Thank you all for these viewpoints and for Rigs investing time in the thread. My own personal experience is a reach to try to understand what has happened. The type of player has changed as we got older and stronger. We are about 440+ days old and I have a core group of about 20-22 which are rock solid and considered a family. We are jnternational and the war strategy attempts to accommodate everyone’s schedule. That may never make us Top 100 but it makes a peace with everyone.
But what has happened in the last few months is we can’t fill our ranks to 30 like we always were. We were at entry level 40 and have lowered it to 35 and there hasn’t been a lot of change. I recruit not just spam ads daily and I update our forum blurb frequently. Others in our group also recruit. So besides just our own increasing power, I looked around and it seemed there was more splitting and reforming of alliances than there had been in the past. That may not be true. It was a perception. I am really tired. I spend a lot of time trying to figure the right ticket to recruit because we all feel “happier” with a full alliance. I think also that recruits are drawn to a full alliance. Again, just a perception.
P.S. I think the ideas of improving the alliance search function are sound. I wish there was a way to reach members specifically besides LINE. A more bulletin board user friendly way to place a static ad would be useful.
I run a pretty great alliance. We are a global membership spanning at 3 continents (US, Australia, and Europe). We are currently 29/30 because, and I cannot stress this enough, I lowered my standards. We have always been invite only, and I switched us to open. We wanted to maintain 9* titans and grow into 10*, so I had a minimum trophy requirement of 1800 (a player comfortably maintaining Platinum would have a defense of about 3500 and would likely have 6 war teams) and I have recently switched it down to 1200. Why? Because wars will be won and loss on a sinusoidal curve no matter how strong we are (an alliance with a range of strength players like we have will always be matched oddly), we were still handily killing 9* titans when we dropped to 26 players and had 2-3 members with heavy workloads, family responsibilities or on vacation not hitting the titan, and we were all friends that just wanted to make more friends. We aren’t competitive, but we’re active. We expect everyone who reasonably can to hit the titan, and our wars are optional anyway. I was recruiting strong players who would get bored with our alliance, or just not like us, but the younger players seemed to stay. I would rather help a smaller member grow, share in their small victories (jealous they still get to enjoy finishing missions, pulling a 4* mana troop for the first time, etc.) than deal with a jaded strong player just because they help us continually kill 10* titans. (Disclaimer: not saying all older players are jaded, but the ones that are need to go somewhere other than my alliance).
TL;DR- Every recruiter should look at what their alliance is doing, figure out where the alliance wants to be, and recruit accordingly. If that’s not successful, think about lowering some standards whether that’s switching mandatory war to optional, getting rid of strategies that are too strenuous on a global membership, or being okay with dropping in titan level (7 and 8* still give pretty good loot) in order to get the membership that wants to grow with you.
I would think a better “search” system for alliances for newer players would be very beneficial to SG and the “ life” of this game. SG should be able to take the power level of the player who searches for an alliance and match them up with an active alliance that has an average level/ power level to that searcher. It just might inspire/retain newer players until they figure stuff out. It would probably be a higher chance they learn about; the forumns, Line/Discord, get helpfull Ingame info etc. I think there is a real lack of info out there for new players.
I know one thing that deters people from doing something is a lengthy and in-depth tutorial. So here’s my thought:
New Alliance Tutorial!
In the Alliances tab, there is a button that says “Create New” if you aren’t in an alliance. When you click that button the tutorial begins. It opens a temporarily faux alliance that you build same as always, but you don’t pay the 50 gems yet. the tutorial walks you though picking an alliance name, and has a scroll down of all the alliances with similar names as though you entered it into the search bar. It takes you through setting the banner, writing a description, setting to invite only and cup minimum and explains what these mean. It sets your language as the default and shows you how to change it. At the end, it takes you to AR and has you post. you have to sit in AR for 5 MIN ( the average time considered acceptable to post again without it being called spam), then you post again before it takes you back to the faux alliance setup. Only then do you get to pay 50 gems and actually set up the alliance. There is also a quit button throughout the tutorial, so you can cancel as soon as you get bored. This has 2 benefits: 1) everyone who makes an alliance would more fully understand the nuances. 2) you would deter the people who would not put in enough effort to run an alliance, because they wouldn’t put in the effort required to finish the tutorial. This would only be for the first time you try to create an alliance so those who merc and hop alliances and create small ones wouldn’t have to go through it for every alliance they personally create.
