Modifications to Alliances in AWS

Started by jackpot, August 01, 2014, 10:41:22 PM

jackpot

After the recent post about 'cheating' I think the one of the reasons this is discussed so much is because the alliance system is not currently up to scratch in comparison with other mpg that I've played. In other games there are noticeable benefits of being alliance members apart from social and co-operation reasons. I am therefore posting my ideas of how the alliance system could be improved.

Management Roles
Under my ideas, instead of having 3 managers I would have 4 managers with different responsibilities. These are as follows -

CEO- The CEO is the overall member in charge of the alliance and has access to all the management functions as listed below
Finance Manager- The Finance Manager is in charge of allocation revenues between marketing and reserves, approving and declining loan applications and setting a minimum cash value to be retained within the reserves.
Marketing Manager- The Marketing Manager is responsible for allocating Marketing Budgets between continents as well as arranging Marketing Events to raise the alliance's image.
Recruitment Manager- This person is responsible for accepting or rejecting applications to join the alliance. They should also actively go through the game world looking for possible new members to join to increase membership numbers.

Alliance Revenue
As before, the alliance would collect upto 1% revenue from each alliance member. This value can be varied as before between 0.1% and 1% with the value of this being determined by the Finance Manager.

Under my proposal the Finance Manager would have jurisdiction to decide how that money is spent. I would suggest some fixed costs would be set from there (eg Admin expenses and Salaries at 10% each, leaving 80% revenue remaining) and the remaining would be divided between reserves and marketing (both detailed below).

Reserves
The amount of revenue designated to be retained as reserves would be added to an account held by the alliance. The purpose of this reserve would be mainly to allow alliance members to borrow directly from their alliance. These loans would be charged at the same interest rates as existing loans depending on their credit rating and repayment periods and early repayments would also be exactly the same as existing loans. There would be no limit on the amount airlines can borrow as long as its within the amount held by the alliance in reserve. Both the CEO and the Finance Manager would manually need to accept or decline the application, with acceptance from both role being required to proceed. As this way of borrowing is easier to come across than regular loans, there should be penalties in place for missed repayments in the form of fines to the offending airline and a drop in CI and AI (Alliance Image - discussed below). There would also be a severe punishment in the form of alliance scoring of any missed payments or fines accrued. Upon collection, the interest and fees are added to the alliance reserves as well as credit interest being paid at the market value.

The reserves may also be used by the Marketing Manager to perform 'marketing events' (again as detailed below).

The Finance Manager's final task is to set a minimum balance for the reserves to be held at. This would over-ride and loan applications or marketing events and can only be lowered with a notice period (eg 7 game days).

Alliance Marketing
All alliance marketing decisions would be left under the jurisdiction of the Marketing Manager. Under my proposal I would introduce the concept of Alliance Image. This would replace Alliance Rating and is similar to Company Image with a few major differences.

First of all I would split the Alliance Marketing between the individual continents, generating an Alliance Image value for each continent.The percentage of money made available by the Finance Manager for marketing can then be split between the continents at the Marketing Manager's discretion. For example if the alliance had a large number of airline in North America, the Marketing Manager could decide to allocate a larger amount of the funds to the continent or if an alliance has no airlines based in Africa, it could be set so that no money is spent marketing in Africa. The more money spent in a particular continent, the quicker and higher the Alliance Image will rise. The system would also factor in the size and number of potential customers would be traveling within each continent to calculate the real value required to be spent on each area (eg more money would need to be spent in North America than Oceania to achieve the same rise in Alliance Image)

And secondly I would set it up so that it took longer for the Alliance Image to grow than the Company Image, as there would be more money per week being paid in and it covers upto 25 airlines all over the world. The effect on LFs would also be less than the effect CI has, but large enough to be seen as a real advantage to join up with an alliance.

The alliance image would affect all flights leaving the given continent. For flights between different continents, the flight from your base would use your continents Alliance Image with the return flight using the other continent's Alliance Image.

Marketing Events
A marketing event is something which can be planned by the Marketing Manager. It is something over and above regular marketing which can focus on a specific continent or passenger type. Examples of this may be to run a Marketing Event publicizing Business Travel in Europe, First Class Customer's in America or all customer types in Asia. It could also be as simple as running an additional TV campaign, having a large scale event or even an alliance wide reduction in ticket prices (an automatic deduction is made from prices as set by individual airlines and is manditory). These events could be set up for periods ranging from 1 week to 1 year with costs varying on the number of airlines/passengers affected and the expected rise in LFs. These events would be paid upfront, directly from reserves funds, assuming it left the balance within the limits arranged by the Finance Manager

Leasing Aircraft Between Alliance Members
Most of the recent debate on here lately is regarding this subject and I have to admit its not something I know a great deal about so I would probably leave this section to others with a greater understanding but for a start there could be a limit placed on the number of aircraft leased from a specific airline (maybe 10 from each person). That would limit the help a person could get from any individual player. Another option would be to make leasing aircraft only allowable at book value.

