Fellowships and new players

[Kekune]

6 players out of 250 spots on the top 10 FS in my world are less than 6 figure scores. Stop trying to make it sound like it's easy to do, it's not. Being lucky and being easy are 2 entirely different things.

Your concern seems a bit circular. Big groups are, by definition, big - you've started by identifying the groups that aren't made of small cities, and are then surprised or unhappy that small cities aren't there.

I'd suggest that anybody having this problem start thinking about quality instead of quantity. "Top 10" doesn't necessarily mean they're good at the things you want in a group, and a group doesn't have to be big to be good. If you expand your focus to smaller powerhouse groups, you'll have more success. I'd expect that every server has a couple of groups that are excellent tourney and spire performers but "only" in the top 50 or top 100 size- wise. You'll have less competition from other applicants there. Spire gold is still mostly a big- group thing, but that's starting to change.

 

[Dew Spinner]

But what was their score when they joined the fellowship? If you look at my FS, we don't have any players under six figure scores, either. But when I joined, there were two of us. We have both since increased our score, partly because we are in a great fellowship that helped us grow. Ten percent may not seem like a lot, but if you have too many small players in a FS, you reduce your ability to help small players grow. Our FS is not motivated by a player's ranking score, but by their willingness and ability to help the team achieve its goals in tourney and spire.

Responses I have gotten back all mention 6 figure scores, the proof is in the pudding. My ability in tourney and spire is rock solid, so that is not the issue. 3,500+ tourney, top of spire every week since I unlocked it.

 

[Dew Spinner]

Your concern seems a bit circular. Big groups are, by definition, big - you've started by identifying the groups that aren't made of small cities, and are then surprised or unhappy that small cities aren't there.

I'd suggest that anybody having this problem start thinking about quality instead of quantity. "Top 10" doesn't necessarily mean they're good at the things you want in a group, and a group doesn't have to be big to be good. If you expand your focus to smaller powerhouse groups, you'll have more success. I'd expect that every server has a couple of groups that are excellent tourney and spire performers but "only" in the top 50 or top 100 size- wise. You'll have less competition from other applicants there. Spire gold is still mostly a big- group thing, but that's starting to change.

Reading comprehension is not big on this forum, I see, Everyone is talking about HOW EASY it is, all I have stated is it's NOT easy. My FS is 47, won't be moving down the ladder.

 

[Kekune]

Reading comprehension is not big on this forum, I see, Everyone is talking about HOW EASY it is, all I have stated is it's NOT easy. My FS is 47, won't be moving down the ladder.

I'm confused by this response, because I'm actually agreeing with you. I don't think it's easy for a small city to get into a top-10 ranked group. I'm just suggesting an alternative approach to finding a good group by looking outside the top 10, and it sounds like you've already done it that way.

 

[Sprite1313]

Responses I have gotten back all mention 6 figure scores, the proof is in the pudding. My ability in tourney and spire is rock solid, so that is not the issue. 3,500+ tourney, top of spire every week since I unlocked it.

Well, it's disappointing that this has been your experience. If you want to move to a higher FS, maybe you could strike up a conversation with a member of the FS you want to join, then you might have an advocate giving you a foot in the door. That is how we ended up with some of our members; they had been chatting with some of our players and they seemed like a good fit.

Reading comprehension is not big on this forum, I see, Everyone is talking about HOW EASY it is, all I have stated is it's NOT easy. My FS is 47, won't be moving down the ladder.

Yes, it's not easy for you, but that has not been everyone's experience. You have heard counter arguments from players like me who managed to join a bigger FS, and from venerable (I won't say old, lol) players in larger fellowships who have stated that they have a willingness to dismiss ranking score in favour of other factors. I don't think this comes down to an issue of reading comprehension, but of different vantagepoints of the game.

Circling back to the original comment that started this thread, nothing has shown that the moonstone library is, or will become, a discriminator for fellowship membership. If the main discriminator you have run into is simply ranking points, Moonstone isn't going to give you that, nor does it help in tourney or spire. I don't see many big fellowships who require heavy participation in FA, so I don't think the library set is going to be a showstopper.

 

[SoggyShorts]

6 players out of 250 spots on the top 10 FS in my world are less than 6 figure scores. Stop trying to make it sound like it's easy to do, it's not.

You're just not getting it.
6 of 250 does in fact indicate what we're all trying to tell you.
Think about it another way:

What number would indicate to you that small players can get into the top 10 easily? Lets say 50 instead of 6?
What would happen if we did that? Let's take 5 random players out of each top 10 FS and replace them with sub 100K scores.
How many of those FS are in the top ten now? Zero. That's just how it works.

Those 6 currently in the top 10 are also almost certainly not static, one player comes in small and grows falling off the "small player" list in a very short period of time. Think about professional sports teams. They all take rookies, but none of the new guys remain rookies, do they?

