[Discuss] Alliance member count

[wakey]

I don't doubt that it's harder.
You say you already lose players who wish to move up the ranks, so sticking to the 75 limit shouldn't be a problem.

Hardly, we are already having to turn away loads of players that I feel we should be helping because the people deciding they are ready to move on so either we would have to be turning more players we could be helping away OR we would have to force players out of the alliance when they reach an adequate level. Forcing players out simply isnt good for anyone as they have to be ready and willing to leave else they are prone to losing intrest in the game, not to mention the fact that as I said before a training alliance require players they are training to stay on to help pass the knowledge they gain on.

You appear to be living under the delusion that F-Crew are the only alliance that helps new players. I accused you of this earlier in the thread and you denied it. Now you seem to be denying the fact that you denied it.

LEARN TO READ

At no point did I say that we are the only ones. Infact you will see that the bit you quoted actually says "Its this lack of experiance that actually makes most alliances that take new players inefficient" which is about as far as you can get from saying we are the only ones. If you wanted to attack me on anything its the fact I called most ineffective but thats something I stand by because most alliances whom do take new players (and I'm not talking about the people whom take a small number here) are ineffective. noah02 for example lists a few most of whom if you took a few mins to find out more about simply arent equiped to really train the new players as they cant commit the way the need to.

You're saying that 75 is a better number than 100 then you go on to say that you don't want 75 by falling back on your old denial of the fact that many alliances currently do help out noobs substantially. I see no reason why any new alliances that spring up as a result of this would be any less accepting of noobs than the current alliances. They need to fill up their member count after all.

I have always been in favour of smaller alliances, however while a few rounds ago it was something which could have prevented some of the problems we are seeing now as we still had some depth at the entry level. That depth has been eroded over the rounds as people have deemed the time required to be too extream so have left PA or have taken the move upwards for an easier life. Getting members for F-Crew used to be a struggle because there were many of us comepting for these members but now most of those people that the likes of F-Crew are competing against dont have the quality and depth so struggle to keep hold of members (either due to quitting the game or deciding to try another training alliance) or get their members to a good level. We simply arent in a situation where this change would now have a significant change, it would just mask the problem for another few rounds which isnt good as it just makes it harder to combat.

And I didnt say new alliances wouldnt be willing to take new players but again theres the "do they have the qualities to be effective in teaching these". I did a quick calculation the other day and it showed that if we reduced every alliance to 75 the dropped players would be so few in numbers they would pretty much fit into the top 10 alliances. When you consider those to re-emergers that should happen you will see its not really helping. This means your not really helping the lower end of the game, your not giving players a number of routes into the game and you arnet rebuilding the lower end of the game which is whats needed. Also its not like these people themselves stand too much chance of putting together good training alliances because those being removed will on the whole be the weaker players in an alliance, those lacking the experiance, skills or activity to justify keeping them. These people arent actually the people we need training the players, they might make good MO's in one of the current alliances to help bring some experiance but as HC and figurehead they are lacking. Even then if they are good enough to be a BC then they probally will meet the requirements of a bigger alliance that still has space

Reducing the member count will reduce the size of the critical mass, ie the member count needed to get the alliance noticed. Currently alliances with 40 or so members are overlooked in favour of trying to get into alliances with more members. If the member count is reduced next round then not only will there be more allianceless people looking for an alliance but new people to the game will also take more notice of these smaller alliances; thereby increasing the member count of the small alliances.

As I've already said actually the allianceless people could be obsorbed by the bigger alliances whom are under 75 with no problem so its not really helping from that pov. The players won't filtering down to where they are needed.

And yes your right in theory it lowers the critical mass, but by removing 25 from the cap it doesnt drop the crtical mass by 25. To be considered viable, infact lets say to even be viable as an alliance taking mainly new people you will need to be atleast over 30 even with a 75 member cap. After all the reduced limit doesnt really reduce the command core you need and actually the less experianced and committed these people are the more you need of them, so such alliances could easierly require 20+ command staff to cover the various HC. MO, Recruitment ect ect roles just to have a solid base to work from and thats before you get the members in place (and again the less committed and experianced they are the more members you need to be viable) so its debatable how much effect it will have on the entry level alliances

I'm not sure what you mean by the top of the game being more competitive, if anything it'll be less competitive. The top alliances won't have to work as hard on their recruitment cos they will fill their quota quicker. The top game will be more about skill in politics, attacking, etc.. rather than seeing who can grab the most planets to tag. This'll only help the lower ranking alliances as the threat of their best players being pinched will be greatly reduced.
As you say this will give players who want to play in top alliances less chance to actually do so but so what? Their planet still has the potential to do well, even in a not so high ranking alliance. Take APA last round for example, we had 2 planets in the top 100 and our alliance was ranked 14. Planetarion shouldn't be about everybody scrambling to be in whoever happens to be the number 1 alliance at the time, it should be about each player fulfilling their potential.

