Squads Discussion

Post by **Dome** » Mon May 12, 2014 5:26 am

I would like to continue dialogue from in-lobby today.

A proposal was put forth of disbanding BS, PK, and MEC having all the remaining players join NI so that we can have big squad games on Sundays.

IMO this would only act to drive more people away as the skill balance will be largely unchanged. Sysx would be the only squad that has played together while the NI conglomeration will have to start from scratch. Further, I don't think having only two squads in the game will help us in terms of growing the game. New players and returning players will want to join the squad that wins the most. This is what has happened for years now with people leaving their squads to join the front-running squad(s).

The essence of the squad system is playing with people that you like to play with. You think everyone in BS, MEC, or PK want to play with some of NI's characters just so they can get walloped by a seasoned, stronger squad in that of Sysx? Please. The idea that squads should just recruit and train more people has been proven ineffective for years now. We keep just merging squads together. I was an advocate for mergers for a while as it kept big games going, but at this point I see that the current squad system is wholly unsustainable.

I suggest that we do away with the current squads altogether and start with new squads. We would have to devise a draft system that took into account the desire to play with certain people and not other people.

We could have four squads of 10 players to start and lessen the restrictions on minimum players for games. I understand that smaller games may not be as fun... but if we only have two teams and one team gets crushed back to back or something like that, people will leave. We've seen this time and time again. Multiple new evenly skill-based squads will drive growth in the game.

If we decided to do a squad rebuild I will incorporate it into our marketing. We could hype the fact that we are starting over for a while and get banners for facebook, etc, welcoming new players to play some pugs and see if they want to be a part of this new squad system. I feel like this will also be effective in bringing old players back into the game.

The idea is not to punish Sysx for being the only squad with enough people to make normal squad games. The idea is to make the game fun and challenging for everyone. I know that winning all the time is great, and I'd probably be a little hesitant to let good turnouts and good teamwork go as well, but IMO it's the best for the most amount of people and it may get more people interested in playing.

Thoughts?

Malicious Wraith · Post by **Malicious Wraith** » Mon May 12, 2014 8:51 am

Any plan that will bring squad games back is a good one.
It will be impossible for everyone to agree as to the best way to do that.

I think 4 squads with 10 players each is as good idea as any. Drafting won't work as that would be even more likely to put players with people they didn't like.
A hard cap of 10 players on a squad, while accepting the inevitable imbalance, might be the best way to go.

Or we can ask players to play with people they don't like for the sake of better game play, and have each squad drafted from ground up every "season", which would be before a squad series.
This would start with voting in the squad leadership by the community at large, and then that leadership doing a snake draft of players that want to be involved.

MrChaos · Post by **MrChaos** » Mon May 12, 2014 11:08 am

As I am sure no one is shocked to hear I am not universally loved and nor was everyone happy to see me join their squad... hell when I jumped into RT one of them said to mt face that they where going to quit because I joined. I appreciated the honets but well hell!

I'd go easy on who likes who wiht the decision process (none of the black ball nonsense and what not) and if you are going to do it just do it. Draft them, use ranks (stop it Duckie stop it! First undo the $#@! up of the reset of course), alphabetical order, but for goodnesssake PLEASE someone find the cojones to lead. If you wait for a concensus nothing will happen and if you don't do it than ok too. Just make a decision after letting the conversation happen. If things go as normal you know when its time about the time the insults reach a creshendo and everything is said for a thrd time

I am not interested in joining a squad at this time ad do not play currently so give my thoughts what value they are worth.

raumvogel · Post by **raumvogel** » Mon May 12, 2014 5:43 pm

Just don't schedule any squad type matches. Focus on pairing commanders on the weekends.

Post by **Papsmear** » Mon May 12, 2014 5:45 pm

Keep in mind that a few players may leave the game if the current squad set up is changed.

I would be interested to know who in the community would be willing to take on an active squad leadership role with a new squad?
With at least some minimal leadership for arranging matches and looking after your squad's forums, dissolving and reforming squads with be a complete fail.
We would need at least 4 SLs and 4 ASLs to ensure games were being arranged and forum matters were being looked after.

Once that is figured out we would need a list of players that always or almost always show up at SG time and are interested in being in a squad then spread them out between the 4 new squads.
Spread the remaining players interested in being in a squad but who would show up for the odd, random squad match.

Finally, figure out a way to deal with new players interested in joining a squad and squaded players possibly leaving the game in the future, all the while trying to maintain some level of competition.

With all that being said, how do we start?
An ACSS pole asking players:
1) Are you interested and will to take on a leadership role with a new squad?
2) Are you as a player interested in being in a squad?

Thoughts/comments/ideas?

Regards
Paps

Post by **pkk** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:41 pm

Seems like I have to quote myself, once again:

pkk wrote:QUOTE (pkk @ Jul 18 2013, 10:13 AM) Why do squads exist? Squads exist because people enjoy hanging around and fly together. Is it the same if you 'forced' to join a squad? No.

Maybe we should put, for example, Masta and Drizzo into the same squad, just for the lolz.

You just have yellow vs blue, or Mars vs Jupiter vs Saturn vs Venus, like Allegiance Wars 4. AW4 was fun, but these teams weren't squads.

Also nice to read:
http://www.freeallegiance.org/forums/index...st&p=671277

cashto · Post by **cashto** » Mon May 12, 2014 7:41 pm

raumvogel wrote:QUOTE (raumvogel @ May 12 2014, 10:43 AM) Just don't schedule any squad type matches. Focus on pairing commanders on the weekends.

I second this. No sense locking out newbies on the one day of the week we actually have some good games going on.

We only have the player base for two squads. Call them @SysX and @NI, or call them Yellow and Blue, in any case it's going to get old real quick. Allegwars was a valiant attempt to temporarily restructure the playerbase into more squad like entities, but it didn't last very long.

IMO the squad system has done nothing in the past three-four years than burn out players and drive them away with the concomitant SG drama. We wait in lobby for a half hour to play a game that last twenty minutes and then everyone leaves. It's not driven up any enthusiasm or made the game one iota more fun to play, it's just a lame attempt to relive the glory days of Beta and '06-'07 and it's just sad to watch, sadder than MrC on 70s disco night (

, but put away the polyester, you're not getting any younger).

Who knows, maybe someday we'll have hundreds of players again, and we can have this discussion, but let's not talk squads while the leaderboard shows only a few dozen players.

MrChaos · Post by **MrChaos** » Mon May 12, 2014 10:33 pm

Hey I still got the moves!

Broodwich · Post by **Broodwich** » Mon May 12, 2014 11:31 pm

I'm surprised this idea still comes up

Post by **Dome** » Tue May 13, 2014 6:35 am

Broodwich wrote:QUOTE (Broodwich @ May 12 2014, 04:31 PM) I'm surprised this idea still comes up

because?...