[wakey]

Originally Posted by Jester

Surely it's the alliance limit making the game inaccessible to new players, since they're prevented from joining worthwhile alliances?

Yeah there were loads of new/lower level players taken on by top alliances Pre-PAX and when the Limits weren't really limits in the early PAX round. Oh no wait a minute no there wasn't what actually happened was the top alliances were pretty large but didn't take many chances on players, the other alliances had like 30/40 people and took chances on new players but for every new player they recruited they would generally lose one of their better players to a top alliance.

The game was pretty much in a constant catch 22 situation for the lower alliances, they were the only places willing to give new people a chance so were the people expected to help rejuvenate the community, for these people to have a chance to get into the game though they needed a strong support system around them, something which was almost impossible to put together as when people showed a certain level they were snatched up. The simple fact is alot of players Ambition is greater then their sense of loyalty and while its easy to say "who cares about a player with no loyalty" the bigger issue is that when alliances are like a revolving door during the round it makes even the most loyal people consider options as those situation dont allow an alliance to pull themselves out of the 'holding pattern'

The limits that are now in place have reduced the revolving door effect, it still happens as players still have ambition and alliances are always looking for good players but its largely reserved for end of round. Its also spread the quality alot more evenly, the top alliances still have the biggest share of quality but now its alot harder to earn your position in the top alliances so a good level of quality is present throughout.allowing alot more viable alliances to exist and giving the game many more decent entry points

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

As already mentioned, splitting 70 to 35 35 isn't going to reduce the incomings. Pre-PAX 6 tick defences in compared to 3 tick attacks would have "eased" defending to some extent, especially with multi-targetting. Now you need a suitable defence fleet for each tick by specific. The fact that defending is being made difficult through the statistics creator being refusing towards creating zero-loss defence ships for alliance use makes it "harder".
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In many ways I would actually say defence is now somewhat easier for alliances lower down. Yes I know that's a slightly weird thing to say when it comes to a game where defence has on the whole become harder but hear me out. The biggest problem for defence lower down is the number of members online when the mass incoming comes in, always has been always will. Now with limited numbers able to defend and in a game where it was common to go out to overwhelm for multiple ticks it was alot harder to use peoples ships economically and you would run out of ships alot sooner. So while there's more incoming now due to prelaunch its actually easier to help out more individuals. The benefit of the change atleast lower down is simply being masked by prelaunch as it means more fleets are flying

Originally Posted by Bedda0815

Remove Alliance Rankings.
Planetarion is a Wargame. So let the community deside who has fought better. Just like the way it was in the old days.
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The problem as ive said before is that by letting the community decide who did well isn't very reliable. As I mentioned on the AD thread Re: Are these Alliances around anymore? throughout PA's history there's been alot of alliances that have been held in fairly high regard in a round but many haven't really earnt it, instead they rode on the coattails of others, often taken the role of puppet.

Also some alliances will never no matter what they do ever be judged fairly. For example I think if F-Crew and TGV would team up, do really well but wouldnt be judged fairly as me and Kargool are this communities piñatas.

And the biggest problem with all this is that peoples perceptions of how other alliances rounds went already play a big part in alliances retention and recruitment in future rounds. If theres no rankings then theres only what others say about you to allow people to make a decision and when its going to be mainly the vocal people 'deciding' who did good its always going to leave anyone who isnt involved with the top alliances wars out in the cold

Increase the alliance limit to atleast 150 or remove the limit completly.

I think this would lead to more interresting rounds for the players of the bigger alliances and other players could live in "peace" without loosing all their roids once or twice a week

History suggests otherwise, larger alliances didn't have their members stop bashing the smaller people. Pre war breaking out the 'others' we good easy targets for roids without provoking the other side and during the wars the remaining players were good places to go and refill

Main Topic

I don't think drastic cuts are th way to go, you would probally do more harm than good if we were to drop to 35 for example. 35 after all doesn't reduce incoming every one gets but just means that to cover all the roles activity needs to get even higher and its going to be the lower alliances this fall foul if its too low.

Theres a balance between, too small that very few stand much chance of operating that well and too large that it stiffles the game below the top 5 or so. This levels probably a little lower than what we currently have,but probably nothing below 50. And its certainly not something that should be done quickly the yoyoing of numbers over recent rounds has stopped alliances gettinga foothold and removed much motivation for putting the effortin.We need a plan of where the limit is going and then steady reduction over rounds to that figure so the new alliances have time to be ready for taking on the surpluss rather than just dumping it onthem