Cluster Alliances?

[mist]

This thread is caused by someone else's point that newbies are in trouble with the current alliance system, as they have no alliance so get no defence. and also by a significant number of people who have asked for clusters/parallels back

rather than bringing one or the other back why not add a 'cluster alliance' (or read parralel for that and the rest of the thread) option to the in game alliance hosting. this option (checkbox or something) would allow a special kind of alliance to be formed, which you're allowed to join as well as your normal alliance (max of one of each) if the founder was in your cluster when it was formed. this alliance is much the same as the normal alliance, other than that you get -2 hours eta to others in it.

This restores the classic 1 hour defence bonus in cluster (alliances -1, cluster -2, 1 hour difference - don't think anyone gets defence from anywhere else really) without giving the 1 hour attack bonus. the idea behind this is that you gain nothng from attacking cluster mates, but a lot for forming a strong cluster alliance. to form a strong cluster alliance you need to include the good players in newbie gals. so this should provide somewhere that active newbies can make a home and get to know people, crucial things for getting along in the game.

obviously there are implementation issues, such as kicking people if they're exciled out of the cluster, but this is true of most ideas :P

thanks to yeh (wierd i know) for proving this idea is possible by running a para alliance in 9.5 that didn't end up ripping itself to shreds

-mist

[SYMM]

It wasn't just Yeh
The only thing is though, that there's nothing to stop alliance A and alliance B making a cluster alliance from their players, and stopping others from joining (or worse, allowing other "friendlies" in).
I think the -2 eta would be too tempting to pass up on, and with active enough players it would make attacking them impossible.
Allowing this instead of joining a normal alliance however...

[Adz]

I haven't played ths current round, both due to rl and the way in which certain changes i didnt like were made ( absolutely random ship stats and lack of any point to the races anyone? )

Regarding cluster alliances though, I always wanted to play a round where i could go into a cluster alliance and the extreme hope was that i could convinve all those in my cluster to leave or seperate themselves from their main alliances for the round. Thus just forming a close knit cluster allie, involving both "elite" and newbies alike.

Now for this to happen there must be some incentive to leave what most will see as the easy option of staying with their fully fledged alliance, admittedly a much safer option.

But the idea of limiting players to ingame alliances, then limiting those alliances to say 100 people max. gave me an idea. At the start of the round, lets have say either 15 people per galaxy and 10 galaxies or 10 people per galaxy and 15 galaxies per cluster. Then, at the start of the round or after the final shuffle, all 150 members of that cluster are, by default, placed into the cluster alliance. With 150 people in it, and the fact people will be placed in it by default, may encourage most to try and stick with it form an alliance for the round.

I know people will still be saying they'd rather stick with their current alliance of 50-75 decent members. So the cluster alliance will have a -2 travel time bonus to make up for any newbies etc populating it, with the normal allies only having a -1 travel time advantage. So players have the following choice:

1- Go with cluster alliance of 150 members and a -2 travel time bonus

2- Stick with their current alliance with a max. of 100 members and only -1 travel time advantage for defense.

For those of you still crying over the thought of leaving an established alliance for the round. There would be an option of remaining with your current alliance and friends, but only in an attacking manner. Where you would be able to attack together with the benefits of whatever alliance jumppgatesargetting bonuses come with it, but you'd have no defensive travel time bonuses with your old alliance.

As ever some things could be moved around to better balance things if people still feel theres no benefit to a cluster allie such as limting the normal alliances further to say 75 members. With 150 members to a cluster alliance there is guaranteed to be at least a good few decent players around.

[mist]

Originally Posted by SYMM

It wasn't just Yeh
The only thing is though, that there's nothing to stop alliance A and alliance B making a cluster alliance from their players, and stopping others from joining (or worse, allowing other "friendlies" in).

something i hadn't thought of, and something that happened a lot in the past. i guess it's something that goes hand in hand with blocking. however, parallels and clusters had the same advantage in 9.5 and i didn't see it happening. excluding others just seems like cutting down your possible defence

Originally Posted by ADZ

Regarding cluster alliances though, I always wanted to play a round where i could go into a cluster alliance and the extreme hope was that i could convinve all those in my cluster to leave or seperate themselves from their main alliances for the round. Thus just forming a close knit cluster allie, involving both "elite" and newbies alike.

i think the main issue there would be trust. would you trust someone who belongs to a rival alliance but has stayed in yur cluster alliance? imo they'd end up full of newbies with the better players going off to their "normal" alliances.

you could weight things so that people are forced to stay in the cluster alliances, but there are other games out there. if pa tries to split up alliances then they'll just go elsewhere. hence i was trying to think of something that would leave people with their alliance, but also encourage them to help newbies

-mist

[Adz]

Originally Posted by mist

i think the main issue there would be trust. would you trust someone who belongs to a rival alliance but has stayed in yur cluster alliance? imo they'd end up full of newbies with the better players going off to their "normal" alliances.

you could weight things so that people are forced to stay in the cluster alliances, but there are other games out there. if pa tries to split up alliances then they'll just go elsewhere. hence i was trying to think of something that would leave people with their alliance, but also encourage them to help newbies

-mist

Thats the problem though, short of forcing veteran players to volunteer themselves to be spread out amongst the universe so that the newbies are guaranteed to have 1 or 2 good players in the galaxy, then newbie interaction will never happen. There has to be a way of "forcing" people in a galaxy/cluster situation to unite and help each other. Without that, even spreading the veterans amongst the newbies will be useless.

