Limiting Alliances to Guild size - Test starting February 26th

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  • Rolling out changes like this mid-season was probably not the best move, and it's not even certain to improve the game as intended. That being said, it's nice to be reassured that SBI are willing and able to make these kinds of changes if the community is overwhelmingly in favor of it. Personally I feel like we've barely even scratched the surface of Albion's potential.

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

  • Many of you keep mistakenly mentioning they are doing this "mid season". It will be MUCH earlier than that in actuality which is a good thing because regardless no point in prolonging the current broken state of hand holding alliances. Is this an extreme to drop from the thousands of hand holders to now only 300 max? Perhaps. But best to get the test in immediately and go from there based on results. Chances are though the days of these giant Alliances are gone for good.

  • Tabor wrote:

    Many of you keep mistakenly mentioning they are doing this "mid season". It will be MUCH earlier than that in actuality which is a good thing because regardless no point in prolonging the current broken state of hand holding alliances. Is this an extreme to drop from the thousands of hand holders to now only 300 max? Perhaps. But best to get the test in immediately and go from there based on results. Chances are though the days of these giant Alliances are gone for good.
    I'm sure it will be a good change for the community as a whole but I think maybe this change will take a while to get things properly hashed out. It's a real blow to people who already put in so much effort to create their alliance and I feel like there still needs so be some way for people to keep their community alive that they worked so hard to put together.

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

  • Korn wrote:

    We aim to get conclusive test results quickly. How?
    1. We'll see how the invasion day goes under the new conditions.
    2. We'll closely watch what happens after the invasion day
    3. We'll collect feedback from the player base, also asking specifically what their preferences are once they have experienced first hand what an alliance cap means for the game.

    In Queen, hideout positioning is important. Drastically changing the rules after alliances have placed their hideouts will poison your test.

    Because the mega-alliances inter-locked hideouts, I see two possible outcomes:
    • They stick together with NAPs and continue smashing everyone else, because the pre-existing hideout placement pressures them into it; this may lead to the erroneous conclusion that the test didn't work
    • They smash each other trying to establish dominance, because the pre-existing hideout placement pressures them into it; this may lead to the erroneous conclusion that the test worked
    Because you've indicated this will be a quick test, however, I see option 1 as more likely. They'll just wait out your test.

    Either way, hideouts will skew the results.

  • Roccandil wrote:

    Korn wrote:

    We aim to get conclusive test results quickly. How?
    1. We'll see how the invasion day goes under the new conditions.
    2. We'll closely watch what happens after the invasion day
    3. We'll collect feedback from the player base, also asking specifically what their preferences are once they have experienced first hand what an alliance cap means for the game.
    In Queen, hideout positioning is important. Drastically changing the rules after alliances have placed their hideouts will poison your test.

    Because the mega-alliances inter-locked hideouts, I see two possible outcomes:
    • They stick together with NAPs and continue smashing everyone else, because the pre-existing hideout placement pressures them into it; this may lead to the erroneous conclusion that the test didn't work
    • They smash each other trying to establish dominance, because the pre-existing hideout placement pressures them into it; this may lead to the erroneous conclusion that the test worked
    Because you've indicated this will be a quick test, however, I see option 1 as more likely. They'll just wait out your test.

    Either way, hideouts will skew the results.
    Ofc it is, and i dont think the entire SBI team can be that stupid to really believe it. They just say so to calm down they "EvE players".

  • I like it! People are concerned about Non-Aggression Pacts still being a viable solution for the larger alliances. My response to that is, fine we will see how that goes, but what happens when they want to zerg in on another guild. Whos to stop them from killing each other and the higher chance of members treating themselves as a separate entity given the fact they are now responsible for their own season points and money. THATS RIGHT! Money no longer is dispursed between the masses. If you think a guild is going to "donate" to the parent guilds with 100% honesty your sadly mistaken. Head guilds of alliances won't be able to properly siphon the hard work of the up and coming guilds who fame farm the shit out of those static dungeons. There will be blood and there will be unintended kills, regardless of the organizational factor between guilds. Eventually, Guilds will adjust to the smaller size of groups and this conversation/change will have been the spark that lit the fire of the up and coming strongman guilds.

    The best part! We all get to watch them do it to themselves while they confidently make bold statements of solidarity well beyond their ability to control.

  • KingMoJo wrote:

    One extreme to the other extreme.

    I think the 1000 player number we always voted for was perfect.

    This change literally means you gave top ZvZ guilds the excuse to drop alliance and NAP to avoid the debuff issue, and all those newer alliances who banded together to stay alive will get punished even more.

    Just seems like you clicked the panic button after looking at a Reddit vote.
    If this Dropping Alliance and NAP scenario were something beneficial to ZvZ Guilds to avoid the debuff issue and empower their forces Mojo you would have already been doing it.

