If you look at the top fellowships on each server, you'll find that several of them have room for more players (see elvenstats.com). So currently any player with a good performance in the tournaments can easily leave their fellowship and get into a top fellowship if they want to. If you've been in a second tier FS, you probably know this is a common occurrence, although most players are loyal and try to build up their own FS first.
I'm not sure what point you think that was making, but to me it makes the point that recruiting is difficult, and not espcially less so for a 10 chest fellowship, because they have to be careful who they select. With five extra slots, they can be a little less discerning on who they try out, without risking their activities.
Since only the performance of the top 25 players counts for the FS, the 5 additional slots are somewhat optional. So there should be no rush to fill these new slots.
More trading partners, more helping partners, more participants in the FA and the spire and the tournament. Extra participants means someone can skip the current activity without putting the team at risk. Are the other five people being denied rewards in
everything if they can't make the minimum or does each enlarged fellowship mean five more blueprints and five more full sets of spire prizes and fifty more special prizes for making the top 10 in the FA? If denied the prize for only getting 900, how are they going to feel about that? How will you recruit a small player if they will be denied all prizes until they are big enough to meet the minimums? What groups will recruit new players? Only mediocre groups that expect to lose them as soon as they are large enough to fit a top-tier group?
What if tournament rewards were adjusted like the Spire for everyone in the FS? So you need the FS to do well AND get a decent score. It would be lower than the required FS average, though. Perhaps you'd need 1000 points for 10 chests, for example, instead of 1600, as long as the top 25 in your FS score 40K.
So again, new players who can't get 1000 are just not getting any prizes unless they stick around long enough to be able to meet the minimums? That appears to be a disincentive for new players
Finally, any fellowship that doesn't want to risk players missing out on tournament rewards can simply restrict their fellowship to 25 members.
And not accept any members who can't make the minimums. And suffer a disadvantage over groups of 30 when one or two can't/won't participate this week, vs the groups that have 30 so have spare capacity for people who aren't able to participate this week. What player who can get 1000 points any time they want is going to choose to stay in a group of 25 where they risk their friends' results and/or get hassled if they take a week off, when they could be in a group of 30 and be under no pressure to participate, but are guaranteed a blueprint any time they get 10000 points? I have trouble with the notion that borderline fellowships would survive, let alone thrive, under those conditions. Top fellowships aren't going to throw open the gates to small players. they are going to bleed more high-performing players from the fellowships in the middle, leaving those mid-tier fellowships to recruit from the dregs.
My estimation of the result is:
- More difficult recruiting for all but the top fellowships or those willing to take any semi-warm body that comes along
- Fewer fellowships overall.
- Larger (not significantly more) competitive fellowships.
- More distribution of prizes into the economy.
- Less opportunity for new players to experience a top-tier fellowship.