Important Concept - Easier Alliance Entry Feedback Thread

[Richard]

Hello players,

This thread is for feedback on our concept for Easier Alliance Entry. Please see the full announcement here, and give us your feedback. Specifically, we'd like to know the following:

1. Are there any negative side effects we might have forgotten?
2. Would you (as a founder) like to define the pre-filled application text on your own that your applicants will see?
   • What sort of questions would you put in there?
   • Do you use external tools or websites to get more info about the applicants? What are you interested in?
3. Would you use the new ‘open’ setting for your alliance to get new members faster?

Although, your feedback of course doesn't have to be limited to just the above.

Thank you!

Richard and team

 

[DeletedUser]

1) Other than encouraging MRAs I don't see any side effect (open recruitment status)

2) Yes, giving the founders the power to create in-game application forms would be great. It will help the recruiters a lot. I suggest adding a box in which founders can write an application form that players need to fill.

3) Not really, I'd still want to know who enters my alliance so I don't think having the status as open is a good idea.

 

[DeletedUser46912]

1) Other than encouraging MRAs I don't see any side effect (open recruitment status)

2) Yes, giving the founders the power to create in-game application forms would be great. It will help the recruiters a lot. I suggest adding a box in which founders can write an application form that players need to fill.

3) Not really, I'd still want to know who enters my alliance so I don't think having the status as open is a good idea.

Agreed.

 

[DeletedUser41523]

The problem here is that any alliance worth joining on most worlds are more than likely full as they are premades. At best they're not going to roll the dice unless you have very good growth.

 

[DeletedUser51340]

- Open status is not such a great idea really. I don't have a problem dealing with say 50 applications but certainly I'll have a management problem with 50 players invited without my consent and that I don't even know who they are. And being that most of the alliances have the roster already defined well before a world opens up I don't think the "open" option will be used that much anyway because even though there might be room available it will be filled with careful recruiting and not by allowing everyone to jump in.

- Yes I would like to create my application form with my predefined requirements to be filled so that I can get at least a decent application mail, not just the "hey can I join your alliance please" thing.

 

[DeletedUser41523]

One solution I can think of here. If inno wants to help new players be given a shot in alliances. Create a world that caters to newer players. Offer large sums of gold to proven founders who will play with newer players and teach them the game. It'll give incentive to good leaders and players to try to found alliances and teach noobs. While they might lose gold on that specific player, they also encourage more long term gold spending because new players will play the game.

Start the first month of the world like hyperborea make a month of no conquest after BP, after the conquests are enable, the world plays out like any other world. Make one week of BP. Have the speed be 2/2 and system be conq. Later release another 2/2 with a revolt setting. Make the former to be no morale and the latter to have morale enabled. I feel revolt being a 25 wall/tower in every city type of world better displays the impact of morale. Where as conq, I've always had no issue avoiding morale due to the fact I can slip in at night if need be.

 

[DeletedUser]

In my opinion there should be some kind of a guideline in the "alliance choosing/making" quest. New players should be advised to "measure" the alliance that they want to join. Players shouldn't join alliances blindly. They should be advised to check the following before choosing an alliance first:
1) Alliance profile:
2) Rankings:
3) Position:
4) Alliance forum:
5) Alliance communication:

 

[DeletedUser41523]

The problem is that if I have a team worth joining it probably has very good players. So why add more right away? That's the thing being over looked.

 

[DeletedUser33530]

1) Other than encouraging MRAs I don't see any side effect (open recruitment status)

2) Yes, giving the founders the power to create in-game application forms would be great. It will help the recruiters a lot. I suggest adding a box in which founders can write an application form that players need to fill.

3) Not really, I'd still want to know who enters my alliance so I don't think having the status as open is a good idea.

i agree with the above and while I'm happy that inno is trying to help newer players out this improvement isn't really anything new. All they have done is simplify what people have been doing for years now without any trouble. Above Smilodon Fatalis gave some great ideas that Inno could have done. We have a whole section on this forum filled with great ideas. I hope Inno has something else on the way with this.

