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Increase the Standards Required to Found an Alliance


The Mad Titan
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While I agree with your reasoning, I disagree with your solutions.

 

People need to make informed decisions. If anything, the game should inform new players what it means to be in an alliance and that it, typically, is better to go look for an already established one, rather than start from scratch while not knowing the game.

 

Also, I'd remove the alliance part from the tutorial. When I started July 28th 2017, it was a very small part of a rather fast paced tutorial. It should have tutorial of it own, since it's a major introduction to the politics part of the game.

 

10-15 days and a relatively low score, along with a proper introduction to what alliances do in this game, that's something I'd rather see.

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"Don't argue with members of The Golden Horde. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." - Probably someone on OWF.

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1 minute ago, King Olafr of the Faroes said:

While I agree with your reasoning, I disagree with your solutions.

 

People need to make informed decisions. If anything, the game should inform new players what it means to be in an alliance and that it, typically, is better to go look for an already established one, rather than start from scratch while not knowing the game.

 

Also, I'd remove the alliance part from the tutorial. When I started July 28th 2017, it was a very small part of a rather fast paced tutorial. It should have tutorial of it own, since it's a major introduction to the politics part of the game.

 

10-15 days and a relatively low score, along with a proper introduction to what alliances do in this game, that's something I'd rather see.

I think this is a chicken and the egg problem. Ideally they would have both. Your suggestion would be just as important. However there is no way there can be a comprehensive education that quick. 

So basically I think your idea is a compliment rather than a substitute.

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1 minute ago, lightside said:

If new players want to form new small alliances there is nothing wrong with that. Some people enjoy playing the game differently then others and there is nothing wrong with that.

There is something wrong with it when they are a black hole of new nations. This in no way stops competitive micros from forming.

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3 minutes ago, The Mad Titan said:

There is something wrong with it when they are a black hole of new nations. This in no way stops competitive micros from forming.

Except they aren't. There is nothing that stops players in these alliances from changeling their alliance if they want to. We shouldn't dictate how people play the game as that destroys the fun of the game. 

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36 minutes ago, lightside said:

If new players want to form new small alliances there is nothing wrong with that. Some people enjoy playing the game differently then others and there is nothing wrong with that.

There is a huge difference between playing the game 'differently' and playing the game absolutely wrongly.

I went through some at least little bit active micros, these are just few examples:

Alliance United Nations - it forbids their members to fight each other (therefore they do not know such basics such as the fact you cannot raid your own ally). They are getting raided pretty badly and lose most of defensive wars - there are no counters. Their boss thinks that it is a good idea to build farms, wind power plants and supermarket at 1176 infra and 1800 area. Many of their members already got inactive.

Hollingsworth United Force HUF - also, getting raided, they do not counter. Their leader has 10 cities (not that bad, right?) but none of them electrified, although he is active. Their Minister (Heir) has been playing just for 7 days, but still, he has just two cities.

The National Alliance Group - again, new alliance, quite a few active players, but they are not countering, losing wars. Their leader does not have basic idea about how to build an economy. Do you really think that these people are the ones who should teach new players how to play the game?

They do not play game differently, they play it wrongly. They are getting raided, their leaders do not know how to manage their own nations, there is obviously no leadership, defense and  no system of teaching newer players how to play this game. This is not a different approach, this is an approach that will make them leave whole game in a week or two. Most of them will stay there until they will lose motivation because game seems too complicated to them and they are badly losing. Let's not pretend that micros that are noobish have a legit and correct approach to the game, they do not and the game lose players because of them.

Maybe this is also an appeal for big alliances to be as nice and as open towards new players as possible.

 

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Having worked extensively with micros in both this and previous games, I can attest that indeed, most are crap, most die very quickly. Most players also quit very quickly, be they ones who never join an AA, joined a micro, or applied to a major AA. This is a very niche genre, and a lot of people might stumble across it, check it out, and decide the core gameplay is not compelling for them. So be it.
 

