Alliance limits Round 19

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Ziw

Anyhow, I usually actually do have a load of respect to you, but stop making crap post to defend your ally cause that's how your ally does stuff.

Threes not an alliance up or down the alliance rankings in any round who hasn’t had a member who should maybe be kicked but for score reason hasn’t been. So to make out I’m 'defending' my alliance is pretty far from the mark.

Now if you hadn’t realised PA is a game where alliance achievements are measured by score. This makes score a vital aspect and is certainly something about 80% of the alliances you would consider top10 contenders put allot of emphasis on. After all how many alliances when recruiting demand that applicants meet or exceed the alliance score average, it’s certainly a good number of them.

All alliances want active players but very few have the ability to attract active players off their name alone. In fact unless you’re an alliance like exil or omen or you have a legacy like 1up had through Sid to attract people then you’re relying on your ranking achievements to attract players. Just ask any alliance who since alliance rankings were introduced have been both top10 and none top10 alliances and they will tell you what a difference the top10 ranking makes to recruiting.

Instead of having to take the lowest of the low who have a high rate of activity dropout in the first couple of weeks they have a chance of getting long term, active and committed players. So for alliances whose endgame is to be an elite alliance some tactical decisions on who to kick have to be taken as kicking someone large without an adequate replacement can hinder your ranking and ultimately your longer term plans.

Originally Posted by Ziw

The limit creats suportplanets and out of tag players and get's ppl retired due the ally can't suport them intag and needs to get better and better instead of building an alliance community.

Support planets have existed ever since alliances become an official part of the game, even when the limits were so large that hardly anyone came anywhere near filling them. The same 'support' planets left out of tag now were left out of tag before because it DRAGS their averages down.

What the limit has done is spread some of the quality around as alliances cant now take anyone who meets their requirements forcing some to have to have to find homes elsewhere or remain in their current homes rather than moving elsewhere which is something that’s significantly increased the depth in the game.

Originally Posted by Veedeejem!

The only reason it's there (atleast the only one i can think of that makes any sence) is so that the gap between top alliances & decent alliances doesn't appear to be that big when infact it actually is THAT big, in average skill level & average size/score.

I don't think its there to make the gap appear lower but to actually make it lower by allowing alliances to redress the balance. Your average player from a top couple alliance requires at least two of your average member from a 5-10th ranked alliances players to achieve the same activity and dedication. The 'dynamic' membership limit goes along way to offsetting this problem. if you’re ranked lower and thus don’t get a chance with the creamer of the crop you can at least offset the advantage by recruiting two people with a good level of potential. That in my eyes isn’t a bad thing, it’s kind of like the handicap system in golf that tries to offset issues the weaker person has to allow a fair game and prevent the higher ranked people completely blitzing everyone else off the face of the earth.

Originally Posted by Veedeejem!

T5 alliances (the ones that are barely t5, not the alliances like eXi & 1up who could be t5 with 2/3 of their memberbase) have almost no other choice than to create support planets (scanners & cov-oppers) caus there simply isn't enough room for their hardcore players + scanners/cov-oppers in tag.

And how does a static limit for all not give those 'barely t5' to 'have almost no other choice than to create support planets'

As I said above it’s a simple fact that to be at a sustainable level you pretty much need more people each rank you go down as the quality of the core gets weaker. Hey even on the scanner front the further you go down the more scanners you really need as your scanners will probably not be as hardcore.

The simple fact you can have a static limit that suits everyone’s needs and produces a dynamic, deep and entertaining round for all. If you set the limit high to suit the smaller alliances you allow the top couple of alliances to drain quality monopolise the quality even more thus weakening everyone else and if you set the limit low to suit the requirement of keeping the top couple under control you then find it hampers alliances more and more as you go down the rankings and force more and more people to use support planets if they want to survive.

Originally Posted by Veedeejem!

R19 should be an interesting one, with 1up gone & eXi only playing with their core-members, so why not give every alliance an equal chance, if there's going to be a limit, make it an equal limit for ALL alliances.

