Possibilities for FA improvement

[Genefer]

I think if there were tools for organizing and planning adventures available for the AM/Mage to use - participation would be higher.

 

[Sodbury]

Let me clarify myself - being a part of the Fellowship requires I participate in the FA, simply because that is what the team wants to do. Personally, I find the adventures to be a lot of effort for very little and wish I wasn't such a team player and could just ignore them. However, I view the entire map as a hole to toss badges in for next to nothing, but the pit seems to excite players, even those that do not like the pit.

Maybe because the pit signals the adventure is nearing the end and the race is on ..... so the level of group interaction increases. or because it is extremely boring to wait for 60+ BS, 70+ coins and brews.... to be filled - but the pit moves so fast you have to communicate constantly.

In other words, the pit is more conducive to Fellowship interaction than the stages, but I could do without both.

This all makes perfect sense to me, thanks for explaining.

 

[mucksterme]

In other words, the pit is more conducive to Fellowship interaction than the stages,

Not if you're doing the FA right

 

[crackie]

The effort vs. reward curve is broken. It is reasonably easy to complete the three maps and acquire the three chests. The effort required for further reward, be it prizes or prestige, is Herculean. Doubling or tripling the minimum effort required to get those chests might advance a fellowship from 160th place to 105th. If you're dedicated, you might break into the ranks which grant paltry prizes. If you have a fellowship that is not die hard but you'd like to see how far you can get, you quickly learn that there is no point to doing more than the minimum. There is no mid-range inducement to try and try again, improving a bit more with each adventure, as there is no middle ground between acquiring the three chests and placing in the top rankings.

That's just a defeatist attitude though. Of course teams won't do well if that's their mindset. They've all already quit before the contest began! The effort to reward ratio is a non-factor because it's been stated over and over again that top FA teams are NOT doing it for the prizes.

The top team on my EN server hit ~150k last FA. The highest my group has hit is ~80k+. Well 80k will easily win on some servers, but where we call home, it's a long ways from 1st. We almost need to double our efforts to catch up to the leaders. We can call it an insurmountable gap and quit, but we don't because it's not about what other groups are doing. Our mid-term goal is to hit 100k because we all know, you can't hit 150k without first hitting 100k. Where we land in the rankings if/when we hit 100k doesn't matter because we've hit our internal goal of improving another 20k. And it's a mid-term and not short-term goal because we take breaks and players come and go like any other fellowship. We have to reset and see where we are with a new lineup. Sometimes we fall backwards before moving forward again bc we lose some key players, but so long as we continue to inch forward, we will always have a shot AND something to play for.

My EN group started from scratch with only 13 players, and less than 5 were above chapter 5. We've crawled our way from 30k to 80k in 2 years. Like, who knows...it might take us another 2 years to crawl to 100k, but it's not like our fellowship is going anywhere. Like, are people disbanding after the next FA that you need to do well on the last hurrah? Elvenar is a slowwwwwwwww game moving at a snail's pace. Sometimes it takes me 4 weeks to unlock 1 darn tech. I think of it as we have an infinite number of FAs to improve with because FAs aren't going anywhere either. Our odds of winning are currently abysmal, but you can't win the lotto until you get off the couch and buy a lotto ticket at the store. And who knows, that top FS might disband too ;D Time works for us in FAs because we started as a tiny group so it means our cities are getting bigger and will have more real estate to play with.

You can't jump from 105th to Top 5 in one FA, but you might be able to jump to 60th. Then 30th. It's actually pretty easy to jump in large hops from 100th to 50th and 50th to 30th. The field narrows from Top 20, then Top 10, Top 5, and Top 3. Those are kinda where the jumps in separating wheat from chaff happens. In our case, we have to improve by 50k to only hop one or two spots, but that's how our competitive field shapes up at the very top. Us chasing down 50k is no different than a group in 105th place working to add 50k to their score. And if someone in 105th work their way to improving another 50k points, then all the other FS on that server will think they're a "Top FA" group too. And the best part is if you can do 80k, then when your group take it easy, you can easily handle 40k without sweat. That's still Top 15 finish without burning out your players.

 

[Myne]

Yes, they can have their AM recruit for FA players instead of using the term "FA Optional" as a recruiting tool when that isn't their mindset. Take a stroll through a bunch of FS Overviews and count how many don't say "FA Optional". I would bet a lot of the top 20 FA FSs on your World have "FA optional" in their FS Overview. FSs can't find like minded players when their Overview is an attempt at easy recruiting but they want higher performance. I have also been in FSs where FA was a requirement but the AM didn't want to have to spend time recruiting, so slackers were't dealt with, while others were wrecking their cities and inventories, Another case of a bunch of resentment all the way around. Inno likes to say the FA is a "team building" experience but for most it is the exact opposite and because there are sooooo many AMs that just want the title and not the work this will never change.

Honestly recruiting is constant, the 3 strikes rule I have for meeting the minimal tourney points is a great way to weed out slackers. Of course, that's along with regular communication.
Most AMs that start a fellowship have no stinking idea what they are in for. lol

 

[Myne]

In that light, I advocate for some kind of limits on total individual badge amounts (or something like that) so the super-players have to compete in the same point range as the runners up. I think it would make the pit a crazy melee fight until the end of the FA. Maybe reducing the time frame might be advisable so we don't all have heart attacks.

You can't limit those who spend a lot of diamonds, that would be totally against Inno's business values. The only way to make them compete with any other level would be to handicap them...be sure to batten down the hatches when you do.
If you watch the rankings towards the end of FA, you will see that the pit already is a melee.

 

[Myne]

The last two FAs the most strident complaints(on the forum) came from players in fellowships that placed in the top ten(tens of thousands of points below #1).


How do you fix that?

honestly i have no idea lashes with a wet noodle?

 

[Myne]

I think if there were tools for organizing and planning adventures available for the AM/Mage to use - participation would be higher.

like what?

 

[Myne]

if you are serious as to raising your placement, imho the way to do that is for all of the fellowship to have that mindset going into the FA. It must be coupled with ALL members logging in OFTEN to harvest and contribute. Once or twice a day don't cut it.