So who are these micros who are sucking up the good players? Newbies get flooded with recruitment messages laying out protection and money. Someone who seriously enjoys the game, but doesn't like their growth rate can check their inbox or just see that there are bigger fish, and go elsewhere for their needs.  Many people do, I've had a lot of applicants over the years with that exact reason, and I myself started out as such.

The people likely to immediately quit are those who fundamentally grow bored of the game itself, which is a huge chunk of all new players, be they in micros, unaffiliated or applicants to major alliances.

That just leaves the micros that grow slow and plod along, usually with 15-30 members. Yeah, they aren't buying lots of cities quickly, yeah they don't engage much in politics. But so what? Thats their choice to make. Other people do not play this game for our pleasure, they play it for theirs, and its up to them to decide what that means. If people legitimately enjoy being in their little micro, let them.

We just need to remember that new players aren't new people, just new to the game. They are just as likely to be intelligent, rational individuals as any existing player. And just as capable of making the intelligent, rational decision to move to a new alliance if they find they like the game, but not their playgroup.

Edited by Mikey

Archduke Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Reach, Warden of the South, Breaker of Forums.

 

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28 minutes ago, lightside said:

Except they aren't. There is nothing that stops players in these alliances from changeling their alliance if they want to. We shouldn't dictate how people play the game as that destroys the fun of the game. 

Nothing stopping them aside from the fact that they're noobs with no self awareness of their position, other alliances, even really their own alliance, and so just sit in a place managed worse than Sears until they quit.
 

I've been playing almost 14 months now, and i'm only very soon in the near future, will be making my own alliance. I've spent weeks planning and developing it, turning into months now actually. See, if a noob joins a micro you or some other clueless noob made, it's a blackhole. If they join my micro, or something like United Hoods, even God Fury or Brotherhood of the Clouds, at least there's an actual community. That teaches them things and builds them up. They're not as in-the-dark as a member of, say, NATO. 

Did you even know they exist? I didn't until i went looking for an example. 40 members, average score of 250, average city count of 3.55, and about half of them haven't logged in in a week. That blackhole of a micro just claimed 20 players. 

Playing the game differently isn't bad. You can do that while not being a black hole. Just ask @Qin San Shi, he has his own little back water micro you've never heard of. Except this little backwater is run by a return-player, it has an average CC of 5, an average score of 420. Only 3 of it's 20 members are inactive, and thats counting 1 whose red. Not only that, this little micro has no protector, just MDP's with equivalent micros, raids and gets raided quite happily, all while being on the stats sheet for the current global war.

Oh look, somebody playing differently with a micro and NOT being a blackhole that chews up and spits out new players who quit. The difference is that Qin despite being a new nation isn't a new player, he has the self awareness and knowledge to play differently like this and make it something functional. Most micro leaders, don't, and their alliances become black holes because of it.

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I'd say make the bar a little lower. 7 cities and 60 days. You'd be surprised how long 90 days is when you first start.

60 days is enough time to muck around a micro, join a proper alliance, pass the tests, make a spreadsheet breaking down trade/manufacturing income, get into a war, get in low gov of a top 10 alliance, lead a bunch of people, splinter out into a micro.

I think I got in Rose high gov within 90 days, led a test server alliance, and was whining a lot about the newbie trade restrictions making me want to quit the game.

Another option is to have a paywall around bypassing the seniority restrictions. Like 4 credits if you're below 90 days.

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Personally I think if we go this route, remove the timer altogether. For some people, even 90 days wont be enough. Others could easily get off the ground within a week or two if they do a bit of learning up, and have a pre-existing group they are bringing over. In that case they'd already have group cohesion and established leadership, and from there the mechanics really aren't difficult to grasp if you are willing to read up and ask some questions on discord

Having just a city limit would account for those edge cases while effectively acting as a timer for everyone else. Several cities is going to take the requisite time to work up to without outside help. On the other hand, if an existing alliance is willing to invest some cash and more importantly, expertise, into a group they think is worthwhile, I think that is fine too and enough justification to allow the alliance to form. A 10 city limit should be fine in that regard; long enough to work up to on your own, easy for an established group to build if they are ready to take you under their wing.