An equal limit doesn’t give all alliances and equal chance. While the dynamic level as it is isn’t perfect it gives a more equal chance than a static level ever could

I think probably the main problem with the limit is simply the fact that the max number of members between 5th and 6th is simply immense. Should people this close have such a big difference between the max limits, I think not. What would probably be fairer on everyone would be a sliding scale throughout the game. Perhaps something like: -

1-4 - 64 Members
5-8 - 68 Members
9-12 - 72 Members
12-End - 75 Members

You could gain a rank with more players than the max for that rank but you would only be able to kick members and not recruit anyone until you were lower than that level.

This is just a quick idea, so don’t take it as a fully formed idea vie had but it would seem to help balance things off a bit better but not have a memberships difference level being ridiculously high

[Welshy]

I totally agree with canning alliance limits altogether - all these new rules are just stagnating the game and creating problems where there shouldn't be any. If an alliance thinks it can do better with 100 members than it can with 50, let it try and see who proves who wrong. Surely there can't be anything wrong with trying to inject a little fun into the game, as fun is one thing pa is losing fast

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Torment

I totally agree with canning alliance limits altogether - all these new rules are just stagnating the game and creating problems where there shouldn't be any. If an alliance thinks it can do better with 100 members than it can with 50, let it try and see who proves who wrong. Surely there can't be anything wrong with trying to inject a little fun into the game, as fun is one thing pa is losing fast

Did you play the game pre PAX, or what about the first ew PAX rounds where the limit was in excess of 100. Trust me limitless or whats pretty much limitless stagnates the game alot more than have the kind of sensiable limits we have had the last few rounds. In fact the last few rounds have seen us have less stagnation throughout the game than we have had for a long time as the alliance limit has allowed more alliances to be at a substainable level

[Clogg]

I am against the flexible limits. Am now and will always be. I think it's really unfair to have an alliance with about 40 active players, getting overtaken by an F-crewesque alliance recruiting too the max. For the alliances so-called training alliances this isn't an issue, they will recruit as many as they can and leave them in tag when they turned inactive. For alliance with a more active point of view on the game you need too kick the ballast in order to keep moral. And honestly there aren't enough active players to fill up a top 10 with active alliances. In my opinion learning alliances do not belong in the top 10. So I agree with Tomkat, alliances should be smaller and more focussed. Same fixed size for everyone, not just top 5.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Clogg

I am against the flexible limits. Am now and will always be. I think it's really unfair to have an alliance with about 40 active players, getting overtaken by an F-crewesque alliance recruiting too the max. For the alliances so-called training alliances this isn't an issue, they will recruit as many as they can and leave them in tag when they turned inactive. For alliance with a more active point of view on the game you need too kick the ballast in order to keep moral. And honestly there aren't enough active players to fill up a top 10 with active alliances. In my opinion learning alliances do not belong in the top 10. So I agree with Tomkat, alliances should be smaller and more focussed. Same fixed size for everyone, not just top 5.

And SiN and most of the those 'more respected' and 'elitist' alliances would still lose out to the likes of F-Crew, Rock ect ect.

As much as you want to act all high and mighty and justify your end rank with the "We didn't have enough members to compete, as our average shows" your average is actually not at all impressive. It looks better than some alliances who are willing to give people a chance in the game as these alliances have their averages dragged down while the alliances like yourselves drag their average up by being extreamly picky when infact the demand to join your alliance doesnt justify it.

To highlight this F-Crew could have kicked out bottom 20 people for a loss of just 12mill. Now with a finishing score of 116mill and the next alliance only just breaking 90mill we would have still be a fair bit in the distance and it would have increased our average score to one a fair bit above yours and many others (1.9mill)

Further to this I could have kicked the bottom 30 to put us on the same membership as yourselves and have only lost 25mill and still been top10 while increased our average further (2.04mill)

So kindly before disrespecting alliances that give players a chance get your facts right. We have as strong if not stronger core than many alliances here including SiN but rather than wasting spaces in our alliance just for the sake of being elitist we decide to use the spaces to try and help the game by giving them a good place to learn.