 

[DeletedUser26926]

In my mind, there are a lot of good things in this, like the reject/accept buttons but all the other ideas don't suit the game.

I appreciate that these ideas have been successful in other games likes clash of clans, (this is an exact copy of the clan joining system in CoC for any who don't know), but this game is so unbelievably different from any game like CoC or its copies. E.g. I have played on about 50 worlds here, starting afresh each time, and building up again, but on CoC I have been playing on the same 1 world account for the whole 4 years I've played it for. It is for certain, a much slower game and clans are there to liven up the game with the main purpose being to talk to other players. Apart from small donations here and there in CoC, it really isn't very important who is in your clan, because you can exclude them from wars, simply by not choosing them.

However here, once you are in an alliance, you are part of it, and you are relied upon, to attack and defend for the alliance and participate in wars whether you are good enough or not. I hope you can see from this that the selection process for a place in an alliance will be much more difficult here and as much as it is important to get new players into the game and going, they can't just go joining the best alliances because they will bring them down. And that is why we have MRAs here, they take in all the new people and give them a taste for being at the top for a week, and they teach them. But this new idea won't change any of that, MRAs will recruit almost anyone by sending blind invites etc. So there is no need to bring in all these new criteria in.

It also misses out some the most important parts of recruiting, experience. For me, playing as a leader, I will almost always check a player's experience and 9 time out of 10, that will decide whether he gets to join, not if he has more points than a simple point barrier.

It was highlighted that this update, may encourage MRAs, but in my mind, I think it's main encouragement would be swimming to get over point barriers, and I think that is the last thing this game needs.

As much as I appreciate Inno's attempts to revive the game, the only way it is going to happen is to listen to the players, because believe it or not, it's us that matter, not the opinion of some developer sitting in office deciding on what he thinks is best for a game that may never have even played.

Get your act together Inno,
~jdc400

 

[DeletedUser]

Alliances are filling out just fine as is. But in order to make the game more challenging and interesting to play you could:

1) Cancel shared forums and reservations system
So alliances will respect alliance cap. Because today regardless what cap you have, you can act like one alliance having 1000 players or whole server if you want to share forums.

2) Crowns must be granted just once in every world.
Normally right after WW, most of players leave a world anyway. It would motivate small or middle-size alliances to actually play their own game, instead of joining the big fish for WW for 2nd 3rd hand crowns.
If you still want to give the 2nd, 3rd round crowns, make it at least look different (silver, bronze)

If at least those two easy-to-install options are applied, grepoworlds will last longer, we will have more battles, which means more gold will be used.
Should be win-win solution.
I mean from commercial and gameplay points of view.

Oh, and don't bother with invitations, it's Ok as is.

 

[DeletedUser21625]

my opinion: the alliance invitation system is a fabricated issue, to divert attention from the elephant in the room, namely the appalling end-game that has been tolerated far too long. There have been volumes written about the WW effect on gameplay, countless well-thought out suggestions, and many people have left the game, and continue to leave.

Alliance system works just fine, people get invited, people join, people leave, the game goes on...

 

[DeletedUser41523]

To be honest my issue is this, worlds seem to be done in 6 months maybe 7. At least the bulk of play. We slowed down release but now WW is reached and finished quickly. This cuts off some otherwise good wars. In Troy we were done with WW about 7 months in. they still fight for 7/7 but its a 3/1 and its largely inactive. This is a problem. This might hurt your alliances and new players problem.

Lets address an issue here. Even if players get an alliance, if its a bad one the improvement from their former situation is minimal. This is especially true on intense worlds. However where WW ends quickly and worlds are released slowly, every world is an intense world.

 

[DeletedUser]

I think I got what you guys want to do: get more people playing Grepolis. I have to say it's common interest for current players and Innogames. People stay in Grepo when they find the social aspect of the game. The best way to get it is join an alliance. That is where all fun and social connections begin.
But improving invitation system will not help.
It is already annoying to have messages through invitation app.

