Squads

[Lykourgos]

Sometimes a younger squad isn't necessarily the wrong squad. Sometimes there is no right squad.

Either way, I'm not trying to convince you to go become Leonidas to the Sporks, I'm simply saying that someone else might do it if we had some sort of reward in place for them. Maybe a tag or something.

[Kltplzyxm]

QUOTE (gr4vity @ Jun 26 2008, 04:00 PM) (summarizing MrK's list to the one deciding item)

Wrong. It's not about winning or losing. A squad with a good environment won't care if they keep losing so long as they are in lockstep. Nobody has anything on @SF in terms of maintaining a big roster despite their losses and lose relatively few. @SF should be proud of their "stick-it-together"-ness.

Lets face it, @RT has been one of the squads that have been hemorhagging the most. I hate seeing it every time someone drops off your roster, seriously. I don't think the true cause of it is because you've been losing as you do win occasionally. While some squads numbers have been going up, yours has been going down or remained relatively the same. Why? I dunno, and it's not my business but I think it's a shame it's happening.

@Lyk: All points I mentioned are just various points that are important to squad health and the culture of each squad weighs each point differently than another. Of course XT has a low tolerance for mistakes, that goes with the "Bring the Hate" territory. It's no surprise that XT bashes their own pilots but continue to stick together as you guys know what to expect and that you will accept hte bashing. Still, you guys haven't been exactly keeping your full roster either. I'm sure your low tolerance for mistakes is both a boon (when times are good) and a burden (when times are bad).

[MrChaos]

* sighs *

Like I told the Sporks. Prepare to lose for a solid year before you start winning. That's probably 40 games total. 40 games aint alot but the amount of time it is spread across is an eternity. Then another 40 games to be competitive, somehow keep your esprite de corp and also retain pilots. It's an incrediblely hard thing to do and honestly even if management does each thing right losing badily and repeatedily drains people.

Once you get to a certain level the one right below "holy @#(! are they good" the temptation to recruit players who are a poor fit for the squad, even let's say, utter dickheads becomes so overwhelming most squads fall into the trap. My first squad Muffins of Mayhem did, we were just * holds fingers a millimeter apart * this close to beating Jihaad so our leadership recruited one of the five biggest dickheads in Allegiance history, Guns22 and the rest is history.

So in answer to the question: Most squads get to near the top by luck and fortune. Some squads epic phail at it by compromising their squad's character, reputation, and personality destroying all they have built along the way by taking said dickheads, while other's never catch the series of breaks that get them to that point, and some end up being amongst the top for a longer ride by making good decisions along the way. Strangely all at the extreme top end up imploding eventually since endless winning is almost as bad for squad mojo as endless losing.

MrChaos

edit added: "at the extreme top" since that was my origional intention

[BlackViper]

#1 reason folks leave squads: Post squad game drama in their forums.

I think the majority of vets will not argue with that.

[mcwarren4]

QUOTE (spideycw @ Jun 26 2008, 03:57 PM) None of those stats are made up(though the 95% is exaggeration) my point is just to show the proportion of one of the largest squads. They are carefully cacluated by me opening the squad page and knowing how to count. Try counting how may people in your squad @ACE was thier first squad then give me the numbers please

Spidey, you are discounting the fact that @ACE is relatively new compared to the other squads. SF and SPQR are the only two squads that didn't exist at the time we formed. When we first formed our original 13 members were all from other squads. Its only natural that when we formed our former squad mates started asking questions. MadAcc saw a void in the squad system and filled it. All of the people that were wanting that product joined up. Personally, when I left SysX I sent a PM to all of the guys who were original members of SysX that I recruited into SysX explaining my reasons for leaving them, as I felt it was the right thing to do. As it turns out, 10 of our current members were in that group and not all of them came over in the first month or so. Since the first month of our existence more than half of our squad members have come from either Cadet or the general merc pool (and by merc I mean pilots that never had a previous squad affiliation).

Incidentally, there is only one former PK pilot on our roster. So either we don't appeal to the people that like PK or PK is doing something right. Another observation I had was that the one person that ever left @ACE over any sort of conflict is in PK now and seems to be happy there.

QUOTE (spideycw @ Jun 26 2008, 01:30 PM) Intersting you mention us because as far asn I know about 95% of our current squad are comprised of people for whom SysX is their first choice and we sort of train them up to my exacting standards - as opposed to absorbing players from other squads.

I'm certain we would both find it interesting if we knew the real truth behind every recruit. I know of at least three on your roster off the top of my head that we couldn't accept due to the fact that we felt too 'full' at the time. I'm sure ACE was the second choice of some of our recruits as well (come to think of it... *SOMEONE* even made us their 4th choice! /laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" /> ). But, now you have tehBacon, and I quake in fear! Wait a sec... Bacon was like the 5th pilot ever into SysX. I DEMAND RETURN OF MY BACON!

I understand what you are driving at though and I'm doubtful there is a good answer for it. I don't want to see a Yankees type of situation either, but we can't force people into squads they don't want to be in.

[spideycw]

QUOTE (mcwarren4 @ Jun 26 2008, 08:23 PM) I understand what you are driving at though and I'm doubtful there is a good answer for it. I don't want to see a Yankees type of situation either, but we can't force people into squads they don't want to be in.

I just want to make clear my intention is NOT to force people into a squad they wouldn't fit in. After we dont want to see all of the @ACE antistackers forced into @XT!

