4/5/6. Added a new pip bonus for new players of WvW rank 1–149. Increased the number of pips given per WvW rank by 1. Removed the Outnumbered pip bonus effect. Removed the WvW participation grace time granted from repairing. "

I agree that this is important as well. I would even go further and want unique flags and themes for each, and many can be done if there's willingness and are there resources. Just that balancing has to be first, and the rest after. I would even offer to join the enemy, if at that hour when I log in, they have less numbers. That's just an example of temporary balance mechanism. Then I return to my team again. Helping the enemy is helping your own team -- because your team needs enemy numbers, to make it fair, to keep the fun going. These will need a reputation system to prevent joining the enemy and abusing it, as well proper rewards to motivate enough players to keep balancing a reality. All these would be further steps, so far the plans are quite basic and doesn't even consider time zones in the first stages. The progress still feels slow, and the changes aren't here yet. But they are badly needed.

They lost nothing. Anyone who expected things be fixed suddenly, just don't understand the software Anet is working with. This will be hard work and will take time. Will be many failures. But can be done. If they don't give up, and focus on ending one sided matchups. It's up to their top management to want it, otherwise a small team may fail to have the major impact that is needed. Then will be so many players that new servers will be needed. After can come WvW specific cosmetics and specific features to bring in extra profit as well. I'd like a Knight Templar look, but only after WvW is really an eternal battleground, not with current rare activity.

I see here the word "Alliances" is used like this is the most important part of the incoming changes. Is not. The alliance feature is nothing but an extension to guilds; forever there were guilds which followed each other, and there's nothing bad in this. The bad is not having enemies to fight, that's why CHANGE is needed. Fighting this change, which brings enemies, is letting WvW be in a state is now "there's nothing to fight at moment, I'm going to play something else, call me when there are enemies". Alliance related change means nothing. Stop being obsessed over the most insignificant part. What is wrong about these fears, shown in OP and in many other posts, is the self focus: what will happen with me, something will change and will end up alone, surrounded by strangers! Stop that. WvW is a team game. Those strangers are your allies, you fight together with them and will become your "friends" just as much as your current server is. If you really care more about them and they about you, then join a guild together; and no, there are no reasons not to -- if there are, then something is more important than being together. Don't be afraid making new friends, they will be just as good, or in many cases just as bad, as the old ones. Instead focus on what is good for WvW, what this game mode needs to thrive: ENEMIES. Don't cry about friends, they are useless: I have too many of them, but the more I have, the worse it is: IF they are in my team. What makes WvW alive are ENEMIES that fight back, takes all my objectives, and don't quit. Then, and only then, I need allies which don't quit when they are beaten, but keep fighting on. I need less allies than enemies, so we don't start dominating our enemies. The focus must be on BALANCE: we need more enemies than allies, we need better enemies, so we will have to struggle and give us reasons to play, to make us want to improve our coordination. But there has to be balance, so our allies don't quit. Yes, our dear sweet friends are just quitters if they are beaten too many times. They will run away and rage quit like a Yari Ashigaru army in Shogun Total War (they were low morale). And then I can be hero alone, and game still over. Without balance nothing matters. Balance means more enemies than allies, and just enough allies to keep them playing. The work in progress isn't about Alliances. These "alliances" fixes nothing, do nothing, means nothing -- unless they are in a total war environment, a WvW that is alive and the activity is crazy high. Then these alliances can be the vanguard, leading the new teams to bloody victories and endless fun. There new and real friendships will be forged, those made in the heat of hard fought battles, not in the boring chit chat of current pip farming. Most WvW players can be your friends, there are exceptions, but most are just as awesome as any. Believe me, I've been on most servers, on countless accounts, and there is amazing people in every server. Sadly these means that I will fight friends, but that also means that I will want the fights to be fair, I will want them to have just as much, or even more fun beating me, than I have beating them. Without balance, there are no enemies. Across all time zones, there are many sad players -- since there's nothing exciting going on most of the times. Embrace the change, though may end badly -- but that can be fixed. Keep making changes, until WvW is overflowing with fun.