  • @Korn

    I think you don’t realise the problems this causes the average Joe. Or at least you underestimate them.

    I think you should seriously consider that for the whole time you test this feature. You make things like island moves free for the entire season.

    I would also like you to consider changes to being able to move hideouts and what happens to gear when hideouts are destroyed/in terri’s/rest zones being moved to royal cities again only for duration of the test.

    What you are proposing by your own wording is disruptive. This is a live game and game server where people pay for premium. I think you should be looking to try and understand the impact/smooth the impact as much as you can.

    Tldr: please improve the quality of life for your players for the duration of your testing (this whole season).

  • Hey Joe keep in mind that items in personal banks inside the hideout are not lost they are moved to the nearest outland or Royal city upon hideout destruction. So no worries for you on that front. Sure they maybe should and probably will include another free island move. Many small guilds are already dealing with or have dealt with hideout destruction so people do not feel bad if the zergs destroy each others hideouts after the 26th.

  • I am aware of that, however my point was if you items are sent to a rest stop. Then your guild decide because of this change to move locations. You are on your own trying to retrieve items.

    You might also get kicked if guilds become elitist or leave for a different guild ect.

    I just think they should free everything up while testing. Why cause players more issues?

    Anyone who has lost a hideout still has a few weeks before they can recover anyway so they will be included if SBI offers some help.

  • Korn wrote:

    haraj wrote:

    Why are you testing stuff in the middle of a season?
    Waiting until the end of the season carries the risk of the alliance issue getting worse. It would also become more ingrained, meaning that a shake up could have more side effects than it has if we carry on the test while things are still fresh.
    We aim to get conclusive test results quickly. How?
    1. We'll see how the invasion day goes under the new conditions.
    2. We'll closely watch what happens after the invasion day
    3. We'll collect feedback from the player base, also asking specifically what their preferences are once they have experienced first hand what an alliance cap means for the game.

    Based on that, there is a list of options available, such as:
    - keeping the cap
    - adjusting the cap
    - removing the cap again
    - one of the above, but with additional changes such as making the cap account based and not character based
    - other ideas

    In any event, one thing is for sure: we'll have found an answer to the years old - and hotly debated - question whether capping ("removing") alliances will be good or bad for the game. That knowledge - and the conclusions to be drawn from it - will help us to determine the right solutions to the "alliance problem" going forward


    My question is @Korn is how does this address Power projection or conflict drivers which is why these large player groups have formed in the first place. People who say it is because it is "easy" should speak with gluttony, syndic, Mojo, or Derrick about how easy it is to herd thousands of people and organize them. Essentially with what everyone is doing to get around this test that is a Major power Bloc, all this has done has disbanded all the casual more new player unorganized groups, and added "friendly Fire" to the major power bloc's org's. Now I have zero problem with any of it to be honest we will continue to bring thousands of new players into the game regardless of if we have to do it one by one, in cells of 300, or in one guild of 30k it doesn't matter to us. However I would like to hear why nothing is being even discussed as to why these groups form in the first place? Also the fact that no one is honestly caring about how big a group is just what those groups do with those numbers.... Seems like putting a band aid on the "symptom" is just simply going to have the effect that I previously talked about for casual alliances and just add friendly fire to the larger alliances which honestly will be offset by the effective elimination or minimization of the impact on these groups of the zerg debuff and the ability to just hose groups with the cluster Que. Treating the symptoms instead of the illness will have about as much effectiveness as giving someone a Kleenex for the Bubonic Plague.

  • I think one underestimated consequence of this change is what will happen if the alliances decide to continue working together as guilds with NAP. What chances does one guild have against several guilds bringing people to fight them? If 5 guilds bring 50 man each to attack someone the not-so-smart que will make sure there are even numbers for every guild. It can't know if 5 of the 6 guilds in the zone are allied.
    Concordia res parvae crescunt

  • I do like this alliance change but also agree they need to look at the root cause of power projection being to easy. Not much is required to defend conquered lands so power house guilds can focus their attention on more acquisitions instead of defense. It should be exponentially more difficult to hold high tier zones and high volumes of zones.

  • Deadrino wrote:

    I think one underestimated consequence of this change is what will happen if the alliances decide to continue working together as guilds with NAP. What chances does one guild have against several guilds bringing people to fight them? If 5 guilds bring 50 man each to attack someone the not-so-smart que will make sure there are even numbers for every guild. It can't know if 5 of the 6 guilds in the zone are allied.
    its irrelevant if they are allied or not.

    Smart Queue IS smart.

    You should go to the smart queue spotlight to understand how it work.