I'd personally like to see a universe where you cannot attack in galaxy or cluster. Thus eliminating some but obviously not all of the risk of sticking with an unkown cluster allie.

[Cochese]

Originally Posted by SYMM

Allowing this instead of joining a normal alliance however...

There are several critical issues to address with this idea (which I'm far too tired for atm), but it's generally a good one.

Having different cluster alliances over the rounds--and the "politics" that goes with it--was a very cool part of Planetarion.

[Dr_Evil]

Originally Posted by mist

i think the main issue there would be trust. would you trust someone who belongs to a rival alliance but has stayed in yur cluster alliance? imo they'd end up full of newbies with the better players going off to their "normal" alliances.

That would be brilliant. All the noobs in-cluster would get -2 eta for defence, while the veteran top players who stick to their old allies only get -1 for defence. This would force more top players into attacking eachother instead of the noobs, and encourage the noobs into becoming more active at nights (so that defence isn't impossible for the noobs). Isn't that what we want? Ofc we would also have to implement -1 eta in-cluster attacks (so that the noobs can attack eachother(aswell)).

[derry]

Originally Posted by Dr_Evil

Ofc we would also have to implement -1 eta in-cluster attacks (so that the noobs can attack eachother(aswell)).

yes, give the noobs -1 attack bonus, thus eta 7, or with otehr words, eta 6 visible, since alliance eta = 7, no chance 2 get defence from incluster attacks

but for the rest, i like the stuff said with c-alliances, would alteast bring back the need of irc a little bit more, now i'm in a t30 gal, and the only time we see chatter on irc is when 1 of us is under attack, atleast with c/p allies in the beginning there would have 2 be some chatter in channels atleast. and would bring back the MoC position, cause atm, what is it used for?

[Helix]

Originally Posted by derry

now i'm in a t30 gal, and the only time we see chatter on irc is when 1 of us is under attack

*gasp* I am insulted, I am always trying to start conversation in our gal channel, the problem is that you all are a bunch of idlers who are never on

As for the cluster alliance, I have always been saying that the only way that Planetarion will be able to keep players in the game is to make it easier for them to get some sort of alliance, I dont know if a cluster alliance is the way to go however. My suggestion was to create a secure way for the big alliances to create junior wings of say 50 members that would have all of the eta bonuses, except that when they sent def to members they would not be allowed to see coords, only the alliance nick. This way the main alliances can take newbies into their ranks with out fear of spies.

Whatever they do, the only way for planetarion to survive is to find someway to get newbies into alliances where they can get defence, cause otherwise they will not pay 5 dollars a month to get hit every single night.

[mist]

Originally Posted by Dr_Evil

Ofc we would also have to implement -1 eta in-cluster attacks (so that the noobs can attack eachother(aswell)).

this would mean tht big players found it worthwhile to attack in cluster, hence rather destroying the whole point of the idea

-mist

[nickhall]

Originally Posted by mist

obviously there are implementation issues, such as kicking people if they're exciled out of the cluster, but this is true of most ideas :P

-mist

How about having gals join the alliance rather than indervidual players, would help with that problem,

[_o0o_]

Originally Posted by mist

this would mean tht big players found it worthwhile to attack in cluster, hence rather destroying the whole point of the idea

-mist

Actually...no they wouldn't, unless they were in the cluster alliance. If I've read through this correctly, you wouldn't get that cluster bonus if you chose to stick with your normal alliance (as you are only able to be in one alliance, so you would have to choose: either "tried and true" or "cluster").

[mist]

Originally Posted by _o0o_

Actually...no they wouldn't, unless they were in the cluster alliance. If I've read through this correctly, you wouldn't get that cluster bonus if you chose to stick with your normal alliance (as you are only able to be in one alliance, so you would have to choose: either "tried and true" or "cluster").

there's little point in giving the people IN the alliance a +1 hour eta for attacking. afaik you're not allowed to attack alliance mates

-mist

[SYMM]

They can attack the people not in the cluster alliance...

[Helix]

They can attack the people not in the cluster alliance...

Well, then that would cause problems too...a few big people from Block A join cluster alliance...they then use their eta bonus to atk big people from Block B, defence would not be able to make it in time....