All new players, named novices, noobs are considered being easy food today.
Using shared reservation system and forums, experienced players build coalition and they are not really interested to take in novices and teach them. They are food. If they let novices in, who would they eat?
Take a look at all recent worlds, how quick all big fishes sign nap, eat all small alliances and all novices.
So once guest135634 come into Grepolis in the best case scenario he lose his first city in the core and if he doesn't quit after that, he restarts in the rim ocean, where he can finally find an alliance welcoming him. But the unfortunate is that such alliances can never be competitive by ww era, because the biggest ones form a new coalition of 2-3 alliances for WW and build it really quick. Those novices can't really get what they play for, so lose interest and leave.

So Grepolis is very unwelcoming game for novices, despite all initial quests staff and invitation system.
Why?
Because of us, Grepo veterans, but in our turn we are not motivated to take novices into alliance and teach them, we better eat them for good.
I think 3 years ago we had more players in a world. Now every world comes to 2 coalitions. New alliances are not competitive, so novices don't have a place to become a grepoaddicted.

We can't even do top-12 anymore, as it doesn't make sense. That's why I think unless easy changes are applied (cancel shared forums and reservation, and don't let crowns to be shared by 1000 players), we will have worlds where it's easier to pact all bigs around for crowns and small alliances with novices are quickly eaten.

 

[DeletedUser13240]

Yo mateys,

Aye, I must be agreein' with Tillerland here.
The propensity o' formin' massive coalitions, 'specially in the early game, be discouragin'.
Discouragin' to the point that I ain't excited on playin' no more.
If meself, an experienced player be findin' that to be anathema, what do the newbies be feelin'?
I'll be a forum lad fer a bit, but 'till the current trend be addressed, I ain't playin'.

Just me two doubloons worth here mateys.

yer disgruntled
unit
-

 

[skiboot]

I think I got what you guys want to do: get more people playing Grepolis. I have to say it's common interest for current players and Innogames. People stay in Grepo when they find the social aspect of the game. The best way to get it is join an alliance. That is where all fun and social connections begin.
But improving invitation system will not help.
It is already annoying to have messages through invitation app.

All new players, named novices, noobs are considered being easy food today.
Using shared reservation system and forums, experienced players build coalition and they are not really interested to take in novices and teach them. They are food. If they let novices in, who would they eat?
Take a look at all recent worlds, how quick all big fishes sign nap, eat all small alliances and all novices.
So once guest135634 come into Grepolis in the best case scenario he lose his first city in the core and if he doesn't quit after that, he restarts in the rim ocean, where he can finally find an alliance welcoming him. But the unfortunate is that such alliances can never be competitive by ww era, because the biggest ones form a new coalition of 2-3 alliances for WW and build it really quick. Those novices can't really get what they play for, so lose interest and leave.

So Grepolis is very unwelcoming game for novices, despite all initial quests staff and invitation system.
Why?
Because of us, Grepo veterans, but in our turn we are not motivated to take novices into alliance and teach them, we better eat them for good.
I think 3 years ago we had more players in a world. Now every world comes to 2 coalitions. New alliances are not competitive, so novices don't have a place to become a grepoaddicted.

We can't even do top-12 anymore, as it doesn't make sense. That's why I think unless easy changes are applied (cancel shared forums and reservation, and don't let crowns to be shared by 1000 players), we will have worlds where it's easier to pact all bigs around for crowns and small alliances with novices are quickly eaten.

+1 rep as I can't give you any more via the forum. Absolutely true and realistic description of how the game is played today and the challenges facing new players. Revamping the invite system will make no difference whatsoever and is a waste of development time in my opinion. Fix the end game, the multiple awarding of crowns and remove the exploit of using shared forums to easily circumvent the alliance cap and things mighht finally start to improve.