QUOTE (Mr. Kltplzyxm @ Jun 26 2008, 07:40 PM) Wrong. It's not about winning or losing.

I have to disagree here. There are plenty of people who leave squads because the are tired of always losing. For example a few people who didn't want to public post pm'ed me about this subject. One is as follows:

QUOTE Why leave a squad? B/C some ppl can't stand to loose forever. For six months or a year, sure. While I know your thread wasn't about me, I have to say that I think that most alleg players are close to my feelings about the game. I'm competitive, but will stick by my team mates. But to lose consistently for the last two and a half years[/quote]

I have at least 4 or 5 other pms that say the same thing - so it obviously matters

[Kltplzyxm]

I guess I should have qualified that its not ALWAYS about winning. Winning of course always helps but losing in style or having a good environment where losing goes down easier.

The hard part also about all this is that we do this for fun. If only people were getting paid for fly, it would make balancing teams easier. Even if all teams did a good job at retention, the problem of squad stackers will still exist. There is virtually nothing to stop squad stackers from overloading certain squads unless you enforced some HELO type constraints during an SG. Maybe Allegskill is able to do this, I don't know. For the antistacking squaddies, there's no metric to say "oh I've done my job in this squad time to move on to another".

But getting back to my point, the best thing you can do about any of these is figure out how to keep your pilots and stop the bleeding. There are many of us who want to see more top squads. I mean it when I say I want to see SysX as part of the TOP TOP TOP squads, same with RT. It's also my guess that GB and BS have the potential to do it but they simply cannot muster the numbers for SGs for whatever reason on a consistent basis.

I dunno, it seems to me like the only real viable solution is to have a "If you build it they will come" type of attitude. I certainly think it was true when our guys started @ACE and I think it still remains that way today.

[Orion]

QUOTE (juckto @ Jun 26 2008, 12:32 AM) I thought PK had closed recruitment a year or more ago, and it kinda annoys me everytime another person gets added to the roster "cause they're good and we don't want the competition to get them".

I keep closing recruitment, and other people keep letting their buddies in /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

It happens, I don't like the whole upward momentum either - I like the new PK members, they're great guys, but there are certain people who seem to hop to the next squad as soon as their squad loses a game; especially when they burn the bridge behind them. I find this especially difficult to understand as the earliest member of PK who still plays this game (must be at least 8 years now).

QUOTE (mcwarren4)Incidentally, there is only one former PK pilot on our roster. So either we don't appeal to the people that like PK or PK is doing something right. Another observation I had was that the one person that ever left @ACE over any sort of conflict is in PK now and seems to be happy there.

Either we're doing something right or people get tired of changing squads /tongue.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":P" border="0" alt="tongue.gif" />

PK has some 21 members still "active" who have been with us back to 2005, 14 back to 2004, 8 back to 2003, go any further back & our records get fuzzy.

[ryjamsan]

QUOTE (TheBored @ Jun 27 2008, 09:24 AM) Is suffering through months/years of being in the wrong squad really worth the pat on the back?

@Ryjam: You are showing 1/3rd of your squad if 13 people show to a SG. Counting the 39 people inactive is pretty stupid, they are only kept there just for the hell of it. 90% of them aren't coming back.

TB

I dont control the roster. I was gone for over a year after Katrina hit so should my wife and I have been removed?

I also dont doubt that some of the members who have been gone for over a year have bought a new PC and are in other squads with new names. It seems we as a sqaud do not delete former members in hopes of the glory days and they may return. The inactive list doesnt mean anything except to help us(me) remmeber long lost freinds. No reason IMO to delete them.

We have a ACTIVE list:
Black Shadow
(@BS)

71 Members
32 Active
39 InActive

*javaswiller
+Tigereye
^l1ngus
^Jaeden (107)
Ascalon_Rift
BackTrak
Blinder
chakotae
Chanthony
Chi
CrazedBomber
cuculet
Darkling
FRANKIE_08
fwiffo
GRINCHY
H_Mallow
LordDelacroix
Loriana
Mighty_Mouse
mr_e
neotoxin
OPTIMUSPRIME RIP
Picobozo
Rawq
Ryjamsan
ryjamsan1
Sajuukkhar
Saramin
Shiny
syla
TurkeyXIII
Yungmoose
Ahan (95)
Aurelius (245)
Barrager (130)
bleach (286)
Bretwalda (284)
Cadridorn (207)
Crimson_Wolf (79)
d3sperad0 (688)
dordon (604)
endri (51)
Falnyx (162)
finisher (36)
FlyingNewt (452)
Froggy (53)
Gaussian (802)
Jaxom_Sky (87)
jdok (166)
Konstantin (39)
krazykat (313)
Lee_Mazilli (422)
mhochler (84)
mleigh (149)
muwahahaha (368)
NickNac (233)
purplehaze13 (690)
Rodders (505)
rushl (379)
ryjamsan2 (193)
Shelkad (389)
SmackyBoy (162)
Smikke (430)
Souvlaki (116)
Spitfire88 (679)
TheAlaskan (146)
Tirkon (431)
Titty_Baby (1496) RIP
Trigger_ (69)
Weylin (86)
(45%)

So whats your point? We should remove everyone MIA after 60, 90, 365 days?


And of those ACTIVE who have played alleg in the last 30 days only about 15 or so have played a SG during the same peroid. The problem isnt our roster, its attendance as it is with many other sqauds.

[neotoxin]

ITT: Trolls. Every single one of you.