I'm not sure the time limit between founding alliances is worthwhile. I don't follow the rise and fall of micros enough to say if it is needed or not. But even if serial alliance failures are a problem, I don't think a timer would necessarily help. Said serial alliance creators likely don't go it alone. Even if they only bring a band of 4-5 people with them, that's enough to rotate around any reasonable timer. The best choice here is probably just to poach their members, informing them of the track record of failure. Yeah, poaching is frowned upon. But if there are truly leaders so bad for the community that we need to create an in-game restriction on their ability to play the game, then to hell with what they think anyway! It would be a public service, surely.

 

Edited by Mikey

Archduke Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, Lord Paramount of the Reach, Warden of the South, Breaker of Forums.

 

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I agree, PnW needs to have a set of standards and qualification for any player to start their your own alliance. I understand that this is a game and that it may put off newcomers with a particular advantage or so called fun of doing what they like.... But the fact of the matter is PnW has grown in terms of membership and number of population in Orbis. Awareness and Promotion of the game is out there. So let's just make this whole experience a lot better and unique than other games in this category.

Just as new updates and features are brought in, so should the gameplay? Why not think it that way. When I say gameplay I don't mean the entire gameplay to be changed or tampered with. Instead, make changes to minute details from time to time in making the gameplay more efficient and less like a dumpster.. Which in this case is growing to be one in terms of massive number of micro-alliances laying waste and dead and so many players who joined losing their enthusiasm to stick around longer and contribute to the fun and general health of PnW.

 

To build your own Alliance, a new set of guidelines must be initiated. Personally, I believe that management of an Alliance is a very dedicated task. There are some who learn something quick and those that take a bit more time. PnW must initiate a clause to create a new Alliance, like having a minimum 180 days gameplay and already in an Alliance. They could also add a requirement that when creating a new alliance, a reference or tie with an alliance during creation of Alliance. Cus obviously, no alliance can live long without a pact or a circle of other friendly alliances. Exception of this clause could be given to Alliances purely being created for the purpose of an Alliance bank or a secondary training alliance ....

Anyways. What I'm saying is that whoever it is creating an alliance should know what he is doing and have at least some experience in game before going out and building a system that not only involves themselves but a collection of many other players who will dedicate their time and energy to the growth of their new alliance.

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This is a great idea. There's a lot of players who join a shitty micro that will go nowhere, get raided to hell, and then quit. 

Stricter requirements for alliance creation is a great idea, and it will help player retention massively. It'll help the game to grow because fewer people will quit.

Also, while we're at it, Sheepy or Chris or ss23 or somebody needs to go through the bottom 100 alliances and just wipe them. They're full of inactives in VM for a year or more. There's no reason for them to exist and they make it seem like there are more alliances than there really is. If an alliance only has 1-3 members, and they're all inactive and below 300 score and/or they're in VM, the alliance needs to be wiped.

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I don't know many games that exist outside of this one that you aren't forced to play the game and learn the basic fundamentals before being allowed to create a clan(alliance).  I think it's bad form to set new people up for failure by having micros comprised on new people that have little to almost no experience playing the game much less being in any governmental position at all.  I understand there's a possibility of people learning the game quick or coming from a game that might be similar to this one but that's few and far between realistically.  If you want people to play the game and get involved, the last thing I would want is them joining micros and not learning to appreciate the game.

I would definitely suggest them being required 60-90 (90 being optimal) of game play experience and ~10 cities.  If they want to still try to make an alliance, so be it, but at least they will understand how to properly play the game (hopefully) in those 90 days they were required to join an experienced alliance.

FYI if you want to sell more credits, it probably would be better to have the people starting the game to get invested in a more proper environment.  Seems like common sense to me.

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