Hello,
This is for the OP.
My friend and i had to create our alliance.
We were in separate alliances, but only the new players were active. We, set up, picked a name, paid, and notified our teammates what we’ve done. No rules, exept lets have fun.
Now 3 months in, our core group is getting better, a few new players wandered in.
We all are active in the alliance , 4/5*'s titans, wars, we are having fun.
Sometime some have to opt out , no problem.
The better alliances have requirements that some of us don’t care for. The leader has 0 cup but is top on titans and wars.
I don’t raid, but do wars, titans, events etc.
Some can only play 2 or 3 days a week. Others are in the middle east, Asia, Canada .
Most of us don’t fit in some of the highest ally.
A lot of newer player are probably nervous of the bis alliances.
Just my views and story
Have fun.
Wolf9
Multiple posts have been flagged in this topic. This is a reminder that any further violations will lead to the topic being closed. No personal attacks or other inappropriate behavior is tolerated. I would advise everyone not to allow themselves to get provoked.
Agree Petri. I opened this topic. I truly wanted to hear what others were thinking. To me, each and every one of us is entitled to our own opinion. We don’t all have to agree. I have gained insight I thought was helpful.
Yes there are, generally speaking, too many alliances. No, they should not put restrictions on them. Gotta live in the world you’re given. But speaking objectively, a ton of players could seriously benefit from joining an established alliance instead of trying to start new ones.
The issue, Tamsin, is finding people to join. There are so many alliances out there who’s recruiting sounds exactly the same, that telling one alliance apart from the other on their face is nearly impossible. The Reddit thread with alliances recruitment has hundreds of entries. When our alliance formed two and a half years ago, you would search alliances and we would come up. We’ve had dozens of long time players come and go, which was great, but the last 6 months or so no one has any idea how to get our alliance to even be noticed anymore. Alliances with 19 or 20 members at our scores are a dime a dozen now.
It sounds like you aren’t recruiting, you’re waiting for players to find you and decide they want to join. Going that route: 1) people may be able to find your alliance, and you would have no way to know that they looked at you unless they asked to join (or popped in if you’re open), so maybe they don’t like the look of your alliance on face value? 2) I don’t think ANYONE can passively recruit in this game. We have only ever had 3 or 4 members who just stumbled upon us without someone actively posting ads in AR chat, the forum, or facebook. I’m pretty sure all of those people have ebbed out of the alliance since.
I have said before, and I’ll say it here now, The best way to recruit is to be active in global in all rooms more than just when you’re recruiting. Take @Rigs and the rest of Crew. I would not know anything about the Crew alliance family if it weren’t for Rigs posting all the time on the forum, and wearing his alliance as his avatar. It’s a longer, more tedious method of recruiting, but if you show the community DAILY what you’re about, and what your alliance family is like outside of recruitment efforts, when someone is ready to make a move, they’ll remember you and think of you as a possibility.
I understand the issue is finding people to join. That’s why it’s called recruitment. For me, it’s also finding people who will stay. Because recruitment is so difficult, I don’t like to do it if I don’t have to. But I don’t think it’s the fault of new alliances popping up. If the people who are a good fit for you are out there, you’ll find them.
I have to disagree with this completely. Most “face value” things are similar because a lot of players fall into 3 core value categories: 1- Competitive need to be the best, everyone takes the competition seriously, 2- Casual- Everyone needs to be as active as possible, but we’re more about the friendship, or 3- Chill AF- Play, don’t play, we don’t care we just want some Titan booty every so often. Those 3 core values break down based on player level within each set (like how most alliance families have a training, competition, retirement sort of setup) so you can get a variety of level players within those sets. I think a majority of Alliances fall on some spectrum of Casual, and that’s why all of the ads in AR begin to sound the same. Those who fall into Competetive don’t really need to advertise; we know who they are. The Chill alliances usually are where you have a majority of your movement (anectdotal I DO NOT have data), I think as you get younger players who just want to learn but aren’t actually gaining anything moving on, or you get retirees who get bored with one alliance and move to another to shake things up.
TL;DR (I got a lot to say, yo!) Recruiting sucks, but it’s not because of the number of alliances in existence, it’s because players are real people with real needs whether they are fully realized or not.