Reading comprehension is not big on this forum...

Indeed, you do seem to be missing the points others are clearly making.
Simply put:

1. Top-ranked Fellowships are only top-ranked because of their total score. That's how it works.
2. Small players have lower scores and choosing them over others can cause any fellowship they are in to drop in rank.
3. Therefore top-ranked fellowships (if they want to remain top-ranked) must keep small players out of their FS

And yet we can see quite a few small players in the top fellowships, so what does that tell us?

The obvious answer is that even some of those fellowships with total scores high enough to reach the top rankings actually have other admission factors that are more important than score. So what could those be?

• Tournament/Spire participation- this directly impacts their own rewards
• Trading boosts (far less important for FS with large players especially those with legacy goods-producing sets)
• FA participation-this is actually quite rarely a factor at all as can be seen by how the normal ranking leaderboards and the FA leaderboards have almost no correlation.
• Personality/reputation. Top Fellowships generally have at least 1 regular forum lurker in them if not several and some active participants, so any regular on the forums will have an easier/harder time joining the top based on how they are received here.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Responses I have gotten back all mention 6 figure scores, the proof is in the pudding. My ability in tourney and spire is rock solid, so that is not the issue. 3,500+ tourney, top of spire every week since I unlocked it.

Since you are still small and not gotten deep into the chapters to experience everything yet, here is another view. A high level/high score fellowship generally means more members are into at least chapter 12, which means they can start making and trading sentient goods, which are vital to advancing in the game in chapter 12 and beyond. So for some fellowships, if you are not that far in the game, you are of no help to them. Now, I am not sure where exactly the typical city would be in ranking score to be in chapter 12, but it is well beyond 100k points.

 

[Henroo]

Now, I am not sure where exactly the typical city would be in ranking score to be in chapter 12, but it is well beyond 100k points.

My Khel city is currently researching the ancient wonder tech at the end of Ch 12. Total city score of 237K. However I have moved through the game fairly fast (13 months so far). If a player moved through the chapters more slowly, they might have had more time to level AWs and would then have a higher total score. Also, I have nearly every evolving building since I started and a fair number of population/culture hybrids. These don't add to score. A player with a city design that used fewer of these and more residences would also have a higher score than what I do.

Edit: 237K was my city's score during the fellowship adventure. After getting rid of the level 1 stuff and bringing back some of my regular stuff, score went up to 245K

 

[Lelanya]

Lol
I am going to answer you as Boudicca Lel, Archmage of the first 10 chest fellowships.
I too get into large*r fellowships.
One FS I joined said score 5k or better, and I was 3900 at the time. I wrote a mage and said, I know I'm small but I promise to visit your city 28 days (or more) a month. Boy was that fun in February
Another time my mentor and I went looking for a new home and he was invited to join the rank 5 FS. Their overview said 50k or better. I was 36k and he was 105k so between us we both made minimums. I ran with them for 8 months and they raised their minimum based on my score. If I made 50k their min was 60/65, and so on. Lol

I pulled off the same thing another time, paired up with a high level player and went looking for a home, needed for me, below minimum at 130k (they were a 200k club); oh by the way, my friend with 575k wants to come with, is that ok? Lol

But here is the other side of the coin. Are you going to show up and insist that they post trades that you can accept? After chasing them down and persuading them that you need to be there? Food for thought. Because I post trades at 50k (rarely) to 250k and I am not posting trades at 5 or 10k, nuh uh. You want those trades I guess you should have met me in 2016, just sayin'

 

[mucksterme]

Personality/reputation. Top Fellowships generally have at least 1 regular forum lurker in them if not several and some active participants, so any regular on the forums will have an easier/harder time joining the top based on how they are received here.

This is certainly a biggie.
I know my FS would never want anybody who seems more argumentative that I.
Who needs that?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

This is certainly a biggie.
I know my FS would never want anybody who seems more argumentative that I.
Who needs that?

Nah, you have mellowed with age. There are some here now who are worse than you ever were.

 

[Dew Spinner]

You're just not getting it.
6 of 250 does in fact indicate what we're all trying to tell you.
Think about it another way:

What number would indicate to you that small players can get into the top 10 easily? Lets say 50 instead of 6?
What would happen if we did that? Let's take 5 random players out of each top 10 FS and replace them with sub 100K scores.
How many of those FS are in the top ten now? Zero. That's just how it works.

Those 6 currently in the top 10 are also almost certainly not static, one player comes in small and grows falling off the "small player" list in a very short period of time. Think about professional sports teams. They all take rookies, but none of the new guys remain rookies, do they?

