Cap on "veteran" players per alliance

[TaO]

I don't wanna get into politics regarding the current round, my point was simply that FTW alliances are made up of a "core" group of friends who are then supported by other FTW players.

Not every "top" alliance is build on friends..

If you decide to "lead" a round like i did 2 rounds ago.. *GC*
I actually recruited alot of people i knew, but never played with before.. and most of those people i actually started to know/like/respect during that round..

--

You seem to have misinterpreted this suggestion BigBoss. At no point did I say a leader wouldn't be able to pick their team, they'd simply have less choice after recruiting their "top" players, they would have to fill a set number of places with newer, less experienced players. (The definition of "experienced" we're still debating).

If you can't pick a team yourself, then why would you bother to lead an alliance?

If you can't pick the 19 members you want because of a cap, then you ain't able to pick your own team as you want it.

 

[Dark_Angel]

See you're one of the people who want to hang on to being able to pick 20 of the best, tip top, contactable, reliable, experienced people - That is quite clear from what you've just said.

As I've also said, this has no chance of working if people want to go for the easy win by ensuring they have 20 of the best players in the game - It requires people to think outside of the box and consider for a moment they may have a better game if our "top" players are spread amongst numerous alliances, rather than one or two.

In essence this is a formal version of what Martin is suggesting, with slight differences - it is a way to increase the number of "Good" ftw alliances and prompt more competition.

 

[timtadams]

If you can't pick a team yourself, then why would you bother to lead an alliance?

If you can't pick the 19 members you want because of a cap, then you ain't able to pick your own team as you want it.

Thats kinda the point
If you were able to pick the 19 you wanted, you would pick all the players you think can get you the win (ie ftw, contactable 24/7, 5+ rounds experience, a glorious history and active 12 hours a day), which is what happens now. And then you run away with the round.
That, or one half leaves, stabs the other half in the back, rakes in the land, and recruit from top players, so they end up winning anyway

Reasons to lead an alliance:
-Play ftw, every other alliance will have the veteran cap, so you arent being put at a disadvantage, so you have 5 not so ftw players, you will get over it. Consider it as 15 man alliance, and you get helpers
-Play ftf: hang out with other people. Im sure you cant list 15 friends who are vet players who you would recruit for a fun alliance

[edit] Im not for or against this suggest, just providing counter arguments and ideas for consideration

 

[TaO]

See you're one of the people who want to hang on to being able to pick 20 of the best, tip top, contactable, reliable, experienced people - That is quite clear from what you've just said.

Did I say that?
I recruited like 15 people who i have never ever played with.. some i didn't even hear of before.

And iirc, if you don't know them people, you can't know what to expect from them.

 

[Ram]

This idea allows that "core" group to remain together, but where the leader would then seek to support that core group with other highly active, contactable players, he would have to pick from a group who may not be as experienced/active/reliable.

I dont see why one would want to lead while having unreliable members.
Since you brought OP into the discussion I haven't played with over half of the alliance, so I wouldn't class this as a good example. The people who I consider trustworthy friends who I've played with numerous rounds actually stayed.

If you can't pick a team yourself, then why would you bother to lead an alliance?

If you can't pick the 19 members you want because of a cap, then you ain't able to pick your own team as you want it.

If you were able to pick the 19 you wanted, you would pick all the players you think can get you the win (ie ftw, contactable 24/7, 5+ rounds experience, a glorious history and active 12 hours a day), which is what happens now. And then you run away with the round.

Or you just pick 19 friends that you can trust, just because they have the ability to win is just a bonus. I dont see why you would recruit people that you don't know and that you can't trust over friends that you can trust, that you can rely on and just 'chill out'.

 

[TaO]

If you can't pick a team yourself, then why would you bother to lead an alliance?

If you can't pick the 19 members you want because of a cap, then you ain't able to pick your own team as you want it.

Thats kinda the point
If you were able to pick the 19 you wanted, you would pick all the players you think can get you the win (ie ftw, contactable 24/7, 5+ rounds experience, a glorious history and active 12 hours a day), which is what happens now. And then you run away with the round.
That, or one half leaves, stabs the other half in the back, rakes in the land, and recruit from top players, so they end up winning anyway

[edit] Im not for or against this suggest, just providing counter arguments and ideas for consideration

You run a miltimillion company..
You have to hire 10 new people on your marketing/sales department
These 10 people come in a handy 10pack.
Which do you choose.
10 people who can make you 10million euro/dollar/pound per year
8 people who can make you 8million euro/dollar/pound per year and 2 people who cost you 2million
6 people who can make you 6 million euro/dollar/pound per year and 4 people who cost you 4million

Which do you choose?

