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Unread 15 May 2010, 01:20   #38
Sun_Tzu
Arrogant Fck
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Posts: 1,031
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Re: Alliance player limit

I agree with most of Jesters original post, not too surprising since I've originated some of those arguments, mostly in PIA.

Essentially this debate boils down to two questions, what is good for the future of the game, and what it good for promoting competition between alliances. In some cases, these two viewpoints may be seen to conflict with each other, however I don't believe that needs to be the case.

The core argument, for me, is how a new player becomes a part of the community. This may be debated, however in general I do not believe the reason people play the game is the game itself, but the community. So in essence, the game benefits from actions taken to encourage co-operative play, and easing people into this kind of co-operative play.

As I tend to put the benefit of the game first, it is then clear that actions which help ease players into the community should be prioritized. Keeping with the discussion at hand, this is then a question of what actions taken in terms of alliance size would best benefit the integration of new players into the game.

Smaller alliance tags place a higher average importance on each member. This is where Jesters introduction of the Market of Lemons comes in, however I would argue that the information asymmetry is not as great as he argues. Instead, the information that is available in fact clearly emphasizes the recruitment of certain individuals and greatly discourages taking chances, because where as each new player is a complete gamble, each known player is less of an gamble. This is akin to how real world hiring takes place, where persons who already have contacts are at a great advantage when seeking employment, regardless of merits. The punishment for taking a chance are simply too great, as Jester correctly points out.

How then does one reduce the risk to an alliance of recruiting a new player? Naturally, by reducing the impact of the decision. The greater the alliance member limit, the smaller the individual impact, and indeed the less of an alternative cost placed upon recruiting unknown players, as they are less likely to take the place which would otherwise have gone to another known player.

Having only a limited amount of players count towards the alliance score further reduces the risk of recruiting unknown players, as even if they do not pan out, they are in the part of the alliance which does not count towards the score, and are as such "risk-free". However, as long as there is a limit on alliance size there is still some alternative cost for taking on unknown players, as a greater amount of quality players hedges against the chance that any one of them performs under expectations, for whatever reason.

The only true way of removing this alternative cost placed on taking chances on unknown players, is to remove the alliance member limit completely. As such, every recruit is worth the risk, so far as the alliance can comfortably fit them into their organization. At this point, the limit on players who count towards the score only serves to reduce the advantage that a alliance gains from having more members, however due to the hedging, it does not completely negate it.

As Jester stated, further removing the limit on how many members count towards the score would increase the incentive alliances have to recruit more members. Often it is assumed that they do so at the expense of small community alliances, however this is unlikely to be the case due to a number of reasons.

Firstly, the top alliances will still tend to recruit known players, as running a large alliance requires greater absolute effort, although arguably a lesser relative effort, then running a small alliance. Therefor, each member they add has to have an expectancy of being to their net benefit, given the increased need for leadership, primarily in terms of a greater number of officers. They will tend to recruit players they already know, which given the state of the game would primarily be focused outwards or indeed to some former members who are playing less actively in smaller alliances.

However, in general the reason small alliances are small is not because the evil top alliance are hindering their growth. If they truly were able to offer competitive leadership and organization, barring a initial startup cost which all alliances face, they would be able to poach members just as well from the larger alliances as in this proposed scenario the larger alliances would be able to poach from them. If indeed you argue that a alliance member limit of 50 would double the amount of alliances that fill the tag as opposed to when the limit is 100, there would already exist 10 alliances with comparative tag sizes. The upper limit is simply that, an upper limit, it is not a requirement for competing. Instead, the limiting factor is, and always has been, good leadership. Smaller alliances require more absolute leadership, especially more HC's, and there simply isn't enough to cater to more than a handful of competitive alliances. Without leadership, without leaders who are capable of attracting followers, there is no reason to assume a limitation on the alliance size would encourage the number of good players to spread out onto a greater number of alliances.

Instead, the lower alliance size limit only hampers good leaders ability to attract more players to the game. It in fact creates a disincentive for good leaders to try and convince more people to play the game.

Now, as for being competitive and recruiting to victory, this assumption hinges on the fact that more players is automatically a competitive edge. However, with each added player, the expected performance of that player will naturally be lower than that of each previous player, as otherwise they would have been added earlier. As such, the long term advantage of each additional player in terms of an alliances ability to compete diminishes constantly.

If indeed one alliance is capable of recruiting a larger number of higher quality members, then a competing alliance has an incentive to try and match that advantage either by recruiting a smaller number of greater quality players, a similar amount of similar quality players, or a greater amount of weaker players. If these options fail, further political tools are available to the alliance in order to correct the balance. Whomever is capable of swinging the balance in their favor, will be the winner. This take account of all the capabilities which a good alliance requires; individual skill, leadership, organization, military tactics and political savvy. As such, it is hard to argue that the best all-around alliance would in fact under these conditions not prevail. It may be added, that this is counteracted by the current XP system, as Jester also stated, although I do not agree with his proposed solution due to fundamental differences of opinion as to what is good for the game and how to achieve this.

Now, as it has been established that alliance competition is not hurt by removing the alliance size limit, quite the contrary in fact, and that the ability of second tier alliance to compete is also not hurt by this, the only question left to answer is what the effects of this would be for new players and increasing the playerbase.

Where as it is clear that removing the alliance size limit would create pressure upon top alliances to convince more old players to return, and thus increase the playerbase, we have not yet established how this effects the integration of new players into the community. Naturally, there are some further actions which should be taken to ease the path of new players into alliances, however no such changes can ever have a true positive effect unless those alliances are first capable of taking them in. The alliances most applicable for this are the large community based alliances. Incidentally, these are also the alliances which are hurt the most by a lower limit on alliance size. Their further ability to take in new players is literally limited by the alliance size limit. Now where as it might be contended that second tier alliances might take on more of these new players in order to compensate, again it is evident that they have not been able or willing to do so, or they would indeed have done so. For an alliance incapable of filling its tag, there is no negative impact of recruiting new unknown players, so if they could they already would, but they can't, so they have not. As such, for the integration of new players into the community, letting an alliance such as ND recruit more new players and teach them the game would be in the interest of the game.

Essentially, when advocating lower alliance size limits, the second tier alliances are only hurting themselves, as they are hurting the recruiting alliances. Without large alliances able and willing to recruit new players, the flow of new players wanting to prove themselves has stopped dead. These are the exact players who are likely at some point to leave the community/recruitment alliance for a smaller better run unit. However, they are also not well known enough to break into the top tier of alliances, so they are likely to join second tier alliances in order to prove their worth. The second tier alliances offer an opportunity for these players to more easily try their hand at new functions, such as being an officer and contributing to the alliance. If they wish for further challenges, they may later seek to join one of the top alliances. Some may go back to being members of community alliances. And again in a few cases, a second tier alliance may grow with its new members and improve gradually, moving them over time into the top tier of alliances.

The alliance size limit is only harmful. It has no benefits. It harms the game, it limits the means by which alliances are able to compete and it distorts the natural progression of players within the game.

It should be revoked.
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