Not just these two stats, but most stats brought with HoT (Dire and so on) and afterwards, allow imbalanced builds in WvW. These can't be fixed by changing skill stats or how skills & traits work. WvW really needs a review and rework of stats. This could be simply by adjusting it's values, so they give mostly less stats when that given stat is used in WvW (compared to PvE). Also could be introduced a hard cap on how much maximum stat can be gained from gear (allowing going beyond with stats from traits & buffs, but considering that when balancing all). Or they simply can be removed, but this will be the least popular solution. Variety is good, makes the game more fun and allows to custom fit a build to your playstyle or role -- but has to be limit in how tanky a damage dealer can get, without sacrificing damage output.

Currently there is no reason to want to win a matchup (except to get in a "better" matchup for next week, but not even that is worth doing it). Also playing towards a matchup win, involves doing the most boring and useless things: cap and back-cap pointless objectives that mean nothing (since PPT no longer has meaning), not just in rewards but consequences either. What fun remains, and it's rewarding in itself, are the rare fights that aren't one sided: when both sides are balanced, small or large scale both. To fix all this, there's a need to bring back the meaningful competition that was lost. This means we need all these and more: 1. team identity, colors, banners, flags, and long term ranking, that remembers and rewards loyalty towards your team (this makes worthwhile investing time in scouting, defending, and so on) 2. real competition between servers, with consequences after a loss and meaningful rewards for a win, properly countered by a personal ranking that gives more to those who contribute to a lower ranking & losing side; including guild ranking, to encourage support of the weaker side 4. orbs brought back in form of buffs (to counter the software exploit) and even more, similar features added, which all require active play and real effort, instead the current PPT style cap a building and then can be lazy because the points will just tick in -- even the current objectives should lose their point gain in time and instead give area bonus only, supporting those other new activities like orbs (those have to be kept inside buildings) Many can be done, but for years this game mode was nearly abandoned. Now finally they working on it again. If this goes on, in time things will get better, but for now, everyone plays what they can still enjoy until things improve, and not many enjoyable parts are left, so let everyone do whatever for now, until the real fun is brought back.

Desert borderland is like a running simulator (have to run a lot). Sounds healthy, but isn't, because the map it's a maze. Much climbing and jumping required. Even after years, I still don't know which way to go and really hate wasting time figuring it out. Don't have time for desert borderland. When finally a fight starts, the terrain allows an easy way to escape for one side. Thus all the fun gone. Dying from fall damage, in a fight or during travel, is another frequently used gimmick in the sPvP maps, that I don't enjoy. Not even killing others this way. Just feels cheap. Pranks rarely are fun in long term use. Add to these a large amount of invisible collision objects that make your skills "obstructed", though you can't see what is the reason, there's nothing there (would be visible in dev mode), and even getting stuck in them, have to walk back or even jump to get out. Then the objectives are massive and maze and one way street (most of the map is). One can be lost in own keep and take long to figure out how to move around. I would need a Black Desert Online style auto navigation on this map, still would hate it, because all I'm asking on it is "are we there yet?" and let's port away from this nightmare.

You can clearly see that not everyone agrees with this. Sometimes may be true, but having more options is better, not having less. If we start removing what one of us or the other hates most, nothing will remain. Instead we should suggest ways to improve these features, or the game mode itself in this case, since there will always will be groups wanting a coordination that requires a leader. Stacking around the leader is because the range of boons, condi clears and so on on, but there can be a different way to play, with different builds that doesn't require stacking. It's up to the players and the most efficient way usually wins. Since the the icon is optional, there can't be valid reasons to remove it. An option to hide it user side, yes, especially hiding troll tags.

Lately there is an unhealthy obsession on the term "Alliance". It's like a scary word for many. That's very wrong. Stop the panic. The "alliance" is just like a guild,. like any other before. [I would like this "special guild" feature delayed or it's size further reduced to 100, but make it time zone based; so a team (world, server) can have an "alliance" for every time zone.] Still, "alliance" is good or bad, too large or not, too early to implement it or not -- doesn't matter that much as the great news part: that after years and years of WvW maintenance mode, finally is being worked on again. Will some systems fail, won't be good enough, and bad parts will come? Sure. But if they keep working on it, measure results and pick just the useful feedback (because sadly most are useless), then after a while, WvW will be far better than ever before.