[Dr_Evil]

Originally Posted by Helix

Well, then that would cause problems too...a few big people from Block A join cluster alliance...they then use their eta bonus to atk big people from Block B, defence would not be able to make it in time....

It's not very likely to happen, anywayz defence from galaxy always makes it in time..

[SYMM]

Originally Posted by SYMM

It wasn't just Yeh
The only thing is though, that there's nothing to stop alliance A and alliance B making a cluster alliance from their players, and stopping others from joining (or worse, allowing other "friendlies" in).
I think the -2 eta would be too tempting to pass up on, and with active enough players it would make attacking them impossible.
Allowing this instead of joining a normal alliance however...

Round and round we go...

[Adz]

I'll say it again although i doubt many would like it. I would love to see a game where you are not allowed to attack in galaxy or cluster and there was some way of tempting ( maybe push towards forcing ) everybody to stick with the cluster alliance. Obviously with extra advatnages to it such as faster defence etc. to make up for any newbies or doubts about spies.

Everyone knows its the big alliances that, while making the game enjoyable to the veterans, kills the game for newbies. Yet, without any newbies there will be no game to play soon. So i'd rather see a move which may be disliked in the short term that will force the veterans to co-operate with newbies and other veterans alike. A mandatory cluster alliance is the easiest way to go imo.

[mist]

you're allowed to attack in galaxy again nowadays? i'd not tried that! :P

as for mandatory, personally i'm against anything mandatory as i think the game should be about tactical choices, weighning up the benefit vs risk of actions etc.

however, i think a cluster alliance that it's beneficial to join is a good idea, hence the 2 hours eta thingy.

making it so that you can EITHER join the cluster alliance or your normal alliance is an interesting tactical decision, however i think that either people would join the cluster alliance for defence, but keep loyalty with their real alliance, attack with them etc or would just not bother joining the cluster alliance.

there are "newbies", some not so newb that are active, either competent or willing to learn etc, however in my experience the bulk of pa players are still, for want of a better word, lame. persuading people to side with bad players rather than good ones would take a HUGE change in the way the game is played, and that brings hte same danger as PaX did - that the game will change too much

hence, i suggested the origonal plan - a cluster alliance you can join in addition to your main alliance which has greater benefits - a compromise between helping newbies, tactical decision making and keeping old players happy

-mist

[Browolf]

Originally Posted by mist

obviously there are implementation issues, such as kicking people if they're exciled out of the cluster, but this is true of most ideas :P

thanks to yeh (wierd i know) for proving this idea is possible by running a para alliance in 9.5 that didn't end up ripping itself to shreds

-mist

what about in-game run para alliances that that anyone not in an alliance by the end of protection gets put into. That'd put all the n00bs into an alliance. Make it so these p alliances arent ranked.
so there's no gain for normal alliance ppl to get into them. something like that anyways.

[ComradeRob]

I like the idea of -2 ETA for cluster alliances, and exclusivity between cluster and 'normal' alliances. There's still nothing to stop people from leeching defence from the cluster alliance for the first 2-3 weeks then leaving cluster alliances en-masse to join their main alliance though, so it's probable that we would see the old pattern of alliances being run by established players then shut down once they no longer serve the personal needs of those players.

However, it would encourage a lot more community integration and might just make a difference to whether some people stay in the game or not.

[JMorjaria]

I like the idea of cluster alliance with -2 eta bonus's but what stops huge players from joining the cluster alliance and their old alliace out of game, i.e. using IRC to get def and attack ect, cos lets face it most alliances dont use much of the ingame stuff anymore anyway. Therefore large players would get best of both!

[Adz]

How about you can either:

1. Join the cluster ( which you'd probably be chucked into at the start of the game by default ) and with it get -2 defence in cluster and -1 attack in cluster. This means that if the "elite" veterans leave the cluster allie in favour of their normal alliances. The people left in the cluster alliance, veterans or newbies alike, would have the advantage of getting a -1 attacking time on the other players in cluster. Ofcourse, theres the -2 defence time too

OR

2. Go with your normal alliance and just get the normal (?) -1 hour defence bonus to your alliance mates. The alliance would be smaller than a cluster alliance too. These players would not get a -1 attacking advantage in cluster either.

So you either stay in the cluster allie, help out the newbies and fellow veterans and then get the advantage of bashing the non cluster allie "elite" using your -1 attacking eta advantage in cluster, or you stay with what you know and use your normal alliance with its limited size and -1 defence eta.

Imo this would balance things quite nicely. Ofc it's in favour of the cluster allies, but that needs to be to tempt people to stay with it and make it work.

[mist]

how would you decide on HCs of an alliance you're chucked in to at the start of a game?

also, i'd rather you wern't chucked in so that all the inactive planets don't get in. even a newbie alliance has to have SOME standards

-mist