StormPE.8201

@Donari.5237 It seems to be implied that PvE will be remaining the same. If that's the case, you may draw more traction/attention to your RP community request in another thread. If McKenna could verify that for certain, I'm sure it would set a lot of the RP'ers in this thread at ease. Thanks for replying to my questions, I was of the impression that the RP community was frequenting WvW. This clarifies a lot. Is this referring to all aspects of PvE shard assignment?

To follow up with @Richard.8207 's responses to my questions about solo WvW: @Richard.8207 said:That guild wouldn’t provide as many tags at predictable times as an entire server does.I personally believe that if these changes were to be implemented, it would likely result in more tags available during more hours of the day. It may take some time to adjust to the schedules of unfamiliar tags as shards get readjusted every 8 weeks, however. I can see this as an inconvenience if you've grown accustomed to specific tags being available during specific times. If you have commanders that you're fond of running with, perhaps reach out to them about their plans for these proposed changes or add them as a friend to improve your chances of being matched with them. I realize that's a bit counterintuitive if you're hoping to avoid social interaction, but I thought it might be worth mentioning. @Richard.8207 said:There is no solution trying to maintain community while also forcing everyone to have more diverse WvW experiences. You’d have to have two options, so basically a server queue and a “balance the fights” queue. The balance queue would obviously have diverse experiences, while the servers would just be more balanced versions of what exists today. This works in other games, but is apparently undesirable to the developers. (It was surely considered as it is the most common solution to this type of problem)I obviously can't speak for what the developers have or have not considered, but I agree that there are various groups of players that won't be well served by these changes. I'm hoping that as communication continues, those groups will find a voice and explain their specific problems with the system and that the developers are able to find a way to help ease the transition for players like you in this area. In reference to answers regarding guild elitism: In regards to your other issue with having multiple groups you run with: Thank you Richard for taking the time to help explain your viewpoint, hopefully I'm understanding your side of things better now than I was before (I certainly feel like I do). Hopefully your explanations will help others understand what this change could mean for solo players as well, and perhaps improve the end result for your WvW experience.