More alliances closer together = more competative.

And again your reading things that arent in my post. I havent gone on about less people getting a chance be in the top alliances BUT players coming in getting the chance to learn and meet their potential This requires the right people surrounding them and while its far from ideal atm where we have a small number of viable training alliances and the more elite alliances taking a handful of new players themselves but moving more players into those not equiped to handle these new players properly is making things worse by reducing the number of players these groups can take is compunding the overriding problem.

Originally Posted by Ali

I know some peopel like Shyne are working on alliance tools and I myself have bots that do all the basic stuff. Does anyone think releasing an alliance bot with all the basic allaince needs would help these new start off alliances to be more stable?

In this way making more alliances with less members atleast the problem of having a defbot or something like that would be solved? I have heard that a lot of alliances struggle with this...

It might help but It needs to be kept simple. So much of openly available stuff released in the past has often required things like servers running a multitude of differnt protocols and require some kind of knwoledge to get it ot running. if they had access to this they would probally have their own stuff already. If its there to help people getting started it needs kept as simple as possible and if you want to then release something more complex then do so as a next step if and when they feel confortable to move up a level

[Ferretus]

Originally Posted by Ali

I know some peopel like Shyne are working on alliance tools and I myself have bots that do all the basic stuff. Does anyone think releasing an alliance bot with all the basic allaince needs would help these new start off alliances to be more stable?

In this way making more alliances with less members atleast the problem of having a defbot or something like that would be solved? I have heard that a lot of alliances struggle with this...

Bots are fine as long as the alliance has someone who can use them. That is not always the case and for the lower alliances where player turnover can be high from round to round, often their 'techie' may go wandering.

In much the same way as making the pilkara tools etc public, additional assistance to alliances regarding irc, bots and such like could be a real bonus. The important thing though is not to drum IRC into the players and detail the other options available.
We at ARS play a variety of games and have done for 10years now, we deliberately DON'T use IRC due to its massive security risks (we know we are a major minority in this approach). Many noobies out there do not have adequate firewalls and virus protection and there are plenty of nasty IRC utilities out there and unfortuantely PA attracts the sort of players who would use such utilities.

Essentially the tools and knowledge concerning bots etc should really be made easily available to give a level playing field, it is up to the individual alliances to prove their quality and get it to work for them, ideally in their own style.

[ChubbyChecker]

Originally Posted by wakey

Hardly, we are already having to turn away loads of players that I feel we should be helping because the people deciding they are ready to move on so either we would have to be turning more players we could be helping away OR we would have to force players out of the alliance when they reach an adequate level. Forcing players out simply isnt good for anyone as they have to be ready and willing to leave else they are prone to losing intrest in the game, not to mention the fact that as I said before a training alliance require players they are training to stay on to help pass the knowledge they gain on.

News flash: F-Crew are only one of many alliances that take on noobs.
Change the limit and noobs will be scrambling for more alliances than they currently do now since there will be more alliances available.

Originally Posted by wakey

LEARN TO READ

At no point did I say that we are the only ones. Infact you will see that the bit you quoted actually says "Its this lack of experiance that actually makes most alliances that take new players inefficient" which is about as far as you can get from saying we are the only ones. If you wanted to attack me on anything its the fact I called most ineffective but thats something I stand by because most alliances whom do take new players (and I'm not talking about the people whom take a small number here) are ineffective. noah02 for example lists a few most of whom if you took a few mins to find out more about simply arent equiped to really train the new players as they cant commit the way the need to.

Since you insist on arguing semantics with me I will withdraw my accusation that you think that F-Crew are the only alliance that take on new players and instead accuse you of thinking that F-Crew are the only alliance that effectively take on new players. Big difference there
I could give you many an example of people who have been well trained in various different alliances but I don't see the point seeing as it doesn't look like you'll be coming off your high horse any time soon.

Originally Posted by wakey

I have always been in favour of smaller alliances, however while a few rounds ago it was something which could have prevented some of the problems we are seeing now as we still had some depth at the entry level. That depth has been eroded over the rounds as people have deemed the time required to be too extream so have left PA or have taken the move upwards for an easier life. Getting members for F-Crew used to be a struggle because there were many of us comepting for these members but now most of those people that the likes of F-Crew are competing against dont have the quality and depth so struggle to keep hold of members (either due to quitting the game or deciding to try another training alliance) or get their members to a good level. We simply arent in a situation where this change would now have a significant change, it would just mask the problem for another few rounds which isnt good as it just makes it harder to combat.

As I've said before reducing the limit will pretty much force people to aim lower and will make them more likely to stay with the alliance they pick. They're not suddenly going to quit the game because their alliance isn't no. 1. If that were true we'd only have 100 people playing the game.

