Alliance limit needs to be upped: Admittedly I was wrong.

[Kargool]

There is no doubt about it, before this round I was seriously miscalculating the opportunity for new players to be joining the game. I was mostly one of the persons that Appocomaster talked to in regards to alliance limits and I see now that I was tragically wrong in my own estimates on how many people would be playing the free round.

Based on the statistics I had I was expecting about an 8-9% increase in signups, but I see that we by now have a whopping 25% increase in signups. (To the other side we have had a slowly but steady decrease in signup each round by about 3-4%.)

So, the big question is, is there any reason for not upping the alliance limit? Are there alliances that have massively planned their strategy based on the current limit?

If not, then I suggest that the alliance limit should be upped atleast to 80/70.

Again, im sorry, statistics can be a nasty whore sometimes.

So please PA -Team, unless some highly valid reason arises in this thread, up the memberlimits for the alliances.


A regretting Kargool.

[Jester]

PAteam can never be expected to correctly predict the number of sign ups, so there should be no alliance limit.

[Kal]

Originally Posted by Jester

PAteam can never be expected to correctly predict the number of sign ups, so there should be no alliance limit.

the other alternative would be a dynamic limit.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Jester

PAteam can never be expected to correctly predict the number of sign ups, so there should be no alliance limit.

A dynamic limit is probably the best, and nobody could expect that the increase would be this high in the free round tbh.

This freeround should NOT and must NOT be used as an excuse to remove the alliancelimits.

[Alki]

what is the difference between having a limit, or not having a limit? the competant will always try to win and be on top, the not so competant will always finish below, what is the difference.

[Monroe]

I think a dynamic limit would make sense. Base it on a certain percentage of the total number of signups, so perhaps 4% of the universe. With 2000 signups that would allow for allies of 80. I would set the hard cap (at least for now) as (4% - 10) for the start limit. So that would set the limit at 70 players for 2000 signups with up to 80 players. This could obviously be tweaked a little, but I think it seems fair.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Monroe

I think a dynamic limit would make sense. Base it on a certain percentage of the total number of signups, so perhaps 4% of the universe. With 2000 signups that would allow for allies of 80. I would set the hard cap (at least for now) as (4% - 10) for the start limit. So that would set the limit at 70 players for 2000 signups with up to 80 players. This could obviously be tweaked a little, but I think it seems fair.

People aren't robots, social interactions and the essential building of what makes an alliance aren't just people combining numbers until the solution pops out fully formed.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Alki

what is the difference between having a limit, or not having a limit? the competant will always try to win and be on top, the not so competant will always finish below, what is the difference.

The limit controls how much a single ally can have on the direction of the entire universe. Because there are ally bennefits tied directly to the game engine, there needs to be a way to control how much impact these bennefits can have. The way the PA Team has chosen to do this is with ally member limits. By controling the number of players in any single ally they can control (to some degree) how much impact that single ally has on the game as a whole. If the limits were completely removed a single ally could recruit a relatively high percentage of the universe and stiffle all competition, as they would simply be too large to take on by any of the remaining allies. By having a relatively small cap on the number of ally members it forces the good players to not all clump in one ally and therefore fosters competition between these allies rather then stagnation.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

People aren't robots, social interactions and the essential building of what makes an alliance aren't just people combining numbers until the solution pops out fully formed.

!?!?

I was just suggesting a formula that would meet Kargool's suggestion, I wasn't infering that people were numbers.

[Alki]

yes but you are assuming alot there, alot of people come from different backgrounds, they arent all going to clump together, also it allows for a more interesting game in my opinion with regards to how alliances work, and how alliances cooperate

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Monroe

!?!?

I was just suggesting a formula that would meet Kargool's suggestion, I wasn't infering that people were numbers.

I'm implying that dynamic limits, or in fact any limits, ignore how any successful society, and realistically that's what alliances are, work.