I'm seeing quite a few concerns brought up very regularly as I try to keep up with this conversation, and I'd like to see some more explanation from the individuals with these concerns so that I can understand their positions better (and hopefully the development team as well). I'll try to keep my questions concise and worded clearly when possible. 1. While guilds and alliances will have something to fight for (their own reputation), players that choose to play alone or avoid guild association will lose a sense of community with the server/world they've been a part of for so long. Why do you choose to play WvW alone? What benefit do you gain from avoiding guild association that you do gain from server association?What would be the difference between your current situation if you were to join a 'casual/community' guild/alliance for shard placements only and not rep a guild tag?What specific parts of WvW do you enjoy most or feel are the most rewarding as a solo player?What options exist for the proposed WvW changes to be implemented while addressing your concerns for losing your identity?2. There will be guilds/alliances that will use performance metrics to trim their rosters and create elite fight squads. As this already happens on every server I've played on in WvW, why is this suddenly a serious concern?If you aren't interested in joining an elite fight squad with strict regulations, why would this effect you?Since 'stacked' alliances will likely be matched against each other because of algorithm metrics, what prevents you from joining a large casual alliance to avoid them?3. There are some players that belong to multiple WvW guilds or already have full guild slots, and these changes would be difficult for those players to embrace. Would your issue be resolved if there was an extra guild slot added with the changes to compensate for the more strict 1 guild/alliance requirement for shard placement?Would you be better able to accommodate your multiple guilds if WvW tagged guilds were more easily able to aquire the WvW buffs?How open are your multiple guilds about forming an alliance to allow their players to play WvW together?Would you be better off being sorted based on your friends list rather than a guild?4. Role players exist in World vs World and their ability to find each other is being called into question. For those of us that don't participate in RP, what is WvW used for by your community?Is creating a guild or alliance possible by your community to help you stick together and possibly create an even more close-knit group?Would creating a Teamspeak or Discord server help the RP community stay in touch and interact more in game?If a toggle for RP was added to the hero menu to help sort you into maps, would your concerns be alleviated?I believe answering some of these questions objectively could go a long way in furthering constructive discussion about those most affected by these changes. From my personal perspective, I believe communication and organization options will become incredibly important for these WvW changes to succeed. My personal suggestion for approaching in game communication would be the addition of map markers for use by squad leaders and commanders. Markers as simple as a "My squad is moving here", "Enemy group spotted here", "Please help defend this objective" would go a very long way in helping entire shards coordinate strategy without voice chat. I believe alliances and guilds will likely utilize their own Teamspeak or Discord servers as well as web pages as servers have done in the past, but extra communication will be needed for strategic planning between guilds and alliances. It will be even more important for pugs and roamers that choose to operate independently. I mentioned in my previous post about roles for squads and commanders as well. I think allowing commanders and squads to declare their desired goals/role on the map would be very helpful to non guilded/allied players to coordinate with existing organized groups. Roles like "Roaming", "Fighting", "Objectives", "Scouting" could really help bolster shard organization in the absence of centralized voice communication. With the server identities being relegated to alliances (or seemingly dissolved for players not inclined to join a community alliance), I believe that it's important to engage those players in other ways. Finding a way to allow them to contribute in visible and meaningful ways to their assigned shard, while also being rewarded for that contribution will be very important. Guilds and alliances will be fighting for prestige and reputation, and hopefully there will be stats added to the API to allow that glory to be broadcast to the masses, but it's imperative that solo players aren't left in the shadow of guilds. There are many scouts and roamers that do great work that's appreciated by large and small guilds alike, and that work needs a way to be recognized season to season. Allowing those players to gain a visible and perpetuating reputation among players outside their current shard is necessary. It is my belief that these changes to WvW will help foster a more healthy game mode, and the developer interaction with World Vs World players is very welcome. I'd like to urge the WvW community to work hard to not only voice their concerns, but explain them as well. The more information the developers have at their disposal, the better the result we can hope to receive. Thank you to everyone who has spent time in this thread to correct misunderstandings and project their concerns and constructive feedback for the betterment of a game mode that we're all passionate about.

I'm very much in support of this change. I think this puts a lot more control into the hands of each player about who they're able to play with, and (if handled well) should really help improve WvW participation across all time zones. I can really see some great experiences coming from these changes if implemented well. I do, however, see some potential issues with these changes: Players that prefer to WvW as solo entities will be forced to choose between joining a guild/alliance to maintain the communities they've grown attached to or being grouped with potentially new people every reset.Players that enjoy the WvW style of smaller servers may end up finding themselves in very highly populated/blobby matchups.There's a high potential for highly dominating alliances to form and create similarly polarized match-ups that we currently deal with in higher tiers.There are also some very important additions that I would like to see added to these changes as well: There should be statistics for tracking Guild/Alliance participation (kdr,ppk,ppt,etc) - I believe this is important for encouraging players to invest their time with a guild or alliance and achieve a sense of pride for their group's accomplishments.Metrics used to classify guilds should be added/visible to other guilds/alliances (in their shard). For example, preferred play style, commanders, active times, average size, etc I believe this would be incredibly useful for helping alliances and shards to organize strategy quickly and effectively with guilds they may not be familiar with.Role tags for commanders and squads showing their current active goals on the map for other team members to quickly see and coordinate with. As worlds will be going away, much of the communication and organizational strategies that have been utilized in the past will be going away as well. This would allow guilds and commanders that have never worked together to easily coordinate on the map, as well as greatly help solo and roaming players to quickly assess the goals of larger groups for better team work.I look forward to seeing more information on these changes, but from my perspective, there is a huge potential here to fix many of the population/coverage issues currently existing in WvW.