Less is more. Walls of text are just wasting the time of everyone. WvW it's based on a proven system that is working and is fun. Just needs a few changes, improvements and not to turn it into something else. This Globe system isn't something I would play. Instead WvW needs to return back to it's roots (DAoC 3 realm system) and improve it further. WvW needs it's own class balance; less or no automated skills and traits, make player skill (where timing, coordination and movement decides the outcome, not raw numbers wins), population balancing (based on skilled contribution rating and timezone, not raw hours spent on map) with a way to swap teams on the fly (the player to join the other team until needed, temporarily) if the other side is outnumbered, reasons to want to win and fight back, and so on, many things needs and could be improved futher -- but all these are possible, one step a time.

There's testing of course, and I'd like to be wrong, but as far as I know, currently there aren't enough good groups in WvW to allow them to merge into "Alliance guild". If these changes continues, WvW will be greatly improved and in time there will be, but right now would be better to create Teams just from (solo) players and guilds only. This will allow a better spread out of good groups (i.e. those groups which can consistently win against far larger numbers). In this context even the 500 limit is far too large, since there are less than 100 good players to divide them evenly between the current server numbers. If not, this will give birth to a few very strong alliances, and unless they will always be matched against each other, they will get bored by easy wins, and their enemies will quit. History will just repeat itself. It's too big the temptation to ally with good players, everyone likes to play with the best, but if there are no similar level enemies, then won't be fun at all. Numbers alone doesn't mean much, and this system is mostly focused on balancing numbers. This is a though nut to crack, but really there's a need to incentivize the best groups to avoid joining an alliance, and for now, the easiest way to achieve that, is by delaying this feature.

Was called "World", and ended with mega server system. Now was replaced by the new term: "Team", which actually is a very good name. The main difference is that players (including guilds and guild alliances) are reshuffled more frequently (needed for balance), so one won't stay on the same team forever. Just move your loyalty to the team you are part of, give 100% for your team. First things first: fun activity is the utmost priority; "balanced" fights, in a sense that both sides have a chance to win (never will be all sides equal). Though in long term, after balancing is done, there could be new parts introduced into the system, to allow some (just a smaller percent) to stay with the same team forever, even giving names to teams again. WvW was inspired by DAoC and there are 3 realms, and realm loyalty is a huge motivator for some. But we first need the basics working: class & roles fit for the different styles of WvW action; population balance and competition that gives reason for improvement and solidarity, instead making people quit since they can't fight back. Many things needs fixed, then giving flags & banners fit for those wanting realm loyalty can come as well.

Guild or server (aka "World") means the same thing: the people you share a common goal with. Now they have to fit in a 500 members sized guild. This may seem small, but you will see in a few months, that 500 is huge, even 50 is huge: inevitable some will want to leave it, and find a new place, where they fit in better. The new system will allow that, every 2-3 months or so afaik. We can't have the cake and eat it as well. IF there is no fun activity, there is no point of WvW. The afk in a corner type social clubs could live in Lion's Arch as well; WvW is meant to be active, with non-stop fights. I won't mind of course if Anet creates a reservation for those who want to be left behind. At least for a while, until they want to move. Because those who enjoy an active WvW will be in the new system. Also while I love the concept of servers (world, realms, whatever), because unites people more and gives reason to invest more time and emotions, than just a simple 20 minutes or 2 months battle royale type match; still, as we have seen for years already, being part of a side that is constantly losing and has no way to fight back, is very boring -- for both sides (for the "winners" as well). This can't be just fixed by players. Could be, but nobody will invest that much time and effort (and likely money too) to do it. The time of the likes of Titan Alliance can't be sustained for long, has to come from the game itself. There is a need for a working system, a new beginning.