Friendship doesn't matter in Albion. A case for Terry control changes

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    • Friendship doesn't matter in Albion. A case for Terry control changes

      FRIENDSHIP DOESN'T MATTER IN ALBION. A CASE FOR TERRY CONTROL CHANGES


      I've been playing Albion since the free to play launch. It was really fun to play with all my friends that came from our "umbrella" gamer community (UBGE) which has over 6k members. On the world of Albion we were a guild consisting of players that knew each other from other games before Albion, therefore we were mainly focused on friendship and completely unaware of endgame mechanics (terry control, gvg, tiered black zones). We spent nights and days playing and dying like a bunch of noobs until somewhere after the a few months something started to happen.


      As we grew stronger, we became acquainted to Albion politics. Members soon realized they were unable to grow anymore if the guild didn't join the bigger scheme of things. That's when we noticed that the endgame content was being "soft-gated" by 1-2 alliances. Not only this, but to be part of those alliances you'd need to sacrifice your own gameplay to basically serve as slaves for the leader guilds of those alliances.


      So we begun to strategize how to overcome this nasty game mechanics. Some suggested we couldn't be a casual guild anymore, otherwise we'd never be able to play the endgame. Others wanted to remain just the way we've always being. And that's when we 1st split. At this point, I "lost" half of my friends to "bigger, stronger, endgame guilds/alliances". And while still viable to find parties to play with, it was increasingly hard to do it, causing some of us quit the game. Seeing our friends quitting was depressing, we HAD to do something. But what?


      Well, long story short, after a few days of drama, turmoil and even our GM crying on the call we decided to merge with a bigger, better established guild. However, to our displeasure, the world of Albion stabbed us yet again. This guild decided they didn't want to be a secondary guild on a big alliance anymore and so they dropped tag. As they did that, players immediately reacted and started to snowball the exodus to __any__ other guild that could offer the endgame content they were used to have. It was just like dejavu to me. Just like before...


      Seeing everything falling apart, our group started to diverge yet again. While some wanted to remain, others wanted to follow the pack. So I "lost" half of my friends one more time (between people quitting and moving to other guilds). And now we were down to 25% of our original group.


      As it stands at the moment, I'm day by day loosing interest for the game. The people I used to play aren't there anymore. At first I blamed the guild/staff for not being competent enough to lead the players to the endgame content. But I see different now. It's clear to me that it's actually a major game design flaw. The mechanics of the game force the players to use the guilds like stairs and keep jumping until they make it to "better, endgame guilds". This leaves little to no room for newer guilds to grow, because once it reaches a certain experience level, the players will pack to anywhere that can offer endgame content. And it won't matter if they are called retards, monkeys or if they have to pay "taxes" or if they have to sacrifice their gameplay/reallife in order to have access to it. If you don't find this is f****d up, I don't know what else could be.


      I rest my case here wondering how long are those players going to stay in such a hostile environment. I'm certain most will just quit when they look around and see no "familiar avatars" anymore, just like I'm about to do.

    • Well, this problem is due to alliances having no cap. The mega alliances can simply take away players from the weaker alliances making it hard for them to grow.

      A huge part of the comunity want the alliances capped, But the developers simply dont listen.They use the excuse that if they cap the alliances guilds can simply make non agression pacts. I think devs still dont see the problem here. The problen is not that mega alliances are destroyng smaller guilds, the problem is that smaller guilds cannot grow or progress due to lack of players, because most players join guilds inside the mega alliances.

      Players are a limited resource, and mega alliances are taking them by huge numbers.
      What thus creates is an enviroment where if you wish to grow as a guild, you have no choice but to join a mega alliance.

      Some players say"oh but I see new guilds and alliances rising to the top every season" well, those new guilds and alliances that rise to the top like that are the remnants of broken top guilds and alliances. When a big guild breaks, a new one is formed with the active members of that guild, so basically they were already in the top.

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Holoin ().

    • Your story is a tough one and I'm very well-acquainted with it.

      My guild <War Blood> essentially had all of its members sucked-up by OOPS TC and the rest to Squad BA. However, I don't blame them. The mega-alliance ZVZ scene is super fun. I've been-there done-that, so I'm less interested than newer players to go down that road. It's very difficult for small guilds and alliances in this game, in general. You really won't access "end-game" content (GVG/ZVZ) without the mega-alliances. There are maybe one or two exceptions. Scelti, 1pg, Error 404, some small guilds were able to compete with GVG teams and enabled them to "skip" the ZVZ progression. Everybody else in the game though ...are pretty much forced into ZVZ for end-game content.

      For average players, and the majority of Albion who doesn't know, this means Required Content everyday.

      Sometimes this means sitting in a 200+ man zerg, waiting for 2-3 hours, just for a no-show, or a zone-lock competition.


      To the OP, I really wish there were more means for small guild/alliances to progress in the game. To me, <Savage> comes to mind. They did well in BZ as a purely ganking guild. I'm certain there are other guilds in the game who find their own 'niches'. But niche-guilds usually don't get to experience the end-game (GVG/ZVZ) content. So I can't necessarily recommend the "do-your-own-thing-sandbox" route.

      In the end, TLDR, Albion needs more sand, for small guilds and alliances, players and casuals.


      I believe that should be their main focus, after this Avalon update. But the game seems to be catering to mega-alliances more than ever before, which is bad-news-bears for some.