If you can recruit 15 people who care, and then 5 people who cba.. they can ruin a round for those 15 people, which will result into more disbanding alliances and solo's.

 

[timtadams]

This idea allows that "core" group to remain together, but where the leader would then seek to support that core group with other highly active, contactable players, he would have to pick from a group who may not be as experienced/active/reliable.

I dont see why one would want to lead while having unreliable members.
Since you brought OP into the discussion I haven't played with over half of the alliance, so I wouldn't class this as a good example. The people who I consider trustworthy friends who I've played with numerous rounds actually stayed.

If you can't pick a team yourself, then why would you bother to lead an alliance?

If you can't pick the 19 members you want because of a cap, then you ain't able to pick your own team as you want it.

If you were able to pick the 19 you wanted, you would pick all the players you think can get you the win (ie ftw, contactable 24/7, 5+ rounds experience, a glorious history and active 12 hours a day), which is what happens now. And then you run away with the round.

Or you just pick 19 friends that you can trust, just because they have the ability to win is just a bonus. I dont see why you would recruit people that you don't know and that you can't trust over friends that you can trust, that you can rely on and just 'chill out'.

how do you know that all your friends would be classified as veteran? Were they all 10 hours active last round? Do they often rank under 100/150?
how many allied ftw allied players are there?

It depends on what you classify ftw (i prefer the term ftw as opposed to veteran as there are plenty of veteran players who play ftf) If the degree to which a player was ftw could be estimated, then it should not classify veteran players who play inactively/ftf as ftw, thus im sure 5 of your friends would not be classified as ftw

I think this whole idea would be too hard to implement effectively anyway, as it may be difficult to give a value to describe how ftw a player is

 

[Ram]

This idea allows that "core" group to remain together, but where the leader would then seek to support that core group with other highly active, contactable players, he would have to pick from a group who may not be as experienced/active/reliable.

I dont see why one would want to lead while having unreliable members.
Since you brought OP into the discussion I haven't played with over half of the alliance, so I wouldn't class this as a good example. The people who I consider trustworthy friends who I've played with numerous rounds actually stayed.

If you can't pick a team yourself, then why would you bother to lead an alliance?

If you can't pick the 19 members you want because of a cap, then you ain't able to pick your own team as you want it.

If you were able to pick the 19 you wanted, you would pick all the players you think can get you the win (ie ftw, contactable 24/7, 5+ rounds experience, a glorious history and active 12 hours a day), which is what happens now. And then you run away with the round.

Or you just pick 19 friends that you can trust, just because they have the ability to win is just a bonus. I dont see why you would recruit people that you don't know and that you can't trust over friends that you can trust, that you can rely on and just 'chill out'.

how do you know that all your friends would be classified as veteran? Were they all 10 hours active last round? Do they often rank under 100/150?
how many allied ftw allied players are there?

Last round there wasn't one person that you wouldn't class as 'veteran'. I think probably atleast 15/20 have won a round, probably more. All active and contactable, so yeah.

 

[timtadams]

OK, if thats the case, my argument is invalid

Now go and get some real friends jokes

 

[Darryl]

If I still played allied, and I were forced to play with 5 people I didn't know, I'd just create a new account and play with a proxy, or just quit. I don't multi, or mutually attack, or break the EULA in any other way, but if something like this were to be put in, I'd feel quite justified in doing so.

We're already forced to limit the number of awesome active people in an alliance, by the alliance member limit. There shouldn't be a choice between "play with 5 new people you don't know, or 5 empty spaces".

There's a great thread in Bush Discussions for next round, trying to encourage people to play with no members, and not just try to get all of the best players into one alliance. That is perfect, a voluntary initiative. Coding it into the game, whilst the intent may be good, is an idea I'd be completely opposed to.

 

[Dark_Angel]

Where is this "forced" thing coming into things? 8ish spots would be reserved for newer players, 12 others you'd be free to ally with whoever you want.

I don't see what is so horrific about having to encounter a handful of new people? Especially where the benefit is having far more competition.

I can see what people are saying, that this should be a voluntary choice - But whether Martin is going to do this every round from now on, I'm not sure

 

[Darryl]

Where is this "forced" thing coming into things? 8ish spots would be reserved for newer players

It's coming from there.

I'd be fine with encouraging recruiting new players, perhaps even giving some incentives, but just saying "uh-oh, you were ok to play together last round, but tough luck, a couple of you have played 1 too many rounds, gtfo" is annoyingly restrictive, and practically unenforceable.