Originally Posted by wakey

And I didnt say new alliances wouldnt be willing to take new players but again theres the "do they have the qualities to be effective in teaching these". I did a quick calculation the other day and it showed that if we reduced every alliance to 75 the dropped players would be so few in numbers they would pretty much fit into the top 10 alliances. When you consider those to re-emergers that should happen you will see its not really helping. This means your not really helping the lower end of the game, your not giving players a number of routes into the game and you arnet rebuilding the lower end of the game which is whats needed. Also its not like these people themselves stand too much chance of putting together good training alliances because those being removed will on the whole be the weaker players in an alliance, those lacking the experiance, skills or activity to justify keeping them. These people arent actually the people we need training the players, they might make good MO's in one of the current alliances to help bring some experiance but as HC and figurehead they are lacking. Even then if they are good enough to be a BC then they probally will meet the requirements of a bigger alliance that still has space

As I've already said actually the allianceless people could be obsorbed by the bigger alliances whom are under 75 with no problem so its not really helping from that pov. The players won't filtering down to where they are needed.

How can reducing the member limit do anything but help the lower ranking alliances? I personally can't think of a better way to help the lower end.
At the moment we have a trickle up effect, reduce the limit and you've got yourself a trickle down effect.

Originally Posted by wakey

As I've already said actually the allianceless people could be obsorbed by the bigger alliances whom are under 75 with no problem so its not really helping from that pov. The players won't filtering down to where they are needed.

Players won't necessarily go to the alliance that is next down. After all they have no idea how well the alliance will do during the round, things can change dramatically pretty quickly. And looking at the rankings people do have a tendency to stick with their alliance throughout the round. If they didn't all the top alliances would have 100 members, not just 1up.

Originally Posted by wakey

And yes your right in theory it lowers the critical mass, but by removing 25 from the cap it doesnt drop the crtical mass by 25. To be considered viable, infact lets say to even be viable as an alliance taking mainly new people you will need to be atleast over 30 even with a 75 member cap. After all the reduced limit doesnt really reduce the command core you need and actually the less experianced and committed these people are the more you need of them, so such alliances could easierly require 20+ command staff to cover the various HC. MO, Recruitment ect ect roles just to have a solid base to work from and thats before you get the members in place (and again the less committed and experianced they are the more members you need to be viable) so its debatable how much effect it will have on the entry level alliances

I agree, it won't drop the critical mass by 25, it will lower it though.
And as for command staff, that's where my too many chiefs and not enough Indians argument comes into play. Obviously I don't know for sure if we'll have enough chiefs next round but judging by the average member count this round and last round it does look like we will.
Besides, alliances will be smaller so there will be less effort required in running them than currently. Less need for active recruitment officers for one thing.

Originally Posted by wakey

And again your reading things that arent in my post. I havent gone on about less people getting a chance be in the top alliances BUT players coming in getting the chance to learn and meet their potential This requires the right people surrounding them and while its far from ideal atm where we have a small number of viable training alliances and the more elite alliances taking a handful of new players themselves but moving more players into those not equiped to handle these new players properly is making things worse by reducing the number of players these groups can take is compunding the overriding problem.

Same old same old. I think new players will have better opportunities with a lower limit, you think they won't. Probably best to just agree to disagree on this one seeing as if we continue we'll just be rehashing points we've already made.

And furthermore, the purpose of the alliance system is not to give new players a way to learn, it is to allow people to choose to play under the same tag to prove that they are better than other people that also choose to play under the same tag. This should be at the forefront of any decision regarding the way alliances operate.

[Kargool]

Phew, many longwinded posts here.

I would like to say that I agree with ChubbyChecker How strange that may sound.

Having 75 members in an alliance will make the number of coreplayers in an alliance lower. As before you needed around 35-40 You will now need around 25-30 members.

Alot of expirienced officers around in the bigger alliances want to try to make their own alliance atm. So far very few active players have tried to move downwards in rank. So I think that reducing the size of the alliances may lead to the creation of many new alliances.

[Monroe]

It real comes down to whether or not the PATeam wants to continue to support the existing paradigm, or whether they want to shake things up in the game. All allies, including the big ones, have idle players who arn't really contributing to the ally, and who probably deserve to be kicked, but because they are big or longtime members are left in the ally. Thefore limiting allies to 75 players wouldn't do much. Another issue is allies have a major hold on the course of the game. If the PATeam wants to break ally hold on the game they could limit in game ally size to 50, or even less. If the current paradigm is acceptable by the PATeam (which I suspect it is) there is no good reason to limit ally sizes and further then they are currently as it would only have a negative impact on the exisiting balance of allies vs individuals power.

[Ferretus]

...and so another nail hits the PA coffin lid

[Kal]

There are good arguments both ways, this will be discussed in pateam and a decision on this will be made as soon as possible.