Alliance Scoring
I feel, and it has been raised by others that there are some issues with the alliance scoring and this is my suggestion to fix it. Instead of having the scored updated as frequently as they are (is it weekly at the moment, not sure), these are updated at the end of each year, in the same way that the tax calculations are. Instead of awarding points for every alliance members, I think the alliance yearly totals should be calculated and points based upon that. Alliances should have a minimum of 5 members before they are able to accrue points.

I would set the points up something like this-

Alliance Passengers- total between alliance members
Alliance Revenue- total between alliance members
Alliance Profit Margin- Margin based on total alliance members revenue and expenses figures
Alliance Flights- Total number of flights between alliance members
Alliance Destinations- Total number of destinations visited by all alliance members
Alliance Load Factors- Average Load Factor for all alliance flights
Alliance Punctuality- Average Punctuality for all alliance flights
Alliance Fleet Utilization- Average Utilization of all alliance aircraft (taken at year end)
Alliance Company Image-Average Company Image between alliance members (taken at year end)
Cumulative Alliance Image- Total of Alliance Image from all continents (taken at year end)

The top 5 alliances for each category would score points (50/25/15/10/5)

There would also be points based on events occurring during the year
Bankrupts- (-10 points)
Missed Loan Repayments- (-5 points per missed payment)
Fines (-5 points per fine)
Staff Strikes (-5 points per strike)
Alliance Anniversary (+5 points per year alliance active)
Alliance Member Points (+2 point for each member) - calculated based on year end

There should be an area in the game where running totals of the above figures can be found (either each alliance viewing their own results only or all alliances being able to see each others results). This would be a good way of alliances pinpointing where they need to improve. There should also be a prize for the winning alliance, either in the form of a cash reward or a title (eg Alliance of the year) along with a leader board to show previous winners.


These are my ideas to improve this area of the game and to allow alliance members to legally help struggling colleagues under the rules dictated above. I have spent a bit of time on this and hope that there are some points that people may agree with or find useful but I would ask if people do have any comments to make them known.

Solemus

#1
Quote from: wildavidson on August 01, 2014, 10:41:22 PM
Staff Strikes (-5 points per strike)

Everything in your post I would agree with. I would like to raise a couple of pointers though, Strikes, I would like a way, if possible, to see the reason for strikes and if they are resolvable in a certain period of time then if not, the alliance would lose the points, or would that be a step too far?

There are people in this game that 'know' how to play the system better than others. I don't mean in a cheating way, I mean in a way that they can order 200 or 300 planes in one go, where the small guy, 1 or 2, this makes the alliance that they are in more likely to win any prize, They are always in the top ten in the tables, always winning the games, so if there is a way for them to be held back to make the system harder for them and let some of the smaller alliances a share of the glory of winning.
I know we all start off a game with the same amount of 'resources' but, I think it would be a fairer game for all if those knowledgeable people  of this game have a little 'disability' to give everyone a fairer chance, or even better, cough up and tell the rest of us how the hell they do it  :P   

Curse

Staff strikes occur exclusively yet if you don't give them the requested payrise soon enough.


And people who know the game better? Hm. Maybe. From my perspective it's more like many people tend to ignore the basics of the game, even the ones that are described in public either due to FAQs, due to Guides or even due to the manual (that is very good and useful since a year or so!).

Mr.HP

Quote from: Solemus on August 04, 2014, 09:37:48 AM

I know we all start off a game with the same amount of 'resources' but, I think it would be a fairer game for all if those knowledgeable people  of this game have a little 'disability' to give everyone a fairer chance, or even better, cough up and tell the rest of us how the hell they do it  :P

4 fleets penalty and extensive overhead cost of bases are 2 of the barriers, those mega airlines have to counter

As to how the hell they do it, CUR$E has mentioned it. When I was a newbie, I read all FAQs and Guide carefully. I searched before raising questions, and by searching for a certain thing I found many other stuffs I haven't got a clue about, yet.

You can be an above average player easily, just by reading the forum posts

Aoitsuki

Quote from: Mr.HP on August 04, 2014, 10:19:29 AM
4 fleets penalty and extensive overhead cost of bases are 2 of the barriers, those mega airlines have to counter

As to how the hell they do it, CUR$E has mentioned it. When I was a newbie, I read all FAQs and Guide carefully. I searched before raising questions, and by searching for a certain thing I found many other stuffs I haven't got a clue about, yet.

You can be an above average player easily, just by reading the forum posts

gonna echo this, aws is not exactly an easy game, it wasn't designed to be one. There is a learning curve and there are player who just wing it and able to survive(or fail horribly), the FAQ tells you many basic and is good enough to let you run a normal airline in the real game world(nothing crazy like LHR, HND, ATL, ORD). The mentoring system in place is not perfect but player who wish to improve will speak up and try to voice their concern as much as they can, if they do chances are the mentor will be more willing to help. Mentor on the other hand will not write a 30 minute message pointing out every single small mistake you made first time they look at your airline because chances are the recipient may just ignore it(I have many of those cases). Also do note a good number of mentor belong to major alliance in the game, player who shows the willingness to learn and try to improve will most likely get pick up when the time is right(my story).