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by Clogg

I am against the flexible limits. Am now and will always be. I think it's really unfair to have an alliance with about 40 active players, getting overtaken by an F-crewesque alliance recruiting too the max. For the alliances so-called training alliances this isn't an issue, they will recruit as many as they can and leave them in tag when they turned inactive. For alliance with a more active point of view on the game you need too kick the ballast in order to keep moral. And honestly there aren't enough active players to fill up a top 10 with active alliances. In my opinion learning alliances do not belong in the top 10. So I agree with Tomkat, alliances should be smaller and more focussed. Same fixed size for everyone, not just top 5.

As has been said before, that is a choice you make as alliance. Nothing stops you from recruiting more 'average/poor' players to get your rank up. The fact you choose not to is your own dicision, just as much as it is F-Crew or any other alliance its choice and right to recruit within the limits set by the game. Just because you have different (and in your eyes better/higher) playing standards it doesn't immediatly grant your alliance a rank above the other alliance, you will still have to fight for it (by attacking or recruiting).

[Clogg]

OMG Wakey you should learn a new vocubalary. elitist, and f-crew will save the community. Why is every post you make odouring with those?

The comments I made were as a player not as a SiN HC. I need to update my sig since I'm not HCíng anymore, was on a part-time basis last round already, but that didn't work too well.

But besides that, I say kicking dead waste and you mention elitist immediately. What is so wrong about kicking people who are inactive or otherwise do not make the standard. Might I add we have Kila playing for us so the standard aren't that high, no offence Kila I really do wub you now and then. I also recall you misguided ideas about our recruitment. The rounds I was doing recruitment we had an acceptance rate for new recruits of about 80%. So the amount of applicitions isn't too high. What you of all people should know is that the pond of players is steadily drying up. So giving all the alliance the same fixed amount of max players will only even the the battlefield more and thus make the game more enjoyable, since this way the might actually be a fight for a top10 ranking and not just the #1 spot.

[Welshy]

Originally Posted by wakey

Did you play the game pre PAX, or what about the first ew PAX rounds where the limit was in excess of 100. Trust me limitless or whats pretty much limitless stagnates the game alot more than have the kind of sensiable limits we have had the last few rounds. In fact the last few rounds have seen us have less stagnation throughout the game than we have had for a long time as the alliance limit has allowed more alliances to be at a substainable level

I've been playing on and off since round 2. In the earlier days however, keeping the game alive wasn't really such an important issue, and whereas some alliances will go all out on recruiting if there were no limits, I think most players and alliances would govern their own limits. Ofc, I'm probably giving some people too much credit, but there's going to be issues whichever way you look at it. I just happen to believe it'll be more fun this way.

[wakey]

I didn't mention elitist in relation to the kicking statement, it was in relation to the followong two lines

I think it's really unfair to have an alliance with about 40 active players, getting overtaken by an F-crewesque alliance recruiting too the max

In my opinion learning alliances do not belong in the top 10.

You act as if 'F-Crewesque' alliances are just made up of poor and inactive players and that that makes 'SiNesque' alliances supieror and more worthy of being a top10 alliance. However what your forgetting is to be a a top10 alliance requires more than just numbers. If you go back through the records you will find a number of alliances who are in the top10 when it comes to number of members but who arent top10 in score. The requirement for being a top10 is the same if you have 100 members or 40 members and thats you need a highly skilled, active core who know the game inside out. Any top10 alliance has this core and this core accounts for most of the alliances score and this core wouldnt be that out of place in even the most hardcore alliance.

