Development Focus - Alliances

[Kamisha]

[Quote]Alliances

Alliance takeovers have been rife as of late and have led us to look at a better system for determining alliance leaders. The current system is older than the fossils, and not designed for a time when someone can gain 10k loyalty a week (or a day!). This planned feature will reclassify alliances into particular types, where each will be under slightly different rules regarding leadership and takeovers. It will make alliance takeovers for some alliances impossible, specifically administrative alliances, but for some it wont change the system at all.

With all of the above, a new wave of land diplomacy will be triggered with alliance takeovers, politics and bargaining.[/quote]

[url="http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/12010-development-focus-public-vote/"][u]Vote here[/u][/url]

Edited April 3, 2012 by Kamisha

[(Zl-eye-f)-nea]

I've always hated the way the alliance system works and I don't agree with you Eon (see other main thread) - why should loyalty and fighting control alliances that have little if nothing to do with that? I've always thought its stupid. I do want to know what the different things are though because while I welcome a change to the system, I would be very against some sort of new loyalty based system or something where alliances are more like property to war over, which is kind of what that sounds like.

Z

[Laphers]

I agree with Z. As a member of a resource guild I would rather see the resource guilds base leadership on their gathering stat (or alternatively, based on the change in stat since joining the guild) than on loyalty itself. There are a number of things that already exist in game that could be used for various alliances, like research points for research guilds, # of visits to select locations might be appropriate for some and of course some are probably appropriate to continue using loyalty as it is.

[No one]

As of my knowledge, there are few kinds of alliances:

- guilds
- fighting alliances
- gifts - alliances made for someone with a role
- admin - new stuff

Guilds: research or gathering alliances.

Gifts: starting with savelites, ds, mr, si and others, they all had been created with the same constrictions: if abandoned by their owner or taken from them more then twice, they can be taken and destroyed.

Admin: alliances dealing with art, free credits, treasure keepers ... they have been given mostly by merit.

I don't know of any reason for alliances to be forbidden to be taken over except for admin ones (most of them are well earned).
Please share them with me?





My point of view on my lines above :

Research guilds ... whatever. They are now used as personal alliances (some exceptions may occur). Are these guilds still needed ? Are they still needed ? If not, please revert them to fighting alliances.
Gathering guilds have been turned bad by using their means for personal income. If i could take them i would simply disband them all.

Gifts have/had their protection. If they are doing their job, then there should be no other protection required as original owners can get them back and they are constructed based on trust. From my point of view "gift alliance" should be redeemable for ransom to last person that got & disbanded them.
Some may say that once that an alliance has been abandoned/disbanded, it should be resurrected with no fee (See DS). That is not correct nor fair as some had worked hard to achieve that (not to mention that there is no medal for that).

Admin alliances have been created based on personal commitment and we've seen that on most cases. Yes, i mean TK & Seig is a "joke" to this community. These alliances are under Mur's and council's protection so there is no need for extra protection.


So? except from the admin alliances, why should the others have extra protection ?

[(Zl-eye-f)-nea]

Personally I don't think that alliances that came about because of someone's efforts and what they did should just be handed to random people because the idea is cool and people like it. If someone starts 'being' that alliance then fine, but I have literally never seen that once. Im talking about things like DS right now.

I answer your question with a question: Why should alliances that are not based on fighting and were not formed by fighting be ruled and governed by fighting? On one hand its too simple, it takes nothing into account of what the alliance is or what the ruler should represent- ie for example, if you put a big bad bull-dog at the head of my alliance, it would totally dismantle the reason it exists in the first place. On the other, its just sheer lazy stupidity to leave it like that. Same with gathering ones, why should fighters rule them? It makes, literally, no sense.

Z

[Pipstickz]

Presently, it is not overly hard for a group of two or three, or even one person alone if they're smart about it, to dismantle an alliance, no matter how many other members there are (unless it's full). That's wrong, as it should take a bit more finesse and planning to sabotage 10 people at the same time, let alone 50. So I suggest a formula based on land loyalty as well as loyalty score, and a unique aspect different for each alliance (or perhaps land if there's not enough things to do). For example, SoE could be based on how often you submit research to research and connections in Marind Bell locations, or Caretakers could be based on how much tea you've made recently, or whatever. Though something like this may require a bit of subjectivity, it would hopefully require leaders to actually work to keep their standing, and if somebody were to try to take over the alliance, it'd have to be someone who put some effort into improving the alliance they plan to dismantle. Though if this were to actually change, it would require a change to what happens when an alliance is taken, because it takes that much more effort to actually do.

[Change]

I personally like the idea of alliances having to be defended against possible attackers. In real life, aren't peaceful groups and gatherings often broken up by militant groups? Now I don't know how easy it is to take over an alliance, but apparently it should be harder. There should be a system though where alliances can fight for/defend other alliances (if there isn't already). So the Knights of the Bell could defend attempts to take over the Water Dowsers, for example.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Change

[(Zl-eye-f)-nea]

Aside from the jibe at the Caretakers I like Pip's idea about something specific to the alliance (also agree about finesse), and I also think it would be cool to do what Change says and have alliances able to defend other alliances or something like that. Could that be done via an altered form of the guardian spell? I see that as more symbolic though to stop them getting bashed or harrassed or something rather than anything to do with take-overs.

Sidenote - There is a big difference between Greenpeace and the various protest events they take part in. If it was nothing but the gathering and scattering of a group you couldnt take the badge anyway because as soon as the group is scattered it doesnt exist anymore to be taken.

Z