I agree with your comments re RIGS , as a newby who started end of last year the only alliance i wanted to aim for was 7d as known as the best and you would seem some commentary from them in forum (they may still do but I can’t identify them ) and anchors grading no matter what people thought of the grades gave great advertising for their group as best alliance and experts of the game
Now since I have not heard peep from them, not even a aim of mine to join them ( not saying they would want me ) and I wouldn’t even classify them as experts on the game , I see regular posts from others on here and appreciate values , knowledge and character of the posters and their alliances
being active in forum and sharing knowledge definite great recruiting tool
I feel those points Aboisso. I am on chat, forum, and other sites every day. It is not really fun to spend that much time recruiting and my all flag play, no missed wars, etc. does sound like many other alliances. Even my fighting 10 stars sounds the same.
It seems different to me than a year and a half ago but that’s why I wondered what everyone’s take on it was.
I don’t think a point by point counterattack on another’s viewpoints is very helpful.
I appreciate your comments but I respectfully disagree. Recruiting sucks not because people are real people with needs, but because the tools we have to recruit with are far too blunt and people have a hard time finding the alliances that do meet those needs.
As I mentioned earlier, the tools and my views on why they don't work very well
Forum- limited info, no effective way of sorting, a lot of bumping. There are quite a few lurkers that read and don’t post but largely the forum is populated by the same people. You may think the ads are boring and look the same, but being in a mid-range alliance with participation rules but keeping some flex is where the details are (expectations current team, on spending or not, use of Discord or Line, war strategy requiring timing attacks or that allows for different timezones etc.).
Ingame options- alliance search I think we’ve all agreed doesn’t work particularly well. AR/global chat ingame- a lot of us don’t wish to be in there. It’s a the wild west. It’s pixel vomit. And as we know (and has been discussed in the forum before) those ingame global chats aren’t sufficiently moderated (if at all). If they were suitably moderated it might be more tolerable.
Facebook- some people like Facebook that’s fine, but others don’t want to use it for various reasons. Apart from not wanting to connect their real names with a game account, some people just don’t like the Facebook platform. (I also wish the game would stop prompting me to link accounts…)
Reddit- is that even working for E&P? I mean I used to have a look there every so often but it was kind of dead. Unless things have picked up recently.
Other third party - LINE/Discord still gotta know people to find other people. I think for awhile there was mention of a discord server for recruiting, but I lost track of it.
So that falls back on what Rigs was getting at, it’s about having connections. Recognisable persona or personas. Helps when people have alliance families with more forum active members. But some of us want to be smaller families, of 30
Edit: I used to recruit for a long time, for a game that had 2 primary ways to recruit.
A well ordered recruiting forum that was easy to browse with the possibility to directly contact the recruiter(s) via PM, and more importantly
In-game. As a team based multiplayer game, the “presence” happened naturally as people would recognise the clan tag (and associated conduct) a visible identifier on any server (and any forum discussion), and if they joined the server hosted by the clan, and if they liked the way the server was handled by admins, they would know exactly where to look on the forum to make contact.
We had third party contact (own website, Team-speak) but they were all the very last stages of contact.
So, there was really very little efforts spent by myself or the other recruiters looking for people. They were able to find us very easily. All the “work” was in the mutual interview and membership progress after that.
@sft1965 I just want to say that if I were in your alliance, I wouldn’t enjoy the game much. I understand what you’re saying about some alliances being USA-centric time- and commitment wise. Our alliance, +Knights of the Cross+ is multinational, and we have had to work on what it will mean for our play style, scores, Titan loot, wars, & chat. We have gotten into a rhythm of knowing who is sleeping and needing to acquiesce Titan loot if we didn’t want to wake in the middle of the night.
Our priority isn’t to be in the top 100 or 1000. It’s to have fun together and encourage one another.
I think people’s comments that there are all kinds of alliances & alliance cultures are well taken. I would hate to limit the variety by increasing the cost. Our alliance is almost always 29-30 players. We stay because it’s fun & encouraging & we are growing together. Super-competitive types stay a while to be refreshed. We are happiest if they say goodbye before they leave so we can thank them for their good company and tips.
I hope you find a place to call home. You are welcome to visit us for some respite if you want a change of scenery.
