Hi,
I know that this may not be welcomed by everyone but I wanted to throw an idea out there to add some variety to the way we play as alliances. I’ve recently rejoined AWS after a short break and have been thinking of how AWS could add some new experiences and wanted to share this specific idea I have around alliances.
Currently, people create alliances and the managers ultimately choose their members which has created some established alliances. The more experienced players tend to pool in a few alliances so if you can’t access those alliances you are at a disadvantage. The scoring of alliances is very much balanced towards the number of members in an alliance rather than how well players perform as an alliance. This has also created a big divide between experience players and new players who may be daunted by challenging the big players and some alliances are much better at working together than others.
My idea is that we have a gameworld (maybe a short one like DOTM/MT) with randomised alliances where everybody in the gameworld would become part of an alliance created by the system. This system would balance out the number of players. There would be multiple alliances as currently but the system would determine in which alliance you would be allocated (perhaps 24hrs after the gameclock starts ticking).
To avoid the usual players manipulating the system on making sure they are in the same alliance, there should be some parameters on how the system decides in which alliance they end up.
The criteria could be:
• Ensuring each alliances has a few players in Tier 1 airports
• Players get then allocated based on order they joined the game
• Clearly avoiding 2 players in same base
• Alliances will have a geographical spread with max 7/8 airlines in EU/USA
• Players who BK and restart gw, go back to same alliance they were in originally.
• New players who join the gw, join alliance with lowest #of players (or score).
In addition I think that Sami should then award the winning alliance an incentive to try and win as a team. (Maybe award some credits at end of gw - 1st alliance – all members 5 credits / 2nd alliance 3 credits/ 3rd alliance 1 credit). (additional achievements..)
I strongly believe that if this was to be trialled we could see the following results:
• Players who usually compete in established alliances are now forced to work together
• Disabling the function to leave an alliance would stop the avoidance of penalty points.
• I believe there could be stronger emphasis from the stronger players helping out the newer players as they all have an incentive to win.
• Newer players would get more support and gain valuable experience
• Ultimately the gameplay in aws becomes more competitive as people will have more access to support.
• Stronger retention of players in gameworlds due to potential incentive to be top 3 alliance.
• If this was adopted across multiple gw, you would be playing with new players in alliance each time.
• No need for alliance managers to recruit.
I don’t suggest that this should be implemented across all gw’s but it would be good feature in the occasional game to add a new dimension to the game.
From Sami’s perspective I believe he wouldn’t need to do too many changes.
Just create an allocation criteria system of players being allocated to an alliance.
Create various templates of alliance names and logos/icons.
Disable the function for players to leave alliances.
I think in the long term AWS would benefit from having a lot more experienced players competing in the various gameworlds.
Look forward to hearing other people’s thoughts on this idea.