  • Tabor wrote:

    I do like this alliance change but also agree they need to look at the root cause of power projection being to easy. Not much is required to defend conquered lands so power house guilds can focus their attention on more acquisitions instead of defense. It should be exponentially more difficult to hold high tier zones and high volumes of zones.

    ImaDoki wrote:

    Deadrino wrote:

    I think one underestimated consequence of this change is what will happen if the alliances decide to continue working together as guilds with NAP. What chances does one guild have against several guilds bringing people to fight them? If 5 guilds bring 50 man each to attack someone the not-so-smart que will make sure there are even numbers for every guild. It can't know if 5 of the 6 guilds in the zone are allied.
    its irrelevant if they are allied or not.
    Smart Queue IS smart.

    You should go to the smart queue spotlight to understand how it work.


    let them cooperate here, but the territory will belong to 1 guild and 300 people and not as before to 3000 people, I think you can see the differences.

  • Tabor wrote:

    I do like this alliance change but also agree they need to look at the root cause of power projection being to easy. Not much is required to defend conquered lands so power house guilds can focus their attention on more acquisitions instead of defense. It should be exponentially more difficult to hold high tier zones and high volumes of zones.
    It would be nice if they made launching an attack on a territory free or something like 500k or 100k.

    That would really disrupt the world map and truly allow small guilds/alliances a shot at entering the black zone.

    Otherwise this is what happens. A small guild/alliance launches against a local alliance on Monday, all alliance CTA's, beats em, next guild/alliance launches on Wednesday, all alliance CTA's, beats em, etc etc.

    If a large alliance were launched upon 3x per day, by small guilds and alliances, then they would have to actually choose fights carefully and potentially lose territory.


    Until this happens, the larger, more established BZ alliances will continue to gain and accumulate territories, becoming stagnant.

  • What is some people's obsession with this change coming "mid season?" Is this your first MMO? There is no such thing as a perfect time for changes. I always hated in terribly unbalanced World of Warcraft that a new raid tier or PVP season would launch, and some classes/specs would be so underpowered that they wouldn't be invited to groups. And Blizzard had some idiotic method of taking WEEKS OR MONTHS to fix the tiniest things. I've watched people have to wait entire expansions for necessary changes.

    Changes should always happen as soon as they possibly can before people get too accustomed to the current mechanics.

    The main complaint seems to be regarding Hideout placement. My first argument would be that Hideout cost doesn't really seem to be that expensive for any established guild, so you're not going to convince me that moving a Hideout is a big deal for them. Newer guilds, sure OK. And secondly if there's no way to deconstruct a Hideout and get most of the materials back, then you should be asking for it to be implemented. Think about the best way for it to work regarding time constraints and return percentage, and talk about it.

    Every single MMO you've ever played is constantly testing changes in the live game, they're just usually not as transparent and open regarding it, and frankly 100% of changes ever made to a game is a "test". Sometimes things get added or changed, and sometimes those things get reverted afterwards. It's completely normal, expected, and really not that big of a deal.

  • Theat wrote:

    Tabor wrote:

    I do like this alliance change but also agree they need to look at the root cause of power projection being to easy. Not much is required to defend conquered lands so power house guilds can focus their attention on more acquisitions instead of defense. It should be exponentially more difficult to hold high tier zones and high volumes of zones.
    It would be nice if they made launching an attack on a territory free or something like 500k or 100k.
    That would really disrupt the world map and truly allow small guilds/alliances a shot at entering the black zone.

    Otherwise this is what happens. A small guild/alliance launches against a local alliance on Monday, all alliance CTA's, beats em, next guild/alliance launches on Wednesday, all alliance CTA's, beats em, etc etc.

    If a large alliance were launched upon 3x per day, by small guilds and alliances, then they would have to actually choose fights carefully and potentially lose territory.


    Until this happens, the larger, more established BZ alliances will continue to gain and accumulate territories, becoming stagnant.
    Well said. I don't care too much for the launching attacks price-point portion of your message but I like your logic in that larger alliances will be forced to deal with more threats in more zone's/areas all at once.

    That being said, I think we will see guilds that have acquired their current territories with previous legacy alliance members start to look out for their own best interests rather than their alliances.

    Why would you fight for "alliance" territory if you can't use it or benefit from it?
    Why would you fight for someone else's territory, spending resources of your own for the benefit of others?
    If you choose not to fight at all because its "not worth your time", that's the intention of this change.

    NAP's will eventually become less and less common based on general logic and incentive. Great Change, The change happening "Mid Season" (a couple weeks in) could have been better planned out, yes... But better now then never.


    FYI THIS IS OFFICIALLY POST 420 OF THIS THREAD

    The post was edited 1 time, last by Aftrmath0 ().