You could also "exploit" it by asking anybody and everybody to sign up an account (this costs nothing bar two seconds of people's time, actually that might lead to increased numbers playing in the long term! exploitz r cool )

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Alki

yes but you are assuming alot there, alot of people come from different backgrounds, they arent all going to clump together, also it allows for a more interesting game in my opinion with regards to how alliances work, and how alliances cooperate

Sure, but what past rounds have shown is that when there are no limits, or the limits are too high it tends to drain the quality players from the second tier allies. This is termendously difficult for the second tier allies who rely on their better players very heavily to run the ally. If too much tallent drains to the top because a remove of ally limits it could kill a lot of allies. Deversity in allies is one of the things that it critical to the overall health of PA in my opinion, and the removal or over watering down of the limits would cause some serious problems for the game as a whole.

Even with the limits as they are today there are plenty of opportunities for allies to interact and build blocks and work together. I don't see how removing ally limits would increase this dynamic that already exists.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I'm implying that dynamic limits, or in fact any limits, ignore how any successful society, and realistically that's what alliances are, work.
)

Well at issue is whether or not their should be social friction between allies to limit their interaction and the flow of members from one ally to the next. In the real world you are quite right,the most successful social groups are the ones that have the least amount of inherant oppositition to the movement of people both vertically and horizontally within the social scale.

At least in my experiance the frictional limitation inherantly built into the game help define the boundries between allies, and force people to make decisions as to which 'team' to join and interact with. By having a diverse set of teams or 'social groups' it gives players more options of how to interact with those social groups and so we have a wider range of options available. By removing the existing frictional barriers we run the potential risk of a decrease in the number of teams, and therefore a decrease in the number of options for players to choose from. And so there is an increased danger of a player not having any good choices to choose from. Which would be a really bad thing in my opinion.

[JonnyBGood]

This would make sense if there were any real differences between most alliances except in terms of the quality of the various members/hc. They're not actually losing options in any objective, non-cultural sense.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

This would make sense if there were any real differences between most alliances except in terms of the quality of the various members/hc. They're not actually losing options in any objective, non-cultural sense.

Well but some allies don't take certain kinds of members. For example to top allies rarely take inexperianced players. In addition for various reason some players don't get along with a fairly large percentage of the universe's HC. By having more allies it gives these players at least some options for homes, rather then completely isolating them. Its not the strong arguement, but I feel its a valid arguement none the less.

[JonnyBGood]

Actually top allies rarely take inexperienced players precisely because the alliance limit exists and the nature of the score system dictates that you need to get value for money for each member slot in your alliance.

[Achilles]

Originally Posted by Monroe

This is termendously difficult for the second tier allies who rely on their better players very heavily to run the ally.

This argument is easily reversed by saying that there are no longer enough good players/officers to run even a decent number of top tier alliances. This cause stagnation* in that it cripples competition at the top, which is the only place it truly counts. The middle of the table is always competitive, regardless of available talent. Both of these arguments would be equally shit however, since placing artificial limitations on community interaction is rarely a good thing.

*By which I mean stagnation caused by either universal domination (1ùp/eXi) or galraiding supremacy (more recent winners).

[Walldo]

Drop the limits, best thing to do.

Finally you get some m8's up to play again. They cant join your galaxy (max up to 5 bp) So you wanna have them in your alliance, hmm its full, at the end they loose interest and drop there planet.

Also I would wanna see that training allies can take a much larger player base.

Now the good training allies are always full. Then they can go train up much more players. And it would be cool to see a F-crew win a round with 150 members while some other ally ending 2nd has 60 members.

more fight

Your choise, your decision how much members YOU can handle in your ally.

[SpaceMonkey]

A dynamic limit is at least a step in the right direction. I mean I know this round is a special case but I'm getting tired of turning people away. The last few rounds it wasn't that many people but this round has seen me directing lot of new/returning players to other alliances and then they are shit out of luck because they're full too.

As much as I'd like to spin off a new alliance (hi Descendancy) to hold these players, I haven't come across enough people that are both capable and willing.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by SpaceMonkey

As much as I'd like to spin off a new alliance (hi Descendancy) to hold these players, I haven't come across enough people that are both capable and willing.