 

[tobapopalos]

Where is this "forced" thing coming into things? 8ish spots would be reserved for newer players, 12 others you'd be free to ally with whoever you want.

I don't see what is so horrific about having to encounter a handful of new people? Especially where the benefit is having far more competition.

The horrific bit is that you HAVE TO encounter a handful of new players. I'm all for discovering new players my own way, in my own time. The game should not be choosing who we can and can't recruit.

Forcing leaders to recruit people they might not want to is just unfair and is only going to force people away from allied play.

 

[Alcibiades]

I don't particularly like this idea. It smacks of the PW we had where we were randomly allotted into alliances. Now obviously this is a considerably watered down version; but I still don't like the idea of the game mechanics essentially limiting the people with whom you can play.

While I obviously support the spreading out of veteran "winners"; I think this has to be an initiative that comes from the playerbase, not the game mechanics. The best example is the one that Martin has announced for next round. Now I don't think we should (or even will) make his idea a formal event each round, but the hope is (at least on my part) that people will begin to see this as a good idea and do it of their own initiative, and not have to have it as a formal event.

While I applaud your efforts DA, I don't think this is the best way to go about spreading the veteran players.

While it may yet turn out that despite Martin's efforts, the veterans simply won't want to split up, then we might have to figure out a game mechanic to do this, until then, I'm holding out optimistically for some form of change within the playerbase.

 

[willymchilybily]

If alliancemembers = <15 then
'check for total "veteran"
if veteran = <15 then
If recruitplayer = true then
If playroundsplayed = >7 then
Player cannot join alliance because of too many round experience now bugger off!
end if
end if
else
Player recruited
end if
end if

Something like that lol

i meant deciding a limit /boundary at which one person is considered veteran/good and another isnt.... is too hard to code. not the dificulty in coding once you have a variable you can plug into a code. one variable will never be enough and even more variables will still have anomalies where people that are good enough to play ftw will be considered non veteran and those that arent that good will be considered veteran

Some one suggested an incentive for having new players in your alliance. This would be the way to go.

But this is far to abusable for people using proxy to gain an advantage for an alliance when they arent actually a new player at all.

At the end of the day there is no way to non oppressively introduce an infallible game mechanic to make all the teams "fair" this can only be done (as mentioned) by choice. by players chosing to play in a format like what martin is trying to help organise.

 

[Polo]

Why do people keep trying to kill the game by not letting people play with their friends?

there is rarely a scenerio in which 20 "close" friends join the same FTW alliance. Generally its a group of 5-8 close friends who play with each other time and time again - (i.e JJ, Mateen, Eden, Marvin) - The rest of the alliance being made up of 5-10 people they aren't "good" friends with but who they think will help secure their win.

I don't think that's true. Maybe it's because you don't have any friends so don't get invited into allies which are just made up of friends.

Seriously though, the last 3 allies I played in were...*checks ID history*...War? Huh?, RRR and GC. War? Huh? and the second RRR consisted of 18 of either Martin's or my mates. Those 2 rounds were 2 of the best I've ever played. GC, on the other hand, consisted of only about 3 people I'd consider mates and it wasn't a very fun round for me.

If I'm going to be spending a good chunk of time every single day for 3 months playing a game, I want it to be with people I consider friends, not some random newbies who I'm sure will just piss me off.

 

[Alcibiades]

If I'm going to be spending a good chunk of time every single day for 3 months playing a game, I want it to be with people I consider friends, not some random newbies who I'm sure will just piss me off.

This.

I generally play with people I know I like, mostly because i'm a sour, temperamental, cynical ******* who likes virtually no one.

EDIT: That isn't to say I won't play with new people (since new people generally arrive with a clean slate and so i neither like, nor dislike them); but I would really not enjoy being forced into playing with other "veterans" or "newbies" whom I don't much like. That is the part that irritates me the most. Arguably, you could say that that isn't really important, and I should just learn to get off my high horse and meet new people, but I suspect i'm not entirely alone in my opinions.

 

[Polo]

I generally play with people I know I like, mostly because i'm a sour, temperamental, cynical ******* who likes virtually no one.

That description fits me pretty well. <3 Alci.

 

[Deathcult]

I don't agree with this idea. I think you should have whoever you choose to play in an alliance. Plus even then, delete your account and make a new account with a new email and you just bypassed your suggestion.

/thread

 

[Alcibiades]

Plus even then, delete your account and make a new account with a new email and you just bypassed your suggestion.

/thread

Presumably there are already systems in place to prevent that being as easy as you claim, otherwise we'd be overrun with multis.

That being said, I still don't support the suggestion.