Now they could just sit there on this core like 'SiNesque' alliances do but they dont, they choose to sacrifice time and effort into finding and taking in new players who if they are to continue playing the game need to find an alliance where they can learn and grow in, rather than end up in one of the 'black hole' alliances further down that sucks players in and then they are never seen again

The players are out there waiting for a well structured and experianced alliance to take them under their wing, after all it used to basically be the case that it was just F-Crew who would take them and we would quickly exceed the amount we would ideally like but what has happened since then

1. xVx started playing and had a simerlar policy to F-Crew. F-crew saw no dip in demand and we still had more people applying than we could and would want to take
2. Hidden-Agenda start playing with a simerlar agenda, F-crew still see no drop in demand
3. ROCK change policy to something like ours and F-Crew still see's no drop in demand
4. ToF adopts a more open approach and still F-Crew sees no drop in demand

And thats ignoring the fact that alliances like VgN offer a fair amount of places to new and less
experiance players and its clear that theres plenty of people out there who are waiting to be tapped into

Infact someone (either here or on the same thread on the private Alliance Rep forum) stated that theres actually only around 50% of the players in an alliance. Ok finding the half decent ones from those can be tough, and you have to just give people a chance and see if they come good but they are out there. At F-Crew while we ended with 75 members in total we had 107 members this round, with only 3 of those quitting us thats 29 people we gave a chance to but after giving them ample time to make an effort (as you cant help anyone until they themselves make an effort to be helped) but to counter balance that we had around 35 people outside the core who we recruited who due to being given a chance stand a much better chance of playing next round and being better equiped to do well.

And also many alliances seem to reject alot of these players because they cant do 8 hours + a day (And I'm not saying SiN did this but there are alliances that do). While 8 hours is a bonus sometimes people need to realise that someone on for 8 hours a day can be less effective than someone only on for 3 hours a day.

As for the static level would increase compitition, I personally dont think it will. The top10 is normally pretty well contested, the summer round element seemed to hinder that a bit this round but I'd expect it to be back to normal for r19. And I see a static limit either fragmenting the game or simply locking the upper echalons out for most people.

After all if you want a more level playing field the level has to be set around about the value most people have a core of which is probally around 40. But where do new players then go? The only places really left open are low down and the real problem PA has lower down is the simple fact that most of the Command Teams down there are basically inept. You could throw 200 members at these alliances and they would still fail even the most promosing players. And if you make the limit higher you allow the top few to fill it with their core and thus pull miles away making things less competative while everyone else has a number of spaces left which will see 'SiNesque' alliances remain at just their core while 'F-crewesque' recruit new players and thus the only difference is that now less people get a chance in an alliance they can grow in and more end up in blackhole alliances

[Appocomaster]

I know this is a couple of weeks old, but it's as easy to bump this thread as create a new thread on a very related issue.

If we're sticking with the "when you join an alliance, any score you gained while in a previous alliance doesn't count", do we need a 72 tick wait to discourage ship jumping?

[wakey]

I think its more simple than just discouraging ship jumping but also to prevent recruiting people for instant defence

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

I know this is a couple of weeks old, but it's as easy to bump this thread as create a new thread on a very related issue.

If we're sticking with the "when you join an alliance, any score you gained while in a previous alliance doesn't count", do we need a 72 tick wait to discourage ship jumping?

wakey is quite right. You could effectively have a rotating 400 man alliance if you get rid of the 72 tick wait. Of course it won't actually get that bad, worst case scenario would be some alliance has 10-15 extra members who just pop in and out of tag to send defence.

[Timeline]

agreed with wakey and jbg. the wait is needed to avoid abuse of the system

[Appocomaster]

Jumping in and out of the tag would only be a feasable idea if they didn't lose their score by rejoining the same alliance within a limited time (which starts the abuse process anyway)

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

Jumping in and out of the tag would only be a feasable idea if they didn't lose their score by rejoining the same alliance within a limited time (which starts the abuse process anyway)

Think of out-of-tag-def-planets. They didn't give their score over but they were useful nonetheless.

[aNgRyDuCk]

we measure alliance ranks by score, alliance limits (provided they are solid accross the board limits, meaning EVERY alliance has the same guideline) are fine as it provides an apples to apples comparison
this is a game, we base success on score....not roid count, not average score, we use this basis at the player level, at the galaxy level, and at the alliance level. I'm not debating the right and wrong of that method, it is simply what it is.

For some alliances to have the ability to get more players than another is completely rediculous

[XelNaga]

The more restrictions the PA code forces upon alliances the more f*cking boring it gets.