The effort it took me to both start a tag ingame and register/redirect another irc channel has taken years off my life

But yeah, I can see why for alliances with officers etc it's far more difficult to do.

Perhaps there should be a re-examination of what the alliance limit is aimed at limiting and what we should try to avoid affecting? People want to play with their friends. Making this more difficult or even basically impossible is only ever going to result in a decrease of the size of the playerbase.

[Allfather]

Supportalliance, close em all!

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Alki

what is the difference between having a limit, or not having a limit?

Yes. Indeed. The ones who want to have more members than the limit allows will have more members than the limit allows. This has been seen over and over again, and there's little doubt, in fact as rumors spreading already, that it's been done again.

Really, wouldn't it already be time to drop the clump?

Originally Posted by JBG

Perhaps there should be a re-examination of what the alliance limit is aimed at limiting and what we should try to avoid affecting?

I guess it's a question of equal opportunity, but on the sidehand the quest for equal opportunity also affects alliance politics. You'd say, if one alliance had 120 members in tag, and others 60, it'd be quite more likelier that the others would decide to team up for the case. Drivel off. I guess it has to do with supporting more equal spread instead of the "cream of crop" joining all into a single alliance, or a single alliance expanding three times of what others do.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I guess it's a question of equal opportunity, but on the sidehand the quest for equal opportunity also affects alliance politics. You'd say, if one alliance had 120 members in tag, and others 60, it'd be quite more likelier that the others would decide to team up for the case. Drivel off. I guess it has to do with supporting more equal spread instead of the "cream of crop" joining all into a single alliance, or a single alliance expanding three times of what others do.

Realistically almost all alliances are carrying dead weight. If people wanted to join together and form one super-elite alliance they would. The rankings are just so much drivel and to be honest my greatest disappointment from last round was when wolfpack HC didn't want to disband along with us and let (i can't even remember who came third) take the top spot just to demonstrate how ****ING RETARDED the ranks are.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Realistically almost all alliances are carrying dead weight. If people wanted to join together and form one super-elite alliance they would. The rankings are just so much drivel and to be honest my greatest disappointment from last round was when wolfpack HC didn't want to disband along with us and let (i can't even remember who came third) take the top spot just to demonstrate how ****ING RETARDED the ranks are.

What would keep the rankings from being even more of a joke with no limits? I mean I think with no limits they would be completely obsurd because it would be all about recruiting the most members to get to the top. Winning the round wouldn't be about working as a team and finding the best members you can, it would be all about getting as many players as possible in tag. So the last couple of weeks of the round the 'top' ally would probably be changing like crazy as people move in and out of tags. Things would completely stagnate because winning would be no longer about out roiding other allies, just making sure you recruited better players then they did.

I personally have no problem with removing the limits, I argued against them when they were first implimented, but if we are going to remove the limits then we need to take away the advantages in game inherent to being in an ally. Go back to a pure tag system rather then formal allies inside the game. IF we did this however I'm not sure it would be a step forward for PA.

[JonnyBGood]

Oh yeah I'd abolish the score system for sure, that's what I meant with "the rankings are so much drivel". You could have it so the eta def advantage remains for 60 members or whatever. To be honest if there's anything we shouldn't be going down it's the path we were on from r10-18 where we saw massive decline in the playerbase and almost no change at all. Even change itself can serve as temporary interest presuming the resultant quality of gameplay is at least level.

[Gio2k]

So if you remove the score system, how do you know which alliance won?

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Gio2k

So if you remove the score system, how do you know which alliance won?

I don't remember this being such a huge problem pre-r10 heh.

[Allfather]

Hows about reducing the alliancelimit to lets say 30.
And make it so alliancemembers can only attack other members of another alliance.
After so and so many encounters, a fully fledged war is launched, where one side has to reach a certain goal and gain a prize!

[Mzyxptlk]

I think I'll stay out of tag.