Indeed, you do seem to be missing the points others are clearly making.
Simply put:

1. Top-ranked Fellowships are only top-ranked because of their total score. That's how it works.
2. Small players have lower scores and choosing them over others can cause any fellowship they are in to drop in rank.
3. Therefore top-ranked fellowships (if they want to remain top-ranked) must keep small players out of their FS

And yet we can see quite a few small players in the top fellowships, so what does that tell us?

The obvious answer is that even some of those fellowships with total scores high enough to reach the top rankings actually have other admission factors that are more important than score. So what could those be?

• Tournament/Spire participation- this directly impacts their own rewards
• Trading boosts (far less important for FS with large players especially those with legacy goods-producing sets)
• FA participation-this is actually quite rarely a factor at all as can be seen by how the normal ranking leaderboards and the FA leaderboards have almost no correlation.
• Personality/reputation. Top Fellowships generally have at least 1 regular forum lurker in them if not several and some active participants, so any regular on the forums will have an easier/harder time joining the top based on how they are received here.

I'm not missing any of these points, You clearly stated the only reason a player like me wasn't in a top FS is because I didn't know how to sell myself. And that just isn't true. And one of the regulars on this forum tried to recruit me earlier this week from reading this thread, not everyone looks down on someone speaking the truth.

Just in case you forgot your comment, it is below.

Your argument is wrong and the only reason for you not to qualify for joining a top FS with your levels is your inability to sell yourself, and no tournament score or spire ability nor even unlimited Residue badges can fix that.

 

[SoggyShorts]

one of the regulars on this forum tried to recruit me earlier this week from reading this thread, not everyone looks down on someone speaking the truth.

So you're saying that smaller cities can get into bigger FS? And selling yourself is a factor?
Thanks.

 

[Dew Spinner]

So you're saying that smaller cities can get into bigger FS? And selling yourself is a factor?
Thanks.

This wasn't a bigger FS in my world, it's a sister FS that just started out in my world a couple of months ago or so, but I'm sure they will be a powerhouse pretty soon. I was referring to your off handed comment implying, if I don't agree 100% to the T with the old timers on here and sit down and shut up when I don't that "The Recruiters" won't let the sun shine on me!

 

[Sprite1313]

This wasn't a bigger FS in my world, it's a sister FS that just started out in my world a couple of months ago or so, but I'm sure they will be a powerhouse pretty soon. I was referring to your off handed comment implying, if I don't agree 100% to the T with the old timers on here and sit down and shut up when I don't that "The Recruiters" won't let the sun shine on me!

I think you are misinterpreting what @SoggyShorts is saying. I may be wrong, but I did not read his post as "sit down and shut up". I think he was arguing that being active in the forum can be a benefit in trying to get into a FS, regardless of size. If you are active on the forum and top FS can perceive that you are active, interested in learning the game and changing it for the better, they are more likely to let you join, even if you are a small city.

It is also true that 10 different people reading your posts are going to have 10 different takes on what you are saying. Be yourself, express your honest opinions, and let fellowships decide whether you are a good fit for them or not.

 

[Kekune]

If you are active on the forum and top FS can perceive that you are active, interested in learning the game and changing it for the better, they are more likely to let you join, even if you are a small city.

There's a lot of truth in this. When I see an active new poster, I've often looked them up to see where they play, how active they are, where they are in the game progression, etc. It helps give context to what they say here. When I see that someone plays on my world, and I like them, my little recruiting hat goes on, lol. Though I don't usually approach somebody unless they've indicated they want that kind of attention, I definitely *think* it. And on the other side of that coin, I've definitely got a mental "no thanks" list from posts I've read here.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

There's a lot of truth in this. When I see an active new poster, I've often looked them up to see where they play, how active they are, where they are in the game progression, etc. It helps give context to what they say here. When I see that someone plays on my world, and I like them, my little recruiting hat goes on, lol. Though I don't usually approach somebody unless they've indicated they want that kind of attention, I definitely *think* it. And on the other side of that coin, I've definitely got a mental "no thanks" list from posts I've read here.

A lot of the posters here, past and present and future, would probably be a lot more careful about how they said things if they had any clue that elvenstats even existed. I remember when I first found out about that site, I at first I felt very offended that just anyone could go and look at my personal game data like that. lol

 

[Lelanya]

A lot of the posters here, past and present and future, would probably be a lot more careful about how they said things if they had any clue that elvenstats even existed. I remember when I first found out about that site, I at first I felt very offended that just anyone could go and look at my personal game data like that. lol

Don't you love signing in to ES to discover someone has updated your best city?

 

[Sprite1313]

Don't you love signing in to ES to discover someone has updated your best city?

Does this constitute cyber-stalking? Asking for a friend...

 

[SoggyShorts]

I was referring to your off handed comment implying, if I don't agree 100% to the T with the old timers on here and sit down and shut up when I don't that "The Recruiters" won't let the sun shine on me!

Umm link please?